Based on the car’s interior decor, the thief was obsessed with two things—death and the color red. Neither gave Jack a warm, cozy feeling. Ghostly, hooded forms were painted on the walls, flying in and out of graveyards, ragged cloaks trailing behind. And a single giant wraith glowered down from the ceiling, with nothing but a hint of bone and two flaming eyes beneath the hood of its bloodred cloak. Who on earth could fall asleep staring up at that?
Gwen rifled through the desk drawers. “Nothing of use over here, either.” She tossed a stack of flyers down next to the skull. “Just ads for small-time metal bands and the standard desk-drawer stuff—pens and paper clips and the like.”
That was enough for Jack. He would be happy to get out of there. “This guy is gone,” he said, guiding Sadie toward the door. “We should get out of here and go for the guild master, like you said.” But as he reached for the door, he noticed a shadow pass across the window blinds. He flicked off the lights. “Someone’s coming.”
All three retreated to the desk and huddled down.
The lever jiggled. The door rattled against its frame. Something scraped against the lock.
Jack set his aim and tightened his finger around the trigger of the dart gun. He wouldn’t have much time to shoot, and he wasn’t about to let Creepy-death-obsessed-teleporting guy anywhere near his sister.
The bolt clicked back and the door swung open with a bone-chilling squeak.
Jack fired.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“OI! WATCH IT!”
Jack’s dart had embedded itself in the steel doorframe an inch above the head of a black-haired girl in a dark jacket and red jeans. She was squatting down, leaning across the threshold, and she had been picking the lock by the look of things. The girl bolted upright and flicked on the lights, glaring at Jack and his gun. “Put tha’ thing away, ’fore ya hurt someone, ya get me?”
Jack stuffed the gun into his satchel. He leaned against the desk to steady himself as he stood. He had intended to disable a deadly thief. Instead, he had almost killed a girl his own age.
Gwen was not shaken in the slightest. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same, yeah? This is my place, innit?”
“No. It isn’t your place.” Gwen’s enunciation had become exceedingly sharp and proper. She nodded at the lock picks. “Try again.”
Before the girl could come up with another lie, Jack interjected. He recognized the red streak in her hair. “She was on the docks. At the guild master’s boat. I’m pretty sure she works for him.” He gave her an apologetic head tilt, as if outing her true purpose there somehow added insult to the injury of nearly killing her.
The girl studied him for a moment, then turned and started working the dart free from the door. “Yeah, awright. The thief who lives here broke the rules o’ the guild, an’ I’m lookin’ into it for the master.” The dart came free with a jerk, and she spun, flinging it at Jack. It sank into the desktop between his thumb and forefinger. She winked. “Name’s Raven. Turnabout’s fair play, innit . . . ?” She let the question hang, waiting for Jack to fill in his name.
Minutes before, he had been shocked by the sudden appearance of Gwen’s pocketknife, but this girl took dangerous to a whole new level. He peeled his hand away from the dart and gave her a half wave. “Um . . . Jack.”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “And this is Sadie. And I’m Gwen, not that it’s any of your business. We’ve already searched the place. There’s nothing here. Move on.”
“You’ll pardon me if I don’ take your word for it, yeah?”
Raven strolled around the car, eyeing the open case as she passed.
When she got to the desk, Jack shuffled out of her way. “Um . . . what can you tell us about the guy who lives here?”
She opened a drawer, frowned at its contents, and closed it again. “We call him the Phantom, ’cause he gets in an’ out o’ the tightest spots. No trace. No witnesses.”
“We were witnesses,” countered Gwen.
Raven paid her no notice. “No one down here’ll cross the Phantom, ’cause zap.” She snapped her fingers in Jack’s face, making him jump, and then traced a fingernail across his neck. “He can slit your throat, an’ then vanish into thin air. Some say he was born doin’ it—that he’s . . . unnatural.”
Jack swallowed at the thought. But he shook his head. “He . . . uses a device. Some kind of stopwatch.”
“Which he probably stole,” added Gwen. “Because he’s a thief. Like you.”
