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“Mr. Hare will attend to me, Captain,” Burke responded weakly.“I recommend you draw your spine-gun and see to our defence.” Henodded at the street behind Burton.
The king's agent twisted around and saw five individualsshuffling into view. There were two men and three women. All woredishevelled clothing and diabolical grins. Their eyes were wide andglazed.
One of the women held a dripping severed arm that had,apparently, been torn from its owner's shoulder.
She seemed to recognise the shock in Burton's eyes and respondedto it by shouting: “Meat! Tichborne wants meat!” She then raisedthe limb to her mouth and clamped her teeth into it with a muffledgiggle. The giggle turned into a gurgle as blood bubbled down overher chin.
“Your gun, sir!” Damien Burke groaned.
Burton grunted, stood, and reached into his pocket. He pulledout the cactus pistol and pressed the nodule that activated it.
“Die!” said one of the approaching men.“You-upper-crust-bastards.”
The woman with the arm, distracted by the taste of blood, lostinterest in Burton and his companions. She squatted on her haunchesand began to rip mouthfuls of flesh from the bone, swallowingchunks of raw, bloody human meat.
Burton, sickened, wanted to look away. Instead, he raised hisstrange pistol and shot her in the forehead.
She collapsed onto her back and lay still with the arm acrossher throat.
The remaining two men and two women screamed and lurchedforward, their arms outstretched, their fingers curled into claws,their eyes rolling aimlessly.
Holding his right wrist with his left hand to keep it steady,Burton shot them each in turn.
He released a shuddering breath, looked at the fallen bodies,and allowed his arms to drop to his sides. He was trembling as ifin the grip of another malarial fever.
“What the hell is happening?” he muttered.
Something exploded in the distance.
He stepped back to the hospital gate and hammered upon it.
“Let us in! Hey in there! Open up!”
There was no response. The guard had apparently locked the doorbefore returning to the main building with the carriage driver.
“Help me up with him, if you would, Captain,” Hare said.
Burton lifted his hat, yanked off his wig and false beard,shoved them into a pocket, replaced his topper, and assistedHare.
“The rioters appear to be rather more zealous than they wereyesterday,” the prime minister's man noted. “Yet, equally, rathermore mindless. I need to get Mr. Burke back to Whitehall. I suggestwe make our way along the Lambeth Road to Saint George's Circus,and follow Waterloo Road to the bridge. What say you?”
“I say let's go.”
“I can support Mr. Burke now that he's up, Captain. You keepthat pistol handy.”
Burton nodded and began to move slowly through the eye-wateringfumes, with his companions following behind.
Beams of light swept over them from above. A huge policerotorship descended, its turbines roaring, steam belching from itsexhausts. The down-draught from its rotors cleared the street ofsmoke, and Burton saw that debris and bodies were scattered allover.
“This is the police!” an amplified voice a
The king's agent looked up and noticed a cluster of speakingtrumpets projecting down from the ship's hull.
“This is the police. Return to your homes. Stay inside and baryour doors and windows. Do not venture onto the streets. A state ofemergency has been declared. Return to your homes. This is thepolice. Return to your homes. Remain inside.”
The mammoth flying machine slowly slid away over the rooftops.As it passed, ash-laden smoke rolled back over Burton and hiscolleagues.
A horse bolted past, trailing the broken shafts of a wagonbehind it.
Somewhere nearby, glass smashed and rained onto thepavement.
Incoherent shouts echoed from the near and far distance.
Cautiously, they moved on.
Ahead, a male voice pleaded: “Help me! Oh, sweet Lord, help me!No! Please! Though I walk in the valley of death I shall-”
It was cut off.
A broken walking stick came whirling out of the miasma andclattered onto the cobbles inches from Burton's feet.
Moments later, through the gloom, they saw the other half of it.One end was held in the hand of a snarling street pedlar. The otherend-the broken end-had been thrust up into the base of an elderlyclergyman's chin and was projecting from the top of his skull. Thepedlar was holding his victim upright but released him as he sawthe trio approaching. The dead man crumpled to the pavement. Hismurderer laughed. Froth sprayed from his mouth. He wiped hisbloodied hand on his thigh.
Without hesitation, Burton shot cactus spines into the pedlar'sneck and winced at the sound the man's skull made as it hit theroad.
“We should proceed with greater haste,” he advised Palmerston'smen. “Can you manage?”
“Yes, Captain,” Hare replied. “Though Mr. Burke seems to beuncon- Look out!”
Burton gasped and stepped back as a wraith materialised right infront of him. He saw the figure clearly. It was dressed in a longfrock coat, wore a top hat, and its mouth was hidden behind asoup-strainer mustache. Then it dissolved and blew away, nothingbut a ribbon of dirty particles.
“What are those things?” Hare whispered.
“I don't know, but each time I see one it appears a little moresolid, more opaque. I think they're gaining in strength, andthey're inciting this violence.”
They pressed on and reached Saint George's Circus. A man ran outof a shop, stopped in front of them, and raised an antiquatedblunderbuss.
“Die for Tichborne, you posh sods!” he shouted. He pulled thetrigger and the weapon exploded in his face, blowing off his rightear.
“Christ!” he screamed. “My bloody head!”
Burton shot him and the man crumpled.
The rumble of approaching wheels came out of the smoke.
“Let that be an empty cab!” Burton pleaded.
It was.
A steam-horse erupted from the fumes, pelting along at fullspeed, its crankshafts clanking. It was dragging behind it anold-fashioned landau, engulfed in flames. The vehicle careened pastthem, bounced onto the pavement, and ran smack into the front of atavern. Glass burst noisily and an angry clamour of voices camefrom within the building. The vehicle's boiler detonated, hot metalflying in all directions. The front of the building collapsed intothe street, sending bricks, glass, and masonry spi
Gregory Hare yelled in pain.
Burton turned and saw that a chunk of metal had embedded itselfin his colleague's left arm. He slipped under the semiconsciousBurke's shoulder to keep him upright and gave a steadying hand tothe other man.
“Oof!” Hare grunted. “This isn't good! Ouch! Ouch! Not good atall, Captain!”
The king's agent looked at the wound.
“Wait,” he snapped.
He lowered the two men to the ground then shrugged out of hisjacket, dropped it, gripped the sleeve of his shirt, and ripped itoff.
“How many tourniquets am I to tie today, hey, Hare? Must you andBurke do everything together? You both have wounds in exactly thesame blessed place!”
“I apologise, sir,” Hare groaned. “A terrible inconvenience. Isit serious?”
“Three men, two out of action, one weapon between them, in themidst of a riot? Yes, I should judge that to be fairly serious. Asfor the wound, it would be as severe as Mr. Burke's were it not forthe fact that your biceps are the size of thigh muscles. The boneis intact.”
“As I say, sir, I'm terribly sorry.”
“Don't be a fool,” Burton growled, tugging the tourniquet tight.“You hardly leaped into the path of that projectile.”
In the distance, the police a
Tongues of flame licked from the ruined tavern. Screams camefrom within.
Burton retrieved his jacket and put it back on. “Mr. Burke isout cold. Stay with him. Hold this.” He pushed the cactus gun intoHare's hand. “I'll be back in a jiffy.”