Demon in the Machine

by Lise MacTague

  Whatever you’re up to, Isabella, you need to finish it soon! If this went on too much longer, the situation would be well beyond salvaging.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Isabella stared at the side of the collector, trying to remember what she’d seen on Wellington’s plans. The thunder of imp wings and their attendant cacophony of shrieks made concentration a titanic effort. Add to that the way the Prince had been stalking Briar across the floor when Isabella had last peeked into the ruined basement, and Isabella’s mind raced in multiple circles at once. She bit down on the inside of her lip hard enough to taste blood. The pain gave her something else to concentrate on, if only for a moment. Her disordered thoughts calmed and she stared at the wires in front of her.

  This was where the batteries hooked up to the collector. He’d added hookups to reverse the connection. Isabella grasped one of the connectors and twisted. With a clunk that shuddered up her arms, it came away in her hand. The end glowed with blue-white light, energy arcing between the connector and its housing on the side of the collector. It resisted being moved too far away. Isabella gritted her teeth and hauled at it until the energy quit arcing. There was another socket around the side of the machine, and Isabella dragged the conduit toward it. Unlike the connectors from the collector to the batteries, this socket was on the side facing the basement. Why Wellington hadn’t tried to make it a little more discreet, Isabella had no idea. Likely, it was something with the internal structure of the machine, but she wished he’d thought of that beforehand.

  When she got close to the socket, the conduit in her hand stopped fighting her. It snapped into place almost without her doing anything, and she twisted it in to make sure it was well-housed. Knowing she was going to have to fight the conduits only halfway was a relief. As it was, sweat already dripped down the small of her back.

  One down, twelve to go. Isabella got right back into it. She couldn’t worry about being spotted now. There were thousands of potential eyes; it would happen sooner or later. The only thing to do about it was to move quickly. Now that she had her task in front of her, she was able to pick up her momentum. She dared not risk a glance at whatever was transpiring below. Briar’s dire straits would only throw her off her pace. Methodically, and as quickly as she could manage, Isabella worked her way through almost all the connectors.

  Her arms and back ached from wrestling them into place. The ninth connector had snapped into place when Isabella’s concentration was rudely broken by her own name.

  “Isabella,” her brother called again. “What are you doing?”

  What does he think I’m doing? Isabella ignored Wellington and unhitched the tenth connector. She threw her aching back into getting it away from its housing. Each one had resisted her more than the last, just as each one snapped into place more eagerly than the one before it. Her grunt of effort verged on a scream before she was able to drag it away. She took two steps sideways, then was being pulled toward the mess of connectors she’d already moved. Isabella snatched her hands away and let the connector crash into place. If her fingers had been in the way, she would have lost them.

  “Isabella!” Wellington’s scream was raw. She looked over at him in shock. He’d never used that tone with her before. Of course, she had also never foiled his plans for world domination before. His head appeared over the broken edge leading down to the basement. The reflection of green flames were caught in the glass of his goggles, then were gone as he faced her.

  She stared at him as he pulled himself all the way up and stood.

  He shook his head. “I can’t let you do this. Stand back, or I’ll be forced to…”

  What did he think he was going to do? Even as kids, she’d been able to best him. They hadn’t fought often, but when they had, she’d always beaten him physically. He held part of himself at a remove and was never willing to commit to their fights. She was only meaner now and she had better weapons.

  She pulled out the next conduit. It was harder than the previous one had been. Dividing her attention between her brother and the device wasn’t making this any easier.

  “Go away, Wellington.” She heaved the conduit away from its housing and dragged it over.

  “Isabella.” He grabbed her shoulder, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

  She let go of the conduit and it shot home. When she turned around to face him she ducked, and his hand whistled past her face. The attack shocked her enough that she couldn’t get out of the way of his backswing. The back of his hand caught her on the cheek, spinning her around and to the floor.

  She landed on her hip and something hard dug into her flesh. Mother’s pistol. “Never touch me again,” Isabella said, drawing the revolver from her pocket.

  “What did you expect? That you’d waltz in here and destroy years of work and I’d simply stand by and allow it? You’ve never known your place, dear sister. If you want any place at all, you’ll put down the silly gun. If not…”

  “You’ll kill me?” She held the gun on him, her hand steady as bedrock. This wasn’t going to go the way he expected. It never did, but only because Wellington’s major failing had always been considering where others fit into his plans. Other people weren’t extensions of him, and he was constantly surprised when they acted in their own interest instead of his.

  “If I have to.” He reached toward the gun.

  Isabella hesitated only a moment before she squeezed the trigger. He was still her brother, even if he was part of an evil plan for the domination of London. But he couldn’t stop her, and if she didn’t stop him, what would happen to the others she loved? To Briar, to her parents, to Millie?

  The slug tore through his outstretched hand, jerking it off to one side. Wellington stared at her, eyes wide and accusing.

  “You shot me!” He couldn’t believe she’d done it.

  “I’ll do it again if you don’t get out of the way.” Isabella stood up slowly, never taking her eyes from him.

  “You can’t do this. You don’t know what she’ll do to me if I don’t stop you.”

