The Blood of Athens (18 page)

As
I watched, something seemed to drop from the back of the gondola. It
landed in the alley before I could identify it and exploded in a
cloud of grey smoke. I fell back, my body automatically throwing me
away from the source of danger.

There
was a zipping noise, metal quickly grinding against steel cable. A
cluster of figures appeared in the smoke, and I could see bodies
moving through the cloud in the direction of Mercy Winmer. Her scream
was cut off by a fit of choking coughs. One of the figures in the
smoke turned and looked at me, and I could see that his face was
covered by a long, black mask with great glass eyes. I had seen
drawings of similar apparatuses in the journals my father subscribed
to; it was a gas mask.

I
sprang to my feet as fast as I could and ran back into the cloud,
untucking my ascot from the front of my vest and holding it over my
nose to filter some of the smoke. A ladder had dropped down from the
dirigible and one of the men was pulling Mercy Winmer, now
unconscious, towards it. I grabbed for her, but a third figure
stepped out of the thick smoke and struck me with something hard. The
object hit me just above my eyebrow and the sharp blow stunned me.

The
ladder began to rise up evenly, as if pulled by a mechanical crank.
It was out of reach by the time I recovered from the blow, so I
grabbed the ladder to the fire-escape and began to climb frantically.
I could hear Benjy behind me, calling my name, but his voice had
receded to the background. Quickly, I scaled the fire-escape and made
my way to the top of the roof. I rose above the cloud of slowly
dissipating smoke. From the roof of the theater, I was almost level
with the gondola. The door was open and someone was reaching out to
help the kidnappers haul Miss Winmer inside.

The
man in charge-- I assume this because he was dressed in a finely
embroidered tailcoat that indicated that he likely had too much money
to answer to anyone-- took Mercy Winmer by the arm. He was a handsome
older man with thick, pepper-gray hair and a small, neatly-kept
mustache. He wore a white silk opera scarf and a red fez. A
machine-rolled cigarette hung out of the corner of his mouth, its
smoke mixing with the fog rising up from the alley below. He looked
at me, his cold, black eyes locking with my own blue ones, and I was
stricken by a sense of familiarity. I had met this man before. He
smiled and turned back to his business, as if I was a mere observer
and clearly no threat to his plot.

I
ran. I ran straight up to the edge of the roof and jumped, reaching
for the ladder. They would have to knock me off or kill me to stop
me. My jump fell short and I grasped desperately, trying to grab
something to hold on to. The rich man had a leather tube hanging from
a strap around his shoulder, and I managed to grab it. I fell and
held on tight. He desperately grabbed the ladder so that I would not
pull him down with me. I hung there for a moment, an almost
immeasurable instant, before the leather strap stretched and snapped.

Still
gripping the tube, I plummeted towards the ground. My fall was broken
by the awning over the theater door. It, too, broke and in seconds I
was on the ground. I strained to breathe. My side burned. A striped
piece of canvas covered my face. It was a moment before I could think
to move, to free myself from the broken awning. When I uncovered my
own face, Benjy was standing over me in a thin fog and the airship
was rising up into the sky. They had gotten away.

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