Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key

by Derek Benz; Jon S. Lewis

  “How do you know what my dueling style is? You haven’t even seen me play.”

  “Honestly,” Ross began, tucking a pencil behind his ear, “have a little faith. We do this for a living. How else do you think the Toad Reports have become world famous?”

  The Griffins looked at one another blankly.

  “The Toad Reports are only the best scouting reports that money can buy. We can tell you everything from what kind of cards your opponent plays with to what he had for breakfast on his seventh birthday.”

  “Speaking of which,” Todd said, flipping to a chart in the back of his notebook, “what kind of Kinematic goggles do you guys duel with? Salvino Technohancers? The Tesla Recoil?”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Max sighed.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? Look, you have to keep up with the times if you want to be competitive, Sumner. Kinematic goggles work kind of like the SIM Chamber. They allow you to duel in three dimensions, just like a real battle. It can get pretty intense, but it’s the only way to play.”

  “Besides, you can’t play in an officially sanctioned tournament without them,” Ross added. “And you’ve got enough to worry about. You’re going up against Yoshino Takamori.”

  “So do you have a scouting report on him?” Max asked.

  The Toad brothers smiled at each other. “Of course,” Ross proclaimed. “But first we need to work out the business side.”

  “We want to give you free Toad Reports for the first round,” Todd added.

  “What’s in it for you?” Harley asked with a healthy dose of skepticism.

  The Toads smiled in unison. “If you win, you promise to buy a report for every round until you’re knocked out,” Todd replied. “And when you get interviewed for the school paper, you need to give us a plug.”

  Max turned to the other Griffins, but nobody said a word.

  “All right, we’re in.”

  33

  THE INVITATION

  Natalia showed up a few minutes later wearing a new outfit. She was sporting a ruffled blouse with a brooch fixed to the collar, khaki pants, and a pair of button-up boots.

  “What are you so happy about?” Max asked.

  Natalia looked around to make sure that no one was listening. Then she leaned over and whispered, “Someone is throwing a party in one of the Construction Zones, and we’re invited.”

  “The Construction Zones are off-limits,” Harley objected.

  “Since when have you ever worried about the rules, Harley Eisenstein?” she countered quickly. “Besides, Stacy Bechton said they do this all the time. The teachers just pretend not to notice. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Who the heck is Stacy Bechton?” Ernie wanted to know.

  “It’s this way,” Natalia said, motioning for the rest of the Griffins to follow. She broke away from the crowd of students loading onto the Zephyr, before disappearing into a crumbling passageway marked off with yellow tape. She reached into her bag, pulled out a flashlight, and set off down the lonely hall.

  “I checked some of the records in the library,” she continued as they picked their way over the rubble-strewn floor. “This passage should lead us directly under Sendak Hall.”

  Ernie sighed. “Sendak Hall isn’t really a place to party. Trust me.”

  “Well, we’re going under it, not into it,” Natalia returned crisply.

  As they wandered down the cramped tunnel, Max couldn’t stop thinking about Baron Lundgren’s warning. He knew they shouldn’t be here. The last thing he needed was to get suspended. How was he going to explain that to his grandmother? Still, Natalia was so excited about being invited to an exclusive party that he couldn’t say no.

  “So has anyone heard from Brooke?” Max asked, trying not to sound too interested. He didn’t want Harley to start teasing him about having a crush on her.

  “I’ve been chatting with her on my DE Tablet,” Natalia said, leading them deeper into the darkness. “She says she’s ready to come back to school, but her dad won’t let her.”

  “Why not?”

  “She thinks he’s overprotective, I guess,” Natalia replied. “I’m supposed to go to her place after school, so I should know more tonight.”

  “This looks like an abandoned mineshaft,” Harley noted as he stepped over a pile of fallen masonry. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

  “Of course,” Natalia replied. “The girl who invited us described it perfectly. They leave it like this so the teachers won’t get suspicious.”

