Ancient Appetites

XXXII

Tatiana peered out of her bedroom window at the company of British cavalry, complete with a behemoth war engimal, approaching the front of the house. They were being led by the Lord Lieutenant's carriage. Striding across the room, she swung the door open and confronted the two Gideonettes standing guard outside.

'Why is the British Army coming up the driveway?' she demanded.

They hurried to the window and looked out. She was pleased to see that they appeared concerned by what they saw.

'It's nothing,' one said in an unconvincing voice.

'Just a social visit,' the other said, swallowing audibly.

'They seem to me to be a bit too well-armed for morning tea,' Tatty observed.

That was when they heard the sound. It was like an angry bee at first, then deeper, like the growling of a big cat. And it was getting louder. Her two cousins drew their pistols and held them up. Tatty cocked her head to one side, listening intently. She recognized the sound.

'It's Nathaniel's velocycle,' one of her guards said. 'He's in the house; come to save his precious little sister at last. We'll have him now. Must be in the hidden passageways somewhere.'

'It can't be.' The other shook his head. 'A beast that size could never fit in the passages. How could it turn the corners?'

'It's the velocycle, I tell you,' the first one insisted. 'He's going to try and just charge in and take her, the confounded fool!'

They leaned out into the corridor, revolvers at the ready. Tatty walked behind a screen in her room and started to undress, peeking through the cracks in the hinges to keep a weather eye on her two sentries.

'My big brother's coming!' she called to them as she shrugged the dress off her shoulders. 'You're in trouble now!'

'Shut up!' one of them shouted back; then to his own brother, 'There! Behind the oak panels – he's in the south passage!'

They sprinted down the corridor, following the sound of Flash's engine. Near the end of a row of oak panels, they pressed a knot and a secret door sprang open. The engine sounds grew suddenly louder. With their guns raised, they made ready to fire at the figure within.

'Thank God!' Gerald cried out. 'I thought I'd be lost in there for days!'

That was when Nathaniel came out of the room behind them and, with vicious speed, struck each one over the back of the head with his revolver. Gerald stepped out and handed the small engimal with the ladybird spots to Nate, who quietened it with a word. The engine sounds stopped.

'A marvellous contraption,' Gerald remarked. 'You'll have to let me dissect it some day.'

'You have no soul,' Nate sniped back. 'I'd never let you get your grubby mits on Babylon.'

'I should hope not!'

They turned to find Tatiana standing waiting for them, dressed once again in Nate's old clothes. Nate smiled proudly.

'Good God,' said Gerald.

'This whole sorry affair has opened my eyes,' Tatiana informed them as she handed them some curtain cord. 'I've decided I want to devote my life to the furthering of women's rights.'

'This,' said Gerald, 'is what comes of letting women wear trousers.'

Using the curtain cord, they quickly bound and gagged the Gideonettes and threw them into a cupboard where they would not be found for some time. Then they made their way through the hidden passageway down to Gerald's rooms. Roberto had already been stolen away by Abraham and his brothers and Edgar's corpse had been taken to the refrigerators. Only Clancy and Brutus remained. The giant ancestor lay there in his bed, the occasional twitch in his face and hands showing the slow surfacing of his consciousness.

Standing near the door was Flash, and tied up next to it was the boy who worked the elevator.

'I wouldn't've squealed,' he protested.

'Sorry, we couldn't take the chance,' Nate told him, urging Tatty to get on the velocycle. 'Ger, you sure you want to stay? It's going to get a bit hairy.'

'I want to make sure Clancy is stable before I move him; and besides, I need to pack up a few things,' Gerald replied. 'My work's too important to leave in the hands of these luddites.'

'Right, then,' Nate said, shaking his cousin's hand. 'Good luck.'

'And you, old chum.'

Nate climbed into the saddle and tapped the engimal's sides with his heels. The velocycle purred quietly as they rolled out of the door and down towards the elevator halfway down the corridor. The doors had been jammed open to keep the lift car where it was, but as they crept down the hallway towards it, Brunhilde came round the corner at the far end of the corridor with three footmen. They were all armed with pistols and double-barrelled shotguns.

'Bugger,' Nate swore, seeing that they couldn't make it to the elevator without being shot. 'We'll have to take the stairs.'

There was no need to be quiet any longer. Swinging Flash round in a circle, Nate steered his mount down a side corridor, Tatty clinging on tightly as the velocycles engine rose into a joyous roar. Leaping forward, they covered the twenty yards to the end of the hallway in seconds, swerving at the top of the landing between the staircases and plunging down the steps towards the next floor. Flash made the tight turn, swinging its back wheel round with a deft flick of its hips, and down again they went, the two riders rattled by the bouncing of Flash's wheels over the steps. The noise of its engine was loud in the stairwell, but Nate revelled in the sheer power of it and roared in unison.

They made it down two more flights before a shotgun blast nearly caught them, taking chunks out of the wall above their heads. Brunhilde had taken the elevator to a floor below them and was coming up the stairs towards them with some of her men.