Raven ignored the gibe. She slapped her hands down on the desk, looking around. “What ’bout his slick, yeah? Didja find that?”
Gwen regarded the question with pronounced skepticism. “His what?”
“His slick. A hiding place. It’ll be somethin’ quick, activated by a lever, or a pedal or somethin’.”
Jack would have done a face palm if Raven hadn’t been standing so close to him. Of course a thief would have a secret stash. He let his gaze drift over the room, settling on the desk.
Drawer handles: too obvious.
Lamp: red but otherwise unremarkable.
The screaming skull: way too scary to look at for long, which would be perfect.
Looking closer, he saw scratches at the corner of the jaw. “The skull,” he said, nodding to Gwen. “I think you can close its mouth.” He had no intention of touching it himself. Jack didn’t know if he could spark off bone, and he never wanted to find out.
Gwen pursed her lips at him and pressed the head down. The bleached-white teeth clacked together. A V-shaped compartment flipped out from the side of the desk.
“Oo, this one’s handy, yeah?” Raven playfully flicked Jack’s ear. “I can see why you keep him ’round.” She jockeyed herself in front of the secret drawer before Gwen could get there. And after a moment’s inspection, she grinned. “What have we got here?” She withdrew a leather pouch from the compartment and dropped it on the desktop. It toppled over and gold, silver, and platinum cubes tumbled out.
An etched gold cube with green jewels at each corner rolled to a stop right in front of Jack. He picked it up, remembering his vision before the Hunt. “What . . . is this?”
Gwen took the cube and turned it over, showing him a pair of giants stamped into the opposite side—the symbol of the Ministry of Guilds. “Guild coin.” She dropped the cube into the pouch and scooped up the others, dropping them in as well. “The favored currency of the more anonymous guilds. Cubes of precious metals are as good as cash practically anywhere.” She pulled the drawstrings, cinching the pouch closed, and put it aside. “Leave it alone. We’re not interested in the Phantom’s dirty money.”
“Maybe you ain’t.” Raven swept the pouch off the desktop and in an instant, it was gone. Jack never saw where she put it. “There’s more, yeah?” she said, reaching into the compartment again. “Check it out.” She produced a rolled document, removed the rubber band, and unfurled it on the desktop. “Blueprints.”
The other two leaned in while Sadie bounced on her tiptoes behind, trying to get a look. The drawings depicted a walled compound and several buildings.
Jack could see no labels of any kind. “Blueprints of what?”
“Don’t know,” said Gwen, shaking her head. “We’ll have to go back to the Archive to find out.”
“Amateurs.” Raven leaned across the desk, brushing against Jack, and slid the lamp over so that its red light shined down on the paper. Glowing lines and symbols appeared in the blank spaces beside the buildings.
“Neat,” exclaimed Sadie, wedging herself between Jack and Gwen. “Invisible ink.”
Raven tousled the little girl’s hair. “Stock in trade for a good thief, innit?”
“The Kremlin,” said Gwen, pointing to a glowing notation in the upper left corner. She chewed her lip. “As in Moscow.”
Jack knew that look. She had figured something out. “What? What’ve you got?”
She drew out the professor’s b
ook and laid it down on the plans. “The Phantom stole the British crown out from under our noses,” she said as she flipped through the pages. “And now we find blueprints in his place detailing the location of this.” She stopped at a glossy picture of a diamond-studded crown, topped with a huge egg-shaped ruby. The caption beneath read RUSSIAN IMPERIAL CROWN, KREMLIN ARMORY, MOSCOW.
Jack placed his hand on the book, holding the pages open for her. “There’s going to be another heist.”
“Exactly.” Gwen slid the blueprints over, bringing another of the Phantom’s handwritten notations under the lamp. The glowing scrawl read MIDNIGHT, 11 DEC. “And it’s going down tomorrow night.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JACK DIDN’T LIKE the implications of Gwen’s deduction. Like the big stone in the British crown, the largest jewel in the Russian crown happened to be another ruby from the professor’s favorite book. “Professor Tanner’s not behind this,” he said, eyes following the book as Gwen put it away.
