Clockwork Twist : Trick (24 page)

Twist stood at the edge of the Thames, leaning against the iron railing on the other side of the small park beside Parliament, and watched the airship traffic drift in and out of the gray clouds over the city.  Jonas stood beside him silently; his eyes were on the now-lifeless gargoyles that sat on the edges of the building once again.

“What the bloody hell happened in Paris?” Twist asked finally.  He instantly felt a flicker of something dark in the buzz at his neck.  He glanced back to find Jonas staring dismally at the ground.

“They put Idris in a bottle,” he began, his words heavy. “Now he's bound and has to grant any wished asked by his owner, whether he wants to or not.  They even took Jeffrey.”

“And Myra?”

Jonas looked up to him and his eyes were an empty, colorless gray. “They were all there,” he said, his voice taking on a hint of anger now. “My whole family,” he added as if the word tasted bitter on his tongue. “They let it happen.  They let those magpies walk out with all four of you and didn't lift a finger to stop them.  If I'd been there—“  He stopped, looking away.

Watching Jonas carefully, Twist finally managed to make sense of the nagging feeling that dug at his neck. “Why are you blaming yourself?”

“Why shouldn't I?” Jonas scoffed.

“Because it’s not your fault,” Twist said.  Jonas looked back at him hesitantly. “They took us completely by surprise.  But look how you reacted.  You came here to rescue me,” Twist added with a gesture to Big Ben. “And you got here fast, so I know you didn't lose a second.  You risked your life.  Hell, you were killed in the attempt.  Twice.”

“That wasn't real,” Jonas said, shaking his head.

“It was
.  I saw it happen.  I felt your heart stop.”

Jonas looked back at him quietly. “That is a feeling I can relate to.”

Twist gave a sigh and shook his head to clear it. “So, what do we do now?” he asked, looking back. “I won't give up on her.”

“I know,” Jonas said, nodding. “But they are hiding her somehow.  Ara can't find her.  She can't find any of them.  You were the only one she could see.”

“You actually asked Arabel for help?”

Jonas smiled. “I was pretty desperate.  But she wouldn't even tell me anything until I promised to go back to the
Vimana
after I got you back.”

“Oh,” Twist said, feeling incredibly flattered.

“I'm not going to,” Jonas added.

“But you promised,” Twist said with a frown.

“My word isn't worth anything,” Jonas said, as if it should be common knowledge. “Never has been.  A pirate's sense of honor isn't anything like yours.”

“My mistake,” Twist muttered, unable to get this new information to fit in his head. “Then, what can we do?  How can we find Myra when even Arabel can't?”

“I don't have a clue,” Jonas said with a sigh. “They've got to know it, too.  Aden never would have let us go like that if he thought we had a chance to try another rescue.”

“Why did he let us go?” Twist asked. “It seems like a strange thing to do.”

“He's probably trying to get us to relax,” Jonas said. “Besides, we would have tried to get out on our own if he hadn't let us go.  Now we're stuck in London until tomorrow.  Thanks for that,” he added sourly.

“I couldn't watch you die again.”

Jonas fell quiet and looked away.  With no plan and no obvious course of action before them, they returned to the
Vimana
on the slightest possible chance that Myra's whereabouts might have become visible to Arabel again.  The large, wind-stripped gray airship hung from the London docks once again, listing gently in the damp air that wandered over the city rooftops.  Climbing the skeletal black iron structure for the second time in his life, Twist couldn't have felt farther from home.

As he looked around at the city that he had once missed so dearly, it hardly seemed real at all.  None of the familiar comforts that he had always found in the soft rain, the dim light, and the chill of winter were there for him now.  The city looked only dark, cold, and empty.  He followed Jonas aboard the
Vimana
, stepping once again onto the open main deck.  Arabel stood talking to Zayle near the bow and turned to them with a smile.

“I'm so glad you're safe!” she said to Jonas as she and Zayle walked closer. “But you were at the clock for longer than I expected.  How did it go?”

“Badly,” Jonas answered. “We still don't have a lead on Myra.”

“Well, at least you got Twist,” Zayle said brightly. “And you're both not dead.”

“Yeah...” Jonas toned distractedly. “Ara, have you found anything yet?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.  It's as if she no longer exists.”  She looked to Twist with an uncomfortable tension in her face. “I'm sorry I can't help you.”

“Thank you,” Twist offered, silently puzzled by her.

“Damn it,” Jonas hissed, turning to Twist. “I'm out of ideas,” he said, a touch of true sadness in his voice. “I'm sorry.”  Twist felt a wave of regret follow his words, pulsing slowly at the buzz in his neck.

“Wow,” Arabel said, drawing their attention. “I've never heard you apologize to anyone before.  For anything.”  Twist looked at her in confusion, wondering why she seemed so angry.

