Finders Keepers

by Peter Speakman

  Outside, Vesiroth fumed. “Get me the pieces of my Helm,” he snapped.

  “I don’t know, boss,” said Duncan. “The Helm’s super unpredictable.”

  The wizard grabbed the ten-year-old by the collar and threw him to the ground. “Get me my Helm!”

  Duncan glared at his boss. For a split second it seemed as if he were going to defy him. Then he reached into a bag filled with weapons and handed the two separate pieces of the metal helmet up to Vesiroth.

  The wizard snatched them and held them high enough for everyone in the house to see. “Do you see this, Tarinn? This is just a taste of what’s to come.” Vesiroth jammed the two pieces of pounded brass together. “Consider it a preview of your own death!”

  When she saw the two pieces of the Helm in Vesiroth’s hands, Professor Ellison snapped into action. “Okay. Theo, all of you. Come with me.”

  Reese and Theo chased after her into the bowels of the enormous house. Reese had to practically drag Naomi and J.T. along.

  “Where are we going, Professor?” asked Theo. “Shouldn’t we try to counteract Vesiroth’s Helm somehow?”

  Ellison never broke stride. “With what, pray tell? Are you hiding something special in your little bag that I don’t know about?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then please do not discuss things you know nothing about.” She stopped abruptly at a door Theo had never seen before. He wasn’t even sure what part of the house they were in. “Everyone,” she said, holding the door open, “inside, quickly.”

  Reese poked her head warily into the room. It was unfurnished, just a blank white space in the middle of nowhere. “Why? What is this place?”

  “It’s a safe room, girl. The walls are thick and the room is cloaked. Vesiroth wouldn’t be able to find it even if he knew what he was looking for, and he doesn’t.”

  “But if we’re in here—”

  “Just get in. I’ll explain everything to you when we’re all inside.”

  Outside, Vesiroth put the two pieces of the Helm against his head. The black tentacles that emerged were thicker and more chaotic than ever, lashing out in all directions. Finally, they found the true dimensions of Professor Ellison’s house. With a strange viciousness they attacked, probing for weak spots. They began to batter the outside of the house.

  “Well, will you look at that?” said Duncan between chomps of his gum. The glamour hiding the house was failing under the onslaught. Glimpses of the house’s true nature were flashing through.

  Reese walked into the room. Parker, J.T., and Naomi followed her.

  Professor Ellison stopped Theo before he stepped inside. “Thank you,” she said as she slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside.

  Parker pounded on the windowless door. “Professor Ellison! What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting you out of the way,” said the Professor. “Come on, Theo. You and I have work to do.”

  “But…we can’t just leave them here!”

  “Of course we can.”

  “What about the plan? We need Parker and Reese to get Vesiroth to the library and the containment room!”

  “Luckily for all of us, I have prepared a contingency plan.”

  “You were never going to use them. This whole time you were going to lock them in there.”

  Professor Ellison stared into Theo’s eyes. “Parker and Reese are not like us, Theo. They would just be in the way.”

  “Is it really a safe room? Are they really hidden from Vesiroth in there?”

  The professor strode away. “Does it matter? If Vesiroth takes the house we’re all dead anyway.”

  Theo hated to leave his friends behind, but he had work to do. He pressed his palm to the locked door for a brief moment. Then he turned and ran to catch up with his mentor.

  Finally, Professor Ellison’s glamour spell gave way and the house was laid bare for all to see. The quaint farmhouse was gone. In its place was an ugly gray nightmare of concrete and steel that stretched in all directions.

  “Whoa,” said Duncan. “That is one ugly building.”

  Vesiroth wasn’t listening to him. He removed the pieces of the helmet from his head and handed them to Duncan. Then he approached the massive slab of metal that was the house’s true front door. With the force of will that had been driving him for thousands of years he placed one hand on the door and one on the metal spike that hung at his neck.

  The door began to melt.

  Duncan put the pieces of the Helm into a black bag he hoisted over his shoulder. The clang of the brass shards against the glowing metal cylinders inside was masked by the sound of Professor Ellison’s door falling off its hinges.

