Clockwork Twist : Trick (19 page)

“But what was that pretty building?” Myra asked Twist, wide-eyed.

Twist told her what he knew and remembered from history and fiction.  Myra listened intently, smiling all the while.  They passed another bridge and a few blocks before he ran out of things to say.

“No wonder you liked that book I gave you,” Idris said thoughtfully as he quietly regarded Twist. “You read far too much.”  Jonas nodded, looking at Twist too.

“What's wrong with reading?” Twist snapped.

“I prefer living, to reading,” Jonas said easily.

“You can only live one lifetime,” Twist pointed out. “But you can read several.”

“Oh, touché,” Jeffrey said admiringly.  Jonas shot the monkey an ungrateful look, making Idris laugh.

The rest of the ride in the cab was peppered with questions from Myra, some of which Twist managed to answer.  Jonas and Idris answered the rest, while Jeffrey remained quiet for the rest of the ride.  After a while, Twist began to wonder what sort of thoughts the gentlemanly monkey might be entertaining, but he couldn't bring himself to ask.

By the time the last of the daylight had fallen into true night, the cab had passed another giant, but pale stone cathedral.  A huge fountain sat before it, filled with stone lions and nymphs not unlike some of the Italian fountains Twist had seen in Venice.  The cab trotted quickly around the cathedral and then down a narrow alleyway.

The cab pulled to a stop before the flat face of a large, five story house.  A single wooden door, large enough for a carriage to drive through, stood at the center of the house.  The windows facing the street were all black on the first two floors, while lights shone softly out of the highest ones.  Jonas paid the cab and sent it away before he came to stand beside Twist, Myra, Idris, and Jeffrey who had all fallen into a line before the closed door as if readying themselves for a battle.

“Charming,” Jonas muttered under his breath.

“You're sure this is the place Aazzi meant to send us?” Twist asked him.

Jonas nodded. “This is the address.”

There was a silent pause before Twist spoke again.

“Now what?”

“We're still unaccounted for,” Jonas said softly, directly to Twist. “We can still just keep moving.  We don't have to do this.”  The softness of his tone drew Twist's eyes to his.  They stared at each other for a moment before Jonas gave a sigh and looked away. “I'm just saying it...”

“Whatever happens,” Twist said to Myra, squeezing her hand gently, “know that I'm never going to leave you.”  The words came easily, steadying him as he said them.

“I know,” Myra said, smiling at him softly, her gleaming jewel blue eyes warm in the dark.

Idris glanced down at Jeffrey and paused for an instant. “I feel like we should have a moment too.”  Jonas shot Idris a glare.

“I just wish I had a banana,” Jeffrey said mournfully.

Idris gave him a pitying smile and picked him up, placing the monkey on his shoulder again.  Then, without a word, he caught a shaft of golden streetlight glow from the empty air.  The light solidified into a yellow curved object, which he offered to Jeffrey.  Jeffrey's eyes widened so far that the monocle fell from his face, though he didn't seem to care.  He took the offered item, clutching it in his little hands like a precious treasure, as a smile spread to cover his face.

“Is that a banana?” Twist whispered to Jonas.  Jonas nodded, fighting hard to keep himself from laughing.

Jonas paused only for a single reluctant moment before he rang the bell.  Twist waited silently beside Myra, his spirit surprisingly calm while hers began to fret.  Idris waited patiently for the door to be answered.  Jeffrey sat on his shoulder, eating the banana with rapture.  It was little time at all before the door opened inward, swinging wide and silent on its hinges, and a shining silver face looked out.

The creature across the threshold was the same size as a normal human maid, but its face was a single, rounded sheet of steel with two circular black holes where eyes should be, and a rectangular slit
instead of a mouth.  It wore a long black dress, with a white apron and a lace-frill of a hat to match.  One of its crude, skeletal, three-fingered metal hands held the door, while the other gripped a feather duster.  It stared soullessly at them on the doorstep, appearing to look at each one of them in turn.

A soft metal click sounded, and then from inside the stone-still empty face a muffled and metallic
-sounding male voice said something in French.  Jonas responded in French instantly, his voice calm though his face clearly showed amazement.  His eyes were uncovered as he stared at the metal maid.

The maid asked the same question again, after another soft clicking sound, in exactly the same tone.  Jonas began to respond, turning to gesture to Myra.  The maid gave another click, and then cut him off
, now saying something different.  Jonas listened with a frown until the maid began to close the door.

“Wait!” Jonas said, reaching out to stop it. “Just hold on a second!”

