The Doomsday Vault (18 page)

“My name is Alice Michaels, daughter of Arthur, Baron Michaels. I am your mistress's niece.”

“I see,” Kemp said. “There is extensive information about you in my memory wheels. But why are you here? Where is Madam?”

“What's the last thing you remember, Kemp?”Alice asked.

Kemp's eyes flickered. “Madam called me down to the laboratory. She ordered me to remain still. Then you were standing before me.”

“How long ago was this?”

“What is the date, miss?”

“May twenty-fourth,” she said, then added, “1857.”

Kemp's eyes flickered again. “Oh my. I have been inactive for more than a year!”

“I'm sorry, Kemp,” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina vanished sometime ago. She left me this house and its contents in her will. This is Gavin Ennock. Did Aunt Edwina say anything about him before she deactivated you?”

“Code forty-seven delta,” Kemp said. “Code forty-seven delta. Active. Active.”

“What?” Gavin said.

Kemp swiveled his head left and right several times, then refocused on Alice. “According to the terms of Madam Edwina's last will and testament and code forty-seven delta, everything in the house belongs to you, which means I am now your valet, Madam.”

“Oh!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “Well. I suppose you are.”

“
Love, Aunt Edwina,
” Gavin put in.

“Tell me, then,” Alice said, “did Aunt Edwina say anything about capturing Mr. Ennock here or about her upcoming disappearance?”

“That information is not in my memory wheels, Madam. I am sorry.”

“Do you know who might have broken in here and destroyed the laboratory?”

“That information is not in my memory wheels, Madam. I am sorry. Would Madam care for something to eat or drink?”

Gavin's stomach growled at that moment. “I would. What time is it?”

“After three in the morning,” Alice said, checking a watch in her handbag. “Good heavens, no wonder I'm so hungry. I didn't even have supper.”

“Madam!” Kemp said. “You mustn't neglect yourself so. I will return in moments.”

“I don't know what you'll find in the kitchen after a year, Kemp,” Alice said doubtfully as Kemp headed toward the stairs with stiff steps.

“Tins keep.” Kemp put his foot on the bottom step. “I regret that it won't be the best meal, but I daresay it will—code one seventeen omega. Code one seventeen omega.”

“What was that one for?” Gavin demanded.

“
Sixty seconds
,” boomed Edwina's voice.
“Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”

“Oh dear,” Kemp said. “My attempt to leave the laboratory appears to have activated a destruction code.”

Gavin gave Alice a wild look. “I thought the traps in the house were all deactivated.”

“This one must have been separated from the rest. I don't know
everything.
”

“Madam,” Kemp said, “we must leave immediately.” Before either Gavin or Alice could respond, Kemp flung Alice over his shoulder and skittered up the stairs. Gavin hurried to follow with Click on his heels. At the last moment, he snatched up his fiddle and Alice's handbag.

“Put me down, you brass idiot!” Alice shrieked. “I can walk myself.”

“Forty-one. Forty.”
Kemp was moving faster than a mechanical man should have been able. “I cannot obey, Madam. My program is quite clear.”

They were at the cellar door. The house creaked. Beams groaned like an airship in a gale, and bits of plaster fell to the floor. Terror tightened Gavin's stomach, and his heart pounded at the back of his throat. It wasn't enough time to get out. Something snapped with a report louder than a hundred guns, and a section of ceiling crashed to the floor.

The ground rumbled beneath Gavin's boots as they reached the front door. Kemp smashed it open with a metal fist. Ears back and all his claws out, Click bolted through the opening, the metal making scrabbling noises on the stones.

Outdoors, they ran for it, though Kemp refused to pause long enough to put Alice on her feet. She stopped yelling, but her expression said there'd be hell to pay later. Edwina's voice chased after them like a banshee.

Kemp deposited Alice behind a low stone wall. Gavin dived behind it with Click, skinning his palms on dirt and gravel. They huddled there, plastered against hard rock.

