Mayhem

by Jeffrey Salane

  She paced carefully in the open space until she found herself where the basement should have ended. But instead of a wall, there was another open space. It was where her father’s safe room had been. Doe had dug it out, but had he found what he was looking for?

  She stared into the space and felt a chill deep in her bones. Standing there, M was carried back in time. She remembered Jones crumpling to the ground in front of her. She knelt down and placed her hand in the mud where his body had lain, but like the house, there was nothing there now. She sat back on her legs, which pushed her knees deeper into the mud. They were losing the light, which was exactly what Madame V had warned them against. M closed her eyes again and tried to remember the room only, not what had happened in the room. She deleted Jones, removed the Fulbright and his twisted fingers lying on the floor. She even removed herself, and then M remembered the secret doorway that led to an escape route.

  “There,” she whispered. M stood up and stumbled her way to the far wall. She traced the muddy sludge from the earth, feeling for an opening. “I know you’re in there.”

  “M!” shouted Jules. “There’s a fire! In the distance, look! Smoke!”

  M twirled around and looked up into the sky. A thin line of black smoke twisted into the air like a signal. She knew that they should investigate, but she was so close to finding what they had come here for — the Lawless School yearbook.

  “M!” It was Zara this time … and Zara hardly ever used her first name. “Time to go before something bad happens.”

  M ignored her and kept digging into the wall. The smoke grew deeper and covered more of the sky, but it didn’t matter as much as finding the entrance that had swallowed her whole just a few months before. If she found the entrance, she could find the escape pod. That’s where she last remembered holding the yearbook.

  “Not yet!” M yelled, but at the same time a loud pop erupted in the distance. It sounded like a clap of thunder in a storm that was miles away. She wouldn’t have given the sound a second thought if it hadn’t been for the rippling ground around her. It was a small tremor, but it felt so unnatural that M stepped back from the door. When the tiny quake ended, another sound took its place. A gush of wind rushed from some channel beneath her. Hot wind that made the mud around her rise in temperature in a matter of seconds. “Not now,” M said to herself. “I’m so close!”

  But before M could try to find the secret passage again, she was ripped backward and dragged through the mud. One breath later, the space M had been standing in was engulfed in flames that shot through the escape-route door. The door itself exploded into fiery pieces of molten steel mixed with mud, followed by a sea of blue blazes that roiled and filled the pit like a swimming pool of fire. And M was going to drown in it.

  The winch hook carried her across the crater and slammed her against the wall closest to where the rest of the team stood. M felt the air burst out of her lungs as she was jerked up the muddy bank like someone possessed. Next thing she knew, M had flipped onto grassy land and felt the whip of weeds against her ears and cheeks, followed by the thud of her back against the van’s front bumper as the winch finished its winding journey. She saw stars in her eyes and could barely breathe.

  “M! Are you okay?” Jules rushed to her side and unlatched the hook from her belt loop.

  M nodded frantically and strained to catch her breath, but the air had been knocked clean out of her system. Slowly she felt a warm sensation in her feet. M centered herself and focused on her legs. Her shoes were scalded and smoking from the blast, so she kicked them against the dirt to cool them off. “Where?” She coughed. “Where did the explosion come from?”

  “Where there’s smoke,” said Zara, “there’s fire. Get in the van, everyone. We’re going to play forest ranger on whoever set off that smokestack.”

  Evel and Jules helped M into the backseat. Then Zara took the wheel and drove the van off the driveway directly into the forest. The bumps throttled the passengers, but Zara kept her eyes trained on the smoke in the sky.

  “There, on the ground,” pointed out Keyshawn. “The explosion came through this way underground.”

  Outside of the front window M could see a ripple in the forest floor that laced from her house to some other location deep in the woods. The solid ground had exploded open and made a path … a path that ran toward the mysterious, rising smoke.

  “M, was there an underground escape route from your house?” asked Zara without taking her eyes from the cluster of trees that surrounded them.

