The Doomsday Vault (38 page)

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“No time.” Alice dropped into the dim hold and landed on the chest of the brass war machine, her shoes scrabbling on the metal. It was a mechanical, somewhat similar to the one Patrick Barton had used, but much larger and more human-shaped. It had a head instead of a bubble, with vestigial eyes and even a mouth, but the top was clear glass, with a place for the controller to sit and direct it. Alice's skilled, practiced eye ran over it, gathering instant details. In seconds, she found the switch that popped the dome open, and she lowered herself into the seat therein. Because the giant was lying on its back, Alice was consequently lying on her own back. She pulled the dome shut and looked around at the switches, dials, and pulleys. There was always a logic to this sort of thing, and her talent, the one that allowed her to understand and assemble clockworker inventions, let her see exactly how it all fit together. She pulled a lever and spun a dial. Steam hissed, and somewhere deep inside the machine's chest, a boiler roared to life. Power boomed through the pistons, and Alice made the machine sit up. It cranked upright, shouldering aside debris with easy power.

Alice was panting with fear and worry. Every moment it took to work this out meant the clockworker was getting farther and farther away with Gavin. Under Alice's direction, the mechanical got to its feet. Bitter-smelling coal smoke leaked from the joints, and she found herself three stories above the wreckage. Below, Simon looked up at her from the ruined deck in openmouthed surprise. Glenda swooped in for a landing of her own. Alice didn't stop for explanations. The little airship was already dwindling in the distance, following the Thames. Alice moved her feet, and the metal giant walked. The crowd screamed and scattered. Treading carefully, Alice stepped clear of the ruins and onto the thoroughfare that went alongside the river. Then, her mouth a grim line, she started to run.

Power stormed through her, and she exulted in it. The war machine was hers now, and she would use it to set things right, to restore order. People saw her coming and scattered long before she arrived, leaving an empty street. Her feet left deep gouges in the cobblestones and gravel, and buildings rumbled in her path. In moments, she caught up to the little airship, which, being slightly above her head, obscured her vision of the deck. Alice reached upward with a hand to grab at it, but her control wasn't perfect, and she missed. The ship bobbled in the air and tried to gain altitude, but Alice grabbed at it again. This time her fingers caught the keel. It crunched a little, and she eased off, then pulled the ship down like a child taking a model down from a shelf. If the mechanical had been human-sized, the ship would have been the size of a pair of hatboxes, and it was easy to hold. The envelope bobbed up and down like a balloon on a string.

Alice brought the deck down to eye level. Near the stern stood Gavin, his face pale and angry. He was chained by one wrist to the stern railing, and on his right shoulder was Click. The brass cat's left claws pricked Gavin's jugular. Click could slash deeper than any knife, and Gavin was being careful not to move. Nearby waited the grinning clockworker in his ragged coat and tall top hat. Alice's stomach churned with fear for Gavin's safety and hatred for the clockworker who was endangering him.

“You!” Alice said, and her voice came out through the mechanical's mouth. “Let him go!”

The clockworker shook his head and gestured for Alice to back away.

“I won't let you have him,” Alice said.

The clockworker drew a finger across his throat, a deadly gesture enhanced by the skull mask that covered the upper half of his face. Alice's chest tightened.

“You won't kill him,” Alice said. “You went through too much trouble to get him, though I have no idea . . . no idea why.”

But even as she finished the sentence, Alice did know. The certainty stole over her with the clarity of a puzzle that locked together at last.

“Aunt Edwina,” she said. “You're Aunt Edwina.”

Gavin went pale. “The Red Velvet Lady.”

The clockworker cocked his—her—head. It all made perfect sense. Only Aunt Edwina, who had built Alice's automatons, would have a way to take control of them. Only Aunt Edwina had the apparent obsession with Gavin. Only Aunt Edwina was a clockworker who had dropped out of sight at the same time the clockworker in a skull mask had popped up in London. Now that Alice had the chance to look closely, in daylight, when the clockworker wasn't jumping and moving around, she could see that he—she—was a tall, thin woman rather than a short, slender man. The male clothing, hat, and mask were a simple but effective disguise. People saw a man's outfit and assumed the wearer was male. Alice herself had benefited from this on the trip back from capturing Patrick Barton. The world spun, and Alice clutched the mechanical's controls. There would be time for hysterics later. Right now, she had other issues to deal with.

