Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

“Where are they, Caul?” she asked.

“Het—” said Tom.

“I should have told you sooner,” Caul muttered, “but it’s Gargle. Gargle. He saved my life once…”

“Where?”

“A cove on the north shore. Where the trees come down nearly to the water. Please, I don’t want anyone hurt.”

“Should have thought of that before,” said Hester, checking the gun’s action. Most of the guns she had taken from the Huntsmen of Arkangel she had thrown off the city’s stern while it was still at sea, but this one she had kept, just in case. It wasn’t as pretty as the others; no snarling wolf’s head on the butt or silver chasing on the barrel. It was just a heavy, black .38 Schadenfreude, an ugly, reliable tool for killing people. She slipped bullets into its six chambers and snapped it shut, then stuffed it through her belt and pushed past Tom to the door, snatching her coat from the rack. “Wake the others,” she told him, and went out into the night.

From the top of the island Wren could see the Autolycus squatting like a beached crab in the cove where she had first seen Gargle. The blue light from the limpet’s open hatch gleamed on the water. She started down the sheep track toward it, slithering on loose earth, tripping on roots, the breath cold at the back of her throat as she ran through the trees and the gorse toward the spider-crab silhouette.

Gargle was standing in the shallows, at the foot of the ramp that led up through the open hatch. Remora was with him, and as Wren drew near, she saw Fishcake come down the ramp to join them. “Ready to go?” she heard Gargle ask.

“Touch of a button,” the boy replied.

The limpet’s engines were idling, a thin plume of exhaust smoke rising from sealable vents on its back. A crab-cam glinted as it scurried up one of the legs and home to its port on the hull. Other cameras were creeping quickly down the beach, looking so spiderlike that Wren almost wanted to run away, but she told herself that if she was to travel with the Lost Boys, she would have to get used to them, so she made herself walk calmly between them down the shingle.

“It’s me,” she called softly as Gargle spun toward the sound of her footsteps. “I’ve got the Tin Book.”

Anchorage-in-Vineland was waking up, indignant and alarmed. As Hester climbed the path to the woods, she could hear doors slamming in the city behind her, and people shouting as they prepared to go and do their bit against the Lost Boys. Some of the younger men almost caught up with her as she drew near the top of the island, but she left them behind on the descent; they stuck to the zigzag path while she just went straight down, crashing through the brush and surfing down screes in a rattle of bouncing stones. She felt excited, and happy that Wren needed her at last. Her father couldn’t save her from the Lost Boys. Nobody else in Vineland could. Only Hester had the strength to deal with them, and when she had killed them all, Wren would come to her senses and realize what danger she had been in and be grateful, and she and Hester would be friends again.

Hester slithered into a briar patch at the hill’s foot and looked back. There was no sign of the others. She pulled the gun out of her belt and started toward the cove.

“Here,” said Wren, sliding the heavy bag off her shoulder and holding it out to Gargle. “It’s in there. My stuff too.”

Remora said, “Better tell her, Gar. It’s time to go.”

Gargle had pulled the Tin Book out and was leafing through it, ignoring both of them.

“I’m coming with you, remember?” said Wren, starting to grow uneasy because this wasn’t the welcome she’d expected. “I’m coming with you. That was the deal.”

She could hear a childish, whining note creeping into her voice, and knew that she wasn’t coming across as brave and grown-up and adventurous, which was how she wanted Gargle to see her. It suddenly occurred to her that she was nothing to him, nothing but a way to get hold of the Tin Book.

“That’s it,” said Gargle to himself. He threw Wren’s bag back at her, then handed the Tin Book to Fishcake, who stuffed it into a leather satchel that hung at his side.

“I’m coming with you,” Wren reminded Gargle. “I am coming with you, aren’t I?”

Gargle moved closer to her. There was a mocking tone in his voice when he spoke. “Thing is, Wren, I’ve been having a think about that, and we haven’t got the space after all.”

Wren blinked quickly, trying to stop the tears from coming. Flinging her bag down on the shingle, she shouted, “You promised you’d take me with you!” She could see Remora watching her, whispering something to little Fishcake that made him smirk too. How stupid they must think her!

“I want to see things!” she shouted. “I want to do things! I don’t want to stay here and marry Nate Sastrugi and be a schoolteacher and get old and die!”

Gargle seemed to be angered by all the noise she was making. “Wren,” he hissed, and instantly, like a furious echo, another voice out of the darkness shouted, “Wren!”

“Mum!” gasped Wren.

“Damn!” muttered Remora.

Gargle didn’t say anything at all, just dragged the gas pistol from his belt and fired toward the beach. In the blue flash of the gun, Wren saw her mother striding across the shingle, barely flinching as the shot whipped past her. She held her own gun out stiffly in front of her. Whack, it went, whack, whack, whack: dull, flat sounds like books being snapped shut. The first bullet rebounded from the Autolycus with a clang; the next two hissed away over the lake; the fourth hit Gargle between the eyes. Something thick and wet spattered Wren’s face and clothes.

“Gargle!” shrieked Fishcake.

Gargle went down on his knees, then flopped forward with his bottom in the air and his face in the chuckling waves.

Fishcake scrambled through the shallows toward him, getting in Remora’s way as she pulled out her own gun. “Fishcake, get aboard!” she screamed. “Get back to Grimsby!”

Hester put two bullets through her, kicking her backward and down into the lake.

“Gargle!” Fishcake was wailing.

Hester was reloading her gun, empty shells jinking on the shingle around her feet. She shouted, “Wren, come here!” Shaking with fright, Wren stumbled gladly toward her, but suddenly Fishcake’s arm was around her waist, tugging her back. The snout of Gargle’s pistol ground against her chin.

“Drop the gun!” Fishcake shouted. “Or I’ll… I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!”

“Mummy!” squeaked Wren. She couldn’t breathe properly. She knew suddenly that she had had all the adventures she would ever want. She longed to be safe at home. “Mummy! Help!”

Hester edged forward. Her gun was raised, but she dared not pull the trigger, they all knew that; there was too much danger of hitting Wren.

“Let her go!” she ordered.

“What, so you can shoot me?” sobbed Fishcake. Twisting Wren about so that her body was always between him and her mother, he started to drag her with him up the boarding ramp. The gun was still pressed under her chin, pushing her head up. She could feel him shaking, and although she could easily have overpowered him, she dared not try, in case the gun went off. He pulled her through the hatch into the limpet, and slammed his elbow against the button that raised the ramp. A ricochet howled off across the lake as Hester shot at the hydraulics and missed. “Mummy!” shouted Wren again, and had a brief glimpse of her mother shouting something back as the hatch closed. Then Fishcake shoved her through a doorway into the complicated electrical clutter of the control cabin. She felt the limpet shiver as he began working the controls with one hand, the other still pointing the gun at her head. “Please,” she said. The cabin lurched. Wren saw lights on the hillside behind the beach. “Help!” she shouted. Waves were slapping at the cabin windows, and she glimpsed the moon for a moment, shivery and unreal through the rising water. Then it was gone, and the note of the engines changed, and she thought, We’ve submerged— never get home now! and her stomach turned over and she fainted.