The Immorality Engine (Newbury & Hobbes Investigation) Read online

  The man’s boot came down hard on Bainbridge’s hand, and he yowled in pain as it was ground into the stone. He looked up into the face of his attacker. The man was glaring down at him with a brutal sneer, his face lit by flames from the burning carriage. Rainwater ran in trickling rivulets down his cheeks.

  Every fibre of Bainbridge’s body ached. He groaned as he tried to scramble away.

  The man spat at him. A fat gobbet of spittle landed on Bainbridge’s face, and the chief inspector flinched involuntarily as it struck home. “That’s it, old-timer. You’ve caused me enough trouble already. It’ll be easier on us both if you just lay back and accept the inevitable.”

  “Not likely,” Bainbridge managed to croak as his foot came up, striking the other man hard between the legs. The man creased, releasing Bainbridge’s crippled hand from beneath his boot.

  Bainbridge rolled away, coughing and hacking. Casting around, he saw his cane lying on the ground just a few feet away. He scrambled for it, reaching it just as the man struck him hard across the back of the head with a balled fist, causing him to slump facedown upon the cold, wet ground.

  Weak and in pain, Bainbridge fumbled with the cane beneath him. Holding the cane’s shaft in one hand and its crest in the other, he gave it a sharp twist. The man had grabbed him by the feet and was dragging him backwards, facedown, towards the shell of the burning cab.

  Bainbridge allowed his body to go limp, to give his attacker the impression that he’d given up and stopped his struggling. Beneath him, however, he felt the shaft of his cane beginning to unpack itself. Long wooden strips clicked out of their housing and slid into position, forming a spinning cage around the upper shaft of the cane. Bainbridge felt it building up momentum, the shaft humming and fizzing as the chamber generated a fierce arc of electricity, a lightning cage of deadly blue light contained in the shaft of the now-deadly weapon.

  He held it tightly beneath him, allowing the charge to build as he was dragged unceremoniously across the cobbles. The heat of the flames was close and ferocious, and he knew he would have to act soon.

  Bainbridge heard his attacker grunt with the effort of hauling his dead weight. The man slowed.

  Now was his chance.

  Using the man’s grip on his ankles as a pivot, Bainbridge pushed himself up into the air, twisting his body around and thrusting down and out with the bladed tip of his cane, deep into the other man’s belly.

  The man wailed in shock and surprise. He immediately released Bainbridge’s feet to pull at the embedded cane that now protruded like a spear from his guts.

  But it was too late. The cane discharged its electrical payload and the man shook as the electricity coursed through his body, leaping and dancing with the sheer power of the charge. He opened his mouth to scream, and blue lightning arced between his teeth. His hair rose comically, maniacally from his scalp, crackling with static energy. The air around them filled with the grotesque scent of burning meat.

  Seconds later, the charge in the cane finally spent, the corpse crumpled backwards to the ground, striking the cobbles with a wet thud.

  Exhausted, Bainbridge clambered to his knees. Rain lashed at his face and caused the flames to spit and hiss beside him. He wobbled, near delirium, and issued a low moan. His breath was coming in ragged gasps. He glanced over at the first man to ensure that he was still unconscious, and realised too late that the flames had spread to the shop front, and that the strange projectile weapon the men had used to bring down the cab was now lying amongst a pile of burning crates. He staggered to his feet. He had to get the ammunition away from the flames. Had to—

  There was a deafening explosion, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Veronica peered over the lip of the building at the twenty-foot drop and pondered, not for the first time that day, whether Newbury was utterly insane.

  They’d come from Chelsea an hour earlier, after collecting an array of equipment from Newbury’s home—lock picks, some small blades, an old revolver—to make a reconnaissance of Packworth House, the home of the Bastion Society. She’d never seen Newbury carry a gun, and she wondered what it was about the Bastion Society that had him spooked enough to arm himself with one now. She hoped he wouldn’t find cause to use it.

