Who: Gabriel Allen & Biddie (+NPC!Archie) What: The airship competition...heats up. When: October 9th, 1888 Where: MPC London workshop (West) Rating: R Warning: Descriptions of harm and mild gore.
Casual directions to MPC typically sent the would-be penitent either to the handsome bank-like building that served as the London central office or to the London port, a jungle of MPC and other airships. People did not usually ask directions to the MPC workshops because people, for the most part, had no idea the workshops were there.
To be fair, the majority of them weren't. The large scale factories were located safely outside of London where they had room to sprawl and test their efforts. But it didn't serve, in Biddie's words, to keep every table too far from the kitchen.
For one thing, Archie reflected, it’d make it that much harder to fetch the dinner guests.
“Powers That Be gutted half the building when they bought the site,” he explained, leading his companion through the first workshop quarter. “That was before the addition got tacked on and the courtyard expanded. By now the old place resembles its origins about as much as a chicken does a potpie--pardon the bit of Yankee. Some of our fellows are imported from the American works. We recruit a lot of good stock there, then bring them over for advanced training and to oversee the greener recruits.”
“As you can see, Lord Allen,” Archie grinned, “MPC is looking to grow.”
“Indeed,” Gabriel replied, trying his best not to gawk at the sheer scope of all of it, and returning Archie’s grin with an appreciative one of his own. “Consider me impressed.”
He’d struck up a conversation with the charming Captain Curtis at the barge party -- he could scent a fellow charmer and a good investment opportunity from a mile away, and as Modern Prometheus was already associated with Una and Cassius, and Curtis both appeared utterly unphased at the party and was a member of the Osiris Club (Gabriel figured he was a witch via the little he could pick up from proximity energies and context - the man wore gloves), there were certain expectations of a common language he could appreciate.
He’d lost out some during the Railway Mania back in ‘40 -- he’d been taken in by rather breathless sales pitches and the sheer excitement and promise of it all. He was now on far firmer footing with his shares of London & North-West, and more cautious as a result. Airships didn’t seem like they were a mere fad now that they’d had a few decades to establish their footing, and while he was still a touch conservative when it came to backing smaller companies as a general principle, the endorsement of the Baroness held some heft, and made him more likely to take notice, as did the interest of Parkinson & Co., his investment firm. Leah was likewise enamored -- she’d gotten to know the charming Captain through their various social contacts, and there was a possibility of a job prospect in the works. And it was damned impressive -- the scope and scale of it all.
“I can admire the Americans,” Gabriel replied. “They have a certain… brash enthusiasm, don’t they? Quite larger than life. And I’d imagine advances in travel and communication only make this sort of collaboration across the Atlantic easier.”
“They also have the largest reserves of helium, the lucky bastards, and they’re about as keen to share as you’d expect,” Archie said cheerfully. “Fortunately for those of us on this side of the water, the Yanks got a step too late into this business to hold the best advantage. Many don’t want to risk the money it takes to develop a model able to compete with what’s already in the air so instead they try to buy out existing companies or buy into partnerships. Not the silliest idea, really.”
He led them through the main floor, the leviathan skeleton of an airship hanging half-finished above them. It gave one a fellow feeling about Jonah’s trip in the whale, Archie always thought.
“My grandmother, who was a thorny devil of a woman, ask anyone, always claimed that this was a people business.” A twinge of humor flickered in Archie’s gut at that; Biddie was certainly a people person--breakfast, lunch, and supper included. “People are the greatest cost difference between an airship and a steamship, people are the key product, and people are the lodestone of our maps.” That same welcoming smile remained industructly bright. Many commanding officers had commented on Captain Curtis’ inclination to grin his way through hell. “We must account for every pound on a ship and that means the people we put up there have to count for every pound. ‘Worth their weight in gold’ is the philosophy.”
If he had both hands intact, he would’ve rubbed them in glee. As it was, Archie settled for gesturing with his full, five-fingered hand at the commotion around them. “If you get into this business purely for the money, you’ll miss the point. You have to have a sincere appreciation for people, Lord Allen, and more importantly you must be willing to admit how much you need them.”
He stopped suddenly and turned to his guest. “I’m sorry but may I call you Gabriel?”
“Oh, it’s plain old Mister Allen until I’ve cleared up a thing or two in France, you know how those court systems are ridiculous,” Gabriel replied with a wave of his hand and a warm grin, “and you may, of course, as long as I may return the favor, Archie. Do you go by Archie?” He looked up at the airship bones, feeling a rush of what might very well be awe, before turning back to the smart Captain Curtis.
“And your grandmother, hm?” Gabriel replied, raising an eyebrow. “I like the notion of a family business,” he said with a nod. That certainly confirmed his theory regarding this company being associated with a coven -- witches could be so delightfully matrilineal, a quality he quite appreciated. “And people… well. I can appreciate that particular frame as well. You might say I have a similar perspective when it comes to my own livelihood, on a few different levels,” he said, with a bit of a chuckle. “How safe is it?” He asked, looking up once more. “Oh, I know you’re fast -- I’ve read up on the prize you’ve offered and have yet to pay -- but I’m struck by the rather unique risks associated with flying through the air -- risks, I’m sure, we’re still discovering the edge of, given it’s all still so very new.”
What should I say if he mentions the crash, he'd asked Biddie. They’d been having dinner together, which was to say that he’d been eating and she’d been drinking though two place setting had been laid out at the table for show’s sake. Biddie had a healthy respect for the ‘right look of a thing’, which was why she eventually agreed to him bringing Lord--Mister Allen--around the shop. But she refused to be enthusiastic about it.
