by George Mann
Still holding on to Amelia, the doppelgänger’s head lolled back, its eyes rolled up in its sockets, and it began babbling under its breath. “Cracking walls and fire and pain. Brass engines of destruction will tear down the world, and the man with the white face shall come out of the darkness. The one who sits in the chair. She is the key. She is the nightmare at the eye of the storm.”
Amelia screamed. It was describing the contents of her vision. It was impossible. She wondered for a moment if she were already dead, if this were some sort of terrible purgatory, if she were hallucinating because of the fire, or because of her illness. She didn’t know what to think. But she knew she had to get away from the creature, somehow. She couldn’t bear to look at it any longer, with its dark, feral eyes; the way it screeched like an animal.
Acting purely on instinct, Amelia slapped the duplicate brutally across the face once, twice, three times, until the creature’s eyes snapped back into place, its head rocked forwards, and it was once again glaring at Amelia with smouldering, animalistic menace.
Amelia raised her leg and jabbed her foot into the duplicate’s abdomen. It doubled over, howling in shock, emitting a harrowing screech that chilled Amelia to the bone. It lunged at her, its nails raking her cheek as it tried urgently to scratch out her eyes. Amelia flailed her arms in an effort to defend herself, doing whatever she could to keep the crazed thing at bay.
Suddenly she remembered the poker she had hidden in the folds of her blanket. She grabbed for it, feeling its cold, hard shaft beneath the wool. With one hand she fought to extract it while using the other to fend off the mad doppelgänger as best she could. She wasn’t strong enough, however. The creature batted her arm away and lurched forward, grabbing her head between its hands and squeezing, as if trying to crack open her skull with its bare hands. “Let the demons out!” it screeched. “Free the spirits! Save yo—”
The words turned into a gurgle as Amelia thrust the poker deep into the duplicate’s belly. Warm blood gushed over her hands and knees. She sobbed as the creature continued its assault, still gnashing its teeth and attempting to prise open her skull. She thrust the poker deeper inside the thing, twisting it, trying anything to get it to stop. She didn’t know what else she could do.
And then, as quickly as the attack had come, it stopped.
Amelia, gasping, peeled open her eyes. Dr. Fabian was there, struggling with the duplicate as he hauled it off Amelia, dragging it back towards the open door. The black shaft of the poker was still protruding from its belly, blood coursing down its legs, staining the front of its white nightdress. The duplicate kicked and snarled, gouging great scratches in Fabian’s arms, but he held it fast, whimpering with pain as he fought to stay upright on his damaged leg.
With an almighty effort, Fabian pitched around and hurled the duplicate out the doorway and into the raging inferno. Amelia heard it cry out, and she caught one final glimpse of it as the hungry flames took to its hair, creating a halo of flickering fire around its head. Then it turned and bolted down the corridor to its death.
Amelia felt nauseated. Her mind was reeling, trying to process what she had just seen. She didn’t know what to think, how to feel. She could hardly believe the atrocity she had just witnessed.
Amelia tried to get out of her chair, but she simply didn’t have the strength to lift herself, not after the attack. Blood was streaming down her cheek in a warm trickle. She turned to Fabian. “You did this,” she said, her tone accusing. “You told me you were trying to help me. You were always there for me, always by my side. I trusted you! And this is what you’ve been doing? Copying me! Experimenting on me! Turning me into a curiosity for your laboratory games.” She sobbed, more out of rage than fear. “Was this why I was so important? Why you had to come here to save me? So you could continue with your disgusting experiments?” Fabian simply glared at her, his jaw fixed. “Get out. Get out of here, now!” She gestured towards the door, then wiped the dripping blood from her chin with the back of her hand. She would rather die in the fire than allow Dr. Fabian to continue to exploit her, to turn her into more perversions of nature like the one she had just encountered. That was a transgression she could never, ever forgive. A violation. An atrocity.
