The Havoc Machine

Chapter Two

Sofiya towed him into a noisome alley ankle-deep in autumn mud. A chilly wind spun angrily between high, narrow buildings beneath a heavy moon, and Dante settled his brass feathers. Thad pried himself out of Sofiya’s grip and faced her. “I don’t take observers with me, Miss Ekk. I work alone.”

“That sounds lonely.”

“No one else gets hurt that way.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” She waved a hand. “You are the brave warrior who faces great trials by himself. How trite.”

“Listen, I don’t want you getting in the-”

“I? Get in the way? Ha!” She huffed beneath the scarlet cloak. “Frankly, Mr. Sharpe, I am waiting for you to die.”

“Die?” Thad echoed.

“Certainly. One of Mr. Havoc’s machines will likely drill through your skull like, how you Englishmen say, a hot knife through butter, and while the blood gushes down your ear and Mr. Havoc watches you twitch on his worktable, I will slip in to take his invention-and the credit.”

Thad stared at her. “Really?”

“No, you idiot.” She shoved him down the alley and seized his arm again. “I am going to stand outside this ruined castle and watch while you go in and then I will hope you don’t die. Otherwise I will have to find someone else stupid enough for this job.”

Thad allowed her to tow him along. “And you think I’m stupid enough, is that it?”

“You keep on your shoulder a brass parrot that does not like you much and can, in your words, deliver more than two thousand pounds of pressure from the business end of that sharp beak. Is that smart or is it stupid?”

“Stupid,” Dante echoed. “Stupid, stupid.”

Thad halted. “Then perhaps this employer should go get this invention himself.”

“No, no.” Sofiya held up her hands, and the red cloak spilled over her arms in a scarlet river under the moon’s silver shadows. “I have told you-our employer has a number of limitations and he cannot do for himself. If you do not wish the work, please say so and I will find someone else.”

“There is no one else, Miss Ekk, and we’re both aware of that.” He lowered his voice to a near growl. “I’m always willing to kill a clockworker, no matter what the circumstances, and I can definitely use the enormous sum of money you’re offering, but you can keep a civil tongue about it.”

She bowed, and Thad couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant to mock or not. “My apologies. I am very often forthright, especially these days.”

He blinked. “What does that mean?”

“It means we have to leave now. Our employer wants that invention as quickly as possible, and I am coming along because I do not entirely trust you not to run away with the invention or destroy it once you leave the castle. But you can kill the clockworker or not, as you wish.”

Thad let this pass and followed her down the dark alley again. “And once I give you the invention, you intend to kill me?”

“What?” She glanced back at him. “Ah. Like me, you have many suspicions. That I can understand. No, Mr. Sharpe. I have no reason to kill you. And if I did, there would be simpler, less expensive methods to accomplish it than than offer you money and send you to a castle. I could, for example, offer myself to you and kill you while we copulated.”

Thad flicked a glance of his own down the alley. “No,” he said. “You couldn’t. But I understand your point.”

“Point is sharp,” Dante said. “Sharp on point.”

“Shut it, bird.”

Sofiya cocked her head. “So why do you keep this talking bird if you only tell him to shut up? And in such bad shape, too. I could arrange for him to be fixed.”

“I’ll take your money, but I don’t explain myself to you,” Thad snapped. “Let’s go, then.”

“As you say. Our mount is just around the corner.”

They rounded the corner. Standing in a small cul-de-sac was a magnificent brass horse. Golden skin etched with fine designs gleamed in the moonlight and curls of steam wisped from its nostrils. Its mane stood up in a stiff wire brush. Thad stopped short, and Dante hunkered down on his shoulder.

“No,” Thad said.

Sofiya looked puzzled. “No?”

“I’ll find my own horse.” He turned and stomped away.

“But-”

Thad strode off without looking back. Dante clung to his shoulder, wordless for once. Out on the stony street, Thad found a closed carriage for hire and paid the driver to take him to the southern edge of Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. By now, the only foot traffic on the street consisted of men stumbling home from the taverns. Through the carriage window, Thad also caught sight of a plague zombie lurching through the shadows. Its clothes were ragged, its skin in tatters. It seemed to have only one foot. Thad grimaced in loathing. He supposed he should feel pity, but all he could dredge up was disgust. The vile things spread the clockwork plague everywhere. Most people who caught the disease died quickly. Others lost brain and muscle function and shambled through the rest of their short lives as zombies. And a tiny few…

The memories, always at the back of his mind, muscled themselves up to the front. They were nearly ten years old, but they tore and bled like yesterday’s wounds. To stanch them, Thad reached up and grabbed Dante. The brass feathers and exposed gears poked his palm.

