3
scientific magic—snodgrass—emergency stop— alice and daniel clean house—upside down and innuendo— alice is approached by ruffians— a brief lesson on why listening to instructions is important
All that glisters is not necessarily gold. Daniel regarded his new wedding ring with dislike, guessing that within a week the skin beneath would be green. Beside him in the slowly descending linen closet, Alice had already taken to fiddling unconsciously with hers. It looked too heavy for her delicate hand, and Daniel wondered if the etchings on the inside irritated her as much as they did him.
He would have preferred to have slipped the ring on her himself, for no other reason than that it would have been proper to do so, even if their marriage was a pretense. Certainly not so he could hold her hand, slide a band slowly along the fine-boned length of her finger, listen to her breathe as his thumb stroked her palm. After all, he had not been imagining her for the past year since their encounter in Clacton, nor hunting everywhere for the rosewater scent of her hair, nor remembering the gentle, tremulous way she had fluttered her eyelashes as she’d begged his pardon for threatening to shoot him. It just so happened he liked taking cold baths.
The woman displayed no gentleness or tremulousness now. She was as stiff as—
Well, probably best not to finish that thought. Alice Dearlove was Agent A, his greatest rival. If Daniel failed to keep distant from her, he’d be risking emotions—disturbance—disorder—the complete and absolutely catastrophic upheaval of the world. It was vital therefore that he focus on work, and not on the graceful curve of her jaw above that pale, kissable throat.
“Atrocious,” she said, and Daniel’s heart leaped, wondering madly if he’d spoken his musings aloud. But Alice was staring at the shelves of linen that stood opposite them.
“Hm?” he said.
She flicked a finger toward the shelves. “Look at those fitted sheets, just rolled up however you may please.”
“Hm,” Daniel agreed.
“And where is that dreadful music coming from?” She frowned around the closet. Daniel attempted to reply, but at that moment their descent halted and the door swung open. Daniel indicated to Alice that she precede him, after which he followed her into the A.U.N.T. laboratory.
There before them lay a large room styled as a kitchen. People in white coats bustled about, attending to tasks at benches and cluttered tables. A wall of clocks displayed countdowns for different tea times in the major households of London. Several large sinks contained dishes, plants, and incomprehensible devices made of extruded metal; a handwritten sign above one begged people to wash their own detonation triggers after use.
“Over here!” called a thin-haired man with a bristling mustache, waving from where he stood beside a collection of teapots. Daniel felt his skin crawl. He disliked Cornelius Snodgrass for no better reason than instinct, which was not a good reason at all, but he could not seem to argue himself out of it. There existed no doubt, however, that the man represented the best in scientific invention. He was an acclaimed genius—or at least would have been acclaimed were he not working for a highly secret organization—and much of A.U.N.T.’s success belonged to his laboratory and the remarkable tools it developed to assist agents.
As Daniel walked behind Alice, he heard two people debating the velocity factor of a silver plate versus one made of china; a woman chanting Latin while waving a pink-feathered duster; and a trio of men clapping excitedly as a kettle boiled (and then cheering as it exploded). Something burned in a sink; the smell of it made Daniel frown.
“Good afternoon,” Snodgrass enthused as Alice and Daniel joined him. His scrawny limbs seemed to skirmish with each other as he stepped forward to offer Alice a handshake. She pretended not to see it. Blinking marsh-colored eyes, he instead began to move the hand in Daniel’s direction but, noting the stony look Daniel gave him, withdrew it hastily. “I say, Mrs. Kew told me all about your assignment. Terrifying business, what?”
“I would call marriage more aggravating than terrifying,” Alice replied coolly.
The man’s mouth wavered. “Er, I meant about the house filled with pirates.”
Alice stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Never mind.” He tossed out a trembly little laugh; no one caught it. “Jolly good stuff. Speaking of which, ha ha, I have a few gadgets here that you might find helpful.”
“Teapots?” Daniel asked repressively.
“No, these are just a few clandestine telephones that are being sent out to butlers tomorrow morning. This collection is for you.”
Turning to a small table, he gestured with a flourish at its clutter of ordinary objects. Daniel and Alice regarded him in unimpressed silence.
“Er, yes, well . . . I say, here is just the thing for a beautiful new bride!” He presented Alice with a gold-and-enamel brooch. “Press your thumb over the rose design and you will be able to hear people’s conversation even from a distance. I call it the super rosa device, ha ha.”
Alice just looked at the brooch. Snodgrass, rocking excitedly on the balls of his feet, grew abruptly impatient and took it from her, turning it over before placing it once more on her palm.
“See, this etched text is a phrase of the incantation, which we adjusted to—”
“Incantation,” Alice said.
