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  Published 2013 by Medallion Press, Inc.

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  is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.

  Copyright © 2013 by Andrew Post

  Cover illustration by Patrick Reilly

  Edited by Emily Steele

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For Traci

  Chapter 1

  Tea, Disrupted

  They were at the table set for two with scones and a pot of mint tea. Just the two men, one young and one old, out in the expansive and elegant gardens behind the senior man’s chateau in the early afternoon; Clyde and his master, whom he’d known only as sir. It was a relaxing affair, the slow decline of the day into an evening calm, a time to unwind and reflect and laugh and converse—until they were struck by what Clyde took to be lightning. The violent concussion tossed them apart, sent the scones sailing, and detonated the antique teapot along with the table it had rested upon. The two men landed on their backs.

  Clyde’s ears rang. He managed to sit up.

  His master tried to do the same, struggling like an overturned tortoise, moaning and bleeding freely from a gash across his forehead, his ever-present spectacles gone. The last thing his master said to him, looking into Clyde’s bottomless black eyes that shined like polished briquettes of coal, was “Run.”

  Exactly sixteen and a half minutes before that, everything was serene. A regular weekday afternoon. Before the teapot was broken, the frosted scones still on their silver platter, all well, Clyde watched the old man spoon sugar into his teacup before pouring, as he always did. Clyde smiled, for he enjoyed noticing little things. He considered himself a highly observant fellow, and his master’s many routines were easy to pick up on.

  The two didn’t talk, didn’t need to. The birds were singing; the grass was greener than it had been all summer. Clyde admired the gardens, the vibrant pinks and violets, the lush blues. The house itself, he had learned from an architecture book in his chambers, was a chateau. Between the beautiful, warm golden stones, the mortar grayed with age. The garden around them was enclosed with high walls of immaculate shrubbery, well groomed and not at all like a wall—not really. More like a gentle border. He’d never been allowed beyond it and didn’t mind, for he had never asked or desired to. It was home. Why leave if it was perfect?

  Today, not unlike any other day, he wore his butler uniform, an elegant garment he had found neatly folded in the attic one day, a spare for one of the servicemen. He loved it immediately. A black tuxedo complete with bow tie and tails, the cuff links something his master had given him as a present upon the one-year anniversary of his arrival. The tuxedo was something of a splendor that could be worn. Before coming here he only donned stained tunics and ill-fitting trousers, which he had to cinch at the waist with a hank of cord to keep them from falling down. The cuff links were the crowning thing, though. Both bore a serif P for reasons Clyde didn’t then understand. He figured it must’ve been the initial letter of his master’s first or last name, neither of which he knew; he didn’t feel it was his place to request that information. Clyde shined the cuff links against his pant legs now, one and then the other.

  He angled his face, ashen as the rest of his flesh, to the suns in the easterly sky. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth on his eyelids and heavily pomaded raven hair, which was piled into a high, tidy pompadour.

  “What a beautiful afternoon,” he observed.

  A trio of starships scudded overhead, heaving out of sight over the rooftop of the chateau. A moment later a series of pops and dull thuds shook the air. Several of the manor’s glass panes rattled in their frames.

  “Strange, don’t you think, sir? A fireworks display during the daytime? And it’s nowhere near Citizen’s Day. They didn’t wait for nightfall, when the fireworks could be seen. What do you suppose the occasion might be? Something marvelous, I’d bet.”

  In uncharacteristic reply, his master merely grunted. The older man ran a hand over his freckled bald pate and down a fringe of silver hair. He was typically a jolly, soft-spoken man, but today he was particularly quiet. With trembling hands, he set to refilling Clyde’s cup, then poured tea atop the sugar in his own.

  Clyde sat forward. Something was amiss here. “Where has Miss Selby gone, sir? Does she have the remainder of the day off?”

  “Yes,” his master answered flatly, “Miss Selby has gone.”

  Edging forward, Clyde became transfixed on his master’s shaking hand as the old man freed a bent finger from the hoop of the ceramic teacup. It was as if he were a metal man in desperate need of a few pumps from the oilcan.

  Clyde grimaced. “Is something wrong, sir?”

  His master set the teapot aside and took a very deep breath. “I’m afraid so, my boy.” He folded his hands, clearly having something big to say.

  “You know that I’ve enjoyed these years we’ve spent together and that I regret every second you were cooped up here like some caged bird, never even able to set those mysterious eyes of yours on anything past the road in front of this house. For that, I sincerely apologize. It has not been a very fulfilling life, I’m sure, having to live under lock and key with a dusty old duffer like me.”

  “No need to apologize, sir. I like my life here. But I’m afraid—and I apologize for any impatience—you did not answer my question.”

  The old man broke eye contact and gazed languidly into the plate of scones as if the answer lay deep within. “You’re a very dear friend of mine, my boy. And I know, for whatever curses that’ve been laid upon you, you cannot tell me the same when I tell you that . . . that I love you very much.” He cleared his throat. “I consider you not an employee but as dear to me as one of my own children. I do hope you know that.”

