Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) (39 page)

A mere half-dozen bullets would not have been sufficient to kill Harkeen, McBane realized amidst the chaotic thoughts assaulting his mind. In the end, it was not the volley of gunfire that brought the huge assassin to his demise. A flaming limb grasped him just before being withdrawn into that rapidly diminishing vortex.

Harkeen was gone.

The creature of darkness vanished, driven away by the defense mounted by the men. Whether or not the flames of the explosion had delivered it a mortal wound, it had returned to the demesne from which it had been called. Nothing remained to prove it had ever existed, except the unworldly scent of charred alien flesh.

Though numb of mind from what he had witnessed, McBane realized their plan,
Bronislav’s
plan, had fallen through. Somehow Holmes had known it was a trap.

Yes,
Bronislav’s
plan, not his. But McBane knew he would be held accountable for its failure.

Harkeen had been his choice.

Still, McBane told himself, all was not lost. The situation could still be saved. Already he was devising plots and machinations that might bring the idol into his master’s possession. Not his plan, he would point out, but here is what you should do, Mr Bronislav, here is how to salvage the situation. The failure of a plan that was not McBane’s might actually work to prove his worth to Bronislav, he hoped, might serve to reveal the sagacity of leaving all future details for operations in his capable hands.

Yes, that was it, the path to follow. Bronislav was an intelligent man and would not break the chain of logic McBane was forging even as he turned away from the debacle of
Bronislav’s
making. Resolved to make the best of a bad situation, he hurried away to keep his appointment at The Doves.

“What was it Holmes?” Challenger demanded. “What was that damned thing?”

“If you were to ask these Pinkerton operatives now, they might tell you it was the devil,” Holmes replied, leaning against one of the bridge’s trusses. “Ask them tomorrow, and they might deny they saw anything at all. Such is the weakness and strength of the ordinary man’s mind.”

“I shall never forget what I saw, nor shall you,” Challenger accused. “Was it really what it seemed, a demon called forth from the netherworlds?”

“In the past, when the Church held sway and men’s fates were still the province of gods, it might have been described as such,” Holmes admitted. “But this is the age of science. Men have not completely put aside their gods, but they no longer define the universe by the wills of divine or infernal beings. Science has taken the world for its own, as you tried to convince poor Wilkins, but physicists like Planck, Tesla and Einstein are also appropriating heaven and hell, though they would no doubt deny it.”

“How can you accept what we both saw as part of reality?” Challenger said. “The mind rebels…”

“Which is why these men will recall little of what manifested itself here, and will deny what they do recall,” Holmes pointed out. “They defend the views they hold as truth through the mechanisms of denial and self-induced amnesia. Men who assert themselves in this world by means of their intellects and define it by logic and deductive reasoning do not have that luxury. Men, such as you and I, cannot simply deny our eyes, nor can we explain it away by calling it either god or demon. Were we savages, primitive but not ignorant, as you so often point out, and were to behold for the first time a railroad train or one of Germany’s dirigible airships, others of our tribe might worship it, but we would study it and eventually derive its true nature. Such is the situation now. Our fellow tribesmen might want to worship or exorcise the beast, but we must admit its mortality, and from that mortality deduce the existence of worlds unseen.”

After a very long moment, Challenger nodded. “And that which man calls magic and the occult…”

“Realms perceived through a glass darkly,” Holmes explained. “As if all we knew of France was what we might discern from peering across the Channel through a telescope possessing warped lenses. Heretofore, such observations have been made solely by unreliable observers like Crowley and Bronislav, using whatever crude instruments as were devised by the intuitive talents of the Ancients. That, of course, will change as we progress through the Twentieth Century and science begins a systematic investigation of electricity and whatever other energies might exist beyond the ken of our limited senses.”

“Such admiration for scientific disciplines beyond chemistry and biology,” Challenger mused. “Perhaps you will apply yourself to the study of astronomy.”

