Grey Griffins: The Clockwork Chronicles #1: The Brimstone Key (17 page)

“Or changelings,” Ernie mumbled.

“But we’re on school grounds,” Natalia countered.
“Why would the administration have allowed a place like this to exist?”

Harley walked over to five grimy cylinders that were affixed to the wall. Peeling away the layers of decay, he uncovered round gauges. “Check this out. We have some of these up in the MERLIN Tech labs,” he explained. “They’re kind of like batteries, but they measure plasma watts. Whatever was going on down here required a lot of juice.”

“Look at this.” Natalia shined her flashlight on a plaque hanging over the door. It read:

METATRON

PROF. VON STRIFE

EST
. 1883

“Von Strife?” Harley whispered. “So it was true…”

Max ran his hand along the surgical table where he was certain that Johnny Geist had once lain. A shiver washed over him. He pulled away, but his arm bumped a metal tray filled with wicked tools. Pain flashed, and Max realized that he had cut himself. He looked down and saw the rusty scalpel. The same one from his dream…

Then a flood of light blasted through the doorway.

Max raised the
Codex
Gauntlet, and Skyfire erupted over his fist.

“Lower that weapon or you will face expulsion!”

Dean Nipkin emerged from the shadows of the doorway. Max could just make out her silhouette through the glare of the sodium light she was carrying.

“Do I dare to ask what you were doing here?” the dean asked, looking at each of the Griffins in turn. “I don’t suppose this was one of your little monster-hunting expeditions.”

“There was a party…” Natalia began.

“In a Construction Zone?” Dean Nipkin asked, looking around the dismal setting in disbelief.

“Here’s the invitation,” Natalia explained, handing over the paper.

Dean Nipkin pored over the invitation. “Who gave this to you?”

“Stacy Bechton,” Natalia muttered, her eyes on the ground.

Dean Nipkin stepped back, as if she had seen a ghost. “Stacy Bechton?” She paused, composing herself. “There is no current student by that name. What game are you trying to play, Ms. Romanov? Where did you hear that name? And this invitation… it must be a hundred years old.”

For the first time, Max noticed that the paper was faded and rippled. He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before.

Natalia sighed and lowered her eyes under Nipkin’s scrutiny. Not only had Natalia fallen for Stacy’s prank, but
Stacy
wasn’t even the girl’s real name.

“No answer? I see…” the dean continued. “Then you leave me with no alternative. From this moment, you are all hereby suspended from Iron Bridge Academy. You will be required to attend a formal hearing where you can present your case. If you are found guilty, you will face expulsion.”

“I want to talk to the Baron,” Max announced, stepping protectively in front of Natalia.

A hint of a smile traced the corner of Nipkin’s paper-thin lips. “Of course you do. But don’t assume that your status as Guardian of the
Codex
provides you some level of immunity. The Templar can drop you back into the real world just as easily as they plucked you out. Now follow me.” With that, Dean Nipkin spun on her heels and headed down the hallway.

The next week passed like a fog. While Grandma Caliburn was no fan of Dean Nipkin, she wasn’t happy that Max had broken the rules. Still, she let him continue his monster-hunting training with Logan. Harley spent most of the week working at Monti’s lab. He was only allowed to sweep the floors, but at least it was a start.

As for Natalia, she was grounded. She spent her days watching the telephone, hoping that the school would call and tell her the suspension was all just a silly misunderstanding.

The call never came.

Ernie passed the days flipping through his comic-book
collection or sketching superheroes. When he got bored with that, he stayed in contact with his friends through his DE Tablet. And he worried about Robert.

When Natalia’s phone finally rang, it wasn’t the call that she had been hoping for. Instead of an invitation to come back to class, the Grey Griffins had been summoned to a disciplinary hearing with Baron Lundgren.

The next morning, all four of the Griffins found themselves sitting in the Baron’s office. A circular room with a glass dome, it sat atop De Payens Hall. It overlooked both the Master’s and Apprentice’s Halls, commanding a 360-degree view of the island. Inside, every grain of wood was polished to a shine, and the books on the surrounding shelves were perfectly placed. Conspicuously absent, however, were any pictures of his wife or daughter.

The Baron seemed to take no notice of them as he pored over a stack of yellowed papers. After several tense minutes of waiting, the Baron set aside his work and screwed the cap onto his feathered pen.

“It’s all my fault,” Natalia blurted. She couldn’t stand the silence. “Expel me if you want, but they didn’t do anything wrong…”

Cain raised his hand, and she fell silent. He continued his work for a few more minutes, then sat back in his chair, regarding them closely.

“Dean Nipkin had every right to suspend all of you,” he began in a calm voice. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a set of notes. “I confess that I am disappointed that you, of
all
students, were found in a restricted area,” he said, looking directly at Max. “My role as your mentor is well known here among the faculty. Not only is your defiance a slap in my face, but it also erodes my authority. You have placed me in a very difficult position. Now,” he continued, glancing at the paper in front of him, “you claimed to have received a party invitation from a girl by the name of Stacy Bechton?”

Natalia nodded.

Cain studied her closely. “Then, you will no doubt be saddened to hear that Stacy is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes, for nearly a century, in fact. Which makes her appearance somewhat suspect. Please describe the girl you saw.”

Natalia looked at her friends, unsure how to begin. “Um… I guess she was a little taller than me, with curly brown hair. Her eyes were blue, and there was a freckle just above her right eyebrow.”

“I see. Had you seen her previously?”

Natalia nodded. “A few times. Always in the dining hall, near Xander’s table.”

Cain turned to the boys. “Have you seen the girl whom Natalia is describing?”

They shook their heads.