  A nod. “I thank you, sir. Those are very kind words.”

  “But I believe I have done something atrocious, something for which neither my children nor you would ever be capable of forgiving me, I fear.”

  Clyde forced brightness into his voice. “Nonsense, sir. It is what I do, remember? Tell me anything you wish, and I will swab your mind clean as easily as one removes bird business from a windowpane.” He said this with gusto, for it was his gift—his duty—to be the conscience sponge to his master. Whenever the older man needed to clear his mind, Clyde was there to listen and sweep all nasty, nagging thoughts under the proverbial rug. Albeit with minor consequences, but his master never did anything so bad that a nasty jinxing would occur after he was sponged.

  His master bit a knuckle and stared toward the hedges at the far end of the lawn. “This is something altogether different, I’m afraid to say. I have done something”—he winced—“unpardonable. And if I know you, although my mind will be clear once I say what I must, my life may be placed in the balance.”

  Clyde put a hand atop his master’s. “I’m sure you couldn’t do anything that bad, sir. If you wish me to sweep up, just say so.” It was their code for conscience sponging. “If not, it can wait. I have nowhere to be.”

  His master’s hand fell away. His eyes revealed his deep worry, a swallowing darkness Clyde had never seen. “I’m afraid our time together is at an end, Clyde.”

  “What do you—?”

  Inside the house, a door opened and closed, but Clyde was too preoccupied with what his master was saying to pay it even a mote of
attention. He caught the older man’s hand, held it tight, and gave it a squeeze. “Sir?”

  And with that final whisper came a whistling. An object fell from the sky, trailing over the top of the house. It landed at their feet in the grass with a soft thud and rolled: just a smooth metallic cylinder.

  Feeling a sudden tension in the hand clutching his own, he looked up and saw his master’s head bowed and his eyes tightly closed. He was about to ask what was wrong, what the object on the ground was. Was it a game? He nearly began his line of new questions when the table, the teapot, the plate of scones—all of it—shattered in a deafening thunderclap.

  His master’s hand let go again.

  Above, the bright early-afternoon sky, blue and beautiful, spiraled up and past as Clyde was tossed through the air, his body feeling ripped asunder. He felt the impact of the lawn on his back but didn’t hear it. His ears rang as if a dozen Klaxons had been installed directly inside his skull and simultaneously set off. The world beyond the wall of noise was garbled and far away.

  When he sat up, he saw the table reduced to splinters, teapot shards scattered on the lawn. His master, cast clear across the yard from him, managed to sit up feebly before falling back to the ground. He could lift his head, barely. Terror simmered in his eyes as he stared at something distant. Clyde followed his master’s gaze to the floating ball of greenish-gray light that hung in a perfect sphere of fog, like swamp gas trapped in a glass bubble, right where the table was a scant instant ago.

  Staring into it, Clyde felt all the world condense around him. Looking away was impossible. The ethereal orb of swirling, diseased green and gray wanted, commanded him to look into it forever. With some difficulty, Clyde clamped a hand over his eyes. It was the only way to chisel his gaze from it. Even from behind his fingers, his onyx eyes remained directed toward the orb.

  Clyde shouted for his friend, his voice sounding dampened to his own ears. There was no reply, so he repeated his bellowing call, “Sir? Are you all right? Master? Sir?” Clyde dared a peek, blocking the orb’s light with the flat of one upheld hand.

  His master was still there but transfixed, as Clyde had been.

  “Sir!”

  Finally, the old man also freed his gaze from the spooky ethereal sphere and looked at him. The corners of his mouth turned down, and there was an apology behind his kindly eyes. “To your chambers, my boy. Run. Stay hidden until it’s all over.”

  “But for how long?” Clyde shouted. He liked specificity, but he dropped his request when he noticed movement through the back windows of the chateau. Man-shaped shadows moved about, distorted penumbras swathing the furniture, darting along walls. As a row of them passed the hall mirror, he caught glimpses. They were dressed darkly, their faces concealed by reflective black masks, their shoulders exaggerated by padded garb.

  He turned to his master, whose attention had been sucked into the weird orb again. He was muttering, ostensibly unable to stop, “Three weeks, I suppose. Stay hidden for at least three weeks. Go now. Three weeks.” Suddenly, he gasped, apparently able to pull himself from his torpor when the orb allowed. His scream was clear then. “Run.”

  Knowing he should never disregard his master’s orders, Clyde scrambled to his feet, every inch of his body hurting, as if a single miscalculated step may shatter him like glass. He took the path of pavers along the back of the chateau, avoiding going inside, where the strangers were. He ducked below window level and rushed past. He got to the far corner, just about to go around to the exterior entrance of the cellar, but he stopped.

  He couldn’t just leave him.

  Keeping hidden around the corner, Clyde dared a peek.

  The old man lay in the grass, the left side of his face painted bloodred from brow to ear. He freed himself from the orb enough to shield his eyes. He was turning his head away from it when four shadows fell over him, and the old man’s expression changed from frustration to utter dismay.

  The ball of light evaporated in a puff, and his master’s face slackened.

