Free The Return of the Discontinued Man (A Burton & Swinburne Adventure) by Mark Hodder

bloomin’ road!”
    Twisting around, he saw a bearded vagabond sitting behind him.
    “Watch out!” the man said, pointing ahead.
    Burton returned his attention to the woodlouse and steered it back onto the left side of the thoroughfare.
    He gasped. Though low snow-bearing clouds obscured the night sky, the cold air was so incredibly crisp and clear that every street lamp blazed like a star, and, to his right, the River Thames glittered as if filled with phosphorescence. He looked down again at the thing beneath him.
    “Um.”
    “Somethin’ wrong, Boss?”
    “No,” Burton lied.
    He struggled to recall the man’s name. Wells? No. Speke? Spencer. Yes. Herbert Spencer. How did he know that?
    The accounts left by Abdu El Yezdi. Herbert Spencer was a vagrant philosopher. He was killed while holding shards of one of the Nāga diamonds. Due to his proximity to them, the dying emanation of his brain was imprinted into the gems. They were later transferred into a clockwork man’s babbage device, giving Spencer’s still-conscious mind a means through which to express itself and, after a fashion, live again.
    This memory suddenly felt profoundly significant to Burton, though he couldn’t fathom why.
    A huge dragonfly hummed by overhead, with a man saddled upon its thorax and glowing paper lanterns trailing on ribbons behind it.
    Burton watched it pass and was startled when a lock of hair fell over his eyes. He reached up and found himself possessed of a shoulder-length mane. For some strange reason, he imagined he’d always worn it short. He pushed his fingertips into its roots and along his scalp. No scars.
    What is wrong with me?
    He must have been daydreaming. He’d imagined something about a mechanical horse. His thoughts were jumbled and erratic. Fantasies were intruding into them. Berserkers. Spring Heeled Jack. Lord Palmerston.
    He muttered, “I must be going barmy.”
    The four copper towers of Battersea Castle were just ahead. He felt it to be his destination, so guided the woodlouse off the road and into the edifice’s decorative gardens. Frost had whitened the grass, hedgerows, and skeletal trees. The flowerbeds to either side of the path were barren.
    “Pull yourself together,” he whispered as he drew his steed to a halt outside the castle’s gates.
    “Beg pardon?” Spencer asked.
    “Sorry. Nothing.”
    As they climbed to the ground, Burton reeled to one side and would have fallen had Spencer not caught him by the wrist.
    “Flamin’ heck, Boss! What’s got into yer?”
    “Too many late nights.” Burton steadied himself. He put a hand to his ribs, to his left arm, to his chin. Ghostly pain inhabited them but didn’t hurt him.
    Spencer said to the armadillidium, “Wait.”
    It rolled itself into a ball. The king’s agent marvelled at the way the creature made of itself such a perfect sphere, completely protected by its armour, with the saddle balanced on top. It was astonishing. The achievements of the geneticists never ceased to amaze him. Sir Francis Galton certainly deserved all the honours he’d received.
    Geneticists? Galton? Galton the lunatic? The father of that illegal science?
    “Why are we riskin’ this visit?” Spencer asked. “The Master Guild of Engineers is defeated, an’ if Gladstone finds out we’re consortin’ wiv the enemy, ’e’ll likely ’ave us ’ung, drawn an’ quartered.”
    “Gladstone is an ass,” Burton replied involuntarily. He looked up at the building, noting that, in contrast to its well-tended gardens, it appeared shabby and neglected. Many of its windowpanes were cracked. It didn’t feel right. Not at all.
    He knocked on the door. A motor-driven mechanical guard opened it and ushered them through. Like so many of the devices created by the Master Guild, it was a rickety thing that wobbled on its wheels and coughed black smoke from a clanking oil-powered engine. It led the king’s agent and his companion to the tall inner gates and opened them. Burton