Agatha H. And the Clockwork Princess (57 page)

“Oh I do wish I had the time to do this slowly.” The Geisterdamen spun about and slammed Tarvek’s jaw with her foot, sending the wounded man crashing against a wall. He slid to the ground. “But I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

Tarvek made a supreme effort, and managed to roll over onto his back. Vrin placed her sword at his throat. “But before you die, I want you to admit that your machinations have failed. You thought you could betray my Lady! Use her for your own petty ambitions! Admit your defeat.”

“Absolutely,” Tarvek mumbled. “You’re right. I failed, okay?”

Vrin glared at him. “You take all the honor out of
everything!”
she screamed as she raised her blade—

“
VRIN,
STOP
!” Agatha yelled.

Vrin froze, and staggered back. “Your voice! You’re not the Lady! I won’t—”

The broom handle hit her on the forehead with such force that it drove the Geisterdamen to her knees.

“No. I’m not your Lady,” Agatha agreed, “But it’s hard to resist my voice, isn’t it?
NOW PUT DOWN YOUR SWORD!
”

Involuntarily, Vrin’s hand flew open and the sword clattered to the ground. Instantly, she snatched it up again. “You filthy changeling,” she snarled. “That won’t work on me! I’ll kill you both no matter what you say—”

“
VRIN, STOP!
”

This time the handle smashed into Vrin’s jaw, snapping her head to the side. Vrin fell over.

“Maybe it won’t work on you. Not completely. After all, you know I’m not really her. But there’s a part of you that
doesn’t
know that. And that’s the part that slows you down. So just give up, okay?”

“How dare you?” Vrin screamed in rage as she rolled to her feet. “I can control my own mind! You will die!”

“
VRIN, KNEEL!”

The unexpected command froze the Geister as she was in mid-leap. As she teetered for a second, the broom handle hit her clean upside the head with the full force of the over-the-shoulder sweep that Agatha gave it, throwing Vrin back hard enough to lift her off the ground and drive her head into the stone wall. The Geisterdamen bounced back from the wall and collapsed in a heap.

Agatha stood ready, panting, but the woman warrior didn’t even twitch.

“Give her another one for me,” Tarvek said through clenched teeth. Agatha turned to him and sucked in a breath between her teeth. Sprawled against the wall, Tarvek was covered in blood.

“I should give you a smack of my own,” Agatha said, shaking her broom, but Tarvek could see that her heart wasn’t in it.

“Please don’t,” he said, in case he was wrong, “Bleeding heavily here.”

A bemused voice from above sighed. “Ah, well, I suppose we should do something about
that.
”

The two of them looked up. Staring down at them was a group of Wulfenbach soldiers, two of them clad in long, green cloaks with, Agatha realized with a start, Slaver Wasp skulls atop their heads. They were flanked by a pair of the tall brass trooper clanks, whose machine cannons never wavered from them.

The speaker was a short, plump, elderly soldier, with a meticulously cut, snowy white beard, who was casually sitting, his feet dangling over the edge.

“They say you can judge a person by their enemies.” He pointed his pistol towards the still comatose Vrin. “So you two are lookin’ pretty good right now. But I’m
sure
you could change my mind by doin’ somethin’ stupid.”

Agatha dropped her broom with a clatter. The soldier smiled. “That’s a good start, Fraulein. I’m Sergeant Scorp, First Vespiary Squad. Second Division. Second Army of East Transylvania.”

One of the cloaked soldiers leaned in. “Sergeant, I believe that’s the Heterodyne girl!”

The Sergeant’s eyes flicked up towards the giant figure who’s words were still booming out through the town. He then looked back to Agatha. “Really? She looks shorter.”

“What? But of course she’s—”

“—Jokin,’” the Sergeant said gently.

The cloaked soldier looked at his superior for a moment and then nodded uncertainly. “Ah. Humor. Yes?”

Scorp rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yes, Dmitri, humor. Go check ’em out.”

“Yessir!” Without another word, the two cloaked soldiers leapt the four meters to the ground, effortlessly landed on their feet, and approached the three. From large, wicker baskets at their sides, they produced bizarre, six-legged creatures, which they held up to each of them in turn.

Agatha—“Clean.”

Tarvek—“Clean.”

Vrin—The weasels shrieked and thrashed about in their handler’s hands. “Revenant.”

