The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [756]
1
“Chesh, it’s Thursday.”
2
“I’ve lost a C-3 generic Felix8 from page two hundred and seventy-eight of The Eyre Affair, ISBN 0-14-200180-5. I’m going to need an emergency replacement ASAP.”
3
“No.”
4
“Blast,” I muttered. “Can you find out who’s been dicking around with the Textual Sieves and get it lifted? I’ve no urge to hang around a cold airship for any longer than I have to.”
5
I told him that I’d be fine if he’d just call me back when the sieve was lifted, then snapped the phone shut. I pulled my jacket up around my neck and stamped my feet to keep warm. I leaned against an aluminum girder and stared out at the mauve twilight, where even now I could see stars begin to appear. Felix8 would have hit the ground so hard his text would have fused with the surrounding description; when we found him, we’d have to cut him from the earth. Either way he’d not be doing any talking.
I started thinking of people who might want me to kill me but stopped counting when I reached sixty-seven. This would be harder than I thought. But…what did Felix8 say: that I shouldn’t flatter myself…it wasn’t just me? The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed, until suddenly, with a flash of realization, I knew what was going on. Sherlock Holmes, Temperance Brennan, the Good Soldier Svejk and myself—kill us and you kill not just the individual, but the series. It seemed too bizarre to comprehend, but it had to be the truth—there was a serial killer loose in the BookWorld.
I looked around the airship, and my heart fell. They’d tried to kill me twice already, and who was to say they wouldn’t try again? And here I was, trapped ten thousand feet in the air by a Textual Sieve that no one had ordered, hanging beneath 20 million cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen. I pulled out my cell phone and hurriedly redialed the cat.
6
“No questions, Chesh—I need a parachute and I need it now.”
As if in answer, there was a bright flare from the rear of the airship as a small charge exploded in one of the gas cells. Within a second this had ignited the cell next to it, and I could see the bright flare arc out into the dusk; the airship quivered gently and started to drop at the stern as it lost lift.
“I need that parachute!” I yelled into my phone as a third gas cell erupted, vaporizing the fabric covering and sending a shower of sparks out either side of the craft. The tail-down attitude increased as the fourth gas cell erupted, followed quickly by the fifth and sixth, and I grabbed a handrail to steady myself.
“Goddamn it!” I yelled to no one in par tic ular. “How hard can it be to get a parachute around here?!” The airship trembled again as another explosion ripped through the envelope, and with an unpleasant feeling of lightness I felt the craft very slowly begin to fall. As I looked down to see where we were heading and how fast, twelve parachutes of varying styles, colors and vintage appeared in front of me. I grabbed the most modern-looking, stepped into the leg straps and quickly pulled it onto my back as the ship was again rocked by a series of explosions. I clicked the catch on the front of the webbing and without even pausing for breath, leaped over the rail and out into the cold evening air. There was a sudden sense of rapid acceleration, and I tumbled for a while, eventually coming to rest on my back, the air rushing past me, flapping my clothes and tugging at my hair. Far above me the airship was now a chrysanthemum of fire that looked destructively elegant, and from even this distance I could feel the heat on my face. As the airship grew smaller, I snapped out of my reverie and looked for a toggle or something to deploy the chute. I found it across my chest and pulled as hard as I could. Nothing happened for a moment, and I was just thinking that the chute had failed when there was a whap and a jerk as it opened. But before I had even begun to sigh with relief, there was a thump as I landed on the ground, bounced twice and ended up inside the lines and the canopy, which