by Mark Hodder
He’d come so close. He’d discovered the existence of Spring Heeled Jack. He’d learned the truth about the apparition’s identity and origin. He’d found where the British government’s secretive Society of Science was keeping the time suit. And he’d almost snatched it from them.
The accursed king’s agent! She’d been on his heels ever since he’d killed Krishnamurthy and Bhatti, and now, just as his victory seemed assured, she’d caught up with him.
Still dazed from the knock to his head, on his hands and knees, with pain searing through his skull, he tried desperately to gather his thoughts.
“Stay down,” she advised. “Try anything and I’ll not hesitate.”
“Miss Arundell,” he rasped. “Your sense of timing is immaculate—and exasperating.”
He tried to push himself up, but her weapon jabbed into his neck again.
“Last chance. Believe me, I’m itching to pull this trigger.”
Perhaps his attempt to move so soon after being clouted was a mistake anyway; it sent his senses spinning, and, for a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. In his bedroom, surely? No, else there’d be a carpet beneath his hands and knees. There was only one place he knew that possessed this harsh, unnatural illumination. Battersea Power Station.
As if to confirm it, he heard Babbage’s characteristic rasp. “Have you quite finished, Madam? Am I to suffer these interruptions every time I’m on the verge of an important experiment?”
“Had I not interrupted, Charles,” Isabel responded, “you’d have nothing to experiment with. He was about to steal the time suit.”
Isabel. Alive. She’s alive.
“Please,” Burton croaked. “Let me stand. Let me look at you.”
“Keep him in your sights, Algernon,” she said.
“Rightie ho.”
Swinburne. So he was here, too.
Burton put a hand to his face. It was clean-shaven.
He had thoughts overlaying thoughts, memories upon memories.
One stratum clarified, the rest blurred.
He recognised himself.
Another side step.
“All right,” Isabel said. “Get to your feet. Slowly. Any sudden movement and I’ll shoot you dead.”
Another voice, male: “Be careful. I know to my cost how dangerous the swine can be.”
Burton raised his head and saw John Hanning Speke. The man had been killed in Berbera four years ago, but here he was, in nearly every respect as Burton remembered him, tall, thin, with a long, mousy brown beard and a weak, indecisive sort of face. The sole difference was that this Speke’s left eye was missing, along with much of the skull above it, and had been replaced with a mechanism of glass and brass. Burton very slowly climbed to his feet, and the man’s artificial eye whirred as the metal rings surrounding the black lens adjusted its focus.
“Run to earth, at last,” Speke said. “You’ll not escape this time, Dick. It’s the noose for you.”
Burton didn’t respond. Very gradually, he turned. He saw Babbage, standing by a workbench with the damaged suit on it. He saw a hulking contraption of jointed legs and tool-bearing limbs, which he guessed was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He saw Algernon Swinburne, short-haired, scar-faced, and despite his diminutive and somewhat effeminate form, looking surprisingly brutal. And he saw Isabel Arundell.
She was slender, elegant, beautiful, and aiming her pistol straight between his eyes.
“Isabel,” he whispered, hardly able to resist rushing forward to take her into his arms.
“Shut up,” she snapped. “Charles, please proceed. We’ll allow our uninvited guest to witness the activation of the suit. I want him to go to the gallows knowing we have it, knowing it works, and knowing we’ll use it to defeat his master’s filthy empire.” She flicked the end of the gun slightly and said to Burton, “Watch. This marks the end of all Bismarck’s schemes.”
Burton looked back at Babbage. The elderly scientist clapped his hands together. “Have you all quite finished? Interruption after interruption! Unacceptable! This is a place for science and the advancement of understanding, not for your ridiculous games of politics and one-upmanship. Now, be quiet and observe.” He tapped the suit’s helmet. “This, as I have already told you, has the ability to repair itself but currently lacks sufficient energy to do so. By reestablishing its connection to this,” he pointed at the Nimtz generator, “I believe power enough will be transferred.” He took a pocket watch from his waistcoat. “Isambard, please record that the experiment commences at nine o’clock on the evening of the fifteenth of February, 1860.”
