Dru hesitated. Maybe he was right. Heading through the secret door alone was a risky move. “Where’s Rane?”
He shrugged. Dru didn’t know whether that meant he didn’t know, or just wouldn’t tell her.
But every minute she stood here arguing with Salem, the Red Death was slipping farther away. And with him, she was losing her best chance of finding Greyson. She had to go in. Summoning up all of her courage, she stepped around Salem, heading for the doorway.
He grabbed her arm, his movement almost nonchalant, but his grip was tight. “Oh wait, I just remembered. Of course I can stop you.”
“Salem, for Pete’s sake, let me go. I have to get in there.”
Salem looked skyward, making an exaggerated thinking face. “How about . . . hmm . . . no?” He pushed her away from the doorway again and stood in front of it, arms folded. “If you want to stop doomsday, leave it to the big kids. You have a habit of getting yourself into trouble and making other people come bail you out.”
“You’re not going to have to bail me out, Salem.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I wouldn’t bother. Just don’t drag Rane into this, that’s all I ask.”
“I’ll have you know that when it comes to getting into trouble, Rane does not need my help.”
He leaned closer, invading her space until his crazy eyes stared deep into hers. “Exactly.” There was no mercy there.
She couldn’t stare back for long before she had to drop her gaze. She didn’t know how far she could push Salem before he snapped, and the direct approach wasn’t working at all.
More than anything, she wished she could say something scathing and acerbic, but she was too worried about Rane and Greyson to spar with him anymore. She had to find another way in.
Dru turned and slowly walked away, glancing back to see if he would follow her. But he just stayed put, arms folded, as if he was waiting for her to go away.
She gradually retraced her steps, passing the projector and its growing heap of discarded film. She waited there, hoping Salem would lose interest and leave, but he still blocked the door, glaring at her from a distance.
She kept walking. By the candelabra-holding bronze statues, the creepy stuffed animals in the next alcove caught her attention. In particular, there was something oddly familiar about the goat with the yard-long horns that curved magnificently from its forehead almost back to its shoulder blades.
It was an Alpine ibex, she finally remembered, dredging that fact up from somewhere deep in her reading. There was some sinister significance to a dead Alpine ibex, but she couldn’t remember what. Something to do with sorcerers. It was important.
As she struggled to remember it, one of the bronze statues leaned down close to her. “Dude,” it whispered.
Dru jumped. She clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream.
The bronze statue grinned. It was Rane. With her hair, skin, and dress all transformed into bronze, she blended in perfectly with the real sculptures. “Check it out. I’ve been watching this whole scene, and nobody even knows. Pretty trick, huh?”
Knowing it was only Rane didn’t help calm down Dru’s pounding heartbeat. She desperately wanted to slap Rane, but resisted the impulse. The woman was solid metal, after all.
Dru darted around behind the statues and hid in the shadows. “Did you see a guy in red go through that door?” She pointed into the distance, at the wall behind Salem.
“Couple minutes ago, yeah. Why, do we need to kick Mr. Red’s ass?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know yet.”
Salem glanced over both shoulders. Apparently satisfied that Dru was gone, he surreptitiously waggled his fingers at the door. It began to slide open.
A fluttery feeling ran through Dru’s stomach. “Okay. The door’s open. Now I have to get in there.”
Rane shook her head no. “How are you going to track Greyson without your candle and all your crystals?”
Dru held up her heavy little bag. “I made a travel size. Little tiny copper circle, little crystals. I even found an old birthday candle to use.”
“Aww.” Rane’s bronze expression melted. “Was that from the time I made you a birthday cake?”
“That was a cake?” Dru said, unfondly remembering the heavy bacon-flavored brick Rane had given her for her birthday. “What did you call it then? A protein loaf?”
“Chicken cake.” Rane shrugged. “Same diff.”
Wrinkling her nose, Dru pushed away the memory. She motioned toward the doorway, where Salem was peeking inside. “I need to get in there, but Salem’s being a total son of a Bieber.”
