Whitechapel Gods (37 page)

He should wait until he was connected. How would he know when that happened? What if Grandfather Clock stopped him from moving?

He felt a dull sting as something penetrated his back. He felt acutely the tearing muscle and flesh as the wire curled back on itself and looped between two of his vertebrae. Another punctured his right arm at the shoulder, two more, the base of his neck. He felt these wiggle about as well, finding purchase on bones and nerves that began sparking with pain. Oliver watched his legs and fingers jolt and jerk.

I can’t wait any longer.

He drove the device into his chest. The tines poked through his shirt like sewing needles, pricking and penetrating his bruised skin and slipping expertly between ribs.

A ticking spread to his inner ear, beginning bright and quiet and growing louder and more expansive with each repetition. Images flickered over his eyes: thousands of intersecting gears, beams, and bells tolling, thoughts like rays of light shooting back and forth in an intricate lattice beautiful beyond words.

He felt a hum and crackle about his chest, and smiled.

This is from all us lowly coves, you bastard.

Awareness began to fade from his physical body as the Great Machine gobbled up more and more of his mind. Oliver succumbed without struggle, though the relentless pounding wounded him in ways he did not know he could be damaged. The ticking tempered his soul, shaped it into modes of thinking that fell in harmony with Grandfather Clock’s rhythm. It beat him down and moulded him, and Oliver smiled all the while.

Then a sickening rush filled his chest. White fluid pushing the tines out, healing the punctures. Oliver couldn’t feel his arm, couldn’t see, couldn’t hold the device in him as the child-god’s pus rejected it.

“It has to stay in!” he cried. Any perception of the chamber vanished, and the words echoed into Grandfather Clock, crushed and tempered and put to use by the machine even as it did the same to Oliver’s own mind. Oliver’s thoughts ended. His mental space became home to the calculations of the machine.

For an instant, all was in harmony.

Then, a black shape appeared to mar the infinite perfection. The ticks and tolls beat against it, but it refused to be made compliant. The shape rushed out, slipping into the empty spaces between Grandfather Clock’s thoughts, and began to devour everything it touched.

Oliver’s awareness flew back to him. He opened his eyes and saw the chamber around the Chimney blended into the mental realms of the three gods that claimed him. Fires burned everywhere, bells tolled, and electricity crackled, a putrid sea lapped at his soles. In this maddening vision only one thing stayed constant: a Boiler Man, holding the device firmly into his chest while the creature of brass ripped it apart plate by plate from behind.

Grandfather Clock fell out of rhythm. His million sounds phased away from one another, changing pitch and timbre. The Great Machine collapsed from within as Oliver laughed.

The poison turned. It suddenly rushed back into him, cutting through his brain and lancing outward through Mama Engine’s connection in his head and her child’s in his gut. Nothingness enveloped him and his laughter turned to screams.

These writings are Holy. They are Divine. And yet they are the words of but a frightened young man, whose life has ended before his appointed time. Read them and despair, for if you have deciphered my scrawl, I fear it is already too late for you.

—XII. xi

“No doubt about it, suh,” Heckler reported. “They’re heading for the old entrance to the main tunnel. They must not know the cloaks welded it shut.”

“They know,” said Bergen. “The seal will not be an obstacle for them.”

“They’re heading for the women and children,” said one of the half dozen militiamen sheltering with them. He was unshaven and emaciated, and Bergen had never bothered to ask his name.

Bergen turned to this man. “I told you to lead them away.”

The man yelled his response. “They don’t care about us. They just ignore us unless we shoot at ’em, and then they bleedin’ kill us.”

“Then you are not running fast enough.”

Bergen leaned back against the pillar that gave them cover. It was one of the beams that held the upper concourse in place, being full seven long strides end to end. It was the only one on the block, and the only thing Atlas rifles could not shoot through.