He reached down and traced a shape on the side of the generator. It glowed, crackled and let forth a shower of sparks.
“I’d move back if I was you,” Burton advised.
A bubble swelled out of the suit. Babbage and Speke, standing closest to it, retreated hastily.
“And,” Burton said, “hey presto.”
The time suit vanished, taking half the bench and a chunk of Isambard Kingdom Brunel with it.
“How did you do that?” Isabel demanded. “Bring it back at once!”
Burton turned to face her. “Isabel, know this. I loved you from the very first moment I saw you.”
She snarled at him. “You traitorous hound.”
He saw her finger tighten on the trigger.
There was a loud report.
He felt himself explode out of his body.
Dying was like blinking.
He was sucked back into it.
When he opened his eyes, Burton was facing Babbage again, and the bench and the suit were back.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in human form except for an accordion-like apparatus creaking in and out on his chest, took a cigar from his mouth and said, in a gravelly voice, “Will it work, Charles?”
“Of course it will.”
Brunel looked to Burton’s right. “Should we do it, sir?”
“Yes.”
Burton turned his head to see the man who’d spoken. It was Lord Elgin’s former secretary, Laurence Oliphant. His skin and hair were alabaster white. His features were distorted, resembling those of a panther.
Babbage announced that it was nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860. He went through the identical routine with the identical result.
Burton waited silently while Babbage and Oliphant tied a tourniquet around Brunel’s right arm, the engineer’s hand having been taken by the bursting bubble.
Isabel is alive in at least one branch of history. My enemy, but alive. By God! To see her! To see her!
Grief tightened his chest. He closed his eyes, swayed, and thought he might fall.
Babbage said, “Mr. Lister, note that the experiment commences at nine o’clock, fifteenth of February, 1860.”
Burton opened his eyes. The interior of Battersea Power Station had transformed into what appeared to be a nightmarish surgical ward. Vast pulsating monstrosities of flesh and tubes and organs humped up from the floor around him. Tentacled glowing organisms hung from the high ceiling. Cartilage and throbbing arteries stretched from wall to wall. He was standing in the midst of it, facing a workbench. Babbage and the surgeon Joseph Lister were on the opposite side. Charles Darwin and Francis Galton were whispering together to his left. Damien Burke and Gregory Hare—who in El Yezdi’s history had been allies and in his own enemies—were to his right, both dressed, bizarrely, as Harlequin.
“I must confess, this procedure involves an unusual degree of unpredictability,” Babbage said. “For if there’s a time suit here, then there are time suits in the other realities, too, and if every Charles Babbage simultaneously connects every helmet to every Nimtz generator in every history, what then?”
Ah! Burton thought. Is that it?
Babbage reached toward the suit.
“Stop!” Burton shouted.
The scientist glanced up at him. “Don’t interfere, sir! Know your place!”
He touched the generator.
Pause.
Pop.
Gone.
While Babbage and Lister squabbled, Burton walked over to Damien Burke and said, “Where’s Brunel?”
Burke’s lugubrious features creased into a frown. “Dead. Did you forget killing him, Mr. Burton?”
“Ah. And what about Isabel Arundell?”
“She’s still on her honeymoon, isn’t that right, Mr. Hare?”
“It is, Mr. Burke,” Hare agreed.
“To whom is she married?”
“Why, to Mr. Bendyshe, of course.”
“Bendyshe? Thomas Bendyshe?” Burton threw his head back and gave a bark of laughter. When he looked down, he was in front of the bench yet again, and the power station was an intricate structure of wrought iron and stained glass, like a baroque cathedral.
“Mr. Gooch,” Babbage said, “make a note. It is nine o’clock on the fifteenth of February, 1860. We shall begin.”
Burton felt a pistol in his waistband. He yanked it out and pointed it at Babbage.
“No. Step away from the suit. Don’t touch it.”
Babbage glared at him. “There is no time for games, Captain.”
Burton shot him in the head.
