A low, mechanical rumble came drifting across the moonlit square. She looked down at the wet deckplates, but could not see what was making the noise. Then something made her glance up at St Paul’s. She gasped. “Bevis! Look!”
Slowly, like a huge bud blooming, the dome of the ancient cathedral was splitting open.
22. SHRIKE
Had the Stalker only just arrived, or had he been standing watching them squabble, dark and still on the stone-strewn hillside like a stone himself? He took a step forward, and the damp grass smouldered where he set his foot. “they are mine.”
The pirates swung round, Maggs’s machine gun spraying streams of tracer at the iron man while Mungo’s hand-cannon punched black holes in his armour and Ames blazed away with his revolver. Caught in the web of gunfire, Shrike stood swaying for a moment. Then, slowly, like a man walking into a strong wind, he started forward. Bullets sparked off his armour and his coat tore away in rags and tatters. The holes the cannon made spewed something that might have been blood, might have been oil. He stretched out his arms, and an iron claw was ripped away, and another. Then he reached Maggs and she made a choking sound and went backwards into the bracken and down. Ames flung down his gun and turned to run, but Shrike was suddenly behind him and he stopped short, gawping at a handful of red spikes that sprouted from his chest.
Mungo’s gun was empty. He threw it aside and pulled his sword out, but before he could swing it Shrike had grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back and severed his neck with one scything blow.
“Tom,” said Hester. “Run!”
Shrike flung the head aside and stalked forward, and Tom ran. He didn’t want to; he knew there was no point, and he knew he should stand by Hester, but his legs had other ideas; his whole body wanted only to be away from the terrible, dead thing that was coming towards him down the hill. Then the ground gave way under him; he plunged into cold mud and fell, rolled over, and came to a rest against an outcrop of stone on the edge of the same mire that had swallowed Chrysler Peavey.
He looked back. The Stalker stood among the sprawling bodies. Airhaven was overhead, testing its engines one by one, and its lights kindled cold reflections on his moon-silvered skull.
Hester stood facing him, bravely holding her ground. Tom thought, She’s trying to save me! She’s buying time so that I can get away! But I can’t just let him kill her, I can’t!
Ignoring the countless voices of his body that were still screaming at him to run, he started to crawl back up the hill.
“HESTER SHAW,” he heard Shrike say, and the voice slurred and caught like a faulty recording. Steam hissed from holes in the Stalker’s chest and black ichor dripped from him and bubbled at the corners of his mouth.
“Are you going to kill me?” the girl asked.
Shrike nodded his great head, just once. “FOR A LITTLE WHILE.”
“What do you mean?”
The long mouth dragged sideways, smiling. “WE ARE TWO OF A KIND, YOU AND I. I KNEW IT AS SOON AS I FOUND YOU THAT DAY ON THE SHORE. AFTER YOU LEFT ME, THE LONELINESS. . .”
“I had to go, Shrike,” she whispered. “I wasn’t part of your collection.”
“YOU WERE VERY DEAR TO ME.”
Something’s wrong with him, thought Tom, inching up the hill. Stalkers weren’t meant to have feelings. He remembered what he had been taught about the Resurrected Men all going mad. Was that seaweed hanging from the ducts on Shrike’s head? Had his brains gone rusty? Sparks were flickering inside his chest, behind the bullet-holes…
“HESTER,” Shrike grated, falling heavily to his knees so that his face was at the same level as hers. “CROME HAS MADE ME A PROMISE. HIS SERVANTS HAVE LEARNED THE SECRET OF MY CONSTRUCTION.”
Fear prickled the back of Tom’s neck.
“I WILL TAKE YOUR BODY TO LONDON,” Shrike told the girl. “CROME WILL RESURRECT YOU AS AN IRON WOMAN. YOUR FLESH WILL BE REPLACED WITH STEEL, YOUR NERVES WITH WIRE, YOUR THOUGHTS WITH ELECTRICITY. YOU WILL BE BEAUTIFUL! YOU WILL BE MY COMPANION, FOR ALL TIME.”
“Shrike,” Hester snorted. “Crome won’t want me Resurrected…”
“WHY NOT? NO ONE WILL RECOGNIZE YOU IN YOUR NEW BODY; YOU WILL HAVE NO MEMORIES, NO FEELINGS, YOU WILL BE NO THREAT TO HIM. BUT I WILL REMEMBER FOR YOU, MY DAUGHTER. WE WILL HUNT DOWN VALENTINE TOGETHER.”
Hester laughed; a strange, mad, terrible sound that set Tom’s teeth on edge as he reached the place where Mungo’s body lay. The heavy sword was still clamped in the pirate’s fist, and Tom reached out and started prising it free. Glancing up, he saw that Hester had taken a step closer to the Stalker. She tilted her head back, baring her throat, readying herself for his claws. “All right,” she said. “But let Tom go.”
“HE MUST DIE,” insisted Shrike. “IT IS PART OF MY BARGAIN WITH CROME. YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER HIM WHEN YOU WAKE IN YOUR NEW BODY.”
“Oh please, Shrike, no,” begged Hester. “Tell Crome he escaped or drowned or something, died somewhere in the Out-Country and you couldn’t bring him back. Please.”
Tom clung to the sword, its hilt still clammy with Mungo’s sweat. Now that the moment had come he was so scared that he could barely breathe, let alone stand up and confront the Stalker. I can’t do this! he thought. I’m a Historian, not a warrior! But he couldn’t desert Hester, not while she was bargaining away her life for his. He was close enough to see the fear in her eye, and the sharp glitter of Shrike’s claws as he reached for her.
“VERY WELL,” the Stalker said. Gently, he stroked Hester’s face with the tips of the blades. “THE BOY CAN LIVE.” The hand drew back to strike. Hester shut her eye.
“Shrike!” howled Tom, hurling himself up and forward with the sword held out stiffly in front of him, feeling the green light spill across his face as Shrike spun hissing to meet him. An iron arm lashed out, hurling him backwards. He felt a searing pain in his chest and for a moment he was sure that he had been torn in two, but it was the Stalker’s forearm that struck him, not the bladed hand, and he landed in one piece and rolled over, gasping at the pain, expecting to see Shrike lunge at him and then nothing, ever again.
But Shrike was on the ground, and Hester was bending over him, and as Tom watched the Stalker’s eye flickered and something exploded inside him with a flash and a crack and a coil of smoke leaking upwards. The hilt of the sword jutted from one of the gashes in his chest, crackling with blue sparks.
“Oh, Shrike!” whispered Hester.
Shrike carefully sheathed his claws so that she could take his hand. Unexpected memories fluttered through his disintegrating mind, and he suddenly knew who he had been before they dragged him on to the Resurrection Slab to make a Stalker of him. He wanted to tell Hester, and he lifted his great iron head towards her, but before he could force the words out his death was upon him, and it was no easier this time than the last.
The great iron carcass settled into stillness, and smoke blew away on the wind. Down in the valley, horns were blowing, and Tom could see a party of riders starting up the hill from the caravanserai, alerted by the sound of gunfire. They carried spears and flaming torches, and he didn’t think they would be friendly. He tried to push himself upright, but the pain in his chest almost made him faint.
Hester heard him groan and swung towards him. “What did you do that for?” she shouted.
Tom could not have been more surprised if she had slapped him. “He was going to kill you!” he protested.
“He was going to make me like him!” screamed Hester, hugging Shrike. “Didn’t you hear what he said? He was going to make me everything I ever wanted; no memories, no feelings. Imagine Valentine’s face when I came for him! Oh, why do you keep interfering!”