Bergen knew he had to rest soon. He had fired the steam rifle seventeen times in a half hour and it was beginning to get too hot to hold near his body. The electrical discharges were also starting to make him lose focus. His balance felt off, his vision ticked if he moved his eyes too rapidly.

But they were women and children.

Bergen had never cared for such weak creatures. Ellingsly, being weak himself, had loved them.

Blast.

“Take your men to a different tunnel entrance and free them,” Bergen ordered the men. “Lead them back to the lift and stay with the wounded. Under no circumstances leave them unguarded. Do you understand?”

The unseemly militiaman nodded, desperation replaced with equally desperate energy. At least it got the man to run off. The rest followed, leaving only himself and the American.

“You are my eyes, boy,” Bergen said.

Heckler nodded and dashed from cover. He bolted across the street and took shelter behind a brick stair leading into a shop across the street. Atlas guns would tear right through it, but there was no other viable vantage point.

Heckler watched the Boiler Men. Bergen watched Heckler. Heckler held up three fingers, then motioned right to left. Bergen nodded and brought his weapon back up to his eyes.

Heckler aimed his Winchester. Bergen stepped out around the corner, having to step far from cover to keep his line of fire clear of the support beam, lest the electricity lance back through it.

Three Boiler Men marched from a street on the right into the line of fire. Bergen thumbed the trigger and thrilled at the rumble of the boiler. He had yet to miss a shot; neither was he disappointed with this one. As his target fell, the other two turned and opened fire with exacting precision. Bullets as large as a man’s index finger tore the street to shreds where Bergen had stood an instant before. The beam thundered as bullets clattered against it from behind, a sound that might reverberate all through the tower. The fire spilled over into the building closest, sending up clouds of plaster dust.

Ellingsly exulted. Bergen shut him up and signaled Heckler to fire. The lad complied without hesitation, cracking off a single shot and then diving onto his belly behind the flimsy cover he’d chosen. Altas fire ripped up the stair and the wall behind it, shattering the shop window and wooden door frame. Bergen stepped from cover again and loosed his second shot—perfect—then leapt back as the bullets came his way.

Only three targets remained for six rounds. Bergen could hear their footsteps clearly now. He peeked from cover to see the two stragglers join with their only remaining comrade and begin their inexorable march up the nameless street.

He checked Heckler. The lad rose covered in dust and rubble, his cover gone and another volley impossible to evade. The Boiler Men did not fire. As before, they ignored the threat as soon as it ceased to actively harm them.

Bergen let the rifle cool a minute while Heckler dashed back to the beam.

“They’re walking away,” he said, then tapped the support beam lightly. “There ain’t too many of these between here and the tunnel.”

“I will not need them,” Bergen said. He placed the weapon’s thick barrel on the street and leaned it on the beam. He stretched and flexed his shoulder. “This weapon can fell them at any range.”

Three more shots to be a hero in truth, as well as in words.

He reached down for the weapon, and spotted black and glistening fluid pooling at its base. With a sinking heart he crouched and turned it to see the top. A bullet had struck it just behind the barrel, peeling away part of the casing, mangling one of the magnetic coils and penetrating into the interior. Bergen could only surmise that the fluids drizzling out were the chemicals from the battery.

“It’s useless,” he said. His lip trembled. “Fuck.” He rose and gave the weapon a savage kick. “It’s bleeding useless.” He stomped on it, then kicked it again.

“Bergen,” Heckler said. “What are you doing?”

“We’re lost,” Bergen said. “I can’t save them now.” He stomped the rifle once more, then turned and swung his knuckles into the support beam.

Heckler caught his arm before he could strike a second time. “We can’t give up, suh.”

“No?” Bergen snapped. He threw off Heckler’s hand and whirled on him. “We have no explosives left, boy. We have no weapons that can hurt them.”

Heckler drew back, confusion on his face. “But…we have to try.”

“By all means, go and die, then,” Bergen said.

“You’re not coming?”

