The pendulum strained against Davey's hand, but he held it tight, the cold metal sucking the heat from his fingers as if it could draw strength from his lifeforce itself. There was a loud click. Several things happened at once, accompanied by the tortured scraping of mechanisms long abandoned. While he watched the clock face, the cogs inside shuddered to a standstill with a loud clunking when another mechanism caught and whirred into life. Behind the main workings Davey could just make out a tiny wheel starting to spin. With a final loud clank, the pendulum dropped out of the case into his hands.
Still works then, he thought, almost surprised.
The clock slid sideways, screeching along neglected grooves in the tiles, revealing a metal door with no handle. Davey ran his eyes over the featureless flatness of the metal. It had been so long, he was no longer sure how it worked. Raising a shaking hand, he explored the uppermost edge with the small end of the pendulum, until he found a groove to slot the rod into. He pushed his palm against the icy surface just under the groove, feeling the hungry metal absorbing even more of his body heat. A moment later there was an imperceptible click and the door swung open with a sigh of stagnant air, nearly toppling the old man into darkness. A decorative wrought-iron staircase spiralled into the void.
Davey stepped forwards and probed the wall just inside the doorway until he felt a switch move. The lights fizzled, flashing for a moment on a sea of cobwebs like the morning mist on a calm ocean, then the cellar once again returned to blackness.
The old man swore and grumbled his way back through the kitchen, returning with an armful of candles. Leaving a trail of flickering light down the spiral staircase, he hacked through the cobwebs, uncovering an old workbench and rows of carefully labelled packing boxes resting peacefully under a thick layer of dust.
'Here we go again,' he said to himself with a sigh and began to rifle frantically through the boxes, throwing contraptions and papers everywhere. Coughing as the dust of untouched decades choked the air, Davey found what he was looking for: an ancient-looking wooden casket.
'Damn you both,' he muttered, cleaning the lid with his sleeve.'Damn you both to hell.'
There were no cartoon faces this time, just two names roughly carved into the wood. Not his best work, but he had been angry at the time. And afraid.
There was nothing else of interest down here. Just dead files, flammable records of a history best left forgotten. Davey started to make his way back to the stairs, clutching the casket to his chest. A hint of movement above made him pause. A creak and a sudden breeze. Subtle changes in the shadows. Ancient locks scraped back into place and the candles flickered, then died in the sucking wind.
The cellar was plunged into darkness.
'Seven years. Seems like a lifetime, doesn't it, Professor?'
Davey nearly jumped out of his skin. At the top of the stairs the sudden blackness had somehow become darker. He squinted and tried to bring the intruder into focus. That voice. Cracked, broken. Never the same since the accident.
'You!' he managed at last. 'How did you - ?'
'Later, old man, later,' said the intruder. 'It's taken me seven long years to find you, Professor, but in the end I knew you would not stray far from the boy.'
'What have you done with him?' demanded Davey. 'Where's Billy?'
'I'm quite sure I have no idea what you mean.'
'I swear, if anything happens to the lad, I'll - '
'You'll what? Do you really think you can still beat me? I have twenty years on you.' The image of the yobs trying to run flashed across Davey's mind. The lad he'd put in hospital. He smiled to himself in the darkness. Best keep quiet for now.
The figure began to move slowly, almost imperceptibly down the stairs. It grew from an indistinct blob into the vague shape of a tall man wearing a long black coat. A glint of metal. Davey waited for his eyes to finish adjusting to the dark and held his ground. At last the man was close enough to see and his blood ran cold. What was visible of the grey face was contorted and scarred. Some sort of metallic contraption was strapped over one eye, like a big camera lens supported by little hydraulic pistons. It twisted and twitched with tiny hisses as it focused on the old man. The other eye sparkled under the faint outline of an eyebrow as if laughing at some inner joke. Davey bunched his fists.
'What do you want from me?' he asked.
'You're holding it,' the man said, pointing at the casket in Davey's hands. Davey saw that beyond the black glove, his wrist was also covered in twisted, melted skin. There was something else under the sleeve, something with buttons. He had begun experimenting on himself after the accident, they said. When there had been no news, Davey had assumed something had gone wrong, that the man had damaged his own brain beyond repair and was dribbling in a corner somewhere. He had finally been free. Yet here he was, not damaged - changed yes, but not damaged. He shuddered at the metallic glint as the man lifted his gaze from the casket to look at Davey, that clear blue staring eye.
'This?' Davey looked down at the box as if seeing it for the first time. The secrets of history. Seekers. The world turning in infinite circles. The neverending terror. 'It's nothing.' He said, backing away. 'Just a bunch of old letters, you wouldn't want -'
'I know what it is,' the man snapped. 'Why else would you be down here, in this -' He made a sweeping gesture, indicating the dusty basement, '- this crypt? Yes, the clock is remarkable - your finest work I dare say - but did you really think I would not find you? Did you think that we would not seek you out and make you give us the boy? I was too blinded by my own work, but I knew you would lead me to them in the end.' He beckoned Davey forwards with a gloved hand. 'Come on now, don't be foolish.'
'I - I don't think so. Tell me what you've done with Billy, then we'll talk.'
'Don't be foolish, old man.'
By now the figure loomed above him, edging closer and closer in the shadows. The old man drew himself up, bracing his heel against the wall.
'What are you going to do?' Davey said, crouching slightly, lowering his center of gravity.
'I'm going to set things right, at last!' the man shouted and launched himself off the stairs.