Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (22 page)

“Tearing through all comers?” Axelrod said. “What could that possibly mean?”

“Only the best of all possibilities,” Eliza said with a grin that could curdle cream. “It’s a fight!”

Eliza and Axelrod moved through the greasy, unkempt crowd with some difficulty, until they came dead centre to the ring. A pit had been dug in the earthen floor, some four feet lower than where the crowd stood. A chest-high fence of scavenged wood lined the pit, and kept the crowd from tumbling in. Within the pit, Axelrod could see that one man stood, his arms outraised. Next to him was something that perhaps was a man at some point, but was so battered and bloody it was impossible to tell.

A third figure, a scruffy little man in a colourful coat and ill-used top hat, leapt into the pit, and shouted with a volume many times the size of his body. “Here he is, here he is, Mad Dog Maquire! Undefeated! He’ll take all comers! Who wants to fight? Who wants to fight? Who wants to make Mad Dog heel? Come on now, the night is young, the night is young! Let’s get some fresh meat in the pit, eh?”

“He’ll fight him!” Eliza said, pointing at Axelrod.

“Looks like we’ve got a challenger!” the announcer said, heralding a wild roar from the crowd. “This one might even last longer than the last one!” The spectators erupted in the delight at the idea that more blood would be spilled.

“Now, Eliza, all I wanted to do was show you a good time...” Axelrod began.

“You know what would be a good time, Hephaestus?” It was the first time she had said his first name all night, but she drew out every syllable like a teasing child. “You know what I would really enjoy seeing? You. In the ring. Fighting.”

He looked at the sweaty, bald monster in the ring. “You cannot be serious.”

“Oh, but I am. Any beau of mine should feel entirely comfortable in such surroundings. Go on then. I’ll hold your coat.”

“Miss Braun, I have an increasing suspicion that you are attempting to punish me,” Axelrod said. But he resignedly doffed his topper and removed his coat.

“My dear Mr Axelrod, I have spent what seemed to be an eternity trapped inside the confines of a music hall. I believe that no matter what happens to you in the ring, I will still have carried the lion share of suffering for the two of us.”

Axelrod regarded his presumptive opponent, a towering hulk of equal parts simian and canine, with arms powerful enough to drive a locomotive’s piston all on their own. “I’m not certain of that. But far be it from me to deny a request from a beautiful lady. Careful with that hat.”

“Oh, is it expensive?”

“In a sense. It’s filled with rocket fuel.”

“What?!?” Braun shouted, but Axelrod had already hopped down into fighting pit, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

“You look a right sort, a right sort indeed,” the announcer spat through a mouthful of rotting breath and absent teeth. “You’re sure you’re prepared for this, Squire?”

“Without a doubt,” Axelrod flashed a grin and a wink to Braun, who was now beginning to look quite white. “I did a bit of the sweet science back at Eton.”

“Oh, I say. Got a learned one here, do we?” The announcer gripped Axelrod’s wrist and held it high, his mouldy fingernails digging into Axelrod’s soft wrist. “Bets on, bets on! Who’s got a coin for the brain, here? Who’s got a coin for public school lad? Could this be the bloke who finally takes down Mad Dog Maguire? Bets on, bets on! Grease my cockney palm!”

“Hephaestus!” Eliza leaned forward over the ring’s wooden wall, and Hephaestus felt his breath catch in his throat on sight of her lovely bosom. She was having trouble shouting over the din of excited and anxious bidding. “I’ve changed my mind. You don’t have to do this.”

“Not to worry,” Axelrod said. He threw a few practice jabs in the air and scuttled back and forth on his feet. “I am entirely comfortable in these surroundings, as befits your beau.”

“Stop,” Eliza said. “Just stop. I just wanted to embarrass you a bit. Have a right laugh? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“This might embarrass another man,” Axelrod said, his fists up. “Fortunately, I am an adept at Queensbury Rules.”