Scorp pushed the brim of his hat back and considered this. “Mighty interestin’,” he declared. “Is that young fella ready to move out?”

The medic wrapping Tarvek’s chest frowned. “He won’t like it.”

Scorp chuckled. “Trick question, son. He ain’t really got a choice.”

Agatha stepped up. “We need to see Baron Wulfenbach as quickly as possible.”

The Sergeant nodded. “Oh, you will. Though he might not appreciate you accusin’ him of bein’ The Other and all.”

Agatha’s eyes bugged from their sockets. “What? That’s not what I said!”

One of the Sergeant’s eyebrows arced and he jerked a thumb upwards. “Oh, really? Ain’t you been listenin’?”

For the first time, Agatha actually absorbed the words booming out from the colossus above them. “—Zzzk—Baron Wulfenbach was…is The Other—”

“Tarvek—” she began.

“Thought you said that boy shouldn’t move,” Scorp said.

“I didn’t think he
could
!” the corpsman said in amazement.

“Live and learn,” Scorp said cheerfully as he aimed his pistol.

A few minutes later, the squad was again on the move. The medic strode along, wiping his hands on a rag. “Did you
have
to shoot him in the leg?”

Scorp shrugged. “Figure I did him a favor. Iffin’ she’d got to him first—”

In the arms of one of the large brass clanks, Tarvek writhed in agony. Partly from the pain in his leg.

“It’s your own fault,” a furious Agatha informed him for the twenty-eighth time, “And better than you deserve! Why did you alter my message?”

The effort of keeping his stories straight caused the sweat to pour from Tarvek’s brow. “I didn’t do it! Lucrezia did. She wanted it found after we left Sturmhalten. That way, even if you broke free of her, it would keep you and the Baron from talking.”

“If you’re innocent then why did you run?”

Any number of reasons, as well as convoluted definitions of the word ‘innocent,’ ran through Tarvek’s increasingly chaotic brain.
I’m going into shock,
he realized.
Oh, that’s just perfect
.

What he said was the simple truth; “You look very scary!”

Agatha opened her mouth, and then checked herself. If she looked anything at all like she felt—“I feel scary. In fact like I’m about to ignite! Why aren’t I exhausted?”

Realization jolted through Tarvek, snapping him closer to coherence. “Oh dear,” he muttered.

“
Now
what?” Agatha demanded.

Tarvek took a deep breath. “Listen—you’re drugged. With a massive load of stimulants. Lucrezia insisted that her priestesses see her moving on her own.”

“You’re joking! She
wanted
to feel like this?”

“Don’t hit me!” Tarvek bleated, “I had to give her a quadruple dose. Your body’s been awake for
days
now. If you get excited, your brain could kind of short circuit. You’ve got to stay calm!”

“
Calm
?” She shouted, “I feel jittery and angry and… and I have a… a terrible pressure on my chest! Like I have a… a…” She paused, and then reached under her shirt and into her cleavage. She gave a start of surprise, and pulled out the miniature Hive Engine. “And what on earth is
this
?” she demanded.

Klaus had intended to join the troops in the initial foray into the town. If he was honest with himself, he’d been rather looking forward to it.
I’ve been hanging around the Jägers too much
, he thought.

But this plan had collapsed with the appearance of the giant apparition over Sturmhalten Castle. He trusted the even-headedness of his commanders, but many of the rank and file troops had lost friends and family to The Other.

A Lieutenant stomped into the Command center Klaus had established in the port hangar bay of DuPree’s ship and saluted. “The townspeople are attacking us, Herr Baron.”

Klaus drummed his fingers upon the desk. “That
is
to be expected when you invade them, Lieutenant.”

The man had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yessir, but these people are unusually determined, sir. They claim we’re…” he coughed. “Servants of The Other, begging your pardon, Sir.”

Klaus’ fist thumped on the desk, cracking it slightly. “Confound that girl!” He sighed. “Casualties?”

The Lieutenant consulted the notes he’d memorized. “Three of ours, fifteen of theirs, so far. They’re determined fighters, but they’re not very good at it,” he offered. “The biggest problem is that it’s tying up troops.”

“Pretty smart.” Bangladesh strolled in and casually leaned on the corner of the Baron’s desk. “She ‘asks’ everyone to fight you, and they do, because she’s The Other and they have to obey her, but since people aren’t used to the idea of this new type of revenant, to any outside observers, it’ll look like she’s leading a popular uprising.”

