Clockwork Twist : Waking (19 page)

“Do I have to sign anything in blood?” Twist asked softly, still looking away.  Though he said nothing, Twist felt Jonas take a heavy sigh beside him.

“Not at all,” Quay said gently. “You can stay with me for as long as you need to.  All I ask is that you don't run away,” he added, glancing at Jonas, “and that you help me when your skills are needed.”

“That sounds quite reasonable,” Twist said, finding the words heavy on his breath.

“Wonderful,” Quay said with a reptilian smile.

“You're awfully good at getting what you want,” Jonas said suddenly to Quay. “Are you sure you don't have a Sight of your own?”

“I'm just a business man,” Quay said lightly.  Dread tickled up Twist's spine, sending a shiver through him.

Once things had been settled to a point, and Jonas had eventually promised not to try to run away again, Quay took Jonas back to his room, and left Twist alone to rest.  Quay sent for some food to be brought to Twist's room, but Twist wasn't very interested.  Instead, he sat on the couch and turned the watch over slowly in his hands.

He could still sense the memories of his home within it.  After everything that he had been through, after all the miles he traveled, the quiet moment that he'd locked inside the watch hadn't changed in the slightest.  He could still hear the rain falling softly on the thick windows.  He could still sense the slightest aroma of a snuffed out candle, metal polish, and damp wood.  The gentle, constant ticking of all his clocks still pulsed in time with the beating of the watch's own clockwork heart.  Even the thin, gray light falling through the soot stained sky, was still reflected in the silence between tick and tock.

The door opened suddenly when the serving girl entered with another tray, the items on it clinking together noisily.  So wrapped up in his thoughts, Twist jumped at the sudden sound of her entrance and the watch slipped through his fingers.  He tried to catch the chain as it fell, but missed.  The watch fell to the wooden floor with a wretched crack, its delicate inner workings jolted violently.

Twist gasped in the moment that the damage rushed to his awareness.  Just as suddenly, the watch was in his hands once again, undamaged and perfect, and he was alone in the room.  He looked around quickly, searching for some explanation for this.  He had no memory of picking the watch up again, or of the serving girl leaving.  He absently wrapped the chain around his hand as he struggled to figure out what had just happened.

The next moment, the door opened again and the serving girl entered with a tray, the items on it clinking together just as noisily as before.  Twist was on his feet in an instant, turning to watch as she entered.  The girl started slightly at his quick motion, but when he said nothing she walked around him to place the tray down on the table.  Twist looked down to the watch, as it still ticked away softly, safe in his grip.

“Did you just come in, a moment ago?” Twist asked her hesitantly.

She looked to him quietly.

“I know it sounds mad, but...” he began, not yet sure how to finish the sentence.

“
Shen ma
?” she said softly to him.

“What?” Twist asked.

The girl shook her head, the beads hanging in her hair tinkling softly as she did. “No ... English,” she said stiffly, with a thick accent and an apologetic smile.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Twist said quickly, putting on an apologetic smile of his own. “Never mind,” he said, waving his hands dismissively.

The girl nodded and turned to leave with no further response than the soft sound of her pink silk dress brushing the floor as she walked.  With the door closed again, Twist fell back into his seat and held his head in one hand as he stared at his own confusion.

“That's it,” he said to no one. “I'm losing my mind now.  I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, with all the madness in my life these days.”

Though he didn’t feel hungry, he looked over the meal that the girl had brought him.  Small pieces of meat and vegetables were drowned in a thick sauce on one small dish beside a bowl of broth-like soup, while another bowl held nothing but simple white rice.  There were also a few rolled tubes that appeared to be fried, along with a few tiny dishes of sauces in varying bright colors.  There was a spoon placed on the tray beside two long pointed sticks, but Twist found no knife or fork with them.

After much deliberation, Twist hesitantly plucked a piece of the meat out of its thick sauce with his fingertips and gave it a sniff before placing it in his mouth.  Succulent and tender, drowned in a tangy, smooth, buttery sauce, the morsel pleased his tongue just as much as the strangely colored food in Baku had.  As he swallowed the first bite he also came to realize that he was actually quite hungry indeed.  Once the tray was all but licked clean, Twist leaned back on the couch and let out a happy sigh.

“Remember that, Twist,” he said to the ceiling, “China has great food.”

“Do you always talk to yourself?” asked a man’s voice from close behind him.

