I pushed him forward, sending him a faint buzz from my fingertips. “I’m right behind you.”
I kept my head down and my face hidden, hoping our escape went unnoticed. The train car rumbled below my feet as it picked up speed, and I seized the wooden wall paneling for balance. Perplexed heads glanced up at us through the ajar doors of other compartments until we reached the end of the carriage and stepped outside onto the small shelf of metal separating the cars.
The cold, bracing wind and burning fumes hit me at once. Slivers of rooftops passed by in procession to my right. Sebastian took my hand, and I hopped over the gap between the passenger cars as the wheels clattered in warning over the tracks.
We made our way into the second-class carriage, where upholstery and ornate trimming replaced the plain wood of third class. We passed a silent railway guard, who was staring rather slack-jawed at Mr. Kent, and then we were in the dining car, where a few passengers were already comfortably seated and sipping tea. I watched an unobserved cup slowly float away into Emily’s hands and then get offered to Laura. Not even a ghost of a smile hit Laura’s lips.
Finally, we made it through to a first-class carriage. My heart thrummed along with our steps, and I resisted the overwhelming urge to see if the woman was following us. There was another railway guard at the end, but fortunately, he seemed to be distracted by two other passengers. Unfortunately, one of the passengers was holding a poster that looked horribly familiar, while the other peeked into one of the three private compartments.
Mr. Kent spun around, pushing us back the way we came. “You know, I feel much more comfortable in second class all of a sudden. I don’t know what was I thinking—me in first class.”
I turned to open the rear carriage door again when I found it already opening. A chill ran down my spine, and I couldn’t tell if it was dread or her—I was now face-to-face with the ice guard.
“Emily!” I yelled wildly while I could still draw in breath instead of ice.
The door slammed in the woman’s blue-pallored face. It rattled in protest as she tried to open it, but Emily’s power held it firm. I spun back around to find our group looking very lost.
“Maybe those police notices are for someone else,” Mr. Kent said, forcing a smile. He spun around with a decisive clap of his hands to see the two passengers and the railway guard gaping at us.
The bulkier of the two passengers stepped forward, taking up nearly the entire narrow corridor. He stared hard at Sebastian, poster in hand. “This you, then?” His voice was a grating scratch.
“Right,” Mr. Kent said, pulling out his pistol. “Not another step.”
The bulky man took several. He ambled toward us, a clacking, metallic sound chiming with his every step, as if he were wearing a suit of armor.
I opened the third compartment and shoved Catherine, Rose, and Laura inside, ignoring the gasps from the two elderly occupants. “Stay here.”
“We don’t want to start a panic,” Mr. Kent said, aiming straight at the man. “Why don’t we continue this another time?”
The man pulled his hat off and, in his grasp, it slowly transformed from a dull black to a shiny silver, from fabric to metal. “Because Captain Goode wants his revenge now.”
“Maybe … we should set that aside for a moment,” Mr. Kent said. “You see, we recently battled this lady who can control metal, and you would get along—oh, wait, she probably died at the ball, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” our group responded in unison.
Mr. Kent sighed. “Ah well, it would have been adorable.”
He re-leveled his gun and quickly fired at the man, who covered his face with the former hat and now shield. The bullets barely seemed to have an effect, clanking off his arms, his chest, his knees as he got closer. Shouts and screams came from the closed compartments on our left.
“Blast it,” Miss Chen muttered, peering over Mr. Kent’s shoulder to get a better view.
The man’s metal hat cracked into pieces upon her gaze, revealing an expression of faint surprise. But before Mr. Kent could aim at the man’s head, his previously quiet companion slipped in front, raised his hands, and flooded the entire carriage with smoke.
I could hear Mr. Kent groaning, and my eyes watered as I blinked away the strange smog, finally catching sight of him, trying to aim his gun through the thick, black shroud. Glass and wood shattered around us as Miss Chen tried to clear the smoke out the windows, but it did not dissipate in the least. It stubbornly clung to us, as though it were made of a stickier substance, working its way into our lungs, filling the carriage with hacking coughs. I remembered the fire in Dr. Beck’s laboratory, nearly choking to death even when I had my powers. With Sebastian canceling them out here, everyone in this carriage would have a minute at most.
It seemed Mr. Kent had the same thought. “Mr. Braddock! Your assistance, please!” he shouted around a cough. His hands popped out of the smoke, wrenched Sebastian away from me, and threw him at the source.
All right. Perhaps not exactly the same thought.
But sure enough, the smoke started to clear. I squeezed past the others to Sebastian, who was scrambling up from the ground, climbing desperately off the smoker he had wrestled into unconsciousness. I pulled him back next to Emily, who was still managing to keep the rear carriage door tightly shut. The last bit of smoke disappeared, leaving the terrified railway guard fumbling with the half-broken carriage door at the front and the metal man vulnerable, his clothes ripping and the armor underneath cracking and falling in thick shreds of metal. Mr. Kent cocked and aimed his pistol as the carriage door opened behind his target and the railway guard was shoved to the floor.
The ice guard. She must have climbed across the top.
Before Mr. Kent could fire, she spat out an ice shard, piercing his hand. He dropped the gun and followed it to the floor, lunging with his left hand. The metal man grabbed Mr. Kent’s hand first in a steel grip, and Mr. Kent screamed like I’d never heard before. His hand seemed to harden, metal taking over his arm inch by inch, climbing terrifyingly fast toward the rest of his body. I leaped forward to do something, but Emily pulled the metal man away with her telekinesis.
“Stop it!” she cried, slamming him into the ice guard. When he tried to reach out for something to anchor himself, she flung him to our end, forcing us to duck to avoid his body, and threw him against the corridor walls, punctuating her every word with another vicious slam.
“Stop! Hurting! Us!”
Miss Chen supplied the punctuation on the last word as she blew the side of the carriage apart in an eruption of wood and metal. The man was hurled out of the train and down into the London streets.
Before we even had a moment to catch our breath, a scream brought our attention back to the front. The ice guard pulled a young woman out of the first compartment and held her captive with an ice shard by her neck. She stared at us, daring us to move.
“Please…” the woman stammered.
“Are you really going to hurt her?” Mr. Kent asked.
“No,” the ice guard replied, but she was smiling. “No need.”
The rear carriage door slammed behind me. Oh no.
We were afforded the briefest glimpse of our new enemy, gray-haired, sinewy, his right eye covered by a white kerchief wrapped around his head. He lifted the fabric, setting his eye upon us, and I was struck with an excruciating pain. Everyone around me cried out in agony as it brought us writhing to the ground. It was like every bit of pain I’d ever experienced combined and yet unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was every burn, every cut, every break, every ache, striking a match against every nerve. It was every body on the ground at the Belgrave Ball, every life I couldn’t save, every shred of guilt, horror, devastation burning like a tattoo on my brain. It was torture in every possible form, random and relentless.