by N. D. Wilson
Cyrus had seen bullies. He’d embarrassed bullies. He knew what came after. A bigger gang. Bigger weapons. Smaller kids surrounded.
Lick dirt. Or worse.
Radu Bey and his treaty-free transmortals wouldn’t be hiding. They’d be looking for a chance to dominate, to thump their chests and remind the world of their nastiness, to make powerful people helpless, to make humans grovel. As for the O of B, they had only freed the transmortals to avoid a fight. But that would just make it worse. Needing to be freed at all? That would sting their pride. And there were still the Burials.…
Radu Bey wouldn’t be happy until Ashtown had been crushed and pounded into dust, until every member was dead or on their knees, until the Burials were open. It was only a question of when he felt strong enough, of when his gang was big enough, of when he could find the Order alone and weak in an alley.
So … anytime, then.
But Phoenix was a different animal, making different animals. He would be hiding, designing, breeding. He would wait until the O of B was rubble. That was why he had killed transmortals and stirred them up against the Order. He might even wait until the nations of men were on their knees, licking dirt. Then he and his New Men would emerge. He would be the lion tamer, the one who held the tooth, the one to save mankind from the old destroying gods. Phoenix the Savior.
Phoenix would want to rule. He wanted to rule everything down to the cellular designs and shapes and senses of his people. Radu was power. Phoenix was control. Wherever he was, he would be preparing to tame the transmortals, to collar tornadoes, to make the beasts his own.
What did the O of B want? Not Bellamy Cook, the stooge Brendan working for Phoenix, but the regular people? They wanted the same thing all regular people did. They wanted it all to go away. They wanted the storm to pass without touching them. But when it did touch them, when it touched the ones they loved, when they were finally ready to stand and fight, it would be too late.
Cyrus could still remember the pit he’d felt in his stomach years ago in California, riding home in the first week of school. From the bus, he’d seen a small kid surrounded by bigger boys. And then they’d driven away.
He hadn’t eaten that night. He hadn’t done his homework. His father had taken him down to the cliff and they’d thrown rocks in the sea. What he had seen exploded out of him in a broken story. The boy, the bullies, he didn’t even know them. Why did he care so much? Why did it make him feel sick?
They had talked. Cyrus couldn’t remember everything, he’d only been in the third grade, but he remembered two things his father had said. “When everyone waits for someone else to do something, evil will always triumph. One bully defeats ten people when he uses fear. Ten bullies terrify one hundred people. Believe it or not, ten can frighten ten thousand.”
Cyrus had asked him what he was supposed to do when the bullies were bigger than he was, when there were more of them. His father had smiled.
“It doesn’t matter how big the bully is. What matters is if you’re bigger than the one being bullied.”
Cyrus’s mom had walked to the cliff behind them, carrying two bowls of ice cream. She’d heard the last part and looked worried.
The next day, Cyrus had gone home with tissues wadded up his nose and a purple lip the size of a leopard slug. Antigone had seen the whole thing and was appalled. At dinner, he’d let her tell the story.
Cyrus had eaten well.
It was the same thing now, just bigger and a lot more dangerous. Knowing what Radu would do didn’t mean that they could stop him. It just meant they had to try. And they had to be ready to die.
“Cy!” Rupert slapped his shoulder. “Dozing off, mate? Lucky we’re not in a car.”
Cyrus blinked and shook his head. “No. I’m awake. Just thinking. Like you told me to.”
Rupert grinned. “Well, I’m sure you have it sorted, then. You can tell me our next move shortly. Right now I need you to get to the tail door. There’s a harness and a headset. Clip in and put it on.”
Cyrus scrambled out of the cockpit, happy to stretch his legs and leave his thoughts alone. He pushed back between the empty seats and then let himself through a small door into the tail storage.
Flint was tied up on the floor.
Cyrus stumbled over him and grabbed at the walls, barely keeping his feet.
Flint’s mouth was open and he was snoring. He was in a harness with a parachute on his back. A nylon strap ran up from Flint’s pull cord and was clipped onto a rail on the ceiling. There was a note pinned to his chest.