“Why yes, you did know that we use elements of the pirates’ magical flight incantation to create our special devices?” (He paused while something exploded in the laboratory behind them; “Sorry!” a man sang out.) “Although I should not call it the pirates’ incantation, ha ha, since really Beryl Black was a scientist at heart, even if she did use magic to fly houses, what? She and her husband were undertaking a geographical survey when they shipwrecked on that island where she found the incantation. The pirates may have grabbed it for themselves, but after A.U.N.T. infiltrated their households and stole it from them, we began applying it to its true purpose, the noble pursuit of—”
“Yes, I know all that,” Alice said. “I meant, I do not need the incantation to help me hear distant conversations. My hearing is good; perhaps too good. For example, those two women some twenty feet behind us are talking about uses for a teaspoon that I would rather not repeat.”
“I say.” Snodgrass’s face sagged. He took back the brooch, laid it softly on the table.
Alice bit her lip with what looked to Daniel surprisingly like pity. “But if you have one of your parachute hats . . .”
“I do!” Snodgrass perked up as he reached into a box beneath the table and brought forth a bonnet so hideous, Daniel actually took a step back. Lined with puce velvet, wrapped by more lace than even Mrs. Kew would abide, and athwart with beads, baubles, and what appeared to be fragments of bone, it was indeed the sort of hat one tossed out a window to make it fly—only not with oneself attached to it.
“On second thought,” Alice said, “if I need to jump off a roof I will just risk the broken leg.”
This time it was Snodgrass’s shoulders that sagged. “I have something for the gentleman,” he said, trying to keep his tone chipper as he replaced the bonnet.
But Daniel already had a razor that doubled as a lighter, and a lighter than could cut through wire; and the onyx ring containing a pistol proved too large for either of their hands. When Alice removed the backing of the hairbrush/voice recorder, it caught fire, and when Daniel tried to put out the flames using a fire extinguisher disguised as a perfume bottle, they roared even higher and then the brush outright exploded. By this time so many parts of Snodgrass were sagging, he had to lean against the table to keep upright.
“I will take the umbrella, though,” Alice said.
“I say! You will?” Snodgrass drew himself upright with such excitement he practically reverberated. He handed the umbrella to Alice as if offering his sword in fealty to a queen. “The spokes all contain darts, and if you press this button—”
“Actually, I just want an umbrella because it’s raining outside.”
“Oh.” The scientist looked like he might cry.
“I’ll have that silver fob watch,” Daniel said. If Miss Dearlove could show pity, he could show it even more. “What amazing thing does it do?”
“Er.” Snodgrass blushed as he took up the watch. “That’s mine. I just took it off when I was working in the sink. But you can have it if you like—”
He held out the watch, and Daniel blinked hastily. “No. No, thank you. I think we have everything we need. Shall we be going, Miss Dearlove?”
“But you didn’t take anything,” Snodgrass said as the agents turned to leave. “You’ll be facing a crowd of pirates with no more than your wits and experience.”
Daniel gave Alice a dry look. She rolled her eyes.
“I think we shall manage, Dr. Snodgrass,” she said.
“But my technical expertise is imperative to the success—”
The rest of his sentence was lost in a loud clap of noise as another explosion occurred, sending pink feathers through the air.
“Thank you all the same,” Daniel said.
They walked back through the laboratory, weaving carefully away from small fires and shuddering mechanical devices, Snodgrass but-ing and I-say-ing behind them all the way. Daniel was glad to shut him out of the closet.
“I like to consider myself an accepting kind of fellow,” he said as the closet slowly rose, “but that is one man I cannot abide.”
“I detest him,” Alice said, although her mild tone suggested she was less interested in Snodgrass than in surpassing Daniel at even this. Propping the umbrella against a wall, she took a fitted sheet from the shelf and began to fold it.
“Other corner first,” Daniel instructed.
She speared him with a quelling look. Undeterred, he stepped forward, reaching for the sheet. “No, really—”
“I beg your pardon.” She pulled it closer to herself. “I know what I am doing.”
“Clearly not, since that is the wrong corner.” He took another step.
“Touch this sheet and you die,” she advised calmly.
He stared at her for a moment, then shot out his arm sideways and slammed the heel of his hand against the emergency button. The closet shuddered to a halt.
Alice raised one eyebrow.
And Daniel loosened his collar for the battle ahead.
On the floor above, several people stood waiting for the closet. And waiting. And still waiting, so that a number of them drew watches from pockets restively. Others tapped repeatedly on the button as if that might hasten the closet’s arrival.
Suddenly, a crash echoed up the shaft. The group exchanged alarmed glances. Then the floor began to shudder, and a series of rapid bangs vibrated through the wall. Everyone stepped back from the closet door, murmuring worriedly.
Ping! The button lit, and the group moved back even farther. The door swung open.