With clanging footsteps, Rane stepped down from the platform of statues. She rolled her head side to side, making her neck pop. It pinged like hot metal. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.”
Dru suddenly envisioned the resulting mayhem and waved her hands urgently. “No! No. Don’t. Let’s just go get Opal and put our heads together.”
Rane rolled her shoulders, loosening them. “Relax. I’ll get him out of your way in sixty seconds flat.”
Dru put her hands on Rane’s metal biceps, which were strangely as warm as skin. “Please, please, please, I’m begging you, do not start breaking things in here. This is a highly charged situation. Don’t blow things up.”
Rane snorted. “What’s wrong with blowing things up?”
“Let’s try something different, okay? You remember that book I gave you, Sun Tzu, The Art of War? Did you ever have a chance to read that?”
“Yeah. I settled down by the fire in my slippers, smoked my pipe, and read about some dead Chinese guy. What do you think?”
“There’s a part in there about baiting the enemy. Causing a distraction. That way you can win without actually fighting.”
“Pshh, whatever, dude.” Rane gave her an annoyed look, but then she apparently spotted something out on the dance floor that brightened her up. “Wait, good idea. I like it. I’m going to go all Sun Tzu on Salem’s ass.”
“That’s the spirit.” Dru pumped a fist overhead. “Okay, let’s think up a plan.”
“There you go with all the thinking again. Just watch and learn, cowgirl. Watch. And. Learn.” With that, Rane turned human again and sashayed out along the edge of the dance floor, her short gold lamé dress rippling in the light. She strutted straight past Salem, who pulled his head out of the open doorway and turned his whole body to watch her go by.
Then Rane walked right up to the tattooed guy in the wolf mask and greeted him with wide eyes and a glowing smile.
Even from this distance, Dru could clearly see her say, “Hi there!” The wolf’s response was instant interest. She took his arm and led him farther onto the dance floor, swaying to the beat as she went.
Salem watched them go, his attention riveted on Rane, his shoulders hunched and tense. At his side, his fingers clenched into fists.
Dru watched, morbidly fascinated, as Salem stepped away from the hidden door and followed Rane into the depths of the dance floor.
Bait the enemy, Dru thought. Rane was using strategy instead of full frontal assault, and it had worked spectacularly.
The moment Salem was out of sight, Dru darted out from behind the bronze statues. She ducked inside the open door and descended the shadowy metal staircase behind it, alert for any glimpse of the Red Death.
24
THE CLUTTER OF OUR ENEMIES
Dru expected the steep, rusty staircase to somehow lead to the balcony overlooking the dance floor. But instead, it went down, flight after shadowy flight of flaking metal steps with punched-out diamond treads.
Dru finally paused on the fifth or sixth landing, trying to get her bearings. The stale air was decidedly chilly and close. The stairwell was lit only by occasional caged bulbs that seeped a sickly yellowish light, leaving deep shadows where the metal stairs crisscrossed one another.
She thought about heading back to get Rane, maybe even Opal. But she couldn’t risk Salem stopping her again. If she was
going to have any chance of finding Greyson, she couldn’t go back. She was on her own.
She got out her phone and switched on the light, shining it around her. Decades of dust and tiny fragments of broken concrete had accumulated in the corners of the metal landing. On the wall, stenciled number and letter codes, military-looking, told her nothing. She kept descending.
Finally, one of the landings yielded a rust-spotted steel door the color of charcoal. A string of six letters and numbers was stenciled in yellow paint in the exact center of the door.
Though it certainly seemed abandoned, the steel doorknob and strike plate in the frame were shiny from recent use. Someone had been coming and going through here on a regular basis.
She listened at the door, one ear pressed up against the chalky paint that covered the cold metal. No sound except her own breathing. Every muscle taut with fear, she eased the door open.
Beyond, nothing moved in the still, cool air. Everything smelled of stone and water and decay.
