The Conquering Dark

by Clay Griffith

  Simon stopped to set a pram right on its wheels. He inspected the squalling baby quickly as Kate helped the mother to her feet. Simon handed the child, who was more surprised than hurt, to the woman and continued weaving through stragglers.

  They started off on foot eastward along the Strand. The traffic was nearly at a standstill, with many cries of alarm, but little cursing or aggression, as if the earthquake had shocked the impatience out of citizens. Crowds streamed out of shops and offices, gathering in clutches to discuss the event. Broken glass and shattered bricks littered the walkways. Those unlucky enough to be struck were tended by others. The bells of St. Mary’s and St. Clement’s were still clanging as they passed. The venerable old arch of the Temple Bar was intact, but the congestion was extreme. It took anxious minutes for them to navigate their way through the melee.

  They made better time on wide Fleet Street when the ground began to shake again. Screams erupted all around. The vibrations were violent and wracking. The coaches swayed and horses reared in terror. Chunks of stone cornices cracked from rooftops and smashed to the ground on both sides of the street. Figures fled in random directions, unsure of how to find safety.

  “These poor people!” Jane alternated gripping Malcolm’s arm and reaching out to the frightened crowd.

  Simon couldn’t help but run to a man who knelt on the sidewalk with blood running down his face. The man pointed toward a pile of rubble, so Simon shoved aside the heavy wreckage to find a woman trapped beneath. She was alive and the bloody man embraced her. Simon called for a nearby lad to come to their assistance, which he did with no hesitation.

  He stared around him at the staggering crowds, distraught and frightened. Men and women and children lay injured and crying. People shouted for help. Simon wanted to go to each of them.

  Kate took his arm. “Come on, Simon. I know what you want. I want it too. But we can help best by stopping Gaios. Others can assist these people. Only we can stop him.”

  They were just reaching the environs of St. Paul’s when a huge explosion roared from the south. They all turned, as did everyone in the vicinity, and felt heat on their faces. A massive red-and-black fireball rose over the Thames.

  “The gasworks,” said Penny.

  Several members of the militia spurred their horses toward the south, for all the good they could do. At least they were trying.

  Kate watched the smoke rising in the distance. “Where the hell is Ash? Isn’t there something she can do with all her power?”

  Simon shook his head. “She’s gone. There is no way under heaven that she is still in London. We’re on our own.” He took her hand. “As always.”

  London east of St. Paul’s was a vision of Hell. People fled in mass confusion and panic as buildings collapsed. Fires raged everywhere as gas lines burst. Ashes drifted in the air like a snowy day in December.

  As Simon and his team rounded onto Walbrook Street, where Jane had indicated Gaios would be, they came upon an incredible massive structure of glistening black obsidian. It was long and rectangular, with columns lining the sides. It was a classical Roman temple, but on a gargantuan scale. The long peaked roof dwarfed St. Paul’s dome in the distance. The huge edifice steamed as if the black stone was newly formed, and the earth around it was wet and warm, the loamy scent of it filling the air.

  “Well, this is new,” Nick commented.

  Kate stared up with awe on her face. “Gaios created his own temple.”

  “Just in time to have his new Vesuvius destroy it.” Simon was grim.

  “If he’s in there, how do we get him?” Malcolm demanded.

  Simon pointed to a huge ebony door set in the front of the structure, large enough to allow several carriages to ride inside. To their surprise it opened. A wave of insufferable heat hit them. They could feel it even through the fire-retardant gel slathered on their skin.

  “That doesn’t smell of a trap,” mumbled Malcolm, but still he led them to the door of the temple of Gaios.

  The interior was a single vast gallery. They passed along the nave, which was divided from raised aisles by sleeper-walls, each of which carried glistening columns. The constellations of the night sky crawled across the ceiling as if they were journeying across the heavens.

  As they moved inside, it was clear the temple was still forming and reshaping around them. Walls and floors shifted before their eyes with hypnotic effect. Stalagmites rose in groups and fused into single broad columns. The interior was illuminated not by torches or candles but by a river of lava glowing between the cracks in the floor. At the distant end of the temple, a cascade of magma passed under a raised platform and disappeared into a black cave hewn from solid rock. From its depths could be heard the crackling and shifting of the earth.

