He didn’t answer her, but returned the gun to Dinga’s head, who had stopped struggling, and was fighting for air instead. Edwin flipped open the letter and scanned it quickly. “As I thought, he’s suspicious,” he murmured.
“Eddie, can we just talk—”
“I said, hold your tongue. For once in your life, Sebastian, just shut up!”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“Well?” Alayna looked directly at Edwin. “Is it what you expected?”
Edwin looked up from the letter. “Where is the key, wench?”
No, I mouthed, fixed on Alayna. Don’t give it to him.
She shrugged. “I don’t know, there was nothing in the letter.”
“You’re lying!” He crumpled the letter and shoved it in his pocket. “The Keeper will find it, eventually. You can save yourselves if you give to me.”
“We don’t have it,” Alayna dropped her hands, palms out. “Please, just let Dinga go, and we will help you find it.”
“Edwin, this isn’t like you,” I urged him. “Come on, you and Alayna can work this out. Whatever this key goes to, we can—”
“No, I can’t,” Edwin replied, and for the first time I noticed he had tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’ve already made him a promise I’d bring back the Zespar with the marlita, and the key. My father didn’t have it, after I—”
“What’s happened to Victor?” Alayna prodded. “What have you done, Edwin?”
“It doesn’t matter, not now!” Edwin yelled.
I took a step forward. I wasn’t sure if I could grab Dinga or the gun, but I’d get one away from him, if it killed me. “The Keeper won’t keep his promise, Edwin.”
His gun hand was shaking now, held against Dinga’s darkening skin. The demon shifted from blue to dark purple in a struggle to regain consciousness. “He promised me a place in the court, my rightful station as the queen’s—”
“The queen’s what?” Alayna asked.
It clicked into place, like the cogs and wheels of a timepiece. “The queen is his mother.”
Alayna gasped and turned to me. “How did you...”
“It’s quite obvious,” I said, my eyes locked on our villain, “he is Victor’s son, and he spent time in the mines precisely when your mother was with you. You’re what, sixteen cycles, Edwin?”
“Silence!” Edwin tried to yell, but I cut him off.
“Alayna, you remember what your father said, about your mother being with child when you were two years old. She traveled here to have Victor’s illegitimate son.”
With an awful gurgle, Dinga passed out.
Alayna brushed a tear from her cheek. “Sebastian, you’re right. Oh my god, you’re really right. Edwin is my...”
“Hello, sister,” Edwin interrupted her. “My father urged me not to say anything under threat of harm. My mother wanted to tell you herself. Apparently, my father was right. There really was no more time.”
Alayna leaned forward, and I was afraid she was going to pass out. “If you’re my brother, then Sebastian is who, exactly?”
“Don’t worry, you can continue your rutting with my dear brother in arms, he is of no relation.”
His statement angered me, and I felt the electricity spark around me.
“Sebastian,” Alayna’s hand on my arm stopped me from destroying Edwin, and Dinga as collateral, in my rage.
“What have you done with my mother?” I yelled at Edwin.
“Not what I have done, but what the Keeper choose to do, is none of my concern.”
Alayna seethed at him; her fists balled at her side. “Sebastian, give him the marlita,” she said, not taking her eyes off Edwin.
“Nonsense, he’ll kill you as soon as he has the marlita.” I still inched forward. “Dinga and the Anual, too. Do you really want that much blood on your hands, Eddie? Think about it.” I tapped my forehead to demonstrate.
“No, I have to bring it to the Keeper, or he’ll—”
“He will what?”
Edwin shook his head. “I’m not going back to the mine. You know what it was—is—like there.”
I nodded. “I’ve got the scars to prove it, mate. But if you put the gun down you can turn around and go home. Forget all this nonsense.”
Alayna be damned, Dinga was as good as dead anyway. As soon as I raised my arm to throw the ball at Edwin, Alayna screamed, “No!” and grabbed for my elbow. The ball flew wide, bouncing off the wall and extinguished on the ground.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” Edwin yelled. “I would have let you go! Now I can’t!”
