After turning into a wide, fully stocked, and electrically lit library, Myra led them out through another door and down a flight of stairs. They rushed through another long hallway on the first floor, killed four more vampires that appeared and came to attack them, and then followed Myra’s spirit around a corner. Skye remarked that while the vampires they had so far encountered appeared agitated, they all seemed surprised to find armed humans running around their house. Then, two figures met them on the threshold to another room. Twist’s companions pulled up short to see that they were Aazzi and Philippe.
“Mon Dieu!” Guildenstern gasped, lowering his sword. “I almost killed you!”
“Holy crap, he is not all right,” Skye said, looking at Philippe.
He was barely standing, leaning heavily on his wife with an arm slung over her shoulder. His normally fair features were deathly pale, his gray eyes dull and unfocused, and his breath was labored. Fright tingled up Twist’s spine to see the dark smears of drying blood that soaked his loose cotton shirt around the collar and both sleeves and dirtied much of his exposed skin.
“He’ll survive,” Aazzi said, her voice shaking. “We just have to get out of here.” Twist noticed then that the other door leading out of the room behind Aazzi had a chair stuck under the knob and that the door was rattling loudly thanks to a heavy assault from behind it.
“This way,” Jonas said, backing away to lead her along the path they had just traversed.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern both moved to relieve Aazzi, each taking one of Philippe’s arms to support him between them. Aazzi stayed close to them as everyone began to run back toward the front door. Not a moment later, Zayle gave a frightened call from the rear of the group and fired his pistol. Luca swung with a large machete at a vampire that rushed at them from behind. The vampire’s head rolled away, and Luca and Zayle hurried on without a moment of hesitation.
They ran unhindered back up the flight of stairs and then back into the library. Twist pulled up short, seeing three figures in the opposite doorway. They rushed at him and his companions with animal howls and sinuous, long-fingered hands reaching out. Standing their ground, the companions began to fire at them with pistols. Twist heard the same inhuman howls echo up the stairs behind him.
“We’re surrounded!” he yelled to the others.
Jonas cursed and turned to look toward the stairs.
“There’s more coming!” Skye called out, drawing Twist’s gaze forward to see more and more vampires closing in on them from the front as well.
“Come on!” Luca said, diving for a smaller door hidden in the shadows.
No one argued with him. Everyone rushed to follow him into a well-furnished sitting room. They slammed the door behind them—blocking it with a nearby table—before hurrying on to a door at the other side of the room. They flew through a smartly decorated bedroom and then back into the main hallway without encountering any more violence. Running now as fast as any of them could, it was difficult to stop when they saw another thick wave of monsters run at them from outside, through the open front door. Though Twist’s companions could deal with a few attacking vampires, this number seemed far too large for them.
Skye ushered everyone down another set of stairs. They heard the bellowing howls of another swarm of vampires from down the hallways when they reached the first floor and turned to hurry farther down into the first level of the basement. The walls were windowless and made of dark wood, which made it difficult to see, as Twist and the others rushed along the hallway that they had found at the base of the stairs.
There was only one door at the end of that hallway. Throwing it open, Skye led everyone into a huge room on the other side. The high ceiling hung vaulted over huge, ornate rugs that covered the stone floor. Electric lights hung on the walls, bathing the room in more false daylight. Lavishly styled couches and chairs sat in little circles, a number of musical instruments clustered in a corner, and large bouquets of flowers and festive decorations gave the room a very cheery feeling. The others hurried to close and bar the door they had come through. Twist looked around quickly but only found one other door, set in the far wall.
“This is bad,” Jonas said, breathing heavily from the pace of their flight. “We’re underground. We need to get back to the surface if we’re going to escape.”
Twist leaned on a nearby chair back to catch his breath.
“Where’s that lead?” Zayle asked, running to the only other door in the room. “Damn, it’s locked!” he said, turning back to the others.