The maid paused and then clicked again. “Do you have an appointment?” it asked in English now, but in the same male voice.  Twist was startled to suddenly understand it, and for a dizzy moment wondered if he had spontaneously learned French.

“All right, that's getting old,” Jonas snapped at the maid.

“I'm sorry, but the doctor will not be disturbed.  If this is an important matter, please make an appointment during office hours.”  Once again, it began to close the door.

“You talk to it,” Jonas said bitterly to Myra
as the door shut. “Maybe it will listen to one of its own.”

“Let me try,” Twist said, stepping forward.

He knocked on the door and waited.  In a moment, it opened again to reveal the same metal maid, which gave another click and then repeated the phrase that Twist now supposed must mean, “Do you have an appointment?” in French.  Twist didn't answer, but reached out to place a hand on its shoulder.  His Sight flared instantly, showing him a vastly simple version of Myra's clockwork form, with wax recordings and preset reactions where the living crystals should have been.  There was no soul bound to this metal form.  It was nothing but a mindless automaton.

The maid gave another click after Twist laid his hand on it, and then struck him solidly across the face with the feather duster.  Twist reeled back with a shocked sound, his vision sparking after the solid blow, and was caught and steadied by Jonas.  The maid clicked again and said something calmly in French before it closed the door.

“It said 'please don't touch the maid,' by the way,” Jonas supplied to Twist.

“You people are no end of entertainment,” Idris said, smiling broadly as he and Jeffrey watched from the edge of the street.

Twist stood on his own again and wiped at his tender nose.  His hand came away smeared with red.  Twist glared at the door.

“That thing is nothing like Myra,” he said angrily, turning to the others. “It's not alive at all.  It's just a ... a thing!”  Myra's eyes flashed with horror to see the blood on Twist's face and she rushed to him.

“Oh, my poor darling!” she gasped, reaching up to dab at his lip with the sleeve of her cloak. “That beast!” she spat, her face awash with rage.  Her anger bit at his Sight, making him wince more than the physical pain.

“M
ight I have a go?” Jeffrey asked.  They all looked at him silently. “If you don't mind,” he added.

Curiosity won out easily, and the others moved aside to let Jeffrey place himself squarely before the large wooden door.  Jonas pulled the cord to ring the bell for him and then moved back to watch.  After a pause, the door opened once again to reveal the metal maid.  The maid looked down at Jeffrey, and then clicked before it said the same question it had so far asked everyone else.

“English, please, if you would,” Jeffrey said calmly.

The maid paused and then clicked again. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes I do,” Jeffrey said firmly.

The maid paused again, and then gave a different sounding click. “Please state your name after the tone.”  An instant later, a bell-like tone emitted from its slit of a mouth.

“Jeffrey Simian.”

“Thank you,” the maid returned. “Please follow me.”  It then moved back into the house and opened the door wide for Jeffrey.  He glanced back over his small shoulders to smile smugly at the others.

“You see?  All you had to do was ask.”

“Well
done!” Idris said, grinning ear-to-ear and clapping his hands.

The others refrained from comment as they followed the monkey into the house.  The maid led them all past a tall staircase and into a large parlor that stood against an inner courtyard in the center of the house.  It turned the keys on the gaslights to reveal the space.  The pleasant furniture, baroque styled odds and ends, a shining black piano by one window, and an oil painting of a family over the cold fireplace were all in place.  By the thin chill in the air, and the precise and undisturbed placement of each and every perfectly dusted item in the room, Twist guessed that the parlor hadn't actually been used in quite a while.

The maid told them to wait while it called for the doctor, and then it moved away.  It was only then that Twist realized that the maid had no legs or feet.  Instead, a large ball-like wheel rolled under the rest of the body—mostly hidden by the long skirt.  They all stood awkwardly in the parlor, staring around themselves in the dim gaslight, until Myra let out a sigh.

“This is not at all what I'd expected,” she said, pushing her hood back.

“Me either,” Jonas said, examining a gilded statuette of a running horse that was sitting on one of the small marble-topped tables at each end of the three visibly unused couches.

“I certainly didn't expect to be violently struck with a feather duster when I woke up this morning,” Twist muttered, gingerly checking to see if he was still bleeding.  Jonas laughed under his breath while Myra immediately moved to check on Twist.

“It's best not to have expectations,” Jeffrey said as he dropped the empty banana peel into a dustbin by the door. “They can be too easily unfulfilled.  Bananas, of course, being the exception,” he added, licking at his little fingers.

“Is it just the accent,” Jonas asked the others, “or does the monkey seem to be smarter than the rest of us?”

