Wager's Price

by G. P. Ching

  His fingers grazed the wall. Waxy, like a beehive. He took a closer look and poked at it experimentally. His finger gouged a section. Weird. Aside from the strange material, there was plenty more odd about the room. The arched walls were pockmarked with wide hexagonal tubes, some dark and empty, others sealed with the waxy substance and glowing a pale blue. What was this place? He placed one hand inside an empty tube. Instead of wax, his fingertips grazed a smooth metallic surface.

  Finn crept to the end of the passageway and peered around the corner. The clown he was pursuing stood in a room of silver and glass—a laboratory bathed in blue light. The source of the light was what looked like an iceberg contained in a gigantic glass enclosure at the back of the room. It was shaped like a chiseled blue mountain, floating in clear liquid inside an orb of glass. Perhaps some type of refrigeration unit, Finn thought.

  The clown opened the cap on a glass beaker and dropped Hope’s hair through the narrow neck. With one gloved hand, it retrieved a vial of bright red liquid from the rack above its head. He poured the solution over the hair where it sizzled before releasing a puff of red steam. The white glove gripped another vial, this one filled with a clear solution the consistency of honey. Two drops and the steam abated. That white-gloved hand stirred the concoction with a crystal rod. The solution transformed to a bright blue that rivaled the iceberg’s color, with a gooey white substance suspended inside. Crossing the lab, the clown disappeared from Finn’s field of vision.

  Finn leaned forward to get a better view but pulled back quickly when another clown entered the laboratory from a hallway originating behind the iceberg. Finn pressed himself against the wall and held his breath. The clowns stood toe-to-toe and face-to-face. No words were exchanged, but after a brief interlude, the one with the vial poured the contents into one of the hexagonal vats. Although Finn could barely see around the equipment, when the clown raised the vial it was empty. Without a word, the two painted-faces disappeared down the hall behind the iceberg.

  Heart pounding, Finn advanced into the laboratory, ducking behind stainless steel tables and listening for footsteps. When he was fairly certain he was alone, he stood and boldly faced the strange truth in front of him.

  The wall reminded him of a honeycomb, only instead of honey, the cells were filled with liquid. He assumed, given the network of pipes above his head, the source of the fluid was the iceberg. He could feel a buzz coming off the blue chunk to his right, as if he was standing too close to a power line. He looked both ways before crossing to it and placing both hands against the glass. He squinted into the icy glow.

  The iceberg wasn’t blue; the glass was. He could see it under his fingertips when he tilted his head and looked along the curved length of the container. The ice was trapped in a giant blue fishbowl, at least three inches thick. Aside from the vibrations, which were odd enough, the glass wasn’t cold like he’d expected it to be if the mass within was ice, but searing hot. He retracted his burning fingers and shook his hands.

  What the hell? He whirled back to the bank of hexagonal tubes behind him. What is going on here? A thin layer of wax sealed the liquid inside each hexagon. One hexagon had a new seal, roughly pressed around the edges. In other areas, the wax shone perfectly smooth, almost reflective, as if the heat had rendered the seal thinner and flatter over time. A two-inch gap at the top of each seal emitted waves of white steam from the cell within.

  Silently, he approached the freshly waxed tube and looked inside. This is where the clown had dumped the vial. The white substance that once was Hope’s hair bobbed in the churning water within. Pulling back, he peeked into an older cell. Something pale bobbed under the surface, the size of an oblong bowling ball. After unsuccessfully trying to decipher what it was, he stepped down to another cell and lowered one eye to the gap in the wax seal. Another waxy white thing jounced wildly inside, this one four feet long and as wobbly as a section of rubber. Finn backed up and wiped the steam from his upper cheek. He had to crouch to see inside the last one, the oldest one based on the appearance of the seal. The steam coming out the hole was hotter than the others. He kept his distance, repositioning his head to see inside.

