Moriarty was tall and thin, and white–haired. His solemn, ascetic appearance and aloof manner emanated disdain just as the constant swinging of his head from side to side, like a snake ready to strike, bespoke a cunning alertness that, with his ruthlessness, was the dominating force in his rise to the apex of crime in London. A malevolent evil shimmered like an aura around the man. He dismissed the underling who withdrew, leaving Moriarty again in complete darkness.
"But how do we get down there?" I whispered. "The castle must be thick with Moriarty’s minions."
"Not necessarily. Whatever he’s up to, Professor Moriarty exhibits extreme concern over his work remaining secret. Why else here, in such a remote area? We have three advantages. Surprise and stealth."
"That’s two."
"Observe, Watson. Deduce."
"I already have. Moriarty must know his game is up, at least as far as this location goes. He’s withdrawing."
Holmes pocketed his binoculars.
I was bristling for action. I could see no activity beyond where Moriarty waited with my Mary, and the loading dock where the human hulks stood passively in a group, their task complete. The garage remained dark, its doors closed. No indication of activity stirred in the dark massive castle beneath us.
I said, "Let’s go."
I bolted for the stairs,
Holmes was right behind me.
Chapter 3
We made our way down to the ground level of the castle. Faint lamplight illuminated the landings of the wide staircases down which we ran.
It was a chilly, stagnant, tomb-like place of stone walls and stone floors. Dank, as if untouched by the warmth of day or by life itself. We encountered no one during our hurried descent. I had the weirdest sensation that the house was a slumbering giant around us, a malignant organism, ancient and yet possessing a potent evil.
Holmes and I slowed our pace as we crossed a grand reception chamber and came to tall double oak front doors that had been left yawning wide, opening onto the courtyard. We advanced on the doorway from separate angles of approach, crouching to its either side, our weapons drawn. We peered into the courtyard.
The scene by the coach had not much changed in the brief passage of time that it had taken Holmes and I to make our way down from the castle roof. The figures of the hulking brutes with their grip on Mary’s arms, her defiant posture, the waiting coach and the black horses scratching the earth with impatient hooves were clearly etched in the light from the loading dock.
Moriarty no longer stood beside the coach. He was now at a point halfway between it and the loading dock. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he conferred with an overseer.
The dreadful beings now stood passively clustered near the loading dock, men and women blank of eye and expressionless, arms hanging at their sides.
I gauged the short distance from the coach to the open front gateway in the stone wall. I gauged the distance from our position to where the hulking forms stood near Mary.
I pitched my voice low. "Holmes, it’s perfect. Which one do you want, right or left?"
He knew I was talking about the brutes, but his attention was on Moriarty.
"It’s a shame to leave him. A shame to leave him alive."
"Holmes, I know you have a score to settle but right now our only priority is getting Mary out of this hell hole. Nothing else matters, so do kindly get that through your blasted analytical skull." I holstered the Webley. "I’m going for the one on the right. A tackle from his blind side should take him down."
Holmes holstered his pistol.
"Right you are. The one on the left is mine."
As if we had rehearsed the maneuver a dozen times, we quit the veranda and sprinted noiselessly through the darkness. In perfect tandem, we launched into flying tackles intended to take down the brutes.
It was like hurling myself against the trunk of a tree! I had gained considerable momentum in the sprint from the doorway and I impacted with considerable force. Enough force to practically crush my shoulders upon impact and wrench my neck with a dulling of the senses.
I rolled away with an unbidden groan of pain and frustration.
The brutes emitted slow-witted sounds of reaction, uttering "Huh?" in unison. They released Mary.
She did not run! When she saw me, her lovely face came alive.
"John!"
Each of these dead-eyed monsters moved with surprising speed and yet with no indication of exertion or remark of any kind. One of them leaped for me while the other went for Holmes.
Extended arms groped for my throat. There was a rank stench to the fellow. A chill emanated from him, as if he were dead. I managed to draw my revolver as his momentum took me down and he fell atop me, a dead weight with his cold fingers clasping my throat. I heard a thrashing upon the ground nearby from the direction where Holmes had been taken down.
Mary gasped but she did not scream and even at such a moment I admired the pure spunk and cool-headedness of the woman I loved.
But most of my senses started darkening around the edges, my breath coming in panting gasps as frigid leathery thumbs tightened around my larynx. Fetid breath spewed from his mouth that was a black O in his dead-eyed face, inches from my own. The world began to swim around me from lack of oxygen.
I managed to bring up the Webley, place its barrel through the O of his mouth and pull the trigger three times. The brute reared back and I scampered to escape his clutches, He roared a bloodlust cry even with a third of his skull blown away before pitching backwards to become an unmoving heap.
I sprang to my feet. My first glance was in Mary’s direction.
She stood there, her back remaining ramrod straight but one hand clenched to her widened mouth to stem a reflexive scream while her other arm extended, pointing at where the second brute had pinned Holmes to the ground.
