I don’t know what I plan to do. Lung at him and just make a wild grab for it? Go in swinging and take out as many as I can? Burst in and hold them at knife point? None of these are good choices,  all of these plans have wide open holes. It’s simple fact that there are only three of us and there are loads of them. They probably have pistols in their coats too. Why had I thought this was a good idea?

Because I was angry, that’s why. I was pissed off and there was nothing anyone could do to stop me. Only…all it would take is one bullet. Gus is leaning forward, hissing something in my ear, but I’m not paying attention to him. My eyes are glued to the man leaning against the back wall. Something about him draws my eyes. The careful way he looks around himself, the way he’s relaxed…but not. Like he’s ready to spring into action at any moment. It only takes a few years on the street until you recognize coppers on site. Even if they’re under cover you know them. There are signs.

Are the police in on this too? Are they corrupt? I put one hand up to hush Gus, because the man leaning on the back wall is moving. He’s reaching into his jacket, he’s nodding at someone.

“No way,” I hiss, and Gus says, “What? What?”

The three of us watch in astonishment as the man springs from the wall, yanking a pistol from his coat. There’s chaos suddenly. A woman, one of the maids, is screaming. A blast of gunfire makes me clamp my hands over my ears. I’m grinning though. I can’t believe our luck.

“What’s happening?” Ellie shouts.

I turn, and they both look shocked at the happiness on my face, “A raid! This is perfect, come on!”

I spring up from the staircase, hearing Gus and Ellie both shout at me as I bolt forward. I dart into the crowd, knocking over a startled man in the midst of pulling his pistol from his waistcoat. I don’t know which are coppers and which are the betting men, and frankly I don’t give a toss. I only want one thing now.

A pistol goes off close to my ear and I flinch back, hollow ringing blasting through my skull. My hearing is shot on one side now. It doesn’t matter. I shove past two men grappling with one another. There’s a third man, the one who’d been leaning on the wall, waving his pistol around shouting, “police, police!”

My target, the betting man in charge, has slumped out of his chair. He’s holding his leg, groaning. A thick, dark patch of liquid is spreading out over his trouser legs. He’s been shot. He leans forward and the jewel falls out of his shirt, swinging on the silver chain. My heart gallops, and I dart forward and barrel into him, swinging the knife wildly, gripping it more like a club then a dagger. The pommel connects with his head with a crack that vibrates up my arm, and he slumps backwards onto the floor, hands flung out limply at his sides.

I duck as more gunfire explodes behind me. Someone is roaring, “Get down! Get down! This is a raid!”

No shit, lad!  I think they’ve figured that one out by now.

I reach for the jewel eagerly, a shock of excitement running through me all the way down to my toes as my fingers wrap around the thin silver chain. Boots thump over the floorboards, the noise heading straight for me. I yank on the chain, one hard tug, and the links break. It’s mine. The jewel is mine.

“Let go!” someone is yelling frantically, “don’t touch that!”

I whirl around, grabbing the jewel in one fist. The copper is standing in the middle of the room, his jaw hanging open like a freshly caught mackerel gasping for air, one hand is pressed over his stomach. All around him men lie bleeding. One of them is groaning and rocking from side to side on the ground, blood pooling around his arm. There’s only one man left standing. His fellow coppers are on the ground too, I can’t tell who’s who.

He staggers forward, shaking his head, “You can’t…you shouldn’t…” when he falls forward he catches himself with one hand, knees hitting the floor with a hollow thunk. Fat droplets of blood make tiny “thock, thock, thock” noises as they splatter onto the ground in the silence.  I glance over to see Gus and Ellie peering over the staircase at me, eyes wide.

“Listen…” the copper crawls forward, dragging himself towards me, and I grimace and step forward, unsure. Will he try to arrest me? He doesn’t look like he’s in any condition to do so. I glance up when there’s a thump and a shuffle in the kitchen, but it’s just one of the maids hiding behind the table, eyes wide with fear.

“You’re…an…anti-Mage…” the copper gasps out, he beckons me forward with one hand, letting go of his stomach as he does so. The blood that drenches his waistcoat doesn’t look good for him. There’s too much and it’s spreading too fast. I step even closer and crouch down beside him, the jewel still clenched tightly in my hand.

“A what?”

“Anti-Mage,” he gasps out, “cancel out magic. Shouldn’t be able…to touch that,” he gestures at my closed fist, at the jewel inside, and then turns his head, gasping at the pain that small movement causes him. He fixes his eyes on Gus and Ellie, “don’t…let them touch it.”

“I don’t get it,” I uncurl my fingers and stare down at the black jewel, “it’s just…jewelry.”

