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The king's agent followed, surprised by the smaller man's turn of speed.

A howl rose from the far side of Darkening Towers. It was joined by a second, a third, a fourth, and more.

"Faster, Algy," Burton panted.

They tore across the uneven ground, past the knotted trees and pools of squirming mist, toward the distant wall.

Burton glanced back and saw the albino standing by the window, his right arm cradled in his left. A pack of wolf-men were flooding around the right-hand corner of the building, running on all fours.

The two men raced on, their thigh muscles burning, their breath coming in short, rapid gasps.

A few moments later they reached the wall and Burton thrust the poet up onto it.

"Trounce, start the blasted engines!" screamed Swinburne.

Burton turned. The loups-garous were almost upon him. He fired two shots and one went down. The others swerved and leaped upon it, their jaws crunching into its bones, ripping the flesh. They'd obviously been half starved to increase their ferocity, and the slight pause gave Burton the opportunity to haul himself onto the wall, lower Swinburne down to the other side, and follow. They ran across the road that bordered Beresford's estate and into a clump of trees. Engines were chugging.

"Hold on!" came Detective Inspector Trounce's voice from the shadows. "One more!"

"Hurry, man!" cried Burton.

The last of the three penny-farthings spluttered into life. The men mounted them, steered out onto the road, and accelerated away in a cloud of steam.

Behind them, a snarling loup-garou hurtled over the wall, followed immediately by the rest of the pack.

"Bloody hell!" cried Trounce, looking back. "Open your valves! They're fast! What the heck are they?"

"Hungry!" shrilled Swinburne.

The penny-farthings clattered over the uneven surface of the road, rattling the teeth of the three riders. Yelping and growling, with spittle trailing from their distended jaws, the ravening animal-men loped along behind, gradually gaining on the machines.

Burton, Trounce, and Swinburne swept past the corner of the Darkening Towers estate and careened onto the Waterford road. Trees flashed by, stretches of fencing, hedgerows, and beyond them rolling fields, pale in the light of the thin crescent moon.

White steam boiled from the vehicles and trailed behind them all the way back to the thicket where Trounce had waited. Beneath the slowly rolling vapour, the loups-garous sprinted after their prey. They were close now. They could smell human flesh.

"Blast these machines!" Burton muttered. "They're not fast enough!"

His jaws snapped together as the big front wheel jerked over a pothole.

"Trounce!" he yelled. "Steer in next to Algy!"

The Yard man obeyed, though controlling the contraption proved difficult as it bounced over a particularly rough patch of road.

A long, drawn-out howl sounded from just behind.

"Algy!" called Burton. "Step off your velocipede onto Trounce's!"

"What?" cried his two friends.

"Just do it, man!"

Swinburne, entirely fearless, stood in his stirrups, swung a leg over the saddle so that he was balanced on one side of the main wheel, tried to keep the wildly vibrating handlebars steady with a single hand, and reached across with the other to grasp Detective Inspector Trounce's shoulder. Then, in one quick motion, he leaned over, put his foot on one of the mounting bars of Trounce's machine, and stepped across.

His own boneshaker rattled on, kept upright by its gyroscope. However, without his fingers holding the velocity valve open, it immediately slowed and started to fall to the rear.

Burton drew his pistol. He had three shots left. He looked back.

The wolf-men were streaming around the riderless velocipede. Burton raised his gun, took aim, breathed gently, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit the penny-farthing's furnace. With a startlingly loud detonation, it exploded, blasting red-hot metal into the loups-garous charging along beside it. As the twisted vehicle somersaulted into the air, one of the beasts burst into flames, then a second,