It was at that moment Axelrod was clocked by the back of a fist harder than a blacksmith’s anvil. The man of Science, of the Future, of things that would not involve people named “Mad Dog,” staggered to the packed earth, only to catch the steel toe of his opponent’s boot right in the stomach, sending him back to the wall where Eliza watched from.

“I’m not…sure…those…are Queensbury…rules,” he wheezed out.

“This is a bareknuckle match in Camden Row!” Eliza shouted over the din.
“There are no rules!”

“No rules, eh?” Axelrod managed to straighten up, regardless of his body’s protests. “That changes everything.”

Axelrod yanked hard on the pocket flaps of his waistcoat. As one, all five of the waistcoat buttons exploded from his torso, flying forward into the face and chest of Mad Dog. The impact startled the brute, but it did not quite have the subduing effect Axelrod was hoping for. Quite the opposite, in fact, as Mad Dog’s confusion quickly melted into all-consuming rage.

“Yawwwwrrrrr!!!!!”
Mad Dog bellowed.

“Yaaaaaahhhhh!!!!”
Axelrod screamed in response.

Mad Dog charged at him, both arms outstretched. His meaty, grasping hands found Axelrod’s waistcoat, and proceeded to lift the much-smaller man up on his toes. Axelrod managed to twist out of his waistcoat—not a difficult manoeuvre, as it had shot off its buttons. Axelrod contorted his body and arms in such way that it left the waistcoat tangled around Mad Dog’s wrists. The large man tried to yank his fists free, but they were locked just as surely as if clasped in irons.

“You’re not going to get out of that any time soon,” Axelrod said, thumbs hooked in his bracers. “That’s one hundred per cent steel-bonded silk. It is supposed to stop a bullet dead in its tracks, so I imagine it’ll hold you for a piece.”

Not about to let the binding of his fists stop him from winning the fight, Mad Dog slammed a ham-hand into Axelrod’s face; but it was without the power of his first swing. The waistcoat had forced Mad Dog to adopt a clumsy parody of Axelrod’s original stance.

“Ah, so we are doing Queensbury Rules, are we?” Axelrod was winded by that last blow, but the sight of Mad Dog with his fists awkwardly upraised brought a smile to his face. Axelrod resumed his original fighting posture. He gave Mad Dog two quick jabs to the face before the massive man could react. Mad Dog swung again, but the slow punch was easily dodged. Axelrod made contact with another jab before giving a powerful punch to Mad Dog’s bread-basket, causing him to stagger away.

Axelrod turned, grinning, in a hope to catch Eliza’s eye. She returned his smile, only to immediately show an expression of horror. He gave her a look of confusion, only to turn and see Mad Dog swinging his bound fists together like a club. The sledgehammer of meat and bone made contact with Axelrod’s head, and he swore later that he could feel his brain smack into the inside of his skull as he tumbled to the ground.

Axelrod was on his hands and knees. His right eye was swelling shut, and the blood rushing through his ears all but drowned out the crowds cries of “
Get up! Get up!”
If he had raised his head, there is a possibility that through the growing blur he might have seen Eliza mouth the words
“Stay down,”
though there was no way he could have heard her over the commotion.

Shaky as a hog on ice, Axelrod got to his feet and rolled his shoulders. He undid his bracers, keeping them in a knot in his fist. Once again, he raised his hands the closest approximation he could come to a proper stance. Mad Dog was ready, swinging his bound arms like an executioner’s axe.

Axelrod dropped to his knees, allowing Mad Dog’s blow to sail over him. As it passed, he looped his bracers around Mad Dog’s forearms, and fired the miniature grappling pinions and cables that were hidden with the clasps. The pinions lodged firmly into the packed earth. Axelrod had just enough time to activate the mighty miniature winch, which wound the cables up with astonishing speed. Mad Dog was pulled to the ground, his destructive fists tied to the very earth.

“This is far from sporting, I know,” Axelrod said, coming up onto the trapped fighter. “But you have to understand. I’m trying to impress a woman.” With that, Axelrod gave Mad Dog a mighty kick to the head, sending the fighter down for the count.

