The Drowned Vault

by N. D. Wilson

  Curling his lips, One Hand looked at the rope-haired girl. He hobbled forward, raising the cane like a spear.

  “Boss! Wait!” A tattooed man hurried into view. He was holding One Hand’s dirty lab coat. “It took us forever to find the oracle. She’s here. We’ll get her to talk.” He nodded at the freezer. “We’ve got plenty of bodies. We can keep trying. But if you kill her …”

  One Hand wheeled around, staring at his coat. The man held it out. “Put it back on, boss. You’ll figure this out.”

  “I hate the coat,” One Hand snarled. His voice was thick and slow.

  “I know, boss, but you need it. Just for a little while. Till you get this figured. It will help. Please, boss.”

  Oliver stepped into the hallway mouth beside Dixie.

  “He won’t get it figured,” Oliver called into the room. “Not ever. Not in time. He’s crazy. And he only has one hand. Ha!”

  In a flash, Dixie snatched Oliver by the hand and dragged him into the room toward the old loading door. One Hand leapt forward with his cane raised. The man with the tattoos drew a long knife.

  And then the girl with the rope hair was on One Hand’s back, her coils lashed around his neck. A moment later, the ape had thrown her across the room, but a moment was all Dixie needed. She slammed into the big wooden door, her hands gripped old, cold iron, and she jerked with all the strength she had. The big sliding door hopped open on freshly oiled rails. Ducking under a tattooed arm, she grabbed Oliver by the front of his shirt and tumbled them both out into the air above the river.

  While Oliver screamed, Dixie twisted and pointed her feet down at the water’s glossy back, and at two surprised tattooed men sitting in a boat below.

  fourteen

  YESTERHAIR

  CYRUS GROANED and tried to sink into his canvas cot. He never wanted to see hair again. The world could go bald as far as he was concerned. His skin was still burning from swimming through lava water, and he had suction puckers on his cheeks and ears and the back of his neck. Antigone said it looked like he’d been making out with a squid, which, when he thought about it, was exactly what he’d been doing. For hours. The taste in his mouth was worse than the marks on his face.

  Just last night, he’d been swimming through an endless cloud of human hair with a squid on his face, in a tomb tunnel lined with mussel and barnacle razors, and walls that closed in and in and in until there was barely room for Rupert’s spotlight. Whatever charm had kept the shellfish from growing on the headstone slab, it hadn’t been nearly as effective in the tunnel behind it. But even after the mussels and hair had closed the tunnel off, Rupert had kept hacking through it for another hour before they’d retreated for the day. And that last hour had truly been the most wretched hour of the year.

  Cyrus had discovered a phobia he’d never even thought to have—the fear of being trapped in a tiny underwater hole, tangled up in ancient hair and breathing squid burps while being pinched by mussels and kicked in the head by a big man who was smashing shellfish with a knife and filling the water with seafood gore. And it hadn’t helped that Nolan’s skin had been floating around, too.

  Cyrus’s palms were raw from tearing out mussels, and his knuckles looked like he’d been punching rocks. He wanted to be asleep, but Alan Livingstone’s voice was booming out by the morning campfire.

  He shifted uncomfortably on the narrow cot. Antigone was on the cot beside him. Her black hair was loose, smeared all over her pillow like it wanted to grow for four hundred years and fill an entire stinking underwater cave. He should shave it off now.

  Antigone rustled an arm out from under her blanket. “Never want to see another spider again,” she mumbled into her pillow.

  Cyrus stared at his sister’s arm. Antigone had spent her evening being woven into a web shirt—Angel Skin—by Arachne’s army. A sleeve ran all the way down to her wrist and was snug to her skin. The pale weave was so invisibly tight and the surface so smooth, the shirt seemed more like liquid than something woven. It wasn’t exactly white, and it wasn’t silver—at least not in a metallic way. To Cyrus’s eyes, it looked like liquid pearl.

  Cyrus wiggled his toes inside his magic socks. They’d held up perfectly against the sharp shells. And now his sister had a whole shirt of the stuff—but a much tougher version, according to Arachne.

  Antigone moaned. “Seriously, Cy. All spiders, from now on, dead on sight.”

