The Thief's Apprentice Page 15

  low me down . . .” Father breathed.

  “Traction engines, dirigibles, motorcars . . . now what?” Mr. Gaunt said.

  The black metal thing released an ear-splitting hiss, plumes of steam escaping from around its numerous wheels, encircled by long belts that had left great gouges in the vehicle’s wake.

  “What is it, Father?” I asked.

  Father’s answer sounded more like he was talking to himself. “Those are Diplock’s chain wheels. They’re not meant to be out of the workshop yet . . . And Foster’s metalwork, or not far off . . .”

  “We’re dead,” contributed Mr. Gaunt.

  “Father, what is it?”

  “It’s a motor war car,” Mrs. Gaunt said, her voice trembling. “I saw one at the Crystal Palace.”

  “This is worse than that,” said Mr. Scant.

  “Yes, especially since it’s bally working, rather than falling to bits!” Father bellowed. “What you have before you, my son, is a land ironclad. Far better fortified than a war car, and about thrice the size. They obviously liked the idea of the Maxim gun on top, though. Scant, what lunatics built this?”

  “I fear it was your good friends in the dirigibles business.”

  A hatch opened on the top of the vehicle. A furious-looking Mr. Binns emerged and took up a place behind the gun turret. His wife followed, climbing onto the ironclad’s deck using a carbine like a walking stick. On her right hand, she wore Mr. Scant’s claw.

  “Out of the motorcar, all of you!” Mrs. Binns commanded, raising the barrel of her gun.

  “Mrs. George, get the car running again,” murmured Father.

  “It’s not going,” she whispered back. “It needs starting again at the front, and I think it’s overheated.”

  “I’ll take a look,” said Mr. Gaunt. “But I can’t if I’m being shot.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Father said, and opened the door. “The moment you get the chance, get moving. Son—stay with Scant. I’ll sort all this out. No crying!”

  “Wait!” I said. “You can’t!”

  Father ignored me and began to yell, “Right, you horrible—” but I grabbed his arm.

  “Father! Listen to me! You can’t solve everything by shouting at it. Please! That is not your friend Mr. Binns out there. He’s dangerous. Listen to me! I am more than some hostage here. We’ve been dealing with these people for weeks. I have a plan, so please, listen to me!”

  Father turned back to me, frowning. It had been a long time since I had actually looked into his eyes. They were green, like mine, which I don’t think I would have been able to say with certainty until right then. His lips moved as though he was thinking things through, and then he shook his head. “Nonsense!”

  Mrs. Binns was getting impatient. She pointed her carbine at Mr. Scant, who had remained outside with Dr. Mikolaitis. “Come out or I kill your beloved valet,” she called to Father.

  Father pulled away from me and heaved himself through the door, clutching his ridiculous old blunderbuss.

  “You don’t need the gun,” Mr. Binns called.

  “I rather think I do,” Father said, pointing it up at Thomasina Binns. Mrs. Binns did not flinch. Instead, she gave a long-suffering sigh and she cleared her throat.

  “My husband and I are busy people, Sandleforth. We are not like you, content to slave away to feed a dying empire. We know what is coming, and we have revolutions to plan.”

  “Then I should think the best thing would be for us to go on our way, don’t you?” said Father.

  Mr. Scant was close enough to lean through the driver’s side window. “Let’s not waste this opportunity.”

  “Heck—that’s a Maxim gun,” Mr. Gaunt said, easing open the passenger door on his side of the motorcar.

  “You need to come with me,” Mr. Scant told his brother. “I’ll get the engine running faster with you.”

  Mr. Binns had taken up his wife’s monologue. “The world is a smaller and smaller place, thanks to airships like mine. New powers are rising in the East. I can’t afford to look weak in front of my colleagues, especially when I am this close to being made a hongmen. We hadn’t planned to chase you runaway mice in our iron chariot, but then again—seizing control of rather a useful British engineering company wasn’t part of our original plan either. Now put down that relic, Sandleforth, and let’s talk business. Maybe I’ll let you stay on as a figurehead.”

  “You tell that wife of yours to put her carbine down first,” Father said. “And then you step away from the Maxim.”

  “Sandleforth, put down your weapon or I shall shoot you in the knee. Or maybe I should get your boy to help me persuade you?”