If he's anything so genteel as you insist, Biddie had said sourly, then he won't ask.
He's also savvy, Archie pointed out. Cunning. And frankly what sort of idiot wouldn't think of the subject when dealing with the company?
His godmother’s face, so familiar and habitually pale, dimmed during the conversation. It almost made Archie want to call the matter off, to send Allen an apologetic note and bottle, to--to do anything to avoid putting such a look in his godmother’s expression. But that wouldn’t do. They needed social cachet and Allen was a goldmine. Everybody seemed to like the man, it was uncanny.
And very, very valuable.
“We’re never without risk, of course,” Archie said. “You don’t put a man up 6,000 feet in the air without some worry. God knows we’ve paid the bill for such daring in the past.” The young man’s face turned uncharacteristically sober. “The loss of the Centurion was an especially dear cost. My grandmother never recovered, I fear. But she never considered selling the lot either.”
Archie’s face regained some warmth. “Even though she was forced to leave the business to young soldiers hopelessly in love with the adventure of flying.”
Reaching out, he rested a gloved hand against the curving edge of a tail fin. It was his left hand, the three artificial fingers filling out the black leather stiffly; the augmentation was painfully noticeable when splayed against the metal. When Archie spoke, it was with his gaze fixedly devotedly on the metal. Nobody could’ve doubted at the object of his affection.
“We’re among the best in the business, if I’m being humble. The best, if I’m not. Ironically, that means we’re typically looking for problems--even if we’re not actually having them! The challenges of working in high altitude, the icing potential, the drag limits.” Archie’s smile ticked up in one corner, irresistibly wry. “The struggle of preserving champagne bottles alone keeps me up at night.”
Gabriel leaned closer -- he found those with passion endlessly attractive -- and smiled familiarly. He’d been testing the man some -- he’d given him a graceful out, by talking in the present-tense, but Archie’d addressed the elephant in the room head on with no small skill, and to Gabriel’s satisfaction.
“I tend to trust companies who’ve weathered a few storms, and learned from them, than those who -- please pardon the puns -- have had smooth sailing for their entire tenure. You know how to handle the unexpected -- you already have had a great deal to prove, and I can admire that.”
He laughed a little with Archie’s mention of champagne -- “which brings us back to people, doesn’t it? I think of it quite similarly -- when I make an investment, it’s not necessarily in a company, but the people who’ve put their hearts and souls into it. Your grandmother sounds like an admirable woman,” he said, “and this entire place is such a testament to her vision.”
“A unique woman much missed since her passing,” Archie said. “I myself feel her absence daily."
Or at least I'd bloody well like to, he reflected. Archie would bet his, and Biddie's last coin, that the "unique" woman herself was skulking somewhere in the rear, inspiring polite terror in their newest foreman and being a general wet blanket. Despite being asked to leave this deal to him alone.
He reached out a companionable hand, the good hand, to Allen. "Now then shall we take a gander at something a little more daring?"
Really, he thought, Biddie worried altogether too hard and too much. This was going splendidly.
Which was, of course, the moment the alarm bell blared throughout the building.
Archie was a military man and, despite his early exit from the life, not an untried one. His smile remained friendly. "My apologies, Mr. Allen, it seems our tour is on pause. If you would allow me to show you to an offi--"
A second alarm, louder and sharper, knifed through the air. Archie's smile vanished. This was not the general disturbance alarm, nor even the more serious accident alert. This was the cry that every factory in London, airship or shirtwaist or wool, feared with sincere cause.
Fire.
He pointed brusquely. "Head for the exit there. Do you see it, yes? Good. Go now please. Do not attempt to stop and help anyone on your way. Every man here is trained on what to do, Mr. Allen; you would only get in the way. Go now."
Instructions delivered, Archie turned on his heel and headed through the thick of the crowd--to the rear.
Out of sight in a corner shadowed by a great bulk of an engine, two men watched the young captain hurry away. None of the workers rushing to action paid the pair much attention. If pressed to describe either, they would speak positively, even warmly, for all that both men were new hires.
(Both the foreman and overseer would later struggle to explain why they'd agreed to hire either despite skimpy reference. There was something so likeable about them, especially the taller one with the rich fair hair and liquid dark eyes. His friend was nothing to boast about and yet...and yet he too was likeable when he stood near his handsome friend. There was something about them together, something that gladdened the eye too quickly for the mind to question.)
The taller man said, "Eta on, eta ih capitanchik?" [1]
The shorter nodded. “That’s the one.”
Satisfied, his companion moved after the captain. The man followed, leaving a curious heat shimmer in his wake…
The first thing Gabriel noticed as he made his way to the door (beyond the alarm, of course), was that the building wasn’t reacting the way he’d assumed it would.
If Modern Prometheus was run by a coven, they were extraordinarily lax on their fire suppression charms -- he felt no prickle of wards kicking in, no shift of power and energies as the passive spells activated -- which was deeply curious.
The second thing he noticed was the pair of men walking with purpose towards the fray -- one, the energy coming off him in waves he could practically taste and a heat he could feel, the other, both pretty and likewise scenting the air his partner had around him in a way that was far too familiar.
A demon and a witch -- and based on the heat coming off the latter, up to no good.