  Cyrus stretched out his hand quietly and brushed his sister’s neck with the tip of one finger. She twisted and slapped at Cyrus’s finger. His cot tipped and he fell onto the floor, laughing. Antigone took a swing at him with her pillow.

  Rupert Greeves ducked through the doorway and paused, eyebrows up.

  “My vile brother,” Antigone said, pillow raised, “seems to think he’s funny.”

  “I am funny,” Cyrus said. And he kicked over Antigone’s cot, dumping her against the wall.

  Rupert laughed. “I’ll let someone else sort this out.”

  He stepped aside as Dan ducked into the room.

  Cyrus jumped to his feet, but Antigone was a step ahead of him, flinging her arms around her older brother’s neck. Dan squeezed her with one hand and slapped Cyrus’s shoulder with the other. The blackbird swooped in over Dan’s shoulder and circled around the low ceiling.

  “Cy, man, you’re tall,” Dan said. He clasped Cyrus’s hand as Antigone stepped back. “It hasn’t even been that long. Tigs, your hair’s longer. I like it.”

  Dan’s eyes narrowed, focusing on Cyrus’s cheeks. “What happened to your face? You fight with a dart gun or an octopus?”

  Cyrus laughed. “Something like that. How’d you get here?”

  Rupert kicked around a cot, and he and Dan sat down. The bird settled on Antigone’s shoulder as Horace stepped into the room. He smiled at Cyrus and Antigone with tight lips and adjusted his glasses.

  Dan’s eyes were on the bird. “Horace and Jeb Boone came to get me. Just in time, too. I don’t really understand who was after me, but we flew all night to get here. How have you two been? We haven’t talked since Cyrus started training for some kind of race.”

  Horace cleared his throat and said, “Family is, of course, wonderful. Three cheers for family, et cetera. At another time, we could even peruse old photo albums and speak of cousins; unfortunately, we really do have urgent business to attend to.”

  Antigone scowled at the lawyer, but Rupert nodded. “He’s right. Jeb had to take a fairly direct course to get here, and he thinks someone might have marked his plane at the first refueling.” He looked at Cyrus. “Sorry, Cy, but your Angel Skin is going to have to wait. I need you down in the cave with me. We don’t have much time.”

  Alan Livingstone filled the door with his shadow, his thick arms resting on the lintel. “Rupe …”

  Rupert nodded back at him. “Everyone else get loaded and ready to go. Cyrus, come with me.”

  “Wait,” Dan said, standing back up. “Rupert, there’s something I wanted to tell you. It’s strange, I know, but I had this … dream.” Hesitating, he looked at his little brother. “Cyrus was in a grave. And then I saw a man with a red circle dragon on his chest. Tall. Short black hair. Looked like a statue. He said something, but I didn’t understand.”

  Cyrus stared at his brother in surprise. Rupert was staring, too.

  “He said, ‘Speak, snake,’ in Latin,” Cyrus said. “But that was in my dream.”

  It was Dan’s turn to be surprised. “In the grave, there was a girl with the longest hair I’ve ever seen, and she was writing on leaves with fire, and they …” Suddenly, Dan’s pupils shrank to nothing. His eyes twitched and faded to blue, and he wobbled on his feet. Rupert caught him before he fell.

  “One comes,” Dan whispered, “on the wing of abominations, and there shall be no end to war. He shall be called the Desolation, and where he casts his shadow, even dragons shrink in fear.”

  Dan’s eyes darkened again, and he looked around the silent room and sighed. “Th
ere’s something I should tell you,” he said quietly. “Something I should have told you a long time ago, back when it started.”

  Cyrus waded out into the cold water behind Rupert Greeves. He had his goggles on his forehead and a squid in his hand, waiting till the last possible moment to put it on his face. The laughter of the morning was gone—visions were one thing, but his brother’s heart had actually stopped?

  Rupert had grown angry, but not at Dan—his tenderness to Dan had made Antigone sob. But when he’d been walking through the trees, silent, with his eyes on the sky and the ground and the sea, Cyrus had known he was following a man ready to kill.

  Rupert was up to his waist. The spotlight hung over his dark bare shoulder, and two long knives were tucked into a belt at the small of his back. He raised his squid.

  “Rupe!” Cyrus yelled at his Keeper, hurrying to catch up. “Wait!”

