by Guy Adams
“Come now, Mitchell,” I said, stepping into the doorway of his laboratory. “There’s no earthly use in running, we have reinforcements on the way.”
“Who says I’m running?” he replied, grabbing a hypodermic syringe.
“This is a concentrated dose of my serum,” he explained, rolling up his sleeve, “a chemical capable of turning me into a creature far more powerful than the rest of your pathetic species.”
“Up until it kills you,” I reminded him.
“Not me,” he insisted, plunging the needle into his arm, “I’m too strong, I will develop! I will evolve!” He began to swell, his skin reddening. It was almost as if his madness was taking on physical shape, turning him into a flesh and bone illustration of his own anger and violence. The pig cowl stretched and distorted as his head continue to expand beneath it. The veins were rising on his forearms, blue lines as thick and jumbled as a map of the Underground trains.
“Evolve!!!” it shouted, the voice even more slurred than normal.
I glanced at the door and noticed he had left the keys in the lock. Evolution will never be a replacement for intelligence.
“Evolve your way out of a locked room then,” I suggested, stepping outside and locking the door behind me.
He immediately began pounding on it as I walked away but to no avail; it was a stout door. I joined Mann and Challenger in front of the pile of bricks and mortar that had once been the floor above.
“Watson was caught in it,” said Challenger. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I replied, filling my pipe, “my Watson’s a damn sight harder to kill than that.”
WATSON
The damned sky fell in on me and for a moment all was noise, pain and dust, then blackness as I passed out of consciousness.
The next thing I knew there was a pair of monstrous hands on my lapels, and I was being pulled out of the rubble.
“No,” said Kane, “not like that. That would be too easy.”
He threw me away from the collapsed ceiling, tossing me to the ground at the far end of the passageway.
My head was spinning and it was so hard to focus, I could feel blood washing the plaster away from my temple and cheek. I was no doubt concussed and would need several stitches. If I was lucky enough to get away with no more wounds that is, something that seemed incredibly unlikely given the attitude of the brute staring down at me.
“Father says we should be ourselves,” he said, “feed our animal side.” He snarled. “Very well. Run!”
I didn’t need telling twice, I got to my feet and, shakily, ran out of what was left of the passage and into the open warehouse.
All around was panic and screaming, some of the animals were cowering, some were running in circles. Not so Kane, Kane was in full control.
“Run, man!” he shouted, the words tapering into a howl like that of a wolf. “I wish to hunt!”
I looked around desperately for a weapon but could see nothing. I ran for the stairs that would lead me up to the main entrance, unknowingly passing right by Carruthers and Wiggins on the other side of the wall as they encouraged Mycroft and his security officers up from the underground entrance.
The stairs were hard going, my legs aching terribly as I forced them to move faster up each flight. Finally I was on the ground floor, and I made straight for the door.
Kane followed me outside, his feet pounding on the road as he chased me down the street. I risked a look over my shoulder and saw he had reverted even further. Dropping forward he was loping along on all fours, tongue lolling from between his teeth as he ran.
“Kill you!” he shouted, his voice even more of a canine howl now.
I ran towards the sound of traffic. As much as I didn’t want this thing to harm others I would stand a better chance of dealing with it myself if I could only get into the open.
I emerged close to the Euston Road, Kane at my heels.
“Kill you! Bite you! Suck your bones!” Kane lashed out at me with one of his massive hands and he caught me on the shoulder, sending me tumbling into the gutter.
He rose up and pounded his massive hands on his chest, howling up at the night sky.
I got to my feet, shuffling towards the main road.
“No,” he said, “no more run.”
He leapt for me and I managed to dart to one side, so he collided with a pair of bicycles chained up against a railing. He roared in frustration as the pedals and spokes dug into him. I kept running towards the main road, aware that I had bought myself maybe a few extra seconds, not much, but possibly enough.
I heard the wrenching of metal behind me, followed by a savage barking sound, and then that gallop of his fists bouncing off the road as he ran on all fours. I was scouring the ground as I ran, desperate to spot something I could use—my eyes alighted on the very thing. A dirty child’s ball left in the gutter. And with it a desperate idea!
The Euston Road was always busy with cabs and carts, trucks and coaches, all making their way to and from the station. Stopping at the junction, I turned to face Kane as he charged towards me.
“Kane!” I shouted, in my strongest, most authoritative voice, it was enough to give him pause. “Kane!” I shouted again, loud and firm. He looked at me, head cocked to one side. “Fetch,” I told him, tossing the ball over my shoulder and onto the busy road.