  Scarbright, dressed in his immaculate suit, had been waiting at the house with a note from Bainbridge. Newbury had read it swiftly in the drawing room before showing it to her. Its contents were minimal, but spoke volumes:

  Newbury,

  Someone is moving against the Queen. Continue with the Sykes matter without me.

  Yours,

  Charles

  The note had been scrawled in haste; Bainbridge’s handwriting was scratchy and rushed. This, then, was no small matter. It was unlike the chief inspector to be harried. Scarbright confirmed that the note had arrived by courier a little earlier in the evening, meaning that Bainbridge was too busy to call on them in person. This had sparked an hour-long debate between Veronica and Newbury regarding how to proceed. Newbury had considered calling off their plans for the evening and heading over to the palace to assist Bainbridge with whatever was going on over there, but Veronica had remained insistent. She’d argued that they needed to push forward with their pursuit of the Bastion Society. If Amelia’s horrific vision of the terrible things to come—not to mention Newbury’s own predictions—had anything to do with the attacks on the palace, then they needed to work out if the Bastion Society was somehow involved. Bainbridge, Veronica assured him, could handle the Queen.

  Besides, by that point, Victoria would already have called in an entire armed garrison to fortify the palace. If she needed Newbury, she would already have sent for him.

  All of that was true. But Veronica couldn’t deny that her sister’s plight had played a large part in her steering of the conversation. Amelia needed her. If storming the Bastion Society could provide the answers as to what Dr. Fabian was doing to her, and perhaps even the key to extracting her safely from the Grayling Institute, then Veronica would not be swayed. At that point, she’d already decided that if Newbury had insisted on rushing off to help Bainbridge, she would have continued to execute their plans alone. She wasn’t about to allow the matter to be swept aside—not for Newbury, not for the Queen, not for anyone.

  In the end, however, Newbury had reluctantly agreed, and they caught a cab across town, stopping a few streets from Packworth House so they might approach the building more surreptitiously on foot.

  Now, they were perched on the rooftop of a neighbouring building, looking down at a balcony a storey below, across the other side of an alleyway.

  Newbury came over to stand beside her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Veronica. I’ll ask you again: Are you sure you want to go through with this?” He sounded concerned, as if he were willing her to say no.

  She nodded. She’d done worse, risked her life in more perilous endeavours. All the same, the notion of leaping across from one building to the other very much filled her with dread.

  In the preceding hour, they had performed their reconnaissance of the entire building, and short of marching up to the front door and announcing their presence, they could see no better way into the premises. The balcony appeared to be unguarded, and the locks on the French doors would, Newbury assured her, be relatively easy to pick.

  Veronica looked at the drop again, and her stomach lurched. Newbury went in for this sort of thing much more than she did. In fact, he seemed to relish it, if his zeal in sizing up the void between the two buildings was any indication. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable—she’d proved that time and time again, particularly during the matter of the Persian Teardrop, when she’d spent much of her time hopping about on the rooftops of Paris, trying to recover the stolen jewel. No, it was more that she’d much prefer to operate with her feet firmly planted on the ground.

  Still, at least the rain had abated. The ground was still wet, but they’d been able to avoid t
he worst of the downpour. She only hoped the balcony itself wouldn’t be too wet for a safe landing.

  She was beginning to feel the chill. She turned to Newbury. “Let’s get on with it, Maurice,” she said, again lapsing into the familiar.

  Newbury nodded. “Yes, let’s.” He straightened up, took three or four steps back from the lip of the building, and then dashed forward, leaping off the edge, arms cartwheeling as he hurtled through the air.

  “Maurice!” Veronica exclaimed, her hands involuntarily going to her mouth. Her heart skipped a beat.

  And then he was over, landing on the balcony with a thump. He skittered on the wet tiles and lost his balance, ending up on his backside. He stood, hauling himself up with support from the railings that ran around the edge of the balcony, and dusted himself off. He looked up at her ruefully. “Are you coming?” he called.

