Addleton Heights

by George Wright Padgett

  “All right,” she said, nearly hyperventilating. “What, then . . . what do we do?”

  I took in a deep breath as a million thoughts clamored for attention in my brain. “You gather up all the scrapes—I mean fighters. The fighters.” I pointed at the wandering men and women in the distance. “You round them up while I go inside.”

  My words spewed out like the bullets from one of the topiary guns. “I’ll locate where he is—the exact pathway through the mansion into the tower. Then I’ll meet you down in the main foyer, and we’ll all ambush him together. Many will get hurt and even killed, but he won’t be able to fight all of us in a confined space. When he’s subdued, it’s going to be up to you to figure out that mirror-in-a-mirror thing Sawyer was talking about. You think you can do that?”

  She contemplated this and then said, “I think I can. I just hope I can do it fast enough. But as for the rest, you’re sure this’ll work?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “But how can you be so certain?” she asked.

  “Because it’s the only plan I’ve got.”

  She reached for me. “We have to hurry. Let me carry you back to the mansion.”

  “You certainly will not,” I said, surprised at how quickly my pride swelled up. Moments before, I’d nearly been in tears to see her still alive, and now I was peeved at an assault to my manhood.

  “Don’t be such a—”

  “A what?” I cut her off.

  “Don’t be such a . . . man,” she blurted as she grabbed me. “Just let me carry you. I can run a lot faster, and we don’t have much time.” She cradled me in her arms like a child. “I’ll be careful not to crush you.”

  “Thanks for your consideration,” I mumbled, and I shifted to protect my ribs from a bumpy ride.

  We made it back to the mansion without incident. Janae had been right about the speed, but I’d had all I could stand by the time we entered the study.

  “Janae!” I shouted between the heavy thuds of her stride and the blasts of steam from the suit’s knee joints. “Janae, this is far enough!”

  We’d made it two thirds of the way through the area before she stopped.

  “Kip, are you certain this is the only way to do this?” she asked.

  “He’ll hear you coming a mile away.” I motioned for her to put me down.

  Lowering me down to the rug, she offered me the gaff coil rod she’d scooped up from a dead Charon on the way back to the arboretum. “Check it,” she commanded while pointing to the coil end. “I’m not leaving until you show me that it works.”

  Careful to avoid a fire by not aiming at any of the books, I pressed the trigger. Instantly, the hair on my face, head, arms, and neck responded by standing up. The sensation only lasted a brief second, ending when the glowing coil end of the rod crackled and belched out a bright cobalt blast at the ceiling.

  “Satisfied?” I asked.

  “Three more feet to the right and you’d have brought down the chandelier upon our heads,” she replied in a way that reminded me of my mother. “Now, I didn’t get that for you to get all ‘King George and slay the dragon’ or any such foolishness. Find the way to the tower and come back for the rest of us. Only use the blast coil on servants that try to oppose you. Understood?”

  “I’ll meet you in the foyer in a few minutes.” I headed for what was left of the study’s mahogany door.

  As I ran across the top level of the foyer, I glanced down at the destruction and Berkeley’s mangled body. A moment later, I was in the metal corridor where we’d been before all the fighting had begun. Janae, true to her word, had cleared the door that’d blocked our access before. From the looks of it, she’d taken delight in not only breaking through the barrier but also using the strength of the suit to fold it into an open “V.”

  I ran through a small, dimly lit vestibule that had doors on opposite sides. I chose the one on the left. As I reached for the knob, the door swung open. A young, dark-skinned maid jumped back at the sight of me and was even more startled to see the weapon I bore.

  I snatched her wrist while she tried to sort out her confusion. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I need your help,” I said.

  She pulled back, but my grip was too tight for her to break free.

  “Stop it!” I scolded. “If you don’t help me, I will hurt you! I just need you to take me somewhere in the mansion.”

  With wide eyes beginning to water, she answered, “Please, sir. I just clean.”

