Veronica scrambled to her feet and checked herself over. Remarkably, aside from a few minor scrapes and a smarting elbow, she was unhurt.
The kitchen was already deserted. She guessed the staff must have bolted at the sound of the first explosion, probably hiding elsewhere in the house or trying to find another way out.
The kitchen behind her suddenly erupted in noise as the man who had been shooting at them outside aimed his Gatling gun through the open window and hosed the room with bullets, trying to pick out her and Newbury. Veronica kept low and wriggled towards the door on her belly, grabbing a steel tray and holding it over her head as a makeshift shield. The man’s gun wouldn’t pivot low enough to reach them on the floor, so he continued to hose the walls above them, meaning she had to watch for falling debris from above as she tried desperately to get to the door and away from the hail of bullets.
Seconds later the gun whirred to silence and Veronica was through the door. She glanced back to see Newbury right behind her. She helped him to his feet.
The hallway was in a atrocious state, with fallen chunks of masonry blocking a number of the corridors that stemmed from it and flames curling at the edges of the doors, spiralling plumes of thick black smoke into the air. The first floor above them had been almost entirely destroyed, and through the splintered, smouldering floorboards Veronica could see grey clouds hanging low in the sky, and the fiery trails of bombs as they streamed towards the building, causing the building to shake with every impact.
“We have to get to Amelia, now!” Newbury bellowed, and he set off down the hallway, ducking beneath a shattered beam as he led the way to her room via the route that Fabian had taken when he’d taken Newbury to see her sister during their previous visit. Veronica hoped they weren’t already too late, and that she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
Amelia sat in her wheelchair by the fireplace and watched as the world came to an end. It was just as she’d seen in her vision, and she was prepared. She wasn’t scared so much as resigned, ready to finally face the death that she’d been holding back for years.
She would have liked to see Veronica one last time. It saddened her that she’d never have a chance to share a kind word with her sister again or-perhaps more important-to thank her for everything she’d done. Veronica had sacrificed so much for her. She’d fought against their parents’ prejudice at every turn, and, as a consequence she’d finally been cast out of the family home on a pittance, forced to take a job as an administrator at the museum and to spend what money she had securing an apartment of her own in Kensington. Amelia wanted her sister to know how grateful she was for that, the difference it had made. She was sure she had lived as long as she had because of that sisterly patronage.
Amelia glanced out the window. The once beautiful garden had been transformed into a blazing vision of Hell. The ancient gods, once standing proud in their evergreen vigil, had been reduced to nothing but cinders and smoke. She found it ironic that something so beautiful should be so difficult to create and yet so easy to destroy. She supposed that was true of life, too, and the fragility of it terrified her.
She had no idea why the building was under attack. She supposed she didn’t really want to know. It was enough for her to know that today was the day she had foreseen in her visions. She was ready. And when Mr. Calverton came for her, as she knew he would, with his leering face and ghastly, piercing eyes, she would produce the poker she had secured in the folds of her blanket and she would defend herself. She didn’t hold much hope of success, but if Veronica had taught her one thing during her short time, it was to fight. And while it wouldn’t ultimately save her life, fight she would.
Amelia turned at the sound of her door creaking open. So soon? She had hoped for at least a little while longer. But when the man in the doorway stepped forward, she was surprised to see that it was not Mr. Calverton, as she had expected, but Dr. Fabian.
The doctor stumbled into the room, catching hold of the doorframe to prevent himself from toppling over. She saw he was badly wounded, his left thigh burned and bloody through a rent in his torn trousers. “Hello, Amelia,” he said. His voice was reedy and high-pitched. He was clenching his teeth in pain, opening and closing his fists in an effort to stave off the agony of his wounds. He edged farther into the room.
Amelia was overcome with sorrow for the man. “Dr. Fabian! You shouldn’t be here. Go. Get out, before it’s too late. Leave me here.”
Fabian used his index finger to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His expression was hard. He shook his head. “No, Amelia, you’re coming with me.” He sounded definite, commanding.
“No. I’ll only slow you down,” Amelia protested. “I’m dying anyway-we both know as much. You should save yourself. Your work is too important.” She knew the likelihood was that they’d both die in the blaze if he attempted to rescue her, especially reduced to such an awful condition himself. At least this way one of them could survive.
Stubbornly, Fabian kept on coming towards her. “No, Amelia. You’re too important. Too…” He trailed off, gasping in agony as he forced himself to walk, dragging his damaged leg across the carpet. Behind him, through the open door, Amelia could see the hallway was fully ablaze. The stink of burning wood filled the air, and smoke boiled in through the opening. He must have staggered through the flames to get to her.
“Listen, I rea-” She stopped dead at the arrival of a second person, who burst in through a plume of black smoke as if emerging suddenly from the flames themselves.
The woman was wild eyed and dressed in a filthy white nightgown. She was painfully thin and her head was adorned with a spill of thick, black hair. Amelia had to look twice before she realised exactly who the newcomer was.
It was her.
The duplicate held its head back and screamed in wild abandon, a deep, guttural wail that bore more resemblance to the cry of an animal than that of a human being. Amelia screamed in terror at the nightmarish thing, and the strange, feral woman-who looked almost entirely like her-glared at her, drooling and swaying.
Amelia looked to Fabian, who was backing away from the duplicate with an expression of horror and surprise.
The other Amelia rushed towards her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her violently in her chair. Amelia wailed as her doppelganger gnashed its teeth only inches from her face. It smelled of faeces and soot, and its nails dug into the soft skin around her neck. She tried to push the thing away from her, but it hung on to her with surprising strength. She called out to Dr. Fabian, but he didn’t respond.
Still holding on to Amelia, the doppelganger’s head lolled back, its eyes rolled up in its sockets, and it began babbling under its breath. “Cracking walls and fire and pain. Brass engines of destruction will tear down the world, and the man with the white face shall come out of the darkness. The one who sits in the chair. She is the key. She is the nightmare at the eye of the storm.”
Amelia screamed. It was describing the contents of her vision. It was impossible. She wondered for a moment if she were already dead, if this were some sort of terrible purgatory, if she were hallucinating because of the fire, or because of her illness. She didn’t know what to think. But she knew she had to get away from the creature, somehow. She couldn’t bear to look at it any longer, with its dark, feral eyes; the way it screeched like an animal.