CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The wind hit me like a hammer. The sheer force of it stole the air from my lungs and wrung the water from my eyes. My visor was open, and the gale forced its way past my ears, to whistle through my helm and into the dark places of my skull. It sounded like buzzsaws mating inside my ear canals.
It was loud enough that I couldn’t hear my own screams, which meant Adelaide and Gregory couldn’t hear them, which was fortunate because I was cranking out the shrieks like a litter of skittish cats on stage at a rocking chair competition. I made the mistake of looking down. We weren’t that high up for an airship, but we were very high up for a man in plate armor, clinging to the side of the ship by a thin cable. We weren’t even going that fast. The Silverhawk had drifted below the clouds at some point during the melee, and was bumbling through the air at a snail’s pace. I could make out individual buildings below, set in a crowded grid that at first I mistook for suburban sprawl. But as I looked closer, I saw that I was looking at a fragment of the Gestalt superimposed over the mitochondrial swirl of cul-de-sacs, shopping malls, and the black snake of asphalt roads twisting through subdivisions. Distinctly Victorian buildings and the complicated superstructure of iron-wrought bridges, train tracks, and zeppelin towers bristled across the landscape. It looked like a fading photograph of Victorian London hung like a ghost over suburbia.
“What the hell is going on down there?” I muttered, straining to get a closer look. “It’s like the world is flickering between reality and the Gestalt. Do you think—”
That’s when I realized I was falling.
I didn’t even feel the soft sole of my boot slip free of the Silverhawk’s metal flank, but suddenly I was sliding down the side of the airship, both legs straight out, my hands scrambling for purchase on its smooth skin. A gust of wind stuck my shield, strapped over my shoulder, and took to it like a sail. I pulled free from the airship and spun, end over end, to my doom. My vision became a pinwheel of sky and earth, with the bright metal flash of the Silverhawk in between.
Something yanked at my hips, cinching tight to my waist and strangling my thighs. I spun a final rotation, then swung hard and fast against the side of the airship. I struck with the hollow sound of a bell without its clapper, once, twice, bouncing loudly with each impact. Finally I came to rest. I dangled, facedown, from my harness. The world raced by overhead, getting steadily closer while I gaped at it, trying to drag breath into my lungs.
“Rast, you idiot.” Addie’s voice was surprisingly calm. She grabbed me by the belt and heaved. My feet scrambled against the Silverhawk, and I grappled with Addie’s shoulders, nearly pulling her free. “The footholds! Use the footholds!”
“Come on, John. You’re giving us a bad name!” Gregory shouted from his perch above me. The wind didn’t seem to be bothering him at all.
Craning my neck, I saw a series of divots in the otherwise smooth surface of the airship’s flank. Stretching my leg, I was able to poke one toe into the closest divot. Between that and Addie’s irresistible leverage, I finally got into the correct vertical orientation. I clung to the guide wire like a man . . . well, like a man suspended off the side of a flying whale, with nothing holding him there other than the aforementioned wire.
“Have you got it?” Addie shouted at me. I nodded, and she released me.
“Wait, how can I hear you? How can I hear me?” I asked, startled. The wind had died down to a gentle roar.
“We’re in the Gestalt bubble. It keeps fading in and out,” Addie said. She nodded below us. I didn’t dare look, not after my recent tumble. “Too many cars down there. Not enough imagination.”
“Do you think that’s the valkyries’ doing?” Gregory asked.
“Don’t know. But for now, the Gestalt is holding up here, which is giving us a reprieve from the wind. I say we take advantage of that,” Addie said.
“I still don’t understand how that works,” I muttered.
“Kind of like how the Naglfr is open top, but none of us ever blow away,” Gregory said. “Relax, Rast. It’s really quite pleasant once you get used to it.”
“I did ride a giant dog all the way to heaven once, I suppose,” I said. The dog in question was Fenrir, while he was trying to catch the moon. With that in mind, I loosened my grip and relaxed. The ride really wasn’t that bad. I looked around. “Are we slowing down?”
“Yeah. I don’t like it.” Satisfied that I wasn’t going to hurtle off the side of the ship, Addie began climbing.
“Well, maybe we’re landing?” I asked.
