The List Of Seven (53 page)

"Let's have a look," he said.

They followed the tracks to a pair of huge double-hung doors through which the train line ran into the building. Closed boxcars crowded the sidings that flanked the main spur.

Inside the doors was no approximation of a biscuit factory. The air was sulfurous, choked with smoke, coal dust, floating

cinders. Conveyors carried rough ore to crucibles suspended over howling, incendiary blast furnaces. Massive, lipped cauldrons poised over iron molds the size of houses. A concatenation of cables, belts, hooks, flywheels, pistons, linked in a dance of churning, perpetual motion, climbed impossibly high into the air under the sloping roof, an industrial Tower of Babel. Blossoms of flame spurted rhythmically out of twisted valves and malformed appurtenances. Smoke of various contaminated colors belched out of oscillating cavities and tubes. The army of shirtless workers moving about, blackened by the foul atmosphere, dwarfed by the monolithic machineries, seemed entirely superfluous; if they abandoned their stations, it seemed the host apparatus, with a frighteningly singular unity of purpose, would continue to grind on eternally.

What end product resulted from this manufacturing hell was far from certain. Hulking shapes on trolleys leading to the tracks outside suggested the silhouette of cannon, but of a size far greater than any they had ever seen. Engines of war of some kind, of a war not yet glimpsed or even guessed at. As they watched, a strenuous final effort was apparently under way in the despotic factory, hot steel flowing, boxcars frantically loaded by workers driven on by armed overseers.

No one spoke; they wouldn't have been heard over the tumult of the infernal works if they had. Sparks gestured. They stepped away from the doors, back to the relative quiet of the boxcars.

"What is it? What is it for?" Doyle asked, almost to himself.

"The future," said Sparks.

"Look there," said Eileen.

She pointed to a path tramped out of the snow, paralleling the tracks as they ran away from Ravenscar, where two armed figures bearing lanterns escorted a column of men. They were headed onto the moors. The wrists of the men being led were bound in irons connected by a long, unifying chain. Judging by the ungainliness of their shuffling gait, their ankles were similarly encumbered. Some wore the dirty gray suits of the convicts, others the familiar servants' garb.

Was there something even more familiar about one of those hobbled figures? thought Doyle.

"Where are they going?" he asked.

"We'll follow and see," said Sparks.

They set out along the spur. The track bed was elevated above the boggy ground on a levee of earth and cinder. Staying to the shelter of the opposite slope, they kept the light of the lanterns in sight maintaining pace with the column. Before long they saw a bright glow issuing from a shadowy structure set on a narrow rise a half-mile south of the tracks. Doyle identified it as one of the low buildings spotted from the window at Ravenscar. They heard what sounded like gunfire inside: single shots and occasional volleys. As the tracks drew even with it, the guards herded the column away from the rail line up a slight hill toward that dark building.

"What's in there?" said Doyle.

Jack peered down the tracks to the west. Looking for something.

"Let's find out," said Sparks.

Moon shadows led them down from the rails to the path below. The ground felt soft underfoot, covered with lichen and low shrubs, slick with melting snow. A hundred yards ahead, the column of men had just reached the building.

Keeping as low as the limited cover of the ground would allow, they crept up the hill and skirted the edge of the compound; two structures set on a level patch of land, roughly constructed of clay brick, adjoined by a narrow walled passage. Six stunted chimneys rose from the second building: Smoke and red heat chugged steadily from them, the origin of the glow they had seen in the distance.

A shifting wind sent the smoke in their direction; a fetid, malodorous stench swept over them, the overwhelming force of it driving them to their knees. Doyle fought off nausea. Sparks gave Eileen a handkerchief, and she gratefully covered her mouth and nose. Doyle and Jack exchanged a grim look, Sparks gestured to Eileen to hold her position, and the two men inched up the hillock to within twenty yards of the compound.

The row of men they had tracked stood idly outside the first building, behind a second shackled group herded around a single door. The armed guards who had guided the column stood off to one side. Two others flanked the doorway.

Doyle pointed to the figure he'd recognized in the middle of the group to the rear. Sparks nodded.

