About the Book

Madame Vastra, the fabled Lizard Woman of Paternoster Row, knew death in many shapes and forms. But perhaps one of the most bizarre of these was death by snow...

On a cold day in December, two young boys, tired of sweeping snow from the workhouse yard, decide to build a snowman – and are confronted with a strange and grisly mystery. In horrified fascination, they watch as their snowman begins to bleed...

The search for answers to this impossible event will plunge Harry into the most hazardous – and exhilarating – adventure of his life. He will encounter a hideous troll. He will dine with a mysterious parlour maid. And he will help the Great Detective, Madame Vastra, save the world from the terrifying Devil in the Smoke.

About the Author

Mr. Justin Richards is a noted author of no small repute. In addition to his fictional fantasies concerning the continuing exploits of that mysterious traveller in space and time known only as ‘the Doctor’. Mr Richards has some previous experience of chronicling the fantastical events of the Victorian era in his novels The Death Collector, The Parliament of Blood and The Chamber of Shadows. He has also previously penned volumes of a wholly electronic nature both with the help of Miss Melody Malone (Detective) in her adventure The Angel’s Kiss and in the form of a dystopian future narrative entitled The Skeleton Clock.

The First Chapter

In which a strange and grisly death is revealed…

Madame Vastra, the fabled Lizard Woman of Paternoster Row, knew death in many shapes and forms. But perhaps one of the most bizarre of these was death by snow.

It was a cold day in December, just as the nineteenth century was greying with old age. The snow was falling less heavily than on previous days, but the air was still alive with a coruscation of dancing flakes.

Tired of sweeping snow from the workhouse yard, Harry and Jim (surnames unknown even to themselves) decided instead to make a snowman. Knowing Mr Ransit to be availing himself of the benefits of a hot fire in the workhouse offices, they left the yard to fend for itself for a few hours.

In a secluded corner of Ranskill Gardens, unobserved by passers-by, they set about their task. They worked hard, struggling to keep warm in the inclement conditions. They started with a small ball of packed snow, rolling it along the ground. It gathered more and more snow as it went, getting larger and larger. Before long, the two young lads had rolled a snowball ample enough to form the body of their creation.

A short while later, and a smaller snowball formed the head. Between them, they lifted it and placed it on top of the body. The snowman was now taller than they were, so the task of balancing frosty head on snowy shoulders was not straightforward. Pieces of coal from Jim’s pocket made eyes, and pebbles from the edge of a nearby flowerbed served as buttons down the snowman’s front, pressed into the cold, yielding body.

A broken carrot, saved for the purpose with admirable forethought by young Harry, was positioned as the snowman’s nose. Beneath it, he described a smiling mouth with his finger.

‘It’s a shame we don’t have a hat for him,’ Jim opined.

‘Give him your cap,’ Harry suggested.

‘Give him yours,’ Jim retorted.

‘Nah,’ Harry decided. ‘Don’t reckon Mr Snowman will feel the cold.’

They both laughed at this, and before long an impromptu snowball fight had started between the two.

Finally, cold, soaked and exhausted, the two boys sat down in front of the snowman and admired their handiwork. As they sat there, the afternoon drawing into early evening, there was a crackle as if of gunfire followed by a percussion of lights and sparks in the sky above.

‘Fireworks!’ Harry exclaimed.

‘Must be left over from November the fifth,’ Jim observed. ‘We had that weeks ago.’

‘Or Christmas has come early.’

They watched the display for several minutes. At some point – he could not say exactly when – Harry observed that a dark figure wearing a top hat had appeared in the corner of the gardens behind their snowman. He too seemed to be watching the display. As the last few fireworks exploded in the evening sky, the man pushed something Harry could not clearly see into his coat pocket, turned, and stepped back into the shadows by the back wall of the gardens.

‘Who was that?’ Harry asked.

But Jim had seen no one. ‘Probably come to admire our snowman. Here,’ he added as a final explosive crack echoed round the enclosed space, ‘we’d better be getting back. Still got that yard to sweep.’

At least now the snow had stopped falling they could sweep the yard without it merely filling up again, Harry thought. But before they left, the two boys paused to admire their snowman one last time.

It was taller than either of them, and wider than both of them together. They were about to turn, reluctantly, and leave, when a portion of snow fell away from the front of the frosty sculpture. Two of the pebble-buttons fell with it. Jim retrieved them and pressed them back into the snowman’s chest.

‘Wonder if he’ll still be here tomorrow,’ Harry said.

But Jim did not reply. The boy was staring at his index finger – the one with which he had pressed the pebbles into the snow.

The end of his finger was a livid red. Even in the fading light of the evening, Harry could see what it was.

‘Blood! You cut yourself, Jim?’

Jim shook his head. He looked at his finger, then to the snowman. His gasp of horrified astonishment drew Harry’s attention back to the white figure.

Where Jim had pressed one of the pebbles into the chest, the snow was stained red. A patch of scarlet was spreading slowly through the icy crystals.

‘The snowman!’ Harry gasped. ‘It’s – it’s bleeding!’

Not only bleeding, the snowman was moving. The body seemed to shimmer. Frosty particles broke free and fell to the ground. Drops of red broke free of the wound, undulating down the snowman in thin streams of viscous carmine.

Tentatively, fearfully, Jim reached out to touch the snowman. As soon as his fingers met the frozen surface, the snowman seemed to explode. Snow collapsed from round the core of the body, falling away to reveal what was inside.

The boys stood frozen by fear as well as the cold. They had made this snowman – had rolled the snow to make the body and then the head. How could what they now witnessed be possible?

Because, inside the snowman, packed deep into its frozen heart, was the body of a woman. Her features were deathly pale, her coat stained with blood. Her gloved hands were clenched together in front of her, reaching out as if pleading for help or praying for salvation.

But it was too late and there was no help to be given or salvation to be had. Because as Harry and Jim watched, the woman inside the snowman collapsed lifeless to the frozen ground before them.

They both ran. Without thought or strategy they took to their heels to put as much distance between themselves and this grotesque impossibility as possible, their caps flying from their heads, such was their haste. But in the fading light, fearing for their very lives, somehow they became separated from each other.

Jim found himself in an unfamiliar street, behind Ranskill Gardens. Running fast, head down, he collided with someone before he even knew they were there. He stumbled and fell to the snowy ground.

‘Here, let me help you up.’ A dark figure reached down to him. Jim saw only a silhouette – dark coat and top hat. Then a gloved hand closed on his own and hauled him to his feet.

‘Now,’ the figure said, ‘where are you going in such a hurry, young man?’

Harry had run in a different direction. But he too collided with a dark figure. He too fell to the ground. His cap went flying, but Harry made no move to recover it.

The figure Harry had met was shorter, broader, wearing a heavy black cloak with the hood pulled up to obscure its features. Powerful hands clamped down on Harry’s shoulders and lifted him bodily to his feet. Harry was surprised to observe that, despite his evident strength, the figure was barely as tall as he was.

An unsettling grunt of satisfaction emerged from the hood of the cloak.

‘You are not a female,’ a gravelly voice said.

‘No – no, sir,’ Harry admitted.

‘Where is the female?’ the cloaked figure demanded.

In Harry’s mind at that moment there were thoughts of only one female. ‘She’s dead,’ he stammered. ‘We made a snowman, and she fell out – dead.’ He doubled over, feeling suddenly sick. ‘Oh my cripes,’ he gasped. ‘I ain’t never seen anything so…’

As he spoke, he looked up at the figure standing in front of him. It moved slightly so that the light from the nearest gas lamp shone inside the hood of the cloak and illuminated the visage concealed within.

It was the hideous misshapen face of a troll.

The Second Chapter

In which Harry meets a troll and feasts on soup and bread…

The creature – for it was surely a creature rather than a man – stared at Harry through small, deep-set dark eyes. A bloodless tongue licked equally bloodless lips. The face was entirely devoid of hair, wider than it was high, and seemed to emerge directly from the shoulders without the beneficial support of a neck.

Harry took a step backwards, ready to turn and run from the nightmare apparition before him. But the ‘troll’ grabbed him by the shoulders again, holding him fast in an iron grip.

‘Explain,’ the troll hissed.

‘Explain what? I was just…’ Harry pointed back the way he’d come. ‘Let me go, please, sir. I won’t breathe a word about what I seen. Not about you nor the dead body.’

‘Explain the dead body,’ the troll said, shaking Harry so violently that his teeth rattled.

‘It’s a body,’ he said when he could finally draw breath. ‘And it’s dead. A woman, in a coat, bleeding.’

‘What colour fur?’ the troll demanded.

‘It’s not fur, it’s probably wool.’

The creature’s eyes narrowed even further. ‘Not the coat,’ it rasped. ‘On its head – what colour was the fur on the female’s head?’

Harry frowned, struggling to understand. ‘You mean her hair?’

‘Hair, fur, protective cranial grafting – whatever term you use on this primitive planet. What colour was it?’

‘Sort of… brownish.’

‘Brownish.’

