Cover

Dedication

To Alison

Epigraph

Time and time again, the castle ruin Boll,

also called Neu-Tannegg, was the target of treasure hunters,

who believed immense riches lay buried under the rubble.

But all searching was in vain. . . .

—Traditional story from the Black Forest

HARD RAIN

Rain is falling on the Black Forest.

It moves like smoke over the treetops in the last light, beating an endless martial drumroll on branches and leaves, and setting the steep, wooded slopes of the Kandel mountain streaming.

A man runs recklessly down the mountainside in the rain, feet slipping in sucking mud as he stumbles among tree trunks. He gasps for breath, because he is not a young man. Beneath one arm, he clutches a roll of material tightly to his chest. He trips, falls hard, lies without moving. Then:

“Bloody Nora.”

Hauling himself up, he blinks back into the darkness, listens, stiffens, then throws himself on down the slope, even more desperately than before.

He comes eventually to a lonely road cut thinly through the woods. A car sits by the track, looking abandoned. Sparing a second to pat the roof, he flings himself inside, then bends to fumble beneath the driver’s seat, uncovering a panel in the floor, a shallow compartment. He tosses in his tube of material, flattens the carpet back down.

The engine purrs and he has the car moving fast, steering with one hand, working a phone with the other. He hits SPEAKER, tosses his phone to the dashboard, and grabs the wheel with both hands as the road veers into a ragged bend.

Trees jerk in his headlights. The windshield wipers beat in time with the phone ringing out on the other end. He grits his teeth, glances at his rearview mirror. Finally, the ringing ends, replaced by an ancient tape-recording laboring to life:

“Hello! I’m not here right now. Or if I am, I’m too busy to come to the phone. Mind you, I’m probably out. But you never know. Just in case you’re a burglar casing the place: I could be in. You never know!”

The man at the wheel grinds his jaw.

“This is a machine! Can’t say I approve, really, but there it is. Comes in handy, I must admit. So. You know what the fellow says: ‘At the tone, leave your name and message. I’ll get back to you.’ So please do. And I will. Unless you’re trying to sell me something. In which case, you really should wait until I decide I want to buy something and come to you. Would save us all a lot of time. In any case, leave a message, if you like. Unless you think the machine will steal your soul, like a camer—”

A beep cuts the rambling off. The driver shouts: “It’s ’Arry. An’ this’d be another good example of one of them times it would be ’andy if you’d agree to carry a bloody phone. I’m still in the forest, but getting out. Uh, road southeast of the Kandel, ’eadin’ for—”

Harry Morecambe breaks off. Far back in his mirror, headlights appear, swallowed instantly again by night.

“Gawd. They’re comin’ after me. Listen: I followed ’em. I saw some of what they’re up to. Weird business. For a change. Looks like there are two more paintings still to go. But, ’old on to your ’at: I got one of the others back. Pinched it off ’em. I ’ave it with me. Remind me to blow me own trumpet later. Now, I know where the other two are—”

Harry falls silent as he spots some long, low thing behind him, shooting fast along the road on a dim bed of sparks. Then it is gone. He squints ahead. There is nothing but the shuddering patch of ground racing in his headlights.

“Don’t like the look of this. Listen. They said something about Shadow Gate. I was ’iding back in the bushes, so I couldn’t ’ear clearly, but the girl definitely said it, more than once. Does that mean anything? Shadow Gate? And two more things: it’s not—”

There is something in the road ahead: a huge, hunched figure, hands held out like buffers.

Harry accelerates. The car hits, and the world pitches and cracks and falls silent and black.

He comes to without knowing how long he has been unconscious, wrestles open his door, grabs his phone, and stumbles out. The car lies wrecked. One headlight still shines, the beam trembling with rain. Something moves in the darkness beyond, and a figure comes dragging itself into the light. A figure without a head, missing one arm and one leg, a single metal hand clawing the ground. Back along the road, the headlights reappear, coming fast.

Harry runs, plunging into the forest. Soon he is climbing a steep slope. The air quivers and whines and unseen things come flitting through the dark, slashing. He swings his arms wildly, warding them off, but he is hit, falls, crawls on through thorny undergrowth until he can go no farther. He lies listening. No sound but rain. The flying things are gone.

Harry stands, bloody, disoriented, staggers on. After a while, he glimpses lights high ahead through the trees. He remembers the phone in his hand, the call still in progress.

“Is this still on? That was close. Car’s totaled, but I think I’ve lost ’em. I’m in the forest, bit lost, but I can see lights, an’ I . . . Oh.”

