“Yes, it’s the second time you’ve mentioned that,” Verity said.
Billy lifted his pullover and retrieved a thin, cloth-bound book he’d tucked into his trousers. “It’s in ’ere. I don’t know ’ow to say it proper.” He opened it at the sketch of a large dinosaur, exactly like the one they’d encountered on the first night. “That bloody big ’un nearly got you, Cecil,” he went on. “I ain’t much good at readin’ but I knew it from t’ picture. That’s it there. Bury… Barry…”
Verity leaned over to help him. “Baryonyx! That’s it. Well done, Billy.” Touching his shoulder, she read on, “A piscivorous predator from the early Cretaceous.” The three of them glanced over at Briory, who pouted and walked off with an hmmpf. She’d have loved to hear Reardon’s mumbled words of victory, but Billy tapped the page, eager for her to continue. She scanned the text for facts they didn’t already know about the monster, while promising herself she’d study the whole book later. “Piscivorous means ‘fish-eater’…the baryonyx swipes at fish with its powerful claw…like a grizzly bear. It lays four to six eggs. Scientists think it might-”
“Forget the homework.” Reardon leaned over the side, thrust his arm out. “There they are! On the shore-big as life.”
A wasps’ nest stirred in Embrey’s stomach. These extraordinary animals were bigger than anything above the waves in the twentieth century, and they were also deadlier. If they attacked London again, or this airship whilst it was in dock, the loss of life could be catastrophic. The beach lay a little over a mile from the camp. If dinosaurs were at all territorial-he’d encountered firsthand the violent reactions of South American predators against interlopers in their marked territory-these monsters would return to London sooner or later.
They lumbered back and forth across the black and grey beach, taking turns to eat from a rhinoceros-sized carcass while the other guarded the meal. Neither paid any mind to the Empress. At five hundred feet up, the airship would be like just another cloud.
Tangeni approached from the bow. “Lord Embrey, have you heard? The professor, he says this is all fresh water. A giant etale from ancient times. That is good news, no?”
“Tremendous news! I daresay a big piece of our survival puzzle is solved.” He gazed aft along the deck to where Reardon and Billy were busy reading a book with Verity Champlain. The wasps roused again. Being persona non grata under her command, the tainted strawberry tart, stung his heart. He despised feeling helpless as much as he hated her magnanimity. If his name offended her so much, she needn’t have allowed him on board the Empress at all. The fact that she had, and that he’d accepted, slighted him more and more as he thought on it. Trapped was not the word-he was in purgatory. No one wanted him here. He was the prehistoric pariah. And Captain Champlain had become the icy figurehead for the empire’s unforgiving rule-a rule that had cost him everything.
“God Almighty! Why does she make me so angry?” He clasped his hands behind his head and pressed the palms into his scalp.
“ Eembu has that way with her.” Tangeni’s probing stare seemed to pick apart Embrey’s agony like clockwork. “She almost make married two years ago, to the young vizier governing Zanzibar-a man of great intelligence-but the Sultan’s rebels attacked him days before the wedding. When she learned of the plot, Eembu swam to his island home to warn him but she was too late. He died in her arms, poisoned, and the assassins, they were caught by the British Navy. That night, Eembu sneaked aboard the ship and slit their throats one by one, then threw their bodies to the sharks. For this she receive three-month suspension from the admiralty.” Tangeni swallowed a lump in his throat. “Of all the men and women I’ve served with, no one faces oshipongo — danger-like she. Lieutenant Champlain has no compromise. That is why she makes you angry.”
“I see.” Embrey glanced again at the ginger-haired captain, who was now laughing with Reardon and young Billy. For a few warm moments, all ill-will evaporated from the airship, and he felt like walking over to her and straightening this whole thing out. Any animus between them had been created by proxy, by pride. They could easily cast it aside if they wished.
A chill gust raked the deck, snapped him back to his senses. He watched the two dinosaurs squabble needlessly over their prize on the beach.