  “Yes,” she answered weakly. “I was almost at the entrance when the blast blew me back.”

  “Zara pulled you back, M,” said Jules. “Not the explosion. She saved your life with the winch hook. If she hadn’t reacted so quickly, you’d be …”

  “Well done,” said M, with a wheezing laugh.

  “I don’t see how you can laugh at all this,” said Evel. “How many explosions can one person walk away from, M? I’m pretty sure you’ve hit your limit just in the time I’ve known you.”

  “She’s tougher than she looks,” Zara stated flatly as she careened through the woods. “Now let’s see who set off our homecoming present.”

  The van pummeled into an open glade and Zara slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a skidding stop right in front of a bonfire. Shreds of ash scattered in a cloud as the flames stretched upward and licked the darkening sky with bright orange tendrils. A trio of shadows loomed by the fire’s edge, as if they were waiting for trouble to show up … wishing it would, even.

  Keyshawn opened his door first, stepping out and walking around the front of the car to face the fire. Even from inside the van, M could feel the intense heat from the burning world outside. Zara joined Keyshawn, while Jules and Evel stayed rooted to their seats. The air around them warped and shimmered in a dangerous way that felt like they were already deep in the heart of the inferno.

  “I’m going, too,” said M as she struggled out of the side door.

  Zara called out to the shadows, “You know, you need a permit to burn on this property. I assume you’ve cleared this with the proper authorities, followed safety precautions, and all that.”

  “Zara Smith,” came a voice from the swirling dust. “Well, I expected a lot of people, but Lawless didn’t mention your name on the list of creeps we would have to fix.”

  “I didn’t know I was broken,” Zara said.

  “People rarely do,” said the shadow as it moved forward into the bright light to reveal Adam Worth, the leader of the Masters. And by his side were his ever-so-indestructible henchmen, Angel Villon and Rex Sykes. “Did you miss us?”

  “You?” Keyshawn was holding a handkerchief up to his mouth and nose to keep from breathing in the smoke, but he dropped it as he spoke. “We left you in Prague with Devon, waiting for the Fulbrights.”

  “I remember the situation, but I don’t remember you being there, old man,” said Worth. “Let’s just say that we aren’t ones to stay in one place for too long. But here we are in real time, right? Why dredge up the past when we can talk roasted turkey? You’re here looking for something and we came here looking for something, too. The difference is we got here first.”

  M stayed hidden behind the van, sitting and listening to the ghosts she thought she’d banished and left behind.

  “But you don’t know what you’re looking for,” said Zara. “So you set as much as you could on fire.”

  “You know what I say, Smith. If you can’t beat ’em, burn ’em.”

  M could hear Worth’s smug smile in his every word.

  “See, no one could find your old roommate, Freeman,” explained Worth. “Which gave me and the boys a grand idea. Why not pull her house apart, bit by bit? It was like torture, you know, good for the evil soul. We started in her room, peeled everything away layer by layer. Posters, walls, carpet, floor, subfloor, and so on until we left a hole where her home used to be.”

  “Did you find what you wanted?” asked Zara.
<
br />   “Nah,” spat Worth. “It felt great, but tearing down the house was a waste of time. Then, today, we get a surprise call from Dr. Lawless. He tells us that, lo and behold, we’ve been looking in the wrong place all this time. Suggests that we should look in the woods around the house. Sure enough, we found the strangest thing. It seemed so important that we had to destroy it. Thus the bonfire to end all bonfires.”

  Hidden from view, M stared at the long shadows cast from the blaze. The more massive shadow slowly inched closer to the others. It had to be Rex Sykes, and there was no mistaking his intentions. Rex wanted to smash.

  She took a deep breath and stepped out from her hiding spot. “I feel bad. You went to all this trouble and I didn’t even bring marshmallows.”

  Adam’s eyes went wide in the dancing light. “Freeman?” He sounded impressed. “I heard you crawled out from under some rock in nowheresville, but I didn’t think you would scatter back here.”

