Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key (25 page)

The three travelers approached the frosty stairs that led to the front door.

“Strange is the lord of this house, and under his roof, my ability to protect you will be diminished,” the gargoyle warned. “Do not speak unless spoken to.”

The gargoyle pulled a tasseled cord, and a great gong rang out. A few moments later, the door swung open, revealing a large creature with orange skin who was dressed in servant’s attire. It might have been a man, apart from the cloven hooves and horse-like head. The creature’s eye sockets were filled with a warm yellow glow that flickered whenever he blinked, and Max thought he could hear a whirring sound.

“I am the servant of his Holiness, the Magnificent and Singular Obadiah Strange. My master is waiting for you in the parlor.”

The three travelers were ushered down a long hallway, over thick rugs and parquet flooring, past a gallery of artwork, and finally into the parlor. Leather couches were set to face one another, and a writing desk sat in the corner with an open book and quill at hand. There were several bookshelves that lined the outer walls, and tall windows with honeycombed leaded glass that peeked out from the balcony above. The room had no lights other than the roaring fireplace that consumed nearly a third of the back wall. In front of it stood a dark figure with his back to the newcomers. He was bald and broad-shouldered, and he was wearing green silk robes.

“Throckmorton, a colleague of Baron Lundgren,” announced the servant, who then backed out of the parlor, leaving them alone with the master of the house.

“
Baron
Lundgren?” spoke a smooth but commanding voice. “Is that the name he uses these days? Ah, well,
times change. Which, of course, brings us to the point of your visit.”

Strange turned to his guests and said nothing for several long moments. He had a bronze face and a dark beard peppered with grey, and his eyes were hidden behind large spectacles.

“Von Strife is back,” the gargoyle finally announced.

“Is he?” Obadiah responded. “Well, it was bound to happen, wasn’t it? The Templar should have killed him when they had a chance. The man is a lunatic.”

“Some say the same of you,” Throckmorton replied.

“Do they, now?” Obadiah paused thoughtfully with a wry smile. “Curious. I suppose it’s a matter of taste. Still, what do these two children have to do with Von Strife? Are you hoping I’ll babysit them while you deal with Otto?” Strange paused as his eyes came to rest on Ernie. His expression changed to concern. “This is a changeling!”

Ernie shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling rather naked. He hadn’t realized his condition had been so obvious.

The gargoyle nodded. “The other is the current Guardian of the
Codex
.”

“Now, there’s a bit of news I didn’t expect,” Obadiah said, raising an eyebrow as his gaze shifted to Max. “I don’t suppose you’ve brought the precious
Codex
with you?”

Max turned to Throckmorton for direction, but the gargoyle didn’t answer.

“I didn’t ask the talking rock; I asked you,” Strange
said, his eyes never leaving Max. “So tell me, do you have it?”

“Yes, sir. It’s right here,” Max replied, raising his hand to show Strange the ring.

Strange started to reach for the
Codex
, but he stopped when Max recoiled. “That certainly is a powerful weapon for someone so young. How is it that you ended up with it?”

“I found it in my grandma’s attic.”

Obadiah laughed deeply. “Next you’ll tell me that you found the Brimstone Key under the cushions of a sofa.”

“You know about the Brimstone Key?” Ernie asked.

Throckmorton reached into his jacket and pulled our Lord Saxon’s diary before setting it on a table near Strange. “The Brimstone Key is precisely why we’ve come,” the gargoyle said.

Obadiah’s spectacles seemed to flicker for a moment as he regarded the book, but he didn’t touch it.

Throckmorton continued. “As you know, Obadiah, Lord Saxon knew where the key was placed, and he put the coordinates in this diary.”

“And you can’t read it,” Strange offered curtly.

“But you can?”

“Perhaps,” Strange returned enigmatically. “Though I’m curious, what would you do with the key if you found it?”

“Destroy it,” the gargoyle said flatly.

Strange seemed amused at the notion. “I’m not sure
you’ve thought this through. The Brimstone Key can’t be destroyed.”

“There may be other options,” Throckmorton returned. “Yet without your assistance, there are none.”

