Angel of Brass (10 page)

Saints, oh saints, oh saints, that can’t
have just happened, it can’t
. But she could still feel the
merciless fingers through the tough leather of her boot, still
smell the scent of decay despite the refrigeration, still see the
withered skin stretch as it
moved
.

Bile clawed at the back of her throat.
What if they open the door? What if they’re following me right
now?

The mental image made her hands shake so
badly she almost dropped her torch. She fumbled at her tool belt
with her free hand, found the heavy wrench, and clutched it like a
talisman.

She burst through the door at the top of the
stair at a full run. The sight of a shape coming through the other
door almost made her heart stop, but it was a living man and not a
reanimated corpse. For a moment they stared at one another, equally
startled.

“Hey!” he said. “What’re you—”

Molly swung her wrench as hard as she could.
If she hadn’t had the element of surprise, it would never have
worked, but the man hadn’t expected to be attacked by a terrified
girl wielding a wrench. The iron length slammed into his skull with
a resounding thud, and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

She stumbled over him as she scrambled out
the door.
If the dead are following me, will they leave him
alone? Walk over him? Kill him?

Fear kept her feet moving, and she almost
knocked over another man coming in through the outermost door. She
heard him shouting after her as she dashed past into the clear
night air, and she knew that, even if they hadn’t heard her earlier
scream, by now everyone in the building would know something was
up.

Now what?
Hopefully Jin would be able
to stay concealed amidst the treetops, but she would never make it
up into the branches on her own. She pelted in what she thought was
the direction of the gate, but in the dark, with the confusing
lumps of unkempt bushes and weeds, she took a wrong turn. When the
wall loomed up in front of her, the beam of her torch revealed
nothing but a solid expanse of brick, with no gate in sight.

A shout sounded behind her. Her heart
hammering, she spun and put her back against the brick. Lantern
light stabbed into her eyes, blinding her.

“Over here, boys!” someone yelled. “I’ve got
‘er!”

Something large and dark plummeted from the
branches overhead, crashing into the resurrectionist and sending
him to the ground. The lantern fell but didn’t go out; in its
light, she saw Jin roll off the stunned man.

“Come on!” he shouted, and grabbed her arm.
His smooth metal fingers gripped her tight enough to bruise, but
she was beyond noticing as she plunged after him, back in the
direction she had come. Other men with lanterns were closing in;
one of them ran at Jin, fist drawn back to punch.

Jin let go of her, evaded the blow, then
lashed out with one hand. The resurrectionist screamed in agony,
and Molly saw that four deep slashes had laid his cheek open to the
bone. The blood on Jin’s claws looked black in the dim light, and
she saw that his lips were drawn back in a feral snarl. A second
man came at him; he twisted lithely aside, kicking his opponent
hard in the flank, sending him staggering. Before he could get his
feet under him again, Molly smacked the man on the head with her
wrench, and he collapsed.

“Good work!” Jin said. “Now run!”

She did, and he pelted after. There came a
flash and the sound of a shot, and Molly briefly wondered if she
should be glad they were armed with conventional pistols instead of
ray guns.
Then again, if they hit us, we’ll be just as
dead
.

They rounded the end of the long, tangled
hedge, and the drive opened up in front of them, the gate at the
end. For a moment, Molly thought they actually might escape. Then
she saw the forms making their slow, stumbling way along the
drive.

Even if they hadn’t reeked of death, she
would have known they weren’t alive. Their motions were jerky, like
wind-up dolls whose gears had started to slip. Lantern light fell
across the features of those closest to the house, and she saw the
gleam of teeth where withered lips had shrunk back, the dark stain
of decay on cheeks, the sunken pits of eyes. Yet somehow they
moved, their feet propelling them forward, as they stumbled to cut
off the only route of escape.

Molly made a frantic sound that was half
scream, half sob of terror. Jin slowed at the edge of the drive,
his metal feet crunching against the gravel. “Saints, are those
shamblers?” he asked, sounding surprised rather than horrified.

“Wh-what?” Molly stammered.