“Say it,” he hissed.

Dante neither moved nor spoke.

“Say it!” Thad barked.

Another pause. Then Dante opened his beak wide. From somewhere inside, gears and memory wheels spun and from the mechanical parrot’s throat came the tinny voice of a little boy: “I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy.”

Thad sighed, then set his jaw and let Dante go. The parrot shifted on Thad’s shoulder and muttered, “Bad boy, bad boy. Bad, bad, bad.”

“Shut it.”

Dante fell silent.

The driver had seen the zombie, too, and flicked his whip to make the horses pick up the pace. Thad watched the creature fade into the chilly night. His jaw ached. He realized he was grinding his teeth and forced himself to relax. The zombie wouldn’t last more than a few more days anyway, not in this weather. Rumors floated around about an angel with a sword, or perhaps a clawed hand, that cured the plague with a touch. Supposedly this angel traveled Europe with a mortal man who sang with a heavenly voice. The pair were spreading the cure everywhere, and one day the clockwork plague would end. Thad snorted and slouched lower on the worn leather seat. People would believe anything. The only cure for the plague was death.

The carriage bumped through the streets until the buildings abruptly ended. Farmland, walled estates, and small plots of scrubby trees stretched to the south, but crouched on one of the fields at the town’s edge was a complex of tents and wagons scattered around a single enormous tent. To one side on a spur of iron track sat a long train, complete with locomotive and caboose. The colors of car and canvas were muted in the moonlight, as if a rainbow had fallen asleep. Thad paid the driver and loped into the network of wood and canvas.

Up close, many of the tents and wagons showed wear and dilapidation-holes, dings, even scorch marks. The illustrated sign out front that read KALAKOS CIRCUS OF AUTOMATONS AND OTHER WONDERS bore signs of water damage. Thad wove his way among it all with an unconscious dexterity born of childhood practice. He sighed and relaxed a little. It didn’t matter what city the circus was in, or even what country; a circus was home. He had only been with this particular circus for a few months, but everything about it-the creak of ropes, the snuff of elephants, the whisper of a knife blade clearing its sheath, the stale smell of fried food and old peanuts-brought back memories of being a little boy with his parents. He had learned the delicate art of knives and swords from his father, an expert thrower and swallower. He had learned the art of control and patient fearlessness from his mother, Dad’s assistant and target. From them both and from the rest of the circus he had picked up a dozen languages and the ability to be at ease in a hundred cultures.

And then Thad had fallen in love and left them all for his dear Ekaterina in Poland. Thad set his jaw again and ducked under a tent rope. After any loss, the question that always plagued the survivors was whether or not they would do it all over again. It was a stupid question. There was no way to do it all over again, so what was the point in figuring out an answer? Still, Thad pulled at it like a child pulling at an old scab and making it bleed while the smell of stale peanuts and elephant’s breath swirled around him. Would he do it all over again?

He still didn’t know.

“Shut it, shut it,” Dante muttered.

“Take your own advice, bird.”

“Sharpe is sharp.”

It broke Thad’s heart to see the shabby shape the Kalakos Circus found itself in. The Kalakos was elaborate, enormous, famous-or it had been all those things. Two years ago, the circus had had the misfortune to take in a clockworker named Gavin Ennock and go to Kiev, the birth of the clockwork plague itself. Thad, who was new to the Kalakos, had only gotten bits and pieces of that story. He’d heard about how the Dnipro River dam had inexplicably burst, of course-all of Europe had heard about that-and he’d heard about the way the succeeding flood had miraculously swept off the Gonta-Zalizniak clan of clockworkers who had ruled the Ukrainian Empire and treated its inhabitants like laboratory animals. But the circus folk were strangely tight-lipped about the rest of it, even among other performers. All Thad had been able to figure out was that the circus had come away from the flood much worse for the wear. A great many performers had fled, and much of the circus’s equipment had been destroyed, including its iconic mechanical elephant. This sort of thing came of dealing with clockworkers.

At least clockworkers, unlike zombies, didn’t spread the plague. People who became clockworkers seemed to do something to the disease that kept it from spreading beyond them. This was, no doubt, small comfort to the flood victims of Kiev and to the Kalakos Circus.

