The grandfather clock in the hallway below, as if encouraging his nascent revelation, chimed nine.
A detonation rattled the windows.
Startled, Burton jumped to his feet.
There came a loud crash from downstairs.
In the street, people yelled and screamed.
“What now?” he muttered.
He heard Mrs. Angell cry out in alarm. Fidget woke up, dived beneath a table, and started to bark.
A voice roared, “Burton!”
Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs, and the study door flew open, slamming against the bookshelf behind it, sending books spilling to the floor.
Spring Heeled Jack ducked through the opening and stalked in.
“Burton! Have I found you? Here? In this side note?”
Burton rapidly backed away until his heels bumped against the hearth. He thought fast and said, “Side note? Perhaps in a biography? A book written about me after my death? One that exists in the future? Is that how you know the places I frequent?”
He observed the intruder’s smooth chest. No scratch. A different mechanism. Not the one he’d fought in Leicester Square.
“Why am I here?” the creature demanded. It shoved a desk aside and kicked a chair out of its way. “What have you done?”
“I don’t—”
Before Burton could finish, Jack pounced forward, seized him by the lapels, and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Why are you significant?”
The king’s agent felt his fingertips brush against a poker. He pulled it from its stand, swept it up, and whipped it against the side of his assailant’s head.
“Get the hell off me!”
Spring Heeled Jack dropped him and staggered to the side, putting a hand to its dented cranium. “Where is the prime minister? What am I doing here? I’m lost! I’m lost!”
“Just stop!” Burton commanded. “Calm down. We can talk.”
The figure crouched, and Burton was convinced that, had there been a face, it would be snarling.
“It’s your fault!” Jack said.
Burton brandished the poker like a sword. “Stay back, I say! What is my fault? From where—and when—have you come?”
Disregarding the questions, the intruder took one slow step closer, its head waving from side to side like a cobra’s. A shudder ran through it. “Prime Minister. Guide me. Please!”
“Which prime minister?” Burton asked. “Whom do you serve?”
Raising its blank face to the ceiling, Jack hollered, “I serve Queen Victoria!”
It lunged forward, knocked the poker from Burton’s hand, and slapped the side of his head with such force that the king’s agent was sent spinning across the room into a desk and to the floor.
Please. Not again.
He glimpsed Mrs. Angell standing in the doorway with Bram Stoker. They both had their hands clenched over their mouths. He cried out, “Stay back! Fetch the pol—”
He was grabbed by the neck, hauled upright, and struck again, viciously. His head jerked sideways, and blood sprayed from his mouth.
“Tell me! Tell me!” Jack screamed. “Why do I fear you?”
Burton rasped, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He saw his housekeeper crossing the room behind his attacker, opened his mouth to warn her away, but hadn’t a chance to utter a sound before a fist impacted against his eye. He clutched at Spring Heeled Jack’s arms. His muscles, already weakened, were no match for the creature. It shoved him hard against the wall.
The wind knocked out of him, Burton slid to his knees and put a hand down to steady himself. A glutinous string of blood oozed from his mouth and nose. He looked up. “You insane bastard.”
Jack loomed over him. “I want to go home.”
There came a loud thunk. The white head fell from the shoulders and bounced onto the floor. The figure folded down on top of Burton. Blue sparks crackled from its severed neck. They sputtered and died.
He struggled from beneath it.
Mrs. Angell, with her hands clutched around the hilt of a scimitar, said, “It’s kneading the bread and tenderising the meat what does it.”
“Does what?” Burton croaked, as he struggled to his feet.
“Puts the strength in me arms, sir. Did I do the right thing? Panicked, I did. Grabbed this here sword off your wall and afore I knew what I was intending I’d chopped the head off the clockwork man. A new type, is it? I hope they haven’t built many of ’em, not if they loses control of ’emselves like what this ’un did!”
“You were splendid, Mother Angell.” Burton took her by the elbow as the weapon dropped from her hand, and she suddenly swayed. “Sit down, dear.”
“My heart’s all a flutter,” she said tremulously. “It’s lucky you keep your blades so sharp. Goodness gracious, but look at your poor face. Thumped again! You don’t ’alf make an ’abit of it.”
The king’s agent pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and applied it to his mouth. His bottom lip was split, and the cut on his chin had reopened.
“Is our front door broken?” His voice sounded unsteady.
“The main lock, but it weren’t bolted.”
“Stay here. I’ll go and make us a little more secure.” He nudged his foot into the prone form of Spring Heeled Jack—it was completely lifeless—then walked to the door, stopped, and looked back. “That was a very brave thing you did.”
“Oof!” she responded. “Oof!”
He lurched down the stairs, his legs almost giving way, went to the front door, and examined its splintered frame. The lock had been knocked out of the wood, but the bolts at the top and bottom of the portal were intact.
Bram Stoker appeared on the doorstep with two constables in tow.
“I fetched the coppers!” the lad exclaimed. “Crikey! What was it?”
Both policemen were familiar to Burton, and they, in turn, knew he was the king’s agent. He greeted them. “Kapoor. Tamworth. I’ve just been assaulted. Can’t go into details. I need you to stand sentry duty until further notice.”
His authority was absolute. They asked no questions, but saluted and immediately positioned themselves at either side of his doorstep.
“Bram, will you get messages to Mr. Krishnamurthy and Mr. Bhatti. They’re probably at Battersea Power Station. I need them to come here immediately with a wagon big enough to cart off our uninvited guest.”
The boy raced away. Burton addressed P. C. Tamworth. “I’m leaving the door ajar. Let my guests through when they arrive, please.”
Hearing the stairs creak, he turned and saw Mrs. Angell descending with Fidget behind her.
“He ain’t much of a guard dog, is he?” she said.
“You should rest.”
“Oh, don’t fuss. I’m all right. I’m a policeman’s widow, ain’t I? Seen some things in my time, I have, though stilted men without faces takes the biscuit. Fair chills the blood. I’ll fetch a raw steak for that eye an’ me broom for your study.”
“I’ll clean the mess.”
Mrs. Angell grumbled, “Well, see that you do. I don’t care ’ow much time you’ve spent among them African head-hunters, I’ll not ’ave stray noggins layin’ around the house.” She headed toward her basement domain, the dog following.
Burton went up to his bedroom, sponged his wounds, then returned to his study and closed the door. After placing the spilled books back onto the shelves, he crossed to Spring Heeled Jack and retrieved the creature’s decapitated head from beneath a chair. He carried it to one of his desks, sat, and started to inspect it. What he saw unnerved him so much that he dropped it and had to pick it up again. The outer skin of the creature was a waxy, cold and pliable material that he couldn’t identify, but inside, amid manufactured parts, there was pink flesh.
“Bismillah!” Burton muttered. “What are you? Man or machine?”
He had to wait until midnight for Krishnamurthy and Bhatti, and when they arrived, Burton was surprised to hear a third person piling up the stairs with them. They hurtled into the room without ceremony, and the addition proved to be Detective Inspector Trounce.