Roberta was having none of this. Gripping the strange tool with its open jaws, she released the net and sprang forwards, leaving whirling eddies in the thick purple smoke at her feet. Then, as she reached the spirits, she thrust at them one-two-three with the device, eliciting a sharp crackling noise from each. There was an unholy wailing noise as the spirits were stretched out, the lower portion of their bodies drawn towards the trap like water to a hole in the ground. The metal cylinder at the heart of the trap began to gleam as it consumed its prey, and the more it gleamed, the faster it drew the spirits in. Soon there was only a head and shoulders for each of them, the rest being stretched out thin over a span of twenty feet or more. Then these too were drawn into the trap, and the cylinder's gleam went out.
The spirits having vanished, the professor's weak life force now swirled in mid-air, suddenly freed. For a moment it seemed to hover, moving this way and that, and then it stretched past us at tremendous speed, heading back up the tunnel. The swirling cloud thinned until none remained, and I turned to watch the tail end vanishing up the tunnel like a thrashing, transparent snake.
"Were we in time?" I demanded of Roberta. "Did we save him?"
"Oh, I hope so." She dropped the tool into my hands. "I must go and tend to him. Please… will you gather my things and follow?"
"Of course!" I cried. "Go!"
She needed no second bidding, turning and running back along the tunnel until she disappeared around the curve. I prayed she would find the professor made whole once more, and with a wry grin I wondered whether she'd thought to bring any brandy, for he was certain to ask for it.
Then I turned to my task, folding the net and picking up the now-featureless discs from the earthen floor. My final task was to collect the trap, and as I did so I studied the cylinder suspended within. Three powerful spirits trapped in one metal core! Would it hold, or would they explode outwards to consume me? Even as I watched, it shook savagely, and I almost dropped the trap in surprise. I recalled the shattered cylinder I'd seen several days earlier, when the professor and Roberta had returned from their cleansing at Lady Fotherington-Eames' residence. That one had failed with but a single spirit inside.
In the end I wrapped the trap tightly inside the copper net, reasoning it might afford me a few seconds of warning should the spirits escape their bronze prison. I shouldered both knapsacks, and was about to follow after Roberta when I happened to spy the red gleam further along the tunnel. She'd indicated that the three of us would be returning this way, assuming her father was fit enough to do so. We would return with weapons, and stronger traps, and we would be going further around that corner to face the unknown horrors which had crawled into our world through Edgar's rift.
So would it not make sense for me to take a very quick, very cautious look?
There was a risk I would have to flee back down the tunnel with a score of slavering demons at my heels, but it would be worth it if I returned with valuable information. The number of enemies, for example, and perhaps a description of their appearance. I knew it was the right thing to do, and so I set the haversacks against the wall and began my stealthy approach to the curve in the tunnel and the baleful red gleam beyond.
– — Ω — –
The closer I got to the bend in the tunnel, the louder my footsteps seemed to become, and the more certain I was that I would be heard. I stopped once or twice, knowing it was madness to continue, but I had an overwhelming need to see what terrors might await the three of us when we returned.
I had the revolver in one hand, still fully loaded in case I encountered Edgar. As for spirits, if I ran into a less than human opponent I resolved to turn and run until my legs would carry me no further.
As I reached the gentle curve I pressed myself to the smooth green tiles lining the wall, continuing around the corner in a crabwise fashion. In the newspapers, I'd seen claims that these underground tunnels would serve the city for a hundred years or more, and I wondered what marvels might exist in the year nineteen hundred and seventy-one. I would never know, of course, but I only hoped these people of the future did not have to face a world ravaged by foul spirits and demons. For if they did, the blame would lie entirely with me. Why, I should have taken a knife to Edgar the first time I met him, and then none of this would have happened!
I pushed these self-recriminations aside, and continued creeping along the wall. As I did so, the scene ahead came into view, and what I saw froze me in place.
The tunnel broadened into a large cavern with a high ceiling, which I guessed was to be a new station for the underground. But at this moment, instead of passengers, the entire cavern was filled with ghostly apparitions. There were spirits of all sizes, and they whirled clockwise around the circular area as though blown by a powerful wind. Only they moved in