'Shed light on their insides!' she screamed, opening the smoking gun to reload.

Nate wondered momentarily where she had learned to use a scattergun, but he was already turning the velocycle, its spinning wheels burning scars across the carpet as they skidded off the landing and down the hallway.

'We need to make it to the stairs on the other side!' he yelled to his sister over the bellowing engine. 'I think we can take a short cut through the dining room!'

Tatty nodded in agreement as Nate turned in a wide doorway and through an anteroom into the massive dining room. Footmen were running down towards them on either side of the long dining table, but Nate jumped Flash up onto the tabletop, knocking candlesticks and vases of flowers flying as they raced down its length and flew off the end, leaving a trail of burned French polish. As soon as its feet touched the floor, Flash was turned out of another door, on through an unused hall to the corridor beyond, which led to the stairs on the other side of the tower.

Rattling down another few flights, they found their way blocked by a barricade of furniture, and Nate only just lifted the front wheel in time before they careered straight into it. Flash half rammed, half climbed over the pile of wood, sending the defending footmen running for cover. But as it landed, Nate was unable to turn his engimal in time, and they spun into a suit of armour in a corner of the landing with a crash of metal, sending pieces of it everywhere. Seizing the arrowhead-shaped shield – a gauntlet still dangling from it – Nate got Flash back on its feet and only barely deflected the pistol shots fired at them as they took off down the corridor.

'The other side again?' Tatty asked expectantly.

'I suppose so,' he sighed, throwing the shield away.

They passed through one deserted hall after another, cutting across the building. Every now and then Nate slowed and looked out of the windows, hoping for another exit.

'I had no idea so much of the house was unused,' Tatty noted. 'It seems such a waste.'

'Perhaps we'll deal with that when we come back,' Nate replied, steering them down another corridor.

The family would be using the speaking tubes and elevators to pen them in. The servants would be converging on them from top and bottom. They had to get out of the house… quickly. Two more flights of stairs brought them to the fourth floor. Nate skidded to a halt, breathing hard and thinking fast. Turning a corner, he saw a window at the end of the corridor. He pulled off his jacket and threw it over Tatiana's head and shoulders. He hoped it would be enough.

'Keep your head down and hold on tight,' he said to her. Then, to Flash, he added. 'This is it… Don't fail me now.'

The velocycle responded with a thrilled growl and they accelerated forward, the carpet wrinkling under the grip of the wheels as they drove the beast on. Nate lowered his head and screamed as Flash hurled them through the window.

Broken wood and glass cut gashes in his face, neck and hands as they exploded out of the building. They landed with a brittle thud on one side of the gabled roof of the south wing, sloughing slate tiles away beneath their spinning wheels as they slid down the slope, the old roof barely supporting the velocycle's weight. They were going too fast to stop and they hurtled towards the edge… Nate pulling back to lift Flash's front wheel as they slipped off in a shower of slate and glass and splintered wood, falling, falling, until they hit the roof of the stables and Flash's back wheel punched through, jarring the two riders to the bone as they came to an abrupt stop.

'Come on, come on!' Nate screeched, struggling to free the velocycle.

Tatiana pushed down with her feet too but it was useless. The roof collapsed inwards, sending them tumbling into the building. They plunged through the hay store on the first floor, which slowed their fall before the boards gave way under Flash's plummeting weight and they crashed through to the ground. Tatiana screamed as she landed heavily on her side. Nate had the breath knocked out of him and hit his head against a broken rafter.

The grooms hurried to the scene, standing uncertainly, reluctant to lay hands on this man who had once been one of their masters. Nate rose from the wreckage of wood and hay, bloodied and covered in dust.

'Get out of my way' he snarled. And they did.

Pulling the velocycle onto its feet, he picked up his sister and helped her onto the saddle behind him. The engimal shook itself and snorted steam and then it reared, its back wheel grinding smoke off the ground. They lunged forward, out of the stable doors and round the house towards the front gate. The speeding shape raced across the grass, through the company of cavalry, startling horses and raising angry shouts from their riders. The war engimal, a navy-skinned creature the size of a large coach, with six wheels and a triangular head jutting with tusks, looked on dispassionately. It did not move without orders.

It turned to watch the velocycle skid onto the cobbled driveway, sprint down between the two rows of poplar trees and disappear out of the gate. When it turned back to face the front, what it saw caused it to rise up on its hind wheels with a frightened squeal, throwing its rider. The fearsome war engimal staggered back, swivelled and bolted for the forest at the side of the house. The horses followed it with wide, panicked eyes.

From around the other side of the house, crushing the cobbles beneath their feet, the ground shaking beneath their great weight, came Trom and Colossus. On the back of the bull-razer, holding the reins, was Slattery, with Elizabeth beside him. Hugo and Brunhilde rode the juggernaut, and from the top of each behemoth, lengths of snake-chain coiled and reached out at the will of their master. And Hugo, wearing his chain mail once more with his suit and top hat, screamed an exultant battle cry as his monsters chased down their prey.