‘And quite long. I think.’ Despite the tight grip that the troll maintained on his shoulders, Harry managed to get one hand up high enough to show how long the dead woman’s hair had been. ‘About this long.’

The grip on his shoulders loosened and Harry felt himself sag. Then he stumbled forwards under a near-crippling slap on his back.

‘Good lad,’ the troll said. ‘Your observational skills are adequate. You would make a good forward sniper.’

‘Oh, um, thank you, sir.’ Harry swallowed. ‘Can I go now?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You must deliver your report in person. The probability is that it has a significant bearing on the matter in hand. Come with me.’

Harry hesitated. The troll had raised his own hand as he spoke – and Harry saw that it was a hand that boasted only three fingers. Or possibly two fingers and a thumb.

‘Where are we going, sir?’

The troll regarded him in the manner which a nanny might reserve for an especially slowwitted infant. ‘To Paternoster Row,’ he said, as if that should be obvious. ‘To see the Great Detective.’

And with that, the troll caught hold of the back of Harry’s coat and lifted him with one hand to carry him down the street towards a waiting carriage.

Harry’s plan, such as he had one, was to climb into the carriage then immediately out again on the other side, and so escape the inhuman clutches of the troll. It was a trick he had worked before with some effect. But on this occasion, lamentably, it was destined to fail.

The troll opened the carriage door with his free hand and hurled Harry inside. The boy landed upside down on the seat, his feet grazing the upholstered ceiling of what was indeed a rather plush conveyance.

Harry’s plan was thwarted the moment he managed to grasp the handle of the door – it was locked. The carriage started moving at speed, rattling over the cobbles, and Harry found himself being flung unceremoniously around the carriage interior.

As the carriage lurched around another steep corner, he contrived to fall towards the door through which he had entered. But this egress too was secured. For the duration, Harry was trapped inside, tumbling back and forth as the troll drove like a veritable demon through the London streets.

After several minutes, Harry could do nothing but resign himself to the journey and give thanks that the interior of the carriage was so heavily padded.

Harry had never been on a ship, or even the smallest river boat. But by the time the carriage drew to a halt, he felt certain he knew what sea sickness must feel like. It was not a positive experience by any measure.

He did not have long to recover, however, between the termination of the vehicle’s motion and the door opening. A pair of inhuman hands reached in and hauled him out, upside down. He was then placed – in an upright orientation, mercifully – on the pavement.

The troll grunted something that ended with: ‘… after you.’

‘That’s kind,’ Harry managed to say.

The troll stared at him, lip curling slightly. ‘I said: “If you run I shall come after you.”’ The hairless ogre gave Harry a shove in the direction of the front door of the nearest house.

It was a tall townhouse, with steps up to the main entrance. Harry staggered up, and the troll reached past him to pull the bell. It jangled distantly within the domicile.

To Harry’s surprise, the door was opened not by another creature drawn from the realms of nightmare and fantasy, but by a very ordinary-looking maid servant. Ordinary, but even to Harry’s juvenile sensibilities decidedly pretty, with dark hair. The only thing about her that might have derived from a fantastical creature of myth or folklore was her imp-ish smile.

Her manner and tone, however, was decidedly earthly. ‘Cor strewth, Strax,’ she intoned, ‘how many times do I have to tell you the difference between a lady and a fellah?’

‘I know the difference full well, boy,’ the troll told her. Without waiting for further comment, he shoved Harry though the door into a well-apportioned if slightly narrow hallway.

The straitened nature of the vestibule was of no concern to either the maid or Harry, but he saw that Strax, as the maid had addressed the troll, took some trouble negotiating the doorway and subsequent side table, ornaments, and other bespoke furnishings.

Ignoring the crash of breaking china, the maid ushered Harry into a large drawing room. He hurried over to the fire to warm himself while the maid and the troll argued in the doorway.

‘He is a witness. I have brought him to give his report,’ Strax said.

‘His report? Into what – mistaken identity and child abduction?’

‘No, into… murder.’

‘Murder – whose murder?’ The maid put her hands on her hips and stared at Strax through eyes even narrower than the troll himself had deployed. ‘Who did you kill?’

‘No one,’ Strax insisted. ‘Well, no one recently.’

‘It weren’t him,’ Harry called out. As much as correcting a possible injustice, he felt he should remind them of his presence. ‘It were a lady. Killed inside my snowman – well,’ he admitted, ‘mine and Jim’s snowman. We made it,’ he said proudly. Then his face crumpled as he remembered. ‘And this dead body fell out of it. All covered in blood and everything.’

And with that, the full enormity of his situation finally came home to Harry, and he sank to the heavy pile carpet in a flood of tears.

The maid introduced herself as Jenny Flint, and she brought Harry a bowl of hot soup with thick slices of warm, fresh bread. To eat it he sat at a table that was bigger than the area he had to live in at the workhouse. The wood was so highly polished he could see his face reflected in it. Grimy and tear-streaked, he realised that he looked as out of place in this establishment as did the troll-like Strax.

‘So who are you?’ Harry demanded as Jenny sat and watched him eat.

The words were rather indistinct, spoken as they were though a mouthful of bread.

Jenny dabbed at the soup and breadcrumbs now strewn across the table with the napkin which Harry had spurned.

‘I told you, I’m Jenny. And don’t mind Strax – his bark’s worse than his bite.’

‘He’s a dog?’

‘No, course not. And actually…’ Jenny frowned. ‘Actually his bite is probably worse than his bark. Forget I said that. We both work for…’ She paused to bring home the full effect of her next words. ‘The Great Detective.’

Harry nodded. ‘That’s nice.’

‘You never heard of the Great Detective?’ Jenny asked.

‘Sherlock Holmes, isn’t he? But everyone knows that’s just a story.’

Jenny sniffed and did some more napkin-mopping. ‘Not that great detective. A real one. Madame Vastra.’

Harry shook his head. He’d never heard of her.

‘Just so long as she ain’t another troll or ogre or anything.’

Jenny smiled. ‘She’s nothing like Strax, if that’s what you mean.’

As she spoke, there came the sound of the front door slamming shut.

‘That’ll be her now,’ Jenny said. ‘I’d better go and explain that the guest we have staying ain’t the guest she was expecting.’

Harry finished his soup alone. He could hear voices in the hallway outside – Jenny and another woman. He could not make out the words, but the other woman sounded friendly and warm. Harry finished the last of the bread, wiped his mouth carefully on the tablecloth, and got up from the table.

Jenny was standing in the hallway. The other woman – who could only be the aforementioned Madame Vastra – had her back to Harry. She was wearing a cape with a hood, not unlike Strax. But Madame Vastra’s attire evidently covered a taller, more elegant and feminine figure.

Then Madame Vastra turned, and Harry saw her face.

It was green, and scaled in the manner of a cold-blooded reptile. Her eyes were slanted catlike, and a long, forked tongue hung from her thin lips.

It was the face of the fabled Lizard Woman.

The Third Chapter

In which a killing is narrowly averted and swords are crossed…

The spectacle of this second monstrous apparition, to say nothing of his earlier cognition of mortality, was too much for young Harry. With a cry of surprise laced liberally with fear, he turned and ran down the hall – away from the lizard woman and the maid.

Harry’s flight took him past the main staircase and into the rearmost area of the house that would normally have been the domain of the servants. While he lacked foreknowledge of the domestic topography, by some instinct Harry found himself in the scullery from whence an outer door opened into the backyard.

But it was not all to be plain sailing, for there was another individual already at work in the scullery. Elbow-deep in an enameled sink, the squat figure of Strax was to be found engaged in the latter stages of washing dishes. A pile of broken crockery stacked precariously on the drainer bore witness to his particular unsuitability for the task.

Harry spared no time to ponder on the allocation of household chores and hurried past Strax and out through the door. Behind him he could hear Jenny the maid shouting for Strax to ‘Stop that boy!’ Once in the yard he spared no time negotiating the falling snow in order to find a convenient exit. This achieved, he set off along a narrow passageway that led back to the street.

Despite having not the slightest idea of where in London he might be, Harry kept running. He could hear the heavy, measured tread of Strax behind him. But the sound, like Harry’s form, was muffled and obscured by the thickening snow that had filled the air and obscured the vision as evening drew in. So it was that Harry was able to stay ahead and out of sight of his pursuers.

There was but one thought in the young lad’s mind, which was to find his way back to the workhouse. He might find himself castigated for failing to complete the sweeping of the yard, but this was likely to be preferable to remaining in the company of the Lizard Woman, the Troll and the Parlour Maid.

That said, he was in no small part grateful for the soup. This still exerted a warming sensation, which to some degree compensated for Harry’s lack of coat, this garment being left over the back of a chair in the drawing room at Paternoster Row.

It was not therefore surprising that, notwithstanding Jenny’s ministrations, he was shivering with cold and slick with a coating of snow by the time he reached a street that he recognised. Despite the thickening whiteout, Harry realised that he was not far from the workhouse. With a measure of trepidation as well as relief, he upped his pace, and before long saw the unforgiving walls of the corrective establishment rising above him.