With a pitiful howl he chased past me and ran after the ball. That howl turned to a scream as an omnibus bore down on him, and Kane met with the lethal, grinding wheels of progress.
CHALLENGER
I could scarcely comprehend the coldness of Sherlock Holmes, to be told that his friend and colleague was dead, and all he could do was smoke. Damn the man, I thought, he’s a cold bloody fish!
Mann and I fought to pull away the rubble before us, even as we became aware of the sound of Mitchell trying to escape from his locked laboratory.
“Shouldn’t we deal with him?” I asked, staring at that chilly damned detective.
“I shouldn’t concern yourself,” he replied, puffing away on his church warden. “Give him a little more time and he’ll have dealt with himself. He said it was a concentrated formula so I can’t imagine he will manage to last long before …”
There was a terrible tearing sound from the inside of the laboratory, followed by a wet slap such as might be made by hurling a bucket of tripe at a wall. In a way I suppose that is exactly what it was.
“There we are,” said Holmes with a smile. “Problem solved.”
More hands were helping with the bricks now as Mycroft and his small force had appeared on the other side.
We could hear the sound of gunshots and I found myself wretched at the thought of those poor creatures being killed. I do not doubt that Fellowes and his men acted out of the public interest but, ultimately, the beasts were blameless. It was their humanity that did for them, not the part of them that was animal. What a terrible bastard Mitchell had been! Aye, him and Moreau before him. When would we humans ever learn? We are not the dominant species in this natural world, and the sooner we stop and realise it, the better we all shall be.
Soon the way was clear again, and we found ourselves face to face with Mycroft and none other than John Watson! He was looking distinctly the worse for wear, but alive for all that.
“I told you,” said Holmes, patting the doctor on his arm. “My Watson is hard to kill.”
“He seems to try often enough,” Watson replied.
“Right then,” said Mycroft. “Can we please get all this tidied up? I have a hot toddy I wish to be on the outside of.”
MYCROFT
I didn’t learn anything from the laboratory. I certainly didn’t take any of the chemicals I found there, and certainly will not suggest that Mitchell’s work is continued, albeit in a safer, more controlled manner.
And anyone who says differently will be shot as a traitor to the Crown.
MEDICAL NOTES
In my last book, The Breath of God, I sought to write
something of a love letter to supernatural fiction (using the ultimate fictional rationalist to do so). This time my sights were set on the scientific romance, the escapist fun of deluded scientists, mad professors and the monsters mankind does so like to create.
In doing so I have once more raided the work of others so let me take this opportunity to parade the originals, like a man in the dock admitting to his thefts.
My main crime is of course directed at H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. First published in 1896, Wells’ book is thoroughly discussed here and forms the background of everything you’ve just read. While the conceit of Moreau having been in the employ of Mycroft Holmes has no more justification than that it was fun and brought his brother easily into the matter, I hope the idea that Edward Prendick, the original story’s narrator, might lose his mind through his experiences seems a logical enough extension of the original.
When Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau he had a point to make. I have resisted following in his footsteps. The Army of Dr Moreau is not a polemic, it’s a bit of pulp fun. Though it is somewhat depressing to note that, after so many years, I could still have preached had I wished. As a species we haven’t learned our lesson when it comes to the kindly treatment of our fellow creatures. What terrible animals we still are.
The other crimes I wish to take into consideration concern the members of Mycroft’s ludicrous think tank.
Professor Challenger is sure to be well known to most Holmes enthusiasts as he was another creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The aggressive giant lay at the centre of the novel The Lost World, that glorious romp of dinosaurs and lost tribes. The Lost World has inspired many books and movies, not least of all several direct adaptations. Looser offspring include Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies and (a personal favourite) 1969’s The Valley of Gwangi, where cowboys find their way into an isolated biological pocket in Mexico and come face to face with dinosaurs.
My decision to set the action of this book directly after that of the previous volume means that Challenger has yet to have that adventure, hence his scepticism of Professor Lindenbrook’s claim to have found prehistoric animals at the centre of the Earth. Lindenbrook of course comes from Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
Another scientist who would go on to find strange things beneath the bedrock of our planet is Abner Perry (though, as with Challenger, that adventure lies ahead of him in the chronology of this book). Perry, through the funding of his friend David Innes, would soon invent the “iron mole” and the pair of them burrow their way to adventure in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At the Earth’s Core, the first of his series of Pellucidar novels. I make no bones about the fact that my version of Perry is played by Peter Cushing, as per the movie from Amicus Studios released in 1976, the year I was born! Cushing is a hero of mine and the film continues to brighten up any grey day I chose to screen it in.
