Sky Pirates (26 page)

“What are we going to do?” she muttered to herself, stumbling into the hold.

“Balloon,” Dashwood mumbled.

Elle spotted a wicker safety basket still in its launch bracket. This was, she realized, the very same life raft that Dashwood had intended to use to jettison her and Gertrude in the desert.

“Come on, Captain,” she said and hauled him into the basket.

“No … must stay on the ship …” he mumbled.

She ignored him and started unclipping the balloon, hooking it up to the valve that fed off one of the helium chambers that held the
Inanna
aloft. She heard the gas flow into the balloon with a soft hiss.

The sound of gunfire was now very close, although she wasn’t sure why they were firing. Presumably more pirates had boarded the ship and were facing the storm riders.

However that might be, she did not have time to wait for the balloon to fill completely. The ride down would be bumpy, but it would have to do. Elle hopped into the basket alongside Dashwood and pulled the release catch. The escape chute shuddered and slid forward, tipping the basket out of the ship, the balloon inflating behind them as they moved.

“Stop … must stay on the ship … I’m the captain …” Dashwood put up his arm in an ineffective attempt to climb out of the basket. His movements made the wicker wobble dangerously to the side.

“Stay still or you’ll kill us both,” Elle said curtly.

She heard a clang of metal overhead, but there was no time to wonder about it. With a final shudder, the escape balloon slid loose and they were in the air. The half-filled
balloon above them wobbled and dipped as it took the weight of the basket.

Elle held on to the basket to stop them from tipping out; they were drifting downward and sideways at a speed that—though not quite lethal—was fast enough to be alarming.

Suddenly the basket shuddered as something hauled itself over the edge. Elle let out a scream as one of the Aeternae fell into the basket next to her.

It was hideous. Dressed only in a coarse tunic and trousers fashioned from animal skins, its long black hair tied in greasy braids hung over its shoulders and down its back. From its forehead were numerous saw-like bone protrusions that resembled blades. Elle stared into its yellow catlike pupils in horror.

The creature hissed at her, baring its sharp teeth while at the same time drawing a long, vicious-looking blade from a scabbard on its leg. This then was one of the legendary man-beasts who had attacked and killed Alexander the Great’s men all those years ago.

She had just enough time to unclip and draw her Colt before the storm rider sprang on her. She pulled the trigger right as the blade came down, the shot ringing loudly in her ears and making her wince. The Aeternae gasped and slumped forward, pegging the knife into the basket beside her head. Elle gasped in shock and quickly wriggled her way out from underneath the creature, wanting to get away from it as fast as was possible. It smelled of decay and when she looked closely at it, she saw that its hair was crawling with lice.

Shuddering, Elle freed herself from the corpse and moved to look over the edge of the basket. Their descent had increased. With a third body on board the basket was too heavy and they would surely die if they hit the ground at this speed.

Biting back her supreme disgust, Elle grabbed hold of
the storm rider’s dead body and hoisted it up onto the edge of the basket. It was time to lose some ballast. She took a deep breath and heaved it over the side. The body tumbled downward into the sea of green below.

The reduction in weight slowed their descent a little, but it was not enough to keep them airborne. Elle looked up and spotted the tear in the balloon above her. She closed her eyes and reached out for the barrier, but there was nothing. Crashing the
Inanna
into the divide must have done something to it, because there was no energy or golden light to be found as she cast around desperately for anything that might stop their fall. She let out a wail of despair as she watched the treetops of the jungle growing bigger.

“Captain, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about everything. And thank you. Not for stealing my ship, but for making me part of a crew again,” she said.

Then she closed her eyes and braced herself.

This is how I am going to die. Here, alone in the middle of nowhere. And I am never going to see Hugh again
, she thought, as the basket clipped the first treetop and bounced off it.

They were plowing into the canopy. The impact of the basket hitting the dense foliage knocked Elle’s head back against the side of the basket. The basket tilted in a whirr of greenery and sky. The last thing she remembered was grabbing hold of the edge of the basket as they skidded down. Elle was lurched forward. She felt her vision blur and then everything around her went dark.

