The Clockwork Dragon

by James R. Hannibal

Section Thirteen.

  Out of control.

  For the first time, Jack agreed with the whispers in the crowd.

  Out of control. They had no idea.

  Chapter Three

  “I APOLOGIZE, MY LORD,” said Will. “The accused will not speak again.” He caught Jack in the shoulder with a backhanded thump. “Will ya?”

  Jack shook his head, but when Will sat down, he risked an earnest whisper. “Don’t I get to speak?”

  “Where do ya fink you are?” Will whispered back. “America?”

  “But what happens if they find me guilty?”

  “The judge’ll lock ya in the Mobius Tower ’til ya go mad. Maybe feed ya to a dragon.” The clerk settled back into his chair, utterly relaxed. “The usual punitary constigations.”

  “Neither of those is a word.”

  “Really? So now you speak legalese?”

  Jack crossed his arms and faced forward. “That’s not a real word either.”

  The Royal Arbiter rolled a finger in the air, signaling for the Master Recorder to continue.

  A few of the complaints were not Jack’s fault, like blowing up a hyperloop transport system belonging to the Tinkers’ Guild. Several were, like starting a flaming rave among a dozen live specimens in the Ministry of Dragons Collection.

  Through all of it, Jack had only been trying to do the right thing—to rescue his dad, to stop the Clockmaker from burning London to the ground, and to stop Edward Tanner from unleashing a power upon the world that had once wiped out a tenth of its population. It was Gall who had set it all in motion, and now he would hang all the consequences around Jack’s neck.

  Once the Master Recorder had finished, the Royal Arbiter turned to the section of dark-robed spooks, still flicking their fingers in silent conversation. “Who speaks for the Ministry of Secrets?”

  Gall stepped up to a podium at the center of the spook section, his clockwork eye twitching and clicking as he focused on the Royal Arbiter. “Lord Ignatius Gall. Undersecretary for Things Unknown.”

  “These are serious complaints, Lord Gall.”

  “True.” Gall gripped the podium with one good hand and one mechanical prosthetic. “But these are not mere complaints, are they? These are symptoms, festering sores that give testimony to an underlying disease within the Ministry of Trackers.”

  Jack winced. Was he a festering sore, an underlying disease? He felt like he needed a shower, maybe some antibiotics.

  “Oh, he’s good,” said Will. “A regular oraficorial genius. You’re done for.”

  Gall gestured with his good hand toward the crumb bleachers. “The Ministry of Trackers is rotting from the inside. For more than a year they have harbored this dangerous boy. And as we all know, another tracker, Professor Edward Tanner, went rogue two months ago and sought to resurrect the power of Genghis Khan, putting the whole globe at risk.”

  “And I stopped him.” Jack jumped up again before Will could restrain him, careful not to touch the railing this time. He couldn’t believe Gall would bring up Tanner. After all, it was Gall himself who had sent Tanner to recover Genghis Khan’s ruby.

  Gall’s clockwork monocle gleamed, as if he had foreseen—even planned on—Jack’s response. “Yes, you did. And how, Mr. Buckles? How did you stop him?”

  Jack opened his mouth to answer, but he faltered, and dropped his eyes. He couldn’t answer that, not in front of this crowd. Will pulled him down into his seat.

  The spook addressed the rest of the chamber, raising his voice. “Don’t let this boy’s tender age fool you. There are rumors that he burned Tanner to death from the inside out.”

  Gasps rippled through the bleachers.

  Jack shot a questioning glance at Gwen, who shook her head, eyes wide. They had spoken to no one about the fire that had started during Jack’s subconscious battle with Tanner. How could Gall have known?

  Mrs. Hudson jumped up from her seat. “That is outrageous, Lord Gall! Even for you!”

  The arbiter looked from one to the other, his expression growing stern. “Do you have any proof to back up this accusation?”

  “Not at this time, my lord.” Gall grinned at Jack—a shameless, open leer. “Not at this time.”

  “Then what is your point, sir?”

  “Only this: that the Ministry of Trackers, an agency guarding a cache of artifacts with the collective potential to bring about the apocalypse, has allowed this child—this Section Thirteen with unknown and uncontained powers—to hide within their midst. We, the Ministry of Secrets and the Ministry of Guilds, are asking, nay, demanding that this”—he shoved a finger toward Jack—“creature be destroyed, and that the crumbling Ministry of Trackers be dissolved.”

