There was something close behind Harry. He could hear its footsteps pounding into the snow. Could see the moonlight shadow of its grotesque form outstripping his own as he ran. After the day’s exertions, Harry was close to exhaustion. As the shadow’s arms reached out towards his own dark silhouette against the snowy ground, he resigned himself to his unpleasant fate.
Then Strax’s hands closed on his shoulders, and lifted him bodily.
‘The human form tires too easily for sustained combat,’ he said, not unsympathetically. ‘I must carry you if we are to outrun – er, regroup from the smoke creature.’
Looking back over Strax’s shoulder, Harry saw a grey face formed of mist pursuing them across the snowy park. The whole of the Crystal Palace was wreathed in the same insubstantial material – so much smoke it was as if the fires of hell itself had fuelled the apparition.
A line of trees materialised out of the hazy gloom ahead. At first they were vague, pencil-sketches of reality. Their upper branches, denuded of leaves since autumn, were laden instead with snow. Strax and Harry arrived at the trees just as the deadly grey mist reached them.
Foggy fingers lashed out, clawing at Harry, ripping him from Strax’s grasp. He was flung sideways, lungs choking on the pungent smoke. Strax too was knocked forwards and crashed head first into the substantial trunk of an ancient oak tree.
With a bellow of triumph from its mighty mouth, the smoke plunged towards Harry. He landed on his back, staring up at a massive grey face, a grotesque parody of his friend Jim, bearing down on him. About to devour his very being.
Above that, vague and insubstantial through the smoke, he saw the top of the tree shiver in response to the impact of Strax on its lower regions. A trickle of snow fell from the topmost branches. It sprinkled down through the smoky mist, drilling tiny holes in the ersatz face and pattering onto Harry. Behind it, more snow dislodged by the first tiny trickle became a stream, dislodging still more until an avalanche of white tumbled from the heavily laden branches.
The smoke-face was almost upon Harry when the avalanche hit. It crashed down through the smoke, scattering it. The cry of triumph became a scream of rage, then pain. Then nothing. Silence.
Harry blinked the snow from his eyes to see Strax hauling himself to his feet nearby. The stocky manservant straightened his cravat, adjusted his cuffs, and held out a hand to pull Harry upright. His small, deep-set eyes glittered in the snowy moonlight. Of the smoke that had so nearly engulfed Harry, there was no sign.
‘It seems you were right, young human. We have a weapon,’ Strax proclaimed. ‘Now we must find a way to deploy it.’
The smoke pressed in on all sides. Figures of fog, men of mist, multiple Hecklingtons and facets of Jim… All advanced on Jenny and Madame Vastra.
Vastra’s sword cut through the figures, spilling smoke like blood that dripped and drifted across the enclosed space. Sharp steel shone in the snow-filtered moonlight.
Jenny’s kicks and blows passed through the smoke creatures with barely any resistance. As the creatures closed in, they conjoined – flowing together into a coalescing mass of smoke, drifting ever closer, encircling Vastra and Jenny.
The smoke muffled noise just as it diffused light. But through it, Jenny could see Strax hammering on a glass wall. Beside him, Harry’s frightened face was pressed close to the glass. Snow was falling round them, covering their shoulders as both gestured upwards.
‘What do they mean?’ Jenny asked.
Vastra turned, delivering a robust blow to the nearest area of smoke. It scattered under the breeze of the impact, immediately reforming.
‘It’s snowing hard outside again. The smoke is all in here with us. Perhaps that is what they mean.’
‘Doesn’t help,’ Jenny said, lashing out with one foot while twisting round on the heel of the other.
‘If we defeat this creature here, we destroy it all,’ Vastra said.
‘How likely is that?’
The smoke was drifting ever closer. Its laughter echoed off the glass walls and roof.
Vastra looked up, towards the high ceiling. A covering of white pressed against the transparent roof, now blotting out the moonlight completely as it thickened in this latest snowfall.
‘Perhaps there is a way,’ Vastra breathed. ‘And perhaps Strax and the boy have found it.’
Jenny paused before landing another blow. ‘What must we do, Ma’am?’
‘Be ready. Be in the right place. And wrap up warm.’
The glass was slippery and the metal struts that connected and held the individual panes in place were cold and damp. Strax went first, his large, strong hands gripping the strut tightly.
‘Follow me,’ he ordered.
It was easier said than done. But Harry persevered. He slipped back down a few inches for every foot he climbed. Hand over hand, reaching to any and every point of purchase.
Once, he fell. His hands slipped and he felt himself falling backwards. Then a three-fingered hand grabbed his arm and hoisted him back again. Strax made a grunting noise that seemed to encapsulate disappointment, then continued the slow, relentless journey upwards.
The snow was becoming a blizzard. Harry’s face was so cold he had lost all feeling. His fingers were so numb he could scarcely hang on. The snow stung his eyes as he continually blinked it away. The air was white, and there was no way to see how far they had still to climb.
Through the glass, Harry saw the smoke drifting ever closer to Vastra and Jenny as they fought back with brave determination. But the grey wall pressed in ever closer…
Finally, as he thought he might freeze in position and be discovered as an iced statue of himself, Harry felt the top of the wall. Strax leaned back down to haul him up and over the guttering onto the glass roof.
‘We must keep to the iron support beams,’ Strax said. ‘Follow in my footsteps, boy.’
