by Kirk, A
With grace and agility, they jumped, ducked, darted, and, as a last resort, dived back into the earth. A few were hit, leaving the slime-ridden, leathery remnants of their blasted bodies on the walls before the mess vortexed into the ground. Many got clipped, the telltale yelps giving it away. But most moved forward, ready to tear us all to pieces.
I cringed when the pack hit, more like flowed, over me, and I felt only an odd prickling. Then my body zipped back, and I came to in the arms of a frantic Ayden.
“Tell me what’s wrong!” He was shaking me hard. Brushing back my hair. “Aurora, what’s happening?!”
I steadied myself with my arms around his neck. Tested my legs. “Nothing. Jeez, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
I shoved out of his arms and ran to the wall. We were in a type of cul-de-sac, the lamps circling its rim to light the space. Other than that, nothing.
“It has to be here, Ayden. Remember, that’s what Blake said. Mechanical things. In the walls.” I ran my hand over the rough stone. Mingled in the damp, musty air of the cave, I swear I could smell wet dog.
Fido became suddenly alert, her nose pointed toward the tunnel. She chittered. Her nose lifted. Sniffed. Her head dropped and she let out a low rumbling growl.
“Aurora, talk to me.” Ayden spun me around to face him.
“I think,” yes, think, Aurora, “I have — because of the blood contract — some sort of mental connection with Fido and she senses something bad is coming. And we have to find a way out. Now!”
Some emotion raced over his features too fast for me to read, then his face turned grim.
He nodded. “Gears. Mechanical things. Something has to open up…”
We both looked at the lamps and said, “Levers.”
“You start pulling. It only opens for you.” Ayden faced the tunnel and his arms whooshed into flames. The sounds of explosions echoed. “I’ll hold them off. Hurry.”
No, I was planning on slowing down, might even take a cat nap. I ran to the nearest lamp and started yanking. Fido scuttled and coiled her long body to block the entrance to the cave.
The howls shrilled, and the sounds of their rabid, panting breaths were close enough to reverberate down the walls and crash into the open space. My hands tremored and slipped repeatedly until one of the lamps snapped under my grip.
“Ayden!” As I released and staggered back, I spotted a double spiral etched in the lamp’s metal.
Things clunked and cha-chunked. Beside the lamp, wind shot out and dust burst from the wall. A ten-foot diameter ring cut out of the stone then thumped backwards, and the circle of rock rolled out of sight, leaving a gaping hole. A doorway. From the other side, steam hissed and heat blasted as if some dragon was about to appear. Through the murky darkness, crunching and pounding beat a chaotic rhythm.
A vision flashed ugly and quick through my mind. I shoved Ayden sideways and used the force to push myself back, skidding hard on my butt. From where he’d stood seconds before, a hound burst from the ground, jaws snapping.
All around, demons spurted from the earth like a wolverine horror movie, tongues flicking hungrily over glistening fangs. Ayden and I had quite the little army between us.
“Aurora!” Flames licked up Ayden’s arms as he turned his back on the demons behind him to fight through the ones between us.
“Protect yourself!” I said. “They won’t hurt me because they’re working with Rose!”
The closest hound lunged at my throat.
I kicked its head sideways. “Never mind! You can help!”
The demons converged.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Fido struck fast as a viper. Her jaws snapped around a hound. A startled yelp. Bones cracked. Fido swallowed the demon in one gulp. Flint’s spiked fireballs burst from the lamps and sliced through the air, ignoring Fido as she ate more demons. The fiery bombs converged like rabid locust on the wolfish hounds, but the hellions just dipped into the earth. The ground exploded around me as if someone kept setting off land mines.
I stayed low, ducking from pelting debris, hoping I didn’t run into a flying spiked ball. Dust blanketed the air thick as steel wool leaving a grainy taste in my mouth. Our world smelled on fire.
“Ayden?” I swatted at the clouds of grit, looking for him.
“Get to Fido!” he commanded.
I turned as he emerged from the smoke, throwing fireballs at the hounds creeping around me. A vision flashed, but I’d already spotted the silver eyes of a hound behind him, molded into the ground ,looking like a crocodile lurking just under the surface of a swamp.