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You didn’t have to say it.”
She pursed her lips at him. “Either way, the Phantom will be in Moscow tomorrow night. And if we want to clear our names—”
“And save the professor.”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “And save the professor . . . if he needs saving . . . we’ve got to follow.”
While Jack and Gwen argued, Raven rolled up the blueprints and shoved them inside her coat. She started for the door.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Gwen, blocking her path. “We need those plans.”
“Well, I need them more, yeah?”
Gwen clenched her fists, freckles scrunching up in anger, but Jack touched her shoulder. “Raven did know about the slick. And the invisible ink. She might be useful.”
“You could team up,” offered Sadie, fishing in Jack’s satchel for another toffee.
The two older girls stared at each other for a few more seconds, until Gwen let out a dissatisfied huff. “Fine. We’ll bring her.”
“More likely, I’ll bring you.” Raven pushed her way between Jack and Gwen. She smirked as she reached the door, holding up a little red sphere. “Oi, what’s this, then?”
Jack patted his empty pocket. She had taken the zed. “Wait. Don’t—”
Gwen gave him a told-you-so frown and snatched the sphere out of Raven’s hand, slapping it backward into his chest. She lowered her voice to a growl. “If we’re going to work together, you keep your filthy hands out of his pockets.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. Jack blushed.
Raven’s grin spread a little wider and she lifted her other hand, brandishing Uncle Percy’s titanium key card.
Gwen snatched that away too. “And mine.” She stepped around the thief and yanked open the door. “Now, let’s crack on, shall we?”
“Crack away,” said Raven, crossing her arms. “One thing first, yeah? How exactly are you plannin’ on gettin’ to Moscow, eh?”
* * *
Raven had the solution, which absolutely infuriated Gwen. The thief led them around the rim of the cavern to a shop built into the rear wall. A chaotic assortment of junk stuck out from the timber facade, along with a sign that read TINKERS’ GUILD TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY. “The TGTA,” said Raven, yanking down on a gold braided tassel beside the door. “Fastest bus in town . . . if ya got the stomach for it.”
The rope she pulled released a steel ball that spiraled down a track into a metal cylinder. There was a flash within and a puff of white smoke, and a top spun out the other side, traveling down a ramp into a miniature elevator.
“What does that do?” asked Sadie, eyes fixed on the contraption.
The miniature elevator dropped, and the top spun out, tumbled down another ramp, and fell over a ledge. It landed on a seesaw, which sent a brass pointing finger swinging out to press a button. A buzzer sounded inside the shop.
Raven glanced down at the little girl. “Rings the bell, yeah? What else?”
A voice called from inside. “Come in!”
The thief pushed open the door.
“You mean it was unlocked this whole time?” asked Jack, following her through.
But Gwen caught him by the belt loop before he crossed the threshold. “Listen,” she whispered. “This is a tinker’s place. No matter what you see in there, do not use the words ‘overcomplicated’ or ‘unnecessary.’ Or we’ll end up right back out here on the street. Understand?”
He nodded, and she pushed him over the threshold.
Inside, Raven was already talking to a smallish bearded man seated behind a counter cluttered with junk. The man himself, in fact, was also cluttered with junk, wearing bits of steel tubing, springs, and metal boxes on leather pads. He was tugging at the chin strap of an old pilot’s helmet, regarding Raven with suspicion. “Moscow, eh? That’ll cost ya a pretty penny.”
The thief glanced back at the other three, eyeing Gwen in particular. “And we’re willin’ to pay, yeah?”
“For what? How does . . . er . . .” Gwen raised an eyebrow at the cluttered man.
He held up a gloved hand, plated with brass. “Ned.”
“How does Ned intend to get us to Moscow?”
“Hyperloop, deary,” Ned replied. “Fastest mode of transportation outside of rocketry. Without all the fire and fuss, mind you.”
Sadie, holding Jack’s coat sleeve, pointed to a tin model of a cylindrical pod enclosed within a section of tube. “You mean that?”
