Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

smoke.
    Hmph. And where were the women holding positions in The Cudgel’s hierarchy? Her opinion of his leadership dropped even lower.
    The wailing of the fire engines in the distance told her she must be succinct.
    “Mr. Bonaventure!” she called, stepping into full view in the middle of the street. She had dressed carefully in raiding rig for the occasion, in a practical black skirt that could be rucked up by means of internal tapes should she have to run or climb. She had dispensed with a hat for the evening, choosing instead to simply leave her driving goggles sitting in front of her piled hair, a gauzy scarf wound over it and around her neck. A leather corselet contained a number of hooks and clasps for equipment, and instead of her trusty rucksack, which Jake was wearing, she now wore a leather harness with a spine holster specially made to the contours of the lightning rifle she had taken from Lightning Luke Jackson three weeks ago. She was pleased to see that her lacy blouse remained pristine white, despite the half-hour spent huddled behind the wall.
    She slid the rifle from its holster over her shoulder and held it loosely, her index finger hovering over the power switch.
    In ones and twos, the small crowd of smoked criminals realized what she held—and therefore, who she was. Slowly, they backed against the wall, leaving The Cudgel exposed to her aim.
    Hmph. So much for honor among thieves.
    The Cudgel eyed her. “I know you. Wot business you got ’ere?”
    The sirens sounded closer. They would be crossing the Southwark Bridge over the Thames even now. “Just this,” she said, enunciating crisply so that there would be no misunderstanding. “Last night your men set upon four of my friends returning from the gaming halls, and took everything they had. This is a warning to you that I do not tolerate abuse of my friends or the fruit of their honest labor.”
    “Izzat so,” he drawled. “Can’t say as I know wot yer babbling on.”
    She hefted the rifle and pushed the power switch. “I suggest you apply your limited intellect to it.”
    His head thrust forward like that of an angry bulldog whose bone has just been ripped from its teeth. “I say you go back to your needlepoint like a good little girl and think about wot I’m goin’ to do to you for—”
    The gun hummed happily, its pitch and frequency announcing that it was ready for work. Claire’s index finger now rested on the trigger.
    “If I hear that you have stepped foot in Vauxhall, with or without evil intent, your own yellow belly will be the last thing you ever see.”
    Yellow belly? Goodness. That was a line straight out of one of the melodramatic flickers she and Emilie had been addicted to centuries ago—two months ago—when she had been a green girl.
    “I’d say you owe me, then, girlie—”
    “You may address me as the Lady.”
    He started across the street. “And you must address this . Creeper! Hiram! Hold her down.” He fumbled with the buttons on his trousers, while Claire stared in astonishment. Really. With the fire engines nearly upon them and his house burning to cinders as they spoke, he thought he could threaten her by means of his disgusting person?
    Creeper and Hiram, whoever they were, did not, in fact, hold her down. However, two shadows detached from the main body of the huddle and slipped away down the alley at the corner of the wall. Snouts, Jake, and Tigg formed an immovable mass at her back.
    Claire sighed. “Really, Mr. Bonaventure. You should not, as my mother often told me, use a pin when a needle is called for. Particularly so dull and short a pin.”
    She pulled the trigger and a bolt of lightning shot across the street, singeing him neatly between the legs and burning the inner seams of his canvas trousers clean away.
    The Cudgel screamed and leaped back six feet, the scent of burning flesh overlaid on the smoke that filled the air. Hysterical, no doubt in pain at least equal to that he had hoped to inflict upon her, he capered and screeched so that Claire could hardly distinguish between him and the sirens of the engines as they roared up the cobbled street.
    “Billy Bolt!” With the signal to scatter, her friends slipped into the shadows with her before anyone in authority could say they’d been there.
    Snouts waited until they were nearly back in their own neighborhood before he said, “Been gettin’ a little target practice in, I see. It’ll look like ’e got burnt by the fire and