One of the guards screamed. The others began shooting at the gigantic fiery figure, which affected it not at all. Then, as Aubrey had hoped, fingers crossed so hard they hurt – one of the guards had the presence to leap into the lorry and start it.
Aubrey didn’t blame the guards. Even he was impressed by the angry flaming giant, stick figure or not.
The sound of the engine was better than any order to embark. The other Holmlanders flung themselves into the lorry, still firing wildly at the stick giant – which hadn’t moved – and then the lorry roared out of the gates.
Von Stralick stood and dusted himself off. He flipped the safety catch on his revolver. ‘I could have managed all of them.’
Aubrey ran a hand across his brow and let out a long, slow breath. The flaming giant collapsed. ‘I’m sure you could have, Hugo.’
7
While the main house was tantalising, Aubrey wanted to start their investigation in the ruins of the outbuildings. If, as he suspected, they’d been specially constructed for whatever project Dr Tremaine was pursuing – and destroyed now that this project was done – they might hold some important clues.
Von Stralick found a rake in a potting shed. Aubrey relit one of the lanterns discarded by the terrified guardsmen and held it steady while von Stralick sifted through the ashes of the building that had been nearest to the wall.
It didn’t take long before Aubrey decided that the fire following the explosion, at least, had been deliberate. ‘Do you smell that?’ he asked von Stralick.
The Holmlander was using the rake to topple the remains of a long, metal bench. ‘I smell many things. What do you smell?’
‘Petrol.’ Aubrey kicked at some wooden panelling, then crouched next to it. He ran his finger along an uncharred section then held it up to his nose. ‘Can you think of any good reason for petrol to be splashed on walls?’
Von Stralick snorted, which was response enough to indicate that he, too, could only think that the application of petrol to the walls of buildings was unlikely to be an attempt to brighten up the place.
The use of a fire accelerant made Aubrey all the more curious as to what the buildings had formerly held. ‘Formerly’ was the key word here, for he would have expected to find more debris, more ordinary, everyday contents half-destroyed by the blast and blaze combination. The convoys of lorries had stripped the buildings quite effectively.
Except…
A glint caught Aubrey’s eye. He tilted his head, the better to see it, and another mirror-bright streak flashed near the first. Carefully, he raised his lantern and picked his way through the debris until he crouched and inspected what he’d found.
It was a river of silver.
‘Hugo, can you come and use your rake here? Let’s see what we can uncover.’
A few minutes work with the rake, assisted by some judicious kicking and shuffling, and Aubrey and von Stralick were able to stand back. Amid the ash and charred timber, a fine silver tracery stood out, many branched like a white tree in winter.
‘And what do we have here?’ von Stralick said softly. ‘Melted metal?’
‘That’s what it looks like.’ Aubrey scuffed at it with his boot. It came away easily, breaking into pieces. Gingerly, he picked up a fragment and was glad it had cooled.
‘How many metals are silver-coloured?’ von Stralick asked.
‘Most of them, apart from gold and copper.’
‘That narrows it down somewhat.’
Aubrey dropped the fragment into a pocket, stepped over a pile of shattered window frames and made his way to the next hut. He scuffed about for a moment. ‘Whatever it is, it’s over here, too.’ He shook ash from his boot. If it actually were silver, what did that mean?
He glanced up at the main house, which glowered back at him with flaming eyes, the windows reflecting the last of the fires.
‘Come on, Hugo,’ he said, holding up the lantern. ‘Let’s see if we can get into the main house.’
Von Stralick twisted the rake in his hands. ‘Patience, Fitzwilliam, patience – an intelligence operative’s first lesson.’ He grunted. ‘Now, what do we have here?’
Von Stralick pushed aside some ash, then he flipped the rake over and let the head drop. A hollow boom made him pause. ‘There you have it.’
Aubrey directed the lantern light at the trapdoor von Stralick had found. ‘I should have known.’
‘That all is not as it meets the eye? That is an intelligence operative’s second lesson. A hidden trapdoor suggests that we have something worthwhile beneath it.’
‘How do we know it was hidden? It could have been prominent, in the middle of the floor.’
Von Stralick jabbed with his rake at an offensively smouldering object off to the side of the trapdoor. ‘If you want something to be prominent, you do not put a big mat on top of it. If you do want something to be hidden, you put a big mat on top of it.’
‘You make a good point, Hugo, if a little heavy-handedly.’
Aubrey reached for the latch, but the metal was still hot. Von Stralick deftly used the rake to tip the door back. When it fell, Aubrey slashed a hand in front of his face in a feeble effort to keep ash and dust from choking him. He screwed up his eyes and, when he opened them again, he was confronted with a set of metal stairs.
‘You have the lantern,’ von Stralick said. ‘After you.’
‘You have your revolver and a rake. You should go first.’
‘This was Dr Tremaine’s estate. I think that your magic could be more useful than a revolver. Besides, I know you have this perverse need to be heroic.’
‘Hugo, you are too generous.’
Aubrey stood at the top of the stairs and extended his magical awareness, hoping that his hesitation would be seen as sensible preparation rather than nervousness. Immediately, he was struck by a wave of magic coming from magical residue in the basement below. His magical awareness meant that he saw rising and falling pitch and he tasted pressure, which was an unsettling grey-green colour. Dozens of other sensations assailed him. He gritted his teeth, refusing to let the assault unsettle him but still uncertain of what it meant. It was like standing in front of a fire hose and trying to determine the shape of a specific drop of water. He had to get closer if he were to divine anything specific.
Something that was a little more than apprehension and a little less than fear surfaced in his stomach. This was, as Hugo had pointed out, Dr Tremaine’s estate – and they were intruders. While they had remained unscathed so far, it didn’t mean that they were safe. All it meant was that they hadn’t run into the serious dangers yet.
If cowardice were surrendering to fear and heroism prevailing over it, Aubrey wondered what trying to distract fear by whistling in an erratic manner was.
‘Is that wise?’ von Stralick said. ‘Unless it’s part of a magical ritual, I’d advise you stop it.’
Aubrey took a deep breath, and marched down the stairs with his lantern before him.
The stairs led to a heavy steel door, riveted and reminiscent of the doors Aubrey had seen in submersibles. With Hugo at his back, Aubrey unlatched it, stretched out his arm and shone the lantern inside.
The basement space was large, extending far beyond the range of the lantern. It was low-ceilinged, a barrier of earth separating it from the building above and from the effects of the explosion and fire.
Having learned a thing or two about entering places that were potentially magically hostile, Aubrey stood just outside the basement and studied it as carefully as he could without actually setting foot inside.
He was immediately taken by the cables that were slung along the walls. Thick bundles were wrapped at intervals with tarred rubber, looping around the perimeter of the room and criss-crossing the ceiling like gloomy Christmas decorations. He tried to estimate how much electrical power the basement would take.