Vault of Shadows

by Jonathan Maberry

  He heard sounds all around him, muffled and distorted by the water. Screams. There were definitely screams, which meant that some parts of the ship might not be fully flooded. And there was a massive pounding sound as if someone were hammering on the walls with a sledgehammer.

  And something else.

  A sharp sound above him. Small and strange, filled with panic.

  Was it . . . barking?

  Yes.

  Above him somewhere, Killer was barking.

  Barking was impossible underwater. Milo kicked upward, fighting the drag of his soaked clothes, his pouch of slingshot stones, and the scavenging pack he always wore. His lungs burned and his head pounded. He wondered if seeing Lizabeth had been a dream of his dying, drowning mind.

  The barking continued, and it bounced with distorted frenzy through the cold water as Milo kicked and kicked to try to find it.

  Then something struck him hard across the mouth.

  Milo recoiled in pain and confusion. It had been something that moved. His face felt mashed, and he pawed the water to try to find the object and fend it off before it hit him again.

  It hit him again.

  And again.

  Finally, Milo managed to get his hands in front of his face and catch the thing. He felt something solid. A shape that instantly made sense.

  A shin. An ankle. A shoe.

  No, a sneaker with the same familiar tread as his own.

  Milo began climbing up the leg to the thigh, the hip. He felt bare skin and a broad stomach. Then a hand reached down into the water, slapped at his head, took a fistful of his hair, and pulled him upward until Milo broke the surface of the water into an air pocket. Killer’s bark changed from blind panic to something else, something that was still frenzied but now included a note of happy excitement.

  “Milo?” gasped Shark.

  “Yeah! Ow, let go.”

  Shark didn’t immediately let go. Instead he pulled Milo until he hit the wall. “Grab onto something.”

  Milo had to flap around, slapping the walls until he found a section of the panel. Most of the machinery was smooth, but he found the section Shark had opened and he hooked his fingers around that. Then he simply held on as he gulped in lungfuls of air. It was still smoky, but it was air.

  “Where’s . . . Evangelyne?” he gasped.

  He heard Shark make a noise that was fear and anger. “Down there. Hold on, I’m going to try again.”

  “Again—?” Milo began, but Shark was gone, leaving behind the sound of a splash and the hysterical Jack Russell. He could also hear the pounding sound. It was so powerful that it shook the whole ship, and suddenly Milo understood what it was.

  Mook.

  The stone boy was in the hold with the wounded and was trying to smash his way out. But he was made of stone and the ship was built of metals and alloys that had been designed to withstand the artillery of Earth Alliance weapons, midair collisions, and the stresses of interplanetary travel. Milo did not believe that Mook was going to be able to smash his way out, not even with all the crushing force of a rock spirit.

  Milo bent low to the surface of the water to try to find some clean air beneath the roiling cloud of smoke. He took a small breath, didn’t choke, took a longer breath, held it, let it go, took a bigger one, and then dove beneath the surface.

  He saw Iskiel there, swimming sluggishly as if dazed, his fiery glow diminished by the dark water. At least he could survive underwater, though not forever if they remained trapped.

  Milo kicked toward the back of the bridge, drawn by the sound of Mook’s furious hammering. In the dark there was no way to know how close he was to the wall, and he found it by crashing into it. Then he crawled up to the surface, found that the pocket of air was even smaller there, took another breath, and sank down, searching for handholds on the wall, finding only a few, but enough to keep him moving in the right direction. The ship’s power was out, but all vessels have a manual release for escapes following accidents, and the alien ships were no different.

  It seemed to take a million years to find the lever, which was built into an inset slot beside the hatch door. He gripped it with both hands, braced his feet against the wall, and pulled.

  The lever did not want to move. Or maybe it was designed for beings more powerful than a skinny eleven-year-old boy.

  Even so, he put everything he had into it, pushing with the big muscles in his thighs, using his core strength. Using everything he had, until the darkness seemed to be filled with exploding red fireworks.

  Just when he thought his lungs would burst and his bones break, the lever moved. First grudgingly, and then all at once. Milo was hurled upward by the sudden release of tension and he shot into the air pocket, hit the ceiling, and dropped again. Then he kicked up, took a couple of quick breaths, and swam back down.

