by Adam Millard
She reached into her satchel and quietly removed the automaton fly. With a flick of a switch, her monovision eyeglass revealed exactly what the fly perceived; which was, in that moment, her own terrified face. She turned it away from herself and gently released it, watching as it drifted along on the air, flapping its wings so quickly they were barely discernible in the gloom.
Abigale settled back and watched as the fly swooped and soared through the dinosaur room, silently searching for the guard she knew was present.
At the edge of the room, he sat reading a paperback book. The fly approached cautiously, giving Abigale all the information she needed to make a quick assessment. She would have to take him out, and yet, she was loath to shoot him with Big Daddy. She’d already sent enough people crashing toward unconsciousness. It was time for a little hand-to-hand and a more natural snooze for the guard.
The fly returned, and she replaced it in its box, before returning it to her satchel. Standing, she edged around the room, sticking to the gloom, and keeping the giant T-Rex between herself and the guard.
He coughed again, startling Abigale. For a moment, her heart rate doubled, and it took a moment to compose herself. The fact that she couldn’t see the guard only served to exacerbate her nervousness. All she could see was the grimacing, snarling, skeletal face of a long extinct beast, and yet, she knew the face of the guard would be just as terrifying.
Through the gloom, at the far edge of the room, was the Chindesaurus egg, encased in a glass cabinet and surrounded by what looked, in the semi-darkness, like ordinary hay. It certainly wasn’t Triassic hay, if such a thing had ever existed. Once she had set her sights upon it, she felt better. All she had to do was remove the guard from the equation.
Suddenly a roar shattered the silence in the room. The guard jumped to his feet, dropping the book he had been reading. Abigale pressed herself tight to the wall, her heart still in her throat as she tried to discern where the roar had come from. It sounded close, very close, and Abigale felt gooseflesh begin to rise on her skin.
“Who’s there?” the guard said to no one. “Is that you, Karlov?”
As Abigale pressed herself against the wall, the guard slowly made his way across the room toward her. The roar continued to echo around the room, and the large skeletal shape in the centre began to tremble and crackle into life. When the roar came again, Abigale had a pretty good idea from where it emanated.
“What the…” the guard managed, but the bones of the dinosaur suddenly spun.
Before Abigale knew what was happening, the poor man was in its skeletal maw, being whipped frantically from side to side. Its colossal and ancient teeth clamped down hard. Bones cracked, and the guard roared in pain. Blood dribbled down from his limp form, speckling the museum floor.
Abigale stifled a scream, and it was then that she felt the presence of another. She turned to the window at the far end of the room and saw the big man with his armoured wolf glaring in at her. She knew that a very large shit was very much in the middle of hitting a very large fan.
*
As the glass exploded inwards, Abigale rolled across the floor. The dinosaur skeleton was still chewing on the guard—it hadn’t eaten for quite a long time—and Abigale took the opportunity while it still presented itself.
She lunged toward the glass cabinet and threw a leg out. The glass exploded just as two guards rushed into the room, but they didn’t immediately notice her with the egg she was about to smash to bits, or the hulking man with his pet wolf standing just beyond the shattered window. A reanimated dinosaur will always steal your thunder, no matter what you’re up to.
The guards exited the room as quickly as they had entered, and Abigale didn’t expect to see them again.
She slammed the egg into the floor and was pleasantly surprised when it smashed. She’d half-expected it to have gone through some sort of treatment, some process which might render it less fragile. Apparently not.
Abigale grabbed the S-shaped nugget from the shards of broken egg and lunged beneath the dinosaur’s swinging tail. The big man’s chainsword suddenly began to growl, and she realised he was closer than she’d thought.
Scrambling to her feet, she raced from the room and into the next. Without stopping, she pulled Big Daddy from its holster and trained it upon the window in front of her. She pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. The glass spider webbed outwards where the darts had impacted.
