Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

can’t use the gassy—gassicky—“ Maggie stopped.
    “Gaseous capsaicin devices,” Claire finished. “It does not seem so. Our plan, then?”
    Jake snorted in a most ungentlemanly fashion. “Lady, you’re the mort wi’ the gun. Ent no one gonna argue wi’ you. Take out the watch wi’ one shot and after that the place is ours.”
    Claire felt her jaw slacken with horror, and firmed both it and her resolution. “We shall not. There will be no murder.”
    “What d’ye call Lightning Luke’s situation, then?” Tigg wanted to know.
    “As I’ve already explained, that was an accident. And since Mr. Jake is a ‘dab hand’ at such things, I suggest he take care of the watch.”
    Jake put a hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “What sort o’ gun was it?”
    “One o’ them many-chambered ones that go round and round.”
    Snouts made a sound of disbelief. “Them ones wot were invented by that nasty Gatling bloke? If that’s true, no one’s getting in that way. We’ll have to do for the river door.”
    “And what’s to prevent him shooting us no matter what door we use?” Claire had not wanted to come on this fool’s errand, but she was not about to be held up at the gates if the inside of Luke’s house was as snug as the outside. What if there was food? And a basin to wash in?
    And to what depths had she sunk when the merest possibility of such amenities would make her contemplate violence?
    “Enough. We shall announce our presence like civilized people, show them Luke’s body, and the house will be ours. Isn’t that what you said, Mr. McTavish?”
    Snouts hesitated. “It might be a tad more dodgy than that, Lady.”
    “Why?”
    “What’s to stop ’em from just shooting us fer killin’ their boss?”
    It took Claire a full ten seconds to reel in her temper and exhaustion and to curtail the urge to slap him. “Why did you not bring up this possibility before?”
    “’Cause maybe you wouldn’t have come?”
    Claire turned her back on him and marched along the wall in the direction of the river. Behind her, a muffled conversation broke out, and then silence. When she risked a glance back, she could see nothing but two small shadows and a larger one against the deeper dark of the stone wall. Why the presence of two ten-year-old ragamuffins and a boy of twelve should make her confidence rise was more than she could explain. Still, if a person was going to march up to an armed establishment with a pathetic plan, it was comforting to know she was not alone. And just to be prudent, she flipped the lever on the lightning rifle. Its hum and the accompanying vibration in her hands was comfort of a different sort.
    It felt good to be in command of something. Electrick power was nothing to sneeze at. She had no intention of hurting anyone, but she would not be treated like a nonentity again.
    She peered around the corner of the wall and found the Mopsies’ reconnaissance report to be accurate. On a verandah above the door, a deadly looking example of one of Mr. Gatling’s guns stood mounted on a swivel. Behind it lounged an individual who clearly did not expect to be challenged.
    “Ho! You there!” she called.
    In the light from the window behind him, she saw him jump and swing his feet down from the rail. Leaping to battle position, he commanded, “State yer errand.”
    “My errand is to require your unconditional surrender.” The lightning rifle had begun to sound like it meant business.
    “Sez who?”
    “Sez the Lady of Devices, ’oo shot down Lightning Luke wiv ’is own gun,” came Jake’s voice from behind her. “Show yer hands and come down.”
    In answer, the guard grasped something in the back of his weapon, and the multiple bores swung to face them. “I’ll show ye more’n my hands, you pitiful lot.”
    Claire’s instincts for self-preservation had not been honed by her previous life, but in that moment she discovered they were alive and well in her current one. She swung the lightning rifle to bear on the sullen barrels of the gun above her, and pulled the trigger.
    The bolt sizzled wide and fried the railing two feet to the guard’s left. While he shouted, she corrected its trajectory and fired again. This time the bolt swallowed the Gatling piece in its lethal blue light, the tiny wriggling currents of power seizing it and stopping its action. The cartridges in the magazine began to explode like Chinese fireworks. Claire and Jake grabbed the Mopsies and flung themselves