The Immorality Engine (25 page)

He refused to meet her gaze.

Veronica slowly withdrew her hand. She felt like she wanted to scream in frustration. This was everything she’d feared. He’d discovered the truth and now he couldn’t even look at her. After all they’d been through, he wouldn’t even look her in the eye. Here, in a cell, somewhere in the bowels of the city, waiting to die. She felt the anger welling up inside her. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew? Why did you just pull away like that, hiding behind that damn weed instead of simply talking to me about it? You had a choice, too, and you chose the easy way out.”

He raised his head. Their eyes met. He looked scared. “Because I didn’t want to lose you, either,” he said.

And then he was holding her in his arms, kissing her deeply and passionately on the lips. She kissed him back, pulling him closer, running her fingers through his hair. She had wanted this for so long. But she knew she couldn’t hold on to it. Not now, not here. Not like this. Not while Amelia was still trapped in that horrible place, and Newbury was still a slave to that dreadful poppy.

Veronica felt numb. Slowly, she pushed him away. She was shaking.

He stared at her, confusion in his eyes. “I thought…”

She shook her head. “Not here, Maurice. Not like this. You’re ill. You don’t know what you’re doing. And Amelia’s still out there in need of our help.” She paused, fighting the urge to reach for him again. Instead, she ran her fingers along the front of his jacket, brushing the dirt away. “When this is over. When you’re better.” She broke off, unable to go on.

Newbury nodded. “I will get better, Veronica. I promise you that.”

They were silent for a while, both gazing at each other in the darkness of the cell.
Later,
she promised herself. There would be time then. For now she had to focus on getting out of the cell alive, on saving Amelia. She had to be strong enough for all of them. “Maurice … All this with Amelia and the Queen…” She paused, unsure quite how to go on. “I think we might be part of something dreadful.”

Newbury shook his head. “No, Veronica. I can’t believe that. We work for the British Empire, for the monarchy. We work for the Queen of England!”

Veronica put her hand on his sleeve. Her voice was soft. “But what if the Queen has strayed? What if Fabian’s machines have turned her into a monster, unable to tell the difference between right and wrong? What if you and I and Sir Charles are working for the wrong side? What then?”

Newbury looked pained. “You can’t think the Bastion Society is a better option, Veronica! Surely you can’t think that?”

Veronica shook her head emphatically. “Of course not. But I’m worried there isn’t a great deal of difference between them anymore. I think they’re all as bad as each other: Aubrey Knox, Dr. Fabian, Enoch Graves … and the Queen. How could she condone what Fabian has done to Amelia? How could she encourage him?”

“I…,” Newbury started, but faltered.

“And look at us, Newbury!” she continued. “Look what she’s done to
us
. She’s poisoned us with her ridiculous games. She’s had me spy on you. You! One of the best men I’ve ever met.
The
best man I’ve ever met. And look what that did to you.” The tears came then, in great floods down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother to try to stop them.

Newbury leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her in a warm embrace. “You might be right,” he said, and she knew then that he believed it. “It’ll be over soon, Veronica. One way or another.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Bastion Society is moving against the Queen. They believe her to be a living blasphemy, a soul trapped in an undying body, and they intend to storm the palace to bring her reign to an end.”

Veronica looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock. “It’s just as Amelia predicted. Cracking walls and fire and pain. And the one who sits in the chair is key.”

Newbury released her and slowly pushed himself up onto his feet. “We need to find a way out,” he stated flatly. “We have to warn her. Whatever she might have done, Veronica, we can’t let an army of occultists storm the palace. It’ll bring the Empire to its knees.”

Veronica nodded. “It may already be too late. It’s been hours.”

Newbury cursed under his breath. “All the same, we have to try. We have to get away from here. Graves said he would keep us alive long enough to show us the ruination of everything we hold dear. Either way, if we don’t get out of here soon, we’re dead.”

Veronica smiled. For the first time in hours, she was starting to feel a glimmer of hope. She’d thought it was over when Newbury had been deep in the throes of the opium withdrawal. Now, he was beginning to muster his strength. He was weak and bedraggled, but he was Newbury. His instinct was kicking in. He wanted to live.

