The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [116]
“Have I come at a bad time?” asked Dad, looking up from where he was sitting at the dusty grand piano. “I can go away again if you want.”
“N-no, Dad, this is good, real good,” I muttered.
I looked around the room. My father never stayed for longer than five minutes, and when he left the bullets would almost certainly carry onto their intended victim. My eyes alighted on a heavy table and I upended it, sending dust, debris and empty Leek-U-Like containers to the floor.
“Have you ever heard of someone named Winston Churchill?” asked my father.
“No; who’s he?” I gasped as I heaved the heavy oak table in front of Bowden.
“Ah!” said my father, making a note in a small book. “Well, he was meant to lead England in the last war but I think he was killed in a fall as a teenager. It’s most awkward.”
“Another victim of the French revisionists?”
My father didn’t answer. His attention had switched to the middle of the room, where Hades was working on the Prose Portal. Time, for men like Hades, rarely stood still.
“Oh, don’t mind me!” said Hades as a shaft of light opened up in the gloom. “I’m just going to step inside until all this unpleasantness is over. I have the instruction manual and Polly, so we can still bargain.”
“Who’s that?” asked my father.
“Acheron Hades.”
“Is it? I expected someone shorter.”
But Hades had gone; the Prose Portal buzzed slightly and then closed after him.
“I’ve got some repairs to do,” announced my father, getting up and closing his notebook. “Time waits for no man, as we say.”
I just had time to duck behind a large bureau as the world started up again. The hail of lead from Felix8 struck the heavy oak table I had maneuvered in front of Bowden, and the bullets that had been destined for me thudded into the wooden door behind where I had been standing. Within the space of two seconds the room was full of gunfire as the Goliath operatives joined in, covering Jack Schitt, who, perplexed that Hades had vanished in mid-sentence, was now beating a retreat to the door leading to the old Atlantic Grill. Mycroft threw himself to the floor followed closely by Jane as dust and debris were scattered about the room. I bellowed into Jane’s ear to stay where she was as a shot came perilously close to our heads, knocking some molding off the furniture and showering us with dust. I crawled around to where I could see Bowden exchanging shots with Felix8, who was now trapped behind an upended mock-Georgian table next to the entrance of the Palm Court Tea Rooms. I had just loosed off a few shots at Goliath’s men, who had rapidly dragged Schitt from the room, when the firing stopped as quickly as it had begun. I reloaded.
“Felix8!” I shouted. “You can still surrender! Your real name is Danny Chance. I promise you we will do all we can to—”
There was a strange gurgling noise and I peeked around the back of the sofa. I thought Felix8 had been wounded but he hadn’t. He was laughing. His usually expressionless face was convulsed with mirth. Bowden and I exchanged quizzical looks—but we stayed hidden.
“What’s so funny?” I yelled.
“Haven’t I seen your face somewhere before!” he giggled. “I get it now!”
He raised his gun and fired repeatedly at us as he backed out of the lounge doors and into the darkness of the lobby outside. He had sensed his master’s escape and had no more work to do here.
“Where’s Hades?” said Bowden.
“In Jane Eyre,” I replied, standing up. “Cover the portal— and if he returns, use this.”
I handed him the anti-tank weapon as Schitt, alerted to the end of the gunfire, returned. He appeared at the door to the bar.
“Hades?”
“In Jane Eyre with the instruction manual.”
Schitt told me to surrender the Prose Portal to him.
“Without the instruction manual you’ve got nothing,” I said. “Once I have Hades out of Thornfield and have returned my aunt to Mycroft you can have the manual. There is no other deal; that’s it. I’m taking Jane back with me now.”
I turned to my uncle.
“Mycroft, send us back to just before Jane comes out of her room to put out the