End of the Century (60 page)

“It was
you
,” Blank said, drawing his sword-stick from the cane, the silver-chased handle in his fist. “You killed those women all those years ago. The one found in the Thames, the one in Whitehall, the arm in the Lambeth blind asylum and the leg under Albert Bridge and the body in Battersea. You were the
Torso Killer
.”

Fawkes regarded Blank with a weak smile. “Ah,” he said. “You were in the papers then, weren't you? I
thought
I recognized your name.”

Blank lunged forward, intent on driving the point of his sword-stick into Fawkes's heart, and was stopped only when Miss Bonaventure took firm hold of his arm and dragged him back. Blank looked to her, eyes flashing. “Why did you
stop
me?!”

“Besides the fact that I suspect you'd regret it later,” Miss Bonaventure answered, “I think that
he
might take issue with the action.” With a nod, she indicated Dulac.

The man held his blue-bladed sword aloft, intent on slicing down and through Blank if he carried through with his thrust. “I don't blame you, Blank. But until I find the thing I'm after, I'm afraid no harm can come to him.” He turned and snarled at Fawkes. “After I get it, I'll be the first to help you cut him up, if you like.”

“Oh ho!” Fawkes chuckled. “Is that meant to be some sort of enticement for me to comply, then?”

Before Dulac could answer, Taylor cleared his throat to get their attention. “Um, fellows?”

Blank turned and looked in the direction that Taylor was staring. The Crystal Palace was now all but deserted except for their little company, and so it was somewhat surprising to see a new figure standing in the open doorway. Tall and thin, completely hairless, his expression unreadable behind his smoked-glass spectacles, it was the figure they had pursued and faced the night before.

“Oh, no,” Dulac said sadly, shaking his head, looking like someone who had just come upon the fallen body of a dear friend. “Not this.”

Without speaking, the strange figure strode directly towards them, his hands at his side. There was no sign of his hounds and their incarnadine teeth and claws, Blank noted with something like relief.

“Hey, now…” Taylor said, as it became apparent that the figure was walking right towards him. He backed away, hand on the handle of his holstered revolver.

Too late, Blank realized that the strange figure was not walking towards Taylor, but towards the red-bladed sword buried in the concrete a short distance from him. Before any of them could move to intercept, the man in the smoke-glass spectacles reached down, wrapped his long-nailed hand around the sword's hilt, and easily drew it from the concrete.

“Damn,” Taylor cursed beneath his breath.

The sword's hilt nestled in the man's fist as if it had been made for it. With the red sword in one hand, the man reached up and pulled the smoke-glass spectacles off his face with the other. His eyes were revealed to be flashing red, like pools of liquid fire.

Dulac shook his head sadly, raising the tip of his blue blade. “It doesn't have to be this way, Pryder. We need not face each other as enemies for the Red King's sake.”

Blank understood little to nothing of what Dulac said, but it was clear that the red-eyed man would not be giving any response that might clarify. Instead, wordlessly, the white-skinned figure lunged forward, driving the point of the red sword towards Dulac's chest.

Dulac parried the blow with the flat of his blue sword, and riposted, but the red-eyed man handily smacked the blue blade away. Back and forth the pair danced, as their blades rebounded again and again with a strange humming sound.

“Blank!” Miss Bonaventure shouted.

He turned and saw that Fawkes had taken advantage of the momentary confusion to take to his heels, racing off, deeper into the Crystal Palace. “After him!” Blank shouted, and gave chase, Miss Bonaventure and Taylor following close behind.

“Stop right there,” Taylor said, leveling the barrel of his LeMat revolver at Fawkes.

The chase had led them here, to the Medieval Court where Blank and
Miss Bonaventure had originally found Fawkes two weeks previously. He stood now before the same tapestry, dating from the century after the Norman conquest and in much the same style as the Bayeux Tapestry, and only now did Blank realize that it depicted a scene from the Grail cycle, a trio of knights standing before a vision of the cup.

Blank had his sword-stick in hand, Miss Bonaventure beside him in a martial stance, while Taylor stood with his pistol pointed unwaveringly at Fawkes's back.

Fawkes did not turn around, but continued looking up at the tapestry before him. “I was sure that Lady Priscilla held the answers I sought, that her studies of the ancient myths had given her insight into how the Grail could be used. But then the so-called ‘League of the Round Table' rebuffed me, and I was forced to seek out those that had worked with her.”

“Why?” Taylor demanded. “Why go after the others and not me? I knew more than Cecilia ever did, or Brade. I'd read all of Lady P's notes and could have told you anything you wanted to know.”