  Father did not flinch at this. “You shoot me in the leg, and I will shoot back from wherever I fall. I’ve been shot before—have you, Roland? I know what to expect. And if I shoot back at you with this old girl, I may not hit your knee, but I will probably hit your chest and your head and a few other places. She does that. And then I suppose whichever one of us is still alive would have to start thinking about how to crawl back home. As for my boy, you jumped-up little gonoph, you go near him and I won’t even need to tear your head off, because he’ll do it twice before I even get started! You think I haven’t had my eye on you for the last ten years? You think I don’t know about your pathetic little magic club? Secret society this and controlling the world that—all nonsense spewed by weak men who don’t have the gumption to claw their way to the top the old-fashioned way!”

  Mr. Binns looked to his wife and said, “Thomasina, my darling—did you hear him call me a name?”

  Mrs. Binns grinned. “He fancies himself such a big man. He thinks if we want him alive, he’s safe. How does the poem go? ‘Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not.’ Fire away, my dear.”

  “No!” I yelled. Knowing at once what I had to do, I dashed out from behind the motorcar and skidded to a halt in front of Father with my arms spread.

  “What a brave boy,” cooed Mrs. Binns. “A shame we don’t need him.”

  A few moments later, the Maxim gun began to whir. I felt Father’s hand grab my arm and haul me backwards, but someone else had appeared, half-dashing and half-falling to get in front of me. It was Mr. Gaunt, who had grabbed Father’s blunderbuss.

  For a moment, everything was still. Mr. Binns froze in fear before he could aim the barrel of the Maxim gun at Mr. Gaunt. Mrs. Binns stepped toward her husband, wide eyed. But Mr. Gaunt had no reason to hesitate. He squeezed the trigger.

  And then, after a click, nothing happened. Father had been bluffing; he’d never reloaded the weapon.

  A look of unbridled wrath crossed Mr. Binns’s face. Mr. Gaunt had sincerely attempted to kill him but had failed. And that made Mr. Binns very, very angry. The whir began again.

  Ruefully, Mr. Gaunt looked back, first at me, then to his wife still in the car. He had just enough time to speak. “We must keep a stiff upper lip about these things,” he said.

  The big gun began spitting out little pellets eager to bite into our bodies and stop our hearts. But the stream of bullets did not tear Mr. Gaunt apart: Mrs. Binns had grabbed her husband’s arm just as the gun began to fire, so the line of bullets passed close to my leg and then across the front of the motorcar.

  “Horses!” cried Mrs. Binns. “That way, you fool!”

  I saw them then—two horses coming up the incline at full gallop. Mr. Binns struggled to turn the Maxim gun while Mrs. Binns raised her carbine and fired, the report itself so loud as to slap against my skin. One horse let out a squeal, rearing up as the gun barked out. A figure leapt from its back, right up onto the ironclad. The riders were a blur of skirts and long, black hair, but I had no doubt—they were the young women I had seen riding through town with their opera glasses.

  Mr. Gaunt fell to his knees, and I scarcely managed to prevent him from slumping to the ground. I struggled for a moment to keep him upright before looking back at Father, who was gawping like a fish. “Don�
��t just sit there!” I yelled. “Help me!”

  Father took a moment to react, then hurried to assist me as I tucked myself under Mr. Gaunt’s arm and pulled him back toward the motorcar. “Yours, I think,” Mr. Gaunt said weakly, as he held up Father’s blunderbuss.

  “Mr. Gaunt—are you hurt?” I asked as we opened the door of the motorcar and heaved him into the seat. “Were you shot?”

  Mr. Gaunt patted himself down, looking at his hands as though expecting to see blood. “Only the once, then,” he told me. “In my leg.”

  “Must hurt like the dickens,” Father said. “Let me see, then I’ll give you something stiff to drink.”

  “No need, I think,” Mr. Gaunt said. He rapped on his lower leg with his knuckle, which gave a strangely solid sound, then rolled up his trouser leg to display an artificial foot. “See, there’s the bullet!” he remarked, pointing to the little black thing that had bitten into his wooden shin. “My lucky day.”

  “Good show!” Father roared. I gave him an angry shove, and he looked at me in astonishment.

  “Your ridiculous gun wasn’t even loaded!” I cried.

  Father looked affronted. “It takes a long while to get the old girl ready again. I thought a solid talking-to would be all that coward Binns needed.”