  Chapter Four

  “SO THAT WENT WELL,” said Gwen as she and the Buckles family reached the Lost Property Office. The little office served as the front for the Ministry of Trackers. It also served as the top level of the Keep—a huge Gothic tower that jutted down into the caverns beneath London’s Baker Street like a crashed rocket ship.

  Jack gave Gwen a hug goodbye, and then he, Sadie, and his mom followed a pair of giant wardens through the upper offices to the Great Stair that wound its way down around the tower’s outer rim. He kept silent in the long descent, still trying to process what had happened.

  The moment Gall had called for the dissolution of the Ministry of Trackers, all the crumbs had jumped to their feet, shaking their fists. The toppers, golden giants grinning behind them, began chanting, “End the trackers! End the trackers!” And no amount of shouting from the Royal Arbiter could shut them up.

  To Jack’s surprise, the dragos, led by a tall blond woman with piercing blue eyes, had taken the trackers’ side. And so it went, dragos and crumbs versus spooks and toppers, for a half hour, until the Royal Arbiter finally made himself heard and declared an end to the night’s proceedings. He had a dinner reservation that he did not intend to miss. The trial would reconvene in two weeks.

  Two weeks. In that short time, Jack had to find a way to save his agency and head off a death sentence, all while outwitting a crazed spook who could read his mind and see into the future. Great. No problem.

  At the bottom of the Great Stair, the wardens took their leave. Jack’s mom turned a bronze key and pushed open an ancient wooden door, and the three stepped out onto a cobblestone lane lit by gas lamps. The bottom, or rather the top, of the Keep tower stuck out from the rocks above, with eight gargoyles looking up at the ceiling instead of down at the houses below.

  Four seventeenth-century cottages surrounded a cul-de-sac with a burbling fountain. House Fowler, House Tanner, and House Mason all stood empty, thanks to the exile of the unlucky thirteenth generation and their parents. Only House Buckles still had lights burning.

  “We should eat,” said Jack’s mom, hanging her hat and blue peacoat on a hook beside the door. “We need to keep up our strength for the storms ahead.”

  Dinner was quick and cold—mutton and toast. When he finished, Jack excused himself and went upstairs. He sat down in the big red chair beside his father’s bed and took up a frail hand beset with plastic tubes. “Gall is coming, Dad. And I don’t know how to stop him.”

  John Buckles the Twelfth, Jack’s dad, said nothing, leaving only the beeping of his life-support monitors to answer.

  “He’ll kill us. And then he’ll have the trackers disbanded.” Jack bobbled his head, trying to look on the bright side. “I guess that means the ministry won’t be able to prosecute you and Mom for the Section Eight thing.”

  Jack’s mom, Mary Buckles, had been born Mary Fowler, a daughter of another tracker family, and Section Eight of the ministry regulations strictly prohibited the mixing of tracker bloodlines. But Jack’s parents had fallen in love. His mom had run away to America and the two married in secret, using the exile of the thirteenth generation as cover.

  So Jack was a double whammy—a bad luck Section Thirteen and the cursed child of a Section Eight violation. His return had exposed
his parents. The ministry planned to put them on trial as soon as his dad woke up. But Gall would probably kill all four of them before it came to that, and maybe Gwen as well.

  Jack let go of his dad’s hand and slumped back into the chair, yawning. “If we don’t beat this, none of us will survive.” It was his last thought as he drifted off to sleep.

  The dream began as usual. Jack stood by himself in a crystalline cave, the type of world he experienced whenever he sparked on a jewel and stepped into the vision. The walls sparkled like diamonds.

  Gwen appeared beside him, dressed in the gray coat and black leggings she favored. “Oh, very nice. Is this a spark?”

  It wouldn’t matter how he answered. Jack had seen it all play out before, night after night. “No, Gwen. This is a nightmare. Please go away.”

  She didn’t hear him. “Cool. I’ve never been in a spark with you before.”

  Jack adored the way her freckles rose with her smile, the way they responded to her every expression. He had never told her that. There wasn’t time to tell her now. “You have to leave.”

