The Osiris Ritual (20 page)

He remained in plain sight, hurtling along the main thoroughfare. At any point he could have ducked down one of the other alleyways or side passages and lost himself in the confusing patchwork of back streets that Newbury had seen from the rooftops above. But he seemed to be heading somewhere with intent, and Newbury wondered whether his pursuit had even registered as anything above an annoyance. Regardless, he swung the vehicle in behind the man, undeterred. Al of these questions could be answered later, once Ashford was safely contained in a cell.

Newbury shot along the road in pursuit, wavering wildly from side to side as he attempted to maintain control of the steering mechanism. It was an awkward, unwieldy device: the two brass knobs on the dashboard appeared to be rigged to a complex pul ey system that changed the direction of the front wheel. The driver manipulated the knobs, twisting one to turn right and the other to turn left. If he let them go, the vehicle would right itself once more, travelling directly forward in whichever direction the contraption was pointed. It was hardly elegant, but it was relatively effective, and Newbury soon had a measure of how to keep the vehicle from turning over.

He continued to barrel along after Ashford, gaining on him with every passing moment. The back wheels of the tricycle were spinning at an incredible speed, bouncing on the uneven road and lifting the vehicle physically into the air, so that Newbury had to maintain a tight grip on the controls and jam his feet under the dashboard to prevent himself being thrown from the driver’s pit with every movement.

Ashford had gathered a powerful momentum, and was now knocking people bodily out of the way as he charged through the crowds, trying his best to outpace Newbury’s borrowed transportation. Newbury had to swerve to avoid hitting the innocent bystanders that Ashford sent sprawling to the ground, and it slowed him down, causing him to concentrate more on the road than his quarry. He supposed that was Ashford’s intention.

He considered his next move. He could try to mow Ashford down, but after seeing the man leap from the roof of a four-storey building, only to climb to his feet and walk away unharmed, he had doubts that the tricycle would be strong enough to even knock Ashford from his feet, let alone incapacitate him whilst Newbury sent for help. Instead, as he drew closer, Newbury released both steering knobs on the vehicle, wedged the acceleration lever into its ful y open position, and scrambled up into a standing position inside the driver’s pit. Then, taking the steering knobs again, he fought to manoeuvre the vehicle alongside the sprinting Ashford.

Surprised, Ashford turned to glare at Newbury as he ran, and Newbury caught his first real glimpse of the man’s face. It was an appalling sight. Ashford’s flesh was grey and necrotic, peeling away around the dark pits of his eye sockets, into which two bizarre, mechanical devices had been inserted to replace his eyes. These were not makeshift instruments akin to that of Aldous Renwick’s, but appeared to be smaller, more precision-made devices. They bore the hallmark of Dr. Fabian.

Ashford’s jawbone was exposed at the base of his right cheek, where a hunk of skin had been ripped away, either during a ferocious encounter, or simply due to the fact that it had rotted and sloughed away. The rest of his skin was pitted and raw, and pink fluid seeped from open sores around his nose. Newbury was aghast. The sight of Ashford’s face reminded him of the revenant creatures that still prowled the dark corners of the city: victims of an Indian plague that had terrorised the slums since before Christmas. Ashford’s rotting, cadaverous face was the mirror image of these horrifying monsters — half alive, half dead — yet his steely grimace betrayed a sense of purpose that was lacking in the revenants. Inside there, behind those cold, glowing eyes, a cool intel igence stil lurked, and the thought of it made Newbury shudder. Then there was the smel ; even here, standing shakily in the driver’s pit of a moving tricycle, the stench of the man was near unbearable.

Newbury was almost caught unawares when Ashford made a lunge for him, swinging out widely with a powerful right hook as he ran. Newbury attempted to duck the blow, causing the vehicle to swerve wildly. He fought to get it under control. Luckily, the other man’s fist landed squarely on his shoulder, missing its intended target: his chin. The power behind the punch was phenomenal, intended to finish the matter, and Newbury wondered, as his shoulder alighted with pain, what devices buried within the once-human form of Wil iam Ashford had manufactured such a blow.

Releasing his grip on the steering knobs of the tricycle once again, Newbury brought his left arm up to protect his face and jabbed out with his right, raining a series of blows into the side of Ashford’s head. Ashford barely seemed to notice. He was stil running, stil keeping pace with the unusual vehicle, and Newbury, bouncing along the uneven road, had to stoop to regain control of the steering mechanism before the tricycle swerved from its course and he lost control altogether.

