Penny took the glass and stiffened in concentration. “I bet she does ten knots on the Thames. Woe to anyone she passes. They’re about to cast off.”
“Blast it all.” Malcolm got ready to move.
“What about the girls?”
“They’re safer where they are. The driver will take them home in the carriage.”
Penny glanced over her shoulder and grinned broadly. “Then again maybe not. They’re right behind you.”
Malcolm spun about and, sure enough, Imogen and Charlotte were slinking toward them in their affluent attire, causing one or two rivermen to regard them curiously. He stalked back and pulled them down to the crates. “I told you to stay in the coach.”
“That was hours ago,” Charlotte pointed out. “Are those pirates? They look like pirates.”
Penny shoved Charlotte’s head down below the line of crates. “Yes. We’re going to board that vessel.”
Charlotte’s eyes grew wide with anticipation and her voice rose an octave. “We’re going to plunder her!”
Malcolm rolled his eyes. “What books have you been reading?”
“They’re pulling up the gangplank.” Penny whisked the bone-and-steel fan into her hand. Charlotte cooed over how lovely it was.
Green smoke billowed from a singular stovepipe. Two crewmen were using long gaffs to push off. Malcolm raced down the jetty and leapt across the widening gap, legs tight together and lifted to clear the rail of the boat. His black coat flew out behind him. He landed between the crewmen, crashing a fist into the face of one and slamming the butt of his Lancaster into the other. They both went down. Malcolm grabbed one of the poles and hooked the wharf as Charlotte vaulted aboard. A group of sailors paused in surprise when they saw a girl coming at them. They grinned with mad assured glee, until she began to change in front of them under the awning of the wheelhouse. They drew back in horror at the bone-cracking transformation.
Penny helped the awkward Imogen cross the gap, then she turned into the melee, whipping up her fan in almost coy defense. The first man to reach for her received an electric shock with a single tap. He dropped in a wild flail. Penny spun to the next man, striking a glancing blow across his back with the bladed fins of the dainty fan. He dropped as well. When the next sailor came at her with a short axe raised, she bent under the blow like an exotic dancer and thrust out her arm. The fan collapsed with the momentum and its end tapped against the man’s chest with a crack of voltage. He stiffened and flew backward. A crewman thrust at her with a long knife; she straightened, snapping open the fan again, holding it in front of her. The fan caught the blade and closed around it. With a twist of her wrist she sent another electrical charge out along the steel fins to course down the blade and envelop the sailor.
Imogen pulled up her sleeve and the filaments on her arm quivered. With a single flex of a muscle, three needles flew in a wide arc toward three men rushing at Malcolm. Each quill found a mark. The men bore Malcolm to the deck with weapons flashing, but suddenly their raised arms shook. Their eyes held terror as palsied muscles betrayed them. Malcolm slammed his fists into their unprotected chins and laid out all three men on the deck.
Charlotte was in full form now and towered over four cowering men. Her deafening roar sent them scattering. She grabbed one pirate and hurled the screaming man at the backs of those fleeing, bowling them over the rail and into the water. Malcolm swore he heard her laugh.
He launched himself up a ladder to the wheelhouse. No doubt the girls could handle a few remaining roughnecks. He heard more bodies make a splash over the side as proof. Warily, he lifted his head over the last step and the whine of a pistol ball careened near his ear.
Malcolm’s Lancaster boomed over the lip of the stairs, forcing the captain to leap for cover. Malcolm sprang up and kicked into the wheelhouse.
The captain, a square-faced man with dark sharp eyes, twisted and aimed a second pistol. He didn’t have time to fire. The roof above him exploded and a hairy hand reached in. Long clawed fingers encaged the man’s head, lifting him off the deck. Malcolm knocked the pistol from the man’s hand. He grinned up at Charlotte, who clung to the rocking roof, peering in through the hole she had made. The captain gasped and struggled as Charlotte’s grip tightened, sharp claws digging into the soft tissue of his neck.
Malcolm blocked his kicking legs. “Stop squirming or she’ll rip your bloody head clean off. You’ve lost.”
The man went limp. He gurgled something unintelligible. Charlotte released him and he dropped to the wooden deck. Malcolm laid the cold steel of the Lancaster against the back of the captain’s skull. “You’re taking us to Gaios’s new island. Don’t bother pretending you don’t understand. Yes?”
Trembling, the captain stared up at Charlotte. “Yes.”
Chapter 16