There was a flare of blue light from the banks of controls. “I dare not leave this junk unattended!” Mezzasalma shouted. He was holding two sparking components together with both hands. “Where is Miss Snaug?”
Violetta glanced down at Snaug and bit her lip. The woman was still unconscious at her feet. “Moloch!”
Von Zinzer stepped back from the lip of the shaft, panting. He’d so far managed to keep the impossible thing he’d seen in the shaft from climbing out, but it was hard work. All he had to hand was a broom. “Kind of busy here,” he yelled, prodding the thing back down with the bristled end. It giggled.
“Snaug’s…she’s been knocked out! I need you on Tarvek’s system!”
Von Zinzer shook his head. “Forget it! I’m—”
What looked like an iron reaping hook arced up out of the pit and sliced von Zinzer’s broom handle in two, centimeters from his hand. He leapt backward. “On my way!”
He lunged to the controls and, not liking what he saw, slammed his fist against the side of the machine. Instantly the readouts swung wildly and then snapped back to more satisfactory positions. Still, he frowned. “Sturmvarous’s readings are at eighty-three percent! We’re gonna need more! Can we increase the flow on this thing?”
“Not from the Lady Heterodyne,” Violetta said, she’s already at her limit. She bit her lip. “I…I’m bringing Wulfenbach’s connection back to full strength!”
Mezzasalma called out, “But didn’t she say that we shouldn’t?”
“No choice! He’s the only other source we have! In three…two… one…NOW!”
She slammed home a knife switch, and Gil shuddered in place. Lights blossomed across von Zinzer’s board. “Hey!” he said beaming. “That did it! It worked!”
Tarvek’s eyes snapped open. With an inhuman scream, he tore himself free of his restraints.
Tarvek grabbed von Zinzer and roared. “I LIVE!”
Von Zinzer felt Tarvek’s hands tightening painfully upon his arms. “Whoa! Worked a little too well!” he squeaked.
Tarvek’s face twisted into a maniacal scream. “And now I will—”
“Hey!” Von Zinzer interrupted, distracted. He was staring over Tarvek’s shoulder and pointed, “Check it out.”
Tarvek turned and stared. He dropped von Zinzer and reached for his glasses, which he adjusted carefully—never taking his eyes from the thing emerging from the shaft in the floor. “Good heavens.” He said, apparently shocked back to semi-sanity.89
It was an angel. A mechanical angel almost three meters tall. Its wings had once been elegant, elaborate constructions, but now they were nothing but a twisted framework, dangling a few threadbare and grimy metal-lace feathers. Once, it had been dressed in some kind of tunic but this was also worn to a few tatters. Although there was an enormous cracked leather scabbard chained to its back, it was armed with a twisted girder and a rusty bladed hook.
A pair of blazing, pitiless green eyes stared from its stern face. Matted hair framed its features, partially obscuring the golden fleur-de-lis of the Storm King that adorned its brow.
“Aaaaahhh…Little rats…” The angel’s voice was harsh and strained—and hauntingly familiar. “Little rats busy in my cellar. Where is your Queen, little rats? Where is Lucrezia?”
Von Zinzer saw the look on Tarvek’s face. “You know what that thing is?”
“Otilia,” Tarvek whispered in awe. “The Muse of Protection!90 She’s been lost for over two hundred years!”
The Muse straightened from its crouch and took a tentative step forward. Both Tarvek and von Zinzer noted the stiffness of its joints. “Where is Lucrezia? She has betrayed the House of Heterodyne.” Another step. “Give her to me, or I will crush you all.”
Von Zinzer swallowed. “This is bad.” He whispered to Tarvek. “She’ll kill Agatha.”
“Not if I can help it.” Tarvek whispered back. He strode forward, trailing the tubes and wires that still connected him to the great array. By the time he stood before Otilia, he stood as a Prince, radiating power and authority. “Stop! I am Prince Tarvek of the House of Sturmvarous. I am the direct descendant of Andronicus Valois and heir to the Lightning Throne. I am the Storm King, so acknowledged by your sisters Moxana and Tinka, who have sworn their allegiance to me.
“You were created to serve me and I demand your fealty.”
The casual blow from the girder that caught him across the chest threw him back into the machinery where von Zinzer cringed. “That never works, you know,” von Zinzer said sympathetically as he helped Tarvek back his feet.
Tarvek brushed him aside. “No! That should have worked! Something is not right!”
“Tarvek!” Violetta’s voice held the beginnings of panic. “Lady Heterodyne’s readings are starting to crash! I need another Spark over here!”
Tarvek rolled his eyes. “Get her ready for the next step,” he called back, never taking his eyes from the giant clank. “Disengage the Si Vales Valeo circuit, then begin reversing my settings!” He shoved von Zinzer towards Violetta. “You! Hook her up to the electricals. I’ll be right there.”
“Yessir!”
The clank had paused to listen and was now slowly looking about the great chamber. “Sparks…” It mused, “What are you people doing down here? Where is the Lord Heterodyne? Which of you bellows pumpers is his Chief Assistant?”
“I am!” Tarvek again strode forward. “Now listen to me! You did not hear Lucrezia!”
The clank stared down at him and lazily twirled the girder around her fingers as she spoke. “I know who I heard.” The girder froze, pointing at Tarvek’s face. “And you? I see the resemblance, and can well believe you to be a degenerate whelp of the Valois.” Again the girder moved around its hand. “You are no assistant to the House of Heterodyne and I have no patience with your obvious lies.”
The girder arced down and Tarvek caught it in his hands. The momentum of the great piece of metal drove him several steps backward, but he remained undamaged, and held it firm.
“I am not lying,” he said in a strained voice, “Look about. Do you see Lucrezia here?”
“You…are surprisingly strong.” The clank paused. Its head moved slightly with a whine of servos, and it was obvious that it was examining the others.
Violetta’s jaw sagged down. “That’s a steel girder. How—?”
Von Zinzer grimaced. “Post-revivification rush.91 He’ll feel it later.”
Meanwhile, Tarvek fought to bring his mind to speed. He’d pay for everything that happened to him later, but here and now… he felt the pressure on the girder relax, minutely. He spoke again.
“Yes. I am. Now listen. The person you heard was Lucrezia and Bill Heterodyne’s daughter, Agatha. The current Lady Heterodyne. Yes, she sounds like her mother, but she’s the last person who would help Lucrezia in any way.” His voice lowered to a menacing growl—“And I will not let you touch her.”
The girder was pulled back abruptly as the eyes of the clank flared bright. “The current Lady Heterodyne?” The clank began to vibrate. “Then the old Lord is dead?”
Tarvek nodded slowly. “Dead and gone for many years. Agatha is the last of the Heterodyne famly.”
“The…the last? But his brother?”
“Also gone. Agatha is the last, I tell you.”
The clank looked off into some mechanical infinity. “A girl child…” it mused. “If true, I could work with that…but…”
Next to Violetta, Lucrezia groaned as she regained consciousness. “Miserable lackeys,” she whispered. “I’ll feed your flesh to the spiders. Grind your bones to powder to sweeten my tea…”
Von Zinzer slapped a hand across her mouth. “Violetta! Hurry!” He searched for the last couplings and yelped. “We’re all prepped here! Really, really prepped! Ow! And she’s biting me!”
Violetta resolutely tried to ignore him and keep her attention focused on the tortuous sequence scrawled on the paper before her. She flipped another switch. “Going as fast as I can,” she shouted back.