“Peter,” Elena is saying, calling to me from the steward’s slumped shoulder, her ceramic face split with black lightning bolts. “Stop it.”
The fat man collapses against my trunk. His face has gone dark, hands wrapped around Elena as if the two were dancing. Finally, his ponderous body slides to the floor, rolling facedown, wispy reddish hair splayed on the rough planks.
Only now do I stop trying to escape.
Through the round eye of my keyhole, I watch a phantom in a black dress cross the cargo hold. Her face hangs crooked, the porcelain cracked. Pausing, she runs fingers lightly over her cheek, tap, tapping as she pushes it back into place. With pale hands, she smooths her hair and flattens the folds of her dress.
Demonstrating an incredible, demonic strength, she drags the scarlet lump of flesh away. The two of them fade into darkness, around a corner into the maze of creaking cargo. A moment later, her face reappears, inches from my keyhole.
Her black eyes burn with anger.
“Why!?” she whispers.
Pressing her mouth against the round gap, she blocks the light and fills the darkness with a fierce whisper: “Why did you make me do that? It was fine. I was fine. Now you’ve put us both in jeopardy. Next time, Peter, stay quiet and…and shut up your mouth!”
With that, the little girl crosses the cargo hold and nimbly climbs into her open trunk. She sits in the ruffled folds of her dress, shakes her head, and her locks tumble down to frame her face in black brambles. Still staring angrily at me, she puts one hand on the lid of her trunk and pulls it shut.
“You must learn to trust me,” she says, her voice dying under the closing lid. “Or we shall both be lost.”
17
OREGON, PRESENT
I check the rearview mirror again, searching for headlights against the dark road. Beside me, the damaged man called Peter—not a man, some kind of a machine—leans his long frame across the passenger seat of the black Charger, head tilted back as he struggles to get a hand into his jacket pocket. Incredibly tall and lean, he barely fits in the car, even with the seat pushed all the way back.
My fingers clench on the steering wheel, knuckles brightening as I wonder if he’s about to pull a weapon.
Instead, his fingers emerge clasping a pocket watch.
I exhale.
“A pocket watch?” I ask.
Peter frowns, ignoring me as he cradles the golden artifact in his hands, popping it open like a clamshell. He reads a dial hidden inside, protected by the metal casing. Glancing out the window, he frowns.
“Perfect,” I say to myself, turning back to the dark road. Stars are out over the conveyor belt of towering pines. “Just perfect.”
The clockwork man carries a clockwork watch.
Lit by the glow of dashboard lights, something familiar strikes me about the splayed metal leaves that protect the body of the pocket watch.
“That’s a trench watch,” I say. “World War One. Where’d you get it?”
Peter looks over at me, eyebrows raised, then back at the watch. Gently, he begins to wind the knob on top.
“Oh, right,” I mutter.
The tires thrum over Peter’s silence. Most ancient artifacts I examine don’t walk and talk. None of them have tried to kill each other with antique swords. The reality of this situation is failing to register, my mind continuously jumping away and trying to substitute normality for madness.
“Why didn’t Talus shoot you?” I ask. “Why swords?”
“I do not think he wants to kill me,” Peter says, with a trace of a Russian accent. “He wants to beat me. Always has.”
“And the swords?” I ask.
“We must keep driving,” he responds. “Things will move very quickly, now that the relic has resurfaced. I have a contact in Seattle who can repair me.”
“Another…one of you?”
“Avtomat, yes,” he says. “These days, most of us operate alone or in small groups. But some have acquired domains. His is one of the last.”
“And this person is your friend?”
“He was, once. Now, I do not know,” says Peter. “The rules are splintering. Few of us are left, and the last of the avtomat are hunting one another—cannibalizing one another to extend their own life spans. The artifact you hold is key to stopping this slaughter. I hope my friend will see that.”
“So, what? You’re planning to just take the relic from me and go?”
“No, the relic is yours. I have no desire to possess it again. We will go together, and you will remain under my protection.”
“Your protection?” I ask, voice wavering with disbelief.
“I will allow no harm to come to you.”
“Oh, kind of like a hostage? Nice.”
As he winds the watch, Peter’s fingers begin to shake. The lump of metal slithers out of his hands and thumps to the floorboard. From his slow, deliberate movements I can tell he is hurt much worse than he let on.
“What makes you think I need you to protect me?” I ask. “I could dump you right now and go.”
Head lolling on his neck, Peter faces me.
“And die. You have become visible to the avtomat. They will hunt you for the relic and for what you know about them. These creatures have survived for centuries. They are desperate. Too many have already reached the end of their power reservoirs and expired. They will kill you for the slightest hope of prolonging their own survival.”
“And you’re different?” I ask, leaning across the seat. Reaching down, I scoop the watch off the floorboard.
“Each of us serves his own…purpose,” he says. “Mine does not include killing the innocent. I believe you can help us, June.”
The pocket watch feels dense and warm in my hand. It seems to be vibrating, a buzz that travels up my arm and grows louder in my ears. The complex pattern of humming and clicking swells, somehow drowning out the road noise.
Blinking hard, I toss the watch onto Peter’s lap.
“What—what is that thing?” I ask.
“Avtomat technology,” he says, lifting the device. “It can determine the distance and direction to others. Sometimes.”
“Why does it look like a pocket watch?”
Peter shrugs. “A disguise, for the period in which it was built.”
“It’s a hundred-year-old pocket watch…” I say, trailing off.
Peter turns to me with the watch in his hand, the angles of his injured face smoldering in the dashboard lights. Under his mustache, I see a dimple forming in his cheek as he half smiles.
“So, June,” Peter says. “Now you begin to understand.”
18
LONDON, 1725
In the depths of the ship’s hold, Elena and I hear the cacophony of the harbor well before we see it. We hear the restless shuffle of the passengers above, the calls of the sailors as we come to port, and the bells of other ships. An anxious energy propels the unseen travelers and mariners to disembark—after all, the vessel we inhabit is cursed.
The crew found the steward’s body days ago, their hushed, concerned voices echoing throughout the cargo hold. A torch shone in every corner and suspicious eyes were cast at our crates. But the captain’s men ultimately dragged the strangled corpse away, shut the door to the cargo hold, and did not return.