Twincy Quinn and the Eye of Horus Part One (36 page)

At her
unexpected scream, Vanessa ran over, still looking like a field
general. ‘What's going on?’

John replied
by thrusting the moving picture device at her.

She diligently
twiddled the knobs, then narrowed her eyes and shook her head
bitterly.

‘
Perhaps we can fight them off,’ John began.

‘
No,’ Vanessa stated firmly, her voice heavy with more
authority than I had heard her use yet, and that was saying
something. ‘With Twincy injured, it is an unacceptable risk. Plus,
those guns of theirs are untested and are currently an
unquantifiable variable. We are pinned down, soon to be surrounded,
and we have injured. There is only one thing we can do.’ She
levelled her eyes at the room and everyone in it. ‘We must
retreat.’

‘
No,’ John began.

He didn't get
a chance to finish his protestation.

Something
exploded into the side of the factory wall.

The building
shook, a chunk of the wall erupted inward, and dust cascaded down
from above.

My ears rang,
ash covered my rapidly blinking eyes, and I brought up a shaking
hand to clear my face.

Another
explosion ate into the side of the building, yet more wood
exploding inward, the floor below and the ceiling above trembling
ominously.

We were being
fired upon. By extraordinary artillery. No cannon balls. No
muskets.

It was the
weaponry of this modern age. And it was deadly.

‘
Get the children to the escape hatch,’ I heard someone scream
through the horrendous noise of the attack.

Escape
hatch?

As it dawned
on me that I had to do something, I flung myself up, twisting
sharply on the heel of my shoe as I surveyed the dust-laden room
with quick slices of my gaze.

There.

Twincy was
over in the corner, gesturing wildly with her good arm.

Barney was
barking by my side, scrabbling, eager to run.

As was I.

So we both ran
straight to her. Straight at her wide-open, gesturing arms.

As I ran, I
picked up one child who fell to her knees as a wooden beam from
above came swinging down with a snap.

Swearing to
myself, I let go of Barney’s leash, reasoning he was more than
capable of finding his own way out of this madness.

I reached
Twincy and all but shoved the child at her.

‘
Help me get the others,’ she looked at me with a wild gaze as
she placed the child down and gestured to the door behind
her.

The trap door.
It led down to a solid set of stone steps. Though there was light
enough flickering down there for me to see, I didn’t have the time
to stare.

Instead I did
as instructed, spun on my foot, and rushed forward through the
building as it fell down around my ears.

I spied John
in a far corner, trying to squeeze a table-full of tools into a
small box.

I dashed over
to him, and without any pause for conversation, simply scooped him
up with one arm.

‘
No, no, my tools!’ he screeched in my ear.

I kept him
locked in my arm until I reached Twincy.

‘
My tools!’ I heard him scream as Twincy grabbed him up and
practically threw him down the stairway.

I had never
been in a situation exactly like this. Similar, yes. War was a
confusing, senseless place. But this scene was so far beyond reason
that my mind felt as if it would erode away like sand in the
wind.

Still, I
managed it. With hardly a care for my own safety, I searched and
scrounged through the crumbling-down building until I found the
last child.

Then I turned
back to her.

I expected her
to usher me forward and through the trap door to hopeful
safety.

She did
not.

Instead she
made eye contact with me briefly, and it would be a moment I would
never forget. With the ceiling falling down around us, with wood
dust choking the air in a foetid cloud, she watched me, her hair
flicking across her cheeks, her dressing coming loose from her
face, those wide blue eyes awash with a lost and truly frightened
expression.

Then she
turned, she rushed forward, and she ran past me.

‘
Twincy,’ I spun, grasping at her, ‘we have to
leave.’

She ignored
me. She ran forward.

Right for the
stairs.

I couldn’t
believe it.

Torn for a
single moment, I soon followed her.

She was fast.
Despite the fact she had been injured only hours before, she now
took to the stairs in her flaring skirts with the speed of a
cheetah.

I followed as
best I could.

Though
sections of fragmented wood came scattering from above, dashing on
the stairs and slicing past my back and arms, I pushed on.

I tried not to
choke through the billowing cloud of dust and the acrid smell of
the explosions.

I tried not to
stumble.

I tried not to
waver.

And I followed
her.

Right up to
the top floor. Right past an enormous hole that travelled all the
way to the bottom story below. Right into a room.

‘
Twincy,’ I screamed as I grabbed the crumbling door frame to
pull myself in.

She darted
forward, falling to her knees as she reached an over-turned rocking
chair. With a despairing look on her face, she searched forward
with great big sweeps of her arms, obviously looking for
something.

The floor was
covered in fine chunks of wood, plaster, stone, and brick.

Behind her was
an enormous hole in the wall that looked like a widened window. The
far-off lights of the inner city cast their eerie and dim glow
inward, lighting Twincy up in flashes as she swept her arms
frantically over the floor.

At one point
her face became illuminated by that soft glow, and I saw the truly
saddened twist to her lips and the tears welling within her
eyes.

I dropped to
my knees.

I had no idea
what we were looking for.

None.

Yet I knew
that Twincy would not leave until we found it. Though I had not
known her long, my instincts told me all I needed to.

I pushed at a
crumbling brick before me and unearthed something silver. The glint
of it caught my eye.

I plucked it
up.

A mirror with
a long handle.

She stumbled
forward on her knees, clutching at the handle of the mirror, her
own fingers pressing into mine.

I watched her
take a relieved breath, her eyes half closing.

‘
Can we get out of here now?’ I screamed as I tipped to the
side, avoiding an unpleasantly large chunk of wood that sailed down
beside me.

She stood.

I stood with
her.