“Do you see a place to land?” She was already ten feet ahead of me, and climbing fast. I glanced down at the landscape, zipping past. Somehow the lower we got, the faster the ground seemed to be going. I’m sure there was science involved, but all I could think of at the moment is that we were definitely going too fast to land—at least, not in one piece. I tipped my head up to avoid looking at the cheese grater of trees and hills and rocks, then hurried after Addie, with Gregory close behind.
It was slow going. I focused entirely on getting one foot in front of the other, hands on the precarious cable, fighting the wind for every step. Even concentrating on my movement, it was increasingly clear that the Silverhawk was losing altitude. I was beginning to wonder if Honorius intended to put us down in one of these fields when I bumped into Addie. She had stopped in the middle of the Silverhawk, and was peering upward.
“What are—” I started, but she smothered my mouth with her hand. I followed her gaze upward.
One of the resurrected valkyries perched on the lip of the remnants of the observation deck. A pair of engines perched between her wings, flickering with bright blue electricity each time her feathers twitched. I couldn’t see over the edge, but the iron framework of the great window was bent and twisted, bristling with shards of shattered glass. The sounds of fighting sang over the howling wind. The valkyrie carried a long spear, equipped with an electrical coil at the base of the tip, and was using it to poke at something that was out of my line of sight. With a screech that sounded like a boiler erupting, she charged forward, disappearing from view.
“We have to get up there,” I said. The cable ran the length of the Silverhawk, but didn’t lead up to the top. There were handholds, but nothing to secure yourself from falling. “Are we supposed to just free-climb this?”
“Hero stuff,” Gregory answered, unclipping his belt.
Reluctantly, I followed suit and started the tenuous climb up to the lip of the observation deck. The winds held off long enough for us to reach the shattered ruin of the glass dome. Popping our heads over the edge, we were treated to a sight of absolute destruction. Bethany and Chesa stood back-to-back in the middle of a circle of five valkyries, armed with a variety of anachronistic weapons. Spears, tridents, and at least one steampunk chainsaw threatened the girls, all powered by weird electrical coils and vials of glowing green liquid. Chesa bled from several wounds, and the broken limbs of her bow lay at her feet, among scattered arrows. She twirled with her twin crescent daggers in her hands, dancing back and forth like a banshee.
Bethany fought with equal vigor, and a great deal more glee. Her face was smeared with blood, and she was grinning maniacally as she darted forward, swiping at any of the valkyries who got too close with the gleaming blades of her daggers. The valkyries circled warily, darting in when opportunity presented, and dodging back out before either Chesa or Bee could land a blow. Addie pulled us back down below the window.
“We’ve got to get in there,” I said. “They need us.”
“One second, hotshot,” Addie said. “Did you see the guy by the ’vox?”
“What? No.” I peeked back over the sill. There was a stooped figure beside the aethervox. The figure by the ’vox looked more like a pile of trashed furniture than anything, but now that I was looking directly at it, I could see it moving. “Who is that?”
“I don’t know. But I’m guessing this whole thing is a distraction.” Addie charged her shotgun, simultaneously transforming it into a weird, multi-barrel streetsweeper. “The two of you save your friends. I’m taking that guy down.”
“Right. Greg, I’ll draw their attention.” I slammed down my visor and swung my shield off my shoulder. “You start picking them off one by—”
“VICTORY IN THE LIGHT!” Gregory d’Haute vaulted over the sill, waving his zweihander overhead. Adelaide clapped me on the shoulder and slid into the room, staying low to the ground and working her way around the perimeter toward the shadowy figure on the opposite side of the room.
I sighed. “Maybe wait for the tank?” I rolled awkwardly over the shattered frame of the glass dome and landed with a crunch among the broken glass. Chesa glanced in my direction. To my infinite joy, she actually smiled when she saw me.
My joy was short-lived. The closest two goth valkyries broke off from harassing Chesa and Bee to face us. Gregory, full of enthusiasm and an unreasonable faith in his sword, charged the first valkyrie. She caught his downward stroke with the crackling flat of her spearhead, then swept the shaft into his knee. Lightning arced down the length of Greg’s two-handed blade, traveling through his armor with an audible crack. Greg went down in a tumble of steel and glistening curls. The second valkyrie was armed with a pair of wicked hand axes that contained spinning brass orbs behind the curves of their blades. She was just about to turn Gregory d’Haute into a selection of smaller Gregs when I bulled them both aside with my shield.
