*****
They reached Oamaru late on the first day, having thankfully seen very little traffic on the road. Mind you, with the state of it, Eliza was not surprised. Most sensible people took airships these days—and for good reason. She felt as though all her teeth had been in danger of being shaken loose.
At about ten o’clock in the evening they all climbed down, with sore muscles and aching ears, and entered the Valiant Hotel. Light beamed from every window, and a kindly landlady who had kept some bread and cheese for their supper waited on them.
First though, Douglas took charge of the dragging the trunk upstairs to his mother’s room. Eliza had to order a room of her own, since she didn’t dare share one with Douglas in front of Kate. She was brave—but she wasn’t quite that brave.
The journey had definitely exhausted all of them, and with promises of an early start, they headed to their separate accommodations to rest as best they could.
Eliza took a bath in her room, soaking out the aches with a healthy dosing of Epson Salts in the water, but with her pistols nonetheless in close proximity. Loco-motors might be new, exciting and speedy, but one thing were not was comfortable. Damn those rich bastards preventing them taking an airship north.
She dare not soak too long, and far too quickly she got out, dried herself off, and slipped into some clothes Kate had loaned her for the trip. They were of a similar size and height, so it wasn’t as inconvenient as it could have been.
However getting dressed seemed to take the last of Eliza’s energy, and as she sat on her bed, and despite her best efforts, the warmth of the bath and the exhaustion of travel caught up with her. Eliza’s eyes drooped and for a brief moment she dreamed of derry doings, fire, and a man with hazel eyes.
Luckily, she was a very light sleeper. One little bang on her door—more of a scrape than a knock—and Eliza was bolt upright her bed, her pistols in her hands. Carefully, she padded to the door and listened.
Someone was moving outside, footsteps going away from her door and towards Kate. The agent’s hand slipped into her pocket. There she found the aural-defenders.
Something that the delightful Miss Burgess mentioned had stirred Eliza to caution, and she’d been careful to take one item in particular from the Ministry’s agent issued devices.
It was not the first time she or her counterparts had been forced to face mind manipulation devices in their line of work, so the clankertons had come up with some damn fine counter measures—unfortunately there was only one kind that were anywhere near portable to stick in your pocket. She slipped them over the top of her ear and tightened the clamp to hold them in place. They mimicked the shape of the human ear, but were heavy, and dampened her own natural hearing. However they were also only defence against mind control—which she suspected Fish had. After flicking the tiny lever behind her ear, she could immediately hear the whirring of the clockwork, and a faint grinding sound like a music box run amok. It was distracting, but then it was meant to be.
Then, cocking her gun, she levered open her door, and immediately had to step over Douglas. Her training held, so that she didn’t panic.
He was crumpled on the floor, his face pressed to the worn carpet, his eyes closed. Eliza felt for a pulse and was damn relieved to find one. He was down, but not dead. Unfortunately she had no time to stop and revive him.
Kate and the petition were in peril, so it was up to the junior agent to help them. Abandoning stealth, she ran towards the suffragist’s room. The door was swinging slightly. The lock had been kicked in and broken in the frame. Eliza darted a look around the jamb.
“You can come in, Miss Braun,” Henry Smith Fish shouted. “Come in and let’s talk.”
Her glance had told her one thing, Kate was being held in a choke-hold and very close to the cad—any kind of subtly was done with. Smith was behind Kate, one arm around her throat, as they stood backed against the window. Eliza’s eyes darted to the trunk that was pulled out from under the bed, and only feet away from the man who hated it so.
Eliza kept her pistols down, yet did not give them up entirely and stepped into the room. “So let’s make a deal; you let go of Mrs. Sheppard and I don’t shoot you in the head.” She said it in a kindly tone—but meant every word of it.
Smith adjusted the still struggling Kate. Mrs. Sheppard was a martial artist of no little metal, so Smith must have caught her while she slept. So he was living up to his reputation of being a right bastard.
Eliza considered. The shot was a hard one, especially if he moved. “How about instead,” he purred, “you put down the gun and then run out into the street to wait for a carriage to run you over?”
The buzz in the air fairly pulsed against her skin. The aural-defenders rattled and chattered in Eliza’s ears, and thankfully she did not feel the urge to obey him. “I don’t think so,” she hissed back.
His hateful face twisted; horrified that she was not obeying and mystified as to why not. After all her hair was loose and he couldn’t really see her earlobes properly.
Fish’s hand clenched around Kate’s throat, and the bracelet flared bright blue. “Or I could tell the delightful Mrs. Sheppard here to stand up in parliament on Monday and convince everyone this petition is forged.”
The two women shared a look. Kate was wide-eyed, horrified and frightened—no doubt seeing all she worked for in deadly peril. Her jaw tightened, and then she mouthed, “Shoot it!”
It was no easy shot, but the pistols were as accurate as the agent’s aim. Eliza nodded, raised her weapon and obeyed. It was the only thing to do.
Her weapons roared in the tiny room and both of her shots hit home. The brass wiring that held the bracelet together hummed, while the second round shattered some of the glass.
Now the sound was pressing down on them all, like the rumble before the lightning crashed. It seemed to have an actual physical presence.
“The petition!” Kate screamed, twisting away, even as the light grew to blinding strength, destroying all shape and form, and confusing the eye. Eliza had only a moment to make her decision, and she chose to do as asked. She could not let all those women’s efforts come to naught.
Throwing herself forward and down, she dove across the floor, smacking into the trunk, and sliding with it through the wardrobe door.
Behind was a sound that resembled what she imagined a dragon’s roar might have been like. Eliza felt the air get sucked out of her lungs and everything rang as if they were inside a great bell. Behind her in the bedroom proper, she heard Fish and Kate howl together.
Twisting around, Eliza staggered upright back the way she had come, yelling Kate’s name. The carnage she saw there said immediately that the bracelet and Mr. Henry Fish Smith would not be bothering them. Both were in pieces.
Kate lay a short distance off. It looked like at the last moment she’d been able to jerk at least partly free of her attacker—but not quite far enough. Fitful flames were already engulfing the bed and curtains and smoke beginning to fill the room.
Kate’s clothing was torn, and there was blood everywhere coming from a devastating head injury. The suffragist’s eye was gone in a bloody mess.
Eliza’s hands fluttered around the wound not knowing what to do. This couldn’t be happening. Only hours before they’d been joking in the loco-motor, and now she was kneeling in the blood of her heroine, screaming for Douglas.
He came and gathered up his mother, and then everyone was evacuating the hotel. Eliza only had enough sense in her to take the travelling case containing the petition with her. Nothing else seemed to matter.