Infernal Devices

by Philip Reeve

  Wren, running in from the garden on her mission for Shkin, barely noticed any of it. But as she darted past the film room toward the spiral staircase that would take her up to Pennyroyal's office, she almost collided with Theo, who was coming in the other direction, clutching his ostrich-feather fan. He wore baggy silver trousers and a pair of silver angel's wings.

  "Hello," said Wren. "What's the wing thing about?"

  Theo shrugged, and his wings flapped. "All the boys are dressed like this. Boo-Boo's idea. Horrible, isn't it?"

  "Vile," agreed Wren, though secretly she thought he looked rather fetching.

  "Look," he said, "this idea that Boo-Boo's got about us--"

  "It's all right," said Wren. "I don't fancy you either."

  "Good."

  "Good." She was glad he was there, though, and she didn't want to part from him. She thought how much easier it would be to burgle Pennyroyal's safe if she had an accomplice.

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  Especially an accomplice like Theo, who had been in battles and was probably ten times braver than herself.

  "Look," she said, "I've got to do something...."

  "Another escape attempt?"

  "No. I've got to take something from Pennyroyal's safe."

  "What? After what happened to that antique dealer?" Theo stared at her, waiting for her to admit that it was all a joke. When she didn't, he said, "It's that book thing, isn't it? That metal book?"

  "The Tin Book of Anchorage," Wren said. "Shkin sent Plovery for it, and now that Plovery's dead, he's sending me."

  "Why?" asked Theo. "What's so important about it?"

  Wren shrugged. "All I know is that everybody seems to want it.... I think it might have something to do with submarines, but ..." She paused uneasily. Maybe she shouldn't be telling Theo this. He was Green Storm, after all, or had been once. But she was glad she had. She touched his arm. "He's got my dad at the Pepperpot, and if I don't do what he asks, he ... I don't know what he'll do. Will you help me?"

  She did know, of course; she just didn't want to say it. She felt glad that she had Theo to confide in.

  "Your dad?' he asked. "I didn't know Lost Girls had fathers...."

  "I'm not really a Lost Girl," said Wren. "Just mislaid. I told Pennyroyal I came from Grimsby because ... Oh, Theo, it's too complicated to explain. I just have to save Dad!"

  She could tell that he understood. He looked scared and serious. "But if the safe's booby-trapped ..." he said.

  "That's why I want you to keep a lookout. Please, Theo. I don't want to go in there alone."

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  "I'm supposed to be on duty in the ballroom. Boo-Boo's orders."

  "Boo-Boo's having a wonderful time. She won't notice if we sneak off for five minutes."

  Theo thought about it, then nodded. "All right. All right."

  Gripping his fan like a battle-axe, he followed Wren up some stairs and through a door at the top into an antique-lined corridor. The noise of the party faded as the door swung softly shut behind them, then dipped again as the corridor turned sharply to the left. Creeping past the door to the control-room stairs, they heard the faint voices of the crewmen chatting at their stations down below, but there were no other sounds. Everyone else was busy in the ballroom or the kitchens, and this part of the Pavilion was deserted.

  They reached the end of the corridor and stopped, staring at Pennyroyal's office door.

  "What if he changed the combination of his safe after last night?" whispered Theo. "What if he's changed the locks on the door?"

  Wren hadn't thought of that. She prayed that Pennyroyal hadn't either. Her groping fingers quickly found the spare key, still hidden in the vase. At first it didn't seem to fit the lock, but that was only because her hands were trembling so badly. After she spent a few moments swearing and fumbling, the lock snicked and she turned the handle and pushed open the door.

  The office looked peaceful and safe. The Walmart Strange drawing was back in its place on the wall. Wren went to it and took it carefully off its hook, laying it down on the desk. Theo followed her into the office and quietly closed the door, then almost knocked a statue off its pedestal with his fan.

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  "Couldn't you have left that stupid thing outside?" she hissed.

  "What, where someone might see it lying about?"

  Wren turned to the safe. "Ready?" she asked.