  Simon couldn’t help but recall a line from Shakespeare. “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, and make the earth devour her own sweet brood.”

  “Please tell me we’re not going down into the pit,” Nick said, but despite his hesitation, his hands were already aflame.

  “Of course we are.” Simon inclined his head and they continued forward. He noticed that Imogen paused with a look of fear at the dim cavern, falling to the rear of the group.

  The shadows of the dark hole behind the dais shifted. From out of the subterranean depths stepped Baroness Conrad. Her torso was encased by a steel-lined corset and chain mail. An elaborate mechanical helmet with goggles that glowed like enormous inhuman red eyes covered her head and face. One goggle eye had the audacity to have crosshairs over it. The helmet covered her facial expressions, but her walk was a nearly bawdy strut, grotesque in its execution.

  “How fortunate,” the Baroness’s voice projected from her helmet, “that you’ve come. Now we won’t have to seek you out to ensure you’ve been extinguished. I look forward to remaking you in the future.” She nodded toward Simon. “Particularly you.”

  At her side was another of her silverbacked apes. She had a hand on its hip. This beast was no less massive in size than the previous gorillas, but now it was entirely covered in armor with a coppery sheen that gave it the look of a horrific bronze statue. Thin seams in the plate showed that it was still mostly flesh and blood underneath. Like its mistress, smoke and steam wafted out of numerous orifices as machined parts moved and shifted. The Baroness had learned, and adjusted her arsenal because of it. She boldly approached with her arm raised, preparing to make some further pronouncement of villainy.

  Simon cast a sharp glance over at Malcolm. “Take her.”

  Malcolm nodded. His Lancasters rose and the barrels spun furiously, spitting bullet after bullet at the Baroness, interrupting her speech. Penny’s blunderbuss flipped to her shoulder and the startled Baroness barely avoided the canister by ducking behind one of the columns.

  The team split smoothly with Simon striding for the cavern with Kate, Nick, and Charlotte while Malcolm drew Penny, Imogen, Hogarth, and the stunned Jane with him. The ape roared in defiance and leapt at Malcolm. Jane covered her ears in shock. It landed in front of him, its iron knuckles slammed into the floor hard enough to crack the black surface. Hogarth attacked and his hammer of steel slammed into the silverback. Weird threads sliced the air and struck the metal ape but did no damage. It took Malcolm a moment to realize they were poison filaments from Imogen. She slipped around to get a better angle, her quills quivering straight up on her bare arm. Hogarth moved to stand beside her and the ape pounded the floor.

  Penny started across the temple, following the Baroness. Malcolm trusted that Hogarth and Imogen could handle the ape and he ran to support Penny. Just then, two odd-shaped metal stars suddenly bounced on the floor around Malcolm. He grabbed Penny and ran for cover behind one of the tall pillars. He covered the engineer, but after a moment of silence he looked back. The metal stars had failed to go off.

  “Ha! They’re duds!” exulted Penny.

  Malcolm shook his head at her exclamation.

  Penny hefted her stovepipe blunderbuss
and took aim on the column the Baroness hid behind. A shot shattered it. The structure rumbled and bits of ash drifted down from above.

  “You’re going to bring the roof down on us!” Malcolm shouted. “An engineer should know better!”

  Penny’s angry countenance when she turned to him spoke volumes. Her fury wasn’t directed at him. His gut wanted to tell her to blast the Baroness to kingdom come no matter the risk, but thankfully, Penny flipped the weapon across her back.

  A ratcheting noise sounded and one of the Baroness’s mechanical arms transformed into a new contraption. Instead of a hand, three gun barrels with twice the bore of Malcolm’s quad Lancasters trained on them. The Baroness laid down a murderous swathe of gunfire and chunks of stone flew up into the air.

  When the barrage ended, Malcolm spun out of cover and returned one of his own. Penny stepped out with him. In her hand, she held the wee sonic pistol. Penny was a walking means of annihilation in her own right, but most of her weapons were as harmful to her as to her enemies.

