Clockwork Twist : Trick (22 page)

“Peace, quiet, and solid ground?” Twist asked, looking up to him.

Aden put on a confused expression, looking to the page in his book. “How about a worldwide tour of theaters where your clockwork friend can dance for the masses, with a Rook escort to protect you from people like the Cyphers?  I'm not after a fortune, so I'd let you keep all but ten percent of the proceeds from ticket sales, as well.  Booking theaters and promotional activities aren't free, after all.”

“What on Earth would make you do that for us?” Twist asked with unbound confusion.

“Unlike what I'm sure you've been told, I'm not actually evil,” Aden said with a shrug. “At least, I don't like to think so.  Besides, I want to know all about your friend's fellow clockwork creatures.  Putting her on display will create quite a stir.  Any information that you don't have could still come to light just by making her known to the world.”

Twist was on the verge of asking what he wanted with the other clockwork people, when he suddenly realized that that question would admit his knowledge of them.  He closed his mouth and thought again.  The conversation had led him into another corner.  As good as the deal may have sounded, Twist couldn't shake the feeling that it was far too good to be true.  There had to be more he didn't know.  A mistake now could lead to any number of miseries, and not only for himself.  Myra'
s future was as much at stake as his own.

“Are you going to answer my question now?” Aden asked after a long silent moment of waiting.  Twist looked up to him, feeling much more steady now, but still cold and empty.

“No, I'm not.”

“Very well,” Aden said with a sigh, closing the notebook to put it away in a pocket. “Then I'll give you some time to consider your options,” he said, standing up. “I'll come back later and ask again.  If you don't answer me then, we will repeat the process until you do.  I don't mean to be unkind, and I don't know why you feel you need to cling so tightly to your secrets, but believe me Twist, you will not see the ground or any of your friends again until you tell me what I want to know.”

Twist watched silently, while Aden walked to the gangway that led off the platform.  He stepped across it easily and then kicked a latch at the other end.  The wooden beam rose instantly on a hidden hinge, moving completely out of reach from Twist's platform.  Aden looked back at him over the ten-foot gap of empty space.

“If you get hungry, help yourself to the tea and cake,” he called across to Twist before turning to walk away on the thin walkway along the white glass wall.

Twist got to his feet and peered over the edge of the platform.  His vision swam as he stared down at least a hundred feet into the black shadows below.  He stepped back and held his head steady, trying to calm himself.  There was no way to know how far that drop really was, and no chance he would ever try to find out.  There was nothing—not a gear, not a beam, not a chain, not even another visible platform—within his reach that could lead to freedom.  There wasn't another human being on the thin catwalks that crawled through the clockwork like black iron branches.  He hadn't a prayer of escape on his own.

Twist sat down on the boards and tried desperately to think in the rising tide of hopelessness that threatened to drown him. 
Wouldn’t Arabel know where he was?  With her Sight, she could find him anywhere.  Of course, the last thing he’d said to her had been anything but kind.  If Jonas was still missing, she would look for him first anyway.  Twist couldn't count on her to come to his rescue.

Idris might be able to help, but he would have to be asked to do so first.  Even then, he would only help if he felt like it.  Myra would naturally ask Idris for help, but then again, she was missing too.  She could be in trouble of her own and be in no position to help Twist at all.  His stomach began to ache for all the ice in it now.

The only one left who could come to his aid was Jonas.  He had done so much for Twist already.  He'd said that he wanted to stay with Twist just because he could look at him without any fear of a vision.  He'd shown true loyalty time and again.  He was also tenacious and downright stubborn when he had a goal in mind.  He was resourceful and perfectly capable.  Even if he couldn't ask his sister for help, even if Idris wouldn't help, Jonas wasn't likely to give up on Twist if he had any idea that he was in trouble.

Just thinking of this likelihood, Twist's battered nerves began to ease.  He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, hopping to ride that delicate faith into calm.  The deep, constant rhythm of the enormous clock around him sounded just like his attic room.  The London rain striking the windows
was as familiar as his own breath.  The air had the same damp, sooty chill that it always had.  The light was dim and soft, so unlike the brilliance of the sky above the clouds.  Every single thing around him now was home.

But the more he listened, the colder the air began to feel.  The silence in between the rhythmic sounds of the clockwork felt more and more empty with each tick and tock.  The thought that surfaced in his mind was so new to him that it took Twist quite a while to identify it.  There was something missing in London now.  This time he knew he was alone.

