Angel of Brass (26 page)

The sight of her made him go weak in knees.
She came for me. I can’t believe it.

“I’m going to toss the chain up to you!” she
called. “Wrap it around the bars!”

The chain nearly hit him in the face. He
caught it and fastened it around the central bar as securely as he
could. “All right! Done!”

“Stand back!”

He fell back obediently, retreating to the
door. A moment later, the sound of the steam car’s engine roared to
life outside. The chain went taut...then the entire window ripped
free with the sound of shattering masonry.

The door burst open behind him, but he was
ready for it. Spinning, his claws out, he caught the smiling man
across the eyes.

The smiling man stumbled back, its hand
dashing blood away from its optics. Seizing his opportunity, Jin
grabbed the gun that it held in its other hand. Realizing the
trick, the creature bit blindly at him, but he kicked it hard in
the knee. There was a loud crack as something gave way, and as the
smiling man fell, Jin yanked hard on the gun, pulling it free. A
single shot to its head, and the smiling man twitched a final time,
then went still.

Sprinting to the window, he leaned out.
“Catch!” he shouted, and tossed the gun to Molly. She almost
dropped it in surprise.

Jin paused just long enough to tear off his
shoes, then climbed out the window. “Get out of here!” he called to
Molly and Liam. “Drive!”

Molly’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “Climb
down!”

“I have to get my rig!”

Shouts came from inside the factory, and he
heard the door onto the street open. “Go!” he yelled again, then
scrambled off across the face of the building, claws biting into
the crumbling mortar.

The brick just below him shattered, sending
splinters tearing through the cloth of his trousers and bouncing
off his metal legs.
They’re shooting at me!

The engine of the steam car roared, and he
heard Molly shouting, daring the smiling men to follow her.
Swearing furiously, he picked what he hoped was the right window,
smashed the glass with his fist, and climbed inside.

* * *

“I’m going to kill him!” Liam shouted as he
wrestled the steering wheel with his good hand.

Why Jin had decided it was a good idea to go
back inside the building, Molly had no idea. At the moment, though,
it didn’t matter. Jin had gone haring off, leaving her and Liam to
escape from the two smiling men who had emerged from the building
and were even now running down the street after them.

“Hold the car steady!” she ordered. Twisting
about, she propped the heavy barrel of the ray gun on the rail
behind the seats.

“I’m trying!” Liam yelled back over the sound
of the motor. “I’ve only got one hand to work the gears and the
wheel! This is as steady as it’s going to get!”

One of the smiling men stopped running to
level its ray gun at them. Molly frantically aimed and fired,
hoping to hit it first. At that moment, the steam car smashed into
a pothole and swerved wildly, causing both shots to miss their
targets.

Liam let out a long string of profanity, and
Molly couldn’t help but notice two things. The first was that the
car wasn’t steering as well as it had been before they’d hit the
pothole. The second was that the smiling men had put on a burst of
speed, moving far faster than a human could run. Unless something
stopped them, they’d catch up with the car soon.

She took a second wild shot with the ray gun
and this time got lucky. One of the smiling men jerked, and she
caught a glimpse of metal showing from beneath its shell of flesh,
before the car careened around a corner and cut off her view. For a
moment, she hoped that the damage had been enough to stop it. Then
both of the smiling men turned onto the side street and continued
to pursue the car.

Curse it!

An ominous grinding noise came from under the
vehicle, and Molly noticed that they were losing speed. “We need to
go faster!”

“I’m going as fast as I can!” Liam snapped.
“Something’s wrong with the engine.”

She fired the ray gun again and missed,
thanks to the shaking of the car. The orange light of the setting
sun fell through the slots between buildings, gleaming off the
sharp teeth of the smiling men, and she knew that they were in
serious trouble. Slowly the gap began to close. The smiling men
were thirty feet behind...then twenty...then ten.

A shadow flickered over the street, something
huge passing across the sun. Both of the smiling men looked up
instantly, even though their steps didn’t slow. Wondering if an
airship had crossed over the city illegally, Molly shaded her eyes
and craned her head back.