  “Yeah, you can’t go home again, Freeman,” cooed Angel. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Gentlemen, ladies,” started Keyshawn. He looked back and forth between the Lawless thugs and M and Zara. “You’ve obviously destroyed what you were looking for and we’re obviously not going to find what we came for, so perhaps —”

  But Rex interrupted him. “You came here looking for a fight.”

  “No, that was not our intention,” denied Keyshawn as he stepped between M and the others.

  “Well, old man, you’ve found one.” Rex had a crazed look in his eyes and M could already tell that this situation wasn’t going to end well for either side.

  Angel leapt first, tackling Zara. They wrestled into the darkness.

  Then Rex stomped forward and took a wide swing that connected strongly with Keyshawn’s jaw. M could hear Keyshawn’s teeth clack together. He crumbled to his knees immediately like a building being demolished. Keyshawn’s shoulders slumped and his head stayed down. Rex prepared to pummel him a second time when Keyshawn suddenly hit Rex’s thigh, lower back, and spine in a quick succession that looked like a secret ninja strike. The giant let out a sick-sounding gurgle and hung in the same position as Keyshawn caught his breath.

  “You need to stand still and learn some manners.” Keyshawn’s arms trembled against the ground and barely held his slight frame upright. “Always respect your elders.” With that, Keyshawn passed out.

  Before M could call to see if he was okay, Adam Worth was facing her. First he swiped the legs out from under her, and M crashed to the forest floor with a thud. Her head hit a stick and snapped it in two. She heard the wood crack and thought for a moment that it was her own neck. Adam leaned over her with his fist locked and loaded, ready to strike. M tried to scramble out from under him, running her hands through the dirt, looking for a weapon but came up empty.

  “Should have stayed hidden, Freeman,” he said with a miserable smile etched across his face. “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”

  Thwack!

  Zara emerged from the darkness and clocked Adam on the back of the head. M crawled away from the fight toward the car, but Keyshawn’s freezing strike was wearing off on Rex. The behemoth kid stuttered forward. He grabbed M’s ankles, swung her around like a rolled-up carpet, and tossed her next to the fire. The flames were inches from her face and the heat melted the air around her. As she looked through the fire, M could make out what was burning inside: the escape pod that had once carried her to safety. She rolled over and could see behind the fire for the first time. A train path led out of the blaze and into a tunnel that must have been where she’d ended up during her escape from the Fulbrights months ago.

  The sounds of more struggling came from behind her, so M turned to see Rex wrestling with Jules and Evel. It was less of an actual fight and more like Rex playing with two squirming puppies. Her friends only succeeded in slowing him down, but they were never going to defeat him. Seconds later, Rex flicked them both against the van like he was tossing dirty clothes into his hamper.

  M stood up slowly to face him, when a strange sensation overtook her. They were being watched. Someone else was there, waiting to attack. Then, within the actual fire, M saw a new shadow rise up like a ghost. Spewing from the fire like a giant spark, a fourth person leapt at M. She cringed away from the flame-covered body, but the stranger was too fast. Suddenly a bright fire consumed her as the attacker’s arms wrapped around her. M cried out in pain. Flames licked the back of her neck, stinging her every inch as the smell of her own singed hair filled her nostrils. This is what it felt like to be a thing on fire. Finally emergency measures kicked in and M stopped, dropped, and rolled, but she still couldn’t shake this new threat. She wore it like a fiery suit, clinging to her wrists and ankles.

  Then all at once the raging heat that was swallowing her ceased. It was replaced with a cooling sensation, like drifting in a lake. As quickly as the battle had started, it was over. Her attacker was gone and everyone else around her, good and evil, were staring back at her instead of fighting each other. Their eyes were wide, as if they, too, didn’t know what they’d just witnessed. M was about to stand up when she felt a familiar fabric close in around her from the top of her neck all the way down to her feet.