His options were running out. He could pounce on the running man, trying to bring him down, but the risks were far too great. If he missed, not only would he lose Ashford, probably for good, but he risked ending his own life. The speed at which he was now travel ing was such that he would be dashed against the cobbles unless he pitched his move with the utmost precision. Given the circumstances, that seemed unlikely. Instead, he grabbed for the left-hand steering knob, twisting it sharply and causing the vehicle to slew dramatically to the left. He pitched forward as the tricycle slammed into Ashford’s legs.

Remarkably, Ashford did not topple over as anticipated. The tricycle rebounded, tipping to one side and almost spil ing Newbury out into the street. He clutched desperately for the steering knobs and tried to right the contraption as it skittered off to one side. He fought frantical y with the mechanism, balancing the front wheel as best he could and causing a newspaper salesman to throw himself to the ground as his stand collapsed, the tricycle sending plumes of paper into the air as it glanced off the salesman’s wooden table. It was al the opportunity that Ashford needed. He veered off sharply to the left, mounting the pavement and darting towards the entrance to Portland Road Underground Station. He hurtled down the steps towards the platforms below.

“Damn it!” Newbury gave a howl of frustration, swinging the tricycle round in pursuit. He jammed the acceleration lever down, opening the valve to its limit and building up a head of steam.

The vehicle shot forward, bouncing crazily over the kerb and up onto the footpath. He made a beeline towards the entrance to the Underground station. He couldn’t let Ashford get away. He’d come too far.

Newbury closed his eyes and pointed the tricycle at the top of the stairwell. He shot forward.

The vehicle breezed over the top of the stairs, soaring into the air as its momentum carried it forward, in a long arc down towards the darkness of the station below. Newbury realised he was holding his breath, waiting for the impact that seemed to take forever to arrive. He was shaking, adrenaline coursing through his system.

The trajectory of the smal vehicle was such that Newbury was never going to make it clear of the bottom steps. The undercarriage of the tricycle col ided brutal y with the stone steps, cracking open with an enormous jolt. For a moment, Newbury honestly believed he was going to die. He opened his eyes to see one of the back wheels spinning away, and realised with horror that the furnace had cracked open, spilling burning coals in a hot trail behind him, as the vehicle continued to skid down the stairs. Water, too, was gushing out of the tank, slopping across the steps and causing the hot coals to fizz noisily as they were doused. He clutched uselessly at the controls, finally realising that, if he were to survive, he had to get out of the skidding vehicle quickly. The wreckage reached the bottom of the stairs, but continued to slide forward across the tiled floor of the station, leaving devastation in its wake.

The frame of the tricycle was buckled, now, and Newbury was practically hanging out of one side, his shoulder only a couple of feet from the ground, as the remnants of the machine continued its long slide across the floor. People were screaming. Wriggling his legs free, Newbury allowed gravity to take its course. He fell out of the ruined tricycle, his shoulder jarring painfully against the hard tiles. He slid to a stop, watching the wreckage of the machine slide away from him towards a nearby wal . His legs had come out of the machine twisted, but intact. He straightened himself out on the floor, surprised that he hadn’t been seriously mangled in the crash. Around him, scattered coals still glowed with amber warmth.

A woman rushed forward to help him to his feet, murmuring platitudes. He accepted her arm, scrabbling to his feet and looking around for Ashford. She looked confused when he failed to acknowledge her words, but he had no choice: Ashford was getting away. The man moved fast, faster than Newbury could possibly conceive, but along one of the tunnels Newbury could see his black cloak fluttering as he barged his way through the crowd of passengers; hear also the clanging footsteps of his heavy boots, ringing out in the confined space.

Ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder, Newbury flexed his back, smiled at the young blonde woman who had helped him to his feet, and took off after Ashford. He hurtled along the white-tiled tunnel, pushing his way past rows of blank-faced civilians, who stared at him, dumbfounded, as he forced a path through their ranks, fol owing the hulking giant in the black cloak. Once more, Newbury had his prey in his sights. There was nowhere left for Ashford to run. He would end it here.