He has emerged into a small clearing. The moon breaks the clouds, illuminating the glade like an enchanted stage set. In its ghostly spotlight, the grass shines very green, the dripping tree branches seem very sharp, and a small girl stands smiling very sweetly, her bright moon face framed by long black hair.

“Taah-daaa.” She beams, spreading her arms.

High above her, four small tin machines hover on shivering wings, amber eyes shining. As the moonlight disappears, so does her smile. The little robots’ eyes flash as they descend, slicing fast with arms like scalpels.

Harry staggers back. A crashing erupts in the trees behind him, and suddenly a tall shadow looms there. Harry turns again. But there is nowhere to turn. He lifts his phone. “Listen! It’s not—”

There is a single blunt blow. A crack of bone.

Harry’s phone falls to the forest floor and an enormous black boot stamps down on it. This boot has a curious assemblage of straps and springs around the heel. It grinds the phone to pieces, steps away.

Then there is nothing but rain falling on the Black Forest.

Time passes in rain and changing light, until it is pale morning. Another car comes along the lonely road and stops behind the wreck that had been Harry’s. A tall figure steps out, elegant in the wilderness. An old man. He wears a long gray coat, a bowler hat, and, oddly, a black mask across his eyes. He carries a cane.

He makes a rapid search of Harry’s vehicle before turning away, empty-handed, then snaps his fingers and rushes back to uncover the compartment hidden in the floor. Retrieving the roll of material, he flattens it out over the roof: an oil painting on canvas, depicting a bleak mountain road under a brooding autumn sky. He studies it, then stows it in his coat.

The old man scrutinizes the footprints leading into the forest, begins to follow. At the tree line, he stops as his cane touches something in the long grass. A large metal head rolls out. Wires tangle from its neck, dripping brown liquid. The old man kicks it away, then lights a cigarette. He holds his stick ready and walks on, fading among the misty trees.

The rain falls as if it might never stop. Or perhaps, as if it never began. As if it has simply always rained like this, and always will.

I.

THE SOUVENIR

“You never hang out anymore, man.”

David Anderson cracked his bubblegum in disapproval at Alex as they walked home from school through drizzling British rain. “Come on. Just come over. There’s a whole team of us playing online now—it’s total slaughter. I need you to get my back.”

“I dunno,” Alex muttered. “I’ve got this stuff I have to—”

“What stuff? You don’t have any more homework than me. Anyway, it’s Saturday tomorrow. You can’t work Saturday. You’re turning into a proper hermit.”

“Yeah. I dunno.” Alex stole a look behind.

“Just come,” David pressed. “It’s Mum’s gran’s birthday, she’s like . . . ninety-one or something. Mum’s doing her Old Country menu in honor: pumpkin soup, rice and beans, pen patat, the whole Haitian Kitchen Blowout. She’s made tons. You’ll be doing me a favor. I’ll have to eat it for a fortnight. You loved it last time.”

“Maybe. Can I text to let you know?”

David popped another disappointed green bubble and shrugged, unconvinced. “Sure.”

They walked on, Alex trying to resist the urge to look back again. David turned to him, opened his mouth to speak, then frowned off over his shoulder. “Uh-oh.”

Alex spun in alarm and groaned. Far back along the street, Kenzie Mitchell was waving, tripping over his oversized feet in a hurry to catch them.

“Alex!” Kenzie called distantly.

“Guy really seems mighty keen to talk to you these days,” David mused. “What’s all that about?”

“Don’t know.” Alex squinted ahead to his bus stop. A bus was approaching through slow traffic. If he sprinted, he might just catch it. “I’m going to try to get this one.”

“Just come over, Alex,” David called as he set off. “It’ll be a laugh.”

It felt good to run, and not only to put distance between himself and Kenzie’s lumbering figure. But with every step, Alex felt the object in his coat pocket hitting against him, reminding him it was there. As if he could forget. When he jumped onto the half-empty bus and collapsed panting onto the back seat, he pulled it out.

An old toy robot made of tin.

He twisted around to look back. He spotted David, trotting across the road, going to meet his dad. Kenzie alone at the street corner, just standing there, watching Alex’s bus roll away. Nothing out of the ordinary. Alex studied the rainy scene a second longer, then turned back to the robot.

He carried it everywhere now. The secret prize he was supposed to have destroyed far away, but which a compulsion he couldn’t name had made him keep, sneaking it home like smuggled goods. The scratched little face leered up with its jagged metal grin. Alex stared down into the hollow eyes, closed his own, and concentrated.