Now, Gabriel wasn’t the keeper of every demon in London (and this one was unfamiliar), but he was rather put out at the notion that one of his own was using his charm for, apparently, industrial sabotage -- the sort that was liable to kill or injure God knows how many, for a company Gabriel was intending to invest in.
He swore under his breath, and looked about to arm himself, and follow behind so Captain Curtis wouldn’t be caught outnumbered and unawares -- a handkerchief was soon wetted from a nearby basin of water as a precaution, and a large wrench wrapped in leather seemed the safest bet.
Cliched though it was, the loudest thought in Archie’s head was: this can’t be happening.
Undoubtedly, this was a common refrain for many unfortunates facing a similar situation. Though unfortunate, however, didn’t have the benefit of his godmother’s paranoia and resourced. Unlike the ill-ventilated, high-piled, waterless tinderboxes that passed as warehouses and offices around the likes of Glasgow and London, MPC workshops were notoriously vigilant of accident--especially fire. Most especially fire. The crowding together of workshops and the universal use of gas had justified Biddie’s fear to the point of holy vigilance. Their work sites had some of most progressive and extensive fire measures on either side of the ocean. There was no rational explanation for how a fire could grow--unnoticed--to the point of what was happening around him.
Unless there had been nothing to notice...Archie felt the skin of his back chill despite the lapping heat around him. Men in reinforced leather helmets rushed past him, the long back tails of the helmets flapping behind them. One of them paused--”Come on, Captain!”--and shoved a heavy trench coat in Archie’s arms. He put it on automatically.
He thought, this isn’t an accident.
He thought, the frameworks will go up like kindling.
He thought, Biddie.
Amidst the tangle of fear and love in Archie's chest, his godmother's sardonic seemed to stare up in disapproval. She had not raised him to panic in the face of danger. She had raised him to fight. Archie took a stinging breath of hot, bitter air and reached.
Fire ate the air, but neither was his element. Instead, Archie’s mind sank down into the floor and the ground beneath. They had used as much stone as possible in the reconstruction of the workshop. Biddie had brought him one of the newly molded greenish-yellow bricks when construction began; he’d held it in his hands, both his hands, and felt the dense certainty of the London clay. That clay had been fired and made strong by it.
Archie summoned the memory of that now, the hardening of clay in heat, the strength of the forging. The mental image thickened and ran from mind to neck to spine, spiraling through him and spilling out into the walls. Archie groaned where the walls could not, weighted down with the amplified heft.
A hand touched his shoulder and he felt the human weight of it ring hollow inside him.
“Capt’n?” It was the new foreman--Milles? Miller?--staring at him with a flushed face. “Captain Curtis, are you injured?”
“No,” Archie said. “No, thank you, Milton. Has word been sent to the fire brigade?”
“We’ve put up a cry soon as we could,” the man said. “I don’t know how it got this bad so fast, Captain. We just checked the halls last week; there was no rubbish for the spark.”
Archie shook his head. “Nevermind that now. Get everyone out, Milton.”
“We’ve sent people to their positions--”
“Out, Milton!” Archie roared. The stone in his voice made the command an avalanche. “This is beyond what we trained for. We must evacuate.”
The man’s face struggled with the wish to fight the order. Biddie had trained them all too well--oh, God.
“Mrs. Linden. Milton, is Mrs. Linden in the building?”
The foreman’s face turned redder. “She--she was, sir. Oh, bloody hell, she was. She was in one of the testing ‘shops. Oh, God, we have to--”
“I’ll see to it,” Archie said. “Now, go!”
The man ran one way; Archie, the other.
There were three testing workrooms in the building, but he knew for a fact that two were currently being used for long-term projects. Neither of them offered much in terms of distraction. The third, however, was reserved for newer projects; there was no way his godmother would resist sticking her nose in.
It took him less than ten minutes to reach the rear quarter that housed the ‘shop. Running through the violently hot air with the hulk of the reinforcement spell on his back made the short dash feel likes miles of bad road.
The sight of the workroom’s entrance engulfed in flames didn’t lighten his heart.
“Biddie? Biddie, can you hear me? Biddie!”
Nothing. Had she already gotten out then? If there’d been some notice, if anything had tipped her off--she could’ve headed for the exit. Oh, God, let her have left. But even as he was rejecting the idea (she’d have raised the alarm, she’d have cried havoc, she’d have grabbed me) there came a rough and freakish cry from within the room. It didn’t sound human.
“BIDDIE!”
Gabriel didn’t know his way around the massive structure -- he’d made a guess and took a wrong turn at one point or another in his attempt to follow the duo and prevent them from causing further harm. He could smell the char of things burning, and the smoke was starting to haze in the air as he pressed the wet handkerchief against his nostrils and tried to keep his head low and his breaths shallow, swearing to himself as he tried to regain his sense of where he was, where the men were, where the nearest exit might be.
The sound of a man bellowing in alarm gave him a sharp focus -- close -- around the corner -- and while it had a manic, raw edge to it, it sounded like the Captain, along with another sound he couldn’t quite recognize, and he ran, shoulders hunched, very nearly blindly in that direction.
He turned the corner to a wall of heat -- licking flames -- and Captain Curtis looking grimly anguished and poised to enter the room that was currently ablaze.
There wasn’t time to have a polite conversation, really, not when the sound repeated, and it was clearly a person -- a person trapped in the room before them -- and his heart immediately began to pound.
