Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [103]
“Yasmeen,” he whispered, and slipped to his knees.
He felt her fingers against his shoulder, heard her sharp breath.
Shoulders of iron and the gear guts had rusted. A copper pendulum at the heart had tarnished and warped. The fingers were nothing but steel tubes, the arms a system of pulleys whose ropes had long disintegrated. It had no legs and no head. Just a torso with arms, partially finished and abandoned—it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen.
And they had to leave it here.
“Ah, God,” he said. “Ah, God.”
She crouched beside him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders. “We’ll come back for it.”
He slipped out of her arms and lay on the floor. “I’ll stay and guard it.”
Yasmeen snorted softly, her half laugh quickly muffled. “You don’t even—”
The crack of a gunshot sounded outside. Archimedes sat up, pulse racing. He stared into Yasmeen’s eyes, saw the same shock and surprise.
“Was that from the airship?” she whispered.
The airship that was hovering over the harbor, not far from the tower—and the curtain wall lay in a direct line between Ceres and the zombies that would be rushing to investigate the sound.
Over the pounding of his heart came the pounding of feet, the moans and growls. Jesus. He raced for the door. Thank God, thank God, it opened inward—though chunks were missing in the rotted wood, big enough to shove hands through. With enough pressure, those holes would likely become bigger.
It couldn’t be helped. He braced the door with his weight, set his feet. “Is there another way out?”
But Yasmeen was already racing through the room, feeling along the walls, looking for one. She turned back to him, eyes wide. “No.”
“Take my grap—”
The first zombie hit. The thud reverberated through his back, but he held fast. Yasmeen shoved her palms against the door beside his shoulders, adding her weight.
“My grapnel,” he said, and two more rammed into the door. Or the same one, with a friend. His boots skidded, just a tiny bit—and he could hear more coming over the ravenous growls. “The ventilation shafts. We’ll climb out.”
Maybe. The openings weren’t big.
“All right. Go,” she said. “Shoot it.”
No, no. She hadn’t—
“Archimedes.” She met his eyes. “You’ve practiced shooting that launcher; I haven’t. I’ll hold the door. You’ll need to go up first, anyway, because the second person is going to have to sprint and climb—and I’m faster.”
“I’m stronger.” And the zombies weren’t hitting the door now, but piling against it—pushing, pushing.
“Yes. So you’ll need to be fast,” she said.
Goddamn it. But he nodded. “On three, we switch.”
At her nod, he counted. She slipped smoothly into his place, feet braced, jaw clenched with effort. An emaciated arm snaked through a hole, grasping hand waving near her leg.
“Hurry,” she said.
He raced to the nearest ventilation shaft, took a second to breathe, to steady his arm. The grapnel launched, hitting the ceiling of the shaft but bouncing through. Behind him, Yasmeen laughed with relief.
“Go up!”
He dropped his shoulder harness—no chance he’d make it through with it. He climbed, digging his toes into the wall to go more quickly. He pushed his head into the shaft, felt the sun, the breeze.
His shoulders didn’t fit.
He tried again, another angle this time, diagonally in the square shaft. His hands were sweating on the rope, his arms aching. Every second was another that Yasmeen was holding the door. No matter how he squeezed, his shoulders didn’t fit through.
Chest heavy, he dropped back to the floor.
“No,” she