The Affinity Bridge (33 page)

_{Chapter Twenty-Two}

The next morning Newbury rose early, still tender from the ministrations of the Fixer the previous day. He went directly to the bathroom and washed his wounds, and then applied a thick layer of the yellow poultice to each of them in turn. The substance smelled faintly of beeswax, although he could only guess at what else it was comprised of. He felt vibrant and nervous with energy, partially the result of too much rest, and partially, he imagined, the continued effect of Dr. Fabian’s compound. His wounds had begun to heal already, too, although there was still a long way to go before he’d be back to anything like his normal physical form.

Newbury had spent the remainder of the previous day holed up in his study, pacing the room, smoking his pipe and doing his utmost to stop himself giving in to his cravings for the laudanum, which sat in its little brown bottle on the shelf across the room, teasing him with promises of warmth, forgetfulness and solitude. He had sorted through a number of papers from his years in India, searching out references to the revenant plague and attempting to lose himself in reminisces of the period. Mrs. Bradshaw had prepared him a lavish roast beef dinner, and he had taken it in the dining room, the first time for months that he had made a point of sitting down to eat a proper meal in his own house.

By morning, however, he felt he could carry on like this no longer. In truth, he was concerned that boredom would indeed drive him to the dreaded opiate that he was attempting so pointedly to resist. Instead, he had resolved to head to the office, to deal with any outstanding correspondence, ensure that Mrs. Coulthard was bearing up, and otherwise busy himself with work on his now-overdue academic paper. He secretly hoped that, in doing so, he would happen upon Miss Hobbes with news of the case, and together they could spend the day mulling over the developments so far, gathering their thoughts whilst his constitution was restored and agreeing on a course of action for the following day. If nothing else, he knew Her Majesty would not look too kindly on him wasting another day in lackadaisical pursuits when he had a case to solve, injured or not.

It was still too early in the day to expect Mrs. Bradshaw to have risen to make breakfast, so instead Newbury settled for organising himself a pot of Earl Grey and rummaging up a few slices of toast, which he ate with a smear of marmalade whilst reading the morning papers. Then, confident that he was well enough for a brief stroll, he fetched his coat and hat and set out, drawing in the fresh morning air and celebrating the fact that he was still alive. The previous day’s events seemed like a lifetime ago, a dark and distant memory, and if it were not for the occasional twinge in his upper torso as he walked, he could almost have believed that it had been nothing but a fantasy.

Presently, tiring from his walk, Newbury hailed a cab to take him the rest of the way to the museum. The streets were still quiet, but the sun had risen and the fog was already lifting. He bounced along in the back of the cab, wincing every time the horses ran over an uneven patch of cobbled road and the wheels juddered, jolting his injured body painfully.

The museum grounds were still deserted when the cab pulled up outside the main gates. Newbury clambered down and paid the driver, who doffed his cap and set the horses trotting off towards Charing Cross Road, their hooves clattering loudly in the otherwise empty street. Newbury crossed the courtyard and mounted the steps up to the main entrance, smiling warmly at Watkins, who was on hand even at this hour to welcome early arrivals. Pulling his gloves off and loosening his scarf, Newbury made his way down to the basement floor and along the short corridor to his office. Taking his key from inside of his jacket pocket, he turned it easily in the lock, pushed the door open and stepped inside.

It was clear Miss Coulthard had visited the office in the last couple of days. The correspondence had been neatly stacked in the appropriate trays, the cups and saucers had been tidied away and there was a note on her desk, in her handwriting, addressed to him. He picked it up, unfolded the card and scanned the neat copperplate briefly, before dropping it into the waste paper basket beside the door. No word on her brother Jack, it seemed.

Newbury clicked the door shut and draped his coat and hat on the stand. He crossed to his private office, noting that there was a pile of papers for him to sign, obviously left there by Miss Coulthard, and growing in size every day he was away from the office. He disliked the menial administrative duties of his position at the museum, but in other ways it held his interest when he wasn’t on a case, allowed him to come and go as freely as he liked and gave him access to many files and artefacts he would otherwise find it very difficult to obtain. Not only that, but it served as a perfect cover for his position with the Crown, meaning that, rather than having to hide himself away from society as many of the other agents did, he could instead continue to ingratiate himself with the nobility of London, all of which, he felt, provided him with a greater opportunity to do his duty for Her Majesty and the Empire. Connections, in London, were everything, and he found they opened doors where others would find them locked.

Flexing his damaged shoulder muscle to stop it from stiffening up, he lowered himself heavily into his chair. He flicked through the pile of papers on his desk, sighing in dismay. There wasn’t even enough there to keep him engaged for an hour, and whilst his paper on the druidic tribes of Bronze Age Europe was in dire need of further work, in truth he still hoped to find an opportunity to get back on the case before the morning was out. He drummed his fingers on the desk. He needed to talk to Musgrove.

Newbury looked up at the sound of the main door clicking open. He glanced at the grandfather clock through the open door of his office. It was still too early for it to be Miss Hobbes. Perhaps, in an effort to distract herself from the difficult situation at home, Miss Coulthard had decided to come to the office early that morning?

He stood, moving round from behind his desk to greet the new arrival. He stopped short when he heard a familiar clacking sound, like brass feet clanging against the porcelain titles of the floor.

Automaton.