Twist rushed to join him and found a wheel, such as one would see in a bank vault, set in the center of the heavy-looking metal door. He pressed a hand to it, and his Sight showed him that it was indeed like a vault door, complete with a sophisticated combination lock. He spun the wheel quickly to the correct angles and then pulled the heavy door open in no time at all.
They found a short but narrow hallway inside. Twist could easily see a huge expanse of iron cage-like cells in the dark and dirty space within. What appeared to be hundreds of dark-skinned people locked inside the cells turned to blink against the light that spilled in through the door.
“Slaves?” Zayle asked, breathless as he looked over the squalid cages.
“Food,” Aazzi corrected him bitterly.
Luca rushed in and stopped at the other end of the short hallway, looking around. “There’s no way out through here,” he called back to the others.
Just then, a loud banging sounded behind them, on the other side of the barred door.
“We’re trapped!” Rosencrantz gasped.
“Don’t panic!” Skye snapped at him. “We can still figure this out.”
“How do you propose we escape now?” Rosencrantz snapped back.
“This doorway is narrow,” Luca said, meeting everyone back at the vault door. “It’s a bottleneck. We can defend it.”
“Brilliant!” Skye said brightly. “See, I told you we could figure it out.”
“Damn it, that’s a long shot,” Guildenstern said.
“Can we lock ourselves in and wait for daylight?” Zayle asked, looking at the door.
“There’s no handle on this side,” Luca said, shaking his head.
The wood of the door behind them began to splinter and crack under the strain of the attack from behind it. Jonas turned to look at the door and went suddenly still, his eyes wide and his face growing quickly pale. Twist felt the buzz in his neck turn painfully cold as Jonas stepped backward and angled his view until he was practically looking out from the other side of the vault door. Jonas looked at Twist slowly with frightened yellow eyes.
Realization struck Twist like a cold gust, making him shudder. He glanced at the vault door and saw just how easy it would be for him to change the combination of the lock, maybe giving his friends enough time for the sun to rise or even for Skye to call the Rooks to come and mount a rescue. Given their options, this was clearly the best one. But there was no way to lock the door from the inside. Twist would have to remain outside.
“Don’t…” Jonas moaned, his voice cold and thin.
“I can change the combination,” Twist said to the others. “Get inside, and we can pull the door closed once I lock it.”
“You can do that?” Luca asked, frowning.
“Fantastic, Twist!” Skye said, already ushering everyone inside with the slaves.
Jonas, still staring at Twist, didn’t move. “Twist, please!” he hissed in a shaking voice.
Everyone else rushed quickly in, leaving him and Jonas alone outside.
“Get inside, Jonas,” Twist said calmly. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“No, no, no…” Jonas moaned, his jaw almost too tight to speak at all.
“Come on, Jon,” Skye said, reaching out to take Jonas’s arm and pull him inside.
“He’s going to kill himself!” Jonas yelled, shaking her hand off. The wooden door gave a hideous cracking sound, and a large panel of wood flew into the room.
Twist could see the vampires now, struggling to push through the too-narrow opening. There were only moments left.
“What?” Skye snapped. “Come on! There’s no time!”
“Skye, pull him inside!” Twist yelled.
“No!” Jonas screamed, struggling against her grip.
Twist moved quickly, shoving Jonas through the doorway with all his strength. Thanks to Skye’s help, Jonas stumbled inward. Twist slammed the door shut the instant Jonas passed over the threshold. A quick spin of the wheel was all it took to lock the door.
Twist heard banging from the other side of the thick metal as he quickly reset the lock combination to a random sequence. He heard the wooden door behind him succumbing to the vicious vampires outside. Most of all, he heard his own heart pound in his ears, and his vision began to swim. Still facing the now safely locked vault door, he felt Myra’s chilly hand touch his shoulder. He looked up to find a look of horror on her beautiful, innocent face.
“Twist, what have you done?” she asked, her voice only the breath of a whisper.
