Clockwork Twist : Missing (20 page)

Kazan glared up at her sharply. At the same moment, Skye and Kali both flew off of their feet and tumbled back to the ground just in front of Twist and Vane. Myra gasped and clung tightly to Twist’s arm while her fright bombarded his Sight. Arabel knelt down to Skye, who had fallen utterly still. Vane looked up to Kazan in horror. People emerged from some of the shops and houses along the street, all watching with a murmur of startled voices.

“What are you doing?” Vane demanded. “People are fragile, damn it!”

“Oh no!” Myra yelped as her fear grew to a blinding, white-hot flame in Twist’s Sight. “Is she…” Almost in response, Skye gave a low grown. Myra’s fear subsided somewhat at the sound of it. Twist fought to clear his mind as his vision began to blur.

When Twist looked up, Kazan was already back on his feet. Kazan lifted his head back and gave his body a shake as a cloud of blue smoke wafted quickly around him. In a moment, the cloud grew to the height of the buildings around them and nearly as wide as the shop across the street. The cloud then faded and vanished, leaving a huge, shining, blue-scaled, four-clawed, snake-like dragon coiling smoothly as it hung in the air just above the dirt. The other people on the street screamed and fled in a chaotic jumble.

Twist stared, transfixed, as the creature’s massive, lion-like head dropped back down and its gleaming, orange eyes opened to stare directly at Twist with a cold but startlingly intent light. Twist’s previous fear at looking into Kazan’s eyes suddenly made perfect sense to him as he looked on the dragon’s true face. His own fear washed Myra’s away, leaving his mind charged and taut.

“Knock it off!” Vane yelled angrily as he stood and turned on the dragon. “What the hell is your problem?”

Kazan’s long, barbed tail flicked out at Vane so quickly that the fox flew back onto the ground beside Twist, clearly knocked unconscious, long before Twist’s eyes could even catch the motion. Kali grumbled as she shook her furry head and turned her attention to the dragon. She leaped at it and gave another roar, but one of Kazan’s talons caught her around the middle, mid-leap. Before she could even struggle, the dragon tossed her away into the street and turned its attention back to Twist.

Twist’s blood ran cold as he saw the gleaming blue talon reach out for him. He turned and pushed Myra away from him as he began to run, but Skye’s other small bomb had fallen just in front of him. Twist didn’t see it in his fright and tripped, falling to the dirt. The dragon’s cold, iron claw gripped his leg and began to drag him across the ground. Twist’s Sight screamed in blinding pain against a torrent of information that he couldn’t identify or understand. He reached out to grab anything to pull himself out of the terrifying grip, but all his fingers found on the dusty ground was something small and round. In an instant, he was lifted into the air, upside down. Somehow, he managed to recognize Myra’s scream of terror, back on the ground, in all of the other madness.

His chaos-filled Sight cleared enough to give him back his vision as Kazan held him up before his scaly, shining blue face. Twist only realized that he’d been screaming once he ran out of breath. The sheer amount of terror running through Twist’s heart turned his mind numb to its effects. Time seemed to slow around him as he looked into Kazan’s brilliant, huge, orange eyes. His tight fingers still clung to the thing he had grabbed off of the ground, and a small part of it slipped inward under the pressure of his grasp. Twist instantly realized that he was holding a bomb, ready to blow. Kazan smiled at him, clearly pleased.

“Well, that was easy,” he purred in his deep, rolling voice. He opened his mouth to laugh in triumph.

Twist saw a yellow glow in the depths of the long, snake-like throat. He pulled his arm back and threw the bomb as far into that glow as he could. Kazan dropped him suddenly and gave a choking sound. Twist fell in a heap on the ground and looked up to catch the dragon’s shocked expression for only an instant. Then the huge blue creature exploded into a shower of flashing sparks and glimmering blue specks, while a shock wave of sound and light pounded into Twist. He felt himself pushed away along the ground, and then his senses failed him completely.

Twist’s consciousness returned slowly. He eventually came to realize that he was lying flat on his back, on something rather soft, and that there was hushed conversation wafting around him. He drew his eyes open slowly in the gentle glow of gaslight. Kali’s huge, furry face hung just above his, staring down at him with intent, gleaming, brown eyes. Twist let out a shriek of surprise and jerked away from her. Kali moved back, clearly shocked, and she gave a barking sound.

