The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(178)

“What was that?” his wife asked between gasps for breath.

“I don’t know, Jane. Possibly one of Crookes’s columns short-circuited,” he replied.

But he doubted it. He had only been able to glance fleetingly at the hole, but the darkness inside it, the icy cold exuding from it, and that suction power . . . He thrust the thought from this mind, quickening his pace as he tried to get his bearings in that labyrinth and listen for whether the creature was following them. He thought he heard the swift, angry pounding of his footsteps in the distance and his blood ran cold. It was definitely Rhys, and he was gaining on them. If they could only reach the street, they might stand a chance. He was sure someone would help them, or perhaps they could take a carriage and flee before he caught up with them . . . But Wells soon realized he was lost in those winding underground passages, which all of a sudden would end in a wall, forcing them to retrace their steps, or a door that would take them back to where they had started. It was as if the original maze of corridors had sprouted new offshoots that led nowhere or turned back on themselves. Some doors even had dozens of handles to choose from. With no time to stop and deliberate over this strange phenomenon, Wells and Jane ran haphazardly, with the sole aim of fleeing the footsteps resounding in the distance. When they came across the stairs leading up to the entrance hall, they bounded up them, grateful to chance for freeing them.

As soon as they reached the upper floor, they heard the sound of footsteps running toward them, and a young guard in uniform, with a look of panic on his face, emerged from one of the side galleries. Wells tried to stop him to ask for his assistance, but the young lad didn’t seem to be in his right mind. He thrust Wells aside and carried on running as if all the demons in hell were on his heels. Wells and Jane exchanged glances, wondering what had given the young man such a fright. The only thing they knew capable of doing that was the creature chasing them. But they were mistaken.

First they heard their chant. It was coming from the room the guard had fled from and seemed to emanate from throats that were not human.

“His is the House of Pain. His is the Hand that makes. His is the Hand that wounds. His is the lightning flash . . .”

Wells and Jane looked at one another, aghast. They knew the words of that blood-chilling chant by heart, but it was impossible that . . . A cohort of grotesque figures emerged from the gloom of the gallery. This ragged mob walked with the rolling gait of the lame, and all of them, without exception, possessed bestial features: the creature heading the company had a silvery pelt and was faintly reminiscent of a satyr, the issue of a coupling between a monkey and a goat; behind him followed a creature that was a cross between a hyena and a pig, and a woman who was half fox and half bear, and a man with a black face in the middle of which was a protrusion dimly suggestive of a muzzle. Fortunately, Wells and Jane were able to duck into the shadow of the staircase just in time. Chanting their grotesque song, the horde of beasts disappeared inside the museum, a confusion of imaginatively antlered heads, fanged mouths, bulging eyes that shone in the dark . . . Wells shook his head with a mixture of disgust and hilarity. How was it possible they had just encountered the cast of characters he had imagined for his novel The Island of Doctor Moreau?

He had no time to answer his own question, for they soon saw Rhys’s figure appear at the foot of the staircase. The couple started running again toward the entrance, which, fortunately, one of the guards had left wide-open. But as they reached the door, they were forced to come up short. From the top of the museum steps, Wells and Jane contemplated the scene before them, paralyzed with fear. It was as if someone had spilled all of mankind’s nightmares onto South Kensington. Up in the sky, which looked like a web of blue, lilac, and purple hues, like sections of different skies tacked together, a huge flaming bird was tracing circles of fire. Below, a three-headed dog with a serpent’s tail was careering down one of the streets, the ground quaking beneath its feet; ahead of it, trying to escape its ferocious jaws, a panic-stricken crowd was scattering in all directions. Farther away, toward Chelsea, a swarm of strange flying machines with propellers on their wings was dropping bombs on buildings, which blew up in an orgy of destruction. While they were trying to take in what they were seeing, a herd of unicorns, like a wave of shimmering beauty, galloped out of Brompton Road, passed before their astonished eyes, and then vanished down Cromwell Road.

“Look, Bertie!” Jane said suddenly, pointing toward one of the side streets.

Wells turned and saw a Martian tripod, identical to the one he had described in The War of the Worlds, walking on slender jointed legs and firing heat rays at people and buildings. He was horrified to see his invention playing its part in that madness and mayhem, but he had no time to lament the fact, for the sound of loud flapping caused them to raise their heads to the sky. At that instant, a dragon straight out of some medieval bestiary circled the buildings opposite, scattering the group of bat-men who appeared to be idling on the rooftops, oblivious to the devastation around them. Tipping its enormous membranous wings, the creature swooped down on a row of carriages clogging one of the nearby streets. With no Perseus or Siegfried at hand to confront it, the dragon spat out a tongue of fire that set alight the carriages one by one. The occupants leapt out, fleeing blindly in all directions. A small group of them noticed that the museum doors were open and made a dash for the steps, hoping to take refuge inside, but the dragon anticipated their movements and, wheeling round abruptly, flew over them, spraying them with horrific flames, setting the poor wretches alight in front of the horrified couple. The fireball had come so close that Wells and Jane could feel the heat scorching their cheeks. Terrified, they retreated a few steps backward into the museum. Some of those caught by the flames fell on the steps, but others managed to reach the door, only to collapse, writhing grotesquely on the ground before suddenly becoming still. The sickening stench of charred flesh filled the air. Wells and Jane stood observing the grisly scene, aghast, until they spotted Rhys crossing the entrance hall toward them. The way out blocked by the dragon, they grabbed each other by the hand once more and fled toward one of the side galleries. Rhys set off in pursuit, determined to kill them once and for all.