Gabrielle wound the silver bird, then threw it high into the air. It flapped its wings, letting out a squealing noise with each stroke against the air.
It turned south, and Will and I were on the chase. At first we ran, trying to keep the tiny bird in sight as it winged its way through the clear winter sky. Our breath turned to tendrils of fog around our faces.
Will slowed to a stop ahead of me and placed his hands on his knees as he laughed while trying to catch his breath. “Must it always be like this?”
My boots crunched through a thin patch of frost as I joined him. It was wonderful to feel both dizzy from my exertion and free. There was nothing around us save fallow fields and thick stands of barren trees. No one to judge. No one to assume. No one at all. “I hope so.”
I turned the compass over in my hands, feeling the seams and inspecting the gears under the face of the needle.
“Don’t you dare pull that thing apart to see how it works,” Will said.
“I would do no such thing,” I protested.
Will smiled at me. “You were thinking about it.”
I bowed my head and grinned, then stepped up next to him as we continued on. He was right, as always. The troll.
The day wore on while we talked as we crossed the frozen fields and wandered along the desolate country lanes. We conversed about nothing and everything at once. It was like we were speaking our letters aloud and letting our minds wander together.
The sun began to settle, low on the horizon, but we followed the compass toward the bird and Pensée.
Finally, after walking all day, I could see a large mansion atop a tall hill. Small pockets of forest tucked around the base of the hill, but even the loftiest branches didn’t reach as high as the house itself. Light from the setting sun caught in the many windows. From the distinct peaked roof with its rows of gables, to the high arched windows with balconies, it was a house built for the sky. Everything about it seemed to reach toward the heavens, especially the central dome that towered over the rest of the house.
“Do you think that is Pensée?” I was stunned. “It’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful like a grave,” Will muttered. “Come. We’ve a ways to go yet.”
Before long we reached a high and smooth wall that surrounded the base of the hill. The forest had grown around it and had concealed it from a distance. Though both Will and I looked, there was no clear way over.
The gate was equally foreboding. Corrosion had turned the gate an eerie green. Two heavy knockers in the shape of wolf heads stared at us with hollowed-out eyes. The silver bird had landed on the top of the wall, and now chirped at us. I wasn’t sure if it was in encouragement or warning.
Will pushed at the gate. “It’s locked.”
I tried the knocker, and it fell with a heavy thud against the perfectly round disk beneath the striker. I winced as the sound echoed off the hill.
There was no answer. The house remained still.
“There has to be some way in.” I smoothed my hands over the door. There was no latch, which meant that the mechanism for locking the gate was either on the inside or within the gate itself.
“Perhaps there is a way we can climb over,” Will suggested as he took a step back and inspected the wall. He ran at the wall and launched himself upward with a push of his boot against the smooth stone, but it was no use. He fell back to the ground like a cat, always on his feet. He turned and looked at me. “I could lift you.”
“I have no way down on the other side, and we don’t know what is behind the gate. Whatever it is, we should face it together.” I took a deep breath.
“A fine point.” Will removed his cap, rubbed his hair, and then pulled it back on. “For all we know, Durant is dead.”
“What a pleasant thought.” There had to be some way through. I just didn’t see it. I took a closer look at the knockers, feeling the edge of the medallion beneath the swinging ring that hung from the wolf ’s mouth. It was the perfect size for my key.
I pushed and prodded at it, but it revealed nothing.
“What are you after?” Will asked, walking back toward me after making a second attempt to scale the wall.
“The strike plate for the knocker is the right size and shape to use my key, but it’s useless. There’s nothing there.”
Will took a step back and cocked his head as he considered the gate. “Have you tried that one?” He pointed toward the knocker on the left.
I hadn’t even thought of it. Usually a left knocker was only ornamental. Most of them weren’t even able to move. Which is why no one would look for anything special there. Brilliant.
Quickly I inspected the knocker, combing over every inch of it.
Sure enough, there was a tiny latch below the strike plate. I placed my thumb on it and slid it as far as I could to the right.
Something inside it clicked, and hope surged through me. Though it was stiff with corrosion, the medallion swung to the side, revealing the cradle for my key.
I snatched the key from around my neck and pulled the cover open. The silver flower with slightly triangular petals rose out of the center of the watch exactly as it had the very first time Will and I had opened it.
I felt a tingle down my back as I fitted the silver flower into the lock. The other knocker slid sideways, revealing a tiny set of keys for a minuscule pianoforte set behind it. This was it, Papa’s lock. All I needed was for the key to reveal the correct phrase from my grandfather’s song, and the door would open. Only, my key didn’t play the tune at all.
I would have to play the entire thing. Papa had definitely been here. No one else knew the entire song. He had locked the gate to everyone but himself.
“Papa set this lock. I have to play the whole song,” I said to Will as he watched over my shoulder.
“Your grandfather was serious about keeping people out. We have to be careful.” Will placed his hand on my shoulder as I played the wandering melody.
With each note, clicks, whirrs, and other mechanical noises emanated from the large gates. Will followed the muffled echoes of sounds along the walls. They couldn’t have only been for a lock. They were too extensive.