Daniel Bixby stepped out, brushing an invisible speck from the lapel of his long black overcoat. He appeared to not even see the group—for which they were grateful, since even those who didn’t know he’d spent three years working with a pirate could sense he possessed an energy about as unbending as a sword and equally dangerous. Behind him came Alice Dearlove, who was reputed to have informed the Queen to her royal face that it was try to, not try and. She was carrying a furled umbrella under her arm and the group cringed, half expecting her to jab them with it. But without a word the two agents strode off along the corridor, allowing the group to breathe again. They cautiously approached the closet and peered in.
Several people gasped.
Never before had the little room been so clean. Every item on its shelves was not only folded to perfection but organized according to color and purpose. Spiderwebs were gone from corners; scuffmarks on the floor had vanished. The group looked at one another nervously, then turned away and took the stairs.
Alice was bemused to find Mr. Bixby following her out of A.U.N.T. headquarters, into the gloom between rain showers. She felt all-peopled-out after the morning and wanted to go home, close the curtains, and hug a book until her nerves settled. She certainly wanted some distance from this particular man. Agent B attracted her in a way that was (1) entirely unprofessional, (2) physically daunting, and (3) holding one edge of her tranquility and smiling with a suggestion that any moment now it might tug.
“Forgive me, sir,” she said, glancing at him. “But you do understand we are not in fact married?”
“I do,” he said, ironically enough. “However, I thought I might escort you home and along the way we could develop our cover story—share about our hobbies, for example, our favorite foods, our family histories.”
Alice huffed a small, dry laugh at that last suggestion. Surely the man was joking. A.U.N.T. never promoted anyone with family to their elite force. The risk of emotional conflict, blackmail threats, or people wanting to take Christmas holidays was simply too great.
“I do not think my orphanage childhood is an appropriate subject for decent conversation,” she said. “Perhaps, if needed, I could invent jolly, red-cheeked parents who live in the countryside and send me knitted goods on my birthday.”
Daniel frowned. “I doubt that would work.”
“Why not?”
“Well, granted I was raised in an orphanage too, so have little knowledge of families outside of novels, but jolly parents who acknowledge one’s birthday sounds dubious to me.”
Alice considered this, then nodded. “True. I shall do research and provide a written sheet of information when we report back for duty.”
Daniel looked up from the black gloves he was donning, and while his face remained impassive, Alice saw a glint of a smile in his eyes. Either that or a reflection of street lighting. Although it was not raining at the moment, dark clouds so clogged the sky that the lamps had been lit. In the feral shadows between them, with his black clothes, and his hair slightly breeze stirred, Daniel Bixby looked a lot like a man who had consorted with pirates and knew exactly how to make a woman walk the plank.
She paled at the thought.
“What?” he said, noticing her altered expression.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
She shrugged uncomfortably. “I was just thinking about how one would escape being thrust onto a piece of wood that is jutting out . . .”
“You mean like a pirate’s plank? It helps to have either training in acrobatics or else a parachute.” He gave her a long, penetrating look. “Do you have acrobatic experience, Miss Dearlove?”
“Not yet,” she admitted.
“What, not even a handstand?”
“I’m waiting for the right trainer. I suppose you have experience, Mr. Bixby.”
“Some.” He went on looking at her, and she felt her stomach curl as if his gaze had reached right in and was stroking it. “I could teach you a few moves,” he said. “A backward somersault maybe, or a cartwheel, so that when you find yourself walking a plank you know what to do.”
Alice yanked herself away from that unblinking gaze and frowned in the general vicinity of nothing at all. The air had become so muggy she felt sure any moment there would be a great rush of rain, wetting her right through.
“I can manage myself, thank you,” she said. “A woman is entirely capable of cartwheeling on her own.”
“I agree,” Daniel said. “But it is more enjoyable when you have someone else to flip you.”
Alice opened her mouth to retort but could not think of anything suitably repressive. The fact was, mutual acrobatics sounded rather fun. But, Alice reminded herself, she did not do fun. She was sensible right through to her lumbar vertebrae and sternum. So they walked in silence until she stopped at the entrance to a narrow alley.
“I go this way. Therefore good day, Mr. Bixby.”
Daniel eyed the grotty darkness of the alley. “I go that way too.”
Alice bristled. “You do not. You believe I need protection and are being gallant.”
“I am being reasonable.”
“Hm. Interesting word choice. Allow me to offer a synonym.” And she smacked him with the umbrella, turned sharply on a heel, and marched away down the alley.
A moment later, footsteps synchronized with hers.
“Knitting?” he asked.
She glanced at him briefly, irritably. “What?”
“Or embroidery? Or perhaps you paint watercolors?”
“I have no hobbies, Mr. Bixby.” Click-click went her shoes against the cobblestones, and as she listened to the emphatic sound, Alice reminded herself she was a successful, professional woman, and Daniel Bixby was altogether allur—that is to say, annoying.
“Not even reading?” he asked, easily matching her stride.
“Reading is not a hobby,” she said. “It is a way of life.”