  Rupert paused, holding his squid under the water. When Cyrus reached him, the frigid sea had tightened his bare stomach so much, he could barely breathe.

  “The man in the dream …,” Cyrus said.

  “Radu Bey,” said Rupert. “The last Dracul.”

  Cyrus nodded. “And Phoenix. I know we have to fight, but what do we do about Dan’s heart?”

  The cold didn’t seem to affect Rupert, but the question did. He looked at the gray sky, bulking up with clouds. His voice was quiet.

  “Dan’s heart does not change the battlefield. It changes the stakes. It reminds us of all that we—and those we love—stand to lose in this storm. It gives us anger and grief. It deepens our resolve.” He looked at Cyrus. “Do you know the story of David and the Philistine?”

  Cyrus exhaled, managing to keep his jaw from chattering. “You mean Goliath? David used a sling and hit him with a rock.”

  Rupert nodded. “Soon, Cyrus, we will face giants.” He looked Cyrus in the eye. “I cannot be David. But perhaps, if almighty grace permits, I can be the stone. I am here, tossed by the river, rounded and smoothed by hardship. I am ready to be placed in a sling and thrown.”

  Cyrus swallowed hard.

  “You and I are here together, Cyrus Smith.” Rupert studied him. “When your father and I were young, we were just like you are now—hungry for the physical tests, never reading what we were told. I am proud to be your Keeper.” He gripped Cyrus by the shoulder with thick iron fingers. “Your father is proud of you, Cyrus, proud of his blood and bone. Of that I am sure, as sure as I am of anything in this world.” He grinned. “Sun Tzu will come in time, little bruv.” He turned back out toward the sea. “Before we freeze, yeah?”

  Rupert raised his dripping squid and pulled down his goggles. Cyrus did the same. He’d forgotten the cold. He’d forgotten his worry. He didn’t even notice the slimy beak taste or the pinch of the suction cups on his already raw skin. Together, he and his Keeper dove.

  This time, now that he knew where he was going, the dive didn’t feel so long. They ducked into the cool hole to let the squid rest from the heat, and then pushed on into the cave. The floor was covered with mussel shells torn out the night before and swirls of hair they had hacked away.

  Rupert handed one of his long knives to Cyrus, and then led the way into the narrow tomb tunnel.

  For an hour or more, Cyrus hung behind Rupert, collecting mussels that the big man pushed back between his legs and kicking them back down the tunnel toward the cave. The hacked-off hair had to be shuttled all the way back.

  Finally, Rupert back swam out of the tunnel, handed off the spotlight, and gestured for Cyrus to lead.

  Cyrus adjusted his squid mask and bubbled a sigh out his nose. Then he swam into the dark, barnacled mouth. Inside, there was only room for small kicks. With the spotlight in front of him, he used the long knife in his other hand to claw the bottom and pull himself forward through the scattered mussel carnage.

  Finally, he reached the blocked end of the tunnel. There were shells beneath him, shells on every side, and shells in front of him—a living barricade, with nesting brown hair creeping out through every crack. The hair was like a guide. Dig toward the hair, and he would know he wasn’t drifting off course.

  Cyrus set the spotlight on the floor and immediately got to work with the knife, careful to nurse on his squid’s sporadic bubbling, and just as careful not to exhale through his mouth during the exertion.

  These mussels were big and brittle, and many of them were dead, their shells empty and hanging open. He made it a foot, and then two, letting the rubble sink before shoving it back to Rupert with his feet. He nicked his knuckles and thumped his head, and with every mussel that fell, more hair floated free, ghosting in front of his face.

  And then he reached the end. Not the end of the tunnel, but the end of the shellfish. He tugged a whole block free and sent it slowly rolling behind him. It was like a line had been drawn in the tunnel that the creatures had refused to cross.

  Cyrus swallowed hard and picked up his spotlight. Darkness. And hair. Swamping, curling, floating centuries of hair.

  He held his knife and the spotlight in front of him and flutter-kicked forward. He burrowed through the hair, and it dragged across his skin like fine seaweed, tickling his arms and his face, sending shivers down his back. The walls of the tunnel were tight, and he felt like he was swimming through more hair than water. And then the tunnel ended and he floated out into a dark chamber. In the wider space, the hair billowed like smoke. Cyrus clawed his way through it, shoving it aside as he drifted up, swinging the spotlight all around.

