The Dead Gentleman (21 page)

After being dumped unceremoniously onto the ship’s deck, Jez was set upon by a pair of skull-masked Grave Walkers. They grabbed at her with their smelly hands (a rotten odor hung in the air aboard this ship; it clung to everything) and dragged her belowdecks, tossing her into a cell and locking the thick wooden door behind her.

Inside she found Tommy. Far from being happy to see her, he lectured her on her carelessness at allowing herself to be caught. He lectured her, that is, until Jez hauled off and punched him in the arm. She didn’t feel the need then to remind him that he’d been captured
first
—the punch had been worth a thousand words.

For the next several hours they waited and debated various plans of escape. None of which seemed very plausible, considering there was only one way out and that was through a heavy, locked door. They were arguing the merits of begging
for their lives when they heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.

“Look, don’t say anything about Merlin,” Tommy was saying. “And don’t be scared—the guards here look fierce, but it’s just for show. Those crouchers that came out of your closet were a good deal meaner than this lot, and you took care of them.”

“And the Gentleman?” she asked, putting her back flat against the wall. “Is he just for show, too?”

Tommy didn’t answer her right away; the sound of keys had stopped. “One more thing,” he whispered. “Remember, this is the past. Nothing you know has happened yet.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jez mouthed back, but it was too late—the door was opening.

In walked a pair of scarecrows. At least they looked like scarecrows at first glance, stick-thin with heads as round as pumpkins. But their faces were not the carved grins of jack-o’-lanterns—these frowned and drooped at the edges. And each held a curved black sickle in its hand.

“Harvesters,” Tommy said, no longer bothering to whisper. “They used to be crop spirits, a bit dull but all right. Now they work for him.”

Behind them walked a man in fancy, if somewhat old-fashioned, clothes. He looked to Jez like a well-off gentleman indeed, complete with top hat and tails. His dress was mostly immaculate, the single exception being a slight spot of something, perhaps leftover breakfast, on the front of his otherwise pristine white shirt. And physically, other than a slight pallor around his cheeks and lips, he was perfectly normal. Handsome, even.

Jez shot Tommy a questioning look.

“He doesn’t always look that good, trust me,” he said. “He changes.”

The man, the Gentleman, smiled at Jezebel as he spoke to Tommy. “The great Tommy Learner escaped my attercop and managed to avoid my Grave Walkers for these many months. Could it be that all along he has had … help?”

“I didn’t need anyone’s help to roast your attercop, and your Grave Walkers are a walking joke,” Tommy answered.

Tommy’s words sounded solid—there wasn’t even a quiver in his voice—but Jez thought she detected something in his eyes that gave him away. Tommy was afraid.

The Gentleman apparently spotted it, too. “I could always put a rope around your throat and swing you from a gibbet, boy. Since I’ve killed all their crops, I need to give the Harvesters some sport now and again.”

One of the scarecrows made a face that might have been something like a smile, but it was hard to tell under all those wrinkles of leathery flesh.

“So, to business,” the Gentleman said. “Who are you, girl?”

“My name is Jezebel Lemon,” she said, mustering all the steel she had. Name, rank and serial number—that’s all they would get out of her.

Jez nearly yelped as she felt Tommy’s bony elbow suddenly dig into her ribs.

The meaning of Tommy’s warning suddenly dawned on her—
nothing has happened yet
. She’d forgotten that this was the Dead Gentleman of Tommy’s time, of the past. The Dead Gentleman who was after her was over a hundred years in the future. To this Gentleman from 1902 she was a stranger, a mystery. He hadn’t even known her name until she’d told it to him.

“Jezebel Lemon,” he said, trying the words out. He seemed to have a slight problem with speech. Either that or he was choosing his words very carefully. “Pleased to meet you.”

The way he looked at her now made Jez acutely uncomfortable. When he’d first entered the room, he seemed to regard her as a nuisance, but suddenly there was genuine interest in his stare. Unable to meet his gaze, she focused instead on his white shirt … and the growing crimson stain beneath. What she’d mistaken for a spot of spilt coffee was actually a star-shaped patch of blood, which was spreading along the left of his shirt.

Jezebel gasped and pointed. “You’re hurt!”

The Gentleman didn’t blink an eye. “No, I am well past that now. I am dead. A knife wound to the back, this time. Punctured lung, nicked pulmonary artery, blade pushed all the way through to the other side. Not a painless way to go.” He slowly turned around to reveal a long knife handle protruding from under his left shoulder blade. The back of his coat was slick and soaked with blood. Jezebel put her hand to her mouth.

“You see,” said Tommy. “It’s different every time.”

“I can feel rigor mortis setting in, so we’ll need to hurry things along,” said the Gentleman, turning back around. Jez was relieved, as that covered most of the gore, but there was still the wet bloodstain in the front. It was hard to take her eyes off it as it crept outward, slowly overtaking the immaculate white linen.

“From your dress I’d say you’re not from any place I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen them all,” said the Gentleman, examining Jez.

He stepped closer now, his glassy eyes fixed on Jezebel’s, as if he was trying to read something there. She kept her best poker face on—she wouldn’t give up anything more than she already had. When he reached out a hand to touch her face, Tommy
made a move to intercept. It was a charming, chivalrous and stupid thing to do. He was well within the reach of those Harvester things, and it seemed they had been waiting for an excuse to hurt someone. One of them snatched him up by the back of the neck and lifted him until his tiptoes dangled beneath him. A few tears squeezed out of his eyes but he didn’t cry out.

Ignoring Tommy, the Gentleman took Jezebel’s face in his hand, turning it from side to side, studying it. His fingers were hard. Cold.

“You are fleshy,” he said. “Well-fed and soft. Your clothing contains synthetic fibers and your hair smells of chemicals. Could it be you’re from … the future? Earth’s future, perhaps? Now why would Tommy be peeking around in Earth’s future, unless he was looking for something … something that once belonged to me?”

