The Immorality Engine (28 page)

The man worked to free his arms from her grip, but she held fast, straining with the force by which she had to cling to the controls.

Raising her leg, she kicked out at the other machine and connected with its right leg, just above the knee joint. The steel exoskeleton buckled with the force of the blow, collapsing in on the man’s leg. Veronica heard his thighbone snap as he twisted and howled in agony, trying desperately to back away. She held on to the arms with all her might, keeping him from breaking free.

She realised that this was no fight to the death; all she had to do was find a way to disable the other machine. If she could leave it broken and stranded in the passageway, she’d be able to flee with Newbury without fear of it giving chase.

Veronica, issuing a fearsome scream, kicked out again in an effort to destroy the other machine’s leg. She funnelled all her rage into the blow, all the frustration and disbelief and impotence she’d felt in recent days, all her desperation and worry and pain. To her satisfaction, the steel gave, twisting dramatically out of shape. The man’s leg was utterly ruined inside the brace, and she saw blood spurt from multiple wounds, staining the ground with a spray of dark crimson. She felt a momentary pang of regret, but didn’t have time to dwell on the matter.

Veronica reasserted her grip on the arms and pushed back, walking forward towards the other machine in the hope that her momentum would topple it over. The man tried to struggle, tried to hold his ground, but with his shattered leg he was unable to brace himself. A moment later the exoskeleton tipped over onto its back, taking the man down with it. He howled in pain and frustration.

Veronica backed away, watching the other machine clawing desperately at the walls, trying to find purchase enough to haul itself up. Its broken leg spasmed as the servos fizzed and popped, and the man called out in agony with every twitching movement.

Veronica didn’t have it in her to finish him. She knew others would be along soon to help, and the wrecked, toppled machine would be enough to block their path while she and Newbury made good their escape.

Carefully, she turned the armour around in the passageway, unable to prevent herself from splintering another coffin in a nearby wall cavity as she scraped the sides of the tunnel with the machine’s arm. Newbury was waiting for her up ahead, the bundled plans from the map room clutched in his fist.

“Run!” she shouted as she powered forward in the great machine, one foot after the other, driving herself on towards the surface. Plumes of dust and debris billowed into the air with every step. Newbury, shaking his head in disbelief, trailed behind in her wake.

CHAPTER

23

Enoch Graves sat before the fireplace at his favourite table, surveying the assembled mass of grey-suited men. They lounged about in their armchairs, sipping brandy and smoking cigars, lost in conversation, playing cards, or otherwise relaxing in each other’s company.
Just like the knights of old resting before a battle
. He wondered if this was how the Knights of Jaffa had passed their time before riding into battle alongside King Richard, sacrificing their lives to bring enlightenment to the heathens. He imagined so.

Graves smiled with pride. Every man he could see formed a part of his flock. He commanded them all, and each of them was content in the knowledge that he would lead them to glory. Theirs was the noblest of causes, and he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that they would prove themselves triumphant in the coming hours. He yearned for that time to come. His moment of glory could not arrive too quickly.

These moments sitting in the great hall amongst his men were the last calm hours before the oncoming storm. This was the eve of their sacrifice, the day they would take up arms and set in motion the chain of events that would topple the blasphemous monarchy that sat incumbent on the throne of England. Victoria’s reign would end. He smiled at the thought of it. When his spirit returned to the Earth in its next life, a new time of prosperity would have settled on England.

Graves searched the crowd for Warrander, but could not see him. Most likely he was down in the armoury overseeing the eleventh-hour preparations. He’d always been conscientious—a pedant, even—unable to rest until he knew that everything was in its right place, all the preparations had been checked and checked again. Graves wanted to share a drink with him, to raise a glass in his honour, for delivering the means by which they would achieve their aims. Then he would return to the hanging room and carve out the tongue of his duplicate; a precaution against future judgement if he were to die in the forthcoming battle.