He swung the gun on me, as I swirled the light shield around us.
Alayna screamed again as the gun went off. I didn’t have time to get the shield up and the force of the shot ripped through my shoulder. Blood sprayed my face and neck. Whose blood? Mine? Pain laced up my neck and down my back, and my vision went blurry. Beside me, Alayna was gripping her shoulder and screaming, but there was no blood on her anywhere. She burst into tears.
“Get him up,” Edwin motioned the gun at me. “You’re going into the mines.” His voice was strange, warbling, and distorted. Dinga’s limp body swung from Edwin’s grasp. I couldn’t tell if he was passed out or dead.
Sobbing, Alayna struggled to help me to my feet. The agony was crippling, and my legs refused to work. I moaned, the blood running freely down my fingertips. She slung an arm over me, and we struggled toward the small steel door that sealed our fate.
The plaza in front of the piston entrance was deserted, save for the guards. Isolated from the rest of the city, it didn’t surprise me no one noticed us. The guards, seeing Edwin’s breastplate insignia, banged their fist against their chest and stepped aside. They looked straight out across the square as we passed.
Dinga hung limp under Edwin’s arm, but in my painful state I could barely see his small chest moving in short, shallow breaths. Edwin punched into a silver keypad by the door, something straight out of my world, with a series of different shaped cogs on it. The door slid open with a silent, seamless whoosh, revealing a tiny room inside that couldn’t fit more than a few people. The walls were made of mirrors from top to bottom.
Alayna moaned louder and began to slump against me. I wasn’t strong enough to hold her up, but I knew exactly how much pain she was in. The memory of the Zespar ceremony, the snap of the faded leather around our wrists that bound us, it was all still fresh in my mind.
“Why won’t you help us?” She screamed at one of the knights. He continued to look forward and not at us, as if her cries fell in deaf ears.
“Don’t bother, he’s loyal to the Keeper,” Edwin sneered. “Get in, or I kill this one!” He shouted, pressed his wrist gun into Dinga’s forehead.
“No! Don’t hurt him, please!” I yelled.
He brandished the gun at me. “Still one bullet left,” he announced, “who wants it?” He leveled it close to my temple. “Yours?” It hovered near Alayna; whose eyes were shut tight. “Or perhaps, my dear cousin, who never seemed to treat me like family?”
“We never were...” I was having trouble getting the words out. “You ... were just my ... friend.” My legs shook with my anger—or blood loss. I couldn’t tell anymore.
“Now you’re a traitor!” Alayna yelled.
“The key,” Edwin ignored her. “I know my father gave it to you. Last chance to hand it over.”
“I don’t have it.”
I smiled and a chuckle squeezed out. I reached out for the smooth edges of the elevator. “You’ll never find it!” I laughed at him.
Edwin shrugged. “No matter, I’ll get it from him either way. The dagger, if you please.”
Alayna hesitated, and he pressed the gun to Dinga’s head so tight it was baring into his purple skin. She struggled to undo the leather belt, and I knew her left arm was nearly useless from the pain I was in. The dagger fell to the floor with a clang.
“Kick it over.”
“No,” I tried to tell her, but a groan
just came out.
She did.
Edwin kicked it behind him, with no free hands to pick it up. Then he laughed, a tinkering feminine sound. His gun was shaking, just a little. “Goodbye, Sister.” He nodded to me. “Sebastian.”
Alayna’s arms were around me, I think, but I tried to fight her off.
Edwin had to be stopped. But my movements were slow and clumsy, and the pain in my shoulder blocked me from using my power. She dragged me with her into the small room. Her hands slipped on the lapels of my vest, to my alarm her hands were covered in slippery blood.
I struggled to stand, but the room tilted sideways, and I fell against her, knocking us into the back wall. We slid down the smooth surface, the blood smearing behind us.
Edwin pushed into the keypad again. The door sealed us in.
The last thing I saw was Dinga, in the clutches of that monster. Alayna’s cries reached my ears, the most awful sound in the world.
Everything faded to black.