However, at that self-same moment, he heard the clatter of a carriage on the cobbles. Fearing the worst, Harry withdrew himself into a shadowed alcove in the wall.. These worst fears were confirmed when he saw that the coachman driving the carriage was a squat, cloaked figure blessed with but three fingers on the hand in which he held the reins. From out of the carriage window, Jenny’s face peered through the falling curtain of white flakes.

Of course, Harry realised, Strax would know that there was a workhouse not two streets from where he had encountered the boy. It would not take the mind of a genius to deduce this must be where Harry was from and therefore might well return. Even if the mind of Strax was not up to this menial mental task, Jenny or the enigmatic Madame Vastra had evidently made the connection.

Another connection was also made – this one between Jenny’s eyes and the sight of Harry attempting to remain unseen in the shadow of the workhouse wall.

‘There he is,’ she said to Madame Vastra, who sat cloaked and veiled beside her within the conveyance.

Vastra raised her voice to call up to Strax. ‘Keep going to the end of the street. We cannot alarm the boy.’

‘I can,’ Strax called back. ‘Would you like me to start now?’

‘No,’ the lizard lady replied with enviable calm. ‘I would rather he was not scared for his life. We must win his trust.’

‘I thought hot soup would do that,’ Jenny opined.

‘Evidently something more is needed.’

The carriage drew to a halt. Satisfied that its form would be obscured by the omnipresent snow, Madame Vastra disembarked and led the way back to where they had seen Harry pressed back against the wall.

Of the boy, there was no sign. But two other figures – larger figures – were in evidence hurrying from the scene. Although they were vague figures glimpsed but briefly, several things were at once apparent to Jenny and Madame Vastra.

The first was that the men were in some haste, and the second that they were themselves in pursuit of another individual. Neither the lizard nor the maid were in any doubt as to who that individual might be.

‘What’s he got himself into?’ Jenny wondered.

‘I think perhaps we should find out,’ her mistress decided. ‘Tell Strax to secure the carriage, and then follow me. I shall help the boy.’

‘You think he’s in danger?’ Jenny asked.

But Vastra was already disappearing into the snow, so with a sigh Jenny turned and ran back to the waiting carriage. She quickly explained to Strax what they had witnessed.

‘I shall break out the heavy weapons,’ Strax informed her.

‘We didn’t bring any heavy weapons,’ Jenny pointed out.

‘I may have some things that could be of use,’ Strax replied. One of them turned out to be nosebags for the horses. Another was long, metallic, and very sharp.

The road that Jenny had seen Vastra take in pursuit of the two men led down towards the docks. This was not an area that Jenny would ordinarily elect to explore. Although she was certainly well able to take care of herself, there was some value, she had to admit, in Strax’s company.

Young Harry, meanwhile, would have been appreciative of any company. He had run as soon as the two men loomed out of the swirling snow. While he did not know what they intended, he was well able to discern on whom they intended to inflict it. They approached him wearing unpleasant grins, and one of them hefted a brutal-looking wooden cudgel.

Harry’s plan, formulated at the speed of fright, was to lose himself in the docks. If he was lucky, the men wished merely to give him a beating and relieve him of whatever coinage he might happen to have about his person. In that case, if he could keep ahead of them, then they were likely to search for easier pickings elsewhere.

However, it seemed from the tenacity of their pursuit that they might have more sinister intentions towards the person of Harry in particular. Worn down by the cold and his previous exertions, he was unable to escape. A calloused hand descended on Harry’s collar and snapped him violently backwards.

Both men soon had hold of Harry and seemed intent on beating him to within an inch of his young life. He found himself shoved up against a brick wall with such vigour that the breath was forced from his lungs and he doubled up, winded.

‘What did you see?’ one of the men demanded. He held the cudgel under Harry’s chin, pushing him up onto his tiptoes. His misty breath mingled with the gathering fog. ‘Tell us everything you saw.’

‘I didn’t see nothing,’ Harry exclaimed, though he had no idea to what the men were specifically referring.

‘So you did see something,’ the second man proclaimed, taking Harry’s speed of denial as an indication of a corresponding lack of veracity.

‘What – when? I dunno what you’re on about,’ Harry protested.

‘The boss won’t be very happy with you,’ the first man said. He pulled back the cudgel, ready to strike.

‘What boss?’ Harry blurted. But he was not to get an answer.

Instead there was the sound of something slicing rapidly through the heavy air. Harry braced himself for the blow. It never came. For the sound was a sword which struck the cudgel from the ruffian’s grasp and sent it clattering away across the cobbles.

Harry’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

The men turned and their own eyes also widened, but in their cases due to fear.

Madame Vastra held her sword in a fighting stance, ready to strike again. The hood of her cloak hung forward, occluding her features.

‘There’s just the one of them,’ the second ruffian said. ‘We can match her.’

‘Can’t you count?’ another voice said.

To Harry’s delight, Jenny stepped into the light, standing beside Vastra. She was poised on the balls of her feet, her hands clenched into fists and positioned ready to attack.

‘Always come prepared for battle,’ a third, rather guttural, voice added. ‘Even if you do not have time to pack heavy weaponry, experience has shown that small arms and primitive blades can be offensive.’ Strax stood with his arms folded between Vastra and Jenny.

‘You’d better go,’ Vastra said. ‘Before he gets even more offensive.’ So saying, she threw back her head so that the hood was dislodged and fell back upon her shoulders.

The sight of the lizard woman’s visage together with Strax’s ogre-esque features proved too much for the men’s depleted courage. They backed slowly away, one of them reaching to cuff Harry about the head. But the boy managed to duck beneath the blow and run to join Vastra and the others.

‘You breathe a word to anyone about what you saw and you’re dead meat,’ the thug grunted, pointing at Harry. ‘You wait till the boss finds you.’

Vastra stepped forward. ‘You harm one hair on the head of this mammal pup,’ she said, ‘and your own head will immediately be forfeit in return.’ She raised the sword by way of emphasis.

The sound of the men’s running footsteps was interrupted only by Strax’s grunt of satisfaction.

‘You are blessed with luck, small one,’ he told Harry. ‘Rejoice and give thanks – someone wants you dead.’

The Fourth Chapter

In which ale is imbibed and Harry is reunited with a friend…

With young Harry held firmly in Strax’s grasp, the group made their way out of the docks area and paused to collect their thoughts at a hostelry known to Madame Vastra. The Crofter’s Arms had a quiet back room where Vastra knew she and her friends would attract less attention than in the public bar.

Thus, away from the bibulous gaze of the masses, Vastra was able to enjoy a dry sherry while Jenny outraged convention by demanding a cup of tea, and Strax drained a pint of the landlord’s finest Old Rotter in a single gulp. Harry made do with warm milk.

Once they were all settled, Madame Vastra assured Harry that she and the others were concerned only with his safety. ‘I may look strange and Strax here would frighten even the most lethargic cow, but we are your friends.’

Harry nodded and said nothing.

Jenny put her hand over his. ‘She’s all right, is Madame Vastra. And Strax too…’ She spared him a sideways glance. ‘In his own way.’

‘The cub will not be safe at the working house,’ Strax said. ‘The walls are strong but the construction is not ideal for defensive engagements.’

‘I agree,’ Madame Vastra said, ‘and so I think Harry must stay with us at Paternoster Row until this matter is dealt with.’

‘You all right with that, Harry?’ Jenny asked.

‘Mr Ransit will do his noggin,’ Harry muttered. He hardly dared imagine what horrors must already be awaiting him back at the workhouse. He longed to see Jim again… Which made him suddenly think: ‘Ere – you reckon it’s cos of the snowman we made that those men wanted to do away with me?’

‘It does seem likely,’ Madame Vastra agreed. ‘The dead woman was, we believe, Felicity Gregson. She had arranged to meet me at Ranskill Gardens this evening. Unable to keep the appointment, owing to an unfortunate double booking at the Greek Embassy, I sent Strax to fetch her.’

‘I was too late,’ Strax said sullenly, leaping to his feet and standing smartly to attention. ‘I failed in my task. I will submit myself for court martial and summary execution forthwith. I suggest coronic acid immersion followed by a laser-pulse blast to the probic vent.’

Vastra, who was used to these outbursts of aggressive contrition, raised her hand. ‘That will not be necessary, Strax.’

Strax seemed perhaps disappointed, and slumped back down in his chair.

‘But what about Jim?’ Harry blurted out.

‘Who?’ Jenny asked.

‘My friend Jim. We built the snowman together. We both saw the dead woman. If they’re after me – what about Jim?’

Madame Vastra sipped her sherry and considered. ‘The ruffians who accosted you now know that we are involved and that you will have told us what you saw. Assuming that is why they attacked you, then they must know that the information they sought to suppress is now more widely held.’

‘They may be prepared to inflict collateral damage,’ Strax said. ‘Perhaps,’ he added with some relish, ‘we are all at risk.’

‘No, no – hang about. They mentioned a boss,’ Jenny pointed out.

‘They were obviously working for someone, my dear,’ Vastra agreed.

‘But what if that someone doesn’t know about us yet. What if they think Harry’s dead, like they ordered.’

