The vampire lifted the prostrate Pickleman. The headmistress opened a large porthole on one side, behind a pile of leaflets, and without ceremony, the vampire stuffed him through it.
Sophronia preferred not to think about the man falling to the countryside below. Even had he survived the bite, he would not survive that. Death, she thought, laid at my door. Absurdly, her brain fixated on the man’s appalling grooming habits. At least she wouldn’t have to look at that beardlet ever again.
She then found she wanted rather badly to cast up her accounts. But her stomach was empty. She could only hide the fact that she was retching by turning away and covering her mouth with her fan. That only caused her to notice the blood on the blade. She cleaned it hastily with her red doily, the one they were always supposed to carry with them but were never told why.
“My dear girl, was that…? Surely not. Your first finishing?” The headmistress took her arm, solicitously. “Come, I believe there is a little tea left in the pot. You look as though you could use a drop.”
The teapot, on its side where the Pickleman had dropped it, did indeed still contain a splash of tea. It was enough for a much-needed, and very fortifying, tiny cupful.
Sophronia sipped it gratefully.
“There, that’s the color back in your cheeks.” Mademoiselle Geraldine patted her shoulder.
Professor Braithwope joined them, drawing up Sophronia’s former pouf and perching on it like an odd buttercup-colored walrus. He seemed utterly harmless in his yellow quilted robe, his mustache bristling with satisfaction.
Sophronia had a difficult time looking at him.
“So, my dear, what’s the occupation situation?” asked Mademoiselle Geraldine.
Sophronia felt better at the question. This was something she was prepared for, that she was equipped to handle with skill and training.
“I have a map for that.” She reached into her pocket.
NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WICKER
They had to study the map at length in order to formulate a satisfactory plan of action.
It was Mademoiselle Geraldine who called a halt to the proceedings. “We should move. They may send a runner up here to find out what’s happened to our airborne friend.”
Sophronia nodded. “They are less likely to search student quarters, although with two men missing, they ought to begin a room-by-room sweep. That’s what I would do.”
“Do they have the manpower for that?” asked the headmistress.
Sophronia grinned, looking feral. “Not if we keep hounding them.”
“I see why you were recruited, my dear.”
No sooner had she spoken than one of the young fresh-faced Pickleman runners appeared, banging on the door to the administrative room, demanding entrance.
Professor Braithwope made quick work of him, not with his fangs this time, thank goodness. Instead, he merely whipped open the door and bopped him on the chin with a fist.
“We can’t keep throwing them overboard,” objected Sophronia when the vampire lifted the boy to carry him to the porthole.
“Can’t keep them, either. Someone might find and release them.” Mademoiselle Geraldine was more bloodthirsty than anyone might have imagined.
“I’m not all that hungry.” The professor looked with mild interest at the young man’s white neck, exposed by his lolling head and poorly tied cravat. “But I’d be willing to try. Only you, dear ladies, could turn me to gluttony.” He sounded almost sane—his mustache looked disciplined.
“I have an idea.” Sophronia grabbed the length of rope previously used to tie Mademoiselle Geraldine to her chair. “Bring him along, please, Professor, and I’ll show you.”
They left the administrative room. Mademoiselle Geraldine carefully locked it behind them. She had recovered her keys from Deep Voice.
On their way to student quarters, Sophronia demonstrated how to bind, gag, and tie the young man outside, under the balcony of one of the classrooms. He was effectively invisible from all sides, except where the rope showed at the bottom of the rails. Unless someone stepped out onto a lower balcony and looked up, he’d be impossible to spot. He resembled nothing so much as a suckling pig trussed for roasting, dangling from under the eaves of a porch.
“That should do, don’t you think?”
“Indubitably,” agreed Mademoiselle Geraldine. “It’s a capital solution for the future, as well. If we can disable and truss every Pickleman, we won’t have to kill any more. What do you think, Professor?”
“All of them? Can’t I have a little nibble now and again, whot?”
“Of course you can, dear.” Mademoiselle Geraldine patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.
He brightened. “Jolly good.” Professor Braithwope was proving unexpectedly helpful. They could only hope his lucidity lasted.
“We’re going to need a lot of rope.” Sophronia led the way out toward the stern and the student residential area. She had her obstructor at the ready, in case they encountered malicious mechanicals, and her bladed fan open, in case they encountered malicious Picklemen. Mademoiselle Geraldine brought up the rear. The vampire walked between them so they could keep an eye on him.
Suddenly the vampire lurched at Sophronia.
“My bow!” he cried, fixated on the small crossbow dangling from Sophronia’s improvised belt.
“Now, Professor.” Sophronia scrabbled for some kind of logic he would understand. “Don’t you think it goes so much better with my outfit than yours?”
The vampire blinked, looking down at his own yellow sleeve. The bow, which was a dark mahogany color, did indeed go well with her leather-covered red-and-black dinner gown.
“Oh, very well,” said the vampire petulantly.
They continued down the hallway, finally reaching the suite of rooms set aside for Sophronia’s year group. She opened the door and gestured to the others to enter.
Sophronia hissed in an aside to the headmistress as she passed, “Do you have the codes as well as the keys?”
“Codes?”
“To activate the soldier mechanicals.”
“You think that’s wise? After all, the soldier mechanicals are still mechanicals, and the Picklemen are in control of them.”
“I don’t think Lady Linette would be so foolish as to install new valves in the school’s only major defense system. After all, it’s the valve that is the true danger.”
“That could be perceived as naïve, my dear. The valve is only their latest endeavor. They could have been planning this for a very long time, in which case even the most primitive models are suspect.”
The headmistress moved into the parlor and collapsed onto a small chaise longue while Sophronia locked and bolted the door. She also set up a noise trap, using a propped chair and Dimity’s hair receiver. When they roomed together, the ugly little pot used to drive Sophronia crazy. If it got broken when someone opened the door, so much the better.
“Should we go into my private sleeping chamber? Even safer there.”
Mademoiselle Geraldine extracted herself from the chaise with a groan and followed Sophronia into her tiny bedroom. Professor Braithwope trotted behind like an eager puppy.
That door safely locked as well, Sophronia relaxed a little.
She pulled out the map, pointing to the locations of the enemy and explaining her dots. She crossed out the dot that represented Deep Voice and one of the dots for the runners.