“Shi-i-i-it!” Abigale screamed. She leapt up into the air and pushed out both feet. The glass gave way all around her, and then she was out, on her back, briefly winded. Since it was not a great time for a lie-down, she clambered to her feet and raced across the concrete. Something roared behind her—The dinosaur, the big man, his wolf?—but she didn’t stop to look back.
How had he found her? Why was he still alive? Why was the dinosaur alive? All good questions, none of which she could answer, but she knew her time in Saint Petersburg was over. She had to keep moving and get as far away from the city as possible.
Why is nothing ever simple? She asked herself as she approached The Nevsky Inn from the rear. Utilising the rope-gun for the first time, she scaled a wall that would otherwise have been impossible to climb. She lowered herself down on the other side and slipped into the Inn through the back door.
Breathless and scared, she leaned against the kitchen wall and closed her eyes. She was dealing with the fact that she’d seen a reanimated dinosaur. Not only that, but she’d witnessed, first-hand, its feeding process, something that she would never forget for as long as she lived. Add to that the fact that Gulliver was still very much alive, and he was still after her, had chased her halfway across the world. “Could this night get any worse?” she whispered into the darkness.
“You have no idea,” a voice replied, and then came the unmistakeable click of a gun’s hammer being readied.
22
Abigale almost screamed. Once that had passed, she had to choke back the nausea, which threatened to envelop her. She’d had guns pointed at her before, but not from such close range, and not by someone with whom she’d shared such a tumultuous history.
“This is, I have to say, quite remarkable.” Alcorn could barely contain his excitement, and it was palpable in the staccato quality of his voice. “Abigale Egars. I had to travel halfway across the globe to catch you, and yet, you managed to evade me so gallingly in little old London.”
“Detective, this is not the time or place for this conversation.” Abigale had a strange feeling that the big man was already hunting her down. Either he could smell her, or that thing in her satchel. Either way, he was coming.
“This is the perfect time,” Alcorn said. “I’ve waited years for this moment, and you’re not going to ruin it for me now.”
Abigale took a deep breath. “You don’t understand. This isn’t about you and me. There are things at work here that you can’t yet comprehend.”
“Oh, I comprehend them very well,” Alcorn said, jabbing the Derringer toward her. “Not content with stealing from one city, you’ve expanded. Is nowhere safe from your wretched thievery?”
Abigale shook her head. “Something is trying to kill me, right now, right this minute. I will explain everything to you once we are safely away from this place, but please. You must trust me.”
Alcorn frowned. “Trust is something you know very little about. Have I been wrong all these years, Abigale Egars? Is there actually honour amongst thieves?”
Taking a step toward him, she said, “John, you have to trust me. I promise I am not deceiving you on this occasion. We are in very real danger, and unless we—”
Something began to rumble. The china cups, which Oleg probably cared very little for but would have meant the world to Anja, vibrated across the shelves where they sat. Alcorn tilted his head and pricked his ears, but Abigale already knew what was coming.
“He’s coming!” she said. She no longer cared if Alcorn was thinking about shooting her. She would be de
ad in a moment anyway. They both would if they continued to stand there. “Come with me. I will explain, but let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“Who?” Alcorn said. Suddenly he looked quite terrified. “Who’s coming?”
Just then, perfectly timed, though not as far as Abigale was concerned, the door through which Abigale had just entered flew off its hinges.
Abigale pulled Big Daddy from its holster, and while she concentrated on the armoured wolf loping in through the gaping hole, Alcorn turned his Derringer upon the big man with the roaring sword. It was safe to say that all hell broke loose.
The giant flew backwards as rounds riddled his torso, his face contorting into something altogether horrendous. Alcorn couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was the man from the skyship, Thorneye’s companion, but Thorneye? And how many bullets was he going to have to put into the giant before he went down?
The answer to that one of his questions was all of them. His Derringer clicked dry, and while he reloaded, Abigale pulled him across the kitchen toward the front door.