‘What if they do?’ Strax seemed not at all interested in the boy’s fate. ‘Casualties must be expected.’

Vastra was shaking her green, scaly head. ‘No, Jenny is right. If the mysterious boss believes Harry has been silenced, then it seems likely he would make similar arrangements for this other witness.’

‘But witness to what?’ Jenny wondered.

‘Never mind all that,’ Harry told them. ‘If Jim’s in trouble, we got to help him, and now.’

Vastra drained the last of her sherry and set the glass down sharply on the table. ‘I agree. Will this Jim have returned to the workhouse, as you did?’

Harry nodded. ‘I reckon so.’

‘Then there is no time to lose. Jenny, settle the tab for the drinks. Strax, make all haste to the workhouse and keep watch. And you, Harry – tell me everything you can remember about poor Miss Felicity Gregson and how she met her fate. Spare no detail. The slightest clue could be of immense help.’

As they made their hurried way back to the workhouse, Harry recounted his story once again. It was only when Madame Vastra asked him if he was sure that there were no other witnesses to the bizarre spectacle of the corpse within the snowman, that he recalled the shadowy figure he had seen behind the snowman, watching them.

Vastra listened to his description, then told him to relate what had happened next. So Harry told her about how he and Jim had both run, but in different directions, and how he had cannoned into Strax.

By now, Jenny had caught up with them and they were approaching the familiar but stark form of the workhouse. Harry did not relish the prospect of explaining his absence to Mr Ransit, and was therefore mightily relieved when Madame Vastra suggested that he wait in the nearby carriage.

‘Strax and I will check the immediate area,’ she said. ‘Jenny – you will see this Mr Ransit.’

‘Right-oh, Ma’am,’ Jenny agreed. ‘And what do I tell him?’

‘That Harry is now in our charge. Make sure he releases him to you as guardian, at least until these unpleasant matters are concluded. If the boy Jim is there, then we will need him released into our care too. I imagine an exchange of currency may be necessary. After that, it will be time to find out what really happened in Ranskill Gardens this evening, and perhaps go on the offensive.’

Strax slammed his fist into the open palm of his other hand. ‘At last,’ he pronounced. ‘We strike for the greater glory of the Sontaran Empire. Sontar-Ha!’ His brow furrowed slightly as he saw the others’ expressions. ‘That is, for the greater glory of Paternoster Row, of course. Pater-Nos-Ta!’

Madame Vastra raised what might have been an eyebrow.

Sitting alone in the well-appointed carriage, Harry began to feel at ease for the first time since he and Jim had completed their snowman and seen the fireworks. He settled back into the plush upholstery and closed his eyes. So it was that he assumed he must have slipped into slumber and be dreaming when someone hissed close to his ear:

‘Psssst!’

He ignored this susurration, turning slightly away.

‘Oi – Harry!’ The words were punctuated by a frantic rapping on the carriage door.

To Harry’s surprise, when he opened his eyes he saw a face he recognised staring in through the adjacent window.

‘Jim!’ he exclaimed in delight. ‘Are you all right? Where have you been? You’ll never guess what happened to me.’

Harry tore open the carriage door so that his friend could climb in and join him.

‘I had to warn you,’ Jim said, looking around warily.

‘Warn me? Too late for that,’ Harry responded. ‘These two geezers already tried to do for me tonight.’

‘Never mind them,’ Jim said. ‘They’re not the real villains of the piece.’

‘Then who is?’ Perhaps Jim was about to reveal the name of the villains’ mysterious employer.

‘It’s the lizard woman and her lot,’ Jim said.

‘Never!’

Harry was about to explain how Vastra had helped him. But Jim went on: ‘Tis and all. She plans to kill you and cook you in a stew, I heard her. She’s planning it with the potato-headed man right now.’

This seemed the height of improbability to Harry, and he wasted no time in telling his friend exactly that.

‘You don’t believe me? Then just you come and listen then. I’ll show you the way. Come with me, and you’ll find out just how much danger you’re really in, right enough. Come on.’

So saying, Jim opened the door and leaped down from the carriage.

Reluctantly, Harry followed. His friend led the way along the outer wall of the workhouse and into a small square on the other side. The square was bordered on three sides by terraced houses, and on the fourth by the workhouse wall. The snow had eased once more, and fog swirled round the enclosed space. Tendrils teased out by the breeze seemed like long, slender fingers clawing at Harry as he followed Jim to a secluded and shadowy corner.

‘So where’s Vastra and the others?’ Harry demanded. It seemed that there was no one here.

But that was just an illusion. A dark figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped towards Harry. The man seemed dark and vague, as if he had somehow coalesced out of the fog itself.

‘I told you that you’d find out how much trouble you’re in, Harry,’ Jim said. For the first time, Harry noticed how much the boy’s voice was trembling. How pale and frightened he looked. ‘I’m sorry, but I had to do it.’

‘Had to do what?’ Harry asked. But deep within his sinking heart he had already deduced the answer.

‘Had to bring you to me,’ the shadow man pronounced. His voice was deep and cultured. As he approached, Harry realised that this was the man from Ranskill Gardens – the man who had appeared at the same time as the fireworks display. Again the man tapped the brim of his top hat, but this time in greeting rather than valediction.

‘But don’t blame poor Jim,’ the man went on. ‘He brought you to me for a very good reason.’

Before Harry could move, the man’s hands whipped out and grabbed him securely by the shoulders. Harry cried out in pain and fear. Fog seemed to seep from open ends of the man’s cuffs, curling round his wrists and Harry’s shoulders.

‘Greater pragmatism has no man than this,’ the figure said. ‘That he betray his friends to save his own life.’

‘What are you going to do with me?’ Harry asked, stammering through the pain and the anger.

But the man’s only response was his laughter, echoing through the foggy night.

The Fifth Chapter

In which a mystery is solved…

With the disappearance of Harry, there was only one other lead for the Great Detective to follow. Jenny was adamant that the boy would not have run away again.

‘He trusted us. He knew he was in danger. Someone’s taken him.’

‘There is no sign of a siege,’ Strax pointed out. ‘The carriage is undamaged. No evidence of the deployment of weaponry.’

‘The threat may have been enough,’ Vastra said. ‘Or his abductors may have employed more subtle means.’

Strax grunted. ‘Explain “subtle”.’

‘Don’t think you’d understand,’ Jenny told him, not unkindly.

Vastra meanwhile had settled herself into the carriage. ‘Let us examine,’ she said, ‘the scene of the original crime.’

The body had been discovered and removed from Ranskill Gardens. A lone police constable kept watch, presumably on the understanding that a stable door locked after the equine occupant has vacated the premises is at least more secure than one that is never locked at all.

Jenny engaged the constable in conversation while Madame Vastra examined the scene of the crime. Or, at least, the location where the body of Miss Felicity Gregson had ended up. Strax prowled the immediate neighbourhood, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary and attempting – largely without success – to remain inconspicuous.

Making sure that she was not overlooked, Madame Vastra lifted the dark veil that concealed her reptilian features and examined the churned-up snow. There were splashes of red upon the white, several pebbles, and an incongruous carrot. She moved nothing, letting her fingers – or whatever for a lizard woman passed as fingers – brush gently against the blood. Her keen sense of smell told her at once that it was indeed human…

‘Who found her?’ Jenny asked the constable. She had already explained that the deceased was an acquaintance who had failed to keep an appointment with her mistress.

‘One of the residents. A pathologist himself as luck would have it, Miss. He was able to discern quite quickly that the lady was dead.’

‘And how did she die?’

The policeman shifted uncomfortably, stamping his feet in the snow and blowing on his cold hands. ‘I’m not sure that I should divulge that sort of detail.’

‘Oh, constable,’ Jenny soothed, ‘you can tell me.’

The constable glanced round, then lowered his voice. ‘Well so long as it goes no further. She was shot, in the back. Her killer must have been quite close, as the bullet went right through.’

‘Hence the blood on the front of her coat,’ Jenny said thoughtfully, recalling Harry’s description of events.

The policeman frowned. ‘How could you—’

But Jenny interrupted him before he could complete the thought. ‘Were there no witnesses? Did no one hear the shot?’

‘Fireworks display, down by the river. Perhaps you saw it, Miss? Made a right old racket, I can tell you. The inspector’s theory is that this distracted any attention the sound of a shot might have garnered.’

‘And no one saw anything?’ Jenny was keen to know if the police were aware of the two boys who had indeed discovered the body before the local pathologist.

The policeman shook his head. ‘Was one odd thing, though.’

‘Oh yes?’

Behind Jenny, Madame Vastra straightened up from her inspection of the snowy locale and listened keenly.

‘Lady in the house that backs onto the corner there.’ He paused to indicate the domicile in question. ‘She says she saw a man – a gentleman in fact – watching a couple of kids make a snowman.’

‘It does look as if there was a snowman here,’ Jenny agreed.

‘The body was found in the remains of it,’ the constable said. ‘But that’s not the odd thing.’

‘Then what is?’