“Jonas saw this,” Twist said softly, barely above the horrible cracking sounds of the wooden door. “But he can’t see my death. I know he can’t. I’m going to survive this.”
Myra’s dark eyes filled with tears; her expression was too painful for Twist to see.
He turned to lean his back on the door and took her chilly hand in his. There were too many vampires crowding in together, in the tight doorway. They looked like one mass of clawing, talon-like hands, long teeth, and sneering, inhuman faces. They were going to break in at any moment now.
His mind retreated from that horrible place, returning to his past in disordered flashes of memory: sitting alone in his workshop with nothing but the sound of the rain, seeing the beauty of the copper sunrise over dusty Cairo, walking barefoot on the warm sands in Waikiki, watching Myra dance on stage in San Francisco, seeing Kali walk toward him in the soft glow of the aurora lights. He remembered the shock of the first time Jonas had touched him without calling a vision to his Sight, the moment he’d met the golden governess of a hidden clockwork city, and the taste of his first lychee while Myra sat happily on his lap.
The sound of the final crack of wood brought Twist back to the present. The first of the vampires tumbled into the room. Twist looked to Myra and gave her his best smile. Her shock melted into a bittersweet smile, soaked in tears. In one flashing instant, his whole mind turned onto a single, brilliant, all-encompassing thought: no matter how long he would live, or what might happen to him, he wanted another day just to spend with her. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to spend every remaining moment of his life with her.
“I love you,” Twist said softly.
Myra gave a pitiful sound, her voice too choked to speak. The first vampire reached out to grab at Twist, and he snapped his eyes closed, bracing for the black vision he knew was coming. A surge of furious fire erupted suddenly over every inch of Twist’s skin, burning white hot and stealing his breath away. His mind blanked into that overwhelming sensation, bringing no vision at all. Somewhere in that terrifying and timeless agony, he lost all sense of himself.
With a sudden snap, Twist felt himself fall through open air to land on solid ground in a heap. He gasped in a breath and let out a scream before taking in another desperate breath. His whole body shook violently, but the fire had passed. The air around him seemed cold now, but he felt far too warm underneath his own skin. His vision dropped to blackness and then returned to him slowly as he lay on the ground, gasping in dusty air.
The dust made him cough. His ears rang with a high whine, blocking out all sounds. Twist struggled to push himself up and ended up kneeling on the floor. Blinking his blurry eyes, he looked around him but couldn’t find a single vampire anywhere in sight. The room was empty, and all of the furniture seemed to have been shoved into heaps at the very edges of the room. There was a thick blanket of gray, ashy dust settling softly over every surface. He looked down at himself and was astonished to find his own flesh unharmed, with no signs of the fire that he’d felt engulf him. His clothing wasn’t even scorched.
Cool hands fell gently to his back. Twist turned—a little too quickly, making his vision swim—and found Myra’s spirit crouching down beside him. She looked terrified. She was speaking to him, but his ears were still ringing. He shook his head, desperate to clear it. After a moment, his hearing began to return, and he heard her voice.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…” she moaned, reaching out to hold his face so that she could see it. Her touch was soothingly cool, and Twist paused a moment to savor the feeling.
“What happened?” Twist asked, his voice rough.
“I don’t know,” Myra answered in a rush of words. “You…dear, you exploded.”
“I what?” Twist asked.
He felt like he was in one piece, but he checked once again just to be sure. Feeling reassured that everything was where it should be, he took a deep breath and focused on stopping himself from shaking. He also noticed that he was now inexplicably in the center of the room.
“The moment that vampire touched you,” Myra went on, thankfully speaking more slowly now, “your skin went bright white, and you rose off of the ground. Then this wave of blue light exploded from you. Every vampire…” She paused, looking around at the still-settling ash. “They caught fire and burned up into ash in an instant.”
Twist gave himself a moment to let the information find a place to stand in his crowded thoughts. “Did you say blue light?”