He could hope for help from Jonas, but he couldn't be sure of it.  There was no way to know if he was on his way, or if he even knew where to look.  Twist could be alone for a very long time if he waited for rescue.  After solid weeks with people all around him—pulling at his attention, pushing against his norms, stretching his boundaries, and at times acting so strangely he couldn't understand them at all—he was suddenly, violently, alone.  Nothing in his life had ever prepared him to combat the feelings that assaulted him now.

Myra wasn't here to confuse and delight him.  Idris wasn't here to be aloof and bizarre.  Tasha and Niko were gone, along with all of their magic.  Not even Jonas's family was here to cause unneeded friction and complication.  Twist had never missed anyone in his life.  He'd read of it in poems and novels, heard of it in the bittersweet melancholy of music, but he'd never felt it and never quite understood it before now.  When his mind moved on to Jonas, a sourceless pain burned deep into his chest and stole his breath away.  In that moment, he would have given anything for a single calm, white, numb, and soothing touch.

His hands reached for his pocket watch before he realized that he'd even moved.  He pulled it out and held it tightly in his hands, grateful for even a clockwork friend.  The tiny watch ticked away, unfazed, with no sympathy for Twist's brand-new pain.  He opened the cover of it and looked down onto its face, hoping to find at least one tiny glimmer of a friendly memory that he might have locked away inside.  As he looked at it, the hands moved onto the hour, and at the same moment the space around him filled with a deep, rolling tone.

Startled, Twist looked up to the clock faces in the walls around him and found the same hour on each of them.  As the clock around him toned off eight o'clock, his pocket watch ticked silently to the same exact time.  Twist was puzzled at this coincidence until he remembered that Paris and London were in the same time zone.  Jonas had set his watch.  The empty, aching pit inside of him turned somehow sweeter, and less bitter.

As his senses relaxed, letting his Sight have more control, he began to hear music.  Looking back to his watch, Twist's vision fogged over to show him the last moment he had saved inside the clockwork.  A wide, violet sky stretched out above him, and the warm winds of the Arabian Sea pushed away the London chill.  The faint sound of the Greek sailors' song wandered through his memory, as firelight spilled out on the wide, open deck under those huge white sails.  Twist saw Jonas and Myra once again, dancing in the starlight, happily distracted by each other.

Four hours passed quietly inside of Big Ben before Aden reappeared.  Twist stood at one corner of the wooden platform, gazing silently at the clockwork over his head until the other man stepped across the gangway and stopped on the platform.  Twist turned to see Aden holding a covered silver tray.

“I thought you might like some lunch,” he said pleasantly,
placing the tray down on the table. “I hope you like roast beef.”

Twist stared back at him silently.

“Well, it's there if you want it,” Aden said. “So, have you had time to think about my question?” he asked hopefully.

Twist looked back to the clockwork over his head.

“Twist, please,” Aden said, stepping closer but still staying out of reach. “It doesn't have to be like this.  I really don't want it to be.  Let me give you what you want.”

“You don't have any idea what I want.”

Aden paused.  “Can you at least tell me why you can't answer my question more easily?  Maybe I can help.  Please, let me help.”

Twist didn't respond in any perceivable way.  The back of
his neck began to tingle ever so slightly.  He frowned, focusing on the feeling as it grew steadily stronger.

“Well, if you insist on making me wait,” Aden began on a heavy breath.

Twist looked to his left just in time to see a small, dim shadow fall over the clock face, before the glass between seven and six o'clock burst inward in a shower of white shards.  Aden turned in shock to see a figure fly directly onto the platform at great speed, land in a tumble, and then rise to its feet with wide, canvas and wood-framed wings strapped to its back.  Jonas grinned at Twist with a roguish gleam in his bright sky-blue eyes.

“Miss me?” he asked i
n a bold, slightly breathless voice. “I should have known I'd find you inside a clock.  Come on,” he said, offering a hand to Twist. “You're not going to like this.”

Twist was so overcome with joy and surprise that he couldn't manage a single word of response.  He took Jonas's hand quickly—the white fog filling his Sight with bliss in an instant—as Aden drew a hidden pistol from inside his suit coat.  Jonas saw the weapon and turned, wrapping an arm around Twist's waist as he leaped up off the platform into the shadows beneath.  A small explosive rocket burst from the bottom of the wings, throwing them both high into the air.

Jonas guided them through the same hole in the clock face and out into the gray London sky as bullets whizzed past them.  Twist felt gravity grip at him awkwardly, and saw the incredible drop below as London lay wide over the distant ground, but he found Jonas's joy and excitement where he expected to find his own fear.  Jonas clung to him tightly as they began to fall, gliding downward on the shuddering canvas wings.  Twist only had an instant to see men run out of the base of Big Ben, all looking up at them.

