Free Agatha H. and the Airship City by Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio

wandering lifestyle filled her with apprehension and she felt her head begin to throb in a peculiar way that left her feeling dizzy.
    “Maybe a short nap,” she muttered, and stripped down to her camisole and pantalets before burrowing under the covers. A thought eased its way to the forefront of her mind even as she felt herself begin to slide into sleep: her whole day had started going wrong when that electrical phenomenon had appeared. But bizarre things occurred all the time, such as last week’s sudden mimmoth infestation. The tiny pachyderms had been discovered living in the sewers, and an ill-thought-out poisoning scheme had seen the creatures emerging from drains in alarming numbers and establishing themselves in houses all over town.
    No, the problems had really begun when those two soldiers had stolen her locket. Agatha’s last coherent thought as she succumbed to sleep was “I wish I could get my hands on them.”
    In a small, cheap rooming house, the objects of Agatha’s thoughts were reaping the results of that morning’s encounter. Moloch paced back and forth in the tiny room, as a lean man wearing a long white apron over his suit examined Omar. Moloch’s brother was stretched out unconscious upon the room’s single bed. The doctor removed his stethoscope and leaned back with a hiss of annoyance.
    Moloch turned towards him. “Please, Herr Doctor, can’t you help him? What’s wrong with him?”
    The doctor tugged at his small beard in frustration. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. This man should be in a hospital.”
    Moloch shuddered. “Oh no, I saw enough of them in the war.”
    “I don’t mean one of those butcher shop field hospitals. Ours is fully equipped and your brother needs—”
    “What? What does he need? What could they do? You don’t even know what’s wrong with him!”
    The doctor opened his mouth, hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly. “Yes. No fever, no chills. No respiratory problems, no sweating, no convulsions—But… it’s like he’s… shutting down, like…”
    “Like a boiler when you’ve blocked the air intakes.”
    The doctor looked at him with mild surprise and nodded. “Yes. Well put, young man.”
    Moloch ignored the compliment and leaned over the unconscious man. “Ach, Omar,” he muttered, “you’re a jerk, but you’re all I have left. Fight it!” He slapped his brother’s face but got no response.
    Behind his back, the doctor’s look of worry increased. “How long has he been like this? Days? Weeks?”
    Moloch shook his head. “He started to feel dizzy, um… a little before twelve hundred. He got more and more disorientated and collapsed around fifteen. Towards the end he had trouble talking, and I… I don’t even think he knew who I was. He passed out around sundown.”
    The doctor looked shaken. “That quickly? Dios,” he muttered. “How do you feel?”
    Moloch looked surprised at the question. “Me? Okay, I guess, why?”
    “I’m trying to decide if I should have you moved to the hospital along with your brother.”
    “What? But I’m not—”
    The doctor was paging through a book he had removed from his medical bag. He stopped and looked Moloch in the eye. “Listen, von Zinzer, was it? This could be some sort of plague.”
    Moloch went white. “Plague?”
    The doctor nodded. “The big question is how contagious it is. Aside from hospitalization, my other option is to quarantine the pair of you in this inn. You talk to anyone other than the innkeeper?”
    “No, there weren’t any customers when we—”
“Praise be for that. Where do you work?”
    “Nowhere. I mean, we just hit town this morning.”
    The doctor made a small grunt of satisfaction at this news and made another checkmark in his book. “Mm. Probably something you picked up outside then. Eat anything unusual? Find anything odd?”
    “Odder than Beetle Beer? No, we—”Suddenly Omar convulsed upon the bed. A strangled groan came from his