“Yes, bright blue,” Myra answered, nodding.
“Holy hell…” Twist closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the ash for another instant. “You said all of them?” he asked.
“Some of them ran away, the ones out in the hallway that weren’t burned.”
“Then we probably don’t have much time.”
Twist struggled to get to his feet, but in the end he needed Myra’s aid. By the time he returned to the vault door, his strength began to return. He opened the lock again and then stopped before he opened the door.
“Dear, would you go inside and tell them not to shoot me?” he asked Myra.
“Oh!” Myra said before she vanished.
Twist waited a moment and then slowly pulled the door open. Jonas appeared instantly, rushing out. His gaze swept the room quickly before he turned to Twist. Twist was surprised to find Jonas’s face damp and flushed as he looked at Twist in amazement and total disbelief.
“Told you,” Twist said as smugly as he was able, pulling himself up to stand a little straighter.
Jonas rushed at him, wrapping Twist tightly in his arms. Twist’s Sight filled with dazzling white fog, blissful and warm as full sunlight. Twist let himself wallow in the feeling, unable to keep the echo of Jonas’s smile from his own face.
Jonas pulled back sharply, holding Twist firmly by the arms, a stern expression now on his face. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
Twist laughed.
“Damn it, I mean it!” Jonas bellowed at him.
“Yes, yes,” Twist said with a sigh, smiling back at Jonas. “I promise I shall never save your life so heroically, ever again.”
Jonas’s resolve dissolved as he let his smile back out. To Twist’s great relief, Jonas didn’t hesitate in the least to look him square in the eye; his own were now a gently lilac hue.
“What the hell happened?” Skye asked as she and the others came slowly into the room.
“What is all this dust?” Luca asked, appearing behind Aazzi.
“It’s ash,” Aazzi answered, her voice cold. She looked to Twist with fear playing at the edges of her silver eyes. “What happened?”
“I think it was the scaly bastard,” Twist answered. “I didn’t have any control,” he added, suddenly remembering with a shudder that many of the vampires might have been members of her family. “It just sort of…happened.”
“Nice one, blue boy,” Jonas muttered, looking around. “Is this all
of them?”
“No, not all,” Myra said, shaking her head.
“We should get out of here while we can,” Twist said. “The survivors might want revenge.”
No one argued with the idea. Zayle and Luca hurried to unlock some of the slave-filled cages inside the vault by simply blowing off the locks with a pistol shot but left them to save themselves as the freed slaves jumped in to rescue their fellows. Running back to the front door again, Twist and his companions didn’t meet a single vampire along the way.
Aazzi stopped just outside the front door and turned back to look at the castle. Some of the slaves were following them, and she reached out to stop one of them. The slave shuddered at her touch, staring in fright.
“Once all of your people are outside,” she said to him, calmly but firmly, “burn this wretched place to the ground. Do you understand?”
The slave stared blankly at her for a moment. Aazzi spoke again in a different language. The slave seemed to understand her and nodded. Aazzi handed him a shortsword that she had picked up somewhere inside the castle. The slave stared at her in bewilderment as she turned to follow after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who still carried the half-conscious Philippe between them.
Twist looked out over the forest far below, from the balcony at the elephant’s eyes, as the mechanical behemoth galloped through the night. Glancing behind him, he had to admit that the head section of the vehicle was much nicer than the engine room. The walls were lined with inlaid rosewood, the floors looked like marble, and the cheery electric lights burned brightly. Ornate but comfortable furniture was bolted down at convenient places, making the sway of the giant machine’s stride more comfortable.
Philippe, still looking only half alive, had been placed on a sofa to one side. Aazzi sat with him, holding his pale hand in one of hers as she soothed his brow with a cool, damp cloth. After a moment, Philippe seemed to say something softly to her, calling a gorgeous smile from her usually stoic features. Twist was mesmerized, seeing them together in such a gentle moment.
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