As blood sprayed and Babbage fell backward to the floor, Burton yelled, “Everyone remain absolutely still or I swear I’ll kill every one of you.”
“My giddy aunt! Have you lost your mind?” Swinburne screeched from beside him.
“You’ve killed Charles!” Gooch cried out.
Burton heard Richard Monckton Milnes, behind him, say, “You’d better have a damned good explanation for this, Dick.”
The time suit popped out of existence.
Gooch, Swinburne, and Monckton Milnes gaped at the indentation in the floor where the bench had been.
“What happened?” Monckton Milnes muttered.
Gooch said, “Impossible! Charles never touched it.”
Burton lowered his gun. “Now that,” he said, “is very interesting indeed.”
“What is?” Swinburne asked.
Finding himself in mid-stride, the king’s agent stumbled and stopped. There came a tug at his hand. He was holding a lead. Fidget, by his right ankle, looked up.
To his left, Swinburne drew to a halt.
“Algy? I—I—I beg your pardon?”
“I said, what is?” Swinburne replied. “You said something was interesting.”
Burton placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady himself. The world buckled and distorted around him. It shimmered, solidified, and he saw they were in Whitehall Place, close to the Royal Geographical Society. The street’s gutters were piled high with red blossoms, bright beneath an unbroken but thinning grey mantle of cloud.
“Um, the date?”
“The date is interesting?” Swinburne asked. “Why so?”
“No, I mean, what is it?”
The poet stared at him. “The seventeenth, of course. What’s the matter? Surely not another hallucination? When? Just now?”
“It’s Friday?”
“Yes. One o’clock-ish. Good Lord! I didn’t notice a thing!”
“Wait. Tell me, what have we been doing? Where are we going?”
“You summoned me. I pushed your broken velocipede all the way to your place and arrived about an hour ago. You told me about last night’s invasion of Spring Heeled Jacks and your conversation with Krishnamurthy and Bhatti, and then we hopped into a cab. It just dropped us off.”
Burton looked at the RGS building. “We’re here for Richard Spruce.”
“You remember that?”
“No, I presume it. He’s the only botanist we know. I don’t recall a thing since—” He stopped and considered. “Since just after breakfast. The experiment—I keep returning to it. I’ve witnessed so many alternate versions of the bloody event that I’m giddy with it.”
The king’s agent massaged the back of his neck. He could still feel the Saltzmann’s throbbing in his veins, though the sensation was fast fading.
“It was unusually rapid again,” he murmured, referring to the fast onset of the tincture’s effects and their unusual intensity.
Swinburne, mistaking his meaning, said, “Not really, if it lasted from breakfast to lunch. All morning in the grip of a mirage!”
The tincture.
The visions.
Of course!
Burton heaved a sigh. “Come on.”
They strode the short distance to the Royal Geographical Society and went inside. Burton nodded to the portly man at the reception desk, who immediately came out from behind it, hurried over, and said in a hushed voice, “You’ll not cause any bother?”
“Bother, Mr. Harris?” Burton asked.
“Sir Roderick is furious with you. Your monster caused a great deal of damage last night.”
“It’s not my monster,” Burton protested. “I’m not responsible for what happened here.”
“It was screaming your name and Sir Roderick holds you accountable. The Society doesn’t welcome such disruption. You may be disbarred.”
Burton snarled, “If that’s his attitude, Sir Roderick can shove the Society right up his—”
“Harris,” Swinburne interrupted. “We just want a word with Richard Spruce. We’ll be but a moment.”
Harris looked relieved. “He’s not here.”
“Where, then?” the poet asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll find someone who does,” Burton said. He shouldered past Harris, who cried out, “But! But! But! I say! No dogs allowed!” and ascended the wide staircase with Fidget and Swinburne at his heels. To their left, portraits of the Empire’s most celebrated explorers were hanging crookedly. Dr. Livingstone had a hole in his forehead and Mungo Park was upside down.
They passed along a wood-panelled hallway to the clubroom. The normally impressive chamber was in disarray. The mirror behind the bar was broken. The carpet was strewn with fragments of glasses and bottles. Tables and chairs were splintered and overturned.
