“Help me…” a small voice begged.
Max raced through the doorway ahead only to find an empty room. It was some sort of laboratory with rusty instruments and tools that lined tarnished trays. Glass jars filled with mysterious liquids crowded dilapidated shelves, and a faint red stain ran along the concrete floor toward a drain. A steel table with leather straps for hands and feet stood in the center of the room. Then Max felt a cold hand on his shoulder.
Max pulled away and turned to look into the eyes of a young boy. He was dressed in a striped shirt and jeans, with a lone sneaker on his left foot.
“Did you call me?” Max managed to ask. “Are you Johnny?”
The boy said nothing but continued to stare, unblinking. That’s when Max realized that instead of eyes, there were camera lenses in the boy’s sockets. And worse, the veins in the boy’s pale arms were pulsing with a silver-blue glow. No matter where Max’s eyes fell, he found machinery in place of humanity. There wasn’t much left of the boy, but the single tear running down his silicon cheek was real.
Max’s stomach lurched and he tried to look away, but the same cold hand forced him to look back. This time the boy was gone. Ernie Tweeny, one of Max’s best friends, was standing in his place.
“Help me…” Ernie moaned through blue lips. Max stumbled back and fell against a tray of rusty instruments, sending them clanging to the floor. As Ernie walked into the light, Max saw that part of his friend’s skull had been cut away, revealing a mechanized brain of whirling gears ticking like a clock.
Max cried out as strong hands took hold of him from behind, lifting him into the air. He struggled against the invisible grip as his arms and legs were strapped to the table. A convex mirror hung over the table, and strangely, it wasn’t his own face looking back at him. Somehow Ernie had taken his place. Max fought to break free from the straps as a man in a stained lab coat walked into view. He was tall, with neatly combed silver hair, and as he turned to face the table Max’s blood froze. He would never forget those eyes. They were intelligent, cold, and as sharp as the scalpel he held in his gloved hand.
The man raised the gleaming instrument.
Max screamed.Then he woke up.
PART ONE
IRON BRIDGE ACADEMY
THE UNMARKED PACKAGE
Max Sumner pedaled his bike through the quiet streets of Avalon, Minnesota, trying to shake the nightmare from his head. He had been awake all night, too frightened to go back to sleep. The only thing keeping him from taking a nap was the last summer meeting of the Secret Order of the Grey Griffins. Max didn’t want to be late.
With school starting on Monday, the four friends had decided to spend their last day of summer vacation reading comic books and watching movies in their secret headquarters—a tree fort that Max decided to call the Griffins’ Aerie. Over the last year, Max, Harley Eisenstein, Natalia Romanov, and Ernie Tweeny had faced everything from leprechauns to six-armed ogres, and just about every monster in between. Their adventures had brought them closer than ever, but they were about to embark on their most intriguing quest yet—the Grey Griffins were transferring to a new school.
Iron Bridge Academy was a private military school run by the Knights Templar. The curriculum was designed to train students to combat unseen forces from the darkest of nightmares. The academy had been shut down for nearly a century, following an explosion that destroyed most of the buildings. Now the doors were opening again.
There were only two ways to be admitted into a Templar academy. The first was through birthright, which Max possessed. The Templar also chose individuals from the general populace who had extraordinary talent, intellect, and ingenuity, so Harley, Natalia, and Ernie were extended invitations as well.
By the time Max reached the Old Woods, Harley was already waiting for him.
“What are you doing?” Max asked as he set his bike down. Harley had a screwdriver in one hand. In the other, he held a palm-sized device with its electrical guts exposed.
“Just making a couple of adjustments,” Harley replied as he replaced the casing and screwed it back together. “It’s a tracking device.”
Harley handed Max a metal chip and told him to put it in his pocket. Harley then twisted a dial on his invention, and the dark screen flickered to life. Two flashing green dots instantly appeared. “That’s us.”
“What about Natalia and Ernie?”
