The Cog Chronicles Box Set

by P M Cole

  I looked at the pool of blood slowly creeping outwards from the body.

  “And how many will die for that?”

  “They are only human! It does not matter how many die! We will use human technology against them. We will cleanse this realm, so only whom we deem worthy may live within it!”

  While he was talking, without his knowledge I had taken control of the iron poker from the nearby hearth, and it was posed ready to strike. I just needed to know, for my own sanity, that he was as evil as I thought, that his recent words were just that. And now I knew.

  I went to thrust the iron sharped rod into his heart when all my strength left me, and I fell back against the nearby bookshelf.

  I turned to my side, hardly able to lift my head. Daniel was standing in the doorway, his eyes aflame, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Hades.

  The older man flicked his head to the side, saw the poker now lying on the ground, then looked back to Daniel. I could see the concern in his eyes, despite the smile that was now forming across his face.

  “How… much did you hear boy?”

  I let out a breath, as if the blood started to flow once again around my person.

  Daniel walked towards his supposed father, his face one of disgust. “It was a lie…”

  A flicker of pain was evident on Hades face as he winced. “No, boy, you misheard. I only said those things…” Hades doubled over and reached for the stability of the nearby chair.

  “You don’t want to help people, you want to enslave them, or worse.”

  He looked at me. “She was right about you all along!” He walked towards me and helped me back to my feet.

  “He has to die, Daniel,” I said. “It’s the only way he will be stopped, or he will destroy everything.” I could see the suffering in Daniel’s face, but he nodded regardless.

  Hades cried out in pain. He tried to talk but now he was on the ground, his face was covered in dark, red patches as some unknown illness ate through him.

  Heavy footsteps came from the nearby stairs and Grace charged into the room. “What are you doing to him!” she screamed at Daniel.

  “He’s evil!” he shouted in reply.

  Grace moved close to Daniel and I saw him tense. “I know…”

  Daniel fell back against me, holding his stomach. Blood was forming across his shirt. She lunged at me, raising the blade above her, which again I had no control over, but with an instant's thought I was able to send the poker through the air, striking her on the back of her head and knocking her to the ground.

  I had to finish Hades. I surged forward, holding my hand out as the poker flew into my grip, and stood above the forlorn god. I started to bring it down with all the force my powers would give me, when a voice rang out across the room.

  “Stop! He’s your father!” cried my mother.

  I froze as if the iron rod had pieced my own heart, then refused to believe what I just heard and went to drive it into his body once again, but I found my arms would not allow me to do so.

  “My father…” I said under my breath.

  “You’re his daughter, Corine…” said my mother.

  Grace went to get back to her feet, but Daniel’s eyes intensified, and she fell back to the ground. More steps were coming from the staircase. I waved the door shut and melted the handle to keep it so. Booms came from the wood as others tried to enter.

  I looked at Ophelia, tears stinging my eyes. “He… can’t be. He’s evil…”

  Hades groaned. “I’m… your father…”

  I wavered, my head feeling light.

  The windows started to vibrate, and an intense light came from them. I thought it was in my mind, but the glass broke causing everyone to cover their faces. I had no idea what was happening.

  “Cog, we have to go!” shouted Lucas through the hole where the window used to be.

  I saw a ball of light appear in my mother's hands.

  “No!” I screamed at her.

  She pulled her hand back to fire off her magic, but I pulled more iron from the hearth, wrapping it around her wrists and pinning her back to the door.

  I looked back down at Hades who was trying to get to his feet, then swiped the poker across his head. A spray of blood accompanied another groan as he fell to the ground.

  Lucas, now inside, pulled me towards the window, but I resisted, instead moving towards Daniel, languishing on the floor. “Help me with him!” I shouted to Lucas.

  We both pulled him to his feet, then climbed through the window and staggered across the ice-ridden roof towards a cabin of a dirigible, much larger than the one I travelled in before.

  The door flung open, and an elderly woman in the driver's position looked back at me, with a smile.

  “Good to see you again,” said Charlotte.

  We clambered inside the cabin, closed the door and the craft started to rise.

  *****

  Lucas’s and Charlotte’s words of joy were mingled with concern for the tall blonde-haired man sitting next to me.

  Hades is your father.

  I looked at Daniel. He seemed unconcerned at the dark red circular patch on his midriff. “How do you feel? We will get you to a hospital or maybe Dax can—”

  He looked at me as if just woken from a long sleep, his eye lids heavy. “Do not worry yourself. My wound has healed.”

  “Oh…”

  Hades is your father.

  I shook my head and looked out the frosted window. Flakes of snow flew past as we sailed across the rooftops of London. I looked back into the cabin. “Wh… where are we going?” I forced the words from my mouth.

  “South of the river,” said Charlotte. Her wrinkled hands gently steered the large wheel.

  I went to talk again but my throat tightened. “I’m sorry what happened to you,” I said to her. “Heather is insane… another monster…” I noticed Daniel’s eyes glance at me then he looked away.