“Twist!” Myra said, slipping into his view. She sat beside him on the bed and reached down to stroke the edge of his face. Her concern and warmth dulled the sharp edges of his fright instantly. “There, there, darling. Everything is all right now.” She was still wearing the Japanese dress, but her hair was now only bound in a single, simple tail.

“It is?” Twist asked, surprised to find his voice a bit raw. “What happened? Were we just attacked by a dragon? Where are we? What’s going on?” Twist moved quickly as he spoke, trying to sit up.

Myra gently helped him up to sit on the bed. Twist looked around him in the gaslight. He seemed to be back on board the
Aeolus
, in his single cabin. The sky outside the porthole windows was dark once again, but with no aurora. As Twist searched the world for explanation, he caught the sense of a subtle, seemingly sourceless vibration in the air.

“We’re back on the airship,” Myra said gently. “We’re headed to Australia now. Vane is still with us, too. No one is badly hurt.”

“Kazan,” Twist said, looking to her. The strange vibration in the air rippled against his skin, sending a chill down his spine. Twist paused, looking around for some cause. The feeling vanished, leaving the still air only slightly charged.

“Oh, the dragon…” Myra toned softly, with a light smile on her face.

“You slayed him,” Skye’s voice said from the side. “You’re fantastic, Twist.”

Twist looked up to find her leaning casually against the wall, a grin on her face. There was also the shadow of a bruise on her jaw, but she looked otherwise all right. Arabel and Vane stood beside her. They too looked to be only slightly the worse for wear.

“I did?” Twist asked. The memory of the dragon exploding in the air above him seemed utterly unreal. Twist’s eyes snapped to Vane’s. “I killed him?” he asked softly. His heart felt suddenly cold and still inside his chest.

“He deserved it.” Vane reached up to lean his elbow on Skye’s shoulder casually as he spoke. Skye shot Vane a glare and sharply shrugged his elbow off of her shoulder. “Don’t feel bad,” he added to Twist, seeming only mildly offended by her rejection. “He’ll come back eventually.”

“But you were out cold,” Arabel said to Twist. “The
Aeolus
crew wanted to send you to the onboard hospital, but we knew you’d hate that once you came to. Vane promised us you’d wake up on your own.”

Vane gave her a proud smile and gestured broadly to Twist and his consciousness. “See? A little dragon’s blood on him, but nothing else amiss.” Twist glanced down, looking for blood, but found nothing but a light peppering of dust on his clothes and hands.

“What I can’t figure out,” Skye said, “is why he didn’t just attack Twist in the club. Why send us off to that inn and then come at us a while later? Why the holdup?”

“He couldn’t do anything aggressive inside the club,” Vane explained. “They’ve got wards and things down there. And if I know that spell he was spinning around the inn—which isn’t an easy one and probably took a while for him to build—it would have locked us up not only in that place but in time as well. If you hadn’t stopped him, we would have been thoroughly trapped until he decided to let us out.”

“Bloody hell…” Twist muttered, leaning his head in one hand. How had his life ever gotten this far out of control? “Why in the blazes did he attack us at all?” he asked the others.

“No idea,” Vane said, frowning at the thought. “He said something about you being valuable, Twisty dear, but I can’t imagine why you would be.” At the pet name, Myra shot Vane a nasty look. “I mean, sometimes,” Vane went on, “other creatures hire dragons for bounty hunting. They’re fabulous at tracking things down. But they don’t come cheap. It would have cost a lot of gold to keep Kaz-chan looking for you for…what did he say? Nearly three decades?”

“I haven’t even been alive much longer than that, as it is,” Twist muttered. “Who’d want to find me that badly? No one’s ever wanted me for anything.”

“Not true,” Arabel said instantly. “I went looking for you to fix Myra.”

“And Aden sent people to kidnap you,” Myra added.

“And Uncle Howell and I went after you in Indonesia,” Arabel said quickly.

“And Loki wanted you, too, even if it was just for revenge,” Vane offered brightly.