“His world has a hole in it, and I should be able to help,” Jonas explained with a nod to Twist. “I shouldn't have let any of this happen.”  Before Twist could speak up to correct him, Aazzi's rich voice cut through the air like a knife.

“No, Jonas,” she said, standing beside them now, though none of them had seen or heard her approach.  Twist was shocked to see a white bandage wrapped around her left arm, from her wrist up to her elbow, and a patch of white gauze fixed to the side of her stoic, ebony face.  “You couldn't have stopped them.  They came prepared.  You might have been killed.”

“Why is my mortality suddenly such a hot topic of conversation?” Jonas snapped.

“Aazzi, what happened to you?” Twist asked her gently. “I thought vampires were … well, practically indestructible.”

“There isn't much that can hurt us,” she said, her posture tall and strong. “As I said, they came prepared.”

“She put herself between them and Myra,” Arabel said, her voice sharp. “Thank goodness she isn't easily hurt.”  Twist stared at Aazzi in shock.  Her cool silver eyes stared back at him unblinking.

“Thank you for even trying,” Twist said softly to her.  Somehow, her face warmed without quite smiling.  She gave him a shallow bow of her head.

“Well,” Jonas said after a pause. “We still don't have a plan.  We can only hope that Aden will offer Myra as part of that deal he spoke of.  Of course, if he does, he's sure to use her against us and ask for something we don't want to give up.”

“I'm afraid you might be right,” Twist said darkly.

“There is something else we could try,” Aazzi said.  They all looked to her. “We could try to ask Myra where she is.”

“And how would we do something like that?” Jonas asked back.

“She's essentially a ghost, isn't she?” Aazzi asked. “We could hold a séance.”

“I'm sorry?” Twist asked.

“We can try to call her spirit to us.  She left her body at will in Paris, and she was able to speak to you, Twist.  If she can come to us, then she can tell us where her clockwork body is.”

“That's brilliant,” Jonas declared in quiet wonder.

“Would it hurt her?” Twist asked, trying to remember what he had read about ghosts in novels.  All he could really remember was a lot of wailing and heavy chains.

“I don't think so,” Aazzi said. “I've done it before.  I have almost everything I need already.”

“What's missing?” Jonas asked.

“I need something of hers,” Aazzi answered. “Something that she has owned, or that has a strong emotional attachment for her.  Something that her spirit can be drawn to.”

“I don't have anything like that,” Twist said, feeling his hopes die in their infancy.

“Could you use Twist?” Jonas asked Aazzi.

“Me?”

“She's awfully attached to you
.” Jonas shrugged.

“I've never used a person before,” Aazzi said, frowning in thought. “But maybe.”

“Great, let's get to it,” Jonas said. “We've only got today.”

Aazzi nodded and turned away.  Twist mastered his courage and dared to hope once again.

Aazzi and Philippe's cabin was much better furnished than any of the other personal cabins on the ship.  It was a large, rectangular room on the second deck of the
Vimana
, filled comfortably with the most fashionable, modern furniture: a large wardrobe of dark wood, a wide bed with red velvet curtains, and a dressing table with a marble top and ornately gilded legs.

Philippe and Aazzi hurriedly cleared off
a circular table that stood to one side of the room, surrounded by chairs.  The table's mahogany surface was inlaid with rosewood, in a complex design of a five-pointed star inside a ring, with strange symbols all around it.  A white candle was placed on each point of the star, and a silver bowl and dagger put in the center.

Twist, Jonas, Aazzi, Arabel, and Zayle sat in the five chairs around the table, while Philippe and Howell stood to one side, watching.  Aazzi lit the candles one by one as she uttered soft sounds under her breath.  Then she picked up the silver dagger and looked to Twist.

“If I'm going to use you to call Myra, I'll need a part of you,” she said smoothly.  Twist felt his heart begin to pound.

“Which part?” Jonas asked, staring at the dagger.

“Blood should work nicely,” Aazzi said. “I should only need a few drops.”

“Can someone please tell the vampire to put the knife down and stop looking at my friend's blood like that?” Jonas asked the room.

“Now isn't the time to be racist,” Philippe said darkly.

“Don't be afraid, Twist,” Aazzi said, not even glancing at Jonas. “Give me your hand.”

“I can't,” Twist said instantly.

Aazzi gave a quiet sigh.

“No, really, I can't.  I can't touch you.”

Jonas's face
took on a resigned expression. “This is the only way to help Myra, right?” he asked, not looking at Aazzi.

“Yes,” she said. “I need a few drops of his blood in the bowl.”

“Give me the knife,” Jonas said, holding out his hand.