  “You nearly got Mr. Gaunt killed! I warned you, Father! You can’t win everything by having the loudest voice! Sometimes you need to think.”

  Father just harrumphed.

  “Reload that ridiculous gun of yours,” I said, “and watch how we do it.”

  The two strange riders had advanced along the ironclad, but Mr. and Mrs. Binns were armed and capable of defending themselves. Mr. Binns lay on his back, struggling with one of the women, while Mrs. Binns swung her carbine like a club while stamping one foot on the ironclad deck. Her opponent closed in on her with an easy, fluid grace, unencumbered by her hunting skirt and riding boots.

  Now that the riders had put away their opera glasses, I could at last see their faces: the two women couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old. The one fighting Mrs. Binns was the black-haired girl who had waved at me in the snow—a visitor from China, or one of its neighboring countries at the very least. The smile she had flashed during her last appearance had vanished, and with a fierce expression, she seized Mrs. Binns’s carbine. Mrs. Binns snarled and stamped her heel on the deck once again. For a moment, I thought it was out of frustration, but then I understood.

  “There’s someone else inside the ironclad!” I yelled. Just then, the vehicle lurched, upsetting the dark-haired woman’s balance.

  My voice had brought Mr. Scant running to my side. “Bryony is getting the engine going again,” he told me. When I looked bewildered, he clarified, “Mrs. George.” I had never even considered she might have any other name. Mr. Scant then checked on his brother, asking for help with the motorcar.

  The sudden movement of the land ironclad had turned the tables. Mr. Binns had risen to his feet and was now restraining one of the riders, pulling one arm up behind her back. The other woman continued to struggle with Mrs. Binns for the carbine, having to duck and dodge the claws that slashed and jabbed at her. Then, through the hatch came another figure, a barrel-chested Chinese man with a big knife.

  “We have to help them,” I said, and Mr. Scant nodded.

  “Mykolas, get me up onto that thing!” he said.

  “Just shoot the scoundrels!” came a shrill voice, and I realized Mrs. Gaunt had come up behind us, with Father at her side.

  “The old girl isn’t ready to fire,” Father said.

  In exasperation, Mr. Scant began to run toward the ironclad, while the man with the knife grew closer and closer to the girl Mr. Binns was restraining.

  “He’ll never make it in time!” I said.

  “Right! Gimme that!” I heard Mrs. Gaunt say. A moment later, a dark brown blur sailed through the air above my head. I first thought that she had thrown the blunderbuss, but in fact it was her husband’s artificial foot. It hit the shoulder of the man with the knife, distracting him long enough for Mr. Scant to scale the tracks of the ironclad. He struck the larger man in the neck in a way that left him wilting like a dead flower. Mr. Binns tried to put his hostage between himself and Mr. Scant, but the young woman used the moment to switch her footing and flipped Mr. Binns clean over her shoulder. I could bear it no longer, and—ignoring Father’s call—ran forward too.

  “Above! Look up!” Mr. Scant yelled at the riders, but the two strange women heard him too late. He alone had noticed the small Beards-and-Binns airship that had emerged to drop a long yellow rope, and from Mr. Scant’s expression, it was clear this was not something he had been hoping for. Mrs. Binns saw the chance of making her escape, and relinquished the carbine to jump for the rope, using the turret of the Maxim gun to reach the bottom knot. Then all at once, the muscular Chinese man, Mr. Binns, Mr. Scant, and the black-haired woman leapt at the rope. The other rider tackled Mr. Binns, and with a cry of despair for his wife, he fell short. The Chinese man managed to grab the rope with one hand, and grunted as Mr. Scant and the black-haired young woman each took hold of one of his legs.

  The added weight began to drag the small airship downwards, which made Mrs. Binns extremely unhappy. She began to kick at the Chinese man’s face with her fine leather boots. He lost his grip and fell, taking the black-haired young woman with him, but Mr. Scant had been ruthless in his climbing. He was able to jump from the man’s shoulders to catch hold of the rope again.

  Mrs. Binns gave a cry of anger and tried to kick at Scant, too, but he could deflect her blows with his false claw. Still in possession of the real one, she attempted to saw at the rope with all the blades at once, but she didn’t know how to make the claw cut. In a rage, Mrs. Binns pulled the glove off her hand and threw it at Mr. Scant’s face. Mr. Scant barely needed to move his head to avoid it, but Mrs. Binns’s hand was now free to pull out a small pistol from around her ankle. Rather than pointing it at Mr. Scant, however, she aimed directly at the rope—if she pulled the trigger, Mr. Scant would fall.

