“You can’t even do that! Pathetic creature!” Crowley leaned over the bomb and examined a dial. “Ten minutes remaining, Burton. Then, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, my reign will begin. Here—” he pushed the trolley forward a little, “—a fighting chance. If you amount to anything more than a man who scrabbles around looking for river sources and fabled mountains, you’ll have defused the bomb by the time I reach an access hatch and climb out of here.”
He turned and started to walk away.
Burton sheathed his rapier, reversed it, and holding it by its end tried to hook the trolley with its handle. He stretched and strained but just couldn’t reach. The trolley was a mere half-inch too far from him.
Crowley stopped and looked back. His skin was a pale purple in the lamplight. His black eyes were pitiless.
“I thought not,” he said. “Just an explorer.”
He continued down the tunnel.
“No!” Burton barked. He slid his cane back into his harness. “I haven’t been an explorer since you murdered Isabel Arundell.”
Crowley halted and swung around. “Then what?”
Burton straightened. “I am Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king’s agent.” He lifted the police whistle hanging from the cord around his neck, put it to his lips, and blew it as hard as he could. Its high-pitched shriek reverberated deafeningly in the confined space. He dropped it, slammed shut his helmet’s faceplate, and quickly turned the butterfly screws that locked it tight.
From far behind him, a loud clank sounded, followed by a deep, reverberating boom.
Crowley frowned. His mouth moved but Burton couldn’t hear what he said.
The sewage flowing around Burton’s legs suddenly rose to his waist, causing him to stagger. A rumbling turned into a roar. Unable to resist, Burton turned and looked back. A wall of brown sludge, moving at breathtaking speed, shot down the tunnel and slammed into him. It knocked him off his feet, enveloped him, and whirled him up into the middle of the channel. The harness pushed into his ribs harder and harder as the great weight of accumulated water, urine, excrement, animal waste, and filth of every imaginable description pressed against him and thundered over and around him. The noise was deafening, the pressure agonizing, the terror unendurable. He was battered up and down and from side to side, physically anchored by the chain but mentally swept away, feeling himself drowning in the depths of madness.
Hold on.
I can’t.
If I can, you can. Death has come for me, but it isn’t your time. I’ll stay with you until the crisis has passed.
Abdu El Yezdi?
I am you.
Help me.
Endure this. It is but a few minutes in eternity. Your role in the narrative is not done.
What?
The future beckons. It depends on you.
I don’t understand.
Soon you will embark on a new expedition.
Burton screamed as the harness cut into him. His ribs creaked. He couldn’t breathe. The surging liquid banged him against the ceiling. He was petrified that the helmet might break like an eggshell.
Listen to Swinburne. I have left you many resources, but none is more valuable than the poet. Trust his instincts above even your own. He has a vital role to play.
Please. Make it stop.
Know this: Edward Oxford is waking from his slumber.
Oxford is dead.
No. Spring Heeled Jack will return. But our brother is in a position of influence. You must become his Abdu El Yezdi. Through him, you can keep this world safe from the stilt-man. Play the card well.
No. No. No.
There is so much more I want to tell you. I’m sorry.
Sorry?
For so much. I pray you don’t suffer as I have. But peace will come to me now.
I’m dying. Bismillah! I’m dying.
No, you are not. But I am. Blessed release! I can see it. I can see it.
What? Tell me!
The roof of the tent. The dawn light upon the canvas. It’s beautiful. So beautiful. I’m going to step out.
No! Don’t leave me!
I have to. I want to look across the desert. I want to see the horizon again.
Please.
I hear the camel bells…
Burton’s back bumped into something solid. He felt himself drawn sideways. He realised that his left hand was pressed so hard against his swordstick—still secured by the harness—that it had cramped and he couldn’t move his fingers. The heels of his boots scraped across a corner. He was rising.
Foul gunk drained from his faceplate. Light shone through. Gravity tugged at him. Brickwork slid past, sinking downward.
He saw the round edge of a manhole, felt hands slide under his armpits, was hauled up, and was suddenly lying on his back looking up at a grey sky.
Fingers moved over him. The helmet turned. It was pulled away. He gulped in a huge breath of air.
“Wotcha!” Montague Penniforth said. “Cripes, I think me arms are goin’ to fall off! I ’ad the very devil of a time windin’ you in.”
“You stink worse than the Thames!” Swinburne exclaimed.
Burton didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed straight ahead. He was paralysed.
“Richard? Richard? My hat! What’s wrong with him?”
“Oof!” Penniforth grunted. “Sorry about this, guv’nor.” He leaned down and slapped Burton’s face, hard. He did it again.
The world crashed back into place.
“Stop,” Burton croaked. “Help me up.”
Careless of the muck that covered the king’s agent, Penniforth heaved him to his feet and set about undoing the undersea suit’s fastenings.
“Are you all right?” Swinburne asked.
“Yes.”
“I opened the sluice gate as soon as I heard the whistle. Did I flush him away?”
“You did. And the—” Burton was interrupted by a deep detonation that resounded across the city, shaking windows and causing screams and shouts of consternation. A colossal ball of flame and black smoke rolled into the eastern sky. “Bomb,” he finished. “Damnation. I hoped the sewage would disable it.” He shrugged out of the evil-smelling suit.
“That’s the Cauldron,” Swinburne said, watching the distant smoke mushrooming over the city. “The flood must have pushed the bomb down to the intercepting sewer and all the way there.”
“The eleventh hour,” Burton murmured. “The end of Crowley. The signing of the Alliance.”
Swinburne jumped into the air and yelled, “Hurrah!”
Burton looked up at the Orpheus, drifting nearby high over Green Park. “Perhaps I should have Lawless take me back to Africa,” he muttered. “For a rest.”
They returned to Battersea Power Station and were met by Nurse Nightingale. “He has passed,” she said. “Do you want to see him, Sir Richard?”
“Look upon my own corpse? No, Nurse, I could not bear to do that.”
Sadhvi Raghavendra, Thomas Honesty, and Daniel Gooch arrived with the DOGS trailing behind. One of Gooch’s mechanical arms was swinging loosely, having been damaged by a bullet. Many of his men were clutching wounds.
“They surrendered,” he said. “Detective Inspector Trounce is rounding them up. Krishnamurthy and Bhatti are helping. Galton was among the Enochians. No doubt he’ll go back to Bedlam. Crowley?”