Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key (2 page)

By the time Max reached the Old Woods, Harley was already waiting for him.

“What are you doing?” Max asked as he set his bike down. Harley had a screwdriver in one hand. In the other, he held a palm-sized device with its electrical guts exposed.

“Just making a couple of adjustments,” Harley replied as he replaced the casing and screwed it back together. “It’s a tracking device.”

Harley handed Max a metal chip and told him to put it in his pocket. Harley then twisted a dial on his invention,
and the dark screen flickered to life. Two flashing green dots instantly appeared. “That’s us.”

“What about Natalia and Ernie?”

“I gave them ID chips this morning,” Harley replied. “According to this little gizmo, they should be here right about… now.”

Max turned to find the other two members of the Grey Griffins coasting down the gravel road on their bikes. Natalia’s red hair was woven into braids that flew behind her. Ernie’s vintage World War I Army helmet bounced on his head.

“I thought you were excited about transferring to Iron Bridge,” Max heard Natalia say.

“I was, but King’s Elementary is the last normal thing in our lives,” Ernie explained. “Once we leave that behind, it’ll be nothing but a bunch of rigid rules.”

“Come on, Ernie, you know that’s not true,” Max said. “We’re going to accomplish things that we never dreamed we could do.”

“And what about all the other changelings at the academy?” Harley added. “You’ll finally be able to put together your own team of superpowered humans. It’ll be like a real-life comic book.”

“I never fit in anywhere I go,” Ernie complained. “Trust me, Iron Bridge isn’t going to be any different—changelings or not.”

Natalia sighed. “Look, Ernie. According to Brooke, we’re kind of famous.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. Everyone at Iron Bridge thinks we’re heroes because we helped defeat the Black Wolf Society.”

Ernie smiled.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Max warned. “Brooke may be exaggerating.”

Brooke Lundgren was the only honorary member of the Grey Griffins. The boys wanted to make her membership official, but Natalia wasn’t quite ready to share the spotlight with another girl. Brooke knew that Natalia didn’t mean anything by it. A close friend had betrayed Natalia, so it wasn’t easy for her to trust other girls. Besides, Brooke had her own troubles. Her dad, Baron Cain Lundgren, had been given the directorship of Iron Bridge Academy. He had a reputation for being strict, and Brooke hoped that the other students wouldn’t hold it against her.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Ernie sulked.

“What if I told you that my mom stocked the fridge with tons of junk food last night? Would that get your mind off school for a little while?” Max asked.

The Aerie was constructed of three separate buildings linked by suspension bridges and rope swings. It boasted air-conditioning, a cobblestone fireplace, a working kitchen, and hidden rooms with trick entrances. When the four friends reached the central building, Ernie scaled the ladder and pressed his thumb against a hidden sensor pad on the rafter. It had been installed as a safety precaution against prowling monsters. The lock on the door released with a
click,
and Ernie rushed straight to the refrigerator. In a matter of moments, his arms were overflowing with snacks.

“Hey, Harley, clear the table, will you?” Ernie asked as he tried to balance all the food.

“Clear it yourself,” Harley replied, sitting down to read through a stack of comic books. That’s when he saw the strange box wrapped in brown paper. It was unmarked, except for a faded Templar cross stamped on the top. “What’s in the package?”

“Maybe it’s our next assignment,” Max said. “I overheard someone talking about an infestation of Vampire Pixies.”

Natalia looked skeptical. “Since when do we get assignments in unmarked packages?”

Max shrugged as Ernie dumped the pile of food on top of the box.

“Ernest!” Natalia reprimanded. She began clearing away the snacks.

“What?” Ernie sat down and opened a bag of chips. “Did you expect me to hold that stuff forever? I have super speed, not super strength.” With that, he shoved a handful of chips into his mouth and started smacking away.

Max broke the seal and pulled out a simple wooden box. Curious, he flipped the latch and opened the lid. Inside was a red velvet sack tied with a length of golden rope. He started to untie it, but Natalia grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” She reached inside the box and pulled out a piece of paper. Written in looping script were the words
WIND STEM TO FIND HIM
.