The end, it seemed, was now.

The hound had been walking for many days now, prowling the long, golden corridor that formed the barrier between Shadow and Light. On and on he walked, ever searching for a way out. Every now and then, he would catch a whiff of her scent. It would hang in the air for a few moments and before he could catch it, it would dissipate, leaving him growling and pacing up and down in a state of perpetual fury.

He shook his heads and let out a long growl of frustration. His quarry was starting to make him very angry. He never let his prey put up that much of a fight. He was supposed to be the hunter and it was against the natural order of things for him to be trapped here while she skipped around the skies, free and unhurt. The hunt-lust that was building up inside him threatened to drive all reason from his brain, and he was tempted to give in to the red haze that would send him into a frenzy and spell death to anyone—or anything—unlucky enough to encounter him. But he resisted. He had a task to fulfill and he would not stop until it was done.

The hound stopped and sniffed the air. He could feel a strange pressure building up around him. He sank down on his haunches, ears flat, nostrils flared. Something was about to happen. He could feel a sudden shift in time and space. It resonated deep inside his bones.

The air around him started humming and his ears
filled with the most awful high-pitched noise. It was the sound of the very fabric of the universe ripping.

The hound ducked as a massive shockwave surged through the barrier.

He felt himself catapulted through the air. Everything around him was blindingly bright, and then suddenly he was in the realm of Light, falling, tumbling down to the ground as the air rushed by. The ground grew closer, and then he found himself crashing through treetops. Painful branches slapped at his faces and ribs. Then branches made way for the huge leaves of the upper undergrowth. Over and over he tumbled, bouncing off the foliage, his legs tangling through vines, before the greenery gave way to a steep slope. He hit the ground, the angle of the slope inflicting only one glancing blow. Over and over he rolled until he landed with an almighty splash into a river.

The hound started paddling as fast as he could, but white water boiled up around him and his paws scrabbled against slimy rocks without any hope of purchase. Round and round he spun as the current dragged him along. He gasped and swallowed water and then, without any warning, the riverbed gave way below him as he tumbled over the precipice of a waterfall. He slowly arched through the air, suspended in the spray for a few seconds, before crashing into a deep pool below. He kicked and paddled as hard as he could, fighting for the precious air he needed to survive in this realm, until finally the river, having grown bored with him, spat him out.

Bedraggled and weak, the hound dragged himself up onto the riverbank where he collapsed onto the damp ground. He retched the water from his lungs until both of his throats felt raw. Exhausted, he rested his heads on his paws, closed his eyes and lay there for a long time, panting for breath. He was battered and bruised. Every
inch of him ached and his lungs felt as if they had been stripped raw inside, but at least he was alive.

Slowly the shadows of the undergrowth unfurled and spread across the ground toward him. He inhaled the power of the trees and the plants around him and slowly his broken bones mended and his torn muscles healed. The dog lifted his heads off his paws and peered into the undergrowth.

Around him, the jungle grew silent as small creatures watched fearfully from their hiding places. Sunlight dappled the jungle floor in front of his paws.

A huge spider crept past and wiggled its mandibles at him before retreating into the bark of a fallen log.

He was alive. Yes, he was alive and he could still hunt.

He took a deep breath and drew the humid air through his nostrils. There it was—the faint smell of freesias and engine oil—drifting to him on the almost still breeze. Every nerve stood on end and he felt himself quiver with excitement.

She
was here. He could feel her presence deep within him.

Slowly the hound rose. He shook himself off, urging the last of the river out of his thick, black fur. Then, noses to the ground, he started moving through the undergrowth.

The hunt was on again, and this time his prey would know no escape.

Patrice sat up in bed and clutched at the breast of his silk pajamas. The source of his sudden—and rather inelegant—awakening was a fierce, white-hot pain that tore through his chest.