‘Well, she swears she recognised the man, though he was muffled up against the cold and wearing a top hat. She says she is sure that it was Able Hecklington, the noted industrialist.’ The policeman gave a short laugh. ‘Though Lord knows why he’d be hanging about here watching kids make a snowman.’

Back at Paternoster Row, fortified by the remains of the hot soup that had previously restored young Harry, Madame Vastra, jenny and Strax discussed what they had learned.

‘It is obvious what happened,’ Vastra said.

This was indeed news to both Strax and Jenny, who were still befuddled by the enigmatic appearance of a dead body within the snowman.

‘And,’ Vastra went on, ‘we now know the identity of the murderer.’

Again, jenny and Strax exchanged confused looks.

‘But how can a dead body just appear inside a snowman?’ Jenny asked. ‘Harry and his friend Jim made it – they’d have noticed if they were building a snowman round a corpse.’

‘Osmic projection,’ Strax said knowingly. ‘Set the frequency modulator accurately enough and the body appears inside the snow.’

‘Not osmic projection,’ Vastra told him.

‘Then the woman was executed in a pit beneath the snowman. Careful use of a laser cutter would allow the ground to be removed and the cadaver inserted upright into the snowman.’

‘Not a laser cutter,’ Vastra said with the merest hint of waning patience.

‘In that case,’ Strax said, undeterred by his audience’s lack of enthusiasm, ‘the answer is obvious.’ He nodded to emphasize how clever he had been to deduce the solution to this singular puzzle. ‘Transmutation of matter.’

Jenny frowned. ‘You what?’

‘Cellular mutation,’ Strax told her. ‘The crystalline lattice of the snowman’s interior was transposed to a DNA-based organic matrix. The woman was created inside the snowman. She was,’ he explained, ‘made of snow.’

‘No,’ Vastra said. ‘She was not.’

‘However it was done,’ Strax said, ‘we should find every snowman in London – and obliterate them. just to be on the safe side.’

‘So how was it done? What did happen?’ Je1my asked.

Madame Vastra leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands in front of her on the table, for all the world like Sherlock Holmes. Only female. And green.

‘Miss Gregson was shot in the back.’

‘We know that from the police constable at Ranskill Gardens,’ Jenny agreed.

‘She was on her way to see me, when she realised she was in danger,’ Madame Vastra continued. She stared into the distance, as if seeing the events she described actually unfold…

Felicity Gregson was being followed. She caught a glimpse of her pursuer in the window of a haberdasher’s on Ghent Street, and ducked into an alley. The snow was getting heavy again, stinging her eyes as she stared out into the street There was no sign of the man in the top hat, but she knew he was there. She knew he was watching.

Despite the snow, a thin hint of fog curled like smoke round Felicity’s feet. She watched it for a moment, mouth open in surprise and alarm. Then she ran.

At the end of the alley, she turned into another street. Her destination was not far now, and she prayed the person (if person she be) that she was meeting would be there waiting. If anyone could help her…

A glance over her shoulder told her that the man in the top hat was still following. He seemed to solidify behind her out of the very air. Was it her imagination, or did the last few flakes of the ebbing snow fall through him as it danced and twisted down to the ground?

She doubled back on her route, took sudden side streets, did her best to get away from the man. By the time she reached Ranskill Gardens, she began to hope that she might have succeeded. The snow had become heavy again, and she crept quietly into the small enclosed area through a narrow back gate, her footsteps muffled by the fresh snowfall.

From behind came a sound which could have been a foot crunching on ice. Felicity gasped. She looked round quickly for somewhere to hide – anywhere. There was only one possibility.

Two boys were building a snowman. As Felicity watched, they pushed a carrot into its inchoate features. They laughed and scrabbled in the snow raising flurries of flakes.

Quickly, Felicity ran to take shelter behind the snowman, standing so close she could feel the cold of its back. She would rather the children did not see her – she would rather that no one saw her. If her pursuer entered the gardens by the same approach as she had herself, then he would see only the boys and the snowman. All she need do was wait until Madame Vastra arrived…

But it was not to be.

For the man in the top hat came into Ranskill Gardens by a different route. He stood in the shadows by the back wall, watching the boys play. Watching the woman he had pursued standing in plain sight, ignorant of his presence. All he needed was a distraction.

It came in the form of the fireworks display. The boys turned to watch, their attention on the light-show, their ears assailed by the crack and thunder of distant explosions. So much so that a single gunshot echoing round the gardens was lost in the cacophony.

The bullet from the man’s revolver struck Felicity in the centre of the back. It went right through her, penetrating and destroying her heart in an instant before traversing the soft body of the snowman and then embedding itself in the frozen ground nearby.

The force of the impact drove Felicity forwards with such violence that she was pressed into the snowman. Her body crashed through, almost to the other side. Blood wept from her gaping chest wound, through her coat, into the snow.

And in moments, as the two boys stood in awestruck horror, one with Felicity’s blood staining his index finger, the weight of her body collapsed the fragile façade of the snowman, and she fell lifeless to the ground.

‘So the murderer was the man Harry saw,’ Jenny said.

Vastra nodded. ‘That’s why he wants Harry – to be rid of any possible witnesses.’

‘Then we must defend the boy,’ Strax decided. ‘And the best form of defence is attack. I suggest a three-pronged assault on the villain’s stronghold with ground forces. Shall I break out the heavy weapons?’

‘We don’t even know who this man is, let alone where he’s taken Harry,’ Jenny chided.

‘Then we must begin surveillance on all possible suspects. Everyone who wears a dark coat and a top hat must be accounted for.’

‘In London?’ Jenny said. ‘How many men do you think that would be?’

‘There is only one that matters.’

‘But we don’t know which.’

‘I think we do, actually,’ Vastra told them. ‘Remember what the policeman said.’

‘Able Hecklington,’ Jenny recalled. ‘You think it was him?’

‘I think,’ Vastra said, ‘that it would be impolite not to ask.’

A short way across London, the subject of these deliberations, Mister Able Hecklington, stood on a gantry high above the floor of his largest foundry. He looked down at the furnace below. A vast metal cauldron, it swirled with smoke so thick that it seemed to obscure the fire that produced it. A roiling mass of fog spilled over the edges and out across the foundry floor.

Hanging above the cauldron was a metal frame in the shape of a man – a cage. But the figure inside was smaller than a man. Strapped to the metal frame, Harry could barely turn his head to see Hecklington standing watching with satisfaction. Beside the man stood a smaller figure – Jim. The boy’s face was pale, as if he only now began to understand what he had done. Or perhaps, what he had escaped by sacrificing his friend instead.

With the metallic clank of heavy chains, the cage containing Harry began slowly to descend. The smoke in the cauldron clawed at the air above, as if it was reaching out for the boy, beckoning for him to join it Hungry for his company.

The Sixth Chapter

In which a daring rescue is attempted…

The fog thickened as they approached the foundry on foot. It hung in the air like a living thing. Smoke from the vast brick chimneys added to the coagulating sky.

‘Hecklington owns many such facilities,’ Strax said. ‘They could all be adapted for the production of armaments with minimal disruption. How do we know that this is where he has taken the boy?’

‘It’s the largest,’ Jenny said.

‘And more to the point,’ Vastra commented, ‘Miss Felicity Gregson’s house backs onto it. Whatever she was bringing to show me, whatever story she had to tell, it originated here.’

They made their wary way to a side door set in a shadowy area close to the back of the foundry.

Vastra’s sword was slung over her shoulder in a scabbard especially designed for the purpose. Jenny held a robust wooden pole, favoured by the oriental masters of various martial disciplines. Strax had brought no weapon but himself, which was by any measure weapon enough.

‘There may not be time,’ Strax said, ‘to conduct a full surveillance regime according to prescribed regulations in order to formulate a coherent strategy of the best method to effect entry.’

‘That is true,’ Madame Vastra agreed. ‘So I suggest you simply break down this door.’

Strax flexed his hands, cracking all six sets of knuckles. ‘My pleasure.’ He adjusted his necktie.

Then, head down, he ran straight at the heavy wooden door. With a singularly unchromatic crunch, the apex of Strax’s cranium connected with the door. The wood splintered, but did not break. Strax withdrew his head, and inspected the damage he had inflicted.

‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘I shall need a longer run-up.’

Under the second onslaught, the door exploded inwards in a blizzard of splinters and shards, Strax in the very midst of the maelstrom. Close on his heels came Jenny and Madame Vastra herself. Each of the women had their weapons held ready.

The foundry was vast, not being delimited by internal walls or partitions. Smoke-darkened brick chimneys rose from huge furnaces to disappear into the shadowy limits of the roof space and thence up and out into the London air. Wrought iron gantries and walkways criss-crossed the area in a web of metal.

Central to the space was an enormous vat, shaped like a witch’s cauldron but immensely bigger. Smoke poured over the top of it like fog, falling towards the ground. It hugged the flagstoned floor, curling into every nook and cranny of the foundry. Jenny felt it catching at the back of her throat. Strax batted it away with the back of his tri-digital hand as one might an irksome f1y.

