Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century #5)

Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century #5) Page 57

“Gideon! For God’s sake…” Wellers voice trailed off as his attention returned to his ammunition.

The interlopers wore scarves over their faces like ordinary burglars or bandits. For some reason the mundanity of it all offended Gideon. You’d think people would have the good grace to dress up for an assassination.

One man was nearly to the bushes. The fluffy things were half naked, courtesy of November, but they kept the house from being wholly open to the elements. Gideon flung the blanket aside and took aim, faster than Grant did, because he had less time: The man was right on him, close enough that he could see the fellow’s breath puffing out around his face in a foggy aura.

He fired, and caught the man square in the chest.

Even Mary couldn’t have missed him, he had come so near. Another man behind him swerved to avoid his compatriot’s body and began a sideways retreat, or revisal of strategy—but Wellers was on his feet now, and he fired, too.

Gideon couldn’t see what he hit, but the second man went down, and both the scientist and the doctor dropped back to cover. Now it was Wellers’s turn to shoot while Gideon reloaded everything he had. When he was done, he covered his friend so he could do the same. It was a brutal give-and-take, a frantic cooperation that had to work for them both to stay alive.

“You good?” Gideon asked.

“Good as I’m going to get. You hear that?”

Yes, he heard shots from the front of the house, and from the far end behind him as well. “Lincoln,” he murmured. “Stay here. I’ve got him.”

“You’re not the one being paid to protect him,” Wellers objected, climbing to his feet and hugging the wall to make himself as small a target as possible.

Another loud blast, similar to the one at the front door, shattered the window and blew the curtains halfway across the room. “More buckshot,” Gideon griped, which once again meant that someone was close.

Wellers whipped his gun hand around to squeeze off three fast shots, two of which hit home.

He ducked back as fire was returned, but Gideon leaned out and shot again—mostly wanting to see what had happened. Yes, there was a dead man on the lawn right before the protective hedge. Yes, a shotgun with a snubbed, sawed-short nose was lying in the grass beside him, its hardware shimmering in the moonlight. The new mercenaries were better armed, or differently armed; it all depended on how you looked at it.

In the trees, something moved. Two somethings.

“Gideon, stay here—I have to reach Lincoln.”

“Fine.”

Gideon took out his frustration on the two men nearest, right as they stepped out of the woods. Faces covered. One with a handgun, one with another big fowling gun—a punt gun, Grant had called it, and Gideon had heard them called shotguns by cavalrymen. Whatever they were called, he knew they were a deadly mix of imprecision and power—bad enough at a distance, and terrifying at any nearer range.

Wellers retreated in a crouched position. His shoes slid on the wood floor until they found the rug in the hall, and then he dashed.

Gideon returned his attention to the window and saw … nothing this time.

Nothing and no one, except the dead man on the ground … and, over there, another dead man. He heard footsteps running around the side of the house, someone retreating, or falling back to regroup. Someone making a run for another location, where the pickings were easier.

“Goddammit!”

He leaped to his feet and ran to the hall, shutting the door behind himself and locking it. For all that it wouldn’t stop a shotgun or a determined enough kick, the noise would give them a bit more warning.

From upstairs, the ladies fired madly, wildly—too fast, Gideon thought. They’d burn through their ammunition too quickly at this rate. But there was nothing he could say to them now, nothing he could do to instruct or steady them; so he just listened to the violent bursts from the windows above him, and the sound of Polly’s fast little feet running from room to room, window to window, between exchanges.

Next, he ran for Lincoln’s room.

Past the front door, and past Grant, who was using the door for cover—standing now, rather than sitting behind the window sills—and aiming with a measured, frightening accuracy. Wasting no bullets. Giving as good as he was getting, and he was getting it pretty good.

Gideon jumped as a vase on a table behind him shattered.

He dived back into the hall, leaving the president to his defensive measures, and kept scrambling over to the library, where Lincoln had had just about enough of this. The old man wheeled out into the hall, his chair humming warmly, its wheels grinding against the expensive rugs like they meant business. The revolver in his hand underscored the threat nicely.

Gideon heard a crash from upstairs—or was it downstairs? Or behind him? There were too many explosions, too many things breaking at once for him to sort them all out.

Lincoln shouted, “Gideon!,” and raised his handgun.

In return, Gideon cried, “Mr. Lincoln!,” and raised his own.