He backed up, wondering how one of the clockwork men had managed to get into the museum, let alone track down his office on the basement floor. The feet continued to clatter on the tiles, slowly, deliberately, and Newbury realised that, judging from the sounds of their shuffling movements, there must be more than one of the devices.

A moment later, one of the units appeared around the corner behind the coat stand. Newbury stiffened. It seemed to survey the office, its spinning eyes flicking from one corner of the room to the other. When it caught sight of Newbury it began to move again, turning around slowly and approaching him, its arms hanging limp by its side. Another one shuffled into the room behind it.

Newbury braced himself. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

The automaton cocked its head slightly, as if trying to compute his words. Then, stopping about six feet away from him, it raised its right hand before its face. There was a soft, almost pneumatic
snicking
sound, as thin, knife-like blades slipped out from the ends of its fingers, turning its hand into a vicious, razor-sharp claw. Newbury edged backwards until his legs encountered the edge of his desk. The automaton resumed its slow, relentless march towards him. Behind it, the other unit edged further into the room, blades clicking out of the ends of its fingertips to form an identical, gruesome-looking weapon. He noted with dismay that the right hand of that second unit was already smeared in blood. He supposed that answered his question about how the devices had found their way into the museum.

Knowing that he was already seriously injured and therefore unlikely to be able to hold the automatons off for long, Newbury decided to go on the offensive. He waited a moment until the nearest unit was only a matter of feet away from him and then charged it, trying to use his speed and body weight to his advantage. The automaton saw him coming, however, and twisted out of the way, contorting itself in a manner a human being would find impossible to emulate. Newbury, unable to stop his momentum, slammed into the side of Miss Coulthard’s desk, jarring his injured shoulder and spinning awkwardly to the ground. The desk overturned, sending sheaves of paper blooming into the air. Just in time, Newbury realised he’d landed at the feet of the second automaton, and rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding its falling hand, which chopped down against the tiles with terrifying force, splintering the porcelain in a cloud of dust. Newbury, still on the floor, grabbed out for the automaton’s leg, yanking it forward and unbalancing the device, sending it smashing down to the hard floor beside him. It immediately began to clamber to its feet, twisting its shoulder joints to give it better leverage. Newbury climbed to one knee and thrashed out, bringing the coat stand crashing down in front of him just in time to block the path of the other automaton, which was charging him from across the room. He had to think fast.

Leaping to his feet, he cast around for a weapon. His abdomen and chest were on fire as his movements pulled on the stitches, tearing at his damaged flesh. The automatons, scrambling over the coat stand, had been reduced to relentless killing machines, stripped of their harmless guise as servants. Their gears churned as they both came at him again, swinging their bladed hands towards him, one of them only a matter of inches from his face. He fell back, banging his head awkwardly against the wall. Trying to ignore the burst of sharp pain that flared at the back of his skull, he dove to the left, sending the kitchen equipment skittering across the tiles as he tried to take cover behind the small gas stove, forcing his way over the top of it and onto the floor on the other side. Between the stove and Miss Coulthard’s overturned desk, he found himself trapped in the corner of the room, with nowhere else to turn. The one thing in his favour was the fact that the automatons seemed unable to work out how to clamber over the furniture, instead choosing to reach over and slash at him with their razor-sharp finger blades. He tried to stay out of their reach.

Newbury glanced around in desperation, still looking for something he could use to defend himself. Above him on the wall was a medieval axe with a long wooden shaft. He grabbed for it, hastily pulling it free of its mount and showering himself with a spray of plaster. Balancing it in both hands, he swung the unfamiliar weapon in a wide arc, using it to parry the outstretched hands of the mechanical men. It was weighty and it strained his already exhausted body to lift it properly. Nevertheless, at present it was all he had to keep the automatons at bay.

He hefted the weapon as high as he could and brought it down heavily upon the chest of the automaton on his left. There was an almighty crash. The wooden handle of the ancient weapon splintered in his hands with the impact, sending the iron head banging loudly to the floor. The automaton staggered backwards for a moment, a large dent in its brass casing, but then, just as quickly, was able to reassert itself and come at him again over the top of the stove. This time, catching him on the backswing, the automaton’s hand struck him hard in the arm, and he cried out as the blades sliced his flesh, drawing blood. He snatched his arm back instinctively and managed to scramble out of the reach of the machine. He could hardly believe the resilience of the device: the blow from the axe had practically collapsed its chest, even cracking the glass porthole that contained the electrical light that powered its clockwork mind, but the unit seemed unconcerned and continued to mount its attack. Newbury threw the broken shaft of the axe at the other automaton, which knocked it aside to no effect. He knew it was only a matter of time before the machines worked out how to shift Miss Coulthard’s desk out of the way to get to him.

Newbury searched the walls for more weapons, thankful now that he had been able to coerce the museum’s curator into allowing him to have a small display of anthropological items in his office. A few feet away, over Miss Coulthard’s desk and on the wall above the fireplace, was a flail. The weapon was a few hundred years old, but Newbury knew from examining it in the past that the shaft was still firm. He hoped the star-shaped iron ball on the end of the chain would make an effective weapon against the automatons, puncturing the relatively soft brass of their skulls and damaging the delicate cogwork in their mechanical brains. It was a blunt tool for
a
blunt job. He just had to work out how to get to it.