  In his blood-and-tea-spattered waistcoat, Clyde weakly slunk back.

  Four black shadows loomed in the grass around his master—a devilish paw of outstretched fingers folding around him, lying square in the clutch of the dark talons as the men approached. Clyde’s old friend tried to crawl away, pushing off on the burnt grass with the heels of his loafers, to little avail.

  Unable to bear the sight a moment longer, Clyde followed his orders—even if it meant volunteering for what he felt was cowardice—and ran. He charged down the steps into the foundation of the chateau, nearly tumbling but keeping as quiet as he could. Inside, he barred the doors, moving piles of books in front of them one load at a time. There were plenty of books, the only objects in his cellar chamber besides the bed and nightstand. After five or six armloads, both the door to the garden and the door to the house were as secure as he could get them.

  A dull bang sounded from somewhere aboveground. Clyde stopped to listen. Wherever the sound had been made, it was very loud if it could be heard down here.

  He hoped it was all just a prank like Miss Selby liked to play sometimes. No, Miss Selby played a prank but once a year, on the sir’s birthday, and that wasn’t for another seventy-nine days.

  He wanted to rush outside, but just as he was about to shove one of the towers of books aside, he stopped himself. He had to do as he was told: remain hidden for three complete weeks. But he wouldn’t for a second longer. Certainly it would be torturous to stay down there all that time not knowing whether those men meant harm to his master, but he would do as he was commanded. The master’s orders were, after all, the master’s orders.

  Trying to quell his heart, Clyde hugged himself until he believed everything would be okay.

  Chapter 2

  The Conscience Sponge

  There was no way to be absolutely certain it had been three complete weeks. Clyde’s room had not a single clock, window, or calendar. But he could perceive time’s passage within the stones at his back as they were heated by the suns and cooled at night.

  Pressing an ear against the masonry, he listened for hours for any movement. With a hand placed against the wall to feel for vibration, he waited for the smallest indication of any other occupants within the house.

  Soon, he gave up. The house was sturdy, with incredibly thick walls and floors, and he had never heard anything from beyond this closed room before. He sighed. Resting his hands in his lap, he returned to counting minutes.

  Very much unlike the house, which sounded still enough, Clyde’s mind rattled ceaselessly with increasingly panicked thoughts. Was he okay? Were those men just playing a joke on his master? If so, it was a potentially dangerous one. Among all his questions, there was one he couldn’t keep at bay. Who were they?

  Clyde felt as if he were being impatient with his master’s orders and gave up trying to hear anything. Perhaps it was all some strange custom or a form of celebration the master had set in order. Perhaps the table breaking apart like that and the loud bang were how old men liked to commence their birthday celebrations.

  Another question. What was that light? Clyde could still see it in his mind’s eye—gray and green and terrible. Looking into it was like watching the water spiral at the bottom of the tub, going around and around, as if it were trying to summon you to fall headlong down with it, but much worse. It won’t hurt, even the mere memory of it seemed to whisper. Its voice, which he hoped was just his imagination, scared Clyde, and he decided then and there not to think about it anymore. He returned to counting the minutes, picking up roughly where he left off and adding a few extra seconds for those in which he’d been distracted.

  Three weeks, he kept telling himself. The master told me three weeks. I have to heed his demands. I must.

  “But how would I know for sure?” he found himself saying in his soft voice. “How could I know three weeks haven’t already passed? And why three weeks? I’ve never been asked to stay in here that long.” Agai
n, he checked the walls for a clock he somehow may’ve never noticed. Just his room, stone walls, electric braziers, a small space heater, and the books. The piles and piles of books. He picked one up to distract himself, but the words went all wonky and wouldn’t cooperate with him. Frustrated, he slammed it shut with a loud thwack.

  He hissed, remembering he was supposed to be hidden, which meant he should probably be quiet. He opened the book again and reclosed it, this time silently.

  A hundred and fifty-four minutes, he counted.

  The lights flickered and went out. A minute later, they came back on. The grill of his space heater went dark, then glowed orange again. The bulbs behind the metal mesh of the braziers flickered, their coiled filaments barely darkening completely before they surged back to life.

  This happened several times.

  And he noticed every time, for he never slept. Not now, in this dire situation, and never anytime before. It went along with his curious personality, his master had told him. And because of that, Clyde felt every moment pass.

  With nothing to do, he allowed his mind to travel backwards and play snippets from his life with the sir. By no means did he have a perfect memory or anything resembling one, but he hoped the happier times were as brilliant and wonderful as he remembered them.

  Considering himself a person of manners, Clyde never asked why he was being kept there. Questions like How much did you pay for me? or How long do you plan on keeping me? were things a brute would ask. But he took it as an oddity that the master hadn’t treated him like his other keepers had. He was nice, for one. He visited him for reasons other than the unique service Clyde could provide. Often they’d just chat, read stories or poetry, have tea in the garden. The stories, especially, were among Clyde’s fondest memories. His master was the one who taught him how to read. He took to it about as well as a fish breathes cement, but his master was patient.