“We don’t have time to fight him!” she screamed. “We have to leave. Now!”
“What on Earth is going on down here?” a shaky voice said from halfway up the stairs. Anja stood there with her gown pulled across her, and in her free hand, she held a large hammer.
“Go back upstairs, Anja!” Abigale said. “Lock your door and call the police!”
Abigale left Anja to decide for herself the best course of action for the sleeping armoured wolf in her kitchen and the bullet-riddled man flailing about in her backyard. She lunged through the front door and out into the night, dragging Detective John Wesley Alcorn with her.
*
Moskovsky station was dead, which was exactly what Abigale thought they needed for the time being. Alcorn had a lot of questions, and a certain calm was required in order for Abigale to explain everything without sounding like an absolute maniac. Though she expected to come across as one, regardless of their surroundings. The next locomotive to Lodz, Poland, was thirty minutes away, and from there, Paris was one more locomotive. Another two days of travelling would see her reach the final piece and another step closer to ending the madness.
First, she had to convince the detective she was telling the truth.
They sat beside one another on the bench adjacent to the platform. Abigale didn’t realise what she was doing until it was too late. She’d pushed herself against Alcorn for warmth, and he was staring back at her with no uncertain amount of incredulity.
“Where do I start?” she said. There was so much to tell him, and even though she had never wished to share anything with her arch-nemesis, she knew very well that without his cooperation, she was as good as dead. The device in her head would trigger as soon as she deviated from her objective. A trip back to London would be the final nail in her coffin.
“What are you doing here?” Alcorn said. That, he thought, was a good enough place to begin. “In Saint Petersburg? Why did you fly halfway across the world?” He looked intently at her, awaiting a response.
She sighed. “You’re familiar with The Guild,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Of course he was.
“Who isn’t?” Still, he hadn’t expected them to have anything to do with her. They were practically untouchable—an invisible entity with more power than even the Metropolitan Police Force.
Abigale slowly slipped the clip from her hair and removed the emerald hat, which had been pinned there. Leaning forwards, she revealed to the detective her shorn head and the scar yet to heal. “Well, let’s just say that my first run-in with them has not been a pleasant one.”
“What is that?” Alcorn asked, going to touch the wound. “Did they try to kill you?” It looked as if someone had gone at her with a hatchet before changing their mind and stitching it up.
She replaced the hat and sighed. “They implanted a clockwork device that will administer poison directly into my system if I fail to retrieve a few, let’s say, items for them.” Wow, when she put it like that, it really sunk in.
Alcorn considered her words for a moment, and while he did, Abigale removed the small S-shaped nugget from her satchel.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This is what they’re after, and what the wizards are after. I—”
“The what? Did you just say wizards?”
Abigale couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to mention the third party in all of this. “I know, it’s hard to believe,” she said, “but I swear, I’ve seen some things these last few days that I’m never going to forget. That guy back there, Buzzsaw, he’s not human. I watched him explode over the ocean, and yet here he is, angrier than ever, and that wolf of his, too.”
“Thorneye?” Alcorn pressed. There were so many questions running through his head that he didn’t know where to begin.
“The little rozzer?” Abigale asked. “Honestly, I don’t know what his part in all this was.” She was reluctant to tell Alcorn that she’d seen the inspector die, drop from the sky like a dead bird. It could easily be construed as murder. In fact, there was no other way to explain it.
Alcorn sucked in a huge lungful of air and slowly let it out. “So these pieces you’re being blackmailed into stealing,” he said, gesturing to the one she held in her hand. “What are they? Are they worth something? Is that it? Is The Guild trying to make even more money?”
“They’re worth something to the wizards,” she said. “From what I know, which isn’t much, if a wizard gets its hands on these pieces, they’ll be unstoppable. You, me, London, none of it will matter anymore. It’ll all be over. It seems The Guild is more than just some huge illegal conglomerate. Mordecai Pick talked about these things as if this has been going on for centuries.” She reached up and scratched an itch at the side of her wound. “I swear to you, John, I’m not doing this for fun. I’m doing it to stay alive, at least long enough to find out what’s going on.”
