Coyle and Fang: Curse of Shadows (Coyle and Fang Adventure Series Book 1) Robert III (first color ebook reader txt) 📖

I wonder who changed you. It had to be someone you were close to you, someone you trusted. Someone of great value. Betrayal does that to a person: it drives them beyond their own limits and fears to become something new.”

She needed to keep him talking. “You said that was your long answer. What’s the short answer?”

He tilted his head. “The shorter answer is that I am mankind’s reckoning. I was changed into this for the better. If Treece represents a bulwark for humanity, then I happily represent its impetus for change. I am going to change people, turn them into my soldiers, for my purpose, under my control. And I can’t continue without the Reciter. Now, are you going to give it to me, or do I have to change you too?”

Ice slid down her spine. Her hand reached back to the stairwell and she ran. Up one flight, then two flights, then down the hall. Every room was empty. No furniture to hide behind. No dressers to push against the door.

No place to hide.

“There is no escape, Coyle.” His amplified voice echoed off the hardwood walls and floors and ceilings. “Just as surely as mankind has no escape from me.”

She searched room after room. She paused for a beat and heard the other gunman plodding up the stairs.

“Give me the device, and I give you my word to let you live. I need the Reciter, and you need to learn to survive.”

Every room she tried was a dead end. Finally, she shoved herself into a closet and shut the door as heavy boots clomped down the hallway. She heard a mechanical clicking noise and turned, frowning as two blinking eyes stared back at her.

“Are you an automaton?” she whispered.

“This is my hiding place,” it answered, shoving her out the door and closing it just as the thug grabbed her.

She was dragged back downstairs where more gunmen waited. Fighting was useless. Two of them rifled through her pockets until they found the prize. She met Moreci’s hard gaze.

“I am the victor here,” he said.

“I don’t have to like it,” she retorted. “And that doesn’t belong to you.”

“And it belongs to you?”

“It needs to be returned to the fae. Give it back!” She reached for it, but strong hands yanked her back, and cold steel muzzles pressed against her body. She froze.

Moreci opened his hand and let the rings spread out in a configuration. He waved his hand, and the rings rearranged in the air before they slipped back into their original position.

“Miss Coyle,” he said, “I extend my generosity to you. Though you didn’t hand the device freely, I will let you live another day. Let me know when Treece wants you exterminated, and perhaps I can help.”

“I prefer not to work with monsters.”

He chuckled, the sound of it like gasping, and then he leaned over in a fit of coughing. One of his men adjusted knobs on his apparatus, and Moreci took a deep breath and stood.

“Monsters. You don’t really know Treece, do you?” he said. He waved his hand. The rifle pointed at her head lowered. “I’m very curious, Miss Coyle. If you don’t mind, I’m going to learn everything I can about you. Until then.”

They left, their boots thudding against the wooden floors.

She collapsed against the wall, breathing out a long sigh. A tight knot grew in her chest, and she clenched her fists. She wasn’t going to cry over this. Not now. She’d lost something very important. She’d given it away, practically.

It’s gone.

The opportunity to prove her worth had been snatched out of hand—again. And now she was her old self, an incompetent buffoon. Her head thumped against the wall before she remembered the automaton.

He’s going to answer for this.

She went back upstairs and yanked open the closet.

“You,” she growled.

“But there wasn’t room for the two of us!”

Chapter 9

The Treece mansion

Sausalito

“It’s a wonder you are still alive at all, Coyle,” Treece said. “This Moreci character sounds incredibly dangerous, and he’s working with a former soldier of mine, Fang.”

“Fang killed one of my projectionists and used a molecular transference device to suck you out of the warehouse and into the real Baldwin mansion,” Sullywether said. “Those devices can be tricky, seeing as how they weren’t invented by gnomes.”

Coyle nodded and puffed from her pipe. The group was in a large workshop, standing around the automaton Coyle had found. Most automatons were plain brass and steel, but this one was polished to a high shine with intricate silver and gold filigree. Bright green gems mimicked eyes, and a small rectangular speaker-box formed its mouth. Various switches and buttons and pipes with pressure gauges covered its chest and back.

“It’s a Model GEM-9,” Sullywether said. “I thought you recalled all those?” he said to Treece.

“We did,” Treece answered. “Though we were told a handful had been lost.”

“Looks like someone was fibbing,” Quolo added.

Sullywether pulled himself into stilted metal legs and tightened the leather straps so he stood at a similar height to the rest of the group. He slipped into metal exoskeleton arms and flexed the metal fingers.

“What does GEM stand for?” Vonteg asked.

“Gnomish Engineered Mech,” Sullywether said.

“Why were the GEM-9s recalled?” Poes asked.

“They were a ninth-generation prototype of artificial creation and intelligence,” Sullywether explained. “Marketed to the rich. They did fine for the first few months, but then they got mouthy, brewing up their own ideas of their place in the world. Some started naming themselves. We found a couple out in Colorado that called themselves bounty hunters.”

“Mr. Baldwin kept my name as GEM,” the automaton said. “And we had an arrangement: I would keep most ideas to myself, and he wouldn’t turn me in. I kept watch over his family as a faithful servant for 1,095 days, and I would never hurt a fly.”

“You pushed Coyle out of the closet,” Poes shot back. “What was that all about?”

“I told her: there was only room enough for one of us. I saw what happened downstairs. Someone with daggers