Outside, the shadowed rubble renews my resolve. There is only one thing left to do in Everland before we leave. Just one.
“Mother will have my head anyway, along with my lungs, liver, and anything else she desires. We were supposed to claim England as ours, to establish our own governorship over the country. What good is our report now? We have single-handedly destroyed the heart of England and in turn released a deadly virus. If we leave now, what news do we have to bring her? That we took over London, renamed it Everland, and that the city is only a fraction of the metropolis it once was? She already knows what I’ve done. If the report from Germany is true, if the Bloodred Queen has contracted the virus, too, then this disease has spread well beyond England’s borders. Not only that, but I’ve failed her … twice.”
My fingers bite into the windowsill, the pain calming the humiliation brewing within me. “I have to find the cure. I will not return to Lohr Castle without it.”
“You’ve done what the Bloodred Queen has asked,” Smeeth says. “You’ve conquered England. Let us give her the report she’s asked for and leave with the money, travel the world away from this dump. Queen Katherina can deal with coming back and cleaning up the mess herself.”
“It won’t be enough,” I say.
“What do you mean it won’t be enough? England is defeated and two billion as payment is hardly something to scoff at.”
Spinning, I lunge toward Smeeth, towering over him until I am close enough that I can smell the wretched stink from his last cigar. “And what if the rest of the world looks like this? Aside from the single report on the Queen’s condition, no one outside of England has made contact since the attack. Not even by telegraph or carrier pigeon. England’s allies would never let this go unpunished unless … unless the virus spread. That’s the only reasonable explanation for the silence from them, from the world, really. We know that the Horologia virus has drifted beyond England’s borders, but how far?”
“I don’t know, Captain,” Smeeth says, taking a few steps back. “But I still think you ought to take the money and run.”
I reach inside the pocket of my black leather military coat. I pull out a fiver along with a book of matches, then set the bill on fire. It bursts into a vibrant flame and then extinguishes, leaving a dusting of ashes on the floor. “If the virus has spread and left the world’s leading countries immobilized, this note is nothing more than a measly piece of paper. What is the money worth now? Nothing!”
“Then we’ll ask for payment in precious metals and gems,” Smeeth says.
As I gaze at what remains of the once-magnificent palace, my eyes fall upon the torn tapestries hanging from the faded walls, remnants from the day when I claimed it as my headquarters. “No, we are on the brink of having something worth more than rocks and crystals. Something the world leaders will sacrifice anything for to save the citizens they have left. A service—a gift, really—that even my mother can’t provide her people. A prize that will award me the respect I’m long overdue.”
“What’s that?” Smeeth says, furrowing his brow.
“The cure.”
I spin on my heels and head toward the palace doors. “Sound the signal. I want those Crawlers and zeppelins ready to go in five.”
“Yes, Captain.” Smeeth salutes and hurries from the palace.
Within minutes the alarm’s shrill cry breaks the silence of the misty early morning. Armed men scatter like ants retreating from a stomped-on anthill. They form perfect lines, each a mirror image of the other. Their only form of identification is their names clumsily scratched into the metal of their full helmets. Fools. They think etching their name on their helmet so no other soldier accidentally wears it will keep them from contracting the virus. They’ll all be as good as dead if I don’t succeed.
Dozens of Steam Crawlers fill the palace courtyard, an army of spiderlike machines. Brigades of masked soldiers file in formation as they flank the armored vehicles. I stand at the entrance of Buckingham Palace. Towering over the army of men, I scan the mass, my heart beating wildly beneath my coat. The sight of the soldiers, their dark uniforms adorned with bits of metal that reflect an orange glow from the dawn sunlight, stirs a flicker within me, like a candle chasing away the darkness of despair.
“Marauders, this is our time, the moment we have waited for. We came to London to seize it, to establish Everland for the Bloodred Queen. And today is a new step toward real power, absolute supremacy. Our treasure is not gold, but the crowns from each of the world’s leaders.”