The Osiris Curse by Paul Crilley Read Free Book Online Page A

as they descended. Seventy-five exactly. What was that? About fifty feet underground? Sixty?
    The stairs ended at a door. Octavia pushed it gently open and they peered into the room beyond.
    Except it wasn't a room. It was some kind of massive factory space buried deep beneath the ground. It was easily a hundred meters long, the arched ceiling supported by thick iron struts high above their heads.
    The factory floor was covered with machines. Some were half-completed, their sides pulled off to reveal vacuum tubes and wiring. Some were in the first stages of construction, just massive skeletal structures, steel and wooden frames waiting to be filled. Workbenches surrounded the walls, covered with tools, gears, clocks, glass beakers filled with strange liquids, and disassembled automatons. One table was covered with the heads of the constructs, each one a different design, some fierce and scowling, others smiling and happy.
    The walls were painted black, and every available inch was covered with chalk drawings: plans and equations, designs for more machines, complex calculations that Tweed couldn't make the slightest sense of.
    They entered the workshop, hiding behind the machines and crates that littered the floor. Tweed could hear a loud buzzing sound, and as they moved deeper into the room, it built up into a high-pitched whine.
    A moment later there was a bright flash of blue-white light and the horrendously loud crack and hum of electricity discharging. Tweed carefully peered around a crate.
    Lightning crawled and spat across the metal roof beams high above. It burst and sparked, arcing downward and grounding itself in a circle of metal plates on the floor to create a lethal cage of electricity.
    After about thirty seconds, the lightning flickered and died. Tweed blinked away the afterimages that bloomed in his vision, and when he could see properly again he noticed Wilberforce standing just outside the metal plates, looking around the workshop with interest.
    â€œHello?” called Wilberforce.
    Octavia looked at Tweed, her eyes wide. He shook his head. He didn't think Wilberforce was calling to them. Something else was going on here.
    â€œNehi and I had a bet,” said a second voice.
    Wilberforce spun around. Emerging from the shadows was a tall figure. He wore a dark purple suit and was carrying a cane with a snake head handle. He was also wearing a fedora, pulled low over his eyes.
    The man pointed his cane at Wilberforce. “You made me lose. And now Nehi will make me perform some tiresome forfeit.”
    â€œAnd what, pray tell, was the bet?” asked Wilberforce.
    â€œShe said your lot would send someone. I said you wouldn't even know we had entered London.”
    â€œNehi always was the more intelligent twin,” said Wilberforce.
    The man shrugged. “Perhaps.” He took his fedora from his head, revealing an angled face the same caramel color as Wilberforce. He placed the hat on the top of a machine. “She certainly didn't think it would be you who came.” He brushed invisible dust from his suit. “But it matters not. You are too late, Molock. As always.”
    â€œI get a chance to speak to you, Sekhem, so I do not deem myself too late.” Wilberforce (or rather, Molock? Was Benedict Wilberforce a false name?) took a step closer to the one he called Sekhem. “Please…for the sake of our people, do not continue on this path. It will only lead to death.”
    The man called Sekhem waved his hand irritably. “Death is the whole point, Molock. It will soon be time for us to emerge from the shadows and take what is rightfully ours.”
    â€œWe will not allow it. We will stop you.”
    â€œAnd who are you to allow anything ?” snarled Sekhem. “We are enemies, Molock. You made us so when you chose to side against our cause. You are a traitor to your people.”
    â€œIt was you and Nehi who staged a coup against me ,” said Molock mildly.