I dashed forward to help my friend, who struggled valiantly but in vain against the dominant force of the fiend whose animated strength seemed unstoppable. Holmes had unholstered his revolver but the zombie (I could now think of these beings as nothing else) had one of his mighty hands around Holmes’ throat, choking my companion just as I had been strangled, while the other arm pinned down the wrist of Holmes’ hand that gripped his gun. I reached them. I placed the muzzle of my revolver against the zombie’s forehead and pulled the trigger three times, effectively blowing the thing’s head off his shoulder, the skull disintegrating into a bloody splash. I lifted a boot and kicked the headless form so that it would not fall upon Holmes. I rapidly reloaded my revolver.
Holmes rose unsteadily, massaging his throat. "Thank you, old cock." His voice rattled like stones in a tin cup even as the keen alertness returned to his steely eyes.
I said, "I rather think of myself as mother hen."
Then my arms were filled with Mary, who dashed into them. Exhilaration coursed through me.
Mary was breathing heavily from exertion and stress. "John, my darling! I somehow knew you’d come for me. I never doubted that you and Mr. Holmes would come for me!"
Her beauty! Her firm young body held in my embrace! Her determined, fighting spirit that had never admitted defeat! This was a woman worth charging into the pits of hell for!
In the coolness of the night air, her breath was warm and arousing against my neck. I could not resist. I leaned down and we traded the briefest kiss that was moist and vibrant with promise and eroticism.
Holmes spoke sharply. "Watson!"
I whirled to see what he was referring to without releasing my embrace of Mary’s trim waist.
The remaining zombies were advancing across the courtyard in our direction, their arms extended with fingers clutched like talons, advancing at a considerable rate of speed despite their vacant eyes and shuffling gait.
There was no sign of Moriarty or his overseer. They had vanished from sight behind the closing ranks of advancing zombies, which drew ever closer.
It was eerie how silent they were save for the
shuffling of their feet. They were close enough now that their collective stench filled the nostrils, taking me back momentarily to those Afghan killing field of my military years. After a battle the enemy corpses would lie unclaimed to rot in the sun.
Mary screamed.
I lifted my revolver and squeezed off a couple of rounds. Body shots. I could hear the thunk! of bullets striking flesh. I could hear the splatter of the exit wounds from their backs. But they kept on coming.
Holmes said, "The living dead. Only head shots will stop them, Watson, nothing else. Damn! Where is Moriarty?"
I holstered my revolver and swept Mary off her feet, into my arms. "We have what we came for. It’s time for a strategic withdrawal." I hurried toward the coach, holding her in my arms.
Holmes said, "Quite so."
He leaped onto the coach seat where the driver, a young fellow with a lantern jaw, stood gaping at this abrupt upheaval of events. Holmes clipped him with a stiff and efficiently delivered right to the jaw. The unconscious driver disappeared over the opposite side of the coach.
Holmes took hold of the reins. The side door of the coach was open for Moriarty, but instead I started to place Mary inside. The zombies were now no more than a dozen paces from us, almost upon us.
A shot rang out.
Mary said, "Oh!" in a small voice.
She went limp in my arms.
Chapter 4
A trace of scarlet lined Mary’s skin just beneath the tangle of curls. I set her inside the coach, again drawing my revolver. I only caught a fleeting glimpse of Moriarty before he was again blocked from view by the oncoming zombies.
Holmes said, "Hang on, Watson."
The snap of the horsewhip cracked like a gunshot.
I leapt aboard the coach just in time for the bone-jarring jolt of the forward motion that packed enough kick to snap the door shut after me. I wrapped my arms around Mary. My heart skipped a beat and my throat went dry when her head lulled unconsciously against my shoulder. I brushed aside tendrils of her hair and then brushed away the scarlet ribbon where the bullet had grazed her left temple. I lowered my ear to her nostrils but could discern nothing.
Holmes expertly worked the reins. We raced through the front gate. I managed to lean out through the window for a backward glance. The zombies mulled aimlessly around where the coach had been moments earlier. Along one side of the courtyard, the doors of the long, low garage were rising in mechanized unison. Then the coach was skidding into a two-wheeled turn.
I held Mary close, hugging her so that my body cushioned the jostling of the coach as it righted itself, the wheels struggling to gain traction, spewing dirt before clattering down a narrow, winding road that snaked into the night. I again craned my neck out through the open window.
A trio of strange, over-sized motor carriages came bolting through the castle’s front gate in hot pursuit, huge motor carriages powered by massive steam engines whose unleashed fury pummeled the night even more loudly than the galloping hoof beats. Unusually bright headlamps pierced the night like silver daggers. They effortlessly negotiated the treacherous terrain, closing in on us as soon as they burst into view. They were top-heavy with men waving rifles. Moriarty’s armed guard!
I had to narrow my eyes and squint to make sure I was seeing what came next because it happened too fast for me to reach for my binoculars. A small version of the impressive steam-powered motor carriages suddenly shot through the open gate in the castle wall but did not follow the others in pursuit of us. This lone, smaller contraption gained speed as it angled away in the opposite direction, undoubtedly carrying Professor Moriarty. I had to blink because I could not believe what I saw considering the distance and the night. It appeared to be speeding along without wheels of any kind touching the ground, suspended slightly above the ground!
It rocketed off and disappeared.
