Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order)

by Kristin Bailey

  We passed by a tall pillar, green with patina, with a winged golden figure atop the high column. We continued straight on past the monument, driving faster up a long straight road that passed between two ominous fortresses. They loomed over us like great castles, except the air around them was heavy with misery and death. Before the gate to the building on the left was an open area. Only then did I realize that we had crossed between two prisons, and the area was meant for crowds of onlookers to watch those doomed to the guillotine.

  I ducked down, as if I could escape the heavy feel of death in the air, but it only thickened as we reached the high wall of the cemetery. Gustave turned the carriage sharply into the open curved area before the main gates.

  Will leapt off the back of the carriage before it had fully stopped. He held his arms up to me, and I jumped to him without hesitation. He swung me to the ground, held my hand tightly, and we ran.

  At the center of the curve in the wall stood a gate flanked by two enormous stone pillars. The top of each was a circle carved from arched blocks. In the center of each circle, a winged hourglass had been carved in relief. Large carvings of eternal torches decorated the sides of each pillar, with a garland defining the lower edge of the circle. Beneath the garland something had been written in Latin. We ran through the gate and turned immediately to the right.

  “Do you think it’s the man in the mask?” I asked breathlessly as we stood in the shadow of the massive pillar. A wide promenade cut straight into the heart of the cemetery, flanked by elegant mausoleums and young trees.

  Will fought to catch his breath. “It must be.”

  A chill came over me. Yes, we had been searching for him, but now that I was faced with him, I only wished to run.

  “Come on,” Will urged. We ran together up the promenade, then squeezed between two of the mausoleums, hiding in the gap. He put his finger to his lips and a protective arm in front of me.

  He backed us both up, and we hunched behind a narrow mausoleum. I tried to peek through the gap, tucking myself close to Will’s side. A man passed on the far side of the promenade. He had a dark cloak with an unusually high collar and a brimmed hat that dipped low over his face.

  He walked with slow, carefully placed steps. I held my breath, and Will pressed closer to me. He urged me back behind the mausoleum, but not before I saw a glint of light beneath the dark brim of the man’s hat.

  That was no monocle.

  His face was wrapped in cloth, but I could see the edge of gears turning around a cold mechanical eye. My blood turned to ice.

  “It’s him,” I whispered, pressing my body against the smooth stone of the crypt. “How did he find us?”

  Will didn’t answer. Instead he watched the man with the intensity of an alley cat. The man in the clockwork mask passed us, continuing on along the promenade. “I’m going after him,” Will said.

  I grabbed his arm. “Will, he’s a murderer. He’ll kill you if he sees you.”

  He took my hand and held it before glancing back toward the man walking steadily away from us. “He doesn’t know where we are. This is the first time we’ve ever had the advantage. If I follow him, he could lead me to where your grandfather is hidden.”

  An image flashed through my mind of Will walking away from me and into the fire. It terrified me. “Will . . .” I wanted to tell him it wasn’t worth the risk, but he was right. This was our one chance.

  Will reached up and brushed a loose tendril of hair across my forehead. “He’s not after me. He’s after you. I will not wait around for him to strike any longer. He won’t be watching for me. If I stay close to him, it will give you the chance to find Haddock’s grave. If I am following, he can’t sneak up on you the way he has before.” Will reached down and removed the short blade he always carried in his boot. Then he took another quick look over his shoulder. “This place is a labyrinth. We’re going to lose this chance.”

  “Don’t you dare confront him.” My heart was in my throat.

  “I won’t.”

  “How will I find you again?” I asked as he pulled away from me, skillfully concealing himself in the shadows behind another crypt.

  “I’ll meet you at the tomb of Héloïse and Abelard. He’s turning. Meg?”

  I closed my eyes against my terror. “Go.”

  Will surged forward and shocked me with a quick and passionate kiss before he pulled away. “I’ll return soon.”

