Pax Britannia: Human Nature (29 page)

"Then where do we go from here?" Jacob asked. The half-human, half-animal things - like the inmates of some macabre and grotesque menagerie - watched them with expectant eyes, as if hoping against hope that Nimrod and his companion would find a way to open the door. "Miss Jennifer needs us."

"As, I suspect, does Master Ulysses," Nimrod said, boldly putting away his gun and taking something else from one of his coat pockets. "But do not worry, I have yet to encounter a lock that I could not pick."

Having chosen a pick from the set on the hoop of metal he had taken from his pocket, Nimrod set to work. Pushing the shaped metal rod into the keyhole, he twisted and turned it, staring blankly ahead of him as he did so, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, visualising in his mind's eye what he could determine from his probing.

He gave one last twist, and a sharp metal click echoed through the stillness of the cellar.

Nimrod remained exactly where he was. Had his release of the lock sounded as loud in the passageway beyond? Was there someone approaching their position even now, armed and dangerous and ready to deal with them once and for all?

He waited; one second, two seconds, five, ten...

Slowly, Nimrod tried the handle again. This time the door opened a crack.

Not one of the creatures moved: Nimrod had half expected them to make a break for freedom, but they remained where they were, all eyes on him and Jacob as first one, and then the other, passed through the open door and into the corridor beyond.

Nimrod looked back at the gathered pack, as if giving them one last chance to escape, waiting for them to make their move. But no move came. It was as if by some silent consensus the creatures had decided that they had played their part, that they had done enough.

The fear was there in their eyes again, clearer than ever, as if they knew what it was that lay beyond the door and could not bear to confront it again.

Nimrod closed the door, but left it unlocked. He scanned the corridor ahead, lit again by strings of caged electric lights, and wondered what it was that the inhabitants of the bizarre menagerie knew, that he did not.

"What do we do now?" Jacob asked, looking at Nimrod with imploring, anxious eyes from beneath the lumpen growths of his face.

Nimrod put away the lock picks and took out his pistol.

"Now we face our fears," he said.

Chapter Twenty

Last Supper

The snap and crunch of the crab cracker breaking open the cooked crustacean's claw cut sharply through the stillness of the vast dining room. The only sound other than the crunch and clatter of specialised cutlery was the crack and pop of the fire blazing within the vast fireplace.

The polished mahogany table that ran the length of the formal dining chamber was easily large enough to seat thirty, but only two places had been laid this evening. At the head of the table, sat in a wheeled wicker bath chair, was Josiah Umbridge, terminally-ill industrialist, host and kidnapper. Opposite him, at the far end of the table, was Jennifer Haniver, cryptozoologist, orphan and now reluctant dinner guest.

Umbridge scooped fibres of white meat from the crab claw with a fork and stuffed them into his mouth. He ate ravenously, like a condemned man relishing his last meal.

Hands gripping the arms of her chair tightly, Jenny stared down at her plate, having no desire to look her incarcerator in the face.

"It'll get cold," Umbridge pointed out, gesticulating with his fork. "Aren't you hungry?"

"Funnily enough, no," Jenny spat, continuing to stare at the plate in front of her.

There was half a crab, some lobster in there too, and the coils of an octopus's tentacles, some squid and chunks of eel, by the looks of things, but not one of the dead sea creatures that had been served up for the meal was wholly intact. It had all been presented with care and, Jenny had to admit that it smelt delicious, but none of it had been presented in the conventional manner. And besides, no matter how much the aroma of the fish might cause her to salivate, she wouldn't be able to stomach a single mouthful, considering how this little supper for two had come about.

"What is it?" she said, disgust in her voice. "It looks like leftovers."

"I suppose it is, after a manner of speaking. But it is also the finest food that a man could ever hope to feast upon. The fruits of the sea. Surely you would not deny a dying man the chance to be a little extravagant and spoil himself when it came to his last supper."

Jenny looked up, startled. "Your
last
supper?" What did the old man know that she didn't? Was he planning to kill himself, end his agony now?

"That's right, my dear. And so I am sure that you would not deny me only the finest company also for such a meal."

Despite herself, Jenny felt her cheeks redden at the old man's compliment. Perhaps she had judged him too harshly. But that didn't change the fact that she and Ulysses had effectively been abducted against their will. Ulysses himself had received a vicious beating at the hands of the vile gamekeeper Rudge, and she had been taken away by another, a snivelling weasel of a man who looked like his ancestry included a whole host of other vermin as well. Her steely resolve returned in an instant.

She looked at the butler standing patiently beside the door at the other end of the room. He looked back at her, his face an impassive mask of disinterest, and yet which also told her precisely what would happen if she tried anything.

For a moment she thought about taking her knife and making a run for Umbridge, holding him hostage until she was able to get out of there, perhaps even rescue Ulysses too. She considered the possibility for a moment and then dismissed the idea. There was no way she would be able to get away with it. The butler would have Umbridge's heavies there in an instant and then who knew what might happen to her. She had no idea how long the old man's tolerance of her might last, how deep his feelings for her ran; she doubted deep enough to stop him killing her. No, he had something else in mind, she was sure of it, something far more important than the imagined romance with a girl more than a third of his own age.

"Perhaps you would like some wine?" her host and abductor suggested, as he champed away at a mouthful of rubbery octopus flesh. "Molesworth, wine for our guest."

Jenny gazed at Umbridge in disbelief. How could he be so relaxed, carrying on as if she were a willing participant in this fiasco?

"I know," Umbridge laughed, catching her eye. "Chardonnay is not to your liking; you would prefer the claret. Well, hang convention! This is a special occasion. Have what you want."