“Wind the stem?” Harley read aloud. “What does that mean?”

Max opened the little sack and turned it upside down. “Let’s find out.”

An object fell into the palm of his hand. It was a brass beetle, no more than two inches long. A perfect symphony of etched brass and silver filigree, the mechanical creature sat unmoving.

“That’s so supersonic!” Ernie said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. As the self-proclaimed “world’s first real superhero,” Ernie had decided he needed a catchphrase. So instead of describing things as
awesome
or
amazing
, he called everything
supersonic
.

Overwhelmed by curiosity, Ernie grabbed the beetle. With his greasy fingers, he wound the stem several revolutions. Inside, a series of gears engaged, and the beetle started tick as if it were a pocket watch. When Ernie set the beetle on the table, small brass legs unfolded. Then the mechanism spread its wings and lifted into the air.

“Whoa!” Harley stepped back as it zipped by his head while circling the room. “What is that thing?”

“Quick! Close the windows!” Max called.

Unfortunately, the mechanical creature had already spotted an open window and flown into the forest.

Max jumped over a stack of comic books and ran toward the escape slide. “Don’t let it get away, Ernie! We’ll be right behind you.”

“It went in here!” Ernie shouted as he followed the beetle into the mouth of a tunnel that led beneath the forest floor. The mechanical creature hovered in place just out of Ernie’s reach. Then, as the other Griffins burst onto the scene, the beetle took off once again, leading them into the darkness.

They hurried through the slimy passageway but lost the beetle as they came to an intersection. There was no sign of where it had gone.

“Can you still see it?” Max panted, his lungs burning.

Harley glanced down at a blinking light on his
navigation device. “I was able to tune this to the vibration of the beetle’s wings. It should be right through here…”

The ground started to shake as debris fell from the ceiling.

“Cave-in!” Ernie shouted.

Suddenly the floor fell away, and they dropped into the darkness.

Ernie slammed against something hard and started to slide. He clawed at the rock walls, but he couldn’t stop his momentum. The others were screaming as he rocketed down the underground slide, shooting over rises and around bends. Air rushed against him, nearly peeling his cheeks from his face. But just when Ernie thought that he was going to lose consciousness, he shot out of the tunnel and landed in a puddle of motor oil.

“Ernie, is that you?” Natalia called out from the darkness.

Ernie couldn’t see much, but he could feel slime oozing around his ears as he stood up. “Does anyone have a flashlight?”

“Here we go,” Harley answered. He lit a few flares and tossed them on the ground, careful to keep the flame away from any oil.

They were unusual flares that couldn’t be doused by wind or water. Harley had received a supply from a Special Forces unit of the Templar Knights called the Tactical Headquarters for Operations and Research. Most people just referred to the group as THOR.

THOR agents protected the world from dangers that most people were unable to see—rogue trolls, evil witches, armies of werewolves, and a host of other nightmares that would force the bravest civilian to run, hide, and pray for mercy.

The bright flames from the flares exposed a small room with cinderblock walls. It looked like a bomb shelter from the Cold War. The floor was bare, and the low ceiling consisted of little more than crumbling concrete.

“What is this place?” Natalia asked.

“It looks like my grandma’s basement out at the farm,” Max replied as he ran his fingers over the wall.

“Does anybody know what this motor oil is doing down here?” Ernie grumbled. He was trying to scrape the syrupy goop off his face.

“As long as you stay away from the flares, you’ll be fine,” Max said. “I’m more concerned about finding a way out of here. Are you wearing the compass that’s supposed to lead you to safety?”

“It’s called a Navitrometer,” Ernie said. “And I already tried it, but I think it’s broken. The needle keeps spinning in circles.”

“I think we fell through a ventilation shaft,” Natalia remarked as she studied the ceiling. “It’s too steep to climb back out, and the only door I found is locked.”

“Let’s spread out and try to find the key,” Max said.

As the Griffins looked around, they could see a large drainage grate in the center of the floor. The room
appeared to be empty except for a pile of scrap metal in the far corner.

“This has got to be some sort of environmental violation,” Natalia commented as the beetle circled her head.