Gunfire winked red from the gaining steam-powered carriages. Two, three, four angry hornets spat through the interior of the coach and more could be heard whistling through the darkness outside.
From his perch atop the racing coach, Holmes shouted down, "It looks as if we may have had it!"
I tried drawing a bead on the closest headlamp. "I’ll see what I can do!"
Mary stirred. I peered into her hazed but steadfast eyes.
"Thank God, Mary! I was afraid you’d been—"
She grasped our situation through the mental haze reflected in her eyes. She saw the revolver in my hand.
"I’m all right, John. Do what you must."
From on high came Holmes’ voice.
"Watson!"
I leaned out again through the window, doing my best to draw a bead on one of those glaring headlamps. I squeezed off a round that had no appreciable effect except for inciting a renewed volley of gunfire from the men riding aboard those machines. The report of my handgun sounded inconsequential against the thundering clatter of the racing coach and the heavy fire from those strange contraptions, now less than a quarter mile behind us.
The castle had receded from sight beyond folds in the forbidding terrain so that only those infernal headlamps provided respite against the utter blackness of night. Our horses would be thundering along the snaking road from instinct while headlights allowed the steam engine carriages to chase us three abreast, easily negotiating boulders and dips in the terrain even as they gained speed.
I pulled off another shot and this time one of the three headlamps went dark.
Startled, panicky shouts carried from that machine, that’s how close they were. Then in the illumination of the other headlamps, the darkened machine hit something that made it into a somersaulting mass of crunching metal. Airborne bodies tumbled everywhere.
The other drivers swerved around the wreckage and continued after us. The gunfire from those machines resumed and suddenly my revolver was struck by a lucky bullet. The Webley flew from my hand, which felt like it was being stung by needles.
Alarm animated Mary's features.
"Darling, are you all right?"
I shook my hand, feeling sensation return.
"Yes, but I am unarmed. I must join Holmes topside. He has a gun. I can fire on them from atop the coach while he—"
A strange whistling—loud, unearthly—sent a shock of recognition through my system and I was back on the battlefront again.
Mary said, "John, what—?"
Reflex took over.
"Incoming!"
I wrapped my arms about her once again, this time to shield her from what could only be a bombshell about to explode, though I well knew that my shielding her would not do either of us much good if that incoming shell scored a direct hit on the carriage.
The explosion, when it came, was near enough to reverberate with a harsh gold flash that for a moment enveloped us. But the coach was spared. A near miss?
The gunfire tapered off from the pursuing steam-powered machines. I peered out. Another of them had taken the hit and become a rolling ball of fire that stopped rolling when it collided with an outcrop of rock.
Then the keening whistle sound again and the remaining machine and those in it were obliterated in another explosion of flame and thunder. This explosion was close enough to send shrapnel and debris raining down upon our coach.
It took Holmes nearly a quarter mile to rein in the panicky steeds drawing our coach. The poor animals had been scared out of their wits, but finally we drifted to a stop.
Holmes leaped down, concern etched into his lean features.
"Watson, is Mary—?"
Mary responded in a weak voice. "I’ll be quite all right, Mr. Holmes. I just feel a little…lightheaded."
I started to speak but my words were drowned out as a line of cavalrymen appeared out of nowhere, uniformed British cavalrymen who stormed past us at a full gallop, vibrating the ground beneath our feet.
Commander Standish brought up the rear, astride a black charger that lifted its front lefts and whinnied.
Holmes was in high sp
irits.
"You see, Watson! As your dime novel colleagues of the American colonies would have it, we are saved by the cavalry! Hullo, Commander!"
Standish remained in the saddle, surveying the flames in the distance toward which his men rode.
"You didn’t think I was going to leave you behind, did you, gentlemen? Yours was an audacious plan, Mr. Holmes, but it never hurts to have backup."
"I heartily agree," said Holmes. "My regards, Commander, to your artillerymen."
I stepped down from the coach. When Mary took the arm I extended to assist her, I gave a tug and then stooped to catch her when she tipped forward, off-balance with a gasp of surprise. I held her in my arms. She rested her wild tangle of curls against my chest with an exhausted but contented sigh.
I said, "Mary has sustained what appears to be a slight wound. No immediate danger but I didn’t want to take any chances. We must get her to the nearest hospital."
The Commander nodded. "Under ordinary circumstances that would require considerable travel, given our present remote location. However, I daresay this night has hardly been one of ordinary circumstance, eh?"
The starlight behind him disappeared as the Blackhawk appeared with its flight lights on, an enormous presence hovering at treetop level. A wicker basket was lowered by a rope.
Holmes and Standish assisted me in lifting and placing Mary’s semi-conscious form into the basket.
Holmes said to Standish, "Moriarty."
"I have men after him, Mr. Holmes. If he left a trail, my chaps will find it right enough."
We stepped back from the basket. I gave the rope a tug. The basket started to rise.
Holmes showed little interest in this. He looked about.
"And my brother?"
Standish said, "Mr. Mycroft Holmes was called to Number Ten Downing Street on a matter of urgency. I’m afraid that’s all I know."
Sherlock Holmes: Zombies Over London Page 2