Rifle fire rang out from inside. Muffled echoes cracked sharply over the moors. The two guards at the door took the shots as a cue; one trained his rifle on the men nearest the door, the second took a key from his belt and unlocked their chains. Shackles removed, none of the men reacted to their freedom; they stood lifelessly, as before, eyes obediently downcast.

The steel door to the building opened from inside, and the first group of men were prodded inside. A row of riflemen lined an interior wall, reloading their weapons. Beyond them, carts laden with sprawling corpses were wheeled by men in gray down the passage to the second building.

To the ovens.

The door slammed shut. The second set of guards exchanged words with the two at the door—a transference of responsibility. The guards with the lanterns turned and headed down the path toward the tracks.

Sparks waited until the guards cleared sight of the building. The trailing man's neck was broken before he could make a sound. As the first guard turned, the butt of the second's rifle silenced him for good. Sparks and Doyle moved up the hill to the crematorium.

There was no stealth, no subterfuge. Sparks strode up to the guards at the door and cut them down before either man could lift his rifle.

Doyle retrieved the keys and removed the irons from the hands and feet of the second column of men. None moved. All bore the traumatic stamp of Vamberg's vile alteration. These were his failures. This was where they disposed of their waste.

Shots from inside. Doyle moved to the man they'd come for, took Barry by the hand, and led him away. He offered no resistance or recognition, following as docilely as a child. Sparks gestured Doyle to take him quickly down the path. He remained behind, near the door to the abattoir.

Doyle and Barry were out of sight of the door when he heard its hinges crack open, followed by a volley of shots and screams from within. Doyle stopped. Barry stared vacantly at the ground. Eileen moved up the path to join them; they turned toward the building and waited.

The shots ceased. Nothing moved. The sudden silence of the moors seemed as vast as the span of stars above.

Sparks appeared over the rise. He discarded the rifle as he drew near. His face and clothes were awash with blood, which looked black in the moonlight. Doyle had never seen such an expression on a human face: pity, horror, rage, like nothing so much as a god who had just destroyed a world of his own creation that had spun insanely out of control. Behind him, a column of flame shot up into the sky; Sparks had set fire to the buildings.

Sparks walked right by them, gathered Barry tenderly up in his arms, and carried him toward the railroad tracks. Eileen sobbed once, involuntarily. Doyle put an arm around her, and they followed.

As they neared the tracks, a curious sight appeared: an engine and two cars backing toward them down the tracks from the west.

"It's our train," said Doyle. "It's our train."

Hurrying to catch up to Jack as he climbed the embankment, from a distance they saw Larry leap from the cab and meet Sparks as he gently laid his burden down. Larry fell to his knees. The single, simple cry Larry gave out when he saw his fallen brother rent the still surface of the night like a spear.

Doyle and Eileen made their way up the slope. Larry knelt on the loose cinders, Barry in his arms, brushing an unruly cowlick of hair off his forehead.

"Oh law, oh law no, Barry, oh my boy, look what they've done, look what they've done to you ... look what they done to him, Jack, oh my boy, my poor boy."

Sparks stood over them, eyes lowered, face hidden in shadow. Eileen turned away to bury her sobs in Doyle's shoulder.

Larry shifted, and a slice of moonlight fell across Barry's face. Doyle saw Barry's eyes go up to meet his brother's and focus there. They seemed to momentarily sustain the dimmest filament of life.

Barry moved his lips. A sound came out. He repeated it.

"Fin ... fin ... ish," Barry had said.

Then Barry drifted back down into the void that now possessed him.

Tears streaming from his eyes, Larry looked up at Jack,

who gestured to himself. Larry slowly shook his head. Sparks nodded, understanding, gave a look to Doyle, and moved away. Doyle put both arms around Eileen and guided her far-ther down the tracks.

Doyle looked back over her shoulder. Larry bent down to kiss Barry's cheek. He whispered something to him and then slid his soft hands around his brother's neck. Doyle turned aside. Eileen trembled violently in his arms.

A short time passed. Doyle and Eileen looked at each other, but the intimacy of their shared distress felt insupportable. She looked away. Doyle sensed she had of necessity retreated to higher ground inside herself. He wondered intuitively if the resulting gap between them would ever again be breached.