“I gave them ID chips this morning,” Harley replied. “According to this little gizmo, they should be here right about… now.”
Max turned to find the other two members of the Grey Griffins coasting down the gravel road on their bikes. Natalia’s red hair was woven into braids that flew behind her. Ernie’s vintage World War I Army helmet bounced on his head.
“I thought you were excited about transferring to Iron Bridge,” Max heard Natalia say.
“I was, but King’s Elementary is the last normal thing in our lives,” Ernie explained. “Once we leave that behind, it’ll be nothing but a bunch of rigid rules.”
“Come on, Ernie, you know that’s not true,” Max said. “We’re going to accomplish things that we never dreamed we could do.”
“And what about all the other changelings at the academy?” Harley added. “You’ll finally be able to put together your own team of superpowered humans. It’ll be like a real-life comic book.”
“I never fit in anywhere I go,” Ernie complained. “Trust me, Iron Bridge isn’t going to be any different—changelings or not.”
Natalia sighed. “Look, Ernie. According to Brooke, we’re kind of famous.”
“Yeah,right.”
“I’m serious. Everyone at Iron Bridge thinks we’re heroes because we helped defeat the Black Wolf Society.”
Ernie smiled.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Max warned. “Brooke may be exaggerating.”
Brooke Lundgren was the only honorary member of the Grey Griffins. The boys wanted to make her membership official, but Natalia wasn’t quite ready to share the spotlight with another girl. Brooke knew that Natalia didn’t mean anything by it. A close friend had betrayed Natalia, so it wasn’t easy for her to trust other girls. Besides, Brooke had her own troubles. Her dad, Baron Cain Lundgren, had been given the directorship of Iron Bridge Academy. He had a reputation for being strict, and Brooke hoped that the other students wouldn’t hold it against her.
“I knew it was too good to be true,” Ernie sulked.
“What if I told you that my mom stocked the fridge with tons of junk food last night? Would that get your mind off school for a little while?” Max asked.
The Aerie was constructed of three separate buildings linked by suspension bridges and rope swings. It boasted air-conditioning, a cobblestone fireplace, a working kitchen, and hidden rooms with trick entrances. When the four friends reached the central building, Ernie scaled the ladder and pressed his thumb against a hidden sensor pad on the rafter. It had been installed as a safety precaution against prowling monsters. The lock on the door released with a click, and Ernie rushed straight to the refrigerator. In a matter of moments, his arms were overflowing with snacks.
“Hey, Harley, clear the table, will you?” Ernie asked as he tried to balance all the food.
“Clear it yourself,” Harley replied, sitting down to read through a stack of comic books. That’s when he saw the strange box wrapped in brown paper. It was unmarked, except for a faded Templar cross stamped on the top. “What’s in the package?”
“Maybe it’s our next assignment,” Max said. “I overheard someone talking about an infestation of Vampire Pixies.”
Natalia looked skeptical. “Since when do we get assignments in unmarked packages?”
Max shrugged as Ernie dumped the pile of food on top of the box.
“Ernest!” Natalia reprimanded. She began clearing away the snacks.
“What?” Ernie sat down and opened a bag of chips. “Did you expect me to hold that stuff forever? I have super speed, not super stren
gth.” With that, he shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and started smacking away.
Max broke the seal and pulled out a simple wooden box. Curious, he flipped the latch and opened the lid. Inside was a red velvet sack tied with a length of golden rope. He started to untie it, but Natalia grabbed his arm.
“Wait.” She reached inside the box and pulled out a piece of paper. Written in looping script were the words WIND STEM TO FIND HIM.
“Wind the stem?” Harley read aloud. “What does that mean?”
Max opened the little sack and turned it upside down. “Let’s find out.”
An object fell into the palm of his hand. It was a brass beetle, no more than two inches long. A perfect symphony of etched brass and silver filigree, the mechanical creature sat unmoving.
“That’s so supersonic!” Ernie said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. As the self-proclaimed “world’s first real superhero,” Ernie had decided he needed a catchphrase. So instead of describing things as awesome or amazing, he called everything supersonic.