“Lord Saxon was not a simple man,” Obadiah replied, as he paced near the fire. “If he wanted something kept a secret, then a secret it would remain. You’re free to leave the diary with me, though. If I find time, I may look it over.”

“How do we know you’ll give it back to us?” asked Max.

Obadiah’s face opened in a wide smile, revealing a mouthful of wooden teeth. “My dear boy. You
don’t
. But I’m the only hope you have left.”

“Get down!” Logan shouted as the railing of a falling staircase shot through the air where Natalia’s head had been only a split second before. The three had been moving from shop to shop, and apartment to apartment. The clockwork was relentless.

The Griffins followed Logan over the roofline of a tenement before leaping over a skylight. They took cover behind a nest of chimneys. Logan signaled for them to stay quiet. He scanned the skies for his support team.

“Wait,” Harley whispered. “I think it stopped moving…”

Logan signaled for everyone to stay still. He peered over the ledge where the street was choked with debris.

“It doesn’t seem like the type of machine that would give up,” noted Natalia.

Logan nodded. “Whoever built that thing definitely thought of a few upgrades since the last time I faced a Class Six. It’s running on more than simple gears, that’s for sure.”

“Do you think it was Von Strife?” Harley prompted.

“If it was…” Logan began, and then he heard a familiar pinging sound just beneath his feet. It was followed by a humming roar of an engine whirring to life. Then the roof collapsed under their feet and the whirling of a thousand gears came to life. The clockwork’s four hands ripped apart the building as it sliced through the falling debris.

Harley saw a black helicopter hovering overhead. There was a rippling sound, as if the sky were being pushed aside. Then there was a flash from the gun deck. The clockwork shrieked as it was wrenched apart by an unseen force. All that was left was a pile of gears, armor, and twitching fingers. The machine was being eaten away by a strange red liquid.

“Is that a Templar helicopter?” asked Harley.

“No,” Logan said gruffly.

The helicopter landed on the roof. Natalia’s mouth fell open as a slim female dressed in black stepped through
the door. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, with a silver lock hanging in the front.

“I thought you could use some help,” Athena yelled over the roar of the blades.

Logan offered a curt nod. Then Athena saw Natalia, and their eyes locked. Natalia was afraid that if she spoke, Athena would disappear.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Athena called out. “Someday, I’ll explain.”

Natalia was angry, sad, and relieved all at the same time. She had once thought of Athena as an older sister, but sisters didn’t betray one another.

“Two more Nemesis Six models are on their way,” Athena said. “You have five minutes, tops.”

Logan nodded.

“I’ll move to intercept, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to stop them.” Then her eyes returned to Natalia. “Will you wish me luck?”

Natalia’s voice caught in her throat.

Athena nodded sadly, and then disappeared back into the craft. It rose above the buildings before vanishing over the skyline.

Back at Iron Bridge, everything was in a state of chaos. The students were terrified—especially the changelings. Each feared he or she might be next to disappear in a flash of black smoke. There had been discussions to suspend school indefinitely, but in the end, Cain decided that it was better to keep the students close so he could better protect them. Besides, Iron Bridge was as safe a place as any given the increased security measures—including the influx of gargoyle sentries standing guard on the rooftops.

Three days after their return, Max and Ernie were summoned to the Baron’s office. When he arrived, Cain
was sitting at his desk across from Obadiah Strange. No longer in his green robes, Strange was dressed in a charcoal suit, with a top hat resting on his knee.

“I believe the two of you have met,” the Baron opened.

Max nodded as Strange reached into his trouser pocket to pull out a pipe and a bag of scented tobacco. Immediately the room smelled of peppermints, and as Strange lit his pipe, Max couldn’t help but think of Iver.

“It seems that you impressed Obadiah,” Cain said. “So much so, that he has reconsidered our request for his assistance.”

Strange pointed his pipe stem toward Max. “You’re William Caliburn’s grandson.”

“You knew my grandpa?”

Strange nodded and chewed thoughtfully on the tip of his pipe. “I did, though he may not have known me. I wasn’t really myself at the time we crossed paths, but he saved my life in a manner of speaking. I owe him a debt. No doubt Lundgren knew that when he sent you.” His eyes flicked over to the Baron, then back to Max. “Now where is your father, boy?”