Dearest Bellamy,
He told us everything. Brace yourself. Cheers,
Rupert Greeves (Blood Avenger)
Cyrus looked around, then spotted a headset on the wall and slipped it on.
“Cy?” Rupert’s voice crackled.
“What the heck, Rupe?” Cyrus asked. “What are we doing?”
“Time we wagged our mouths a bit,” Rupert said. “Remind Phoenix that we’re in this fight, too.”
“And that means dropping Flint out of a plane?”
“That and more. You clipped in?”
Cyrus grabbed a long harness that was anchored to a bolt in the wall. He stepped into it and clipped it tight around his waist.
“Okay,” Cyrus said. “Now what?”
“Get your arms around Flint and don’t let go till I tell you. Hop on it. Not much time, bruv.”
Hydraulics whirred in the walls around Cyrus. The tail of the plane began to open. Cyrus dropped into a crouch and grabbed Flint’s harness. Wind roared into the cabin, knocking Cyrus to his knees.
“Hang on tight!” Rupert’s voice crackled in his ears. The tail door continued to drop open. The wind became freezing-cold suction. Flint began to slide across the floor. Cyrus flopped onto the man’s chest, face to face with the snoring thug, and hooked his arms completely through the front of his chute harness.
This was no normal jump. Rupert was flying low, and he was flying at max speed, doing his best to wake up the entire state of Wisconsin. The tail dropped below floor-level, and the suction was like a tornado. Cyrus rode Flint toward the night air like a boy on a sled. His harness caught and held, and the suction lifted the two bodies up off the floor, off their feet, and banged them against the wall.
Gritting his teeth, Cyrus held on. Flint’s straps were digging into his arms as streetlights and gas stations flicked by beneath them like the dotted yellow line on a highway, and the plane dropped even lower.
Even with the chute, Flint was going to have a rough fall. The man’s head was bent straight back, his mouth was open, and his hair was whipping around his face.
Cyrus’s headset began to slip.
The plane was over farms now. Then trees.
“Now!” Rupert said.
Cyrus let go and Flint shot out and up into the night like a toy eaten by a vacuum.
And there was Ashtown—stone walls and the great courtyard and the fountain and spotlit statues along the roofs and the airstrip and the zoo buildings and the harbor and the old stone structure where Cyrus and Antigone had lived—and it was all instantly tiny in the distance. Even tinier, swinging in the air above the courtyard, there was a red parachute and a blinking emergency light.
Still flapping against the wall, Cyrus stared at the strange place that had become his home, one more place that he now missed. His headset was gone, rattling in front of him just out of reach.
The tail began to close. Cyrus sank slowly to the floor.
Five minutes later, miles away, the jet rocked to a stop on the moonlit water of a small hidden bay tucked against the side of Lake Michigan. The engines whined their way down toward quiet. Waves slapped against the shore beneath rows of shaggy trees.
Rupert threw open the cabin door and looked at his watch. The glow in the east was growing.
Cyrus was exhausted. He dropped into a seat beside the door and shut his eyes. “What now?” he asked. Something thudded into his lap, and he looked down. Goggles
and a snorkel. “We’re swimming? Rupe, we’re miles from Ashtown.”
“Seven miles,” Rupert said. “But we’re not exactly swimming.” He pulled a small metallic sphere out of his pocket and twisted it. Two halves popped apart about a centimeter and began ticking loudly. Rupert plopped it into the water. A moment later, the surface of the lake quivered with an underwater explosion and Cyrus’s seat shook beneath him.
Shock waves.
“Oh, gosh,” Cyrus said. “You’re calling the shark.”
nine
PATHS OF SHADOW
RUPERT PULLED HIS MASK AND SNORKEL DOWN onto his forehead and leaned his arms above the plane’s wide-open door. Cyrus eyed the dark water beyond him.
“Llew said it wouldn’t take her long.” Rupert glanced back at Cyrus.
Cyrus stood up. “You do know that there is more than one shark, don’t you? Lilly is the trained one, but the last time we rode her, another great big one showed up that Llewellyn didn’t even know.”
