Fine. It’s over. Forget her heart, forget her wants, and needs, forget Avery. After tonight, that’s exactly what she would do.
The pathway narrowed, forcing them to turn sideways and squeeze through. “This can’t all belong to Grand,” Avery whispered. “Did he start hoarding at birth?”
Good guess. “He’s not a hoarder. He’s a collector.” They rounded a corner and stopped short in front of a sarcophagus. A dusty drape was tossed on the floor next to the gleaming coffin.
Avery snorted. “He’s a thief.”
“Don’t talk about Grand like that,” she said, even though she suspected Avery was right.
He pointed to the sarcophagus. “Yeah, he collected this, not stole it from someone or some country and had it shipped to a warehouse, so no one but him could see it. Makes perfect sense.”
He turned down another aisle with Emeline stalking him. They discovered an uncovered Queen Anne style sofa and loveseat with two seven foot statues of SET, their drapes pooled around their feet. “Are all these boxes filled with stuff like this?”
Emeline shrugged. “My parents certainly didn’t know about this and neither did I.” She pulled the tape off a box and peered inside. “Books.”
Avery did the same to another box. “Dishes.” He held up a plate.
Memories of Grandma Betty fluttered through her brain. Emeline took the platter from him and caressed the delicate lavender floral pattern. Sunday dinners at the house in New Paltz, Easter egg hunt in the backyard, Christmas Eve with Grand as Santa and Christmas morning with her parents and grandparents helping open presents.
The anger drained out of her. “I know what this is.” Carefully, she placed the plate back in the box and covered it with tissue paper. “All of this stuff is from the house he shared with Grandma. She’s been gone twenty years, but they were married over fifty. He must’ve packed up and stored everything here after the house sold.”
The door to a wardrobe was ajar. Emeline opened the half. Dresses fluttered as if happy to have some attention. Grandma’s favorite rose print, and Grand’s favorite yellow gingham dress she wore at least once a week to please him were mixed in with other items from her grandmother’s closet. Emeline clutched the gingham dress and brought the fabric to her nose. For a second, Grandma Betty was alive, smiling at her, and smelling of vanilla and cinnamon.
“They loved each other so much.” She let go and smoothed the wrinkles from the vintage cloth, then whispered, “I have to find him.”
Desperation growing, she studied the strange landscape.
“Come on.” Avery led the way down another aisle. Soon it narrowed and forced them to turn down a different pathway, around and around they went, finding more stuff, yet not her grandfather.
Avery shoved his way between two towering piles of stacked boxes. They shifted, the tops crashed together and wedged him in with her beside him. Her head lay on his chest, his groin pressed into her lower abdomen. Something squeaked and scurried over her feet. She shrieked and wiggled.
He stiffened and a slow hiss escaped him as boxes creaked overhead. Emeline held her breath and waited for the first one to tumble.
“Go back. I’m stuck.”
“No.” The thought of not finding Grand and losing Avery in the hoard frightened her. “I’m not leaving you,” she mumbled pressed against him.
Palms braced on both stacks, his lips brushed her forehead. “Though that’s reassuring, if you move, I may have room to get myself out of this.”
His words rumbled through her, even as the boxes dangled. Emeline stepped away. She glanced between the containers and Avery. One slip and—
“More.” He urged her, but she couldn’t take her gaze off the containers threatening to collapse on top of them.
“I can help. Trust me, I’m stronger than I look.”
A chuckle escaped him, but she heard the strain in his voice.
“Emeline, go. The boxes aren’t going to ho—”
A distant crash and a cry echoed.
Grand. She spun, searching for the direction of the sound. A crash sounded behind her. She turned again. Boxes dropped from the heights, slammed into adjacent piles, causing them to tilt and fall.
No choice but to run, Emeline dodged through the pathways, outpacing the avalanche, but not her heart. She’d left it behind with Avery.
