The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) (37 page)

Burton turned to address his companions, but Swinburne tapped his own ear and said, “We heard. We’re in trouble with the law because we failed to steal.”

“I wish I had my revolver,” Trounce mumbled.

New Centre Point was just ahead, but so were more constables.

“They’ll take us before we can reach the minibus,” Farren observed.

Bendyshe’s voice: “
Turn right and start running. Kat will land a flier in Soho Square. Sir Richard, Algernon, get into it. The moment it departs, Maxwell will arrive in a second machine. Mick, William, that one’s for you.
”

“The square’s not far,” Farren noted. “Unless it’s been moved.”

They rounded the corner into Soho Street and took to their heels. People scattered out of their path. A siren started to wail.

A constable flew through the air and landed in front of them, lowering a hand to the paving as it skidded across it. The pig creature stood, viciously swatted a young woman out of the way, and pounced onto Swinburne. The poet shrieked as solid arms clamped hard around him, catching him in mid-stride. He was lifted, legs kicking.

“Halt!” the constable commanded. “You are detained under Section Nine of the Public Order Act.”

“I don’t think so, chum,” Trounce shouted. He slammed his heel into the back of the creature’s knee. As the constable buckled, Burton piled into it and pulled it down. He ruthlessly hammered its head into the ground. The pig man went limp. Swinburne jumped to his feet.

“Run!” Burton bellowed. He saw constables springing in from all sides. One landed in front of him. He delivered a right hook to the side of its face. It staggered. He whirled away from it and sprinted after his companions.

The air vibrated, and, with a loud thrumming, a small wedge-shaped flying machine swept down between the gleaming towers and thudded into the square, landing just in front of them. Immediately, a shadow fell over it and a strong wind gusted down as a far larger vessel slid overhead. It was a white disk with six rotors set into its hull and a black-and-white chequered band decorating its outer edge. A menacing cannon-like array bulged from its underside. A deafening voice thundered from the machine. “Stay where you are. Do not resist. You are in violation of Sections Nine to Thirteen of the Public Order Act. You must submit to interrogation or forfeit your lives.”

A door in the side of the small flier hinged upward. A middle-aged woman leaned out and yelled, “Burton! Swinburne! In! Now!” She pointed a pistol and fired three shots. Three constables, on the point of grabbing Farren, Trounce and Swinburne, were thrown backward and lay twitching in the road.

Burton pushed Trounce toward the vehicle. “Go.”

In his ear, Bendyshe shouted, “
No! You and Swinburne first!
”

“Do as he says!” Trounce snapped. He took a pace backward and gave the king’s agent a hefty shove. Burton fell against the flier. Kat Bradlaugh grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him in. The king’s agent spat an epithet and reached out of the vehicle toward Swinburne. The poet extended his right hand. His fingertips touched Burton’s. A constable dropped down behind him. It raised a truncheon. With a loud
snick
, a blade slid out of the end of the weapon.

“Algy!” Burton hollered.

The stilted figure thrust the baton into the back of Swinburne’s neck. The poet opened his mouth in shock. The blade slipped out of it like a pointed tongue. Blood gushed. Swinburne’s green eyes rolled up. He crumpled to the ground.

“No!” Burton screamed. “No!”

“
Kat, get him clear!
”

The door dropped shut. Burton hammered his fists against it and hollered, “Let me out! Let me out!”

The flier lurched upward.

“I have to help Algy!” Burton rounded on Bradlaugh. “Take me back down, damn you!”

Through gritted teeth, she snarled, “Don’t be a fool.”

The flier tilted to the left as she turned it. Through its side window, Burton saw constables teeming around Trounce and Farren. One lashed out at the detective inspector, its truncheon cracking ferociously across his eyes. Trounce’s head snapped back, blood spraying from it. He collapsed, kicked, and lay still.

A second flier plummeted past and landed.

Kat Bradlaugh uttered a cry of dismay and grappled with the steering levers. Burton felt his stomach churning as the vehicle skewed and twisted. She shouted, “The police ship is trying to access our controls. Tom, can you help?”

“
Maxwell, get Farren. Kat, I’m going to switch you to full manual.
”

“I’m ready.”

“
There are police ships approaching from the north and west. You’ll have to stay low to evade them. Get going.
”

“We can’t leave!” Burton cried out. “My friends are injured.”

“
Their nanomechs aren’t transmitting life signs, Sir Richard. I’m sorry.
”

“No!” He grabbed Bradlaugh’s shoulder. “Wait! Wait! I can’t leave them! They can’t be dead!”

She ignored him. The flier suddenly fell, jerked to a stop some fifteen feet from the ground, and started to slide sideways.

“Got it!” Bradlaugh exclaimed. “Which way out?”