“Drill this through your skull, boy,” Bergen said, jabbing a finger at his own. “I’ve failed. I’m useless now. If you want to martyr yourself, that’s your business.”

Heckler stood dumbfounded. Bergen turned and pounded the beam again, welcoming the pain. A failure. A coward. His face flushed with rage and shame. His insides shook with the pressure of emotion. He’d failed these people who might have accepted him. He’d failed this young lad, who, for a scant hour, had trusted him, even admired him.

He pulled his Gasser free and spun on the vacant buildings across the street, arms wide. “I’m tired of jumping at shadows, boy! Let’s have this out.”

He heard Heckler sprint up the street after the Boiler Men and did not care that he had left.

The shadows moved in an arch where a door hung broken on its hinges. The door swung inward with a squeak.

“I’m a sporting man,” Bergen called. “I won’t start shooting until you hit the street.”

Pennyedge shot out of the arch immediately, running low, a wide-bladed knife in his right hand. Bergen’s first shot went wide as Penny dodged right. His second caught the boy in the shoulder and spun him. Penny cracked into the pavement like a sack of bricks, but rolled and was up on all fours before Bergen could finish him. His third shot ricocheted off the street.

Penny moved like a monkey, bouncing and scrambling to gain ground. Bergen held still, all concentration in his aim.

His fourth shot cut a chunk out of Penny’s left thigh. The boy stumbled to a tight crouch and Bergen sighted on his face.

The boy sprang, powering himself entirely with his right leg, causing Bergen’s fifth shot to take him through the stomach. Bergen had a flash of bloodshot eyes and fever-red skin before Penny landed on him.

Bergen managed to knock the knife arm aside but lost track of it when Penny’s fingers clawed his face, plunging into one eye and the soft spot beneath his jaw. Bergen brought the Gasser’s heavy butt down on the side of Penny’s neck. Penny choked and whirled aside. Bergen shot him a final time as his hands released, though he did not see where.

They parted. Penny spun and took a low stance just out of arm’s reach. His injured leg hung delicate and curved like a dancer, his other tensed and bent like a cat. The knife floated in front of his eyes, and his left hand hung loose at his side, injured but not useless. His shirt was in a tatter. Bergen could still see the hole where he had shot the boy during their first confrontation; it quivered with a red jelly. The fresher wounds, however, leaked copiously.

Bergen tossed the Gasser away.

“Now there is only me,” he said. “Come and see what stuff I’m made of, boy.”

They shared the intense, calculating stares of equal opponents. Bergen stared hungrily into Penny’s eyes, red veins around dilated pupils, and waited for the moment of synchronicity to come, when they both charged and the lesser man met his fate on the asphalt.

Penny sprang. Bergen rushed in low. The knife whistled past his ear and Bergen brought his fist into Penny’s gut. Blood splattered out as red as his satisfaction. Then Penny’s left clapped him open palm on the ear. The blow was weak, but Bergen’s head still exploded in spots and pain.

A line of fire flared on his back as Penny’s knife sliced back—it hadn’t been a miss, but a feint. Bergen clamped his left hand on to Penny’s elbow and shoved it away. The left hand hit him again, a clumsy strike across the face. Bergen ignored it and clamped his right hand around Penny’s throat, digging his thumb into the boy’s windpipe. Bergen growled and pressed in.

Penny’s teeth opened in a silent, slavering roar. His left came in unseen and hammered Bergen on the wound in his stomach. Bergen choked as weakness and nausea flooded him. His left arm and legs buckled. Penny plunged the knife into Bergen’s body between his collarbone and back, and drove him to his knees. Bergen snarled and leaned in, and Penny’s windpipe cracked inward like a dry reed.

The boy did not react. He leaned his weight onto the knife. Bergen pushed his left hand into Penny’s elbow, but the slashed muscles could not drive the knife out. Penny’s left struck another haphazard cuff on Bergen’s cheek. Bergen released the boy’s neck, drew back, and pounded him squarely in the teeth.

