Iron Codex 2 - The Nightmare Garden (27 page)

I’d found out something useful. The rest of it shouldn’t matter.

My resolve had hardened.

The Brotherhood was going to help me, whether they knew it or not. The Iron Codex would have answers, and I was going to have to go and find them.

I laid out my plan to Dean, Cal, Bethina and Conrad, because I needed their help. They took it about as well as I expected.

“You’re cracked,” Conrad said. “You heard what Dad said. We have to lie low, and we have to wait until there’s more of us together to try and fix the Gate. In the meantime, there are Proctors everywhere, and creatures coming through the broken Gates. Have you thought about how you’re even going to
get
to this … what’d you call it?”

“The Bone Sepulchre,” I said, matching his testy tone. “And stop calling me nuts, Conrad.”

“I’m sorry, but when you say something that’s nuts, I’m not gonna lie,” he said. He looked at Dean. “Please tell her she’s being crazy.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Dean said. “But if you’re going, I’m going with you.”

“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t know how they’d react to you, Dean. It’s bad enough that I have Fae blood. I can’t put you in that position.”

“Have you ever thought that your father might be right?” Bethina spoke up. “The world isn’t the same at all. Ghouls everywhere, stone knows what crawling out from under every rock.” She shivered. “Mr. Grayson has good sense, miss. Maybe you should listen to him for once.”

Cal nodded agreement, and I shot him an annoyed glance. He was only doing that to impress his girlfriend, and I kicked him under the table when he glared back. Boys
and
girls got silly when crushes and love came into play. I hoped I didn’t come across as that irritating when I was with Dean.

“I’m going to try,” I said. “So don’t even attempt to change my mind.”

Cal grumbled, and I spread my hands. “If it were
your
mother missing in this mess …”

“All right, all right,” Cal said, throwing me a murderous
shut up
glance. As if I’d spill his secret in front of Bethina. “We’ll help you, but for the record, I think this whole plan is going to come to a bad end.”

“Well, I’m not helping,” Conrad announced. “Your running away is just that—running. You’re afraid of what might happen if you let Archie be in charge and fix this the right way.”

“And what exactly are you doing besides nothing,
Conrad?” I asked. “What exactly did you do before, besides pant after Archie’s trail like a puppy and almost get yourself killed? Thank goodness you had your Weird,” I said, and then snapped my fingers. “Oh, that’s right—yours hasn’t shown up yet.”

“You’re being a bitch, Aoife,” Conrad said, his brows lowering and his eyes going angry.

“And you’re being a dunce if you think we can just sit here and expect everything to be fine,” I snapped back. I shouldn’t have picked on Conrad’s lack of a Weird, but he could be so infuriating. “Archie’s not perfect, Conrad, and he doesn’t always have a plan. He
did
just leave us in Lovecraft.”

“You know our mother, Aoife,” he cried, slamming his hand on the table in frustration. “I would have left too.”

“You leave wives,” I said. “Not children.”

“She’s got a point,” Dean murmured.

Conrad stood up, shoving back his chair. “Fine. You two run off like delinquents, and drag poor Cal and Bethina with you. I’m out of this.” He left, and I stood up to go after him, to do what, I wasn’t sure, but Dean pulled me back.

“Forget it,” he said. “You’re not changing his mind.”

I sank back in my chair and pressed my face into my hands. I thought I’d lost Conrad over a year ago when his iron madness made him go for my throat with a knife, but to find him alive and sane and now to see the gulf between us getting even wider—that, I couldn’t handle.

Nor could I blame Conrad entirely for being such a jerk. I wanted a father again as badly as he did. He was just more willing to accept Archie’s demands for obedience.

“He’s right, though,” I muttered. “I don’t have a plan for
how I’ll get out of here, never mind how I’ll get to the Brotherhood. We don’t even know where the Bone Sepulchre is.”

Cal cast a look back at the door. As a ghoul, he had much better hearing than Dean and me, and I’d entrusted him with keeping watch. “Is there some way we can figure it out?”