Harry followed the improbable Wenceslas across the roof. The snow was deep and crisp and even, but the iced glass was slippery. When they reached the middle of this section of the roof, Strax crouched down and wiped away a small area of snow, clearing a vantage point from where they could look down into the Crystal Palace below.
The grey surrounded Vastra and Jenny. It was almost touching them on all sides, slowly closing in as if savouring the moment. Strax tapped, with surprising moderation, on the glass. Far below, Vastra glanced up. She nodded.
‘What now?’ Harry asked.
‘Since we lack a supply of scissor grenades, we shall wait until they are directly beneath us.’
‘And then what?’ Harry wondered through chattering teeth.
Strax’s wide, thin mouth twisted into a smile. ‘Then – we jump!’
‘There they are,’ Vastra said quietly to Jenny.
‘We need to move,’ Jenny said. ‘About four yards to your left.’
‘Better hold your breath. I’ll count to three.’
‘Let’s hope Strax is ready.’
‘He’s a Sontaran,’ Vastra said. ‘If we’re talking about a foolhardy but heroic gesture that could end in death and destruction, then he’s always ready. The question is – are we?’
She counted to three.
Then Madame Vastra and Jenny hurled themselves at the smoke. It clawed at them, smothering them in a sudden oppression of suffocating fog. They struggled through, knowing that there was no way out – that their only hope was some distance above them.
Seeing their movement, Strax and Harry leaped off the metal crossbeam that bore their load. Harry’s weight was slight, but added to the hefty bulk of Strax and the persistent weight of the deep snow it was enough.
The glass roof cracked – a spider’s web of fine lines shot out across the pane. The stress breached the metal stanchion to the next pane, and then on again to the one beyond that.
With an ear-splitting crack, the entire section of roof gave way.
Glass and snow crashed down. Vastra and Jenny were flung to the ground, turning away from the splinters of ice and glass. The world was a blizzard of grey and white. Harry’s scream mingled with a guttural cry of: ‘Sontar-Ha!’
The smoke creature, gathered for the final kill, was concentrated under the very point of collapse. The broken glass passed through it, making hardly an impact. But the snow was a different matter. It crushed down on the smoke, a sudden avalanche of white against the grey. The snow seemed almost to absorb the creature, damping it down. Grey seeped into white – diluted and dispelled.
For a few seconds, a face was apparent on the surface of the fallen snow. The face of the unfortunate Able Hecklington stared up at the broken roof, at the snow falling through and drifting into the Crystal Palace. The mouth formed a scream of pain and anger, of suffering and regret. But no sound emerged from the frozen lips, and in a moment, it was gone – drifted across as more snow fell.
The next break in the fallen snow was the tip of a sword, followed first by Madame Vastra, and then by Jenny Flint – coughing and spluttering, but laughing with relief.
Strax’s head emerged from another part of the white drift. He looked about him, frowned, then ducked under the snow again. Only to reemerge lifting young Harry clear of the freezing landscape.
The boy looked round in a daze, blinking ice from his eyes. He took in the huge snowfall now carpeting the floor of this whole area of the great glass edifice.
‘I ain’t sweeping this lot up,’ he said. ‘Though, mind you – it’d make a great snowman.’
Back at Paternoster Row, Harry once again enjoyed the warming ministrations of Jenny’s soup. Even Strax risked a taste, though he muttered ominously about the greater efficacy of probic vent energising.
Vastra and Jenny sat together sipping tea.
‘I s’pose it’s back to the workhouse now?’ Harry said at last. He had been summoning up the courage to say it for a while, knowing there could be but one answer.
‘Alas there is insufficient room here for another guest,’ Vastra said. She set down her tea cup on its saucer. ‘And you might not take kindly to some of our other guests. Or they to you. But,’ she went on, ‘there may be other options.’
‘You acquitted yourself well, young one,’ Strax said. ‘I shall make immediate enquiries about your suitability for enrolment in the Sontaran Greater Military Academy. What do you say to that?’ He punctuated the question with a hearty slap on the back which propelled Harry almost into his soup bowl.
‘Thank you,’ the boy spluttered.
‘Or you can go and work as a kitchen boy for my friend Mary,’ Jenny said. ‘She’s housekeeper to a lord out near Lincoln. She could do with some help. And you can come back and visit us now and then.’
‘Which would you prefer?’ Madame Vastra asked.
Strax gave a snort of amusement. ‘It is surely a very simple choice. One option is for a quiet life with honest work amongst other humans paying a living wage and with prospects of promotion within a distinguished household. The other…’ He drew himself up to his full height and looked up at them, ‘is the prospect of constant danger, fear and risk. No chance of ever seeing your friends again, or of making new ones. The knowledge that death waits around the next corner and you are unlikely to see the end of next week without at the very least a serious injury. A glorious alternative.’
‘So which is it to be?’ Vastra asked.
‘Yes,’ Jenny prompted, ‘what do you think, Harry.’
Harry looked round at this strange triumvirate: the Lizard Woman, the Troll, and the Parlour Maid. Strax was right, he thought – it really was a very simple choice.
Outside, dawn was breaking over London. The city was waking up to a bright winter’s morning. Cabs rattled through the streets; servants drew back curtains; shopkeepers unlocked their doors; and children impatient for Christmas played in the cold, soft snow…