The Death Collector

by Justin Richards

  ‘Leave the boy,’ Sir William yelled. ‘It’s not him you want, is it? It’s this!’ He was holding up the slip of paper from Glick’s diary – the only thing they had left to bargain with. ‘Here – take it!’

  The creature paused to look at Sir William through rheumy eyes. But only for a moment, then it turned away again, back towards Eddie.

  George could not just stand by and let the thing – the thing that had been his friend – attack Eddie. He ran across and grabbed the enormous arms, the metal cold, biting into him as he tried to force the arms back, tried to push the thing away. George’s face was close to Albert’s, and he could taste the oil hanging in the air around him. The bloodless lips were moving.

  ‘George?’ Wilkes murmured. His eyes were unfocussed. ‘George is that you?’ The voice was barely more than a whisper, a plea. ‘Help me. Please, help me. I tried to contact you before … Heard your call …’ George could hear tears in the voice, tears that had not been allowed to reach the eyes. ‘I’m sorry … I can’t …’

  Then George felt himself being pushed away. Gently at first, then as if another gear had kicked in, he was flung across the room, smashing into the shelves on the wall, falling to the floor bringing wooden shelves, glassware, specimens crashing down on top of him.

  He shook his head to clear his vision, just in time to see Liz snatch the slip of paper from Sir William’s hands and run towards the advancing figure of Wilkes. She was waving the paper, shouting at the creature:

  ‘Here – this is what you want. Take it!’

  She thrust the paper into Wilkes’s face. But he ignored it. As if he was swatting at an annoying fly, one of Wilkes’s metal-framed arms lashed out. It caught Liz across the shoulder and sent her flying backwards. George cried out as she cartwheeled, and spun across the workbench. Even above the clanking of the engines and the hiss of the steam, George heard the sickening crack as Liz’s head hit the floor. She struggled to sit up – seemed all right.

  But then her eyes flickered, and she slumped backwards.

  ‘No!’ George cried, scrambling across the floor, ignoring the broken glass cutting into his hands. He struggled to get to Liz, praying she was all right.

  As he cradled her unconscious head, George became aware of movement in the doorway. Two of Lorimore’s thugs were standing inside the room. Framed between them was Lorimore himself. His lean face distorted by a mixture of anger and triumph, he stared at George for a moment before dismissing him and turning to watch his ghastly creation close in on Eddie.

  Sir William was pleading and arguing with the creature that had once been Albert Wilkes. ‘Listen to me – if there is any reasoning part of your mind still there, please listen. There must be something. Lorimore is using the motor centres of your brain to operate this thing. He’s revived you using electrical stimulation or some such technique. Fight against it – try to think for yourself. I know you are dead, but there must be something left …’

  But it did no good. Sir William too was finally pushed aside.

  There was only Eddie left – defiant now against the wall. He was looking at George and the unconscious Liz, his face white with fury. With a sudden shock, George realised that Eddie too had recognised Albert Wilkes – perhaps he blamed himself for not saving the old man from this fate. Whatever the reason, he was no longer scared, he was seething.

  He put one hand in his jacket pocket. He pointed at Lorimore with the other. ‘It’s you that’s the monster,’ Eddie yelled. ‘You’re inhuman, you are.’

  Lorimore just laughed. A dry cackle that was all but lost in the noise of his creation.

  This infuriated Eddie still further. He charged, shouldering the metal-framed creature aside, and forcing it back several paces. It recovered at once, metal joints springing, reaching out for Eddie and grabbing at him as he passed. Knife-like metal fingers snapped shut on his jacket.

  But Eddie ignored this. He was still yelling at Lorimore though his words were lost in a cloud of angry steam. Then he had his hand out of his pocket, and brandishing his treasured stone like a weapon, he hurled it with all his strength.

  Lorimore ducked, surprised. The stone thumped into the splintered woodwork which was all that remained of the door.

