After another few minutes more footsteps came, brisker than the rest, and Inspector Newcastle’s familiar voice said, “Isn’t Radcliffe here with the key? He’s the one who called this bloody meeting. Never mind, I have mine somewhere.”
My gut wrenched. I squeezed Lucy’s hand, wishing she hadn’t come. The the sound of a key turning in the smoking room door came, followed by footsteps filing into the room.
I stared at the crack of light beneath the storage room door. It suddenly glowed brighter as someone within the smoking room must have flipped on the electric light.
For a few seconds, the four of us waited, breathless. We were pressed together so closely I couldn’t tell whose hand was brushing mine, whose elbow was in my back.
I closed my eyes and thought of a jungle far away, a father I’d once idolized.
“What the devil?” a sharp voice came from outside.
“Now,” I yelled.
Montgomery threw the door open, and he and I raced across the marble hall. The smoking room door had been left cracked, and as I reached for the knob to slam it closed I saw flutters of movement: the startled face of Dr. Hastings, Isambard Lessing twisting to look behind him. My eyes met those of Inspector Newcastle—his blue, cold, calculating eyes—an instant before I slammed the door.
One of the King’s Men threw himself against the door, but Montgomery had already twisted the key. Balthazar slid his rifle through the handles to blockade them in. For an instant, there was only the sound of someone desperately twisting the doorknob, back and forth, back and forth, and then a sudden silence.
A high-pitched animal squeal erupted, ungodly and terrible. I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.
Lucy twisted her neck to stare at me. “Juliet, what have you done?”
“They would have brought this upon the city,” I said, desperate to convince her what I’d done was right. “They would have killed Edward to do it.”
Someone pounded at the door hard enough to nearly split the hinges. A lamp crashed. It was terrible, listening to those sounds. Terrible and satisfying, in a cruel way. I could only imagine the King’s Men’s shock of seeing their creatures suddenly animated, the confusion, then the horror. Another wail came, though from beast or man, I couldn’t be sure.
Lucy screamed as blood trickled beneath the door.
“Make it end!” she cried. “It’s killing them!” She threw herself against the door, pulling at Balthazar’s rifle.
“No, Lucy, don’t!”
Both Montgomery and I rushed forward, but it was too late to stop her. The rifle clattered and her hand twisted the key. She didn’t even have time to turn the doorknob before it was flung open by Isambard Lemming, blood dripping from his eye sockets, his chest already stained crimson. He collapsed in the doorway, dead.
None of us was prepared for the carnage inside.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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FORTY-THREE
WHAT STRUCK ME FIRST wasn’t the dead man at my feet, nor the scrambling chaos within.
It was the smell.
A King’s Man—or perhaps one of the creatures—must have knocked over the liquor cabinet, because now the sticky-sweet smell of rum clogged the air, mixing with the odor of fresh blood, laboratory fluid, and the musk of wild things on the hunt.
I gagged as I reached to slam the door shut, but Isambard Lessing’s body was in the way. Balthazar stooped over to move the body but it was too late; one of the creatures was already hurling itself toward us, all glowing eyes and scrambling claws and a body that moved more like snake than rodent.
Lucy screamed again, diving to the blood-soaked floor. I grabbed the rifle and tossed it to Montgomery, but we hadn’t time. The creature was three feet away, two, and then it was on him. It let out a hideous cry and sank its long claws into his arm. I screamed and stumbled toward him, wrapping my fingers around the thing’s furry back to rip it off. Balthazar picked up the fallen rifle and slammed it into the creature’s head, cracking the skull again, and then again, until cranial fluid seeped onto my dress.
I dropped the dead creature, heart pounding, and stumbled backward until I collided with the sofa. Blood poured from the wounds on Montgomery’s arm.
“God help me!” a male voice called, though I couldn’t tell if it came from Dr. Hastings or Newcastle. I looked around as though in a dream—a nightmare—but there were too many bodies crawling on the floor, stumbling around the room, too many flashes of fur-lined creatures scrambling with glistening claws and teeth.
I’d had no idea what chaos five freshly awakened creatures could cause. For a moment, time was frozen. Lucy was pressed in a corner with arms braced over her head. Montgomery and Balthazar each fought with a creature, blood dripping from their arms, inhuman screeches filling the sticky-sweet air.