The final member of our team is not played by Peter Cushing, nor Lionel Jeffries (though he could easily have been) but rather Mark Gatiss who’s performance as Professor Cavor in the 2010 adaptation of The First Men in the Moon (another book by H. G. Wells, of course) pleased this viewer no end.
They were small crimes, a fun nod of the hat to the books and movies that have entertained this silly dreamer for the majority of his life.
Carruthers is also stolen from another book, though this time it’s one of my own so the sentence should be negligible. He appears in my novel The World House and its sequel Restoration and he fitted so well that I couldn’t resist having him close to hand once more.
Inspector George Mann is a distinctly unsubtle nod of the trilby to the writer of the same name. I featured the countryside detective in The Breath of God and decided he may as well return here as, if nothing else, it will make George smile that he finally gets to have some action.
Everybody else is either the product of my imagination or Doyle’s (though I have cheekily referenced a scene from the Basil Rathbone movie, Sherlock Holmes and The Voice of Terror and Peter Cook’s appearance as Watson’s editor in Without A Clue because once you start it is so very difficult to stop).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, thanks to everyone at Titan and to all those who have supported these new tales of Baker Street, reviewers, publicists and above all readers. It’s an address we never tire of visiting.
I am supported in everything I do by Debra, the woman who reads it first. Time and again she is forced to read books on subjects she has no interest in. If that interest is piqued by the time she gets halfway in then I know I have done my job. I love her very much indeed and couldn’t write a word without her.
Mother gets the second taste, once a few edits have crept in. If nothing else this makes her think I’m slightly cleverer than I actually am. Which is never a bad position to be in. Again, her support is quite simply invaluable.
Finally, we must thank the dreamers of another age, Doyle, Wells, Verne, Burroughs … writers who looked at the world through a strange lens indeed, cusping a century with some of the bravest and most thrilling stories ever written, stories that stand proud over a hundred years later and mark them as the giants they were.
I am not worthy, but it is to be hoped that the simple act of trying to be continues to bring me closer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Adams has written over twenty books, ranging from novels such as The World House and the Deadbeat series to novelisations of Hammer movies and more books about Sherlock Holmes than you could shake a Calabash pipe at. He is also the writer of the comic series The Engine, working with artist Jimmy Broxton.
www.guyadamsauthor.com
SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE BREATH OF GOD
Guy Adams
A body is found crushed to death in the London snow. There are no footprints anywhere near it. It is almost as if the man was killed by the air itself.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson travel to Scotland to meet with the one person they have been told can help: Aleister Crowley.
As dark powers encircle them, Holmes’ rationalist beliefs begin to be questioned. The unbelievable and unholy are on their trail as they gather a group of the most accomplished occult minds in the country: Doctor John Silence, the so-called “Psychic Doctor”; supernatural investigator Thomas Carnacki; runic expert and demonologist, Julian Karswell …
But will they be enough? As the century draws to a close it seems London is ready to fall and the infernal abyss is growing wide enough to swallow us all.
A brand-new original novel, detailing a thrilling new case for the acclaimed detective Sherlock Holmes.
TITANBOOKS.COM
PROFESSOR MORIARTY
THE HOUND OF THE D’URBERVILLES
Kim Newman
Imagine the twisted evil twins of Holmes and Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Professor James Moriarty—wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, terrifyingly unpredictable—and Colonel Sebastian ‘Basher’ Moran—violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. When a certain Irene Adler turns up on their doorstep with a proposition, neither man is able to resist.
PRAISE FOR KIM NEWMAN
“Compulsory reading … glorious” Neil Gaiman
“Newman’s prose is a delight” Time Out
“A tour de force which succeeds brilliantly” The Times
TITANBOOKS.COM
ANNO DRACULA
THE BLOODY RED BARON
Kim Newman
It is 1918 and Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The war of the great powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the dead.
As ever the Diogenes Club is at the heart of British Intelligence and Charles Beauregard and his protegé Edwin Winthrop go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is the Bloody Red Baron...
“… stunning follow-up to his inventive alternate-world fantasy, Anno Dracula.” Publisher
s Weekly
“Gripping … superbly researched … Newman’s rich novel rises above genre … A superior sequel to Anno Dracula, itself a benchmark for vampire fiction.” Kirkus Reviews
“A delicious mixture of wild invention, scholarship, lateral thinking and sly jokes … Unmissable.” Guardian
“How could World War I be made even grislier? Add vampires, as Newman does with great skill in this sequel to his Anno Dracula.” Booklist
TITANBOOKS.COM
Table of Contents
Also by Guy Adams and Available from Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
Part One: Mystery in Rotherhithe
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two: Fear the Law
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Part Three: The Terrible Father