Her eyes ran along the surface of the river to the bank and over to Tobias on the rock. “Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s all very quiet.”
At that moment the water violently rippled. Suddenly the lifeless Bottom Dwellers on one of the rocks near Tobias slipped into the river. The reptilian bodies piled on another rock followed suit. One by one the boulders were cleared of dead Fomorii, shoved into the river by an unseen agent. Like a spectator at a hyperactive tennis match, Shen turned his head back and forth as he tried to track the dropping Bottom Dwellers. Sensing danger, he raised his bloodstained pole. But before he could fully extend it above his head, Shen was lifted into the air by his left foot. His stick tumbled into the river. Suspended upside down over the water, Shen was completely immobile save for his head. The next thing he knew, he was flying toward the shore. Yowling as he drifted, Shen disappeared around a bend in the river.
“So, what in the blazes happened?” Bartimaeus asked.
“I don’t know,” Lucille said with a tremble in her voice. “He flipped upside down and just floated away. The Fomorii remains are gone as well.”
“Go to Dismal Shoals,” Bartimaeus instructed. “Whatever nabbed Tobias is sure to take him there.”
Beneath St. Thomas Church, the boys stepped out of the darkened tunnel and into the first chamber of the Undercroft. From the weak light seeping in from high above, it was hard to get a sense of the immense square room. In the damp stone ceiling, four shafts directed dingy sunlight into the fifty-foot-high chamber. The light barely illuminated the steep inclines along the side walls. They were treacherous-looking ramps—more like slides, Will thought—made of unsupported stone blocks jutting from the rough walls. The problem was that both inclines led up to a flat stone wall. There were no doors or openings of any kind in the chamber except for the tunnel behind them.
“Do you think maybe we should read your green book now?” Simon asked. “Or do you want to just guess at our next step here?”
Will fished out the ziplock bag containing his great-grandfather’s notebook. Having flipped open to the page bearing the sketch of the first chamber, he presented the book to Simon with reluctance. “Be careful with this.” He pointed to the writing at the top of the page as he handed it off. “My great-grandfather calls this room the St. Paul Chamber.”
“Considering the number of times St. Paul was imprisoned, that may not be a good sign.” Simon pushed his sports goggles up the bridge of his thin nose and squinted at the scribble. “This is interesting.”
The boys moved behind Simon’s shoulders, trying to read the text.
“Do you all mind backing off? You’re standing in my light,” Simon protested, even though he was holding an LED penlight. Once they moved away, he read rapidly in his high-pitched squeal:
THE CHAMBER OF ST. PAUL
Like Saul, you must restrain your wrath.
Take a deep breath and step on the path.
Though you lack sight,
move toward the light.
Walk in Paul’s humility,
1-2-3,
or you shall meet eternity
just as he.
“I’m lost. Who’s Saul?” Andrew sighed. “I thought you said this was St. Paul’s room?”
“Wasn’t ‘Saul’ Paul’s name before God knocked him off his horse and made him blind?” Will asked Simon.
“That’s correct. Saul persecuted Jesus’s followers, but after he was blinded by a bright light, he converted to Christianity and became the apostle Paul. That’s the way I learned it in Sunday school, anyway.” Simon returned to the writing near the bottom of the page. “I get the ‘take a deep breath and step on the path’ part—which I guess means we should step on one of those inclines. But where is the light we’re supposed to move toward? Is it that light from the ceiling?”
Without hesitating, Will flicked the brim of his pith helmet, shifting it upward away from his hazel eyes. His pupils shot from the stone incline on the right to the one on the left side of the chamber. Impulsively, he marched to the very edge of the ramp on the right. “Here goes nothing.” With that, Will inhaled, placing both his feet on the first sloping stone block—not at all sure that he had chosen the right ramp.
The grinding of stone and the clinking of chains reverberated through the chamber, creating an awful clatter. Simon and Andrew startled at the sound. Will never flinched, but continued looking upward. At the very top of the incline, a piece of the solid wall slid away, revealing an arched opening. Bright light shone from within.
