The engineer paused, wide-eyed, then shrugged. She hurried behind the counter and rummaged a bit. “You stink something awful.”
Ignoring her comment, Malcolm straightened off the wall but staggered a bit as the room spun. He quickly righted himself with a hand against the wall. “I’ll take whatever you’ve completed of my last order and be on my way. If anything comes through the hole in the wall, kill it.”
“Even Mr. Wilhelm, the butter-and-egg man?” Penny hefted a canvas bag that rattled and walked it to him.
“If he’s large and hairy.” Malcolm looked in the bag at the cache of silver-tipped shells for his Lancasters.
“You’re badly hurt!” Penny exclaimed to the Scotsman. Blood stained the wall where he had been leaning.
“Few scratches.” Malcolm shook his head. “I’ll tend to it once I reach Hartley Hall.”
“You won’t get to Charing Cross like that, much less Surrey.”
“I’ve lingered too long already.” With that he headed for the door.
“Just hang on!” Penny insisted. “I’ll take you.”
“No,” Malcolm snarled.
She wasn’t listening to him and her voice vanished with her into the back room. “I’ll fetch transport and be back presently.”
The hunter waited in the darkness and felt isolated in the thin glow of the gas lamps through the smoking storefront. A curious few were already gathering in the street to gawk. He hoped Penny would find a horse or a buggy. And a fast one.
A roar filled his ears. He turned with both pistols drawn. What emerged from an alley was a one-eyed beast of metal and fire with Penny Carter in the saddle. It resembled a walking machine, a foolish fad used by the indolent to get around garden paths. It had two in-line wheels. The front one was steerable, as Penny was currently demonstrating. The mechanical vehicle glowed with heat and spewed steam from various orifices, including a series of long, extruding pipes in the rear underneath a shimmering grill. It had a heart of flame that flickered when the vehicle shuddered to a halt beside him. The contraption had a strange, wheeled side compartment, perhaps for balance. The stovepipe blunderbuss was strapped to its side.
“Get in!” Penny wore a dark leather jacket with goggles over her eyes.
“Get in, what?” Malcolm shouted back over the din of the motor. “What in the hell is that thing?”
“My spinebreaker steamcycle will get us to Hartley Hall faster than a horse.”
He caught a glimpse of red eyes blazing in the darkness down the street. “Oh damn.”
“Get your arse in the sidecarriage!” She pointed to the buggy attached to the side of the two-wheeled vehicle.
Malcolm had barely placed his feet inside the small space when Penny put the machine into a jerking motion, flinging him back against the leather padding. He was trying to wedge his muscular frame down into the strange contraption as they roared off.
Penny wheeled the vehicle in a loop to face south and the machine’s heart flared, flames licking through the grill in the rear. The machine shook them like someone standing before the devil himself. They shot forward with an unheard-of speed. Wind whipped Malcolm’s long queue. They sailed toward Piccadilly, and the approaching werewolves.
“You do see them there, right?” Malcolm shouted, incredulous, as hairy bodies drew closer on both sides.
“Keep your head down!” Penny bent low over the controls and throttled the machine even higher.
The werewolves slowed, confused by the smoking terror bearing down on them. The Scotsman attempted to keep his aim steady, and he fired. Hitting a beast in the hip, it tumbled through garbage and slammed into a wall. Penny threw off his next shot by careening the vehicle toward a werewolf on the left. She held out her booted foot and it smashed into the creature’s chest, sending it crashing into an iron lamppost.
Malcolm tracked over Penny’s lowered head and fired, spinning the stunned werewolf to the pavement. The other two beasts skidded on the street as the vehicle roared between them.
With a smoking squeal of the rubber tires, Penny leaned left onto Piccadilly. Starlight wanderers and after-hours drunkards stared at the passing metal monster. Penny jerked the contraption over the curb and skirted past St. James’s churchyard, catching a pair of shadowed lovers by surprise. She skidded into the grass and dirt of St. James’s Square, and dodged trees handily. Malcolm gripped the sides of the car, staring back for any sign of pursuing creatures loping on all fours.
Penny made the motor roar. “Sit down and hold on.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a drop coming up.”