  31

  THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION orbits three hundred miles above the Earth and travels at almost five miles per second. It has been called the most complicated piece of machinery ever built by man, a miracle of engineering that took years and the cooperation of multiple rival space agencies from all over the world to build. The ISS was an achievement for the ages, and, as Dr. Momoko Nakagawa had learned, there was always something wrong with it.

  Dr. Nakagawa checked the instruments once again and got the same result. “That’s a negative on the diagnostics test. It could just be a blown sensor.”

  The voice on her headset agreed. “It’s not mission critical. Sergei can check it on his EVA tomorrow morning. Looks like your drink is getting away.”

  Dr. Nakagawa shot her hand out and caught the silvery pouch before it floated into something important. This was her second week in orbit, but she was still getting used to zero gravity. “Thanks.” She smiled at the camera. “I don’t want to be the one to short out the electrical system in a hundred-billion-dollar spacecraft. I’m going to run the second cycle again and then I’m calling it a day.” She stifled a yawn. The other five members of the crew were already asleep in the next module, but with video feeds to NASA’s mission control center in Florida, she was never really alone.

  “That’s affirmative. Talk to you at oh-four-hundred.”

  Dr. Nakagawa pushed off from her computer and floated over to the window. Earth zipped by below, a blue marble in a sea of velvety blackness. Everything, the years of school, the missed parties, the countless hours spent in libraries and simulators, the hundreds of tests, it was all worth it for this view.

  And then the lights flickered.

  Dr. Nakagawa scrambled back to her computer. “Mission control? Did you see that?”

  “We saw it. Just an electrical glitch.”

  “Affirmative. I should probably run a few checks just to make—”

  “Um, Dr. Nakagawa?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your hair is standing on end.”

  Dr. Nakagawa ran a hand through her hair. Mission control was right. It was as if the air was suddenly filled with static electricity. “That’s odd. I suppose it could be some kind of loop in the relays….”

  There was a flash of light and a burst of ozone.

  “Oww! What…” Dr. Nakagawa rubbed at her eyes. When she finally got them open she saw a tall figure in flowing robes floating in front of her.

  “Where am I?” Fon-Rahm asked. He was clutching his left arm and seemed disoriented.

  “Um,” said Dr. Nakagawa, “the International Space Station?”

  Fon-Rahm looked out the window and saw his home planet from orbit. He had wound up as far from Parker as he could have possibly imagined. He clenched his jaw and turned back to Dr. Nakagawa. “I must return to the professor’s house. How do I escape this metal room?”

  The astronaut pointed blankly to an air lock behind the genie. She had the stunned look of someone caught in a very weird dream.

  Fon-Rahm quickly examined the contraption. He opened the first air-lock door and closed it behind him. One more door was all that separated him from the vacuum of deep space. The genie flexed his arms to assess the damage Vesiroth had done to his body and without another word opened the thin aluminu
m door and launched himself into space with a flash of blue lightning.

  It took Dr. Nakagawa a moment to gather her thoughts. “Mission control? Did you…see any of that?”

  “You mean the guy in the blue robes who just appeared in our space station? No.” The voice in Dr. Nakagawa’s headset paused. “And neither did you.”

  “But…”

  “Some things just get filed away. Come on, Doctor. Do you think NASA tells the public about everything we see in space?”

  Vesiroth took an unsteady step into Professor Ellison’s house.

  He hadn’t expected to use the Helm so early. That, combined with the energy it had taken to torture Fon-Rahm and melt Professor Ellison’s front door, had left him depleted and weak. It was a tactical error. He had let his emotions get the better of him and now he was forced to lean on his second-in-command.

  “Need a hand there, boss?” Duncan asked.

  Vesiroth sneered. Was that a hint of contempt he heard in Duncan’s voice? When he had the rest of the Helm he wouldn’t need Duncan at all.

