Pax Britannia: Human Nature

by Jonathan Green

  Smoke billowed along the corridor, carried forward by the currents created in the air as the cold cellar was heated by the fire.

  Ulysses edged forwards, closer to the gamekeeper and his monstrous charge, closer to his one hope of getting out of there.

  And then he saw a change come over the Umbridge-chimera's expression. Where at first there had been only fear of Rudge's beatings, now there was full-blown desperate panic. The old man's eyes glared down at Rudge as he rained blow after blow onto the vivisect's massive body. The blows themselves didn't particularly hurt the beast, but they reminded it of pain the cruel man had inflicted in the past.

  "Get back! Get back!" the gamekeeper shouted, trying to force the chimera back into the chamber from which it had come. "Come on! Move!"

  And then its rheumy human eyes narrowed with a vicious intent all of its own. Rudge was the one thing stopping it from escaping from the hungry flames.

  When the attack came, it came fast. The chimera lashed out with its crustacean claw and double-jointed arm at the same time, seizing hold of the huge man and lifting him off the ground. Before Rudge really understood what was going on, the tentacle, squid-like, whipped forwards, the huge crab's claw closing around the gamekeeper's kicking legs.

  Rudge cried out. His yelp of pain became an agonised scream as the three limbs began to pull in different directions, the horrible high-pitched shriek filling the corridor for a moment before Rudge was suddenly and savagely silenced as the chimera tore him in half.

  Loops of steaming intestine splashed to the floor as the gamekeeper gave one last gargling death rattle and a spray of hot, red blood bathed the walls, the floor, the chimera and Ulysses in a ruddy shower.

  There was never going to be a better chance than this, Ulysses decided, as he made a break for it. The Umbridge-chimera distracted, ducking past its wildly limbs, as it continued to dismember the gamekeeper's corpse, Ulysses pushed past the creature's scrabbling crab's legs.

  And then he was through, only cool air and the cellar steps ahead of him.

  At the top of the stairs Ulysses caught up with Nimrod and the others.

  "It's this way," Jenny said breathlessly, as she led the party back through the palatial stately home at a run, heading for the entrance hall and a way out of the house.

  Entering the dimly lit atrium, Ulysses became aware of several things all at once. The front door was already open and voices raised in argument echoed from the marble columns.

  Umbridge's butler was there, valiantly trying to prevent a helmeted policeman from entering the premises. The dulcet tones of another irate officer reached Ulysses' ears, and for the first time in his life he felt pleased to hear Inspector Maurice Allardyce's voice raised in anger.

  "Get out of the bloody way!" he heard Allardyce shout as two burly constables barged their way past the startled butler and into the house.

  And then Ulysses heard the sound he had been dreading, booming from the passageway behind them.

  "And who might you be, sir?" one of the constables asked as he was suddenly confronted by a wild-eyed Ulysses, trailing the smell of smoke with him into the atrium, accompanied by an agitated-looking older man in a long black cloak, a desperate, bedraggled young woman, and what could only be described as a sideshow freak.

  "Never mind that!" Ulysses snapped as he pushed past the policeman. "You have to get out of here!"

  "Now hang on a minute, sir," the constable said, putting out his arms as if to stop Ulysses' flight from the house. "We've had a report about this place -"

  "Quicksilver!" Inspector Allardyce exclaimed as he too pushed his way into the entrance hall. "You look terrible. What have you got yourself mixed up in this time?"

  "Allardyce, we all have to get out of here now!"

  "What? But we've only just got here!"

  "Are your men armed?" Ulysses said, half over his shoulder, as he continued to make for the door, Nimrod and the others close behind him.

  "No."

  "Then get them out of here now. You have to withdraw!"

  "Now look here, Quicksilver! You can't just charge in here and start ordering me around like this, I'll have you know."

  "Allardyce!" Ulysses roared in frustration. And then his face fell, as he caught sight of what had entered the hallway after them. "Just run," he said, his voice suddenly horribly quiet.

  "What?" The confused inspector turned from the ashen-faced Ulysses to see what it was that had caused what little colour there was to drain from his waxy cheeks. "You're shitting me," he gasped.