  “And you know what I’ll do if you try.”

  Wellington licked his lips, then dashed around her. He wrapped his good hand around the nearest conduit and heaved back on it. It shifted out of its housing before snapping back when he couldn’t keep his grip on it. He tried again, this time hooking the elbow of his injured arm around the tubing.

  Isabella lined up her next shot, waiting until the conduit returned again to its housing and he stopped in his tracks. She pulled the trigger, the shot to his shoulder spinning him around.

  “The next one kills you,” she said. “Don’t make me do that.”

  He didn’t answer but staggered away from her and the device. He collapsed to his knees at the edge of hole in the floor. Isabella went back for the next to last conduit as he howled in pain. She stuck the revolver through her belt and bent to the task at hand. The faster she got the polarity reversed on his collection device, the faster everyone would be safe. Then she and Briar could sneak out in the chaos. Maybe Briar’s earl and the Duke of London could clean up the mess. It was going to take a lot of effort.

  With the conduit safely in its new housing she spared a glance for her brother. He still knelt, but now he scribbled feverishly on the stone floor. Every now and again, he spared her a venomous glance. That couldn’t be good.

  “That’s enough,” Isabella said. “Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop it now.”

  He laughed hoarsely. “Make me.”

  It was a common refrain from their childhood, and Isabella took a deep breath. She strode over to him, crouched among scrawlings in his own blood. She’d seen Briar do enough of these to know what she was looking for. The closer she got, the faster he scribbled. There it was, the little bump on the edge of the inscription that Briar always added last. There was no sign of glowing or colored fire through her lens, so she still had time.

  With one decisive kick, she smeared the blood he’d used to draw out the r
unes. At the same time, she caught his hand and he jerked it back against his chest.

  “You little—” Wellington surged up from the ground, slamming into her and sending her tumbling.

  Her head impacted with enough force to stun her, even through the helmet. Everything around her went grey and Isabella struggled to keep the edges of her vision from collapsing on her. She forced herself to breathe steadily and not to give in to the heaving gasps of panic. You’ve had the breath knocked out of you before. This is no different. When her vision cleared, her eyes met Wellington’s. They were screwed up in hopeless rage.

  “Good, you’re awake. I want you to know what’s happening to you.” He grabbed the lapel of her coat with one hand, twisting it around to get a good grip and hauled back on her. She slid across the stone floor. He heaved again, dragging her ever closer to the edge of the floor. “Do you know what happens when someone tries to go the wrong way through a portal?”

  That didn’t sound good. Isabella dug her heels in, looking for the gap between paving stones to use as an anchor.

  Wellington laughed, the sound wild and pitched much too high for sanity. “Neither do I. You like to experiment. Let’s find out!” He yanked on her again, but she went nowhere.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Isabella strained against his hand, forcing him to shift his body around for better leverage. He stood between her and the terrible column of imps rising ever upward. Bits of blue sky were still visible around the corners of the shattered roof. It seemed impossible that it should be such a nice day out, not with everything that was going on. A large shape drifted through one of blue spaces. Isabella blinked at it while the muscles of her legs started to tremble. That looked like a zeppelin. It seemed the cavalry was arriving, but how much success could they have against this horde?

  “I don’t have to.” Wellington grinned at her. “I want to.”

  It was past time to end this. Isabella stopped resisting his pull. She pushed off, using his own strength to go flying at him. He screamed and staggered back when her stiff arm hit the wound in his shoulder.

  The scream hit a new pitch when his foot slipped over the edge into nothingness. He windmilled one arm to try to keep his balance, the other clutched across his chest, but to no avail. Wellington pitched backward. His scream cut off when he hit the ground some twelve feet below.

  Isabella ran back to the device, scrambling to free the last conduit from its mooring. The flow of imps was showing no signs of abating. How many had come through the gate while she’d fought with her brother? She spared a glance at the floor. Briar had her back to the column of imps rising ever up. Beruth had backed her to the edge of the solid floor. If Briar took another step back, she would have nothing beneath her feet. The imps would claw her to shreds in a heartbeat. There was no sign of Wellington.

  The final conduit came off with relative ease. Isabella suspected her agitation over what was going on below her was giving strength beyond her usual capacity. She stepped lightly and aimed the conduit at its new housing, then let go. It slithered out of her hands like a striking snake and met its housing with a click that was audible even in the din. Only then did Isabella dare step in. She turned the conduit in its housing. The side of the collector flared to life. It lit up, then went out, sitting there like a lump.

  Isabella did the only thing she could think of. She reached out for the large switch on the side of the device and threw it.

  * * *

  Briar kept an eye on Beruth as she contemplated her next move. The demon Prince was enjoying toying with her, something that didn’t alarm Briar too much as it gave her time to think. If Beruth thought she could intimidate Briar, she had another thought coming. Briar would never have survived her childhood had she intimidated easily.

  The solid wall of imps rising ever higher at her back was a little disconcerting, as was the open portal behind her. Portals only went one way, so Briar couldn’t see into the infernal realm. She could smell it, though. The scent of brimstone filled the air; its acridity bit into her nostrils, borne upon the wings of the hundreds of imps who rushed past her in every moment. Her eyes were starting to burn.