Jonas turned against the wind, sending them into an arc while the chilly air snatched at them from all sides.  They dropped slowly, flying over the golden Parliament building and down towards the Thames.  In the reckless chaos of their flight, Twist hardly noticed as large gray birds flew off of the gothic structure below him. 
Then he realized that they weren't birds at all.  A flock of stone gargoyles—the bodies of lions with waves of stone fur, and the heads of dragons or eagles with broad wings and huge claws—were flying up to meet them.

“What the hell!?” he bellowed, clinging to Jonas tightly.

“What?” Jonas asked, glancing behind them. “What the hell!?”

They turned violently to the side, streaking for the water.  The gargoyles followed them easily, gaining as they continued
their chase.  They came upon Jonas and Twist much more quickly than Twist would have thought possible.  In an instant, cold stone claws grabbed onto Twist's jacket while others reached for Jonas from behind.  Twist struggled to hold onto Jonas, but he was ripped away as two gargoyles got hold of Twist's arms, their claws cutting into his skin beneath his clothes, and another three snatched at Jonas's legs.

The gargoyles holding Jonas screamed in strange, stony voices and tore at his canvas wings with their sharp beaks and claws.  As Twist watched helplessly, they suddenly let Jonas go.  He fell, tumbling through the air.  Twist saw his body hit the ground, and felt his heart stop.

“Can you at least tell me why—” Aden was asking with a heavy sigh.

Twist jerked and looked around him.  He
stood on the wooden platform inside Big Ben.  There were no gargoyles to be seen, and all four glass clock faces were unbroken.

“—you can't answer my question more easily?” Aden went on, not apparently noticing Twist's confusion. “Maybe I can help.  Please, let me help.”

The back of Twist's neck began to tingle ever so slightly.  His heart thundered in his chest as he turned to see a dim shadow fall over the clock face.

“Are you feeling—“ Aden began, peering at Twist with concern, before the glass between seven and six o'clock burst inward in a shower of white shards.  Aden turned in shock once again, to see Jonas fly directly onto the platform on his canvas wings, tumble, and then rise to his feet.  Jonas grinned at Twist with the same roguish gleam in his eyes.

“Miss me?” he asked again. “I should have known I'd find—”

“No!” Twist screamed, diving for the buckles on the leather harness that stretched across Jonas's chest.

“Wha—?  Twist stop!” Jonas yelled, trying to fight him off.

“You can't fly me out of here!” Twist yelled, ripping at the straps to get Jonas free of the wings. “You'll be killed!”

Jonas caught Twist's eyes with an expression of total bewilderment.  There was the slightest pause, and then Jonas reeled away from Twist with a hiss of pain, both hands over his eyes.  Twist stopped, staring at him as the wings finally fell to the floor.

“Holy shit...” Jonas hissed, lowering his hands and breathing hard.  His face showed a cold, stunned horror. “Gargoyles?  Seriously, gargoyles?”

“You saw it?” Twist asked.

Jonas looked up to Twist, albeit hesitantly at first, and nodded. “Since when do you see the future?”

“Wait, you see the future?” Aden asked Twist, still standing near them, now holding his previously hidden pistol aimed at Jonas. “I heard that Jonas did...”

Twist couldn't look to Aden, couldn't even think of him.  His heart had been pounding for so long that he was starting to feel a bit dizzy.  He needed to sit down before he fell, but he couldn't move.  He couldn't stop staring back into Jonas's eyes.  His thoughts were shattered, lying in broken disarray.  All he could do was answer the question Jonas had asked.

“I don't know.  Since Hong Kong, I guess.”  Jonas somehow managed to look even more surprised and confused. “But I've never seen something like...”

The image of Jonas falling to the ground flashed before his eyes.  Words failed him as his breath caught in his throat.  Everything else fell away with them.  Twist realized that he was shaking, but could still do nothing but stare at his friend.  Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he didn't want to lose sight of him for fear he might cease to exist.  Jonas stepped closer.  He took Twist's hand and pressed it over his own heart.  Twist's Sight filled to the brim with numb, white calm, and he instantly felt the other man's heartbeat—steady, strong, and fully alive—pulse through his senses on the crest of the wave.

“See?  I'm fine,” Jonas said gently, staring into Twist's eyes, watching him carefully. “Calm down before you pass out.”

Deep, blissful, overpowering relief stole everything else away.  The white fog didn't hang at the edges of his mind like it always did, but continued to build, thicker and fuller, until his vision washed over with it, the world went silent, and he lost all sense of gravity.