Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) (40 page)

“Gideon!” Grant called with a sharp, quiet bark that penetrated the distance between them, but not by much.

Gideon paused long enough to look back at Grant, crouched beneath the window with one foot propped on the fallen clock and both hands holding his gun in a ready position: a general turned king, not done fighting even though he’d been told he didn’t need to worry about guarding the castle he’d been given. A thin wash of watery light from the dying fireplace painted him gold and threw a smattering of shadows across his craggy face. He looked older than his years.

But not finished yet.

A louder blast rocked against the door, something harder and bigger than a handgun—something more like a shotgun, Gideon thought wildly. The door shuddered, and the clock that barred it rocked but did not fall. Then a second blast much like the first took out the window in the trestle above Grant’s head. He ducked away from the falling glass as the blanket swung out—then settled again, full of holes.

“Buckshot, that’s all it is!” the president said, waving Gideon away. “A big gun, though—sounds like a punt gun. Don’t worry, I’ve got it. Go on, help Wellers. I’ll take care of this!”

A third blast hit the door again, shattering the lock and shaking the whole portal as Grant slipped past it to the other window. From there, he peered through the edge of the curtain, and carefully—even slowly, thanks to the distraction—took aim and fired.

A loud grunt and a moan, and then the clamor of something heavy being dropped. Close. Very close. Closer than they’d realized. But Gideon knew about punt guns, and he knew you had to be close to make one count.

“Go!” Grant said again, and this time the scientist didn’t argue.

He stood when he reached the hall and was safe from wandering bullets, only to run smack into Mary. He grabbed her by the shoulders, and before she could speak, he said, “Upstairs with you! I’ll send Polly, too, and both of you should run from window to window, and fire at anything that moves. Don’t let yourself be seen, understand?”

“Dr. Bardsley?” Polly squeaked from behind him.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Yes…”

“Then
go,
both of you. Get up there and stay there, and don’t come down until we give the all clear. Run!”

He released Mary’s shoulders and tried not to worry at how frail they felt beneath his fingers, and how small a woman she really was.

Down the other hall he ran—away from Lincoln, which he didn’t like, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once. For now, no one was shooting down the corridor they were in, so he’d have to pick and choose.

Wellers was reloading. He
had
to be, for the inside defense had fallen silent. And, yes: As Gideon flung himself down beside his friend, he saw through the window’s shattered edge that men were approaching.

“Gideon! For God’s sake…” Wellers voice trailed off as his attention returned to his ammunition.

The interlopers wore scarves over their faces like ordinary burglars or bandits. For some reason the mundanity of it all offended Gideon. You’d think people would have the good grace to dress up for an assassination.

One man was nearly to the bushes. The fluffy things were half naked, courtesy of November, but they kept the house from being wholly open to the elements. Gideon flung the blanket aside and took aim, faster than Grant did, because he had less time: The man was right on him, close enough that he could see the fellow’s breath puffing out around his face in a foggy aura.

He fired, and caught the man square in the chest.

Even Mary couldn’t have missed him, he had come so near. Another man behind him swerved to avoid his compatriot’s body and began a sideways retreat, or revisal of strategy—but Wellers was on his feet now, and he fired, too.

Gideon couldn’t see what he hit, but the second man went down, and both the scientist and the doctor dropped back to cover. Now it was Wellers’s turn to shoot while Gideon reloaded everything he had. When he was done, he covered his friend so he could do the same. It was a brutal give-and-take, a frantic cooperation that had to work for them both to stay alive.

“You good?” Gideon asked.

“Good as I’m going to get. You hear that?”

Yes, he heard shots from the front of the house, and from the far end behind him as well. “Lincoln,” he murmured. “Stay here. I’ve got him.”

“You’re not the one being paid to protect him,” Wellers objected, climbing to his feet and hugging the wall to make himself as small a target as possible.

Another loud blast, similar to the one at the front door, shattered the window and blew the curtains halfway across the room. “More buckshot,” Gideon griped, which once again meant that someone was close.

Wellers whipped his gun hand around to squeeze off three fast shots, two of which hit home.

