was spraying everywhere.
Krishnamurthy forgot his headache as he started to exact vengeance for Milligan's death.
Amid the carnage, as his team penetrated deeper into the battle zone, he caught sight of Trounce, who was laying about himself like a wild man, and Honesty, who was industriously crippling the shambling monstrosities.
Krishnamurthy realised that the three main groups of policemen had made it to the rendezvous point as planned. However, unlike Honesty and Trounce, he didn't know that the signal whistle had been sounded by mistake or that the advance had been made some considerable time ahead of schedule. Now, as the police teams merged, it dawned on him that something had gone badly wrong.
Swinburne was supposed to be here. The opposition should be on its back foot by now. The police were meant to be in control of the situation.
They weren't.
“Hold fast,” he breathed. “Just hope the poet shows up.” He lashed out at a Rake and muttered: “A poet, by crikey! A blessed poet!”
Detective Inspector Honesty strode past, brandishing his weapons.
Krishnamurthy clearly heard his superior bark: “Petunias.”
“Did you say Tichborne, sir?” he asked.
“No, Commander. Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give them hell.”
Krishnamurthy nodded and winced. His head was filled with pain.
“Excuse me,” said a refined voice. He turned. A Rake stood beside him. “How does it work, old bean?”
The commander stepped back. “What?”
The Rake, not long deceased by the look of him, said: “The thing of it is, you have life. Unfortunately, I don't. Regrettably, that means I have to take yours. What I can't bally well work out is where to look for it after I've run you through.” He showed Krishnamurthy his rapier. “Can you advise?”
The Flying Squad man eyed the sword point, which was poised about three inches from his face.
“Um-”
The Rake's head flew apart, the rapier dropped, and the body folded.
“This isn't a bloody debating society, Commander!” Trounce growled, standing over the prone corpse. He wheeled and stalked off into the mist, shouting orders and encouragement to his men.
Krishnamurthy watched him go. “Snooty bastard,” he muttered.
Dodge-duck- Smack! Smack! -nothing.
Honesty straightened and looked around. His five-strong team of head-pulverisers had been set upon by a large group of Rakes. The constables were fighting for their lives.
“Not very sporting!” exclaimed the corpse at his feet. “Hitting me in the knees like that. How am I supposed to toddle about?”
Honesty ignored the question and took a step toward his men. The fallen Rake grabbed his ankle and unbalanced him. He hit the ground face-first.
“I demand an apology!” said the Rake.
The detective sat up, twisted around, and thumped a truncheon onto the cadaver's head.
“Ouch! Good grief, man! What sort of an apology is that?”
The weapon descended again, harder.
“You should go,” said the Rake, in a slurred voice. “I'll just lie here for a bit.”
His head caved in under the third blow and he lay still.
“Purple flowering laburnum,” said Honesty. “Very hardy. Grows anywhere.”
He got to his feet.
An arm wrapped around his neck and yanked him backward. One of his truncheons was wrenched from his hand and thrown into the fog. He felt teeth sink into his left shoulder and tried to yell in pain but his throat was too constricted. He struggled, his vision blurring. Bells began to chime insistently in his ears.
He pitched sideways and hit the ground. His assailant's grip broke and Honesty rolled free, lay on his back, and gulped at the dirty air.
A foot slammed down onto his hand. He cried out as his fingers broke around the grip of his remaining truncheon. A body thumped onto his chest, its knees on his shoulders. Hands seized his neck and tightened around it like a band of metal.
The ringing in his ears increased, yet, somewhere behind the cacophony, he heard an approaching rhythmic thunder, too.
The ground started to tremble beneath his back.
Through a red haze of pain, Honesty looked up and saw that his assailant was the bearded man with the dent in his cheek.
Detective Inspector Trounce was covered from head to foot in gore. His truncheon dripped brain tissue. His mouth had frozen into a ferocious snarl and his eyes were blazing. He stood on a pile of motionless Rakes and waited for the next one to come. It was not a long wait. A man lurched into view and ran toward him. He was dressed in evening attire and there was a monocle jammed into his right eye socket. He'd obviously already been in battle, for his jaw was broken and hung loosely with the tongue flapping over it. It didn't matter to him; he was already dead.
The Rake scrambled over his fallen fellows. Trounce sprang to meet him and swept his weapon down, double-handed, onto the bare head. The skull broke with a horrible noise. Trounce hit it again and again and again.
The Rake went limp and still.
There was a moment of respite.
The Scotland Yard man wiped his sleeve over his eyes and peered around. Through the dense murk, he could see shadowy figures locked in combat. A great many constables lay dead or wounded in the road. Rakes milled about.
“How many heads have I smashed in tonight?” he rasped. “And still the bloody stiffs keep coming!”
He turned his head and saw Detective Inspector Honesty sprawled in the road, his face turning blue as a Rake, kneeling on his chest, throttled the life out of him.
Trounce took a step, lost his footing, slipped, and slid across corpses to the cobbles. He scrambled to his feet and made to run to his friend, but he'd taken no more than a single stride before two wraiths suddenly wafted into view and grabbed him by the arms.
“No!” he croaked, as, struggling furiously, he was dragged into the fog, borne away from his dying friend.
The wraiths came to a halt as Krishnamurthy emerged from the haze. The ghostly figure of a top-hatted man loomed behind the commander.
“Watch out!” Trounce cried. “And save Honesty! He's back there being strangled to death!”
“I'm sorry!” the Flying Squad man gasped. “I-I can't-can't-” Lifting his truncheon high, he approached his superior. “Tichborne is-is innocent!”
“Krishnamurthy!” Trounce yelled. “Pull yourself together, man!”
“The op-oppressors must-must die!”
He swung his weapon back, ready to sweep it down onto Trounce's head.
Thunder sounded: Ba-da-da-doom! Ba-da-da-doom! Ba-da-da-doom!
The ground vibrated.
A police whistle shrieked repeatedly.
A powerful gust of wind suddenly swept over Trounce, and the two wraiths lost hold of him. They were ripped apart and blown away. Behind Krishnamurthy, the top-hatted apparition disintegrated.
The commander looked over Trounce's shoulder, his eyes wide with astonishment, his mouth gaping.
The detective turned.
“Bloody hell!” he gasped. “I'm seeing things!”
It came pounding across Waterloo Bridge, and when it entered the Strand, the cobbles cracked and powdered