  I felt my face. Tears were running down my cheeks, but I felt oddly devoid of sadness. I had no word for how I felt. Terror would be one word, not of the man I left on the attic room floor, but of myself. I had to be evil, like him. Bewilderment would be another. I had slipped into an alternative reality. I suddenly felt sick. I pushed open the small door and released the contents of my stomach into the night. Lucas and Daniel grabbed me, holding most of me inside.

  I looked down at mostly darkness, only broken by the occasional glimpse of blue-white roofs and streets, sliding by beneath us.

  “My father…” I said into the wind.

  “What is that?” said Lucas. “Are you finished. You need to close the door.”

  I leaned back in and closed the door as asked.

  A hand touched my wrist and I pulled away, looking back at Lucas, awakening from my own thoughts.

  “You’re safe now.” He then looked at Daniel. “Both of you.”

  I suddenly remembered Colin and the others. “Colin? Olivia?” I asked.

  “They got out with the others. They are on the way to where we are going. You saved them, Cog.”

  I went to talk, but my throat was too tight again, and I swallowed down more tears.

  The rest of the journey was in silence as we moved over south London districts until finally reaching our destination. Below us was the Crystal Palace.

  I stepped out onto a snow-covered roof, lost in the clouds. Mr Fishbone was waiting, along with Bernard and some others I did not recognise.

  Bernard walked forward and hugged me. “My dear. It is good to see you are well!”

  I tried to smile.

  Daniel, Charlotte, and Lucas got out and we all walked through a door, down some steps and into one of the large rooms I had seen a few weeks before. Now though, it was full of people and creatures. A fire roared on one side while newly erected shelves and furniture lay against the clear walls.

  The room fell silent on our appearance.

  We kept on walking through the large space, until we arrived at the cryst
al room, with the large table. Both that and the roof were now mended. Lucas closed the double doors behind us and went straight for a bottle, that was resting on a nearby shelf.

  “I need a drink,” he said.

  “Same for me,” said Charlotte.

  I could now see her more clearly. She was an inch shorter, scrawnier and wrinkles fanned out from the edges of her eyes and mouth, but she was the same woman from a week earlier. I ran forward and threw my arms around her.

  “Oh child…” she said before words failed her. I pulled back. “I didn’t know if you had died, or what else Heather had done to you!”

  She sat down, with a little effort, in the crystal seat behind her. “As you can see, I’m quite alive, just a little slower than I used to be.” She smiled. “But you appear quite well.” She looked at what I had been holding onto since leaving the manor. I had almost forgotten I was gripping the poker, but then the reason I was doing so came back to me.

  I placed it on the table.

  “We can’t kill Hades. I tried,” I said. Daniel looked at me but remained silent. “But now we can achieve our first plan.”

  Lucas placed Charlotte’s glass on the table, then looked down at the blood glistening on the end of the iron rod. He looked up at me. “Hades' blood?”

  I nodded.

  Continued in book 3…

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER ONE

  I held the cloak tight around my shoulders, keeping my hands tucked in to keep warm. I was perched high on top of the Crystal Palace, as the sun rose somewhere in the east. The daylight was doing its best to warm my skin, but my mind felt as frozen as the pipe I was sitting on. Clumps of icy flakes gently fell from the grey heavens onto the dirigible landing area in front of me.

  My mother’s words kept playing in my mind, and each time I searched for a reason not to believe them, but on some level, I knew they were true. Hades was my father. Not an actual father, not a man that had any right to the name, but someone who was somehow part of me, and worse, I of him.

  But he wasn’t just a man, he was the god of the underworld. What did that make me? Daughter of the underworld?

  A ripple of laughter bubbled up but failed to make it from my lips as my mind fell back into bewilderment.

  And what about Gideon, my actual father? Did he know of my mother’s unfaithfulness? They argued a lot I remember that much. Maybe he did know, but either way he died trying to protect me. He deserved better.

  I looked at the large dirigible, straining against its ropes holding it to the roof. This one was similar in design to the one I traveled to Whitechapel in, but with a larger envelope and accommodation. As I studied its elements, other designs leapt into my mind, and I let them fly free in my imagination, creating more and more advanced versions, a welcome respite from my other thoughts.

  The ideas evaporated when the door to the roof opened and Daniel appeared, bracing himself against the wind. He walked and sat down on the same pipe I had found an hour earlier.

  “The others want you to come back in,” he said.

  I glanced at him, then back out at the frost-covered grass and trees of the park, now leaving their shadows behind.

  He looked in the same direction. “Are you going to tell them?”

  “Tell them what.”

  “You know what, that Hades is—”

  I whipped my head around, catching his gaze. “Do not finish that sentence! It is my secret to share and no one else’s.”

  He nodded.

  I relaxed my anger. “Did you know?”

  He shook his head. “No, none of us knew.” He sighed. “Another secret he kept from me.” He paused as in thought, then met my eyes with his. “I owe you an apology. What I said to you in your basement home and—”

  I shook my head. “You were under his spell as much as anyone. Even I, before the events of last night… I started to question everything I thought I knew before coming to Grayton manor. He said Mr Gladwell wanted me for revenge against him, that Mr Gladwell had tried to take all of you, and I was the only one he was not able to save…”

  “He told us the same stories. Now, I do not know which is the truth, and which are falsehoods.”