Fabian’s face seemed to darken. His forehead creased into a harsh frown. He began creeping towards her again, but this time she knew it was not altruism that was driving him, but greed. “You ridiculous little girl,” he snapped. “You ungrateful, snivelling wretch of a woman. After all I’ve done for you!” He limped across the carpet towards her, dragging his leg. “You’re coming with me. You’re my way out of all of this. You’re the only one that ever worked.”
Amelia knew then that she had to get away. Out of options, she flung herself out of her chair and onto the floor, landing on her belly and jarring her elbow. She grabbed fistfuls of the carpet in her still-bloody fingers and began to pull herself across the ground, trying desperately to get away from the monster that had once been Dr. Fabian. She could barely believe it was the same man who had been so kind to her, who had helped her through her seizures and spent long hours in the chair beside her bed, ensuring she was safe. Protecting his investment, she realised with a sense of dawning horror. It was all pretence, every moment of it. The very thought of it made her skin crawl.
Ahead, Amelia could see the French doors that looked out over the garden. They were locked, as they had always been locked, and Amelia realised that she really had been contained in a prison, and that Veronica had been kept away purely to prevent her from discovering the truth. She’d been a fool to fall for it, for Fabian’s false charms. All along, the locked doors should have told her what was going on. Nevertheless, locked or not, the French doors were her only hope of freedom. If she could get to them, she might be able to smash them and climb out.
Just as her fingertips encountered the glass, however, Fabian caught her by the ankles and dragged her away from the doors, turning her forcefully over onto her back. She cried out, and he grinned down at her from above, his face contorted into a sneer. She kicked out at him weakly, and he raised his arm and backhanded her savagely across the face. The pain was like an explosion in her head.
“Stay still, you little bitch!”
Amelia fought as he grabbed for her arms, trying to pin them by her sides. She realised she was sobbing, tears of desperation coursing down her cheeks. “Get off me, get off me, get off me,” were the only words she could find, and she repeated them over and over like a mantra. “Get off me.…” But Fabian had hold of her wrists now, squeezing them painfully as he forced her into submission.
“We’re leaving,” he said as he stooped to try to pick her up.
And that was when she saw the white-faced man over his shoulder.
Amelia screamed. Mr. Calverton was there behind Fabian, his strange, blue, unblinking eyes staring down at her, just as she’d seen in her visions. Any hope she had left dissipated at that moment, and she ceased struggling. She knew she’d never be able to fight both of them. It was over. She was about to die.
Fabian grinned.
Mr. Calverton, still unseen by the doctor, reached for her as if to help Fabian subdue her. Amelia issued a low, desperate moan. And then, through the veil of tears, she saw something she’d never even imagined in her dreams.
Mr. Calverton had his hands around Fabian’s throat.
Fabian attempted to shout something, but it came out as only a strangled gurgle as Mr. Calverton wrapped his white-gloved fingers around Fabian’s neck and used his thumbs to crush the doctor’s windpipe.
Fabian kicked and punched and tried to prise his servant off him, but the man with the porcelain face was relentless. Amelia was chilled by the calm, detached way Mr. Calverton cocked his head to one side as he slowly squeezed the life out of the man who had made him.
She wondered what was going on behind the mask. Perhaps the strange man-machine was seeking revenge, Amelia thought, trying not to look as Fabian’s face changed hue to a
bright purple and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. Or perhaps he really had come to save her. Perhaps all those times he had stood watching her, he had known the truth about what Fabian was doing. Perhaps he truly was more man than machine, and it was compassion that had caused him to come to her aid.
Mr. Calverton held Fabian at arm’s length until the doctor’s body stopped twitching and slumped in his grip. The wire-rimmed spectacles slid off Fabian’s nose, tinkling as they struck the wall and smashed into a thousand shards. Then the man-machine dropped the corpse on the ground by Amelia’s feet, its head banging against the skirting board with a dull thud. A second later, and Fabian was still.