  “I need you to show me how to get to the tower,” I said, thrusting the coil rod upward a couple of times. “Mr. Montague needs this right away.”

  “You’re not with the attackers?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you or any of the staff, but I have to hurry and get to him.”

  “Come with me,” she said, and she moved to the opposite door.

  I released her wrist, and we hurried in and out of a number of various-sized rooms by means of service entrances until we came to a plain, undecorated hallway. The walkway was a steep ramp.

  “Down there,” she said, pointing at an equally plain white door. “I can’t read it, but I know what it says. This is as far as I can go.”

  The sign above the door read, “No Admittance.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  With the exception of maybe Berkeley, I had no reason to believe that the house staff had any involvement in what was going on here. I wasn’t willing to allow innocent workers to be maimed or killed in our raid against their boss.

  I gently laid my free hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Hurry and gather all the staff. Have them go down to the entry foyer. There’ll be a woman down there in a large metal suit of armor. She won’t hurt anyone if you don’t attack and you do exactly what she says. This place is too dangerous. You must get everyone to safety there.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said nervously.

  As we went our separate ways down the corridor, I called out, “Tell the woman that Kip sent you!”

  I shook the gaff coil rod the way I’d seen Charon charge them, though without the same grace. A moment later, I went through the door.

  The area opened into a thinner, curved hallway. Someone rapped on something out of view around the bend. “Mr. Montague, let me in!” a man’s voice called out in a British accent.

  I tightened my fingers around the coil rod and hurried around the curve. A bearded, tall, lanky fellow nicely dressed in tweed continued slapping his palm against the door. So focused was he on getting through the door that he didn’t see me approach.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, catching my breath.

  The middle-aged man paused while turning to look at me quizzically. “I’m the sir’s physician,” he answered. “He’s in dire condition, which I fear has reduced him to a state of confusion. He is refusing me entrance, and it’s imperative that I get through this door before it’s too late.” His eyes caught the Charon coil rod spear, and he cautiously took a step back from me. “Are you friend or foe to Mr. Montague?”

  “I’m a friend to the people of Addleton Heights,” I said, wiping my brow. “Doctor, I’m with a group of people who need to get in there to him as well. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  I hadn’t expected the response to offer him relief, but he relaxed slightly. “Yes, I know. The master was pounced on by the invaders, and he’s cut very badly. I did a cursory examination of the wound. His external jugular vein running to his sternocleidomastoid has been severed.”

  “Sounds bad,” I said sarcastically.

  He huffed. “He could be bleeding into his lungs. Do you understand the implications of that? If his lungs fill up, he’ll drown.”

  The irony of it was how the doctor and I were both in races against time to save lives by drowning.

  “There’s been tremendous blood loss. If I can’t get him on a surgical table soon, I fear he’ll expire within the hour.”

  The heavy footfalls of a walking suit thudded on the other side of the
door, but I had to be sure it was Montague and not whoever Elijah was. “And you’re certain that it’s him in this room, not someone else?” I asked as I tried the locked brass knob. “We expected him to be in the mansion’s tower a few levels up.”

  “Yes, sir. He’s sealed himself inside in that walking tinkware. I pursued him down from the tower area, pleading with him to allow me to treat him. He pushed me away—quite forcefully, I might add.” He massaged his shoulder.

  “Your name isn’t Elijah, is it?”

  He looked puzzled. “I’m Edgar Howarth, M.D.”

  I put my ear to the wood. There was the hum and clack of a motor. “What’s in here? Is there another way in?”

  “Restricted area, a lab of some sort,” he said. “We need to find Mr. Berkeley. He’s the one who has the—”

  “Berkeley’s dead,” I said flatly.

  Howarth did his best to conceal his shock at the revelation, but I saw it rattled him. “Sir, not to be barbaric, but the situation is beyond critical for Mr. Montague.” He sheepishly pointed at the gaff rod. “Perhaps the end of your axe thing there could cut through the door and grant us access.”