“I said! Wait!” Bright axeheads skittered off my shield, sending a shock through my shoulder and into my teeth. The smell of cooked meat drifted through the air. I slid to the side, straddling Greg and bringing my sword up in a wide swing that drove the valkyries back. “For the tank!”
“The ladies needed me,” Greg spat as he rolled to his feet. The zweihander was nowhere to be seen. He drew the sharp length of his misericorde dagger. A gash of bright blood trickled down his forehead, and the tips of his hair were burned into crisps.
“They need both of us,” I said. “We need each other.”
He grimaced at me. Before the conversation could continue, we were both distracted by the imminent threat of death at the hands of the emo valkyries.
Axebitch charged at me, closing the distance before I could get my sword in a good guard. The sharp bit of her axes hooked the edge of my shield, dragging it down and exposing that half of my body to attack. Spears of static energy shot out from the whirling orbs in the haft of her blades, crawling through the mesh of my chain mail. I grimaced against the pain, then countered by thrusting my sword into her face. She disappeared from my field of vision, and a second later sharp pain jolted up from my lead knee. I ducked down, slamming the rim of my shield into her hand, then pushed up strong into her belly, shoving her back. I was so intent on this action that I didn’t notice the two others, each armed with a long and wickedly barbed sword, circling around my back, not until they lunged at me.
In short order, I was fighting for my life, hacking in all directions, my shield constantly beset by ax and spear, while my armor rattled with multiple sword blows. The crack of electrical discharge and crashing metal filled the air. I managed to hook one of the berserker’s axes with my hilt and toss it aside, but she simply took to punching me with that hand.
Gregory and Chesa and Bethany disappeared in a whirl of steel and shrieking valkyries, each fighting their own battle for survival. The math told me that at least I was doing my job, if three of the five were on me. That gave my friends a chance. Maybe if Chesa magically repaired her bow, or Gregory found his sword, we could turn the tide. All I had to do was hold out. Hold out, and keep fighting. So I did. It took a trickle of magic from my diminished reserves to keep going. I couldn’t last forever.
I stumbled backward, until my legs came up against the hard sill of the broken dome. Once I was there, I was able to hold off my three attackers, fighting like a rat in a corner. Because I was. Except I forgot one thing, for the second time that day.
The valkyries had wings.
A shadow fell across my shoulders. I was just starting to get an inkling of the implications of that when heavy boots crashed into my shoulders. I went over like threshed wheat, sword tumbling free and shield flattening under my chest. I rolled over and got my shield up just in time to catch a heavy blow from a warhammer. The face of my shield dented inward, and the whole thing sang like a gong. My visor popped open, and I crabwalked backward, fighting the urge to drop my shield and run. The valkyrie who had ambushed me swung that warhammer like she was digging for gold. Her face was a twisted mask of hatred and rage, and her wings fluttered overhead, carrying her forward as I retreated.
An arrow slammed into the hammer valkyrie’s shoulder, then another skittered off her arm. With a shriek, she kicked me in the face, then whirled to face this new assault. Gregory met her with a devastating swing of the zweihander, which he had apparently recovered, followed up by an uppercut with the big sword’s thick pommel, a heavy blow that knocked her backward. I scrambled to my feet and drew my dagger, then fed a little magic into the shield to repair it and change its shape into something more practical in the close confines of the observation deck. Chesa stood on the shattered ruins of the drinks cabinet, magically repaired bow once again in hand, sending flights into the valkyries clustered around me. Each arrow flew true, puncturing wings and thumping into the joints between armor plates. I suspected that the repair of her shattered bow had tapped out her magical reserves, because she was sending mundane arrows into the enemy. I was looking around for my sword when an icy voice boomed through the air.
“That’s enough of that, girls. Back to the nest.”
The valkyries all backed away. Gregory and I closed ranks, joined by the bloody-faced Bethany, who seemed to have recovered the axes that I had knocked away from the valkyries, and was wielding them with grim determination. Warily, we watched the line of valkyries slowly part, revealing the speaker.
It was the figure who had been skulking near the aethervox. Its body was made up of the discarded spare parts from around the ship, all rusted disks and mismatched iron, shoved together into the rough approximation of a human being. Dull green light shone through between the parts, like sunlight streaming through the cracks in a door. The figure wore a tattered overcoat, and its face was nothing more than a couple nails hammered into a warped wooden board in the shape of eyes and a mouth. These features didn’t move as the figure spoke. But the voice was familiar enough.