“That’s right, love. The pod runs through a tube with all the air sucked out of it—feels like flying through space, ’cept it’s underground. Real shame, though. The inventor quit the guild. Youngest master we ever had. Ran off to America to build cars and spacecraft.”
A light ding sounded from the tinker’s helmet, and a sectioned arm with a pair of scissors emerged. The scissors gave his beard a single snip, dropping the trimmings into a brass box on his chest, which snapped closed. There was a muffled pop, and black smoke rose from a tiny chimney.
Jack scrunched up his nose at the acrid smell. “Why would you even—?” The rest of his question came out as an Oof! as Gwen elbowed him in the ribs.
Ned didn’t seem to notice. He flicked his wrist, and a calculator appeared. He punched in a few numbers, nodded, and showed the final figure to Gwen. “Like I said. A pretty penny.” The calculator flipped back out of sight. “How will we be paying, then? Cash? Credit?”
“Cash.” Raven produced the pouch from the Phantom’s slick.
“Credit.” Gwen swiped the pouch out of her hand. “I told you. We’re not using this.” She stuffed the pouch into her own pocket and handed Uncle Percy’s card to the tinker. “Credit,” she said again. “Please.”
A bar full of lenses swung out from Ned’s helmet, and three of them swung down in front of his eye. “Crumb credit, eh?” he asked, inspecting the card. He bit it, grunted with relative satisfaction, and then dropped it onto a silver tray atop a model train, which drove about a foot before dumping the card into a toaster. The coils inside turned orange.
“Uh . . . ,” said Jack, but the toaster let out a ding and shot the card up into the waiting pincer of an articulating arm. The arm retracted, and the pincer dropped the card onto a second model train, which carried the card all the way around the office, through tunnels and behind cluttered shelves, until it bumped into a register, sending the card through an open slot. The register rang. Four green tickets popped up, and the card slid out into a tray in front of Gwen.
Ned handed the tickets to Jack, whose eyes narrowed. They were completely blank. “What do I do with these?”
“You give them to me,” said the tinker, taking them back. “Naturally.”
Jack let out a dry chuckle. “Naturally.”
Moments later, the four children were buckling themselves into the mismatched seats of a copper pod, hovering in a steel tube. Jack’s chair, up front, appeared to have come from a barber shop.
The tinker r
ested a gloved hand on the dashboard in front of him. “Should anything go wrong,” he said, pointing to a lever that looked suspiciously like a brake handle from a turn-of-the-century locomotive, “yank that back as hard as you can.”
“Go wrong?” asked Jack, cinching his seat belt tight. “Like what?”
“You know. Cabin leak, maglev failure, or perhaps a catastrophic—” An alarm interrupted Ned’s reply. He rushed back to the control panel. “Another pod’s comin’ in. You have to go.”
“A catastrophic what?” Jack shouted, but the pod door had already slid into place. The tube hatch descended next, cutting off all light from outside. There was a rush of air, and Jack’s head was pinned back against the seat.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE FORCE OF THE ACCELERATION flattened Jack’s cheeks. “Red light,” he grunted, staring out through the slanted windshield.
Raven jostled his backrest. “What’re you on about?”
“Blinking red light. Coming on fast.” Jack scanned the dashboard, repurposed from an old Tube carriage, and found a yellow button labeled HEADLAMPS. With effort, he reached forward and pressed it. A blaze of white lit the tunnel ahead, illuminating a wall of steel.
Jack went for the brake.
Raven caught his elbow. “That’s a pressure gate, innit? It’ll open. Trust me.”
He didn’t. Not really. Jack cringed, and at the last second, the steel wall twisted apart, letting them through.
“See?” The pod settled into cruise speed, and Raven leaned forward out of her seat. “It’s safe, yeah?”
Jack rolled his head over and found she was looking at him, so that their noses were inches apart. He had thought her eyes were deep brown before, but they were auburn—right on the edge of purple. “Yeah. Sure.”
“If you two are quite finished.”
Jack glanced back to see Gwen glowering at the two of them. Behind her, Sadie—whose seat was something akin to a La-Z-Boy recliner—had drifted off to sleep.
The Fourth Ruby Page 10
