We drew our weapons.
Thousands of green eyes pierced the darkness, razor grins shining like neon-blue fire, as a huge hoard of gremlins poured into the light. Like ants, the swarm flowed over the ground, buzzing and hissing in their static voices, to surround us. We stood back-to-back, a tiny circle of open ground in a sea of little black monsters with grinning fangs and glowing eyes.
Thousands of voices chattered at me, like a hundred radios turned on all at once. The noise was deafening, nonsensical, high buzzing voices grating in my ears. But the gremlins didn’t attack. They stood there, dancing or hopping in place, teeth flashing like razors, but they moved no closer.
“What are they doing?” Puck asked. He had to yell to be heard.
“I don’t know!” I replied. The cacophony was giving me a headache; my ears were ringing, and it seemed the noise got even worse at the sound of my voice. Without even thinking about it, I raised my head and yelled “Shut up!” into the hoard of gremlins.
Silence descended instantly. You could’ve heard a cricket chirp.
Wide-eyed, I shared a glance with Ash and Puck. “Why are they listening to me?” I whispered. Ash narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t know, but can you do it again?”
“Back off,” I tried, taking a step forward. A whole section of gremlins scooted backward, keeping the same distance between us. Another step, and they did the same thing. I blinked.
“Okay, this is creepy. Go away?” I asked, but this time the gremlins didn’t move, and some of them hissed at me. I backed up. “Well, I guess I can only push them so far.”
“Don’t ask them to leave,” Ash murmured behind me. “Tell them.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
He nodded. I swallowed and faced the hoard again, hoping they wouldn’t decide to swarm me like angry piranhas. “Get out of here!” I told them, raising my voice. “Now!”
The gremlins hissed and crackled and screeched in protest, but withdrew, flowing backward like the tide, until we were alone in an empty square.
“How…interesting,” Grimalkin mused, back to being visible again. “It is almost as if they were waiting for you.”
“That was weird,” I agreed, rubbing my arms, where I could still feel the vibrations of the gremlins buzzing on my skin. The gremlins were listening to me now, just like they had with Machina. Since I had the power of the Iron King, they probably thought I was their new master, disturbing as that was. I certainly didn’t want a hoard of creepy little monsters following me around, laughing and causing trouble. The whole incident put me on edge, and I was eager to get out of the city. “Come on,” I said. “I think we should keep moving.”
WE CONTINUED, HEADING TOWARD the tower where the huge clock kept watch over the city. Everywhere we went, I could feel the gremlins’ eyes on me and hear them skittering in the shadows. Did they want something from me? Or were they just curious? Apart from the gremlins, Mag Tuiredh seemed devoid of life. But that didn’t explain the smoking towers in the distance, or the flashes of Iron glamour I felt all around me.
The farther we ventured into Mag Tuiredh, the more “modern” the city became. Rusty steel buildings sat among the ancient ruins, thick black wires ran over our heads, and neon lights glimmered from the tops of roofs and corners. Smog writhed along the streets and sidewalks, adding an eerie, creepy feel to the dead city. I wondered where all the Iron fey were. Not that I wanted to run into any, but in a city this big, you would think there’d be at least a few.
When we reached the base of the clock tower, I was amazed at how huge it was; a tower of steel and glass and metal, sitting among ancient ruins that were gigantic themselves, looming over them all. But the door to the tower was human-size, bronze and copper and covered with gears that clanked and spun as I wrenched it open.
An endless staircase ran the length of the walls, spiraling up into blackness. Ropes and pulleys dangled from thick metal beams, and monstrous gears spun lazily in the huge expanse of the middle. It was, obviously enough, like being inside a giant clock.
“This way,” came Grimalkin’s voice, and we followed the cat up the twisting staircase until he vanished somewhere above us. The stairs had no railings, and I hugged the wall as we went higher into the clock, the floor just a shrinking stone square far, far below.