“Oi. Thirteen. I think you’d better ’and that over, don’t you?”
Chapter 54
“SHAW.” JACK WISHED he had not dropped his sword by the fountain. He would never have stabbed the warden, but he would have felt like more of a match for the brute with a weapon in his hand. “How did you get down here?”
“Easy ’nuff without you two slowin’ me down. I’m not wanted ’round ’ere.”
“You got that right.” Gwen stood at Jack’s shoulder, and his mom and Sadie stepped up on his other side.
Jack frowned. “So you gave us up to Mrs. Hudson.”
“Not yet. Not when I can bring in a thirteen an’ a dangerous artifact all by my lonesome. An’ look”—Shaw’s thick lips spread into a grin—“ ’ere’s a thirteen, right ’ere. Wot’s ’e got in ’is ’and but a seriously dangerous artifact. Guess my job is done, eh?”
“What about my dad? You were going to help us rescue him.”
“Your dear ol’ dad is dead. Time you faced that. Besides, two out of three ain’t bad.” Shaw cast an ominous smirk at Jack’s mom. “An’ now I’ve caught the infamous Mary Fowler as a bonus.” He took a step forward, reaching for the Ember. “Awright. Time for—”
“You know what?” Mary Buckles stepped between the warden and her son, stopping the big teen cold despite his advantage in size. She pressed the head of the cane into his chest. “You may be abnormally large for your age, but you’re not in charge here. I am.”
The warden grabbed her arm and shook it. “An’ why should you be in charge, eh?”
In a sudden flash of bronze falcon and blue peacoat, Jack’s mom spun out of Shaw’s grasp, twirling the cane above her. She brought it down right behind his knees. As the warden’s legs buckled, she reversed her spin and the falcon head came around again, swatting him across the chest. Shaw went down hard. She stood above him, holding the cane at his chin. “Why? Because I’m a grown-up. And these are my kids.”
The episode had rendered both Jack and Sadie speechless, but not Gwen. “Mary Fowler,” she said, breathing out the name. She elbowed Jack in his bruised arm. “Told you your mum was a quartermaster.”
Shaw wasn’t finished. As Mary turned to her son, the warden let out an angry growl, pushing himself up. “Now you’ve done it.”
Jack snatched the cane from his mother’s hand, spinning it point down and shoving it into Shaw’s chest. At the moment of impact, he pressed a brass button beneath the glowing chamber on the shaft. Electricity snapped from the end. Shaw convulsed. The air filled with the acrid scent of burning tweed, and the warden fell back onto the stone, unconscious.
“Thank you.” Jack’s mom let out a shaky breath. “But how did you know about the stun gun?”
Jack offered the cane back to her. “I didn’t. It just seemed right.”
“Hang on to it.” She pressed the cane back into his hand. “A tracker’s cane contains a number of surprises. I think you’ll find it comes in handy in a pinch.”
As Jack tucked the cane into his belt, he heard a familiar crackling noise coming from Shaw. “Bugs!” he shouted, pulling Gwen to the warden’s side. “Help me lift him!”
The two rolled Shaw over, revealing two of the Clockmaker’s beetles underneath, already nearing the end of the usual self-destruct ritual. The children each kicked one of the bugs, sending them flying into the wreckage of the fountain, where they burst into flame.
“I never heard them crawling on him. The tweed must have muffled the sound.” Jack glanced down at the warden. “Do you think he was . . . ?” He couldn’t finish the question.
“No.” Gwen shook her head, giving the unconscious Shaw a little punch with her toe. “He’s a conniving brute, but he’s our conniving brute. The beetles must have attached themselves without his notice. They could have been on him since the Archive. We have to assume the Clockmaker knows everything.”
“Then we’d better get going.”
“Jack,” his mom interjected, “let me go instead.” She gestured at the wisps of smoke drifting up from the remains of the bugs. “Look what you’re up against. This man is a killer.”
“No, Mom.” Jack handed the Ember to Gwen and took his mother’s hands. “You need to stay with Sadie. I’ve come this far. I can finish this.”
