by George Mann
A flayed human corpse dangled by its wrists from a rope tied to a roof support, rocking gently back and forth like a grotesque pendulum. Human bones, too, lay scattered on the ground around the corpse's feet, the components of at least four or five other people. These would be used, Gabriel presumed, in the construction of the raptors and the unholy binding rituals that animated them. He screwed up his face in disgust.
He became aware of the sound of someone laughing. He turned to get a better look at the man who stood just a few feet behind him, watching him, eyes flashing with amusement.
He was a short man, with dark hair and a protruding, equine nose. His eyes were piercing and emboldened with a mad gleam, and the amused sneer on his lips suggested to Gabriel that he was quite insane. The flesh around his mouth and eyes was swollen and marred by unsightly lesions, and his forehead protruded, giving him a heavy frown. Gabriel recognized almost immediately the blight of the leper.
Perhaps more disturbing than this evidence of the man's illness, however, were the signs of what he had done to his own body. His limbs had been replaced by bizarre mechanical contraptions, like those of the raptors that scuttled about in the eaves overhead. His legs were piston-driven constructions that hissed and sighed as he moved and had entirely replaced their biological counterparts. His arms were mechanical, too: one of them was still almost skeletal, a fusion of brass and bone, rubbery tendons working through tiny brass eyelets to control the talons of his new hand. The other was sheathed in interlocking brass plates, dulled and marred by use.
The man was some sort of bizarre hybrid of man and machine. Gabriel wondered how much of the original man was still left beneath all of the machinery. He was, Gabriel presumed, the progenitor of the raptors, and the man responsible for the abductions and the heap of grisly body parts at the other end of the warehouse.
He was watching Gabriel intently. Gabriel was about to speak, to challenge this horrifying vision of a man, when he heard a woman whimper from somewhere behind him. He turned to look.
The woman and two others—a young man and a boy of no more than twelve—were chained to the wall, bound around the wrists by iron cuffs. The woman was clearly distraught, and when Gabriel followed her gaze, he realized, with horror, the reason for her sudden outburst.
A large pit had been sunk into the ground, designed, he presumed, to allow mechanics easy access to the underside of the airships that would have been constructed or maintained here, had the warehouse been put to its intended use. This particular pit, however, had been given over to a much more sinister purpose.
Even from where he was squatting on the ground, Gabriel could see three ropy, translucent tendrils probing hungrily over the sides of the pit. Each one terminated in a pair of dripping, snapping jaws. He felt momentarily paralyzed with cold, oppressive fear.
No…it couldn't be. It couldn't be this. Not here.
The man with the mechanical legs walked over to him, the pistons in his thighs hissing with a pneumatic wheeze. “Get up,” he said, but Gabriel remained transfixed on the probing proboscis of the beast in the pit.
“Get up!” the man screamed, grasping hold of Gabriel's bloodied shoulder, pinching the wounds and sending lancing pains down Gabriel's arm. “And don't even think about trying anything. My pets will be on you in seconds.”
Gabriel resisted the urge to thrash out at the man, to grab him by the throat and throttle the life out of him. Of course, he was right. Gabriel had barely been able to fend off one of the mechanical creatures without help, even armed with the Ghost's full array of weapons. He stood no chance against a whole flock of them. Not alone.
No, this was when he had to maintain his cool, to pretend to be nothing but an innocent civilian until the time was right. Donovan and Ginny would be here soon, and with them all the backup Donovan could muster. But then, there was the creature in the pit to consider….
He got to his feet.
“There. Much better,” said the man, his tone utterly patronizing. “Now, over there with the others.”
Cautiously, Gabriel did as he was told, edging his way around the pit toward the other abductees. He could barely believe what he was seeing. The alien creature languished in the bottom of the hole amid heaps of rotting human remains. It was fully manifested, unlike the example he'd fought with Celeste beneath the mansion of the Roman.
