The Iscariot Sanction (26 page)

De Montfort glowered at Sir Robert, before turning once more to the prince. ‘Sir, we have been over these details several times now; our time grows ever shorter. Are you any closer to reaching your decision?’

De Montfort was right—time was now of the essence. York was some way behind them, and they had branched onto the line to Darlington, cutting across the North York Moors, which even now stretched out as a great purple expanse beyond the train’s windows. Once past the great industrial works of the north-east, the royal train would reach its top speed, and would run unimpeded to Edinburgh, by which time de Montfort’s negotiations would be over.

‘I grow nearer with each passing second, Lord de Montfort,’ said Prince Leopold, ‘though I fear you will not be pleased with my response to some, if not all, of your conditions.’

‘Your Royal Highness,’ said de Montfort, coolly, ‘I would urge you not to make any rash decisions. You know full well the repercussions of denying us.’

‘Do not dare to lecture the prince!’ snapped Collins.

‘Save your bluster,’ de Montfort said. ‘I answer to a higher authority, and we are just as unwilling to be browbeaten.’

‘And who is this authority you so often mention?’ asked Collins. ‘What is this ancient line of royalty whose members have seen fit to place you at the head of their affairs?’

‘The King makes himself known to no one. He is the Nameless King, who has ruled the
wampyr
nobly for as long as any can remember. He will treat with you himself, when the time comes. For now, know that I speak for him, as the prince speaks for your queen.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Collins, with growing impatience, ‘but who—’

The squeal of brakes and the scream of the train whistle cut Collins short. Lillian struggled to keep her feet in her heeled boots as the train lurched sharply; it did not stop, but slowed considerably.

‘What the devil…’ said Collins.

The household guard rushed to the prince’s side at once, although none of the Knights Iscariot moved a muscle. A smile rippled across de Montfort’s lips. Seconds later, everyone noticed that the prince was staring out of the window, and all eyes followed his.

Outside, against the pale glow that bathed the moors in a pinkish twilight, ghastly silhouettes began to appear. A forest of tall, sharpened stakes, some straight and proud, others at awkward angles. As the train ploughed on, the number of them increased, as did their proximity to the tracks, until their grim purpose was revealed. Lillian’s anger grew along with her revulsion, as she saw the stakes topped with heads, torsos, even entire cadavers. Men, women and children. Some were masked by clouds of buzzing flies, the corpses rotten. Others had slid down the stakes, leaving trails of fresh blood behind them on the rough wooden shafts. Others still were all too recent, the butchered bodies still twitching, mouths releasing agonised groans that could not be heard by the passengers aboard the opulent royal train, but which were sickeningly apparent.

‘I imagine this must shock you.’ De Montfort did not have to raise his voice to be heard in the deathly quiet carriage. ‘Whether you agree to the cessation of the north or not, know that we have already assumed control. What you see before you are the consequences of treason.’

The prince tore his eyes from the scene. ‘If that is so,’ he said, in a thin voice, ‘you shall not leave this train alive.’

At those words, the household guard reached for their weapons; the bald-headed servants of the Knights Iscariot did likewise, crouching, ready to strike. Lillian had her Webley in her hand, and was already marching along the carriage aisle, sights fixed firmly on Lord de Montfort, when the train lurched once more and she almost lost her footing.

The door at the forward end of the carriage opened, and a frantic-looking man in rough clothes barged in, red-faced and breathless.

‘There’s a train on the line ahead!’ he shouted. ‘We must stop. There’s a… oh…’

He stopped as he saw the scene unfolding before him. The prince behind guards with weapons ready, inhuman creatures hissing with bestial rage. He turned and ran the way he had come.

Lillian reacted first, single-minded. She recovered her footing quickly and squeezed the trigger, aiming at de Montfort’s forehead. The bullet hit a black shape, as one of the bald creatures dashed in front of its master, lightning fast.

The train lurched again, and the squeal of brakes pierced the air. The lights went out. The carriage was plunged into darkness, only the dim glow from the fiery horizon casting any illumination. The gentle, rhythmic thrum of Tesla’s etheric field began to slow and stutter like the heartbeat of a dying man.