  I started devising a plan. If I could open the chamber for Janae first, I wouldn’t even need to face down Montague yet . . . even though I was still worried about what Elijah might have in store for all of us.

  “You said that you came from the tower. If you’ll take me there right now, I’ll come back down here and hack through this door for you to get to him. I just need to get inside the tower chamber.”

  “Impossible,” he said, wagging his head. “It’s as secure as King Solomon’s treasury up there. It’s the kind of reinforced metal door that larger banks use for their safes, completely impenetrable without the code.”

  “Code?” I asked as my heart sank deeper in despair.

  “Yes, a numerical code that must be typed in at the door. I don’t know what it is. Only Mr. Montague, Mr. Berkeley, and Mr. Sawyer know.”

  Of all the blasted luck!

  Sawyer’s final utterance was a series of numbers, but he hadn’t told me their significance. I’d only heard the first three or four of the sequence before his voice had faded away.

  “When he came out, was he in a different walking suit than when he went in?”

  “Different, sir?”

  “Or did he say anything about meeting up with someone named Elijah?”

  “Sir, not to be curt or rude, but I must insist that we postpone this line of questioning.” His eyes blinked irregularly as he continued in a lively and more pronounced baritone. “The more pressing issue at hand is gaining access to where he is now.” He took a step back and began rolling his fists in the air, eyelids still flapping wildly. “I’ll have you know I was sparring champion three times over in my regiment.”

  Howarth added a slight boxing shuffle to his presentation in hopes of intimidating me. “By the authority of Alton Montague of the Addleton Heights Commonwealth, I demand that you relinquish the axe so that I may proceed to save his life. What say you?”

  I’d had enough.

  “Have it your way, then,” I said, tilting the coil end of the rod at him. The blue blast shoved him backward, and he collapsed to the floor with a groan.

  So much for not hurting the members of the staff.

  The occasional stomp of the walking suit rattled the floor as I tried key after key on the lock.

  For the moment, Montague was still alive, but what was he doing in there? Was he able to change out of the suit by himself?

  If that was what he was doing, maybe I could catch him when he transitioned to what I had begun to think of as the “Elijah suit.” He’d be vulnerable as he made the switch, allowing me to grab him. I’d haul him up to the vault door of the transmission chamber, force him to enter the code, and then get Janae up there to break the system.

  It was a long shot, but I couldn’t come up with an alternate plan.

  Finally, a satisfying click alerted me that I’d slid the correct key into the groove. Inhaling a deep breath, I shook the rod to charge it to full capacity. Howarth still lay writhing in pain on the ground.

  I turned the knob and opened the door inward a crack to peek inside the chamber. Montague moved in and out of my narrow viewing area. His back was to me as he focused on some contraption against the wall that I couldn’t make out. He was still wearing the same black walking suit. The room appeared to be a medium-sized parlor, but I couldn’t tell for certain through the narrow opening.

  Deciding to brandish the spear side of the weapon, I turned the rod around in my hand. My heart galloped inside my chest like a racehorse.

  It all came down to this.

  I pushed the door ever so slowly, inching it farther into the room. It stopped short. Looking down, I saw the edge of a cart blocking the door. I fought back the urge to panic and gently nudged the cart forward. It yielded slightly. Then the sound of breaking glass made me jump—something had tipped over the edge and shattered on the wooden floor.

  With the element of surprise gone, I burst into the room.

  Montague was already spinning around to face the doorway as he yelled, “Dr. Howarth! I told you that your services are no longer required and for you to—”

  He stopped short upon seeing me. “You!”

  I thrust the end of the spear up at his bloody face. He snatched the end of it in his metal fist with catlike precision before it reached his head. A split second later, he lifted me off the floor and smashed me into the low ceiling of the modest room, which was a tangle of rubber hoses and wires. I managed to land on one knee from the unexpected fall.

  When I stood, he swatted me with the end of the coil rod, sending me stumbling into the cart. Before I could return to my feet a second time, I was struck by a high-backed wooden chair he’d flung in my direction. The blow shoved me backward into the door, slamming it shut.