  “Mr Gladwell was one of the most honourable men I had ever known… But I sensed some element of truth in Hades' words. Perhaps Mr Gladwell did try to get to all of you, but not out of revenge but to save you from him?”

  Daniel nodded in agreement then waited again, finding more courage to ask his next question. “When we first returned, you said you tried to kill him, but couldn’t.”

  “Yes.”

  “I was there. I saw what condition he was in. I had weakened him. You could have done it, but you stopped.”

  His words were taking me back to the attic room, a place I did not want to be. “I… don’t think it would have worked if I tried. I remembered what Lucas had told me about undoing Chronus’s spell. That we needed Hades' blood, so I thought that would be a better…” It was a lie that I was also telling myself.

  “And you think that is possible? To send him back to the underworld?”

  “Lucas seems to think so. We have to try.” I looked at the young man next to me; his blond hair looking unruly, his chin full of stubble. “What will you do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you’re a medical student, you have studies to attend?”

  He looked away in thought. “I can’t return to my former life; it will be too dangerous. Hades… might not be willing to kill you, but I doubt he will extend the same courtesy to myself.” He briefly smiled. “My medical career will have to be put on hold.”

  While being caught up in my own web of confusion I hadn’t given any thought to what Daniel must have been going through. The man he thought of as his father, who he looked up to, had been lying to him his entire life. I put my hand upon his. I regarded this tall medical student as more family, than the woman that birthed me. “You will be a doctor one day.” I pulled my hand back. “But… we will have to fight to get to that day. Did you hear everything Hades said to me?”

  “Not everything. But I saw the Prime Minister on the floor. I presume Hades killed him?”

  “Yes, if I had entered the room sooner… Maybe I could have done something… From what I heard Gladstone did not want to go along with Hades' plans. But I’m not sure killing him was what Hades originally intended.”

  Daniel sat up slightly, his eyes widening.

  “What if he says you, or we, killed him?”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “I don’t know…”

  “How will we run from Hades and the government? There will be nowhere safe for us!”

  My head ached. I had no answers to any of his questions and fatigue was starting to claw at me. I stood. “I need to get some rest.”

  *****

  People rushed past me, panic in their eyes. I tried to catch someone to find out what they were so afraid of, but everybody slipped from my grasp. The whole street was a sea of people: men, women, children, each one wanting to get away from an unknown terror.

  Then I heard police whistles, and horses galloping, not caring who their hoofs trampled. Someone bumped into my leg. I looked down. A grime-covered boy tried to pull away, but I grabbed hold of his arm.

  “Why do you run?” I asked.

  He stammered until eventually his words formed. “Death’s coming, miss!”

  He struggled and I let him melt into the fear around me.

  Omnibuses, carts, horses, people, the whole of London desperate to escape their fate. I didn’t know why, but I ran with them, scrambling, swept up in the wave. I jumped onto a cart, holding onto the back with others, and looked the same way everyone else was, back towards the dome of St Paul's Cathedral many miles off.

  I realised there were people crammed onto the back, lying on sacks. The hazel eyes of a girl looked back at me. She was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her in the din. Her lips seemed to be
saying…

  ’Too… late…’

  The world turned white. A brief flash which enraptured everyone around me, until screams filled the air, and everyone started to move again, but it was useless as in the distance I saw the buildings crumbling, a wave of furious heat and wind devouring everything in its path. Above it a towering cloud rose high into the clouds.

  I jumped from the cart and ran, knowing there was no point. A rush of heat knocked me forward and I woke up.

  My heart boomed in my ears, as I scrambled backwards, sitting up against the headboard. Around me were bookshelves, covering the largely transparent walls, but providing me some privacy from the other similar rooms.

  The image of death hung in my mind, not allowing my senses to fully awake. I tried to blink them away, when my ears picked up voices outside.

  Due to the light from the window I could tell it was still daylight, but I had no idea how long I had been out, or even if it was the same day. I hoped it was.

  I swung my legs around. My torn golden dress was laid out in a far corner of the room, my person now being covered by a long black skirt and grey top given to me by Charlotte.

  For a moment, lost between my nightmare and the possible day ahead I felt lighter. Then, what happened at the factory, the last few days, the banquet… all came rushing back and I wavered, even though I was still seated.

  “I have to be strong…” I whispered, but my words slammed up against the memories. I clenched the edge of the bed frame, steadying myself then took a deep breath.

  Through a gap between the furniture that was pressed up against the wall, I glimpsed people and creatures moving past. The crystal bastion on the hill appeared to still be full of refugees.

  I got up and opened the door to a fury of noise. Those closest to me stopped their conversation, their faces full of expectation. I tried to smile at them, but instead it came out as something of a frown.

  Not wanting to be caught by any conversation, I hurried past them, through the long rectangular room and made my way to the main hallway which dissected the floor, then took a left, keeping my head down until I got to the meeting room. The doors were closed with two large-looking individuals standing outside, but on approaching, one of them pushed the door open. I slipped inside to an argument, which abruptly stopped when Lucas and Charlotte saw me.