The duke dove and flattened himself against the rails, protected in part by the very mechanical that had just fired.
One of the cannonballs had gone wide—since the ship was bobbing and swaying so much—and hit the pilot’s bubble. It exploded into a gout of blue flame and orange sparks a few seconds later.
One of the soldier mechanicals across the deck had been hit by friendly fire. It, too, exploded into flames.
Below them, the hallways were flooded with gas. With the massive cannonball holes, it was only a matter of time before a spark set everything off.
The bully boy let go of Sophronia. Too injured from the blast, he fell back.
The duke was occupied trying not to fall off the ship. The Chutney had collapsed to his knees and was bleeding profusely from a shredded side. The other bully boy—Sophronia swallowed bile—had been lying right about where one of the cannons landed.
Monique twirled out of the Chutney’s reach and in a graceful movement crouched down. Unslinging the carpetbag from her back, she pulled out two square packs. They looked like wrapped foot warmers, only with reticule tops, and each had two straps.
She tossed one to Sophronia, who caught it with both hands, dropping her fan in the process.
“Parachute.” Monique’s smile was feral. “Latest design out of Paris. Put it on like so.” She donned hers with the two straps around her arms and the boxy part over her back, reticule mouth up. “Jump over, and when you’re well clear of the ship, pull the ribbon there. Should deploy like a great big parasol.”
“It should?”
“They haven’t been tested yet.”
“Wonderful.”
“You have a better idea? I know you want to be all noble and go down with the school, but Sophronia, who will be left in the world for me to dislike as much as you?”
“Why, Monique, I didn’t know you cared.” Sophronia tried hard to get the parachute on over her bad shoulder.
Monique gave her a look. Then she climbed over the bleeding Chutney, kicking him in the face hard with her burgundy leather boot, leapt over the railing, and with a tremendous heave, shot herself forward into the air. She’d need to clear the other decks as she fell.
Sophronia scrambled to see if she made it.
But the duke was on her, his hands around her throat. “Give me that parachute, young lady.”
The Chutney struggled to his feet, nose bloodied by Monique’s heel. He heard those words and then he, too, closed in, eyes desperately fixed on Sophronia’s back.
One thing at a time, thought Sophronia. She heaved hard, trying to shake the duke from her throat. She’d dropped her fan. She hadn’t any more explosives. Her nails scored at the duke’s wrist.
He was yelling and punctuating each word with a shake. “You. Are. Not. Permitted. To. Marry. My. Son!”
If Sophronia hadn’t been struggling to breathe, she would have disabused him of the notion. The very idea!
Then the Chutney was on her as well.
The men were fighting her but also fighting each other.
“It’s my parachute,” yelled the duke.
“Come now, Golborne.” The Chutney sounded cool and reasonable. “I outrank you. Think of the good of the Picklemen. By rights the chute belongs to me.” He shoved at the duke’s face with one hand while with his other he tried to rip the pack from Sophronia’s back.
The ship lurched.
Any moment now, thought Sophronia, the gas below us will ignite. She had no idea how fierce an explosion that would be, or how it might affect the decks above and below. But now that Monique had provided her a means to escape, she actually wanted to live.
Her original plan had been to run to the midship and ride out the crash there, it being the least damaged part of the school. The whole point was that they crash down on the belly of that section, on top of the hold full of mechanimals, destroying their ability to function, but keeping them in one place for the authorities to find as proof of the Pickleman plot.
But right now, the parachute felt like a much better idea.
Sophronia twisted around and got a look up into the sky, or rather down toward the ground. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it certainly looked like the lights were getting closer. They were falling faster than they had been.
Then there came an animal scream. Like nothing Sophronia had ever heard before, human but not. Not werewolf, either.
Something hit the Chutney full force and landed atop him, carrying him backward.
Professor Braithwope’s lips were stretched wide, his fangs impossibly long. His mouth seemed to split his head in two—a black maw slashed with sharp pointed death. Above it the mustache was all spiky menace.
The Chutney screamed, “You can’t! You can’t! We haven’t been introduced!” But the vampire was beyond introductions. He bit down on the man’s fat neck and began to suck.