The frame of the tricycle was buckled, now, and Newbury was practically hanging out of one side, his shoulder only a couple of feet from the ground, as the remnants of the machine continued its long slide across the floor. People were screaming. Wriggling his legs free, Newbury allowed gravity to take its course. He fell out of the ruined tricycle, his shoulder jarring painfully against the hard tiles. He slid to a stop, watching the wreckage of the machine slide away from him towards a nearby wal. His legs had come out of the machine twisted, but intact. He straightened himself out on the floor, surprised that he hadn't been seriously mangled in the crash. Around him, scattered coals still glowed with amber warmth.
A woman rushed forward to help him to his feet, murmuring platitudes. He accepted her arm, scrabbling to his feet and looking around for Ashford. She looked confused when he failed to acknowledge her words, but he had no choice: Ashford was getting away. The man moved fast, faster than Newbury could possibly conceive, but along one of the tunnels Newbury could see his black cloak fluttering as he barged his way through the crowd of passengers; hear also the clanging footsteps of his heavy boots, ringing out in the confined space.
Ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder, Newbury flexed his back, smiled at the young blonde woman who had helped him to his feet, and took off after Ashford. He hurtled along the white-tiled tunnel, pushing his way past rows of blank-faced civilians, who stared at him, dumbfounded, as he forced a path through their ranks, fol owing the hulking giant in the black cloak. Once more, Newbury had his prey in his sights. There was nowhere left for Ashford to run. He would end it here.
Newbury charged along behind the rogue agent, skipping down a series of tiled steps towards the platform. His face was set with grim determination, but nevertheless, he almost laughed out loud when he saw a faded, sepia-coloured bill pasted on the tunnel wall, advertising the miraculous stage show of "The Mysterious Alfonso". He swept past it, driving inwards.
Newbury burst out onto the platform a moment later, only to see, bewildered, the other man leap down onto the train tracks and dart towards the dark mouth of the Underground tunnel at the end of the platform. Newbury ran to the edge of the platform and threw himself forward, jumping high into the air and coming down hard on Ashford's shoulders. Ashford twisted, stumbling on the steel tracks and tottering over under the weight and momentum of the Crown detective. He banged his head, hard, against the curved tunnel wal, and it rang out with the sound of metal striking stone.
There were shouts of alarm from the passengers waiting on the platform edge. Newbury heard a whistle blow. The police were on their way. Far from being concerned, Newbury was relieved. If he could only detain Ashford for long enough, perhaps the bobbies would be able to help him restrain the man.
The metal runners of the track were hard against Newbury's back. He was growing weary now, but Ashford, seemingly indestructible, was already climbing to his feet. Newbury mustered his remaining strength. He jumped to his feet, punching out at the rogue agent. His fist connected with the other man's chin, slamming his head backwards, but the blow was almost enough to incapacitate Newbury, for his hand felt as if he had driven it into a lump of solid iron. He glanced at his knuckles.
They were shredded, bleeding and sore.
Unperturbed, Ashford lurched forward, using the flat of his hand to slap Newbury hard in the chest. The blow was enough to immediately knock him from his feet. He cal ed out as he scrabbled on the ground. "Ashford! What's the matter with you, man? Have you lost al sense? Give it up!"
Ashford's voice, when he spoke, was a grating, metallic whine. Every word was like a fragment of song, and Newbury had the sense that, somehow, it was being artificially induced. It sounded as if it were being squeezed from a clutch of miniature organ pipes in his throat, like a chorus of a hundred people al speaking the same words at once. But there was no emotion in it, no sense of the person Ashford had once been. The sound seemed to echo from a wheezing vent in his chest. It was cold and inhuman, just like the man himself. "Cease and desist, Sir Maurice. I don't want to hurt you." He stepped cautiously over the train tracks to loom over the prone Newbury. During the tussle, however, Ashford's long cloak had become tangled in the steel runners. In stepping forward, the cloak tore open, exposing, momentarily, the horrifying figure it harboured underneath.