“Meg, I think we’re winding something,” he said.
The last time we passed through such a gate, a mechanical Minotaur greeted us on the other side. Papa was both brilliant and determined to keep himself safe from a murderer. He would have no incentive to create something with restraint. I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to face the genius of my grandfather when he’d been bent on defending himself, but we had to. “Is there anything we can use as a weapon?”
Will reached up and pulled a pair of thick branches off a fallen limb just as I finished the song. The gates ominously opened before us.
I tried to swallow my fear as the crack between them widened. I waited for something to leap toward me from the other side. The crack grew, but all it revealed was a path through the woods. Everything fell still, even the bird atop the gate.
“Can you spare me a bit of your hem?” Will asked, pulling his knife from his sock and handing it to me. I used it to trim the lower frill of lace from my petticoat. I didn’t wish to trip over it anyway.
Will cut the strip in half and wound one around each of the tops of the two limbs, then pulled a flask from his coat.
“Will?” He wasn’t one for heavy drink.
“Duncan gave it to me,” he said soberly. “It’s still full.”
The last thing we needed was a reminder of how quickly our adventures could turn deadly. Will poured the liquid onto the strips from my petticoat, then drew a match and lit them. “Hopefully if we find something, we can use these to distract it,” Will said as he handed a torch to me. The Minotaur had used heat to find and track us, but we had been able to use fire to blind it. Will really was far more clever than many gave him credit for. “Ready?” he asked.
I nodded and held my torch aloft as the sun set in a wave of fire behind us. With my free hand I took his. “Let’s go.�
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The gates now seemed eerily still as they stood wide open. We walked through hand in hand. The eyes of the wolves sculpted above the knockers seemed to follow us as we passed.
Once we were on the other side, the gates closed slowly. The rattling echoed off the hill, and the evening seemed much darker in the shadow of the gate. I held my torch high as we followed the path into the woods. With every step, I waited for the ambush. Every muscle in my back and neck felt tense, and Will held my hand tightly.
The gates closed with a heavy boom. Then suddenly the only sound in the still cool quiet of the evening was the crunch of our boots on the dried leaves and patches of ice on the path.
I could see my breath curling around my face in the flickering light of the torch. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I heard a twig break.
I turned, searching the shadows for something, anything. “Was that you?” I whispered.
“No.”
My stomach tumbled through my middle. Will lifted his torch, and the light glinted off something in the shadow of the trees. Two points of light glowed red in the darkness. Then two more, then two more.
Oh God.
I lifted my torch and looked around frantically. Ten gleaming eyes, fixed on us. They moved closer, and the light shimmered against the metal faces of five large mechanical wolves.
One of them lifted his long snout, and his mouth fell open, revealing glinting silver teeth as sharp as knives. Metal fur covered his head and neck; it gleamed in deadly blades and spikes. A thick lens had been fixed over his left eye, and the outer ring of it turned, warping the red light of his mechanical iris as he focused on me. He growled, the sound a combination of a mechanical rattle and the grinding of gears.
Moving on instinct, I shifted, turning my back to Will’s as the wolves surrounded us.
One by one the wolves lifted their heads and howled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS THE ALARM. THEY were warning the house we were there. I trembled, holding fast to my torch even though the flame wavered. The howls chilled me as they faded in the cold air. The wolves lowered their heads, and all their eyes fixed on us again.
Will waved his torch, but the wolves didn’t follow the motion of his arm. Their eyes remained on us. These beasts were more sophisticated than the Minotaur had been.
I took a slow step back toward the gate. The wolves watched me, but they didn’t move forward and they didn’t attack.
“What are they waiting for?” I whispered.
All the wolves’ heads shifted to focus on me.
“I think they’re holding us here until someone can call them off,” Will said. He leaned over and picked up a rock. “Brace yourself.”
He threw the rock over the shoulder of one of the wolves. It clattered behind the pack, and their heads turned toward the noise.
“Are they following the sound?” I whispered. The conical curls of metal that made their ears turned back toward me, and they returned to their previous defensive stance. They were following sound, at least partly.
Will’s posture had hunched forward, anticipating the attack, his body still and prepared. I shook inside, and he looked as steady as granite. “If they’re anything like real wolves, they won’t attack so long as we’re facing them. But if we move, they’ll run us down. If they can follow sound, they’ll follow our steps. We need a distraction.”
These were not real wolves. They had no fear, no sense of self-preservation. They could afford to be merciless in a way that a living thing could not. They scared me far worse than a real wolf ever could.
I shoved my hand deep into the pocket I had sewn into my skirts. I fumbled around in the thick fabric. It had to still be there. My numb fingers stung as I searched. Finally my hand closed around a small orb, one of my alarms. It was the one Will had tossed to me so carelessly in the shop. Thank heaven.
“Hold this,” I whispered as I handed Will the torch. One of the wolves took another step forward, his mechanical paw sinking into the frozen leaves only a few feet from me. Will pointed the torch at the metal beast. With stiff fingers half-frozen from the cold, I twisted the two halves of the orb.
