Rip and the girls found the others in their party waiting atop another set of stairs heading down, directly behind the set leading up Light glowed toward the bottom, promising easier passage. Or at least one well lit.

Bixby asked Rip for a report, and he described the scene as best he could recall. The girls listened and added details of their own while he summed things up for the nobles.

“Kipouros?” Sharp said. “Seems like an odd name for a golem.”

“Kipos is Greek for garden,” Finley said. “Kipouros means gardener. It’s rather generic, but not a bad name at all under the circumstances.”

Both men stared at her.

“Did neither of you take Greek in college? This is quite basic.”

Sharp shrugged and said, “I did, but I slept through most of it.”

Finley stared at him.

“What? It was too early in the morning. I was out late quite a lot during my college years. I spent considerable time discussing weighty matters with others in my class. Mostly at the pub, late at night.”

“I took Remun,” Bixby said. “It’s a bit more modern. Helps with language skills and whatnot.”

Finley said, “Hmph. You should have taken Greek, Remun and a Continental language. I took French, myself.”

“I took French,” Blair interjected. “Beautiful language. Terrible people.”

Finley gave her an appalled look.

“Some of my best friends are French!”

“Oh? I’m sorry.”

When Finley turned away, Blair made a face at her.

“No one chooses to study Hungarian. It is so sad,” Liza said, pouting.

Everyone stopped and stared at the vampires for a moment.

Sharp said, “Right. I suppose we really should be going. Let us head down to the next level, everyone. Back into formation.”

The banter died out and the group reformed with the sisters once more leading the way.

Far below, light glowed at the base of the steps. Everyone started walking down, moving at a quick clip, and the light steadily grew brighter.

No one said a word. Rip decided to refrain from commenting again on the lack of safety measures with the extraordinarily wide and steep staircase.

At last they reached the final steps, making it there without incident. The girls stopped on the last step and the others pulled up behind them.

A flat and featureless gunmetal gray floor stretched out before them, several football fields in size. Rip found himself impressed with the sheer enormity of this underground space. The ceiling loomed high above shrouded in darkness, lending an even larger sense of the space.

Unlike the two garden levels, this floor was not segmented into square plots. But a square pattern of lampposts kept the area very well lit. Every 30 feet, in a perfect grid, a lamp stood with a flame burning on top.

The gaslight did not flicker, shining behind four-paned glass enclosures. Faint air currents drifted past, barely noticeable and not affecting the flames at all.

Those on the steps ignored the lamps, though. What drew everyone’s eyes were the shiny new robots standing in neat rows. Hundreds of them stood perfectly still, arranged in symmetrical formation beneath the lamps, heads dipped down and arms hanging loosely by their sides.

“I say,” Bixby said softly. “We certainly seem to have discovered what happened to all those parts the Rats worked so hard to prepare.”

Rip nodded and said, “Yep. These are all enhanced.”

“How can you tell?” Finley asked from the back.

“[Mechanical Discernment].”

“Ah, yes. That would do it.”

“What are those discs on their chests?” Chance said, pointing at the closest one.

Rip squinted at it and frowned as his skill kicked in again.

He said, “Each robot has a five inch silver plate on their chest. Really good silver, too. Very pure.”

Hilda said, “What? Why?”

She and Liza had horrified expressions on their faces.

“We don’t know, girls. Our biggest question now,” Sharp said, “is what to do. This certainly needs to be reported, and probably long before we try and make it down past Level Five, or however deep we’re going.”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that, my good fellow.”

A tall man, dressed in a black leather overcoat and wearing a peaked black cap, walked around the back of the stairs. Twelve elite Sewer Troopers followed him, dressed all in black and each carrying a broomhandle sub machinegun. They pointed their weapons at the group.

“This is the one who calls himself Dar Caul,” Rip said.

“Ah!” Bixby said. “The one you whipped on the black airship. Jolly good.”

Dar Caul’s silver eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at the people on the stairs.

“The otherworlder. Good, I’ve yet to repay you for the destruction of my ship.”

Two ships, Rip thought. But now is probably not a good time to mention that.

“Yes, indeed,” Dar Caul said, pulling his hands behind his back and staring at each person intently. “It seems we have uncovered an illegal incursion into the city’s steam vault. Dreadful. And by the Royal Venture Society, no less.”

He walked closer as his men spread out in an arc, aiming their guns at everyone seemingly all at once.

Dar Caul towered over the girls, who stared up at him with belligerent frowns.

“With two Hungarian princesses in tow. The Septic Rats told me about you, and how they failed to bring you both in. I took the liberty of reinforcing things, just in case our forces met you again.”

He pulled out a chain from under his shirt, upon which another large silver disc dangled.

The girls shrank back from him, and he smiled.

“You know, I think Franz Joseph made a mistake granting Hungary equal status with Austria.”

Pure hatred burned in the sisters’ eyes.

That’s even worse than the way they used to look at Blair, Rip thought.

Dar Caul merely smiled and he walked up the steps.

He scoffed at Rip and Blair.

“Playing the hero and heroine. How quaint. You should simply get engaged and move to the next phase of your relationship.”

He went up another step.

At Chance and Twig, he sneered.

“Grown men acting like children and blowing things up.”

Chance bit his lower lip to keep from snapping back, drawing blood. Twig stared at Dar Caul, wide-eyed. Neither disagreed with his assessment, though.

Another step up, and Caul smiled at the colonels, as if greatly amused.

“Two old men, trying to recapture their youth and glory on battlefields long plowed over.”

Bixby and Sharp stared back at him with poker faces, betraying no hint of emotions.

Finally, he took the last step up and faced Lady Finley, who stared at him also with a blank face.

“And, what do we have here? A once great leader with nobody left to lead. You’ve glommed onto this lot, haven’t you? What has it gained you, old crone? What possible benefit have you gleaned from all this?”

Finley looked him up and down, from his boots to his black peaked cap.

When she met his gaze again, she said, “I’ve seen better specimens of masculinity in the gutters of Whitechapel than the likes of you.”

His silver eyes flared, then narrowed.

“You know, I’ve always wondered how the Lyceum’s enhancement compares with ours. It’s not often I get to experiment. I know our bodies are quite resilient. Then our friend, the otherworlder here, showed me a thing or two on my airship. He taught me . . . there’s always a vulnerability.”

Dar Caul whipped out a black semi-auto, aiming it pointblank at Finley’s right eye.

He pulled the trigger and she collapsed on the stairs, her face splattered in blood.