Max pushed aside a few large pieces of twisted metal before pulling out something that looked like an iron football. When he held it close to one of the flares, he could see two round eyes of amber glass and a small mouth that was little more than a slit. Connecting rods dangled from its neck, and the head was dented and heavily tarnished.

Ernie gasped. “It’s a robot!”

Harley handed Max a flare and then took the head and examined it. “I don’t think so. There aren’t any chips or electronic components.”

Max raised the flare, and all at once dozens of lifeless eyes looked back at the Griffins from the scrap heap, some of them eerily human. It was as if a hundred mechanical figures had been torn limb from limb until there was nothing left but parts. Then Max spotted a pair of camera-like eyes that reminded him of the boy in his dream.

“What’s wrong?” Natalia wondered as she watched his face turn pale.

“I’ve been having nightmares again,” Max replied, his breathing shallow as the details flooded back. “I was in a laboratory, and someone was crying for help. His eyes had been cut out and replaced with cameras, just like that.” Max pointed to the eyes staring back at him from the scrap pile.

“That’s disgusting,” Ernie said.

Max turned to his friend but figured it was better if Ernie didn’t know he had been in the dream, too. Ernie tended to overreact to things like that.

“Look at this,” Harley said.

The brass insect was crawling on the floor nearby. Like a watch, it seemed to be slowing down, but it was still moving purposefully toward a round metal door that was recessed into the wall. With all the interconnected gears, timer springs, and turned metal, it looked like a bank vault. There were seven stainless-steel turning wheels etched with mysterious symbols, all arranged in a vertical line.

“What is this?” asked Ernie. “A puzzle?”

Natalia examined the door with her Phantasmoscope, a multi-lens magnifying glass that allowed her to see through faerie magic. “Whatever it is, it’s our best chance of getting out of this hole.” She felt overwhelming sense of being smothered but fought against panic. Losing control wouldn’t change anything.

“What if we radioed Logan?” Ernie asked. “He’d know how to get us out of here.”

Max shook his head. “We’re too far underground. The radio won’t work.”

Logan was not only the head of the Templar THOR division but also Max’s personal bodyguard. Logan had grown up as an orphan on the streets of Glasgow, where he became a street fighter to earn enough money to
survive. In time, the Templar found him and offered the Scotsman a place in their ranks. Under their guidance, he became one of the deadliest men in the world. More important, he loved Max like a son.

Natalia adjusted a series of interchangeable lenses that flipped over the top of her Phantasmoscope, and peered through the mysterious workings of the door. “I don’t see any obvious traps or anything supernatural. The gears are attached to rollers that are connected to tracks where the door sits. I think it’s just a big combination lock. All we need to do is find the right combination.”

“Where do we start?” Max asked.

“I’ve got a hunch,” she claimed before turning the middle wheel. Natalia stopped when a symbol with three wavy lines lined up with an arrow on the side of the door. The wheel resisted at first, but with a groan of rusty metal, it finally gave way. As it did, a sudden gust of air that smelled like dead fish wafted up from the drain.

The beetle started hopping wildly, striking its head against the wall beneath the lowest gear.

“I don’t think our little friend liked your choice,” Harley observed.

The beetle was growing more frantic as it clawed at the bottom of the door in mechanical desperation. Then the sound of rushing water echoed up through the drainage grate. It was followed by a small trickle, and soon water was pooled around Ernie’s shoes. Before long the Griffins were sloshing through ankle-deep water.

Max turned to Natalia. “We’ve got a problem.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Why does this always happen to us?”

“Because somebody doesn’t want us to find what’s on the other side of that door,” Harley called. “Hurry up and break the code, or we’re going to have to swim.”

“I need a clue… somewhere to start,” Natalia complained. “There are more than thirty symbols on each wheel. Do you know the odds of cracking that code?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Max, watching the water rise. “We have to do something!”

Across the room, Ernie pounded on the door and screamed for help while Harley redoubled his effort to find a hidden escape hatch.

Max could still see the brass beetle struggling below the surface, and it triggered an idea. “What if this thing knows something we don’t?” he asked, reaching down to grab the mechanical insect. He handed it to Natalia.