The Conquering Dark: Crown (25 page)

“Next time warn me when you're going to do something so daft.” Malcolm pulled her behind another column.

“That's one arm down.” Penny rubbed an aching knee. “Now you think you can bloody well shoot her?”

“I bloody well would if I could get past the bloody armor.” He reloaded his pistols.

Penny peered around the column. “Oh look. The Baroness had time to barricade herself behind another pillar.”

“Shut it,” Malcolm groused, leaning out and peppering the area. He pulled back as the Baroness returned fire with a brace of pistols. Stone dust coated them. After the barrage ended, two more of the spiked devices fell nearby. Penny stared at them, and her head twisted to take in the pattern of the others that had encircled them. One of them sparked. Her eyes widened.

“Get out!” She shoved Malcolm hard.

He fell backward outside the ring of stars, and rolled to his feet. In horror, he watched as sparks careened around the devices, creating a large lightning dome with Penny in the center. He stepped forward to help her.

“Don't touch it!” Penny shouted.

The dome started shrinking around her. Malcolm yelled, “Get out of there!”

“Working on it!” Falling to her knees, Penny shrugged off her rucksack. She pulled out a short copper spike with a green glass ball on top. Jamming the end into a crack in the floor, she scuttled away. She crouched, making her body lower than the top of the staff. The ends of her blond hair began to rise up away from her head.

Malcolm shifted his gaze back and forth from Penny to the Baroness, waiting for an attack. Amazingly, she seemed content to watch Penny attempt to free herself.

Crisscrossing bolts of electricity bled off the lightning dome and into the orb at the top of the spike. The green glass glowed with fel fire. Suddenly the lightning discharged straight up into the air with a loud crack. The cage dissipated and Penny was free. She snatched up her satchel and the copper spike and staggered toward Malcolm.

He caught her and was stunned to see the tips of her hair burning. He brushed a hand over them, snuffing the embers. “Bloody hell! Why weren't you fried like a chicken in a tempest?”

Penny held up the spike. “Grounded the damn thing. Once I knew that the Baroness had worked with a lightning elemental, I tossed this in my pack.”

Malcolm only wanted to know one thing. “How many other bloody toys does she have?”

Penny arched an eyebrow at him. “Not sure. She's good. Damnably good.”

He scowled. Engineers. He loved them and cursed them at the same time. “We need to end this fight now.”

“She's powered by an aether engine. If I can disable it, she'll just be like any typical four-armed freak.” Penny pulled large pliers from her bag.

“I'll distract her,” he whispered. “Keep her talking till I get in position.”

“Shouldn't be hard.”

Penny slapped him hard on the shoulder in a manly sort of way, which earned her a look though she didn't notice. Her attention was already focused on the target.

“So, Baroness,” Penny shouted into the temple, “I've enjoyed seeing some of your little gadgets. But I guess you didn't have time to prepare any real weapons, huh?”

The Baroness called out, “Your derivative technology is impressive, Miss Carter. Professor Watkins indicated you were an excellent mimic.”

Penny's face twisted in spite to hear her mentor's name so casually spoken by that fiend. “Funny. He never mentioned
you
to me. I guess your research didn't leave much of an impression at Cambridge.”

“It's difficult for idiots to understand the level on which I work. The laborer turning the same bolt day after day can hardly grasp the vision of the engineer who designed the machine. Some people are never truly qualified to face their greatest challenge. For example, the time I just spent delaying you has allowed my mechanicals to repair themselves.” The disabled machine-gun arm lifted as if it were brand-new.

“Repair?” Penny grumbled. “How damned smart is she?”

Malcolm dove from behind a distant column, rolling to his feet. He ran, guns blazing. He tried for a headshot. There was little enough target with the Baroness's blasted helmet, but it would get her attention. The first shot knocked her head to the side, and the second and third brought the whistling whine of escaping steam. Malcolm smirked.
Dodge that, you four-armed blighter.

One of the Baroness's mechanized arms rotated ninety degrees behind her seemingly of its volition. Something rattled and clicked, and it vomited a long snakelike appendage from its forearm. Her metal fingers grasped the cable and whipped it toward Malcolm.

