by Holly Black
Call thought that maybe he should offer to sleep on the floor like Aaron had, but he didn’t want to. His leg already hurt and, besides, he knew for a fact that there were sometimes rats hiding in the barn.
“Okay,” he said, climbing in gingerly beside her.
It was weird.
In the other bed, Jasper and Aaron were trying to share a single pillow. There was a muffled cry as someone was punched. Call pushed the pillow on his bed over to Tamara and laid his head down on his crooked arm.
He closed his eyes, but sleep didn’t come. It was uncomfortable trying to keep to one side of the bed, making sure that even his toes didn’t stray over to Tamara’s side. It didn’t help that he kept seeing the words in the letters Master Joseph had written, painted on the backs of his eyelids.
“Call?”
He opened his eyes. Tamara was looking at him from a few inches away, her eyes big and dark. “Why are you so important?” she whispered.
He felt the warm gust of her breath on his cheek.
“Important?” he echoed. Jasper had started to snore.
“All those letters,” she said. “From Master Joseph. I thought they’d be about Aaron. He’s the Makar. But they were all about you. Call is the most important thing.”
“I mean … I guess because he’s my dad,” Call said, floundering. “So I’d be important to him.”
“It didn’t sound like that kind of important,” Tamara said softly. “Call, you know you can tell us anything, right?”
Call wasn’t sure how to answer her. He was still trying to decide when Havoc began to howl.
HAVOC, QUIET! SHHHHHH!” Call said, but the wolf kept on barking, shoving his snout into the gap between the barn doors and scratching the wood with his paws.
“What do you see, boy?” Aaron asked. “Is there something out there?”
Tamara took a step toward the wolf. “Maybe your dad came back.”
Call’s heart gave a wild thump. He ran to the door that Havoc was nosing at and pulled it back, opening the barn to the cold air outside.
Havoc darted past him. The night was quiet. The moon was a sliver in the sky. Call had to squint to see his wolf dart across the trampled grass toward the lines of wrecked cars, looking humped and unnatural in the darkness.
“What’s that?” It was Jasper, his voice a scared whisper, pointing. Aaron stepped forward; they were all crowding around Call now, in front of the open barn door. Call looked where Jasper was pointing. At first he saw nothing; then, staring harder, he caught sight of something slipping around the side of one of the cars.
Tamara gasped. The thing was rising, seeming to grow from moment to moment, swelling right before them. It gleamed under the moon — a monster made of slick metal, dark and wet-looking, as if its surface were rubbed with oil. Its eyes were like two massive headlights, flashing in the darkness. And its mouth — Call goggled as its massive jaw unhinged, lined with rows of sharklike metal teeth, and then closed on the hood of an ancient Citroën.
The car made a horrible crunching sound. The creature threw its head back, swallowing. It bulged outward as the car disappeared into its vast maw. A moment later the car was gone and the creature seemed to grow more gigantic.
“It’s an elemental,” Tamara said nervously. “Metal. It must be drawing power from all those cars and junk.”
“We should get out of here before it notices us,” Jasper said.
“Coward,” Call chided. “It’s an elemental on the loose. Isn’t dealing with it our job?”
Jasper threw his shoulders back and glared. “Look, that thing has nothing to do with us. We’re supposed to defend people, but I don’t want to die defending your dad’s hoarding. He’ll be better off without all these cars — if he’s not executed for being in league with the Enemy, which is a big if — and we’ll be better off out of here!”
“Shut up,” Aaron said. “Just shut up.” His hand rose from his side. The metal on his wristband glowed. Call could see what looked like a shadow starting to rise from his palm, half enveloping his hand.
“Stop!” Tamara grabbed Aaron’s wrist. “You haven’t been taught to use the void properly. And the elemental’s too big. Think of the size of the hole you’d have to open to get rid of it —”
Now Aaron looked angry. “Tamara —”
“Uh, guys,” Jasper interrupted. “I get that you’re arguing, but I think it just noticed us.”
Jasper was right. The headlight eyes were gleaming in their direction. Tamara let go of Aaron as the creature began to move. Then, unexpectedly, she whirled on Call.