“Shamblers. Curse it!” He glanced over his
shoulder at her. “We can outrun them if we get past. If we have to
fight, try to destroy the control mechanism on their backs.
Whatever you do,
don’t
let them grab you!”

Oddly enough, the fact that Jin had dealt
with walking corpses before took the edge off her terror. Whatever
they might be, if they had some sort of control device, they must
be animated by science.

The first of the shamblers blocked the gate
now. Jin put on a burst of speed and struck it full in the chest,
obviously trying to knock it out of the way. The move didn’t work;
instead, one of the dead hands locked around his arm. Jin snarled
and slashed at it, claws out, but it gave no sign that it felt the
bloodless wounds now gaping on its arm.

A second shambler came up behind him, fingers
outstretched to grab his neck. The movement caused its ruined shirt
to gap, and Molly caught sight of the gleam of brass.

The controller!

Letting out a hoarse shout, she swung her
wrench with both hands, smashing it into the device.

There came a loud crack and a spark. The
shambler staggered, then fell and lay twitching aimlessly on the
ground. Feeling a rush of euphoria at her victory, Molly charged
the one holding onto Jin. Jin was faster than she, though; as she
ran toward him, he twisted his entire body, hard. There came a dry
snap of bone, and the shambler’s arm tore free at the elbow, the
fingers going limp the instant they were disconnected from the
body.

Sensing her presence, it turned to her,
stretching its remaining arm in her direction. Jin darted behind
it, claws fully extended, and latched on. For a moment, they
struggled, the shambler thrashing wildly. Then Jin ripped loose the
controller, its wires trailing, and the shambler collapsed.

“Keep the device!” Molly shouted. “I want to
examine it later!”

Jin gave her a look that clearly said he
thought she’d lost her mind, but did as she asked. Although the way
out was now clear, there were other shamblers coming up close
behind them. Another gunshot rang out, this time near enough that
flying shards from the brick wall stung Molly’s cheek.

“Molly!”

“I’m all right,” she gasped. “I think we’ve
worn out our welcome, though.”

By some miracle of providence, the iron gate
was unlocked, and any guard on it had abandoned his post to join in
the search for intruders. Molly and Jin stumbled out into the
street and started to run. The lighting was bad, even with Molly’s
torch; Molly splashed through a puddle of noisome liquid, and Jin
let out a curse when he stepped in a pothole and almost fell. Her
heart pounding in her ears, Molly glanced over her shoulder, and
saw the first of the shamblers emerge into the street. Someone was
shouting, perhaps giving them orders; at any rate, they turned en
masse in the direction she and Jin had taken.

“Saints’ blood, they’re following us!”

Jin’s face was grim as he risked a look back.
“They’re slow, but they don’t get tired. They won’t stop coming
until they run us to ground.”

Despair iced Molly’s veins. Although Jin
didn’t seem to be tiring, a stitch had formed in her side, and she
was already gasping for breath.

“I can’t go much farther, so you...you keep
running,” she said, her voice shaking even as she tried to be
brave. “Just go...go on.”

His dark brows snapped together in a scowl.
“What sort of person do you think I am? Come on, Molly—just a
little farther, all right?”

Molly only nodded, unable to spare the breath
to answer him. They raced through the dark streets, taking twists
and turns apparently at random, presumably to confuse the
shamblers. At least there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the
streets; Molly hated to imagine some hapless person stumbling into
the shamblers’ path. The memory of those clutching fingers made her
blood run cold.

They ran until she thought her heart might
explode. Just when the prospect of lying down and letting the
shamblers kill her began to seem like a good idea, Jin came to a
halt. Molly looked dully around and saw that they were in an
alleyway piled with trash. Even in the cold night air, the stench
was incredible. Jin shoved the controller into one of the noisome
piles, presumably to hide it, then dropped into a crouch. “Get on.
I don’t think the shamblers can climb, and even if I’m wrong, with
any luck they won’t realize that we’ve gone up.”

Molly switched off her torch and thrust it
into her belt. As before, she climbed on his back, although this
time the legs she wrapped around his waist felt like cooked
noodles. “I’m not sure I can hold on,” she said into his hair.

