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"Oh, Alexia, you idiot!" The burglary at Woolsey! Mada those old inal invitation from Countess Nadasdy to visit the hive It had been delivered to her by Mabel Dair in Hyde Park the afternoon after Alexia killed her first vampire It contained the address of the hive house, and Alexia had foolishly never thought to destroy it When did I tell Genevieve that story?
Lady Maccon cast desperately about the empty street She had to reach the Westminster Hive, and fast Never before had she resented the infant-inconvenience more than at this moment, not to mention her dependence on horse-drawn transport She even had an invitation that would get her in the door, but no way to get there in time to warn them of iravia!
She waddled faster
The fire was spreading and whooshing behind her The once-dilow The din of collapsing buildings and roaring fla fire engine One of the dirigibles ed the appropriate authorities If anything, thisshe needed was to be detained trying to explain her presence at the Pantechnicon It also reible
Sure enough, there were several headed sedately in her direction, having caught sight of the fire and redirected their lazy circling toward an intriguing new attraction They were safely above the conflagration, not yet in the aether but high enough to avoid any risk associated with even the round fires
Lady Maccon waved her parasol coly and yelled, but she was a mere speck far below, unless so-distance binoculars Since her e, Alexia had adopted a more respectable and somber color palette than that of the pastel-inclined unattached young lady Thisshadows of Motcomb Street
It was then that Alexia noticed that the Giffard sy of the name that turned the G into a massive red and black balloon) on a nearby warehouse was modified with a kind of starburst pattern at its end and a phrase underneath that read PYROTECHNIC DIVISION LTD She stopped, turned on her heel, and headed for a nearby lamppost With barely a pause for consideration, she hauled off, took careful aim, and threw her parasol hard at the torch section The parasol, spearlike, crashed into the laround with a clang
Lady Maccon huffed her way over to the coals, retrieved her now-slightly-scorched and sooty accessory by its tip, and, holding it like a mallet, used the chubby handle to hit one particularly nice-looking coal along the street toward the Giffard pyrotechnic warehouse It was a excellent thing, reflected Alexia at that juncture, that she was good at croquet At a nice distance, she took careful aie of coal hard It arced splendidly upward, crashing through theof the warehouse in a , slow counts, hoping the coal hadreliably explosive
It had A popping, cracking noise ca sounds, and finally a series of loud gunshots The doors and s of the warehouse exploded outward, pushing Alexia backward Instinctively, she popped open her parasol to shield herself as the world around her turned into a shts and loud noises The entire stockpile of what she iunpowder display sparkles and sky-lighters exploded, shi series of flares
Lady Maccon cowered in the road--there was really no other way of putting it--behind her open parasol, trusting in the durability of Madan to protect her fro detonations slowed, and she began to register the heat of the real fire as it crept down Motcohed and waved her parasol The ht hosts were collected around her
Alexia, eyes watering, blinked and tried to take shallow, steady breaths Then, through the dispersing smoke, a massive upside-down shepherdess-style bonnet appeared, hovering so toward her As the sible bobbed into view above the bonnet, proving that it was, in fact, not a hat at all but the gondola portion of the air conveyance The pilot, soated the s it carefully between the rows of buildings while battling to keep it away fro Pantechnicon
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Octopus Stalks at Moonlight
It was Giffard’s senerally hired only for classified recognizance or personal pleasure jaunting The gondola portion, evena shepherdess’s hat upon close inspection, was big enough for only five people The inal balloon It had four dragonfly-like wing rudders, sprouting below the passenger section There was a sine and propeller at the back, but the captain had to steer byhim perform a frantic dance In usefulness, it resees so favored by the criminally minded Giffard had come out with a whole fleet recently, at luxury prices, so the affluent could invest in private air transport Alexia found thenified, not the least because there was no door One had to actually claine that, fully grown adults cla Pantechnicon and a ra octomaton, one really couldn’t afford to be picky
Two of the figures inside the hat leaned over the edge, pointing at her
"Yoo-hoo!" yodeled one of theentle her parasol entle was possible with a hat tied down for air travel) "Lady Maccon"
"By George, Boots! How the deuce can you possibly tell that there is Lady Maccon?" queried the other top-hated gentle in theruddy fire behind her, waving a parasol about?"
"Good point, good point"
"Lady Maccon," came the yell "Would you like a lift?"
"Mr Bootbottle-Fipps," said Alexia in exasperation, "ask a silly question???"