Malcolm could have shouted his delight at Penny’s brashness even if it was foolhardy. The petite engineer quickly maneuvered behind the stunned Baroness. The villain still had three working arms, and one smacked Penny aside before she could raise her fan once more. Malcolm targeted for a head shot, but the Baroness scurried away like an insect. Malcolm’s bullets raked after her as he raced forward to cover Penny.
“Next time warn me when you’re going to do something so daft.” Malcolm pulled her behind another column.
“That’s one arm down.” Penny rubbed an aching knee. “Now you think you can bloody well shoot her?”
“I bloody well would if I could get past the bloody armor.” He reloaded his pistols.
Penny peered around the column. “Oh look. The Baroness had time to barricade herself behind another pillar.”
“Shut it,” Malcolm groused, leaning out and peppering the area. He pulled back as the Baroness returned fire with a brace of pistols. Stone dust coated them. After the barrage ended, two more of the spiked devices fell nearby. Penny stared at them, and her head twisted to take in the pattern of the others that had encircled them. One of them sparked. Her eyes widened.
“Get out!” She shoved Malcolm hard.
He fell backward outside the ring of stars, and rolled to his feet. In horror, he watched as sparks careened around the devices, creating a large lightning dome with Penny in the center. He stepped forward to help her.
“Don’t touch it!” Penny shouted.
The dome started shrinking around her. Malcolm yelled, “Get out of there!”
“Working on it!” Falling to her knees, Penny shrugged off her rucksack. She pulled out a short copper spike with a green glass ball on top. Jamming the end into a crack in the floor, she scuttled away. She crouched, making her body lower than the top of the staff. The ends of her blond hair began to rise up away from her head.
Malcolm shifted his gaze back and forth from Penny to the Baroness, waiting for an attack. Amazingly, she seemed content to watch Penny attempt to free herself.
Crisscrossing bolts of electricity bled off the lightning dome and into the orb at the top of the spike. The green glass glowed with fel fire. Suddenly the lightning discharged straight up into the air with a loud crack. The cage dissipated and Penny was free. She snatched up her satchel and the copper spike and staggered toward Malcolm.
He caught her and was stunned to see the tips of her hair burning. He brushed a hand over them, snuffing the embers. “Bloody hell! Why weren’t you fried like a chicken in a tempest?”
Penny held up the spike. “Grounded the damn thing. Once I knew that the Baroness had worked with a lightning elemental, I tossed this in my pack.”
Malcolm only wanted to know one thing. “How many other bloody toys does she have?”
Penny arched an eyebrow at him. “Not sure. She’s good. Damnably good.”
He scowled. Engineers. He loved them and cursed them at the same time. “We need to end this fight now.”
“She’s powered by an aether engine. If I can disable it, she’ll just be like any typical four-armed freak.” Penny pulled large pliers from her bag.
“I’ll distract her,” he whispered. “Keep her talking till I get in position.”
“Shouldn’t be hard.”
Penny slapped him hard on the shoulder in a manly sort of way, which earned her a look though she didn’t notice. Her attention was already focused on the target.
“So, Baroness,” Penny shouted into the temple, “I’ve enjoyed seeing some of your little gadgets. But I guess you didn’t have time to prepare any real weapons, huh?”
The Baroness called out, “Your derivative technology is impressive, Miss Carter. Professor Watkins indicated you were an excellent mimic.”
Penny’s face twisted in spite to hear her mentor’s name so casually spoken by that fiend. “Funny. He never mentioned you to me. I guess your research didn’t leave much of an impression at Cambridge.”
“It’s difficult for idiots to understand the level on which I work. The laborer turning the same bolt day after day can hardly grasp the vision of the engineer who designed the machine. Some people are never truly qualified to face their greatest challenge. For example, the time I just spent delaying you has allowed my mechanicals to repair themselves.” The disabled machine-gun arm lifted as if it were brand-new.
“Repair?” Penny grumbled. “How damned smart is she?”
Malcolm dove from behind a distant column, rolling to his feet. He ran, guns blazing. He tried for a headshot. There was little enough target with the Baroness’s blasted helmet, but it would get her attention. The first shot knocked her head to the side, and the second and third brought the whistling whine of escaping steam. Malcolm smirked. Dodge that, you four-armed blighter.