The Constantine Affliction

by Tim Pratt

  “You love a woman you cannot marry,” Adams said, as if musing to himself. “Because you have chosen to wed another. It is a doomed and unrequited love. I see. Yes. All right, Lord Pembroke. I will help you. What would you have me do?”

  Pimm felt dizzy with relief. “That device there, in the cage of iron, we have to destroy it, or those monsters will continue to materialize.”

  “Mmm. Very well. And the beasts themselves, I suppose, must be dealt with.”

  “Electricity has proven effective—” Pimm began.

  Adams waved that away. “I have, alas, left my batteries at home. But these poor souls I brought with me, meant to ruin Oswald, have a taste for flesh, and they are not particular about the origin of that flesh. Nor do they feel pain. Those beasts appear to be flesh, strange though that flesh may be. I am sure the beasts will serve to slake the appetite of my honor guard.” Adams took a small square device from his coat pocket and began twisting dials.

  The horde of ragged creatures at his back streamed forward, rushing past Pimm, carrying with them their eye-watering stink of raw meat and blood and unwashed skin. Pimm watched as they attacked a roiling mass of red serpents near the stage. It unfurled some of its tentacular body to smash them away, but the honor guard rose again, relentless, and began to bite and tear at the tentacles, clawing their way toward the main body, which they seemed bent on consuming. Pimm frowned. There were other figures on the grass, dashing around one of the new monsters—was that Freddy? With a sword?

  “They were dead when they were brought to me,” Adams said, forcing Pimm to return his attention to him. “I had hoped to restore them to true life, but I failed. I always failed. Except once.”

  “The brain in the jar, you mean?” Pimm said. “Margaret?”

  Adams nodded. “Yes. I saved her mind, and I gave her a new body, strong and beautiful. But I frightened her. She ran away.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear that, Adams.” Pimm wanted to shout at him, to tell him they had to smash the engine—yet another creature had appeared, not far from the river, looking like nothing so much as a length of intestine the size of an omnibus, undulating toward them. But Pimm sensed this was a delicate moment, and held his tongue.

  “Love, eh?” Adams said dolefully. “The only thing worth living for. Even doomed love. All right. I failed to take my revenge on Oswald personally, but smashing up his engines might satisfy my urge. Show me that which you need destroyed. I am a better destroyer than a creator, and I should embrace that fact.”

  Pimm raced along the river away from the new beast, Adams moving surprisingly quickly alongside him. The giant’s limp never went away, but it didn’t seem to hinder his forward progress at all. Soon they reached the base of the horrible tower.

  Adams considered the engine. “Yes, all right, I can tear it down.”

  “Don’t we need a team of horses, or a few more men, or—”

  “No, no, I have it well in hand.” Adams stepped closer to the tower, standing at the base, tilting his head. “That buzzing…”

  “Yes, abominable, isn’t it?” Pimm said. “It makes my very bones vibrate.”

  “Oh, I find it quite pleasant, myself. The harmonics of a universe just on the edge of shattering. The sound tastes like a sweet and sticky pudding. How marvelous. I hate to destroy the source of such a sensation. Ah well.” Adams set his shoulder against the tower, braced his feet against the ground, and shoved.

  “I tried that,” Pimm said, “it’s no use. I know you’re taller and stronger than me, but—”

  Adams grunted, braced himself again, and continued pushing. Was the tower beginning to list toward the river? Surely not. No one could be that strong, no one could possibly—

  The tower definitely moved, and as it began to topple, momentum and gravity took over, doing their part, and Adams stepped back as the iron and the machinery inside fell, one end smashing into the waters of the Serpentine. The crystals inside shattered noisily, and the buzzing stopped. The unnatural wind whipping across the park ceased as well, and the park was still again, but for the monsters and those fighting them.

  Pimm could hear the grunting of the dead women—they were gathered around a fallen behemoth like dogs on a carcass, squabbling over mouthfuls—and then, clear as a bell, Ellie shouting, “Have at you now!” A monster like a great jellyfish writhed and then went still, and… yes, that was Ellie and Freddy, wielding Pimm’s old fencing swords, leaping about beyond the monster’s carcass!