  The rubbery thing in this tube was big, taking up almost the entire cell. Finn maneuvered to see better, steam singeing his eyelashes. He squinted against the white glare filtering up through the water. Pale white broke the surface of the blue bubbling liquid. Finn gasped. A face! A naked body! He slapped both hands over his mouth to keep from screaming. The body’s skin was deathly white and hairless. A shaved corpse.

  He stumbled backward, his stomach heaving, and promptly collided with one of the stainless steel tables. The glass rattled. Hurried footsteps squeaked from the far corridor behind the iceberg, the direction the clowns had gone. Finn sprinted to the secret panel he’d come through. No time to open it. He dove into the shadowed belly of an unused honeycomb cell near the exit, flattening himself against the steel floor.

  The footsteps drew nearer until he could see the two clowns silently sniffing the air and scanning the hallway with their beady, black-rimmed eyes. Seconds passed. He held his breath. After a few heart-pounding minutes, the two left the way they’d come.

  Finn wrapped his fingers around the waxy edge of the cell and slid himself out slowly, scanning the passageway for any signs of the clowns. “Unbind,” he whispered. The door rumbled open. He rushed through and closed it behind him. Terrified, he sprinted up the stairs, down the hallway, and back into his room.

  “Bind,” he whispered, voice cracking midword. The door locked behind him. He swallowed. Sweat ran down the side of his face. What had he just seen? What were they doing down there? Storing bodies?

  “What’s the matter with you?” Hope said. She rubbed her eyes, sitting up in bed.

  Finn tried to respond, but his mouth wouldn’t work properly. All he could manage was to pant into the dim room.

  “Geez, Finn, what happened?” She bounced from her bed and steadied his shoulders. She must’ve been doing the reiki thing again because warmth flowed through him, calming his racing heart and troubled mind. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I saw… I saw…” He grabbed one of her wrists. “There are dead bodies under the school.”

  23

  Expose

  Hope bit her lip and stared at her roommate, deeply concerned. “Bodies?” She tested the knob. “The door’s locked, Finn.”

  “There’s a whole secret passageway down there. The clowns are running some sick laboratory. They stole your hair. There are tubes filled with bodies.”

  “Stole my hair?” She placed a hand on her head.

  “One hair,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Finn, when I woke, you were standing here in front of a locked door.” She placed her hand on the knob again. “How did you get out?”

  Agitated, Finn scratched the inside of his forearm. His eyes darted to his pocket. The shift was quick enough that she might not have caught it if she wasn’t a Soulkeeper. He was hiding something.

  Hope squinted at Finn. Waves of anxiety rolled off him and sweat dripped from his temple. He was really shaken up, and if there were bodies under the school, she needed him to tell her everything. This might be the break she was waiting for. “Okay, let’s say a clown did steal my hair,” she said softly. “The door was locked when we went to bed and is locked now. How did the clown get in and you get out?”

  Finn’s eyes shifted. “The clown came in… and I followed him out. I don’t know. It must have had a key.”

  Hope frowned. “What aren’t you telling me, Finn?”

  “We need to get help.”

  “You should show me what you saw. Do you think you can remember where you were?”

  “I’ll never forget it. But it’s not safe. You don’t want to see the things I saw.”

  All the more reason that I should see it, Hope thought. “Maybe what you think you saw wasn’t what it seemed.”

  “I know what I saw.”


  “Tell me.”

  Finn described it all from the sliding wall to the hexagonal vats.

  Hope thought for a second. “Under the school?”

  Finn nodded. “They took your hair and Wendy’s blood.”

  “They took Wendy’s blood?”

  “The first day. One of the clowns collected it from the ground after she fell.”

  “I’d still like you to show me,” Hope said again. “Secret chambers, honeycomb walls, hot ice under glass. It sounds like a mystery. We promised to help each other, remember?”

  Finn closed his eyes. “I’ll show you. I need to know for sure.”

  “You’d better get some sleep. It’s almost dawn,” she said, backing toward her bed.

  She noticed him slip something into his upper drawer before climbing under his covers. He was hiding something all right, and she needed to find out what. As much as she’d meant to comfort Finn, someone or something stealing her hair and another student’s blood was a serious situation that smacked of the unholy. And if the clowns were responsible for the lost souls, all the students were in grave danger.

