back off the beast and fumbled around, looking for Bainbridge's cane. It was nearby on the cobbles, close to where he had fallen. He retrieved it quickly, then backed up, waiting for the other revenant to loom out of the fog.
The creature he had been struggling with—the one that had formerly been a woman—was still trying to right itself, pulling itself up on its arms and finding that its legs would no longer support it. Relentless, it started to shuffle towards him, using its arms to pull it along the ground. It was an obscene gesture, and Newbury was unable to watch. He turned to look behind him, trying to work out where the cab was in the fog. He leaned on the cane for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Perhaps the other creature had slipped away, driven by the desire to find its own prey, when it looked as though its fellow had Newbury pinned to the ground? But that seemed unlikely.
He heard Veronica calling his name, somewhere behind him in the cloudy soup. He set off, staggering towards her voice, but stopped when he became aware of the shape of the other revenant, about ten feet away from him, silhouetted in the fog. It had its back to him. He edged around it, following the sound of the churning pistons nearby. Gingerly, he placed one foot after the other, doing his utmost to remain silent as he circled the monster. Then, stumbling on a loose stone, his foot scuffed on the cobbles. The creature twitched at the sound and spun around to face him. Newbury, exhausted, waved the cane from side to side, trying to hold it at bay. He didn't think he had the strength to take another one down.
He heard Bainbridge calling to him from the carriage. "Newbury! Newbury! Use the cane."
He couldn't help but laugh at this most inappropriate advice. "I'm using the bloody cane, man!" He stepped back, trying to keep his distance from the creature. He knew it was likely to pounce at any moment.
Bainbridge's disembodied voice came back to him. "No! Twist the knob on the end of the cane. Quickly!"
Newbury peered along the shaft of the cane. The bulbous brass knob didn't look extraordinary in any way. Nevertheless, desperate to find a way out of his current nightmare, he swung it back towards him, clutched hold of the cold metal knob and twisted it sharply to the right.
There was a clicking sound from within the shaft itself. Clasping the knob, Newbury pointed the end of the cane at the revenant, unsure what he expected to happen next. The shaft twisted and then began to spin, sections of the wood unpacking along its length and folding out to create a kind of chambered structure along the middle of the cane. Brass filaments ran along the inside of this structure. The spinning reached a crescendo and, with an electrical hum, an arc of blue light spat from one end of the chamber to the other, fizzing along the length of the shaft and crackling at the terminus of the device, the small pointed section at the very end of the cane. Smiling, Newbury raised the weapon towards the revenant just as the creature decided to give up waiting for an opportunity to catch Newbury off guard and threw itself towards him, claws outstretched. The point of the shaft impaled the monster through the chest, and there was a loud bang as the electrical current flowed into the rotting carcass of the creature and fried what was left of its nervous system. The creature lost its momentum and dropped to the floor, dead for the second time. Blue light arced in its open mouth, and the blackened, dirty hole in its chest was smouldering, dark smoke rising into the air to mingle with the thick fog. Newbury's lungs filled with the scent of charred meat. He looked down at the body. The electrical current had set the creature's hair on fire, and little flames were licking at the edges of its tattered clothes. It wouldn't be long before the flames took and the creature's papery, rotten flesh became nothing but dry kindle.
He stood over the body and pulled the lightening cane free. Then, confident that the monster was finished, he staggered over to where the other one was still struggling to> pull itself along the ground and drove the cane into its back, just below the base of the neck. Blue light