Pax Britannia: Human Nature (33 page)

As he stared into the bloodshot eyes of the insane industrialist, transfixed by the old man's unblinking gaze - he was dimly aware that the thing's jaws were stretching open, far wider than was humanly possible. But then what had once been Josiah Umbridge wasn't truly human anymore. Their eyes still locked together, the old man's head glided closer on its twisting neck, as if Umbridge somehow intended to bite off his head.

The Umbridge-chimera opened its mouth and a reptilian bark emerged as smoke began to fill the passageway. Ulysses coughed and instinctively put a hand to his mouth as he suddenly came to his senses.

There was the cracking pop and shatter of glass breaking as the fire inside the laboratory grew in intensity. The chimera barked again, its head darting from side to side in distress.

It's afraid of the fire
, Ulysses realised. And then he saw the burn marks - the scorched patches of fur, the shiny pink scar tissue on its flanks. Ulysses could only guess at their origins, but to look at the cruelly laughing Rudge, it wasn't hard to imagine that the gamekeeper had caused those injuries, long before Josiah Umbridge's head had been transplanted onto the vivisect body. The abuse had probably taken place over a period of some months, judging by the way some of the burns had healed; a means of keeping the growing abomination under control.

God alone knew what kind of primitive brain had been used to keep the vivisect's autonomic processes working until it was ready to receive the old man's head. Perhaps that rudimentary collection of ganglia had never been removed, left in to aid the old man in controlling all the disparate body parts. And what the chimerical body remembered, from the time before it had become the Umbridge-chimera, was that fire was to be feared.

And the primal fear of fire was now coupled with the old man's desperate desire to survive.

Ulysses wished he had his sword-cane with him as he watched the monster and its handler's every move, in case they unwittingly provided him with an opportunity to escape.

Then he saw it, tucked into the gamekeeper's trousers. He had obviously decided to keep that particular trinket for himself.

"Not so fast," Rudge growled, seeing where Ulysses' gaze had fallen, and put a possessive calloused hand over the end of it. "It's mine now."

Behind Rudge the chimera reared up on its spider-crab legs and let out a shriek. Flames were licking the ceiling now, the smoke thickening, accompanied by the acrid stink of boiling chemicals. It wouldn't be long before all of them were overcome by the smoke.

The creature was becoming more and more agitated. It skittered backwards and forwards, its great armoured limbs fidgeting restlessly beneath it. Its thick shark's tail lashed in alarm, sending Rudge suddenly stumbling towards Ulysses.

As Ulysses readied himself to make a grab for the exposed sword-cane at the big man's belt, Rudge turned sharply on the beast and, without a second thought, smacked it across the torso with the heavy cosh in his hands.

"Watch it, yer big bastard!" he shouted at the vivisect and the huge monstrosity retreated before the gamekeeper's blows, as its body-memory was reminded who the master was here.

Smoke billowed along the corridor, carried forward by the currents created in the air as the cold cellar was heated by the fire.

Ulysses edged forwards, closer to the gamekeeper and his monstrous charge, closer to his one hope of getting out of there.

And then he saw a change come over the Umbridge-chimera's expression. Where at first there had been only fear of Rudge's beatings, now there was full-blown desperate panic. The old man's eyes glared down at Rudge as he rained blow after blow onto the vivisect's massive body. The blows themselves didn't particularly hurt the beast, but they reminded it of pain the cruel man had inflicted in the past.

"Get back! Get back!" the gamekeeper shouted, trying to force the chimera back into the chamber from which it had come. "Come on! Move!"

And then its rheumy human eyes narrowed with a vicious intent all of its own. Rudge was the one thing stopping it from escaping from the hungry flames.

When the attack came, it came fast. The chimera lashed out with its crustacean claw and double-jointed arm at the same time, seizing hold of the huge man and lifting him off the ground. Before Rudge really understood what was going on, the tentacle, squid-like, whipped forwards, the huge crab's claw closing around the gamekeeper's kicking legs.

Rudge cried out. His yelp of pain became an agonised scream as the three limbs began to pull in different directions, the horrible high-pitched shriek filling the corridor for a moment before Rudge was suddenly and savagely silenced as the chimera tore him in half.

Loops of steaming intestine splashed to the floor as the gamekeeper gave one last gargling death rattle and a spray of hot, red blood bathed the walls, the floor, the chimera and Ulysses in a ruddy shower.

There was never going to be a better chance than this, Ulysses decided, as he made a break for it. The Umbridge-chimera distracted, ducking past its wildly limbs, as it continued to dismember the gamekeeper's corpse, Ulysses pushed past the creature's scrabbling crab's legs.

And then he was through, only cool air and the cellar steps ahead of him.

At the top of the stairs Ulysses caught up with Nimrod and the others.

"It's this way," Jenny said breathlessly, as she led the party back through the palatial stately home at a run, heading for the entrance hall and a way out of the house.

Entering the dimly lit atrium, Ulysses became aware of several things all at once. The front door was already open and voices raised in argument echoed from the marble columns.

Umbridge's butler was there, valiantly trying to prevent a helmeted policeman from entering the premises. The dulcet tones of another irate officer reached Ulysses' ears, and for the first time in his life he felt pleased to hear Inspector Maurice Allardyce's voice raised in anger.

"Get out of the bloody way!" he heard Allardyce shout as two burly constables barged their way past the startled butler and into the house.

And then Ulysses heard the sound he had been dreading, booming from the passageway behind them.

"And who might you be, sir?" one of the constables asked as he was suddenly confronted by a wild-eyed Ulysses, trailing the smell of smoke with him into the atrium, accompanied by an agitated-looking older man in a long black cloak, a desperate, bedraggled young woman, and what could only be described as a sideshow freak.

"Never mind that!" Ulysses snapped as he pushed past the policeman. "You have to get out of here!"

