Justin Richards - The Death Collector

Lorimore’s eyes were blazing with fury. ‘How dare you?’ he shouted. He stalked across the room towards Sir William, the intensity of his gaze making Liz take an involuntary step backwards. ‘I create life itself and you dare to impugn my scientific genius?’

‘Six o’clock,’ Sir William declared, and stepped smartly aside.

The second hand of the clock in the side of the ship completed its circuit. The minute hand swung on to the twelve. With a metallic click, a mechanism inside whirred into life. The bell at the back of the ship chimed out a short tune.

Lorimore paused, intrigued by the clock in spite of himself. He leaned across the workbench to see it more closely. Three small hatches opened in the side of the ship facing him, mirrored by another three on the side facing Liz and Sir William. Inside each hatch, Liz could see a small cannon, and beside it a sailor leaning forward to touch a model match to the fuse. In that moment she realised why Sir William had moved. She saw that the hatches on her side were pointing squarely at the large man who had been standing behind Sir William.

Blade too saw what was happening. With a cry of warning he launched himself across the workbench. Not at the clock, but at Lorimore, knocking him backwards.

The cannon fired. Six pin-prick shots, one after another in rapid succession.

The guard who had been behind Sir William cried out, clutching at his chest. His eyes rolled upwards as he collapsed slowly to the floor, his shirt stained three patches of red. In the same moment, Liz turned and stamped as hard as she could on the foot of the man behind her. He cried out too, staggering back.

Lorimore was unharmed. Two of the shots went over his head as he fell back. One of these cracked into a supporting post between panes of glass. The second went clean into one of the huge panes. The glass exploded outwards with a crash.

The third shot caught Blade in the head. For a split-second Liz could see the ball bearing embedded in Blade’s cheek. Then he too was falling backwards, eyes staring. If he cried out, the sound was lost in the crashing glass behind him.

Through the shattered window, Liz could hear the rumble of the gathering storm. Lorimore was struggling to his feet. The man whose foot Liz had stamped on was recovering, grabbing at Sir William. Wilkes was moving stiffly across the room, joints hissing and steaming.

And on the deck of the ship, a sailor clapped his hands together. Hands that were flints. Hands that tried again and again to ignite the smallest of sparks. The plate beneath the powder keg moved so slightly that if Liz had not been looking straight at it she would have seen nothing.

At the edge of her vision, Liz saw a hand raised in anger, ready to strike. Lorimore’s arm swept across the workbench towards the ship, about to dash it to the floor. Liz had to stop him.

She suddenly felt calm. She fixed her gaze on the shattered window and gave a huge sigh of relief.

‘George, thank goodness. I knew you’d come.’

Lorimore’s hand paused in the air. He turned, looking where Liz was looking. Saw nothing.

‘Quick, hide before he sees you!’

Lorimore looked around in confusion, convinced that George was there in the laboratory. He stepped back from the workbench, wary, eyes narrow. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded of the man holding Sir William. ‘Did you see him?’ His voice was heavy with menace.

The guard merely grunted. Lorimore glared. ‘You’re useless,’ he spat. ‘And you,’ he said advancing on Liz, ‘are very clever.’

His voice froze with his body as he caught sight of the slight movement — the hands clapping together. His mouth dropped open — surprise and anger mixed with sudden fear.

A spark flew. The end of the fuse flared, burned. The weight of the miniature keg delicately balanced on the metal plate lightened as the fuse burned away. Lorimore reached out, but too late. The plate sprang upwards, pivoting at one end, flinging the tiny wooden barrel high into the air towards the outside walls.

The keg turned end over end. The fuse burned to nothing. Close to the main laboratory window, at the height of its trajectory, the little powder keg exploded.

The wide expanse of glass that made up the end wall shattered under the blast. Liz and Sir William threw up their hands to protect themselves from the sharp splinters and flung themselves to the floor. The man who had been holding Sir William wasn’t quick enough. A blast of broken glass knocked him off his feet and tore through his flesh as the glass ceiling rained in, sweeping him bloodied to the floor.

Lorimore was screaming with rage. A percussive thump as the thunder roared above them. Rain poured through the broken windows and shattered roof as the storm finally broke. Lightning arced down. The battery fizzed and spat. Power hummed along the wires.

And Eddie and George leapt into the laboratory, racing to help their friends.

Sir William pulled Liz to her feet. He had blood on his face, from a small cut below one eye — a line of red, dripping. One of the men on the floor groaned and shifted. But he did not get up. Lorimore was looking about him in furious amazement, shouting at the remains of Albert Wilkes. A slice of glass had embedded itself in Wilkes’s arm and stuck out like a blade. But he seemed not to notice or care. More, smaller pieces of glass peppered his face. But there was no blood. Wilkes lurched forwards, arms out. Lightning flashed off the facets of the glass as he lumbered towards Liz and Sir William. Then a figure swept past them as George flung himself at Wilkes, driving him back.

‘Hold him!’ Lorimore screamed at Wilkes. Liz heard the hiss of pistons, saw the metallic claws that had been grafted to the end of Wilkes’s hands snap shut on George’s arms, holding him vice-like. George struggled and kicked, but to no effect.

Lorimore seemed to have recovered. He was standing beside the workbench, the trace of a smile on his face despite the loss of his henchmen and Blade and the chaos all around him. He looked as if he was once again in total control. He was standing beside the bank of levers, and he was holding a gun. He pointed it directly at Liz.

‘I advise you not to try anything,’ he said to Sir William, standing beside Liz. ‘I can kill you both in less time than it would take you to call out.’ He raised his reedy voice slightly to add: ‘And that goes for you too, Mr Archer. And your urchin friend, whatever may have happened to him.’ The gun remained steady, fixed on Liz as Lorimore’s eyes swept the room. ‘Where are you boy? Come out wherever you are.’

When George had hurled himself at Wilkes, Eddie had dived across the end of the workbench and ripped the fossilised egg — his lucky stone — from its metal mount. With the egg, they still had a chance. Now he emerged sheepishly from underneath the workbench. He was holding the stone defiantly, but he knew it was over. Lightning stabbed into the room, flashing off the broken glass. Thunder roared as Lorimore stretched out his hand and Eddie reluctantly, hesitantly, placed the stone in his bony palm.

‘I apologise for the slight delay,’ Lorimore said, though it was not at all clear whom he was addressing. Keeping the gun aimed with his right hand, he reached across with his left and replaced the stone in the metal bowl. Then he stepped back and pushed home the second of the three levers on the workbench. The hum of power was rising. Lightning again split the retreating night. Acid steam flowed over the top of the battery tank like a waterfall of fog.

‘Remember me, Albert,’ George pleaded to his inhuman captor. ‘You must remember me. I’m George — George Archer, remember? And you were — are — Albert Wilkes. You knew me before, at the Museum. Please remember!’