Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key (20 page)

He handed Max a folder with a picture of a young boy on the cover. As Max grabbed it, a chill raced over him. He knew that face.

“It’s not possible.”

“You know this boy, don’t you,” the Baron said. It was a statement of fact.

Max nodded. “From a dream.”

“His name was Johnny Geist, and he was a student at Iron Bridge before the school was destroyed.”

“He was a paperboy,” Max added slowly.

The Baron nodded. “In fact, he disappeared one morning while delivering his papers. No one ever saw him again. That was in 1897. There were rumors that Johnny had run away, but most suspected foul play. Unfortunately the authorities had no leads, and they were forced to close the case until a second boy, named Eugene Marks, vanished.”

Natalia let out a muffled shout as she held one of the files up to the light. “This is Stacy Bechton! It’s the girl who gave me the invitation to the party.”

“Each of these files represents an unsolved case,” the Baron confirmed. “And each student who went missing led to the mounting rumor that Iron Bridge was cursed. That is the reason why, when it was destroyed all those years ago, many felt it better to leave it in ashes.”

Max glanced through more of the reports, and his
stomach started to churn. Each case had one fact in common—they were all changelings.

Cain continued. “It was only later that we found those disappearances were related to Von Strife’s clockwork program and his fiendish desire to meld changeling souls with machines through the highly illegal practice known as Transference.”

“Does this have anything to do with Brooke’s abduction?” Natalia wanted to know.

“My daughter’s disappearance has nothing to do with the matter at hand,” Cain said with finality, but Max thought Natalia might be onto something. After all, Brooke had abilities, just like the other changelings. Maybe she was a changeling, too.

On second thought, Max decided that idea was ridiculous.

“Aidan told us about Von Strife’s program,” explained Max. “We saw him on the
Zephyr
a few days ago. He showed us a journal that he took from Dean Nipkin’s office.”

“Logan mentioned the encounter.”

“Was Von Strife really trying to save his daughter’s life?” Ernie asked.

“In part,” the Baron admitted. “Sophia contracted leukemia when she was very young, and Von Strife was desperate to save her. In time, he concocted a serum that contained an unusually large dose of faerie essence. It worked, of course. But at the expense of her humanity.
As she grew older, and her changeling nature grew more wild, he grew desperate to find a way to save her. Nothing could stand in his way.”

“So he began to experiment on other changelings,” Natalia whispered.

“Sadly.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Ernie said.

Before the Griffins left the archive chamber, the Baron made them swear that they wouldn’t tell anyone about what they had seen or heard.

“You will only frighten the other students, and that may impact our ability to solve this mystery. You can talk to Logan or to me. That is all.”

“Don’t the changelings have a right to know if we’re at risk?” countered Ernie.

“We are doing everything we can. Trust me, Agent Thunderbolt. It is for the best. If any of the changelings panicked and left Iron Bridge, they would be picked off,
one by one, until none were left. No, you are safer here. And your friends are better off not knowing.”

Max wasn’t sure why the Toad brothers were so intent on creating a rivalry between him and Xander. It was annoying, to say the least. With the Round Table tournament looming, the entire school seemed to be buzzing about the potential showdown between Iron Bridge’s top duelists.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Max complained as the Griffins stood together on the observation deck of the SIM Chamber. Below, Coach Wolfhelm was berating a group of students who had just failed their simulation test.

“People are excited. So what?” Harley said. “Everybody likes a good rivalry, so you’d better get used to it.”

“But that’s my point,” Max said, exasperated. “Even if I make it to the final match—”

“Which you will,” Harley interrupted.

“Then who cares if Xander beats me?” Max argued. “All I’m trying to do is make the team.”

“I don’t believe you for one minute, Grayson Maximillian Sumner,” Natalia said. “I’ve seen the way you glare at Xander whenever he walks past you.”

Max couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I do not!”

“I don’t know, Max,” Ernie said, piling on. “You seem kind of jealous of Xander sometimes.”

Max opened his mouth to defend himself, but he shut
it again. No matter what he said, they wouldn’t to believe him, so he decided to let it go.

Unfortunately, Coach Wolfhelm had other plans. “I need Max Sumner and Xander Swift in here, double time!” he shouted.

Max rolled his eyes as the room became quiet. This wasn’t exactly a Round Table duel, but facing off inside the SIM Chamber was close enough. Nobody wanted to miss it.

Inside the active SIM Chamber, Max found himself standing next to Xander in a sewer. The rank water was nearly up to his chest. The stench and the thick layer of scum on the surface made Max want to vomit.

Coach Wolfhelm had sent them back more than a thousand years into the past. For this training scenario, the boys were to secure a set of knucklebones know as the Dice of Damascus. The Emir who owned the dice was said to be the first ruler to have built a clockwork army. The clockworks wouldn’t be as sophisticated as Von Strife’s designs, but they didn’t need artificial intelligence to kill. They had dark magic.

“Just watch out for Imager Bots,” Xander warned as he sloshed through the muck. “Coach Wolfhelm isn’t above using modern technology to make sure we don’t beat his game.”

“That’s cheating,” Max complained, looking back over his shoulder for any sign of the spy bots.

Xander shrugged. “This isn’t a history lesson. It’s about survival.”