Book III: Clock Princess
Chapter Nineteen: Mines
THE ROOM STARTED TO fall out from beneath us.
The pain ripped down my arm, starting from my shoulder and spreading to my fingertips. I cried out, I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t heard the gun go off again, but I was too worried about Sebastian to notice. My fingers came away clean; I hadn’t been shot. But how was I in this much pain?
I clung to him as we dropped into the depths below the city in this makeshift elevator. Down, down, down, we were colliding with who knew what. Would the doors open and reveal a monster, some hidden metal relic of the Keeper’s? Would we find the children who seemed to be missing from the town? I was terrified to think about it.
Sebastian was choking. I tried to pull him up, but his eyes rolled in the back of his head, and he lost consciousness. I wasn’t strong enough, but I tilted his head back and tried to keep him awake. My own breaths came just as ragged as I struggled to help him sit up. I felt like I was drowning.
“Sebastian!” I cried, my voice barely above a choke. Tears ran freely down my cheeks. “Please, stay with me. Don’t leave me here alone!”
We landed with a thump, the whole elevator shaking. Sebastian stirred, and moaned my name.
The doors opened into darkness. I shut my eyes, scared of what we might find.
“We might die here,” I whispered to him.
He grabbed my hand; his touch was so weak.
A light floated across my vision. It was small and slight, nothing but a candle. A dirty face appeared in front of the open doors. The light suddenly flashed so bright I covered my eyes. “Who’s there?” I called.
The face disappeared, then reappeared, followed by several others. They were whispering, anxious, hiding their words behind their hands.
“Let me through!”
A young boy, but nearly as tall as Sebastian, was pushing through the sea of black-streaked faces. He knelt at Sebastian’s feet. “Bash? Is it you?”
He was dirty like the rest of them, cheeks stained with dirt and a black soot. He wore only a torn vest and badly ripped make-shift shorts and was barefoot. A mat of once blond hair was plastered to one side of his head, the other side was devoid of hair, and badly scarred. Wrinkled and angry red flesh clung to his head and spread down around his eye, which was blackened and bruised.
His black eye. I remembered the first time my father had struck me.
The recollection blurred my vision. He was drunk again, with a fist heading toward me. My last thought before I fell was I somehow deserved it. I had back talked, I remembered, by insisting to go out with my friends, and he didn’t like it. That monster of a man didn’t like anything I did, and he always answered with his fists.
But now I knew. I didn’t deserve it, and neither did this nameless boy in front of me.
Sebastian stirred, and gripped the boy’s hand. “Wyatt,” he whispered, gurgling, and turning to spit red liquid to mar the mirrored floor. The reflection danced back at us as it spread over the smooth surface.
“Let’s get you up.” The boy threw an arm under Sebastian, and he motioned the faces pressed against the door to help him. Pairs of arms wrapped around him and hoisted him through the narrow exit.
“Mistress,” a voice said to me, and I was reminded of Dinga. Dinga! What was Edwin doing to him? Was he even alive? A sob caught in my throat.
I looked up and saw a face like Wyatt’s, dirty and marred, but free of the scars that washed over his.
She was wearing a once long dress, ripped to the knee, and hanging crookedly. Her arms were as thin as sticks, her scrawny legs crooked and bent inwards.
I took her outstretched hand and stood, leaning into her in my weakened state. Her eyes were wide at the blood smeared all over the front of me. “Not mine...” I managed, and she slipped an arm around my waist to help me. No sooner had I stepped into the darkness, when the door shut firmly behind me, sealing the elevator. The doors were fashioned as a dark, rocky cave wall so seamlessly it had to have once been an entrance – or an escape.
I let the young girl lead me away from what had once held my freedom. My eyes adjusted to the room, which I saw was larger than I than I thought. It was ten times the grand room where we had talked to The Order of the Dragon Key the night before and lined with light every twenty feet. Small lanterns, I saw were caged with thick iron cages which hid most of the light and looked nigh indestructible.
“Name’s Aila,” she led me to a small rock, motioning I could take a seat. Wyatt and the others carried Sebastian out of my view, around a corner and into the blackness.