  Theo didn't look ready. "You think there's a booby trap inside the safe?" he said.

  Wren shook her head. "The safe was open last night, remember, and I didn't see anything booby-trappish in there." All the same, she made sure that she was standing well to one side as she reached for the dial. "Mr. Plovery opened the safe and got the book out. That's when something got him. Now hush." She frowned, remembering the combination. Two-two, oh-nine, nine-five-seven ...

  As the dial clicked and the tumblers inside the lock chunked and grated, Theo turned slowly around, looking for hidden dangers. There was nowhere much in this small room that a trap could be concealed. The objects on the desk looked innocent enough--a blotter, a few pens, a photograph of Boo-Boo in a heavy black frame. There was a teak filing cabinet against the far wall, a picture hanging above it, and above that just a lot of architectural curlicues and the high, shadowy dome of the ceiling and ...

  Was it just his eyes playing tricks, or was something moving up there?

  "Wren--" he said.

  Wren had the safe door open. She reached in and drew out a battered black case. "Got it."

  "Wren!" Theo shoved her, knocking her sideways. She dropped the case, and had an impression as she fell of something white whirring past her. A blade struck the open door

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  of the safe, hard enough to throw off sparks. Whatever it was scrabbled, turned, and came flapping at her as she sprawled on the floor. Wren glimpsed ragged wings, a curved steel beak, a glow of green eyes. Then Theo's fan batted the thing sideways, slamming it hard against the wall. Wren heard something break. The flapping thing fell on the floor and kept on flapping, flailing small clawed feet like bunches of razors. Theo smacked at it with his fan. Whimpering, Wren groped across the desk, found the picture of Boo-Boo, and smashed it down hard on the creature's head.

  Theo helped Wren up. "All right?' he asked shakily.

  "I think so. You?"

  "Yes."

  For a while after that, they didn't speak. Theo's arms were still around Wren, and her face was pressed against his shoulder. It was a nice shoulder, warm, with a pleasant smell, and she would have liked to stay like that for longer, but she made herself step away from him, shaking her head hard to clear away all the distracting thoughts that were trying to roost there. Feathers floated about in the moonlight.

  "What was it?" she asked, nervously prodding the dead bird thing with her toe.

  "A raptor," said Theo. "A Resurrected bird. I thought only the Storm used them. It must have been set to keep watch on the safe."

  "How do you think old Pennyroyal got hold of it?" Wren wondered.

  Theo shook his head, puzzled and worried. "Maybe it's not Pennyroyal's."

  "That's silly," said Wren. "Who else would want to guard

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  his safe?" She picked up the black case and opened it. Inside, the Tin Book glinted faintly in the firework light from outside. It looked as dull as ever. It was hard to believe that it had caused so much trouble. She looked at Theo. "You go," she told him. "I'll tidy this place up and then find Shkin."

  Theo was staring at the Tin Book. He said, "I'll help."

  "No." Wren felt terribly grateful to him, and didn't want to keep him here any longer than she had to. If they were discovered and Theo were punished for helping her, she would never forgive herself. "Go back downstairs," she said. "I'll follow in a minute or two. I'll find you later."

  He started to object again, then seemed to see the sense in what she said. He nodded, looked thoughtfully at her for a moment, then took up his battered fan and left while Wren set
to work. Gingerly she picked the dead bird up and stuffed it into one of the drawers of the desk, along with all the fallen feathers she could find. It had left a stain of oil or blood or something on the office floor, but there was nothing Wren could do about that. She pulled the Tin Book out of its case and replaced it with Boo-Boo's broken picture, which was of a similar weight and size.

  A sound came from the corridor, someone shouting something. Wren went very still, listening. The shouting sounded angry and scared, but Wren could not make out the words, and after a moment it stopped. "Theo?" said Wren aloud.

  The office gave a sudden shudder, as if giant hands had shaken the Pavilion by the shoulders. The faint sound from the ballroom diminished as conversations faltered and the orchestra stopped playing. Wren imagined the musicians

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  looking up from their scores in alarm. Then people laughed, and the music and chatter resumed, climbing quickly back to their former level, as if someone were turning up the volume on a recording of party sound effects.

