Justin Richards - The Death Collector

The metal brute stared down at the broken figure through mechanical eyes. Steam poured from its face, its neck, its every joint. An irregular clanking came from somewhere deep inside. Then with a final eruption of steam and a grinding of the broken mechanisms, the creature’s head fell heavily forwards on its neck. It stood there dejected and defeated for a moment, wreathed with the fading steam. Then its legs buckled under its own weight and the creature crashed down on top of its creator. A broken lifeless mass of metal and bone.

There was a trace of mist in the chilly air. The cold of first light was refreshing after the oily steam of the laboratory. Eddie shuddered as they walked slowly down the driveway, shuddered at the memory of the cold dead eyes watching him from the display cases in the hallway. What sort of person, he wondered, collected dead things? What sort of person wanted to create life where there was none?

He frowned, wondering where the fascination he had himself felt in helping bring a clock to mechanical life strayed into the unacceptable dream that Lorimore had pursued.

In front of him, George was walking with Liz, carrying the intricate ship that they had spent so long adapting to rescue them.

‘Well,’ Sir William said to Eddie as they followed their friends, ‘it’s been quite a night.’

‘I’ll say.’ Eddie turned to look back at the house behind them. It looked so normal in the morning light — a large house set in its own grounds. The only unusual thing was that it was hidden away in the heart of London, cordoned off from the city by a high wall. The smoke rising from the back of the house might be the last of the morning mist burning off as the sun gained strength.

When he turned back, he saw that Liz was helping a man to his feet, relieving him of the shotgun that had been slung over his shoulder. ‘I don’t think you’ll be needing that,’ she told him.

‘I should go for the police, if I were you,’ Sir William told the startled guard. ‘And you’ll probably need to find alternative employment.’

The man stared at them, but said nothing. Then, abruptly, he turned and ran ahead of them to the gates.

‘I dunno what the peelers will do when they find that lot,’ Eddie said.

‘Oh, I imagine they’ll do what they always do when they find something so strange and bizarre that it defies explanation,’ Sir William replied. His eyes were twinkling in the cold light.

‘And what’s that?’ Eddie stuck his tongue out at the lizard watching from the top of the gatepost as he stepped out into the street. George and Liz were waiting for them a few paces ahead. They were holding hands again.

Sir William gave a short laugh. ‘They will send for me, of course,’ he said. Then he clapped his hands together, rubbing enthusiastic warmth into them. ‘And for my new assistant, Mr Archer. We shall have some work to do — both here and at Lorimore’s foundries, I imagine.’

‘So, what will you tell them?’ Liz asked, looking from George to Sir William. ‘What will I tell my father?’ she added quietly. ‘If he even notices I’ve been gone.’

‘Yes,’ George said, ‘what will we say to the police?’

Sir William frowned. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I shall tell them …’ His voice tailed off as he considered. ‘Yes, most definitely,’ he decided. ‘I shall tell them that I need breakfast.’ Then he clapped Eddie on the back, laughing with him and leading the way down the road. ‘Let me treat you, my friends,’ he declared. ‘I think you deserve it.’

‘Oh no,’ Eddie told him, running to catch up. ‘Let me treat you.’ He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket and opened it to show them the bundle of notes inside.

‘Where did you get that?’ Liz demanded.

‘Lorimore’s pocket,’ Eddie said. ‘I reckon he owes us breakfast. And,’ he added, ‘I don’t reckon he needs this no more. Just one thing …’

‘And what is that?’ Sir William asked.

‘Bacon and stuff is fine,’ Eddie said. ‘But no more eggs. All right?’