“Well, Archie’s letter talked about the top of the world,” I said. “The Arctic Circle somewhere would make sense. The Proctors steer clear of there.” The accepted story was that great viral creatures flourished under the polar ice, but I didn’t know the real truth. Regardless, there was something there that kept the Proctors out of the cold, unclaimed waters and led them to keep everyone else out too, with blockades and patrol boats. It made as much sense as any other location on earth.

“Not to put a damper on the party,” Bethina said, “but you can’t just grab a skiff and row up to the Arctic Ocean. That’s a long journey, and you need an ironside boat. I saw a lanternreel on the subject when I was a girl. About the expeditions and such.”

“I guess I’ll figure it out when I get to the Bone Sepulchre.” I shrugged, feigning a confidence I didn’t feel in one iota of my being.

“There’s a submersible that runs from Innsmouth,” Dean spoke up. “Usually up to Nova Scotia and beyond, ferrying fugitives into Canada.” He took out his pack of cigarettes and tapped it against the table. “But I wager that for the right price they’d go all the way to the top. The captain’s a tough nut—not afraid of going under the ice.”

I looked at Dean, pained. “You know I don’t have any money.”

“There’s things other than money,” Dean said. “But they’re not pirates. They won’t take you unless I vouch for you. And if I vouch, I’m coming.” He took out a Lucky and stuck it behind his ear, and I could tell by his posture I wasn’t going to get to argue.

I didn’t want to appear scared, but I
did
want Dean along. Without him, I’d be alone, at the mercy of whatever cropped up between here and the Bone Sepulchre. “That’s fine.”

“Getting out of the house isn’t going to be easy,” Cal said. “Neither your dad nor Valentina is exactly asleep at the wheel.” He cocked his head and then jerked a thumb at the door. “Speaking of. Someone’s coming.”

“Don’t worry,” I told all three of them. “That part I’ve got covered.”

Valentina was in the library, and for a minute I thought Archie was with her before I realized she was seemingly talking to herself.

“No, I don’t know when.” A pause. “Stop it. Stop
pushing
. It will happen when it happens.”

I knocked twice, softly.

There was a clatter from inside, and then Valentina yanked the door wide. “What, Aoife?”

“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry about what happened before. I shouldn’t have fibbed. But I really would like to use the
Munin
.” I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered in
the ever-present drafts that ran through the Crosley house like the vapor trails of dirigibles. “It’s kind of dreary in here.”

“I know,” Valentina sighed. “It’s meant to be a summerhouse. Open windows, cool ocean breezes and all that.”

“Maybe just for an hour or two a night?” I wheedled. “You can even watch me if you want.”

“You’re a big girl, Aoife,” Valentina said. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I won’t touch the journals. I just want a little peace and quiet and space.”

“Fine,” Valentina said. “Honestly, I’m glad to see someone so enamored of the old bucket. Always hated the damn thing when my father would pile us all in it for family trips.”

“It’s a beautiful craft,” I said. It was a relief to say one thing, at least, that wasn’t a lie.

“You know what it means,
Munin
?” Valentina asked. She absently straightened a few books on the shelf before her. “Before the Storm, the Vikings and such worshiped a father-god, a man who put out his own eye for the wisdom of the world.” Valentina brushed a stray curl behind her ear and looked past me, to something only she could see. “To replace the eye, the Allfather had two ravens named Hunin and Munin that flew out into the world every day and brought back what they had seen.
Hunin
and
Munin
—‘thought’ and ‘memory.’ ” Valentina smiled. “My father always did have a flair for the dramatic.”

“So does mine,” I murmured.

“Anyway, the dusty wisdom of that particular bird is all yours,” Valentina said. “But you and that boy are not to canoodle in there. You get me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Loud and clear.”

“I thought you were a brat when we first met,” Valentina said. “Sheltered and petulant. I’m glad I was wrong.”

“Me too,” I said as she brushed past me and left the library. When I turned back to take stock of the books, I was startled by a gleam of metal from the shelf where she’d stood. I pulled out a few volumes, then a fat handful. I recognized the simple brass box, the aether tube and the speaker and receiver. It was an aethervox, a long-range variety, wired into an antenna on the top of the house. Valentina hadn’t been talking to herself.

I turned the dial, watched the aether swirl inside the clear glass tube at the top of the vox for a moment as it warmed up, but only static greeted me when the speaker clicked on. The vox was tuned to a dead channel.