A crate knocked into her, sending her skidding on the floor and slamming into the sarcophagus. She pressed next to it, as close as she could while boxes rained. Crates splintered, pieces smacked her, scratched her face. She sunk into the collar of her coat to protect her neck and threw her arms over her head. A container dropped next to her, tipped over, and wedged against the coffin. Others fell on top of it. Then silence so profound she’d thought her ears had stopped working. She waited, not trusting the quiet or her thudding heart.
Where was Avery? Grand?
Emeline shimmied her way out of the space and cut her hands on shards of China. She didn’t stop until she was free and standing on wobbly feet. Dust coated the air, clogged her throat. That didn’t stop her from plucking pieces of Grandma Betty’s china from her palms and climbing on top of the nearest box.
Behind her, towers of stuff crammed together further narrowed the pathways. In front of her, the stacked boxes lay strewn about, like a child’s building blocks. “Avery…Avery!”
“Eme?”
Grand. His weak voice came from behind, down one of the pathways. She had to go to him, had no choice.
“Avery?”
Silence, only this time louder. She jumped from the box and landed on the uneven debris. “I’m coming, Grand.”
Chapter Thirty
Four boxes pinned Avery, two on his chest, one on each leg, pinning his left knee and his right thigh. Emeline called him. She sounded frantic, but he didn’t have enough air in his lungs to respond. The boxes on his chest had to go first. He mustered his strength, lifted and shifted. The top container slid off and thumped next to him. His grateful lungs expanded on a sharp, painful inhale. A couple of shoves and the rest were off his body.
“Nothing’s broken.” He croaked after a mental check and a brisk climb to his feet. Bones creaked, muscles tweaked, but everything held together. Blood dripped into his eyes. He wiped it away and winced at the cut on his forehead. “Emeline?”
The landscape had changed. Mini-mountains of boxes and crates lay everywhere. A few rats scampered about, their hiding spots disturbed by the avalanche. No trace of Emeline.
No way to get around them, so he climbed from one box to the next, searching along the way for her, praying to God he didn’t find her dead under a box. He made it back to the sarcophagus. Red handprints smudged the coffin, broken china, crates, and the floor.
He touched the cooling blood. She’s hurt, lost somewhere in this hoarder’s fantasy. “Emeline!”
Heart banging in his rib cage, he walked around the coffin and found a smear shoulder length on a beam. The nearest path led to a fork in the road. He took the right, jogging down the aisle and into a dead end.
Damn it. His hands curled. Punching something, anything, would be excellent.
Footsteps echoed, but he couldn’t tell if they came from the other side of the wall or the other side of the building. Plastic bags, eighty-gallon storage bins, and an assortment of boxes, some compressed and rotting, comprised the wall. Pull one and he’d have another avalanche. He had to double back. “Emeline, I’m coming for you. Stay there.”
He traveled down three more aisles, backtracked once, jogging all the way. A sickening, rancid scent jerked him to a halt. “Oh. Hell.” The same scent which permeated the quimaera pits in the factory and clung to their scaly skin saturated the air.
Avery pivoted in a tight circle, seeking, searching. The odor wafted from a hole in the wooden floor. Quietly, he stretched out on the floor and peered into the dark opening. He heard no movement, but the scent clogged his nostrils. They were here, in the basement, nestled in their slime. God,
don’t let them wake. He had to get Emeline and Grand out of the building.
A train rumbled outside, sending vibrations through the building and the mountains of teetering junk. Avery climbed to his feet, more desperate than before. He backtracked and tried a different path.
“Emeline,” he called and got a distant, ‘Over here’. Down another curving aisle, near the rear of the structure, he found her on her hands and knees peering into a two by four opening. Boxes balanced precariously on all sides of her.
“Grand, get your butt out of there.” She’d crawled halfway inside by the time Avery grabbed her hips and hauled her back. Her fist cocked for combat, Emeline settled when she saw him.
“He won’t come out.” She huffed and returned to the opening.
Avery eased down beside her and spotted a beam of light zigzagging back and forth. “Why?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t know. He was already in there by the time I found him.”
“I can’t find it!” Grand grunted. His voice sounded breathless and muffled.