Twist turned quickly to find a woman also standing not a foot away from him.  Twist had not heard her enter, nor the man who stood behind her.  The woman was not tall, but her body was very slender and wrapped totally in sapphire blue cloth—loose looking trousers that gathered at her ankles and waist, with a tunic not unlike Vane’s that had tightly wrapped long sleeves, and a collar that crossed low over her breastbone.  Her black hair was cut very short for a woman, and was in such a sharp style that it seemed like it could cut the bright amber skin at her throat.  Her face reminded Twist instantly of the serving girl’s, but the woman appeared to be twice her age.  She looked down at him through cool eyes, as narrow and judgmental as a wild beast’s.

Glancing to the man behind her, Twist leaped to his feet and backed away almost to the wall. “You made that mist in Nepal!” he said, pointing at the man.

The man’s face was pure, snowy white and covered in black lines that wove together and up over his bare scalp.  He wore a long, white cotton coat of a European design, buttoned tightly over white trousers, and there were spats over his shining black shoes.  Though his clothes looked to be western, his features and his solid, muscular build were wholly foreign to Twist: the man seemed to be made of nothing but sharp angles that only accentuated a sense of power in his form.  Certainly the most striking thing about him, however, were his eyes.  They were fully gold, with no whites in them.

“You saw me?” he asked, grinning with a mouthful of gold teeth.  His deep, dark voice was colored with an accent not unlike Twist had heard in Baku.

“How did you get in here?” Twist asked. “I didn’t even hear you open the door.”

“We didn’t use the door,” the man said with a shrug, while the woman simply watched Twist silently. “My friend Jiran, here, is a shadow assassin, and I am not human at all,” he offered as clarification.  Twist decided to pick his questions carefully.

“What do you want?” Twist asked slowly.

“To ask you about this,” the man said, holding out one pure white hand.  To Twist's amazement, sourceless smoke pooled in his open palm and shaped itself quickly into the solid form of Myra's cracked crystal. “As far as I can tell,” the man said, examining the crystal as he spoke, “this is a critical piece of that clockwork puppet.  I assume that it is meant to vibrate correctly to allow the ghost to control the rest of the puppet.  Of course,” he said, smiling at Twist for a moment, “I'm no expert in these things.”

“That is generally the idea,” Twist said, still trying to figure out how he'd manifested the crystal in his hand in the first place.

“Is there any way to fix this?” he asked Twist.

“No, it has to be replaced.”

“Ah, I see,” the man said looking to the crystal again. “Well, this appears to be a cave crystal from somewhere in south east Asia.  It's lucky Quay decided to come here to Hong Kong.  We shouldn't be far away from the place where this crystal once grew.”

“How could you know that, just looking at it?” Twist asked.

The man smiled at him, his unnerving, golden eyes gleaming in the lantern light. “I'm a magical being.  I understand magic.”

“Who are you?” Twist asked, finally unable to hold the question back any longer.

“You may call me Idris,” he said pleasantly. “To answer what I'm sure is your next question, I'm an Earth bound djinn.  And to answer you next question, no, I will not grant you any wishes unless they sound like fun.”

“Wait...” Twist said, grasping at the loose threads of his understanding, “do you mean, like a genie?  Aladdin and his magical lamp, sort of genie?”

“Whatever,” Idris said, looking somewhat disappointed at the sound of Aladdin's name.

“But that's just a story,” Twist said, desperate for some sense of reality.

“Weren't you the one to pluck this out of a fairytale princess's chest, not two days ago?” Idris asked, gesturing with the crystal. “Your real problem is that you don't believe the stories.”

Twist gave a sigh and shook his head before he looked to the still silent Jiran. “And what about you?” he asked her. “A 'shadow assassin,' was it?  Then are you a magical shadow creature of some kind?”

She smiled slightly and shook her head.

“She is human,” Idris said. “Perhaps you've heard the term 'ninja' at some point?”

“Oh, of course,” Twist said spitefully, crossing his arms. “Pirates, vampires, people made of clockwork, shape shifting foxes, a genie, and now a ninja.  I should have guessed.  What shall we have next?  Creatures from outer space?  A mermaid or a flying horse perhaps?  No!  I have it,” he said, snapping his fingers. “We need a dragon!  A proper fire breathing one.”

Idris looked at him with a concerned expression. “Are you all right?”

“No.  I'm going mad, obviously,” Twist said irritably. “I'm sure I'll be chasing after white rabbits and playing croquet with flamingos in no time at all.”