Newbury charged along behind the rogue agent, skipping down a series of tiled steps towards the platform. His face was set with grim determination, but nevertheless, he almost laughed out loud when he saw a faded, sepia-coloured bill pasted on the tunnel wall, advertising the miraculous stage show of “The Mysterious Alfonso”. He swept past it, driving inwards.

Newbury burst out onto the platform a moment later, only to see, bewildered, the other man leap down onto the train tracks and dart towards the dark mouth of the Underground tunnel at the end of the platform. Newbury ran to the edge of the platform and threw himself forward, jumping high into the air and coming down hard on Ashford’s shoulders. Ashford twisted, stumbling on the steel tracks and tottering over under the weight and momentum of the Crown detective. He banged his head, hard, against the curved tunnel wal , and it rang out with the sound of metal striking stone.

There were shouts of alarm from the passengers waiting on the platform edge. Newbury heard a whistle blow. The police were on their way. Far from being concerned, Newbury was relieved. If he could only detain Ashford for long enough, perhaps the bobbies would be able to help him restrain the man.

The metal runners of the track were hard against Newbury’s back. He was growing weary now, but Ashford, seemingly indestructible, was already climbing to his feet. Newbury mustered his remaining strength. He jumped to his feet, punching out at the rogue agent. His fist connected with the other man’s chin, slamming his head backwards, but the blow was almost enough to incapacitate Newbury, for his hand felt as if he had driven it into a lump of solid iron. He glanced at his knuckles.

They were shredded, bleeding and sore.

Unperturbed, Ashford lurched forward, using the flat of his hand to slap Newbury hard in the chest. The blow was enough to immediately knock him from his feet. He cal ed out as he scrabbled on the ground. “Ashford! What’s the matter with you, man? Have you lost al sense? Give it up!”

Ashford’s voice, when he spoke, was a grating, metallic whine. Every word was like a fragment of song, and Newbury had the sense that, somehow, it was being artificially induced. It sounded as if it were being squeezed from a clutch of miniature organ pipes in his throat, like a chorus of a hundred people al speaking the same words at once. But there was no emotion in it, no sense of the person Ashford had once been. The sound seemed to echo from a wheezing vent in his chest. It was cold and inhuman, just like the man himself. “Cease and desist, Sir Maurice. I don’t want to hurt you.” He stepped cautiously over the train tracks to loom over the prone Newbury. During the tussle, however, Ashford’s long cloak had become tangled in the steel runners. In stepping forward, the cloak tore open, exposing, momentarily, the horrifying figure it harboured underneath.

Newbury gasped in shock. “My God! What did they do to you?” The words seemed to catch in his throat. Newbury knew, now, the origin of that detestable stench. Ashford was less than half the man he had once been; less than half the human being he had once been. His body had been ravaged, reassembled from a shocking assortment of flesh and brass, like a patchwork monster made real, a nightmare marriage of metal and blood. What flesh there still was, clinging to his brass exoskeleton, was rotten, decaying, sloughing away in great hunks. In places, large patches of leather had been stitched indelicately to this remaining flesh in an attempt to give some semblance of skin, but had succeeded only in exacerbating the monstrous appearance of the man. Newbury had no idea whether this was a part of Dr. Fabian’s original design, or whether Ashford had attempted to repair himself during his five-year exile in St. Petersburg. It mattered not. The result was grotesque.

The man’s torso was perhaps the most disturbing aspect of al . The exposed skin of his chest was puckered and pustulant around a large glass porthole that filled the space where his ribcage had once resided. In the murky depths it revealed, Newbury could see the grey muscle of the man’s heart, beating in time with a flickering electrical charge that shocked it repeatedly at intervals, like the precise ticking of a clock. Fluid burbled and bubbled along four clear pipes that sprouted, like giant follicles, from his shoulders, curling around the back of his head and disappearing into the depths of his skul . The brown, murky liquid appeared to be pumped around his brain cavity by a further device buried deep inside his chest. His face was just as alarming. The tiny lenses of his eyes flicked back and forth over Newbury’s prone body, the red lights glowing in the darkness. When he opened his mouth, Newbury saw that his teeth had decayed to black stumps. What hair was left was hung in long, straggling clumps, and the flesh of his scalp was torn, revealing the horrific juxtaposition of yel owed bone and metal plating underneath.