“Anything comes this way, kill it.” Embrey aimed his weapons.
A creature dashed across the street, as fast as a dog after a fleeing man. It had the general shape and profile of a tyrannosaur, but it was much smaller, about the size of a large wolf. Colourful feathers on its arms, neck and long tail gave it a tropical, birdlike appearance. The bugger attacked with ferocity. Its size belied a hugely powerful musculature. After it bit into the man’s throat, ripping his windpipe out with a single crunch, Embrey shared a trepidatious look with his Africans colleagues. He double-checked the water-acid canisters for both his pistols.
“What the hell is it? Some kind of pack hunter? Hey- ” Reardon had to stop his five bodyguards from stepping back any further and trampling his machine parts. One of the Africans knocked the parasol over instead. “Somebody fire a shot,” the professor said. “Alert the rest of the crew. These civilians are unarmed.”
He was right. Embrey fired into the air. Two of the dinosaurs dragged a human body from the lawn onto the street, and began squabbling over it. A third took advantage of the kerfuffle, sinking its sickle-like claw and razor teeth into one of the Duke of Kent’s retinue. Perhaps even the duke himself.
Embrey gagged. A volley of gunfire erupted from the Empress’s direction moments before Reardon swivelled him northward. A hurtful shriek rang in his ears as two feathered predators bore down on them from behind. He aimed and fired both his pistols. One dinosaur fell dead on the cobblestone. The other barged into the machine parts while Reardon and an aeronaut dove out of the way. Its claw caught the arm of a standing African, gouging a deep wound. Embrey shot into the feathers on its spine and hurried away from its thrashing limbs and death-throe shrieks. All six men finished it.
Another dinosaur leapt from out of nowhere, cleaving the injured man’s neck as it landed on him. He tore fistfuls of feathers but to no avail. By the time they killed the beast, it had bitten through the poor aeronaut’s skull.
“Son of a bitch. ” They were too exposed out here. If a dinosaur pack attacked in full force, the situation would be hopeless. “Come on, we must get indoors.” He yanked Reardon toward the factory but the professor wouldn’t budge.
“Stop it, man. For God’s sake, is your brain smogged?” Reardon stood his ground, cocked his rifle, glancing every which way-panic jerked him round and round.
“Men, we don’t have time for this, and we can’t afford to lose him.” Embrey glared at the professor. “Take him by force.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two of the aeronauts frog-marched him off the street, while the third rushed to fold the blanket over Reardon’s clock pieces. No sooner had he covered the first contraption than the sun-baked road darkened and a giant pterosaur swooped on top of him. The man tried to fling the blanket and its contents out of reach but only succeeded in spilling them.
“ No. ” Embrey shot twice but the monstrous flier flapped its wings. Dust and rock pellets hit like a blizzard, forcing him to shield his face.
A second pterosaur glided low over the rooftops opposite, its malign caws filling London with dread. Reardon tried his darnedest to break free and save his clock, but the aeronauts held him firm. “You stupid sod,” Embrey scolded him. “We need you, damn you. We need you alive.”
“But my Harrison clock! I’ll never be able to find them without it. Get off me, you heathen bastards!”
The first pterosaur skipped away as several rifle shots sounded from the north. It snatched the mauled aeronaut up in its beak and rose into the air, dropping the blanket onto the street. The force of its wings kicked up a storm. Embrey winced as the clock parts bounced away and clattered on the concrete.
Immediately, a pack of feathered dinosaurs assailed the pterosaur. They ripped its wings and brought it down writhing on its back. One last sickening shriek faded to a pitiful groan. The melee ended outside the gentlemen’s club, where the bipedal carnivores gathered for an avian smorgasbord.
Stunned, Embrey crept out to retrieve the clock parts. After Reardon, they were all that mattered. The hiss of Billy’s tri-wheel car approached from the north. Kibo drove. Tangeni leaned out of the passenger side, waving frantically.
At me? What on earth has happened now?
Embrey checked behind him but the feathered predators were all ensconced in their feast at the far end of the street.
Just a greeting, then.
He collected the first of the clock parts. Tangeni cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled something unintelligible-he waved again, but this time it seemed to darken the entire sky. Embrey’s blood iced and he glanced up.
The second pterosaur landed ten yards away and snatched up the shiny kaleidoscopic cylinder in its talon. God, no. He had to shield his face from the hurricane whipped up by its wings. Before he could aim and shoot, the bastard was airborne and flying south, its grip on their future unyielding.
“Bring it down! What the hell are you waiting for?” Reardon broke free from the aeronauts. He took a snapshot with his rifle and missed. Embrey’s pistols were empty, so he grabbed one of the aeronaut’s rifles and tried to pip the burglar before it veered over the rooftops, out of sight…
Too late.
“Oh, Christ, that’s it now. Lisa and Edmond! I’ve lost them. We’re all lost. We’re all buggered. You stupid bastards have gone and dug our graves. We’re buggered, buggered, bug-”
“Professor, shut up. You’re giving me a headache.” Embrey turned and sprinted for the tri-wheel car and said to Tangeni, “It’s turned east. We have to catch it.”
“Who’s the best shot with a rifle?”
“I am.” Jostling his friend aside, Embrey dove onto the passenger seat and ordered the driver, “Head east, Kibo-as fast as this heap will go. Everything depends on it.”
“On my way.”
Under Kibo’s control the car gathered steam far quicker than Billy’s father had accelerated it that night during the storm. It reached upwards of twenty miles an hour as they passed parallel to the Empress, and still it sped up. Kibo had mentioned he used to drive racers on the European circuits. He more than proved it.
The pterosaur circled over the rocky escarpment, the metallic glint still evident in its right talon. Christ, if it made for the ocean…
“Where to?” Kibo kept his eye out for rocks on the otherwise flat, grassy terrain, glancing skyward only rarely.
“East. No, northeast. It’s heading for the coast. Make for the bottleneck through the forest. I’ll have to take a shot from the cliff. And hurry!”
“Aye, sir.”
Though the pterosaur was capable of much higher speeds, it flew into the wind, which evened the odds for the steam-powered tri-wheel. Twenty feet before the cliff, Embrey yelled for Kibo to stop. Rifle cocked and warm in his grip, he jumped out and took aim, compensating for the wind speed and direction while he rested the barrel on the roof of the car. Hell fire. The sun was in his eyes.
He fiddled the knob on the side of his spectrometer goggles until the lenses tinted enough to quell the sun’s glare. Better. He loosened his shoulders and crouched. The flier had climbed sharply. Four hundred feet now, at least.
“Winner’s grace…pips the ace.” His father’s shooting mantra.
The deep inhale and cool, prolonged exhale. The smooth adjustments. Not just knowing but feeling the right moment to squeeze the trigger, the way a snake senses its time to strike…
Crack!
He sucked in a hopeful gasp and held it. A few seconds later, the pterosaur jerked, fell limp from the sky and plummeted.
Kibo gave a cheer. “ Omafele atatu, omafele anee. And in strong omhepo… strong wind. That was the best shot I ever saw.”
But Embrey’s own celebration fell bitterly with the pterosaur. He watched in horror as Reardon’s cylinder plopped into the lake, over three hundred feet offshore. The monstrous dinosaur splashed on top of it, and both quickly sank from sight.