He glided over the rooftops, shirtless, his
copper skin gleaming. From his back stretched a pair of enormous
wings. Easily twenty feet across, they were made from brass and
gold, from wire and gears, each pinion flexing in response to the
wind.

It can’t be. I’m not seeing this.

Is that...Jin?

Jin dove lower. Although his arms were free,
his feet appeared locked together, the brass plates covering them
reconfigured to form a rudder. He held something clasped in his
arms that she thought might have been a large bit of scrap metal.
As he closed in on them, he folded the wings, his speed increasing
as he angled toward the earth. Then he was past them, the object
falling from his grasp and smashing into the foremost smiling man
with all the force of gravity and velocity. It went down, twitching
and flailing like an overturned turtle.

With a flick of his wings, Jin climbed
higher, surprisingly agile. The other smiling man had stopped
running and lifted its weapon, tracking his progress.

No!

This time, Molly’s shot took it through the
head.

“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” Liam
asked weakly.

Molly couldn’t tear her eyes away from Jin.
He’d gained altitude now, above the buildings where he could unfurl
his wings completely. The last light of the sun sparked off the
ends of the pinions and bathed the delicate gears and wires in a
roseate glow.

He’s beautiful.

A building passed between them, and she
regretfully turned back to the fore, only to see a smiling man step
in front of them.

“Liam, look out!” she shouted, but it was too
late.

The smiling man leapt onto the front of the
car and punched a fist deep into the engine, snapping wires and
knocking hoses loose. Jets of steam shot out, enveloping it in a
cloud, but it didn’t seem to notice. Its eyes were hidden behind
opaque red lenses, and its mouth opened wider and wider, revealing
the rows of iron teeth.

“Run!” Molly shouted at Liam, even as she
brought up her gun. The smiling man slapped the weapon aside,
sending it spinning away into the street.

Molly scrambled out of the car, her heart
pounding in terror. Liam had gotten out ahead of her, but as he
started back in her direction, the smiling man hopped from the
ruined car and began to advance.

No
. Liam had already lost too much to
these monsters. Molly pulled out the first tool that came to hand
and flung it as hard as she could at the back of the smiling man’s
head.

It struck, hard, but not hard enough to do
any real damage. Instead, the smiling man pivoted slowly about and
fixed her with its hidden gaze. “So,” it said in its monotone
voice, “it’s the gear girl. You lied to me. That was a very, very
stupid thing to do.”

Molly’s courage broke, and she turned and
ran. Eerie, flat laughter sounded behind her, and she knew that
within a few seconds it would have her.

A rusted iron ladder clung to the side of a
nearby building. Molly grabbed the lower rungs and began to climb.
Maybe, if she could get above her pursuer, she could drop tools on
it until it gave up, or a lucky hit blinded it.

The ladder shuddered with additional weight,
and she realized in despair that this wasn’t going to work.
Half-gasping and half-sobbing from exertion and terror, she
stumbled onto the roof. It was flat, except for the water tower on
one end. The roof edges overlooked alleys and streets too wide for
her to jump.

“End of the line, girl,” the smiling man
said.

A shadow passed over the roof.

Molly spun on her heel and ran full-tilt for
the roof’s edge. The smiling man let out a cry of anger, but she
was ahead of it, nothing but emptiness coming up fast...

Closing her eyes so that her nerve wouldn’t
fail her, Molly flung herself off the edge of the building.

Strong arms caught her across the chest. She
grabbed wildly, her legs thrashing, certain that she was
falling.

“It’s all right!” Jin shouted in her ear.
“I’ve got you!”

Then, suddenly, they lost altitude, and she
heard him let out a startled exclamation. Opening her eyes, she saw
that the smiling man had leapt as well, grabbing hold of Jin’s
legs. Although the streets were still a dizzying distance below,
they were getting closer at an alarming rate.

“You won’t escape,” the smiling man said.
“Not this time. The master put so much faith in you, spoiled
you
, when I was his greatest creation! No more! With you
dead, I will become his son!”

“You’re welcome to it!” Jin shouted. “But
first, you have to hold on!”