  "Just turbulence," she told herself. Or maybe there had been some sort of problem with the engine pods; now that she thought about it, the shouts she had heard might well have been echoing up the little stairway from the control room. Relieved, she went back to work. She put the case back in the safe and closed it, then hung the Walmart Strange in front of it again. Lifting the back of her long tunic, she slipped the Tin Book under the waistband of her trousers. It would be safe there, she thought, but the metal struck cold against her bare back, and the wire binding kept scratching her.

  She stepped out into the corridor and locked the door, replacing the key in its hiding place. "Theo?" she hissed. There was no answer. Of course not; he would be back in the ballroom by now, safe.

  Then she glimpsed a movement from the corner of her eye. The door to the control-room staircase was open, swinging on its hinges with each faint movement of the building. She stood and stared at it, certain that it had been closed when she'd passed it with Theo a few minutes earlier. Had one of the men from the control room heard them crashing about in Pennyroyal's office and come up to investigate?

  The noise from the ballroom grew suddenly loud, and then faded again. Someone had come through the door at the far end of the corridor. Wren heard footsteps approaching quickly along the polished floor. At the place where the

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  corridor bent, a shadow grew on the wall. Panicking, Wren started to move back toward Pennyroyal's office, but there wasn't time to find the key again, so she darted through the open control-room door and pulled it shut behind her.

  She found herself in a shadowy little cubicle where iron stairs spiraled down through the floor. She knew that they went through the floor below as well, and through the deck plate beneath it, opening eventually into that little glass bubble that she had seen from the cable car on the day Shkin brought her to Cloud 9. She pressed her ear to the door and heard the footsteps go past out in the corridor.

  She was about to breathe again when a voice from below her called, "Who's there?"

  The voice sounded frightened, and oddly familiar.

  "Theo?" she said. A dizzy feeling of confusion swept over her. What would Theo be doing down there, in that control room full of Pennyroyal's men? Had he been on Pennyroyal's side all along? Had he gone to tell them about the slave girl who had just burgled their master's safe?

  "Wren," the voice called, "something's happened. I don't know what to do...."

  He did sound frightened. Deciding to trust him, Wren hurried down the tight spiral of stairs, with the Tin Book jabbing her in the small of her back at every step. She passed another entrance on the ground floor, and then descended through a shaft of white-painted metal, warty with rivets, that led down through the deck plate. Theo was looking up at her from the foot of the stairs, and he stood aside to let her step past him into the control room. Through its glass walls she could see the whole of Brighton beneath her, gaudy with

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  MoonFest illuminations. All around, fireworks were bursting in the clear air, splashing the instrument panels with pink and amber light. It was probably the best view on Cloud 9, but it was wasted on the control room's crew, who were slumped in their seats, dead. One of them still had a knife sticking out of his neck, an ordinary carving knife from the Pavilion kitchens with Pennyroyal's crest on the handle.

  "Oh, Quirke!" squeaked Wren, wishing she hadn't eaten so many canapés. As she bent over to puke, a rush of thoughts swirled into her head. None of them were pleasant. Hadn't Theo been coming from the direction of the kitchens when she ran into him last night? And now he was standing in a room full of men who'd been killed with a kitchen knife, and she was alone with him.

  "It's all right," he said, and she squeaked again as he shyly touched her arm. He didn't understand how scared of him she suddenly was. As she edged away from him, he said, "I mean, it's not all right. Look." He tugged at one of the big brass levers on the instrument panel. "Broken. All broken. And here ..."

  On the main control desk was a fat red lever, encased in a glass box and surrounded with exclamation marks and warnings that it should be used only in an emergency. Someone had used it anyway, breaking the glass to get at it.

  "What does that do?" asked Wren, but she already knew, because Brighton looked smaller than it had when she'd entered the control room, and the bangs of the bursting fireworks were growing fainter and fainter.

