Kai shouted something in a Chinese dialect that Irene didn’t recognize, perhaps a battle cry or a curse, and leapt into the fight. He impaled one alligator, closing its jaws with a single sabre thrust just before the creature could bite into a waiter.
Irene sidled further along the table, and tried to think of a plan. The alligators weren’t showing any interest in the piles of spilled food that littered the floor. And while she wasn’t an expert on reptilian psychology, animals would normally go for an abundance of convenient meals rather than armed dinner guests. Whether in the grip of a feeding frenzy or not. So maybe the buzzing metal things bolted onto their heads were controlling their behaviour – a theory that seemed borne out from observation of Vale’s former aggressor.
The alligator which had been de-metal-objected by Vale had retreated, and was currently wandering around in a dazed way. That was promising. If they could de-weaponize all the alligators, then they’d have . . . well, they’d have a mob of normal alligators. Which wasn’t much, but it would be something. Especially as neither Fae magic nor the Language use was working. Bradamant, however . . .
Irene sprinted along her table, skirts in hand. Bradamant was a table and an alligator-infested stretch of floor away. The table wasn’t a problem. The chunk of floor was – and there were people dying out there.
She just didn’t have time to think about that. It was clear to her left. Clear to her right.
‘Stay up here!’ an elderly gentleman sputtered behind her. ‘Dash it, girl, don’t go committing suicide! Wait just a minute and the police will be here – ’
No. She couldn’t wait. She tried to rationalize why, as really all the screaming, shooting and sounds of ripping flesh were irrelevant to her mission to get the book – to her duty as a Librarian. She could just stay put. But as she tried to shut out all the unimportant noises, she found herself already acting. She swung away from the man and dropped onto the floor, running for the other table.
A man was lying under it, tumbled across a fold of fallen white cloth. He was bleeding freely, which meant that he was still alive.
Irene pulled herself up onto the table, vaguely conscious that her skirt was fouled with blood and salmon. ‘Bradamant!’ she called, pitching her voice to carry above the noise.
‘Yes?’ Bradamant came stalking down the table, brushing aside other men and women by sheer force of personality. Her hair was still perfect, and her gown was only stained at the very edges. ‘I hope you have something useful to say.’
Irene forced down her hostility. ‘I do. I have an idea, but I’m having problems with the Language. I need your help.’
For a moment she wondered if Bradamant was going to put conditions on that help, but the other woman barely hesitated. ‘What do you have in mind?’
Irene pointed up at the chandelier – the elegant, huge, electric-lit chandelier. ‘The things on the alligators’ heads are specific and discrete. Use the Language to call electricity down into them. Even if it doesn’t kill them, it’ll wreck their control systems.’
Bradamant turned her head to follow Irene’s gesture. ‘It might also kill some of the guests if they’re in contact,’ she said neutrally.
Irene hadn’t thought of that. It only took a moment to imagine Vale or Kai with their blades in an alligator. ‘So be precise in your language!’ she snapped. ‘Or do you want me to find the vocabulary for you?’
Bradamant sniffed. ‘I don’t think that I will need your help for that endeavour.’ Her tone suggested Irene’s total incompetence would render any assistance worthless.
Irene should have let her get on with it, but a sudden thought struck her. ‘When did you come through from the Library?’
‘We have no time for this discussion,’ Bradamant declared. ‘Stand back and let me work.’
Irene stepped back and scanned the crowd as Bradamant prepared. Silver was easiest to spot. He’d found an ornate pike and was busy impaling an alligator with it, gullet to tail. Vale and Kai were back to back, surrounded by half a dozen alligators. No one else was being targeted so heavily. She couldn’t recall anything from Dominic Aubrey’s notes about the Iron Brotherhood. They were fairly obviously anti-Fae, what with shoeing their alligators with cold iron and staging the attack here and now. But she wouldn’t have thought that made them anti-Vale. Quite the opposite, really: Vale clearly had no particular liking for the Fae, and his attendance here was adversarial rather than friendly towards Silver. Were the alligators being somehow specifically directed? Or were they simply attacking those people who offered the most resistance?