“Where are they taking him?” My head was spinning.
Faces of every size and shape pressed in around me, none of them older than myself. A few of them too young to even be walking. They were all dressed the same as Wyatt and Aila, in little more than rags.
Many of the boys held black bags slung over bare chests, and they were bowed with the weight of them. The girls carried baskets, the smaller ones helping hold them up. A few baskets held a myriad of stones: blue, green, but mostly black. Smooth like the marlita, but bigger. They glinted in the low light.
The cave was filled with children, as far as I could see. Darkened faces floated even beyond them, some on stones, some on high rock paths to the far left of the cave. Hundreds, maybe thousands.
They pressed in, and I covered my face. Where’s my mother? Why are you here? Have you come to rescue us?
“Stop.” I tried to yell, but it came out as a gurgling murmur, and I heard the scurrying as the little ones raced away, terrified. “What is this place?”
“It is where we live,” Aila said, sitting on the rock next to me and crossing her skinny legs with a dainty flair. “Here, in the mines.” She spread her hand out to demonstrate.
“Why are you all here?”
“We—”
Before she could respond, there was a crack, high and sharp, in the air. A metallic voice boomed: “Stations, and no loitering!”
I heard cries from the children and looked to my right. A metal robot, nearly twenty feet tall, was whisking an electrified whip around the room. “Stations in 5... 4... 3...”
The children scrambled and dispersed, some of them out of my view, but most to the back of the cave. Quickly, loud sounds of rock crumbling began. I covered my ears. “Make it stop!”
Aila gently helped me to my feet. “Come, we must tend to Sebastian’s wounds.”
Before I could ask her how she knew his name, she whisked me away in the same direction they had taken Sebastian. I let her pull me forward, willing my legs to work.
We ducked low under a small opening at the front of cave and entered a room with the same kind of lighting. A thousand or more beds, bunks stacked five or six feet high, lined the walls in a circular fashion, some of them ten feet off the ground. In the center was two tables, rotted wood with chairs that look to fragile to sit on.
On the left table, Sebastian was spread out for all to see. Aila r
eached for a dagger next to him and poised it toward his heart.
“No! Don’t you touch him!” I raced forward, pushing between Sebastian and Aila.
“He’ll die if I don’t heal him!” Aila cried back.
“He. Was. Shot.” I forced out every word. “Shoulder.” I slipped backward and fell against the wall.
She turned to me, and our eyes locked. “Are you okay?” she rushed to where I was slumped over. “You’re covered in blood.”
“His blood—Sebastian...” I felt the world slipping away. Someone was screaming, and it was enough to make my blood curl. Was that me?
“I’ve got to get the bullet out.” Aila turned back to him.
“With a dagger?” I lifted my good arm to point.
“It’s that or we let him die!”
Bright yellow and red spots erupted against my vision and I slumped back, helpless but to watch. I pulled my knees into my chest and started rocking. Everything was falling apart. I didn’t know them; I didn’t trust them. The dagger was so close to his heart.
Then something happened. The spots in my vision ceased and clarity erupted around me. My hands felt cold, frozen, numb. But they felt powerful.
“Move,” I said, standing. Aila backed away with the dagger.
I reached out to touch Sebastian, but he screamed so loudly it chilled my blood. The four boys holding Sebastian down struggled to keep him from flailing about. I felt my arms seize out next to me, as every bit of pain was transferred to me. I cursed Elinar’s name. Why would this agony ever be useful? Blue streams shot from my fingertips and danced along the edge of the broken table. There was so much blood, everywhere, running in rivets to the dirty cave floor.
The blood stopped. Who was doing that? The flesh around Sebastian’s wound shrunk and closed around the hole, and like a fish erupting from the sea, a silver bullet rose to the surface. It rolled off his chest and onto the floor.
My vision had never been clearer. The pain in my shoulder miraculously subsided, replaced with a dull ache. Even though my head was still foggy, I felt everything tilt the way it was supposed to. “Sebastian,” I whispered.
Clock City Page 17