Mr. Calverton turned to her and took a step forward, the pistons in his thighs sighing noisily with the effort. He held out his hand, and she reached for it just as the wall beside them ruptured with an enormous crack and a steel fist the size of a man’s head came smashing through, colliding with Mr. Calverton and sending him sprawling across the floor. Amelia rolled to escape the falling debris. When she looked again, Mr. Calverton was trapped beneath a huge, jagged chunk of the wall, his mechanical legs twitching and sparking, blood pooling on the floor beneath his crushed torso.
Amelia peered through the fissure in the wall. A huge suit of shining armour was stomping away down the corridor. She heard another massive crunch as it struck out at another wall, causing a similar collapse, and then it was gone, disappearing through the flames. They’re trying to bring the whole house down, she realised, taking out supporting walls as they continued to rain incendiary devices down on the building from above.
Amelia gathered as much strength as she could and crawled over to where Mr. Calverton was trapped beneath the fallen wall, careful to avoid the gruesome-looking corpse of Dr. Fabian, which was slumped nearby on the floor. Mr. Calverton’s eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling in startled surprise.
Mr. Calverton was in a bad way. Amelia couldn’t even tell if he was still alive. He didn’t appear to be breathing—but then, she wasn’t really sure if he still needed to breathe. She kneeled before him, testing the weight of the collapsed wall. It was no use; she’d never be able to lift it. Reluctantly, she crawled over to where his head was lying on the maroon carpet.
Mr. Calverton’s porcelain mask had fractured in the fall, and part of it had come away, exposing a small area of pink flesh around his mouth. She studied his eyes. Just when she was about to give up, she saw them flick around to look at her. He made a small, strange noise—the first she had ever heard him make—but its meaning was lost, muffled behind the mask and the sounds of bombing from outside.
Amelia could tell he was dying. The blood was still pooling beneath him, and she realised he must have fallen on something that had opened up his chest. She offered him a sad smile. Then, before she had time to talk herself out of it, she reached over and pulled away the broken mask fragments, revealing the true face of the man beneath.
She stifled a surprised gasp. The face was not at all what she had been expecting. Calverton had once been a handsome man, with full, pink lips and a small, slightly hooked nose. But the left half of his face was terribly scarred with a crisscross of long, puckered valleys. The flesh around the scars was drawn and pink, and they looked to her like ancient knife wounds, as if someone had tried very hard to flay his face from his skull. But what struck her most was his eyes: so sinister when seen behind the mask, but now frightened and human, and filled with sadness.
Amelia gently placed her palm against his scarred flesh. It was cool to the touch. Mr. Calverton opened his mouth and tried to speak again, but all that came out was a croak.
“It’s alright,” said Amelia softly. “I’m here.”
He frowned, his eyes looking suddenly frantic, and he tried again to say something to her. She leaned closer, putting her ear to his lips.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and then his body shook with its final breath, and he was dead.
Amelia, her heart rending, collapsed upon the body of the dead man-machine and wept.
CHAPTER
26
The house was collapsing all around Veronica and Newbury.
Veronica skidded to a halt in the hallway, glancing up frantically at the ceiling, which was groaning and buckling under the strain of the constant bombardment and the weight of the collapsed floors above. All around her, flames licked hungrily at the woodwork, and the staircase at the end of the hall was a raging inferno, the heat of which forced her back, her hands to her face. To her left, a section of the outer wall had been smashed away by the fists of an armoured exoskeleton. Through the gaping wound in the brickwork she saw mounted men still blasting away at the building with their Gatling guns, chewing up the architecture with each spray of bullets.
Veronica heard the scream of more bombs being launched, and felt the house shake with the impact of each volley. Within ten minutes, she was sure the Grayling Institute would be reduced to nothing but a pile of rubble. She looked to Newbury. “Which way?” she called over the noise of the ringing explosions. She hoped he could remember the way to Amelia’s room in the midst of all the chaos.
“This way,” Newbury replied, indicating a corridor that branched off from the main hallway. It was almost entirely engulfed in flames. He glanced at her, and she saw the steel in his eyes. He pulled his jacket off his back and held it over his head. “Here, like this,” he said, and Veronica did the same, shrugging out of her small jacket and holding it over her head to protect her hands and face. “Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded. She was as ready as she’d ever be.