A constable thumped onto the front of the vehicle, causing it to rock. The creature’s fingers screeched against metal as it scrabbled for a hold.

“Off! Off!” Bradlaugh shouted.

The pig man squealed and scraped to the right. It fell out of sight.

“
Follow Greek Street south
,” Bendyshe instructed.

Burton glimpsed Farren at the door of the landed vessel, engulfed by constables. He was fighting like a madman, punching, kicking, somehow resisting though vastly outnumbered. Behind the Deviant, the Cannibal, Maxwell Monckton Milnes, was being dragged from the driver’s seat. His head was seized and forced all the way around. He went down.

“You bloody animals!” Burton cried out.

Farren broke free, dived into the parked flier, and yanked down the door.

“
Mick
,” Bendyshe said. “
I’ve locked you in. Are you all right?
”

Burton heard Farren panting. “
No. Stabbed. Bleeding. It’s bad.
”

“
Can you stay conscious?
”

“
Not for—not for long.
”

“
You have to fly manually. Pull the joystick back to get her off the ground, side to side to steer, push it to descend. The footplate controls forward momentum and braking. Same as in your day.
”

“
Got it.
”

“Hold on tight,” Kat Bradlaugh said to Burton.

He was pressed into his seat as the flier suddenly shot forward then was thrown against the Cannibal as it veered sharply. A thin beam of light sizzled past the side window just inches from his head. He felt its heat on his face. The glass blistered and cracked.

Bradlaugh cried out, “They’re firing at us!”

The second flier rose into view, weaving and bobbing as Farren struggled with the controls.

A voice blared from the police ship. “We have you contained. Land your vehicles immediately or we’ll shoot you down. You have ten seconds to comply. No further warnings.”

“Tom?” Bradlaugh asked.

“
Damn it.
I’m helpless. You’ll have to outmanoeuvre them.
”

“I can’t.”

Mick Farren’s voice whispered in Burton’s ear. “
I guess it’s time for one last gesture of defiance. It’s been fun, Sir Richard. A real pleasure to meet you. Good luck.
”

“Farren!” Burton called. “What are you—?”

Before he could finish, Farren’s flying machine shot upward at a tremendous velocity, slammed into the bottom of the police vessel, and disappeared in a ball of flame. Bradlaugh screamed as the shockwave hit and the steering levers were wrenched out of her hands. Burning material rained down. The noise of tortured metal filled Soho Square, like the wails of a mortally wounded leviathan.

Bradlaugh snatched at the levers and regained control. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She steered the flier into Greek Street and accelerated to such a breakneck velocity that Burton couldn’t draw breath. He twisted and looked to the rear just as the burning police disk went angling into a glass tower, ripped downward through its facade, broke in half, and disintegrated into the square amid a torrential downpour of fire, metal and broken glass. Then it was out of sight, and they were hurtling along, perilously close to the ground, through Charing Cross Road and into Long Acre.

“
Kat, safe house eight
,” Bendyshe ordered.

“Endell Street, yes?”

“
Yes.
”

“Got you. Half a minute.”

The flier pitched onto its side and plummeted into a narrow alleyway. Burton, unable to think, held on tightly and moaned with fright as brick walls streaked past just inches away. The machine rocketed out into a lengthy back yard, flipped to the horizontal, hit the ground, screeched along in a shower of sparks, and smacked into a wall, its nose crumpling.

“Out!” Bradlaugh barked.

Blood dribbled into Burton’s eyes. His head had impacted against the windscreen. He couldn’t move.

“Out!” the Cannibal repeated. She hit a switch, his door swung upward, and she pushed him into waiting hands.

“This way, Sir Richard,” Tom Bendyshe said. “Lean on me.”

Burton had little choice. His legs were like rubber.

Bendyshe half-dragged him across the yard, through a door, over rotting floorboards, out of another door, and into a quiet street where the minibus waited.

Sadhvi Raghavendra and Herbert Wells hauled him into the vehicle. Kat Bradlaugh followed and collapsed onto its floor. The door slid shut. Bendyshe clambered in next to Odessa Penniforth and said, “Not too fast. Don’t attract attention.”

The king’s agent felt the minibus move forward. Sadhvi applied a cloth to his forehead. He heard Wells say, “Are we going to make it, Mr. Bendyshe?”

“My colleagues are laying a false trail. Irregular BioProc signals racing westward. We, in the meantime, will be at Battersea Airfield in a few minutes.”

Sadhvi put a hand on Burton’s shoulder. “Richard?”

Sadhvi is alive. Wells is alive. Lawless is alive. Krishnamurthy is alive. Gooch is alive.

He sucked in a shuddering breath.

But Mick Farren and—

He couldn’t think it. Couldn’t allow any acknowledgment of the fact.

It came anyway.

William Trounce is dead.

Algernon Swinburne is dead.