As the fearsome creature of fog was still coalescing before them, Vastra shouted: ‘I think it is time for that escape route you promised us, Strax.’
‘There is no way out,’ the creature said. Its laughter echoed off the oak panelling that lined the unbroken walls.
The self-same panelling that Strax, without need for further instruction, ran straight towards. He lowered his massive shoulders and crashed into a wooden section. There was an echoing crunch, accompanied by a grunt of pain from Strax, who rebounded and stumbled backwards.
‘Sorry,’ he gasped. ‘Wrong panel.’
Strax reoriented himself, and ran again at the wall. This time when he hurled himself at an oaken panel, the wood exploded in a shower of splinters, revealing a troll-shaped hole, with Strax the other side.
The foggy form of Hecklington gave a shout of displeasure as Vastra ushered first Harry and then Jenny through the penetrated panel. Once they were safe, she dived after them.
Hecklington dissolved into a stream of mist, billowing after its prey.
On the other side of the panel was a narrow corridor, which led to the scullery. The corridor and scullery were mercifully free of smoke, which Vastra surmised had gathered in its entirety outside the door of the room they had so recently vacated. Egress via wall was not an option it had seriously considered.
But now the smoke was most definitely in pursuit. Strax hurried through the scullery, barging through the outer door, and holding it open for the others to exit. Then he turned back to face the oncoming smoke. It spread across the scullery like a lethal blanket, ready to smother him. Hecklington’s face stared out malevolently from the middle of this wall of smoke.
‘Retreat is not an option for Sontarans,’ Strax declared, bracing himself for the inevitable. ‘It will be a glorious death.’
Vastra’s face appeared back through the door. ‘We are not retreating. We are regrouping.’
Strax considered this. The smoke surged forwards.
Strax nodded. ‘That is permitted.’ He slammed the door on the smoke. ‘I suggest we regroup in the carriage. Rapidly.’
Remembering his discomfort when first travelling in the carriage, Harry quickly climbed up beside Strax to sit on the driver’s box.
Strax turned to glare at him. Then his mouth and nose twitched slightly, and he nodded. ‘Welcome aboard, boy.’
As soon as Vastra and Jenny were inside and the doors closed, Strax cracked the reins and the horses leaped forwards.
A pall of smoke emanated from the yard behind them as the carriage rattled towards the main road. But they were not free of it yet. Out in Paternoster Row, the smoggy night hardened into a shape before the carriage.
‘Look out!’ Harry yelled.
But Strax held firm to the reins, goading the horses onwards.
The fog was coagulating, rushing inwards to fill the silhouette of Hecklington – complete with top hat – in the middle of the roadway. He held up a smoking hand to stop them, mist streaming from his fingers.
But Strax was not deterred. The carriage ploughed right into the figure, scattering Hecklington’s form as if he were made of dust. Fog curled round the wheels, blown aside by the passage of the vehicle, yet already clotting again behind it. This time the figure it formed faced the other way – watching the carriage depart into the night.
Inside the conveyance, Vastra and Jenny discussed what they had learned. Vastra was of the opinion that they must possess some clue to the weaknesses of the creature made of smoke – otherwise why would it continue to pursue them even after recovering it vestigial components?
‘Perhaps it’s just angry with us, Ma’am,’ Jenny ventured. ‘Or it don’t want no one to know what it’s up to.’
Vastra rapped on the ceiling of the carriage with the hilt of her sword. ‘Strax, drive past Hecklington’s foundry. We may see some clue there.’
Strax’s face appeared upside down outside the carriage window. ‘Clue to what?’
‘The weaknesses of our enemy.’
‘Ah! Agreed.’
‘Is it following us?’ Jenny asked.
The upside-down face disappeared for a moment. ‘Yes,’ it said when it returned. ‘Excuse me, I surmise that speed is needed.’ It went again.
The carriage sped through the night. Behind it a huge cloud of foggy smoke rolled along the street. Anyone who stepped into its path was enveloped in the choking mist, coughing and gasping for air, left dead on the pavement as the smoke rolled onwards after its quarry.
‘More smoke!’ Strax called out as they approached the foundry.
‘It’s like it’s making the stuff,’ Harry said.
The foundry’s chimneys were belching dark clouds into the air, blotting out the moon. Smoke was also pouring from the windows and doorways of Hecklington’s foundry, rolling and merging, coming together into a huge face that stared down at the carriage. Able Hecklington’s face. The mouth snarled open, blowing out a great breath of fog – the whole monstrous visage projected out of its own mouth at the carriage.
Strax pulled hard on the reins. The horses wheeled, and the carriage leaned suddenly sideways, somehow finding a narrow side alley. Sparks flew from the brick walls on either side as the carriage scraped through. Smoke poured after it.