“Impressive, squire,” the announcer said, clamouring over the fence. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

“I have a tendency of rising from the ashes,” Axelrod said, as he shook his smarting foot. “After all, proper kick is not about power, but about aim. I also played football at Eton.”

Eliza muscled her way through the crowd, and vaulted over the wooden wall to land expertly on feet, as if the bustle and yards of satin she was wearing meant nothing at all. Axelrod, even in his unsteady, punch-drunk state, was reminded of why he found her so fetching in the first place.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” Eliza said.

“Eliza, darling, you don’t understand. It is perfectly fine,” Axelrod tried hard to enunciate, but his rapidly swelling right cheek was making polished conversation very difficult. “I won. I don’t have to leave. I won.”

“That’s exactly
why
you have to leave,” she insisted. “All the people here? They bet
against
you. And they don’t take kindly to losing.”

Axelrod turned his dwindling focus on the crowd. What he had once assumed were cheers celebrating his victory were now clearly yells of anger and discontent. He could just make out makeshift weapons in the hands of the angry mob. The wooden wall that kept individuals lacking Eliza’s athletic capabilities was now on the verge of collapsing.

“Riiiiight,” Axelrod drawled. He could not shake his eyes from the wave of oncoming people. Without looking away, he pulled a white handkerchief out of his back pocket and tied it around his head like a pirate. Axelrod fingered the handkerchief’s tag only to yank it off. The chemical reaction in the fabric hissed and the material blackened. Axelrod rubbed his hands over the now-hard shell on his head, never taking his eyes from the crowd. “Should be sufficient. Could you hand me my hat? There’s a love, thank you.”

“Hephaestus? Are you all right?”

“I am perfectly fine,” Axelrod said, as he spit out a tooth. He flipped down one side of the hat’s brim, making it flush with the crown. Axelrod ran another finger up the crown, loosing two vertical straps that previously had been unnoticeable. “Right then, a few moments from now, I am going to have to be unmistakably forward. Please find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“What are you going on about?”

Axelrod slid his arms through the top hat’s straps, adjusting it so that the hat was now strapped between his shoulder blades. “Remember when I said this hat was full of rocket fuel?”

“I thought you were joking.” Eliza had balled her hands into tight fists, her cold gaze turned toward the oncoming throng of disgruntled boxing enthusiasts.

“I never joke about rocket fuel. It’s just not safe. Forgive me.” Axelrod enveloped Eliza’s frame in a powerful bear hug. Before she could protest, flames erupted from the hat on his back, rocketing the two of them up into the air. The force of the hat sent them crashing through the roof of the stable.

Up, up, and up they went into the night sky, tight in each other’s arms, a trail of fire in their wake.

Wellington could not help himself. He had to know.

Despite his usually discomfort at going down to Research & Design, and his new discomfort in leaving his charge alone in the Archives, Wellington had to see the condition of Professor Axelrod. Based on the tension Eliza nurtured this morning, he had known just how disastrous the previous evening had gone. How miserable had Eliza been? Had she made a scene? Did Eliza slap him?

Had Eliza punched him? Oh, he hoped so. The prospect made Books absolutely giddy.

He walked in without knocking or announcement. “Good afternoon, Profes—
OH MY GOD!”

“If you like. I’m not a religious man, but appreciate some worship as much as the next deity.” Axelrod managed to smirk through puffy lips and cheek. “And good afternoon to you, sir.”

Whatever situation Wellington expected to find when he walked into the lab, it paled in comparison to what he actually saw. Professor Axelrod was there, all right, but he was singed and swollen, his face a mess of bruises, cuts and burns, his hands similarly scarred. He was sitting in a chair that looked like a half-finished torture instrument—
which is probably exactly what it was,
Wellington thought upon reflection—as Doctor Blackwell fussed over him with bandages and foul-smelling ointments.