The Lazarus Engine – Chapter 23
March’s Workshop
St. Paul’s Cathedral rose above the morning fog like a stone ship sailing through clouds. Thorne paid the cab driver and walked the perimeter, searching for the entrance Pym had described. It was not a door. It was a grate, hidden behind a statue of a sleeping angel, half-covered by dead leaves.
He pried it open with his knife.
The catacombs were not the grand burial chambers tourists sometimes visited. These were older, deeper, forgotten. The air smelled of wet stone and rust. Thorne lit a match and descended.
The stairs wound down for what felt like a hundred feet. The match burned out. He lit another. The walls were lined with niches, but the niches were empty. Whatever bodies had been here had been moved—or used.
At the bottom, a wooden door, reinforced with iron bands. The lock was old but simple. Thorne picked it with a bent wire from his coat.
Inside, the workshop.
It was larger than Pound’s, larger than the basement beneath Vane Manor. March had built himself a cathedral of clockwork. The ceiling was lost in darkness. The walls were lined with shelves of brass gears, copper wires, glass jars filled with preserved organs. And in the center, on a stone altar, lay the final engine.
It was the size of a human heart. But where the other engines had been crude, this one was beautiful—polished brass, intricate engravings, a face like a pocket watch set into its side. The hands of the watch were frozen at 11:59.
“The eleventh hour,” Thorne whispered.
He approached the altar.
The engine was not ticking. But it was warm. Thorne touched the brass casing. It hummed faintly, like a hive of bees.
“Charlotte never used this,” a voice said behind him.
Thorne spun.
Isolde Vane stepped out of the shadows. She was dressed in black, her veil gone. Her face was pale, but her eyes were sharp.
“She couldn’t,” Isolde continued. “The engine requires a heart that has been stopped and restarted. Not a preserved heart. A living heart. Yours.”
Thorne’s hand went to his coat pocket, where the counter-measure rested. “You followed me.”
“I’ve been following you since the tower. Waiting for you to find this place.” Isolde walked to the altar. “Lord Pym told you about it. Before he died.”
“He’s dead?”
“The engine in his chest finally stopped. He’s been buried. No one mourned.” Isolde touched the engine’s glass face. “I will mourn no one. Not even Charlotte. She betrayed us.”
“Charlotte did what she thought was right.”
“Charlotte was a fool. Like her father. Like you.” Isolde turned. “I am the only one who understands the true purpose of the engine. Not resurrection. Ascension. The replacement of the human soul with something better. Something eternal.”
Thorne pulled out the counter-measure. “I can destroy this engine. With one press.”
“Do it.” Isolde smiled. “And you’ll never find the other one.”
“Other one?”
“The engine in my chest. I had Charlotte implant it years ago. It’s been ticking inside me, learning my heartbeat, my memories, my soul. When I die, the engine will continue. I will become the engine. Immortal.”
Thorne stared at her. “You’re mad.”
“I’m evolved.” Isolde opened her arms. “Kill me, Dr. Thorne. Stop my heart. The engine will take over. I will rise again. You cannot stop what is already eternal.”
Thorne raised the counter-measure. But he did not press it.
He looked at the engine on the altar. At Isolde’s calm, terrible smile. At the shadows of the workshop.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “The engine cannot replace the soul. It can only mimic it. A copy is not the original. You will die, Isolde. And the thing that ticks in your chest will be nothing but a machine, forever pretending to be you.”
Isolde’s smile faltered.
Thorne pressed the counter-measure to the engine on the altar.
The engine screamed—a high, metallic shriek. The glass face cracked. The hands spun backward, faster and faster, until they flew off entirely. The engine shuddered, smoked, and fell silent.
Isolde clutched her chest. Her face contorted.
“No,” she gasped. “You’ve broken the connection. The engine in my chest—it’s gone dark.”
“You never needed an engine, Isolde. You needed a heart.”
She collapsed to her knees, gasping.
Thorne knelt beside her. “I’ll call for a doctor. A real one. You’ll survive. And you’ll stand trial.”
Isolde laughed—a broken, hollow sound. “Trial? I’ll be hanged.”
“Perhaps. But you’ll be human. Isn’t that better than being a machine?”
He helped her to her feet.
They left the workshop together, the destroyed engine smoking behind them.
Above ground, the fog had lifted.
And for the first time in years, Thorne could see the sun.