Max shrugged. “Dead, I think.”

“Missing,” Cain corrected. “Lord Sumner, as you no doubt know, was last seen at the battlefield of the World Tree. If it weren’t for Max, things would have turned out much differently.”

“So I’ve been told,” Strange replied. He took a long
pull from his pipe before turning to Cain. “You know, a gentleman would offer me a sarsaparilla.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Cain replied as someone knocked on the door. It opened, and Natalia slipped in, with Harley on her heels.

Obadiah walked over to a worktable where several maps were spread out next to Saxon’s diary. “Now then, I’ve made progress, but we have one puzzle left to solve. The true brilliance of Saxon’s work is that he never followed a distinct pattern with his ciphers. No two puzzles were ever alike,” he said, as he opened the diary. He paused for a few moments over the pages, like a painter examining the works of his master and weighing his own worth.

“As you know, the entire book is written in code,” he continued. “Some I understood, most I didn’t. In order to appreciate Saxon, you needed to be a master of languages, symbols, mathematics, and even a little backwater sorcery. Unfortunately, every time I solved one of the codes, it unlocked a dozen more. Each of them had a different encryption and new key to work from.”

“But?” the Baron prompted.

Strange pulled out a piece of parchment from his breast pocket. He unfolded the paper and spread it across the table to reveal a jumbled mess of codes. “It all comes down to this.”

“What is it?” Natalia asked, drawing a frown from Strange before he responded.

“Each puzzle was a part of a larger set of directions,” he said, pointing to a tangle of symbols, drawings, and meandering lines. “Much like the pieces of an engine that are linked together, each one is dependent on the other. Discovering how they fit together is the real mystery. This parchment is the key… the final cipher.”

“We enlisted Montifer’s Babbage Difference Engines yesterday, but he hasn’t had any luck,” Cain added.

Natalia pulled out her Phantasmoscope and pored over the parchment. “So if we can’t solve this last step, is it game over?”

Strange chewed on the tip of his pipe. “Not necessarily. I already know where to find the Brimstone Key. We’re missing information to show us how to unlock the impenetrable safe where the key is kept. That’s what this parchment is for.”

Cain and Obadiah discussed the implications of Von Strife finding the key first. The Bishop might know where to find the key, but opening the safe would be a different game. As they explored these possibilities, Natalia continued to study the parchment, walking from one end of the table to the other, then circling it from time to time.

After a few minutes, Natalia turned to Strange. “Is this the only copy of the parchment?”

Strange shook his head. “The original is in Montifer’s lab. Why do you ask?”

“Good, then you won’t mind if I try something out.”

With that, she began folding the parchment at one
corner, then bending it backward and folding it in another direction. She continued the process, sometimes undoing what she had done before and starting in a new direction. All the while she softly hummed a tune. Then, after folding the last corner and tucking it beneath a slat, she set the parchment back on the desk.

“There,” she said triumphantly.

No longer a flat sheet of paper, the parchment looked like two triangles overlapping each other. The first pointed down, the second up, and where they intersected sat a small star. Codes that previously made no sense were suddenly aligned, and as Strange looked it over, his eyes grew wide.

“How did you do that?” Ernie asked her.

“I got the idea from Dr. Thistlebrow. Remember when he made that dove out of paper? You know, the one he set on fire? Well, that was just origami, and so was this.”

“Unbelievable,” Strange announced, picking up the folded parchment to hold it to the light. “Now all I’ll need is a quiet room and a pot of black coffee. If I don’t run into any more snags, we’ll know how to unlock the Brimstone Key by morning.”

After Strange left the room, everyone but Max was dismissed.

“I am afraid that I have some bad news,” the Baron began as he leaned on his cane. “Archimedes has returned.”

“Did he find Smoke?”

“Yes,” Cain replied. “Along with Stephen, Becca, and Robert. There were others that Archimedes could not identify. Apparently Von Strife is keeping them all in an underground laboratory somewhere in Eastern Europe. I’ll spare you the details, as they are rather ghastly. However, it would appear that Von Strife has picked up right where he left off.”