Iron and Blood (54 page)

Mitch dove to grab Rick by the wrist, hauling him out of the way. Jake shoved the force gun into the Night Hag’s maw. “Eat this,” he said, pulling the trigger.

The force gun that had no effect when
Nocnitsa
was a disembodied spirit now sent its expanding energy into the physical form of theNight Hag. Andreas and Renate followed up with a blast of greenish-blue lightning aimed at the Night Hag and the rest of the
gessyan
spirits, as Mitch and Rick fell to the ground, trying to get out of the way.

The Night Hag screamed again, but this time, it was a howl of pain as the magic and the force gun’s energy ripped her to bits. The other spirits tried to escape, struggling against the inexorable pull of the Maxwell box and Father Matija’s incantation, as the Alekanovo stone’s inscriptions grew brighter and brighter. The
gessyan
were hauled, screaming, into the pit, and along with them, the writhing remains of the Night Hag.

“Watch out!” Mitch yelled. “Guards, from the south!” Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw a dozen guards running toward them.

Before Jake and Kovach could react, a hail of bullets from out of the sky dug up the ground in between the guards and Jake’s companions. Two short bursts of gunfire from overhead sprayed dirt and rocks in every direction, drawing a very clear line and daring the mine guards to cross it. Apparently, their pay did not include being shot at by airships. The guards scattered, shouting obscenities as they withdrew.

“Are you trying to kill us?” Jake called into his headset.

“No, of course I wasn’t trying to kill you,” Nicki replied calmly. “How was I supposed to know you’d seen them coming? Don’t be ungrateful. They ran away, didn’t they?”

“Why did Flyboy let you have the guns? Who’s in charge up there?”

“Don’t you yell at me! And don’t even try that—just because he’s the pilot doesn’t make him the boss of me!” Nicki retorted before cutting out.

“Now!” Jake shouted, and in unison, he and Kovach trained their force guns on the mouth of Vesta Nine. The Alekanovo stone sent out a blinding flare of white light, joined by the iridescent power surging from the
Logonje
’s relics. The high-pitched whine of the force guns and the chants reached a deafening crescendo, forcing the last of the hellish cloud of
gessyan
back into the maw of the mine.

Jake toggled the transmitter on his collar. “Hey up there! We need that beam now!”

“You couldn’t give us a little more warning—” Nicki replied.

“Now!”

“He’s doing it. He’s doing it. Hold your horses!” The transmission cut for a moment, then: “There’s something you need to know—”

“Now, dammit!” Jake yelled. Nicki muttered a curse in French and the transmission clicked off.

A column of white, consuming fire burned toward Vesta Nine from the heavens like the wrath of an angry god. The air smelled of ozone and burning dirt as the fire struck deep into the shaft, igniting the coal, sending a pulse of super-heated energy into the bowels of the cursed mine, collapsing the rock and blocking the entrance. From deep within Vesta Nine came a roar as Rick set off his charges. The ground shook beneath their feet, and the mouth of the mine shuddered. Rocks fell and the timbers holding up the opening split with a crack like thunder.

It also set off the tourmaquartz.

The blast was deafening, and the explosion’s shock wave lifted the rearmost guards and miners, who had not yet escaped the compound, off their feet, throwing them several yards. Jake, Rick, and the others had tucked themselves into tight balls on the ground, covering their heads with their arms. Flying rocks pelted them like a hail of bullets. A suffocating cloud of coal dust rose like a new wraith over the deep crater, and as the deep levels began to collapse, the land around the mine’s mouth shuddered, then crumbled and fell into oblivion.

When Jake dared raise his head, Vesta Nine was gone. And when he looked skyward, so was the
Allegheny Princess
.

Jake was about to toggle his transmitter when Mitch Storm grabbed him by the arm. “You’ve got to get out of here—now!”

“I don’t—”

“You really don’t want to be here when they land,” Jacob added drily, and pointed toward the sky. Moving like ghosts against the clouds, Jake could barely make out the shapes of two black airships.

“Remain where you are. This is the United States Government,” a voice blared from afar.