Madame Vastra took in the scene at a glance. Through reptilian eyes well adjusted for seeing into darkness and shadow, she saw the metal cage above the roiling cauldron. She recognised the writhing form of the boy Harry as he was lowered, inch by inch, towards the smoking receptacle.

And above, watching and laughing, she saw the dark figure of Able Hecklington, who, at the same moment, turned slightly and saw Vastra and her compatriots.

Hecklington did not call out or gesture. But somehow, evidently, an order was given. In a moment, half a dozen men of the roughest and most uncouth variety appeared from the shadows around the cauldron, materialising as it were out of the drifting smoke. They were armed with cudgels and knives.

Vastra recognised two of the thugs as those self-same ruffians who had accosted Harry earlier. One of the two carried a revolver, which he raised to take aim at Strax.

This was something of a mistake. Despite his bulk, Strax could move quickly when the need arose. Arise it did, as the business end of the weapon pointed towards him. With a chilling, if unimaginative, Sontaran battle cry, he charged at his unfortunate opponent.

Again, the crown of Strax’s head became a blunt instrument to be reckoned with. This time, the impact was immediately succeeded by a swift blow from the right arm. Kept straight and rigid, this was every bit as effective. The gun fell to the floor and its erstwhile owner was propelled at speed across the foundry.

The second of the returning ruffians backed away from Strax. But he lacked the velocity necessary to escape a similar blow that sent him stumbling to join his unconscious compatriot in a similar state of oblivion.

The other attackers should have fared no better against their apparently less brutal adversaries. Jenny and her mistress parried every blow from cudgel and every thrust from blade with pole and sword in a swirling blur of practised motion.

Had their attackers been made of more substantial stuff, they would have been felled in an instant.

But to the women’s surprise and horror, their weapons cut right through the ruffians. It was as if the men were as insubstantial as the London smog. Where Vastra cut, a line of misty haze was all there was to show for even the most palpable hit. When Jenny thrust, what poured from the inflicted wound was not blood, but smoke!

‘Strax!’ Vastra shouted as she and Jenny fought back to back.

The two more substantial ruffians had regained some semblance of sense and were closing in on Strax, albeit rather cautiously. Strax paused in mid blow. ‘Ma’am.’ He turned, elbowing aside the nearest assailant in the same abrupt movement.

Vastra held the sword in one hand as she pointed to the cage descending from above. ‘See to the boy!’

Where there had been two slowly recovering ruffians in front of Strax, suddenly there were none. Skittled away like ninepins, they rolled and stumbled aside as Strax hurried towards the huge cauldron. As he went, he scooped up the fallen revolver. His stubby fingers were too large to fit through the trigger guard, so with a grunt of irritation, he snapped it off.

The metal cage was attached by chains to a large cogwheel set in the wall of the foundry. With each movement of the wheel, the cage jerked down – another link of chain for every notch of the wheel. It was close enough in design to an ancient Sontaran instrument of torture that Strax understood the mechanism in a moment.

Another thing he understood with that inherent instinct bred into all Sontarans even before they are hatched, was weaponry – no matter how primitive by his own standards. He raised and fired the revolver as he was moving.

The bullet shattered through one of the chains holding the cage. Harry gave a startled cry as the cage swung violently. A second shot made short work of another chain, and Harry cried out again as the cage up-ended.

But still it was lowering slowly towards the smoking cauldron. Strax thrust the revolver into the inside pocket of his jacket for possible – or rather, probable – future use. He barrelled across the foundry towards the cauldron. The two chains that Strax had shot apart hung down from the cage, swinging back and forth. One of them dipped into the foggy cauldron.

The other swung wide of the lip. Strax took a running jump and caught hold of it. As he landed again, he dragged the chain. Harry stared down at him, eyes wide with fear as the cage fell another notch closer to the cauldron. The smoke curled up, clawing at him, stinging his eyes.

Below, Strax dragged the chain – and with it the cage above – away from the cauldron’s edge. The cage clanged against the edge of the cauldron, but settled finally on the floor beside Strax.

Smoke was now pouring more abundantly from the cauldron, and Strax lost no time in breaking open the catches on the cage and the chains that held Harry’s wrists and ankles. He heaved the grateful boy over his shoulder and marched off back through the smoke.

Vastra and Jenny were fighting a fierce rearguard action against the ruffians. They had no hope or way of winning against opponents who could withstand the most serious wounds. As soon as the sword cut through them, or the pole jabbed into them, the men healed and re-joined the fray.

But with Strax’s appearance, marching out of the swirling misty smoke towards them, Vastra and Jenny redoubled their efforts. Pausing only to hurl aside several of the attackers, Strax strode to the shattered doorway, and then out into the foggy night. Vastra and Jenny each made a final thrust, then turned and ran after Strax.

From his vantage point on the gantry above, Able Hecklington watched angrily as the intruders made good their escape.

‘Boy!’ he hissed.

Cowering behind him, Jim hardly dared to answer.

‘We needed his form to infiltrate our enemies’ lair. Instead they have found us. But perhaps all is not lost. You – boy – come here!’ Hecklington roared.

Hesitantly, fearing the worst, Jim stumbled over to join Hecklington at the edge of the gantry. The man was leaning heavily on the side rail, looking down into the cauldron of boiling smoke below. He gestured for Jim to look also.

Jim leaned out, peering down. The smoke curled and swam like a living thing. It seemed thicker and darker by the moment.

‘You see that?’ Hecklington said. His voice was calmer now, quieter, almost like a father pointing out some interesting architectural feature to an eager son. ‘You see the way the smoke beckons, how it coalesces and congeals?’

Jim nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he murmured.

Hecklington nodded. He clapped his hand appreciatively to Jim’s back. ‘Then take a closer look.’ His voice was a sudden snarl as he grabbed the back of Jim’s jacket, lifted him bodily, and flung him over the rail.

The boy crashed down into the smoke below. As he fell, his last thoughts were that the patches of darkness in the smoke made it look like a face, the mouth gaping wide to welcome him. And that the sound of the air whistling past him was like the laughter of the most fiendish devil in hell.

The Seventh Chapter

In which it seems the world may soon come to an end…

Madame Vastra and the others made their return to Paternoster Row by a circumspect route. Strax in particular was keen to intercept any individual he suspected might be following and forcibly remove a variety of their limbs and appendages. But Jenny prevailed upon him that most of the people he singled out were merely walking past. Given the lateness of the hour there were, thankfully, not many.

‘What about him?’ Strax said, pointing to a figure shambling slowly along on the opposite pavement.

‘That old lady is selling lucky heather, and she’s heading in a different direction so she’s unlikely to be following us.’

‘She could be bluffing. And who is this Lucky Heather anyway?’

‘It’s heather – it’s a plant not a person. It’s supposed to be lucky.’

‘Not if I catch her, it won’t be.’

‘Strax,’ Vastra said simply. ‘No.’

Harry was in a daze for much of the journey. He felt he was living through a dream – a nightmare. It was an effort to put one foot in front of another. Wherever he looked, the gathering gloom of the London smog reminded him of the smoke in the cauldron below him as he was lowered down in his cage.

It was well into the night by the time they arrived back at Paternoster Row. Jenny sat Harry down before the fire in the drawing room, then withdrew to make a pot of tea. It took a while, and a lot of tea, but finally Harry felt recovered enough to recount his adventures.

He told them how Jim had found him in the carriage, and lured him to Able Hecklington.

‘He wanted both possible witnesses taken care of,’ Vastra said. ‘I’m afraid your friend Jim will suffer a similar fate. He was merely postponing the inevitable.’

‘He ain’t my friend,’ Harry said. ‘Not no more, he ain’t.’

Strax leaned across to Jenny. ‘At what age do these cubs become grammatical?’ he demanded.

‘Depends,’ she told him. ‘At what age do Sontarans become pacifists?’

‘Did he tell you anything of his plans?’ Vastra was asking Harry.

The boy shook his head. ‘Not really. But I did overhear him talking to Jim and to some of the other men. Like sort of boasting he was, about how everything was going according to plan.’

‘What plan?’ Strax asked. ‘He has a strategy? Or is this merely tactical thinking at a preliminary stage of military operations?’

‘Eh?’

‘Ignore him,’ Jenny whispered. Louder she said: ‘Just tell us what you know. Anything might help, anything at all.’

Harry struggled to recall what he had overheard. He had been scared – more scared than he could ever remember, and Harry had already been through a lot in his short life.

‘He talked a lot about “the Smoke”.’

‘The smoke? The smoke in that cauldron?’ Jenny wondered.

‘He said it like it was a living thing. He talked about meeting it, said he had come to an understanding with it.’

‘Did he explain this Smoke’s stratagem?’ Strax asked.

‘No. But he did say…’ Harry’s eyes widened as he remembered what he had heard. ‘He said the Smoke would consume the world.’

Strax gave a snort of impatience. ‘This tells us nothing. It makes no sense.’

‘On the contrary,’ Madame Vastra told him, ‘it fits entirely with what I already know.’

They all turned towards the Lizard Woman.