“Perhaps we should leave you to rest,” Idris said slowly.  Jiran nodded silently. “Thank you for helping me to understand this,” he said, closing his hand over the crystal until it ceased to be in his hand at all. “I'll tell Quay, and we should be able to head out to find a replacement as early as tomorrow.”

“Whatever,” Twist said, rubbing at a new pain between his eyebrows.  When he opened his eyes again a moment later, Idris and Jiran were both gone, though he had not heard a single sound of their departure.

Twist awoke the next morning to a muffled concussion about his head.  Blinking his eyes open quickly, he found a woman standing over his bed with the corner of a pillow in one hand, and a bland expression on her face.

“Come on, get up or I'll whack you again,” she said with an American accent as she brandished the pillow as if to strike him with it. “I haven't got all day, sugar.”

Twist pushed on stiff arms to sit himself up, as he struggled to make sense of the woman before him.  She was tall and her form looked capable and firm, with wide shoulders.  She was standing in the way only a man should, and wearing clothing that looked entirely male as well.  Her blond hair—flecked gently with a hint of gray—was hanging in a braid down her back under a wide rimmed leather hat.  Brown eyes in a face that bore evidence of many hard years stared down at Twist without even a hint at pleasantries.

“Who are you?” Twist asked her. “What are you doing in my room?”

“I sure as hell ain't your damn babysitter, you limy little whelp,” she snarled. “But, Jiran is invisible like always, Vane's an idiot, and the other two are too bloody high and blooming mighty—as yo
u
limey
s
might say—to bother with getting you out of bed.  So, here I am,” she added with a mirthless smile.

“You're a member of Quay's crew?” Twist asked slowly.

“Ding, ding, ding!  Give the boy a prize.”

Twist pushed himself to the edge of the bed to put his slippers on again. “Madam, I—” he began pleasantly.  He didn't finish, however, because the pillow she'd been holding flew and struck him suddenly.

“I ain't running a brothel either!” she bellowed angrily. “The name is Cybele, thank you very much.  Call me 'madam' again and I'll have your skin for a new pair of boots.”  She looked him over critically as he stared back at her in shock. “Well, one boot anyway.  God you're tiny.”

Twist realized quickly that it would be much better not to argue with her.  He did as he was told, and hurried to get himself ready to leave, no matter how groggy his head still felt from his fitful sleep.  When he went to the wardrobe to get dressed, however, he had to pause as Cybele was still in the room, watching him impatiently.

“What's the matter, sonny?” she asked with a nasty little grin. “You think you've got anything I'd want to see?  Get your britches on and let’s go!” She snapped, examining her fingernails idly.

Having no other option, Twist turned his back and got himself dressed as quickly as he possibly could.  The clothes inside the wardrobe were all new to him, but they fit better than anything he'd ever worn before.  Well-tailored, heavy black trousers, a soft white cotton shirt, and a waistcoat of a deep blue silk that shined in the light, all fit him as if they had been made only for him.  He found a pair of sturdy and tasteful black boots as well, which fit right up his legs almost to his knees with a number of silver buckles on the sides.  There was also a long, thin, scarf of silver cotton, which he looped hurriedly around his throat.

He took the black jacket off the hook quickly, as Cybele continued to huff impatiently behind him, but he paused when he saw the color of the lapel; the same exact color of his own eyes.  Silver buttons ran up the front, while a blue cord laced up the back, pulling the fabric in down to the waist, where the ends of the cord hung over the long black tails of the jacket.  Slipping the garment on, Twist was astonished by how good it felt to wear—not clumping or pulling anywhere, but clinging to his small form perfectly.  There were two last pieces inside the wardrobe: a black silk top hat and a pair of silver goggles with a black leather band and deep, blue lenses that were almost as dark as Jonas's.  Looking through them for a moment, Twist saw that while they were not opaque, they blocked out most of the light.

Slipping the goggles on to hang around his neck and popping the top hat onto his head, Twist left the silks that he'd been wearing in a mess on the bed.  He snatched his pocket watch off his pillow, stuffed his house key into his pocket, and headed out of the room with Cybele drastically in the lead.  After all but running down three flights of stairs after her, he finally caught up to her in the lobby of the hotel, on the ground floor.

The lobby was decorated just as lavishly as the rooms had been, with more of the same brilliant reds, shiny black wood, gold, flowers, and intricate designs spilling over every inch of the large room.  Many sets of couches and chairs sat in small circles, in spots around the lobby, and Twist recognized Vane and Jiran sitting together not far off.