Rupert looked back at the water, rippled with wind. “Well, I guess we need Lilly to show up first, then, yeah?” He slid to the side and let Cyrus step into the door beside him. “I’d get your rope ready.”
“Why do I need a rope?” Cyrus asked.
“To tie on to a fin?” Rupert asked. “You’re the one who has done this before, not me. I assumed it would be easier than hanging on for seven miles.”
Cyrus rubbed his head and sucked in a worried breath through his teeth. He hadn’t seen Lilly the Bull in a long time. And if he had, he would have jumped right back out of the water like every other sane person on the planet. Someone with a snarling, snapping dog on a leash will swear that their dog is actually a fluffy ball of fun. Llewellyn Douglas was sure that Lilly the enormous toothy bull shark was a tender little sweetheart. And apparently, Rupert had believed him.
“We’re really doing this?” Cyrus asked.
“If she shows,” said Rupert.
“And then we’re sneaking into Ashtown. Won’t they be expecting us now?”
“We are,” said Rupert. “And no, they won’t. They’ll be expecting us to be long gone. A thief doesn’t often ring the doorbell.”
A black shape carved through distant water. Cyrus’s stomach tightened. A bigger shape followed, and his stomach did flips.
“Rupe,” Cyrus said.
“I see them,” Rupert said. “Two. Which one is Lilly?”
“How am I supposed to know that?” Cyrus asked. “Jump in and see which one eats you.”
“You’re going in first,” Rupert said. “Llew says she trusts you.”
“Seriously? No way!” Cyrus began to laugh. “Trusts? He made me grab on to her one time for like a minute!”
Rupert assessed the glowing eastern horizon. The sky was bluing fast, prepping for the sun. He looked back at Cyrus. “This is happening, Cy. And this is happening now. What’s our best approach? You take the lead.”
Cyrus inhaled slowly and leaned all the way out of the door. The two dorsals were swirling slowly around the plane, dipping, disappearing, and resurfacing to carve the lake in smooth figure eights.
“Okay,” Cyrus said. “We need to get out onto the wing.”
Cyrus pulled his snorkel mask over his head and let it hang around his neck while he watched the sharks. One was always coming when the other was going, and the last thing he wanted to do was jump out in front of either one of them.
And then the two sharks turned away together, rounding the nose of the plane.
“Now!” Cyrus said, and he dove out of the door. The water felt warm and oily. He dolphin-kicked himself forward, knowing the sharks would have felt his splash, would have already turned, would be gliding toward him. He surfaced, lunged up, and grabbed at the wing four feet above him. His bare hands would have slipped on the metal, but the rubber beads on his black gloves held like glue. He pulled his chin up over the wing, managed to hook his right leg over the edge, and with arms shaking, rolled up onto the top.
Two dorsals slid by beneath him.
Panting, Cyrus looked back at the door. Rupert had stayed behind to shut it, and he now bobbed quietly in the water beside the plane. He watched the sharks pass, and then with one relaxed stroke, he slid through the water, grabbed the wing, and tugged himself up out of the lake and all the way into a sitting position on the wing with his feet dangling.
Cyrus didn’t think Rupert could have looked any more relaxed, or his effort any more casual. The plane leaned a little and rocked with Rupert on the wing.
“I’m here,” Rupert said, and he wiped water down his face. “Now what?”
Cyrus moved behind him, closer to the body of the plane. He knew only one way to tell which shark was Lilly. On that strange day, months and months ago, Llewellyn had used signals, commands. Lilly had obeyed.
“Scoot farther out, Rupe,” Cyrus said. “Leave a big gap between us.”
Rupert pulled up his legs and moved farther out on the wing. Cyrus got down on his knees and watched the water.
The two dorsals crisscrossed out beyond the nose of the plane. Cyrus raised his fist out over the water. One of the sharks veered toward him. Cyrus thumped his fist down onto the wing and the dorsal accelerated.
