by Adam Millard
In strolled the giant, as calm as you like, his armoured wolf snarling beside him and sniffing at the air as if it could smell the fear in the room. Most of that fear belonged to the guards, who had underestimated the situation and had just then realised that there was no way out of it. However, Abigale felt her stomach lurch as the big fellow made his entrance, suggesting that she, too, was a little concerned about Gulliver’s sudden arrival.
One of the guards spun and was about to level his gun at the big man when the wolf leapt into the air. Screaming, the guard stumbled backwards, slamming against one of the huge pillars holding the ceiling up. The two remaining guards turned on the big man, whose chainsword roared to life in response.
“Go!” Abigale screamed.
Alcorn seemed to have rooted himself to the spot. He couldn’t take his eyes off the madness unfolding. He began to move when Abigale’s command finally sank in.
By then it was too late.
The armoured wolf had torn through the first guard’s throat, leaving the poor bastard gurgling and choking as the life drained from him. The wolf loped across the room andsat directly in front of the door through which Alcorn and Abigale were about to make their exit.
Not anymore.
They could only watch as the giant cut through the remaining guards with his infernal sword. Limbs flew left and right, and guttural screams echoed though the hall. Abigale couldn’t watch.
She pulled Big Daddy from its holster and aimed it toward the giant, who was too busy bodily throwing the guards around to notice. Alcorn fumbled for his Derringer, remembering that Abigale’s weapon was intended for snooze-time only. They needed to put the maniac down for good, not allow him to have a little rest.
Alcorn was on the verge of pulling the trigger when a body flew toward him. The guard impacted with such force that Alcorn’s arm flew back. The Derringer went off, but the bullet shot straight upwards and embedded itself in the intricate painting on the ceiling. Alcorn landed on his back with the guard on top of him, and the roar of the chainsword grew louder. Things had become very bad, indeed.
Abigale dodged left and right, firing Big Daddy at the giant, to no avail. The rounds simply thumped into his armour. One of them peeled off his shoulder with a high-pitched ching! She fired what remained in the pistol and then took a few steps back.
The giant grunted, and his brass-wolf howled. On the ground, Detective John Wesley Alcorn wrestled with the dead guard, and in her hand, the T-shaped piece thrummed as if it was alive.
“You want this?” Abigale said. She was so breathless it was almost incoherent, but the expression on the giant’s face suggested he understood. “It’s no good to you, not without the final piece.” She grinned. “You’ll never find it, not if we’re dead.”
The giant took a step toward Alcorn and pulled the dead guard from him, tossing it against the wall as if it weighed nothing more than a wicker basket. He pulled Alcorn to his feet and grabbed him round the throat. He snatched the Derringer from Alcorn’s hand and snapped it with one giant fist. Then he lifted Alcorn from the ground, and reached into his frock coat with his free hand. He came out with something.
“Oh, you didn’t!” Abigale said, realising she was staring at the small music box they’d managed to acquire from Madame Blaine.
The giant dropped Alcorn, who fell into an untidy pile on the marbled floor, rubbing at his throat. “I didn’t think…we’d have any…trouble,” he said, his voice coarse and broken.
The giant flipped open the lid of the music box and removed the golden S. He grunted, clearly pleased with himself.
“Well, we’re going to have trouble now,” Abigale said. Oh God! He’s going to take the two pieces, which leaves the final piece, still tucked away in Octavius’s safe. If they get their hands on that…
The giant tossed the Configuration piece toward his armoured wolf, which caught it mid-air between slavering jaws. Then he turned to Abigale, a smile creeping onto his face. She’d seen things that week which had terrified her—a reanimated dinosaur, zombies, dead people—but the giant’s face in that moment was by far the worst. He was staring into her soul. At least, that’s what it felt like. When he took a long stride toward her, it was all she could do to not scream.
Alcorn scrambled to his feet. “Don’t you touch her. You son-of-a-bitch, you don’t get to hurt her…”
The giant growled and was about to throw out a huge hand that would have destroyed Alcorn, when something very odd happened.
The room filled with crimson light. Everything blurred for a moment, and when it returned, it was much more vivid. The giant seemed to know what was happening, for he straightened up and closed his eyes, as if in prayer. The temperature in the room seemed to drop about twenty degrees, and Abigale’s very bones began to judder. Then there was absolute darkness, and Abigale thought, just for a moment, that she was already dead and on her way to the afterlife, whatever that might be.
However, then she was falling, and Alcorn was beside her, his face contorted into a wild grimace. The ground approached fast, and Abigale screamed just before they hit…
27
…a solid concrete floor with such force that it elicited a whimper from Abigale and a grunt from Alcorn. Although it seemed as if they had been falling for minutes, rather than seconds, Abigale knew that magic must have been involved. Otherwise, they would have surely splattered upon the ground, instead of dropping from a few feet. Still, it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.
Wherever it was they had been so unceremoniously dumped, it was dark. There was a faint tang in the air as if something was smouldering, and yet the ground beneath was incredibly cold, almost frozen.
Abigale pushed herself onto trembling knees and fumbled around in the blackness. She knew Alcorn was there somewhere because she could hear his laboured breaths. “John?” she said.