The ceiling was easily twenty feet overhead. The rough rock was spotted with round splotches that resembled mold but were more likely minerals accumulated from seeping groundwater.
Rough floor-to-ceiling stone columns loomed out of the darkness, like the ruins of an ancient civilization. They stood ranked one after another, in evenly spaced rows that stretched far beyond the range of her phone’s flashlight.
Whatever this place was, it was impossible to gauge its size. But it was huge, and largely empty, except for random-seeming debris: stacked wooden pallets, racks of black steel drums, giant spools of wire. They were all covered in deep layers of grime, as if they had been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean, and draped in cobwebs.
She passed by a rusty metal grate that ran from floor to ceiling. Behind it stood the massive blades of a motionless fan, each one zebra-striped with streaks of corrosion.
A red symbol loomed out of the darkness. Someone had used bright red spray paint to put three interlocking circles on the nearest stone column, just above head height. The symbol was something she didn’t recognize.
She turned in a slow circle, shining the light from her phone. She spotted another symbol in the distance, then another, marking one particular line of columns leading away into the darkness.
More unfamiliar symbols: spiky triangles, wavy lines, hash marks. She vaguely recognized them as ancient sorcio signs. But she didn’t know the meaning of any of them, except for one: a circle with a pair of arrows pointing away from her. She knew that one.
Escape.
She stood frozen, ears cocked to listen for any hint of danger.
Nothing broke the silence but the sound of her own breathing and the metallic whisper of her sequined dress as she turned one way and then the other.
Was it a warning? A back door? There was no way to know.
As far she could tell, she was completely alone in here. If she was going to cast another spell to find Greyson, she had to do it soon, or else risk getting lost in this maze.
Here was as good a place as any, she figured.
She took off her disco mask and knelt down on the stone floor. Taking a deep breath, she emptied out the contents of her heavy little evening bag. She set aside her translucent rectangle of vision-enhancing ulexite and her sharp dagger-shaped wedge of iridescent spectrolite.
Carefully, she unrolled the six-inch copper circle she had earlier woven out of thin wire. It was a delicate task, because copper wire hardened over time and became brittle once manipulated into shape. But she was able to smooth it out onto the floor without breaking any of the strands.
Then she set out a selection of tiny crystals she had carefully chosen to fit into the miniature circle: tiny teardrops of tektite, a yellow polyhedron of sulfur, a penny-sized disk of gold pyrite, a chocolate-colored cross of staurolite.
Greyson’s polished oval of black jade went onto the circle opposite her, dwarfing the other crystals, but the size difference couldn’t be helped. She needed his particular crystal in order to find him. She just hoped that the exceptional clarity of the other smaller crystals would balance everything out.
In the very center of the crystal, she placed the tiny pink birthday candle from Rane’s protein loaf cake, wedging it into a crack in the stone floor.
Placing her hands palms-up on her knees, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind to cast the spell. But she was so nervous to be in this strange, cold place, so worried about getting caught alone and undefended, it felt impossible to focus on the spell. Besides, she was still rattled by everything that had happened in the ballroom.
She didn’t even know for sure whether she was on the right track. What if she had been casting this spell wrong all along, and it was just leading her on a wild goose chase? What if it was leading her away from Greyson?
What if Rane was right and he really was dead and gone?
No, she thought. He was alive. She knew it, even if she couldn’t explain why. They shared a connection that even she didn’t understand.
She didn’t have a shred of evidence that he was still alive, except for this smooth black jade crystal. But she could feel him, somehow. She could sense his existence as surely as if he stood right there before her, in the flesh.
He was alive. And it was up to her to find him.
“Come on, guys,” she whispered to the tiny little crystals. “Don’t let me down now.”
Pushing aside all her doubts, her worries, her fears, she concentrated on visualizing Greyson.
His kind eyes. His friendly smile. His broad jaw covered in dark stubble.
She imagined his creaking leather jacket, his scuffed boots, the musky scent of his shirt tinged with a hint of motor oil. The reassuring strength of his arms wrapped around her.