  “Your lady’s voice?” Adams said, and smiled. “I think she and your wife have the other monsters well in hand.” He twisted at the device in his hand, and the dead women slumped and fell over, collapsing into the corpse of the thing they’d gutted. “Please see they get decent burials, would you, Lord Pembroke? A decent burial is so important. I’ve had dozens, myself, every one a comfort.”

  “How did you perform such a feat?” Pimm said, looking down at the toppled tower. “You…” He wanted to ask: What are you?

  Adams seemed to sense that. “I am but a poor and patchwork thing, Lord Pembroke. Neither troll nor Olympian—though my maker fancied himself a sort of modern Prometheus. I am merely in possession of a great many muscles—far more than I started with. I tend to add more whenever I begin to feel helpless and out of control. And my bones are reinforced with metal, here and there, to help bear the strain. My blood… is not like your blood. I am strong. Though I have no other good qualities, it cannot be denied that I am strong.” He looked toward the river, where the last of the beasts, the intestine-thing, surged forward blindly.

  The creatures weren’t so dangerous, Pimm thought, as long as there weren’t too many, and if they couldn’t catch you by surprise. But the monster that had reached through the tear in the sky to seize Oswald had been larger, doubtless the size of an ocean-going vessel, and if that had made its way to the Earth… Pimm shuddered. “You don’t want to capture that monster or anything, do you? For study?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no. I wanted to kill something today. Toppling that tower only whetted my appetite for devastation. I shall sate myself on this beast.” The giant limped toward the monster, and when he drew close, the thing lashed out at him with half a dozen slimy protuberances, jointed like the legs of a crab, emerging from the slickness of its hide. Adams seized the closest limb, and, to Pimm’s astonishment, tore it right off, like a man ripping a drumstick from a chicken. He flung the limb toward the river, and then reached out to tear off another.

  “Pimm!” Winnie shouted. “Pimm, come quick, the Queen!”

  The Queen! How had he forgotten about her?

  Quite easily, actually, considering everything that had happened—but since they weren’t all going to die, it seemed, matters like the safety of the rightful monarch seemed to matter again. Pimm hurried across the park, stepping around the bodies of the more unfortunate visitors to the Exposition—though fewer bodies than there would have been in the long run, if Oswald had succeeded in his plan—and the dead women and the beasts, the latter already dissolving into slime and ooze and jelly.

  Ellie and Freddy were dirt-smudged paragons amongst the corpses, wielding terrible swords, majestic as angels of vengeance. He wanted nothing more than to sweep Ellie up in his arms—but there was the matter of her sword, which appeared to be electrified. And, of course, the Queen—

  Affairs of State

  “I couldn’t stop her,” Ben said, staring down at a cup of tea in his huge hands. They were all—Ben, Pimm, Winnie, and Ellie—seated together in a beautifully-appointed room, with trays of biscuits and hot strong tea, but they were still too energized from events at the park—and anxious about the future—to relax. “We hid under the stage when the monsters appeared, you know, the Queen and me, but when it seemed like things had settled down, Her Majesty said it was time to take charge. I tried to hold her back, but only with words of course, I didn’t dare lay hands on her. She climbed up on the stage, and I went with her. A couple of the guards had stayed with
that false Queen, brave lads they were, so I felt a bit bad when the Queen told me to make them move aside. So I did—they were ready to fight monsters from the sky but not me, I suppose. I didn’t hurt them much, just knocked them down. I turned back and the Queen…”

  “We saw that part,” Ellie said, holding her own cup. There were guards waiting discreetly outside the closed doors, while various cabinet ministers and other officials and the Queen herself tried to untangle just what had happened, and what it all meant, and where to go from here. Ellie was glad she didn’t have a seat in those councils. She’d done quite enough thinking lately.

  “Queen Victoria, wielding a sword,” Winnie said. “The sight of her in full ferocity made me rethink my uncharitable feelings about the monarchy.”

  “It was a lucky thing Oswald left his sword cane on the stage,” Pimm said. “Or Her Majesty would have been forced to tear the head off that automaton with her bare hands.”