  Veronica rolled her eyes. She was about to ruin a perfectly good blue dress. She reached down, kicked off her shoes, and flung them at Newbury, who, surprised, managed to throw his arms out just in time to catch them before they struck him hard in the chest. Then, hitching up her skirts, she followed Newbury’s lead, pacing back four or five steps before charging forward, hopping up onto the stone lip of the building and propelling herself off the roof. She sailed through the air in a smooth arc, coming to land adroitly a couple of feet away from Newbury. He reached out to steady her as she found her balance. Her heart was thumping in her chest, but she felt exhilarated. She looked up at the building behind her. God—had she just done that?

  Newbury handed her the shoes. “Let’s hope we can get these doors open, or we really are stuck now,” he said, with a grin.

  Veronica slipped her shoes back on as Newbury fished around in his pocket, eventually producing the lock picks. They consisted of a bundle of fine metal rods, wrapped in a roll of black velvet. He dropped to his knees, carefully examining the lock on the French doors, running his fingers over the various tools as he tried to select the appropriate size and shape.

  “Have you—?” Veronica began.

  “Shhh!” he chided.

  Ignoring him, she reached out and tried the door handle. It turned easily, and the door creaked open. “—tried the handle?”

  Newbury laughed, getting to his feet. “Oh, very good, Miss Hobbes.”

  She shrugged. “Why would anyone lock the French doors on a second-storey balcony? Logical, really.”

  Newbury shrugged. “In case someone decides to jump across from a nearby building with plans of breaking and entering?” he replied smartly.

  They both grinned. Veronica peered through the opening.

  The room beyond the French doors was shrouded in darkness. Veronica gestured for Newbury to remain quiet and slowly edged the door a little wider, wincing as the hinges squealed loudly in protest. She inched forward, stepping carefully over the threshold, listening intently for any sounds of movement or occupation from within. The coast appeared to be clear. She crept into the room, beckoning for Newbury to follow her.

  Inside, silhouettes loomed out of the gloom, impressions of furniture and other, indiscernible shapes. Bookshelves, a desk, a tall lamp stand: everything she would expect to find in a typical gentleman’s study. The place seemed relatively normal. Or so she thought until she saw the thing on the wall. She nearly cried out in fright when she caught sight of it: a stuffed lion’s head mounted on a wooden plaque above the desk. It was frozen in a magnificent roar, its teeth bared, its glass eyes gleaming in the reflected starlight from the windows. A trophy, she realised, of someone’s conquest in Africa. It was morbid, egotistical, and entirely unnecessary.

  Newbury came up behind her. He leaned close, his voice barely above a whisper. “There’s the door.” He pointed over at the opposite wall, where Veronica could just make out a crack of light seeping in under the frame. “Wait here and I’ll take a look.”

  He slipped past her, avoiding a settee in the centre of the room near the desk. Veronica watched as he slowly turned the handle, easing the door open a fraction of an inch so that he could peer out into the hallway beyond. Bright light slanted in through the crack, casting Newbury in sharp relief.

  He glanced back over his shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “It’s all clear.”

  Newbury stepped through the door and Veronica followed.

  Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the harsh glare of the gaslights she encountered on the other side. She found herself in a hallway, a long, carpeted corridor with five or six other doors radiating off it. A fabulous array of paintings adorned the walls, the work of romantic artists such as Waterhouse and Millais, each depicting scenes of Arthurian knights rescuing fair maidens or charging into battle, or else landscapes of a green and pleasant England, the ramparts of ancient castles in the distance. These were visions of an England that had never existed in anything other than the dreams of a few fantasists, or in myths and legends, passed down through the ages. But here they were everywhere, lining the walls, as if the members of the Bastion Society considered them windows through which to glimpse the glorious past, the secret bygone age of chivalry and magic. Veronica had to admit they did evoke a certain mood, a sense of longing for the romance of a time that never was.