“Let there be light. I guess that’s what we’re supposed to move toward,” Will announced as he lifted his leg to walk up the incline.
Simon ran forward and grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t move. Do you see that cutout in the stone there?”
Will glanced up to his right. Just above his eye level there was a four-inch slit running all the way up the wall.
“The book says, ‘Walk in Paul’s humility, one-two-three, or you shall meet eternity just as he.’ ” Simon was still holding Will’s arm. “How do you walk in the humility of Paul?”
“Better question: How did Paul ‘meet eternity’? How did he die?” Will asked.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Andrew added.
“Oh, I’m sure that’s what you were thinking…,” Simon said, glancing back at Andrew. “Paul was beheaded. They cut his head off in Rome. The legend is that Paul’s head bounced three times. On each spot where it bounced, a spring of water shot up.”
“So if I don’t ‘walk in humility,’ I could drown or lose my head! Great,” Will said, scratching his neck. “How do I walk in Paul’s humility?”
The three boys exchanged looks. Finally Andrew spoke up. “Don’t look at me. I’ve never seen nobody walk in humility.”
Will fell to his knees. “This is humble, right?” He started moving up the incline, onto the next stone block.
“The instructions actually say to walk in humility,” Simon lectured, reading from the notebook, his voice going higher with each word. “It doesn’t say crawl, Will. It says walk.”
Ignoring the advice, Will continued to make his way up the stone ramp, one kneecap at a time. At nearly the halfway point, he stopped. “There is a number one on this next stone,” he shouted down to his friends. “What do you think I should do?”
“Don’t step to the left,” Andrew snickered.
Simon’s eyes turned to slits. “Your comic asides are not helping.” He then directed his comments to Will. “I suggest you stay low as you move to the number one stone. Is there a two and a three?”
Ahead of him, Will could see the other blocks with numbers carved onto their faces. Each numbered block was separated by an unmarked one.
“I’m blaming you if I get my head sliced off, Simon,” he shouted as he crawled onto the number 1 block.
Will felt the stone quake the instant he touched it, a whirring noise sounding overhead. Above him a pair of swordlike blades spun out of the slit in the wall and retracted three times. Sweat covered Will’s forehead. Still on his knees, he instinctively leapt forward onto the next stone—an unmarked one—and not a moment too soon. Within seconds, water poured from the wall over the number 1 block he had just vacated.
“Look out!” Will warned the boys below. He could feel the wall rumbling to his right.
The number 1 stone was thrown across the room by a gush of water, smashing it to the floor. A torrent now spewed from the hole in the wall where the stone had been and pooled below. I won’t be going back that way, Will thought, glancing at the broken path behind him. The boys hadn’t much time, and Will knew it.
“You two are going to have to go up the ramp on the other side of the chamber. Stay low and move fast,” Will instructed.
Simon and Andrew did not need an invitation. They fell on all fours and teetered on the first block of the incline opposite Will. There was just enough room on the stone’s surface for the two of them. The clatter of chains and an awful g
rinding echoed from above. At the top of their ramp, another opening presented itself, blinding them with light. The water was rising fast.
Andrew glanced up at the long, steep climb ahead of them. “If we don’t get moving, we won’t make it. Come on, four eyes.” Andrew linked arms with Simon in case the boy lost his balance. “I got you.”
Simon was panting. “I can’t stand heights—I can’t breathe when I’m off the floor.” The boy was puffing out his cheeks, inhaling and exhaling air with great effort.
“You’re going up a stone slide. You ain’t having a baby!” Andrew said.
But Simon did not take the bait. He ignored the comment and continued to huff and puff, moving cautiously up the incline.