A grunt, and then, “That was no fun.”
He was okay. Their situation didn’t warrant witticisms, and yet Alcorn had managed to find one. He was beside her, and as she ran her hand through the air, she brushed against his arm. “You hurt?” she said, patting him like a prize dachshund.
“Just my pride,” he said. “I’ll live.”
“Where are we?” Abigale said, not liking the trepidation in her voice one bit.
“In the dark. I don’t think we’re in Paris anymore.”
Abigale knew he was right. Although their surroundings were concealed, her body fizzed with a sensation she hadn’t felt for days.
London. They were back in the city. They were home, and without the aid of a great, hulking skyship. It just didn’t make sense.
There was a moment of silence as they both tried to get their bearings. Myriad thoughts ran through Abigale’s head, none of them particularly comforting. Were they dead? Had they been shuffled loose of their mortal coil? That might explain the cold, hard environ. It was not the heaven Abigale had been taught about, but then life was filled with disappointment. Was it so difficult to believe that the afterlife continued the trend? Then again, how had they died? The big guy hadn’t killed them. she would have remembered something like that—and his wolf had been across the room, sitting, chomping down on the Configuration piece.
They couldn’t be dead.
Imprisoned? That made more sense, and Abigale was about to reveal her thoughts to Alcorn when the room was suddenly filled with intense light. She clamped her eyes shut, but the brilliance still found a way in. Through the thin skin of her eyelids, she saw movement and shadows, and she knew things were about to go from bad to worse.
“So glad you could join us,” a woman said. It was a cold, punitive voice. There was no gladness there at all—just pure malevolence. “I was starting to get a little worried.”
Abigale managed to force her eyes open, and after a few moments, all became clear. Too clear.
Alcorn stood next to her, blinking and rubbing at his head. His nose was bleeding, and two columns of crimson trailed down to his agape mouth.
He shot her a glance that seemed to acknowledge the shit they were in.
Tied to chairs in the middle of what Abigale could see was a cavernous chamber, two men struggled against their bonds. She could only see the face of the one on the left—Mordecai Pick—but she didn’t have to be a genius to figure out who the other man was.
Werner’s head shot left and right as he tried to loosen the material strapped around his jaw. He mumbled and groaned, but his struggles proved fruitless.
The woman gazed intently at Abigale. One side of her face was concealed by a black veil, but Abigale could see that she was attractive. Her long, black hair danced around on smooth, exposed shoulders as if independent of her.
Smiling, the woman said, “You’re probably a little confused right now.” She took a step toward Alcorn, who staggered back to maintain safe distance. If she was offended, she didn’t show it. “I’m sure a bright girl like you can put the pieces together.”
Abigale shook her head. “I’m not as bright as I look, and it’s been a very long week.”
The woman grinned. “Hasn’t it? Well, my name is Blithe. I’m sure your little friend over there in the chair,” she gestured to the struggling form of Mordecai Pick, has told you all about me.”
Abigale shrugged. Was it wise to piss off a sorceress? “No. Are you important? I’d have thought he would have mentioned you if you were anything to worry about.”
The woman’s grin faltered for a moment. “Yes, well, The Guild has been underestimating me for many years. It’s only now, with their leader in the palm of my hand, that they’re starting to take me very seriously.”
Something moved in the shadows behind the sorceress. Abigale tried not to flinch as the armoured wolf loped toward her, followed closely by its master, the giant.
“You gave my man quite the run-around,” Blithe sneered. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse him. He’s not the sharpest tool in the drawer. Of course, if I’d come for you myself, this would have all been over by now. Pity, I didn’t know you’d left the country until it was too late.”
“Real pity,” Abigale said. “You would have really liked Paris. It’s filled with insufferable bores just like you. You would have made friends there quite easily, one would imagine.” Whether she was running on pure adrenalin or not, Abigale didn’t know. She knew she would have to rein it in a little, though, or risk being reduced to cinders where she stood.
“I like you,” Blithe said, giving Abigale a sideways glance. “You’ve got some zest. Hard to come by in this day and age. It’s such a pity that you find yourself in this situation and that you were deceived into retrieving the missing triptych by a couple of cunning runts, pardon my French.” She smiled and turned her attention on Alcorn. “And you…you were just doing your job. I feel a little guilty for not allowing you to arrest this poor girl and summonsing her to court, where she would, most likely, pay for her countless crimes. Not that the justice system, or anything else for that matter, will survive for much longer.”
Alcorn wiped the blood from his mouth and spat on the floor a few feet from Blithe’s black leather boot. “Well, at least I got to see the sights, witch,” he said. “While you’ve been hiding down here in the dark.”
Blithe sighed. “It was I who brought you back from your little vacation. You should be very careful how you address me. I can make this extremely unpleasant for you, should I wish.”
“Just being here, looking at you is unpleasant enough.” Alcorn straightened and seemed to gain several inches. “Whatever you’ve got planned, I suggest getting a move on. Being bored to death is not how I wish to go.”
“All in good time,” Blithe said. “And I assure you, it will be far from boring.” She turned to Abigale and took a step toward her. “You have something for me?”