  “But I just arrived.”

  Too late. The creature had already come.

  A faceted silhouette grew at the far end of the cave, taking the shape of a man in a bowler hat.

  Gwen glanced back at him. “I think that’s your dad.”

  “No.” Jack’s voice had grown weak, barely a whisper. “No, it isn’t.”

  Something moved in the diamond shell, like the larva of a moth, twisting and seething until the jeweled cocoon shattered into dust. A man emerged, wearing the same blue-green body armor he had worn when Jack had last faced him. “Hello, Lucky Jack.”

  From that point on, Jack’s words were scripted. He could not control them. “You’re dead. I saw you fall from Big Ben.”

  “No, mon ami. I am alive. And I am coming for you.” The Clockmaker pointed at Jack with a stump instead of a hand. “You stole my flame.”

  Jack hated that stump. He had never wanted to cut anyone’s hand off, but the Clockmaker had turned it into a flamethrower. “You gave me no choice. You were going to burn London.”

  “Liar.” The Clockmaker let out a wry chuckle. “You stole the Ember because you could not resist the beauty of the flames. And now you have a fire of your own burning inside.” His eyes shifted down to Jack’s closed fists.

  Jack slowly opened them. A tongue of white fire rested in each palm.

  The Clockmaker took a menacing step forward. “I will have that flame. It belongs to me.”

  “No. Leave me alone!” Jack thrust out his hands. The flames shot away, merging into a diamond fireball that slammed into the Clockmaker with a brilliant flash.

  That should have been it. The nightmare should have been over.

  It wasn’t.

  The fire consumed the Clockmaker, transforming him into a dragon of titanium, steel, and the same blue-green alloy that made up his body armor. Red eyes glowed. The creature came roaring forward, cracking the diamond floor with metal talons.

  Gwen charged out to meet it. “You should have stayed dead!”

  “Gwen! Don’t!” Jack tried to pull her back, but his fingers swept through her shoulder.

  The dragon opened its metal jaws and released a torrent of flame.

  “Gwen!”

  “Jack!” Someone was shaking him. “Jack, wake up!”

  Jack’s eyes popped open. He was still in the chair, listening to the eternal beeping of the monitors.

  “Oh, thank goodness. You’re conscious.” Gwen—the real Gwen—had her coat off, frantically swatting the arm of his chair.

  Jack blinked. “What . . . What are you doing?”

  “Saving you. As usual.” She shook out her coat, nodding down at the arm of the chair. Scorch marks marred the wood. Smoke drifted up from the burgundy quilting.

  Jack opened his right fist, the way he had opened it in the nightmare. A little yellow flame rested in his palm.

  Gwen puckered up her lips and blew it out. “We really must get control of that.”

  The grandfather clock standing in the corner read ten o’clock. Jack had been asleep less than an hour. “How did you get in here?”

  She laughed. “As if I ever left after we said goodbye. I followed you in and waited for the wardens to close up shop. I have a lead, Jack, something I saw at the tribunal. It’s solid.”

  “Did you pick the lock on our door again?” Jack was still trying to push away the fog of the dream. “You know how Mom feels about that.”

  Gwen slipped her coat on over a green sweater. “You’re not listening, Jack. I have a lead.”

  “Yeah. No. I heard you.” He rubbed at the scorch marks with the corner of his T-shirt, trying to wipe them away. “What kind of a lead?”

  “The kind of lead that could put Gall away, save your life, and perhaps save your dad’s in the process.”

  Chapter Five

  GWEN SPOKE LITTLE AS she dragged Jack across the bridge beneath the roaring waterfall of the Keep’s power station, making for the unguarded utility door at 221B Baker Street. Stealth was key. As a Section Thirteen, Jack could not leave the Keep without an order from Mrs. Hudson, which he did not have.

  Soon they were safely aboard a cylindrical carriage on the Ministry Express, the underground transport system of the four Elder Ministries. The purple glow of the maglev ribs flashed by the windows, casting their light across the quilted blue upholstery.

  Gwen handed Jack a grainy photo.

