‘This ends now,’ he said softly to Jim. ‘Goodbye, old friend.’
Jim looked up at John, eyes widening.
John nodded. Jim tried to stand, but doubled over in agony at the effort, clutching his ribs. He understood what John was going to do. That was good; it meant that the damage to his mind was not permanent. Jim would recover.
John stepped onto the dais beside Rosanna, without fear. She looked at him, so conflicted, so full of grief, and she did not struggle when he put his arms around her. He whispered into Rosanna’s ear all the things he had wanted to say three years before, but was never given chance to. He held her close until finally she looked up at him and blinked, as though clearing the other personality entirely from her mind. Now it was Rosanna; just for that instant, John saw that she was back, though for how long who could say.
‘John Hardwick… What have I…?’
‘Shh,’ John whispered. ‘I love you. Which is why this is the only way.’
‘What do you mean? No!’
A hardness crossed her features – the expression of Tsun Pen perhaps. She was about to push John away; he felt the resistance well up in her. But it was too late.
She barely knew what was happening. Her eyes widened; she struggled to no avail.
‘We are one,” John whispered. He closed his eyes, and let himself fall into the light, Rosanna in his arms.
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘No!’ Jim cried, head pounding with the effort.
For a moment, the chamber flashed bright, and there was silence – a momentary lull in the crescendo of violent phenomena that had preceded John and Rosanna’s disappearance. It was an eerie stillness, as though everything – time itself – had slowed to witness the Artist’s fall. It did not last.
Jim tried to stand once more as the trill of the gate erupted again. He was near lifted from his feet by swirling shadows, which coalesced into strange forms all about him, before shrinking back from the light of the portal in rapid, pulsating waves. Jim choked back nausea.
He pulled away from the shadows, and scrambled to Miss Furnival. Tesla was struggling manfully to activate his unfathomable devices with only one functioning arm.
‘Tesla!’ Jim shouted. ‘What’s happening?’
‘This is bad. Very very bad,’ Tesla replied, looking more wild-eyed than ever. ‘I tell you, Captain, Madam Artist she control the gate. Not its full power, but she regulate the gravitational waves, and –’ Tesla saw Jim’s expression, and took a breath before continuing. ‘Without Madam Artist, the gate it draw power to itself, exponentially. It will continue until there is none left to absorb, and then… whatever is on other side when it stop, it come through, unbidden.’
Jim thought he understood. The gate was warping and changing with every passing second. The ever-changing gate would soon become a passage to other worlds, other places, with denizens only too eager to cross the veil. A merry-go-round of potential destroyers of the world.
‘Will destroying the facility stop it? All we need to do is get to the sluice-gate and blow it. The Thames will come crashing in, the dockside buildings will collapse – if the gate is not crushed by debris, it will at least be submerged.’
‘Perhaps,’ Tesla said. He paused, lips moving as he pondered the variables. He nodded. ‘It break my heart. But yes. I think it work. The volume of water entering this area should be greater than the gravitational capacity of the portal. The pounds of pressure per inch, combined with the enervated –’
‘English please, Mr Tesla!’ Jim snapped.
‘I… ah… the river it extinguish the portal like candle flame. Yes?’ Tesla’s expression suggested that the explanation was wholly inadequate, but that he saw no point in going into detail.
‘Then we must get out of here,’ Jim said. Miss Furnival was gaining strength, and Jim tried his best to help her up, trying not to let his own pain show.
‘Not yet,’ Tesla said. ‘Your friend the colonel, he may yet stop this.’
‘How?’
‘Madam Artist has travelled between the worlds many times. She have her wampyr allies on what you call the Otherside, yes? And that is where I build my gravitational resonator. It is sister to this one. Everything else, it already here, left behind from the Lazarus Gate. But the resonator is the key. Madam Artist control it, from this side, or that side. If she deactivate it, then the gate it close.’
‘And what then? Will John be trapped?’
‘Without this gate, then yes. You leave the gate here, it can be controlled from the Otherside. You destroy it, and your friend, he gone forever. He know what it is he does, I think.’