Alcorn shook his head. “You know I can’t let you go,” he said. “Not after everything you’ve done. When we get back to London, I have to take you in.” He tried not to sound as if he would enjoy that moment, but it was difficult.
Abigale nodded. “I don’t care about that anymore,” she said. “All I care about is getting this thing out of my head. Once I have the final piece, we pay a visit to The Guild. After that, I’m all yours.” She held a hand out. Unsurprisingly, it was trembling. She was terrified, and part of her couldn’t believe what she was about to give up.
After staring at it as if it was a bunch of snakes for a few moments, Alcorn shook the extended hand. “I’m willing to go along with you,” he said, “but only because if what you say is true, I don’t want you falling down dead. I’m not your friend. I’m not your helper. I’m here to keep you alive long enough to receive justice. If you try anything, if you so much as leave my sight, I will cuff you so fast and hard your unborn children will have sore wrists. Understood?”
Nodding once again, Abigale said, “No tricks. I just want to get back to London in one piece.” She thought about Octavius, about everything he’d done for her, and it hurt. She would be leaving him, perhaps for good, and that was something she’d never contemplated before. No matter how close Alcorn had come to capturing her, she’d remained one step ahead.
He’d caught up to her, though. If she lived through the caper, returned to London, and faced a judge and jury, the next twenty years of her life would be spent staring at four walls. If she was lucky, she’d serve her gaol time without getting killed, and then what? Walk out of there a middle-aged woman? Octavius would be long gone, and so would Mouse. She’d be destitute and homeless, with no one to call friend. All in all, there wasn’t much to look forward to if she allowed Alcorn to take her in, and yet it was better than dying.
“So, you have two of the pieces,” Alcorn said. “Where is the third?”
Abigale forced a smile. “Have you ever been to Paris, John?”
*
O
ctavius opened his eyes, and for a moment, he thought he was underwater. Panic washed over him, but he quickly learned that he could still breathe. He was not underwater, but his eyes were streaming. Then came the pain.
Surging through him, it felt as if he was being repeatedly stabbed all along the one side, from his neck down to his toes. He could just about move his right arm, but even without looking down, he knew there was something wrong with it. It would need resetting. Where was Abigale when he needed her?
Far away. The best place for her.
As Octavius slowly pushed himself up, he saw the door to his safe, wide open. None of the jewels had been taken, none of the expensive items. Blithe had only sought one thing, and she’d got it.
Damn you, witch!
He clambered to his feet, his legs threatening to give way beneath him and stumbling backwards, he latched onto the edge of the desk to prevent himself from returning to the ground.
He was drained. He’d used magic for the first time in many years, and it had almost killed him. The fatigue brought with it a strange nausea, and it was all he could do to fight back the sickness.
You old fool! You silly old fool!
Whatever had convinced him that he could beat the sorceress? She was hugely powerful, and he was…well, extremely rusty. It had to be the most unfair match-up in the history of magic. Blithe had toyed with him at first, and as soon as he’d relented and reverted to wizardry, she’d dispatched him with considerable ease.
It struck him that he should be dead. Blithe certainly believed that she had killed him, for he could see no reason why she would allow him to survive.
Unless she wanted him to bear witness to the end of the world. She was twisted like that, always had been, even as a young sorceress. Octavius had known, even back then, she would grow up to be trouble, and yet he’d never guessed she would rise to such power in so short a space of time.
Limping across the workshop on disobedient legs, Octavius settled into his armchair. The pain, he felt, would dissipate soon, and he would be able to stand again, but there was nothing he could do. He had no way of contacting Abigale. In fact, he was rather surprised and a little perturbed that she hadn’t telephoned him yet. So all he could do was await her safe return.