Holmes scowled. “Even in an age driven by science I doubt I shall ever care whether the sun orbits the earth, or the reverse.”

“I see,” Challenger said, nodding bemusedly. “What next, Holmes? Now that we and Bronislav have tipped our hands towards each other, what shall we do?”

“The next step,” Holmes replied, “is to seek out Chief Inspector Durant. By now he should be ready to redeem himself in the eyes of his superiors.”

Chapter Eleven

Laslo Bronislav did not look back as he left The Doves Coffee-house. Nothing in his demeanor or carriage indicated anything was amiss or that he was in a hurry.

The beclouding mesmerism with which he afflicted the mind of the serving lad had worked perfectly, and still was. He had stood by blindly while that fool McBane died. With any amount of luck, the police would fix the blame on the lad, taking his vacant memory as proof of a guilty conscience. Despite McBane’s earlier assertions to the contrary, the police of London were just as incompetent as its criminal element, as far as Bronislav was concerned.

It was unfortunate that McBane had to die, but what choice did Bronislav have? He gave the man every chance to prove himself worthy of association, but in the end McBane was just another stupid criminal. Bronislav blamed himself. He should have known better. Others had tried to walk the dark path upon which he journeyed, and they too had become worm-food. Still, McBane had seen Bronislav’s work with a lucidity the others had lacked, and that quality alone should have given him a chance to succeed.

True, the plan had been of Bronislav’s own devising, but the responsibility for its success remained with McBane. Harkeen had been a man of McBane’s choosing. Had he not broken from cover before the Devourer had dispatched Holmes and Challenger, the outcome might have gone another way. Harkeen’s impetuousness had obviously tilted the game in favor of the consulting detective and his companions.

Companions? That
was
disturbing, Bronislav mused as he made his way back toward his Kensington abode. How Holmes had discovered the nature of the trap was perplexing, but he suspected it was due to some lapse on McBane’s part. He had put too much stock in McBane’s self-aggrandizing, had let him have too much of a hand in planning the acquisition of the M’tollo idol. Obviously, McBane’s bumbling had somehow alerted the detective to the idol’s importance, probably when he encountered them outside the British Museum. But the real question was how much Holmes actually knew about Laslo Bronislav.

He gave Crowley’s name to Whitecliff as a jest, but that irritating bug knew nothing about him. Had his association with McBane been more costly than he knew? McBane claimed anonymity in the gangs, but who could say if that was true?

Bronislav quickened his pace. Normally he might have enjoyed the rather rural nature of the path once free of King Street and the Hammersmith Station, communing with the darkness he always sensed at the edges of reality. He was ever aware of the furtive beings still haunting the places where mankind’s encroachment was not complete, but this morning his mind was in a turmoil. He was not afraid, for he feared nothing, neither of humanity’s abode nor the unsuspected realms beyond, but his sudden concerns about the extent of Holmes’ knowledge made him more wary.

He had had enough of these games. No more of the intricate machinations of which McBane had been so fond. He would take the most direct route, just as he had done to wrest the idol from its savage caretakers in the first place, hiring a dark-souled man who would kill as many people as necessary to steal it. It made no difference whether it was in the heart of the Maldives or in the wilds of the most populous city on earth. In fact, the closeness of the human animal in London might be an asset, as it had proven when his otherworldly agent had slain slatternly dollymops in the proper geographic pattern back in ’88. If it became necessary for him to loose floodgates of blood, he would do so, for it would ultimately swirl away into the sewers of London without a trace, quickly forgotten by people who did not want to remember.

He felt somewhat better now, more confident after his rationalization of the situation, at least as it pertained to Sherlock Holmes and Professor George Edward Challenger. As to the trio of Orms that had taken up residence in the brackish reaches of the Thames, that was another matter entirely.

He would have to do something about them, somehow.

Vanquished gods were always so troublesome.

Perhaps there was some way they could be put to use.