  Duncan helped Vesiroth gingerly around the melted metal that was once Ellison’s door and pointed to two of the three Path members. “Okay. You stay with us. And keep your staffs ready. We might need ’em.” He strapped his skateboard to his back and pointed to the remaining man. “You go in and kill anything that moves.”

  Vesiroth, Duncan, and the other two zealots made their way deeper into the house. One of the Path members took a step forward, his globed staff raised, but Duncan held him back. “Watch where you step, genius,” he said, gesturing to the silver wire stretched across the hall. “There are booby traps all over the place.”

  “We stop for nothing,” said Vesiroth as he stepped over the wire. “We keep moving until we find the Helm and establish my throne.”

  “And keep on your toes, Vesiroth,” said the disembodied voice of Professor Ellison. She was speaking through an intercom system that ran through the entire house. “I’ve had days to prepare.”

  Vesiroth smirked. “Ah, Tarinn. Afraid to face me?”

  “I’m not stupid, if that’s what you mean.”

  Professor Ellison and Theo were holed up in the house’s control center, a lead-lined room set deep in the center of the building. The only door was disguised with a spell that made it virtually invisible. The room was stocked with state-of-the-art monitors that showed every angle of the sprawling house, inside and out. Theo kept one eye nervously on the video feed showing Parker, Reese, J.T., and Naomi. Ellison had other things to worry about.

  “You look tired, Vesiroth,” she said as she watched the wizard being helped along by Duncan. “It’s not too late for you to turn around and go lick your wounds.”

  “I am strong enough to kill you, my dear.”

  Theo turned his attention to Vesiroth. The dark wizard was limping but he was still terrifying. The only other person Theo had met who was so clear of purpose was Professor Ellison herself. He knew that Vesiroth would kill him or Parker or half of humanity to get his way. He wondered, not for the first time, if they had made a huge mistake in luring him here.

  “So you’ve said,” said the professor. “Ah! And Duncan. Welcome. Feel free to make yourself at home. If you’re very good, I’ll read you a story when it’s your bedtime.”

  “Keep talking, Ellison. Sooner or later it’ll be you and me….” Duncan halted abruptly, stopping Vesiroth and the two Path goons behind him. He examined the hallway for a moment before conjuring up a glimmering long sword and carefully tripping an electric eye rigged in the hall. A trap sprang, freeing massive magical sledgehammers to swing down from the ceiling and smash straight through the walls with a deafening crunch. If they had walked even two steps farther Duncan and his boss would have been crushed by thousands of pounds of swinging metal.

  “Your preparations mean nothing to me, Tarinn.” Vesiroth cackled. “You cannot hope to stop me.”

  “We’ll see. In the meantime, don’t look down.”

  “What…” Vesiroth and Duncan felt something shift below them and jumped forward as the floor dropped away, taking one of the Path members with it. He fell screaming down a hole that led straight into blackness and fire.

  Duncan shifted his sword to his other hand and hefted the metal staff the man had been carrying. “You were right,” he told Vesiroth. “We did need a spare.”

  They kept walking. Theo saw they were headed straight for the library.

  J.T. threw his weight against the locked door once more. It didn’t pop open, just like it didn’t pop open the first six times he tried it.

  “Give it up, Dad, the door’s not going to open.” Parker, Reese, and Naomi were sitting on the white floor, their backs against a wall.

  “I’m going to give it one more shot,” J.T. said. “I think I felt a little give that time.”

  “If anything gives, it’s probably going to be your shoulder.”

  J.T. tried the door again. The seventh time wasn’t a charm. He gave up and slumped down the wall next to his son. “Some friends you’ve got. Theo and that woman locked us in here and threw away the key.”

  “Don’t say ‘that woman’ like you don’t know who she is,” said Reese. “Apparently you know all about everything.”

  “I’m not a spy! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Whatever.” Reese clasped tightly to her friend’s hand. Naomi still seemed shell-shocked. “None of this will matter if we can’t find a way out of this room.”

  “There is no way out of this room,” said Parker.

  Reese said, “You don’t know that. There might be a secret door, or a magic ceiling. Professor Ellison’s too smart to not give herself options.”