She still had
her hand clutched onto the base of the mirror, her fingers still
pressed over mine.

Then she
pushed forward towards the door, not before locking one of her
small hands over my shoulder to pull me along with her.

The factory
was most certainly falling down now. Under such a barrage, its
supporting walls were failing.

The sound of
it was horrendous. The ring of the bullets and explosions, the snap
of the rafters, the crash of the slate as it toppled down from
above and dashed on the cobbled streets outside.

She pulled me
forward, never letting go of my shoulder.

She managed to
dodge all the falling beams, somehow knowing where they would land
before they did so.

She led me to
the stairs, pushing me forward just as a chunk of them fell
away.

She didn’t say
a word. She simply guided me down.

Down to the
ground floor.

It was a war
zone.

The walls were
mostly gone.

I saw the
lights from the streets beyond bleeding through the holes in the
wood.

I heard the
sounds of men outside.

And heavy
footfall.

Extremely
heavy footfall.

I felt her
hand stiffen as her fingers still locked over my shoulder.

I
instinctively understood she knew what that footfall meant.

I
instinctively felt her fear wash right over me like the buffeting
clouds of wood dust and smoke from the explosions.

Through it all
I could see the trap door before us.

It was still
open.

That thump of
footfall became so loud it felt as though it could drown out the
cacophony of the falling rafters and wood.

She pelted
forward.

She
stumbled.

Before I could
duck down to pull her up, she pushed to the side with a heave.

An enormous
chunk of ceiling smashed down just before us, and I slammed a hand
over my face to protect my eyes.

She didn’t let
me stop though.

She grabbed
hard at my shoulder and shoved me right into the settling swathes
of dust, right into the jagged mess of smouldering wood that had
almost squashed me. Full of banisters, boards, and railings, it was
the floor above.

The building
was seconds from collapsing in full.

Seconds.

Just as that
ringing, heavy footfall thumped through the room, we reached the
trap door.

She pushed me
forward.

Then,
impossibly, I felt her stop. I felt her twist around.

I knew what
she was going to do.

She intended
to stay behind.

She hoped to
give us time.

She planned to
ensure the enemies assailing this building did not reach the
children below.

In other
words, she was going to sacrifice herself.

Well I wasn’t
going to let her.

Just as she
twisted, I pulled my arm up and around her. I latched it across her
middle as firmly as I could, and I pulled us backward through the
open trap door.

I had no heed
for my balance. In fact, I let myself fall over, and used the
momentum of it to ensure she came with me.

My back hit
the horrendously hard stairs and my breath came out in a sharp
gasp.

Her body
pressed down into my chest as I slid down the stone steps.

But we had
made it.

Before I could
push up and shut the trap door, it closed seemingly of its own
accord.

Revealing a
fantastically complicated whirring mechanism, the door silently
slid shut.

Whilst on the
outside it had appeared to be simply wood, from the inside I could
see metal almost two-feet thick.

Sturdy beyond
belief.

As soon as it
closed, all sorts of marvellous locks burst out and secured it
solidly into the wall.

Once sealed,
the sound from above died out completely.

Just
silence.

Silence
punctuated by my own heavy breath, made all the heavier by Twincy’s
body pressing my own down into the hard steps.

I still had
two arms locked around her, my hands flat on her stomach and
arm.

‘
Good show!’ I heard John cheer from somewhere further down the
stairs. ‘I say, old chap, if you hadn’t managed to wrangle Twincy,
I would have had to lasso her myself. Never knows when to
quit.’

‘
For once I agree with John; it was safest to retreat, Twincy.
This blast door is thick and well-disguised from the outside. They
will not know we are down here. Now get up from that ridiculous
man’s arms and fix your dressings,’ Vanessa called from behind
us.

It was a
pertinent thing to say, as Twincy was very much still in my arms.
But I was no ridiculous man.

Twincy now
made a move. She had spent some time lying there, her shoulder
pressed into mine, her back against my chest and stomach, her hair
a mess over my neck and chin.

Now she
pressed up.

I released my
grip.

She stood on
the stairs, balancing with one leg pressed into the top-most step
as she pushed her fingers into the blast door.

I lay there
for entirely too long until I finally pulled myself up. And gosh
did I let out a groan.

My back felt
like I had been smashed against a stone parapet. Placing a hand
onto my side and wincing through my pain, I suddenly realised
something.

I was
alive.

Twincy was
alive.

And possibly
for the first time ever, she was not about to run away.

She turned to
face me.

Her eyebrows
slowly moved into a soft peak.

Clutching at
her side, she took a large sigh, hiding behind her hand for a
moment.

‘
I know, I know, there were many things in that factory that
are a blasted shame to lose,’ John commiserated, ‘however, at least
you got your mirror, and your man,’ he added after a
moment.

I immediately
cleared my throat, and Twincy lost the saddened-edge to her look
long enough to blush.

‘
John,’ Vanessa roared.

‘
I’m right though, she has her mirror and her man—’ John began,
yet his voice was cut short as Vanessa hit him.

I cleared my
throat with a very proper and gentlemanly cough. Then I looked
solidly at the step before me until I gained the courage to look up
into her eyes.

She watched
me, taking soft, rhythmic breaths as she did.

My gaze
drifted down to the mirror in her hands. She watched my move.

‘
You don’t seem the kind to go back for a mirror,’ I said,
realising too late it was a rather stupid thing to say.

‘
It’s a memory,’ she corrected distractedly as she twirled it
in her fingers and considered it with a far-off look.

‘
My mistake,’ I coughed again.

‘ 
. . . Detective Michael F.
Stanford,’ she began.

‘
You can call me Michael.’

‘
What are you going to do now?’