Chief Inspector Winston Durant of Scotland Yard signaled his men to move forward, but not to approach too closely. He pressed to his ear a device connected to a copper wire that vanished into a nearby sewer opening. At his side was George Dunning, a stout-shouldered lantern-jawed representative of the Home Office, a silent man who never revealed whether anything pleased him or not. At the moment, however, this agent of His Majesty’s Government, who could hold his career in his hands, was of no concern to Durant. His attention was focused on the red brick building in Bermondsey, off Union Road, across the Thames from the night-shrouded London Docks, by all accounts, the site of some furtive activities, both ashore and upon the river.

He had hoped Sherlock Holmes would be here to see the end of the chase, for it had been due in large part to information provided by him that Durant had come to this point. Others in the Yard regarded Holmes as a meddler, a publicity-monger, a dilettante, but Durant was not one of them. True, he had at one time let his judgement of Holmes be colored by the opinions of his then peers and superiors, but time and association had changed him The very fact that none other than he and Holmes knew the part the detective had played in this vital investigation, and at Holmes’ own insistence, was all the proof Durant needed of Holmes’ intentions.

All the suspects were inside the building, but he held back. He wanted to capture as many as possible despite all that had been done against the nation and those of Durant’s personal acquaintance. He did not want this to become a blood bath for either side. Besides, he was not about to let the Separatists easily have any martyrs. So he waited, listening for the soft clack of an electric switch that would indicate the cellar wall had been broached.

Then it came, the signal from the sappers loaned from the Royal Corps of Engineers and the chemist recommended by Holmes. He motioned for his men to close in; at that moment, a loud report sounded simultaneously from the building before them. The ground beneath their feet shuddered. Acrid smoke billowed outward and with it came droves of Irish sympathizers, into the waiting arms of the police and military. A few shots were fired, but in the smoke and confusion no one was hit.

Enclosed police wagons moved out of the darkness of the branching lanes and the gasping Dynamiters were tossed in.

Masked troops entered the building to make a complete sweep. The force that had gone in through the sewers came out, several prisoners in tow.

Some might have considered it a too-quiet end to a long chase, but to Durant’s thinking there had already been too much killing. He was more than glad to see an end to it and a return to his regular duties, if only for a little while.

“What are you doing here?” the normally silent Home Office man exclaimed.

Durant turned to see Dunning shaking the hand of Sherlock Holmes; at Holmes’ side was that Challenger fellow. Both of them appeared as if they had been in a bigger fight than any here had witnessed.

“Merely to see Chief Inspector Durant’s triumph,” Holmes said. He shook the police inspector’s hand firmly. “Congratulations on a job well done, Chief Inspector. Londoners may now enjoy a far more peaceful rest than any have known recently.”

The Home Office representative looked warily form man to man, wondering what went unsaid behind the words.

Durant searched the detective’s gaze for some ulterior motive, some faint trace of the mockery which others reported, or imagined, but found only sincere admiration.

Finally, Dunning firmly placed his big hand on Durant’s shoulder. “Good work, Chief Inspector. Please render Mr Holmes and Professor Challenger whatever assistance they might require.”

“Certainly, sir, but what can…” Durant replied, but Dunning was already moving away.

“A good haul, Chief Inspector Durant,” Holmes remarked.

“Due in no small part to your…”

“My part in this matter was truly inconsequential,” Holmes interrupted, “yet I pray it was enough to acquire your gratitude, and hence your cooperation in a matter too confidential to explain and too fantastic to believe.”

The Chief Inspector looked at the awkward paper-wrapped bundle carried by Professor Challenger. He had heard certain rumors around the Yard, whispers of how Holmes and Challenger, along with Wilkins, had got themselves mired in some sort of nasty business involving murder and devil worshippers. Maybe they had and maybe they had not, but even if the man from the Home Office had not expressed a desire for cooperation, he would still have given it willingly. He knew what he owed Sherlock Holmes, and, too, he owed something to Wilkins who lay in the hospital because he had not chased these infernal Dynamiters to ground.