The bus vibrated suddenly, violently, rattling his skeleton in his skin. Alex’s eyes snapped open. For a second, he sat caught between terror and tingling elation. Then he realized. It had only been a shudder as a wheel hit a pothole. He let the hand holding the toy drop.

In the seat in front, a woman lifted a newspaper, shifting it backward and forward as if trying to focus. Alex read headlines over her shoulder without taking them in: a new discovery about black holes, an old painting stolen from a Cambridge museum, a cat who had become a billionaire and was being sued by its owner. He sighed and gazed out the window.

He wondered what Kenzie wanted. But not enough to stay and find out. In the past, there had been plenty of times he had run from Kenzie to avoid getting a fist in the face. But his former bully left him alone now. In fact, Kenzie had grown oddly quiet in general.

The turning point had come not long after Alex had returned from his trip with his grandfather: the unexpected journey that had become a desperate adventure as he somehow found himself caught in a mad race across Europe, trying to prevent dark forces from resurrecting a medieval monster, a magical creature of clay known as the Golem of Prague. Four months had passed since that demented episode. Four months without a word from the old man who had started it all.

Alex had been dumped back into his humdrum routine so abruptly the normality had hit him like a shock. But a storm of questions had been set raging in him, and his mind was still stuck back in those impossible days, playing it all over. Part vivid dream, part frantic nightmare, it almost felt like it had never happened at all.

Except he still had the robot as proof that it had. His weird souvenir of another, wilder, unseen world. His link back to it. If he could only work out how to make the connection again.

Alex stared at the little toy, picturing the great secret locked within, a hidden cargo he had glimpsed only briefly but which had burned itself onto his mind.

Concealed inside the robot lurked what looked like a lump of dusty old clay. In fact, he sat cradling a powerful fragment of a myth from centuries before. The few who knew the story referred to this ancient clay tablet as the name of God—a mystical artifact imbued with a devastating, unearthly force that had once given the golem life.

Just a crazy old fable. But Alex had seen it all spring to life around him and had encountered people prepared to go to desperate lengths to capture the tablet, wielding uncanny powers of their own.

Memories came crackling, more vivid, more real than the rumbling bus or the homework in his bag. Alex saw himself pursued by shadowy opponents using weird magic to animate a bizarre army of lethal robots, huge tin men, vicious little flying machines. He remembered the moment he had communicated with the golem itself. He could almost—almost—still feel the power locked inside the tablet, the memory of it moving though him, moving at his command. He had stood on the shoulders of an angel and ordered a river to stop running and rise and . . .

And now he couldn’t do a thing.

For months now, when he tried to contact the tablet, he felt nothing at all. He turned it over for the umpteenth time, trying to trace what had changed and when.

Only twice since returning from Prague had he felt the power. First, the encounter in the park around Christmas, just after he got home. Kenzie had been getting roughed up by older boys. Alex had stepped in and he . . . he had made it stop. He had sent the boys away.

The second time had involved Kenzie, too. Although a word was never spoken about it, Kenzie had been left badly rattled by witnessing Alex’s intervention in the park. When school started again, instead of making his life a misery, like he had for years, Kenzie left Alex alone. But eventually, his little gang began to notice and started goading Kenzie about it.

It came to a head one gray afternoon, when Alex found himself surrounded by an eager circle of boys led by a Kenzie determined to prove a point.

Alex’s heart started hammering as they closed in, urging Kenzie on.

“Give him a slap, K.”

“Get ’im, Kenz. Slap ’im.”

“Little freak,” Kenzie said. He swallowed warily, looked around the faces, licked his lips. “Little freak,” he repeated, louder, working himself up. He raised his hand. Then he fell to his knees.

Alex stood motionless while the rest glanced uncomprehendingly at one another. Kenzie curled on the ground, helpless. One of the other boys moved uncertainly toward Alex, then grabbed at his own throat, choking. He crumpled, fell, eyes bulging.

Alex stood, feeling far away, feeling the power emanating from him, the old tin toy burning blue-white-gold in his pocket. The circle took a step back. He flicked his mind at them. More boys falling.

“Go away,” Alex said.

He stopped it then, felt his mind falling to earth from somewhere else, descending through thick, slow time, and watched them hurry away. All except Kenzie, still moaning on the ground. For some reason the effect was strongest with him. Kenzie hadn’t been quite the same since. None of the boys ever mentioned it again. But they left Alex alone.