Overwhelmed by curiosity, Ernie grabbed the beetle. With his greasy fingers, he wound the stem several revolutions. Inside, a series of gears engaged, and the beetle started tick as if it were a pocket watch. When Ernie set the beetle on the table, small brass legs unfolded. Then the mechanism spread its wings and lifted into the air.
“Whoa!” Harley stepped back as it zipped by his head while circling the room. “What is that thing?”
“Quick! Close the windows!” Max called.
Unfortunately, the mechanical creature had already spotted an open window and flown into the forest.
Max jumped over a stack of comic books and ran toward the escape slide. “Don’t let it get away, Ernie! We’ll be right behind you.”
TREASURES
Michelle Harrison
Little, Brown and Company
New York Boston
She was aware of their presence in the room before she even awoke.
An ominous twitching had begun in Tanya’s eyelids, a sure sign that trouble was on its way. Her eyes opened groggily. As usual, she had reverted to her childhood habit of sleeping with her head under the covers. She was uncomfortable, yet reluctant to shift position. If she did it would alert them to the fact that she was awake.
Beneath the stifling covers, Tanya longed to kick the sheets back and allow the soft summer breeze drifting in through the window to wash over her. She tried to tell herself she had dreamed it; maybe they were not really there after all. Still she lay unmoving—for deep down she knew they were there, as surely as she knew she was the only one who could see them.
Through the covers she could sense them, could feel the air in the room charged with a strange energy. She could even smell the earthy dampness of leaves, fungi, and ripened berries. It was their smell.
A quiet voice cut through the darkness.
“She sleeps. Should I rouse her?”
Tanya stiffened beneath her sanctuary of sheets. She still had the bruises from the last time. They had pinched her black and blue. A sharp prod in the ribs made her gasp.
“She is not asleep.” The second voice was cold, controlled. “She is pretending. No matter. I do so enjoy these little… games.”
The last traces of drowsiness left her then. There was no mistaking the underlying threat in those words. Tanya prepared to throw back the sheets—but they were strangely heavy all of a sudden, weighing down on her—and they were growing steadily heavier.
“What’s happening… what are you doing?”
She clawed at the sheets, frantically trying to push them away. They seemed to be wrapping themselves around her like a cocoon. For one terrifying moment she struggled for breath before managing to free her head and suck in a lungful of cool night air. It was several seconds before she noticed that the glass star lantern covering the bedroom lightbulb was directly in front of her face.
Suddenly, Tanya realized why the bedclothes were so heavy. She was floating in midair, five feet above her bed—supporting the full weight of them.
“Put me down!”
Slowly, through no control of her own, she began turning sideways in the air. The bedclothes promptly slid off and fell to the carpet, leaving Tanya hovering facedown above her bed in her pajamas. Without the shelter of the covers she felt horribly vulnerable. She pulled her hair back from her face and scanned the room. The only living thing she saw in the darkness was the cat: a ridiculous fluffy gray Persian curled in a ball on the windowsill. It got up, giving her a haughty look before turning its back to her and settling down once more.
“Where are you?” she said, her voice shaking. “Show yourselves!”
An unpleasant laugh sounded from somewhere near the bed. Tanya felt herself being propelled forward, and before she knew what was happening she had turned a full somersault in the air, followed by another… and another.
“Just stop it!”
She heard the desperation in her voice and hated it.
The somersaulting stopped and, finally, she landed on her feet—upside down on the ceiling. The curtains billowed weirdly in the breeze. She averted her eyes, trying to steady herself. It was as if gravity had reversed for her only. The blood was not rushing to her head, her pajamas were not falling upward, and her hair was now tumbling down her back.
She sat down on the ceiling, defeated. This was the reason they came in the middle of the night. She had figured that much out a long time ago. At night she was completely at their mercy, whereas in the day, if she happened to be caught in any strange situation, she had a far better chance of passing it off as a game or trick of some kind. Just one of many “games” and “tricks” over the years.
