“We stopped by Gloucester Place to procure weaponry,” Burton explained. “I’m afraid I was unsuccessful in absconding with the Map of Time. I was waylaid by Herbert’s evil doppelganger.”
“No worries,” said Miss Hemlock, holding up a sheaf of papers. “I got it. He had it on his person.”
Burton grinned. “I know. He told me so in the future. I should have known he’d want to keep something that important close at hand at all times. He probably planned to sleep with it under his bloody pillow.”
Miss Hemlock stared at him. “You traveled into the future? My future?”
Burton waved the question away. “Yes. Nebogipfel sent me there to gloat. I’ll explain later.”
“Ah, yes. Well. As for the weapons, let’s hope we don’t need them,” Miss Hemlock said. “Remember, whatever harm befalls Nebogipfel will be visited upon poor Herbert as well. The two are the same person.”
“Right,” said Burton. “Enough chin-wagging. Let’s get this nonsense over with.”
The trio of Time Travelers found Nebogipfel easily enough. They simply followed the carnage into the deepest recesses of the Tower of London, where all of Mycroft Holmes’ best secrets were kept. The hallways were littered with bodies, both human and Morlock, and more screams could be heard down dim corridors and at the bottom of curving stone staircases.
Herbert’s dark doppelganger leered at them as they entered a large, high-ceilinged room empty save for a complex apparatus of wood and metal that stretched high into the air. A chill flew up Burton’s spine as he recognized it as a crude version of the machinery that housed—would house—the consciousness of Mycroft Holmes in the year 1945.
“Herbert!” Nebogipfel exclaimed when he saw the Time Traveler. “So good to see you, old boy. I’m sure this must come as a shock to you.”
“Not really,” said Herbert. “Captain Burton explained everything to me.”
He glared icily at Burton. “How wonderful. You’re just in time—pun intended—to witness my latest triumph.” He turned, busying himself with fitting the Wold-Newton stones into a wire housing at the center of the mass of wood scaffolding, copper wiring, and brass fittings. Burton noted the wire framework he inserted the stones into looked too much like a human brain.
“Go right ahead,” said Miss Hemlock. “We have no intention of stopping you.”
Nebogipfel laughed. “Splendid! Then it appears I have over-prepared.”
“Your Morlock invasion was entirely unnecessary,” said Herbert.
Nebogipfel shrugged. “Live and learn. Ah. There now. All is ready.”
“This was your endgame all along,” said Burton. “You exploited Mycroft’s obsession with prolonging his influence on the world so that you would have the means to separate yourself from Herbert.”
“You figured it out! You were always the clever one. History will honor that cleverness, Captain Burton, I assure you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But Mycroft Holmes gets what he wants too. I’m not a monster. I never expected the mountebank to renege on our deal.”
“You mean you never made sure he’d go through with it?” asked Miss Hemlock.
Nebogipfel turned to face them, shaking his head. “No. I never went forward through Time again to see if he kept his end of the bargain. He will use this technology to prolong his existence, after a fashion. Of that much I am certain. Isn’t that right, Captain Burton?”
The explorer nodded. “That’s true. I’ve seen it. Mycroft’s mind will exist in a future version of this contraption, half mad, while an old man mutters incantations.”
“Crowley,” said Nebogipfel. “And do you know the true purpose of that incantation?”
“I do!” blurted Miss Hemlock. “It’s for your benefit, isn’t it? Some kind of temporal resonance?”
“Very good, my dear. And I thought Captain Burton was the clever one.”
“Temporal resonance?” Burton murmured.
“Of course!” exclaimed Herbert. “By Jove! He intends to set up a harmonic and temporal resonance between these stones and the ones in the future. The ones that contain Mycroft’s consciousness.”
“Great minds think alike,” said Nebogipfel with a smile, tapping his right temple. “Or is that like minds think greatly?”
“Crowley’s incantation, then,” said Miss Hemlock, “is intended to help you cross out of this timestream.”
“Right again,” said Nebogipfel, dancing. “The doddering old fool thinks it will summon a supernatural champion to whip the Germans into surrender.”
“You’re being flippant about a serious matter,” said Burton. “This void to which you seek access is far from empty. I’ve been there. There are things, entities, that live within it, and you will only call attention to yourself.”
“I know where the monsters lurk, Burton, and I can’t wait to make their acquaintance. Perhaps I shall befriend them like I did the Morlocks.”
“You would doom us all? Doom me? Just to escape?” said Herbert. His voice was soft, almost pleading.
“I would do anything to be free of you, Time Traveler, with your grand, socialist visions and your naive outlook. Every place—every time—man plants his foot turns to dust. You will be nothing without me, but I will be everything without you.”
“But where will you go?” asked Herbert. “What will you do?”
“Why, whatever I want,” said Nebogipfel. “Whenever I please. Maybe I’ll go back to the start of it all, the dawn of human civilization. You went to humanity’s end to try to fix things, poor fellow. I will start at its beginning. With my hand to guide them they may just get it right this time.”
Nebogipfel leapt from the platform, staring at his outstretched hands. “It’s starting! I can feel it.”
“I feel something too,” said Herbert. “The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. It’s—”
Herbert doubled over and fell to his knees. Burton flew to his side.
Nebogipfel became translucent. Burton could see through the top of his head to the throbbing Wold-Newton stones vibrating in their wire framework behind him.
“Yes. It’s working!” Nebogipfel declared. “Oh, it’s wonderful. I can see the Void, Captain Burton. And the Gate beyond.”
The room filled with Morlocks, sidling in silently behind the three as they watched Nebogipfel flicker from ghostly translucence to stark solidity and back again. A few of them removed their goggles, but they made no move to assault Burton and the others.
“My children,” Nebogipfel said to them. “It is almost time for us to go.”
“It will be too late once he is split from Herbert,” Burton whispered to Miss Hemlock. “His Morlocks will easily overpower us.”
“So much for my plan,” she said.
“Maybe not. Nebogipfel showed me the point in the future he is currently in resonance with, and I changed the outcome.”
Miss Hemlock stared at him. “What?”
Burton grinned. “I stopped Crowley’s ritual and, per Mycroft’s request, destroyed his consciousness by grinding the Wold-Newton stones to dust.”
“Oh my,” said Miss Hemlock. “And Nebogipfel doesn’t know?”
“Apparently not. He wanted me to see what he has wrought in order to gloat. I didn’t tell him what transpired when he put me there.”
“Then it appears we have an ace up our sleeve after all.”
Herbert shuddered. Nebogipfel screamed, falling to the floor. He was solid again.
“What’s happening?” he said. “Something’s wrong. It isn’t working.”
“I forgot to mention,” said Burton, “when you sent me to your warped future, I destroyed what was left of Mycroft Holmes and stopped Crowley from completing his ritual.”