Free Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) by Lindsay Buroker Page A

crypt.
    “You’ve read too many of
your father’s books,” she whispered to herself. Crypts. There
wasn’t a crypt within a thousand miles.
    Nevertheless, the door
opened, seemingly of its own accord. Kali shifted farther behind a
tree, so she wouldn’t be visible if Amelia walked out. But it
wasn’t a human being that strode through the doorway. A large
mechanical construct with eight legs skittered out. At least four
feet tall and even wider, it had to tilt at an angle to escape
through the doorway, and half of those legs curled around the
doorjamb, propelling the body along.
    The spider-like thing
paused in the grass in front of the cabin, quivering as if with
pent-up steam. It rotated toward Kali and hissed, emitting a poof
of black smoke from a vent on the back of its metal carapace.
    The creature reminded her
of the mechanical guard dogs she had made the year before. Those
had been powered by flash gold and had a hint of intelligence
thanks to the magical substance. Since Amelia hated flash gold and
these were emitting smoke, they must be powered by more mundane
means, but Kali remembered encountering her flying—and
shooting—butterflies. They’d definitely had some intelligence,
enough to relentlessly pursue their prey. Amelia had admitted to
having arcane power that she could imbue into her creations. And as
the creature started toward her, all eight legs working in sync,
Kali knew that this construct was not entirely mundane.
    The legs moved
efficiently and quickly, the creature displaying no doubt about its
route. And that route was heading straight toward Kali. There
weren’t any pincers it could use to grab her, but it did have
protrusions not unlike rifle barrels on the front of its body, and
she feared the security creature was about to target her.
    “Cedar?” she called,
risking breaking the silence—if Amelia was here, she must know they
were too. “If you’re done exploring, I could use a little
help.”
    As the creature continued
toward her tree, Kali looked back toward the dock. She would prefer
to find a way to eliminate the threat, but if she had to, she might
escape into the pond. Whatever fuel burned in the firebox in its
belly, it shouldn’t be able to continue to burn if doused with
water.
    A bang split the air, and
a bullet tore a piece of bark off the side of her tree. Kali
flinched. Time to move. The spider didn’t fire recklessly—it was
shifting its route so that it could get a better angle around the
tree.
    Kali left her hiding
spot, sprinting for a stout aspen closer to the pond. Not certain
how accurate that construct was, she zigzagged her path. It clanked
and hissed behind her, then fired again. Kali turned her run into a
dive, scrambling for cover behind the aspen. Roots dug into her
back as she rolled over them, but she barely noticed. A bullet tore
off another chunk of bark less than a foot from her head.
    Though already eyeing the
next tree on the way to the pond, she had time to notice that those
bullets were slamming into the trees at roughly the same height,
about three feet above the ground—the same level as the guns. Did
that mean it couldn’t adjust them vertically? Only horizontally? In
theory, that meant she could lie on the ground and it couldn’t hit
her.
    The spider clanked
inevitably toward her, not giving her much time to think. Though
she didn’t know how wise it was to test her theory with her life,
Kali dropped to all fours and crawled through the grass toward the
next tree instead of running.
    The construct fired
again. She flattened herself to the ground, and the bullet whizzed
past, well above her head. Kali noted that, but did not stop until
she had found cover behind a thick log sprawled through the grass.
From there, she poked her head around the end, taking a second to
study her foe. She might hide from it in the water, but it would be
safer if she could figure a way to decommission the creature. She
pulled out her wrench. Obviously, she