He had only the briefest moment to frown in confusion before she extracted herself from the inadequately knotted rope. With two quick, efficient strikes against his neck and jaw, she rendered him neatly unconscious. He toppled back with a thump, his mustache reverberating.
Shucking off the rope, Alice got to her feet. “I’d utter a pithy witticism,” she said, “but I have a city to save.” (Besides, she could not think of one.) Brushing ceiling dust from her shoulders and skirt, she turned to evaluate the situation.
“Bother.”
It took only one glance to ascertain that matters were dire indeed. Dust and cobwebs had fallen everywhere. The sofa was ruined. Coilsof rope, gunpowder packets, and other accoutrements of maniacal vengeance lay scattered about the floor. Worse, the tea supplies had tumbled from their bench during the cottage’s unstable takeoff. It was going to take hours to get the place tidy again.
Not to mention that her fingersburnedwith stickiness from the lingering tape residue.
Oh yes, there was also the fact of a whopping great bomb in the middle of the room.
“Someone was overcompensating, I think,” Alice muttered, casting a grim look at Snodgrass’s sprawled figure before turning to consider the view from the flight window.
Farmland stretched beneath her, dotted with houses. The horizon offered nothing more than a luminous haze—but Alice knew London lay beyond, and she frowned.
There existed now no danger to the city’s population. She would ultimately do whatever necessary to save civilian lives, even if that meant crashing the cottage into an empty field. But she was reluctant to die just as she’d secured Daniel Bixby’s affections.
At the thought, her wedding ring seemed to tighten around her finger. She adjusted it abstractedly. Where was he? Did he fear her kidnapped? Or was he even now sending a telegram to A.U.N.T. headquarters, reporting her as delinquent?
No. She shook her head in denial of that possibility. She knew that he’d know she’d never leave him, and also knew he’d know that she knew it. (She paused, checked back through that sentence, then nodded to herself in agreement.) Daniel would absolutely come for her!
After all, Regulation 23 required it of him.
However, there was no time to wait for rescue. Rolling up the sleeves of her bodice, she marched across to the wooden crate and tried pushing it toward the front door.
She met with immediate success!
But only if her goal had been to strain several muscles in her back, get a splinter in one finger, and not move the crate even half an inch.
“Confound it,” she muttered. Then taking a determined breath, she applied her posterior to the edge, set her legs at an angle, and pushed with greater force.
This time she got further!
Insofar as she strained all the muscles in her legs as well as her back.
Opening the crate’s lid, she scowled down at the bomb. She saw clearly now what she’d not noticed before: incantation phrases scratched into the metal casing. She smelled the dynamite. Peering closer, she even readThe Big Banger™along its length. Several buttons, switches, and red and black wires offered false hope—for she understood the explosive was bound in the magic of the incantation, and no amount of button pressing or wire cutting would disarm it.
She turned back to the scientist, resolved to rouse him and make whatever threats necessary for him to reveal the defusing process. Her view of him, however, was blocked by his fist propelling toward her at speed.
Even as Alice’s brain strove to process what it was seeing, her body reacted. She ducked, and as Snodgrass punched the empty air, she slipped around behind and shoved him hard. He tipped forward into the open crate, and Alice slammed the lid on his back.
“What!” he screamed.
Alice lifted the lid once more, intending to heave the man’s entire body in with his bomb, but he took her by surprise, kicking at her legs. As she stumbled, he hauled himself up and came at her, fingers hooked like claws, face contorted with rage. He began attacking her in such an undisciplined manner, Alice could not respond sensibly. They wrestled across the room. Alice twisted his arm, Snodgrass ripped her bodice, Alice punched him in the midriff, Snodgrass shouted an old Latin word.
The cottage door flung open in response. Cold wind screamed into the room, snatching at Alice’s hair, chilling her blood. The building rocked wildly as its stability magic was overcome. Snodgrass’s emergency parachute hat tumbled out. Snodgrass himself, bug-eyed, cackling with what must surely now be described as professional lunacy, shoved Alice in the same direction.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a vast, bright emptiness, and realized she had only moments left to live. A “privacy of glorious light” would soon be hers. The irony of her brain quoting Wordsworth at this juncture invigorated her. Bending at the waist, she shoved her shoulders against Snodgrass’s torso and rose with as much force as she could summon. The scientist flipped over her head and—uttering a high, squealing cry ofI say!—fell right out the door. Alice slammed it shut behind him.
And tossing back her hair, she said pithily, “It seems your fancy has taken flight, Doctor.”
The cottage shuddered as if in laughter at her excellent wit. Alice felt rather smug for a moment. Then she recollected she was still in mortal peril, and ran to the wheel. It spun back and forth in magical defiance of gravity, and Alice grabbed the spokes, dragging it with teeth-clenching effort back to a centered course. But the wood trembled in her grip, and she knew she would not be able to hold it for long. The magic was too awry, the threads of stabilization loosened by wind. She tried desperately to recall the incantation, but all she could think waswillows whiten, in a habit of self-defense that would kill her if she did not break it in the next few minutes.
Then a shadow filled the flight window. Looking up, Alice stared uncomprehending as Dr. Snodgrass came into view, grinning at her like a madman.
24
one small step—sky high—daniel loses control— charms and forearms—the suffering of women— alice commits a heinous crime— our heroes are threatened with torture