  “I believe she would have done it, too,” Ben said. “She didn’t like how it looked a bit. Said it was nothing like her. Far too jowly, she said.”

  When the guards had risen from their beating, and realized the now-headless monarch on the throne was a machine—oozing oil and sprouting broken springs—they were at a loss. Their confusion only intensified when the middle-aged man in a dressing gown began shouting at them imperiously that he was Queen Victoria, and that her cabinet must be assembled at once.

  But they’d done it, by God, run off and returned with all the available authorities on Earth or in heaven, it seemed.

  And now here they were, the saviors of the empire, some hours later, having been fed only tea and biscuits, waiting to see if they’d be given medals or tried for treason.

  Ellie wanted her bed. She suspected Pimm wanted a drink.

  The door opened. A man with a ginger mustache and twinkling eyes stepped in. “Hello, you lot,” he said.

  “Jonathan,” Pimm said. “You know my wife. This is Eleanor Skyler, the journalist, and Ben, ah—”

  “Drummond,” Ben supplied.

  “Ben Drummond. This is detective Jonathan Whistler, a police inspector. So, Jonathan? What’s it to be? Are we bound for the Tower of London?”

  “It seems the mad old man you brought back from the park really is the Queen,” Whistler said, perching on the arm of a chair that was, at a conservative guess, three hundred years old. “The head of the Royal Society did a test comparing a strand of her hair to a few strands taken from the Queen’s brush, the same way we can link the hair of a murderer to a sample found at a crime scene. The eminent scientist in question says he has proved the Queen’s identity definitively—to his own satisfaction, at least.” Whistler took a flask from his pocket and passed it to Pimm, who opened it and filled his cup with amber liquid, then took a deep drink. Ellie felt a flash of irritation, and was then irritated with herself for being irritated—surely the man deserved a drink? But then, he probably usually deserved a drink, and by all accounts, he took all the drinks he deserved and then some.

  “So, no, no Tower for you,” Whistler went on. “Only a few of the lords think you were part of some vast conspiracy to overthrow the throne, and they’re the sort who always think the worst of everyone, because that’s what they would do. The general consensus seems to be that you saved the city, so, well done. It was fortunate you brought along Oswald’s journal—it verified everything you claimed, and a great deal more besides.”

  “What will happen with the Queen?” Ellie asked. “I mean, will she continue to be Queen? Or… Monarch, anyway?”

  Whistler raised an eyebrow. “I’m just a policeman, Miss. That sort of thing is well beyond the scope of my duties, fortunately. A secretary of my acquaintance told me a few things when he slipped out of the cabinet’s closed session, and I thought I’d pass the information along, as a courtesy to Pimm. If pressed, I would guess the country’s leading scientists will make a deeper study of the Affliction, since we can hardly treat it like a shameful secret anymore—once your Queen suffers from an illness, it tends to become a priority. Legally, I understand the Queen is still the Queen, unless they decide she’s a King instead. Either way, she’s clear that she intends to continue ruling, with Prince Albert at her side. He’s been set free from the Tower, and cleared of all wrongdoing. Good news all around, eh? Apart from, ah, transformative plagues.”

  “And what of Adams?” Pimm said.

  Whistler shook his head. “No sign of your mystery man, Pimm. You’re sure he exists? We did find one of those beasts, with all its tentacles torn off, and a hole punched right in its—forgive me, ladies, I forget myself. But of our fifth hero, no sign. From what you told me about his criminal entanglements, he may have wanted to avoid attention.”

  Ellie yawned. “When do you think we’ll be permitted to go home and sleep?”

  “Ah,” Whistler said, and smiled. “Not quite yet. My friend the secretary was sent to fetch you, but I said I’d run that errand for him. I’m told the Queen wants to see you.”

  “Why?” Pimm said.

  “I think it’s best you find out for yourself.”

  “I dub thee knight,” the Queen said, touching Ellie on first one shoulder with her sword, and then the other. The officials gathered behind them in the opulent chamber muttered, and Ellie’s head spun as she stared at the Queen’s shoes.