"What I want?" Jenny seethed, no longer able to contain her frustration and despair in the face of the man's unwarranted good humour. "What I want? What I want is to not be forced to remain in this house a moment longer against my will. What I want is to know what you have done with Mr Quicksilver. What I want is to know why my father had to die!"

"That was a most unfortunate... accident." Umbridge stated flatly.

"An unfortunate accident?" Jenny screamed at him down the length of the table. "He was torn apart by some monstrous dog that, we believe, was under the control of your man Rudge!"

"Please, my dear," Umbridge said, picking up his wine glass and taking a sip. "You are disturbing the ambience. I am trying to enjoy my last meal as a human being."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Jenny shrieked. "Perhaps you would prefer it if I ate up my food like a good little girl?"

Picking up her plate she hurled it towards the fireplace, the fine bone china smashing to smithereens against the cast iron grate. Crab meat and squid sizzled and popped on the white-hot logs.

For a moment her eyes alighted upon the hideous shrivelled thing that had been mounted in a glass display case on the mantelpiece above the fire. Something not quite fish and yet not quite mammal.

"You really should drink something," Umbridge said, carefully placing his cutlery on the table, his hands bunching to fists, knuckles whitening, his voice suddenly steel.

"Well, here's to you!" Raising her glass to the seething old man at the other end of the table, standing she shot him a grim smile through the tears now streaming down her cheeks and made her toast. "Up yours!" she said and tossed the wineglass into the fire after the plate.

"That was foolish," he said icily, taking another swig of wine from his own glass. "I am told that it will help make the experience that much easier to bear."

"What? What experience?"

He regarded her with an intense, gimlet gaze, all signs of good humour gone from his face.

"The world is changing, my dear, and I, for one, do not intend to be left behind."

"Left behind? But you're dying, you said so yourself," Jenny sobbed, confused and upset, trying to make sense of the madness unfolding around her and into which she felt like she was falling, deeper and deeper.

"This body is dying," he stated matter-of-factly, "but I do not intend to die with it."

"What are you talking about?" she screamed.

"I am going to ascend this pathetic mortal frame of mine. I have spent too long building my company, lived through too much to lose it all now... to cancer! The inheritors of Darwin's legacy will have to create a new classification for me, for I shall be the first of a new species. I shall become
homo superior
. The textbooks will have to be re-written in my honour."

"What?" she gasped, cruel realisation slowly dawning on her.

"You were right, Miss Haniver," Umbridge said, his voice calm again. "The creature that killed your father was just one step on the way to achieving perfection and the accomplishment of my dream - every man's dream - the desire for immortality. I do not intend to die today or tomorrow, or whenever fate and the cancer consuming my body choose." A dark smile crept across his face. "I do not intend to die at all."

Jenny collapsed back into her chair as she realised that she was at the mercy of a madman, the sheer level of insanity on display too much to cope with.

"Our planet is sick," Umbridge went on. "This country, the empire, the whole world, is sickening, is changing. Every day it becomes ever more polluted and no matter what Prime Minister Valentine and his toadies might say, we are long past the point of no return. No, this is what our world has become, and we should embrace that change, as failed custodians of planet Earth.

"I shall be the first of this wondrous new species. But if I am to be father to a new race, I shall need a consort," Jenny stared at him in horror, mouth open in a silent scream, body frozen rigid with terror, "which is where you come in. A much preferable choice than the scullery maid I had marked down for that purpose, I must say, my dear, to your credit. You know, you really should drink something."

"You're mad," Jenny spluttered, finding her voice again, and, with it, the ability to move. She began to lift herself out of the chair, keeping her eyes on Umbridge's right-hand man all the time.

There was nothing else for it now. She grabbed the knife with her right hand. She had to get out of there now. She had to try, no matter what they might do to her, no matter how hard she had to fight. Anything, even death, had to be better than the horrific fate Umbridge had in mind for her.

Umbridge nodded to someone over Jenny's shoulder. She glanced back to see Rudge and his weasely accomplice closing on her position, having entered by some disguised doorway at the back of the room.

Jenny was still half out of her chair when the two rogues made a grab for her.

She spun round, lashing out with the knife in her hand as she did so. For a moment she felt resistance as the serrated edge made contact with something and then froze in shocked surprise as she saw blood beading across the burly gamekeeper's cheek and the bridge of his nose. He put a hand to his face and then looked at the blood now painting his fingertips.

"Bitch!" Rudge snapped and struck out with the flat of his ham-sized hand, slapping her hard across the face.

Stunned, Jenny lost coordination, making it all the more easy for the two ruffians to restrain her and drag her from the room.

The heels of her walking boots kicked against the polished floorboards as she tried to do something - anything - in the hope of breaking free and somehow, against all the odds, getting away. The pain in her ankle was as nothing compared to her fear of what Umbridge had in store for her.

"You're insane!" she screamed as she was hauled from the room. "Insane!"

The young woman's cries echoing back to him along the sepulchral halls and passageways of the great house, Josiah Umbridge continued his meal - alone.

How will food taste after I have ascended?
he wondered, as he tucked into a platter of roast pheasant, honey-roast parsnips, rosti potatoes and shallots. Indeed, how would he experience any of his senses through his new body?

Would he still only be able to see in the conventional optical spectrum? Would he touch, taste and hear in the same way, smell in the same way? Surely not; not when his new body offered him so many more ways in which to experience the world around him. One thing was for certain, it would be far superior to the cancer-riddled, corpse-in-waiting he inhabited at present. As far as Umbridge was concerned, his longed-for transformation could not come quickly enough.