“How can I help?” He shouted, lowering the handkerchief. “Witch and partner on the premise,” he added, to explain the wrench. He wanted to add Where are your fire suppression wards, for heaven’s sake, you goddamn idiot, but air was in short supply, and there were more pressing matters at hand.
“What the blue blazes are you doing here?” Archie snarled at Allen. He grabbed the man’s arm and tried to shove him away. It was harder than expected; for a beloved man-about-Town, Allen was solidly built.
That, or perhaps maintaining a spell large enough to infuse a building in high-degree heat was taking a toll.
“Get out!” Archie ordered. He shoved again. “I don’t care if you saw Devil himself waltzing through. We’ll deal with it. Allen, you have to--”
There was a groan above and a chunk of beam, one of the lifting supports, crashed near them. How long could the small workroom’s hold out? There were no screams coming from within it now; the silence was damning.
“Right,” Archie decided. He dropped Allen’s arm and began shaking off his heavy trench. “Put this on. I’m going to try pushing back the fire and you’re going to get her out of there.”
He held out of the coat to the man. “Last chance to flee.”
Gabriel might have a certain reputation as a fellow with decidedly varied appetites, and the sorts of activities he got up to during the course of his day could at times veer decidedly into ungentlemanlike territory -- but there were certain codes he held himself to, and for all his instincts of self-preservation, Gabriel Allen was not one to shirk his duties, nor was he one to turn coward when there was a woman trapped in a burning building. He dropped the wrench and shrugged on the jacket, finding it a little unforgiving about the shoulders, but still manageable (and comfortingly weighty), and held the kerchief up to his nostrils, waiting for the other man’s signal.
One of Archie’s mentors had frequently, and without a trace of irony, often said: size doesn’t matter. The man had been a stonemason by trade, a sculptor by inclination, and an Earth mage of particular wit. Flesh, he’d said, can perform superhuman feats routinely. Small creatures have so little mass compared to the area of their muscles that they seem enormously strong. Witches are the same, in a manner of speaking.
The size of your arm has nothing to do with how far you move a mountain.
One hand stretched towards the burning door and eyes resolutely on the brick, Archie pulled the glove off his other hand with his teeth. He needed skin-to-skin for this; his poor human skin against the rough, filthy skin of the earth. He pressed his mangled hand to the floor, the two fingers spread flat against it, and his other arm fully extended. He had to be careful now, strong and careful. Balance the flow of power between what was flowing into the building against the more focused current directed at the workroom. Don’t think about the size of the spell, the height of the fire, the boiling air. Don’t think of what you’d like to do the ones who set this disaster in motion. Don’t think of Allen. Don’t think of Biddie.
There was a pulse of pressure in the air and for a moment the scorching stink of ash and rope was eclipsed by the rich, moist scent of earth. It breathed over them like the pant of a great, leafy animal made of clay, sap, and virgin soil. Archie closed his eyes, inhaled that precious green air--
--and the clay brickwork peeled back from the doorway, rolling open like curtains and carrying the fire away from the made entrance. The workshop stood exposed like a torn hatbox.
Inside, a woman was curled up on the floor.
She could’ve been one of the telegraph girls in her leather-hemmed skirt and practical shirtwaist. The fact that both skirt and shirt were of a material too fine for the young woman being paid a respectable weekly 18s was hard to tell in the glow of the fire. It was even harder considering how badly she’d shredded her sleeves. Her gloves too were shredded; the fingertips poked out from the tears, blistered and damp. The explanation for those injured fingers was in the gashes dug into the stone floor.
“Get. Her. Out.”
Gabriel was already moving in a surge, bending in half to keep below the smoke as much as he might (damn his height), stuffing handkerchief in a sleeve for access, reaching the figure in a few short beats of his heart.
He grabbed her bodily and swung her into his arms, and was struck immediately by her solidity -- she seemed carved of wood, not flesh, and she hung, a dead weight, limbs dangling loosely (decidedly heavier than he would’ve thought, given her slight figure), insensible. It was hard to determine whether she was even still living -- her chest wasn’t moving, but he dug the handkerchief out of his sleeve and held it to her nose as he strode from the room as fast as he could.
Given the choice between getting the lady out of doors and looking after the Captain’s well-being now that they were clear, he had to keep his focus on the lady entirely, and trust Archie knew how to handle himself.
He swore, his lungs burning and his eyes watering, hunched over her too-still form, looking for a glow that would represent daylight instead of fire, a direction the smoke was flowing that might indicate an open door, and moving away from the worst of it.
Having collected his godmother in one piece significantly reassured Archie. To be fair, finding her in anything less than five pieces was usually enough to aid his nerves. He had more than one memory of fetching a limb.
Archie got off his knees with a creak that reverberated deep inside him. The building was holding stiff and whole around them, or more specifically, around him, despite the fire steady and inexhaustible appetite. In one corner he could’ve sworn he saw a line of fire crawl up a steel chain. How long could his own reserves hold out against a supernatural acceleration?
As long as necessary, said the soldier inside him. You hold the line when you must, even if you must do so ‘till you fall.
He stepped forward and waved to Gabe to follow him. The one advantage of feeling his strength pour out of him like sand was that he could feel where the heaviest surge of it went, indicating the more damaged path. That same internal compass would lead them out without being altogether roasted.
Probably.
In truth, they made a bare twenty feet before the trickle Archie was following suddenly swelled into a flood--danger, heat, danger--and Archie lurched back into Allen, arms out wide to summon whatever protective energies in reflexive desperation. That desperate surge of power met against an incoming collapse of masonry and iron, showing away from crushing them.