“But you’re—”
“Not a little boy anymore.” Jack set his jaw, the way his dad had set his jaw when he faced the Clockmaker. “I’m a tracker now.”
His mom nodded, without arguing any further, and Jack checked his watch. The digital display read 11:15 P.M. He had to get the Ember to Big Ben by midnight, and climbing the Great Stair might take more than an hour. He turned to Gwen. “We need a lift.”
“I told you. The lifts have cameras, and most of them only go up or down a few floors. There’s an express lift one level up, but that’s a secure storage level. The Chamber will see us. As soon as we go for it, the wardens and QEDs will converge.”
“Um . . . which will arrive first?” An idea—another option—had materialized in Jack’s mind.
“The QEDs, of course.” Gwen wrinkled her nose. “What difference does it make?”
Jack almost smiled at the insanity of his plan. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
Chapter 55
JACK AND GWEN climbed the Great Stair to the next level up, the lowest sublevel of the Keep proper. Before leaving Tracker Lane, they had returned to his dad’s armory for a few extra supplies and a satchel for the Ember. Then they had said good-bye to Jack’s mom and Sadie, who planned to seek out Mrs. Hudson as soon as he and Gwen were clear.
Their climb brought them to a small landing, and a vault door not unlike the door to the Chamber. “This is the Keep’s high-security storage sublevel,” said Gwen, “where we keep our most dangerous artifacts—things like the Ember. Are you sure you want to go in there?”
“How many sublevels before we reach another one with access to the express lift?”
“Five.”
“Then I don’t see another way.”
Gwen nodded, biting her lip. “All right, then, listen up. This sublevel is circular, like all the rest besides the Chamber. Halfway ’round the perimeter hall, we’ll find another hall that branches off, leading straight to the express lift. The straight hall is quite long, because the lift comes down from the upper floors, which are much wider than this one. We’ll have to keep up a good pace once we go for it. Your DNA will open the door, but I doubt it will deactivate the security drone on the other side.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.” Jack reached for the thumb pad.
“Wait!” Gwen grabbed his wrist. “I wasn’t finished. The storage aisles that make up most of this sublevel are arranged like tumblers on a lock, or one of those garden mazes. Whatever happens, stick to the perimeter. Do not try to cut through. You’ll never come out the other side.”
“Because I’ll get lost?”
She let go of him, taking a deep breath as he pressed his thumb down onto the pad. “No. Because you’ll be killed . . . or worse.”
The door popped open and the two wasted no time getting inside, skidding to a stop in the dim, wood-panel hall of the perimeter. “Your secure storage facility is wood too?”
“Ironwood,” Gwen answered with a shrug. “As fireproof as concrete, without the risk of sparking.”
Jack looked left and right, up and down the long curving hall. “Which way?”
“It’s a circle. Pick one.”
He took off at a run. Before Gwen could follow, a QED shot out from the maze and hovered between them.
“Go!” shouted Jack, pointing the other way. “I’ll keep it busy.”
She did, and the drone took off to follow.
“Hey! Don’t you recognize me?” Jack yelled after it.
The QED coasted to a hover thirty feet away, slowly reversing course.
Jack backed away, nodding. “That’s right. John Buckles Thirteen. You can’t have me running loose in the K
eep, can you? Go ahead. Call the wardens. Tell ’em all about it. As long as you stick with me and leave her alone.”
The drone inched toward him, spreading its cargo pincers, which couldn’t have been wider than two of Jack’s fingers.
He laughed. “Really? What’s your plan—grab me by the jacket and carry me upstairs? I’m not sure those’ll do the job.”
A panel opened on the underside of the QED, and two more sets of pincers emerged. They opened and closed in rapid sequence, like legs on an angry dragonfly.
“Whoa.” Jack’s eyes widened. “That is your plan.” He turned and ran.