Thad arrived at his little wagon, parked near the train in the residential area of the circus. He unlocked it and hopped inside, where he lit a candle. The thin light revealed a close, efficient space. At the front of the wagon stood a low wardrobe with a double-wide bunk atop it. Clever fold-down shelves on the walls could create small tables, stools, or even beds at a moment’s notice, and high, brimmed shelves held a few books and other knickknacks. A knife grinder’s wheel took up the front corner opposite a tiny stove. And from the walls hung a variety of damaged machines.

Each machine had a different design, but all of them were clearly wrecked beyond repair. There were whirligigs with bent blades and spiders missing their legs, energy pistols with broken barrels, and automaton heads split in half, showing gears like metal brain matter. More than two dozen machines covered the wall, in fact. The shadows from the candle played across them, and their dead eyes seemed to focus on Thad. But none of them could actually move-a hard hammer and a satisfying set of nails had seen to that. As Thad set down the candlestick, Dante jumped from his shoulder and landed on a perch among them.

“Sharpe is sharp,” he said.

Thad opened the wardrobe. One half contained dull clothes and bright costumes. The other half clanked with weapons-short swords, silvery knives, heavy axes, thin stilettos, a spiked mace. And pistols. Six of those, including one of the new Smith amp; Wesson revolvers that accepted cartridge rounds. The rounds were much more accurate but also much more expensive, so Thad rarely used them. He hesitated, then touched the torn money pouch in his pocket. With a grim nod, he holstered the Smith amp; Wesson revolver at his belt. His long leather jacket fell open, revealing another small armory of knives and other blades. He checked to make sure they were all in place, put Dante back on his shoulder, and went back outside, carefully locking the little wagon behind him.

From a storage box attached to the wagon’s outside wall, he took a bridle and saddle while Dante shifted uneasily. Thad glanced at the moon and realized he’d have to hurry if he wanted to make it to the village and the clockworker’s castle in time to go in tonight. For a moment, he considered waiting a day or two. It might be better to scout the area out, find out more about Mr. Havoc and his defenses.

“Drink up, drink up,” Dante squawked.

“Hm,” Thad said, absently touching Dante’s head. Dante had a point, however accidentally. The men drinking in the tavern had recognized Thad, known what his business was. It wouldn’t take long for word to filter back to Mr. Havoc that Thad was in town. Clockworkers were insane but they were also frighteningly intelligent, and it wouldn’t be much of a strain for for Mr. Havoc to assume that Thad was coming for him and to strengthen his defenses. Hell, he might even attack Thad-or the circus-as a defensive measure. No, Thad would have to take care of Mr. Havoc tonight. Now.

Thad retrieved his horse from the large, plain tent that housed the rest of the horses, and moments later he was on the road. For a bad moment, clouds rolled across the moon, blocking Thad’s light, but a chilly autumn breeze chased them off again, leaving the path ahead of him as clear as a snake made of mercury. He urged the horse into a canter with Dante clinging to the pommel.

At a spot where stubbly fields met at a crossroad, Thad saw a horse and rider. His hand went to his revolver, but the figures resolved themselves into Sofiya atop the brass horse, motionless and gleaming beneath the stars. Her scarlet cloak looked like dried blood.

“What took so long?” she demanded. “I have been waiting forever.”

Anger stabbed at Thad as he reined in. “Let’s be clear, Miss Ekk. Your presence on this mission is neither required nor desired. If you don’t care for the way I work, you may take back your money and I’ll happily go to bed. Question me again, and that’s what will happen. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly.” She seemed unruffled. “I was only making conversation.”

“Pretty boy, pretty, pretty boy.”

“And keep that walking pile of shit away from Blackie. I don’t want it to contaminate him or me.”

“Blackie?”

Dammit. “My son named him.”

“Ah. And where-?”

Thad slapped Blackie’s flank, and the horse leaped into a gallop. It was some time before Sofiya and her brass horse caught up. The automaton’s gait was smooth and regular, and it snorted steam from its nostrils at every fourth step. Sofiya didn’t speak again, and eventually Thad was forced to slow Blackie down. Sofiya’s horse matched pace without comment.

“I am sorry,” Sofiya said at last.

Thad glanced at her. That was unexpected. But talking with Sofiya was like walking blindfolded through a bomb field. One moment she was explosive, the next she was refined, and he could never tell which was coming. “Sorry for what?”

“For the death of your son. And, I assume, of your wife. I assume a clockworker was involved.”

“How did-” He cut himself off. “Never mind. I don’t talk about it.”

“Nevertheless. It was not my intention to cause you pain, and I apologize. I only want the invention.”

“And I want the clockworker dead. We can both have what we want.”