  “Wouldn’t they notice the footprints?” Ernie asked. “I mean, you’re the detective and everything, but there’s a lot of dust down here.”

  Natalia ignored him.

  After a few minutes, they found themselves at the top of a shadowy staircase blackened with soot and grime. “Down we go,” Natalia directed.

  “Are you kidding?” Ernie asked as he looked over the edge with trepidation.

  “Nobody forced you to come with us,” Natalia said. With that, she stepped over a broken gargoyle and began the descent.

  “If Sprig were here, she could turn into a giant firefly or something and light the way,” Ernie suggested.

  Max’s stomach turned. His attempts to find his Bounder had failed. She’d never been away this long before. If it was true that faeries were hiding from someone, maybe she was fine and just waiting until things were safe again.

  “I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Natalia said as she moved quickly down the stairs.

  “Shhh… I hear somebody following us,” Ernie warned.

  Natalia turned her flashlight back up the stairs, but nobody was there. “It’s probably more people coming to the party.”

  When the Griffins finally got to the bottom of the stairs, they found themselves in a long hall. The floor and walls were damp, and Max had a strange sense that he had been there before.

  “There’s no one here,” Harley said, turning to Natalia. “Someone pulled a prank on you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Natalia said. She saw someone move in the distance, the tail of her dress fluttering as she disappeared down one of the passageways. “That’s her. That’s the girl who gave me the invitation!”

  “What are you talking about?” Harley pressed.

  “Come on.” Natalia took off after the girl, and soon the Griffins found themselves facing a sheet of tattered plastic that had been strung across the abandoned hallway.

  “Where did she go?” Natalia asked, frantic to find her.

  “I know this place,” Max whispered. “It’s from my dream…”

  His nightmare had sprung to life before his eyes. It was the same hallway. The same smell. The same everything. What was next, the bicycle? The newspaper bag? Would Johnny Geist be waiting for him in the room beyond?

  “Maybe we should get out of here,” Ernie suggested, but Max didn’t hear him. Before Max knew what was happening, he pushed aside the plastic sheet and walked down the hall until he came to a doorway.

  “Help me…” a voice echoed inside his head.

  Max walked over the threshold and into a chamber that reeked of death. There was a rusted metal table with thick straps, broken drill bits, curved saws, forceps, and knives scattered on the floor where a tray had been overturned. Max had indeed been here in his dream, but it had been a different time. Ages ago.

  Ernie skirted as far away from the wicked tools as he could. Across the room, Natalia spotted shackles big enough for her to wear around her neck. “I wonder what these were supposed to hold.”

  “I don’t know,” Harley said. “But this whole room is lined with iron. Maybe they were doing experiments on faeries.”

  “Or changelings,” Ernie mumbled.

  “But we’re on school grounds,” Natalia countered. “Why would the administration have allowed a place like this to exist?”

  Harley walked over to five grimy cylinders that were affixed to the wall. Peeling away the layer
s of decay, he uncovered round gauges. “Check this out. We have some of these up in the MERLIN Tech labs,” he explained. “They’re kind of like batteries, but they measure plasma watts. Whatever was going on down here required a lot of juice.”

  “Look at this.” Natalia shined her flashlight on a plaque hanging over the door. It read:

  METATRON

  PROF. VON STRIFE

  EST. 1883

  “Von Strife?” Harley whispered. “So it was true…”

  Max ran his hand along the surgical table where he was certain that Johnny Geist had once lain. A shiver washed over him. He pulled away, but his arm bumped a metal tray filled with wicked tools. Pain flashed, and Max realized that he had cut himself. He looked down and saw the rusty scalpel. The same one from his dream…

  Then a flood of light blasted through the doorway.

  34

  SUSPENDED

  Max raised the Codex Gauntlet, and Skyfire erupted over his fist.

  “Lower that weapon or you will face expulsion!”

  Dean Nipkin emerged from the shadows of the doorway. Max could just make out her silhouette through the glare of the sodium light she was carrying.

