The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

“Why didn’t they just wait for new dead people?” Rector asked.

“They were moving the old boneyard, making way for businesses and such. I even planned for a plot at the new place, thinking I’d be here forever. And my girl’s there, so I figured I’d stay with her. But the wall cuts through that new cemetery full of old folks—slices it right in half. ” She fell silent for a moment, then said, “She’s just outside the city, now. ”

“But there’s a park?” Zeke prodded her.

“Oh, sure. It was supposed to be a real nice one, if they ever got it finished. But the fellow who was working on it also had work in New York City, so he took his own sweet time dealing with us. I don’t know if the place was finished by the time the wall went up … but most of it…” She took a few steps and peered at the wall from another angle, then assessed it from a third position. “Most of it ought to be inside the wall here, and real close by. Huey, you said the park was at Fourteenth Street?”

“Yes, ma’am. I saw it on a map once. ”

“We just passed Twelfth Street, so we ain’t got far to go. You boys think you can handle another two blocks?”

Without hesitation, they each said, “Yes, ma’am!”

“All right, then, let’s look. And same rules apply, you hear? We hit trouble, you three run like the devil knows your name. ”

“Yes, ma’am,” they agreed with somewhat less enthusiasm.

“So long as we’re clear on that. I think we’ll have the best luck if we dodge the rubble this way, and go around—”

She stopped, and in the sudden silence the boys heard the tumbling, rattling, and pinging of falling rocks.

Everyone stood still, and no one breathed.

The rocks were small and they spilled down like a stream, just a trickle for the moment. Rector’s voice shook as he said, “It’s the wall. It’s going to come down on our heads, ain’t it?”

But Angeline put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Wait,” in her quietest whisper. She was looking up—they were all looking up—but her eyes were tracking something Rector couldn’t see. He tried to chase her gaze, but saw nothing except for the cornstarch-colored air.

When the pebbles started falling again, Angeline’s eyes darted to their source, narrowing as they did. “Boys…” she said, and how she fit so much warning into four letters, Rector would never know.

“I see it,” Houjin told her. He retreated a few feet and kept his face aimed skyward. “It’s moving, back and forth. ”

“Where?” Zeke asked.

Rector echoed him. “Yeah, where? I don’t see anything. ” But he could hear something, and it worried him. The scuttling patter of sliding rocks came with a structure, a rhythm. A pace, like uncertain footsteps. His chest clenched with fear, and without meaning to, he drew himself up closer to Angeline. “Is it the monster?”

“Not a monster,” she reminded him gently.

He fought the urge to press his back against hers, and he struggled against the impulse to run for cover. He couldn’t see the thing, but he could sense it. Did it remember him? Would it come for him again?

He didn’t want to look; he couldn’t help but look. So when a gust of high wind stretched and broke the stringy yellow air, he gasped, pointed, and stumbled backwards.

“Settle yourself, Red. ”

Zeke gasped, too, only just now joining them. “It’s … it’s … that’s not a person!” he squeaked.

Angeline’s words were level and calm. “No, not a person. ”

“Not a person,” Rector repeated, saying it like a mantra. “Not a person. ” He hadn’t been nuts. It hadn’t been a person who’d scared him half out of his skin and chased him into the chuckhole. “Not a person; never a person. And, oh God…” His stomach sank, tying itself into a complicated sailor’s knot. “It’s right on top of us!”

But the princess said, “No,” and squeezed the back of his neck.

Her strength astonished him, though it shouldn’t have. He’d been climbing through the city with her for two days, after all; it shouldn’t be a surprise that her grip was as firm as the nuns at the orphanage. He wanted to turn and run, but her hand was steady, and he had a feeling that it’d yank him back like a dog on a leash if he tried.

The creature up on top of the wall moved slowly from side to side, pacing back and forth. It maneuvered deftly along the blast-loosened bricks. And as the fog parted and congealed, the elongated, person-shaped creature watched them.

“She sees us,” Angeline declared softly.

Zeke’s eyes crinkled into a frown. “She?”