And neatly blocking off their exit.
At least it’s not on fire, Archie thought muzzily. He half-kneeling, half-fallen on the ground, his arms still up and his nerves rattling from the shock of pulling up the sudden energy. Thank the blessed mercies, that the collapsing weight was mostly of masonry; wood never would’ve “listened” to him.
“‘Noth’r way,” he wheezed to Allen. “We need t’ find ‘noth’r way. T’rn back.”
As if attending to some stage cue, two men stepped out behind them. One short, one tall, both looking queerly familiar to Archie.
“Captain Curtis?” The shorter one moved towards him, dark eyes wide. “Are you alright, sir? Good God, is that Miss Bedelia too? We’ve got to get you out, sir!”
I know them, Archie thought dimly. I know that I know them.
The phantom sensation of grit settled on his nerves, exfoliating the murky familiarity. Witch and partner. Allen said ‘witch and partner.’
“Steady, man,” Gabriel muttered, low enough to reach Curtis’s ear, staring at the pretty one of the pair with an unflinching glare -- an I see you, sonny look despite his stinging eyes and burning lungs.
His own heart was pounding in his ears -- it was bad enough the building was on fire, that his arms were currently laden with an unconscious (possibly dead) woman, and that beyond charm, he had an utter lack of defensive capabilities at his disposal -- he, unlike his undead associates, required breath (remarkably inconvenient at the current moment), and only had a little more strength than the average man.
He could take energy (under specific circumstances - now was not the time to attempt to screw a hostile witch into dust), but couldn’t give it -- not easily -- and he had a lack of free hands, but he managed to twist a little to brush his knuckles against the back of Curtis’s neck, hoping for… well. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for -- but Curtis was the best chance he had of getting out alive, the best weapon he had at his disposal, and the man sounded winded and depleted. At the very least, it might center him some.
There wasn’t any time -- he needed to get her out, and soon -- but the pair was standing directly in the path of the most obvious way to flee, otherwise Gabriel would’ve simply left Curtis to deal with them, and taken the lady to safety.
“Captain?” the short man said. The worry in his tone wavered ever so slightly. Briskly Archie extended his left hand to the man, face turned away in a scrapping cough. Almost reflexively the man stepped forward to take it and pull--
--energy tensed below--
“Ostorojno!”[2]
--and the taller man, the one with the face of a Renaissance angel, hauled the shorter one back just as invisible energy spiked out of Archie’s bad hand like a lance. It tore soundlessly between the two groups, scratching a jagged divide into the floor space between them.
“That,” the short man snarled, shoving out of his partner’s hold, “was damn unfriendly, Captain.”
The acid afterburn of the summoning flooded Archie’s mouth, but he was back on his feet now and willing to kick.
He grinned. “Get the hell off my ground.”
The living painting scowled. “Eto dostatochno. Zajgni ivo i poshli otsuda.” His eyes darted towards to Gabriel and away. “Mne nekto neplotil ubivate brata.” [3]
“A skolkya vam zaplatili za nevinnyye zhizni?” Archie spat in Russian. “Za starikov and zhenshchin?” [4]
“The woman can go,” the handsome devil said. His English was as coarsely accented as Archie’s Russian; the gun in his hands was distinctly more refined. “Your friend can take her. You stay, they go.”
“And then you’ll help me on my way?” Archie said.
“Yeah,” the short man said. His hands began to glow. An amber bead of light--fire, it was bloody damn actual fire--rolled between his fingers like a shiny marble. “We’ll help you out, Captain.”
Gabriel’s Russian was quite poor -- and the circumstances hardly conducive to whatever small skill he did claim -- but he did catch a flash of uncertainty in his brethren's eye as they stood facing one another, and could gather a great deal from context.
He didn’t much relish leaving Curtis to his fate, but there was far too little he could realistically do sans weapon and cum lady -- and the building was on fire. Given the risk Curtis was willing to take originally to rescue her, and that the other two men knew her by name, he assumed she was of some import -- that while it might be less than ideal as far as Archie was concerned, he’d be better off leaving the building with one life saved than stay and risk all three of them.
Archie was in front of him, so he stepped alongside, shooting Archie a quick, apologetic look -- there wasn’t time, he didn’t want to distract him any further, the woman in his arms needed to be taken out, and now, and without a word (words cost breath, which was in short supply), he swung in the direction of the most promising exit, keeping a wary look at the gun as he edged closer to the two men by necessity on his way out.
It was then, right bloody then, that Biddie chose to re-enter consciousness. His godmother’s tousled head made a weak turn from within Allen’s hold to stare back at the Fire mage juggling her greatest fear between his hands like a little boy playing with an apple.
She screamed then, low and sick, a choked mewl of distress that sounded more like the mewl of an injured animal than a frightened woman. Clumsy limbs suddenly found the urge to reshuffle and in the process tumbled out of Allen’s grip. She landed badly, her lovely blond hair--they’d just reattached that scalp last week, Archie thought piteously--a snarled curtain over her horrified face. The figure shook once and fell deathly still.
The whole thing was such a piteous sight that even the arsonist, the bloke who all but outright invited Archie to be murdered, took an instinctive step forward. His partner's gun remained fixed on Archie, preventing him from doing the same.
"Mrs. Linden?" the short man said. "Are you--"
The problem was, Archie thought later, was that he mainly thought of his godmother as strong. It was a hard thing to forget, after all, for anybody who ever had a front row ticket to the display. His very first memory of Biddie was of one thin, gloved hand--coming through a brick wall. It was a hard impression to get over.