Something big barrelled into Lillian, knocking her to the ground and landing atop her, heavy and smothering. She heard shouts all around, the reports of revolvers, and saw muzzle-flashes from the corner of her eye. But the thing upon her was hissing and chittering, and she smelled grave-rot. A cold, bony hand was upon each of her wrists; she struggled, twisting, trying to get free. More shouts—someone called to the prince. She heard Ewart roaring. Good. The big Scot was a formidable soldier by reputation.

She pushed her knee into the chest of her assailant. She felt its teeth snapping towards her face like a hungry wolf. She could see little more than the outline of a bald head in the wan light from outside, but the gnashing teeth sounded far too powerful, too large, for the human-like creature she had seen board the train. Again it snapped, this time its teeth brushing her nose as they closed, and again Lillian pushed hard with her legs to keep the beast at bay.

Another muzzle flash lit the creature; a white ghost-like head smashed like an eggshell. Lillian’s ears popped at the proximity of the gunshot, a piercing whistle replacing all other sound. Her world became dark once more, and she was dimly aware of the weight leaving her, of a dead weight rolling off her onto the floor, and of someone yanking her to her feet.

‘Lillian. Lillian!’

She snapped to attentiveness, her hearing returning in a rush like bathing water leaving her ears, and she knew that Arthur had her, was pulling her away from the sounds of violent struggle. The train had slowed to a crawl. She heard the wet sound of a blade hacking at flesh from somewhere in the gloom.

‘No!’ she protested. ‘The prince!’

‘Lillian, you don’t understand. We are betrayed…’

Arthur’s warning had barely registered when, with a faint murmur, the generators started once more and the lights flickered back to life.

The bald creature that had attacked Lillian was lying in the aisle, a white ooze pooling from a gaping wound in its head. Its jaw was massive, distended—dislocated perhaps—and sparsely filled with large, half-rotten, jagged teeth. A few feet from it, lying dead or dying, were four soldiers. The other bald creature was busily tearing into one of them with a wicked, oriental-looking blade. The creature was soaked in blood from head to toe. Lillian would have engaged it, were there not more pressing concerns.

De Montfort stood as overseer to the carnage, unsullied by what had transpired. Shah, his rictus grin turned to the two agents of Apollo Lycea, stood by his side. The female courtier, usually so stupefied, bent low over the prince’s valet. She had clamped a rubber tube, some three feet in length, onto his jugular with a set of shiny metal pincers and fastened it to her mouth by similar intrusive means. Lillian could barely comprehend the grotesqueness of it, this artificial process that visibly transformed the valet from man to husk.

Worse still was the position of the prince. He appeared unharmed, but was held in the restraining grip of Colonel Ewart, whose burly arms at once held Leopold fast, and prodded a sharp knife to the fleshy pouch beneath his left eye.

‘Lillian,’ Arthur whispered in her ear, ‘we must flee.’

Lillian was dumbfounded. She stared first at de Montfort, whose sly smile was somehow more sinister than the one that was surgically etched onto Shah’s face, and then at Ewart.

‘Don’t look at me like that, lassie,’ he said. ‘I’m done takin’ orders from the likes o’ you, and this pompous ass. These fine gentlemen offer Scotland a chance o’ freedom, and I’m takin’ it.’

‘Your countrymen don’t look so proud right now,’ Lillian said, forcing as much bravado into her tone as possible.

Ewart winced. ‘Traitors to the cause, lass. True to the queen till the bitter end.’

‘Where are the others?’

‘Locked up in the barracks car, safe and sound. Unlike these poor wee saps, the other lads’ll get a choice.’

‘Join or die?’ Arthur offered.

‘Aye. Did ye read my mind, Sir Arthur?’

‘Enough of this,’ said de Montfort. ‘Drop your weapons and come quietly. There is no need for further killing. Cooperate, and you shall not be harmed. Resist, and the prince loses an eye, and you lose your lives.’

Don’t make me do this, Lillian.
The voice in her head said. Had it ever really gone away since the night she’d escaped with Tesla? In any case, it was louder now, and at the forefront of her thoughts.
All you need do is let me in.

The train was still moving, but slowly, and Lillian knew the Tesla field was much diminished in power. She became aware that Arthur was breathing heavily, in great concentration. Was he battling de Montfort on her behalf? Or was it something else?

‘I said drop your weapons,’ de Montfort repeated.

‘Do it, Lillian,’ Arthur whispered from behind her. She knew by his tone that he was up to something.

