Time's Mistress by Steven Savile Page B

Gallery of St. Paul’s for all to see. The boy’s premature death subdued the actor’s familiar jocular nature.
    They had been leaving the Greyfriar’s when Stark had collapsed. There had been no warning to it. Mid-word Stark’s eyes rolled up into his head and his legs buckled. He went down hard, as though pole-axed by a bullet. Millington had caught him in time to prevent his skull cracking open on the cobblestones. He had been frightened to move him. For five full minutes Stark lay unmoving in the street, his pulse was strong, and there were no other outward signs of distress that Millington could see, but there was no sign of him coming around, either.
    The Club’s chamberlain, Mason, appeared with a wet towel, ice and revivification salts. He uncorked the salts and past them beneath Stark’s nose three times. On the fourth pass his eyes opened. They were shot through with blood and unfocussed. The young man looked haggard as they helped him to sit.
    “The way is open,” he rasped in a voice brittle as broken stones. “They come. They come.”
    “What?” Millington said, mistaking the intensity of his companion’s words for the trailing threads of his blackout. “Speak plainly, man.”
    “The Cross is broken, the door is open. No words could be plainer. I can feel it, no, not feel, feel is the wrong word. Hear, I can hear it. The world is screaming out against the wrongness of the door, and its screams are intensifying the longer the door remains open. London is hurting. We need to go there, now. Help me stand. I know where the door is. Just please God we can get there in time to close it. Mason, a cab, please.”
    Millington reached down a hand for Stark, helping him to his feet. The smaller man swayed dangerously as he tried to remain upright. Millington lifted his arm and ducked under his shoulder, supporting him every step of the way as they moved to the curb.
    “You aren’t strong enough, Fabian, let me summon the others.”
    “No time. Mason can pass the word. We have to get there now.”
    The chamberlain whistled once sharply and a black brougham drew up beside them, the driver doffing his cap as the sweat-slick horses pranced in place, their hooves sparking on the cobbles.
    “St. Paul’s, driver,” Fabian Stark said, “and be quick about it. There’s a guinea in it if you can have us there before the sun is fully up.”
    He opened the door and stumbled into the cab.
    Millington followed him, pulling down the window as he slammed the door. “Carry word to McCreedy. He will know what to do.”
    “Sir,” the chamberlain said, and this once Millington noticed the slight note of deference to his tone. It brought a smile to his lips. He banged on the side of the cab door and they were away, the driver cracked the whip and the cab lurched forward as the blinkered animals began to walk. The driver cracked the whip again and the horses broke into a brisk canter.
    Millington sank back into the waxed leather banquette. Beside him Stark looked like Death himself.
    “Tell me what to expect, Fabian.”
    Stark closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. The skin around his hairline paled as he massaged his temples. Millington could not tell if he was reliving his blackout or merely struggling to recover from it.
    He didn’t say anything. The waking streets stretched out beyond the cab’s window. The whip cracked again and the brougham lurched once more as the horses began an easy gallop.
    “I don’t know,” Stark said, eventually. “The way is open … anything could be waiting for us.”
    With dawn no more than minutes away as they drew up before the Cathedral’s steps, Stark paid the man his full guinea and struggled out of the cab. Millington stood beside him. He noticed the birds first, cawing and circling. They drew his eyes toward the sky. Hundreds of starlings filled the sky, a writhing black cloud of feathers. It took him a moment more to see what had them so agitated: the gutted