  From Lorimore’s scream, George assumed the stone had hit him. He dropped to his knees by the door and scooped up the stone from where it had fallen. He cradled it in his hands, as if afraid it might have been damaged by the impact. His eyes were wide, shining as if lit from within as he backed slowly out of the room, holding the stone reverently in his cupped hands.

  ‘What’s going on?’ George exclaimed, but his words were drowned out by the metallic clanking of Albert Wilkes as he strode mechanically past.

  In the doorway, Blade was shouting for Wilkes to hurry up. Eddie looked both relieved and perplexed. Sir William’s expression was unreadable.

  ‘At last,’ Lorimore’s words floated shrilly back to where George still cradled the unconscious Liz. ‘At last, I have it. The final link in the great chain of life. Now, I can finally bring my dreams to life.’ Then even his voice was gone. As if he had already forgotten about George and the others, or dismissed them as irrelevant.

  ‘What was he talking about?’ George demanded.

  ‘It’s just an old stone,’ Eddie was saying.

  Sir William was rubbing his forehead. ‘No. No it’s not.’ He wiped his hand away from his face, looking much older now than he had even moments before. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what he was after all the time. That’s what he wanted. Not the page from Glick’s diary – he just needed that to lead him to that fossil. If only I had realised sooner. “I know which came first,” was a clue sure enough. And we missed its meaning completely.’ He shook his head in regret. ‘He must have known we had it, Berry told him we’d found it – that we’d followed Glick’s clue and saved him the trouble of solving it himself. And now …’ He sighed, coming to a decision. ‘We have to get it back.’

  ‘But why?’ Eddie wanted to know.

  George was beginning to realise. ‘So, it’s not just an old stone. It’s a fossil.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So what?’ Sir William countered. ‘You want to live in a world where people are turned into the sort of creature we just witnessed? Where even the dead are not permitted to rest in peace? Where abominations like what poor Albert has become populate the factories, the foundries, even the army?’

  ‘Foundries,’ George repeated as he realised what Sir William was saying. ‘Those frames we saw being made. There were dozens of them.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Sir William replied gravely. He gave Liz a brief, sympathetic look before walking quickly and purposefully across the shattered laboratory. ‘We have to get Eddie’s stone back.’

  George gently let Liz’s head rest on the floor. He pulled off his jacket, folding it into a pillow and pushing it carefully under her fair hair. She murmured, but did not wake. She would be all right, George was sure. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he whispered. ‘Or I’ll find someone, send them to look after you.’

  ‘What’s so important about a lump of rock. Even if it is a fossil?’ Eddie was shouting after Sir William. He ran back and grabbed George by the arm. ‘Come on, we’ve got to stop him!’

  Reluctantly, George allowed Eddie to pull him to his feet. He glanced back at Liz, apparently sleeping peacefully now, then together they ran after the old man.

  Sir William did not wait for them. He called back over his shoulder. ‘Don’t you see? You found it inside the statue. It is Glick’s proof – what he was going to produce during his speech. He knew which came first, like in the riddle. He realised how dinosaurs reproduce and he found the evidence to prove it.’ Now Sir William did pause. He looked at them. ‘We have to get it back before Lorimore can somehow reactivate the living matter fossilised inside that stone. However he brought Wilkes back to some semblance of life, that’s how he’ll do it. Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘It’s a dinosaur egg.�
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  Then he turned, and hastened down the passageway, after Lorimore.

  Eddie and George exchanged looks, then hurried after him.

  ‘Wait!’ George yelled. His voice echoed off the panelling. ‘Wait for us!’

  They reached the end of the passage, passing the open door to Sir William’s office, and raced into the foyer. The main door was hanging off its hinges. A heavy mist of mingling steam and fog still lingered in the air. George could see the shape of Sir William through the mist as he hurried out of the door and down the steps.

  George and Eddie sprinted after him. But a huge figure stepped out in front of them. One of Lorimore’s thugs, arms stretched out ready to stop them. They pulled up sharply, and ducked back out of reach.