He realized too late he was within striking range. The whip wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms against his torso. He tried to raise his Lancasters toward her, but a current of energy surged through the metal whip, locking his muscles and even clamping his jaw shut. The robot arm yanked and he toppled over like a dead tree. The whip began to retract, dragging him closer to the Baroness. He lost his grip on the pistols. He couldn't move his head and his only view was the stars etched on the volcanic ceiling. He heard Baroness Conrad yelling something to Penny. He feared he had stumbled into a stupid trap, and he prayed Penny wouldn't do something foolish to rescue him.

A strange shape moved into Malcolm's line of sight. To his shock, he realized it was Imogen. Her skin showed a milky white against the dark stone. She had torn her dress short so it wouldn't encumber her legs. Her shoes were off and her wide-splayed toes and fingers clutched the rippled surface of the ceiling. She scuttled over the Baroness and dropped like a spider on top of her.

Startled, the Baroness reared back, unsure what had attacked her. Penny burst from cover and raced forward. Malcolm could do nothing more than gape like a fish on a hook. Hogarth ran up to free him, but the moment the manservant's hands touched the coils, he too locked rigid.

Jane appeared and grabbed Hogarth. The current crawled over her as well, but had no effect. She pulled the big man away, breaking his grip. As soon as Hogarth's hands were released, he gasped and fell backward. The manservant lumbered to his feet, shaking off the effects like a big bear, and rounded on the Baroness. He braced his feet and locked one of her arms in a wrestling hold. Jane touched the whip and a visible bolt of light sped back up the snake into the mechanical arm, ending in an explosive shower of sparks. Malcolm could move once again although he was stiff like an old man as he tried to lurch to his feet.

Imogen was still hanging on to the Baroness's head, dodging wild blows from mechanical arms. Her quills pinged off armor, but she spotted bare skin through a seam at the back of the Baroness's neck. She jammed her forearm against the gap in the armor and stabbed several quills into flesh.

Penny had positioned herself behind the villain's back, nearly lost in the cloud of steam escaping from the damaged armor. She jammed her pliers into the circuitry built into the Baroness's back, her hands moving quickly and deliberately. She knew exactly what she was doing. Even though the Baroness's work was intricate in construction, it was also clear in design and function.

Malcolm pulled his long blade from his coat as he staggered up to the Baroness. He jammed the blade between armor plates on her side and shoved it in as hard as he could, twisting it back and forth to widen the gap. It didn't go in nearly far enough to kill, but he took great pleasure in the scream of pain. The Baroness grabbed his arms. Her metal fingers dug deep into his all-too-tender flesh. She started pulling him apart. His scream matched her own.

There was another loud snap and a harsh tearing sound of metal against metal. Penny fell back with a glowing piece of metal in her pliers. The Baroness shuddered. Her remaining limbs flailed as she lost control of them with a cry of fear and despair. She thrashed with unrestrained mechanical power and her armor threw off a massive electrical pulse that blasted her attackers aside. The Baroness screamed with pain as her own mechanical body revolted against her. She ran toward the open door, slamming against the jamb, losing her helmet. With eyes clear, the Baroness fled.

“She's getting away,” Penny shouted, already legging it after the escaping Baroness.

“What did you do to her?” Malcolm asked breathlessly as he retrieved his pistols. The fight had taken more out of him than he cared to admit.

“She had a little siphon crystal like the altar and that goon Simon mentioned from India. So I took it; she won't be repairing herself. And I made some dirty adjustments to her aether motor.”

They ran out of the stifling temple into the hurricane of heat that was London. They both stopped in their tracks. The city around them was ablaze. Smoke obscured much of the familiar cityscape, which was jagged and broken. Streams of lava slid along paving stones, burning swathes in the earth. Dead bodies littered the ground. The temple itself was stable, but when they reeled dumbstruck off the steps, they felt the ground shaking. Gaios was ripping the city to pieces.

Penny managed to overcome her shock and climbed on a pile of bricks. “There!”

They were off and running again. The Baroness could be seen just ahead of them, racing south. Her metal limbs hung useless.

