Steven Harper - The Doomsday Vault

Alice found she was breathing hard herself, and she felt unaccountably excited.

“Why did you stop?” she whispered.

“That’s it,” he whispered back. “The song’s over.”

“But what was it for ? Why did we go through all that-Duck!”

The hammer fell. Alice and Gavin dropped behind the balcony wall with their hands over their ears as the poll struck. The bell thundered doomsday through Alice’s bones. Every window in the big room shattered, the glass falling like broken feathers to the stone floor. Gavin curled around his fiddle. Click shut his ears and pressed his nose into Alice’s skirts. Alice’s entire body vibrated. Her world became that one dreadful note.

And then it was over. Silence fell over the room. Alice peeped over the edge of the balcony. A few shards of glass tinkled to the floor. The motionless automatons lay scattered everywhere, and the machinery stood stock-still.

“You did it,” she said. “Holy God, you did it. You were absolutely amazing.”

“Was I?” Gavin uncurled and stood up. “Thanks, Alice.”

She blinked, affronted. “Miss Michaels, if you please.”

“You called me Gavin a moment ago.”

“Did I?”

“Absolutely.”

“I must have forgotten myself in the heat of the moment. I beg your pardon.” Alice brushed her dress down and wished desperately for her hat. At least she still had her handbag. “Is it safe to go down there, do you think?”

“Nothing’s moving, so probably. You could toss Click over the side and see what happens.”

Alice didn’t dignify that with a response, though her cheeks were still burning from her faux pas with Gavin’s name. As a test, Alice nudged the pivot trapdoor. It didn’t move. She stepped on it, then jumped on it. It still didn’t move. “Well, this trap is frozen. That’s a good sign.”

They carefully descended the stairs into the main room and got no reaction from the automatons or anything else. Alice made her way back over to the bloodstain and, keeping low, prodded the floor space. The crushing pistons failed to appear. She stood and dusted her hands.

“I’m willing to say we’re safe,” she declared.

“If you say so.” Gavin put his violin back into its case and strapped it to his back. “Are we going to explore this place or get out?”

“Since the traps are deactivated, I intend to explore,” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina left me this house for a reason, and I want to find out what it is. You may do as you wish, of course.”

“I don’t have anything else to do,” Gavin replied. “And I want to know why she kidnapped me. So, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick by. There has to be another door in here somewhere.”

“Where should we begin, then?” Alice asked, glad for the company, and inexplicably glad that the company was Gavin. His presence made her feel more alert, more alive, and she found herself moving with an energy she hadn’t experienced before.

They looked about the room. In addition to the scattered automatons, broken glass, and motionless machinery, there were several closed doors. Alice hadn’t taken much notice of them earlier-Gavin’s violin music had come from the balcony, and she had ignored other exits as irrelevant. Gavin gingerly opened one.

“I’m guessing this goes to the kitchen,” he said. “And that one leads upstairs.”

Alice peered inside the latter. “Nothing of interest up there.”

“How do you know?”

“The steps are dusty. No one-or thing-has trod them for months, or even years.”

“Ah.”

Alice opened another door and found a worn set of stone stairs heading downward. She caught a whiff of damp air and chemicals. “This looks promising.”

Gavin sniffed the air as well. “Laboratory?”

“That’s my assessment.”

“Let’s have a look.”

“Click,” Alice called, “light, please.”

Another pop , and Click was ready to light the way.

“You do realize,” Gavin said, “that we’re about to descend into the hidden laboratory of a mad scientist who kidnapped me and tried to kill both of us.”

“Perhaps madness runs in my family.”

“That’s not very encouraging.”

With Click going ahead to provide light, they headed down the stairs.

Gavin Ennock touched the mechanical nightingale in his pocket for luck as he followed Alice and her clockwork cat to the bottom of the stone staircase. After days of captivity on the Juniper and two weeks in the tower, he found it a blessing to talk to another human being, and especially to a woman as remarkable as this one. He supposed he should be going first down the steps, but it was technically Alice’s house, and she had taken the lead before he could say anything. His fingers were sore and a little bloody from the frantic playing earlier, and he felt tired, let down from the fear and excitement.

“Good heavens,” Alice said at the bottom. Her voice echoed in a large space, but Click and his eye beams were too far ahead for Gavin to make out what she was looking at.

“What is it?” Gavin asked. “I can’t see anything.”

“I think there’s an electric light here,” she said.

Alice turned a switch just as Gavin arrived at the bottom. Lights blazed up, revealing an enormous room with ragged stone columns. Sprawled across the space lay a maze of worktables, equipment, glassware, bookshelves, and machinery.

And it had all been smashed.

The glassware lay in shards. Books were scattered across the floor. Flasks of chemicals had been shattered. Machines had been pulled apart. A wall safe had been broken open, the door left hanging by one hinge. Alice put a hand to her breast.

“This is awful,” she murmured.

“You don’t hear me arguing.” Gavin stepped carefully around a pile of broken glass.

“It makes me want to weep, Mr. Ennock,” Alice said. “I’ve always scraped along with secondhand tools in a tiny bedroom. Now look at this waste and wreckage. And I still don’t know what’s happened to my aunt.”

Gavin wanted to put an arm around her in comfort. She had lost her hat somewhere, and her honey brown hair was coming loose from a French twist, making her look forlorn. Her wide brown eyes complemented her triangular face and small nose. Despite being disheveled, she was beautiful, and strong, and fascinating. This woman knew what needed doing, and she seemed determined to do it. Hell, she had navigated that nightmare room of automatons before he had played them into silence and had faced down marauding mechanical gargoyles. He wasn’t sure he would have had the nerve.

“I know what you mean,” Gavin said. “Losing something important is hard.”

“Yes.” Alice slipped a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “Well. Do you suppose whoever smashed all this also kidnapped or killed Aunt Edwina?”

“It’s possible,” Gavin said, “but the timing is a bit off. You said she stopped contacting her-what was the word? Solicitor? — several months ago, except I’ve been here for only a couple weeks. If your aunt Edwina is the Red Velvet Lady, that would mean she had those men grab me after she disappeared.”

“After she stopped contacting her solicitor, you mean,” she replied. “But yes, you’re correct. And we don’t know when this damage was done. Today? Last week? Last year? And is any of it related to that bloodstain near the front door? So many questions I don’t have the answers for. It’s maddening.”

“Let’s keep looking around,” Gavin said. “Though I don’t know what I’m looking for. I’m more of a musician than an engineer or mechanic.”

“You’re a very fine musician, too,” Alice said.