The final piece. She’d forgotten all about it, and yet it was still in her hand. She could feel its cold steel against her sweating palm. “You’re really going to hate me,” she said. “But I think I dropped it on the way down here. If you’d like to send your giant up to look for…”
Suddenly, the thing in her hand began to heat up, and then it was scorching, searing her flesh. She smelt it before she felt it. She dropped the piece, and it didn’t even make it to the ground. It flew toward Blithe’s open hand, and as soon as it landed in the sorceress’s palm, she threw her head back and began to laugh. Abigale felt physically sick. It was all she could do to stay on her feet.
“Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?” Blithe said, composing herself once again. “Dorian? The second piece?”
Dorian? Really?
The giant crouched and grunted a command toward his wolf, who allowed the small chunk of Configuration to fall from its mouth. He picked it up and carried it across the room to the sorceress, who thanked him with the briefest of kisses.
“So you have two,” Abigale said. “That makes eleven altogether. You might as well just have one, for all the good they are to you.”
Blithe reached into her cleavage, and what she came out with was enough to send Abigale spiralling toward insanity. The L-shaped piece, which should have been tucked away in Octavius’s safe. The implications of what that meant didn’t sink in straight away. All she could think about was Octavius, and what the bitch had done to him.
“If you’ve hurt him, I’ll—”
“Will you?” Blithe interrupted. “Little girl, I don’t think there’s a damn thing you can do to stop me. The Guild should have kept their noses out of my business. It would have taken us a few years to find these pieces. Thanks to them and your light-fingered self, I’m ahead of schedule. Thank you.” She curtseyed before moving across to a table, upon which a small tower had been constructed.
The Configuration. Abigale could see where the nine pieces interconnected to make a solid pillar. At the top, it all became a little disjointed, with turrets jutting upwards in three places. The whole room began to vibrate as Blithe slotted in the remaining pieces.
“You don’t have to do this,” Abigale said, clutching at straws. “This isn’t right, and you know it.”
“Nothing is right,” Blithe said, with more than a modicum of indifference. “But we’ll soon change all that.” She removed one piece and placed it somewhere else, and it clicked into place. The sorceress sighed as if in the throes of orgasm, and the newly arranged tower lit up. A swirling vortex appeared directly above it. In the corner, the armoured wolf began to howl as Dorian the Giant stroked its head in an attempt to pacify it.
Yes, Abigale thought, because wolves often need assuring…
Alcorn suddenly rushed across the room, aiming for the table and the golden tower sitting upon it. He got halfway before Blithe threw a ball of green energy toward him, knocking him out of the air like a swatted fly. He landed with a thump on the ice-cold concrete. He rolled over onto his back and simply lay watching as the dark maelstrom surged above the Configuration. He was powerless to stop it.
Blithe closed her eyes, held her hands out, and waited for the power to flow into her. For centuries, wizards had sought the Configuration in its entirety, and where they had failed, she had succeeded.
Abigale tried to move forwards, but she was paralysed, unable to shift her legs even a little. The energy coming out of that thing was keeping her away, keeping them all away. Except for Blithe. She was nearest to it, and about to swallow its power down in one fateful gulp.
This was it. She’d done everything in her power to prevent this from happening, and there they were, fighting a losing battle with an all-powerful sorceress. Life had a tendency to just kick her when she was down.
Just then, something strange happened. The murky whirlpool above the Configuration closed up, and an intense white light surrounded the tower. Blithe must have sensed something had changed as her eyes shot open. She looked wild and very dangerous. Not to mention, extremely disappointed, as if she’d expected gunpowder and got a cheap firecracker instead.
While Blithe tried to figure out what had g
one so very wrong, Abigale focused her attention on the man at the edge of the room. He hadn’t been there a moment before, and yet, he came forward, and Abigale’s heart heaved in her chest.
Octavius.
“What have you done!” Blithe screeched toward the tinkerer, who simply waved her anger away with a long and rheumy hand.
“It would seem, I arrived just in time,” Octavius said.
There was something different about him, something odd. Abigale had never seen such confidence in her tinkerer before. He’d always been cocksure of himself, but not arrogant. Now, though, he dripped with it. Abigale wanted to warn him. Did he even know what he was getting involved with? This wasn’t a fight between a couple of angry humans. It was wizards and necromancers—and wolves!
“Octavius, look out!” Abigale screamed.
The wolf was almost upon him when it suddenly froze in thin air. Just froze solid, as if it had come into contact with some unseen force. Octavius winked at his prodigy.
“What the…”
“You fool! You have no idea what you’ve done! How?” Blithe was so shrill that it was almost impossible to discern her words. Despite her anger, she seemed to be keeping her distance as if she knew something that everyone else didn’t.
“Oh, come now,” Octavius said, as confident as you like. “You know how? The power will flow into the most senior wizard present, which you, I’m afraid, are not. It’s simple, really.”
Blithe’s mouth opened and shut, and yet nothing came out.
“Did you say wizard?” Abigale said. “As in magic, Merlin, long white beards and parlour tricks?”
“I’m a little rusty,” Octavius said. “But it seemed like a good time to dust off the old robes.”
