There’s no reason to think she’ll use the same line again. I’ll have to watch and wait, and follow her.
As the moments passed, the light of the Halcyon III grew larger and sharper, and the droning of its engine grew louder. A faint outline appeared against the thin, silvery clouds and Bastet thought she recognized the round body and long wings of the aircraft, a dark wraith speeding across the night sky.
I wonder what her magnet machine will look like. I hope it doesn’t hurt Isis and the others too much when it removes the sun-steel needles.
The Halcyon banked and began a graceful descent toward the city. Faint streamers of smoke and vapor trailed from the metal wings.
As Bastet stood on the roof of an old Mazdan Temple prayer tower, she felt a blast of wind shove her against the dusty tiles and she nearly fell from her perch as she grabbed the small iron spire at the top of the tower. Turning her head, she saw a huge black shape race past her, flapping its great gray wings as it climbed higher and higher into the sky, racing up toward the Mazigh aeroplane.
Nethys! No, not now!
Bastet ran off the edge of the roof and burst apart into a shimmering white aether mist and slipped upward into the sky as fast as she could will herself. The aether was thin up here and there was no current to speak of, so she had to propel herself by desire and thought alone. Faster and faster, she soared up into the warm darkness, flitting past the winged woman, and pushing harder and harder until she slipped through the metal walls of the flying machine and let her body snap back together again.
Her momentum carried her across the cabin and she slammed shoulder-first into the far wall and crumpled to the floor.
“What the…?” Taziri’s voice was faint over the hideous growling of the engine.
“Turn!” Bastet wheezed. She straightened up as she struggled to catch her breath and blink away the pain in her side. “Turn left, now!”
“Bastet?” The Mazigh pilot twisted around in her seat to look behind her.
“TURN LEFT!” Bastet lunged forward against the pilot’s seat.
“Turning!” Taziri shoved a lever and the entire cabin leaned to the left.
Bastet felt herself floating off the floor for a brief, weightless moment before she fell to the floor again with a grunt.
“Aah! What was that?” Taziri shouted. “I saw something out there! Bastet? Bastet?”
The Aegyptian girl pushed herself up again and this time she wrapped both hands into the little canvas straps bolted into the walls to hold herself in place. “It’s Nethys. My aunt.”
“Your aunt can fly?”
“At the moment, yes.” Bastet squinted through the small windows in front of the pilot, but all she saw was darkness.
“What is she doing out there?”
“Probably trying to kill you. Where is she now?”
“I can’t see her,” Taziri said. “Look out the back windows.”
Bastet loosened her grip on the straps and worked her way back to the passenger seats where there were three small, round windows looking out to either side of the plane over the wings. She checked both sides. “I can’t see her.”
“Maybe Halcyon ’s too fast for her,” Taziri shouted over the engine.
“Maybe,” Bastet shouted back. She looked out the little round window one last time and saw a woman’s face wreathed in pale feathers. “Maybe not. She’s on the wing!”
“Hang on!” Taziri pulled her levers again and the Halcyon rolled and dived down toward the dark earth below them.
Bastet found herself hanging from the straps on the walls as the aeroplane tilted sharply downward, and the feathery face at the window vanished. “She’s gone!”
A metallic clangor erupted above them, and Bastet saw a small dent pop down into the cabin from the roof. “She’s back!”
“Strap into that seat and hold on,” Taziri said.
Bastet pulled the seat harness on and shouted, “Ready!”
Taziri pulled on her levers and the Halcyon ran wild. The aeroplane darted down to race through the narrow stone corridors of the streets between the ancient towers, temples, and obelisks raised by kings long dead and long forgotten. Bastet clung to the straps above her head as the craft twisted upon its side and screamed through the dark avenues with one wing pointed at the moon and one wing pointed at the earth so low that if any people had been out at that hour the wing would have knocked the hats and scarves from their heads.
Bastet looked up through the little windows on the far side of the cabin and saw the stars shining down on her as the edges and corners of Alexandria blurred past the frame of the glass. And then Nethys landed on the fuselage with a thump, blacking out those little windows with her tattered dress and long raggedy wings, her feathers tearing off one by one in the ripping wind.
“She’s here!” Bastet yelled.
Taziri muttered something under her breath and suddenly the Halcyon lurched and shuddered, and Bastet felt herself being crushed down into her seat as the aeroplane banked sharply, still flying sideways through the streets, but now turning with tremendous, steel-screaming power, curling around one of the grand market squares between the high domes of the West Temple and the white towers of the Imperial Gardens.
Bastet squinted upward as the blood rushed down to her feet and she slumped lower and lower in the hard seat, choked by her safety harness, and she saw Nethys slide back down the length of the plane from one window to the next with a terrible metallic squeal, and then she was gone.
Taziri rolled the plane back upright and straightened out as she climbed back up above the roofs and towers and the Halcyon ’s engine puttered a bit more softly.
“That did it,” the pilot said. “I saw her fly off, tumbling northward, I think.”
“She might come back again,” Bastet said breathlessly as her heart continued pounding in her chest. The pain faded almost instantly, but the fear and excitement of the chase had left her blood boiling with adrenaline.
“I don’t think so,” Taziri said calmly. “I saw her crash into a wall, and fall to the street.”
“You don’t understand. She’s immortal, like me. She’ll only be hurt for a moment, and then she’ll be back in the sky again. Even if you broke every bone in her body, it would only be a matter of minutes before she could fly again.”
“Then we’ll just have to make certain that we’re not here when she wakes up.” Taziri throttled back the engine a bit more and began flicking switches.
“What are you doing?” Bastet exhaled and felt her skin finally cooling, though she still didn’t dare to leave her seat and its harness.
“Landing.”
Bastet craned her neck and saw the ground coming up to meet them, and the soft roar of the air around the Halcyon ’s wings began to grow louder. A train raced by the windows.
“Where are we?” the girl asked.
“Coming up on the northern rail station. Looks pretty quiet at the moment, so I think we’ll have a little privacy.”
Bastet realized that the train she had seen race by had been standing still and it was they who were still traveling at that unbelievable speed. The roar of the wings grew louder by degrees and as Taziri continued to pull levers and flick switches, the Halcyon clanged and hissed and creaked. Pistons contracted, springs expanded, and wires spooled up as the aeroplane’s landing guide reached down and latched onto one of the railroad lines and pulled the aircraft down with a bang and clatter.
The pilot swiftly retracted the wings, and Bastet watched as the steel panels folded up, covering the windows as they formed the very familiar shape of a proper locomotive around the aeroplane’s fuselage. To anyone who looked at the Halcyon now, it would appear to be any other train engine chuffing down the tracks, complete with steam funnel and cow catcher.