Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

“Has something important happened?” she demanded, feeling a bit put out that he hadn’t offered her a hand up.

“Checking for damage,” Gavin explained, removing the instrument. “It belonged to my grandfather. So far it’s survived smacking a man on the chin, playing Hyde Park in the mist, and, apparently, sliding down a madwoman’s tower staircase. It’s a miracle it isn’t broken.” He skimmed the bow across the strings.

“I’m sure I’ll want to hear all the details,” Alice said, surprised at how much she meant it, “but for now, I think we need to find our way back out.”

He stopped playing. “Don’t you know how to get out?”

“The way in was rather sticky, in more ways than one.”

“Why exactly are you here? Do you know why I’m here?”

“Oh!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “In all the excitement, I didn’t have a chance to say, did I?” She gave a quick explanation about the strange conditions of Aunt Edwina’s will, Alice’s own meeting with the solicitor, and of how she’d tracked Gavin through the house.

“I wonder if your aunt Edwina is the woman who got me captured, the Red Velvet Lady,” Gavin said when she finished. He ran his bow over the strings again in a merry lilt. “I saw her when I was brought here. Not that it matters much if we’re leaving. And have you noticed that the gargoyles seem to like my playing?”

The knee-high metal gargoyles that crouched on the wall surrounding the courtyard were staring at Gavin, and their eyes glowed red.

“Why are they doing that?” Alice breathed.

“I don’t know. They didn’t do it when I was in the tower.”

He stopped playing. The gargoyles continued to stare. Gavin took several steps toward the house, and the gargoyles’ heads rotated to follow. “How did you get into the courtyard?” he asked.

“That way.” Alice pointed to the double doors at the top of the balcony. “But the room beyond is filled with traps.” She turned to look at the rest of the courtyard, fists on hips. Several other doors led into the main house, and a gateway had once provided a larger exit. Unfortunately, the gateway had been bricked over, and all the doors to the main house but the one Alice herself had used seemed to have iron gratings welded over them. Alice pursed her lips.

“I don’t like being herded,” she said. “And certainly not by a dead relative.”

“Did you bring anything to cut bars or climb walls with?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll have to put up with being herded.” He strode toward the stairs leading up to the balcony. “Are you coming?”

“Mr. Ennock!” She hurried to catch up. “We haven’t properly assessed all the-”

“Look,” he said without breaking his stride, “we can stand in the courtyard debating the obvious all night, or we can do something about it. I’ve been sitting in that tower for days, so I’m ready to act. You can act stupid and stay, if you want.”

She caught his elbow. “That’s no way to talk to a lady.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Gavin said. “We’ve assessed there’s no other way out, so let’s go. Would you like my arm?”

Alice noticed she still had his elbow. “Please!” she said huffily.

“Though I sort of wonder,” he added thoughtfully, “if they object to our leaving.”

The dozen-odd gargoyles were clambering down the wall and knuckling toward them like grotesque apes. Iron fingers and feet clattered on the cobblestones.

“No more assessment,” Alice said. “Quick!”

All three of them ran up the stairs. The gargoyles gained speed. They swarmed up the steps and climbed the balcony wall itself, their fingers and toes punching holds into the mortar. Gavin slammed the double doors, and Alice shot the bolt. A heavy weight slammed the other side. The door shuddered, and the bolt started to give.

“Do exactly as I do!” Alice ordered. She pressed herself to the wall and retraced her original steps to get around the pivoting trapdoor. Gavin didn’t question her, but he imitated her. Click followed more sedately as the doors cracked. Alice cleared the pivot near the top of the stairs that led down to the main room, where the automatons rushed about the grooved floor. Pendulums swung, pistons clanked, and pipes jetted steam for a purpose Alice couldn’t begin to imagine, and all of it between them and the exit. Gavin stared down at it all, entranced. The double doors shook again.

“What is it?” he asked in wonderment.

“I don’t know,” Alice said. “But it’s laced with deadly traps, and I barely got up here alive. And the front door is locked. Even if we got through it, we couldn’t get out.”

“So why did we even come in here?”

“ You were the one who said we were done assessing,” she said. There was another blow to the balcony doors. Dust trickled down from the ceiling.

Gavin didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes grew vacant as he studied the noisy chaos below. “There’s something I can’t quite see,” he said. “If I can just figure it out. .”

The door smashed inward, and the gargoyles swarmed through, their grim faces and glaring eyes filled with metal anger, or so it seemed to Alice. Uncertain, she glanced at Gavin, who clearly wasn’t registering his surroundings. The gargoyles knuckled toward them, straight over the pivot trap, which didn’t budge.

Of course not , Alice thought grimly. She waited until the closest gargoyles were only a few steps away, then set her foot on the trapdoor and pressed down. Instantly, it pivoted. With a simian screech of metal across wood, most of the gargoyles plunged into the pit beneath, scrabbling ineffectively as they went. One took a swipe at Alice’s dress, but she yanked herself free. The trapdoor flipped over, and they were gone. The remaining four gargoyles eyed Alice warily from the other side of the balcony.

“Come on, then, if you’ve a mind to,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “I can probably kick your… assessments quite handily. Mr. Ennock, what are you doing?”

“Grooves in the floor with four spaces between,” he muttered, “and automatons that roll across them. What’s going on?”

One of the gargoyles pointed at the narrow path near the wall, the way Alice and Gavin had bypassed the trapdoor. They moved toward it, joints creaking. Click arched his back and hissed at them.

“Mr. Ennock,” Alice warned, “I could use some-”

“I’ve got it!” Gavin said. “It’s a song!”

“And how will that help us?” Alice demanded.

“The grooves in the floor are staff lines. The pendulums beat time. The automatons are the notes. They move the music forward like a player piano. So, what happens if I play it?”

The gargoyles edged along the wall, nearly halfway to them. “Try it!” Alice said. “Do it now!”

“No assessment?”

“Gavin!”

He looked over the edge, violin in hand, then raised instrument and bow and began to play. The melody was fast and complicated, in a minor key, and it made Alice think of demons dancing in a volcano. How was Gavin managing to sight-read that? The song sent shivers down her spine.

The gargoyles continued edging toward Alice. She stepped back, toward Gavin, but a few bars into the song, the gargoyles froze. Their heads, then their bodies, swiveled toward him. Each one took a step toward him like a sleepwalker caught in a lovely dream. Alice waited for the right moment, then stepped on the trapdoor again and snatched her foot back. The door pivoted, and the gargoyles vanished.

“They’re gone,” she said. “You can stop now.”

But Gavin ignored her. The song gushed from his violin, flowing like magma down the staircase to fill the room. His handsome face remained absolutely fixed in concentration, and the tendons on his hands stood out like wires. Alice swore she felt heat radiating off him. It lapped at her skin and slid down her body. Below, the automatons sped up, but Gavin kept pace, his fingers flying across the neck. Steam gushed from the pipes, and the pistons blurred so fast, Alice couldn’t tell they were moving. Toward the back of the enormous room, a hammer the size of a carthorse drew back on a spring. Now that she was aware of it, Alice could see that every movement of every automaton had become geared toward winding the spring that pulled that hammer back. The heat and speed intensified, and a trickle of blood ran down Gavin’s left hand. Still he played, caught by the fiendish melody. The hammer cranked back to its full potential. Gavin played one long, long note. Alice tensed. Then Gavin stopped. He stood panting at the balcony rail, his hair mussed and his eyes wide. The automatons were frozen in place.