Imogen moved awkwardly toward Ferghus. The flames illuminated her black mourning clothes. She unbuttoned her right cuff and pulled the sleeve up over her elbow. From the ghastly white skin of her forearm rose a host of thin filaments, some six inches long, wavering in the firelight. The young woman halted and swept her arm in front of her, sending several of the strange quills flying toward the Irishman. The fragile needles never reached him because Ferghus’s heat shield rose again and the filaments virtually melted out of the air. The strange specter of the veiled Imogen distracted Ferghus enough, however, that he turned away from Kate.
With fingers that felt tight from the heat, Kate pulled free the largest canister at her hip. She ran at Ferghus, pulling the top and pointing the canister at the mad elemental. Her hat tumbled from her head and her long braid swung free. She pressed a trigger and the cylinder sprayed a wide stream of clear gelatinous goo that hit Ferghus in the back. The canister moved up and down, coating him. He turned, dripping, with burning hands and brutal eyes. She prayed there was enough left in the canister as she aimed for his chest. She pressed the lever. The substance whooshed out and splashed over him. The flames rising from his fingers smoldered out. Ferghus stared at his hands in confusion.
“Now!” she shouted.
Imogen loosed a single quill, which struck Ferghus in the neck. Malcolm tackled him, and the two men tumbled across the bridge. The Irishman grabbed Malcolm’s coat with slippery hands and tried to ignite it. He yelled angrily as his powers failed him. His limbs slowed as his strength faded. They flopped to the ground weakly as Imogen’s toxin hit his system. Malcolm reared back an elbow and struck Ferghus in the face. The Irishman was so drunk he didn’t feel it. Blood poured from his mouth, but he just grinned through it. Ferghus crashed his fist into Malcolm’s cheek.
Nick came up behind Ferghus and slammed a chunk of stone against Ferghus’s head. The Irishman slumped over unconscious.
Simon dodged the massive mechanical arm as it tore off a section of the balustrade larger than their wagon and chucked it at Penny. She aimed her blunderbuss at it and fired. The flying stone shattered as she ducked under the dust and shrapnel.
Charlotte called down from somewhere atop the mechanized beast. “No way in!” Then she had to dodge aside as the arm swiped for her. It struck the top of the machine and dented it. Charlotte eagerly renewed tearing at that section of the metal.
Simon threw one of Kate’s vials at the creature’s legs as it swept past. Mist swirled and hardened, encasing it in a block of amber. The crawler stumbled, but steadied itself quickly. The arm reached down and the segmented fingers examined the rock-hard substance. The tentacle-like appendages then crushed it to dust. The arm slammed down onto the ground and brought everyone to their hands and knees. The bridge cracked, a line racing down its length. It groaned, shifting from side to side. The machine headed straight for the wagon. Penny started to intercept it.
“Fall back!” Simon ordered. Penny paused but then moved to his side.
Red steel fingers seized the armored wagon in a crushing grip, lifting it as if were but a child’s toy. The steel groaned and bent inward but the three-hundred-pound stone inside didn’t fall out. Then the machine’s head swiveled on some sort of axis to face behind it, and it scuttled toward the western side of the bridge.
“Charlotte!” Simon shouted at the figure still attacking the machine. “Get off!”
Charlotte either didn’t hear him or was too enveloped by her rage to take note of what was happening. Simon took off in the wake of the machine and saw Kate angling toward them. She was focused on Charlotte high above so he assumed that meant Ferghus was captured or dead.
With its prize in hand, the machine strode straight to the balustrade and crashed through the rail, sending massive stones into the river. Its forward legs whirred and stretched out to the new bridge upstream. People who had been crowding the rail there shouted and scattered before the steel barbs slammed down among them. Horses reared and screeched. Wagons careened into chaotic mobs. Charlotte dug in her claws to maintain her grip as the machine tilted suddenly and winched itself over the water. Its legs continued to work furiously, lumbering over the new bridge, breaking flagpoles and smashing lampposts. Then it dropped off the far side into the swirling Thames. The machine began to wade forward, lowering into the dark water.
Only when a wave suddenly splashed against her did Charlotte look up from ferociously pounding on the machine. She climbed higher atop the thing’s head.
“Does she know how to swim?” Malcolm asked anxiously rushing to the broken balustrade.
“No!” Imogen cried out. “We have to get to her!”
The machine was submerging. The werewolf looked back at their distant figures, her molten yellow eyes reflecting her sudden terror. She flinched as wave after wave crashed over her, almost dislodging her.
“She’ll drown if she stays there.” Malcolm’s normally steady tone rose in alarm.
“Jump, Charlotte,” Simon shouted, hoping her keen hearing would pick up his cry. He already had a leg over the edge when Nick grabbed him.
“What do you think you are doing? You can’t swim out to her. You’re wearing bloody armor.”
“I don’t intend to, but the current will bring her back to us. I can grab her.”
“If she isn’t dragged under first!”