Gasping in agony, he rolled over and turned on the spark lamp next to his bed. Light filled the room and he fell back against the down pillows. He lay there, staring up at the silk canopy of his bed, eyes wide, and waited
for the moment that would surely be his last. But it did not come, and as he lay there, the pain slowly ebbed until he could manage to sit up and ring the bell pull.

Something was very wrong. He had not felt like this since his descent into darkness.

“You rang, sir?” A bleary-eyed Mr. Chunk stumbled into his room, still buttoning up his jacket.

“Mr. Chunk, a terrible malady has come over me this night.” Patrice ran his palm over his chest, where the scars that
La Dame Blanche
had left still lay. “I feared that this night would be my last.”

Mr. Chunk’s eyebrows knitted together with worry. “Shall I fetch the doctor?” he asked.

“No-no.” Patrice shook his head. “This is not something that can be cured with ordinary medicine.”

“Sir?” Mr. Chunk looked confounded.

“Help me downstairs.” Patrice struggled out of bed and, leaning heavily on Mr. Chunk, he stumbled downstairs to the library.

“Please, light the fire. I am so very cold,” Patrice mumbled.

Patrice stumbled over to the panel that would open the secret entrance to behind the bookcase and pushed the lever. With a gentle rumble, his private sanctum opened up. He had recently had this secret chamber redecorated. What was once old and cobweb-lined was now exquisite, filled with all manner of secret texts and artifacts that had once belonged to the man from whom he had inherited all his wealth. In the middle of the sanctum was a circle, inlaid in fine mosaic.

The symbols in the mosaic glowed as he stumbled into the middle and sank to his knees. Carefully Patrice stretched his arms out and closed his eyes, willing himself into the golden light that separated the two realms.

Nothing happened. He tried again, this time willing himself into the space where he knew the barrier should
lie, but around him was no light. The barrier hung around him in dark, ragged tatters.

What has happened? he wondered as he watched a cluster of wood sprites slip across into the realm of Light, each carrying a rabbit skin with which to disguise themselves once they reached the other side.

One of them stopped for a second and looked at him. “Quick! Get in there before they close it again,” he said, before scampering off after his friends.

Someone has damaged the barrier, Patrice realized with growing dismay.

And if there was no barrier, there was no need for warlocks.

He watched a pair of nains clatter over the divide. Evil little dwarves; part of the satyr family, with hooves instead of feet. Their high-pitched giggles disappeared into the night.

This needed to be fixed and quickly, by the looks of things. And as Grand Master of the brotherhood sworn to be the guardians of the barrier, it looked like it was a task that would fall to him.

Patrice lifted his arms and reached into the depths of his power. Slowly he started chanting the dark words that brought forth the aether. The ground started to tremble. Artifacts and chandeliers rattled, and suddenly a burst of energy surged up. It strummed and throbbed as it gushed along the remnants of the old barrier, filling in the gaps and repairing the rips. Patrice let his sight extend across the length of the barrier. He could almost feel every snag and flaw, as the energy he was exuding glided into place. But then he felt the barrier hit something large and very solid. A giant battleship, crammed into the space between the two realms.

He let the resistance give and a new wave of power surged up and spliced the ship in half. The ship exploded
in midair and remnants of fuselage scattered into both worlds.

His strength gave out and his legs buckled underneath him as he sank to the floor. He felt his palms press against the cool mosaic beneath him and he fought to steady himself. For a few long moments, all he could hear were his deep breaths, filling his lungs with much-needed air. Then laughter started to bubble up inside him. He threw his head back in triumph as he felt the energy of the barrier surge within.

“Oh, Eleanor, you are priceless,” he said, once his laughing fit had abated. It did not take much mental agility to figure out that she had tried to move something too large for her abilities through the divide. “An airship, of all things? What were you thinking, you stupid, stupid girl?”

The impact of the dirigible must have shortcut the system that held the barrier in place, and with it the whole thing had collapsed. Luckily it was only a temporary collapse, thanks to him. Patrice sat back and smiled. It was a most fortuitous turn of events. And what an opportunity it was—for now it was the Shadow Master’s power that maintained the barrier between Shadow and Light.