Free Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett Page B

Heqet could have done for the Cold Drake ’s crew and Gideon’s father. Perhaps, while Gideon was away seeking help in London, Stoker could go some way toward making amends. He nodded and placed his hand in Elizabeth Bathory’s, then said, “Madam, though I fear my contribution shall be wretchedly mortal and weak, I most assuredly will.”

6

The House of Einstein
    In Gideon’s opinion, the mail coach wasn’t worth half of what he’d paid. Pulled by a team of four horses, the battered old carriage was stuffed with sacks of letters.
    Gideon was invited to find a spot for the journey by the coachman, who didn’t speak to him again other than to rouse him in darkness and tell him he was to get out. The driver just laughed when Gideon asked how close to London he was, and the coach rumbled away. Night had fallen and so, now, did a hard summer rain, drenching Gideon. He walked for what seemed like hours through bare countryside, no sign of civilization, nor an inn where he could beg for help.
    Until he saw the house.
    Gideon emerged from a thin copse on a gentle hillside and saw it nestling in a small valley, a large mansion of gray stone, almost invisible in the darkness against the black hills. A single lit window betrayed the presence of someone inhabiting the place. As he drew closer, the building emerged from the night as a rather singular work of architecture, a mashed- together riot of fairytale towers, rickety wooden lean-tos, a glass domed roof, and joists and pulleys swinging in the wind at the eaves. Before the terrace fronting the house there were small lawns, and Gideon saw a figure bent over a lawnmower, as though exhausted. Gideon hailed him, but a clap of thunder snatched his words away; the figure remained motionless. As he hurried closer, he saw the man was certainly some kind of domestic staff, given his tattered garb, but he could not understand why he was cutting the grass in such a storm.
    “Ho,” called Gideon as he neared. “Foul weather.”
    Gideon laid a hand on the man’s arm. It was as hard and unflinching as iron. Gideon frowned and bent closer. He was iron, or metal at least. A life- sized statue, leaning on a lawn mower, dressed in real clothes and boots. How odd. Gideon patted the metal man on his solid shoulder and said, “Think I’ll ask for a bed for the night, before I end up a pile of rust like you.”
    The voice came little louder than a whisper. “The master is not in residence.”
    Gideon inspected the statue’s face. Was there the faintest light behind those glass lens eyes, where before they had been dead and blank? He moved his hand in front of the glass and leaned in close to the rusted mouth.
    “The master is not in residence.”
    “What are you?” whispered Gideon.
    “The master is not in residence,” said the figure, the last word a whine of clashing wheels and freezing gears. Then the dull light faded and the thing was silent once more.
    Gideon hammered hard on the flaking paint of the double doors for a full minute before he heard a shuffling sound from within the house. The wide stone steps were cracked and choked with weeds and dandelions and, up close, the house was in a dreadful state of disrepair.
    “Who’s there, at this time of night?” called a man’s voice.
    “My name is Gideon Smith. I am seeking refuge from the storm.”
    There was another agonizing moment of silence, then Gideon heard the jangling of keys and bolts being slid back. An oil lamp emerged first, followed by the screwed-up face of a man about the age of Gideon’s father, snarling through rows of rotten teeth and with lank, wispy hair crowning his liver- spotted head. He looked Gideon up and down and asked, “What do you want?”
    “Shelter,” said Gideon. “A bed for the night, if there is one.”
    “The master of the house is not in residence,” said the man, squinting beyond Gideon at the storm.
    “I know. The lawnmower man told me.”
    The face creased unpleasantly, and