  She glanced down the corridor at Newbury. He was testing the doors to see if any of them were unlocked. One of them was, and without hesitation he swung it open and disappeared inside. Veronica rushed along the passageway after him on her tiptoes. Farther down the corridor she could discern the low, monotonous hubbub of many voices chattering away, accompanied by the clinking of glasses and the clatter of cutlery and china. She guessed this was from the level below, the great hall in which they had spoken to Enoch Graves during their last visit to Packworth. It was clearly far busier tonight. She wondered if it was another of their banquets.

  Veronica was just about to turn into the room into which Newbury had disappeared when he reemerged, shaking his head. She shrugged, and he motioned her farther down the corridor. They tried each of the doors, finding only one other unlocked.

  In here, Veronica found a bedchamber of sorts. There was a small cot in one corner, along with a gentleman’s wardrobe and chest of drawers. Another painting hung on the wall—a knight, clad in shining plate armour, aiding a redheaded maiden to dismount from her steed.

  Veronica gathered that the Bastion Society would see symbolism in these paintings, that their members looked to these chivalric heroes of old for their inspiration, their code. She wondered if that was really such a bad thing. Surely it was preferable to the sort of devil-worshipping cults they usually had to deal with?

  They left the bedchamber and tiptoed cautiously to the end of the corridor. Here, the noise from the hall below became a dramatic cacophony. It was impossible to distinguish any of what was being said due to the sheer volume and intensity of the chatter, the number of voices talking at once.

  The corridor terminated in a wide balcony that circled the entirety of the upper level. Numerous corridors branched off from this central terminus at regular intervals, and a grand, sweeping staircase joined this upper floor with the great hall below.

  A waist-high stone balustrade formed a neat parapet that enclosed the balcony, enabling people on the upper level to look down upon the proceedings below. Thankfully, no one seemed to be making use of the balcony at present. Veronica supposed they were all too busy enjoying the festivities with their comrades down below.

  Newbury edged towards the parapet as quietly and slowly as possible. He dropped into a crouch behind it and peered between the balusters at the hall below.

  Veronica, anxious to know what was going on, dashed quickly across the open space and dropped to her knees just beside him. He looked up at her in surprise, raising one eyebrow as if to enquire what she thought she was doing, and then appeared to think better of it and returned his attention to the men below. Veronica smiled and did the same.

  There must have been a hundred men in the hall, perhaps more. It was difficu
lt to tell with so many of them moving about, bustling from table to table, conversation to conversation. They were all dressed in identical attire—dark grey suits and matching bowler hats, each with a red sash tied around their left arm. Each sash bore a different three-figure number, marked in white. She wondered what the numbers could be for. Was it some sort of pseudo-militaristic code?

  The men were sitting—mostly—around large circular tables, enjoying what looked to Veronica like a mediaeval feast. Huge platters of roast meat sat in the centre of every table. The whole thing looked like an exercise in gluttony, and the manner in which the men were attacking the meal, feeding themselves with their fingers, stuffing the greasy meat into their mouths, made Veronica feel queasy.

  Servants in black suits and white gloves, like the butlers and waiters they had seen during their previous visit, flitted about amongst the tables followed by bizarre eight-legged automata.

  Veronica had never seen anything like them. They were waist-high, with multijointed legs and a skittering gait that reminded her of the assassin device that had attacked her and Newbury at her apartment. She fought to repress a brief shudder. These were much larger, and there were at least ten of them running about between the tables, bearing trays stacked high with empty plates and glasses. They were a kind of self-propelling trolley, she realised, each one assigned to a different waiter, who loaded the machines with the remnants of the feast and sent them scuttling back to the kitchen.

  She spotted Enoch Graves standing before the fireplace, laughing and carousing with another man. Like the others, he was dressed in a grey suit with a matching bowler hat. His red sash was adorned with the number 001—indicating his prime position within the strange society, she supposed—and he was still wearing his dress sabre strapped to his belt.