There was a rattling in the hallway. I caught my breath, and started reloading the gun as quietly as I could, the bullets slippery in my sweaty fingers as I struggled to slot them home. Footsteps, and the dry-leaf scraping of his wings on the walls and ceiling. I looked up, saw that I had forgotten to lock the door and dropped a bullet. I scooped it up, dumped the whole handful of loose shells and the revolver into my jacket pocket and ran to the window. He was outside the door, and the window was storm bolted.
I threw my shoulder against it and the glass splintered, the lead panes bending like a net. Again and a couple panes snapped, slicing my coat and my skin. He opened the door smoothly and hurtled in. I hit the window, he hit me, and we both burst out into the storm.
Tumbling down the slate roof, I kicked out and made a lucky hit. We separated and I hooked my arm around a chimney. There was blood leaking out of me, damage from the window and whatever brief contact there had been with the angel’s wicked arm. I scrambled, trying to find him, finding nothing but the roaring storm. Something was wrong with my shoulder, and I felt my grip going away. A flash of lightning and I saw wings, diving. I let go.
I slithered down the roof, just clearing the chimney as he hit it. There was a dull thud above me. Splinters of slate shot past and the roof shook. I dug fingers into the flooding shingles, slapped at chimneys as they flew past. A bump and I was over the edge. I was falling and screaming the shredded air from my lungs. As I fell into a crash my legs collapsing and then something popped and became a rain of glass and more blood and tearing and falling.
I ended up in the Great Hall. I was bleeding red and black, the oil of my deepest heart mingling with my common blood. High above I could see the fractured skylight and a thin column of rain coming through. There were wings crouching, flashing past. He started to come through, unfolding as he emerged.
I stood. There was a lot of business at the other end of the room, a lot of voices and movement. Most of the Corpsmen were there, standing by a hastily constructed barricade that cut off the wing that held my former room. They were variously dressed and armed, very drunk men in pajamas wielding hunting rifles and croquet mallets. When they saw me, several of them formed a firing line. They couldn’t see what was above, what was coming down.
Just a flash, but I saw several Councilors standing nearby, their faces cold and terrified. Angela stood with them, still in her complicated dress, her knuckles white across the barrel of a shotgun. She looked at me and blanched. The Corpsmen were getting closer.
“What did you summon, Jacob Burn?” Lady Tomb yelled, her voice shrill. “What darkness followed you into my house?”
I shot a look at the Corpsmen and their rifles, then up at the angel. He was almost through, his wings unfolding to descend. I couldn’t see his face or his body, just the swirling mass of wings. I jumped, hit the balcony door and rolled outside. My bones were screaming with pain. Maybe I was screaming too.
I kept my eyes up, but the rain was too much. I couldn’t see anything, not even the roof. I stumbled across the deck until my hand brushed the rough stone of the railing. I crouched and started to follow it. For now I just wanted to get away from the main house. Whatever the thing hunting me might be, I’d rather face it alone than worry about getting shot in the back by some sloshed Corpsman.
I turned to look at the house. The glass windows looked like a fogged aquarium, little more than shapes moving across the bright field of the Manor Tomb. As I watched a form fell from the ceiling, spreading out as it descended into the Great Hall. The Angel. The storm swallowed any sound, but there was a staccato brightness, gunshots, and tiny cracks appeared in the window. I was up and running, found the stairs to a lower balcony. They were narrow, with a small gate separating them from the balcony. I vaulted and clattered down the steps. Maybe the Corps and their rifles could manage the angel. Maybe not, but at least they’d buy me some time.
The central window shattered outward, spilling glittering glass and light out onto the balcony. A dark figure scurried out, disappearing into shadows. A line of Corpsmen appeared, bristling with rifles. They began to drag furniture and torchieres into the Manor’s newest entrance, shining light into the storm.
I kept moving. These stairs were rickety, clearly not meant for running down in the rain. The ground fell away below me, and I got the feeling I was moving between terraces. I lost sight of the Manor, though I could hear voices yelling out into the darkness. They hadn’t finished the thing, that’s for sure. It was still out here. I was shivering with damp and adrenaline.
The stairs led to a small ledge, with a shed and a steep set of stairs leading down. A maintenance area of some kind. I kicked open the shed door and went inside. It was a gardener’s storage shed, all right. A tiny frictionlamp clicked on as I opened the door, the mainspring sparking up. The light glittered off a wall full of tools, blades and shovels and spikes. I doused the light and took a hammer, then went back outside. I had just started on a downward stair when the thing landed, impacting the ledge hard. I froze, the hammer in my hand. Without looking at me, he rushed the shed, tore it apart. In the noise I clambered down, falling as I went. I ended up in the broad garden I had visited earlier that night. I ran for the path that had brought me here the first time.
The lawn was very wet, a spongy green plain. Up the hill I could see broken light from the Manor, wondered if the Corps would venture out into the dark to hunt me or help me. Plenty of people in that room wouldn’t mind seeing me dead, people who might take advantage of the current chaos to put me down. I looked up at the sky, found a trace of moon among the jagged clouds. The storm was breaking down the valley, though rain still fell hard on the Heights.
He was waiting at the broad stone path that snaked up to the balcony above. I had the pistol in my left hand, the hammer in my right. I thought about running, but his wings were clenching and unclenching above his shoulders, like a giant fist waiting to strike me down. He looked at the pistol and shrugged. I raised the hammer.
“You are Jacob Burn,” he said.
“Yes.” Water was streaming down my face. The flooded lawn was reaching muddy fingers between my toes. I felt ridiculous and cold, and I was too tired for a game of question and answer. “And you?”
“They are looking, Jacob Burn. They are waiting for you.”
“Who is?” I gestured with the pistol. “Is that what this is? Some kind of warning?”
He shook his head, slowly, once. He reached across the space between us, stepping forward until his open hand was near my heart.
“Give it to me, and this will end. I thought the man Marcus was the end of the chain, but it has come to you.”
I listened to the rain hammering against my shoulders, watched it form a puddle in the shallow cup of his palm. The artifact, the Cog, sitting on Emily’s desk.
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
I smirked and shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Yes,” he said, gathering my collar in his fist. “It does.”
I swung the hammer in a short, tight arc, keeping my elbow bent. The metal head buried into his temple. His hand fell from my coat, and he staggered backwards. I raised the pistol and got two shots off, pounding slugs into his right shoulder, before he lunged at me. We rolled across the lawn, hydroplaning on the grass, ending up side by side. I lost the pistol.
He screamed and came to his knees. It was an inhuman sound, a boiler bursting, metal torquing. His face was shattered in pain. He raised an arm and hidden mechanisms whirred, the hand folding and collapsing. I didn’t give him the chance. I brought the hammer around, swinging wide, smashing at his wrist and knuckles again and again. Metal popped and bent, gears and pistons tearing apart as axles came out of alignment and tore the machine apart. Then something else broke, meat cracking under the hammer and his hand hung limply at an awkward angle. His scream changed, pitching through agony and frustration into animal terror. He put his other hand on me, but I elbowed it aside then drove the hammer’s claw into his cheek. There was blood and bone, his skin came off in lumps that hit the wet ground and scurried away.