Until now. Kenzie had been trying to talk to him these past few days, but Alex had worked hard to avoid him. He still felt bad about having used the power on him, even in defense. But ever since that confrontation, Alex hadn’t felt a flicker from inside the tin toy, despite long nights of trying.

His stop drew near. Alex stowed the robot away. As he stepped off the bus, he stood gazing back the way he had come. Just weary traffic trickling homeward through lengthening shadows, just his town’s familiar streets slanting away in the rain. He searched around, not knowing what he expected to find.

For the past week or so, he had been plagued by a dim feeling of being followed, the faint, nagging sense of eyes on him. He had started to suspect that what he sensed was only his own guilty feelings about having kept the robot when he was supposed to have got rid of it forever.

Beyond the rooftops, a white sun was sinking through smoky blue clouds. Alex shivered, zipped his coat at his throat, and hurried for home. Spring was here, but it felt like winter didn’t want to let go.

II.

HOMEWORK

After dinner, Alex went to his bedroom, closed the door, then stood considering the overdue homework stacked on his desk. His eyes drifted to the collection of old toy robots on the shelves above, gathered like a bright, waiting little army. Slightly dusty now.

He sat at the desk, and pulled a sheet from the pile.

Quadratic Sequences

1. Determine the nth term of the sequence 3, 8, 15 . . .

He looked at the numbers without seeing them. He heard his mum laughing at something Carl said downstairs. Rain rapped at his window as wind hit the house with sudden violence.

He flipped open his laptop and looked at the real homework that had been consuming his time, private projects of his own. The folder filled with his research on the golem legend was open. He hadn’t found anything beyond what he already knew. Nothing he could understand, anyway. Beside it, in another folder marked SALT, he’d started to compile every strange old superstition he could find about the stuff, folktales about its power to protect and ward against evil. He’d given up. There had been too many.

He keyed in the same news search he checked every night:

Vltava River Prague Bodies

Nothing.

He returned to his math, then instantly abandoned it. He crossed the room and knelt to reach under his bed, pulling out first the old toy robot, then a piece of plywood that had once been part of a kitchen drawer but now served as a makeshift drawing board. A large sheet of paper taped over it bore sketches for a book cover he was supposed to be designing for art. He removed that, uncovering beneath another project of his own.

At the top of the board, he had pinned a creased photograph of his mother and father, taken years before he was born: a young couple at some dim, happy party, his dad half-turned, blurring into red-black shadows. A vague, tall man, with black hair pushed back from a high forehead. It was the only picture Alex had ever seen of him. He couldn’t see him at all.

His father had died months before his birth. That’s what he had always been told, anyway. He felt certain his mother believed it. He had believed it like a law of nature himself until recently.

The rest of the board was covered in a mess of smudgy charcoal drawings, dozens, all variations on the same subject: a tall man in a long black coat and black hat. Sketches from memory of the figure who had hunted Alex and his grandfather across Europe with his strange gang and their weird machines, trying to steal back the toy robot and its clay tablet.

The tall man, Alex called him—although he had eventually given him another, secret, name, one he could still barely bring himself to utter. In some of Alex’s drawings, the somber figure was depicted in full, turned away. In others, he loomed in brutal close-up: rough portraits of a head completely swathed in ragged bandages beneath the hat, save for one terrible eye.

This mummified visage was the only way Alex had ever seen him clearly, up close, after the man had used the tablet to summon forces he couldn’t control. Alex flinched as he recalled white light falling from the Prague sky, turning poison-black as it struck down. It had burned the man terribly. But it was Alex who had killed him.

His breath caught as he replayed it again, the most intensely vivid memory of all: this tall, wounded figure leaping from a bridge into a raging river, trying to save his daughter, the unsettlingly strange little girl who had jumped first, diving in when she thought Alex had thrown the tablet into the water. The two of them dragged down under the lethal, boiling current.

Their phantom faces were always in his thoughts, the girl’s—Zia, the tall man had called her—sharp and clear, the man’s always just out of reach. Alex’s attempts to capture his likeness, the features beneath the bandages, had become a nightly ritual. But when he closed his eyes and tried to picture the face he had once glimpsed, it receded into the shadows.

Yet Alex felt it was as close as his own skin. Of all the secrets uncovered during his adventure, this was the one that overwhelmed him most. From vague hints dropped in conversations, from his distant impressions of the tall man, from the resemblance he had eventually noticed hidden in his grandfather’s face—from clues in his own mirror every morning—he was certain.

The tall man was his father.

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