He ducked back as fire was returned, but Gideon leaned out and shot again—mostly wanting to see what had happened. Yes, there was a dead man on the lawn right before the protective hedge. Yes, a shotgun with a snubbed, sawed-short nose was lying in the grass beside him, its hardware shimmering in the moonlight. The new mercenaries were better armed, or differently armed; it all depended on how you looked at it.

In the trees, something moved. Two somethings.

“Gideon, stay here—I
have
to reach Lincoln.”

“Fine.”

Gideon took out his frustration on the two men nearest, right as they stepped out of the woods. Faces covered. One with a handgun, one with another big fowling gun—a punt gun, Grant had called it, and Gideon had heard them called shotguns by cavalrymen. Whatever they were called, he knew they were a deadly mix of imprecision and power—bad enough at a distance, and terrifying at any nearer range.

Wellers retreated in a crouched position. His shoes slid on the wood floor until they found the rug in the hall, and then he dashed.

Gideon returned his attention to the window and saw … nothing this time.

Nothing and no one, except the dead man on the ground … and, over there, another dead man. He heard footsteps running around the side of the house, someone retreating, or falling back to regroup. Someone making a run for another location, where the pickings were easier.

“Goddammit!”

He leaped to his feet and ran to the hall, shutting the door behind himself and locking it. For all that it wouldn’t stop a shotgun or a determined enough kick, the noise would give them a bit more warning.

From upstairs, the ladies fired madly, wildly—too fast, Gideon thought. They’d burn through their ammunition too quickly at this rate. But there was nothing he could say to them now, nothing he could do to instruct or steady them; so he just listened to the violent bursts from the windows above him, and the sound of Polly’s fast little feet running from room to room, window to window, between exchanges.

Next, he ran for Lincoln’s room.

Past the front door, and past Grant, who was using the door for cover—standing now, rather than sitting behind the window sills—and aiming with a measured, frightening accuracy. Wasting no bullets. Giving as good as he was getting, and he was getting it pretty good.

Gideon jumped as a vase on a table behind him shattered.

He dived back into the hall, leaving the president to his defensive measures, and kept scrambling over to the library, where Lincoln had had just about enough of this. The old man wheeled out into the hall, his chair humming warmly, its wheels grinding against the expensive rugs like they meant business. The revolver in his hand underscored the threat nicely.

Gideon heard a crash from upstairs—or was it downstairs? Or behind him? There were too many explosions, too many things breaking at once for him to sort them all out.

Lincoln shouted, “Gideon!,” and raised his handgun.

In return, Gideon cried, “Mr. Lincoln!,” and raised his own.

They fired simultaneously, Gideon’s shot taking down a man at the end of the hall—a man on the verge of running for the elderly leader. Lincoln’s shot singed Gideon’s ear like a firebrand, and as Gideon toppled to the side, ducking any further fire that might come, he saw a man reeling backwards behind him, stunned and bleeding.

Lincoln fired again, and the man went down.

“Sir!”
Gideon ran to Lincoln’s side. “We have to get you out of here.”

“Where will we go? They’re outside, aren’t they? No—we defend
this
place. If I’m to have a last stand, let it be here!”

“No! No talk of last stands!” Gideon shouted at him, then dropped his voice. “We will live through this.
All of us
. And we will stop the war, and we will save the world.” He grabbed the mechanical chair and tried to force Lincoln back into the library … but another man appeared in the hall, and Gideon swore like the sailor he’d never been. One of the big crashes must’ve been a breach in the study. Those sons of bitches. There was a hole in the fort,
goddammit.

“Get this bastard out of the way!” Lincoln roared. Gideon was startled to hear his voice so strong, as he was so often softer spoken. But now he shouted, gesturing down at the man he’d shot. “Move him! Let me through!”

“Yes, sir.” Gideon shook his head, but he bent down and grabbed the corpse under its arms. He dragged it to the foyer and tossed it in, freeing the hallway for Lincoln to pass, then barreled forward before he realized there was another armed man in front of him. Lincoln guided the chair away from the newcomer as Gideon opened fire. The man jerked aside, seeking cover, but finding none. He fell to the scientist’s next round.