He was silent a moment as he considered this, then he nodded in agreement.
“I suppose you play guitar or put ships into bottles,” she said in a tone so wry it sounded like it had performed several acrobatic moves and was now lying back smoking a cigarette.
“No. Just reading, same as you. By the way, you do realize there are a couple of suspicious figures lurking behind those bins farther along the street?”
“Of course. I am not worried.”
“Perhaps you should be.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Why, sir? Because I am a woman?”
“No, because you are dressed inconveniently for self-defense. Your bustle is too small to suffocate a man, your dress lacks enough layers to tangle someone up, and you do not have even one ribbon to employ as a garrote.”
“Nevertheless, I am entirely capable of handling an attack.”
“Hm” was all he said—but it proved more than enough to conflagrate Alice’s temper, which had grown tinder dry since the linen closet. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the alley.
“You!” She pointed her furled umbrella at the suspiciously loitering men.
They leaped, startled. “Us?” one of them said warily.
“Yes. Come here, please. I require you to rob me.”
The two ruffians glanced bemusedly at each other. “Er, no, thank you,” one said. “Kind of you to offer, miss, but we ain’t thieves.”
“I’m sure you will do your best. Step quickly, if you please. I haven’t all day.”
The men now turned wide, rather pleading eyes to Daniel, who stood with his hands in his coat pockets and a mildly amused expression on his face. “Don’t ask me,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just her husband.”
“You are not,” Alice said disdainfully.
“No? Why don’t you show the men your pretty wedding ring?”
Her eyes flashed. “Good idea.” Yanking off her glove, she held the bare hand up to the ruffians and pointed to its ring. “You can steal this. It must be worth—” She turned her hand, considered the ring, then shrugged. “Well, probably not a lot, to be honest, but it will surely buy you a nice supper. Hurry up, now.”
The men shuffled out of the shadows as if they were mice drawn irresistibly to a cat. “See here, lady,” one said. “We’re just minding our own business, and you’ve no call to barge in insisting we rob you. It’s indecent, it is.”
“I have three children at home,” said the other. “Won’t you think of them?”
Alice turned to roll her eyes at Daniel. He looked back with an expression somewhere between challenging her and wondering what on earth she would do next. Turning back to the ruffians, hoisting her umbrella, she motioned for them to get a move on.
They edged into the center of the alley. Most likely this was so they could run away, but immediately Alice launched into self-defense. With a leap—a kick—a swivel and punch—she had one man on the ground and the other scrambling to flee. Calmly aiming the umbrella at him, she squinted along its length, and then, satisfied she had her target lined up with precision, she pushed the button to activate the incantation.
Thwomp.
The umbrella burst open. The world exploded in light and squealing noise.
Oh dear, Alice thought in the fraction of a second remaining to her before she was flung violently backward. She crashed into Daniel and they went down together in a tangle of limbs.
Immediately he rolled her over, shielding her with his body from any further possible calamity. The hard weight of him pressed her against the cobblestones, but he tucked a hand beneath her head, lifting it gently. She felt the pulse in his neck beat against her lips. She tasted salt, smelled the cool vanilla scent of soap—and suspected that the umbrella had been electrified, because sparks were flaring all through her blood.
“Are you all right?” he asked. The words were muted, but she felt them vibrating through his throat, against her mouth. Several hitherto unknown instincts urged her to stroke her tongue against them in reply, even while more familiar ones were setting up barricades and unrolling barbed wire.
“I will be once I can breathe,” she said.
He climbed off her, but she remained lying there, trying to adjust to his sudden absence. Fiddlesticks. The air was so much thinner, fretful, with him gone. He held out a hand to assist her; ignoring it, she clambered awkwardly to her feet.
“I’m fine,” she said, despite the bruises she was likely to have tomorrow, not to mention the fact that her hat was on fire—thankfully farther along the alley, not on her head. “You?”
Daniel winced as he rubbed a hip. “Less inclined to say ‘I told you so’ than I thought I would be.”
“Drat Snodgrass,” Alice muttered, glaring at the umbrella, which lay several feet away. Smoke rose from its twisted, shredded wreckage. The ruffians were long since departed.
“It could be worse,” Daniel said. “Imagine if you’d taken the brooch instead.”
Alice brushed loose strands of hair away from her face. “At least this has shown beyond doubt that I am able to take care of myself. Aside from the explosion. And the being flung some distance. And the burning hat. Other than these minor issues, I have proved myself entirely in control. Therefore, I shall be going home alone from here.”
“It would probably be safest,” Daniel agreed. “Thank you for the brief and exciting honeymoon.”
She gave him a bewildered frown, then shrugged. “I will see you later this week.”
She turned to leave.
“Don’t forget your umbrella,” he said. “Littering is an offense.”
He turned in the other direction.
And as they went their separate ways, the clouds burst open, emptying a storm over them.