Beth slapped her own hand over her mouth. A bird was tiptoeing delicately over the dusty floor—a dull brown bird, not much bigger than a magpie, with dainty legs and a small black beak.Vanellus carnivorus, her brain automatically recited.
Rabid flesh-eating lapwing.
It was the most vicious, deadly little bird this side of the Mediterranean. With scant effort it could bring down a grown man and the horse beneath him, and the servants attending him, and their horses too. Almost its entire population had been exterminated, leaving only two specimens in the highest-security aviaries.
And one in this basement.
Suddenly, Beth could not breathe. This was not due to her hand over her mouth; rather, she simply could not remember the process of inhaling air. The lapwing’s claws tapped gently against the floorboards, providing an eerily calm counterpoint to her crashing heartbeat. She and Devon were sitting ducks,with no easy way of escape. As it passed where they crouched behind the shelf, there came a tiny click of fang against beak, and the warm vanilla scent the bird used to attract prey. Instinct urged Beth to follow that scent, to tuck herself into coziness beneath the lapwing’s soft wing. Intelligence managed to restrain her, however, and the lapwing continued farther down the passageway, its lure diminishing as it went. Beth and Devon glanced at each other, exhaling with relief—
The lapwing froze.
It cocked its head.
“Damn!” Devon swore. Grabbing Beth’s arm, he hauled her up with him and pushed her toward the gap in the shelving. “Run!”
Beth did not need telling, but this was probably not the time to complain about it. She squeezed through the narrow space, hoisted her skirts, and without daring to look back began to run. The lapwing clacked its fangs and beat its wings excitedly.Tap-tap-tapwent its claws against the floor, just as they would against her bones.
“Faster!” Devon urged from behind her. Beth refrained from explaining that attempting to outrace certain death while dressed in four pounds of embroidered cotton and lace, a whalebone corset, a linen coat, and several layers of undergarments, not to mention her hat, was no easy task. She kicked aside document boxes that had been stored haphazardly on the floor. Devon pulled old field journals from shelves, flinging them over his shoulder as he ran. The lapwing chattered with delight.
Coming to the chamber door, Beth pushed it open and they rushed through, the lapwing nipping at their heels so closely, they could not shut the door on it. With the deadly scent ofwarm milk on a stormy night swirling around her, Beth lifted her skirts even higher, so that Devon might have seen the entirety of her calves had he been so inclined, and sprinted down a dim corridor. Ascending a flight of stairs that led to a chamber displaying various taxidermied land birds, they found a museum curator singing to himself about nocturnal city adventures as he dusted aStruthio disco, or flat-beaked ostrich.
“There’s a rabid lapwing in the building!” Devon shouted at him. “Evacuate everyone!”
Squeaking in alarm, the curator tossed his duster wildly and fled.
Snap!The lapwing caught the duster in its fanged beak. Feathers and wood splinters exploded everywhere. Devon knocked down the taxidermied ostrich, to little effect: the lapwing tunneled through it in seconds, emerging in a cloud of sawdust. It shook its head and chattered as if it was having marvelous fun and slaughtering them would be the icing on the cake.
Halfway across the room and moving fast—but probably not fast enough, she feared—Beth grabbed a kiwi from a pedestal and threw it, creating one poignant airborne moment for the flightless bird before the lapwing leaped up to snatch it.
Snap!
“This way!” Devon shouted, racing in the same direction the curator had gone. Beth followed, spurred on by the hideous sound of the lapwing gobbling up the taxidermied kiwi. They rounded a corner—
And almost stumbled at the sight of Miss Fotheringham and Miss Fotheringham strolling toward them along a corridor. The tiny, elderly birders were deep in discussion about something that made them giggle like little girls.
“Rabid lapwing!” Devon shouted in warning.
The Fotheringhams looked up with wide eyes, their giggles collapsing into gasps.
“Run!”Devon added, for they seemed rooted to the spot. This advice failed to stir the women, however, and Devon and Beth were forced to veer around them or else die on the altar of good manners. Not looking back, they turned another corner just as the screams began. Stumbling to a halt then, they stared at each other, white-faced.
“We can’t help them,” Devon said. “We’d be killed ourselves.”
“Only a fool would try,” Beth agreed.
Thud!
“Aagghhh!”
“Damn.” Devon’s expression twisted with conflicting emotions. Abruptly, he bent to pull up one trouser leg and draw a knife from the sheath strapped to his calf. Straightening again, he cocked an eyebrow at the sight of Beth holding up her own blade, which she had taken from a skirt pocket. “I thought you were a nice girl,” he said.
She looked him in the eye steadily. “That doesn’t mean I’m weak.”
Devon grinned. “Very well, let’s at least try to injure it, giving us all a chance to escape.”
Taking a deep breath, they turned.
And saw Misses Fotheringham round the corner, lapwing writhing in a sack fashioned from a hat veil.
