The baroness smiled at him, enjoying the pain she brought and the flash of worry that crossed his features. She licked her lips with pleasure.
Simon reached up and clutched the walking stick with his metal gauntlet. He stared directly into her goggle eyes as he twisted his arm and snapped the stick. He was a bit surprised it was just a simple walking stick, a mere affectation. But the action caused the baroness to look at her shattered accouterment with both rage and confusion. The pressure against his backbone slackened slightly.
Simon took advantage of the brief delay in her murderous attack and immediately fell back, bringing her down with him. His legs jammed into her stomach and leveraged her into the air, stunned at the difficulty of such a feat without magic to fuel his strength. With a shriek of alarm, she made to grasp at him, but he gave her no opportunity, slamming her into the high altar. The impact rang throughout the church.
She took a deep breath, seemingly stunned by the unexpected resistance, and eyed Simon warily as she pressed a small device on her belt. There was an inhuman roar from the north transept. When it was echoed by a child’s scream, Simon smashed his steel fist into the baroness’s face. Her head slammed into marble and she slumped against the altar. He left her there and ran toward the scream.
Princess Victoria stood facing a massive manlike shape crowding the doorway of the north transept. The hulking thing dwarfed the girl like an Alp towering over a tiny chalet. The brute was huge and muscular, hunching forward and pounding the floor with bulging arms. Its head turned and a great toothy mouth opened in a snarl. Small sharp eyes peered angrily from under a heavy brow. It was a huge ape.
The monstrous gorilla shouldered its way through the small door, breaking the frame with sheer will and muscle as it fought to answer its mistress’s call. Once inside, it rested its bulk on steel knuckles. Its spine was exposed and bristled with wires and metal rods, making it a literal silverback.
“Run, Your Highness!” Simon shouted as he raced toward her and the monster. The child backed away.
The great ape came at Simon like an avalanche, scattering chairs in its wake. The man leapt to the side and, as the beast’s momentum took it past him, his arm fell like a piston on the back of its wired skull. His gauntlet crackled and arcs of electricity scurried like spiders from his hand to its metallic silver back. The ape crashed heavily to the stone floor in a heap, sparking and twitching.
Victoria had paused in her flight to stop at the edge of the choir to watch Simon’s confrontation with the gorilla. She instinctively reached up to Simon, who gathered the young child into his arms on the run. He sprinted past the dais, sparing a glance at the baroness, who was beginning to struggle to her feet. Simon wanted to get the girl into trustworthy hands.
A column of blistering flame rose before them. Simon covered Victoria. The copper-headed Ferghus glared at them from the nave, his fiery hand feeding the flames that blocked their way.
“This line ends here!” Ferghus laughed. “If I can’t have the king, I’ll take the wee one.”
“We’re not done!” came Malcolm’s ragged voice as he kicked his way free of a barricade of smoldering chairs beneath the burning choir screen. He aimed his heavy pistols.
Fire shot out of Ferghus’s gesturing hand to form a barrier between him and Scotsman. The bullets never reached him but melted into slag and went astray.
“Bloody hell!” Malcolm cursed.
“Malcolm, get out of the way!” shouted a woman’s voice from the tiers of graceful arches above. A pert figure aimed a long tube at the Irishman amidst the flames.
Malcolm MacFarlane dove between the empty pews as the woman fired a canister. Ferghus flared again, renewing the wall of flame around him. The canister struck the barrier and exploded. The concussion blasted Ferghus off his feet.
Young Victoria looked up at Simon. “He breathes fire like a dragon.”
With the princess still in his arms, Simon ran past the guttering fire column into the south transept. “Have no fear. We’ve slain many.”
Victoria’s eyes widened farther when Simon deposited her in front of a young girl not much older than the princess herself, slender and dressed in a simple white shift. The blond-haired girl was staring angrily into the church as if straining to join the fight herself. “Mr. Simon, the lady with the arms is up. Do you want me to—”
“I’ll see to it, thank you, Charlotte.” Simon coolly took up his sword and started toward the Kaliesque woman whose form wavered beyond the flames. She had seized hold of the legendary chair of King Edward. “That won’t do.” He nodded knowingly to himself and called back to Charlotte over his shoulder, “Take Princess Victoria to Kate.”
Charlotte gasped at the princess and attempted a panicked curtsy. “Your Majesty!”