  When light finally flooded through the window, Finn rose and dressed. Hope was quiet, introspective. She probably thought he was a head case. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if there was a reasonable explanation. Perhaps the clowns made rubber dummies for the show down there. It would make total sense that he’d wandered into some sort of circus factory. But why the hair? The blood? And why the secrecy? Did they need a hidden chamber to make rubber dummies?

  “Do you think I should ask one of the instructors about what I saw?” Finn asked as he followed Hope toward breakfast.

  “And admit you were out of your room after hours? No, I think that would be a very bad idea.”

  “But you’ll go with me, later, so I can show you?”

  “Of course. We’ll meet after class. We have to be careful though. No one can know what we’re doing.”

  “Damn, Finn. Walk much?” Mike grabbed him by the shoulders. Finn had been so caught up in his own head, he’d walked straight into the big guy. “What happened? You look like hell.”

  “Shhh.” Hope placed a finger over her lips. “Not so loud.”

  Jayden popped his head between them, pressing his cheek against Hope’s. “What are we whispering about? Are you dishing about Ravenguard and Applegate, because I totally feel the chemistry between those two. Let’s face it, they are definitely an eHarmony match. He likes torturing people; she likes torturing people.”

  “Jayden,” Finn said.

  “What?”

  “Shut up for a sec. We’re trying to make a plan.”

  “Shhh.” Hope grabbed his elbow, her eyes shifting to Paul and Amanda at the table. “Get food. Act natural.”

  They loaded their plates in silence. Only later, huddled at the end of the table over full plates, did he tell Mike and Jayden what he’d seen.

  “Are you sure? It sounds like a nightmare. Maybe you were walking in your sleep or something,” Mike whispered.

  Jayden agreed. “Yeah. Think about it, Finn. I’m sure the clowns don’t stay in makeup all day. We’ve all been under a lot of stress.”

  Hope interrupted. “There’s only one thing to do. Tonight, after classes, meet in the library. We’ll try to find the room Finn found. There must be some explanation.”

  “Done,” Mike said.

  Jayden nodded. “Where’s the library?”

  24

  Above and Beyond

  This is higher than before,” Finn said to Orelon. He was standing on a platform at least fifteen feet above the ground, staring down a high wire stretched to a platform on the other side of the gazebo. Natalie swung her legs from one of the rafters above him.

  “You can do this, Finn,” she yelled. She pushed off her perch and dropped to the opposite platform, landing lightly despite the fall. Everyone in aerial was like that, light on their feet. Able to fall from great heights.

  Wendy encouraged him from below. “It’s just higher, not harder. If you can walk it at five feet, you can walk it at fifteen.”

  He smiled at her although his knees were shaking and his palms were wet with perspiration. “If I fall, will you catch me?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Guess I can’t fall.”

  Finn placed a trembling foot on the wire and, as he was trained to do, cleared his head. Fear and doubt were the enemy when working at any height. There was no room for second-guessing. His legs steadied. He had this. Extending his arms to the sides, he stepped quickly, one foot in front of the other.

  “You’ve got this, Finn!” Wendy cheered.

  More than halfway across, he believed he did. But a strong breeze coursed through the small windows of the gazebo and the wire swayed. Finn overcorrected, circling his arms.

  Natalie tucked her red curls behind her ears. “Come on, Finn. You can do it!”

  He took another step and tripped. “Oh!” He dropped, catching the wire with one hand. Normally, he could get back up after a fall like that, flip his legs over the wire, balance on his hips, and regain his footing. But he’d been nervous to walk at this height. His sweaty hand couldn’t find purchase. When he attempted to catch the wire with his opposite hand, his fingers slipped.

  Wendy screamed. Air whizzed past his ears. Reflexively, he flattened into position for impact. He’d practiced falling so many times his body automatically reacted, but the fall was not what he expected. For starters, colliding with the ground was taking too long. The gazebo floor approached in slow motion, the wind seeming to catch him under the hollow of his chest like a kite. Weightlessness tickled through his torso. His arms and legs numbed.