“No,” his voice is full of pain, but there’s something in his eyes, determination driven by panic, “it’s a carrier. If…anyone touches it. Plague...” He lets out a shuddering breath, “I was…supposed to get it. Didn’t plan on getting shot,” he gives me a weak smile.

“So you’re…an anti-Mage or whatever.”

He nods, and catches my wrist in one shaky hand, “get it to Bristol. Find the woman…Josephine Rosedale. Sorceress…” he stutters to a halt, face crumpling in pain, “Won’t be long now.” His eyes snap open, urgent, his grip –strong for a dying man – tightens on my wrist, “don’t trust anyone. Not police…”

I’m shaking my head. I want to back away but he’s holding me fast, “I’m a street girl…” I protest, “not some kind of secret government agent…I can’t…”

“You’ve got to,” he gasps out, “world is going to…burn. Desert…ship will come. Go fast.”

Then his eyes flutter shut. His grip on my wrist relaxes and he sags backwards. Panic jolts through me, and I poke him in the shoulder, “hey, you can’t! Get up…hey come on….you can have it back!” I drop the jewel and it clatters over the floor, throwing up rainbows of light that dance on the ceiling, “I can’t do this…”

I shoot to my feet, turning so abruptly I almost collide with Gus, who’s standing behind me, “I can’t. I don’t want to get involved in whatever this is.”

Gus frowns at me, “you were pretty eager to get your hands on it earlier.”

I stare down at the jewel on the floor, the black diamond looking radiant against the dull brown boards. What if it’s not true? It would be stupid to leave this behind. It must be worth hundreds of pounds, thousands even. But why would a dying copper make up a story like that? What was his motivation?

Slowly I reach down and grasp the chain gingerly, the jewel swings heavily back and forth, light reflecting off its surface.

“Well, are we going to Bristol then?” Ellie comes up behind Gus, her face is slightly green as she scans the room.

“No…” I scoff, “it’s all a load of tosh,” I tuck the jewel in my pocket, and glance up sharply as the man I stole the jewel from shifts and moans, “but we are getting out of here, let’s go. “

“Where?” Gus says sharply, but he still follows me as I move towards the stairs.

“Back down the mountain,” I say, “we’ll figure something out.”

“Perhaps we should tell the other people down there that there’s no more competition,” Ellie says, “I mean, they haven’t got to kill one another anymore.”

“They never had to,” I mutter.

It takes us ages to get back down the mountain. We travel in silence for the most part, and the words of the dying man keep replaying themselves over and over in my head. In my pocket the jewel feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. There would be an easy way to find out if he was telling the truth. Get one of the others to touch it. I glance over and Gus and Ellie, and my gut twists at the idea. Then I shake my head at the thought. Obviously it isn’t real anyways. It’s just a jewel, that’s all. They could touch it and they’d be perfectly fine. I wasn’t an anti-Mage, or whatever it was he’d said. That’s ridiculous. I think I would know if there was something weird about me.

But, a little voice in my head chimes in, you’ve never had anyone try any magic on you, have you? So you could be…whatever that is. You just wouldn’t have known it.

I tell the little voice to shut the hell up, thank you very much, and concentrate on how much my feet hurt and how scraped and raw my palms are from grabbing the tree branches that keep me from tumbling down the mountainside. Finally, after what seems like hours we make it to the bottom. The sun is just starting to creep it’s way down towards the flat plains of sand, sending out a glow of orange over the landscape, making it look like the desert sands are on fire. The three of us finally stand at the bottom, still in the shelter of the trees, staring out at the expense of nothing. Reluctant to leave the shelter of the scraggly forest, hands on our hips, feet aching.

Finally Ellie says what we’re all thinking, “So…what now?”

I shake my head. It’s like I somehow thought I would know what to do as soon as we’d hiked up to the compound and I’d exacted my revenge. Now it was obvious that I was just really, really stupid. How did killing everyone solve everything? Nothing had changed. There hadn’t been any sort of hovercraft vehicle or steam carriage. They had obviously come and gone on an airship, and there was no damn airship. Maybe it wouldn’t come for days.

I finger the jewel in my pocket, trace the perfect facets of the tear drop shape. What good was this to me? I couldn’t eat it. It couldn’t provide shelter for us, and it was no good as a weapon. I pull my hand out of my pocket and finger the knife in my belt instead. At least I have something.

Ellie’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, “look!”

Gus and I both look up, tipping our heads back to look at the orange sky above us. I spot what she’s pointing at right away. It’s just a blip in the sky right now, but it’s growing steadily larger, and flying low to the ground.

An airship.