  The first to fall foul of the chimera was the policeman who had tried to stop Ulysses. The monster picked the constable up with one claw and then merely tossed him aside. He collided with the top of a column and then dropped fifteen feet to the floor, landing face first on the cold marble tiles without making a sound, other than the sickening crunch of his skull breaking.

  Ulysses paused at the doorway and stared at the monster in appalled horror. The wretched butler Molesworth stood beside him staring aghast at the creature that now bore only the vaguest similarity to his master Josiah Umbridge.

  Screeching, the vivisect reached for another wretched policeman who was already scrabbling to get away, feet slipping on the highly-polished floor. The Umbridge-chimera lunged forwards, bringing the man down with the point of one crustacean leg. The man screamed as the great weight of the monster pressed down on that one clawed crab's leg, puncturing the flesh of his thigh, and pinning him to the ground.

  The chimera regarded the policeman curiously for a moment. Absently-mindedly tossing the gamekeeper's lower body aside - which it had still been holding in the vice-like grip of its monstrous claw - the creature closed its pincer around the constable's head and, with one neat twist, removed it from his shoulders.

  "Quick! Get out!" Ulysses screamed as he hurried his friends through the door, hoping that Jenny would not look back and witness any of the carnage consuming the atrium behind them.

  Unable to tear his own gaze away, he looked from the twitching corpse of the decapitated policeman to the white-faced Allardyce staring transfixed at the vivisect-beast and the remains of the gamekeeper. Beside the oozing remains was Ulysses' cane.

  Scrambling back into the hall, he pulled the black wood cane free, feeling its reassuring weight as he held it in his hand again, and then turned for the door, dragging the dumbfounded Allardyce after him.

  Shoving the bewildered inspector ahead of him, Ulysses paused in front of the frozen Molesworth, paralysed now that he was faced with the reality of what his master had become.

  Ulysses drew back his left hand and hit the butler full in the face, his new simian arm delivering a powerful punch. Molesworth's head hit an alabaster pedestal behind him and he crumpled to the floor, out cold.

  "That's for the knockout drops," Ulysses declared with indignant self-righteousness, and then dashed through the door, after the dazed Allardyce.

  Once outside in the biting cold of the November night, he paused again, this time to slam the double doors shut behind him; anything to slow the creature down, even if would only be for a second.

  With the beast and its enraged bellows trapped inside the house for the time being, Ulysses caught up with Allardyce as the inspector was making for the gleaming black police car pulled up on the gravel drive.

  "This your car?" Ulysses asked.

  "Y-Yes," the inspector stammered.

  "Everyone, get in!" Ulysses commanded, pulling open a door. "Keys?"

  "In the ignition."

  "Good. I'll drive. Now, get in!"

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fight or Flight

  Ulysses pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor, and the car took off, throwing up a spray of gravel behind it. Almost as an afterthought he found the right switch on the dashboard and flicked on the headlights. Two powerful white beams cut through the dark, illuminating the driveway ahead and reaching as far as the boundary wall of the estate.

  For a few m
oments, the only sounds inside the car - other than the rising and falling tone of the engine - were the gasping pants of its occupants as they all tried to recover their breath and make sense of what had happened to them back at the house.

  Ulysses tore up the driveway, accelerating into the gentle curve of the gravel road as it pulled round parallel with the Neo-Classical facade of the stately home.

  "What was that?" Allardyce demanded, turning in his seat to face Ulysses. Ulysses' eyes remained firmly on the drive ahead, a manic gleam ablaze there.

  "By that I take it you mean the monster that just tore apart your friends from the North Yorks constabulary."

  "Of course that's what I bloody mean!" Allardyce shrieked.

  "Didn't you recognise him? That was the renowned industrialist billionaire recluse Josiah Umbridge. Although it looks like he's not such a recluse any more, doesn't it?"

  Allardyce gawped at the dandy, hunched over the steering wheel, a haunted expression on his face as he peered beyond the windscreen of the car. Details flashed into existence out of the darkness as the beams of the police car's headlights briefly illuminated trees and topiary before the night swallowed them up again.

