Clockwork Twist : Trick (21 page)

Once Jonas was farther away, the pain in Twist's neck subsided enough for him to notice that he was leaning heavily against the door frame, and might have fallen had Myra not taken hold of his arms to steady him.  She was staring at him, obviously alarmed.  Twist took a deep breath and pulled himself steady, giving her a nod.  She released him, but continued to stare at him carefully.  He looked up to find tears in Arabel's eyes as Howell stood nearby, apparently thrown off by her as she stood silently glaring after Jonas, with sea-green eyes that looked exactly like his.

“What's wrong with you?” Twist asked on his still shaky breath.

Arabel's eyes shot to him like daggers. “Stay out of this.”

“No,” Twist shot back. “I can't just stand here and let you be so cruel.”

“Oh, I'm
the one being cruel, am I?” Her angry voice shook with her tears.

“How could you ask him to look at you?” Twist asked, his own anger giving his small voice new strength.

“Oh come on,” Arabel said, looking disgusted. “It's not that much to ask.”

“Why in the hell would he want to watch his own sister die?”

Arabel's face clouded over with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“What do you think happens when he looks into a person's eyes?” Twist asked.

“It hurts...” she said slowly. “He gets a vivid vision of the future and sometimes it hurts.”

“That's only what happens when he doesn't look at the eyes,” Twist said, shaking his head.

“Well, what do you think happens then?” Arabel asked, her bitterness dim before her new, quiet fear.

“He sees the future when he looks at someone.  But he sees the end of them, their moment of death, if he looks into their eyes for more than an instant.”

Arabel's eyes widened, letting some of her pent-up tears finally fall. “Oh, God...”

“Didn't he tell you?”

“No, never,” Howell answered, looking just as shocked as Arabel.

“Oh, Jon...” Arabel said, putting her fingers over her gasp as more tears fell from her eyes. “Why didn't he tell me?”

“I’m sure that's why he runs from you,” Twist said, his voice losing some of its edge, but none of its certainty. “He cares about you too much to stand even the risk of seeing your end.”

“But you?” she asked, looking to Twist. “He doesn't mind watching you die, does he?”

“Our Sights don't work on each other,” Twist said with a sigh. “All we get is a calm white light.  He sees nothing when he looks at me.  A solid, tangible nothing.  It's actually kind of nice.”

“But why?” she asked, her face turning bitter again. “Who the hell are you?”

Twist could only look back at her silently, having no answer to give.

“It's not fair,” she hissed, her voice barely
loud enough to hear.

Zayle and Howell managed to get her to let them comfort her now, leading her to sit, and both offering soft touches and soothing words.  Twist noticed Idris, Jeffrey, Aazzi, and Philippe all standing to the side, watching everything with alarmed expressions.  Myra put a hand on Twist's shoulder from behind, drawing his attention and sending a wave of warmth over his Sight.  She looked at him with concern.

“Are you all right?” she asked gently.

“Yes, I'm fine,” Twist said, letting out a breath. “But I think I should go find Jonas.  I'm not sure he wants company right now, but I just don't think he should be alone.”

“Of course,” Myra said, nodding. “Go.  I'll wait here.”

He gave her a grateful smile and then headed for the door.  He stepped outside into the chilly night air and looked into the deep shadows.  He couldn't feel the subtle sensation of Jonas's presence in his neck
.  He walked to the nearest corner of the street, where he stood still and quiet, closing his eyes, focusing on his Sight, reaching out for the familiar electric vibration.

As he stood still, banishing the rest of his senses, he didn't notice as a figure walked u
p beside him.  A flash of white-hot fire bit at his shoulder, sharp as lightning, and then the whole world went black.

A sharp, acidic, startling scent attacked Twist's sleeping mind, jolting it into waking.  He blinked his vision clear to see a dim, cool light and countless thin shadows.  He was sitting in a high-backed velvet chair.  The air was chilly and damp.  Hanging around him in the huge, white-glassed cube of space, were enormous clockwork gears and cogs all moving together in a slow, rhythmic dance.  Thin bars of iron filled the air above his head, holding the machine well out of reach from the small wooden platform that his chair sat upon.  A single gangway stretched from the apparently floating platform to one side of the space, ending below one of the four huge clock faces that filled the opaque glass walls.

A man in a black suit stood beside Twist's chair, closing a small canister.  He gave Twist a
cordial smile and then sat down in another high-backed chair that was near Twist's.  There was also a small wooden table—topped with a china tea set on a silver tray—but nothing else on the bare island of wood.  Twist looked back to the man, who watched Twist calmly and settled into a comfortable posture.  The man in the suit reached into a pocket and drew out a small leather-bound notebook and a pencil.

“It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Twist,” the man said smoothly,
in a clean London accent. “I've heard so much.”