Fawkes glanced back over his shoulder, a wry smiled on his face. “Well, the magic sword of the Grail's guardian can cut through anything, but I don't think it could stop bullets.” He nodded towards Taylor's pistol. “And since you were the only one of the bunch to keep your own armory of firearms, you were the very
last
on my list.”

Taylor drew back the hammer of his revolver with his thumb.

“Hold on!” Miss Bonaventure said, laying a hand on Taylor's forearm, lowering his aim. “Look!” She pointed back the way they'd come.

The red-eyed man was advancing on them, his scarlet-bladed sword in one hand, the other reached out towards Fawkes. It seemed to Blank, in that moment, that the red-eyed man didn't seem to be menacing Fawkes, but instead looked as if he were racing to protect him.

With Taylor's attention off of him, Fawkes reached up and grabbed a fistful of the tapestry in either hand and, hauling down, yanked the fabric from the wall. Behind was revealed a small alcove, evidently intended for display purposes. Within was a small object, no larger than a pint glass, a smooth-sided cylinder than tapered at one end. It seemed to be some sort of milky quartz and glinted like a diamond in the early afternoon sun.

Blank rushed forward, intent on tackling Fawkes to the ground, fighting the instinct to run the murderer through with his sword-stick. But before Blank could reach him, Fawkes wrapped his hands around the crystal, and something strange began to occur.

“Strange” in this instance being a relative term, Blank knew, held in the balance against swords that slice through steel and strange men with glowing eyes of fire.

The crystal began to radiate light like an electric bulb, accompanied by a low humming noise. As the hum increased in pitch and volume and the light grew ever brighter, Fawkes looked up and met Blank's eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I've done it!” Fawkes cried. “I don't know how, but I've managed to…”

Just what he thought he'd done, Blank would never know, because in that instant the sound reached a deafening level as the light swelled to a blinding flash, and in the next instant, the crystal was clattering to the ground, with Fawkes nowhere to be seen.

The red-eyed man slowed momentarily, seeing the crystal fall to the ground, but only altered his course, continuing to race ahead, this time with the evident intention of snatching the crystal from the ground.

“Don't let him get it!” shouted Dulac from the far end of the concourse, holding his bleeding shoulder. “For the love of god, don't let him at it!!”

Blank and the others hadn't a single notion what was transpiring around them, but they knew that the red-eyed man bearing towards them was no friend of theirs, and Dulac was clearly the enemy of their enemy, so their own allegiance was obvious. Blank raised the point of his sword-stick and stepped in the red-eyed man's path.

“Blank, no!” Miss Bonaventure cried, but it was too late. Besides, Blank knew what he was in for.

As the red-eyed man closed the distance between them, Blank ducked to one side and lunged forward, piercing the other man's thigh. A normal man would have crumpled in pain at that moment, but whatever else he was, it
was clear that the red-eyed swordsman was no normal man. Ignoring the silver-bladed sword protruding from his leg, he reared back and skewered Blank on the point of his red sword.

Blank hung for a moment on the blade, unable to breathe.

Then the red-eyed man dragged his sword out. As Blank's blood and viscera spilled out onto the floor before him, the red-eyed man batted him to one side with a long-nailed hand, as casually as a man swatting a fly. Then he wrenched the sword-stick from his leg and tossed it aside.

Taylor stepped into the breach, raising his LeMat pistol, and with a ruthless efficiency fired again and again, striking the red-eyed man nine times squarely in the chest, then when the .44 caliber slugs were depleted he fired off the 28-gauge shotgun shell from the shorter barrel, hitting the man square in the face.

Amazingly, though, the red-eyed man staggered, but remained standing.

Dulac finally caught up, his left shoulder bleeding freely from an enormous gash, but his right hand still firmly gripping the hilt of his blue blade. As the red-eyed man lurched forward, swinging his scarlet sword at Taylor, Dulac managed to deflect the blow, knocking the red sword aside.

Miss Bonaventure leapt to Dulac's side, holding Blank's cast-off sword-stick in a two-handed grip. Dulac swayed on his feet, and as he struggled to regain his balance the red-eyed man swung at Miss Bonaventure. Incredibly, the red-eyed man's swung missed by a large margin, whirling harmlessly through the empty air, and Miss Bonaventure was able to lash out with the sword-stick and swat the back of the red-eyed man's arm. Unfortunately, her cut failed to loose the sword from his grip, but compiled with the shots Taylor had fired it seemed to have a cumulative effect.

The red-eyed man looked for a moment at the crystal lying on the floor, something of longing in his unreadable expression, and at the woman and men who stood between him and it. And then, without further exchange, and still having uttered not a single word, the red-eyed man turned and raced away, his steps thundering through the empty pavilion.