It lunged. I screamed a battle cry and raised my arms, running at full speed, thinking my blasty power would make an appearance. Any second now… Any second… This exact second would be fantastic—
I tackled the demon hound mid-air. Pain pierced my shoulder. We smashed to the ground. The variety of lethal prongs spiked out along Lassie’s body and embedded into the ground on impact, stopping it dead. Momentum flung me off. I tumbled onto the cratered battlefield. Lassie was pinned to the stone floor as I scrambled to my feet and felt warmth leaking down my chest.
Blood. Awesome.
The hound ripped itself free, sending dirt and rock flying, then lurched up onto its paws. One of the horns dripped red from where it punctured my shoulder. So maybe tackling the spikey urchin wasn’t the best idea.
Lassie leapt over me to attack Ayden. I fell back, swung my legs up, and buried a solid two-footed kick into its stomach. The demon sailed high then tumbled sideways away from Ayden as I followed my momentum into a somersault backwards onto my feet. Smooth. Professional. Where was Matthias when I needed to gloat?
I turned around. Lassie attacked. I barely caught its throat before it slammed me onto my back, snapping fangs inches from my face. I choked on the vile stench of its breath. Claws tore into rock on either side of my head. My arms strained and burned, elbows swung out to keep the claws from ripping out my brain. Spittle splattered and drooled down my arms. So gross.
“Ayden!” My muscles were losing strength. Fast. Lassie’s dagger-filled mouth snapped closer.
A sharp heat pierced my gut. Pressure compressed my body. Lungs constricted. Then in a flash, my skin lit up like a radioactive glow stick, veining out in a throbbing, bright light, releasing the weight strangling my body. The rush of power flushed all fatigue from my bones. Energy thrummed anew up my arms, pooled into my palms.
Beneath my hands Lassie started to smoke. Its rabid jaws froze mid-snap. It tried to pull away.
“Oh no.” I tightened my hold. “Let’s cuddle.”
Embers rained like fireworks. The sickly scent of burnt fur swirled with scorched flesh. White light crackled from my fingertips across Lassie’s face and snout. Alarm flashed in its silver eyes, then all their light blinked out.
As the body slumped onto mine, it shattered to dust, the powdery grime tornadoing down past me and disappearing into the ground.
I smiled. “Like a pro.”
I patted my hands over myself. My shoulder stung. There was blood. The rest of my back was one Amazonian agonizing bruise. I had drool soaking my arms, dirt ruining my hair. I still glowed. No clue how to turn off that nuclear switch, but didn’t matter because I’d finally turned it back on. By myself. Without Jayden’s science mumbo jumbo.
I heard growling and looked up. Ayden was surrounded. Demon dogs kept coming up out of the ground. But not a single one had an eye on me, instead choosing to converge all their blood-lusty attention on Ayden. Fantastic. I wasn’t being attacked. Why wasn’t I being attacked? I was a little offended.
My hands still glowed, but my power hadn’t actually blasted out. I held out my arms. Tried to gather the energy.
Flames crashed across the floor, scorching the hounds in spiraling waves of inferno. I gagged at the sickly, sweet stench of burning fur and flesh. A tall ring of fire bled up from the floor and encircled me. I flinched back from the raging heat.
&
nbsp; “Stay still!” Ayden yelled.
Sure, like I could move anyway. Fido scuttled up the wall to hang from the ceiling.
Like flamethrowers, fire jet-streamed off Ayden’s arms. His shirt was shredded with claw marks, his perfect skin scratched and bleeding, but he strode with purpose through the lake of flames looking like some diabolical fire-breathing demon, wild and uncontrolled, scorching everything in his path, hot, angry colors reflecting deadly across his skin. Whimpers shrilled as the demons tried to dive back into the earth.
Other hounds leapt above the fire. Ayden jumped a round-house kick that dragged a trail of flames in his wake and lashed a demon in two. Before he touched ground, his other foot kicked an arc of flames that cut apart another two hounds half burrowed in the ground. He landed in a deep lunge, and the fire surrounding me disappeared.
He held out a flameless hand, his grin fierce. “How was that for strong and silent?”