  The chamber was maybe twenty feet across, and the ceiling rose into a dark stone vault at least fifteen feet high. The hair was thicker below Cyrus and around his legs. By the entrance, Rupert was gathering armfuls of it in a dense wad, creating a few clearer patches of water. Cyrus kicked further up, and then studied the room below him, tracing every visible corner with the spotlight.

  Below him, in the eye of the slow storm of hair, was the body of a man, floating just above a stone table. His face was calm but creased with scars where it wasn’t hidden by his beard. His limbs were chained to cannonballs, and the heavy chains kept him floating only inches above the slab. He wore a breastplate that had tarnished black, and a long blue coat with blackened metal buttons. Tall boots had been removed and tucked beneath his floating legs. Long corkscrewing fingernails dangled from his hands, bent against the floor, and ran up the walls. More nails twisted and tangled up from his toes.

  Cyrus focused on the man’s face. It was like looking at an uncle, or a cousin to his father that he had never known. It could even be his father, if his father had lived to see another decade. The man had his father’s brow, a slightly larger version of his father’s nose. The same shoulders.

  Leaving a floating hill of hair behind, Rupert swam up beside Cyrus. After a moment, he nudged Cyrus, and the two of them descended.

  Cyrus floated directly above his sleeping ancestor, face to face with him. Rupert pointed at Cyrus’s knife, and then gathered the man’s beard together with both hands, pinching it tight like a rope four inches below the jaw. Cyrus set the spotlight on the Captain’s chest, then sawed through the coarse hair in a straight line just above Rupert’s hands. When the knife broke through, Rupert began to wind the beard hair around his forearm like a garden hose and swam toward a corner, dragging and collecting hair as he went.

  Cyrus gathered up the man’s hair at his scalp. He hacked one thick fistful, and then another as Rupert wound away the first. Six fistfuls and he was done. A minute or two later, and Rupert had it all crudely mounded in a corner and pinned beneath stones.

  Rupert pointed Cyrus toward the fingernails, while he went to the toes. The nails were soft in the water, and his knife slid through them easily just above each fingertip. One at a time, ten-foot-long corkscrew nails fell from the sleeper’s hands and feet and sank to the bottom.

  Captain John Smith drifted quietly above his stone bed, free of his hair but still in his chains. Beneath him, on the bed, Cyrus saw a lo
ng silver saber—naked, but untarnished and unrusted.

  Rupert gestured at Cyrus’s neck, and then at the cannonballs that secured the Captain’s chains. Cyrus handed the spotlight to Rupert and slid Patricia off his neck, catching the keys as they sank. Then he moved to the cannonball and chain that held the Captain’s right hand. Like the sword, the metal of the chain wasn’t rusted or even badly tarnished, but he couldn’t find a keyhole on the wrist manacle. He traced the chain down to the cannonball on the floor, and then he froze.

  It wasn’t a cannonball. It was a head. Black, metallic to the touch, and bearded. Engraved in the forehead, there was a name:

  VLAD II

  Beneath the name, there was a keyhole. Cyrus ran his hands around the head. There were two little hinges in the iron hair on the back. He looked up. Rupert was staring at the ball chained to the Captain’s right ankle. Cyrus floated over to see. It was another head, but this one was beardless.

  VLAD IV

  Cyrus swam over the top of the table, already knowing what he would find. The Captain’s left arm was anchored by a third head, this one with a long, droopy mustache.

  VLAD III

  TEPES

  The left leg was chained not to a head but to a black iron block. The block was labeled:

  RADU BEY

  Cyrus looked at Rupert and held up his keys. Should he open them?

  Rupert was kicking from iron head to iron head to iron head, and then back to the plain block. He appeared to be thinking, and Cyrus could understand why. There was something dangerous here, something truly unnerving about the idea of unlocking the heads—even more than the idea of Cyrus’s undead ancestor floating in this cavern for centuries.

  Cyrus looked at the unrusted metals, at the unrotten clothes and the man’s unrotten flesh, as he waited for his Keeper’s decision. Finally, Rupert nodded at Cyrus.

  Cyrus chose his little silver key and started with the black block on the left leg. It was the least unnerving of the four. He fingered the keyhole beneath the name.