Graves reached for the bulbous brandy glass on the table and swilled it around, inhaling the heady vapours. He was just about to take a long draught of the spirit when he heard a muffled crash from somewhere across the other side of the hall. Returning his glass to the table, he stood, trying to see what the commotion was about. One of doors beside the staircase burst open, banging back on its hinges, and a man came hurtling through. He was dressed in the Society’s customary grey suit and bowler hat, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs in panic, calling for everyone to clear the room, now, before it was too late.

Everyone in the hall turned to look at Graves simultaneously, waiting to see his response. The man stood there, alone at the foot of the stairs, panting and waving his arms in dismay.

Graves stepped forward and the men around him moved back to clear a path. He would publicly admonish the man for his cowardice, take him to task for attempting to jeopardise the great mission, and then order him to do penance by flagellating his duplicate in the hanging room. He was just about to speak when he heard another crash, this time considerably louder, and glanced round to the open doorway to see one of Warrander’s armoured suits charging towards him from the passageway beyond. His mouth dropped open in a surprised gape. The driver must have smashed his way up through the catacombs, clearing a path through the serried rows of tombs to find its way here. He paced back until his legs encountered a table behind him. He drew his sword and held it before him, his hand shaking. The Hobbes woman, Newbury’s assistant, was at the controls.

The armoured machine burst through the too-small doorway, shattering the frame and sending clouds of dust and rubble billowing into the room. Its massive steel feet pounded the tiled floor as it charged out into the hall, swinging its arms and batting his men aside as if swatting flies.

People scattered, shouting and screaming at one another, sliding under tables or fleeing up the staircase to get away from the crazed woman in the machine.

Graves saw Newbury emerge from the passageway behind the machine, coughing and spluttering from the dust. Graves gripped the hilt of his sabre tightly in his fist and cursed. He couldn’t allow the Queen’s agent to get away—his escape would put their whole endeavour at risk. He would have to stop him. And when he discovered who was responsible for Newbury’s release, he told himself, they would pay, very dearly indeed.

Wary to keep his distance from the rampaging Hobbes girl, Graves started out across the hall, making a beeline for the unsuspecting Newbury. The chaos would be all the cover he needed to get close to the man. He would run the agent through before the unbelieving fool even knew he was there.

Graves moved from table to table, trying to keep something—or some
one
—between himself and the armoured machine at all times. He had almost made it to Newbury when a grey-suited body, flung like a rag doll from the path of the stomping suit, collided with him, bowling him over and causing him to cry out in shock, releasing his sabre so that it skittered away across the tiled floor.

The world went into free fall, everything spinning, the chattering, screaming voices of his men growing louder, ringing in his ears. He shook his head, trying to clear the disorientation.

He was lying on the floor, a dead weight on his chest.

His head smarting from catching a table leg in the fall, Graves pounded the unconscious man with his fists for a moment before giving up and shoving him brutally to the floor. He scrambled to his feet. Too late, he realised he’d missed his chance.

The Hobbes girl reached down and snatched up Newbury in the machine’s fist, swiping him off his feet and lifting him into the air. She then charged at the far wall, bowing the suit’s right shoulder and tucking her head low, preparing to smash through a tall sash window. In the machine’s left hand, Newbury dangled like a child’s toy, clutched between its claws and clinging on for dear life.

Seconds later, the armoured suit collided with the wall, causing the window to shatter with an explosion of glass fragments that tinkled to the floor like a shower of diamonds. Two swift kicks and the low wall had crumbled. Then the machine was through, out into the daylight and away down the street, the pounding of its feet echoing as it ran.

Graves felt the rising tide of fury engulf him. How
dare
they! How dare they do this! Not today. Not when he was so close to achieving everything he’d been working towards. He could barely believe it. He kicked the prone body of the man by his feet, so hard that he felt a rib crack beneath his foot. Then, realising he had no other options left, he clambered up onto a table and bellowed at the snivelling wretches around him to listen.

The surviving men, picking themselves up off the floor, snapped to attention, terrified to hear what he was going to say. But he would not berate them for their mistakes. Instead, he would galvanise them with a desire for revenge. “Gentlemen,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, “prepare yourselves for war! We mobilise within the hour!”