Larry closed Barry's eyes. He cradled the body, rocking it slowly as if trying to soothe a child to sleep. Sparks stood over them, looking back toward Ravenscar. Dancing lights, lanterns, great numbers of them, moved along the tracks in their direction.

Doyle took Eileen on board the train. She collapsed onto one of the seats. Through the windows, Doyle watched Sparks crouch beside Larry and speak to him. Larry nodded, lifted up his brother's body, and carried it to the front of the train, out of sight.

Doyle heard shots, moved to the rear of the car and out onto the platform. The lanterns were a quarter-mile away. Bullets whistled through the air, pinging off the steel. Doyle steadied the rifle on the handrail and fired at the lights until he'd emptied its chambers.

The wheels of the engine engaged, and the train accelerated, pulling away from the pursuit. Before long, the lanterns faded to pinpricks of light that disappeared entirely into the darkness.

chapter nineteen V.R.

Eileen refused the brandy Doyle offered. She moved somnolently to the berth in the rear, turned her face to the wall, and lay silently, without moving; sleeping or not, it was difficult to tell.

Doyle did not spare himself a glass, draining it in two pulls. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the bar. The haggard, muddied, bloodstained visage staring back at him resembled no human being of whom he had memory. There are certain untoward advantages to shock, exhaustion, and grief, thought Doyle; a point is reached where one is no longer capable of feeling anything.

Opening the connecting door, Doyle climbed along the side of the tender, hand over hand along the guard line to the engine. Barry's body lay on the floor of the cab. Jack's cloak served as a shroud; a boot extended from under its cover, rocking casually with the motion of the train. Larry stood at the throttle, staring straight ahead at the rails.

"We're ten miles from the main spur," said Sparks over the roar of the engine. "The track's clear ahead."

"London?" asked Doyle.

Sparks nodded.

Doyle looked out at the desolate, downy moors, alien and unforgiving as the surface of the moon, lifeless as the body under the shroud. The cold bite of the air whipping through the open cab felt cathartic.

"I'll be inside," said Sparks.

Sparks climbed back to the passenger car. Doyle loaded coal into the fire from the scuttle, refilled it from the fuel car, then stood by in silence, ready to offer support only if called upon.

"You never heard him sing," said Larry after a while, without looking at him.

"No."

"That boy could sing like an angel. Had a voice like to ..."

Doyle nodded, waiting patiently.

"He told me to go."

"What's that, Larry?"

"We drew 'em away from the ruins—that was the idea. Half those bastards went down 'fore they got near us. But a few doubled back behind. Had us pinched, dead to rights. He tells me to run. I says never, no sir. He says Jack needs least one of us can drive the train. I say it should be him. He says he's the oldest, and I has to do what he tells me."

"Was he the oldest?"

"By three minutes. He kept the gun, see. And I got off that hill...." Larry wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Took a mess of them buggers down with 'im, didn' he?"

"Yes, he did."

"We talked about it occasional, you know? Which of us would go first. He always said it would be him; Barry, see, he took chances. And he weren't afraid of the end, not at all. From what Mr. Sparks taught us, he always said maybe death was just the start of something. What do you think, guv?"

Larry looked at him for the first time.

"I think that it is very possibly just the start of something," said Doyle.

Larry nodded, then looked down at his brother's form beneath the flapping edge of Jack's cloak.

"Mr. Sparks says you killed the man wot did this to him."

Doyle nodded.

"Then, sir, I am ... forever in your debt," said Larry, his voice breaking.

Doyle said nothing. He wasn't sure he could speak. Time passed. Larry wiped his eyes again.

"If you don't mind," said Larry, apologetically, "I'd like to be alone with him now."

"Of course."

Doyle put out a hand. Larry shook it, once, without looking at him, then turned back to the throttle. Doyle worked his way back along the siding to the passenger car.

Sparks sat at a table, the decanter of brandy open, two glasses set out. Doyle took a seat across from him. Sparks filled the glasses. They drank. The warmth of the liquor spread through Doyle's belly, allotting some small distance from the horrors.