  “My suit?” She studied her arms and her body. Her plain clothes were gone, replaced by a sleek, tight-fitting garb that was almost pitch-black. Then, slowly, a red glow emanated from the suit as lines of circuitry came back to life. M could feel a new energy surging through her. It was her Fulbright suit! It had somehow been stashed in the burning escape pod, and sensed her tracker once she was close enough.

  “Oh, you guys are in trouble now,” Zara warned Adam, Angel, and Rex. “I’d say you should run, but I really want to watch M take you down a peg.”

  Rex screamed and charged M, but M lifted her magblast and fired a shock wave that connected with Rex and swept him off the ground. The giant was thrust back into a tree that shattered into splinters, knocking him out immediately.

  Then she turned to Adam and conjured up a whirlwind of smoke that she held in her hand as if she were a powerful wizard. “Now that I have your attention, tell us what you were looking for, before someone really gets hurt.”

  “A book,” admitted Adam. His face was calm. Too relaxed for someone who had just seen her take out his muscle with a flick of her wrist. “The Mutus Liber.”

  The mysterious book that Cal had stolen from the British Library (and then stole from them) had come back into M’s life in a violent way. “It’s not here,” said M. “We’ve got it somewhere safe. Somewhere you’ll never find it.”

  Then, out of the darkness, Angel Villon appeared and flashed a ghostly white burst of light in M’s eyes. The brightness blinded her, but she still fired the magblast shot at Adam. She heard the force connect with the forest in a crash of leaves and branches.

  “Look out, M!” she heard Jules scream, but it was too late. She felt something wet splash over her magblast hand, followed by a swift kick to her midsection. M clutched her stomach with her left hand and lifted up her right. Fresh paint fumes hit her and she instinctually reeled back from the smell. Paint beats the magblast, M remembered from when she locked horns with Zara on the construction scaffolding in New York. How could Angel and Adam have known that would work?

  M heard more scuffling around her, probably Zara, Jules, and Evel taking on the Lawless kids. Quickly she flipped up the mask that hung behind her like a hooded sweatshirt. It seamlessly clicked into place and the goggles tightened around her eyes and adjusted her vision. A paint can was on the ground with a stream of drops leading back toward the van. She followed the tracks with her eyes only to find Jules and Evel under siege from Angel. M flipped her left wrist so that her suit sleeve stretched out into a black whip and coiled around Angel’s leg. He looked down, surprised, as she jerked him away from her friends and dragged him back to her.

  Angel pulled a hidden pair of shogun blades out of his backpack and swiped cle
an through M’s whip. The suit snapped back into place around M’s left hand, which stung like she’d been slapped by a humongous rubber band. M clutched her hand as Angel jumped to his feet and twirled the blades in a threatening way. “What else do you have in that adorable Fulbright suit?”

  Keeping her eyes fixed on him, M flexed her right hand and a sword was constructed out of the suit’s programmable matter. The blade looked deathly black against the fire’s backdrop. Slowly they paced around each other, foot over foot in the dirt. Keeping their distance, the opponents were searching for the best striking point. Then a tingling sensation flashed from the nape of M’s neck and spiked through her entire body. She darted left automatically as Rex lunged from behind her with a sneak attack. Angel also stabbed forward with his knives, but M fought them off with one swing of her sword. Then she formed a battering ram with her left hand and walloped Rex. Still the giant only shrugged off the blow. He was a monster. Knocking him around just seemed to make this kid stronger.

  M turned and ran. This wasn’t the right time to fight these losers. Keyshawn had been right. They’d beaten M and Zara to the escape pod fair and square, but they’d never known about the yearbook. The fools had probably blown it up when they were playing with matches. Her proof was gone and so was her home. Now all she could save was her friends. M scooped up Keyshawn and threw him over her shoulder thanks to the added strength of her suit. Pacing backward toward the van, she called out, “Jules, Evel, start the car, we’re getting out of here.”

  In front of her, Angel and Rex stalked with their knives and fists drawn. M realized too late that they had formed two points of a triangle around her. She turned to find Adam Worth at the third point, cutting her off from the others. She eased Keyshawn back to the ground.