Images of varied artifacts flashed in Jack’s head as he passed the aisles leading into the maze. The hodgepodge of items differed little from what he had seen in the Lost Property Office display—a table lamp and a top hat, one of those flat robotic vacuums. He half expected to see the creepy clown dummy from the Graveyard. Instead, he saw a bronzed apple with two bites taken out of it and a giant clock with its hands chained in place, a few minutes from midnight. He was almost to the lift hallway when a second QED appeared to block his path. Had it come from the maze or the hall?
“Gwen!”
She was too far away to hear, or too busy to answer, and Jack was trapped, with only one route open to him. Despite the clerk’s former warning, he turned at the next corridor, straight into the maze.
As he rounded the corner, Jack was surprised to see light ahead. Maybe thirteen was lucky after all. It looked like the aisle he had chosen went straight through. On the shelves flying by, he saw a set of rusty shackles, a bronze ax with a white tag that read SARGON II, and a jar full of sickly grapes preserved in brine. None of it looked particularly menacing until Jack passed the grapes. Then all of it seemed menacing. He had the overwhelming feeling that he wouldn’t make it out of that aisle alive—a feeling that got a lot stronger when he noticed another boy running right at him, wearing the same leather jacket. Jack wasn’t running toward an open hall. He was running toward a huge mirror.
He pulled up short before a gilded frame. Sculpted lettering across the base read ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER. “Schrödinger, Sargon, and sour grapes,” he muttered. “I must be in the S aisle. How organized.” Jack turned, hoping to retreat to a cross aisle he had passed before the drones hemmed him in, but his elbow swung over a shelf as he turned, bumping the cobra-shaped head of a long black staff. It clattered to the floor, and transformed into a living snake.
Jack drew his cane and swung it back and forth like a club. “Get back!” The cobra coiled and struck, and Jack connected, smacking the snake under its broad hood with the bronze falcon head, knocking it back against the shelves. The jar of sour grapes tipped and tottered, slowly rotating toward the edge.
The snake hissed and coiled for another attack.
The jar fell.
Two drones sailed down the aisle.
Jack swung again as the cobra made its second strike, and heard a satisfying crack when its fangs snapped on the bronze. Instantly, the snake reverted to a rigid staff. A QED snagged it in midair, setting it gently back on the shelf while the other drone caught the falling grapes an inch above the floor. The second QED returned the jar to its place, and both advanced toward Jack, opening their pincers wide.
He backed away, expecting to bump into the mirror. Instead, he tripped over the lower lip of the frame, and fell right through the glass.
“What on—” Jack finished with an “Oof!” as his seat hit the floor. He was sitting in front of the same mirror, in a completely different aisle, with no snake staff and no drones. Except the mirror before him wasn’t the same. The gold lettering across the bottom read MR. PICKLES. In the reflection, Jack saw a lighted hall, marked with a brass plate with the letters TFIL. It took a moment for his mind to catch up. Then he jumped to his feet, shouting, “Lift!”
The QEDs approached from the side as Jack raced across the perimeter hall, heading into the long passage. Up ahead, the doors of the express lift were open wide, but there was no sign of Gwen.
Chapter 56
JACK SLAMMED INTO the back of the lift and whipped around to see the two drones speeding down the hall. He poked the close button repeatedly with the end of his cane. “Come on. Come on.”
The doors finally activated, closing at an excruciating rate. Above him, the camera hung by a wire, its mounting broken. He recognized the work of Gwen’s scarf.
With the doors only inches apart, the lead QED turned on edge, pulling up its pincers and zipping through. Jack cringed as the other one crashed into the barrier behind it. The drone that made it jerked back and forth above him, exploring the four corners of the car before finally settling at the center and lowering its pincers. It started a slow descent, coming down to claim its quarry. Jack tucked his cane into his belt and backed into the corner. There was nowhere to go, but running had never been his plan in the first place.
“Gotcha!” he cried, jumping up and grabbing the two forward pincers. The QED rose up in confusion, lifting him from the floor, and Jack kicked the lift’s emergency stop button as he passed. “Now, Gwen!”