‘And what is that, Ma’am?’ Jenny asked.

Madame Vastra’s face was lit by the flickering red of the firelight as she told them her story. ‘Several days ago, Miss Felicity Gregson contacted me in my capacity as the Great Detective. She was concerned about something that she had seen. A light, falling from the sky trailing smoke and fire. It came down behind her house, in the grounds of what we now know to be Mister Able Hecklington’s foundry.’

‘An invasion spearhead,’ Strax said. ‘Perhaps the first craft of many. The primitives of this planet should arm themselves ready for the assault.’

‘Perhaps,’ Vastra said. ‘But moving on… Miss Gregson said that whatever had come down split open when it hit the ground. Smoke spilled out of it. She had something she wished me to see, though she was a little vague about what. I got the impression that she felt I would dismiss her story until I saw what she had. And perhaps I would have done. She referred to it as “evidence”.’

‘We had no other reports of anything falling to Earth in that area,’ Jenny said.

‘The other thing Miss Gregson told me, was that when she went back out into her garden the next morning, there was no sign of whatever had fallen. As if it had all been cleared away in the night.’

‘By Hecklington,’ Strax said.

‘It seems likely. More than likely.’

‘But what did she find?’ Harry asked. ‘What was she bringing to show you? She didn’t have nothing with her when she fell dead out of our snowman.’

Strax leaned forward, about to speak.

But Jenny intervened. ‘When he says “she didn’t have nothing” he means that she did have nothing.’

‘Ah!’ Strax slapped his fist into his open palm. ‘I understand – it is a code. Good, boy – very good. I shall give the impression that I don’t not know what you ain’t talking about.’

Vastra sighed. ‘Thank you, Strax. But the question remains – what was the “evidence” that Miss Felicity Gregson was bringing to show me, and where is it now?’

‘The police found nothing of interest,’ Jenny said. ‘That constable would have told me, I’m sure.’

‘Then the murderer, Hecklington, took it,’ Strax decided. ‘The murder may have been in the nature of a recovery operation.’

‘Tell us again what happened when you found the body,’ Vastra said to Harry. ‘We now know how she came to be inside your snowman.’ She held up a gloved hand to stay Harry’s immediate and vocal curiosity. ‘I will explain in a moment, but first – tell us again what you saw.’

Harry’s brow was creased with concentration as he tried to bring back an image of the moment. ‘I’m trying to remember her hands,’ he explained. ‘When she fell, she had them in front of her. I thought it was like she was praying – making her peace with God.’ He swallowed at the thought.

‘Her hands were together, thus?’ Vastra asked. She held her flattened palms together in front of her in demonstration.

‘More like this, I think.’ Harry clasped his own hands together more loosely by way of demonstration.

‘She was holding something,’ Jenny realised. ‘Holding it tight between her hands.’

‘But the police found nothing,’ Vastra reminded her.

‘The muscles would have relaxed when she fell, as the life ebbed from them,’ Strax said. ‘Her grip on the object would not be maintained.’

‘She fell into the remains of the snowman.’ Vastra’s eyes were glittering in the firelight as she leaped to her feet. ‘It would have been under her body, whatever it was. Pushed into the snow on the ground, just as she was propelled into the snowman itself.’

Jenny nodded, excited. ‘We don’t know what it is – but it might still be there!’

The Eighth Chapter

In which the monstrous apparition is revealed…

Unable to keep his eyes open any longer, Harry fell into a deep sleep. Despite his fears and experiences, he seemed peacefully oblivious to reality. Strax carried him – surprisingly gently – upstairs to one of the many spare rooms in Vastra’s large town house.

Also feeling the effects of a long day, Jenny agreed to stay with Harry. She settled down in a small armchair close to the boy’s bed.

‘We will lock up as we go,’ Vastra assured her maidservant and friend.

‘Allow no one access unless they know the pass code,’ Strax instructed.

‘What is the pass code?’ Jenny asked.

Strax opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again. ‘Allow no one access,’ he decided.

‘Is that the code, or another instruction?’ Jenny asked, suppressing a tired smile.

‘Children,’ Vastra chided gently. ‘Come, Strax, we have work to do.’

It was the darkest time of night as Strax and Vastra ventured forth from Paternoster Row. Vastra eschewed the carriage as she wanted time to think. The cool night air cleared her head, and there was once again a flurry of snow.

Strax stomped along beside her. Every seventeen steps, he turned in a full circle to check they were not being observed. Satisfied that they were not, he then resumed his stomp.

As they arrived again at Ranskill Gardens, the moon appeared from behind the clouds though the snow was still falling. Strax glared up at the moon, as if daring it to stay visible, looking down at them. Within a few moments, clouds had once more obscured its crescent-face, and Strax breathed a satisfied sigh as if he had just won a staring competition.

Vastra strode over to the remains of the boys’ snowman. It was now little more than an uneven pile of snow. More had fallen over the top, further obscuring the shape and location.

‘Here, Strax, help me.’

She brushed away the top layer of snow with her gloved hand. More snow fell to take its place, but she brushed that aside also. Strax crouched beside her, and she motioned for him to scrape more of the snow.

‘But carefully. We do not know what may lie beneath.’

‘A heat ray would complete the task more efficiently,’ Strax said.

‘And it might damage whatever is hidden here. This is best.’

They continued to feel their way down through the snow until Vastra felt the frozen ground beneath. She sighed with disappointment.

‘There’s nothing here.’

‘No,’ Strax agreed. ‘Would you care for a toffee?’

Vastra shook her reptilian head, still staring down at the hole they had so unproductively scraped in the snow. ‘Not at the moment, thank you, Str–’

She broke off, turning to look up at Strax standing behind her.

‘A toffee?’

Strax held up a battered tin. ‘I found this. It says “Lovelock’s Famous Treacle Toffee” in human writing, look.’ He pointed with his other hand to the faded printing on the rusty surface. “‘Would you care for a toffee? Only if it’s Lovelock’s. The Original and Still the Best”.’ He hesitated a moment before asking: ‘What is toffee?’

‘Don’t open it!’ Vastra called, getting quickly back to her feet and taking the tin from Strax.

‘Toffee is a weapon?’

‘In this case, that is entirely possible,’ Vastra agreed. ‘Show me where you found this.’

Strax indicated an area where the snow had been wiped away, in dose proximity to where Vastra had herself been searching. More snow was already settling and obscuring the impression.

‘Strax,’ she said slowly, ‘what do you think we were looking for?’

Strax considered.

‘It is not a trick question,’ Vastra told him after a long pause.

‘We were looking for whatever the Felicity human was holding.’

‘Which was?’

‘I… don’t… know…’

‘No, none of us knows.’

Strax looked relieved at this revelation.

‘So,’ Madame Vastra continued, ‘is it not possible that she was holding a toffee tin?’

Strax’s eyes widened slightly and he took an inadvertent step backwards, crushing a postnasal carrot.

‘A toffee tin into which she had perhaps placed whatever evidence it was that she wished to bring to me?’

Strax pointed dumbly at the tin Vastra was holding, his lower lip shaking slightly in an unformed question.

‘Indeed,’ Vastra agreed. ‘I suggest that as the snow shows no sign of letting up, we return to Paternoster Row and open the tin under controlled conditions.’

This Strax could understand. He strode ahead of his mistress. ‘I shall provide a security escort for the evidence toffee. Once safely locked inside Paternoster Row, I shall instigate an exclusion zone and organise frequent patrols as well as establishing an observation station and surveillance regime.’

‘You know,’ Vastra said as she followed her henchman, ‘for once you may not be overreacting. I have a feeling whatever is inside this tin will require treating with the utmost caution.’

She brushed a thin layer of snow from its surface. As if in reply, the tin in her hands vibrated and shook – for all the world like something inside was trying to force off the lid …

The glass tank was airtight. Through two holes in the sides, rubberised gloves reached inside, the wrists sealed to the glass. Since the containment vessel had been designed and manufactured specifically for members of the race of which the troll-like Strax was a member, it was Strax whose bifurcated hands were thrust into the gloves.

Inside the tank lay the rusty toffee tin recovered from the scene of the murder of Felicity Gregson. Carefully, Strax lifted the tin in one large hand. With the other he grasped the lid. Gently he eased it off the main body and lifted it clear.

Vastra, Jenny, and Harry all peered closely through the glass.

‘There’s nothing in it,’ Harry proclaimed, echoing Jenny’s thoughts.

‘No – there is something,’ Vastra breathed.

It was thin and ethereal – as insubstantial as mist, as inchoate as the London fog itself. A curl of smoke licked out of the tin, as if exploring the surrounding air. It lifted lazily from the tin, thinning and drifting across the tank.

‘Is that it?’ Strax asked. ‘Not much of an enemy. A good sneeze would see that off. Not,’ he added, ‘like Moonites!’

‘What are Moonites?’ Harry asked.

‘A figment of whatever Strax has instead of imagination,’ Jenny told him.

‘The Ancient Enemy,’ Strax proclaimed.

‘I thought that was the Rutan Host,’ Vastra said.

