Clockwork Angels: The Novel (20 page)

Members of the Blue Watch roved through the crowd. The uniformed men stopped at specific intervals and announced to the noisy crowd, “Citizens, remain vigilant! There has been a sighting of the Anarchist. He is wearing a brown hooded cloak to hide his features. We believe he intends to disrupt our loving Watchmaker’s great celebration.”

The news sent a ripple of anxiety through the people. No one knew what the Anarchist looked like, but Owen did. He felt a chill. Based on the man’s conversation the night before, he might indeed intend to do mischief at the performance. Owen looked around the sea of faces, searching for D’Angelo Misterioso.

If he reported to the Regulators, however, then he would have to identify himself, and the Watch would know he didn’t belong here, that he had no business being away from Barrel Arbor. The last time the Blue Watch had found him, they had escorted him promptly out of the city. His stomach twisted, as if the knife thrower had stabbed him with one of his blades and turned it. Owen kept his eyes open but saw nothing suspicious.

Owen made his way over to where the carnival trailers and equipment were set up. Since the carnies were performing, he knew that the place would be safe and out of the way. The trailers looked so familiar—the folded tarpaulins, the flatbeds, the temporary pavilions—that he felt a pang in his heart.

In the center of Chronos Square, César Magnusson called the crowd to attention, and their excited murmur quieted as all eyes turned to the trapeze and high wire. Floating coldfire globes drifted closer to the high wire, brightening into spotlights.

Owen caught his breath as Francesca climbed the wooden pole up to the first platform, as he had seen her do many times before. Now he looked through stinging tears, and she seemed to shimmer.

Her voice was so clear in his memory.
I’d never let myself be trapped like that!

He almost turned away but found his strength. He wanted to be here. Francesca was stunning in her white leotard and short skirt—he would never think otherwise. Inky black hair fell down over the hidden pack of angel wings on her shoulders; she was confident, completely professional.

After he had stupidly opened his soul to her, Owen had run headlong into the night, all his dreams dashed. Francesca, though, didn’t seem bothered in the least. There she was, ready to perform difficult acrobatic maneuvers, not preoccupied at all. Did she even think about it? Did she feel even a fraction of the ache he carried with him?

Perhaps she had forgotten him already. Perhaps she had never thought of him much at all. . . .

Although breathing hard, he forced himself to watch as she stepped onto the thin rope. She was so beautiful, a goddess with wings on her heels. Francesca raised her hands, as if to fly.

Then the Clockwork Angels upstaged her. The glow brightened from beneath the flagstones of Chronos Square, and faint, sweet-smelling smoke wafted up. A kind of synergistic power rose from the crowd, all those hearts and minds giving their complete focus to the same thing.

Francesca paused where she was, suspended in midair.

Under the dark sky, the clocktower doors glided open with the ratcheting sound of an escapement clicking along gear teeth. Huge wheels turned in the tower—and the four beautiful female figures emerged to stare down at the imminent performance, as if they were Francesca’s most appreciative audience. The people caught their breath in awe, transfixed.

Keeping his gaze turned up toward the Angels, Owen drifted to the edge of the crowd. The four figures came forward and spread their wings, as if to diminish the small costume wings Francesca would reveal at the end of her performance.

While balanced on the rope, Francesca gave the Angels a deep, respectful bow and took gliding, even steps forward to cross the rope to the opposite platform, where she retrieved her trapeze, ready to begin her act.

While everyone’s gaze was turned upward, Owen spotted something out of the corner of his eye—furtive movement near Tomio’s wagon. Already sensitive to being where he should not be, Owen instantly became suspicious. He noticed quite a few small wooden barrels stacked against and beneath Tomio’s trailer. Out of place. Owen knew how protective Tomio was of his alchemical library in his wagon. Spare supplies were never stacked outside it. Ever. More troubling, the barrels were connected with wires to a mechanical striking gadget. On the opposite side, a shadowy figure was bent over, intent on attaching some strange device.

The man spun and looked up at him. A brown hooded cloak lay discarded on the ground near the wired barrels. He had covered the lower part of his face with some sort of filter mechanism over his mouth, plugs in his nose, copper tubes extending to the breathing mask. Owen wondered if it was to keep himself from breathing the giddy, suggestive smoke in the air. Owen could see only the man’s eyes—black coals, obsidian fire—a face of naked evil that turned his blood to ice.

“I know who you are!” Owen said.

In his tattooed hand, the Anarchist held a complex contraption, a set of braided pocketwatches, interconnected like Siamese twins, the hands of clocks set with winding screws and spinning gears.

Seeing the kegs, the wires, the detonator, Owen rushed forward. “Stop!”

He knew this stunt was far more dangerous than spraying treasonous graffiti or disrupting Crown City’s clocks. Those barrels were surely packed with explosives to create a bomb that would kill countless people crowded in the square for the solstice festival— including Francesca, Tomio, and all the others! It could also cause a chain reaction in the nexus of coldfire that simmered beneath Chronos Square.

The Anarchist had described such a scenario just before leaping aboard the rushing steamliner last night, but Owen couldn’t believe even a madman would cause such a disaster. Taking a step backward, the Anarchist adjusted the detonator.

Owen knew he had to save everyone—the whole crowd. No matter what happened, he could not let them come to harm!

The Anarchist actuated the device in his hand with a
scritch
, a smell of flint and steel. A liberated spark sustained across the poles set the clockface hands whirling, aligning.

High above and far away, the Clockwork Angels looked down at the crowd, captivating all of the spectators as Francesca started her act. They weren’t paying any attention to his struggle here. Owen yelled out an alarm, “Help! The Anarchist! He’s here!”

