set the device on a timer, as we cannot re-enter the structure while it is active."
They rattled along the catwalk, Garrett quite uncomfortable with the way it shook under the strides of five hurrying people, and followed Doctor Tesla as he burst through a door onto a flat area of the moonlit roof. Indeed, as promised, there was a small cote, within it some fifteen birds. The theurgist handled the sleepy animals with great care, tucking them into wicker baskets, and rescuing the eggs which two roosted on.
"Winter eggs," he said, wrapping them carefully in a linen handkerchief, each clutch knotted into a separate corner. "I don't believe they'll hatch, but who am I to make such decisions?"
He stowed them tenderly in his pocket while Garrett, a basket of pigeons in her hands, stood on the rooftop and shivered, and thought of the casual manner in which he had discussed blanketing the whole earth with his murderous electrical machine. Mrs. Smith, at her elbow with another basket, caught Garrett's gaze and widened her eyes.
Yes, precisely.
Pigeons rescued, roof door locked and checked and checked again, down they went. Sebastien, carrying his pigeon basket one-handed, rescued Kostov with the other, and the four of them exited hastily to the yard while Doctor Tesla made his arrangements with timers and levers within. "Is this safe?" Jack asked, as the door shut behind them.
Garrett handed Mrs. Smith her pigeon basket. "Eminently not," she said, and made sure both her wand and the revolver loaded with silver bullets that Jack had given her were within reach. When she reached into her pocket for the gun, her glove snagged on something sharp-edged, and she drew that out too.
It was the glassine envelope containing the chipped tooth of the beast. "Oh," she said. "It's a pity I can't cast a circle to keep material monsters out."
Just then the door to the laboratory opened, and Doctor Tesla emerged, burdened with the last of the pigeon baskets. "Stand back, please," he said. He locked and fussed, and then unlocked and fussed the kitchen door of the house itself. Garrett made sure she had her carpetbag within reach, and she saw the others making their small preparations for war.
When each basket of birds—and the still-immobilized Kostov—was placed inside, in the relative warmth of the hall, he returned and drew a hasty chalk line on the cobbles. "You will stay south of that, if you are wise."
"What if it doesn't die?" Sebastien asked. "How will we know if it's summoned at all?"
"Watch the lamp." The post in the yard was north of the curved chalk line.
Garrett felt a moment of spontaneous pity for Doctor Tesla's neighbors, and concentrated her attention where he directed. Tesla himself was focused on a silver pocket watch. "Now," he said, and before the word had died on the cold night air, the lamp flared savagely, brighter than Garrett had imagined an electrical filament could burn.
It could not burn so for long, apparently. The filament burst with a pop like a gunshot, and she supposed it was only by blind luck that the glass did not shatter. Behind the laboratory windows other lights flickered into brilliance, and a curious insectile hum, like the sawing of cicadas, made Garrett wince—but apparently those filaments were sterner stuff. Beside her, Mrs. Smith covered one ear with her palm. The derringer she held in her right hand prevented her from covering both.
Cold moonlight lay over the stones.
There was no sign of the beast.
* * *
Shoulder to shoulder, they stood and watched. Garrett let her shoulder brush Sebastien's; he wasn't warm, but he was solid, and that comforted her. She would have expected Doctor Tesla to pace, but he stood as solidly as Jack, occasionally rising on tiptoe to peer through windows too high for her to see through.
"Nothing," he said at last. "Perhaps it is too wise to come where it must perish."
The chip of tooth was back in Garrett's pocket. She handed Mrs. Smith her wand and fished the envelope out again, then shook the contents out. Juggling revolver and tooth, she tugged her gloves off with her teeth, and let Mrs. Smith take them.
Cold wind stung her hands. She felt the skin drying, but the cool rippled texture of the tooth was more important. "How do you suppose he controlled it?"
"Kostov?" Sebastien asked, without turning his head. His wariness kept them all alert, she thought, although Jack—bony and slight as he was—was stamping now to keep warm. "He must