  “Do I dare to ask what you were doing here?” the dean asked, looking at each of the Griffins in turn. “I don’t suppose this was one of your little monster-hunting expeditions.”

  “There was a party…” Natalia began.

  “In a Construction Zone?” Dean Nipkin asked, looking around the dismal setting in disbelief.

  “Here’s the invitation,” Natalia explained, handing over the paper.

  Dean Nipkin pored over the invitation. “Who gave this to you?”

  “Stacy Bechton,” Natalia muttered, her eyes on the ground.

  Dean Nipkin stepped back, as if she had seen a ghost. “Stacy Bechton?” She paused, composing herself. “There is no current student by that name. What game are you trying to play, Ms. Romanov? Where did you hear that name? And this invitation… it must be a hundred years old.”

  For the first time, Max noticed that the paper was faded and rippled. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

  Natalia sighed and lowered her eyes under Nipkin’s scrutiny. Not only had Natalia fallen for Stacy’s prank, but Stacy wasn’t even the girl’s real name.

  “No answer? I see…” the dean continued. “Then you leave me with no alternative. From this moment, you are all hereby suspended from Iron Bridge Academy. You will be required to attend a formal hearing where you can present your case. If you are found guilty, you will face expulsion.”

  “I want to talk to the Baron,” Max announced, stepping protectively in front of Natalia.

  A hint of a smile traced the corner of Nipkin’s paper-thin lips. “Of course you do. But don’t assume that your status as Guardian of the Codex provides you some level of immunity. The Templar can drop you back into the real world just as easily as they plucked you out. Now follow me.” With that, Dean Nipkin spun on her heels and headed down the hallway.

  35

  AN UNUSUAL GUEST

  The next week passed like a fog. While Grandma Caliburn was no fan of Dean Nipkin, she wasn’t happy that Max had broken the rules. Still, she let him continue his monster-hunting training with Logan. Harley spent most of the week working at Monti’s lab. He was only allowed to sweep the floors, but at least it was a start.

  As for Natalia, she was grounded. She spent her days watching the telephone, hoping that the school would call and tell her the suspension was all just a silly misunderstanding.

  The call never came.

  Ernie passed the days flipping through his comic-book collection or sketching superheroes. When he got bored with that, he stayed in contact with his friends through his DE Tablet. And he worried about Robert.

  When Natalia’s phone finally rang, it wasn’t the call that she had been hoping for. Instead of an invitation to come back to class, the Grey Griffins had been summoned to a disciplinary hearing with Baron Lundgren.

  The next morning, all four of the Griffins found themselves sitting in the Baron’s office. A circular room with a glass dome, it sat atop De Payens Hall. It overlooked both the Master’s and Apprentice’s Halls, commanding a 360-degree view of the island. Inside, every grain of wood was polished to a shine, and the books on the surrounding shelves were perfectly placed. Conspicuously absent, however, were any pictures of his wife or daughter.

  The Baron seemed to take no notice of them as he pored over a stack of yellowed papers. After several tense minutes of waiting, the Baron set aside his work and screwed the cap onto his feathered pen.

  “It’s all my fault,” Natalia blurted. She couldn’t stand the silence. “Expel me if you want, but they didn’t do anything wrong…”

  Cain raised his hand, and she fell silent. He continued his work for a few more minutes, then sat back in his chair, regarding them closely.

  “Dean Nipkin had every right to suspend all of you,” he began in a calm voice. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a set of notes. “I confess that I am disappointed that you, of all students, were found in a restricted area,” he said, looking directly at Max. “My role as your mentor is well known here among the faculty. Not only is your defiance a slap in my face, but it also erodes my authority. You have placed me in a very difficult position. Now,” he continued, glancing at the paper in front of him, “you claimed to have received a party invitation from a girl by the name of Stacy Bechton?”

  Natalia nodded.

  Cain studied her closely. “Then, you will no doubt be saddened to hear that Stacy is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, for nearly a century, in fact. Which makes her appearance somewhat suspect. Please describe the girl you saw.”

