The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

Angeline shuddered. “That man, I swear. He’ll go straight to hell someday and feel right at home. ”

They wandered and searched, ultimately creeping down along the hill’s incline because it was easier going down than up, and because the old city prison was that direction, too.

“It’s another few blocks that way”—Angeline indicated east—“and lucky for us, it’s no farther. ”

Lucky for them indeed, Rector thought, when a rhythmic bluster of faint background noise became loud enough to catch his attention. With the mask rubbing against his hair, making static sounds against his ears, it was hard to say at first, but eventually—yes—he detected the draw and puff of something breathing. And it wasn’t one of his fellow party members, he was fully certain of that.

He stopped without noticing he’d stopped. He stood in his tracks like an animal aware of a predator, like a small thing wanting to become smaller for fear of a big thing.

Everyone looked at him.

Rector held up a finger, pointing at nothing but the gray-green sky beyond the Blight. He tried to ask if they heard the noise, too, if they knew where it was coming from, and was it close—was it as close as it felt? But when he opened his mouth, it was too dry to speak.

Angeline backed up against him, readying her net. Over her shoulder, she said to him, “I hear him, too, Red. ”

He pushed himself against her. Knowing that something was coming for him yet again, he felt better with her beside him.

“Stay calm,” she urged. She passed her net to Houjin, who didn’t quite know what to do with it except to hold it ready. She pulled a wrapped, fresh fish out of her pack. It must’ve weighed ten pounds, Rector thought wildly—it could’ve fed a family of four, or half a dozen orphans in a Catholic home outside the wall. Why hadn’t they ever gone fishing to feed the kids? Did nobody in the church know how?

Frantic, disjointed thoughts scattered through his head, tumbling in all directions as his fear stirred them up and shook them.

“He wants me,” he breathed.

“Red, my boy … he doesn’t know what he wants. ”

The fish was still on a line as thick as a cable, with a great metal hook fastened through its mouth, jabbing through its cheek. If there’d ever been any blood, it was gone now. And Rector didn’t know what fish blood looked like, anyway, or if they even had blood … and now his mind was racing so wildly that the thoughts came faster and faster, each upon the heels of the last one. He could not remember having ever thought so quickly or so clearly about nothing at all of any importance.

He wanted a hit of sap worse than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. That’d slow his mind down, wouldn’t it? Sap would fix it. It’d temper his fluttering heart, drag his thoughts down, keep him calm. Keep him ready for any kind of action that required more thought than running and screaming, in case running and screaming weren’t enough.

The princess thrust the heavy fish toward Zeke, who hesitated. She changed her mind, retrieved the net from Houjin, and gave the fish to him instead.

Louder and louder came the breathing, from something so huge his wheezing gasps filled the whole block. The creature was hidden in the foggy air, but he was moving; the source of the sound slipped from left to right, accompanied by heavy footsteps.

Zeke backed up against Rector, too, not for protective purposes, but from the ordinary, human need to band together for defense. Houjin joined them, and soon they were in a nervous back-to-back circle, everyone facing outward … everyone looking through the fog, straining to see what lurked inside it.

Angeline shifted the net in her hands, and elbowed Houjin so he’d hold up the fish.

“Hello out there,” she said softly. “We know you’re watching us. Are you hungry?”

Zeke tried it, too. “Hey out there, Mister Sasquatch. Miss Angeline says you don’t mean us any harm. ”

In response, they heard a loud huff or cough. It was the chuffing sound of something with a stuffy nose, a congested torso. It was off to their left. Everyone calibrated accordingly, twisting to observe the location without leaving anyone’s back undefended.

Angeline picked up the thread. “You’re stuck inside here, aren’t you? You’re just trying to go outside, isn’t that it? You’ve got a lady friend over there, beyond the wall. I seen her when I went fishing. She got up close to me, and didn’t make a sound, but she watched from the trees. ”

“You saw her?” Houjin whispered.

She lowered her voice. “Sure did. She’s a pretty-colored thing, smooth and brown-red, like cedar. ”

The big thing groaned, or roared feebly. Rector retreated as deeply as possible into the tangle of his friends, wanting nothing more than to bolt for the nearest shelter; and if he had the faintest idea where that might’ve been, he might’ve done so. But he didn’t, and the only thing keeping him from being by himself in the Blight, in the wrecked city, was this knot of humanity.

His mask fogged. His eyes watered.

“He’s coming,” he said, and he hated himself for how much it sounded like whining.

Angeline’s cadence was steady as a rock, and her words poured like honey into the fog. “That’s all right. Let him come. How about this, boys—all of us, now. Let’s start moving toward the jail. Let’s see if he’ll follow us. But don’t make any fast moves, or sudden gestures. We don’t mean him any trouble, and we want him to know it. ”

In a bunch, all four of them began a retreat. “Which way?” Rector asked.