Twist stared back at the man, searching
the smooth but gently aged features for any kind of identity.  His skin was a warm brown, but his eyes were a bright gray behind the small silver spectacles on his face.  His dark hair was short and well kept, and he wore a thin, very precise beard around his sharp chin.  Coupled with an accent that sounded invisible to Twist's ears, Twist found no useful information at all.  The man flipped his notebook open and glanced at a page.

“Who are you?” Twist asked.

“You can call me Aden,” the man said with a polite smile.

“Isn'
t that a place on the Red Sea?”

“Very good,” Aden replied. “You're learning quickly, aren't you?”  A shiver fought with T
wist's resolve not to shudder.

“Where are we?” Twist sat up a little straighter and washed all the emotion from his face.  It took him longer than he would have liked to collect his fear, and force what he could find of his cold fire to burn out through his eyes.

“Don't you recognize it?” Aden asked, looking around at the oversized clockwork. “I'll give you a hint.  We're not in Paris anymore.”

Twist spared a moment to glance around the giant glass cube, at the four identical clock faces in the white glass.  Something about the damp chill in the air was familiar—deeply familiar.  A dark, almost metallic scent wafted gently on the air like a forgotten dream.  As he listened carefully, above the rhythmic pulsing of the clock, he noticed the ever
-so-subtle sound of a light and dreary drizzle against the glass.  His gaze shot back to Aden, full of alarm.

“We're inside Big Ben?”

“Very good,” Aden said. “They told me you were a quick one.”

“We'r
e in London?” Twist asked, shuddering before he could stop himself.

“Welcome home,” Aden said pleasantly.

“Who are you and why the hell have you brought me to London?” Twist asked quickly.

“We need to talk, Twist,” Aden said gently.  He glanced at the page in his notebook again. “And I want you to understand who you are talking to,” he went on, looking back to Twist. “My men took you in an instant, with perfect efficiency, and with only a few moments notice.  Right now, you're in a place that is safe and comfortable, but inescapable unless you can fly.  You might have powerful friends, but even if they find you, they cannot get in here without meeting forces far more dangerous than they are.”

The pit of Twist's stomach grew colder with every word that Aden spoke.  He felt true fear burn wildly in his heart, and struggled just to keep from shaking.  He tried desperately to keep the fear from his eyes, but knew he was failing.  He looked down to the wooden platform and focused on keeping his face as calm as he could.

“But I don't want you to be too frightened, either,” Aden said, still speaking gently. “That's why I brought you to London.  I thought you might be more comfortable at home.  And in a clock, as well,” he added with a gesture to the gears above their heads. “You see, Twist, I want your help.  I'm prepared to offer you something in return for it, as well.”

“You could have asked me to coffee in Paris,” Twist said, his voice as steady as it was going to get.

“You would have refused.”

Twist looked up to him sharply, riding on the glimmer of anger that he managed to find in himself.  Aden gave a thoughtful tone and seemed to scratch something off of the page in his notebook.

“I fear my friends and I have been misrepresented to you,” Aden said, looking up again with some sorrow.

“The Rooks, you mean?”

“Right again,” Aden said. “You didn't need to run from us in Bombay.  Things have changed in the last few years.  I'm not like my predecessors.”

“Would your agents have listened?” Twist asked, bitterness seeping through now. “Or would they have taken Myra away no matter what I said?”

“They would have taken her to Paris without all that business with the Cyphers outside of Suez.  She would have been safe the entire time.”  The mention of the Cyphers surprised Twist, but he tried not to show it.  One thing at a time.

“She would have been alone and terrified,” Twist said with certainty. “You obviously don't trust me, or we wouldn't be here now.  You never would have let me come along.”

“On the contrary, I wouldn't have stopped you,” Aden said. “The point is, what you did was quite dangerous.  I'm worried for your safety, should you try something else.”

“Is that a threat?” Twist asked, covering his fear with a smile.

“It's not my intention to resort to threats,” Aden said flatly, scratching something else off in the notebook.  Twist lifted his head to try to see the page, but snapped back to normal when Aden looked at him. “Now,” Aden said, “would you like to hear the terms of the deal I want to offer you, or would you like some tea first?”

“Do I want tea?” Twist asked acidly, forcing his anger to rise in the hopes of retaining some kind of barrier against his fear.

“You've had a shock,” Aden said. “You've been whisked away in the middle of the night and brought home by people you don't know.  You can stop pretending if you like.  I know that you're terrified.  Have some tea and cake.”

“To hell with tea and cake!” Twist spat, the words flung so quickly that they formed on his lips before appearing in his mind. “Where is Myra?”

Aden gave another thoughtful tone, making a note in the book. “I have no idea,” he replied, his calm
seeming to give way to impatience.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I have no idea.  She wasn't in the house when my men got there.  Neither was your comrade-in-arms, the young Mr. Davis.  We're looking for them both, but haven't found a sign of them yet.  No one else at the house had a clue where they were, either.”