The world twisted madly, the raw edge of the
wind whipping away Molly’s scream. The great wings folded and
flexed; everything seemed to spin upside down, then right side up
again, and all the while they were getting lower and lower. They
were over the inhabited district, now, and she caught a blurry
glimpse of people standing in the streets, pointing up. Then
suddenly they were out from amidst the buildings, on a clear,
straight stretch, and the screaming wasn’t coming just from her and
the wind.

All the air left her lungs as she saw the
locomotive barreling toward them, its whistle howling. Every detail
was clear—the face of the engineer, staring in horror, the steam
belching from the chimney, the blunt smoke box rushing toward them.
Unable to look away, she clung tightly to Jin in preparation for
the impact that would kill them all...

“Pull your legs up, Molly!” Jin shouted.

She did so, and her feet skimmed over the
train, so close that she could feel the heat of the boiler. The
smiling man was not so lucky. The chimney caught it just above the
waist, so hard that she heard the crack of metal.

Then Jin was climbing hard, vast wings
thrashing the air. For an instant, they were enveloped in smoke and
sparks; then, they were back in clear sky, the train falling away
below. Her heart slowly settling, Molly became aware that it was
difficult to breathe with Jin’s arms clasped around her chest. The
wind was surprisingly cold, but his body’s fever heat seeped
through the back of her coat, warming her. Below them, the first
streetlights came on, but the city seemed very quiet, very distant,
from this height.

“We’re flying,” she gasped.
“You’re
flying!”

“Yes,” Jin said with a grin. “I am.”

Chapter 19

Once on a level, Jin straightened his wings
into a glide, making only the smallest of adjustments to send them
circling back to the deserted district. “There’s Liam!” Molly
shouted, letting go of her death-grip on his arms long enough to
point.

Jin angled into a descent. At the very edge
of the building Molly had thrown herself from, he dropped his legs
and gave a single, enormous back-flap to brake, setting them both
down neatly. As soon as Molly’s feet touched the roof, she ran to
the edge and peered down at Liam, who stood near the wreckage of
the steam car. “Are you all right?” she shouted.

“I’m fine!”

“That should have been the last of the
smiling men,” Jin said, perching on the edge of the building with
his wings folded. His legs were back to normal, and his claws
gripped the bricks.

“Thank goodness!” Molly muttered, shivering.
The wind on the rooftop was cold, and with a shy glance at the
toned muscles of Jin’s bare chest, she said, “Do you want to share
my coat?”

“I’m fine. But thank you. For everything.” He
tilted his head to one side, the feathers tumbling against his
cheek. His goggles were down for flying, so his hair spilled loose
around his face. “How did you find me?”

Now I know why he always wears the
goggles
. “It was Liam, actually. He realized that the shamblers
would need to be kept refrigerated. An abandoned meat packing plant
seemed like the obvious place for a hideout. When we heard you
playing, we knew that we had found the right one.”

“Oh.” He looked surprised. “That was very
clever.”

Feeling tired, Molly went to the iron ladder.
“We should go back to the plant. If we can deactivate the shamblers
now, when they’re all in one spot, we won’t have to worry about it
later.”

“You’re right.” Jin rose to his feet and
looked down at her. “I’ll meet you there, then.”

She watched him launch and glide away, as
comfortable in the air as any bird.
That’s amazing. Beautiful.
Marvelous
. Whatever horrors Malachi had created, this at least
was something wonderful.

Now that the steam car was wrecked, she and
Liam had to trek back to the factory on foot. Liam carried the
satchel with the anti-controller again, while she toted the ray
gun, which she had retrieved from the road. “I can’t believe we
destroyed Master Singh’s car,” she said. “I’m never going to be
able to pay him back for it. He’ll probably call the police and
have me up on charges of theft.”

“It’s a good thing we had it,” Liam pointed
out. “Otherwise, we’d probably be dead.”

Molly shivered and drew her coat closer about
her shoulders.

Full night had fallen by the time they
reached the factory. No gaslight showed from within—or lit the
street lamps, for that matter. Molly took out her electric torch,
but its beam did nothing to dispel the eeriness of the abandoned
district.