Aazzi shrugged and gave it to him.  Twist looked to Jonas and tried very hard to calm his sudden fright.  Jonas gave him a tight smile and held out a hand to him.  Twist found it difficult to swallow as his mouth and throat went suddenly dry, but he gingerly placed his hand in Jonas's waiting fingers.  The wave of white calm blurred away his nervous tension as Jonas held the hand over the silver bowl in the center of the table.  Aazzi began to mutter to herself softly again, watching carefully.

“Happy thoughts, Twist,” Jonas said, gently laying the blade of the knife against the tip of his finger.  The knife moved suddenly, opening his skin ever so slightly.

Twist hissed more in surprise than at the tiny pain but held still, focusing on the cool fog in his mind as his finger began to burn.  Five drops of deepest red fell into the silver bowl—onto a tiny pile of ground powders inside—before Aazzi nodded her head and stopped speaking her strange words.  As the last drop fell, a faint crackling sound emanated from the bowl
along with a tiny spark of purple light.  Jonas released Twist instantly and gave the knife back to Aazzi.  Twist shivered as the white fog evaporated from his thoughts, leaving him to stare at his still-bleeding finger.  Philippe handed him a small cotton cloth and Twist wrapped it tightly around his wound, tying it off.

“Now, we must all hold hands,” Aazzi said, taking Arabel's hand on her right, and Zayle's on her left.  Zayle looked at Twist, sitting beside him.

“You didn't really think this through beforehand, did you?” Jonas asked Aazzi.

“Here, will this work?” Twist asked, unhooking his pocket watch's chain from his waistcoat and holding it up.

“Actually, it might,” Aazzi said thoughtfully. “That watch is precious to you, isn't it?”  Twist nodded somewhat awkwardly.  “Give Zayle the chain to hold,” she said.

Twist did as he was told—holding the watch himself so that the gap between he and Zayle was minimal—and then took Jonas's hand.  Jonas and Arabel
took each-other's hands and closed the circle.  Aazzi then shut her silver eyes and began to chant in a dark, curling, mysterious language Twist couldn't follow in the least.  As her voice filled the silence over the table, the candles began to burn brighter.  In a moment, the flames had risen to four times their normal height.  Aazzi's voice rose in volume and her words spilled more quickly from her lips.  The silver bowl on the table began to spin on its own.

“Think of Myra,” Aazzi said, her voice breathless now. “Think only of her.”

She resumed her chant as the silver bowl spun faster and faster until it began to rise off of the table.  Twist couldn't believe anything that he was seeing—even if it was all happening right in front of him—but he forced his thoughts to focus on Myra, nonetheless.  He thought of her shining copper face, of her bell-like laugh, of her smile.  He thought of her playing with her tiny elephant and of her gently petting his hair as he lay with his head in her lap.  He thought of her surrounded by tropical sunlight, and of the first time her spirit had reached out to touch him in his dreams.

Aazzi's voice came to a stop so suddenly that the room rang with the silence.  The bowl fell to the table at the same moment and the candles burst into a tower of sparks before blowing out in a gust of wind that seemed to come from the center of the circle.  Aazzi's head lay bowed forward and her form was deathly still.  For a moment, Twist began to think it hadn't worked.

A soft, chilly hand fell on to his shoulder from behind.  Twist turned with a shiver to see Myra's spirit standing behind him, wearing a frightened expression.  A wide smile spread quickly over his face while Jonas jerked in surprise, staring at her too.  Aazzi's head rose slowly and she blinked her eyes open to smile at Myra.

“It's done,” Aazzi said, releasing her grip on Zayle and Arabel.

“Did it work?” Zayle asked, looking around the room.  Twist let go of Jonas, took his watch chain back from Zayle, and stood quickly.

“Are you all right, my dear?” he asked Myra, taking her cold little hand in his.

She smiled at him now. “I think so.  What happened?  Where am I?”

“Aazzi called your spirit to us so that we could talk to you,” Twist answered.  People were talking behind him, but he hardly notice
d as he stared at Myra's beautiful dark eyes.

“That was very clever,” Myra said, her smile growing warmer. “Oh, I'm so glad to see you, darling!” she gasped, wrapping both arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

Pure, unhindered bliss broke over Twist like sunlight after a storm.  He held her tightly and breathed in the soft, subtle scent of clean mountain air and flowers that rose off of her pale skin.  Her slight body felt so real, so solid in his arms, that for a moment he forgot it was only her spirit.  She pulled back to smile at him brightly, and lifted one cool hand to brush a few stray curls from the side of his face.

“Twist?”
Jonas asked gently.  He gave an apologetic look when Twist looked to him. “We need to ask her a few things...”