Whoever Valentina had been speaking to, she didn’t want anyone else to know.

I covered the vox again. It couldn’t help me now, and I knew I couldn’t afford to accuse Valentina of anything; I’d just lose all the credibility I’d gained with her and my father, and I’d never be able to slip away and find the Brotherhood.

After I’d hidden the vox, I went up to my room to pack a few things and meet Dean before I lost my nerve.

Despite Conrad’s naysaying, running away went pretty smoothly. Dean and I slipped out separately to the
Munin
, where I made sure to turn on all the lights and find a station on the aether tubes to send noise back toward the house. Cal and Bethina waited in the shadow of the boxwoods by the porch. The hard part was up to me.

The Crosley house had bright arc lamps mounted on
the four corners, a standard precaution against ghouls in unprotected areas. Dean glared at them. “You got an idea for those? Your old man is gonna see us the minute we make a break.”

I hefted the small ditty bag I’d picked up from Valentina’s dressing table. “I’ve got it covered. Help me find the transformer box.”

We crept around the house, keeping below the windows. Valentina was at the piano again, Archie was sitting near her scribbling in his journal, and Conrad was sitting across from him doing the same. The very image of the good son. I guessed that left the black sheep role for me.

Dean helped me get the cover off the box that controlled the aether flow to the exterior lanterns, the transformer hissing as it converted the elemental gas to electrical impulses.

I pulled a handful of Valentina’s hair curlers out of the bag and, using a careful, delicate touch, shoved them one by one between all the circuits. The ceramic protected me from an electrical current, and the fat rollers pushed the wires off the contacts.

There was a shower of sparks, the snap of aether against air, the scent of burnt paper, and then the gardens all around the house went dark. Only the glowing hulk of the
Munin
was visible in the shadows, like a lamprey floating in a black sea.

We crept back to the ladder. My heart thudded. We didn’t have a lot of time before Archie noticed the house was dark outside and came to see what had happened.

Dean started to climb after me, but I stopped him. “No. It’ll be less dangerous if there’s only one of us.”

We’d gone over the plan, all four of us, again and again that afternoon, but I was still nervous. Dean stayed behind, grumbling. “Be careful, all right?”

I nodded my assent as I scrambled up the ladder and across the cabin into the pilothouse. I flipped the switches to turn on the fans and felt the
Munin
strain against its ties.

Now it was a race against time and physics. Almost sick to my stomach, I skidded back to the ladder and slid down it, skinning one of my knees. I hit the ground as the first tie-down snapped, a whip crack that echoed through the black night like a bullet.

Dean ran to me and helped me up, and together we ran.

As far as distractions went, a runaway airship was a pretty good one. We were already a hundred yards from the house when the outside lamps came back on. I could hear Archie and Conrad shouting.

I felt one last stab of guilt for what I’d done, and then it was washed away by the cold night air stinging my chest. Dean and I moved, holding hands, our feet striking the frozen earth. The branches of the topiary animals tugged at my jacket as we ran through the darkness.

I knew it was only my imagination turning every rasp and rustle of icy branches and wind into prowling ghouls and hungering nightjars, but I still gripped Dean as hard as I could.

We’d arranged to meet Cal and Bethina beyond the grounds, and we stayed quiet until we were well down the road. Not only because of my father, but also in case anything else was watching. Traveling at night was dangerous, but it was our only chance to make it to Innsmouth unobserved by either Archie or Proctors.

I just wished Conrad hadn’t been so stubborn. I wished he could have been here with me.

But what I wanted rarely came to be, so I just hunched deeper into my jacket, shouldering the small bag of things I’d taken from Valentina’s house, and ran.

The house already seemed infinitely distant, and I turned back to the gravel road, lit to a white ribbon by moonlight, spotted with black where the ice had melted and formed reflecting pools for the stars above us.

We came to a signpost,
CAPE COD
and
GLOUCESTER
and
INNSMOUTH
written in faded lettering on its crooked arms. It creaked in the wind, swaying back and forth.

I didn’t bother looking behind me again as the four of us took the fork to Innsmouth. Archie would be furious, Conrad would be irritable, and Valentina would probably hit the roof, but it didn’t matter to me.