Across the chamber, Will made the decision to speed-crawl to the top of his ramp. “You guys keep moving. Once I reach the opening, I’ll be able to help you.” He hustled onto the number 2 block, triggering the appearance of a new set of blades overhead. He quickly pounced on the number 3 stone and neared the opening. In a matter of seconds, both the number 2 and 3 blocks had been pushed to the floor by a pair of geysers springing from the wall. Only these sprays of water were so powerful, they reached clear across to Andrew and Simon’s incline.
“I can’t do this. I’m slipping,” Simon whined, sliding backward on the wet stones.
“Hold on. I got you,” Andrew assured him. The bigger boy tried to drag his scrawny sidekick forward. A steady stream of water cascaded toward them, and they were still several stones away from the numbered blocks in the middle of the ramp.
At the summit of the opposite incline, Will tumbled through the opening. His pith helmet rolled onto the tiled floor inside. When he looked up, he found himself in a bright, expansive chamber.
“Guys, I made it. I made it!” Will cried jubilantly, taking a quick peek at the next room. The new chamber was at least a hundred feet tall. Facing him, on the other side of the room, a wall of fire illuminated the space. He realized this was the source of the bright light he had seen from inside the first chamber. The only break in the wall of fire was a wide black metal door at the center.
On Will’s right and left, huge grim stone statues lined the walls. Many of their faces were hidden under hoods or wrapped in rocky veils. The visible faces wore pained expressions turned to the sky. I guess this is not the party room? Will surmised. He reached around for the green notebook in his backpack and then remembered that Simon still had it.
A high-pitched yowl drifted in from the first chamber. It was Simon!
Will pulled a coiled rope from his backpack and fleetly tied a bowline knot at its end, just as he had been taught in Boy Scouts. “That’s pretty badge-worthy,” he told himself, tying off the knot. He snatched his pith helmet from the floor and raced toward the opening at the top of Simon and Andrew’s incline.
In the first chamber, gushing water from across the way pounded his friends, making it hard for them to advance up the ramp. Will threw his rope to Andrew, who now held Simon by the collar of his drenched orange shirt. In a full panic attack, Simon wailed and begged to remain where he was. This was not an option. The pair was only one stone away from the numbered blocks, and Will knew from experience they had to keep moving—and fast.
“Tie the rope around Simon and I’ll pull him in,” Will instructed Andrew. While the large boy struggled to get the rope around his uncooperative climbing partner, Will tied his end of the rope to the leg of the nearest statue in the second chamber. Once he had doubled the knot, he looked up at the mammoth hooded figure. “Whatever you do, don’t make any sudden moves,” Will said.
Simon’s shrieks echoed from the first chamber again.
“He’s freaking. I can’t get him to stop,” Andrew complained.
“Just get that rope around him. Once you touch the first numbered block, you’ve got to move quickly. The stones will start flying fast.” Will then turned his attention to the bleating member of the team. “Simon, calm down! You have my great-grandfather’s notebook, and if you fall…I’m going to kill you! We need that book.”
The deflated Simon sobered up. “I can’t make it. I’m feeling nauseous.”
Andrew threw an arm around Simon’s back. “We’re going now. Control yourself and don’t barf on me.”
Before Simon could offer any resistance, Andrew pulled him toward the number 1 stone, then on to the unmarked one. The razorlike blades scissored over their heads. A blast of water shot out of the wall inches from where they knelt. As expected, the stone behind them went flying.
The whole time, Will clung to the rope, steadying Simon.
“I’m not going any farther. Leave me here,” Simon huffed.
“I’d love to leave you here. But if I keep climbin’, there won’t be a ‘here’ for you to stand on. You’ll be down there.” Andrew tilted his head to the right.
Looking over the edge, Simon saw brown water rising and—out of the corner of his eye—something gliding in the drink. “What is that?” He pointed toward the completely submerged tunnel they had used to enter the chamber. A pair of rounded yellow eyes and a long snout floated atop the water’s surface.
“I don’t know what it is—and I don’t want to find out. Do you?” Andrew said.
Simon crouched low and waddled ahead with new determination. Andrew followed his lead, affecting his own munchkin shuffle.