  Through the doorway, over the man’s shoulder, George could see Sir William. He could see the men closing in on him as he hefted his broken cane and prepared to meet them. He could see the skeletal shape of what had once been Albert Wilkes step down behind Sir William, arms raised and ready to strike.

  Then the enormous bulk of the man filled the doorway. George and Eddie had no choice but to back away, into the Museum. From outside they could hear a muffled cry, the sound of a scuffle. The clanking of a steam-driven mechanism. They heard Blade shouting, and the man stepped away. The fog rolled in, covering everything in a grey shroud and blotting out the moon.

  When the air cleared and the moonlight again struggled through, the courtyard was dark and empty. Somewhere in the distance a carriage clattered over cobbles. The metallic scrape of inhuman feet faded into the smog. Thunder rumbled.

  ‘They’ve taken him,’ Eddie said into the silence.

  ‘Insurance,’ George said. ‘To make sure we don’t interfere with Lorimore’s plans. Or perhaps he thinks he might need Sir William’s help. But whichever it is, he has the dinosaur egg, and now he has Sir William. Let’s get back to Liz.’

  ‘At least things can’t get any worse,’ Eddie grumbled as they hurriedly made their way back to the laboratory.

  But he was wrong.

  George’s jacket was lying where he had placed it, carefully folded, the depression made by Liz’s head still visible. But Liz herself was no longer there.

  Chapter 22

  Light smeared painfully over Liz’s eyelids and she blinked. The first thing she saw was the scar. A single image, stamped across her retina – the scar running down Blade’s face directly in front of her.

  ‘She’s awake, Mr Lorimore.’ Blade grinned at Liz before moving away.

  The second thing she saw, as her eyes refocused, was Sir William Protheroe sitting in the chair beside her, one of Lorimore’s thugs close behind him.

  ‘I trust you slept well,’ Lorimore said in his shrill almost birdlike voice. ‘At least you were spared the indignity of being brought here kicking and screaming like Sir William.’

  Liz’s head felt as if it was about to split open, and when she blinked residual images of lightning flashed behind her eyes. But slowly she was able to look round and observe her surroundings.

  She and Sir William were sitting on upright chairs at the back of a large laboratory. The three outside walls were dominated by large windows, and Liz could see the fog pressing in from the outside, and the hint of stars. The moon was just visible within the fog as it shone down through a vast, domed glass ceiling. Behind her, when she turned to look, Liz found another of Lorimore’s henchmen standing guard. Clearly Lorimore was taking no chances this time. Beyond her guard, Liz could see double doors that gave into the main drawing room of the house.

  But this laboratory was clearly where Lorimore conducted his grotesque work. A large wooden workbench, similar to the one Sir William had used, dominated the space in front of them. Spread across it was all manner of equipment and specimens. Bones, fossils, large jars of murky liquid that contained things that Liz would rather not look at.

  Lorimore was at the workbench, Blade assisting him as he pieced together more apparatus. Wires and cables were joined into a metal bowl. In the other direction they trailed across the workbench, down to the floor, to a huge iron tank standing at the side of the room.

  Sir William was also watching with interest. He glanced at Liz, and saw where she was looking. ‘A battery, I believe,’ he said quietly. ‘A means of attaching electrical power to that metal bowl, in which I imagine he intends eventually to place the egg.’ He clicked his tongue as if about to admonish a dim student on his slow progress, and quickly explained the significance of Eddie’s stone. ‘How are you feeling, by the way?’ he asked when he had finished.

  ‘Apart from a headache, not too bad,’ she said, making light of how she really felt. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I feel rather stupid to have got myself – and you – into this,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I have no complaints.’

  ‘I should think not,’ Lorimore said from the other side of the workbench. As he spoke, heavy clouds drifted across the moon, throwing his face into sudden shadow. ‘I am hoping that we are in for a storm,’ Lorimore went on, looking up. Somewhere in the distance was a rumble of thunder. Or possibly the roar of the monster Liz guessed was roaming the grounds outside to keep out any locals who slipped past the guard at the gate.

