The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

“I could miss a city full of houses at this time of night,” Zeke said ruefully. “But I can count four blocks. ”

Before they left, a Chinese messenger came running up to Houjin. He had a lantern in his hand, and sweat had dampened his shirt. His mask’s visor was filled with condensation, and his eyes were wide. He rattled off something fast that Rector didn’t understand, but Houjin made a snappy reply and then translated the highlights.

“The Station men are setting up the pump boxes now. Rector, Zeke—you’d better run!”

Faster than they should have, Rector and Zeke tripped and stumbled through the shadowed city, using only Rector’s candles and their wits to maneuver around dead and fallen trees, over uneven paving stones, up and down curbs, and past the first block …

Second block …

Third block.

By the third block they had to blow out Rector’s candles, too; they were too close to the tower, and they knew it. They could hear the men out there, and once they were closer to block four, they could see the glow of still fires and gas jets illuminating the top floor where the men had b

een working.

Rector smacked into a barrier, let out a surprised grunt, and flipped forward before Zeke could let go of his jacket. The smaller boy fell forward, too—over a low ironwork fence that snagged his pants. They tore with a ripping sound that seemed ungodly loud. But when they held their breaths and listened, no one asked where it’d come from, and the noise of workers in the tower did not change its timbre or tempo.

“A fence!” Zeke whispered.

“Yeah, I know! Get offa me!”

“Sorry. ”

The fence was barely hip-height and made of cast iron; it had collapsed beneath them immediately following its assault on Zeke’s pants. It was hard and sharp and covered in rust, but it didn’t pose any real barrier to the yard, or the enormous house within it.

The boys collected themselves and stood on the lawn. A big lawn. Once, it was no doubt lush and green and landscaped. Now it was a flat expanse of nothing, leading up to a huge white blob that turned out to be not a house, but merely a porch. The porch had columns bigger than many of the houses Rector had ever seen.

“This has to be it,” he said.

Zeke nodded, which Rector only barely saw. “Come on. Around back, they said. ”

But Rector heard something coming up fast, headed right at them. He grabbed for Zeke, missed him, and instead gave him a hard shove that sent him facedown into the brittle, gruesome grass. Zeke began to protest, but Rector threw a hand over his mouth—crushing the boy’s mask against his face.

“Shh!” he commanded.

Zeke came to the immediate and well-advised decision to not fight, but to lie there as still as possible. It worked out well. Not three seconds after he’d hit the dirt, a man came dashing up past them—right past the mangled fence. The man was carrying a lantern that swayed and jerked in his hands as he ran, casting dramatic spears of light up into the fog and through the skeletal tree limbs that overshadowed everything near the park.

“Caplan! Westie!” he cried out.

Rector cringed, fearing for a moment that they’d been spotted after all … but no.

“Something’s wrong!” he shouted toward the tower. Then he added, “It’s me, don’t nobody shoot!” which was absolutely the wisest way to approach anybody in Seattle, these days. “Something’s wrong downtown!”

From the top of the tower, somebody hollered back. “What’s going on? I don’t see no fire! I didn’t hear no dynamite!”

“No sir, the Station’s still standing!”

“What do you mean it’s…?” Swearing followed, and the sound of someone descending the brittle metal stairs.

“It’s starting,” Zeke said in a muffled grunt.

Rector pulled his hand away from Zeke’s mask. “It started already. We gotta go. ”

They picked themselves up and took half a dozen seconds to relight their candles. Then they ran, guarding the little flames with their palms. Behind them came the rising noise and clatter of men whose plans had been thwarted.

As promised, the back of the house had fallen down altogether, exposing three stories and a convenient set of stairs that started just above ground level. The boys pulled themselves quickly along the stairs and scrambled up, up, and up that third staircase, then up another set to the wide, flat roof.

From there, the city looked strange; it looked blanketed rather than poisoned. They could even make out the moon above, and its cool, shimmering light gave them just a hint of where everything around them was located. Still, Rector kept his eyes on his candle. He moved carefully, and reached a hand back to grab Zeke’s shirt. “Stay close to me now. This roof is straight, but it might not be sound. ”