“What are we supposed to do?” she demanded.
Call was too surprised to be asked for instructions to answer. Which was fine, because Aaron was already talking. “We have to get to Mrs. Tisdale and protect her. If that thing has just stumbled on this place, then maybe it will eat some cars and go in peace. But if it doesn’t, we have to be ready.”
“Metal elementals are rare,” Jasper said, grabbing up Tamara’s pack. “I don’t know a lot about them, but I know they don’t like fire. If it starts coming for us, I’ll throw up a fire screen. Okay?”
“I can do that,” Tamara snapped.
“It doesn’t matter who does it!” Aaron said, exasperated. “Now come on!”
They all started to run toward the farmhouse, Call lagging slightly behind, not just because his leg was hurting but also because he was worried about Havoc. He wanted to call out to him, make sure his wolf was safe, but he was worried it would call the elemental’s attention. And he wasn’t sure he could outrun it if it came to that. Already, Tamara, Aaron, and Jasper were outpacing him.
The creature was still moving, sometimes half-hidden by cars, sometimes horribly clear. It wasn’t moving fast, more like a cat stalking its prey. Slowly it came, growing with each mouthful of metal it took.
As Call got closer to Mrs. Tisdale’s house, he realized that something was wrong. Light was spilling out of the farmhouse, not just from the windows but also from the whole front. The door and part of the wall was missing. Wires and wood hung in the gaping hole that remained.
Aaron ran up the steps first. “Mrs. Tisdale!” he called. “Mrs. Tisdale, are you all right?”
Call followed, leg aching. The furniture was knocked over, a coffee table splintered. A love seat was on fire, flames rising from a blackened corner. Mrs. Tisdale lay on the floor, a terrible gash across her chest. Blood soaked the rug under her. Call stared in horror. Mixed in with the blood were gleaming bits of metal.
Aaron dropped to his knees. “Mrs. Tisdale?”
Her eyes were open, but she didn’t seem to be able to focus her gaze. “Children,” she said in a whispery, awful voice. “Children, they’re after you.”
Call remembered a little bit about healing magic. He’d seen Alex use it to heal Drew’s broken ankle once, drawing up binding and healing powers from the earth. He bent down next to Aaron, trying to summon up what he could. If he could heal her, then maybe his magic was good for more than Alastair thought. Maybe he was good for more than Alastair thought.
Maybe he was good.
Pressing his fingers gently over her collarbone, he directed energy into her. He tried to feel it coming up from the ground, tried to think of himself as a conduit. But after a moment, she pushed his hand away.
“It’s too late for that,” Mrs. Tisdale said. “You’re the ones who can still get away. You need to run. Call, I was there the night you thought you lost Havoc. I was the one who chained him up. I know what’s at stake.”
Call pulled back from her, reeling.
“What is she talking about?” Tamara asked. “What are you talking about, Mrs. Tisdale?”
“It’s just an elemental,” Aaron said. “We can get rid of it. We can help you.” He looked up wildly at Tamara and Jasper. “Maybe we should call for help from the Magisterium —”
“No!” the old woman gasped. “Don’t you know what that creature is? Its name is Automotones —
it is an ancient and terrible monster — it was captured by the mages of the Magisterium hundreds of years ago.” Blood had appeared at the corners of her mouth. She drew a ragged breath. “If it is here now, it’s because those — those — mages released it to hunt you down. To kill you!”
With a shudder, Call remembered Master Rufus’s lecture on the elementals trapped beneath the Magisterium. How terrifying they were. How unstoppable.
“To hunt Alastair down, you mean?” Jasper asked.
“It broke into this house,” she hissed. “It demanded that I tell it where you were. Not Alastair. You four.” Her eyes fixed on Aaron. “You had better run, Makar.”
Aaron’s face had gone blank with shock. “Run from the Magisterium? Not the Enemy?”
Her mouth curved up into a strange smile. “You can never outrun the Enemy of Death, Aaron Stewart,” she said, and though she seemed to be speaking to Aaron, she was looking at Call. He stared back at her as her eyes went blank.
“Look out!” Tamara screamed.