A panel in the ceiling slid back. Gwen peered down. “You called?” With nowhere else to go, the QED rose through the gap, and she caught hold of the rear pincers, letting it lift her off the roof in its climb. Together they rose up through the shaft.
“It worked!” Jack looked up at the glowing circles of the engines carrying them up toward the surface. “I can’t believe it really wor—” He stopped short when he lowered his gaze and his eyes met Gwen’s, mere inches away. She did not look happy. “What?” he asked. “What’d I do?”
“All that equipment in your father’s armory and you couldn’t find a single breath mint?”
Jack gave her a flat frown. “You’re one to complain. I’m not the only one with choco-nutty-shellfish breath around here.”
She giggled, but the breath jokes only covered the first two levels of the long climb. After that, things settled into uncomfortable silence, the two of them facing each other, their noses nearly touching.
“Ahem.” Gwen cleared her throat, looking off to the side. “Took you long enough. I suppose you simply had to cut through the aisles, if only because I told you not to.”
“How do you know I cut through?”
“It’s written all over your face.”
Gwen brought her eyes forward again, and Jack felt the need to look up, feigning interest in the shaft above. “I fell through a mirror.”
“Really, which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“Absolutely. Seven people have fallen through Mr. Pickles’s mirror, and we have no idea where they went—whether they’re alive or dead.”
He thought she might be joking, but she looked perfectly serious. “I fell through the other one.”
“Right. Of course.”
“Um . . . Gwen?” He was looking up again, and this time his interest was real. As they had talked, the drone had been accelerating, and now the blue glow of the engines illuminated the ceiling of the shaft, racing down to meet them at breakneck speed.
Gwen looked up to follow his gaze, and both children screamed. “Aaaaah!”
There was a resounding clang, but without the expected pain of a crash or the gut-wrenching plummet back down to their deaths. Jack felt the white rush of cold wind on his cheeks. He opened his eyes, one at a time, and saw a grate lying open below them.
“Are we dead?” Gwen’s voice was muffled, her head still tucked into her arm.
“No!” Jack shouted over the gale that was already carrying them east of Baker Street. “But we have a new problem. Don’t look down!”
She did, and yelped, wrapping her legs around him. The motion caused the drone to bobble. It struggled to correct itself, lurching south before settling in its eastward drift again.
“Now what do we do?”
Jack’s attention was on the drone and its movements. “I need you to turn around.”
“Seriousl
y?” Gwen shouted back. “You’re making breath jokes now?”
“Just turn around, will you?”
Using Jack for support, Gwen managed to turn, hand by hand, and face away from him. The drone lurched with every shift of her weight, sliding left and right before recovering control.
“Now lean left!” shouted Jack, and they pulled on the left-hand pincers together. The QED moved left under their command. “Right!” Again, the drone responded. Jack smiled despite the cold and the ache in his arms. “We can steer this thing!”
It took a great deal of trial and error to find their rhythm, but soon Jack and Gwen were flying over the lights of London, dodging steeples and high-rises, toes dipping into the tops of the trees in the parks, though they did that on purpose only once. Gwen gave the directions, sighting landmark after landmark on the way southeast to Big Ben.
“The Clockmaker might be expecting us!” Jack shouted over wind rushing past their ears. “But he won’t be expecting this!”
Chapter 57
JACK AND GWEN flew right across the top of Westminster Abbey, pulling up their feet to keep from kicking its spires. Up ahead, the Great Clock Tower rose above the Thames, glowing gold in the lights shining up from below. Beyond the river, Jack could see the blue ring of the Millennium Wheel, and beyond that, a quarter moon hanging over the eastern horizon.
Gwen gave an exaggerated nod toward the tower. “We can land on the balcony above the clockface! The one Parliament lit up with those gaudy green spotlights!”
But the green balcony was drifting to their right.
Jack suddenly understood the full difficulty presented by the wind. Sure, the gale had made the flight cold and loud, but now it had become a control problem as well, driving them off course. Steering the QED toward the tower felt like steering a canoe toward a dock on a rushing river.
The Lost Property Office Page 20