“Friends of yours?” Rick asked as Mitch and Jacob hustled them toward the rear of the mining compound and the unmarked carriage where Charles the
werkman
waited.

“Not at the moment,” Mitch replied. “I spotted a couple of the Department spies early on, and knocked them cold so they couldn’t report on the irregularities. So right now, I’m in no hurry to see them myself.”

“They’ve been watching this place for a while, but I’m a little surprised they’re quite so late to the party. And they won’t be happy to lose whatever tourmaquartz might have still been mined, so it’s time for your team to grab your stuff and disappear.” Jacob pointedly nudged the locked metal box with this boot.

“Get out of here. Go home. Stay low. Make sure all of you have an alibi and people to back it up,” Mitch said.

“Go!” Mitch said, nearly pushing Renate after Jake and Rick. “Stick to the plan, get to the carriages and stay on the back roads as long as you can. Don’t look suspicious.”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “We’ll be real casual.”

Mitch fixed him with a glance. “Trust me. You do not want to go to Western Penitentiary. Get out of here.”

“What about you two?” Rick asked suspiciously.

Mitch gave a lopsided grin. “We’re going back to get Tumblety and Brunrichter out of their carriage and haul their sorry asses over to district headquarters to get ourselves off suspension. It won’t surprise anyone if Jacob and I show up somewhere we aren’t supposed to be.”

“No,” Jacob replied with a long-suffering sigh. “It really won’t.”

T
HE
A
LLEGHENY
P
RINCESS
ghosted through the night. In the moonlight, most of the countryside below was quiet, and the river was a dark ribbon. On the ground beneath the airship, the Vesta Nine mine was a mass of large, shadowy buildings. The gloom was pierced by a few security lights which did little to push back the darkness.

“We’re in position,” Nicki said into Adam Farber’s gadget. Adam himself was down in the bowels of the airship, babying the modifications he had just finished like a proud papa.

“We’re not the only ones transmitting,” Cady warned, sitting at a device with a pair of headphones over her ears, scribbling on a pad of paper.

“What are they saying?” Nicki asked.

Cady shook her head. “It’s in code. And not the same DSI code I broke last week.”

“Maybe it’s not DSI sending it. Maybe it’s someone else.”

“I’m on it,” Cady said with a fierce grin. She had a small difference engine, built for code-breaking by Farber, a mechanical wonder no larger than a suitcase. “Calculating.”

“What?” Nicki asked, seemingly to no one. She pressed the earpiece to her head with one hand and held the microphone closer to her mouth. “Can’t hear you. Speak up!”

“Tell Jake to hurry it up,” Cullan Adair said. “I doubt we’re going to be alone up here for long, and I’ve got no desire to play cat-and-mouse with a Department zeppelin.”

“Yeah. What can you see?” Jake said, his voice scratchy and barely audible.

Nicki muttered a curse in French and set aside the headphones, moving over to a spyglass on a swivel-mounted pedestal. “How can we back Jake up if we don’t know what’s going on?” she fussed.

“I’ve got the first word!” Cady cheered. “I think.”

Nicki returned and put the headphones back on. “There’s a fight at the gate. Looks like Maguire got plenty of turn-out. You want us to take a shot at locating Thwaites?”

“If it keeps the police from getting to the mine, it’s all good,” Cullan said, looking up from where he was quietly consulting with two of his bridge crew.

“Don’t shoot!” Jake responded. “Not yet!”

Nicki looked to Cullen with a glare and raised her eyebrows. “I said, did you want us to take a shot at locating Thwaites?”

“Yeah, try to keep an eye out for him
and
Veles. I don’t think this is going to be a walk in the park.”

“That’s what makes it so much fun!” Nicki said with a wink to Cullen.

The deck of the
Allegheny Princess
had panoramic, bulletproof windows on three sides. Nicki stood with her nose pressed up against the glass, desperately trying to peer down on the land directly below them. More than once, she wished that she could open a window and lean out for a better view. “I can’t see properly,” she fretted. “I keep seeing flashes of gunfire, but I can’t tell who’s shooting who.”

“Whom,” Cady corrected absently. “Who’s shooting
whom
.”

