retreating ice sheets Vindex discovered something, a hatch leading down to an ancient underground station filled with sorcery and machines. Machines which were to change his body, bring him into the realm of metal.’
‘He had these things in his blood too?’
‘According to this tome and the prayer songs which we still sing for our ancestors, his system juices would have been teeming with the life metal. After he had changed his body, he created seven holy engines to bind the gods of Chimeca to darkness, the seven Hexmachina, and led them in war against the Chimecans and their Wildcaotyl gods.’
Something of what Coppertracks was telling her seemed to resonate with Molly — the horrible dreams she had experienced in the abandoned temple in the caverns below, the feeling of deja vu.
‘Come now, old steamer,’ said the commodore. ‘Tell me this talk of dark gods and wicked empires is for scholars and archaeologists — what does it have to do with our Molly Templar?’
‘Do you not understand? Molly softbody is a descendant of Vindex, which is why her system juices bubble with the very stuff of mechomancy. All those who have died at the hands of the Pitt Hill Slayer are his descendants.’
‘But it is only individuals who have been targeted — not families or children,’ said Nickleby. ‘If you wanted to wipe out such an ancient bloodline you would have to murder thousands of Jackelians today.’
‘Popham’s Disease is not inherited uniformly,’ said Copper tracks. ‘Its mechanism is not understood and has baffled your surgeons since its discovery. That is because they look at it as a disease, when it is not. They know that it only manifests itself shortly before or shortly after adolescence, but understand nothing about the random nature of its inheritance.’
‘Then this stuff in my blood is there by chance,’ said Molly. ‘I could have been born the same as everyone else.’
‘It is within you not by chance, but by design, Molly soft-body. Your gift allows you to communicate with the Hexmachina — to wield the holy engines like a duellist balancing a sword. Not everyone born to the bloodline of Vindex is a natural operator. The gift will only manifest in those with the talent to control the Hexmachina. In those who lack the talent the gift will stay latent, like a chameleon, mimicking the natural animalcules of your system juices so well as to be indistinguishable even under the scrutiny of advanced organic analysers such as this.’
‘That is the why of it, then,’ said the commodore. ‘Poor Molly, with the unlucky blood of some ancient sage flowing through her veins.’
‘But not the whom of it,’ said Nickleby. ‘Who is it that wants the operators of the Hexmachina dead?’
‘The answers to that are not to be found inside this tome,’ said the steamman. ‘But we already have enough information to conjecture on their motives. Potential operators of the Hexmachina are being eliminated — so the most likely conclusion to be drawn is that someone does not wish the Hexmachina to be operated.’
‘Those ancient engines still exist?’ asked Molly.
‘If our people had the answer to that, the spirit of Steelbhalah-Waldo would sleep easier in the hall of the ancients. Three of the Hexmachina were almost certainly destroyed in the war to overthrow the Chimeca. Two of the remaining four have been lost to us since that time — I have collected as many tales, rumours and legends of what happened to them as there are hours in the day to listen to them. In all probability they have been washed away by the tide of history and the events of the ages.’
‘And then there were two,’ said Nickleby.
Coppertracks passed the precious tome to one of his mu-bodies, the little drone disappearing with it back to Tock House’s library. ‘Yes, indeed. One is said to be in Liongeli, broken and near useless, a curio of a hideous race that I must regrettably admit was once distantly related to the steammen. Of them I shall not speak. The other Hexmachina is said to keep to the caverns of the undercity. Scuttling about hidden tunnels and collapsed cities so deep even the grave robbers of Grimhope will not venture there. A solitary ghost haunting the scene of its greatest moment — banishing the gods of the Wildcaotyl to the darkness beyond the walls of the world.’
‘What good will it do them to kill me?’ said Molly. ‘From what you say there will be others who will follow me. Jackals could be filled with children who will develop this disease, this
‘A most fascinating question, Molly softbody. The last operator — at least for a day, a month, or a year — until other descendants of Vindex with your gift pass through adolescence. And possibly the last Hexmachina too. What mischief can be made in the conjunction of those two facts, I wonder?’
‘Nothing good,’ said Commodore Black. ‘Of that I am mortal sure. With the amount of money they’ve put on the poor lass’s head I am surprised we haven’t had half the flash mob in the city knocking at our gates.’
‘In this matter, anonymity is our friend,’ said Nickleby.
Coppertracks’ skull erupted into light, fiercer than Molly had ever seen before. ‘Dear mammal, I fear anonymity may have betrayed us. I have just lost contact with all my mu-bodies beyond the woods.’
‘An accident?’
‘Simultaneously?’ The steamman’s mu-bodies in the clock room exploded into action, scattering to a dozen synchronised tasks.
‘Aliquot Coppertracks, say this is not so,’ whined the commodore.
‘I fear it is. There are intruders in the grounds. In numbers large enough to destroy a dozen of my mu-bodies in chorus.’
A ball of fear curled inside Molly’s stomach. She had found out why her implacable foes were hunting for her. Not for a family inheritance that did not even exist, but for her very blood itself. But now it was too late. Her friends were in danger again … and it was all because of her. The hidden enemy were going to do to Tock House what they had done to her family at the Sun Gate poorhouse. She was going to end up on a butcher’s table while some history-obsessed maniacs opened up her veins and she became just another name on the Pitt Hill Slayer’s tally of victims.
‘My beautiful house,’ moaned Nickleby. ‘I knew this was too good to last.’
Commodore Black raided a storeroom on the side of the clock house chamber and then stumbled out with both arms spilling over with rifles and black leather bandoleers of crystal shells. He saw the look on Molly’s face. ‘They’re from the
‘Circle, commodore, were you piloting a submarine or a man-o’-war?’
‘Well now lass, you can be sailing across some rough old coves out there on the oceans.’
Coppertracks’ mu-bodies grabbed the weapons out of his arms and dispersed smoothly to positions around Tock House. Black tossed the sling of a eight-barrel monstrosity around his shoulder. Molly had heard the whippers at the Angel’s Crust laughing about those things — they had never said anything good about them.
‘Commodore, that’s a suicide gun!’
‘No lass; a suicide gun fires one barrel at a time. This wicked devil empties all eight at once. She’s a lucky gun! Mounted on the conning tower of the
Molly jumped as a booming noise echoed up the staircase. Nickleby lay a steadying hand on her shoulder. ‘Tock House was built just after the civil war, Molly. Soldiers from both armies laid off and dangerously unemployed on the streets. Why do you think there are no windows on the first two storeys? That was the house’s transaction engine triggering the clockwork on the shield above the door.’
‘Shield?’
‘Twelve inches of layered armour,’ said Nickleby. ‘The Jackelian Artillery Company would pause before taking our front door down.’
Something pinged off the walls of the tower.
‘That was too quiet,’ said Nickleby.
Commodore Black risked a quick glance out of the window. ‘Toppers, then. Ah, I can see the mufflers on their mortal guns. Real hard men, coming to kill a scared little lass. Come on you dark-hearted jiggers, let’s see how you like what old Blacky has got for you!’
A cadre of Middlesteel’s professional assassins. Not one, but an army of them. They were all as good as dead. Molly slumped to the floor and pushed her red hair back out of her face. She had brought this on her friends. Better they had caught her on the streets of Sun Gate outside the poorhouse and none of this had happened.