  The wind changed, unraveling Mr. Scant’s scarf, and in that moment, Mrs. Binns saw the truth. I, too, had followed Mr. Scant up the rope, climbing the ironclad in time to jump with the rest, hanging onto Mr. Scant’s waist as he climbed. And that was not all. Having seen the claw drop, I had caught it and pulled the glove onto my own hand.

  Mr. Scant gave a great roar and heaved me upwards with all his strength.

  I rose up in the air above Mrs. Binns, whose eye caught mine just as she cut the rope with a round from her pistol. Mr. Scant’s claw was on my hand now, and with great satisfaction, I pressed my thumb to the little button on the side that brought out the true blades. I swiped at the rope, well above where Mrs. Binns had aimed her pistol, higher still than the part she gripped. So sharp were the claw’s blades that I barely felt them cut through the rope, and for a moment, the three of us hung suspended, as if we were painted figures in some heavenly scene. And then, wax wings all melted, we began to plummet.

  Dr. Mikolaitis and Father caught Mr. Scant as he fell and set him straight in a flash. Mr. Scant and Father then managed to grab Mrs. Binns and hand her over to the taller of the two young riders, while Dr. Mikolaitis caught me with a sound like “Hupla!” Dr. Mikolaitis gave me a congratulatory pat on the chest and said, “Good job!”

  As the taller woman began to bind Mrs. Binns’s hands, the other rider brought Mr. Binns and the muscular Chinese man down from the ironclad. There was another man behind them I hadn’t seen before, also apparently from China, who I guessed had been at the controls of the land ironclad.

  There was something fascinating about both young riders. The Chinese girl had sharp, intelligent eyes and a mouth quick to curl into a satisfied smirk. The other, presumably British, girl tied her knots with a machine-like efficiency, and beneath her ruler-straight fringe of brown hair was a completely impassive expression: she almost looked bored.

  W
ith a wheeze and a sputter, the motorcar returned to life. “There! It’s working! Gah!” said Mr. Gaunt. His artificial leg back in place, he had been cranking the engine until he turned around to see the young women in riding dresses clearly for the first time. Winifred Gaunt, at her husband’s side, had covered her mouth with both hands.

  “Ellie!” Mr. Gaunt exclaimed.

  “Hello, Father,” said Elspeth Gaunt.

  “But what are you doing here? You should be in Paris.”

  “And yet I’m here in England,” said Miss Gaunt. “I have been for a week. We had to catch these Tri-Loom criminals.”

  “Wuh . . . Wah . . . Why?” her mother managed.

  “I am helping Cai Zhao-Ji.” She gestured to the other rider, who stopped rubbing her sore arm to bow. “This is Cai Zhao-Ji.”

  “Your daughter is a wonderful person,” said Cai Zhao-Ji, with only a hint of an accent. “Please don’t worry—we know how to keep her safe. She was a target of the Tri-Loom, so we recruited her to work against them. She may one day make a fine agent. Ah, if only I could have shared this joyous news under more auspicious circumstances.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Gaunt, going to the car and reaching in to fetch her handbag. “Lady Hortensia is here! She’ll want to say hello.” She went over to pass the cat in the handbag up to her daughter, who unzipped the bag and took the rather bedraggled-looking cat out to cradle.

  “Hello, Lady Hortensia,” Miss Gaunt said. “You appear to be unharmed. There are bullet holes in that motorcar, so that is a relief. I would be unhappy if you were hurt at all.”

  Father leaned in. “What’s going on, son?”

  “That’s Mr. Gaunt’s daughter,” I whispered back. “Mr. Scant’s niece. She was supposed to be a hostage.”

  “I am a hostage,” she said, who had her uncle’s sharp ears. “Father still owes seventeen thousand five hundred and six pounds for my release, less any payments since my last update.”

  “But . . . my darling, you’re here. You’re walking free.”

  “I am here. Not free. Tomorrow I will be in Paris again. On Friday, Berlin. We may have captured these Tri-Loom associates, but there are at least six hundred and fifty more in Europe. If I am not back in Paris tomorrow, they will send assassins.”