Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [64]
“Is that the region you and my father ascended?” the young professor indicated a treacherous slope seemingly somewhat more passable than the others in our sight.
Lord Roxton laughed cheerily.
“No, Miss, we can’t see it from this angle. It’s climbable, obviously, but more than a mite dangerous. I like this balloon idea of yours much better — saves on lots of sweat, blistered fingers, and potentially broken-necks!”
She glowered at him, lifting up her pretty chin.
“Refer to me as ‘Professor’, if you please, Roxton,” her tone was as cold as it was arrogant. “I’m not simply some Kensington school mistress out on holiday.”
Holmes took a sharp long breath and let it out slowly.
“Oh, beggin’ your pardon, Mi — uh, Professor Challenger,” Lord Roxton grinned, winking at me, then spoke low into my ear. “Two of them in the world is rather over-doing it — what?”
I must say, however frequently disagreeable she could be, Professor Jessica Cuvier Challenger conducted the piloting of our little airship with the valiant hand of a seasoned expert. In truth, during the past several weeks I’d come to the pleasurable realization that the young lady was most remarkable in nearly every aspect.
Her knowledge of medicine was far in advance of my own, having studied in both Vienna and America. She flattered me personally, as well, with a profound familiarity of my written accounts of the cases of Sherlock Holmes — correcting some of my careless chronological blunders from her own prodigious memory — and finally interrogated me most brazenly upon the exact anatomical location of my Afghan War wound.
Indeed, despite her arrogant, quick-tempered, and almost artificial personality, the lady’s keenly disciplined brain, utter fearlessness, and her unrivaled physical beauty had charmed me completely.
Suddenly I noticed and followed Holmes’ gaze towards a small flock of birds pursuing us at a distance.
“An impulsive beak or talon might well rend a hole in this contraption,” my friend mused matter-of-factly. “I take it, Professor, that you’ve a perceived notion preventing such a catastrophe?”
She lifted her excellent field-glasses, nodding calmly.
“The silk is chemically reinforced, Mr. Holmes. I doubt that nothing less than a rifle bullet could pierce it. Also, I noticed you warily detecting the electrical charge in the air. You needn’t be concerned, there’s no chance of fire as these pressure tanks contain helium, not hydrogen.”
Holmes rolled his grey eyes at me. The altitude was making him a bit green.
“You seem to have thought of everything,” he said curtly.
The Professor lowered the glasses, her breath slightly quickened.
“Everything, perhaps, but the simple fact that my father may have been absolutely correct in all his outrageous contentions. Roxton — have you a rifle handy? Those are most certainly not birds.”
They were hideous creatures, such as the tortured nightmares of a madman might concoct. Indeed, the flying monstrosities were not birds nor like any other animal I’ve ever seen, rather they resembled flapping bat-like crocodilians with wingspans at least twice as great as that of an albatross. The enraged ear-splitting shrieks made it plain that our balloon was encroaching upon their aerial territory.
I’m delighted to confirm that Lord Roxton’s marksmanship was every bit as legendary as reports of his worldwide adventures have claimed. Each time he shouldered his rifle; another winged demon squawked and spiraled away to vanish into the thick mists below. After the momentary danger died away, a different surge of excitement impressed us, even Holmes. Professor George Edward Challenger, and Lord John Roxton, had not exaggerated in the least. Such a “Lost World” as both men