“And Storm cried so much when you said he couldn’t stay with you,” Myra said.

“All right, all right!” Twist said, putting up his hands. “I take it back. Please, stop.”

“I wanted you myself, but Jonas threatened to skin me alive,” Vane muttered.

“I’d skin you myself, if he wasn’t fast enough,” Twist spat at him instantly.

Skye shook her head, looking at Twist with a light smile. “You’ve really got to work on your self-esteem issues.”

“Right. So. Anyway,” Twist said with a sigh. “We’re headed to Australia now?”

“Yep,” Skye said, nodding. “We should get to Melbourne by the afternoon, tomorrow. Aden wants to talk to us as soon as we get there.”

“But isn’t he still in London?” Twist muttered, and then shook his head. “Never mind. I’m sure I don’t want to know. I mean, we just met a dragon for heaven’s sake. There’s no calling them myths anymore. That means that my dreams are real, and Jonas actually is in outer space. How the devil am I going to get myself into outer space to save him?”

He felt himself begin to panic as his hope struggled to escape, his breath coming faster than he wanted it to. Myra reached out to rub gently at his back. Twist glance up to find a hopeful smile on her face.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently to him. “I’m sure we can work it all out.”

Twist fought to cling to his fleeing hope, desperate to believe her. He put his heavy head into his hands and promised himself that he wasn’t going to succumb to panic or despair.

“Do you want me to put Jon’s face on for a bit?” Vane asked softly after a moment.

“No,” Twist answered, snapping his head up quickly. “God, no. Please don’t.” Vane gave a halfhearted shrug but retained his own face.

“Don’t freak out, Twist,” Skye said with a refreshingly confident air to her voice. “Aden’s got fantastic toys, you’re surrounded by magical and mythical people who want to help you, and you just slayed a damned dragon. Chin up. Myra’s right. Jonas is as good as saved.”

To Twist’s surprise, her words seemed to calm him. He felt his heart begin to still and his breath begin to slow as he took a solid grip of his own courage. The most ridiculous thing in the world was that Skye and Myra were both completely right. Even if he couldn’t guess at what madness tomorrow might hurl at him, or how he was going to get his friend out of orbit, Twist was not alone. And his allies were formidable, resourceful, and loyal.

Twist took a deep breath and gave Skye a nod. Yes. Jonas was as good as saved.

Once the sun rose again, Myra decided that Twist desperately needed to have a decent breakfast. Twist’s eyes filled with naked fear at the thought of another overly crowded and chaotic expedition into the ship’s dining room. Before he managed to voice his terror, Myra told him firmly to sit quietly in his cabin and wait for her return. Everyone left him alone to master his nerves, and they disappeared with Myra into the busy hallway outside.

Twist took the opportunity of the sudden solitude to freshen himself up. Feeling presentable once again, he suddenly realized that he actually was fairly hungry. Thinking back, he realized that he’d missed lunch and dinner the previous day, thanks to all of the madness in Tokyo. As he prodded gently at his courage and began to consider the idea of leaving the quiet calm of his empty cabin to check on Myra’s progress, he heard a metallic knock at his door.

He opened it to find Myra standing in the hallway, carrying a tray that was covered with dishes of still-steaming eggs, sausages, toast, roasted tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and fresh fruit. There was also a small pot of tea, a tall glass of orange juice, and a few little flowers in a crystal bud vase. She smiled at him brightly while the heavenly aromas engulfed his full attention. As she walked into his room to place the tray on his dressing table, Twist regained enough control of his mind to speak to her.

“Darling, I don’t tell you frequently enough how much I love you.”

Myra spun to him with an expression of wonder on her copper face. “Well, I love you too,” she said coyly, looking as if she’d very much like to blush.

Twist leaned closer to place a kiss on her shining metal cheek. “I know,” he said, delighting in the echo of her joy that he felt in the light touch. “You tell me in so many ways.”

As Twist sat down to eat and Myra insisted on fixing his tea, he felt his spirit begin to truly ease. She remained beside him as he ate, talking brightly about various things that had nothing whatsoever to do with dragons, outer space travel, or dangers of any kind. Twist reveled in the normality of this unexpectedly pleasant morning, and was careful to join into conversation just often enough to keep her words flowing and bright.