  "Explosive bolts," said Theo. "They're meant to sever the cables in case Brighton sinks or something. Didn't you feel that

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  lurch? Wren, somebody's cut the towropes! We're adrift!"

  Wren stared at him, appalled, and in the silence she could clearly hear the sounds of the party continuing upstairs. She and Theo were probably the only people on Cloud 9 who knew what had happened.

  "Theo," she said, "you can have the book."

  "What?"

  She pulled it out of her trousers and held it out to him. Her hands were shaking, making the reflections from the metal cover dance across his puzzled face. "Wren," he said, "you don't think I could do this? Even if I could, why would I?"

  "Because you're after the book, like everybody else," said Wren. "You're a Green Storm agent, aren't you? I knew there was something strange about you! I bet you got yourself captured deliberately so that you could get into the Pavilion and spy on us all. I bet you left that gull to watch over the safe, and now you've set Cloud 9 adrift so that you can murder everybody and make off with the Tin Book! That's why you wouldn't help me steal the Peewit, wasn't it? So you could escape in her yourself, once you had the book!"

  "Wren!" shouted Theo. "You're not thinking!" He caught her as she tried to dash past him to the stairs, caught her by both arms and looked earnestly into her face. "If I wanted that damned Tin Book, why would I have let you steal it? I would have let the gull kill you back in Pennyroyal's office, and taken it for myself. For all I know, you could be the Green Storm agent. You're so keen to get this book, and you were sneaking around when Plovery was killed too. One minute you're a Lost Girl and the next you're not.... You

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  could be the one who did this!"

  "I'm not! I didn't!" Wren gasped.

  "Well, nor did I." Theo let her go. She edged backward, trembling, still clutching the Tin Book.

  "I was on my way back to the ballroom when I heard someone shout for help," said Theo. "I opened the door and called down to ask if everything was all right. There was no answer, but I thought I heard someone moving about, so I came down. When I got here, they were all dead. I saw that the cable had been cut, and I was going to go and raise the alarm, but I was afraid that you were still upstairs and someone would find you." He shuddered and ran his hand over his face.

  "There was someone upstairs," said Wren, remembering the footsteps, the shadow. "I heard them go past the door. There's nothing else along that corridor but Pennyroyal's office. They must have been after the same thing as us. The T
in Book."

  Theo stared at her. "That would fit. They came down here first and did this, but before they could go up the stairs to the office, they heard me coming down. They couldn't risk killing me too, in case I was a guest who'd be missed, so they slunk out through the kitchens and then cut back by the ballroom and up to the office that way.... But why cut us adrift? Why not just take the book?"

  Wren tried to be sick again, but her stomach was empty. "They almost saw me!" she whimpered. "If I hadn't hidden in time, they'd have killed me like they did these men...."

  Theo reached out for her but wasn't sure if she would

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  want him to touch her. "So you don't still think I did it?" he asked.

  Wren shook her head and went gratefully to him, hiding her face against his chest. "Theo, I'm sorry...."

  "It's all right," he told her gently. Then he said, "As for last night, I just couldn't sleep. I went to the shrine to say prayers for my mother and father and my sisters. It was a year ago, last Moon Festival, that I left Zagwa. Slipped out of my parents' house while everyone was celebrating, and stowed away on a freighter, off to Shan Guo to join the Green Storm. All the preparations yesterday just made me wonder what they were doing now; whether my parents have forgiven me; whether they miss me...."

  "I bet they do," said Wren. She turned away and leaned against the window, pressing her face to the cool glass. "That's what parents do. They forgive us and miss us, no matter what we've done. Look at my dad, coming all this way to find me...."

  She looked toward Brighton, longing for her father. Fireworks spurted into the sky from somewhere in Montpelier, bursting in bright stars of red and gold. Wren watched them fade as they drifted slantwise down the wind, and then her eye was caught by another movement. She turned her head. There was only the sea: a shifting, sliding pattern of moonlight. But what was that? That long shadow slipping across the wave tops?