“You knew what I meant,” Nicki replied. “I need to get a better view.” The metal trap door in the floor of the deck caught her eye. Cullan had shown her where it led, and now she pounced on it with a cry of triumph. “Yes!” she said, yanking the door open and, before anyone could stop her, jumping feet first into the three-foot-deep well of the gunnery mount.

“Ms. LeClercq! I must insist you come out of there. It’s dangerous!” Cullan said, striding over. Cady gave a snort.

“No one’s shooting at us,” Nicki said, giving a dismissive wave of her hand, as if sending away a bothersome waiter. “But I can see so much better down here!” The gunnery mount was a cage of steel and bulletproof glass, with a Gatling gun that could move along a track together with the gunner’s seat. The mount gave nearly perfect visibility, enabling Nicki to see the whole Vesta Nine complex below. She could also feel the vibration of the
Allegheny Princess’s
motors and the rush of the wind. It was heady and terrifying and she loved it.

As Nicki watched, a pattern of rapid flashes, like large angry fireflies, lit the night. A few moments later, long fiery lashes streamed from a source hidden in the darkness. “
Mon Dieu
!” Nicki exclaimed, her eyes widening. “What is that?”

Cullan peered through the bridge’s windows. “Off hand, I’d say someone’s making use of those fire-throwers Farber came up with.”

“There’s a fight by the main gate and another by one of the buildings.” Nicki reported. “Oh! They’re firing the Gatlings again!” The clouds shifted, and for a moment the moon shone down.

A huge fireball shot into the air from where the flame throwers were being used. Cullan pulled the ship sharply starboard, throwing Nicki into the glass and causing many of the crew to cry out in alarm as they avoided the flames.

“Airship—can you hear me?” Drostan called through the headset.

“I thought you weren’t going to make a scene!” Nicky snapped as she picked herself up. “Flyboy had to make us all airsick to avoid that fireball you sent up.

“Sorry, sorry. Look, I need to talk to Wunderkind—”

Adam’s voice cut in. “I’m here.”

“Someone’s trying to escape, may be Brunrichter and Tumblety,” Drostan said. “They’re too far away from us, and we’ve got hostile fire between here and there. Can you do something to stop them—preferably without killing them?”

“We’re on it,” Adam replied.

“Don’t you dare leave me out of this!” Nicki interrupted. “You need me to locate the targets!”

“I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out,” Drostan replied.

Nicki turned and shouted. “Cullan! Someone’s getting away! There’s a carriage heading for the rear of the complex.”

“Changing course,” Cullan replied, and from her perch beneath the
Allegheny Princess
, Nicki had a front-row seat as the scenery slid past and the airship banked and turned.

She gulped, resolving not to be airsick, and closing her eyes for a moment until the ship had changed course. It helped that it was dark outside, making the long drop to the land below less obvious. After a moment, she peered down through the rounded glass, trying to get a clearer view.

“Definitely making for the railroad cars,” she shouted to Cullan.

“Hang onto your hoopskirts,” Cullan said, and a high-pitched whine filled the bridge. Nicki covered her ears as the wine grew shrill, and then a bolt as bright as lightning sizzled from a metal rod beneath the airship, forward of Nicki’s position and just a few feet lower.

She jumped with a squeal, and the smell of ozone filled the air. Nicki blinked rapidly, the image of the bright bolt imprinted on her retinas. After a moment, she could see clearly again.

“How about some warning,
s’il vous pla
î
t
!”

“Sorry,” Cullan replied, although she could have sworn he was laughing.

“What do you think?” Adam voice said over the headset. “And that’s only at half-power!”

“I think you’re a dangerous man,” Drostan responded, his voice almost drowned out by static. “Great job. We’ll be in touch.”

“I’ve got more of the message!” Cady yelled. “And I think it’s from Thwaites!”

“Keep at it,” Nicki encouraged. “We’ve got to figure out what he’s up to.” She peered down into the darkness, and could barely make out the shape of the carriage she had spied a few moments before. Cullan’s Tesla ray had carved a swath into the ground around the carriage, effectively stranding it on a little island within a still-burning moat of scorched, melted dirt.