‘I fear the entire creature is now after us,’ Strax called into the carriage. ‘Apologies. I shall continue to regroup at speed.’
Another sharp turn, and then another. But still the smoke rolled after them. Harry had lost track of where they were until the carriage sped between ornate iron gates and onto a narrow path. It lurched down a grassy incline, off the road. Ahead of them, a vast glass structure glittered in the cold moonlight.
‘The Crystal Palace!’ Harry realised.
‘It looks like a big greenhouse,’ Strax said, unimpressed.
But Harry was staring in awe. The huge glass sides were coated with frost. Snow lay deep across the roof, blanketing the entire vast structure with white. More snow was starting to fall now, thickening even as the carriage lurched again on the uneven, snow-bound grass.
‘I fear we may soon have to abandon this primitive transport,’ Strax grumbled. ‘It has no all-terrain setting.’
No sooner had he spoken than a wheel struck something hard embedded in the ground. One side of the carriage leaped into the air, crashing down so hard the wheel buckled under the weight. The carriage slewed sideways before coming to a halt, half buried in snow.
Harry tumbled off the driver’s box, and plummeted into the thick snow drift. He surfaced, cold and shivering to find Strax assisting Vastra out of the side door of the carriage – which was now on its top. Jenny clambered after.
‘Where’s the smoke gone?’ Jenny asked as she climbed down.
Strax turned to look. ‘It was close behind us.’
Snow was settling on Vastra’s face as she too looked. This seemed somewhat peculiar to Harry, but another thought was uppermost in his mind at this time.
‘Is it something to do with the snow?’ he asked. He had to raise his voice almost to a shout, as he was on the opposite side of the drifting bank of snow to where Jenny and Vastra had alighted and where Strax now stood.
‘Explain!’ Strax rasped.
Harry wasn’t sure what he meant. He shrugged. ‘The smoke thing could have snuffed out that Felicity woman. Instead Hecklington shot her. And it sent those men after me – why didn’t it come itself? It was snowing both those times, and it’s snowing now – maybe the smoke demon just doesn’t like snow.’
‘It was trapped, a portion of it at least, within the toffee tin,’ Vastra said thoughtfully. ‘I could feel it trying to escape, and from the way it smashed the glass it was certainly strong enough to force the lid from the tin.’
‘Maybe it had to gather its strength, sort of build up to it,’ Jenny said. ‘And the snow stopped it. It doesn’t like the cold, or the wet…’
‘Or the combination of the two,’ Vastra agreed.
‘Which is a pity,’ Strax said. ‘Because the snow is stopping.’
The last few flakes twisted lazily down to settle on the ground. A cloud skittered across the moon. Yet, it seemed closer than the moon – far closer. And this was no ordinary cloud.
‘It’s the smoke!’ Harry shouted. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ He ran.
On the other side of the snowdrift, Vastra motioned for Strax to follow the boy. ‘Keep him safe,’ she ordered.
‘But what about you?’
‘Jenny and I will be fine. Now – go!’
The smoke was gathering speed. Fog and mist poured into it, swelling the cloud until it was a veritable wall of grey flowing across the park. And in the very midst of it, a huge face, as if Able Hecklington had been hewn from the fog itself and was visiting his fury upon them.
Vastra and Jenny backed away down the hill. Finally they turned and ran – heading for the only shelter available: the Crystal Palace.
At this hour, the great glasshouse was of course deserted. But a moment with a picklock enabled Jenny to gain access via a side door, and she and her mistress hurried inside.
Behind them, the smoke hurled itself at the glass, pressing against it like London smog, desperate to get in. Faces appeared and disappeared, each staring in, trying to observe where Jenny and Vastra had taken refuge.
The snow on the roof allowed a modicum of moonlight to penetrate, bathing the entire structure in an unearthly pale ambience.
As the smoke continued to press up against the walls, Vastra drew her sword. ‘I fear we may have made what Strax might call a tactical error,’ she said.
Looking around, jenny could see her argument. The grey mist pressed in on the walls, enveloping the whole side of the building. If they tried to escape, it would come after them. But the Crystal Palace, magnificent feat of engineering though it was, could not exclude the smoke from every joint and opening. Already the ethereal creature was seeping through, gaining corporeality within the environs of glass.
Back to back, Vastra and Jenny stood in a side gallery of the great exhibition hall. Vastra raised her sword. Jenny adopted a fighting stance. Together they waited for the smoke to coalesce into their opponents – a dozen Hecklingtons, a score of Jims, ruffians without number, all composed of hazy nothing. All poised to attack.