  I blinked, touching my hand to my tender lips. He darted through the tall monuments and mausoleums that lined the main promenade. I sent a quick prayer to the dear Lord for his safety and gathered my skirts before turning down a narrow lane lined on either side by trees. I hurried through the shadows, grateful to sink deeper into this quiet part of the cemetery.

  When Haddock had been buried, the cemetery had been new and not crowded, but in the time since, the popularity of the cemetery had swelled, like a flood of the dead. I turned around. There were tens of thousands of graves, many elegant monuments to wealth and prestige.

  The graveyard was full of faces, sculpted visages both beautiful and haunting, portraits of the dead in stone. Even in death, this was a place where one would wish to be seen, and I was searching for a shadow.

  I reached a dead end, the wall cutting off the lane in front of me, so I turned to the left down another neat tree-lined path. The mausoleums began to feel like a village of tiny houses whose doors never opened.

  A large building loomed to my right, so I walked alongside it, trying to keep to the wall. I found myself in front of another small gate, and the exit to the city made me nervous. I could see the towers of the prisons in the distance. I had to remain hidden, and I had to hurry.

  My path had taken me in the opposite direction from Will, and though I glanced back over my shoulder, I knew every step took me farther from him. To my right was a narrow path lined by thick trees that had grown taller than the others in the cemetery. I darted down it and found myself in a crowded corner of graves. Many of the ones tucked into the corner by the wall weren’t as ornate or as monumental as some of the ones near the promenade.

  To my left I could see the crossed peaks of the roof of the Gothic chapel that held the remains of Héloïse and Abelard. I was in the right place. I just needed to find the right stone.

  I picked up my skirts and stepped around and among the graves.

  “Black stone, black stone, black stone,” I whispered. Finally my gaze settled on a plain black slab resting on the ground. There was no name, no date on the marker.

  Nothing.

  I inched closer, my heart thumping so heavily that I could hear the sound in my ears. The plain black slab lay flat, large enough to cover a man completely. It felt like a hole in the ground, a pocket of darkness I could have fallen into. There was no escaping it.

  It was the cruelest grave I had ever seen.

  Until this moment I had thought the man in the clockwork mask was Haddock. I remembered the look in his eyes when he had attempted to kidnap me. He’d wanted to destroy my family. There was malice there that was acute and personal, and the only man I had found who had reason to hate us that much was Haddock.

  But there was a feeling near this grave, something chilling and horrible. It was as if I could feel the spirit of Haddock beneath that terrible stone, trapped, erased for all time.

  A patch of sunlight shone over the wall and through the dappled trees, hitting the dusty surface of the flawless black stone. I glanced around. There was no one in this narrow corner of the cemetery.

  I knelt beside the stone, dusting it off with my fingertips. There had to be a clue here, something that would help me find the connection that eluded me. I pulled out the piece of paper and the crayon I had tucked into my satchel to make a rubbing of Haddock’s grave in case it yielded a clue, but there was nothing engraved on the stone, so I stashed them away again.

  My fingertips had left streaks in the dust, and the surface beneath shone like obsidian. I wiped a large streak across
the stone, then another, eventually succumbing to a compulsion to clean it completely.

  With my palm I stroked the stone, brushing off the dust, until my hand passed over the center where the heart of the corpse should have been lying directly beneath.

  Tiny streaks of color followed my hand.

  I pulled my hand back, afraid I had something on my palm, but aside from dust from the grave, there was nothing. Turning my attention to the stone, I noticed a pale brown color fading again to black.

  Curious, I reached out and pressed my finger to where I saw the mysterious brown streak. I held my finger there for a moment, then pulled it down slowly. My finger left a trail of red in its wake.

  Again I lifted my finger, and again the color faded back to black.

  Whatever had been embedded in the stone, it reacted to the heat in my hand.

  Spreading my fingers, I planted my palm on the stone. I held my hand there, counting to ten. Tension thrummed through every part of my body as I felt the stone warm to my touch.

  I lifted my hand away, and there, glowing in orange and red, was the spiraling ram’s horn.