  Women were not knighted. A woman could be made a dame, but not a knight. And yet: Sir Eleanor! The Queen had refused to brook any argument in this matter, and had insisted on knighting them all, in the old style, with a sword.

  Ellie rose from the knighting stool, and barely heard the words as the Queen invested her with her knightly orders. Then the Queen moved on to Winnie, dubbing her Sir Winifred. Since Winnie had begun life as a man, perhaps that honor made more sense, but…

  Pimm and Ben had been knighted already, and stood off to one side of the chamber, looking as dazed as Ellie felt. She joined them as the Queen completed the ceremony, then handed the sword to a waiting official. “We feel most secure,” the Queen said, glaring at the men clustered together in the back of the chamber, “with defenders such as these to protect our realm.”

  The room was silent, but then someone began to applaud. Ellie recognized the horse-faced woman clapping her hands as Prince Albert, now restored to the position of prince consort—or perhaps princess consort? Who could say? If Ellie could be a knight…

  With Albert leading the applause, the others joined in, some with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm. Ellie recognized members of Parliament, cabinet ministers, and other assorted dignitaries, some of them familiar from the flight at Hyde Park, all brought together to deal with the crisis of monsters from another world—a crisis which was, more or less, finished by the time they arrived.

  The crowd came forward to congratulate the new knights. A man with enormous whiskers greeted Winnie as “Lady Pembroke,” and earned an icy stare. “I think you’ll find you mean ‘Sir Winifred,’” she said coolly, and the man fell over himself apologizing.

  Somehow, in all the milling of people, Pimm managed to take Ellie by the elbow and lead her away to a pair of chairs in a corner, where they sat, knees just touching, half hidden behind an enormous leafy plant in a pot. “You’ve got quite a story to write, I suppose,” he said. “A firsthand account of the madness in the park. When I saw you wielding that sparking sword! I should not have been surprised, I know, but I was. You never stop surprising me, Ellie.”

  Writing. The newspaper! How could such mundane matters still exist? “Heavens. I suppose I do have to go to work again, don’t I? Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convey the experience properly, but I’ll have to try.”

  “Alas, the knighthood does not bring with it a guaranteed income for life,” Pimm said. “You will need to go on living by your pen. And we readers are all the luckier for your necessity.”

  “It occurs to me,” Ellie said, “to wonder what poor Ben will do? Now that he’s Sir Ben he can har
dly carry on being a street tough. How will his old friends treat him now?”

  “It’s not entirely fitting for his new station,” Pimm said. “But I was thinking of inviting him to join my household. He was in service, actually, as a boy, before circumstances conspired to send him to London to seek his fortune. And I am in desperate need of a valet. Of course, I’ll have to call him something like captain of the guard, to avoid offending his knightly dignity, but I can hardly think of a better man to have at my back.”

  “So you shall all live together, in that lovely house,” Ellie said. “You, and Winnie, and Ben.”

  Pimm cleared his throat. “I, ah. Ellie. I wish… well, that is to say…”

  “I know,” Ellie said. “It is complicated. Do you know what Winnie said to me, after we electrocuted the last of those monsters? She said we’d ruined everything. If Oswald’s plan had gone off, things would have changed, all of society would have changed, all the old rules would have fallen by the wayside, and you and I, we could have…”

  Pimm took her hand. “Our Queen is now a man, but is still somehow a Queen. We have driven off monsters brought from a place stranger than the stars. You have been made a knight. I would say things are changing. I know nothing is simple, but… perhaps we can cope with things that are complicated?”

  “I—”

  Winnie appeared. She was holding a glass of champagne, acquired from who knows where. “Ellie! There you are. I have a proposal for you. How would you like to help me write a book?”

  Ellie blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m a fine storyteller, but I’ve never been good at getting the words to line up on paper, as it were. I want you to help me turn my life story into something people would actually care to read. We’ll skim over my undistinguished youth, I think, devote a chapter to my Affliction, another to my subsequent despair, another to my peculiar arrangement with Pimm, another to my frequenting of salons and gatherings of artists, with perhaps a hint of scandal, subtly done, and for the climax, of course, my heroic actions in saving Queens, slaying horrible monsters, and etc.—”