The Immorality Engine

CHAPTER
23

Enoch Graves sat before the fireplace at his favourite table, surveying the assembled mass of grey-suited men. They lounged about in their armchairs, sipping brandy and smoking cigars, lost in conversation, playing cards, or otherwise relaxing in each other’s company. Just like the knights of old resting before a battle. He wondered if this was how the Knights of Jaffa had passed their time before riding into battle alongside King Richard, sacrificing their lives to bring enlightenment to the heathens. He imagined so.

Graves smiled with pride. Every man he could see formed a part of his flock. He commanded them all, and each of them was content in the knowledge that he would lead them to glory. Theirs was the noblest of causes, and he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that they would prove themselves triumphant in the coming hours. He yearned for that time to come. His moment of glory could not arrive too quickly.

These moments sitting in the great hall amongst his men were the last calm hours before the oncoming storm. This was the eve of their sacrifice, the day they would take up arms and set in motion the chain of events that would topple the blasphemous monarchy that sat incumbent on the throne of England. Victoria’s reign would end. He smiled at the thought of it. When his spirit returned to the Earth in its next life, a new time of prosperity would have settled on England.

Graves searched the crowd for Warrander, but could not see him. Most likely he was down in the armoury overseeing the eleventh-hour preparations. He’d always been conscientious-a pedant, even-unable to rest until he knew that everything was in its right place, all the preparations had been checked and checked again. Graves wanted to share a drink with him, to raise a glass in his honour, for delivering the means by which they would achieve their aims. Then he would return to the hanging room and carve out the tongue of his duplicate; a precaution against future judgement if he were to die in the forthcoming battle.

Graves reached for the bulbous brandy glass on the table and swilled it around, inhaling the heady vapours. He was just about to take a long draught of the spirit when he heard a muffled crash from somewhere across the other side of the hall. Returning his glass to the table, he stood, trying to see what the commotion was about. One of doors beside the staircase burst open, banging back on its hinges, and a man came hurtling through. He was dressed in the Society’s customary grey suit and bowler hat, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs in panic, calling for everyone to clear the room, now, before it was too late.

Everyone in the hall turned to look at Graves simultaneously, waiting to see his response. The man stood there, alone at the foot of the stairs, panting and waving his arms in dismay.

Graves stepped forward and the men around him moved back to clear a path. He would publicly admonish the man for his cowardice, take him to task for attempting to jeopardise the great mission, and then order him to do penance by flagellating his duplicate in the hanging room. He was just about to speak when he heard another crash, this time considerably louder, and glanced round to the open doorway to see one of Warrander’s armoured suits charging towards him from the passageway beyond. His mouth dropped open in a surprised gape. The driver must have smashed his way up through the catacombs, clearing a path through the serried rows of tombs to find its way here. He paced back until his legs encountered a table behind him. He drew his sword and held it before him, his hand shaking. The Hobbes woman, Newbury’s assistant, was at the controls.

The armoured machine burst through the too-small doorway, shattering the frame and sending clouds of dust and rubble billowing into the room. Its massive steel feet pounded the tiled floor as it charged out into the hall, swinging its arms and batting his men aside as if swatting flies.

People scattered, shouting and screaming at one another, sliding under tables or fleeing up the staircase to get away from the crazed woman in the machine.

Graves saw Newbury emerge from the passageway behind the machine, coughing and spluttering from the dust. Graves gripped the hilt of his sabre tightly in his fist and cursed. He couldn’t allow the Queen’s agent to get away-his escape would put their whole endeavour at risk. He would have to stop him. And when he discovered who was responsible for Newbury’s release, he told himself, they would pay, very dearly indeed.

Wary to keep his distance from the rampaging Hobbes girl, Graves started out across the hall, making a beeline for the unsuspecting Newbury. The chaos would be all the cover he needed to get close to the man. He would run the agent through before the unbelieving fool even knew he was there.

Graves moved from table to table, trying to keep something-or some one -between himself and the armoured machine at all times. He had almost made it to Newbury when a grey-suited body, flung like a rag doll from the path of the stomping suit, collided with him, bowling him over and causing him to cry out in shock, releasing his sabre so that it skittered away across the tiled floor.

The world went into free fall, everything spinning, the chattering, screaming voices of his men growing louder, ringing in his ears. He shook his head, trying to clear the disorientation.

He was lying on the floor, a dead weight on his chest.

His head smarting from catching a table leg in the fall, Graves pounded the unconscious man with his fists for a moment before giving up and shoving him brutally to the floor. He scrambled to his feet. Too late, he realised he’d missed his chance.

The Hobbes girl reached down and snatched up Newbury in the machine’s fist, swiping him off his feet and lifting him into the air. She then charged at the far wall, bowing the suit’s right shoulder and tucking her head low, preparing to smash through a tall sash window. In the machine’s left hand, Newbury dangled like a child’s toy, clutched between its claws and clinging on for dear life.

Seconds later, the armoured suit collided with the wall, causing the window to shatter with an explosion of glass fragments that tinkled to the floor like a shower of diamonds. Two swift kicks and the low wall had crumbled. Then the machine was through, out into the daylight and away down the street, the pounding of its feet echoing as it ran.

Graves felt the rising tide of fury engulf him. How dare they! How dare they do this! Not today. Not when he was so close to achieving everything he’d been working towards. He could barely believe it. He kicked the prone body of the man by his feet, so hard that he felt a rib crack beneath his foot. Then, realising he had no other options left, he clambered up onto a table and bellowed at the snivelling wretches around him to listen.

The surviving men, picking themselves up off the floor, snapped to attention, terrified to hear what he was going to say. But he would not berate them for their mistakes. Instead, he would galvanise them with a desire for revenge. “Gentlemen,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, “prepare yourselves for war! We mobilise within the hour!”

A cheer went up around the hall, amidst the dust and the rubble and the spilled blood. Graves smiled. Perhaps victory was still within their reach, after all.