  "Nimrod, any sign?" Ulysses asked his manservant, who had bundled into the back of the car with Jenny and the freak.

  Nimrod peered out of the window next to him, trying to discern anything through the darkness. Behind them the great house was aglow, the fire having spread.

  "I see it, sir!" he suddenly shouted. "Approaching from the right!"

  Holding the steering wheel straight, Ulysses dared a glance. The chimera was moving towards them at speed across the carefully tended lawns, galloping through the water of an ornamental pool in its rush to catch up with them.

  The landscape designer who had laid out the estate and the approach to it along the drive had planned it so that visitors might enjoy unprecedented views of the whole of the carefully constructed Neo-Classical facade of the house as they entered the grounds.

  However, the curve of the drive, provided the thing, of which Josiah Umbridge had become a part, with a shortcut by which to intercept the escaping police car and its passengers.

  Teeth gritted, knuckles white around the steering wheel - his left arm aching right down to the bone - Ulysses watched as the chimera hove into view, galloping over the last rise of turf to reach the road.

  The only way out was the private estate road that cut across Ghestdale, but to make it they were first going to have to pass through the stone-pillared gates and, right now, that meant confronting the chimera head-on.

  Ulysses pushed his right foot down as hard as he could, as if trying to ram the pedal beneath through the floor.

  "Look out!" Allardyce yelled, and pulled hard on the steering wheel, as the creature skidded onto the road, its hideousness revealed again by the wildly swinging headlights.

  "Get off!" Ulysses shouted, fighting to get the car under control as it bounced off the gravel drive, its tyres gouging ruts in the perfectly-manicured lawn.

  The car swung back onto the road with a squeal of tyres.

  There was a resounding crash and the car lurched sideways. Jennifer screamed and the freak that she had named Jacob moaned in terror as well.

  "Bloody hell!" was all the inspector could think to say.

  Allardyce looked out of the driver's window. He saw the dark mass of the chimera moving alongside the car, maintaining a galloping to keep pace with the speeding vehicle. And then he cried out in unintelligible dread as the chimera's old man's face appeared, craning forwards over the top of the car on its elongated neck.

  There was another crash and the police car's passengers were shaken out of their seats, Jennifer falling into Jacob's lap.

  "What's he trying to do?" Jenny wailed.

  "My guess would be that Umbridge is attempting to ram us off the road." Ulysses glanced back over his shoulder at Jenny. "To get to you. You were to be his bride, after all."

  Jennifer face in reaction to this statement said it all.

  "But don't worry, that's not going to happen. I'm going to get you out of here. We're all getting out of here!"

  And then the stone pillars of the estate entrance stood ahead of them. Desperately willing the car towards them as it powered up the drive, Ulysses aimed right for the middle of the open gateway.

  With another resounding crash, the chimera collided with the car again, denting the driver's door and crazing the window, such was the force of its attack. The wheels on the nearside left the ground and the car scraped against a gate post as it hurtled through, this second collision righting the vehicle again.

  Ulysses was sure he heard a squeal of pain and thought he saw the Umbridge-chimera run headlong into the opposite pillar, out of the corner of his eye.

  With the road across the moors clear ahead of them, Ulysses risked looking in the car's rear-view mirror. He could see the house, flames dancing high into the sky, the brilliant orange blaze lighting up the estate like a beacon. Visible against the burning house was the malformed shadow of the vivisect-beast. Ulysses thought he saw the creature shaking its head - as if the old man was trying to recover his senses - and then the monster was on the move again, dogged in its pursuit of them. But they had the advantage; on a straight run, Ulysses sincerely doubted that the beast would be able to keep up with the car.

  "So, what now?" Allardyce asked, turning back to Ulysses.

  "Now?" Ulysses said, as if this was genuinely the first time he had considered where they should go from here. "Now, we head in to town for reinforcements and then head back up here to run down the beast and put an end to it!"

  "Reinforcements?" Allardyce screeched. "Where do you think we are? This isn't London, you know. There are no automata-Peeler grunts here."