There lay the problem; he tended to forget that she was as fast as the devil to boot.
It was the devil's work, that speed, when she rose and went for the arsonist. Archie had the impression of cloth moving, of the visual shock of seeing something horizontal turn suddenly vertical, and then there she was.
And the arsonist wasn't.
Well, not all of him.
There had to be a proper word for the sensation of seeing the primary guardian figure of your childhood pull off a man’s head as if beheading a dandelion. Something in German, maybe. Archie made a note to look it up later. Possibly after a discreet spot of vomiting somewhere private.
A shot cracked the air and Biddie jerked. Three more bullets hit: two in her chest and one in the arm raised to shield her face.
Good aim, Archie thought.
The shooter didn’t seem pleased by his skill. His beautiful eyes were staring at the figure in front of him. Counting the bullet holes, no doubt. They typically did so, as if math would disprove what was happening.
“Vedma,” the man croaked. [5]
“Nyet,” Biddie said. “Koschei.”[6]
Something in that inhumanly lovely face crumpled at the word, a child peeking out at the sound of a familiar fairy tale.
“Nyet,” he said. “Nyet, takovo ne buvaet. Vy toka vedma, toka zhenshchina, takovo ne buvaet. Chudes ne buvaet.”[7]
Archie suspected he would’ve screamed that last bit, but instead the man’s voice stayed remarkably level. He didn’t shout in surprise when the gun was ripped out of his hand, nor when the hand went too, nor when his godmother took the final step closer and opened her mouth.
To be fair, at that point screaming would’ve been tricky; Biddie tended to go for the throat first. Archie allowed himself to close his eyes for the first few bites.
They flew open at the first wet crunch: Allen!
Gabriel Allen was many things.
He claimed to be a gentleman, which wasn’t technically false.
He was also diplomat, of sorts. A person who gathered other people to him, who cultivated his friendships like a master gardener, a demon who depended on his smile and wit.
A father.
A pimp.
A whore, too, although his services weren’t paid for in coin.
He didn’t see any of those things as particularly contradictory.
And while he’d laugh (in the comfort of a familiar leather chair, in a building that wasn’t actively on fire, where the only pistols were ornamentally displayed) about being a lover, not a fighter, when push came to shove, Gabriel was a survivor.
When the woman had twisted like an eel and dropped from his arms, he’d knelt, horrified, attempting to help her, but she’d been off faster than he could blink, and now a headless witch was crumpled on the ground, and another, the one who’d called him brother, was, for the lack of a better term, being eaten.
Now, he froze in his awkward half-crouch, the animal run from the fire part of his brain neatly superseded by for the love of God, don’t be next. If he ran, she’d no doubt catch him -- she’d been unconscious, the only way she’d know he wasn’t a threat was Curtis, who appeared to be at least passing familiar with her nature based on his lack of surprise (other than a bit of a flinch), so rather than looking to the source of the snapping wet sounds, he turned his gaze to Archie as he (very slowly) stood in an attempt to ascertain the lay of the land.
A good meal went a long way in improving a day. True, it’d take a veritable feast to salvage the hell of today but, Biddie reflected, that was no reason to shun good meat. Excellent meat, in fact. She hadn’t had the taste of one of pretty demon-kin in ages; the fragrant lushness of such flesh was unmistakeable.
Unfortunately, she had no time to indulge. The brain would have to do, and even that delicacy Biddie was forced to gulp abruptly. It was a true pity; the part so much better cooked crisp to offset the custard-y quality of its interior.
Though the idea of ‘cooked to a crisp’ wasn’t particularly attractive at the moment…
“Biddie” Archie’s voice. Archie. Archie, and the fire, the danger around them. “Biddie, please. We, we must go.”
Biddie turned to him, chewing, and saw the sorry state of her godson: damply grey, his parched face a testament to energy drain. He was clearly, though thankfully only metaphysically, bleeding into the ground in order to keep the building together.
“Biddie,” Archie said, firmer now that he surer she was listening. “There’s too much fire from where we came now. I can’t smother it enough to let us and Mr. Allen pass safely through.”
Biddie slid her gaze momentarily towards Mr. Allen. Yes, she remembered him now; Archie’s beloved bid for social capital, the one with the ‘lovely reputation’. Her protege had sounded nearly enamored with the man’s potential during his campaign on the man’s behalf.
Biddie swallowed her red, wet mouthful and watched Allen’s face as she did it.
Interesting.
“Biddie,” Archie repeated. “We must get ourselves and Mr. Allen to safety. Now.”
The inclusion of Allen’s name in addition rather as part of the ‘our’ proved that her godson understood where her thoughts were turning. It was unfortunate, really; the boy had so dearly wanted Allen.
Then again, the little fire rat had probably dearly wanted his head to stay attached to his neck.
“Can you walk?” she said. “Both of you?”
Archie had the gall to look affronted at the suggestion that he wouldn’t. Silly boy. Silly, precious boy.
They were to kill him, hissed the fearful rage inside. They burned your work. They threatened your people. They wanted your child dead.
She looked at the wreck of brick and beams blocking their path. “Can you tell if anybody’s on the other side of that?”
Archie shook his head and, after a pause, glanced at Allen.
“I don’t suppose you…” he trailed off. He wasn’t quite sure of what sort of Other Allen was, save that he was no vampire. It wasn’t impossible that the man had some means of witchcraft or werewolf hearing.
