Hubert opened the cage and extended a hand. Smudge crawled up his arm and onto his shoulder. Just like that, I was alone. I raised my chin, trying not to show how much it hurt to see him standing there with Lena and Smudge. I swallowed, then reached into my pocket. Lena readied Excalibur, but I wasn’t trying to use magic. Not this time.

“It’s over, Jakob.” I gripped the tracking module I had used to find this place.

“Oh, Isaac.” He was speaking German again. “Your magic isn’t strong enough to overpower my automatons.”

“Really?” I smiled and jabbed the detonation button. To my right, an automaton’s head exploded into splinters. I tried not to let my relief show. “I’ll destroy them all if I have to,” I bluffed.

“Not bad,” Hubert said, in English. The mechanical man who had once been Johann Fust toppled forward.

“You’ve lost. Let us help you.”

The other automatons advanced. “You will help me, Isaac. You will show me how you repaired the broken automaton I left at my cabin. You and Lena will help me to prepare more.”

“You’re dying,” I said bluntly. “Even if I helped you, you won’t live long enough to raise your mechanical army.”

He straightened, his voice taking on a stern British accent. “My end was inevitable from the moment I set foot upon this path. Yours could have been avoided.”

The intonation was familiar. We had come full circle, and I was speaking once again with Professor Moriarty.

“If you will not assist me in this endeavor, then you are of no further use.” He raised the silver cross. “Lena, my dear, it’s time for you to kill Isaac Vainio.”

Lena strode toward me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, which I took to be a good sign. He might have control of her actions, but she wasn’t happy about it.

Hubert, on the other hand, was practically drooling. He had brought his fists to his chin, and his eyes were wide. He appeared to be talking to himself.

“Even now the dead spread terror through the streets,” he mumbled. “We will burn them from their homes, and the world will unite to eradicate them all.”

I ran, dodging between the automatons and making my way toward the open garage door. I heard the heavy clomp of feet behind me. Wooden fingers clamped around my arm. It was the same arm I had dislocated at the cabin, and the shoulder throbbed with pain. The automaton spun me around to face Lena, who had raised both Excalibur and her bokken, preparing to strike.

I grabbed the automaton’s wrist. “I lied. I did have a backup plan. I didn’t tell you about it, because it’s somewhere between insane and suicidal. Sorry.”