  Beruth lunged at her, claws extended. Briar shifted to one side. There was no telling what might happen if she ended up falling back into the gate. Everything she’d heard about those who tried to enter a portal from the wrong side suggested the results were messy, excruciatingly so.

  The device on the ground floor of the factory hummed back to life. Beruth stopped mid-lunge, a feat made impressive by the fact that she had only one foot on the ground, and looked back.

  “Holcroft!” she bellowed. “What is going on?” There was no answer. “Holcroft!” Still no answer. A human form lay crumpled on the floor. Unless Briar missed her guess, the inventor wouldn’t be answering her for a while.

  Beruth turned, stalking Briar no longer of interest in the face of this new issue.

  The top of the column opened and the core ascended once again. Infernal runes burned their way over the sides of the column, the glyphs coming to life one by one in a wave. At the top of the device, the core rotated, but not with the spin it had before. It rotated until it sat at an angle to the rest of the column, then started to turn, its white light growing in brilliance. The wave of magic crested across the device and it shimmered, like heat over London rooftops in deepest summer.

  There was no nearly irresistible pull as there had been before. Instead, demons were being pushed away in all directions, with the core at the center. The demons emerging through the portal had the worst of it as they were shoved back against the matte black rift between worlds. A mounting chorus of shrieks reached Briar’s ears as the pain demons emerged only to be wiped out almost immediately.

  The black pillar of demon bodies dissipated in next to no time as their bodies were flung outward. Sunlight poured into the gutted factory, its rays blocked only by the dirigibles floating above them. Billows of smoke bloomed from the sides of the zeppelins, but the din of dying demons was such that Briar couldn’t hear the firing of the cannons. Bright lights of all colors flashed above her head as the earl’s magicians deployed their sorcery upon their imp foes. They made quick work of the demons coming their way. It wasn’t as quick as what the collector was doing with the imps coming through the portal, but it was close.

  On the floor, Beruth screamed at the senseless inventor, directing him to fix the problem. When he didn’t move, she seized him by the scruff of the neck and shook him. If not for her desperate rage, it would have been amusing to see the tiny woman buffeting the much taller man. Her abuse did nothing to bring him out of his insensible state.

  The euronym and polygnots still flew through the air into the portal, some as soon as they exited the other, but Beruth was showing no sign of feeling its effects, nor was Holcroft, though it was doubtful he felt much of anything. Apparently they were protected from the effects of the collector as well as she was. Briar watched as she dragged Holcroft with her to the dais where she pulled and pushed the various levers to no avail, then turned her attentions back to the portal.

  Only the blood sacrifice of the polygnots kept the portal open. Briar knelt, ignoring the damage to her skirts. The dress was so far beyond saving that she would burn it if they made it out of this debacle in one piece. She drew the athame from the pocket of her skirts and sliced the tips of her fingers open. With any luck, this would be the last time. Her fingertips were going to be covered in a myriad of scars, even with her advanced powers of healing. She thought she knew what to do, but this was something she’d never attempted. She’d be making it up as she went along.

  The glyph for water was a logical place to start. What else did she need for rain? Clouds. She sketched that one in as well, then quickly added the rune for the mortal plane. She didn’t wish to conjure clouds from the infernal realm. What came from those clouds would melt the humans where they stood and leave the demons quite unharmed and probably rejuvenated.

  As
she continued to draw out the inscription, Briar moved more quickly. She thought less and relied more on instinct. She needed a deluge, so the water glyph appeared multiple times. Wind would be helpful, to buffet the imps out of the way and get the water more quickly to where she needed it to be.

  She looked up when she was almost done, certain an hour had passed, and was surprised to realize that next to no time had gone by. Beruth was still screaming at the inventor. Across from them, Briar thought she saw Isabella’s form above the batteries. Those had lost more than half their brilliance. The portal wouldn’t stay open much longer.

  Briar keyed the final rune and raised her head to the heavens. Even through the battling imps and zeppelins, she could see the clouds forming. They were dark, almost black and they billowed with implacable menace. Even with the light from the shining core on the device, the interior of the manufactory darkened perceptibly. A drop hit her face and splashed, huge and heavy. Briar closed her eyes against the shock of it. It was cold. Another raindrop splashed on her forehead, then one on her cheek. In the next moment, she was drenched by a wall of water. She opened her eyes and squinted around her. Puddles of water already stood on the floor, and the flames around the circle had waned considerably. The wind came up, whipping her hair about even in its soaked state. The imps were thrown into disarray, shrieking and crying out among the raindrops that thundered into the ground and into them.

  Green fire guttered and went out. The imps dispersed, and no more came through after them.

  “Yes!” Both arms raised above her head, Briar shouted her triumph to the skies. It was undignified, but she could think of no more appropriate a response. “Oh dear.” The push of the device was in full force now. She flattened herself to the ground and tried to dig her fingers in to the cracks between the stones as she had before. The pavers were slick with water and her hands slid along them, finding next to no purchase.