“Right!” Twist said, his mind snapping suddenly back on track.  He pulled away from her a little more, but couldn't get himself to release completely, holding both of her hands gently in his. “Myra, where did they take you?”

“Oh,” Myra toned, her face washing over with alarm. “It's not a very nice place at all.  They told me that I would be there until I told them about other clockwork people.  But that's ridiculous!  There's no one else like me in the world, is there?”  Guilt stung at Twist so sharply that he winced against it.

“But where, my dear?  Where exactly is your puppet?”

“In the clouds,” she said.

“The clouds?”

“It's like an airship, only … bigger,” she said, frowning. “A lot bigger.  And it’s all made of metal.  And it smells funny.  And there's lightning flashing all over it all the time.”

Twist looked to Jonas for possible clarification.

“You know that you're the only one who can hear her, right?” Jonas asked.

Twist quickly related what she had said, in as many of her own words as he could.

“That's a fortress,” Howell said. “I've only seen one, once.  The mags use lightning and electromagnets to keep the thing aloft, so they're usually in the middle of thunderstorms.  As if that's not bad enough, they're almost always covered in weapons just to pick off anything that could survive the storm itself.  There's no way in unless they let you in.  And it could be anywhere in the world where there's a storm.”

“No, it's near this place,” Myra said.

“Are you sure?” Twist asked.

“Yes, it's that way,” she said, pointing vaguely to one side. “I saw everything on my way here.”

“What, it's that way?” Jonas asked, pointing in the same direction Myra had.

“She said it's close,” Twist answered with a nod.

“So, it's over London?” Jonas toned, a smile appearing on his face. “Wait, is it always here?  That could explain the weather.”  He shook his head as if to clear it. “But that's a good thing.  If it's here then we can find it, break in, and bust her out.”

“Are you deaf?” Arabel asked, rising from her chair to walk up to Jonas as he stood with Twist and Myra. “Did you not hear what uncle Howell just said?”

“So it's not easy to get into,” Jonas said back. “I didn't expect this to be easy.  We'll figure something out.”  Twist couldn't help but smile to hear him say it so confidently.

“Saying that storming a mag fortress isn't easy, is like saying that swallowing a bucket of acid isn't the healthiest thing to do,” Howell said, stepping closer now too. “There's no way, Jonas.”

“Pessimist,” Jonas said disdainfully.

“You're not going to do this,” Arabel declared.

Jonas gave her a mirthless breath of a laugh. “We haven't even come up with a plan yet.”

“You're going to get yourself killed!” she shrieked. “And for what?  For him?”  She threw a savage gesture in Twist's direction.

“Calm down, will you?” Jonas sighed, his voice significantly lower than hers.

“Calm down?” she growled, glaring daggers at him though he kept his eyes away from her.

“You're making a fool of yourself,” Jonas said smoothly.

“Arabe—” Twist began gently.

“Shut the hell up,” she snapped before he could utter another sound. “He's not your blood.  And he doesn't have to die to make you happy!  If you want to kill yourself for a wind-up toy, then be my guest.  But you are not taking my brother away again, you weird little freak!”

Twist stared at her in total shock, while Myra's spirit suddenly threw his hands away and stepped forward.  The air in the room seemed to chill instantly and Twist saw his breath turn white.  Arabel's rage paused as her eyes focused on Myra's spirit.

“What the...?” she began softly, taking a step back from Myra.

“Don't you dare,” Myra said, her voice dark and dangerous.  The silver bowl on the table began to tremble with a sourceless vibration. “Don't you ever say anything like that to my Twist.”  Across the room, the mirror over the dressing table gave a high, moaning sound and then snapped in two.  Arabel jumped at the sound and stared at Myra in alarm. “And leave poor Jonas alone, you demanding, selfish, whiny little child!”

On her last words, the silver bowl and dagger both flew sharply at the wall with a startlingly loud crack.  The dagger stuck deep into the wood.  Arabel continued to back away, but Myra continued to advance.

“Myra, I—“ Arabel began, clearly able to hear her now.

“The way you treat him, there's no wonder he runs away from you,” Myra cut her off.  Arabel ran out of room to back away as she came up against the edge of the table.  Myra leaned in the last few inches until her pale nose was a breath away from Arabel's. “You don't deserve either one of my 'freaks'.”  The last word came out so viciously that Arabel winced against it like a slap.

“Apologize,” Aazzi said softly from the other side of the table, staring at Myra. “Now.”

Twist and Jonas, their mouths hanging slightly open in shock, could only watch Myra’s outburst.  The rest of the people in the room were already standing behind them, ready to bolt out of the door.  Only Aazzi still appeared calm.

“I'm sorry,” Arabel said softly, her breath coming so quickly it seemed hard to speak.