Also unlike its kindred, however, this one was in a sorry state, half dead, five of its limbs lying paralyzed and necrotic among the human waste. Its flesh, too, was puckered and covered in open sores, and he could see its black organs pulsating weakly inside its strange, translucent bulk. It had clearly been poisoned, but kept alive in this weakened state, for what purpose Gabriel could only begin to imagine. It was probably being fed on the discarded captives, such as the three poor civilians chained to the wall now. He'd wondered how the raptors were disposing of the abductees once they were finished with them—now he thought he had the answer, as horrifying and unwelcome as it was.
Surely, though, there was more to the abductions than the need for a simple food supply for the creature? Why did the leper have it here at all? It wasn't like it would make a good pet….
It was clear the man was using the abductees to conduct experiments of some kind—the equipment and the cadavers in the workshop proved as much. Components from the corpses were being used to fashion the raptors, too, at least in part—the occasional rib bone, and the flesh, stretched out and cured to make wings. Was that it, though? It seemed unlikely. But, Gabriel reminded himself, the whims of madmen were near impossible to fathom.
None of that even began to explain the presence of the alien beast, however, and Gabriel didn't even know where to begin trying to understand where it had come from, or what terrible purpose it was being put to. How on earth had a man with such limited resources, a leper locked away in a warehouse by the docks, managed to manifest and control one of these creatures, something even the Roman, a semi-immortal warlord, had failed to do? It seemed utterly unthinkable. He simply couldn't be working alone.
The man with the mechanical legs beckoned to one of the raptors, which fluttered down from among its kin. It landed neatly beside him on its hind legs, its metal claws clacking against the concrete. It leaned forward and hissed at Gabriel, its wings twitching nervously. He met its lifeless, demonic gaze.
“Tie him up with the others,” said the man, and the raptor stepped forward, reaching out its talon and shoving Gabriel backward toward the other captives. He stumbled but managed to retain his footing. He could hear the young boy was weeping quietly in terror. He vowed to free the child—and the others—just as soon as he was able.
For now, though, his choices were limited. The most he could do was kill the man and incapacitate the raptors by shredding their wings with his fléchette gun. He only had limited ammunition, though, and even grounded, the things were deadly. That wouldn't buy him enough time to free the others, and it still left him to deal with the thing in the pit. This time, there was no Celeste to come to his aid, and even Donovan and Ginny wouldn't be able to do much about the alien beast, regardless of how many reinforcements they brought with them. The only tiny spark of hope was the fact that the creature was already weakened. Whatever had been used to poison it might have left it open and susceptible to injury, judging by the puckered scars on its flesh. But that was a hell of a maybe. Without Celeste and her remarkable blood…well…
Gabriel felt a sudden, acute pang of loss. He buried the emotion. It would do him no good here, not now.
With little else he could do, Gabriel submitted to the raptor, allowing himself to be forced back against the wall beside the woman. The mechanical beast proved quite dexterous as it clamped the rough iron cuffs around his wrists, pinning his arms behind his back. For a moment the raptor leaned in close, pushing its face close to his so that it was only inches away, cocking its head and studying him. Did it recognize him? Had he fought this one on the rooftops of the city? Gabriel couldn't tell.
The raptor opened its mouth, baring its brass fangs, and issued a horrific shriek. Then, with a short burst from its rotor blades mounted on its shoulders, it shot back up to the roof, landing on one of the iron supports, from where it could keep a watchful eye on the proceedings below.
Gabriel turned to the woman. She was pale and thin, and she, too, was weeping. He could see she was trying stoically to hold the tears at bay, to prevent herself from becoming hysterical, and he admired that stoicism. He was not sure that—if he hadn't gotten himself into this mess, if he hadn't at least had some experience of the terrible things he was witnessing here—he would be able to do the same.
“I'll get us out of here,” he whispered to her as softly as he could so as not to be overheard. “I'll get us out of here alive.”
The woman turned to look at him, and he could see from the expression on her face that she thought he was just as insane for believing that as the part-mechanical man who had been holding her captive. He guessed she'd seen firsthand what the end of her life was likely to look like, and all hope of survival had already been lost.