He let his hands drop from Jezebel’s face and turned to Tommy. “You don’t have it. Perhaps you never had it? Clever boy. But where is it, then? You didn’t leave it with the Academy. I spilled every last drop of blood searching that place …”

The Gentleman looked at Jezebel. “You know what we are talking about, don’t you? A delicate mechanical bird. You’ve seen it, perhaps?”

The Harvester pulled Tommy’s head back with a jerk, exposing his throat to its master.

Jezebel started to shout something, but the second Harvester shot its long, bony hand toward her and grabbed her hair. With a twist it brought her to her knees. All she could do was watch as the Gentleman reached around and, with a wet sucking sound, drew out the knife from his own back. With an awkward stab, he brought the knife up and sliced open the pouch on Tommy’s belt. The Cycloidotrope tumbled out into the Gentleman’s free hand.

“Ah, the Cycloidotrope, of course,” he said, holding the device up to his sunken eye. “The High Father’s little toy.”

With a gesture from the Gentleman, the Harvesters released their grip on the prisoners. Tommy fell to the floor, and when Jezebel took her hand away from her scalp there were fresh flecks of blood on her fingers.

“Let’s see where you came from,” the Gentleman said. With a pale white hand he rubbed the Cycloidotrope until it started to glow. Images began to flash across its surface, spinning too fast to make sense of.

“Show me the future,” the Gentleman said. “Show me Jezebel Lemon.”

A beam of light shot out of the cube, and when it cleared they were staring at a three-dimensional image of Jezebel’s room. Her bed was unmade and the storm still raged outside. Beyond her window the winds blew ripples across the Hudson River.

“Have you hidden it there, perhaps?” he said. “In your little girl’s bedroom?” The Gentleman gave a cock of his head and the Harvester that had held Jezebel stalked toward the picture of her bedroom, hesitating just as it was prepared to step into the frame.

“Go,” commanded the Gentleman.

The Harvester turned and took another step forward, but as soon as its spindly leg touched the bedroom floor it shrieked in pain. The image of her room disappeared into a chaotic swirl of color and light. Jezebel covered her ears as the Harvester was pulled into the twisting mass piece by piece. For one second, strips of straw and wood—Harvester parts—hung in the air. Then they were gone, along with Jez’s bedroom, the light and everything. The Cycloidotrope sat dark and still in the Gentleman’s hand.

“Fascinating,” he said, but his face was contorted in a sort of
angry frown. Something dark and wet bubbled at the corners of his mouth. His voice sounded like liquid. “But no matter. I’ll find the artifact one way or another. And thanks to you, I now know where to look. And
when
. Time is on my side.

“Meanwhile, I’ll send my man Macheath down to see what more he can learn from you two. He has a crude touch, but he gets results.” He turned and followed the remaining Harvester out of the room. As the door shut behind him he turned to Jez and winked.

“Be seeing you, Jezebel Lemon!”

The Gentleman gazed into the Cycloidotrope’s crystal surface and grinned as a six-year-old Jezebel rode her bike, a small pink thing on training wheels, along a tree-lined park street. A woman ran next to her, laughing as she tried to keep up. The woman had dark hair like Jezebel and the same gray eyes. He touched the cube and the image shifted, moving forward in time to an older version of the girl, sitting uncomfortably in a well-furnished office as a man asked her questions. She responded with sullen, mostly one-word answers. The man tapped a pen against his teeth and watched the clock. Again the Gentleman searched ahead, the moments of Jezebel’s life clicking past like a slideshow in fast-forward. The images came to another halt on her as she was now, standing in a room full of junk. She was looking into an open closet at a shiny mechanical bird.

“There you are,” said the Gentleman. “Hello again.”

The artifact. That little bird of metal and clockworks hid a secret so precious, so valuable. To the Gentleman it was the greatest treasure in all of creation, the one thing he’d been lacking in the many millennia of his existence. He bristled at the thought of having to wait a hundred years to get it, but after what had happened to the Harvester, he dared not try stepping through. Time was the domain of forces even greater than he (for now), and he would not risk all on such an impatient act. The girl had managed it, either by accident or by design. If she’d somehow stumbled upon the secret of time travel, then the Gentleman would pry it out of her. If not, what was a century to one such as he? He’d use the years to continue to build his army, to strengthen himself. He’d done enough skulking around in the shadows—when he next returned to Earth it would be at the head of a mighty armada.

Earth. The center of the Orrery itself and the cornerstone of existence. What made that ordinary ball of mud so special was a mystery even to the Gentleman, but to truly kill everything there was, he knew he’d have to start with Earth.

And what a wonderful void of death would be left in its place! He felt himself turn almost giddy at the thought of the quiet, the cold of a universe of dead worlds. All so that he might achieve his fondest, his dead heart’s desire …

Of course, he may not have to wait a hundred years if the children knew where the artifact was right now, and he had the perfect person to find out exactly what they did know. He wouldn’t waste any more time on their lies.

“Macheath,” the Gentleman called, and at once the weasely vampire appeared at his side. He was never far.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Spread the word that we are hoisting anchor and setting sail. Fire up the portal engines. We are leaving the Hollow World.”

“Leaving?” asked Macheath. “But we’ve not finished. There’s still plenty living out there to kill!”

“What? A planet of mold? This place can wait. Our attack on the Academy has left us exposed, and word will spread quickly between worlds. We need to retreat and prepare for the real prize—Earth. Now that we have Learner and the girl, there is no reason to stay.”

At the mention of the girl, Macheath’s eyes lit up. The Gentleman had noticed the way the vampire looked at her when she was first hauled aboard. He hadn’t had such a fresh young victim in some time.