Instantly the dying copper’s words spring to mind, words I’d thought were nonsense. The garbled ravings of a man come undone.

Desert. Ship will come…go fast.

“Go!” I yell, and launch myself forward, out of the cover of the trees. My feet sink into the sand instantly, nearly tripping me up, slowing me down, “this is our only chance!”

I hear Gus and Ellie behind me, feet kicking up sand, breathing hard as we all go from standing still to flat out running in seconds. My heart is beating so hard, drumming in my ears. I throw myself into the run, full out sprinting, torso leaning forward, legs pumping. Ignoring my feet and my calf muscles as they scream at me.

This is our only chance of survival. Our only chance to make it.

I want to turn and explain to Gus and Ellie that I know this ship can save us. That the dying man told me a ship was coming, and that this must be his ship, that it must be landing, or at least throwing down a rope. This has to be it. This is a way out. It has to be. He had to have an exit after he’d completed his mission, and this is it.

But I can’t turn and tell them that. I can only try to catch my breath as I run, golden sand spraying up beneath my boots, the air tearing in and out of my lungs in ragged gasps. But they must trust me, or they’re excited by the sight of the ship, because they’re both following me. They’re both keeping pace.

We’re getting close to the middle of the desert, and the ship is getting larger and larger as it comes closer. I can make it out more clearly now. It’s nothing like the ship we came on. That was all shiny metal and burnished steel, looking too heavy to really float. No, this ship is different. It’s all wood and tarnished brass. Held together by rusted nails and plenty of prayer. The torpedo shaped balloon on the top is bright red, and there’s a small black flag flying from the top of it, which I can’t quite make out.

We keep running, my breath is getting shorter, sharper in my throat. I’m not going to be able to run much longer. When I glance over my shoulder I see that Ellie has dropped behind a little ways, and I scream at her, “faster!”

The airship is so much closer now, and it’s closing the distance steadily. Finally it’s close enough so that I spot the rope ladder it’s dragging behind it and my heart leaps in excitement. I want to dance and cheer, but there’s not time. And I don’t have the breath to tell Gus and Ellie, so I merely point at it. I know Gus see’s it when he gives a triumphant shout. When I look at Ellie she’s not looking at the rope ladder though, she’s looking higher. I turn and look up.

The flag's close enough now, so that I can make out what it is. A grinning white skull on a black background. The jolly Roger.

They’re pirates.

The ship is almost on top of us now, it’s massive shadow falls over us, and my hair is swept back in a gush of hot, steam filled air. The thunder of the engines nearly drowns out our voices, but I hear Ellie shout,

“Pirates!” She waves her hands, shakes her head frantically.

“We have no choice,” I shout back, and dart forward, catching the dragging rope ladder. It’s rough and coarse in my hands. Nothing has ever felt so good.

“No!” Ellie shouts, and her eyes are wide with fear, “better the devil you do know then the devil you don’t!”

Gus, who’s facing away from both of us, turns around to look at her, and his face is pale, “I’m going to have to disagree with you on that one.”

When I turn my head my stomach plummets. There’s a ridgeback charging over the sand towards us, long snout to the ground, tail in the air. The wind carries guttural grunts of excitement.

It’s hunting us.

“Climb!” I scream, and chuck the end of the rope ladder at Ellie, “now!”

She doesn’t argue, struggling to pull herself up the shaking rope ladder one rung at a time. Gus’ face is completely white, and his eyes dart from the charging ridgeback, to me and then back again, “You go next,” he shouts.

“No!” I scream back at him, brandishing the knife, “you go!”

“Damn it, Molly! Start climbing!”

To my shock he reaches out and rips the knife out of my hand, planting his other hand in my back, shoving me towards the rope. His low voice growls in my ear, “climb.”

I obey. Heart in my throat, blood rushing in my ears, climbing as fast as I can to give him room on the ladder to start climbing. The rope ladder is beginning to sway like crazy, and below me  Gus catches it, holding on with one hand. He doesn’t take his eyes off the ridgeback, and neither do I, even as I yank myself up the  ladder, the rope cutting into my palms and fingers.

The ridgeback is closing the distance. It’s heart-stoppingly fast. It flies over the desert, huge reptilian feet kicking up sand, guttural snarls reaching me on the wind. Finally there’s enough room for Gus to start climbing, and he clenches the knife in his teeth, pirate style, and starts climbing the rope hand over hand. Still, when I see how fast the damn ridgeback is coming at him I want to scream. It’s closing the distance too fast and the ship – though it’s steadily rising higher into the darkening sky – is going too slow. Gus isn’t going to be high enough by the time it reaches him.