Upstairs Polly screamed, and it was like an ice pick to Gideon’s soul.

“Help her!” Lincoln called without looking back. “Help the women upstairs, for the love of God!”

Upstairs, indeed—for, yes, it’d been his idea to put the women up there, and now Polly was screaming. He found the steps by the lingering firelight and tripped up them—he’d climbed them a thousand times, but the light was so dim and he was so hurried. Someone was still shooting up there, and his money was on Mary. He banged his knee on the top step, but that was fine, he needed to stay low anyway; so he used it as an excuse to fall down to all fours, then proceed in a low, awkward crouch toward Polly. Where was she? West wing, yes. He followed the sound of her voice until he could see her silhouetted in the hall light.

She wasn’t alone. A man held her … from behind? From her side? It was hard to say—she was fighting him like the devil, wrestling this way and that, until both their shapes were one great knot of shadow. Gideon wasn’t sure who was who, so he certainly couldn’t shoot.

He shoved his gun into his coat pocket.

He ran forward and seized the pair of them, wrenching them apart and taking the man by his shirt, then flinging him against a wall where he smashed a great crack in the plaster. The man lunged back, but he launched straight into Gideon’s fist, which caught him square in the stomach. He doubled over, catching the scientist’s knee in his face as he did so. As he staggered backwards, he found no retreat except the wall. As he reached up seeking to steady himself, the man found an oil lamp, turned down to nothing but still full of fuel. He grabbed at it, slipping when the glass shattered, but eventually got hold and pulled himself back to his feet. He must’ve been bleeding from the glass, but Gideon couldn’t see it. He saw nothing except for the fellow trying to step backwards, and a brighter shade behind him—someone wearing lighter clothing. Someone who swung an enormous stick and caught the intruder on the back of the head.

“Polly!”

“Got it from the broom closet,” she panted and pointed. The man had fallen to his knees, on the ground in the oil and glass, so she hit him again. He went down and stayed down, sprawled out between the scientist and the maid.

“Give me your hand,” Gideon commanded. She did, but she held on to the broom as she jumped over the unconscious figure on the floor. “Where’s the attic? There must be a door in the ceiling; where is it?”

“Here,” she said, leading him along the hallway, picking a spot, then changing her mind and going back a little farther. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s over here. It’s so hard to see, I can barely tell at all.”

He held up his hand, feeling around for the rope pull that would bring the door down. It fluttered against his fingers. He missed it, tried again, missed once more. Finally, he caught it and gave it a yank, and a set of rolling stairs rumbled down. He caught them with his shoulder so he could lower them more quietly than was their wont. “Get up there,” he ordered her. “This is getting out of hand. Just
go.
I’ll get Mary.”

“But, Gideon—”

“Do as I say!”

He left her, not knowing whether she’d obey or not, but knowing that Mary was not shooting anymore; she was shouting instead. He found her in the back bedroom, leaning out the window and shoving hard, then cackling like a witch as someone beyond hollered and fell heavily.

“Mrs. Lincoln!”

“Ladders!” she responded. “The bastards got themselves some ladders!”

“Didn’t think they’d manage that so fast,” he said under his breath, then went to her side. “You’re out of ammunition?”

She nodded, and the silver in her hair caught what little light came from the sky. “Fresh out. But
they’re
running out of
men,
” she said optimistically.

He drew her back from the window. “You have to get up to the attic now,” he said. “Polly’s already there; she’ll pull the stairs up behind you.”

“What about Abe?”

“He’s down there with Grant and Wellers. They’re watching him. The mercenaries are inside the house, now.”

“They’re inside my
house
?” she shrieked.

“Keep your voice down, ma’am—and yes, they’re inside. I want you to go up to the attic and wait for us. We’ll let you know when it’s safe.”

“When it’s
safe
?”

“Yes, when it’s—”

“This is my house! I’m not going anywhere! Give me another gun!”

“Oh for the love of …
no,
Mrs. Lincoln.”

Downstairs it was heating up, getting louder. He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, running. He couldn’t tell who they belonged to. He told her, “Stay here!” but she followed right behind him.