Lillian un-cocked the Webley and dropped it.

De Montfort was holding out a hand now. ‘Come to me, Agent Hardwick,’ he said. ‘It is over.’

Lillian hesitated. She could see no way out. She could perhaps escape the carriage, though the vampires were fast. She could fight—she still had weapons concealed about her person—but she could not risk the prince’s life. Even if her actions led to him being maimed, regardless of whether or not he survived, the consequences for her would be dire. And de Montfort was persuasive. Far too persuasive…

‘Lillian, run!’ Arthur made the decision for them both. Upon his shout, everything seemed to happen at once. Ewart pushed the prince to the ground and went for a pistol. De Montfort leapt towards the rear of the carriage, leaving Shah and the female vampire to look aghast at the two agents—if, indeed, they were capable of the expression. For a split second Lillian didn’t understand what they had all seen, then it became apparent. From the corner of her eye she saw Arthur raise the pistol—a strange contraption of brass and steel, with two coils atop it buzzing with electrical power. A Tesla pistol.

Even as Ewart jerked his revolver from his belt, Arthur’s finger squeezed the trigger. The lights in the carriage flickered and died once more. There was a click, a fizz, and a coruscating arc of blue-white energy leapt from the Tesla pistol, striking the space where de Montfort had stood a heartbeat earlier, and illuminating the ghastly grin of Valayar Shah, which did not fade even as lightning danced about his scarecrow body, and even as he fell, screaming, into a charred heap.

Shouts, curses, hisses and roars followed. The wail of Shah’s companion was audible over all of them, high-pitched and keening. A pistol fired. Lillian felt a tug at her arm, and needed no further encouragement. She turned and followed Arthur, fumbling along the aisle. Another shot rang out; she felt the whip of air as the bullet kissed her face, sparking as it ricocheted off the far wall. She heard shouting—de Montfort—but could not make out words. She knew there was someone, or something, close behind her, and from the shrill screaming sound she knew at once that the female creature was giving chase.

She heard the clunk of a heavy compartment door-handle ahead, saw a shaft of pale light and felt the rush of cold air as it opened. She bundled through the door even as another shot rang out, deafening, and squeezed past Arthur as he slammed the door shut and turned the handle. The vampire thudded against the door, muffled screams and scrabbling talons falling upon the steel in impotent rage.

‘Keep going!’ Arthur said. His voice was laboured. Lillian knew the psychic exertion could take it out of him, and prayed for once that the etherium would be enough to keep him going.

They moved on into the next carriage, laid out like a palace drawing room, with card tables, bookcases and even an upright piano. The lights flickered on again, and the sound of metal clanging against metal rang out behind them as their enemies wrestled with the door. The carriage was devoid of inhabitants, and so they sped onwards as the train swayed like a steamship. They had to move to the rear of the train, towards the barracks car, where Lillian hoped they would find some assistance from those Highlanders still loyal to the Crown. The human Crown.

Arthur flung open the door to the dining car, with tables arranged along the sides, and a narrow aisle between them. Arthur pulled up and moved to the side, and Lillian saw that, up ahead, in the flickering electric light, a bald vampire had entered the carriage. It was hunkered low, sniffing the air, a quiet, guttural growl issuing from its throat. It saw the agents at once; its violet eyes flashed, and it bounded towards them, wolf-like and low to the ground.

How did it get ahead of us?

Arthur cranked the charging handle of the Tesla pistol furiously, but the creature was far too fast, bearing down upon them with astonishing alacrity. Lillian leapt forward, blades in her hands, and used the creature’s own momentum to lend force to her strike, slashing the vampire across the chest before twisting out of its path. It bundled to the ground and let out such a hate-filled scream that Lillian’s blood froze.

It leapt at her again, with such strength in its limbs that Lillian was barged aside, only by some miracle keeping to her feet. It slashed with a taloned hand, yanking out a handful of her hair as she ducked the blow and stabbed forwards with her blade, taking the creature in its side. It was about to slash down at her with its other hand, which she had no time to dodge, when Arthur jumped at it, dragging it back by the trailing arm.

The creature hissed, turned, and raked Arthur’s chest with its claws. He grunted with pain, and stumbled back, trying desperately to fend it off as it snapped for his throat with vicious teeth.