As if to underline this point, their captor came forward, eyeing his four prisoners with an appraising look. “I think…yes, you'll do.” He stood over the male prisoner, who shook his head and began to babble in protest.
“No…no…no!”
The man drew his hand back and slapped the prisoner across the face, his metal claw raking long furrows in the soft flesh of the prisoner's cheek. Blood bubbled to the surface, and the prisoner cried out but then bit back on it, repressing it to a whimper.
“Better,” said the part-mechanical man. “Remember, if you run you'll only make it much worse for yourself. The raptors are waiting.” He reached around and unlatched the prisoner's shackles and then grasped him by the elbow and dragged him to his feet. The woman beside Gabriel turned to stare at him, fixing her eyes on his, resolutely refusing to watch what was about to happen to the other prisoner. She'd seen this before, Gabriel realized.
The man led the male prisoner to the edge of the pit. “Stand there,” he said, “and don't move.” He held the other man back, just out of reach of the writhing tentacles that still probed hungrily around its perimeter. He took the prisoner's left arm and held it out over the pit, rolling back the sleeve of the man's crumpled suit to reveal the milky white flesh of his forearm. Then, grasping the prisoner by the wrist, he used one of his sharp, talonlike fingertips to draw a long, bloody line across the man's palm. Blood blossomed almost immediately from the wound and the man yelped in pain and shock.
The mechanical man waited, still clutching the prisoner by the wrist, watching the blood in the man's palm gather until it became a little tributary, until it began to drip into the pit below. He stood, studying the beast's reaction with interest.
Gabriel couldn't see, but he could hear enough to tell the blood was driving the beast into a wild frenzy. Its surviving tentacles thrashed at the sides of the pit, and he could hear it bucking and rearing up, trying to get at this new source of food. The prisoner's blood was like a drug to it, and the creature craved it beyond all else.
The mechanical man sighed, and without further ado, grabbed his prisoner and shoved him over the edge of the pit. The man screamed, howling in fear and agony as he fell into the monster's embrace and its snapping, snarling limbs latched onto him, burrowing into his flesh, draining his body of its lifeblood in a matter of moments.
All of this happened out of sight of the other captives, of course, but the sounds of it were enough to turn Gabriel's stomach: the crunch of bones being snapped, the wet rasp of rending flesh. He'd seen before what these creatures could do to a man, and he had no desire to see it again.
Gabriel fought ineffectually against his bonds. He wouldn't allow another of the prisoners to die. He would rip out the mechanical man's throat before he let that happen, whatever the consequences to himself. But for now, there was nothing he could do. The shackles held firm, and with his arms tied behind his back, he couldn't even activate the fléchette launcher strapped to his forearm.
He tried instead to focus on understanding what was going on. What was his captor doing? Why had he cut the man's hand before pushing him into the pit to feed the beast? Was he simply teasing it? Or was he testing it?
Yes! That was it, Gabriel realized with a start. That was exactly what the man had been doing. He was testing the prisoner's blood to see what effect it had on the creature. To see if he was like Celeste.
Was that what this was all about? All of these abductions? Was he attempting to find someone whose blood would poison the creature? Clearly at some point he had obtained some of the correct blood type, judging by the state of the beast, but did he now need more?
The mechanical man was eyeing the remaining prisoners. For a moment, from the way he seemed to hover over the child, Gabriel thought he was about to select the young boy to be his next victim, but instead he turned, looking up to the rafters where his pets were bobbing nervously on the iron beams. “Never mind,” he called up to them, shrugging dismissively. “Never mind. Your brothers will return shortly with more test subjects, and then, my children, I'll allow you to play.”
The raptors squawked and chattered anxiously at this, and Gabriel wondered exactly what game it was they were hoping to indulge in. He probably didn't want to know.
He looked to the door and hoped Donovan and Ginny would be along soon.