“Thank heaven for that,” Twist said, allowing himself a moment of relief.

“Honestly, though,” Aden said, leaning forward in his seat, “I'm not all that worried about them just now.  Sure, Jonas Davis is quite capable, and unpredictable at best, truly a massive wild card.  But according to a report I just received from my robotics expert, Myra doesn't seem to be anything for me to worry about.”

Twist gave a sigh.  The fact that the man facing him knew entirely too much about Twist, his friends, and everything he had done recently, was beginning to lose its frightening edge.  It was actually starting to annoy him more than anything.

“Then … what do you want from me?” Twist asked.

“No cake then, after all?”

Twist shot him a chilling glare.

“Very well,” Aden said, sitting back again.  He glanced at the notebook before looking back to Twist. “You have information that I need.”

“I'm sure you have the wrong person,” Twist said, shaking his head. “I hardly know anything about anything.”

Aden smiled subtly. “Then tell me, Twist.  Besides Myra, how many clockwork creatures like her have you seen?  Was it just one, or many of them?”

Twist stared back at him for a moment before he spoke again. “None,” he said firmly.

Aden's smile spread wider. “You can't lie to me, Twist.  I can hear it.  I have a Sight, you see,” he added. “I can hear every lie that is spoken to me, even if the speaker honestly believes it to be the truth.  If you speak anything but pure, solid truth to me, I will know.”  He leaned forward again,
a knowing gleam in his eyes. “And that was a lie.”

Twist's mind leaped into a wild, racing speed as he finally saw the size and shape of the challenge before him.  Somehow, the doctor had noticed his lie back in Paris, and he must have alerted the Rooks to it when Twist and Myra had left the room.  They hadn't been after Myra as an individual, but after her race instead.  Twist knew exactly where they were, he knew how many there were, and he knew they wanted their solitude.  And he had promised to protect it.

He stared back at Aden's cool grin and felt very much like a cornered mouse.  His only chance to keep his word and still escape this man was to outsmart him.  Every battle of wits that he'd ever read of, in his novels, had been won by the person who didn't play fairly.  Calling Twist a liar only implied that Aden was speaking truth.  Twist found his gaze moving to the notebook in Aden's hand.  He'd have given anything to see what was written there.  Twist felt entirely outgunned for the battle before him, but took a breath and opened with the best move he had.

“I don't believe you.  I've never heard of a Sight like that.  You're just trying to trick me, aren't you?

“You really don't believe me...” Aden‘s eyes flickered with intrigue as he closed the notebook and placed it on his lap as if forgotten. “That's quite interesting.  All right, I'm not in a hurry,” he said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “I'll prove it to you.  Tell me one lie, and one truth, and I'll tell you which is which.”

“You're joking,” Twist said, silently shocked and grateful that
Aden had fallen for the bait.

“No, I'm not,” Aden said, shaking his head. “Family is usually the easiest topic.  Tell me a lie and a truth about your family.”

Twist smiled, finally grasping at a slight advantage.  Aden hadn't done his homework quite well enough.  By asking about family, he'd shown that he knew nothing at all of Twist's past.

“Fine, if you insist,” Twist said, buying himself a moment to construct his statements. “I've never laid eyes on my mother's face, and my father was a clockmaker.”  Twist fought to hide his sense of relief.  Anyone would instantly believe the first to be the lie, and the second to be the truth.  If Aden was only boasting about his Sight, he would fall for the trap.

“The first one was the lie,” Aden said proudly.  Twist struggled to contain his flashing sense of victory. “Your father really was a clockmaker,” Aden went on, “but you saw your mother's face when you were only an infant.”  Aden paused, his smile falling away, while his voice grew gentle. “Wait, you saw her when you were only an infant...  Twist, did you try to trick me?  Did you really think that you'd never seen her?  Did you never see her again?  Have you forgotten your mother's face?”

Twist's mind slammed to a sudden halt and teetered over uncertain ground.  Though he couldn't recall a single memory of either of his parents, Twist realized that if he ever had laid eyes on his mother, it would have been when he was just days old.  The thought that he actually had
a long-buried and forgotten memory of his own mother's face—even a single image—would not leave the forefront of Twist's attention, no matter how he tried to push it back.

“I can't remember...” he said, mostly to himself.

“True,” Aden said softy. “Oh, I'm sorry,” he said, sounding sincere.  He looked down and picked up his notebook again, opening it to a page. “I didn't mean to call up such a delicate topic.”  He made a note with the pencil.

Twist looked down to the floor silently.  True or not, Twist felt thrown totally off balance by what Aden had said.  He struggled to get his mind focused on his next move, and off of his own past.

“If you simply tell me what I want to know,” Aden said after a pause, “this will all be over immediately.  I'm also prepared to offer you exactly what you want.”