  “This is your lead?” he asked, tilting the picture to take better advantage of the globe lanterns at either end of the carriage. He had seen it before. Two men were posing before a green marble fireplace, arms across each other’s shoulders. One was Jack’s grandfather, John Buckles the Eleventh. The other man remained a mystery. Jack dropped his hand to his lap. “I found this, remember? In Grandpa’s journal where the page had been torn out. It was a dead end.”

  Jack and Gwen had started a quiet investigation into Gall after Tanner had let it slip that Jack’s grandfather had died to keep a dangerous artifact out of the spook’s hands—a small red sphere that Jack called the zed. According to Tanner, the zed could bring Jack’s dad out of the coma. Only Gall knew how. But the investigation had drifted into a black hole of missing journal pages and meaningless pictures.

  “We don’t even know who that other guy is.”

  “Don’t we?” Gwen took the photo back and pointed to the mystery man. “Picture him twenty years older, wearing a scarlet robe and a white wig—looking terribly, terribly bored.”

  Jack drew in a breath. “The Royal Arbiter.”

  “I recognized him during the hearing,” said Gwen, tucking the photo away. “And I’ve taken measures to keep tabs on him.” She held her phone between them, showing Jack what appeared to be a live image of Sir Drake—without the wig—leaving a restaurant.

  “You have the judge under surveillance?” Jack put a hand to his neck. He could already feel the noose closing.

  “Relax. It’s Spec. He’s quite discreet.” The carriage hummed to a stop, and the clamshell doors hissed open. “Hurry. He’s on the move.”

  They rushed across a multilevel platform of red granite. Cylindrical maglev trains flew through bronze rings above and below them. The Ministry Express side of Temple Station was drago territory, and Jack could feel their eyes boring into him as he ran. Dragos always stared at him. No one had ever told him why.

  During the elevator ride to the surface, they checked Spec’s video. Sir Drake strolled up Fleet Street. Gwen expanded the picture and tapped the screen, activating blue lines that identified his possible routes. She pointed to a large station three blocks on. “There. That’s Ludgate Circus. Trains. Buses. If he reaches it before we catch up, we’ll lose him.”

  She had not timed the statement well, since the elevator ride was not over. Muzak played from a speaker above them. And the two stood side by side in awkward silence. Gwen coughed. “Um . . . so, are you going to tel
l me why you lit your chair on fire and thrashed around in your sleep, all whilst calling my name?”

  Jack’s face went tingly. “I was”—he swallowed—“calling your name?”

  Gwen nodded.

  “Well . . . I was . . . I mean, you were . . .” The elevator bumped to a stop, saving him.

  Gwen slid open the door and took off at a quick walk, eyes on the video. “We’ll circle back to that one, shall we?”

  Their quarry did not take the projected route to the train station. Instead, he took a sudden left into a rat’s nest of alleyways, stairwells, and courtyards. Even with Spec’s video to help, it took all of Jack’s tracker skills to follow the judge’s trail through the rapid turns—the gray scuff of a leather sole on cobblestone, the yellow flap of a wool overcoat lined with silk.

  Jack slowed as they passed through a tiny courtyard. At the center stood the bronze memorial of a cat, seated on a dictionary. He wrinkled his nose. “Is that . . . ?”

  “A predecessor,” said Gwen, tugging him onward. “The Archivist of the eighteenth century lived on this lane. Brilliant man. Naturally, the cat gets the statue.”

  Moments later, the two caught up to Spec at the entrance to a tavern. Wooden barrels beneath the awning read YE OLDE MITRE.

  Jack had assumed Sir Drake was heading home, not hopping from a pub to a tavern. “So our only lead is an old judge out for a bender?”

  “I very much doubt that.” Gwen coaxed Spec back into his box and pulled open the door. “After you.”

  Only a few patrons haunted the front room. Grizzled faces flickered in the dim orange light. “Look.” Jack gave a subtle head tilt toward a green marble hearth where the last embers of the night’s coal lay dying. “That’s the fireplace from the picture.”

  The barkeep fixed them with a steady scowl, cleaning a glass with an old rag. “Whadda you two want?”

  Jack lowered his chin, avoiding eye contact. “We were looking for someone.”

  “In the snug.” The barkeep waved his rag at a tiny side room with YE OLDE CLOSET painted across the doorframe. “He’s waitin’ for you.”