Once he’d finished with breakfast and his plates were all but licked clean, he turned his full attention to her. He led her to sit beside him on the edge of his bed as he sipped at the last of the tea.

“Tell me, my dear,” he said, turning to face her, “are you enjoying this journey?”

“Oh, well, it’s been very exciting,” she said, appearing somehow anxious under his direct attention. “But why do you ask? We aren’t on holiday. We are on a very important mission.”

“Yes,” Twist said, putting his cup down on his bedside table before turning back to her earnestly, “but that’s no reason for you to not enjoy yourself. I promised to take care of you, and I’ve been so distracted that I fear I’ve fallen short of my duty on this trip.”

“Oh no, not at all!” she gasped, laying a gentle hand on his arm and spilling anxious tension over his Sight. “I’m happy just to be with you. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Twist smiled gently at her. “But I like to worry about you.”

“You do?” Myra asked, looking confused.

Twist took her hand and lifted her fingers to his lips. He smiled to feel the ripple of bubbly delight that followed his light kiss. “I’d much rather worry about you than myself,” he said to her, holding her hand in his. “I like to make you happy. I wish I could spend my life doing nothing else. I keep trying to, but something always comes up,” he added with a sigh. “We seem to always be in some kind of trouble. I just wish I could keep you safe from all of that.”

“Oh, you’re ever so sweet,” she said softly. Twist glanced up to her face in surprise as he caught a wave of darkness wander into her emotions.

“Have I said something strange?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, no, it’s just…” Her voice drifted off and she glanced away from him, her expression and her heart troubled.

“Please tell me,” Twist said gently.

She paused for a moment, clearly searching for the right words. “I’m not a bird,” she decided on. Twist struggled to hide his startled confusion. “I don’t want to be kept, always safe and sound.” She looked up to him as he felt her courage grow. “I love you. And I love that your life is mad.”

“You like to be in danger?” Twist asked, struggling to make sense of her.

“Of course I don’t want anyone to be hurt,” she said quickly. “I just…like the adventure. I’ve spent my whole life in a palace. My father spent most of his attention on making me happy and entertaining me, but he never let me leave. I met people from all over the world, but I never saw anything beyond my palace before I met you.”

Twist frowned in thought. If he reveled in the calm and quiet moments that stumbled into his life, but she delighted in the exciting ones, then was it possible that they weren’t a very good match? The thought felt cold, alien, and sharp in his mind. Myra reached up to gently stroke the edge of his face, drawing him back from his dark musings. When he looked up, she was smiling sweetly to him and her emotions felt steady and strong.

“You’ve set me free, Twist. I don’t want you to put me into another pretty cage. I want to be with you, in all of your troubles and adventures.”

Twist marveled at the unshakable certainty he felt in her touch. If she was going to stay with him, she would probably always be in some kind of trouble. And against all odds, she clearly loved the idea. He gave a sigh, realizing that her bright, childlike mind would always be a mystery to him.

“Are you trying to tell me that you are happy, even with all this chaos?” he asked her softly, just to be sure.

“I’m very happy with you,” she said, speaking very clearly as her smile grew. “I only wish you were having a better time.”

“Well,” he said, gathering his courage, “maybe you can teach me to embrace the madness. Goodness knows Skye’s already trying to.”

She gave a light laugh, spilling sunlight over his Sight. “I’ll be your Passepartout! A spirit of excitement and comedy for your Phileas Fogg.”

“My dear, you’re neither French nor a manservant,” he said, struggling to hold his features in a dignified pose despite his smile.

“I’m glad of that, as well,” she said with a clever grin. Twist felt a thrill of alert attention grip him as he guessed at her meaning. “All right,” she said, draping both of her hands around his neck as he felt her emotions warm, “not Passepartout then. But I will make any effort to see that you enjoy as much madness as possible.”

While she spoke, Twist watched as the copper melted away into the soft, pale flesh of her spirit’s true form. His hands found their way to the gentle curve of her back as she leaned closer. As he surrendered eagerly to her delightful charms, all of his fears for their unknown future vanished into sunlight.