  It was Haddock’s mark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I LEAPT TO MY FEET, stumbling backward. I almost tripped over a gravestone behind me and lost my balance. I had to catch myself against a tree.

  “You should come away from there, dear,” an old woman’s voice said. “You wouldn’t want to be caught somewhere you shouldn’t be.”

  I staggered out of the graves and onto the path that passed in front of the tomb of Héloïse and Abelard. Hastily I tried to brush the dust off my skirt and tuck my loose hair back under the brim of my bonnet. “I apologize. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  The thin woman stood slightly hunched. Her stark white hair had been done up in an older fashion beneath the brim of her hat. She reminded me a bit of Mrs. Brindle. She smiled at me and stepped closer on the path. “I haven’t seen you since you were a child. I was good friends with your grandmother. My, you have grown. You look just like your father, a Whitlock through and through.” The old woman had a sweet, round face and keen intelligence in her eyes. “You have made quite a name for yourself in the Order. Here on the Continent we have followed your exploits quite carefully. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Madame Boucher, and I am a matron of the Society.”

  My heart hadn’t stopped pounding from the moment I’d entered the cemetery, and yet somehow it managed to beat harder and more urgently. I felt quite ill. “Are you going to report me to the Order?” I asked, folding my hands and standing the way I had used to as a little girl when my mother chided me.

  “My God, no.” She gave me a sweet, motherly smile. “What good would that serve? However, it would be wise to stay on the path when visiting Père Lachaise.”

  “Of course.” I took a hasty breath and tried to settle the rolling feeling in my stomach. I had to breathe, to think. The madam seemed more amused with my predicament than angry or offended. And truly, it was a comfort to have another person to talk to. “What brings you to the cemetery?”

  She waved her hand idly toward the pillars and roof of the monument up the path. “I come every morning to leave a note with Héloïse and Abelard. They haven’t answered my prayer quite yet, so I return each day. I also like to visit old friends. Unfortunately, when you have seen as many years as I have, most of your friends reside here. It is a good thing I found you. You must be very careful, my dear. I’d hate to see you ruin your family name. The name Whitlock holds a great deal of power.” The frail little woman began walking down the path, but moved so slowly. I offered her my hand, and she leaned on me. “Thank you, dear.”

  It was then that I noticed how fine the material of the old woman’s dress was. I had never seen such immaculately woven cloth, and the lace adorning her cuff could have bought the entire inventory of my toy shop outright. She must have inherited very well from her late husband.

  The tomb was only a short distance away, and as we passed beneath a spindly tree, I looked up at the Gothic chapel. The roof seemed to float above the statues of the nun and the monk lying in repose. Their hands were pressed together in prayer as they chastely lay side by side for all eternity. It struck me as ironic, considering they had been rather scandalous lovers in their time.

  The points on the roof seemed to reach toward the heavens, while the spire in the center of the crossed peaks gave the tomb the look of a wedding chapel. In the peaks a clover-like motif bound circles to circles, unbroken yet not whole either. They were empty spaces, cut away from the stone.

  I wondered where Will was, and if he were safe. He was supposed to meet me here, and I longed to see him walking up the path. I had told him to go. I’d had to do it, but still. I worried. He would not give up on his task easily, and it might be a long wait before he could join me again.

  Madame Boucher stood at the steps to the tomb and extracted a neat envelope from her reticule. She then leaned forward and dropped it onto the white stone steps of the monument.

  She claimed to have known my grandparents, and she was a part of the Society here in France. She had to have been privy to rumors, including ones about my grandfather. Perhaps she could be the key to unlocking this mystery.

  “It’s very romantic,” I mentioned, looking up at the two statues lying on their cold stone altars.

  “Romantic? More of a tragedy, I would say.” Madame Boucher gazed at the tomb, and the warmth in her expression faded. “Young Héloïse, seduced by a charismatic scholar who was trusted by her own family. After she found herself with child, she was sent away to bear her son alone. He sought to protect his reputation, and so destroyed their future.”