  And then he stopped. He hovered above the ground, staring at the footsteps in the dust beneath him with marked curiosity. His breath quickened. What was happening? Why wasn’t he falling?

  Orelon’s laugh echoed through the gazebo. “I told you. I told you he was one of us!”

  Natalie squealed. “Come back up, Finn!”

  Wendy gasped. “You’re flying. Dear Lord, Finn, you are actually flying!”

  He curled his hands into fists and brought them toward his face. His body levered, his torso rising with the curl of his arms until his feet touched the ground. “How?”

  “It’s the island,” Natalie said. She jumped from the platform and hovered above the wire. “It’s like pixie dust.”

  Finn thrust his hands over his head and leaped off the ground, willing himself toward Natalie. A momentary lapse of weightlessness gave way to a charge into the beyond. But he couldn’t control it. The higher he rose, the more his body twisted, until he crashed awkwardly into the side of the gazebo. He belly-flopped to the dirt, a plume of dust rising around him.

  “Oww.” Finn rolled onto his back and wheezed in a sharp breath.

  “You’ll learn control in time,” Orelon said. “Despite what Natalie says, it’s not pixie dust. We don’t know what causes it—only the effects. Every person who comes to this island is different, but everyone changes. Congratulations. You are a true aerial troupe member.”

  “What about me?” Wendy asked. “I want to fly!”

  “Don’t fret,” Natalie said. “It rarely happens this quickly. Finn is a prodigy.”

  “Rarely? Never. You are a miracle,” Orelon said.

  Finn brought his hands to his face. “A miracle,” he whispered into his palms.

  “Come on, Wendy. Your turn,” Orelon said, ascending to the platform in one graceful leap.

  “Hell yeah!” she called as she scaled the ladder the old-fashioned way.

  “I can fly,” Finn murmured in disbelief. “The entire troupe can fly.”

  After class, Finn whistled as he made his way to the library. It wasn’t every day you found out you could fly. He almost hated to rehash what happened the night before with Hope and the others. Today, he’d become a part of something wonderful and magical, even beyond what Theodor had taught him. If some
thing sinister was happening beneath the school, he almost didn’t want to know.

  He found Jayden and Mike waiting in the tree alcove in the library. He was surprised Hope wasn’t there. Surprised and quickly worried.

  “She got sick after class,” Mike said, rubbing a purpling bruise on his cheek. “Kirsa went off on her. I’ve never seen anyone stabbed so many times. Beat the hell out of her too.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Honestly, I thought Kirsa went too far,” Mike said. “I thought she might kill her. I don’t know how Hope got back up. She was a bloody pulp, Finn.”

  “I guess we’re all changing.”

  Mike frowned. “Hope told me to have you wait for her. Said she’d be better in a few minutes.”

  Finn swallowed hard. He remembered how sick Hope had become the first time Kirsa had stabbed her. Resilience was the most painful of disciplines at Revelations. He was more thankful than ever that he’d been chosen by aerial.

  “Are you managing?” Finn asked Mike, eyeing the bruise. He’d seen him briefly that morning in aerial, but Natalie had trained him separately during his assigned time.

  “Yeah, but only because I don’t have to do it all day. Jenny and I are still on a rotating schedule until a troupe picks one of us. I’ve been enjoying menagerie. Amuke says I have potential.”

  Finn leaned against the carved branches of the archway. “So, we wait for Hope.”

  Jayden nodded, thumbing through an old tome. “I, for one, didn’t have anything better to do than hang out in a room full of dusty books. It’s not like there’s a gorgeous girl waiting in Mike’s room right now for me to flirt with her properly.”

  “You and Jenny, huh?” Finn asked.

  Mike chuckled. “He wishes. I’m pretty sure she’s using him for his pyro skills. They’ve been practicing every night.”

  “So you admit she’s hot for me.” Jayden smirked.