‘I believe the two are in league.’ Strax nodded. ‘A formidable alliance.’

‘It looks like smoke,’ Harry said. ‘Like that smoke they tried to lower me into. With a face, and everything.’

‘A face?’ Vastra turned back to the glass tank.

Jenny gasped. Strax reached for a weapon he did not have.

In the tank, the smoke had indeed drifted into a vague, round shape. Darker patches might have been eyes. A slash of emptiness could be a mouth.

‘What do we do with it?’ Jenny asked.

But her words were interrupted by the jangling of a distant bell.

‘Keep it in there, Strax,’ Vastra said. ‘And Jenny – see who’s at the door.’

Harry followed Jenny. He was not at all interested in who might be calling, but he wanted to get as far from the smoke creature as he could. He trusted and liked Jenny, so he felt safer close to her. He stood at the back of the hall, in the shadow of the staircase, and watched her open the door.

Then in a moment, he was running forwards – towards the visitor now framed in the entrance.

‘Jim!’ he exclaimed, for it was indeed his friend who stood on the threshold. He might have betrayed Harry, but that was out of fear which Harry understood and forgave. He was happy just to see the boy alive and safe.

Except…

As Harry reached the doorway, he saw what Jenny had already noticed – and which had frozen her momentarily into inaction. He shared her feelings of surprise and dread.

For the boy Jim’s eyes were devoid of pupils. Instead a pale, foggy discolouration drifted across the iris. He raised a hand, and wisps of smoke curled out from the ends of his cuffs. More smoke was escaping from the gap between his neck and the loose collar of his grubby shirt.

When Jim opened his mouth to speak, it emitted a cloud of smoke, like an expulsion of steam.

‘It’s all right,’ the boy said, his voice gravel-rough and entirely without inflection. His whole form was now wreathed in smoke. ‘I escaped. Please let me in.’

The Ninth Chapter

In which Paternoster Row is besieged by the Devil in the Smoke…

‘Please let me in,’ Jim said again. The smoke around him seemed to mingle with the gathering fog.

The sound of the boy’s inhuman voice shocked Jenny into action. ‘Not bloomin’ likely!’ she told him, and slammed the front door shut. She turned the key in the lock and shot the bolts.

Alerted by the sound of the door slamming, Vastra was almost immediately on the scene. Strax strode purposefully after her.

‘It’s Jim,’ Harry explained, breathless and frightened. ‘He’s gone peculiar. Like his insides are full of smoke or something.’

‘Or something,’ Jenny agreed.

‘Stand back from the door,’ Strax instructed.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, Strax,’ Jenny said.

‘No,’ Vastra said, ‘he’s right – stand back from the door now!’

As Jenny obeyed the instructions of her mistress and hurried back down the hallway, they could all see it. The faintest curls of smoke were edging round the door frame. More forced its way through the letterbox. It gathered close to the door, thickening as more of the grotesque miasma found its way inside.

‘Strax,’ Vastra said, ‘where is the best place in the house to defend?’

‘Not the drawing room,’ Jenny said, checking.

Smoke was forcing its way round the sash windows and puffing out from behind the curtains. As Jenny watched, more smoke wafted out of the fireplace and drifted across the room towards her.

She closed the door quickly. ‘It’s coming down the chimney!’

‘Then an internal chamber,’ Strax suggested. ‘Where there are no windows or outside openings. I suggest the room where we set up the isolation tank.’

‘No windows in there,’ Vastra agreed.

‘No chimney, neither,’ Jenny added.

They were already moving, hurrying back to the room they had so recently vacated. Jenny bundled young Harry ahead of her.

Behind them, smoke continued to gather in the hallway. It thickened and merged, hardening into an outline – a silhouette within which the smoke drifted and pulsed…

But it was not only from the front of the house that the smoke was mounting its assault. It seeped in round windows and outside doors. It poured down chimneys and cascaded out through fireplaces. By the time Vastra and her companions reached the room that was their destination, a pall of smoke hung in the air before them. More rolled along low to the ground, like mist coming off a river.

The smoke thickened, forming shapes – tendrils that reached out to clutch at Vastra and the others. Ethereal hands clawed at the air. Faces leered up from the rolling fog.

‘Don’t breathe it in,’ Vastra ordered. ‘We have to get through it – close your eyes, hold your breath, and run!’

‘I shall go last,’ Strax said.

‘More heroics?’ Jenny chided.

‘Any of you that falter, I will assist. I shall carry you if I have to.’

‘Thank you,’ Jenny said, moved by his uncharacteristic concern.

‘And anyone infected by this smoke,’ Strax went on, ‘I will tear to pieces. For their own good, of course.’

No one ventured thanks for this. They all ran, eyes closed, breath held, for the door through which they hoped and prayed safety lay. The smoke clutched and tore at them. It dragged claws through Harry’s hair and grabbed at Jenny. It closed about Vastra and threw itself at Strax.

But they stumbled onwards, and somehow managed to burst through the foggy barrier and out the other side.

Vastra fumbled for the handle, threw the door wide. They tumbled inside and Strax pushed the door shut behind them. He slammed it so hard that it was forced into the frame, sealing the edges tight.

‘That should keep the smoke out,’ Jenny said.

But Harry was not so sure. With the perception of youth, he pointed out her error: ‘Keyhole!’

Sure enough, a wisp of smoke was already curling through this narrow aperture. Strax placed his hand over the keyhole, cutting off access for the nebulous creature.

‘I shall stand here while you all escape,’ he declared.

‘Escape how?’ Vastra asked. ‘There are no other doors and no windows. That is why we came here.’

Strax gave a grunt that might have been understanding or disagreement. ‘There is a way. One which I prepared a while ago for such an eventuality.’

‘You thought we’d be besieged in here by a smoke demon?’ Jenny said. ‘That’s foresight.’

‘An escape route is always valuable. Forward planning is essential. There is only one small problem.’

‘Which is?’

‘I shall have to effect the escape. Only my structure is of sufficient resilience and potency. I cannot perform this task and keep my finger over the keyhole.’

‘We have no need of escape yet,’ Vastra told him.

She was holding a copy of The Times, and as the others watched she shredded it into strips with her claws. Jenny realised at once her mistress’s purpose. While the door was tight in its frame, there was still a small gap beneath. Smoke was seeping through – a thin mist for the moment, but soon it would thicken and coagulate.

With Harry’s help, Jenny and Vastra twisted the strips of paper and pushed them into the gap. Harry took another strip and gestured for Strax to move his hand. As soon as the troll-like creature obliged, he forced his twist of paper into the keyhole, thereby obstructing it entirely.

‘Now what?’ Jenny asked.

‘Now we wait,’ Vastra said. ‘That smoke creature is here for a purpose. I imagine we shall soon discover what the purpose is.’

‘It’s purpose is assault,’ Strax told her. ‘It means to kill us all.’

‘Perhaps – but why?’

‘We know about it,’ Jenny said. ‘Perhaps that’s enough?’

They did not have long to wait to find out. Jim’s voice, although they all knew it no longer emanated from Jim, came to them through the door – muffled and uninflected.

‘You cannot escape,’ the voice said.

‘You cannot get in,’ Vastra called back through the door. ‘What do you want?’

‘To be complete,’ came the level reply.

‘Complete? What’s it mean?’ Harry asked.

Vastra walked over to the glass tank. The smoke inside swirled angrily round the open and empty toffee tin.

‘Is this what it wants?’ she wondered aloud.

‘Incomplete is painful,’ the voice from beyond the door said. ‘We must be whole if we are to grow and thicken and blot out the sun. We must be complete if we are to encircle and envelop this world and hold it in our grasp.’

‘Good,’ Strax said.

The others looked at him.

‘Because,’ he explained, ‘this means we have a hostage.’

‘Return the rest of us, and we shall let you go free,’ the voice said.

‘What guarantee do we have of that?’ Vastra asked.

‘You have… my word.’

‘Not enough,’ Strax snarled. ‘We shall arrange a hostage exchange on our terms at a location and time of our choosing under controlled conditions according to the protocols of the Shadow Proclamation.’

There was a pause, as if the smoke was considering.

‘If we give them back the rest of this stuff, they’re going to destroy the world!’ Jenny pointed out.

‘We can at least play for time,’ Vastra said.

The answer to this came from within the room, a quiet whisper in the voice of the ill-fated Jim:

‘You have no time left.’

The smoke in the glass tank was a face – Jim’s face, staring out at them. The foggy mouth twisted into a ghastly smile. Then the whole visage seemed to burst apart into mist – mist that at once reformed in the shape of a fist.

The fist punched forwards, shattering the side of the tank. Fragments of glass flew across the room, whipping past Harry’s face. Smoke poured out from the tank, like water cascading through the broken glass. Vastra and the others watched in horror as the smoke congealed before them into the sinister shape of Able Hecklington.

The Tenth Chapter

In which our heroes are trapped beneath glass…

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.

The Final Chapter

In which the monstrous creature is finally dispelled…

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…

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Published in 2012 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.
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Copyright © Justin Richards 2012
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