Gavin expected an explosion. Instead, there was a strange quiet. It rushed over them in a silent wave. This silence went beyond a simple lack of noise. This silence devoured all other sound and left behind an odd purity, as if Gavin's soul had been scoured with sand and rinsed clean. Air rushed past him, blasting his hair. Gavin and Alice peeked over the wall just in time to see the manor house crumple inward and compress into a wrinkled mass like a schoolboy's spitball. In less than a second it sucked into itself and vanished, all without the slightest sound.

Gavin clapped his hands and snapped his fingers, but heard no sound. He shouted at Alice, felt the tension in his throat, but heard no sound. Her mouth moved, but he heard nothing. She pointed at one ear and shook her head. For a horrible moment, Gavin was afraid he'd gone deaf. Kemp remained impassive. Then a bird called, and another, and another. A damp breeze rustled leaves in nearby trees. Kemp's joints creaked. Gavin sighed with relief and heard the sound in his own ears. He offered Alice a hand up.

“What
was
that?” Gavin asked, never so relieved to hear the sound of his own voice.

But Alice was staring over the wall at the house, or the space it had occupied. The entire building, including the tower, was gone. In its place, a perfect half sphere had been carved into the ground, revealing layers of earth and stone. Gavin edged up to it and peered over the side. The bottom looked to be four or five stories down. It could have swallowed the
Juniper
with ease.

“Shit,” he whispered.

“Indeed, Mr. Ennock,” Alice said. Her face was pale. “I would rather not remain here. One of the locals mentioned a train station. Shall we go look for it?”

They arrived at the station more than an hour later, grubby, tired, and hungry. Gavin was used to being all three, and the two automatons weren't bothered by physical needs, but Gavin worried about Alice. Her face grew more and more pale with every passing moment, but she refused both Gavin's and Kemp's repeated offers of assistance.

The train station was brightly lit to ward off plague zombies, and the schedule informed them that the next train to London would arrive in only a few minutes. Gavin and Alice sank gratefully to a bench to wait. It was nearly four in the morning, and a fair number of other people, ones with jobs in the city, were also waiting for the train so they could get to work. Kemp vanished and reappeared with their tickets and four bread rolls.

“I am sorry breakfast is so poor, Madam,” he said. “It was the best available.”

Alice handed two of the rolls to Gavin, who wolfed them down without hesitation. “Where did you get the money, Kemp?” she asked.

“Madam—previous Madam—has an account for tickets. I hope Madam will trust me about the rolls.”

Alice's expression said that Madam didn't, but Gavin touched her wrist, and she said nothing. The train's arrival ended further conversation.

Gavin automatically moved toward one of the open-air boxes that made up third class, but Alice called out to him, “Mr. Ennock! Our car is over here!”

Trying to keep the awe off his face, Gavin followed Alice, Kemp, and Click into the first-class car. No other passengers were in evidence, and the two of them took up plush chairs facing each other across a carpeted floor. Gavin sank into the seat, feeling like a grubby imposter next to Alice's cool grace.

The train jerked forward, and a bit later Kemp reappeared with a food seller wheeling a cart. Kemp folded tables down in front of Gavin and Alice, whisked a selection of bread, meat, and fruit from the cart, and set them on the tables while the dark city rushed past the windows. Alice ate immediately, but Gavin just looked down at his plate, his mouth watering at the smells of fresh bread, sausage, and boiled eggs.

“What's wrong, Mr. Ennock?” Alice asked. “I can't imagine you're not hungry.”

“I've got no money,” he said, feeling his face flush.

“The meal is part of your ticket, sir,” Kemp put in.

So Gavin ate gratefully. It must be wonderful to be rich and the daughter of a baron. When he finished, he leaned back in the comfortable chair to close his eyes for just a moment, and then Alice was shaking him awake. The sun had just risen outside, and the train was stopped at a station.

“We're in the city, Mr. Ennock.”

“Oh.” He yawned and got to his feet. “Uh... thanks. For rescuing me and for the food, I mean. I suppose I should be going.”

“Do you have a destination in mind?”

