The Havoc Machine Read Online Free PDF

reined in. “Let’s be clear, Miss Ekk. Your presence on this mission is neither required nor desired. If you don’t care for the way I work, you may take back your money and I’ll happily go to bed. Question me again, and that’s what will happen. Is that understood?”
    “Perfectly.” She seemed unruffled. “I was only making conversation.”
    “Pretty boy, pretty, pretty boy.”
    “And keep that walking pile of shit away from Blackie. I don’t want it to contaminate him or me.”
    “Blackie?”
    Dammit. “My son named him.”
    “Ah. And where—?”
    Thad slapped Blackie’s flank, and the horse leaped into a gallop. It was some time before Sofiya and her brass horse caught up. The automaton’s gait was smooth and regular, and it snorted steam from its nostrils at every fourth step. Sofiya didn’t speak again, and eventually Thad was forced to slow Blackie down. Sofiya’s horse matched pace without comment.
    “I am sorry,” Sofiya said at last.
    Thad glanced at her. That was unexpected. But talking with Sofiya was like walking blindfolded through a bomb field. One moment she was explosive, the next she was refined, and he could never tell which was coming. “Sorry for what?”
    “For the death of your son. And, I assume, of your wife. I assume a clockworker was involved.”
    “How did—” He cut himself off. “Never mind. I don’t talk about it.”
    “Nevertheless. It was not my intention to cause you pain, and I apologize. I only want the invention.”
    “And I want the clockworker dead. We can both have what we want.”
    “That would be a small miracle, Mr. Sharpe. But I will settle for Havoc’s machine.”
    Thad shifted in the saddle. “What does this machine do, anyway?”
    “I have no idea. And before you ask, I do not know why our employer wants it, either. That does worry me somewhat.”
    “Oh?”
    “I do not wish to give him a clockworker invention that might hurt a lot of people. So I will have to examine it closely. That is another reason why I am coming along, you see.”
    That surprised Thad. “But you work for him.”
    “And yet I somehow still think for myself. Do you find this so incredible?”
    They reached a village of peasant houses. Like most in this region, the dwellings were low buildings made of logs or sod and topped with thatch. None had windows—they were too poor for that—and no lights burned anywhere. At this time of night, everyone was in bed. Thad judged that they had two or two and a half hours before sunrise. The dirt road threaded between the houses, forked west, and rose up a high hill. Atop the hill, Thad could just make out the silhouette of stone buildings. It seemed to him there should been a storm, or a least a rumble of thunder, but the night was calm and clear.
    As they neared the edge of the village, one of the doors opened a crack and a woman peered out, probablywakened by their hoofbeats. When she saw the direction Thad and Sofiya were heading, she ran out into the road, heedless of her bedclothes and her nightcap.
    “You must not go this way!”
she called in desperate Lithuanian.
“You must not!”
    Thad halted.
“We will be fine, mistress.”
    “No! You must not!”
She ran up and caught Blackie’s bridle. He snorted and tried to toss his head, but she clung hard.
“That way is the path of a demon!”
    “A clockworker?”
Thad asked.
    “An evil man.”
Her eyes were pleading. She looked barely older than Thad himself.
“He has taken many people from Juodsilai and done terrible things to them. We have begged the Cup Bearer and the Master of the Hunt to help us, but they do nothing. He took my sister…”
    “I am sorry,”
Sofiya said for the second time that evening.
    “Vilma!”
A man in a nightshirt was standing in the doorway.
“Come away!”
    “The demon comes out at night. If you need a place to stay, come to our house. My husband will not like it, but—”
    Thad reached down and gently freed Blackie’s bridle from her