“He must be wearing an oxygen mask—and he’s wheezing,” she whispered more to herself than Avery. “I have to get him out.” Emeline started for the opening again. He pulled her away. She slapped his hands.
“I'm not letting you go in there.” Avery studied the opening. Framed by several metal steamer trunks, crates, and boxes, his big body couldn’t squeeze through. Anything could be lurking in the dark hovel, including the quimaera. That info he’d keep to himself.
Grand’s shiny bald head popped out of the hole. An oxygen mask covered half his face. He inched forward pushing a small one-liter canister of oxygen ahead of him. Avery helped prop him against a trunk. Grand’s breathing was hard. His chest rose and caved with each pull of air.
Emeline checked the tank. “This has less than ten minutes.”
The panic on Emeline’s face tightened Avery’s chest. He glanced at the dial on the cylinder streaming air into Grand’s mask.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” Grand coughed and phlegm rattled in his chest.
“I thought Reign healed him,” Emeline said to Avery. Her worried gaze pleaded for an answer he couldn’t give.
Grand chuckled weakly. “Temporary fix, dear. But don’t worry about me. Promise me you won’t.”
“You knew this? You knew and didn’t tell me?” She railed at her grandfather.
“Ah, Eme, there’s no cure for old age.”
She gripped his shoulders. Avery waited for her to shake the shit out of him. “Why are we here, Grand? Why did you drag us here?”
“Soul Catchers,” he whispered reverently. “They’re just as important as the shards of the Key. They’re here, somewhere, but I-I can’t remember. I can’t remember any of it.” A trembling hand rose to his forehead. Even in the hospital, Avery had never seen him frailer.
“You have pieces of the Key here?” Emeline asked, confused.
“Yes. It was too dangerous to keep all of the pieces in one place so I scattered the ones I had.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” She shouted.
Avery moved her out of the way and towered over her grandfather. “Because he didn’t want to share. He wanted the Key for himself, Emeline. It’s the only thing that makes sense. One question remains, did he plan on collecting it to add to his menagerie? Or did he plan on wielding it?”
Emeline’s gaze narrowed on Grand. “Answer the question.”
“I’m too old to wield it,” he grumbled. “But I’ve protected the world from its power this long. I am its guardian.” Pride brimmed in his milky eyes.
“Who let part of the Key be pawned and lost the rest?” Emeline snapped.
This argument was getting them nowhere. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Avery helped Grand to his feet. Grand’s bones crackled with each movement. Sweat beaded his forehead. Emeline grabbed his elbow and shouldered most of his weight until he was standing and steady.
“How long has this oxygen been here?” she asked.
“Awhile. Can’t really remember,” Grand said.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this place?” She demanded.
“I would’ve if you’d taken me with you,” he grumbled, all petulant.
Avery got close to Grand, loomed over his withered body. “You’ve put your granddaughter in danger for the last time.”
A defiant gleam sparkled in Grand’s eye and then waned into a wounded expression. “I’m sorry, Eme.”
She sighed and her shoulders stiffened. “You're always sorry, but you do it anyway. You should’ve just told me.”
“I promise it won’t happen again. At least we still have the other part of the Key. There is still hope. Did you bring it?” Grand switched the subjected.
Emeline’s chin dropped to her chest. “…No. It was gone by the time we got there.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?” Grand’s voice escalated with each word.
“The owner and his son were dead at the pawn shop, Grand. The place ransacked. The key wasn’t there.”
Grand’s bony fingers dug into her arms, hurting her through the sleeve of her coat. He shook her. “You sold it without my permission. You have to find it. If the pieces are brought together, put together—”
Avery removed Grand’s hand from her body and stepped between them. “Touch her like that again and you won’t like the consequences.”
Punching an old man wasn’t honorable. But this wasn’t about honor. This centered around respect and appreciation. Neither of which Grand held in high regards.
“You’d hit an old man?” he crowed and tilted his chin to the perfect angle for a TKO.
“Don’t try me.” Yet that’s exactly what Grand was doing. And there wasn’t a damn thing Avery could do. The threat was empty and they both knew it.