Penny’s head snapped back and he fell. Bergen fell as well, crashing hard onto his back and winding himself. The instant the spots cleared he drew the knife out, heedless of the sting or the damage. Absently, he pressed his right palm over the wound while he rolled to look at the boy.

Penny lay on his back, his chest convulsing, his hands mechanically groping at his throat. He must have heard Bergen’s chuckle, because his eyes drifted sideways.

Bergen watched Penny’s face turn purple, then blue. He watched Penny’s eyes water and shiver. He watched Penny twitch and lie still.

Sterner stuff than you, boy.

He used the knife to cut his sleeve off and jammed it down over the wound, holding it by pressure since he had nothing to bind it. He chuckled to himself all the while—a mad, exhilarant act.

He left the corpse behind, shambling up the street in pursuit of Heckler and the Boiler Men. After just a block he faded from weakness and collapsed in the middle of the road. He dragged himself upright against a nearby abandoned cart, and waited there, slipping in and out of consciousness until Heckler found him.

“Bergen! They’re all right,” the lad said as he ran up. “The Boiler Men were after cloaks. There were two crows in the crowd. That’s all they wanted and now they’re just standing there like they’ve been shut off or some such.”

Bergen smiled. “Good.”

Heckler’s cheer wavered. “You all right, suh?”

Bergen could only nod. Heckler bent and gently moved Bergen’s hand aside, cursing when he saw beneath.

“Ah’ll get the doctor. You just hold on, Bergen.”

Bergen looked up at this brave lad and saw something that brought up tears. “Don’t,” he said.

“Suh?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Uh…All right.” The lad hesitated, puzzled.

“Get the damn doctor, boy.”

“Right.”

He fled.

It was all wrong. Missy knew that. Though her hands shook and her knees felt watery and her stomach sat heavy with fear and sickness, she could not help but see it through.

The child brought her to two polished oak doors.

“ ’E’s there,” the boy said. They had halted at the far end of the hall, at the top of a flight of stairs. The boy pointed to the doors and did not descend the staircase. “ ’E said not to step on the third stair or the fifth. And ’e said to open the door by twistin’ the handle. Two turns left, one turn right, ’e said. Was real perticaler about it.”

Missy felt the boy’s fingers tighten around hers. She knelt next to him and smiled. He looked at his shoes.

“Thank you for showing me,” she said, as soft as she could manage. “Run upstairs, now, and the girls will give you something to eat.”

The boy nodded slowly.

“Run along.” She gave him a gentle shove back the way they’d come. The boy shuffled off a few paces, then ran, leaving Missy alone with nothing but her task.

The doors loomed before her. Doors to hell. Doors to heaven. Doors to nothingness.

God is always just,
said Gisella.
A wicked and low death for a wicked and low animal.

The doors were her whole world.

Who are you to defy fate, bird? That is your end. Every woman has her time.

She could not go back. Without the boy’s direction she would be either lost or slain in the maze.

She could see Gisella staring down her nose.
And every woman has her duty.

You’re dead.

And you are not. It was not I that made this decision, young lady. I am not the one with the diseased mind.

She rose.

It won’t matter. You’ll never leave me.

Quite correct.

Then I will leave you.

Gisella laughed.
Two bullets for him and one for yourself, is it? You are quite foolish, to think you can escape me in such a manner.

Missy took a step down.

But you are still going to try, and that is both lovely and insane.

She marched heavy and slow, walking her last towards the gallows. Tears ravaged her cheeks until they stung. Her whole body sagged with exhaustion. She lurched with each step, the gun swaying in her hand, the doors in her vision.

Quiet lay beyond those doors. Eternal and deep and pure.

How many more will you take, bird, after this one fails to rid you of me? Will you go on killing to silence me? Perhaps Emily, perhaps Elizabeth, perhaps strangers you have yet to meet? Will you prefer men or women, I wonder? Will you develop habits or favourite methods? How many more bullets, I wonder?