The glance Gabriel shot Archie for being included in his assessment was a distinctly grateful one, and as the woman -- Biddie -- regained her senses, he felt the set of his shoulders relax, and he met her look evenly enough.
He’d nodded in response to her query (trying his best to not let his eyes dart down to the mess of red on her chin and cheeks -- he’d spent enough time around vampires to manage that), and at Archie’s question, frowned. “My range is distinctly limited,” he said, shortly. “I cannot say.”
Biddied tilted her head towards the blockage, mouth idly working over the lingering bit of matter in her mouth. She grimaced, and shook her head. All her senses would tell her was: fire!
“We’ll have to chance it,” she said.
“The men,” Archie began. Biddie turned to him, alarmed at leaving a worker immediately behind, but saw that he was staring at the wrecked bodies.
“They can roast,” she said. Archie opened his mouth and shut it, coughing painfully. Mr. Allen, she noticed, was bearing up slightly better. Admittedly, he wasn’t operating under the exhausting disadvantages of using up gobs of power from his reserves.
His range, he’d said.
Yes, this was interesting.
Well, she could deal with three bodies as easily as with two. More importantly, she could deal with them later.
The collapsed mass wasn’t entirely piecemeal which would’ve required digging; instead, it was two massive slabs of the first floor roofing and a wide support beam. If this was an indicator of what the rest of the building was suffering than they’d need to hire an army to clear the place.
All the king’s horses…
Biddie stepped forward.
...and all the king’s men…
Crouching down, she grabbed hold of thick end of the beam.
...won’t dare to stand in my way again!
No need for a bracing inhale or warning 1-2-3. Biddie simply rose and 200 pounds of wrought iron rose with her. The metal groaned against the cracked stone like God’s own teeth breaking as she hauled it free. Released from her grip, it hit the ground like a small earthquake. Biddie stipped off her now well and truly ruined gloves, and put those white hands on the remaining slabs of masonry. The fall of the stone had left it too inconveniently split to move as aside in one stroke as with the beam.
Behind her she could feel rather than hear Archie stepping nearer. That, and he was coughing like a stuffed chimney.
“You’ll ruin your hands,” he wheezed.
“Third pair since July.” Each of them a well-made, handsome pair, too. Her supplies would need to be drastically restocked at this rate. “Blast it.”
She closed her fist and, irrevocably as a boulder rolling downhill, applied dead flesh to lifeless stone.
It took six solid hits to crack the slab enough to make the right opening; after the third strike, she’d had to go for crumbling the stone with all fingers. True to Archie’s prediction, Biddie’s hands were an unlovely picture by the time the opening was made. She was going to be swamped with mending after this adventure. In addition to the hands and the singed skin, she also strongly suspected the second bullet had bounced off her clavicle and that was always a bother to replace.
Blast it all to heck.
The lady seemed a hardy sort, and one perfectly capable of taking care of herself, so Gabriel decided it was the best policy to stand back and let her do her best to get them out of the building alive. He gravitated towards Archie instead, and passed him the still soaking handkerchief, and, after a brief pause, wrapped an arm around the man to keep him on his feet, and keep them both in as small a profile as possible, out of the way of flying masonry (and, it must be told, make himself a touch more indispensable -- he would not be left behind). Archie did look a frightful color, and the cough was troublesome -- unlike the woman before him, who was currently battering her hands to a pulp as she broke through a stone wall, Captain Curtis seemed quite human, and Gabriel was currently intimately aware of his own fragilities after seeing one of his own so thoroughly dispatched in front of him.
The woman’s strength was prodigious -- the energy she was expending was evident from where Gabriel was standing, singed nostril hairs and all -- and despite the initial horror of her awakening, what he felt most at the moment was a blessed relief as she burrowed through the blockage.
Archie’s sense of direction proved true; within minutes they were free of the inferno and out in the hot, but blessed air. Their escape route emptied out into the rightmost courtyard of the building which was used for auxiliary deliveries. It was miraculously empty; out of the fire, Biddie’s hearing redeemed itself by announcing that her people--and the arriving fire brigade--had congregated to the front building in accordance to their training.
Small mercies, she thought thankfully.
“Archie, get to the front.” If her tone had the air of a command, all the better. “You’re needed there.”
“I doubt I’ll be much good to them in this state,” Archie said. He tiredly, and somewhat regretfully, peeled off Allen’s shoulder. “There’s little direction left to be given. It’s the city’s show now.”
“But it won’t be the mayor on tomorrow’s front page,” Biddie said sharply. “I’ll eat my hat--
“What hat?”
“--if there isn’t a Shade yarn-chopper already on the steps,” she continued. "I don't need them getting ideas about what happened here."
"The building is still on fire," Archie pointed out. "That sort of thing is hard to misinterpret."
Biddie narrowed her eyes at him. "Print folk do little else. I need you to take care of them, Archie. I'll see to myself and Mr. Allen in the meantime."
That jolted the young man to sharper attention. "Madam--Biddie, surely we should go together. Two DuBosque heirs will play better than one." His grey faced lit with inspiration, or desperation. "Better yet, why not give them a hero? We could present the heroic tale of mine rescuing you from the flames. Think of how well that would play. Mr. Allen won't mind sharing the glory, considering the perception at stake."
He looked at Allen with a shredded effort at jovial camaraderie. Play along, his eyes begged.