“We need to work out how to get past this lock,” he said. “They took everything useful before they tossed me in here.”

“The lock isn’t the problem,” she replied, reaching up and extracting two thin metal pins from her hair. She held them out to him. They were lock picks, taken from his collection in Chelsea and secured there as they’d prepared for their spot of breaking and entering. Experience had long since taught her to conceal a few such items upon her person, just in case. She pointed towards the door. “That’s the problem.”

Newbury followed the line of her finger. There, perched on the wall just beside the door, was a large mechanical spider. “Damn it!” he said. He took a few steps towards the door. Three red lights flickered to life atop the machine, a little cluster of them, like glowing eyes. The body raised up on its eight spindly legs, and it emitted a high-pitched whirring sound as the blades in its belly began to spin and hum. Newbury stopped dead in his tracks, about three feet from the door.

“It’s just like the one that attacked us at my apartment,” Veronica said. “It sits there quietly, powered down, until one of us approaches the door. Then it stirs. I’ve not dared to get too close, in case I incite it to attack.”

Newbury nodded. “Graves said they had more of them.” He rubbed his face.

Veronica felt her newfound hope beginning to seep away. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to provoke it. There’s nothing in here we can use as a weapon. I would have had us out of here already if it hadn’t been for that.”

Newbury shrugged. “Bring those here. The lock picks.”

Veronica got to her feet. Newbury was sizing up the mechanical beast. He took another step towards it, and the scream of the spinning blades increased in intensity.

“Maurice, don’t be stupid. One wrong move and it’ll tear you apart,” she said.

Newbury looked back at her over his shoulder. “We’re dead anyway if we don’t get out of here. Might as well die trying.”

Veronica didn’t have any response. She knew he was right, but she could hardly condone his taking his life in his hands in such dramatic fashion. It was clear he was going to attempt to wrestle the thing out of the way.

Newbury seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. “Be ready with one of those lock picks,” he said. “When I say so, I want you to jam it in the recess behind those three red lights. I think those must be its eyes.”

“You
think
those are its eyes? What if they’re simply lights?”

Newbury looked exasperated. He ignored her and continued. “Once it’s in there, work it about a bit, try to damage the mechanisms. I want to make sure it can’t see us. Confuse it.”

Veronica sighed. She slid one of the lock picks into her belt and held the other in her fist like a dagger.

Newbury smiled. “Let’s get out of here, Miss Hobbes.” He sprang forward, surprising even her with his sudden movement. In one bound he was by the door, grabbing the spider machine from the wall by its legs, holding it at arm’s length, and grunting with the exertion of keeping it at bay. The spider bucked and wriggled, its blades screaming and whining as it fought to free itself from Newbury’s viselike grip.

One of the legs got free, stabbing at Newbury’s hand and causing him to cry out in pain as it buried itself in flesh. But he managed to hold on, his face locked in a grimace. “Now, Veronica!” he yelled.

She rushed forward, brandishing the lock pick. The spider thing continued to writhe and squirm in Newbury’s grasp. “Hurry!” he said urgently. She located the little cluster of red lights. They were less than an inch from the deadly blades. She risked losing her hand if Newbury wasn’t able to hold the machine still.

“Veronica!”

So be it. She jabbed down with the lock pick, shattering one of the glass eyes and jamming the metal shaft of the pick deep into the mechanisms of the clockwork monster. She forced the pick back and forth, feeling tiny gears crack and snap inside the device.

“Good,” Newbury said. “Good!”

She pulled the lock pick free and repeated the action, shattering another eye, wrenching more of the machine’s delicate internal systems out of place. It continued to buck violently in Newbury’s grip, but it wasn’t responding to Veronica. Blood was trickling down Newbury’s arm from a number of vicious cuts caused by the errant leg.

“Right, back away,” said Newbury, and Veronica did as she was told, retreating into the cell until her back was against the far wall.

Still holding the now-blinded machine at arm’s length, Newbury approached the door.

