Sleipnir gave a tiny growl and slipped her arms around Theo’s neck. “Now that’s the brilliantly sparky beast I ran off with!”
Theo swept her up in his arms and cackled softly, “Care to assist me?”
Sleipnir gazed up at him through half lidded eyes. “Oooh. Yes, master.”
Moloch’s overly loud throat-clearing barely registered. “We’re just gonna leave. And . . . and go tell the others how to get down here.” He began backing away. “And we’re gonna do it really slowly.”
Zeetha nodded. “Yeah, and, um, we’re going to go with them.”
Higgs glanced down and noted the heat coming off the couple before him had spontaneously ignited his pipe. “And then we’d better go look for the Lady Heterodyne.”
Krosp waved a paw. “Eh. Too much running around. I’ll just wait here.” Two seconds later, he had been forcibly hauled out of the room by the collar of his coat. “What is your problem,” he groused as the party trudged back up the stairs. “Haven’t you ever watched that sort of thing? It’s hilarious!”
Privately, Zeetha had to agree with him. “Everybody deserves a bit of privacy.”
Krosp shrugged. “Whatever.”
Moloch stomped upwards, shaking his head. “Sparks,” he muttered. “They’re crazy, the lot of them.”
Beside him, Fräulein Snaug glanced at him coyly. “I think it’s romantic.”
He glanced at her with a touch of concern. “You’ve been hanging around sparks too much.”
“Oh, come now, Herr von Zinzer. Have you no romance in your soul?”
A look of mild regret passed briefly through the man’s eyes, then he shrugged. “Dunno. Never had a chance to find out.”
Hexalina looked skeptical. “No! A dashing fellow like yourself?”
Moloch snorted. “The word you want isn’t ‘dashing,’ it’s ‘fleeing.’”
“Oh, but surely there’s some girl somewhere who’s caught your eye?”
“Well . . . ”
Hexalina was astonished at the feelings that swept over her at this. “Yes?” she prodded.
Moloch concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, but his face slowly went red. “Well, I do kinda like Sanaa.”
Snaug stopped dead. “Sanaa? Sanaa Wilhelm?”
Moloch nodded. “I knew you’d know her, she’s been in here longer than me.” He glanced at the look on Snaug’s face and gave a self-deprecating shrug. “I know. Crazy ain’t it?”
“She will die,” Snaug whispered.
Moloch blinked. “What was that?”
Snaug grinned maniacally and gave him a jaunty “thumbs up.” “I said, ‘never say die!’ You know? Good luck?” Her canines glinted in the light.
Moloch smiled. “Thanks.” Some vague feeling urged him to change the subject. “So how is it—working with Mittelmind?”
Snaug blinked. “Oh, he’s very supportive of my needs.”
“Yeah? That’s good.”
Snaug glanced down at her hands. The hands that would never be truly clean . . . “I wouldn’t call it good—”
At that moment there was a scream and a brilliant actinic flare from the room directly before them—the room where they had left the three scientists.
With a blur and a gust of displaced air, Zeetha and Higgs shot ahead. They paused in the doorway just long enough to see the scientists sprawled about and Zola furiously clutching at a smoking hand. She gave an animal snarl and, without hesitation, dove into the great shaft melted into the floor.
As she dropped, she produced her grappling gun and fired it upwards, catching a protruding beam. With a jerk, she swung herself to the side, released, and gracefully rolled into a pile of crumbling old furniture on a lower floor, then sprang to her feet and headed into the shadows.
Seconds later, Zeetha followed. She had leapt from floor to floor in a tightly controlled acrobatic fall. As she stood, she heard a cracking thump and spun to see Airman Higgs straightening up from a small impact crater. She smiled. His positioning made it look as if the airshipman had simply leapt down from several stories—her smile faltered. How had he—
“Where did she go?”
Zeetha’s thoughts were derailed and she pointed to the dusty floor where footprints could be seen. “That way.” But all too quickly, the trail disappeared. The two stood back-to-back and scrutinized the shadowy room. It was large and full of nooks and crannies. At least seven empty doorways led from it. Zeetha’s shoulders slumped. “I think we lost her.”
Higgs was peering up at a crenellated ledge that encircled the room. He pulled his pipe from his pocket and stuck it, unlit, into his mouth. “Think you’re right,” he sighed. Moving silently, while still speaking conversationally, he began looking under tables and behind tapestries. “I don’t know what she was doing upstairs, but I doubt she’ll be back.”
Zeetha kicked over a suspiciously fallen chair and studied where it had lain. “Probably, but that doesn’t help. While she’s alive, Agatha’s in danger.” With a shrug, she slid her swords back into their scabbards. “I’m going after her.” She looked Higgs in the face. “I . . . can’t order you to come with, but I’d like it if you did.”
Higgs looked at her and moved his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other. He nodded. “It seems like she’s out to get young Wulfenbach, too, so I don’t think he’ll mind.” He gave her arm a brief pat. “Let’s ship out.”
Back upstairs, the two minions and Krosp were cautiously peering around the doorway. The room was in shambles, although, Moloch had to admit, with three sparks working this was a perfectly normal state of affairs. Even so, there were signs that things had gotten out of hand.
Several racks of equipment had been overturned, and it appeared that most of the electronic components were smoking. A thick smell of charred insulation and ozone filled the room. Little helper clanks were lying about everywhere, inert.
“Doctor!” Fräulein Snaug called out. “Doctor?”
A groan caught Moloch’s attention and he dashed over to a heap of parts and rags that stirred, revealing itself to be Professor Mezzasalma. Moloch knelt beside him and fished a small flask of moonshine out of his apron. A sip and the professor coughed and opened his eyes. “Ah, von Zinzer.” He shuddered and his metal legs flexed. “Help me up, my boy.” Again his legs spasmed. Mezzasalma swore. “That electromagnetic pulse has shorted out my legs.” He waved towards a bench, but Moloch had already fetched a toolbox. The professor grunted in thanks and used a screwdriver to pry open an access panel in the control module.
“What happened?”
The professor was wrenching free a row of fuses. His movements slowed as he remembered. “We . . . yes, we were working, and suddenly—” fury filled his face “—that’s right! And that blasted adventuress, the one claiming to be the Heterodyne! She popped up out of nowhere, waving a great huge marshmallow gun!11 She killed Diaz—”
“Wait . . . with a marshmallow gun?”
“She clubbed him to death with it.”