“But I swear I saw her!” Natalia argued. “I’m not the type to make up stories. You know that!”

Cain nodded. “Of course. Or perhaps you saw something that looked like her. Your description matches Stacy’s well enough, but why would Miss Bechton’s ghost invite you to a party in an area that is strictly off-limits?”

“Maybe she wanted us to find the Metatron,” Natalia conjectured. “What is that place anyway? It looks like a torture chamber.”

Cain shook his head. “I am afraid that information is classified. Now as to your hearing, I will admit that Miss Bechton’s alleged participation is troublesome. So until this matter is cleared up, I am postponing my judgment. In the meantime, I will allow you to resume your classes so long as you behave yourselves. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Natalia replied, and the boys nodded their acceptance in turn.

“What about Brooke?” Max asked as the Baron prepared to return to his work. “Is she okay?”

Cain regarded Max with coldness. “It was
you
who placed Brooke in mortal danger, Master Sumner. Not Aidan.
You
gave her the card that the Reaper sprang from.” He paused, allowing the truth of his words to sink in. “If you place Brooke in danger again, unknowingly or otherwise, I will not be so forgiving.”

Max nodded slowly and stared at his laces. “There’s something else,” he said. “Sprig’s disappeared.”

“Faeries are strange creatures,” Baron Lundgren explained after Max told him about what had happened with Sprig. “I have no doubt that your Bounder is very much alive. You two are linked, and if anything had happened to her, you would know.”

Despite Cain’s assurances, Max didn’t feel any better. When Saturday morning finally came around, it took all of his energy just to get out of bed. Apparently Monti had had a breakthrough about the Round Table cards that they had found, so Max forced himself to throw on a pair of jeans and his Twins cap.

“Good morning,” Monti offered with a measure of
cheer that bordered on obnoxious, considering how early it was. “Would you care for some juice?”

“No thanks,” Max said. What he wanted was to go back to bed.

The other Griffins were already seated at the table in the back of the comic store. They were attacking a stack of donuts drenched with icing and sprinkles.

“Since you’re all here now, I can give you these,” Monti said, handing each of them a sealed envelope.

“Supersonic! It’s our
Toad Reports
,” Ernie shouted as he pulled out a spiral-bound document with the words T
OP
S
ECRET
written across the top.

“This is incredible,” Natalia had to admit. “They even have a list of all the cards my opponent usually plays with, and what order she typically uses them in.”

“Sounds interesting,” Monti said. “Something like that would have come in handy when I was dueling, that’s for sure.”

“That reminds me,” Max said. “What’s the deal with Kinematic goggles? I heard we need them for the tournament.”

“Yes, indeed,” Monti said, pointing to a pair that sat on the shelf behind him. They looked like something from a science-fiction movie. The goggles had vents, adjustment toggles, and a comlink that swiveled.

“Virtual Kinematics is popular at the Templar academies,” he explained. “Next to the SIM Chamber, it’s as close as you’re going to get to a battlefield. Maybe Iver didn’t
think you were ready yet,” he said, pausing thoughtfully. “Give me a few days, and I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, maybe we should talk about why I asked you here.”

Monti poured himself a second cup of coffee before he continued. “I think that I finally understand what caused your Chinnery deck to come to life before it attacked Brooke. You see, it’s been rumored that people called Animators have been able to animate Round Table cards for centuries, but it’s never been done in public, so there’s no proof. If it were possible, it would have to be exceedingly rare, and in the wrong hands, extremely dangerous. I believe someone with this skill may have tried to use Brooke as bait to get at Max.”

“Right, but then the dragon actually
saved
him,” Natalia countered. “If those cards were supposed to kill Max, why wouldn’t all of them work the same way?”

“That threw me for a loop,” Monti admitted. “At least until I realized that the skill set of an Animator is similar to the Guardian of the
Codex
. What’s the difference between a Reaper jumping out of a card and a spriggan popping out of an enchanted book?”

“You’re saying that I animated the dragon somehow?” Max exclaimed.

“Who would go to all this effort just to attack Max?” asked Natalia.

“A dead man.”

“You lost me,” she said.

Monti walked behind the counter and took out an antique newspaper. The masthead read
New Victoria Chronicle
, and the date was January 28, 1914. He pointed to a line in a news article that read:
The new automaton project at the Foundation will be helmed by Mr. Otto Von Strife, who some are already calling the Clockwork King
.

“When the Templar shut down his clockwork program, it seems that Von Strife struck a deal to continue his weapons program with an organization known as the Foundation,” Monti explained. “In turn, they planned to sell the war machines to the highest bidder.”

“What does that have to do with the cards?” Natalia wondered.

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Monti said, pointing to a faded image of a man wearing a strange cap. “This is Chinnery, the man who created the cards you found. According to this paper, he was hired by the Foundation to run one of Von Strife’s research and development projects. It doesn’t say what the project is, but you can bet it had something to do with a Round Table deck. Do you think it’s any coincidence that Von Strife’s title as the Clockwork King ended up as a card in Chinnery’s deck?”

“I don’t understand,” confessed Ernie.

Monti smiled and started pacing back and forth. “Fact number one… we know your cards were made by Chinnery, and that Chinnery worked for Von Strife. Fact number two… we know that Von Strife was also known as the
Clockwork King and that he was a man of considerable prowess in the area of clockwork mechanics. Fact number three… the Chinnery deck that you found was discovered in a clockwork laboratory. And last…” Monti leaned back against a bookshelf, folding his arms in confidence. “The clockwork beetle that Harley told me about a couple days ago… the one that led you to those cards was specially designed to ensure that you made it there in one piece.”