They fired simultaneously, Gideon’s shot taking down a man at the end of the hall—a man on the verge of running for the elderly leader. Lincoln’s shot singed Gideon’s ear like a firebrand, and as Gideon toppled to the side, ducking any further fire that might come, he saw a man reeling backwards behind him, stunned and bleeding.

Lincoln fired again, and the man went down.

“Sir!” Gideon ran to Lincoln’s side. “We have to get you out of here.”

“Where will we go? They’re outside, aren’t they? No—we defend this place. If I’m to have a last stand, let it be here!”

“No! No talk of last stands!” Gideon shouted at him, then dropped his voice. “We will live through this. All of us. And we will stop the war, and we will save the world.” He grabbed the mechanical chair and tried to force Lincoln back into the library … but another man appeared in the hall, and Gideon swore like the sailor he’d never been. One of the big crashes must’ve been a breach in the study. Those sons of bitches. There was a hole in the fort, goddammit.

“Get this bastard out of the way!” Lincoln roared. Gideon was startled to hear his voice so strong, as he was so often softer spoken. But now he shouted, gesturing down at the man he’d shot. “Move him! Let me through!”

“Yes, sir.” Gideon shook his head, but he bent down and grabbed the corpse under its arms. He dragged it to the foyer and tossed it in, freeing the hallway for Lincoln to pass, then barreled forward before he realized there was another armed man in front of him. Lincoln guided the chair away from the newcomer as Gideon opened fire. The man jerked aside, seeking cover, but finding none. He fell to the scientist’s next round.

Upstairs Polly screamed, and it was like an ice pick to Gideon’s soul.

“Help her!” Lincoln called without looking back. “Help the women upstairs, for the love of God!”

Upstairs, indeed—for, yes, it’d been his idea to put the women up there, and now Polly was screaming. He found the steps by the lingering firelight and tripped up them—he’d climbed them a thousand times, but the light was so dim and he was so hurried. Someone was still shooting up there, and his money was on Mary. He banged his knee on the top step, but that was fine, he needed to stay low anyway; so he used it as an excuse to fall down to all fours, then proceed in a low, awkward crouch toward Polly. Where was she? West wing, yes. He followed the sound of her voice until he could see her silhouetted in the hall light.

She wasn’t alone. A man held her … from behind? From her side? It was hard to say—she was fighting him like the devil, wrestling this way and that, until both their shapes were one great knot of shadow. Gideon wasn’t sure who was who, so he certainly couldn’t shoot.

He shoved his gun into his coat pocket.

He ran forward and seized the pair of them, wrenching them apart and taking the man by his shirt, then flinging him against a wall where he smashed a great crack in the plaster. The man lunged back, but he launched straight into Gideon’s fist, which caught him square in the stomach. He doubled over, catching the scientist’s knee in his face as he did so. As he staggered backwards, he found no retreat except the wall. As he reached up seeking to steady himself, the man found an oil lamp, turned down to nothing but still full of fuel. He grabbed at it, slipping when the glass shattered, but eventually got hold and pulled himself back to his feet. He must’ve been bleeding from the glass, but Gideon couldn’t see it. He saw nothing except for the fellow trying to step backwards, and a brighter shade behind him—someone wearing lighter clothing. Someone who swung an enormous stick and caught the intruder on the back of the head.

“Polly!”

“Got it from the broom closet,” she panted and pointed. The man had fallen to his knees, on the ground in the oil and glass, so she hit him again. He went down and stayed down, sprawled out between the scientist and the maid.

“Give me your hand,” Gideon commanded. She did, but she held on to the broom as she jumped over the unconscious figure on the floor. “Where’s the attic? There must be a door in the ceiling; where is it?”

“Here,” she said, leading him along the hallway, picking a spot, then changing her mind and going back a little farther. “I’m sorry, sir, it’s over here. It’s so hard to see, I can barely tell at all.”

He held up his hand, feeling around for the rope pull that would bring the door down. It fluttered against his fingers. He missed it, tried again, missed once more. Finally, he caught it and gave it a yank, and a set of rolling stairs rumbled down. He caught them with his shoulder so he could lower them more quietly than was their wont. “Get up there,” he ordered her. “This is getting out of hand. Just go. I’ll get Mary.”

“But, Gideon—”

“Do as I say!”

He left her, not knowing whether she’d obey or not, but knowing that Mary was not shooting anymore; she was shouting instead. He found her in the back bedroom, leaning out the window and shoving hard, then cackling like a witch as someone beyond hollered and fell heavily.