The rules were clear. Xander and Max were supposed to work as a team, but they’d be graded separately. That was going to be tricky. Max wanted to stand out, but he couldn’t try and score points at Xander’s expense. Wolfhelm deducted for what he called “glory hounding.”

“Wait a minute,” Xander whispered as he came to a halt a little farther down the sewer. “I think there’s something in here with us.”

Max froze. “Did you see it?”

“I felt it hit my leg,” Xander explained. “Could be a Sewer Serpent. The Emir used them like crocodiles in a moat. They’re cheap labor—cheaper than clockworks.”

Something bumped Max’s leg as he grabbed the first rung of the ladder. As quickly as he could, he followed Xander up, just as the water below started to bubble. Max looked down, and a terrible face rose from the darkness.

The Sewer Serpent’s eyes were covered in yellow cataracts, and its snakelike mouth was unhinged to reveal rotten teeth. As the monster lunged, Max let go of the ladder, barely avoiding fangs that were nearly as big as he was. He hit the murky water and sank to the stone floor below. His shoulder took the brunt of the impact.

Max gasped, and his lungs filled with sewage. Then his hand scraped against what he thought was a piece of
driftwood. He grabbed it, planning to use the wood as a weapon. But when Max surfaced, he saw that he was holding a human femur.

“Watch out!” Xander shouted as the monster attacked again.

Max nearly tripped as he sidestepped the monster. Before he fell, he shoved the bone into the serpent’s eye. Like a needle piercing burlap, the femur punctured the cataract, and the monster screamed.

As the serpent writhed in the fetid water, Max seized his chance to escape. He surfaced, dove for the ladder, and scrambled up it, thankful for the help as Xander pulled him through the opening.

Xander kicked the grate shut and locked it before pulling Max away from the opening and into the shadows next to a wood-burning oven.

“I’m impressed,” he said as he handed Max a towel.

“Thanks,” Max replied, smiling and panting for air. “I don’t suppose you have anything to help wash this taste out of my mouth.”

Xander watched Max turn a strange shade of green. “Don’t tell me that you swallowed the water.”

“Trust me, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Are you good enough to keep going?”

“Yeah,” Max said, coughing as he stood up. “Let’s just find what we came for and get out of here.”

White Xander studied the map that Coach Wolfhelm had given them, Max smiled faintly. He was sure that
wounding the Sewer Serpent would boost his score. Xander might be able to beat him at Round Table, but Max had plenty of experience in the SIM Chamber. There was no way he was going to lose—not even to Xander.

“The stairwell to the treasury is this way,” Xander said.

Max followed him through the kitchen to a spiral staircase that was hidden behind a trick wall. After climbing nearly three hundred steps, they found themselves at a slit window. “Time to signal the cavalry,” Xander said.

Max nodded and pulled a mirror out of his pack. With a series of rapid hand movements, he sent several pulses of light to the streets below. When he saw three quick bursts in return, Max knew the hidden Templar Knights were ready.

“Is it just me, or has this been too easy?” Xander asked.

“Speak for yourself,” Max said. “I’m never going into a sewer again.”

“We’ll see.”

The boys continued up the stairs until they came to a pair of double doors. Max peered through the crack and quickly pulled back. “Two guards, and they have scimitars.”

“Clockworks or humans?”

“They look human to me.”

With that, Xander pulled out a small crystal from his pocket and rubbed it between his hands. Max tried to get
a closer look, but Xander pulled it away protectively. “It’s called a Mesmero Crystal,” he warned. “Trust me, you don’t want to be the guy who looks at it. That is, unless you want me to carry you out of here on your back.”

Max rolled his eyes. “How does it work?”

“Watch and learn.” Xander smiled slyly.

He placed the crystal on the floor, just beneath the door, then gave it a push into the hall beyond. He held up his fingers and counted down, “Three… two… one…” Two heavy thuds followed, and Xander winked at Max before he pushed the door open. Both guards had fallen on their stomachs, their heads turned toward and their eyes locked onto the crystal.

“If we don’t run into any surprises,” Xander explained, “we should have about twenty minutes before they wake up.”

Max stepped over the unconscious guards and followed Xander into the treasury. It was a round room with a forest of columns and soaring brick arches. Above it all was a metallic dome that acted as a canopy for a towering tree of pure gold. Its branches stretched all directions, filled with mechanical songbirds. Like the tree, the birds were made of gold, and Max could hear the faint tick of their gears. Clockworks.

“No time for sightseeing,” Xander warned, pulling on Max’s arm. “We need to find those dice.”

Max’s eyes widened as he looked at the mountains of treasure. It would take a hundred people a year to find
anything in this room. As his eyes floated over casks of jewels and statues draped in gilded finery, he began to doubt that they could find the knucklebones.

Moving through the room, Max discovered four golden figures that looked almost human. They were dressed in robes and armor, each grasping a scimitar in perfectly articulated hands. Their empty sockets stared at a table just behind Max.

Max waved his hand in front of their faces, wondering if they were ancient clockworks. The statues didn’t move. He pushed them. They teetered. He knocked on their chests. A hollow sound followed.

Turning, Max saw the table that the figures seemed so interested in. There were a number of gold plates, bowls, and pitchers, all filled with rare coins. In a small goblet, there was a faint green glow. The Dice of Damascus.

“I think I found them,” Max called out.

“Wait for me,” Xander warned as he made his way over.