The metal monster — Automotones — lurched into the house through the broken wall. It was truly huge now. It smashed upward with its flat, manhole-size hands, ripping away at the ceiling, tearing a hole between the upstairs and the bottom floor to clear a space for itself. Call yelped and fell sideways, narrowly missing being smashed by a falling dresser. The piece of furniture broke open on the floor, scattering clothes.
Suddenly a sheet of fire appeared, like a living wall of flame, scorching the floor and igniting what was left of the ceiling. Jasper was holding the fire in place with obvious effort as Automotones roared and snapped.
“Go,” Jasper said to Call. “Run! I’ll follow.”
Call felt bad about having called him a coward. Pushing himself up from the floor, he staggered toward the back of the house.
Aaron and Tamara followed. Tamara had summoned a ball of fire, which glowed in her hand. She whipped her head back, braids flying, toward where Jasper stood.
“Come on, Jasper,” Aaron called. “Now!”
Jasper released his wall of fire and ran toward them, the metal elemental racing after. Tamara threw her summoned flame at the monster’s maw as Jasper staggered out onto the lawn with Call.
Jasper was clearly exhausted from the effort he’d put out raising the fire screen. He made it a few feet onto the lawn and then collapsed. Call took a step toward him but had no idea what to do. There was no way he could carry Jasper and run; he could barely run without the weight of a whole extra person on his shoulders.
Tamara ran over the lawn, Aaron just behind her. Behind them came Automotones. Rearing and clawing as the flames boiled around it — Jasper’s fire had clearly caught some of the furniture alight, and now the curtains and probably the walls were burning. The whole farmhouse was going to go up like a torch.
“Jasper!” Call reached for Jasper’s arm and tried to at least pull him upright. Jasper made it onto his knees and then let out a yowl of terror. Call spun around and saw the metal elemental rising up over them, blotting out the sliver of moon. Its hands were reaching down. They looked like huge metal crab pincers, about to close on Call and Jasper, about to slice them in half.
Call remembered being in his father’s awful workroom the past summer, remembered the rage he felt and how he’d looked at Alastair and just pushed. Now he tried to summon up all the rage and fear and awfulness he was holding inside and push it at Automotones.
The monster flew back, emitting a noise that sounded like a rusty car being pulled apart. The noise turned to a raging growl as Automotones turned toward Tamara and Aaron. Aaron stepped in front of Tamara, raising his hand, but the monster swept him out of the way as if he were a pesky fly, and grabbed for Tamara, lifting her up into the air.
“Tamara!” Call started to run toward the elemental, forgetting for a second that it was terrifying, that it was huge, that it was deadly. In his mind he saw the metal pincer closing around Tamara, crushing her in its grasp. He was vaguely aware that Aaron was running and yelling, too, that Tamara was struggling but silent in the creature’s claw. All of a sudden, Automotones gave a lurch and a stumble. Tamara pulled free, tumbling onto the grass.
The elemental writhed around, and Call saw that Havoc had leaped onto its back, his Chaos-ridden claws sinking into the metal skin, teeth tearing. The noise of ripping metal filled the night.
But the creature shook itself, and Havoc lost his balance, legs scrabbling desperately at the air. He was holding on by his teeth and then wasn’t holding on at all. He flew toward the house, toward the fire, whimpering as he fell.
Summoning air, heedless of the elemental or the fight, Call focused on his wolf. He concentrated on forming a soft cushion of circling wind to catch Havoc. Dimly, he heard the creature screeching close to him; dimly, he understood that he was putting the rest of them in danger to make sure his pet was unharmed, but he didn’t care.
Havoc fell into Call’s air magic as if it were a net, bouncing a little, his paws flailing, his coruscating eyes wide. Slowly, Call lowered the wolf to the ground, carefully, carefully —
That was when the elemental hit him. It felt like being smashed by a giant wave. He heard Tamara yell his name and then he was flying backward, hitting the ground with enough force to send a shock wave through his body. He rolled over, spitting out dirt and grass, and saw the metal elemental looming over him. It looked enormous, as big as the sky its body blotted out. Call struggled to get to his feet, his bad leg wobbling, but fell back into the grass. In the distance, he could see Tamara running toward them, ropes of fire swinging from her hands, but he knew she was too far away to get to him in time. Automotones was already swaying down toward him, its toothy jaws wide.
