“Hmmm,” said Mrs. Grant, a note of disapproval in her tone. “At this hour. You may be a gentleman, Sir Maurice, and I do not doubt your intentions, but you must think of Miss Hobbes’s reputation and well-being.”
“I understand,” said Newbury, patiently, “and your concern does you credit, Mrs. Grant. I assure you, I have only Miss Hobbes’s best interests at heart.” He smiled. “Now, I apologise profusely for waking you unnecessarily. If Miss Hobbes does happen to return before I’ve had chance to speak with her at Chelsea, I’d ask that you please explain to her that I called, and that I will call again first thing in the morning.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Grant, with a heavy sigh. “Good night to you, Sir Maurice.”
“Good night,” he replied, taking his leave. He signalled to the driver as he hurried down the garden path to the waiting cab. “Cleveland Avenue, Chelsea,” he said. “As quickly as you can.”
* * *
Newbury willed the cab to go faster, despite the fact that it was already churning through the wet streets at an undeniable pace. He desperately hoped that he’d return to Chelsea to find Veronica waiting for him there. It was late, and by his reckoning she’d been missing for some hours. Rationally, he knew there must be an explanation for her absence, but given his encounter with the Executioner earlier that evening and his epiphany regarding the Prince of Wales, he couldn’t deny that she was an obvious target. She was close to both Newbury and Bainbridge, for a start, and she was involved in the investigation into the Executioner’s murders. If the Prince wanted to tidy up after himself, she would be the next logical target after Newbury himself.
He stared out of the window, but could discern little of their location from the misty smear of houses as they rushed by in the darkness. He glanced at his pocket watch. They had to be halfway there by now.
He started at the sound of a heavy thud on the roof of the cab. The vehicle jolted slightly, as if the driver was struggling to keep it under control. Newbury leaned forward to open the window and call up to the man when the cab swerved suddenly to the left. He was thrown across the seat, banging his head painfully against the wooden frame. He righted himself, smarting, but the entire vehicle was rocking violently now as it continued to pelt along the cobbled lanes. He struggled to maintain his balance.
He heard a man cry out, followed by a piercing, inhuman shriek, an animalistic wail that caused his hackles to rise. The cab shuddered again as it struck the kerb and careened away, still barrelling along at speed, but clearly out of control.
Newbury grasped the handrail by the left-hand door and steadied himself. Then, with a huge effort, fighting against the momentum of the bouncing vehicle, he pulled himself upright and slid the window open. The cold night wafted in, blasting his face with rainwater. He could see now that the cab was describing a zigzag pattern up the street, thudding against the kerb on one side, then careening into the other and bouncing back again, over and over.
He twisted, glancing up at the dickey box, and recoiled in horror at the sight. The driver swayed back and forth with the movement of the vehicle, but only the lower half of the man’s torso was visible. His head, one arm, and most of his chest were missing. What remained was still propped up in the driver’s box, blood spurting from the ragged wound. The man had literally been torn in half. Whatever had done that to him was capable of immense strength.
Newbury felt something shift on the roof, and slid back into the main compartment of the cab. He had to get out there and take charge of the vehicle’s controls before they careened into the side of a building or another oncoming vehicle. He considered jumping out, but at this speed he’d be dashed across the cobbles, or at the very least would sustain numerous shattered bones, leaving him injured and prey to whatever was up there on the roof.
Could it be the Executioner? He didn’t think so. The manner in which the driver had been killed was far too feral-primal, even-and lacked the finesse of her previous kills. What, then?
His question was answered a second later when a fist slammed down through the wooden roof in a hail of splinters. Newbury covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow as the fragments rained down upon his face and shoulders, stinging where they punctured his flesh.
He staggered back as a clawed hand thrashed about in the cab for a moment, before withdrawing and punching through the roof again, widening the aperture. Newbury ducked from side to side to avoid the creature’s curving black talons as they swept back and forth, searching for him. He dropped into the footwell, out of reach, and peered up through the hole, trying to get a sense of what it was that had set upon the cab.
His first thought was of a revenant-the pale, ragged flesh, the unnatural strength, the elongated black talons-but when he saw the thing lower its face into the hole and peer through at him, everything suddenly became clear.
The creature had, indeed, once been a man, but unlike a revenant it was not the victim of an unpredictable microscopic plague, but the result of an appalling experiment in surgical augmentation. This man had been afflicted by design, not by an accident of nature. His lower jaw had been replaced with a brace of enamel tusks, and one eye had been entirely excised, a strange, mechanical lens affixed in its place. Black tubing erupted in a knot from its throat, then curled away over its shoulders and out of sight. The remaining human eye was jaundiced and watery, and was fixed on Newbury, radiating hatred.
This was the work of the Cabal. He had seen these minions before, half-transformed into monsters through their unwavering devotion to their insane masters. Aldous was right. The Cabal did want their book back, and enough to send one of their abominations to kill him for it. Clearly, they’d decided he’d had long enough to accept their invitation to commit ritual suicide, and had decided to take matters into their own hands.
The man-thing screeched, working its false jaw up and down in a gnashing motion. It began scrabbling at the sides of the hole, ripping free large chunks of wood and casting them away into the road. It was as if the creature were peeling away the layers of an onion, with Newbury trapped inside, awaiting the inevitable.
All the while, the cab continued to veer out of control, the dead driver’s foot still pressed firmly upon the accelerator.
If he remained where he was, Newbury was going to die. He wasn’t strong enough to take on the creature unarmed in such a cramped space, and if he didn’t deal with the out-of-control cab in the next few moments, it would all be over regardless.
He glanced at the door. He could force it open and climb out onto the footplate. From there he’d have a chance to leap up onto the roof and scrabble across to the dickey box, provided the cab didn’t hit something in the meantime and throw him off completely. It was a chance he’d have to take.
The creature was on the roof, though, between him and the dickey box. He didn’t fancy his chances against it up there.
He needed to swap places with it. If he could trap it inside the cab, even if just for a moment, he’d have a chance to get to the controls. After that, he had no idea.
He watched it gouging away more of the wooden roof and shuddered. It was more animal than man. It would rip him apart within moments if he gave it the opportunity, just as it had the driver. He had to strike first, to take the initiative and catch it unawares. It was his only chance. It didn’t feel like much of a plan, but it was all he had.
Newbury crept forward, keeping low.
The scrabbling stopped, and the man-thing returned to swiping for him, its glossy black talons-each about three inches long, formed from spears of iron-only inches from his head. It grunted as it leaned forward, shifting its weight, and the shattered wood around the hole creaked in protest, threatening to cave in. Newbury was breathing hard, trying to pick his time.