“I'm sorry to keep you waiting,” a voice with a light French accent called hurriedly, as it approached from the hallway.  Everyone turned to see a middle-aged man in black-stained coveralls, a long once-white apron, rubber boots, and a well-used black welding helmet hanging open over his brow, appear from the hallway as he removed his huge leather gloves. “But I don't remember making an appointment—“  He came to a full stop as he saw Idris, Myra, Twist, and Jonas standing in his parlor.

“No matter,” Jeffrey said, drawing the man's gaze down as he spoke. “Jeffrey Simian, at your service,” he said, tipping his hat with a small but very respectable bow.

The doctor looked back up to them, then down to Jeffrey, and back again for a moment, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.

“We're friends of Mr. and Mrs. Philippe Rodés,” Twist said, stepping forward. “We need to speak with you about my friend here,” he said, gesturing to Myra. “We need to convince the Rooks
, who are looking for her, that she is no threat to anyone.”

The doctor listened carefully, his mind obviously making a number of difficult connections at a rapid pace.  Then, he looked to Myra and his eyes widened in wonder.

“My word...” he breathed, moving closer to her. “That is magnificent,” he said, peering at her face as she looked back to him. “It's so lifelike.  The way the eyes follow you...”  Myra frowned slightly and stopped watching the man sway back and forth in front of her, and looked to Twist.

“Is he quite all right?” she asked softly.

“And verbal animation synchronization too!” the doctor said with a gasp. “I've been working on that for years.  Who built this?” he asked Twist.

“I don't know,” he answered. “According to the story, it was a puppet maker.”

“Story...” the doctor said, as if coming sharply to a new understanding. “You've come from Bombay.  This is the one they lost,” he added, looking back to Myra. “This is the legendary clockwork princess!”  Twist felt a surge of apprehension, but did his best to push past it.

“Her name is Myra.  The Rooks would have taken her from us,” he said, stepping into the edge of the doctor's vision as he stared at Myra. “But she's not an automaton like your maid.  She's a person, and she should be treated as such.  She's also as harmless as any other lovely young girl.”

The doctor gave Twist a sudden glance. “Lovely young girls are anything but harmless, in my experience,” he said quickly before looking back to Myra, scrutinizing her copper features.

“She's not something for the Rooks to worry about,” Twist amended. “Aazzi told us that you work for them on occasion.  That you are an expert on this sort of thing.  Can you help us?”

The doctor took a thoughtful breath and then took the welding helmet off.  He looked at Twist levelly for a moment in silence before he spoke again.

“You know,” he said evenly, “they would have brought it right to me, anyway.  They told me that they'd found it in Indonesia, and tracked it as far as Bombay.  And they have been searching for this piece for longer than either of us have been alive,” he added, looking back to Myra. “Aden was outraged to hear that they only sent a collection team to retrieve it.  But we expected to find it in pieces, not fully functional.”

“I fixed her,” Twist said, leaning heavily on the final word. “The soul of the same princess is still in control of the clockwork puppet.”

“Are you certain of that?” the doctor asked him, looking amazed again.

“Yes,” Myra answered flatly.

“Well,” the doctor said, looking over Myra's cloaked form and then back to her face. “Then I'll have to have a look at it.  I can give you the same answers that I would have given them.  If this … 'young lady' is truly as you claim, then I might be able to explain your situation to the Rooks.  I assume you don't wish to part with it,” he added, looking to Twist.

“I promised to take care of her.  I intend to do so.”

“And what about the talking monkey and the gentleman with the gold eyes?” he asked, looking back to the others.

“Traveling companions,” Twist said with a dismissive wave of a hand.

“Yes, of course,” the doctor muttered. “One family member marries a vampire, and suddenly your life is full of strange things.”  He looked to the djinn, the talking monkey, and the man with black goggles over his eyes. “Then you will all wait for my diagnosis?”

“I'm intrigued,” Idris said with a smile.  Jeffrey nodded, while Jonas only stared through his opaque black lenses at the doctor.

“Very well,” the doctor said, looking slightly uncomfortable with the idea. “Then you can all wait here in my parlor.  If you need anything, tell the maid by saying 'I want' and then the item's name.  Now, come along,” he said to Myra, reaching out to take her arm.

“She will not leave my sight,” Twist said, his voice soft, but firm and unshakable.

“If you insist,” the doctor said with a sigh.

Myra took Twist's hand and held it tightly in hers.  He felt the instant shock of her nervous fear, though her blank, watchful expression didn't change.  He offered her a smile as he followed the doctor out of the parlor, petting her gloved hand gently.  Myra moved with him, but her nerves didn't calm easily.