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‘You forget the Iron Brotherhood,’ Vale interrupted. ‘They have their agents after us too.’
‘Hang on!’ Mrs Jenkins called from the cockpit. The zeppelin lurched again, dragging sideways in a painful, ungainly movement that shook the cabin like a dice cup. Irene and the two men clung to handholds. Lengths of rope that hadn’t been strapped to the walls swung out and flailed in the air, and an unsecured teacup bounced from wall to wall, leaving a trail of cold tea droplets.
‘There he is!’ Vale exclaimed. A man had flown into view. He was strapped into some sort of mobile helicopter unit that whirred its tarnished blades dangerously close to his head, and was wearing an oil-smeared leather helmet and overalls. In one hand he held a heavy pistol, with a cable running from it to something strapped to his lower back. He bobbed in the air, steadying the pistol with his free hand as he tried to line up a shot.
‘Is there some way we can shoot back?’ Kai asked, reverting to smooth competence.
‘Over here.’ Vale leapt into the cockpit and wrenched at a panel above Mrs Jenkins’s head. She ignored him, concentrating on steering the zeppelin. ‘The weapons are kept here on museum vehicles – ah, here they are.’
He pulled out a brace of pistols, tossing one to Kai and another to Irene, who wasn’t too confident about popping off shots at a flying target. ‘Isn’t there anything larger on board?’ she asked. ‘A flare pistol or something?’
Vale spared his attention from smashing a window to give her a sharp look. ‘Really, Miss Winters! A flare pistol on a zeppelin? I thought you were more sensible than that.’
‘It’s not something I’ve ever studied,’ Irene muttered, and decided to keep any other bright ideas to herself for the moment. Kai and Vale were both shooting out of the window and could certainly do so without her assistance. She staggered forward to the cockpit. ‘How much further to the library, Mrs Jenkins?’
‘Almost at it,’ Mrs Jenkins said bluntly, ‘but it’s not going to be a rat’s ass of use, because we can’t land with that maniac out there firing at us. I don’t know what sort of stories you’ve heard about what zeppelins can and can’t do, miss, but I need to hover while someone throws us a line and makes us secure. And that’s what we call, in aviator parlance, a ‘sitting target’. So I hope your friends are good shots, or I’m going to be making altitude and heading north until we lose him. Can’t risk crashing with the streets this busy.’
Vale shouldered over to grab Irene’s arm. Apparently their shots had all gone wide. ‘Miss Winters, can your abilities be of use here?’
Irene shook her head. ‘I can’t affect him or his gear. They can’t hear me.’
Vale stared at her. ‘Hear you?’
‘The Language only works on the universe if the universe can hear it,’ Irene snapped. She was sure that she’d explained this to him earlier. Perhaps she hadn’t. ‘I can affect this zeppelin, but I don’t see what good that would be—’ Vale suddenly snapped his fingers. ‘I do! Mrs Jenkins, bring us in to above the British Library, right now, if you please. And be ready for an abrupt descent.’
‘What are we trying?’ Kai asked, looking round from the window.
‘I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself,’ Mrs Jenkins said. The zeppelin wheeled to the left, throwing them all off balance again. ‘We’re three hundred yards off, coming in at forty-five miles an hour, and the landing roof’s only fifty yards long.’
‘On my word, Miss Winters,’ Vale instructed, ‘tell all the structural components of the zeppelin to increase their weight by fifty per cent. Mrs Jenkins, you are to deploy landing flaps.’ He checked his watch.
Another burst of chittering sounded outside. ‘Damn,’ Mrs Jenkins commented. ‘I hate those things.’
‘Which things?’ Irene asked, frantically trying to remember vocabulary for zeppelin parts.
‘Seed ammunition,’ Mrs Jenkins said, adjusting the organ-stop controls. ‘They chew right through an airbag. Stand by for rapid braking.’
‘Now!’ Vale declared.
‘All zeppelin structure parts, increase your weight by a half again!’ Irene shouted, projecting her voice to ensure it would carry through both cabin and cockpit. She didn’t want half the struts deciding to stay their original weight, making the whole thing break up in mid-air. Imagination could supply too many images, and none of them good.
Mrs Jenkins slammed down half a dozen of the organ stops simultaneously, using her left hand and forearm, and threw herself back in her seat.
The zeppelin shuddered, leather straining and metal creaking, and the whirling motors outside howled in near-human agony. Kai had dropped his gun and was hanging on to the straps with one hand and Irene with the other, and Irene couldn’t complain. Vale had tucked his elbow through a strap and was watching the view through the shattered window with keen curiosity.
They were sinking in the air, dragged down as if someone was hauling the craft’s mooring rope from below, but they were still moving forward. The braking flaps were working, but, Irene thought, maybe not fast enough.
‘Should I make it heavier?’ she shouted at Vale, her voice barely carrying above the howling of the air and the tortured noise of the metal struts.
Vale shook his head in clear negation.
It was at times like this that Irene really wished she believed in prayer. Sudden death was easy to cope with, seeing as you had no time to ponder. But their impending crash and burn over the British Museum was leaving too much time for dread, with an inevitable fiery doom at the end. Every second seemed to stretch out into an eternal moment of panic.
Then the zeppelin settled on solid ground with a thump that threw Irene entirely onto Kai, knocked Mrs Jenkins back in her seat, and made Vale drop his watch. Irene could vaguely hear screams and shouts outside. Hopefully anyone who was standing on the roof had had the sense to run away.
With a muffled curse, Mrs Jenkins started throwing switches. The hum of the motors began to slow, as they shut down one by one. Suddenly the zeppelin was absurdly quiet after all the earlier noise, with only the cabin’s creaks and groans as an eerie backdrop.
‘Thank you,’ Vale said. ‘Excellent piloting. I will be mentioning your conduct to your superior.’