  She darted as close to the Baroness as she dared with bullets flying and unleashed a sonic wave aimed not directly at the pillar obscuring the Baroness, but near it. The noise and pressure built until Penny collapsed to the floor on her hands and knees with blood dripping from her nose and ears. Malcolm could only spare her a glance as the Baroness fled from her refuge, holding her head. He shot at her fleeting shape. Her rapid-fire gun arm lifted even though she wasn’t looking at him. Malcolm dove to the floor. She tossed two more of the star-shaped objects, forcing Malcolm to roll farther away. Strangely, these failed as well.

  On the other side of the temple, the ape ran at Hogarth. The muscled man performed an uppercut with his hammer, clapping the steel jaw of the ape shut with a clang. When a huge metal forearm lifted, Imogen closed the distance and flung quills out. The steel-plated chest deflected them all.

  Jane screamed as a thick fist slammed into the pillar beside her. Her arms rose in front of her. A bolt of lightning cracked in the confined space. It struck the ape’s head and skittered over the metal armor, making its yellowish brown color glow a bright copper. The bolt discharged into the wall. A roll of thunder echoed in the chamber. The gorilla stood as if stunned.

  Imogen dragged the terrified Jane away. Her mechanical eye rotated over to Hogarth. “I only need to hit something flesh and I can slow it down.”

  “Yes, miss.” The manservant breathed heavily and roared at the beast again, careening his hammer off its armored pauldron. He pounded the same spot over and over in a maddening onslaught. The sound clanged like a team of men driving pilings. The ape’s steel shoulder plate began to bend and a tuft of fur popped out. Imogen stepped up. Her bare arm snapped out and a volley of quills embedded in the monster’s flesh.

  The ape weaved on its feet. It raised a fist to crush Hogarth, but then the silverback stiffened and fell over in a great tumult that sounded like an armory collapsing.

  Meanwhile, Malcolm scrambled for Penny, who had regained her senses. The back of her hand smeared the blood across her face. She got to her feet and held out a pair of dice. “Cover your eyes,” she cautioned as she brought her goggles down. She tossed the dice. A bright light filled the front of the temple.

  Penny didn’t wait. She was running toward the Baroness even before the flash faded. But the Baroness wore her own goggles. Thin protective membranes now lifted from the lens on her eyes. Penny’s steel-and-bone fan flicked open.

  Just as the Baroness trained her gun on Penny, Malcolm steadied his Lancaster and shot the woman. The shell hit her high and wide, sparking off the armor. It didn’t strike flesh, but it did jerk the Baroness aside. Penny darted past the Baroness and her fan sliced cables and tubes running to her mechanized-gun arm. Black and green chemicals spewed, and the arm dropped limp.

  Malcolm could have shouted his delight at Penny’s brashness even if it was foolhardy. The petite engineer quickly maneuvered behind the stunned Baroness. The villain still had three working arms, and one smacked Penny aside before she could raise her fan once more. Malcolm targeted for a head shot, but the Baroness scurried away like an insect. Malcolm’s bullets raked after her as he raced forward to cover Penny.

  “Next time warn me when you’re going to do something so daft.” Malcolm pulled her behind another column.

  “That’s one arm down.” Penny rubbed an aching knee. “Now you think you can bloody well shoot her?”

  “I bloody well would if I could get past the bloody armor.” He reloaded his pistols.

  Penny peered around the column. “Oh look. The Baroness had time to barricade herself behind another pillar.”

  “Shut it,” Malcolm groused, leaning out and peppering the area. He pulled back as the Baroness returned fire with a brace of pistols. Stone dust coated them. After the barrage ended, two more of the spiked devices fell nearby. Penny stared at them, and her head twisted to take in the pattern of the others that had encircled them. One of them sparked. Her eyes widened.

  “Get out!” She shoved Malcolm hard.

  He fell backward outside the ring of stars, and rolled to his feet. In horror, he watched as sparks careened around the devices, creating a large lightning dome with Penny in the center. He stepped forward to help her.

  “Don’t touch it!” Penny shouted.

  The dome started shrinking around her. Malcolm yelled, “Get out of there!”