There were only eight men present, three of them staff, who were assiduously cleaning the mess.
“No Spruce,” Burton murmured, “but I see old Findlay by the window. Perhaps he can point us in the right direction.”
Arthur Findlay, a lean-faced individual, was sitting in an armchair, reading a newspaper through pince-nez spectacles, apparently oblivious to the signs of chaos that surrounded him. He looked up as they approached, sprang to his feet, and clasped Burton’s hand in greeting.
“I say! Beastly Burton! How the deuce are you, old fellow? Been brawling again, I see. Here, last night, was it? I’ve heard rumours of a wild animal on the rampage.”
“Hallo, Arthur. I’ll confess to a slight spat, but it wasn’t here. Have you met Algernon Swinburne?”
“Hallo, lad. You’re the poet, aren’t you? Super! Simply super!”
“What ho! What ho! What ho!” Swinburne returned. He pointed down to the basset hound. “Have you met the mutt? His name is Beelzebub, Savage Fiend of Hell.”
“Fidget,” Burton corrected.
“Lovely breed,” Findlay observed. “Bassett hound, what! Very placid. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”
“Ha!” Swinburne exclaimed.
The geographer grinned at him. “I say, your hair is as fiery as our new flora, lad. Baffling, the flowers, hey? Perfectly extraordinary. What the devil? What the very devil?”
Burton said, “On which subject, we’re looking for Richard Spruce. Any idea where he might be?”
“The botanist fellow? In the Cauldron, I believe.”
“The East End? Why?”
“Ashes, Burton! Ashes! A fine growth medium and the area offers no restriction, what!”
It made sense. The terrible slums and tenements of the crime-riddled East End—the Cauldron—had, last November, been destroyed by the city’s worst fire since 1666. Despite a particularly wet winter, the area had smouldered for weeks afterward. It was cool now, but rebuilding hadn’t yet commenced.
“Join me for drinkies?” Findlay suggested.
“Certainly,” Swinburne said.
“No,” Burton countered. “We’re on a mission, Arthur. We’ll go straight to Spruce.”
Minutes later, they were back out in Whitehall Place. Swinburne whistled piercingly for a cab—causing Fidget to bark and Burton to wince—then took off his hat and waved it at a hansom while jumping up and down. “Hey there! Hey! Cab! Over here! I say! Cabbie!”
The vehicle swerved and pulled to a stop beside them.
“No need ter get a bee in yer bonnet,” the driver said. “I saw yer.”
“The Cauldron!” Swinburne cried out. “And don’t spare the blessed horses!”
“I ain’t got no ’orses. It’s a steam engine, see?” The driver jerked his chin at the machine chugging in front of him.
“Well, don’t spare that then!” Swinburne shrilled.
He climbed aboard.
Burton gave the driver an apologetic look, lifted Fidget into the carriage, followed, and sat. As the conveyance jolted into motion, he said, “Why the histrionics, Algy?”
Swinburne clapped his hands in Burton’s face. “To keep you in the here and now. By golly, to think we spent the past hour together and you didn’t even know it. Don’t you even recall my limerick?”
“Limerick?”
“An engineer by the name of John Kent, had a tool most remarkably bent, his wife bore the brunt, when it—”
“Stop! I assure you, I’m entirely in the present.”
“This one?”
“Yes, this one.”
Despite Burton’s protest, Swinburne regaled him with bawdy poems and jokes all the way to Aldgate, where the hansom stopped, the hatch in the roof lifted, and the driver shouted down, “Can’t go any farther, gents.”
His passengers disembarked. Swinburne fished a shilling from his pocket and passed it up, his manner distracted, his eyes not straying from the heaped foliage that surrounded them.
“Two and six,” the driver said.
“Here.” Burton passed up the remainder of the fare. “Thank you, driver.”
The man took the coins and gazed around. “I were here three days ago, an’ all this weren’t. Where’d the blessed things come from? What are they? Roses? Poppies? Gladioli?”