“I’m afraid my wound runs even deeper.” He patted Tangeni’s shoulder. “My own country has turned against me, brother-it won’t rest until it has extinguished my family name altogether.”
“I have heard. A terrible thing, to be hated by one’s own tribe. But Professor Reardon believes in you, and so does young Billy. As for Eembu, she wears her sister’s memory like war paint-it reminds her that she lives for two, and also fights for two. You are the closest she has come to finding, what is the word? Avenging?”
“Vengeance?”
“Yes. She will treat you as an enemy until you can convince her to believe in you.”
Embrey scrubbed his face with his hands. “I may need some help there, brother. But I tell you what, you can let Lieutenant Champlain know that I’m willing to forgive the unprovoked blow she struck, on one condition-”
“And that is?”
He swung round and almost swiped her with his elbow.
Luckily, she ducked. “Of all the clumsy, skull-faced…”
Maybe not so lucky.
“My apologies,” he stuttered.
The woman’s pursed lips held venom. “Well?” she snapped. “You were saying? You would deign to forgive my wholly warranted affront on one condition?”
“Yes, one condition. That you shuffle up and down the deck on your arse whilst singing ‘Burlington Bertie From Bow.’” He stood tall, glared back with interest. “What’s wrong? Feel like hitting me again?” Offering his chin felt a tad much, but Jesus, she was infuriating.
“How about throwing you over the side, fop?” Several crewmen and the two statuesque women now stood behind her, meaning she couldn’t possibly back down.
Neither would he.
“You talk a good game, Red. How does the rest of it go? ‘I flap my lips and you drown in spit’? Pathetic. You’re a pantomime king in petticoats-the least you can do is wear them.”
“One more word and you’ll dangle from the keel. Follow in your father’s footsteps…or should I say his last dance.”
“ Whore!”
“Bastard.”
He drew both his pistols and thrust them at her heart. “Say that again.”
She reached nonchalantly over her shoulder and kept her hand there until a crewman passed her a revolver. Without even breaking her stare, she cocked the hammer with her thumb and pointed the gun at his forehead. “This is getting tiresome. Djimon, Tangeni, lock this traitor in the brig.”
“ Eembu?”
“Don’t argue with me. He’s not about to shoot. He doesn’t have it in him. His sort whispers treason from the shadows, sends others to do his dirty work. The rich only stay rich because they don’t get involved in the fighting they start. Look, you can see it in his yellow eyes. Like father, like-”
“Enough!” Embrey sidestepped quickly. In one fluid motion he dropped one of his own pistols, dragged her flush against him and disarmed the bitch. Back to the bulwark, he held a pistol barrel to her temple and yelled, “Back off! All of you.”
“Do it. But he’s bluffing,” she advised her crew-correctly. Unbearably. Did nothing faze her?
His situation was impossible and he had nowhere to go. Better to live and fight another day than force the crew’s hand. Okay, Garrett, you lose this round. His pulse hacked at his right shoulder, leaving him breathless. He lowered his sidearm and the bitch eased herself free.
An overhead cable snapped and the airship lurched to port, hurling Verity into him again. Her momentum threw them both over the rail. Embrey tossed his weapon onto the deck and snatched for the bulwark. Too late! His fingers slipped and he plummeted.
Verity’s arms wrenched tight around his solar plexus, mashed up against his rib cage. The jolt of her catch punched the breath from his lungs. A million flecks of diamond dust from the waves below blinded him. Somewhere inside the shock, distant bird caws competed with a close, intermittent hiss.
“Swallow it,” she demanded into his ear hole. “I can’t hold you much longer. My legs…they’re wrapped round…the rail. Embrey, do you hear me? You need to…climb up me.”
The Empress lurched again. Verity’s grasp slipped to crooked fingertips. They shook with the strain, and Embrey felt as though his invisible lifebelt was ripping loose. The diamond grave called imperceptibly. The soft