Rutherford had been following Senator Banks for over thirty minutes, and so far, he thought he had managed to evade being discovered.
The senator had been driven directly from his hotel to a plushlooking apartment building on 64th Street, where he had alighted from his vehicle and gone inside. At first, nervous that he might miss something important, or that the senator might switch transport, Rutherford had considered doing the same, parking and following Banks on foot. If Banks realized he was being followed he might use an alternative exit from the building to shake Rutherford off the scent. But then Rutherford had noticed the driver, waiting by the curbside, the car engine still idling. Banks wasn't intending to stay for very long, and in his arrogance, probably hadn't even considered he was being followed.
So Rutherford had waited, keeping a watchful eye on both the door to the apartment building and the driver. His patience had paid off, and within ten minutes Banks had returned in the company of another man, a tall, lean, gray-haired man dressed in a blue woolen overcoat with a red scarf wrapped around his lower face. He had a military bearing, and Rutherford had assumed he must be a retired soldier, or at least that he had spent a great deal of time in the armed forces.
The newcomer had shared a number of words with the senator on the sidewalk before heading to his own, parked vehicle a little way farther along the street. Banks had returned to his driver, and presently both cars had moved off, convoy fashion, Banks's car in the lead, heading downtown.
Rutherford had eased his own vehicle out behind them, careful to establish enough of a distance between them so as not to appear suspicious.
Now, a short while later, they were nearing the docks, approaching two large, modern hangars that were nestled among a smattering of similar industrial buildings. Nearby, Rutherford could hear the bustle and frivolity of the fairground, but such things remained far from his thoughts. He was entirely focused on the task in hand: putting a stop to the schemes of Senator Isambard Banks.
He pulled over, sliding his stolen car into the shadows of a warehouse wall as the two cars ahead of him came to a stop. He watched the thin man climb out of his vehicle and approach a bus that was parked on the concourse awaiting them. The driver of the bus jumped down to greet him, and Rutherford realized for the first time since arriving that the bus was full of men. At a signal from their driver, they began to disembark, spilling out of the bus like worker ants. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them, all wearing matching gray boiler suits. They were workmen of some kind, and Rutherford wondered whether they were
connected somehow to the weapon, or were perhaps there to man and maintain the airship that would transport it to London.
Rutherford regarded the two hangars. It was likely the airship itself was housed in one of them, he thought. The airship that he had to prevent from ever making it across the ocean.
He reached over and wound the passenger window down, hoping this would be enough to allow him to hear snatches of the conversations taking place outside. The workmen caroused and jostled each other, but Rutherford was intent on watching the thin man, who had now crossed to where the senator was waiting for him beside his car.
“Tell your men to prepare the vessel,” said Banks, and the other man gave a sharp nod of acknowledgment at the order. “I want you airborne as quickly as possible. No delays, Joseph.” He glanced at the buildings looming over his shoulder. “I'll take care of Abraham.”
Banks held out his hand, and the thin man took it, shaking it firmly. “Good luck,” said Banks, “it is a fine thing you're doing, for the honor of your country. It will not be forgotten.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied the thin man, before turning to his men. He barked a couple of sharp commands and then led them off to the hangar on the right.
Banks watched them go, a wide grin spreading across his face. Then, sighing, he turned and made for the other hangar, his shoulders slumping slightly, as if he were reluctantly about to brave the lion's den.
Rutherford waited until he was out of sight and then cracked the car door open and climbed out. He was momentarily torn. He had two options—to go after the thin man, Joseph, to see if he could put a spanner in the works of the airship, or to follow Banks and attempt to ascertain the entirety of the man's plan. Both were equally as important. Both were equally as risky.
Rutherford had known all along that Banks was the key to all of this, however, and he needed to see it through. He would follow Banks first of all, to try to find out exactly what he was dealing with, what this superweapon was actually capable of. In the meantime, he hoped that would give him a chance to consider what the hell he was going to do to stop that airship from ever getting off the ground.