A cheer went up around the hall, amidst the dust and the rubble and the spilled blood. Graves smiled. Perhaps victory was still within their reach, after all.

CHAPTER

24

“Madam, I am the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard!” Bainbridge folded his arms indignantly and leaned back against the headrest of his hospital bed.

The young nurse, dressed in a flowing black gown with a white apron, prim white cuffs, and a matching mob cap, offered him the severest of looks. “I’m sure you’re quite right, sir. But chief inspector or not, you’ve just had a rather large fragment of metal removed from your arm, and, if your story is to be believed”—she raised her eyebrows to indicate that she clearly thought it was not—“you’ve been threatened with explosives, beaten in a fistfight, and generally subjected to all manner of violent behaviour in the last few hours.” She put her hands on his shoulders, gripping him firmly and trying to force him back down into the pillows. “I really do think it’s best you get some rest.”

“Bah!” Bainbridge muttered before finally giving in and allowing the woman to win. He sank back into the downy pillows and she smiled triumphantly, drawing the sheets up over his legs. He knew she was right. He was in no fit state for anything but rest. His arm was strapped to his chest, and his eyes were both so swollen that he could barely prise them open. His hair was singed from the flames, and his legs, buttocks, and elbows smarted from all the tumbling around in the hansom and the scrabbling around on the cobbles. Not to mention the vicious beating he’d taken at the hands of the ruffians. He’d been unconscious for hours and his head was still pounding. He wanted to sink into warm oblivion once again, to sleep away all the aches and pains that plagued him. But he knew that wasn’t really possible. He had to get to Newbury, warn him about the Bastion Society, and tell him to go to the Queen.

The nurse had told him he’d been babbling Newbury’s name when they brought him in. He’d been dragged across town in the back of an uncomfortable ambulance and dumped directly onto an operating table, still delirious from the blows to his head and the loss of blood.

He didn’t recall much of what followed, other than a bout of excruciating pain as the surgeon pulled the shard of bomb casing from his shoulder, and the spray of blood that accompanied it. He had swooned after that, and when he’d come round, he’d been lying in a bed on the ward, his shoulder strapped and his body alive with cramping muscles.

The first thing he said after the nurse had fetched water was that he needed to speak with Sir Maurice Newbury. She told him he’d been saying the same thing since he’d arrived, and that they’d already sent for Newbury, and that he needed to rest. She’d been feeding him the same lines on a rotating basis ever since, which had been over three hours ago.

Now, Bainbridge was growing impatient, and while he knew intellectually that there was little he could do other than wait at the hospital for Newbury, he hated the feeling of impotence that waiting inspired within him. He wanted to get out of there, to hail a hansom and head across town to Chelsea. He wanted to find Miss Hobbes and ensure that the reason Newbury hadn’t come to find him wasn’t because he was idling somewhere in an opium den, chasing the dragon and throwing his life away. Most of all, however, he wanted to feel useful, and his inability to do so was the most galling thing of all.

Bainbridge banged his fist against the side of the bed in a show of frustration, and the nurse gave a squeal of fright and ran for the door. She almost collided with another man who was entering the ward at the same time. He laughed amicably and stepped to one side to allow her to pass. “I should have realised you’d be terrorising the nurses, Charles.”

Bainbridge turned his head at the sound of the familiar voice and tried to prop himself up on the bed, cursing as he struggled to support himself with only one functioning arm. “Newbury! Where the Hell have you been?”

Newbury strode quickly to Bainbridge’s bedside, helping his friend to sit up. “Here, Charles, allow me.”

Bainbridge gave Newbury an appraising look. He was dressed in a smart black suit with a freshly pressed white shirt, but he looked as if he’d dressed in a hurry. He hadn’t buttoned his jacket and he was still wearing the previous day’s stubble. He looked weary, but there was a glint in his eye that had been lacking for weeks, if not months. Perhaps he hadn’t reverted to the opium dens, then?