  “That is not quite the story I heard,” I mentioned, though now that I thought about it, Madame Boucher’s version was probably the more accurate account of what had happened. “Poor Abelard ended up the worse for it.”

  The old woman smiled. “Indeed.”

  I glanced down at the bits of paper and messages littering the steps of the tomb. Now that she’d delivered her letter, Madame Boucher probably wouldn’t linger much longer. It was a cold and bitter day, and I could feel the chill settling over me. “You say you knew my grandparents?”

  “Oh yes, quite well, actually,” she admitted as she turned away from the tomb and walked back down the path. I stepped forward and took her arm again to support her. “Your grandmother was a talented painter. I still have a small picture of a garden she painted for me in our youth.”

  “You do?” I had loved my grandmother’s paintings, but they had all been destroyed in the fire. “I would love to see it.”

  Madame Boucher brightened. “Why don’t you join me for some tea? This cold is settling into my bones, and it is time I returned. I can show you the painting and tell you more about your grandparents.”

  I felt suddenly lighter, my heart quickening. This was my chance. Madame Boucher would know whom my grandfather had flirted with in his youth. She clearly had a keen mind and had been steeped in Society gossip for decades. Haddock’s grave hadn’t borne much fruit. When I met with Will again, I wanted to contribute something to our task. He was on the far more dangerous adventure.

  “I really shouldn’t leave the cemetery before my chaperone comes to collect me,” I said. Though in my heart I knew it would be a long and risky wait. I didn’t know where Gustave had gone, and Will could be relentless. He’d follow the man in the clockwork mask to the gates of hell if he had to.

  The old woman waved her bony hand. “Nonsense. My home is on Île Saint-Louis. After refreshments it would be no trouble to send you home. After all, it is the center of the city. Come. It’s getting late for luncheon, and I’m certain I have a fine selection of pastries for us.”

  Could I take this chance? I knew it wasn’t anything as risky as chasing down a murderer, but Will was expecting to meet me here. Still, Madame Boucher could prove to be a font of illicit knowledge. The longer I waited in the cemetery, the grea
ter danger I was in. I needed to find safety, and with Madame Boucher I could kill two birds with one stone. I needed to tell Will where he could find me.

  “Go on ahead. I think I’d like to leave a letter for Héloïse and Abelard as well. I can catch up.” I retrieved the paper and a red crayon from my satchel and quickly jotted a note to Will about joining Madame Boucher for luncheon on Île Saint-Louis, and that I’d meet him back at Gustave’s. Then I folded the paper and stared at the clean back of it. There would be no way he could tell the note was intended for him.

  Quickly I sketched a bird with her wings outstretched, perched on a round stone. I felt a flush of warmth as I remembered our conversation on the train and his passionate kiss. A bird and a stone. He would remember.

  I placed the letter among the other plain envelopes. The red bird stood out in sharp relief. Satisfied it would catch his eye and he’d know it was for him, I stood, and then jogged through the graves to join Madame Boucher. I was very glad to be leaving the cemetery. I didn’t like feeling surrounded by death.

  When we reached the gates, I looked for Gustave, but he was nowhere to be found. Instead a large coach waited, pulled by a heavy black horse with a thick forelock falling over a wide white blaze. The horse’s shoulders were wet with sweat. Vapor rose off the beast’s body and clung to his thick winter coat.

  A fair-faced boy sat at the reins looking bored or, rather, irritated with his situation. His dark hair stuck out in thick curls around the brim of his cap.

  Madame Boucher approached him. “Did you do as I instructed?” she asked, but there was something different in her tone, a sharp edge that hadn’t been there before.

  The boy nodded but didn’t speak.

  “Good. Take us home then.”

  I helped Madame Boucher into the coach, then climbed in myself. The heavy door shut behind me, closing us in. We pulled swiftly away from the cemetery, the horse trotting down the boulevard with a loud clatter of his hooves.