I gaped. Ayden stood above me. Ash snowed the air around him. He looked like a fierce warrior, all dangerous and battle ready and sexy, muscles glistening.
“Demon infestation,” a woman’s voice echoed. “Proceed to sanctuary.”
I slapped my glowing hand into Ayden’s, and he pulled me up. At least she hadn’t said Mandatum. Flint’s remaining spikeballs buzzed down the tunnel and out of sight. Tiny pipes popped out beneath each lamp. A gurgling sound filled the air.
“Proceed to sanctuary.”
I pointed at the gaping, dark hole in the wall where the stone had opened a doorway. Steam billowed, crushing noises thundered through.
“Let’s make a run for it,” I said.
Ayden doused his flames, swept me into his arms, and ran through the sea of fire. Hounds jumped from the ground at us. Some disappeared in a tornado of black smoke and a sharp scent of sulfur as the fire overwhelmed them, but one made it through. It howled in defiance, flames scorching its paws as it barreled ahead of us toward the opening in the wall.
As it passed the threshold, there was a violent whirr and large spinning silver discs flashed from the frame of the doorway. The hound was brought to a halt so sudden it was almost comical.
The overgrown circular buzz saws, which had shot out from the stone doorway, whined to a stop, and after a moment’s pause, the hound’s body slid apart in pieces. As the broken flesh slurped downward, a web of electricity pulsed the entryway a brilliant blue, incinerating what remained of the hound before it even got the chance to fall to dust.
“Whoa!” Ayden skidded to a stop.
“Holy crap!” I practically climbed onto his shoulders.
The pipes underneath the lamps burped loudly, then vomited a surge of sickly, green liquid that rushed down the walls and splashed fast and thick onto the floor. The hounds came back up through the ground, then yelped and yowled in agony as they touched the goo. Their fur smoked and their bodies distorted, folded in on themselves as the fluid melted through them, disintegrating them before our eyes.
“Buzz saws, electricity, and acid?” I seethed. “Are you freaking kidding me!”
Ayden shot me an exasperated what’d-you-expect look. “Genius. Serial. Killer.”
Acid pooled, eating up demons and ground. When it hit Ayden’s flames, it boiled into a noxious gas that burned our eyes and throat and made us cough.
“Fido!” Ayden yelled.
There was nervous, insistent chittering. The centimole scuttled directly above us, hanging from the ceiling, head dropped like a demented claw machine ready to catch her prize.
Ayden said, “Tell her to—‘”
“Get us out of here, Fido!” I said, then hacked up a lung. My eyes watered against the stinging vapors.
Chittering what I hoped was a yes, Fido clamped us in one of her antenna claws, flung us hard. Then let go.
Above the flames, the deadly fumes, the acid, and disintegrating hounds, we jettisoned toward the opening in the wall. Where the buzz saws and electricity and whatever other tortures Flint’s psycho mind had cooked up were ready to welcome us.
Chapter Fifty
We hit ground. Ayden held me to his chest as he took the brunt of the fall on his back, cushioned somewhat by my backpack he still managed to wear. We skidded to a stop. Dust clouded all around, obscuring what little light filtered through the entrance.
I coughed. Blinked away the grit. We seemed unscathed. Limbs still attached, but Ayden wasn’t moving. Terror speared my gut. I patted my hands over him with mild — okay, major — panic. No obvious life-threatening injuries.
“Ayden, talk to me. Are you okay? Ayden!”
“Not sure,” he groaned. “Maybe you should keep copping a feel. In fact, you should go a little lower.”
“Don’t scare me like that.” I whacked his shoulder which flared pain hot and sharp deep in my own shoulder. “Ow.”
“Crap.” Ayden sat up and took my arm gently.
I frowned at the puncture, shimmering with rivulets of blood. “Think Coach will let me skip P.E.? Already got my cardio.”
A loud click vibrated the air. The buzz saws rotated to life and fed back into the wall. Then, like a missing puzzle piece, the circular stone doorway slid back into place, shutting us in with an echoing hiss.
Victorian lamps sputtered to life.
“No!” I ran over and kicked the wall. Slapped it silly. Ow. Stupid. “Is there a lever or spiral or something?”
I turned to demand Ayden’s help, but he was looking around, gawking, visibly stunned.