Cecilia Lumiere, in a much less charming form than when we’d last met.
“You’ve made such a mess of things, ladies. Hardly fitting. You may go,” she said haughtily. “Leave these lovely boys to me.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” one of the valkyries snarled. “Revenge! And—”
“As I summoned you, so I dismiss you. Go!” Her voice changed, echoing with power. The valkyries shied away from her, wilting like spring flowers at the first frost.
The valkyries fled. Dark shapes emerged from all over the Silverhawk, popping out of hatches and bursting through portholes, to flutter away into the sky. Cecilia watched them go with rusted, bent-nail eyes.
Cecilia turned back to us, warped head tilting to the side coquettishly.
“Well, now that that little unpleasantness is behind us, we can get acquainted.” She took a step closer, trailing an arm made of bent copper tubing and bike chain across her clapboard hip. “It was so rude of Evelyn to tear us apart, don’t you think? Just as we were getting . . . close?”
“I think I liked you better as a ghost,” I said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, child,” she answered, then stepped closer to Gregory. “Tell me, brightlocks. Have you ever been with an older woman?”
Adelaide stepped from the shadows and laid the wide mouth of her shotgun against Cecilia’s temple. She froze in place, immobile face still somehow registering surprise.
“He’s not your type,” she said, and pulled the trigger.
Wood and rusted iron flew across the room, along with the assorted springs and cogs that made up the rest of her skull. Cecilia’s headless body fell to the ground, disassembling like a puzzle thrown in frustration against a wall. Clockwork gears and bent washers rolled across the floor, spinning like coins over the hardwood. The sound of the blast left my ears ringing, but even I could hear the rattling crash of several hundred pounds of mismatched steel gears shuffling against the floorboards.
In the wake of the construct’s collapse, the horrific image of Cecilia Lumiere hung naked in the air. Glowing green skin pulled tight to her skeletal frame, tearing free in places to reveal desiccated organs and withered tendons. Her curly hair hung in rags from the peeling flesh of her skull. One eye socket yawned empty. Her teeth were crooked and broken, and the long, pale snake of her tongue flickered in the air. She shrieked in rage, then flew apart into a million sparking motes of burning dust.
“There, problem solved,” Addie said. She spun her shotgun, working the lever to eject a casing and reload in one smooth motion. “No more creepy ghost construct.”
“Um, guys?” Bethany was behind us, bent over the aethervox.
“That felt too easy,” I said. “And how did she get onboard? That thing didn’t have wings, did it?”
“Localized haunting,” Chesa said. “Maybe the valkyries summoned her? Or maybe she—”
“Guys!” Bethany repeated. “Actual problem over here!”
Ida’s modified aethervox lay open, its mind-boggling configuration of gears and levers running in reverse. The compass arm spun like a helicopter blade, and the amber screen had been replaced by a crackling void.
“That’s a bit weird,” I said, stepping closer. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“It looks a little . . .” Gregory started.
“Haunted,” Chesa said.
“We don’t do haunted in the Gestalt,” Addie answered. “We’re Lovecraft adjacent, but we keep his stuff in a little box, well away from the rest of the workings.”
“Because?”
“It tends to break things,” Addie whispered.
The screen cracked open, and a wave of black energy washed outward in a flash.
Just before it struck, I heard laughter echoing through the ship. Tinny and distant, coming through the speaking tubes, vibrating through the bulkheads, shaking the silverware and slithering through the chandeliers, like the ghost of a voice, cut free from its mortal form.
I threw an arm across my face. The wave of energy sizzled over me, tasting like static electricity in my mouth, prickling my skin, sending a vibration through my armor. I braced for the impact, magical or otherwise, that was sure to follow. It never came. After a moment, I lowered my shield and looked around.
“Well,” I said. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Just listen,” Addie said. “We’re screwed.”
“What?” Gregory asked.
I strained my ears. It can be hard passing perception checks through a steel helm, but I didn’t hear anything.
Greg agreed. “All I hear is silence.”
“Exactly.” Addie holstered her shotgun and ran for the stairs. “The engines are dead.”
The floor fell out from under us. We dropped like a stone out of the sky, wind whistling through the broken windows of the observation deck, rising to a scream.