"Now hang on a minute, sir," the constable said, putting out his arms as if to stop Ulysses' flight from the house. "We've had a report about this place -"

"Quicksilver!" Inspector Allardyce exclaimed as he too pushed his way into the entrance hall. "You look terrible. What have you got yourself mixed up in this time?"

"Allardyce, we all have to get out of here now!"

"What? But we've only just got here!"

"Are your men armed?" Ulysses said, half over his shoulder, as he continued to make for the door, Nimrod and the others close behind him.

"No."

"Then get them out of here now. You have to withdraw!"

"Now look here, Quicksilver! You can't just charge in here and start ordering me around like this, I'll have you know."

"Allardyce!" Ulysses roared in frustration. And then his face fell, as he caught sight of what had entered the hallway after them. "Just run," he said, his voice suddenly horribly quiet.

"What?" The confused inspector turned from the ashen-faced Ulysses to see what it was that had caused what little colour there was to drain from his waxy cheeks. "You're shitting me," he gasped.

The first to fall foul of the chimera was the policeman who had tried to stop Ulysses. The monster picked the constable up with one claw and then merely tossed him aside. He collided with the top of a column and then dropped fifteen feet to the floor, landing face first on the cold marble tiles without making a sound, other than the sickening crunch of his skull breaking.

Ulysses paused at the doorway and stared at the monster in appalled horror. The wretched butler Molesworth stood beside him staring aghast at the creature that now bore only the vaguest similarity to his master Josiah Umbridge.

Screeching, the vivisect reached for another wretched policeman who was already scrabbling to get away, feet slipping on the highly-polished floor. The Umbridge-chimera lunged forwards, bringing the man down with the point of one crustacean leg. The man screamed as the great weight of the monster pressed down on that one clawed crab's leg, puncturing the flesh of his thigh, and pinning him to the ground.

The chimera regarded the policeman curiously for a moment. Absently-mindedly tossing the gamekeeper's lower body aside - which it had still been holding in the vice-like grip of its monstrous claw - the creature closed its pincer around the constable's head and, with one neat twist, removed it from his shoulders.

"Quick! Get out!" Ulysses screamed as he hurried his friends through the door, hoping that Jenny would not look back and witness any of the carnage consuming the atrium behind them.

Unable to tear his own gaze away, he looked from the twitching corpse of the decapitated policeman to the white-faced Allardyce staring transfixed at the vivisect-beast and the remains of the gamekeeper. Beside the oozing remains was Ulysses' cane.

Scrambling back into the hall, he pulled the black wood cane free, feeling its reassuring weight as he held it in his hand again, and then turned for the door, dragging the dumbfounded Allardyce after him.

Shoving the bewildered inspector ahead of him, Ulysses paused in front of the frozen Molesworth, paralysed now that he was faced with the reality of what his master had become.

Ulysses drew back his left hand and hit the butler full in the face, his new simian arm delivering a powerful punch. Molesworth's head hit an alabaster pedestal behind him and he crumpled to the floor, out cold.

"That's for the knockout drops," Ulysses declared with indignant self-righteousness, and then dashed through the door, after the dazed Allardyce.

Once outside in the biting cold of the November night, he paused again, this time to slam the double doors shut behind him; anything to slow the creature down, even if would only be for a second.

With the beast and its enraged bellows trapped inside the house for the time being, Ulysses caught up with Allardyce as the inspector was making for the gleaming black police car pulled up on the gravel drive.

"This your car?" Ulysses asked.

"Y-Yes," the inspector stammered.

"Everyone, get in!" Ulysses commanded, pulling open a door. "Keys?"

"In the ignition."

"Good. I'll drive. Now, get in!"

Chapter Twenty-Four

Fight or Flight

Ulysses pushed the accelerator pedal to the floor, and the car took off, throwing up a spray of gravel behind it. Almost as an afterthought he found the right switch on the dashboard and flicked on the headlights. Two powerful white beams cut through the dark, illuminating the driveway ahead and reaching as far as the boundary wall of the estate.

For a few moments, the only sounds inside the car - other than the rising and falling tone of the engine - were the gasping pants of its occupants as they all tried to recover their breath and make sense of what had happened to them back at the house.

Ulysses tore up the driveway, accelerating into the gentle curve of the gravel road as it pulled round parallel with the Neo-Classical facade of the stately home.

"What
was
that?" Allardyce demanded, turning in his seat to face Ulysses. Ulysses' eyes remained firmly on the drive ahead, a manic gleam ablaze there.

"By
that
I take it you mean the monster that just tore apart your friends from the North Yorks constabulary."

"Of course that's what I bloody mean!" Allardyce shrieked.

"Didn't you recognise him? That was the renowned industrialist billionaire recluse Josiah Umbridge. Although it looks like he's not such a recluse any more, doesn't it?"

Allardyce gawped at the dandy, hunched over the steering wheel, a haunted expression on his face as he peered beyond the windscreen of the car. Details flashed into existence out of the darkness as the beams of the police car's headlights briefly illuminated trees and topiary before the night swallowed them up again.

"Nimrod, any sign?" Ulysses asked his manservant, who had bundled into the back of the car with Jenny and the freak.

Nimrod peered out of the window next to him, trying to discern anything through the darkness. Behind them the great house was aglow, the fire having spread.

"I see it, sir!" he suddenly shouted. "Approaching from the right!"

Holding the steering wheel straight, Ulysses dared a glance. The chimera was moving towards them at speed across the carefully tended lawns, galloping through the water of an ornamental pool in its rush to catch up with them.

The landscape designer who had laid out the estate and the approach to it along the drive had planned it so that visitors might enjoy unprecedented views of the whole of the carefully constructed Neo-Classical facade of the house as they entered the grounds.