‘He know. I mean, yes, he knows,’ Jim said, giving a rueful shake of his head.
Finally, Marie steadied herself, and Jim gave a quiet grunt of relief when she stopped leaning on him. She dusted herself down, embarrassed to have required his help.
‘We… we have to wait for Colonel Hardwick,’ she said.
Jim wanted nothing more than for John to come dashing back through the gate, but as the kaleidoscopic range of the portal swirled and changed, Jim could see little hope.
‘How long do we delay before there is no turning back?’ Jim called to Tesla, who had now managed to get a large pair of his eponymous coils crackling with energy.
‘A few minutes… half an hour. I cannot be certain. Without Madam Artist, the gate it has become more unstable than ever. It is fascinating! It teach me things that I could not possibly have learned from merely –’
‘Mr Tesla, please!’
‘It is your choice, Captain. Only Madam Artist have the strength to close the gate. Her power is great, and the etherium she consume is too much even for the best Majestic here. It would be fatal for a mere mortal to use this device.’ Tesla indicated the two large levers that Rosanna had activated earlier. ‘The colonel… he would have to persuade her, no? Or force her.’
Jim hung his head. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. He looked into Marie’s eyes. She pleaded silently for him to delay, but Jim knew she cared little for the world at large. She had done what she came to do, and would be willing to risk all to save John. Jim had no such luxury – he had a duty to the Crown. He would see to it that there was a Crown still to serve when this day was done. ‘If we wait much longer there may not be time enough to set the explosives. We have to leave him.’
There was a momentary look of defiance from Miss Furnival, but finally she nodded acceptance, and hung her head. Tesla waited patiently for them to make a decision, even as lightning flickered all around and unnatural shadows congregated in every corner of the chamber.
‘Mr Tesla, you will come with us to the lifeboat, of course,’ Jim said.
‘But my Munjolovac is here, Captain,’ Tesla said. ‘I shall make my own way, yes?’
‘I am afraid not, sir. You must come with us – every courtesy will be extended to you of course, but given the circumstances you are now a prisoner of the British Crown. I hereby commandeer your… um… Munjo-vat… under the terms of the Lazarus Act.’
‘Munjolovac,’ Tesla corrected, only half-heartedly. The Serbian looked crestfallen. Jim felt for him, but the man was the most brilliant scientist of the Otherside, and had participated, however unwillingly, in an unprecedented attack on Apollo Lycea. Even if Cherleten had betrayed the Crown, Jim still had a duty to perform. Cherleten and Crookes would face justice soon enough, and it was left to Jim to see that justice done.
A great crash came from the gate, and the entire chamber flooded with light. A deep rumble shook the chamber so violently that Jim almost lost his footing, his cracked ribs jangled within his chest painfully, and a pressure built behind his eyes so suddenly that he thought his head might burst.
‘Come on!’ he grunted. ‘There’s no time to discuss this.’
Miss Furnival held her own head, and blood trickled from her nose. She looked as though she might be violently ill, and it was all she could do to nod acquiescence.
Jim picked up John’s cane a
nd Winchester almost reverently, and then the three of them made for the exit as fast as they could. They had no sooner reached the doors than the sound of the gate reached fever pitch, and then cut out completely, the sudden silence more deafening in the wake of the constant noise that had preceded it. The light blinked out, leaving just one or two weak electric lamps flickering as illumination. The pain in Jim’s head subsided almost instantly, leaving only a prickling sensation across his scalp. The three strange companions stopped and turned, eyes blinking in bewilderment at the sudden relief they felt.
The gate had closed. Before them was a large ring of steel and brass and copper cable. No lights, no mirrored pool. The shadows did not writhe and crawl. The floor no longer vibrated.
‘He… he did it,’ Marie said.
‘He’s gone,’ Jim added.
The silence was broken by a groaning noise. Jim and Marie looked about, and found beneath a pile of debris and overturned tables one of their men, in a bad way, but alive. Poynton.
‘Good lord, Poynton,’ Jim said. ‘But you’ve got nine lives!’