  "Call ahead!" Ulysses demanded, thinking on his feet. "Tell your friends at the Whitby constabulary that you need them up here now, with everything they've got!"

  "I don't bloody believe this," Allardyce muttered under his breath as he took out his police-issue personal communicator.

  "What don't you bloody believe?" Ulysses challenged, his dander up.

  "Any of this. Is your life always like this?" Allardyce demanded. "Is it always this mad?"

  "Not all of the time," Ulysses muttered, taking his right hand off the wheel to massage the place where the ape's arm had been attached to his body. "What were you and your men doing at Umbridge House anyway?"

  "We had an anonymous tip-off that something was up."

  "I took the liberty of calling for back-up, sir, when I became fully aware of the seriousness of our situation," Nimrod explained.

  "So it was you?" the policeman railed.

  "Yes, inspector."

  "I don't believe it! You called me for back-up?"

  "I know. I couldn't believe it either, as I was making the call, sir."

  The car's occupants fell silent.

  Ulysses returned to massaging his arm. It still pained him, but then he had undergone major surgery only a few hours ago.

  How had Seziermesser done it? he wondered. How long had he taken to perfect his technique and test the properties of his secret formula? And where had he got the animals from? He and Umbridge must have been planning this for months, if not longer; two madmen sharing the same twisted vision but with entirely different motives.

  Ulysses had to admire the vivisectionist on one level, to have accomplished such a feat of creation. But for the most part it appalled him. If it hadn't been for the good doktor, then Ulysses would still have his arm. But then, if it hadn't been for the surgeon's skill with a needle and nerve-splicer he wouldn't have been in any fit state to fight back against the crazed beast that old man Umbridge had become.

  And it must have been quite some cocktail of drugs that Seziermesser had plied him with, (a) to overcome his body's natural defences to stop it rejecting the chimp's arm, (b) for him not to be doubled up in agony, gibbering like a moron on the laboratory floor, and (c) for him
to have come round so quickly, without feeling any extreme ill-effects. He wondered how long he had until their effects wore off.

  Or was it something else that was keeping him going? Had the doktor in fact attached additional adrenal glands to his body while he was poking around inside him, reattaching his shoulder? Was that what was keeping his body stimulated to the point of euphoria?

  His mind starting to wander, as he tried to make sense of all that had happened to him in the last twelve hours or so, Ulysses did not see the dip in the rutted moorland road. The car flew into it, its bumper impacting into the road surface on the other side, before bouncing out again. For a split second Ulysses lost control of the vehicle and, breaking, spun it on the loose dirt surface of the track, sending it off the road.

  Shouts of panic and surprise filled the police car as it slid to a halt facing the wrong way amidst a knot of gorsy tussocks. The engine died.

  "What the hell are you playing at, Quicksilver?" Allardyce shouted.

  Slowly Ulysses released his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

  "Look, get this ruddy thing started, you bloody idiot!"

  "Are you alright, sir?" Nimrod asked from the backseat. "Would you like me to drive?"

  In a daze Ulysses reached for the ignition key and turned it.

  "Yeah, that's it. Get your man to drive. Or here's a better idea. Swap seats and I'll drive."

  The engine rattled into life again.

  "I'm alright," Ulysses said, coming out of his stupor.

  "No, let me drive!" the agitated inspector demanded.

  "I'm alright! I - Hnnn!" Ulysses winced and threw up a hand to his temple.

  "Look, Quicksilver, you're obviously in no fit state... Bloody hell! You've got to be frigging joking!"

  The look in the inspector's eyes demanded that Ulysses follow it, although his screaming sixth sense had already told him all he needed to know.

  Leaping over the tussocks and trenches, the uneven ground not hindering its progress in any way, the chimera galloped towards them out of the night.

  Slamming his foot to the floor, his heart racing, Ulysses willed the car to start moving as the monster bore down on them. The car's wheels spun, churning the damp moorland to mud, and then incredibly they found purchase again. The automobile shot forwards, throwing the passengers around inside the car as it bounced over the rough heath and back onto the rutted track.