Immediately it let out a shrieking whistle. The heads of all the wolves snapped up as they surged forward.
“Here!” Will shouted as he moved both torches to one hand and held out the other. I tossed the orb into it, and he immediately flung it away from us. It sailed through the sky, the wail trailing along through the still evening.
The wolves turned and ran, loping through the woods with the power of the wheels and springs in their backs.
“Run!” Will shouted.
I grabbed my skirts and sprinted up the path, climbing the hill toward the house. The orb wouldn’t wail forever. It had given us a head start, but it wouldn’t last long.
Holding my skirts, I ran as best I could, but I couldn’t swing my arms, and I couldn’t breathe freely with my corset. The hill turned steep, and the path twisted toward the house at the top. Will kept himself between me and the wolves, even though he could run freely.
Panting for breath, I heard the whistle die. I glanced back at Will behind me. We paused for the briefest of seconds.
Perhaps if we were quiet enough, the wolves would stay at the bottom of the hill. We didn’t have much farther to go.
Just then I realized we were standing in two inches of frost-covered leaves. Will motioned forward, and I took a tentative step, easing my toe into the leaves as gingerly as I could, but they crunched down beneath my boot. It must have only been the slightest of noises, but to my ears it sounded like the crunch of a hundred breaking bones.
The howl sounded again.
They were coming.
Will leapt forward, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him as we ran for the top. I glanced back over my shoulder. The silver wolves raced straight up the hill toward us. They did not turn and they did not waver. I could hear the clattering of their joints, but somehow they managed not to distract one another as they followed us without err.
I had no luxury to wonder how this was accomplished. “Will! They’re right on our heels!”
“Hurry! To the door!” He flung me forward, and the momentum carried me up over the crest of the hill and to the courtyard before the mansion. I ran over the barren front garden and the curving drive that led to the front steps. My face burned. I couldn’t feel my feet, but I pushed forward as hard as I could.
Will’s footsteps fell hard on the ground behind me, and I swore I could feel the phantom breath of the wolves as they snapped their vicious metal jaws together.
My momentum carried me straight into the hard surface of the closed door. I felt the impact of the crash deep in my shoulder and the bone beneath my cheek, but I had to shake off the pain. I furiously rapped on the knocker, then pounded on the door, screaming for someone to let us in—before I came to my senses. The knockers were identical to the ones on the gate.
“The left one,” I gasped out as I slid to the side. As I did so, I caught sight of Will, with his twin torches blazing as he made his stand at the top of the steps.
The first wolf leapt at him. Will twisted, swinging the fiery branches up and under the body of the wolf. With a grunted shout he changed the beast’s trajectory and sent it flying into the wall. The wolf crashed against the stone, damaging its spine. It kicked and struggled but couldn’t find its feet.
I had to get us inside. With unsteady hands I reached for my key and fitted it into the left-hand striker. The other knocker opened, revealing the musical keys. I pressed my ear to the silver locket to try to hear the song and where it ended. Once again it was silent. I had to play the whole thing.
That would take minutes. We didn’t have minutes.
Once again I spared a glance at Will as I moved back to the door on the right so I could play the tune. He brandished his torches at the wolves, holding them off, but they lunged and snapped, pressing into his space and forcing him back toward the door.
I played the melody as fast as I could, praying I wouldn’t make a mistake and have to start over. “Why are they being so aggressive?” I shouted at Will as he landed a powerful kick against the lowered head of one of the wolves. “I thought they wouldn’t attack so long as we faced them.”
“I don’t know!” Will shouted. “It’s not like I created the blasted things. Hurry, would you?”
I continued to play, cringing at the sounds behind me. With every strike of metal on the stone stairs, I imagined the wolves overwhelming Will and tearing him apart.
“Meg!”
I jumped, then turned to the side as one of the wolves charged forward and crashed into the door with its shoulder. The spikes and blades making up its fur bent with the impact. It held its head at a strange angle, and the light in one eye flickered out as it shook its head. It growled at me, lifting the silver blades around its neck. I kicked it in the snout and continued playing.
With a snarl it lunged and grabbed me by the arm. Its teeth cut into my flesh. Then it clamped down on the loose billows of my coat sleeve and held fast. I screamed, my arm on fire, hot and wet. I tugged against the wolf ’s hold. My eyes burned as I gritted my teeth. I could hear the fabric ripping, but I would not let the wolf pull me from the door.
Stretching back, I played the last two notes.
The moment I played them, the wolf suddenly released me.
The three wolves that remained lowered their heads, then turned and ran back down the hill. The one that had held me followed, limping along the path.
I cradled my wounded arm against my stomach as I doubled over.
Will rushed toward me and wrapped his arm over my shoulder as the door opened before us.
A man stood in the shadows behind the door. He was dressed in old livery, a butler perhaps?
“Sir, please, we’re searching for Maurice Durant. Is he here?” I asked in French.
The butler reached up and grasped his lapel in one white-gloved hand, but made no other indication he’d heard me at all. His glove had faded and turned gray, and there was a hole in the back, where something glinted beneath, as if it were made of . . . metal?
Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) Page 12