  “I think my son’s right.” J.T. rubbed the shoulder he was using as a battering ram. “We’re in here for the duration.”

  Parker closed his eyes and let his head bang against the wall.

  Then his eyes popped back open again.

  “Um, guys,” he said, inching away. “I think we all ought to move away from the wall. Like, really far away.”

  “Why?” asked J.T.

  Reese stood and pulled Naomi gently into the center of the room. “When Parker says stuff like that, it’s better to move first and ask questions later.”

  Then a fist crackling with blue electricity simply punched through the brick and metal of the wall. Fon-Rahm reached in and tore the bricks apart as if they were made of cotton candy.

  “Jeez, Fon-Rahm!” Parker said with a grin. “What took you so long?”

  Out in the hall, the Path member roaming on his own heard a small explosion. He swung around and headed in the general direction of the sound. He had been walking around for almost fifteen minutes and he had yet to shoot anybody. He was getting antsy.

  Using his one good arm, Fon-Rahm helped Naomi and Reese across the ruined wall of the safe room. “We have no time to lose,” the genie said. “I must find Vesiroth and join the battle.”

  “Fon-Rahm, you look terrible,” Parker said. The blue-black infection had taken over almost every bit of the genie’s visible skin. “The infection from your arm has spread everywhere.”

  “It matters not. I must go.” The genie looked to J.T. “Mr. Quarry. I know I have given you many reasons to distrust me.”

  “That’s true,” J.T. said.

  “I ask you to set that aside and put your faith in me now. You must lead this group out of this house and to safety.”

  Parker snorted. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily, buddy. Where you go, I go.”

  The genie whirled on his master, mist coming from eyes that had suddenly turned as black as polished onyx. “You will do as I say!” Parker was shocked into silence. Fon-Rahm had never before spoken to him in anger.

  “Fon-Rahm, what’s gotten into you?” asked Reese. “Since when do you yell at Parker?”

  “I…I am sorry,” the genie said. His eyes returned to their usual light-blue color but his face was contor
ted with confusion. “I do not understand my own actions.”

  “It’s the infection,” said Parker. “It’s taken over your entire body and now it’s leaching into your mind. You have to stop using your magic before it kills you!”

  The first of the Jinn shook his head. “I must act. We all know what is at stake.” At this moment, he seemed more human than ever to Parker. “My mind grows thick with fog. You must command me to fight.”

  Parker knew he had no choice. He put his hands on his genie’s arms. “Go. I command you to go. And, you know. Try not to get vaporized.”

  Fon-Rahm nodded gravely. “Ten-four,” he said, before he closed his eyes and oriented himself in the massive house. Then the genie tucked his left arm into his body and charged in a straight line, blowing through walls and leaving a trail of utter destruction behind him.

  32

  VESIROTH, DUNCAN, AND THE PATH member thought they had reached the library using their own wits. In reality, they were herded like cattle through a slaughterhouse.

  They easily dodged the column of flame that shot from the library walls, but the wizard’s patience was wearing thin. He shouted, “You merely delay the inevitable. Show yourself, Tarinn!”

  “Um, boss?” Duncan said, snapping his gum. “I think we got company.” He directed the Path goon and his globed metal staff to a position by a wall. “You might want to get behind something strong.”

  “I am Vesiroth, father of titans. I will not cower like a child.”

  Duncan shrugged and got on his skateboard. “Suit yourself.”

  At that moment the wall in front of them exploded. Fon-Rahm stood in a swirl of blue mist, lightning crackling from his eyes and fingertips. Even with his left arm hanging uselessly by his side the genie was a wonder to behold. He was pure power in the shape of a man.

  Before the dust even settled Duncan fired a barrage of edged boomerangs at the first of the Jinn. Fon-Rahm tracked their curved paths and cast a glow of electricity meant to melt them in midair. To his surprise, he couldn’t hit the boomerangs at all. He finally ducked out of their way and used his good arm to send bolts of lightning back at Duncan. He missed by a good ten feet. He tried again and was even further off the mark.