  Whichever it was, it pleased Lorimore. ‘Excellent.’ He turned to Blade. ‘Exactly as forecast. Which will save us worrying whether the battery power is sufficient for reanimation. Put up the lightning conductors, will you? I think we can afford to wait a little while for the storm to break.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Blade spared Liz and Sir William a scowl as he strode past them and into the house.

  ‘You propose to reanimate the egg?’ Sir William said. ‘With electrical energy, is that correct?’

  ‘Absolutely correct.’ Lorimore paused in his work and walked round the workbench, coming over to them. ‘You are a very clever man, Sir William. Such a shame your intelligence has been so wasted up until now. But at least you will be a witness to this historic moment.’

  Sir William snorted with apparent amusement. ‘You really think this mad scheme of yours will work then?’

  The change in Lorimore was abrupt and frightening. His face paled, even in the dim light, and his eyes flared with anger. ‘Of course it will work. I have calculated everything down to the last detail. My foundries are already hard at work. You can’t stop me now. No one can stop me now. All I needed was Glick’s discovery. Now I have that – I have the power to create life. And I intend to exercise that power.’

  Liz had no doubt that Lorimore believed he could do it. ‘How long?’ she asked, her voice shaking. ‘How long before this happens?’

  ‘Once Blade has put out the lightning conductors, and I have completed the circuitry. An hour perhaps.’

  ‘And what if there is no storm, no lightning?’

  Lorimore smiled again, anticipating the moment. ‘Then we shall manage without. The battery will be sufficient, though it may take longer to build to a useful level. A sudden jolt of high power would be a far more effective and rapid way to reverse the process of fossilisation and infuse life into the egg.’

  ‘And then what?’ Sir William demanded. ‘Once you have a living egg, what will you do?’

  Lorimore strode back to the workbench. ‘Why, let it hatch of course,’ he told them. ‘And use the creature that emerges. No need for the intricate, time-consuming surgical replacement then. With the techniques I have pioneered on our friend Albert Wilkes, I can adapt it, control it, be its god. And unlike Wilkes, it will not rot and decay. It will be alive – the first of a new race that will combine animal and mechanical. Dinosaur and steam power. The start of a new world.’

  Liz turned slowly towards Sir William, conscious of the two men standing silently behind them. ‘He’s mad, isn’t he?’ she said.

  Sir William’s answer was matter-of-fact, as if he was discussing some trivial matter of politics in his club. ‘Oh yes, my dear. Utterly mad. And very dangerous.’

  They worked for what
seemed like hours. George’s first thought had been to go to the police. But Eddie had persuaded him that this would not be the best course of action.

  ‘They’ll think we’re barmy’ he said. ‘They won’t believe a word of it. They might listen to Sir William, but he ain’t here.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ George admitted. After all, he himself scarcely believed the events of the last few days, and he knew them to be true. Setting their improbable story against the reputation of an establishment figure like Augustus Lorimore, and Eddie was right – the police would be no help.

  Which meant they were on their own. ‘What can we do?’ George wondered out loud. He looked round the laboratory – the floor strewn with debris, the workbench lying on its side, the door a tangled, splintered mess. He did not think they wanted to be there when the first Museum staff began to arrive in a few hours.

  ‘We’ve got to rescue Liz and Sir William,’ Eddie told him.

  ‘That won’t be easy. And we also have to get back your stone.’

  ‘The dinosaur egg. And we have to stop Lorimore.’ Eddie was picking through some of the broken apparatus lying on the floor. ‘There must be something here that can help. Something we can use to fool Lorimore, or distract him or something.’

  George could see nothing. He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and sighed. Then he smiled, feeling the cold hard metal in his pocket. The glimmerings of a plan were beginning to shine deep inside his mind. ‘There may be something,’ he said. ‘Something we can adapt. But not here, come with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Eddie wanted to know as he hurried after George down the passageway, and up the main stairs.

  ‘I’m going to show you where I work,’ George said. Blade had returned from deploying the lightning conductors and was now up a ladder, connecting cables to metal brackets set into the ceiling of the laboratory.