Even then, the Anarchist didn’t seem to panic; instead, he smiled. He tossed the dangerous device toward Owen—who, with the reflexes he’d developed as a juggler, instinctively caught it.

A companion device was mounted to the wired barrels, a sympathetic contraption with its own building arcs of lightning. While Owen stood by the wired barrels, struggling to disarm the detonator and save everyone, the Anarchist fled.

“Somebody, help!”

Fumbling with the device, Owen saw the clockwheels spinning, the secondhand whirling about, all the times converging. Not much time! He turned the winding screw, tried to pry off the crystal face, anything to stop the hands. The sustained lightning that arced across the poles burned his finger when he attempted to smother it.

With only seconds remaining, he smashed the crystal face against Tomio’s iron-shod wagon wheel. The watchface cracked, the back of the detonator popped off; gears and springs spilled out. The sparks died.

In response to his shouts, the crowd turned toward the disturbance, and Regulators marched forward in double time. Breathing hard, hoping he had stopped the explosion, Owen stood near the brown hooded cloak that lay on the ground. Relieved, he held out the smashed detonator. “Nothing to worry about,” he wheezed.

“The Anarchist!” someone in the crowd shouted. The Regulators surged toward Owen like a battering ram, and someone else took up the cry.

Owen looked at the detonator in his hand.

“Get the Anarchist!” someone yelled.

He suddenly realized they were talking about
him
.

H
e froze in shock for an instant, just enough time for a watch gear to click ahead by one tooth, to release and catch an escapement, and drive a second hand one mark forward around the circle. Owen held up the detonator he had just smashed. “No, it was someone else! I saved everyone!”

But the real Anarchist was long gone.

The Regulators took out long, black nightsticks and stalked toward him; Owen had never noticed them carrying sticks before. The crowd closed in on him, their eyes shining. Energized by their worship of the Clockwork Angels and the colorful frenzy of the carnival, as well as the intoxicating fumes in the air.

Everything happened in a flash, although Owen felt enough fear to last him a lifetime. For a fleeting instant, he expected Tomio to arrive with his dashing sword and save him. Or would Tomio— Francesca’s brother—be among the foremost who wanted to tear him limb from limb?

As the mob came at him like predators, he decided against further explanations and dropped the detonator. He ran.

The Regulators shouted after him. Shrill whistles punctuated the square.

Above the growing, angry roar, Owen thought he could hear the Anarchist laughing.

In the confusion, Owen took advantage of the splashes of shadows in the night. Around the square, uniformed Regulators went on the alert, guarding all exits, standing shoulder to shoulder to prevent the fugitive’s escape. Groups of determined Blue Watch elbowed through the crowd as the mob pursued Owen on their own, wanting him punished.

And the Clockwork Angels looked down upon it all, no longer seeming benevolent; they were goddesses of vengeance now. As people closed in, Owen knew he couldn’t get out to the open streets. He was cornered, trapped against the tall ministry buildings. Above him, strung across the stone façade of the Cathedral of the Timekeepers, was the bright fabric banner commemorating the solstice—and the dangling rope.

Thankful for his practice in the carnival, he seized the rope and scrambled up. Within moments, he had climbed halfway up the side of the building. He looked down at the angry faces of the shouting crowd; they raised their fists, cursed him, and began hurling stones, fruit, anything they could find. Owen ducked as rocks clacked against the stone blocks next to his head, and he continued to pull himself up the rope until he reached the banner, which gave him little protection. From there, he stepped onto a stone windowsill. He dug his fingers into cracks in the blocks, pulled himself along.

He had never entirely mastered his fear of heights, but now his fear of the crowd was much greater. He inched along, his toes wedged into cracks in the stone blocks, holding the fabric banner for balance, until he reached another windowsill. The thick cornerstones on the side of the building let him climb even higher, swinging up like an acrobat until he reached the rooftop. His heart beat furiously, pounding in his temples, and he felt a surge of adrenalin.

From the top of the Cathedral of the Timekeepers, he gazed down on Chronos Square and the crowd that hated him so much, so suddenly. From there, he could see the bright lights of the carnival, the tents, the game booths, the whirling rides, the high wire and trapeze—and the tiny figure of Francesca looking up at him.

He stared at her across the open distance, sure that he could see her face, imagining that her eyes met his. He saw her mouth but could not hear her words, if she said anything at all.

Turning his back, he fled across the rooftop like a footpad in the night, slid down sloping tin shingles to a gutter, and inched his way along until he reached the far corner of the building—and a dead end. This cathedral was connected to another rooftop by a set of newsgraph cables: thick, insulated black cords that appeared even more dangerous than the high wire Francesca walked. The shadowy street below looked like a deep, endless canyon.

Bells rang out like dissonant gongs from the Watchmaker’s clocktower, calling the city to arms. He could imagine the Angels themselves pointing accusatory hands in his direction. Owen had never heard such a clamor before. Uniformed Regulators flowed in from the streets and boulevards, the Red Watch, Blue Watch, even the elite Black Watch. All hunting him.

Owen stared at the newsgraph cable and knew that he had to walk it. If he could reach the other building, he could cross the rooftop, find his way inside and down the stairs, then vanish into the streets. It was the only way to escape from Chronos Square. The newsgraph cable looked no wider than a knife edge.

He had seen Francesca do it so many times without even losing her breath. He had done it himself, but had been unsuccessful more often than not, and this time he had no safety net, no one to coach him, only hard paving stones to meet him if he fell. Francesca had gestured to him, beckoning him to walk out to her across the rope, encouraging him, taunting him, until he did exactly as she wanted.

Now he placed his right foot on the flexible tension of the cable, hoping his weight would not uproot it from its anchors.