  Natalia looked at her friends, unsure how to begin. “Um… I guess she was a little taller than me, with curly brown hair. Her eyes were blue, and there was a freckle just above her right eyebrow.”

  “I see. Had you seen her previously?”

  Natalia nodded. “A few times. Always in the dining hall, near Xander’s table.”

  Cain turned to the boys. “Have you seen the girl whom Natalia is describing?”

  They shook their heads.

  “But I swear I saw her!” Natalia argued. “I’m not the type to make up stories. You know that!”

  Cain nodded. “Of course. Or perhaps you saw something that looked like her. Your description matches Stacy’s well enough, but why would Miss Bechton’s ghost invite you to a party in an area that is strictly off-limits?”

  “Maybe she wanted us to find the Metatron,” Natalia conjectured. “What is that place anyway? It looks like a torture chamber.”

  Cain shook his head. “I am afraid that information is classified. Now as to your hearing, I will admit that Miss Bechton’s alleged participation is troublesome. So until this matter is cleared up, I am postponing my judgment. In the meantime, I will allow you to resume your classes so long as you behave yourselves. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Natalia replied, and the boys nodded their acceptance in turn.

  “What about Brooke?” Max asked as the Baron prepared to return to his work. “Is she okay?”

  Cain regarded Max with coldness. “It was you who placed Brooke in mortal danger, Master Sumner. Not Aidan. You gave her the card that the Reaper sprang from.” He paused, allowing the truth of his words to sink in. “If you place Brooke in danger again, unknowingly or otherwise, I will not be so forgiving.”

  Max nodded slowly and stared at his laces. “There’s something else,” he said. “Sprig’s disappeared.”

  36

  THE CLOCKWORK KING

  “Faeries are strange creatures,” Baron Lundgren explained after Max told him about what had happened with Sprig. “I have no doubt that your Bounder is very much alive. You two are linked, and if anything had happened to her, you would know.”

  Despite Cain’s assurances, Max didn’t feel any better. When Saturday mo
rning finally came around, it took all of his energy just to get out of bed. Apparently Monti had had a breakthrough about the Round Table cards that they had found, so Max forced himself to throw on a pair of jeans and his Twins cap.

  “Good morning,” Monti offered with a measure of cheer that bordered on obnoxious, considering how early it was. “Would you care for some juice?”

  “No thanks,” Max said. What he wanted was to go back to bed.

  The other Griffins were already seated at the table in the back of the comic store. They were attacking a stack of donuts drenched with icing and sprinkles.

  “Since you’re all here now, I can give you these,” Monti said, handing each of them a sealed envelope.

  “Supersonic! It’s our Toad Reports,” Ernie shouted as he pulled out a spiral-bound document with the words TOP SECRET written across the top.

  “This is incredible,” Natalia had to admit. “They even have a list of all the cards my opponent usually plays with, and what order she typically uses them in.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Monti said. “Something like that would have come in handy when I was dueling, that’s for sure.”

  “That reminds me,” Max said. “What’s the deal with Kinematic goggles? I heard we need them for the tournament.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Monti said, pointing to a pair that sat on the shelf behind him. They looked like something from a science-fiction movie. The goggles had vents, adjustment toggles, and a comlink that swiveled.

  “Virtual Kinematics is popular at the Templar academies,” he explained. “Next to the SIM Chamber, it’s as close as you’re going to get to a battlefield. Maybe Iver didn’t think you were ready yet,” he said, pausing thoughtfully. “Give me a few days, and I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, maybe we should talk about why I asked you here.”

  Monti poured himself a second cup of coffee before he continued. “I think that I finally understand what caused your Chinnery deck to come to life before it attacked Brooke. You see, it’s been rumored that people called Animators have been able to animate Round Table cards for centuries, but it’s never been done in public, so there’s no proof. If it were possible, it would have to be exceedingly rare, and in the wrong hands, extremely dangerous. I believe someone with this skill may have tried to use Brooke as bait to get at Max.”