She couldn’t remember the first time she had seen them, exactly. They had always been there. She had grown up chattering away to herself as her parents looked on at first in amusement, then later, with concern.
As the years passed she had learned to lie convincingly. Talk of fairies did not wash well with adults once you were past a certain age. There were no more of the knowing looks and fond smiles that came with infancy. Tanya did not take it too personally. People didn’t believe in what they couldn’t see.
The incidents had become more vindictive of late. It was one thing having to cut out a few tangles after an encounter with an enchanted hairbrush, or finding that the answers to homework had been mysteriously tampered with overnight. But this was serious. For months now, Tanya had harbored a nagging worry that eventually something bad was going to happen, something she couldn’t explain her way out of. Her worst fear was that her increasingly weird behavior would land her on the couch of a psychiatrist.
Floating around in the air was not a good predicament. If her mother awoke to find her walking about on the ceiling, it wouldn’t be a doctor she called—it would be a vicar.
She was in trouble of the worst kind.
There was a waft of cool air on her face, and Tanya felt the brush of feathered wings skim her cheek. A large, black bird swooped at her shoulder, its glittering eyes blinking once before the bird morphed as quickly as a shadow would vanish in the sun. Silken black hair and the pinkish tips of two pointed ears replaced the cruel, curved beak, as a woman not much larger than the bird shifted into its place. She wore a gown of black feathers; it was stark against her ivory skin.
“Raven,” Tanya whispered. She watched as a feather fell from the fairy’s dress and floated lightly to the carpet. “Why are you here?”
Raven did not answer. She alighted at the foot of the bed, next to two small figures, one plump and ruddy-nosed, the other dark-skinned, wiry, and skittish looking. Both were watching her intently. The smaller of the two was the first to speak.
“You’ve been writing about us again.”
Tanya felt her face burn. “I haven’t, Gredin… I didn’t.”
Gredin’s yellow eyes glittered, shockingly bright in contrast to his nut-brown face. “But that’s what you said last time. And the time bef
ore.”
Outside, a dark, rectangular object was drifting toward the open window as though carried on the breeze. It soared gracefully through the curtains and into the room, and halted before Tanya’s dismayed face. It was a journal, fairly new and in good condition—but covered in soil. She had buried it beneath the apple tree in the garden that afternoon. How foolish she had been.
“Yours, I believe?” said Gredin.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
The plump little fellow next to Gredin snorted.
“Oh… come now,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to be up there all night, would you?” He reached up and gave the peacock feather in his cap a light stroke, then twisted his ratty moustache around his forefinger. The feather shimmered at his touch, rich with enchantment. The fat little man removed the quill from his cap and gave it a deft flick.
The diary opened, releasing a clod of earth that fell to the floor and broke over one of Tanya’s slippers. A muffled sneeze came from inside the slipper, and then a fourth and final fairy emerged from inside it, hoglike and ugly. The creature beat its ragged brown wings with some effort and landed in a clumsy heap on the bed. After regaining its balance it began scratching vigorously, showering the bedclothes with molting fur and fleas, then gave a cavernous yawn, rubbing its snout with tiny brown paws.
Once, when she was smaller, and before her parents’ divorce, Tanya had been sulking ungraciously after a telling-off. After a few minutes her mother had snapped, “Don’t be such a little Mizhog.”
“What’s a Mizhog?” Tanya asked, curious despite herself.
“It’s a horrible hoggy creature that’s always miserable,” her mother had replied. “And with that face you’re pulling, you look just like one.”
This was something Tanya remembered every time she saw the flea-bitten brown fairy. Its hangdog expression fit the description of her mother’s invented creature so perfectly that, in her own mind, Tanya would forever think of it as a Mizhog. As the creature, unlike the other fairies, had never put forth a name for itself, the name Tanya had selected stuck.
Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #2: The Relic Hunters Page 23