He shrugged. “Hyde Park, I guess. It looks like a fine day for busking.”

“What if someone tries to kidnap you again?”

“I have to play somewhere. That and flying are all I know, and no one will let me fly.”

Alice seemed to be warring with herself. At last, she said, “Come to my house, Mr. Ennock. You could meet my father.”

Gavin considered refusing. He was a street busker in dirty clothes, not someone who should meet a baron. On the other hand, the baron might reward the young man who had saved his daughter's life. Besides, the idea of not seeing Alice again caused him a strange amount of pain. Every time he saw her disheveled hair, he wanted to reach out and stroke it back into place. Every time he saw her move, he wanted to follow after her. Every time he heard her voice, he wanted to sing along with it.

“That would be wonderful,” he said.

Alice hired a cab, and sometime later, they were pulling up to a shabby-looking row house. Kemp, who had been clinging to the back of the cab, hopped down.

“Is this Madam's home?” he asked.

“It is,” Alice responded with overmuch cheer in her voice and a bit of color in her cheeks. Gavin caught on quickly. Either she'd been lying about the baron thing or they were poor regardless of the title, and Alice was embarrassed. He felt bad for her, but not too bad—it was a mansion compared to his family's grimy flat in Boston, and a palace compared to the cellar he'd slept in until just lately.

Remembering his manners at the last moment, Gavin jumped down from the cab and held out a hand to help her out, then stood uncomfortably by while Alice paid the driver.

“If Madam will give me her key.” Kemp held out a hand for it, then hurried up the short steps to open the front door. Click swiped at Alice's bedraggled skirts with a plaintive meow, and Alice picked him up. Just as she was bustling toward the short steps to the front door, two men emerged. Kemp stood back to the let them by. Both men were middle-aged and wore simple brown business suits and hats.

“Hello,” Alice said. “Who are you, please?”

“Are you the Baron's daughter?” one of the men asked.

“I'm Alice Michaels, yes.”

“Ah. We just had a... business meeting with your father. It's nothing you need concern yourself with, miss.”

“Is this about his”—she glanced at Gavin and lowered her voice, but Gavin still heard her—“debts?”

“It's talk for men, miss,” said the second man.

“You're from the debtors' prison, aren't you?” she said, her voice still low. “I've seen you sniffing round other people's houses. You can't imprison a baron for debts.”

“True, miss, true. But we can imprison a baron for a crime.”

“Crime?” Alice looked alarmed. “What kind of crime?”

“We're in a public place, miss,” the first man said, “and this isn't the sort of talk for a young lady to—”

Alice took a step toward him, a terrible look on her face, and the man actually backed up. “Tell me.”

“Er, theft and embezzlement, miss. He took money that didn't belong to him and failed to return it, which, by a certain measure, is theft. We're all aware that in the end the charges will probably not go anywhere, but Baron Michaels will have to spend the duration of the trial—many weeks—in prison, unless he can raise money for bail. And he will have to find money to pay a barrister.” The first man recovered himself and tipped his hat. “But all this is nothing you need worry your pretty little head over. Go on in and feed your cat, or wind it up or whatever you do. Is that cab available?”

Without further discussion, both men jumped into the hack and ordered the driver away. Alice, still holding Click, pursed her lips.

“Well. Father must be worried sick.” She hurried toward the steps, and Gavin followed uncertainly. “Last he knew, I was having luncheon with my fiancé yesterday afternoon.”

It felt like a boot slammed into Gavin's stomach. The entire world stopped, and he could feel every particle of air striking his skin like a barrage of tiny arrows. “Fiancé?” he echoed.

“Yes.” Alice crossed the threshold while Kemp held the door. “Norbert Williamson asked me to marry him this afternoon. Yesterday afternoon. I'm still in shock.”

“I can understand that.” Gavin entered the little house, feeling stupid and a fool.

Don't be an idiot
, he told himself.
You've just met her. And she's the daughter of a baron. Why do you care if she's engaged to someone who can probably pay her cab fare and buy her a castle with the change?