Klaus had been about to tell DuPree to remove herself from his desk, but instead he nodded. “Very astute.” He studied Bangladesh and stroked his jaw. “Aren’t you worried that I might actually
be
The Other, as she claims?”

Bangladesh snorted. “Nah.”

“Really?” Klaus leaned forward. “Why not?”

DuPree rolled her eyes. “Klaus, you’re
always
telling me—” Her voice grew deeper and she took on a rather pompous cadence—“Oh, DuPree, don’t torture people. Don’t burn their town down, it’s not nice.”

Her voice returned to normal. “Or whatever. So if
you
were The Other,
I’d
be a revenant, because there’s no way you’d let me run around uncontrolled, and I’d have to obey you, even if a town really
needed
burning, y’know? But I can still act on my own better judgment, so I know everything’s okay. It’s all about free will!”

Klaus stared at her for a second and then slowly pinched his nose between his fingers. “And here I was foolishly hoping for an argument that would
reassure
the troops,” he muttered faintly.

He straightened up and addressed the Lieutenant, along with the rest of the command staff.

“There will be no reprisals for attacks. No burning. No executions. As long as they continue to pose only a minor threat, our policy will be to contain them.”

Bangladesh frowned. “They’re revenants. Why can’t we just kill them?”

Ah, DuPree,
thought Klaus gratefully,
ever the easily-refuted, public voice of unreason.
“Because,” Klaus said carefully, “This is something new. These people aren’t shambling zombies. They aren’t monsters. Without The Other or their intermediaries giving them orders, they’re ordinary people. Perhaps they can still be saved.”

He allowed this concept to roll over those assembled in the room, and was gratified to see the expressions of hope that began to fill their faces.

He gestured towards the giant apparition visible outside the portholes. “We simply have to find the girl. Once she tells them to stop attacking us, they will.”

DuPree raised her hand. “And if she won’t?”

Klaus smiled at her. “Then I’ll let you make her change her mind.”

Bangladesh squealed like a schoolgirl and dashed back towards the bridge.

Agatha examined the small sphere and a finger accidentally pressed a rocker switch. A red light lit, and a small jet of vapor puffed out from the top. Several meters away, the weasels paused, and then screamed in unison, to the bafflement of their handlers. This however, did put the unit on alert, so that when a crowd of townspeople poured around the corner, they were ready for them.

The chief Vespiary Soldier was astonished. “Amazing! They sensed those revenants all they way over there! They’ve never been able to do
that
before.”

Tarvek, on the other hand was frantically whispering, “Agatha! Push the red button! The red button!”

Agatha saw his desperate face and made a decision. With a snap, she pressed the red button, and the device in her hands went inert.

“Form a firing line!” the Sergeant roared.

“No!” Tarvek screamed. “Don’t drop me!” as the trooper clank dropped him onto the pavement.

“They’re going to shoot them?” Agatha asked aghast.

This was obviously the case, as the crowd was surging forward. The soldiers coolly formed a line. The two clanks unshipped their massive machine cannons, and their motors began to whine as the barrels began to rotate up to speed.

“Fix bayonets!” Scorp ordered from the side. Smoothly the troops affixed the long steel blades to their rifles.

“But those people aren’t armed!” Agatha cried. “Some of them are children! They can’t—”

Tarvek grabbed her leg. “Stop them!” he said urgently. “You can control them. Tell them to stop! If they’re not attacking, the soldiers won’t shoot them!”

Agatha whirled towards the onrushing crowd and filled her lungs. “
Listen to me!
” she shouted.

“I think I found it, Captain.”

DuPree took her hands off of her ears. “About time! The noise is killing me!”

The command ship had luffed over Sturmhalten castle, and the ship’s observers had been told to find whatever was generating the colossal lightshow. They had been examining the grounds below ever since. One of them had thought to train her scopes within the shattered keep.

The image on the scope showed an odd machine, clearly operating, and throwing intense beams of light into the sky. The directional microphone also registered a significant uptick in decibels when the ship cleared the keep’s walls.

“Yeah, that’s gotta be it,” Bangladesh declared.

“Orders, Ma’am?”

Bangladesh stroked her chin. “We should assemble a device team. It may be rigged to prevent tampering, so we’ll want a gadgetman on a quick-pull return system. Once we shut it down, Klaus could study it or something.”