  “Working on it!” Falling to her knees, Penny shrugged off her rucksack. She pulled out a short copper spike with a green glass ball on top. Jamming the end into a crack in the floor, she scuttled away. She crouched, making her body lower than the top of the staff. The ends of her blond hair began to rise up away from her head.

  Malcolm shifted his gaze back and forth from Penny to the Baroness, waiting for an attack. Amazingly, she seemed content to watch Penny attempt to free herself.

  Crisscrossing bolts of electricity bled from the lightning dome and into the orb at the top of the spike. The green glass glowed with fel fire. Suddenly the lightning discharged straight up into the air with a loud crack. The cage dissipated and Penny was free. She snatched up her satchel and the copper spike and staggered toward Malcolm.

  He caught her and was stunned to see the tips of her hair burning. He brushed a hand over them, snuffing the embers. “Bloody hell! Why weren’t you fried like a chicken in a tempest?”

  Penny held up the spike. “Grounded the damn thing. Once I knew that the Baroness had worked with a lightning elemental, I tossed this in my pack.”

  Malcolm only wanted to know one thing. “How many other bloody toys does she have?”

  Penny arched an eyebrow at him. “Not sure. She’s good. Damnably good.”

  He scowled. Engineers. He loved them and cursed them at the same time. “We need to end this fight now.”

  “She’s powered by an aether engine. If I can disable it, she’ll just be like any typical four-armed freak.” Penny pulled large pliers from her bag.

  “I’ll distract her,” Malcolm whispered. “Keep her talking till I get in position.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard.”

  Penny slapped him hard on the shoulder in a manly sort of way, which earned her a look though she didn’t notice. Her attention was already focused on the target.

  “So, Baroness,” Penny shouted into the temple, “I’ve enjoyed seeing some of your little gadgets. But I guess you didn’t have time to prepare any real weapons, huh?”

  The Baroness called out, “Your derivative technology is impressive, Miss Carter. Professor Watkins indicated you were an excellent mimic.”

  Penny’s face twisted in spite to hear her mentor’s name so casually spoken by that fiend. “Funny. He never mentioned you to me. I guess your research didn’t leave much of an impression at Cambridge.”

  “It’s difficult for idiots to understand the level on which I work. The laborer turning the same bolt day after day can hardly grasp the vision of the engineer who designed the machine. Some people are
never truly qualified to face their greatest challenge. For example, the time I just spent delaying you has allowed my mechanicals to repair themselves.” The disabled machine-gun arm lifted as if it were brand-new.

  “Repair?” Penny grumbled. “How damned smart is she?”

  Malcolm dove from behind a distant column, rolling to his feet. He ran, guns blazing. He tried for a head shot. There was little enough target with the Baroness’s blasted helmet, but it would get her attention. The first shot knocked her head to the side, and the second and third brought the whistling whine of escaping steam. Malcolm smirked. Dodge that, you four-armed blighter.

  One of the Baroness’s mechanized arms rotated ninety degrees behind her seemingly of its volition. Something rattled and clicked, and it vomited a long snakelike appendage from its forearm. Her metal fingers grasped the cable and whipped it toward Malcolm.

  He realized too late he was within striking range. The whip wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms against his torso. He tried to raise his Lancasters toward her, but a current of energy surged through the metal whip, locking his muscles and even clamping his jaw shut. The robot arm yanked and he toppled over like a dead tree. The whip began to retract, dragging him closer to the Baroness. He lost his grip on the pistols. He couldn’t move his head and his only view was the stars etched on the volcanic ceiling. He heard Baroness Conrad yelling something to Penny. He feared he had stumbled into a stupid trap, and he prayed Penny wouldn’t do something foolish to rescue him.

  A strange shape moved into Malcolm’s line of sight. To his shock, he realized it was Imogen. Her skin showed a milky white against the dark stone. She had torn her dress short so it wouldn’t encumber her legs. Her shoes were off and her wide-splayed toes and fingers clutched the rippled surface of the ceiling. She scuttled over the Baroness and dropped like a spider on top of her.

  Startled, the Baroness reared back, unsure what had attacked her. Penny burst from cover and raced forward. Hogarth ran up to free Malcolm, but the moment the manservant’s hands touched the coils, he too locked rigid. Malcolm could do nothing.