Gabriel was gulping air gratefully, but he was not so insensible to the undercurrent between the two to lose his head (poor choice of words, but it had been a trying day).
He clapped Archie (gently) on the back, and nodded. “I’d be more than happy to vouch for your heroism, Captain Curtis -- bravely seeing your employees safely out, rescuing a…” there was a slight pause, and a flicker of a smile -- a we’re all in this together, aren’t we? expression intended for Biddie as well “...a damsel in distress, I can be effusive enough, certainly, while you play humble, and would far rather the efficiency of your safety measures and leadership be the leading story.”
Biddie felt a familiar twist of exasperation at Archie’s transparent efforts to protect the stranger. He'd been like this with the little witch, too.
"No," she said slowly. "No, I don't think the situation will benefit from the addition of a bedraggled recluse or an overcooked nonpareil. In fact, I think it would be all the better is our presence was completely unnoted. There was nobody in the room with me when the fire started, it'll be easy to encourage the assumption I had departed by then."
"A lot of people noticed me coming with Mr. Allen," Archie said. He glanced at the man. "You are very--notable, sir."
"Archie." There was a world living in that single word: a shared world, yes, but not one of pure democracy. "That's quite enough, young man. You will see to the situation up front."
And I will see to the one here went unsaid.
Archie valiantly held his ground. "I really think we should go together."
Oh, for the love of Heaven and all the little sparrows. "Archie, I have no intention of eating Mr. Allen and burying the bones in my backyard. Now go. Please."
"Swear it," he said automatically.
Biddie raised one reddened hand as if to put it over her face in exasperation then paused, grimacing at the mess of torn knuckles and skin. "He will remain whole and resolutely above ground. Please, Archie. See to your duties."
Mercifully, he went.
(Though not before shaking Allen's hand and thanking him with terrible sincerity. Really, where did the boy pick up these rabbit-hearted tendencies?)
Gabriel swallowed with an audible click as Archie trotted off dutifully, his throat suddenly and excessively dry -- Captain Curtis’s own hesitance in leaving and the need to extract such a promise (and what a promise it was, too) did not necessarily inspire confidence.
There was no point in making a fuss, however, so he turned to the indomitable Mrs Linden and nodded his head, a smile flitting across his face. “Gabriel Allen. I do wish this were under better circumstances,” he said, his throat raw, “and I’d offer to shake hands, but heavens, that looks painful. Thank you for your timely interference -- it was much needed, and I’ve no doubt I’m standing here because of it.”
Just for how long he would be, he wasn’t entirely certain of -- but she had promised, and he clung to that thread with as much hope as he could muster. “Shall we make our way somewhere where you might be properly tended to? I’m sure you know the best way to slip out unnoticed,” he added, keeping his hands loose at his sides and his posture open. He could see that bringing Biddie along to the press conference would’ve raised more questions than not -- she did look a proper ruin (and was still decidedly messy about the face) -- and newspapers liked their rescued damsels to be pale and swooning, with a few artful smudges or tears about the clothing, and Biddie looked… well.
She looked like she’d killed two men, and then dug her way out of a building with her bare hands.
"You’ve very kind to worry. Especially since I can only shudder at what you must think of us, Mr. Allen." Biddie's smile was bone-tired, though rather uncomfortably red at the corners. And the teeth. "After my cousin went to such lengths to invite you no less... Truly I can't begin to apologize."
She sighed and looked at the way Archie had gone. Then she dug out a handkerchief, amazingly uncooked, and dabbed at her dry face. “Do you have children, Mr. Allen?”
“I do,” he said, a little raspily. “A grown son, and a dependent daughter. Captain Curtis knows her. And Mrs Linden…” he shrugged a little. “From where I stand, it was self-defense. Men who would light a warehouse full of people on fire…” his face darkened. “Such men got precisely what they deserved -- and I’m not one to pass judgement on another’s unique nature.”
As long as me and mine aren’t the ones being eaten was implied, of course.
They were generous words, more generous undoubtedly than the situation deserved. So in return Biddie was considerate; she did not hit the man in order to stun him nor wrench his knee to prevent struggling. Instead, Biddie pressed the handkerchief, fully loaded with the unmovable weight of her hand behind it, over his mouth just as she pressed her elbow (also due to be mended, blast it) over the pulse at his throat. He was a big man and strong, but neither mattered very much after the first minute. Biddie held him with the same inescapable certainty with which that an anchor held a ship. She waited.
For Archie’s sake, Biddie waited a little less than true ruthlessness demanded: long enough for Allen to turn motionless, but keep the telltale butterfly flutter at his throat. She set him down gently. She stripped the leather fire-coat off him and put it on. It was a pity that her skirts showed, but MPC employed an uncommon number of women; her leather-hemmed skirt fit the mold. The handkerchief went around her head to hide as much femininity as possible; with some luck, there’d be plenty of such costumes gathering around the building.
Biddie picked up Gabriel Allen, put him over her shoulder, and walked into the streets that, either by chance or brutal disinterest, would not remember seeing them pass.
Footnotes:
[1] Russian: "That him, the [little] captain?" [2] Russian: "Careful!" [3] Russian: "That's enough. Light him up and lets go. Nobody paid me to kill a brother." [4] Russian: "And how much did they pay you for the innocent lives? For the old men and the women?" [5] Russian: "Witch." [6] Russian: "No. Koschei." [7] Russian: "No. No, such things don't exist. You're just a witch, just a woman, such things don't exist."