Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

“You said the mercenary would not show for his shift until predawn,” Simon said.

“Sometime around predawn,” Willie said, reaching into her pocket for the secret code. “Rollins was not specific about the time, and who knows what other means of security Filmore might have initiated? Rollins was adamant that we enter and exit posthaste.” Whilst they were depositing the engine in the air dinghy, she would somehow slip away. Simon would be worried, furious. Gadzooks. How had it come to this?

“In addition to the locking box at the bottom of the gate,” Simon said, whilst examining the vault, “there’s a padlock. Did Rollins give you a key, sweetheart?”

Her upper lip beaded with sweat. “No.”

“I can break that lock,” Eli said. The big black man pulled tools from the arsenal belt beneath his voluminous coat.

“Make sure it’s not rigged,” Phin said.

“A bomb?” Amelia groaned. “The queen would never forgive us if we blew up another artifact of importance.”

“If we’re blown to smithereens, darlin’,” Gentry said, “won’t be nothin’ left of us to forgive.”

“I don’t see any wires,” Simon said.

“Me neither,” Eli said.

“Just that combination lock contraption,” Gentry said.

“An astonishing amount of dials,” Amelia noted. “You don’t suppose that’s booby-trapped, do you? Dial the wrong number and kaplooey ?”

Simon shot his sister a look and Willie wondered if they were thinking of their father, who’d gone kaplooey along with his moonship. Indeed, the image was most unsettling. Heart pounding, she knelt beside her husband amongst dirt and cobwebs and studied the locking mechanism. “The combination is quite lengthy,” she said. “Let me read it to you, and that way you can concentrate solely on the dials.”

He flashed her an encouraging smile. “Teamwork.” Then he focused on the box.

Willie wet her lips, glanced at her time cuff. Eleven fifteen. She commenced to reading the combination—slowly, deliberately—whilst visions of her brother flashed through her mind. No one else said a word as Simon finagled each gold dial, although Willie’s ears rang with the sounds of childhood bantering and laughter. Where Wesley was concerned, the bad times had outweighed the good, yet this moment only the good resonated. Rattled, she pushed Wesley from her mind, but her angst remained. She realized she’d been anticipating the sound of hostile footsteps . . . or an explosion.

Simon tweaked the last dial and tripped a switch.

A compression valve hissed and groaned.

Eli utilized a compact bolt cutter and the iron lock clanged and thudded to the ground.

Sweat trickled down Willie’s back as they cautiously swung open the iron-grilled gate. No explosion. No footsteps. They shone their lights on a toddler-sized coffin.

“Seems small for an engine,” Eli said.

“Remember,” Gentry said, “I saw the plans that inspired this engine. Ain’t size that matters. It’s the inner workings.”

“I’m dying to see it,” Amelia said. “Imagine. An engine that enables people to soar through dimensions.”

“We can gawk at it later,” Willie said, anxious to meet with Strangelove and to vanquish the villain from their life. “Let’s just get it out of here.” She grabbed a handle just as everyone yelled, “Wait!”

Startled, she paused, but she’d already shifted the coffin and . . . “Oh, no.” She heard a beep and then another. “What is it?” She looked around the vault, along with everyone else.

“It’s a goddamned bomb,” Phin said. “Here. Time detonator. What jolly good fun,” he said with sarcasm. “Six minutes, fifty-five, nope, fifty-four seconds.”

“Crikey,” Amelia said, “we’ll never make it out in time with the engine.”

Simon dropped to his knees. “Eli, give me your tool belt. I’ve seen this sort of mechanism before.”

“I can help,” Phin said, stooping alongside him. “Wrangled some demolitions during the war.”

“Ladies, run like hell,” Simon said. “Gentry, Eli, grab the coffin. Get as far from us as possible. Just in case.”

Sick to her stomach, Willie stared down at Simon. “I cannot leave you.”

He cast her a confident, earnest look. “I cannot save us whilst you’re here.”

Amelia tugged at her brace. “Come on, Canary. My brother knows what he’s doing.”

Breaking free, Willie dropped next to Simon and framed the sides of his mud-streaked face. “I love you, Simon Darcy.”

“And I you.” Eyes dancing, he smacked a kiss to her mouth, then jerked his head. “Meet you topside, pet.”

Heart battering her ribs, Willie flew out of the vault and down the corridor alongside her sister-in-law. Gentry and Eli were close on their heels, carrying the precious coffin between them. Amelia slipped in the muck of the sewage duct and Willie easily righted her with the aid of the Thera-Steam-Atic Brace. It would seem Simon’s recent adjustments had afforded the brace an intensified means of strength. Willie’s eyes burned as she thought about her husband’s kindness, his genius, and she prayed to God his brilliant mind didn’t fail him now.

“Haul butt, ladies,” Gentry ordered from behind. Indeed, the cowboy and his crewmate fairly lifted Willie and Amelia off their feet as they whisked the coffin from the duct, up the moss-covered stairs, and through the rusted garden gate.

Lungs burning, Willie fell to her knees as the frigid fresh air chilled her sweat-soaked clothing. She checked her time cuff.

“What time is it?” Amelia asked, chest heaving from exertion and angst. “How long has it been?”

Willie sleeved tears from her eyes. “Almost six minutes.”

“Crikey.”

Gentry squeezed Willie’s shoulder. “He’ll prevail.”

“How do you know?”

The man smiled down at her. “He’s a Darcy.”

As much as she wanted to trust in Gentry’s confidence, Willie’s world tilted as she braced for an explosion. She could not imagine her life without Simon. Envisioning his handsome face, she whispered a plea and prayed for a miracle. “I cannot change the world without you, my love. Come back.”

“What time is it?” Amelia asked.

Willie could scarcely breathe, let alone move.

Gentry checked his pocket watch, as did Eli.

Amelia nabbed Willie’s wrist, squinted at her time cuff, and squealed. “They’re clear!” The young woman scrambled to the gate, yelled down.

Willie pushed to her feet, green with the collywobbles.

“They shouted back!” Amelia called over her shoulder. “Simon and Phin are on their way!”

Gentry flashed Willie a kind smile. “Never underestimate a Darcy.” He winked, then looked to Eli. “Let’s get this coffin to the dinghy before some copper spots us. We look like a pair of damned grave robbers. Come on, ladies!”

Willie palmed her forehead. Simon was alive. She thanked her lucky stars. She swore to tackle life along her husband’s side. Freak and Vic, united forever and always. She glanced at her timepiece, then over her shoulder at Westminster Bridge. Would Wesley be alone? Would Strangelove be lurking? Or perhaps he’d hired a gunman. She remembered the first time they’d met, a murky memory of Strangelove and the whispered word: assassin .

Palming the bag slung over her shoulder, she verified the welfare of the memory disk.

One last obstacle. One more life to be saved. Then and only then could she embrace the future.

Exiting the claustrophobic bowels of the catacomb and sewage tunnel, Simon had considered himself the luckiest bloody bastard on earth. This night alone he’d coldcocked the famous Sky Cowboy in defense of his sister’s virtue, saved his wife from the clutches of a Mod’s mind, located Briscoe’s clockwork propulsion engine, and, along with Phin’s help, disabled a ticking bomb. In addition to saving their lives, he’d ensured the well-being of a historical architectural treasure—Westminster Abbey.