“It’s all right, Avery. Grand, I’ll come back here tomorrow and look for the Soul Catchers and the shards. I promise to find them. Now, let’s just get out of here.” Shoulders slumped, Emeline needed a hug. He doubted she would accept one from him. She’d made her wishes chiseled in concrete clear.
“Tell me you know a quick way out of here,” Avery ordered.
Grand nodded and perked up. “Follow me.”
They lined up behind him, Grand in the lead, Emeline in the middle, and Avery bringing up the rear. The path Grand chose took them deeper into the structure. After doubling back twice, they were no closer to the exit than before, and the pervasive scent of the quimaera seemed to be everywhere.
Emeline coughed, “God, it stinks in here. Probably dead rats and other things have taken nest in all this stuff.”
Grand ignored her.
“By the way, how are you paying for this warehouse?” Her voice had a hard edge.
“I kept some money hidden from Social Security. Hid it under Gabel, not Gamble. Your great-grandmother’s maiden name.” He cackled and choked out a cough.
“Wow.” Emeline stopped mid-aisle. Her face tight, eyes narrowed. “You kept paying on this-this landfill, while our home slid into foreclosure. I dropped out of college to keep a roof over our heads and pay for your meds, and nurse, while y-you-you-UGH!”
He grabbed her shoulders, but she yanked away. “Eme, I’m sorry. I have a disease, this hoarding. I can’t stop myself.” He reached for her hands, but she curled them into fists.
This moment, this discussion was long overdue, but not here. And not now. “We need to keep going,” Avery said with a hand applying gentle pressure to the small of her back.
She glanced at him. Pain blazed from her gaze. An ache expanded in his chest. He hurt with her. Her pain became his pain because he loved her.
“You’re right. Thanks for being here. I don’t know if I could have done this without you.” A weak smile curled the corner of one lip and didn’t reach her eyes.
“Everything’s gonna be okay. I promise,” Avery said.
A spatial distortion warped the area to their right. White light illuminated t
he room, temporarily blinding Avery, and a concussion wave knocked him into a stack of boxes. The tower of boxes tipped over, crashed into the one next to it, and started another chain reaction. Crates, containers, and all the rest of the junk shifted, tumbled against each other.
He reached for Emeline, but she pushed Grand out of the way seconds before a tower of crates crashed between them. He lost sight of Emeline and her grandfather as a vortex whirled open and kicked up a wicked wind. He searched and spotted them not far off. Emeline had Grand on her back while she alternated between climbing and scrambling out of the way of the avalanche, saving both of them from being buried.
Relieved, Avery turned back to the vortex. Roman or Reign, he couldn’t care less which one stepped through the opening. Right now, he could use the help to get Grand and Emeline out of here while he took care of the quimaera.
A clawed, scaly foot emerged from the vortex first, followed by another. A torso joined the two limbs, equally as scaly, though more pearlescent in the dim lighting. Two hands with inch long claws gripped the rim of the vortex, then a snout filled with razor teeth, balanced on a fanned cobraesque neck. The rest of him, including a barbed tail, climbed out and completed the horrendous picture.
Alamut had arrived.
Chapter Thirty-One
Nice place. EJ surveyed the building from his bike parked across the street. Not RockGate, but not bad lookin’ digs from the outside. The pre-war building had an art deco façade of light and dark masonry with elaborately carved cornices and large casement windows. All dark. EJ counted forty windows in the six-story building. An apartment building without a single tenant home? Unlikely.
After close inspection from his motorcycle, he discovered one single residence nearly as large a RockGate, not individual apartments. It lacked the width of the mansion, yet surpassed RockGate’s height by three stories. Still, hard to believe no one was home.
“I should walk up and ring the doorbell. Frontal attack and use the charm offensive.” He snickered at his own humor and rode a few blocks away from where he parked, then hoofed it back. A locked gate posed no barrier. He scaled it and landed in an alley adjacent to the building. Neatly stacked garbage bags, blue recycling bins for newspapers, plastics, and aluminum filled part of the alley along with an industrial dumpster.
Evermore (Descendants of Ra: Book 3) Page 26