“She's heading for the river! If she has a boat there, we'll lose her.” Malcolm sprinted, forcing his legs to pump harder despite the pain spiking through them. He pulled ahead of Penny, but the rubble in the streets and the chaos of injured and terrified people hampered him. “I thought you took out her infernal engine.”

“I didn't have time to shut it down completely. It must be powering her heart too, or Imogen's quills would've stopped her.”

The Baroness raced into the ruins of a house. Malcolm leapt over the remains of the stoop and ducked inside after her. There was a hole in the back wall. As the Baroness ran toward it she slammed her shoulder into the bricks. The wall started to collapse behind her. Malcolm spun and blocked the charging Penny just in time. He turned her aside, covering her as the cascade of bricks crashed to the ground. The rubble scattered across the carcass of the town house, raising a cloud of dust. Malcolm dragged Penny after him, following and fighting against the heat and thick air.

By the time they scrambled over the bricks, the Baroness had gained considerable distance, weaving through narrow lanes. Both Malcolm and Penny were laboring for breath, but neither would relent. Between buildings, the Thames came into view. She was going to reach the river before they could stop her. Malcolm could see green smoke boiling from a docked boat, similar to the one they had hijacked to Gaios's island.

Without breaking stride, the Baroness weaved around overturned wagons and vaulted the many bodies that littered the broken street. She reached the steps down to the river where her boat waited with its funnel steaming and ready. A quick hop onto the deck and she would be away. The Baroness glanced back with an obnoxious grin. She would have a waved a jaunty hand if her arms had worked.

“No,” Penny moaned, coming to a halt in the center of the street.

Malcolm ran a few steps more and stopped too. His fingers trembled with exhaustion as he tried to jam thick cartridges into the chambers of one of his pistols. Penny had something in her hand and she threw it hard. He realized it was one of her clockwork messenger birds. It buzzed through the air and struck the Baroness in the back of the head hard like a cricket ball. With no way to catch herself, she fell forward in a hard tumble on the stone steps to the edge of the water.

Several men scrambled from the boat and laid hands on her. They heaved the Baroness to her feet where she cursed and bodily shoving them away. They all shrank back.

Malcolm braced himself with his feet apart. He grasped the wrist of his gun hand to steady his aim. The Baroness stepped to the edge of the jetty. The heavy paddle wheels of the steamer churned the water. She smiled at him, licking blood from her lips. Then Malcolm's bullet put a red streak across her unprotected temple.

Her eyes went wide. She was slammed off the dock. She hit the bow of the steamer and hung there for a split second. Her arms flew helplessly around her. She bounced off the rail and splashed into the river. Her head bobbed up once and she screamed. Then a heavy plank of the paddle wheel swept down and smashed her beneath the water. Her metal form rose again briefly before another paddle crashed onto her and dragged her under the dark river.

Malcolm and Penny reached the edge of the jetty. The steamboat was roaring away into the river with its crew hardly sparing a look back at their lost mistress. Malcolm kept his pistol trained on the boat in case they attempted an attack, but the crew had nothing in mind but escape.

Penny stared down at the foaming water slapping heavily against the dock.

Malcolm returned his pistol to its holster. “It's over. With that iron body she's on the bottom of the Thames where she'll stay. She's an anchor now.” His hand reached over to grab hers and she turned to him. She let out a hard breath and nodded.

They both turned around and saw Jane stricken. She leaned on the side of a demolished building, a ruin of bricks, staring at the dead lying around her. A trembling hand clutched her glasses as if trying to decide whether to drag them off her face so she could see no more. Malcolm turned her to look at him.

“Jane.”

Now she covered her ears, trying to block out the sound of the dying city. Her tear-streaked face was inconsolable. “I did this. This is all my fault.”

“That's a load of shite. This is about that madman. This is his doing, his revenge for an age-old crime. You were nothing but a pawn.”

She searched his face for redemption. “But I did what he asked.”

“To save the life of your father. I would have done the same for anyone here.”

She took in the devastation around her, her voice but a shadow. “How can one man do all of this?”