So we’re crouched on the roof of the train, hands and feet spread wide against the tilt and shudder of the carriage. The wind flaps our clothes and whips our hair and roars in our ears, trying to snatch us up and slam us into the Manor walls speeding by.
‘Guns at the ready,’ the-Crazy-Girl-Who-Reckons-She’s-Violet shouts.
We move as fast as we can, keeping an eye out for low-hanging chandeliers and archways, ducking whenever they whoosh by. The candles and torches in the corridor keep trying to re-light themselves as we thunder past, but they don’t stand a chance. Only the odd flash of sparks and the electric glow seeping from the train windows show us what’s what.
The first jump’s the hardest, even with the wind at our backs. One slip and we’re train feed. The-Girl-Who Can’t-Be-Violet soars over the gap. Me and Dad make the jump together.
One down, too many more to go.
The train speeds into a new corridor. Chandeliers zip by above our heads with a shoom shoom zoom. Another low archway and we’re charging through a vast pillared hall. Torches flicker to life beyond the grip of the wind. We scramble on, the girl swinging over the edge of every carriage, looking for Hickory through the windows.
Dad says, ‘Where the hell is he?’
I say, ‘Maybe he’s already down the back of the train, but inside like a normal person.’
I don’t think anyone hears me.
In the end it’s Hickory who finds us, six or so carriages from the end. He clambers onto the roof ahead with the bounty hunter’s whip looped round his shoulder, a gun in his hands and three Leatherheads hot on his tail. Dad and the girl raise their weapons, so I do as well. The girl shouts at Hickory, tells him to get down, and he dives. Rifles fire. My pistol clicks. By the time I’ve finished cursing the damn thing the Leatherheads have all been blasted clear.
Guns, I’ve decided, are the worst.
The girl smacks Hickory with the butt of her rifle. Dad punches him, takes his gun, and rummages through his pockets. Finds the key and shoves it into my hands with a quick ‘Don’t lose it.’ I tuck the key back into my pocket and point my pistol at Hickory.
‘What are you gonna do with that,’ he says, ‘throw it at me?’
So I throw it at him. Clock him a good ’un right in the face, too. He yelps and the pistol clatters over the side of the train. The girl glares at me.
I shrug. ‘It was broken anyway.’
‘Stop bloody hitting me,’ Hickory shouts, clutching his nose. ‘We need to go. Now!’
Then we see them. A troop of Leatherheads climbing onto the roof of the last carriage. Running and leaping towards us. And there, rising and striding among them with his blades glinting like fangs: Roth. He must’ve grabbed hold of the last carriage after he fell. His clothes are torn, but he’s wearing a new mask.
Needless to say, he looks furious.
‘Run,’ Dad shouts, handing Hickory back his gun. ‘Go, go, go!’
We make like rabbits into the wind, heading towards the front of the train, back the way we came. The jumps are harder now. We have to take them at a sprint, and I can see Dad’s energy is fading fast. I ask the girl if she has a new plan and she says, ‘Get to the front, the engine car, detach it, speed away,’ but Hickory shuts her down.
‘Can’t speed away,’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘We’re coming up to the spiral road.’
‘The what?’
‘The spiral road.’ He spins around, tells us to duck. Blows away a Leatherhead that’s popped up right behind us. ‘It’s a – a – it’s a bloody road. In a spiral. Big one, going down. If the train takes it at this speed – even the engine carriage alone –’
‘We’ll derail,’ Dad says.
‘We don’t have a choice,’ the girl shouts. ‘We’ll just have to figure out a way to slow down once we’re far enough away from Roth.’
‘Oh, this’ll end well,’ I mutter.
Leatherheads pop up in front of us, at our sides, swinging fists and machetes, snatching at our heels when we jump, carriage after carriage. Bounty hunters join the fray, streaming from their carriage up near the front of the train, blocking our path. Nobody shoots at us, though.
Roth still doesn’t know where the key is. He needs us alive and kicking.
‘Heads up!’ Dad shouts, and the train speeds through another giant’s mouth, clotheslining a bunch of unwary bad guys from our path. Chandeliers whoosh and whistle above our heads. We duck and dodge them, slowing down. Roth takes the occasional bullet, but never stops. He’s taking his time because time is all he needs. He’s gaining on us.
But Hickory always has a plan.
He unravels the bounty hunter’s whip, spins around and lashes it out. Roth blocks the blow. The whip wraps around his forearm, and he just stands there, eyes blazing.
Hickory salutes him and smiles. ‘Sorry, boss.’
He tosses the whip handle. It catches on a passing chandelier, snagging Roth like a fish on a line, yanking him back, taking out a whole line of Leatherheads behind him as the train speeds on. He doesn’t manage to free himself till he’s hanging over the last carriage.
He rolls and tumbles, clings to the end just in time.
Hickory’s given us one hell of a break.
The train speeds into a different, high-vaulted corridor. We’re on the second carriage now. Smoke and steam trails through the air around us from the engine car up ahead. Two more jumps and we’re there. Dad’s limping badly, soldiering on. The girl’s holding her own in a fist fight with a bounty hunter, having lost her gun. Hickory sprints ahead and drops out of sight between the carriages. He’s gonna separate them, and it’s a good thing, too, because Roth’s charging towards us now, bowling over any Leatherheads stupid enough to get in his way. He’ll be on us any second.
The carriage jerks. We stumble. Hickory’s done it. The engine car and first carriage are already pulling away. The girl disposes of her bounty hunter with a roundhouse kick, and the three of us make the jump, our longest yet. Dad cries out when we land on the first carriage, nearly slips over the edge, but I grab him. He’s sweaty, shaking, face screwed up in pain.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay,’ he says. ‘Compared to your singing, it’s nothing.’
‘Okay, that’s – wait, what? You hate my songs? “Bluebird in the Basement”? “Scraps for Tea”? “The Coconut Song”? “Rat Poo in the Corner on a Sunshiny Day”?’
‘You’re many things, Jane.’ He winks at me. ‘A great singer ain’t one of ’em.’
I’ve never been so insulted in my life, which is saying something.
‘We’ll discuss this later,’ I tell him, and he chuckles.
We clamber down to Hickory by the carriage door, us and the girl. Watch as the rest of the train slowly falls behind us. Three metres. Five metres. Sparks from a dangling chain scatter along the tracks between the carriages. Seven metres. Ten. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when we see him – Roth – coming right for us. Dad and Hickory empty their guns, spraying him with bullets that might as well be flies. The rat-a-tat-tats blast our ears.
‘He can’t make it,’ I say.
‘He won’t try it,’ the girl says.
But he does.