“Watch your head,” Simon said, stepping onto the number 2 block. Andrew just barely ducked the second set of crisscrossing blades, quickly toddling onto the next unmarked stone. Simon wasn’t quite fast enough.
“Dan, honey, we need to talk,” Mayor Ava Lynch brayed from the other end of city hall’s executive corridor. With every step her heels dug into the gray marble of the second-floor hallway. The woman with taut, glistening skin and a sculpted plume of black hair advanced at amazing speed.
Dan Wilder knew what she wanted. He fumbled his key into the lock on the door bearing his name—desperately trying to get inside before she reached him. “Ava, I have an important call now. But I’ll come down and see you before the vote,” he said, faking a smile.
“Dan. Dan! I need to speak with you now, sugar.”
Her booming voice was muffled by the closing office door, which he locked. Within the walls of his well-ordered corner refuge, Dan was safe. The colored pencils arranged by hue in their segregated cups, the draft paper stacked in neat rows above his slanted worktable, the bare oak desk holding nothing but a phone restored his calm. This was his retreat, his perfectly appointed hideout from the world, immune to the madness outside. He leaned back on the thick wooden door and heaved a sigh of relief.
“Dan. Dan.” The mayor’s voice got progressively louder outside. “We got the autopsies back from the coroner’s office on the two kids who died at the river today. Dan, I need a moment.”
“I can’t now, Ava,” Dan Wilder yelled. He had just heard from Sheriff Willy Stout, Andrew’s father, about the odd deaths at the river. Bruises on the victims’ legs and arms held “reptilian-like” impressions, but the thing that most rattled Dan, the information that had sent him trembling into his office, was the revelation that the victims had been choked to death. Their mouths and lungs were filled with what Sheriff Stout called “river trash.”
“Never seen nothing like this. Without knowing better, you’d think the bed of the river just appeared in the coroner’s office,” Stout told him. “Chunks of green mud, snails, shells—algae-covered river trash—all shoved in their little mouths. No animal could have done this. Makes no sense….”
Dan stumbled toward his desk, trying to forget his conversation with the sheriff and to expel the memory of the refuse he had seen fall onto the roof of his home, and into his den. He dropped his keys onto the desktop and headed toward the red stuffed leather chair, its back turned to him. As he spun the chair around, his face went white. There on the seat was a reeking pile of green bones, shells, and river muck. The stench of the rotten debris filled the office. More of it was piled
beneath his desk—writhing, heaping mounds of the putrid waste. It was actually throbbing—moving.
There was a rap on the door. “Dan! Open up. I can’t wait till later. We need to speak now,” the mayor said again.
Dan ripped off his glasses, wiping the sweat from his eyes. Placing the spectacles back on his face, he took a deep breath and began flattening his hair in the mirror on the wall. His mouth was dry and he couldn’t swallow.
“Coming. One minute,” he croaked. He stole a glance at his chair before going to the door. The pile of river trash was still there. And on the floor, the shells and mud and broken bones were slowly advancing toward him. He was not imagining this. With one awkward movement, he pulled open the door and slid into the hallway, quickly slamming it behind him.
“We should talk in your office,” Mayor Lynch said. “What’s wrong with you, Danny?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m perfectly fine.” Dan’s wide eyes and slight tremble told a different story.
“The autopsies came back on those two kids. Very strange deaths. I want you to be on the oversight investigative task force.”
“Can’t do that. I—I—I’m very…uh, really…busy.” He rubbed his lips together as if trying to stall a cry. “No, I wouldn’t be good at that sort of thing.”
Mayor Lynch folded her arms, lowered her chin, and looked down her chiseled nose at Dan. “I didn’t ask if you’d be good. I said I want you to be on that investigative task force.”
“Why? Why me?” He anxiously ran his hands up and down his pant legs.
“Because you’ll do a thorough job and you’re a Wilder. You’d bring a sense of credibility to our work….Did you know your aunt Lucille was down on the river near the crime scene today?”
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