The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [115]
A demonstration was in progress: Orphan saw banners with a crowned, empty profile of a human head. Opposite them banners carried the lizardine crest.
"Hurry!" Irene said. "If we get between those two we're in trouble."
People hurried down the streets, their heads lowered. He saw uniformed police, and with them some police automatons, too, but they seemed small and lost, little islands in an ocean of hostile human traffic. He grabbed hold of the other's arm and they followed Irene. The other looked dazed. Orphan could sympathise.
They had turned left on the Strand. Orphan saw several baruch-landaus, belching steam, halted in the melee. They passed Bull Inn Court and he thought of Tom, and of who occupied the Nell Gwynne now, and shuddered. He hoped his friend was well. He could not imagine him having gone back to Vespuccia. No doubt he was in the thick of all this, causing mayhem somewhere. He wondered what Marx was up to. Was he still residing at the Red Lion in Soho? Or was the dreamer finally putting actions to his words?
"Where is the Army?" he said. "What is the Queen doing about this?"
"Her Majesty," Irene said, "has locked herself up in the palace. The army's in disarray, some following Moriarty, some Mycroft, some protecting the Queen and her get. Some have deserted altogether."
"But why?" Orphan said.
Irene suddenly stopped. He almost ran into her. She turned and looked at him. "Because," she said, and there was something bitter in her voice, "for the first time in centuries, we have a king again."
"Who says that?" Orphan yelled, startling himself. No one on the street paid him the slightest attention.
Irene shrugged. "Everyone. The rumours started soon after you disappeared, in fact. How the lizards were keeping the royal family captive on Caliban's Island. How the last heir to the throne had escaped, or was about to escape, or was living amongst us all along, and is now ready to return to us." She looked at Orphan. "Don't misunderstand me. This–" and here she gestured around her in a sweeping motion – "this would have happened, sooner or later. The rumour – it was only the match that lit the fuse to the powder keg. And now, unless we do something, it will explode."
"You mean it hasn't already?" Orphan muttered. They walked on.
"Here," Irene said, halting. They had just passed the Savoy Theatre and were directly across the road from Simpson's.
"We're going to a restaurant?" Orphan said. "At a time like this?"
Irene ignored his sarcasm. "Simpson's never closes," she said. "Come on. Byron wants to see you."
Orphan opened his mouth to speak.
There was a huge explosion.
The explosion came from the Savoy.
He heard screams, but they were faded, faint. His eyes watered. He shook his head to try to clear it. He saw Irene and felt relief that she was there. But she wasn't looking at him. She had drawn a gun and was aiming, and he turned his head and followed her gaze.
The other him!
The other was struggling in the arms of two blankfaced, black-clad automatons.
He shouted, "William!" and reached for his gun, then remembered he no longer had it. He rushed at the attackers instead.
But there were more of them, pouring out of a mattblack baruch-landau of a type he had never seen before, a low-lying, bullet-shaped machine, with shark's fins emerging from its back and sides. He kicked, lashed out, landed a punch on a face that barely registered his presence – but had managed to get to William.
Almost.
He heard a gunshot, and one of the automatons holding the other dropped down, sparks flying from his chest.
"Get away from them!" Orphan shouted, and he attacked the second automaton, throwing himself against the black-clad figure. He hit it, bounced off as if struck by a wall of rubber, and collided with his other self.
The impact threw both of them to the ground. Something heavy hit Orphan like a punch to the kidneys. A voice whispered, "Take it!"
Then the automatons were on top of them, and by the time Orphan climbed back