More patrons joined in, on both sides, and just like that everyone in the bar was fighting everyone else. Blood flew, people crashed this way and that, furniture was broken up to provide improvised weapons—and Daniel finally understood what everyone had been waiting for.
Tina took on anyone who came within reach, laughing out loud with uncomplicated enjoyment. Daniel finished the brandy in his glass, and made his way unhurriedly through the seething mob to guard Tina’s back. Fists came flying at him from all directions, but he didn’t even bother to dodge them. They might have been ghosts, for all the effect they had. He was a Hyde now, and nothing in the everyday world could hurt him anymore. At first he only hit people who got in his way, but after a while he developed a taste for it, and hit hard enough to break bones and smash in faces—because they all looked like the kind who deserved it.
The man who once needed a cane to walk now broke chairs and tables over people’s heads, and laughed as he did it.
Daniel and Tina Hyde fought back to back, and no one could stop them from doing anything they liked to anyone they didn’t like. Daniel threw one particularly annoying man through a plate-glass window and, not to be outdone, Tina threw another through a door that was closed. In the end, the remaining combatants realized they would have to clamber over the bodies of the fallen just to reach the two Hydes, and that seemed to sober them up. They turned away, and rushed for the hole in the wall where the front door used to be. Daniel and Tina were left standing alone, surrounded by the battered and the unconscious.
Tina produced a delicate handkerchief from somewhere about her person, and set about cleaning the blood off her hands. Daniel checked his own hands, and found they weren’t even bruised. Tina saw him frowning.
“Don’t worry. Edward will pay for the damages and the surgeries. He always does.”
“This has happened before?” said Daniel.
“I told you: Hydes come in here all the time. All nine of us.”
“Then I’m amazed anyone else does.”
“They love it,” said Tina. “All the local villains and hard cases turn up regularly, just so they can test themselves against us. Make no mistake, these people we just fought were bad men. They were looking for a fight, and would not have responded to reason.” She put away her handkerchief. “Time we were on our way.”
Daniel checked his tuxedo, but it seemed to have survived the brawl without any damage or bloodstains.
“You look fine,” said Tina.
“You too,” Daniel said generously.
“Don’t I take you to the best places?” said Tina.
Daniel looked sharply at her, as the penny dropped. “This was an audition, wasn’t it? To see how I’d do.”
“To make sure you had a taste for it,” said Tina. “And of course you do. You’re a Hyde.”
Daniel started to say something, and then stopped. Because Tina was right. She smiled at him happily.
“Let’s go kill a whole bunch of Frankensteins.”
“Can we pick up the bomb first?”
“Perfectionist.”
Tina summoned a taxi by pulling her dress back to show an awful lot of thigh. A black cab screeched to a halt right in front of them, and they climbed in. The back seat was barely big enough to hold both Daniel and Tina, and they had to lower their heads to keep from banging them on the roof. Tina instructed the taxi driver on where to go, and he took one look at them in his rearview mirror and decided he wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
One extremely rapid journey across London later, the taxi slammed to a halt outside a very elegant hotel. Tina was first out of the cab, not even glancing back. Daniel paid the fare, added a grudging tip, and then asked the driver for a receipt.
“What are you doing?” said Tina.
“I want my expenses reimbursed.”
“Stop thinking like a policeman,” said Tina. “If you want your money back, take it off the bodies of some dead Frankensteins.”
The taxi driver threw his cab into gear and accelerated off into the traffic. Daniel didn’t blame him. He took his first good look at the hotel, and winced internally. It all seemed very grand.
“How are we going to sneak in?” he said. “Find a side door, or a servants entrance?”
“Hydes don’t sneak,” said Tina.
“But there’s a doorman. In a uniform. And a top hat.”
“Then he’d better not get in our way,” said Tina. “Or I will knock him down and walk right over him.”
In the end, the uniformed doorman bowed politely and opened the door for them. Daniel put it down to the tuxedo and the evening gown. The huge hotel lobby was brightly lit, welcoming in an overpowering sort of way, and packed with rich and important-looking people. The kind who were probably born looking elegant and feeling entitled.
Daniel squared his shoulders and strode forward, and the crowd just naturally parted to let him through. Tina strolled along beside him, taking the various admiring glances as her due. Daniel was surprised to find he got a few looks too, and did his best to act as though that was entirely normal. When they reached the elevators at the rear of the lobby, Daniel hit the call button with a flourish. The doors slid open, and he and Tina stepped inside. An elderly couple dressed to the nines went to join them, but Tina gave them a look and they decided to wait for the next one. She hit the button for the floor under the penthouse level, and the doors closed.
Daniel allowed himself to relax a little, and tugged at his bow tie to loosen it.
“Leave it alone,” said Tina, not even looking at him. “It’s fine.”
“I can’t believe we got in so easily,” said Daniel.
“It’s all about looking the part,” said Tina. “Now all we have to do is place the bomb where it needs to be, and it’s good night, sweetheart for the entire Frankenstein Clan.”
“You really think it’s going to be that easy?” said Daniel.
“Edward has been planning this for longer than you and I have been alive,” said Tina. “Trust the man.”
Daniel looked at her. “Trust Edward Hyde?”
“Trust him to know what he’s doing.”
Daniel nodded slowly. “I would have liked to watch the Frankensteins die.”
“You see?” said Tina. “You were born to be a Hyde.”
“No,” said Daniel. “I was made one.”
The elevator doors chimed politely and Daniel braced himself for enemy action, but when the doors slid open the corridor was empty. He gestured for Tina to stay where she was, and stepped cautiously out of the elevator to look around.
“No guards, no security presence,” he said quietly. “Where is everybody?”
“The Frankenstein Clan booked the whole of this level as well as the penthouse, to ensure their privacy,” said Tina, with something very like patience. “It’s off-limits to everyone else. Is it all right for me to come out now? Because I’m going to.”
Daniel scowled up and down the corridor. “There must be some kind of security. Surveillance, armed guards, regular patrols . . . ”
“A hotel like this has all kinds of security,” said Tina. “But it’s been shut down on both of these floors. Because the Frankensteins don’t want the rest of the world to know what they get up to. All the systems have been rerouted to the Clan’s own security center on this floor, so they can keep an eye on things. Thanks to our inside man, the one Edward has been paying off with weakened Elixir, we know where the center is. All we have to do is go there, and put it out of action.”
“So someone is watching us, right now,” said Daniel.
“And probably wondering why we’re standing around,” said Tina, just a bit pointedly. “Let us go and enlighten them, in a sudden and violently overwhelming way, so we can be about our business.”