Newbury gasped in shock. "My God! What did they do to you?" The words seemed to catch in his throat. Newbury knew, now, the origin of that detestable stench. Ashford was less than half the man he had once been; less than half the human being he had once been. His body had been ravaged, reassembled from a shocking assortment of flesh and brass, like a patchwork monster made real, a nightmare marriage of metal and blood. What flesh there still was, clinging to his brass exoskeleton, was rotten, decaying, sloughing away in great hunks. In places, large patches of leather had been stitched indelicately to this remaining flesh in an attempt to give some semblance of skin, but had succeeded only in exacerbating the monstrous appearance of the man. Newbury had no idea whether this was a part of Dr. Fabian's original design, or whether Ashford had attempted to repair himself during his five-year exile in St. Petersburg. It mattered not. The result was grotesque.
The man's torso was perhaps the most disturbing aspect of al. The exposed skin of his chest was puckered and pustulant around a large glass porthole that filled the space where his ribcage had once resided. In the murky depths it revealed, Newbury could see the grey muscle of the man's heart, beating in time with a flickering electrical charge that shocked it repeatedly at intervals, like the precise ticking of a clock. Fluid burbled and bubbled along four clear pipes that sprouted, like giant follicles, from his shoulders, curling around the back of his head and disappearing into the depths of his skul. The brown, murky liquid appeared to be pumped around his brain cavity by a further device buried deep inside his chest. His face was just as alarming. The tiny lenses of his eyes flicked back and forth over Newbury's prone body, the red lights glowing in the darkness. When he opened his mouth, Newbury saw that his teeth had decayed to black stumps. What hair was left was hung in long, straggling clumps, and the flesh of his scalp was torn, revealing the horrific juxtaposition of yel owed bone and metal plating underneath.
Newbury shuddered. So this was the disgusting genius of Dr. Fabian, taken to its extreme. He could hardly believe this had been sanctioned by the Crown. He pitied the man, despite himself.
Newbury had no idea how Ashford could go on living like this. It was a form of waking torture, that every minute his intel ect should be housed in this wreckage of a frame, this parody of a human body. No wonder the man had been driven insane. Newbury was amazed it had not happened sooner. Indeed, he felt a kind of sickening sympathy for the man, an understanding of the desperation that had led him to this point. Science had betrayed him, and so had the Crown.
His life had been extended beyond the point of death, certainly, but Newbury doubted it was a life worth living; the pain and hardship he must have suffered since his resurrection would have driven any man insane. And now Ashford had turned to the occult, hoping to find a means to restore himself, to reclaim the life that was once his. It was tragic, and Newbury was repulsed, not only by what the man had become, but the means by which he had become it. Nevertheless, regardless of circumstances, Ashford had committed two murders, and whatever happened there in the train tunnel he needed to be brought to justice.
Newbury inched backwards, shuffling along the tracks, trying to put some distance between himself and the strange, mechanical man. Ashford stooped low in response, as if reaching for Newbury's ankle. The detective rol ed, using his momentum to spring up onto his hands and knees and then twisting into a standing position. He fired out a blind kick in Ashford's general direction, in an attempt to keep the other man at bay whilst he found his bearings. To his surprise, his foot hit home, although it seemed to have little effect other than to give Newbury some extra leverage to right himself. Again, Ashford attempted to slap at Newbury with the palm of his hand, swatting at him as if he were a buzzing insect, but Newbury was able to skip away, watchful that his feet did not become entangled in the rails. He could not work out what Ashford was trying to achieve with such bizarre tactics. Surely a trained agent, a man who had lived rough in a foreign territory for over five years, would have developed more comprehensive combat manoeuvres? Especially a man with such power. If he were able to plant even one successful blow to Newbury's head or gut, Newbury knew it would be the end of him. He'd fought machines before, but this was an entirely different proposition. No, it was almost as if, with these flat-handed attacks, Ashford was genuinely attempting not to wound him, instead choosing to parry Newbury's ineffective blows and disable him with the least amount of effort. Perhaps he was telling the truth? Perhaps he really didn't want to hurt him?