Oh, clever,
Veronica thought, as she watched him jam the spinning blades against the door panel, aiming it carefully over the lock. Unseeing, acting purely on whatever instinct had been invested in its mechanical brain, the spider thing bit down into the wood with its saw blades.

Newbury held it there, pressing it firmly against the door as it chewed a hole in the wood. The blades screeched as they struck metal, but carved on through, cutting a large hole right through the door and taking the entire lock mechanism along with it.

Seconds later, the disc of wood fell to the ground with a loud clatter. With all his might, Newbury hefted the spider and flung it at the cell’s back wall. It collided with the rock face with a crunch and fell to the ground, three of its legs hanging uselessly at its side. It scuttled for cover, banging into the wall before disappearing into the dark recesses of the cell.

Veronica stared at Newbury in wonder. Even now, he still had the capacity to surprise her.

“Come on, the guards will be here any second,” Newbury called to her, reaching for her hand and dragging her towards the door. The lock was a mangled mess. She wouldn’t be needing the other lock pick.

Newbury tugged at the door and it opened easily, then they were out in the corridor.

Veronica couldn’t believe their luck. There were no guards. The fools must have thought after six or seven hours that the spider was enough of a deterrent to prevent them from making any attempt to escape. Instead, their inattentiveness had given Newbury and Veronica the chance they needed to get away.

“This way,” Newbury said, and they set off at a run, following the incline that would take them back to the surface and Packworth House. They rounded the kink in the passage a few moments later, and Newbury ground immediately to a halt. He held his finger to his lips.

Veronica listened. There were voices up ahead. Three—no—four of them. She looked at Newbury and held up four fingers. He nodded. Releasing her other hand, he flexed his shoulder muscles and began slowly creeping towards the sound of the voices.

Veronica grabbed his arm. She shook her head, mouthing,
No!
She knew they would be armed with pistols and swords. As he was, Newbury was no match for them, even with her help. His mastery over the spider had been impressive, but this would be suicide.

Reluctantly, she pointed back the way they had come. They would have to find another way around. Newbury nodded, silently accepting the inevitable.

They turned and ran on.

CHAPTER

22

Veronica realized how big the warren beneath Packworth House really was as they walked down the seemingly endless passageway. It delved down farther and farther into the bedrock, branching off in myriad directions to form a chaotic web of tunnels and rooms. She and Newbury walked along the roughly hewn corridors, pausing every time they heard evidence of other people, sometimes doubling back to find a different way around or changing tack when they happened upon a dead end.

Veronica hoped there
was
another way out of the catacombs. There had to be. To come this far only to end up trapped down there and recaptured … She wouldn’t even entertain the thought.

She was tired now, near exhaustion, and the emotional impact of their time in the cell was beginning to take its toll. She was operating purely on adrenaline and the need to escape, to get them both to safety. For the moment she pushed all thoughts of Charles and Amelia out of her mind—they could worry about them once they were out. She had to focus on staying alive.

Up ahead the passageway branched off into three different directions. Here, Veronica noticed that the tunnels were more ordered and uniform, finished with neat brickwork and vaulted ceilings. She guessed they were part of an older structure, long buried beneath the soil, and that the Bastion Society had somehow found a way to marry their own, newer tunnels to the existing infrastructure. She suspected they were no longer under Packworth House, but instead far beneath one of the neighbouring properties.

There were clear signs of habitation here, too. Voices chattered in the distance, and the sound of industry echoed off the barren walls: the hammering of metal panels, the grinding of gears, the splutter of steam-fired engines.

Veronica tugged on Newbury’s sleeve, and he hesitated, looking back at her inquiringly. “I’ll try to find a way around,” he whispered.

Veronica shook her head. “No. We’ll only end up running round in circles down here, heading deeper and deeper underground, further away from any chance of escape. Let’s see what they’re up to. If there are people here, there must be another way out.”

Newbury nodded and returned to surreptitiously edging along the passageway, his back against the wall. Veronica followed him, keeping pace. When they came to the junction, they continued down the central tunnel, wary at all times of discovery.