The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man - By Mark Hodder Page 0,148

peering forward."

"Da. We touch."

"And you projected your astral body into her mind."

"Da. It vas easy for such as Rasputin. In future, I have Eye of N?ga. I use it to transfer into woman."

"And to your good fortune, it just so happened that she existed at exactly the point in history where the seeds of the war were planted, if you'll forgive the unintentional pun."

"Pun? Vot is that?"

"I refer to Richard Spruce's eugenically altered plant life, the devastation of Ireland, and his and the Eugenicists' subsequent defection to Germany."

"Ah. So."

"And the N?ga diamonds, Grigori - you say you have one?"

"Cambodian and African stones are, in war, used to - povyshenia?"

"Enhance."

" - minds. I have African. Germany has others. Of South American diamond, nyet, it is not found in my time. I make Blavatsky find it in yours."

"Leading her to the Tichbornes. So, the African Eye will be found, will it? Interesting."

"Found by you."

"What?"

"No matter. I change that. You die today."

"I think not."

Rasputin laughed, a nasty sound. "I congratulate you, tovarishch," he said. "You are - umm - impressive. Speech you give Blavatsky - very interesting. No person can make future entirely vot they vish. Da. Da. This maybe is true. But I, Grigori Rasputin, am already in future. I speak to you now from future. Votever I change in past, still, future I am in. You die. You do not find African Eye. Yet here I have African Eye. It is - umm - big paradox, nyet?"

"An intriguing situation," Burton mused. "Whereas Edward Oxford travelled to his past and accidentally wiped himself out of the future, you are seeking to change the past from the future. You know that whatever your interference here, the consequences will never threaten your existence there, for if it did, how can you be interfering?"

The king's agent stepped closer to the black diamond.

"You must feel indestructible," he said.

"No man can stop me."

"Really?"

Burton extended his hand toward the stone and was instantly stricken with paralysis.

"Nyet, my enemy. Not even you. Now life of Blavatsky woman is finished, you I vill possess. You are close to prime minister, da? This is very good. Through you, I vill assassinate Palmerston."

A glowing, shapeless wraith oozed out of Blavatsky's shattered skull and began to slide down the strands of brain tissue and hair.

Burton managed to move his mouth: "Maybe I can't stop you, Grigori, but I can warn you. Stay away from the Eye!"

The Russian's voice sounded inside his head: "I think not. The diamond vill be - moct?"

"A bridge."

"Da. It allow me to cross into you."

The wraith flowed over the diamond and seemed to soak into it. A long feeler of energy coiled out toward the famous explorer. Cold fingers closed around his brain.

Straining, the king's agent managed to turn his head until he was looking at his valet.

"Now would be a good time."

The clockwork man of Trafalgar Square gave up the charade of immobility, nodded its canister-shaped head, reached out with its mechanical arm, and plucked the Eye of N?ga from its ectoplasmic plinth.

"Vot? The toy moves?"

Rasputin's reaction was accompanied by a blaze of ectoplasmic energy. It sizzled across the room, and a bolt of it lashed at Burton and writhed over his body. He cried out with pain and dropped to his knees.

The storm lessened but continued to splutter and jump around the library walls.

"Vhy cannot I stop it? Things such as this, they not vork close to Rasputin unless I allow!"

Burton pulled himself upright and said: "Yes, that was rather a giveaway, Grigori. When Blavatsky shared with me her vision of your future, it included details of your parlour trick; of how the guns of the British spies failed when they attacked you. I asked myself: why would the woman be afraid of assassins? The answer was that there was no reason for her to be. I therefore concluded that she wasn't responsible for all the stopped clocks, slack springs, and jammed trigger mechanisms."

"But this machine clockvork, da? How working now?"

"Willpower. Allow me to introduce to you the philosopher Herbert Spencer. One of the most remarkable intellects I have ever encountered."

"Man? This is not man!"

"In body, no, but Herbert Spencer died with the seven fragments of the Cambodian Eye in his possession. His intellect was imprinted upon them. Those fragments are now fitted into a babbage device designed specifically to process the kind of information they hold. In other words, what you took to be a machine is sentient. It possesses willpower enough to resist your attempts