She had intended to tell Edwina to let Gavin go again, but instead she blurted out, “Why, Aunt Edwina? Why kidnap Gavin and fake your death and destroy your house and start these rampages over London? What are you
doing
?”

The clockworker made a gesture, and Click's claws moved. Gavin made a noise, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his neck.

“Stop!” Alice cried. She had forgotten that, aunt or no aunt, clockworkers were still insane. “Aunt Edwina, don't! I'll let the ship go. Just don't hurt Gavin.”

“No!” Gavin croaked. “I won't be a prisoner again.”

“It'll be all right, Gavin. But first—Click, give me your left forepaw, please.”

There was a moment, and then Click's left forepaw dropped away, just as it had when Alice had given the same command in Edwina's tower. Gavin reacted. He ripped Click off his shoulder and threw him at the clockworker. Caught off guard, Edwina took the brass cat full in the midriff. She stumbled backward, then dived over the gunwale. Gavin yelled. Alice shrieked, her voice amplified by the mechanical. Then the clockworker rose up, supported by four madly spinning whirligigs, so tiny against their giant brother. She snapped her fingers, and three of the whirligigs sang a note, the same notes Alice remembered the clockworker playing at the Bank of England. Edwina snapped her fingers again, and the notes played a second time. Then she touched the brim of her hat and the whirligigs sped her away.

“Why the notes?” Alice said.

“Who cares?” Gavin snarled. “Why does she keep kidnapping me? Is it the way I dress? Do I smell good?”

She needed to keep moving. Whatever happened, she needed to keep moving. If she stopped, the hysterics would take over. Alice extended the mechanical's free arm to the deck and checked the controls. Certain the mechanical would stay frozen in place and hold the airship steady, she released herself from the chair and made her way carefully along the arm until she was able to swing herself onto the deck. Click limped over to greet her, freed of whatever influence Edwina had put on him. Alice patted his head, took up his missing paw, and popped the claws out. One of them had a lockpick on it. She used it to work at the cuff chaining Gavin's wrist to the rail without meeting his eye, though she felt his body heat and smelled sweat and leather. He didn't comment, either, but his breath came in her ear. At last the lock came free. He rubbed his wrist as Alice replaced Click's paw.

“Thanks,” he said. “I think we're gathering a crowd down below.”

She straightened, Click at her feet. “No doubt.”

“So.” Gavin shifted his weight. “Your aunt Edwina.”

“Yes.”

They stood in silence, looking at each other high above the ground. A sudden exhilaration swept Alice. It came to her that she had defeated a genius, a clockworker, and more than once. Up here, with Gavin and the Third Ward, all that mattered was what she could do, not who she was. Up here, she was free.

And then Gavin was kissing her. His strong arms were around her, and he was kissing her. Her heart took up her entire chest and her breath fled and he was kissing her.

“I'm sorry I was angry at you,” he murmured against her lips.

“My heart stopped when I saw you leaving,” she murmured back. “I don't want to go through that again.”

Movement caught her eye, and they broke apart. Glenda and Simon, with fresh bottles powering their gliders, dropped to the little deck. Explanations came fast and furious, though Alice never strayed far from Gavin's side.

“I'm only unhappy that I didn't figure out who she was earlier,” Alice said. “I think the little automatons have been reporting back to Aunt Edwina about me since I was a girl. She must have left some bit of program within their memory wheels that let her take control of them for spying and now for this. It was how she knew I was attending the Greenfellow ball.”

“Ah,” Glenda said. “She was able to extrapolate the most likely route you would take home and time the zombie attack so you would run straight into it.”

“Yes. She also ‘happened' to be present at the solicitor's office with that paper bomb because she knew I'd be there to discuss an inheritance she herself left me. She even knew I would hear Gavin play in Hyde Park because Click or the other automatons told her Norbert and I took drives there.”