But most of all, she focused on the way he made her feel safe in a world that was anything but.
How many times had he put himself in harm’s way to save her? How much had he sacrificed to save the world from the Four Horsemen? He had lost everything.
She had to find him.
She had to find him now.
All at once, magical energy surged through her, as if a match had been thrown into a pool of gasoline. It flowed out of her and into the copper circle. Heat washed over her, as if she were sitting too close to an open flame.
She heard him whisper her name. Dru. For a moment, it felt as if he were right there next to her, his breath hot on her ear. Through her closed eyelids, she could see a tiny pop of flame.
She opened her eyes just as the little candle went out. A curl of prismatic smoke rose from its blackened tip and streaked past her left shoulder.
Surprised, she watched the smoke head down a dark tunnel, nearly opposite the way she had been going. Grabbing her phone, she scrambled to her feet and chased after the smoke, but it disappeared into the darkness, eluding her faint light.
Dru stared into the darkness of the tunnel. For as far as she could see, its apex was caked with a thick accumulation of minerals, making it look like the throat of some slumbering Leviathan waiting to swallow her.
“That’s just great,” she whispered, suppressing a shiver.
She quickly went back and gathered up her crystals, stuffing them into her little bag. In her haste, the coin-like disk of pyrite slipped out between her fingers and rolled away across the floor. She chased after it, trying to catch it, but the gold-metallic crystal dropped into a crack in the floor and vanished.
She shone the light of her phone down after it, down inside the deep stone crack, but the crystal was gone without a trace. No way to get it back now.
“Fudge buckets,” she whispered fiercely. Scratch one spell kit. Missing even one of the crystals meant she couldn’t cast the spell again.
Frustrated, she rolled up the copper wire and stuffed it back into her bag. She would just have to find Greyson without it. At least now she knew which direction to go.
The tunnel sloped down at a gentle angle, curving slightly to the rig
ht. Smaller tunnels intersected it, each one at a different angle.
Ahead, a warm firelight-orange glow seeped out of one of the side tunnels. Dru’s heartbeat picked up. She edged toward it, staying close to one wall until she could peek around the corner.
Inside, she was shocked to see an elaborate study. A crackling fireplace dominated the long wood-paneled room, crowned by an elaborately carved mantelpiece cluttered with knickknacks. Gilt-framed oil paintings peered down. Leather-upholstered chairs were scattered around the room, beside side tables with reading lamps and crystal glasses. A glass-fronted collection of iridescent insects hung on one wall.
But most of all, what caught her attention were the books.
Shelves and shelves stacked high with old books, all sizes and ages. Some were relatively recent, barely used, spines unbroken. Others were well-worn. Then there were the older tomes, impressively thick and heavily bound in time-darkened leather. A few were ancient, nothing more than stacks of calfskin held together by primitive leather stitching.
Irresistibly, Dru felt herself drawn into the firelight by the comforting presence of the books. They enticed her, mesmerized her, made her mind hungry. She knew a sorcerer’s collection when she saw one, and this one was huge. She couldn’t even imagine the volumes of mysteries contained within their pages.
She gave the rest of the room a cursory glance on the way to the nearest bookshelf. The center of the library was dominated by a vast table covered in charts, maps, and blueprints. She looked them over carefully, trying to understand the layout of this labyrinthine fortress. But without any frame of reference, she had no idea how to orient herself.
The corners of the blueprints were held down by old books. On impulse, she flipped open the cover of the nearest one. Its title stared back at her in an elaborately illuminated medieval text.
The Scripture of Ephraim.
Her jaw dropped open. Heart pounding, she slammed the cover shut.
It was one of the Wicked Scriptures. Just reading its text reputedly messed with a sorcerer’s head in all kinds of unpleasant ways. If a non-sorcerer was unlucky enough—or foolish enough—to read the entire thing, the result would be insanity. Or death.
A Kiss Before Doomsday Page 20