Call clutched at the dirt, trying to reach into it, to summon up earth magic, but there was no time. He could smell the stink of metal and rust as the elemental opened its mouth to swallow him.
“Stop!”
The elemental jerked its head back. Call swung around to see Aaron standing behind him, his hand outstretched. Shining in his palm was a cloud of oily darkness, spilling upward. The expression on his face was one Call couldn’t remember seeing before. His eyes burned like brands and a grimace pulled his face into something that looked disturbingly like a smile.
The oily black nothingness flew from Aaron’s hand and hurtled straight down Automotones’s throat. For a moment, nothing changed. Then the creature began to vibrate, metal clanking against metal. Call stared. The elemental looked as if it were being crushed by a huge, invisible hand, its metal hide being sucked inward. It opened its mouth and Call saw the oily blackness fuming and bubbling inside it. He realized what was happening. The elemental was collapsing in on itself, each joint and screw, each plate and motor, drawn into the expanding void that Aaron had hurled down its throat.
There was a hand on Call’s shoulder, and Aaron was drawing him up to his feet. The scary expression was gone from Aaron’s face; he just looked grim, watching as Automotones gave a last howl and vanished into a speck of darkness that singed across the air.
“What happens to it?” Jasper asked, running up. “Where is it now? Is it dead?”
Call looked back at the burning building, at the wreckage of cars. He didn’t care where Automotones had gone. The important thing was that they were all safe.
“It’s in the void,” Aaron said, his voice flat. “It won’t come back.”
“Come on,” said Tamara. “We need to get away from the fire.”
They began to make their way back toward the barn, Havoc running ahead of them. The air was filled with smoke, and the glow from the burning fire behind them turned the sky as light as day.
“What we need to do is go back to the Magisterium,” Jasper said breathlessly. “Show them what we found. Call’s dad has been in direct contact with the Enemy’s servants, remember? He’s going to bring them the Alkahest. We need help.”
“We’re not going back to the Magisterium,” Aaron said. His voice wa
s still the same, flat and rigid. Call had the sense that he was holding back whatever he was feeling, tamping it down hard. “They sent that thing after us.”
“After Alastair, you mean,” Tamara corrected. “You don’t believe what that old woman said, do you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“She’s got no reason to lie,” Call agreed.
Now Aaron’s voice started to crack a little. “If they didn’t send it, why did it attack Mrs. Tisdale? Why did it attack us? It ought to have been given instructions not to hurt us.”
“Maybe they decided that if they couldn’t get us back, it was better to have us dead than in the Enemy’s hands,” said Jasper. They all looked at him in surprise. “It’s the sort of thing the Assembly would do,” he added, with a shrug.
“I thought you wanted to go back,” Call said.
“I do. But you guys have messed up royally.” Jasper rolled his eyes at Call like he was an idiot, an expression Call was very familiar with. “The longer we’re away, the more convinced they’re going to become that they have to cut their losses. Wipe out Aaron first, then wipe out us so there are no witnesses, and it’s just a tragedy. If Constantine Madden got hold of Aaron, he could kill him — or he could brainwash him. Maybe they’re afraid of that. Maybe they’re afraid that losing Aaron to Constantine could lose them the war.”
“Not having Aaron would lose them the war!” said Tamara. “He’s the Makar!”
They had reached the barn. Jasper’s face looked like cut stone in the flickering light. “I don’t think you understand how they do math.”
“Enough,” said Call, turning to face the others. “You guys go back to school. I think I can stop my father, so long as I can get to him in time. I have to talk to him. I have to try. But this is getting too dangerous for you to come along.”
They’ll never get it, he thought. My dad wants his son back. He thinks if he trades the Alkahest to Master Joseph, Joseph can fix me. Can make me Callum Hunt again. But Master Joseph’s tricking him, trying to lure him in. He’ll probably kill him once he gets the Alkahest.