“I've never seen this kind of careful planning in a clockworker before,” Simon said. “They're usually fantastic with the inventions but not so grand with long-range plans. This woman is a new breed, and I don't mind telling you, she scares the heavens out of me. We
have
to find her, and quickly—before she kills someone else.”

“No chance of that today,” Gavin muttered, staring off into the sky.

“A recovery team will be here soon to handle the mechanical,” Glenda said, “unless you want to walk it back to headquarters, Miss Michaels.”

“Oh, I don't imagine she'll want that.” Simon grinned. “What if her Norbert hears of it?”

At the mention of Norbert's name, Alice's exhilaration faded. “Norbert,” she said. “Yes. I need to talk to him.”

Gavin caught her hand. “What are you going to say?”

“Oh, Gavin.” She closed her eyes. “I don't know. I need to think. I'm all mixed-up. In one day, I lost my automatons, watched an airship explode, stole a giant war machine, and learned my long-lost aunt is actually still alive and controlling zombies in London.”

“What do you think of all that?” Gavin countered.

Alice paused. “I loved it,” she burst out. “Damn it all, I
loved
it!”

Gavin laughed. So did Glenda. Simon grimaced slightly, and Alice wondered why.

 

“Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!” Norbert plucked his cup of chocolate from the breakfast tray and sipped as he read the
Times
. It was the morning after Alice had returned from her adventure with Gavin and the giant mechanical. “The East India Company gives the Punjabis gainful employment, and they repay the Empire by rising up against it.”

Alice nibbled at a piece of toast. The newspaper's front page headline screamed MAD MECHANICAL MANGLES GREENWICH, with a smaller headline that announced DIRIGIBLE DETONATES and DOZENS FEARED DEAD, but Norbert was pointedly, carefully, and scrupulously ignoring all that for international news, and Alice had to scramble to keep up.

“Cartridge papers are soaked in pork and beef tallow,” she replied. “The cow is sacred to Indians, and Muslims say pigs are unclean. Is it any wonder Punjabi soldiers refused to tear them open with their teeth? The natives over there were already restless, and their commander only made it worse when he sentenced all those soldiers to hard labor over a foolish technicality—one that he could have avoided by allowing them to use fingers instead of teeth.”

“Military discipline must be maintained. Now they have to pay the consequences, and that's the end of it.” Norbert set the paper down and drained his little cup. His voice was a bit too loud, his gestures a bit too expansive. “But this and the fighting in China have made me especially anxious to open that new munitions factory. Need to provide for my new wife after this week.”

Alice gave a small smile. “Of course, darling, of course.”

“The papers are ready, and I'll come home early on Friday so we can sneak down to the church.” He rubbed his hands together with overly precise movements. “So exciting!”

“Indeed.”

“And then we'll have to get back to the appointments,” Norbert continued, his excitement over. “It'll be so convenient with you not having to go back to that silly flat every evening.”

Alice said, “Absolutely.” Good God, he was dull. Compared to the deadly machinations of Aunt Edwina, Norbert's mechanicals seemed insignificant and banal. How had she ever found him shocking? Her own little automatons were far more dangerous than anything Norbert could dream up.

“Are the machines in good working order?”

For a moment, Alice thought he meant her little automatons. Most of them had come slinking back a few minutes after Alice herself had arrived at Norbert's house with Click. As a precaution, Alice had deactivated all of them, including Kemp and Click. It had hurt more than she had anticipated.

“Yes,” she said aloud. “Your friends should be . . . entertained.”

“Perfect.” Norbert rubbed his hands together again with the same precise movements. It was the same excitement he had shown about their upcoming nuptials. She wondered what he would be like in the bedroom and gave an inward shudder. “I'll be late. You're beautiful.” He kissed her on the cheek, and departed.

Alice left the breakfast tray for the mechanical maid to clean up and went down the hall to her father's room. The automaton assigned to his needs stood in the corner, its eyes never leaving Father's chest as it rose and fell, paused, then rose and fell. He'd been sleeping since she returned. His hair was gone, and his face was shrunken and shriveled. His body barely made a dent in the soft mattress. A heavy, stale smell hung in the overly warm air. His curtains were pushed back, revealing another day crushed by yellow mist. Alice touched his cold hand, but it remained motionless. Father's breath paused, then resumed.