‘Reckon they’re all used up, guv,’ the man said. Jim looked him over. A few broken bones perhaps, and more superficial wounds than he could count. But Jim was delighted that anyone had survived the fight – more delighted still when Poynton clearly had no idea exactly what had transpired in the chamber. There would be no difficult conversations to have about Riftborn, on top of everything else.
‘So what now?’ Marie asked. ‘I suppose we don’t need to blow this place sky-high any more. We just… walk out the front door?’
‘I suppose so,’ Jim said. He had been in such a state of anxiety that the relief of this sudden and unexpected reprieve had not sunk in. ‘First we need to go back and get Amworth. I’ll have that man testify under oath, if it’s the last thing I do. Mr Tesla, I…’
Jim turned, and Tesla was gone. He looked at Marie, and she at him.
‘He’s gone for the submarine,’ she said.
Together, they dashed from the chamber in pursuit of Tesla, as fast as their beleaguered bodies would allow. They crossed the dark storehouse, and through the doors that led back into the heart of the complex. Jim tried not to look at the bodies that littered the floor. The battle had been brutal. Now Chinese lay alongside Russians, and ghouls, and too many of Jim’s men for his liking. All to save John, against orders.
Jim tossed the Winchester to Marie, and stooped to pick up a lantern from among the dead. As he did, something crashed into him from behind, sending him sprawling over a pair of corpses that were locked in an eternal struggle. He heard a scuffle, sprang to his feet, and turned to see a large Russian wrench the rifle from Miss Furnival’s grasp and throw her to the floor. Poynton tried to struggle too, but was struck hard, and fell down. Jim stared down the barrel of the gun, and then looked up into the eyes of Orlov.
‘Thought you were dead,’ Jim wheezed. He felt weaker by the second.
‘You think it because I want it so,’ Orlov said, sounding every bit as weary as Jim. The lower portions of his grey shirt glistened dark with blood. ‘I find this submarine that you talk about, and I take this Tesla back to the motherland. No hard feelings, Kapitan.’
The rifle lever clicked. A shot rang out. But it was not the Winchester that had fired.
Orlov dropped the rifle, and slapped a hand to his neck. Blood oozed between his fingers. His eyes glazed, and he fell.
Miss Furnival grabbed the rifle. Jim scrambled for the lantern, and shone it along the corridor, in the direction of the shot. Four men, ragged and war-torn, shielded their eyes from the light. Jim recognised them as the wounded from the crossroads. He shuttered the lamp, and laughed with relief.
‘Beggin’ your pardon, Captain,’ one of the men said, ‘but things was all quiet back there. Some of the lads made a break for home. When we heard the commotion, the rest of us decided to come find you, but it was slow goin’ on account of us being torn up a bit, and us gettin’ lost and all. Sorry we didn’t make it sooner, sir.’
Jim knew the men had seen the bodies. They would feel guilty for not playing their part. He ceased smiling, and nodded in sympathy at the fallen.
‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ Jim said. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
‘Butterfield, sir.’
The man wore the remnants of a police uniform. Jim had called him ‘lad’, though Butterfield was not much younger than he was, in truth. Maybe the Order had aged Jim unduly. Now, he forced his most winning smile, tried to conjure some words of encouragement. One last push. ‘There’s work yet to be done, lads, if you have it in you. And as true blue bloody heroes I’m sure you do. Fall in, and look lively.’
Jim took Miss Furnival by the arm, and limped off towards the dock, knowing that those four men would follow. It was their duty.
TWENTY-NINE
The area that everyone called the ‘sluice-gate’ was somewhat more grand than the name might have suggested. The gates themselves were large, metal sliding doors which, when open, allowed access to the Thames beyond. From the river they looked like just another industrialised feature of the waterway – few would suspect that behind them lay a secret installation.
Jim and Marie stood now in a wet-dock, some hundred feet long and fifty across, with a high, raftered ceiling within whose eaves a few pigeons huddled together. A walkway covered three sides of the chamber, extending almost as far as the gates themselves on the two longer sides. Between these raised stone platforms was a deep dock, large enough for perhaps a schooner to make deliveries direct into the heart of the facility. Overhead, iron stairs and grated walkways criss-crossed the dock, leading off to the overground offices and dockside warehouses. A bitter wind whistled through the rafters and skeletal gantries. Jim fancied he saw a flickering orange glow overhead where the chamber was exposed to the elements, and the fires outside still raged.