“Go wait with Vane,” Cybele said to him quickly. “I'll check you out of the room.”

Twist did as he was told and took a seat opposite Vane and Jiran in their circle of couches and chairs.  Vane's half reclining form lay limply on the couch, his legs crossed lazily over the edge of the seat and his head resting on the back while he spoke to the ninja, who looked his total opposite; Jiran sat with such stiff posture and stillness that she looked more like a statue than a living person.  To Twist's mild surprise, Vane's fingers wound through Jiran's playfully.

“How about Sabang then?” Vane said sweetly to her, smiling gently. “Let's have a tropical drink with exotic fruit in it, and walk the beach.  You know what they call that beach, just outside Sabang? 
Pantai Kasih
, that means 'Love Beach'.”  Jiran seemed to giggle at that, but no sound left her smiling lips as her dark eyes gleamed, looking down at his.

“Oh no, are they flirting again?” Jonas said, beckoning Twist's attention.

“Then, we can watch the sunset over the far western tip of the island,” Vane said to Jiran, as if he hadn't heard Jonas at all.  Jonas perched himself on the armrest of Twist's couch and made sure that his opaque black goggles were securely in place.

“Sometimes, blindness in a blessing,” Jonas said seriously to Twist.  Twist noticed that Jonas was wearing new clothes as well, though all in shades of soft copper and white, with pale green accents that attracted the eye. “Who went to get you this morning?” Jonas asked Twist. “Don't tell me you've been stuck with these two all morning.”

“It was a woman named Cybele,” Twist said, shaking his head.

“Are you all right?” Jonas asked quickly. “Did she hurt you?  Don't tell me she touched you!  God, I could only imagine...”

“I'm fine,” Twist said, putting on a smile and raising a hand to calm him. “She just … hit me with a pillow a few times.”

“Wow, you got off light,” Jonas said. “She gave me a black eye the first time we met.”

“Then she's always that charming?” Twist asked.

“Only on the good days,” Jonas said with a sigh. “Or if she is simply bored to death of you.  Otherwise, she's far worse than I'm sure you saw.  I mean, you're not bleeding, so I can assume so.”

“Saying nice things about me again?” Cybele asked, appearing beside Jonas like a cold, sudden wind.

“Always,” Jonas said brightly, smiling widely to her. “You know I love you, right?  And might I say, you're looking simply ravishing today?”

“You asking for trouble?” Cybele snapped.

“Have you lost weight?” Jonas asked, with a pleased gasp.

“Oh knock it off,” Cybele snapped, though her fists seemed to unclench. “Can't even see, and he's giving me compliments...” she muttered to herself.

“Good morning, everyone,” Quay said pleasantly as he walked towards them. “I hope you all rested well, because we are off again, to Indonesian, if you haven't heard.”

“I hate humid weather,” Cybele grumbled.

“Idris has found the origin of the broken crystal that we need to complete the clockwork doll,” Quay continued. “Once we finish this last leg of the trip, we're all going to be very rich men and woman, I assure you.” Twist's jaw tightened but he kept it closed.

“Tell me again, how much we're going to get for all the trouble this job has turned into?” Vane asked, still lounging lazily beside Jiran as he spoke.

“Enough for you to buy yourself a lifetime supply of mice, to entertain yourself with,” Quay said lavishly.

“You know I'm immortal, right?” Vane asked back.

“Well you'll be full up on mice until you get your second tail, then,” Quay said, almost impatiently.  When Vane's face took on a grin at the news, Quay turned to Twist.

“Ah, I'm so glad they got that blue right,” he said with a smile, pointing to Twist's jacket. “How does that all fit?”

“Very well, actually,” Twist answered. “How'd you do that?”

“It's called tailoring,” Quay said with a wink. “I thought that you'd like to feel a bit more like a gentleman after all the traumatic experiences you've been through lately.  Your other clothes smelled a bit like the Caspian Sea, after all.  And as I said,” he added with a gleam in his eyes again, “I take care of my own.”

Jonas pulled his goggles off and looked Twist over quickly before putting them back on. “Ah, the new-guy special,” he toned, turning to Quay. “How come I never got a top hat?”

“You're not a gentleman,” Quay said simply, to which Jonas gave a reluctant nod. “Now, are we all ready to leave Hong Kong?” he asked the others, looking excited himself.

“You know I am,” Cybele grumbled, already heading for the door.  The others got up and followed after her, while Jonas and Twist drifted to the back of the group.