I followed his gaze. Awe overwhelmed me too.
“Oh. My. God.” I could barely breathe. “Flint doesn’t have treasure. He has a weapon of mass destruction.”
Lamps stuttered and slowly lit the space. Ayden and I stood on a narrow ledge with a lackluster bronze guardrail. Beyond that, the world vanished into a never-ending dark pit of doom, swirling with steaming mist. How far down? Fifty, maybe sixty feet. Couldn’t say for sure, but we gawked nonetheless, craning our necks at the wondrous space.
Flint had somehow hollowed out the mountain, and we stood in the center of its massive, mechanically crazed core.
Golden light reflected off a chaotic puzzle of glittering, rusted gears and rods connected up and down and around the walls. Pipes gleamed copper, gold, and silver as they snaked an intricate maze up the sides. Gauges, bolts, and meters stuck out at odd places, sometimes attached to metal or wooden boxes sprinkled on the walls like fleas. At the bottom far below, a forest of machines billowed steam and sparks.
Gears groaned. Pumps hissed. Belts zipped. Chains rattled. Pistons pumped. It was a sauna, humid and hot, my clothes already sticky, my skin glistening beads of sweat. It smelled of wet earth and old metal.
Rising high dead-center was what had to be a death ray. A transparent cone filled with a writhing, pale blue fog.
We walked across a metal walkway that jutted out from our ledge, across the chasm to a circular room encased in glass. Inside, the air was dry and cool. It smelled stale, but still a welcome relief. Rimming the room were old-school versions of the Ishida’s control tables, making the place look like a Victorian age spaceship.
Brass typewriter keys. Copper buttons looking like unscrewed bolts. A series of gleaming switches begging to be flipped alongside old radio dials and gumdrops of lights blinking red, yellow, and green. Where paneling was missing, wires wormed around turning gears. Above the desks were oxidized green handles mounted in rows and columns. A metal grate hung with rusted tools.
I said, “If Rose gets ahold of this, he’ll blow some city off the map.”
Ayden winced as he shrugged off the backpack and let it thunk to the floor. “I don’t think any of these are weapons.”
I pointed to the central canister. “Do you not see the smoke-filled deathray?”
“It’s a cooling or ventilation tower.” Ayden bent over one of the metal desks. “Leads the steam out of here, not smoke. This is a control room.”
“Oh.” I craned my neck up, then down to scrutinize th
e giant metal-machine creatures chugging in the factory below. “Like it powers everything? The tunnels, security?”
Ayden nodded as his fingers trailed over the machinery. “And probably the school, his house, back in the day.”
“How?”
“I’m guessing water power,” he said. “From the gorges, rivers, waterfalls. This is amazing, but,” he pulled his hands from the controls and checked his watch, “we’ve got to get out of here. School’s going to start and your family will start asking questions.”
“One of these has to open that door.” I went to jab a button.
“Whoa!” Ayden caught my wrist. “Don’t touch! All those machines down there, even if they hadn’t been neglected for a hundred years, might be unstable and explode.”
“Ooookay.” I frowned and fingered a handle sticking out of the wall. It broke in my hand. Swell. “Since when do you know anything about engineering?”
“I try to ignore Jayden, but some of his babbling sinks in.” Ayden squinted at the buttons and switches.
I gently pulled another handle. A long and narrow drawer slid out of the wall. Something glittered and quivered. I reeled back.
“Stop touching things!” Ayden swept me behind him.
A display case sprung out. Silver rimmed edges framing two pieces of glass encasing a crisp cream-colored map.
“I think it’s the layout of the plant below us,” Ayden said.
I swiveled it around. “Town’s layout is on the other side. Look at the waterfalls and behind it, the portal.”
Ayden’s face was grim. “Why would he draw a double spiral over the portal? There isn’t one there. We knew about the ones at school, around town. No idea what it is. I researched the symbol, but there’s nothing in the Mandatum history books.”
I squinted at the map. “I don’t see any mention of the treasure vault. Or sanctuary.”
“We’ll have to look later.” Ayden raked his hand through his hair which had lost a lot of its spike to the humidity. And demon attack. “Check the other drawers. I’ll look for a way out.”