Fires burned within, too. Smoke drifted idly across the water. Dust and debris lay in piles on the left-hand platform, alongside dislodged sheets of corrugated iron and metal struts from the roof. Bodies lay scattered around. Chinese, Russians, facility guards, and emaciated ghouls that looked in death like unearthed corpses. Who had fought on which side was unclear, for the dead littered the floor haphazardly, some torn by tooth and claw, others shot, or hacked to pieces by blades. Jim’s men stepped cautiously onto the platform, almost dragging Amworth along, who quailed at the sight of more bloodshed.
The controls for the gates were sited at the far ends of the lower walkways, but they were not needed now. The gates were open. Along the right-hand side of the docking bay, four life vessels were moored – long boats, equipped with steam motors and oars; none had been taken. But it was something else in the water that drew Jim’s full attention.
The upper hatches of a great ironclad submarine were visible above the murky waterline. What part of the vessel’s armoured hull could be seen was elegantly curved, segmented plates interlocking like the scales of some exotic sea-creature. Upon the cupola, a silver-grey plaque was inscribed with a single word in Cyrillic script.
Муњоловац
Jim bent double, clutching at his sides. Miss Furnival ran ahead of him towards the submarine, her energy seemingly boundless.
‘Crookes!’ Marie exclaimed.
Jim struggled to catch up, and saw where Marie pointed. Sure enough, at the foot of a short gangplank beside the submarine, Dr Crookes lay spread-eagled on the platform. Jim checked for a pulse.
‘He’s alive, but only just. What the devil happened to him? Why didn’t he take the submarine?’
‘Because, Captain Denny, it is defended, no?’ Tesla stared down at them from the top hatch of the vessel, beaming. ‘Madam Artist remember to set the counter-measures. Clever lady.’
‘Mr Tesla, come down from there this instant,’ Marie said.
‘Miss Furnival, I am glad you make it. I was afraid you would be too late, no?’
‘Too late for what?’
‘What? Why would I –’
‘No need to be pretending, madam. You are not one of them, I know this. You do me the greatest turn in removing first de Montfort, and then Madam Artist, who make my life so miserable. And now I am reunited with my ’Lovac, my greatest treasure, the queen of the oceans! I can go anywhere, do anything… but it is a lonely life I face, no? I think it must be lonely for you, and so I hope that you would be here. I hope you might accompany me, on a so-great adventure.’
‘I…’ Marie paused, sounding most unsure of herself. ‘No, Mr Tesla, I cannot. I’m afraid I must ask you to step down from there, and surrender yourself and your vessel to us.’
‘No, no, that is quite impossible. I have too-important work to do. I have a world – many worlds – to save, and many terrible wrongs to set right. You have nothing here, my dear lady. You who are without a home, and without a cause. Yes, I see it in your eyes. You have follow de Montfort for so long. He talk of you once. He never would have admitted, but he know that you are a shadow to him for many years, and it scare him. Trust in me, dear lady, I know what it is to devote one’s life to a single cause, at the exclusion of all else that is dear. And when that work is over, what then? I offer to you a new cause. Better to tread a righteous path, than to follow the orders of the unrighteous, no?’
‘What cause?’
‘The noblest! And if I am right, you will see again your uncle, your real uncle, and all who have been lost.’
‘Impossible!’ Marie gasped.
‘Nothing is impossible, dear lady, if it lay with realm of science. Not to me.’
Jim dragged himself to Marie’s side. He saw her falter. She looked so very sad. He took out a revolver and aimed it at Tesla. ‘Mr Tesla, the lady requested politely that you turn yourself over to our custody. I am not so polite.’
‘Ridiculous!’ said Tesla. ‘You will not shoot me.’
Jim pulled the trigger, firing a warning shot at the armoured cupola just a few inches below Tesla’s waist, ringing the submarine’s hull like a bell.
The Apollonian Case Files Page 32