The lake erupted, spewing a geyser of water while the enormous snub-nosed, wide-mouthed, black bulk of Lilly the Bull surged up like a rocket. The spray doused Cyrus’s face, and then the thick-bodied shark landed on the wing. Steel and rivets screamed. The plane slapped its wingtip into the water and rolled onto its side. Rupert tumbled and slid down into the seething lake. Cyrus fell into Lilly, slamming his face and chest against her twitching side. She was as heavy and hard as stone wrapped in wet sandpaper.
The plane continued to roll, but slowly.
“Cyrus!” Rupert shouted. “What were you thinking?” He jerked himself up the wing and rose to his rubber-beaded feet. Lilly’s bulk shifted, squealing as she slid inches down the wing.
Cyrus pushed himself off the shark. “Tie on to the pectoral fin!” He unlooped the rope from his belt and wrapped it around the base of Lilly’s slowly flapping fin. Then he cinched it to his belt. Lilly’s gills ruffled. Her baseball-size eye rolled. Rupert was tying on to the other side.
“She can’t breathe,” Cyrus said. “You ready?” He pulled up his mask and tucked the snorkel into his mouth.
“Ready!” Rupert shouted.
Cyrus slid forward, leaning past the shark’s wild eye. Making his fist, he tapped the shark on the nose just like he’d seen Llewellyn do.
Lilly gaped her mouth, baring tooth armies. Her body quaked. She belched, and then vomited gallons of partially digested fish off the back of the wing and into the lake. Cyrus gagged at the smell. He’d used the wrong signal.
He thumped his fist on the wing, hoping that would work. Lilly didn’t move. Reaching down right beside her eye, he thumped the wing again.
The shark jerked and writhed forward. Cyrus clung to her fin. He heard Rupert swear, and then the huge living bulk hit the water, dragging them both in with her. She dove. Cyrus heard the plane rocking and the metal shrieking above him. Lilly turned and Cyrus saw the wingtips slapping the water like a massive distressed teeter-totter. The other shark passed them, circling beneath the plane. Lilly left him behind, cruising out into the lake.
Grabbing at Lilly’s pectoral fin, Cyrus pulled himself up as far as his rope anchor would let him. He could just see Rupert hugging tight to Lilly’s other side.
Cyrus’s Keeper looked up and smiled around his snorkel.
Seven miles to Ashtown. He hoped Llewellyn had taught Rupert how to steer. Cyrus ducked his head and let the force of the current press him tight against the shark’s body. Soon he would need to breathe. He wondered if Lilly cared.
The spires and rooftop statues of Ashtown’s great hall were on fire with daylight when Lilly surfaced for the twenty-first time on her lake cruise. Cyrus spat out his snorkel and shoved up his mask. They were fifty yards outside the stone ha
rbor wall. Up the green slope and across the little airstrip and above the line of underground hangars, the towering kitchen windows were bright from within. An army of cooks was going to war in the predawn, preparing to feed the men and women who had all sworn to defend the world against the darkness and its secrets. They might not be keeping their vows, but at least they were going to breakfast well. Cyrus could see the smoke rising from the kitchen chimneys, and the smell of bread and bacon fat reached him across the water.
Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe the sight of the kitchen windows was all his mind needed to recall the sizzling acres of bacon once tended by Big Ben Sterling, the always-laughing and occasionally evil no-legged cook. And the mounds of hot biscuits his flour-faced minions had heaped into baskets. And the bowls of soft butter they had stirred into thistle honey. And the smiles they had given to Cyrus as he had eaten himself into exhaustion.
The shark slowed, gliding into the harbor like she was waiting for them to make a decision. Rupert snorted and spat. “It’s enough to break my heart, being out here and looking at that kitchen.”
Cyrus laughed. “So it’s not just me? I was thinking about Sterling’s biscuits.”
Rupert sighed. “You had to mention those. They’ve never been quite the same since we lost that old crook.” He looked at Cyrus. “Eat a dozen in memory. We have to dive again. We don’t need a dragonfly dropping by with a camera.”
Cyrus licked lake off his lips. He nodded and pulled his mask back down. “Where to?”
“Beneath the zoo,” Rupert said. “Not the Crypto wing,” he added quickly. “The barns.”
Rupert tapped Lilly’s head, and Cyrus grabbed a gulp of air, tucking his snorkel back between his lips.