hand.
“I am not the Master of the Hunt, mistress, but I have come to destroy the demon clockworker.”
“Death, doom, destruction, despair,” Dante said.
“Truly?”
The woman clasped Thad’s hand and kissed it several times.
“Thank you, my lord. Thank you, thank you so much. Wait!”
The woman dashed past her surprised husband into the house and emerged a moment later with a small jug and a cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Take these,”
she said.
Thad recognized both objects by smell. The bundle was rye bread and the little jug contained a homemade vodka strong enough to make his eyes water. He thought about refusing such a rich gift from a poor household, but the woman’s expression was powerfully earnest. Thad also recognized the gesture for what it was. The memory of his own loss made his throat close up as he met Vilma’s eyes. She understood, and turning down her sacrifice was unthinkable. So was refusing to face Havoc.
“Thank you,”
he said. With the gravity of a priest, he slipped the objects into the capacious pockets of his coat.
“What was your sister’s name?”
“Olga.”
“I will make sure that word is the last sound he hears, Mistress Vilma.”
Without another word, he turned Blackie and rode away with Sofiya close behind. For once, Sofiya didn’t speak.
They climbed the hill, which was dotted with birch trees whose bark and leaves turned to silver and paper beneath the moon. Halfway up, Thad dismounted near a birch grove and put Dante on his shoulder. Frost had already killed off the insects, and the birds had migrated long ago, leaving the night eerily devoid of life sounds. Anticipation mingled with uncertainty in Thad’s chest, and he found himself checking his weapons over and over—stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives, stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives. He had other equipment as well: silk rope, lock picks, a small hacksaw, matches, and other handy objects. His fingers itched, and he couldn’t sit still. Evil rested at the top of that hill, an evil that terrorizedmen and killed women’s sisters, and for once Thad would strike it before it struck him.
“You stay here,” he told Sofiya. “After this point, the horses—and you—will be a nuisance.”
“As you wish. Perhaps I will nap.” Sofiya made her horse kneel, and she spread her cloak in a half circle in the brass shelter of its body. “Remember, the invention is a spider with ten legs instead of eight and—”
“—it has strange markings,” Thad finished for her. “I remember.”
“Sharpe is sharp,” Dante squawked. “Doom!”
“No talking, bird,” Thad told him, “unless you want Havoc to extract your gears with a spoon.”
Dante settled his feathers with a clatter, but didn’t respond. Thad touched his knives one more time, then headed up the road toward the ruins and the clockworker named Havoc.
Chapter Three
T haddeus Sharpe scanned the castle ruins with a practiced eye. In his considerable experience, clockworkers liked hidden, enclosed spaces. Castles, sewers, underground rooms, and similar places made them feel safe, like rats in a burrow. Ruins gave them the solitude they often craved; clockworkers did not work well with others. They fell to arguing too easily and tore one another to pieces, sometimes literally. Thad had once managed to set one clockworker on another, and the results had been tremendously satisfying.
He examined Havoc’s castle from a safe distance, automatically cataloging it and sizing it up. The castle wasn’t a single building, of course. It was a little complex of outbuildings and a main keep bent in a rectangle around a courtyard, all in stony ruins. The keep and some of the outbuildings were surrounded by a fragmented stone wall that had originally been at least three stories tall but was now tumbling down in most places to the point where Thad could probably peer over it on tiptoe. The moat had dried up long ago. Vines crawled overeverything, and trees poked
“I am not the Master of the Hunt, mistress, but I have come to destroy the demon clockworker.”
“Death, doom, destruction, despair,” Dante said.
“Truly?”
The woman clasped Thad’s hand and kissed it several times.
“Thank you, my lord. Thank you, thank you so much. Wait!”
The woman dashed past her surprised husband into the house and emerged a moment later with a small jug and a cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Take these,”
she said.
Thad recognized both objects by smell. The bundle was rye bread and the little jug contained a homemade vodka strong enough to make his eyes water. He thought about refusing such a rich gift from a poor household, but the woman’s expression was powerfully earnest. Thad also recognized the gesture for what it was. The memory of his own loss made his throat close up as he met Vilma’s eyes. She understood, and turning down her sacrifice was unthinkable. So was refusing to face Havoc.
“Thank you,”
he said. With the gravity of a priest, he slipped the objects into the capacious pockets of his coat.
“What was your sister’s name?”
“Olga.”
“I will make sure that word is the last sound he hears, Mistress Vilma.”
Without another word, he turned Blackie and rode away with Sofiya close behind. For once, Sofiya didn’t speak.
They climbed the hill, which was dotted with birch trees whose bark and leaves turned to silver and paper beneath the moon. Halfway up, Thad dismounted near a birch grove and put Dante on his shoulder. Frost had already killed off the insects, and the birds had migrated long ago, leaving the night eerily devoid of life sounds. Anticipation mingled with uncertainty in Thad’s chest, and he found himself checking his weapons over and over—stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives, stilettos, revolvers, bullets, knives. He had other equipment as well: silk rope, lock picks, a small hacksaw, matches, and other handy objects. His fingers itched, and he couldn’t sit still. Evil rested at the top of that hill, an evil that terrorizedmen and killed women’s sisters, and for once Thad would strike it before it struck him.
“You stay here,” he told Sofiya. “After this point, the horses—and you—will be a nuisance.”
“As you wish. Perhaps I will nap.” Sofiya made her horse kneel, and she spread her cloak in a half circle in the brass shelter of its body. “Remember, the invention is a spider with ten legs instead of eight and—”
“—it has strange markings,” Thad finished for her. “I remember.”
“Sharpe is sharp,” Dante squawked. “Doom!”
“No talking, bird,” Thad told him, “unless you want Havoc to extract your gears with a spoon.”
Dante settled his feathers with a clatter, but didn’t respond. Thad touched his knives one more time, then headed up the road toward the ruins and the clockworker named Havoc.
Chapter Three
T haddeus Sharpe scanned the castle ruins with a practiced eye. In his considerable experience, clockworkers liked hidden, enclosed spaces. Castles, sewers, underground rooms, and similar places made them feel safe, like rats in a burrow. Ruins gave them the solitude they often craved; clockworkers did not work well with others. They fell to arguing too easily and tore one another to pieces, sometimes literally. Thad had once managed to set one clockworker on another, and the results had been tremendously satisfying.
He examined Havoc’s castle from a safe distance, automatically cataloging it and sizing it up. The castle wasn’t a single building, of course. It was a little complex of outbuildings and a main keep bent in a rectangle around a courtyard, all in stony ruins. The keep and some of the outbuildings were surrounded by a fragmented stone wall that had originally been at least three stories tall but was now tumbling down in most places to the point where Thad could probably peer over it on tiptoe. The moat had dried up long ago. Vines crawled overeverything, and trees poked
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