For thirty seconds, they were blinded and deafened by the din, and their skin crawled as the air itself was filled with static. Then, rapidly, the tumult subsided and as Burton unshielded his eyes there came a final flash, which momentarily illuminated the mouth of the hole in the wall, revealing the faces of Bhatti and Krishnamurthy.
The two men ducked back out of sight.
“Prepare yourself,” Burton whispered to Swinburne. “On my word, we’ll rush out and cause as much damage as possible.”
“It breathes!” Crowley cried out. “It breathes! See, Burton—I have made a new life!”
Through the bars of the gate, the explorer examined Crowley’s creation. Its wide chest was rising and falling in steady respiration.
“Lister!” Crowley barked. “Examine it! Examine it, man!”
A young fellow, remarkable for his high forehead and bushy sideburns, stepped into view. He listened with a trumpet-shaped stethoscope to the tall figure’s heart, took its pulse, then pressed an instrument to the side of its head and pushed a button. The artificial man groaned, then became still as Lister stepped away.
“It’s ready,” he said.
Crowley nodded his satisfaction. He stepped to the throne and stood face to face with his creation. Putting his hands to either side of its head, he used his thumbs to push open its eyelids, revealing the black eyeballs beneath. He gazed into them and said to one of the Enochians, “This will take a few minutes. Do not disturb me. When the transfer is complete, this body I currently inhabit will collapse. Imprison it. I intend to make Thomas Honesty suffer for all the trouble he’s given me.”
He became silent and motionless.
Lister, Darwin, Galton, Sister Raghavendra, and the Enochians stood back and watched, oblivious to all but Crowley.
“Quietly,” Burton hissed. “We’ll move around behind them. Grab something to clock the Enochians over the head with.”
He eased open the gate and slipped out into the passage. Swinburne followed. Bhatti and Krishnamurthy cautiously emerged from the burrow at the other end of the catacomb. They’d obviously watched and waited for Burton to make the first move. He signalled to them to keep to the right, where they wouldn’t be seen unless someone turned around.
The explorer inched past a quietly buzzing metal structure, squatted, and put up a hand to signal Krishnamurthy to halt. The young Indian nodded, then looked horrified, raised his pistol, pointed it at Burton, and fired. The report was tremendous in the enclosed space. Burton felt the bullet brush past his ear and thud into something behind him. He turned. Hare loomed over him. Swinburne hollered as a ten-fingered hand clamped his forearm, yanked him into the air, and hurled him spinning into a wall. Burton dived toward a length of pipe he saw on a workbench, intending to employ it as a cudgel. Hare’s great weight thumped down onto him before he reached it. He was aware of shouts and screams. More shots resounded through the chamber. A stone surface slammed into his face. He was flung upward, hit the ceiling hard, and dropped onto a table. It collapsed beneath him. Tools clanged across the floor. Burton tried to rise but the heel of a foot smashed into the side of his face. He went down again, felt himself lifted, and was enveloped in a crushing embrace.
Through blurring eyes, he saw Thomas Honesty fall back from the throne and collapse to the floor; saw the Enochians drawing pistols; saw everyone scattering for cover. Reports rent the air as guns fired.
Burton felt himself turned and forced down, back first, onto a knotted limb. His spine was bent to its limit then pushed beyond it. Pain flared. With his one free hand he punched, grabbed, and clawed, but to no effect. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
The agony increased. His vertebrae crunched. Darkness narrowed his vision as if he were sinking into a well.
He groped for his jacket pocket, found the opening, slipped his fingers into it, and retrieved the lock-pick.
Momentarily, there was nothing, then Burton’s senses returned as he sprawled backward onto the floor, felt a tremendous release, and looked up at the bellowing and thrashing monstrosity standing over him. The lock-pick was deeply embedded in one of Hare’s many eyes.
The explorer rolled out of reach and tried to take measure of the chaos around him. Swinburne was nearby, grappling with Francis Galton, the two men rolling on the floor, screaming and shouting as they punched and wrestled.
One of the Enochians was down with a bullet in his shoulder, but two more men, who’d been working in one of the side tunnels, had raced out and were taking pot-shots at Bhatti and Krishnamurthy, pinning them in a corner behind a barrel-shaped contraption.
Crowley’s mesmerised captives clung to the ground, making themselves as small as possible. Sadhvi Raghavendra was nearby, crouching beside a thick column of bundled cables. Burton crawled toward her. Bullets ricocheted around him.
The Trans-Temporal Man opened his jet-black eyes. He turned his head and shouted at one of the Enochians, “Get over here and unstrap me. At once!”
“Sadhvi!” Burton called. He put his hand to the side of her jaw and turned her face until she was looking dazedly at him. “Break loose! Don’t let him control you.”
The explorer radiated mesmeric authority. It was a technique he’d practised many times, attempting to dominate and influence through the eyes alone—but he’d only ever succeeded with it after preparation and in silent and calm environments. How could it possibly be effective in the midst of a pitched battle?
“Feel his presence in your mind,” he shouted above the din, “and step aside from it. Step aside, Sadhvi. He has no control over you.”
She frowned and blinked in confusion. All of a sudden, she and the column and the wall behind it jerked away from Burton and rapidly receded. For an instant, his disoriented mind struggled to comprehend what was happening, then he realised something was gripping his ankle and dragging him away from her. He snatched at a table leg. The furniture overturned, sending short lengths of pipe clanking onto the flagstones. He grabbed one, rolled onto his back, and used it to club Gregory Hare. The creature’s hold loosened. Burton kicked himself free, staggered to his feet, reversed the pipe in his grip, and holding it at one end with both hands, stabbed it downward into to misshapen mass of Hare’s body. It pierced the mottled skin and sank into flesh. Hare emitted an ear-splitting noise, like the whistle of a locomotive, and shoved Burton away, sending him reeling into a workbench.
Swinburne kicked free of Galton, charged at the thrashing creature, and launched himself into the air, landing amid the flailing limbs and applying his full weight to the pipe. It sank deeper. Blood fountained from its end.
Krishnamurthy bellowed across the chamber, “Get away from it, Swinburne!”
Before the poet could oblige, a knotted fist caught him on the point of the chin. His head snapped back and he toppled to the floor, skidding across it, leaving a smear of Hare’s blood behind him.
Krishnamurthy immediately jumped from cover and loosed a volley of shots. Burton, on his knees, felt the bullets drilling through the air above him and heard them thump into Hare’s body.
Hare shrieked and tumbled backward.
The explorer yelled, “Straight to hell with you, Gregory Hare!”
Beyond the floundering creature, Damien Burke stepped into view, having returned from the Dissenters’ Church. He calmly took in the scene, pulled the odd-looking cactus pistol from his pocket, and shot a spine into Swinburne, who was struggling to his feet. The poet sagged back to the flagstones.
Burke turned his attention to Burton. The explorer scrabbled away from him but felt a sharp pain in the side of his neck. He reached up and plucked a spine from it. His senses began to swim. He sagged onto his side and, with dimming vision, watched as one of the Enochians unstrapped Crowley. The Trans-Temporal Man rose from the throne and shouted, “Enough of this!”