  He lifted the rod above me to strike me while I was on my knees. I snatched the chair and hurled it back at him. The metal rod split the chair, sending a shower of wooden fragments in all directions.

  I shielded my face with my arm and dodged to the side, forgetting about the broken glass. It crunched beneath me as I rolled away from Montague toward the corner of the room.

  Lying prostrate on the floor, I saw a pair of large shoes near my head. The shine on them reflected the light of the parlor. The backs disappeared under the cuffs of a man’s trouser legs. The discovery caught me off guard. I was close enough for whoever this was to kick in my skull, but they didn’t move.

  My eyes quickly scanned upward as Montague advanced from behind. Whoever this was wore a masterfully tailored pinstriped suit, but something was off about the hands at his sides. Both were of the same pewter-colored alloy of the mechanicals.

  My gaze followed a bright-red tie like an arrow until it reached the face of the wearer. It was the metal likeness of Alton Montague—not the wrinkled-up, white-haired version that I knew, but the young Alton in the painting of him on the horse, the one before the accident. The blacksmith who cast the visage must have been a Michelangelo of steel, because the human features were perfect, if one ignored the many rivets holding it together.

  The real Montague’s walking suit snatched the back of my jacket, jerking me to my feet. I struggled to break free, but Montague twisted me around and held me in a one-armed reverse bear hug. He lifted me off the floor a few feet, and my chest burned with pain from my sore ribs. No matter how much I kicked, I was no match for his size and weight. I was helpless in the clutch of his massive metal arm.

  I’d have to take a different approach.

  “Doctor says,” I started with a grunt, “that you’ll be dead in an hour if you can’t get the bleeding to stop.” I flailed my arms and legs again, hoping to hit the gaff coil rod he still held in his right hand, but it was out of reach. “He says you’ll drown in your own juices if you’re not treated soon.”

  Montague replied with an eerie calm, speaking so
ftly from behind me into my ear. “The good doctor doesn’t know everything.”

  Still facing away from him, I tried to ram my head backward into the old man’s face. “Arrrgh.” I struck the metal collar of the suit instead and saw spots for a few seconds. I kicked and swung furiously until I tired out.

  Panting, I looked around the room as far as I could turn my head. The mechanical version of Montague stared motionless at us from the confines of metal beams that cleared its height and width by a foot or so. The enclosure was like a pine-box coffin stood on end but made of durable Montague steel instead of wood. It was leaning back at a slight angle, the figure supported by braces at the waist and neck to keep it from falling.

  The room looked as if someone had turned a pipe organ inside out and affixed the brass tubes to the walls. The area was filled with blinking lights, gauges, knobs, and sliders. Black rubber hoses of various thicknesses and lengths dangled above our heads like jungle vines. There was a steady hum and a rhythmic clacking behind us.

  I asked, “What’s that sound?”

  “That?” Montague asked playfully as he turned us around to face the source. “That’s the future.”

  Montague rotated us around to face the spinning of two large, perpendicular, serpentine belts, each measuring a yard and a half. They raced their hypnotic figure-eight cycles in and through silver bolts as long as railroad spikes. “A future that you’ll only witness the prologue to.”

  To the right of the serpentine belts, the narrow table and control panel ended to allow space for the area’s most intriguing feature, a five-foot-tall half-bubble bolted to the wall. It looked as if the glass object had come into the room and stopped halfway through.

  Different-colored hoses entered and exited the sides, top, and bottom of the giant, clear egg, but the curved side facing out had no hoses, cords, or bolts, allowing us to view the nebulous swirl of orange and green gases inside.

  It was stunning. I was simultaneously awestruck by its elegance and horrified by its menace.

  Montague thrust the spear rod into the high-backed wooden chair to the side of the glass bubble. “You won’t be needing that any longer,” he said, wrapping the now-free arm beneath the other that held me to him.