“That would be a small miracle, Mr. Sharpe. But I will settle for Havoc’s machine.”

Thad shifted in the saddle. “What does this machine do, anyway?”

“I have no idea. And before you ask, I do not know why our employer wants it, either. That does worry me somewhat.”

“Oh?”

“I do not wish to give him a clockworker invention that might hurt a lot of people. So I will have to examine it closely. That is another reason why I am coming along, you see.”

That surprised Thad. “But you work for him.”

“And yet I somehow still think for myself. Do you find this so incredible?”

They reached a village of peasant houses. Like most in this region, the dwellings were low buildings made of logs or sod and topped with thatch. None had windows-they were too poor for that-and no lights burned anywhere. At this time of night, everyone was in bed. Thad judged that they had two or two and a half hours before sunrise. The dirt road threaded between the houses, forked west, and rose up a high hill. Atop the hill, Thad could just make out the silhouette of stone buildings. It seemed to him there should been a storm, or a least a rumble of thunder, but the night was calm and clear.

As they neared the edge of the village, one of the doors opened a crack and a woman peered out, probably wakened by their hoofbeats. When she saw the direction Thad and Sofiya were heading, she ran out into the road, heedless of her bedclothes and her nightcap.

“You must not go this way!” she called in desperate Lithuanian. “You must not!”

Thad halted. “We will be fine, mistress.”

“No! You must not!” She ran up and caught Blackie’s bridle. He snorted and tried to toss his head, but she clung hard. “That way is the path of a demon!”

“A clockworker?” Thad asked.

“An evil man.” Her eyes were pleading. She looked barely older than Thad himself. “He has taken many people from Juodsilai and done terrible things to them. We have begged the Cup Bearer and the Master of the Hunt to help us, but they do nothing. He took my sister…”

“I am sorry,” Sofiya said for the second time that evening.

“Vilma!” A man in a nightshirt was standing in the doorway. “Come away!”

“The demon comes out at night. If you need a place to stay, come to our house. My husband will not like it, but-”

Thad reached down and gently freed Blackie’s bridle from her hand. “I am not the Master of the Hunt, mistress, but I have come to destroy the demon clockworker.”

“Death, doom, destruction, despair,” Dante said.

“Truly?” The woman clasped Thad’s hand and kissed it several times. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you, thank you so much. Wait!”

The woman dashed past her surprised husband into the house and emerged a moment later with a small jug and a cloth-wrapped bundle. “Take these,” she said.

Thad recognized both objects by smell. The bundle was rye bread and the little jug contained a homemade vodka strong enough to make his eyes water. He thought about refusing such a rich gift from a poor household, but the woman’s expression was powerfully earnest. Thad also recognized the gesture for what it was. The memory of his own loss made his throat close up as he met Vilma’s eyes. She understood, and turning down her sacrifice was unthinkable. So was refusing to face Havoc.

“Thank you,” he said. With the gravity of a priest, he slipped the objects into the capacious pockets of his coat. “What was your sister’s name?”

“Olga.”

“I will make sure that word is the last sound he hears, Mistress Vilma.”

Without another word, he turned Blackie and rode away with Sofiya close behind. For once, Sofiya didn’t speak.

They climbed the hill, which was dotted with birch trees whose bark and leaves turned to silver and paper beneath the moon. Halfway up, Thad dismounted near a birch grove and put Dante on his shoulder. Frost had already killed off the insects, and the birds had migrated long ago, leaving the night eerily devoid of life sounds. Anticipation mingled with uncertainty in Thad’s chest, and he found himself checking his weapons over and over-stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives, stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives. He had other equipment as well: silk rope, lock picks, a small hacksaw, matches, and other handy objects. His fingers itched, and he couldn’t sit still. Evil rested at the top of that hill, an evil that terrorized men and killed women’s sisters, and for once Thad would strike it before it struck him.

“You stay here,” he told Sofiya. “After this point, the horses-and you-will be a nuisance.”

“As you wish. Perhaps I will nap.” Sofiya made her horse kneel, and she spread her cloak in a half circle in the brass shelter of its body. “Remember, the invention is a spider with ten legs instead of eight and-”

“-it has strange markings,” Thad finished for her. “I remember.”

“Sharpe is sharp,” Dante squawked. “Doom!”

“No talking, bird,” Thad told him, “unless you want Havoc to extract your gears with a spoon.”

Dante settled his feathers with a clatter, but didn’t respond. Thad touched his knives one more time, then headed up the road toward the ruins and the clockworker named Havoc.