Together, they set off at a run, charging towards the flames.
The heat was incredible, and she was forced to dip her head, her eyes streaming. She charged on regardless, blinded by the smoke and the heat but running as fast as she could through the flaming tunnel, her clothes and hair beginning to singe and smoulder.
She felt someone throw their arms around her and she screamed, nearly bowling them over as she tried to get past. Her jacket fell, smoking, to the floor. She looked round, panicked, only to find herself in Newbury’s arms. His face was covered in streaks of soot and he’d abandoned his jacket. “In here,” he said urgently, and dragged her through an open doorway into a scene of utter devastation.
Veronica righted herself, leaning against the doorjamb as she took in the situation. The room—Amelia’s room—looked like a war zone. Wreckage was strewn about haphazardly: chunks of charred brick and stone, burning fragments of splintered wood. On Veronica’s left a diminutive man in a tweed jacket was crumpled on the floor, his face an obscene shade of purple, his tongue lolling rudely out of the corner of his mouth. This, she presumed, was Dr. Fabian. To her right, a large section of the wall had collapsed upon another man, crushing his legs. She realised with horror that it was the strange man-machine she’d seen in the room with the duplicates during her previous visit. Most disturbing of all was the sight of Amelia lying draped across his mangled body.
Her sister looked ragged. Her hair was awry and loose around her shoulders, and her white nightdress was covered with blood. The crimson stains looked stark against the bright white cotton. Her head was turned away from the door, and Veronica couldn’t tell if she was breathing. She felt fear coil in her stomach, cold and uncomfortable.
“What have we done?” said Newbury, quietly surveying the scene.
Veronica felt panic welling up inside her. “Amelia!” she screamed, and ran to her sister’s side, grabbing Amelia by the shoulders and trying to heave her off the dead man.
To her surprise, Amelia lifted her head and turned to her in shock. “Veronica?” she said, her expression one of pure disbelief. “Veronica? What are you doing here?”
Veronica laughed out loud. She pulled Amelia close, clutching her in a firm embrace. “We’re here for you, to get you out.”
Amelia shook her head. She was trembling. She glanced over at Newbury, then back at Veronica again. When she spoke, she sounded both relieved
and anxious. “How did you know they were coming?”
Veronica tried to offer a reassuring smile. “Time for that later.” She looked down at the blood in Amelia’s lap. It was all over her arms, too. “Are you hurt?” she said, suddenly panicked.
“No. It’s … someone else’s.”
Veronica felt relief flooding through her. She glanced down at the dead man-machine and almost recoiled in horror. The flesh around his exposed face was a puckered mess of ropey scars. Beneath him, the carpet was thick with congealing blood. She looked at her sister quizzically.
“He saved me,” Amelia said softly. “Mr. Calverton saved me from Dr. Fabian.”
Veronica nodded. It was too much to process at once. Her mind was flitting from one thing to the next, trying to work out what to do. Her plan had extended only so far as getting inside the building, to finding her sister before it was too late. She hadn’t yet considered how they were going to get out again.
“Can you walk?” she said to Amelia briskly.
Amelia shook her head. “No. Not very well.”
They both looked up at the sound of splintering glass. Newbury was standing by the ruins of the French doors, holding an occasional table, which he then set down amongst a scattered heap of broken glass. She watched as he reached for an overturned lamp stand and began using it to bash away the remaining daggers of glass in the frame. There was their way out of the house.
Veronica looked out over the garden. Many of the bushes and trees were on fire, and the lawn was pockmarked with craters and heaps of scattered earth where incendiary bombs had overshot the house. Out there they risked being shot at by the mounted gunmen or blown apart by the torrent of bombs raining down from the sky, but it was still their best chance of escape. The house was creaking and groaning, and soon it would collapse. And even if the front entrance were still standing, they would be mown down the minute they emerged. At least this way they could dash for the cover of the trees and try to find a way out from there. It was a gamble, but it was one more gamble in a day already full of them. They had no choice. They were dead if they remained in the house.