He patted her on the leg. “You can do it,
Molly. Don’t worry—it’ll only be for a few seconds.”

It seemed to take forever to climb up the
side of the building, although whether because it was a more
difficult climb than the wall had been, or because Jin was tiring,
she didn’t know. Molly concentrated on holding on, hiding her face
in his hair to avoid looking down. He smelled of sweat and
feathers, underlain by the musk of his skin, and she breathed deep
to distract herself from her exhaustion and fear.

Eventually, she felt the angle of his body
change. “We’re at the roof,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Just
take slowly, and you should be able to pull yourself over the
gutter.”

Molly had never been afraid of heights—but
then, she’d never risked her neck scrambling around on a roof
before, either. Her pulse hammered as she pulled herself onto the
slanting tiles. As soon as her weight was off him, Jin swarmed onto
the roof with an ease that made her envious, then helped her the
rest of the way up. A chimney jutted up halfway between the edge
and the peak of the roof, and he guided her to sit on the high side
of it, her back against its comfortable solidity.

Now that she had stopped moving, Molly began
to shiver, so hard that her teeth threatened to chatter. Whether
the shaking came from the cold, the exertion, or the shock of the
experience, she didn’t know, but it was bad enough that Jin noticed
her trembling.

“Molly?” he whispered. “Are you hurt?”

“N-no,” she managed to say, feeling vaguely
ashamed. “J-just reaction. Don’t worry.”

“We need to keep you warm. Take your coat off
for a moment.”

The request made no sense, but she did as he
asked. Taking the coat from her, he shifted so that he was up
against her, then wrapped the coat around them both to hold in the
heat. “Better?”

The fever-heat of his body felt delicious
even through their layers of clothing. She laid her head on his
shoulder, and after a moment, he put his arms loosely around her.
“Better,” she agreed.

Gradually, the shivering left her.
This is
nice
, she thought, almost drowsily as his warmth soaked into
her bones.
He’s nice
.

“I’m going to have to make an offer to Saint
Flete,” Molly murmured as her pulse gradually steadied toward
normal.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that one.”
Jin said. “How many saints are they up to, anyway?”

She twisted her head to look up at him, but
he was nothing but a silhouette against the stars. It occurred to
her suddenly how close her lips were to the smooth line of his jaw,
and she wondered if he would taste as good as he smelled.

She swallowed and tried to distract herself
with thoughts of saints. “I doubt anyone knows. A few thousand, I
suppose.”

“Probably just as well. The more there are,
the easier to share the workload of all those prayers.”

“Anyway. Flete. He ran thirty miles to warn a
town that an army was about to launch a surprise attack.
Unfortunately, he then promptly dropped dead of exhaustion. Ever
since, people call on him when they need to get somewhere quickly,
whether running or riding or flying an airship.”

“Given that he dropped over dead, I’m not
sure that’s much of a recommendation,” Jin said wryly.

“Yes, well, I suppose he’s gotten better at
it since becoming a saint.”

They subsided into silence. The buildings and
streets around them were quiet, without even a shuffle to mark the
presence of the shamblers.
We lost them. Thank the god and all
the saints
.

“So,” Molly said eventually, “you’ve seen
shamblers before. Care to tell me about them?”

Jin shifted uncomfortably. “They’re one of
Dr. Malachi’s inventions,” he said, so quietly that she had to
strain to hear him over the moan of the wind. “Like the smiling men
and...other things.”

“Ah.”
I should have known
. “I’m sorry.
This must have brought back unpleasant memories.”

She felt rather than heard his sigh. “I
suppose. At least these hadn’t been made from anyone I knew.”

“Saints,” she murmured, and hugged him, not
knowing how else to offer comfort.

“It’s all right,” he said. “And now we have
proof.”

“The controller.”

“Yes. And maybe more. I overheard two men
talking. I didn’t recognize one of them, but the other was a
resurrectionist who had been at the manor, plotting with Dr.
Malachi. He asked the other man if he wanted to ‘inspect the
troops.’”