  And was amazed that he could see.

  Down there in the swirling water was a light. It poured out from the open hatch and he saw bodies moving. Refugees from the camp, some of them swimming with energy, some floating limply as they were pulled by others. He saw the slim form of Lizabeth, moving with the grace of a mermaid. She had an arm hooked around Barnaby and, despite her tiny size, was pulling him quickly through the hatch. Two of the survivors had waterproof flashlights, and it was by their light that they all crowded out of the hold. There was no way for Milo to know how many of them had survived. It was too confusing.

  Mook turned and looked up at him and said, “Mook!” But it came out as a watery gurgle.

  Then the stone boy turned toward the main hatch. Milo swam down to him and guided Mook’s rocky fingers toward the manual release that would allow them to escape the drowned ship. Mook grabbed the lever and pulled. The design may have been nearly beyond Milo’s strength, but it was no match for the rock spirit. The lever jerked upward and then snapped off, but the door opened with a whoosh.

  The water swirled and bubbled, and then something moved into the alien ship instead of out of it. A brute of scales and claws and teeth.

  Everyone screamed the last of the air out of their lungs.

  Chapter 23

  Milo shoved people away as the alligator rushed forward, and its whipping tail struck Mook on the side of the head. But the stone boy spun in the water and swung a mighty punch at the beast, catching it with a glancing blow.

  The gator instantly jerked around toward the source of the blow, and the very tip of its tail caught Milo in the chest with the force of a boxer’s punch. Milo felt himself flying upward once more, and he used the momentum to get up to the air pocket for one last gulp. Killer’s barks were filled with wild panic now, and as soon as Milo reached him he knew why. The air pocket was only a narrow slit above the thrashing surface, and the dog was barely able to keep his mouth above the water.

  “I’ll be back,” promised Milo, and then he jackknifed and dove down once more. The flashlight beams were shining all over the place as the survivors tried to fight their way past the gator. Sunlight from outside slanted down through the churning lake water, showing them their route.

  But the gator was still there.

  It was locked in deadly combat with Mook, who had wrapped his arms around the thickest part of the alligator’s tail. Although the rock boy was powerful and had nothing to fear from the gator, the reptile was much faster and its thrashing body kept bashing Mook against the bulkhead.

  Milo dove down below the battling pair and began shoving the drowning survivors out. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Shark rising from below him, dragging with him a limp form. Evangelyne. Her arms and one leg looked wrong. Crooked.

  Broken.

  Her eyes were open, but Milo was positive she couldn’t see him. Or anything.

  There was total panic on Shark’s face. Milo’s friend was clearly almost out of air. He was dying while trying to save the girl.

  How long had all this taken?

  Two minutes?

  It seemed longer but was probably half that time.
Seconds feel like hours when you’re struggling to breathe.

  Milo kicked hard to reach Shark, grabbed Evangelyne’s belt, and together they fought their way through the hatch and out into the lake. Behind them Milo heard a strangled roar of rage and pain. And then there was a bellow of furious triumph.

  “Mooooooooooooook!”

  There was no time to look. Milo and Shark swam upward. The red ship had settled in about twelve feet of water, and Milo was sure half the lake was inside his lungs. They broke the surface and tried to bite big chunks of air. It was cool and sweet and wonderful. Around them the heads of the survivors were bobbing. People were coughing and crying and yelling. But that only meant they were alive.

  “Can you swim?” cried Milo. “Can you get her to shore?”

  Shark sputtered and spat. “I—I think so. But—”

  Milo didn’t stay to hear what else his friend had to say. He took a big breath and dove back down. He followed the rays of sunlight and reached the flooded hatch just as a broken and twisted form floated out.

  The gator.

  Mook had not been kind to it. Milo half regretted that the gator had to die, but the alternative was too horrible to imagine. Mook appeared in the doorway and tried to ward him off, but Milo ducked past him and swam as hard as he could in and then up. There was no sound of barking to guide him, and Milo’s heart began to sink as he fought to locate the pocket of air.

  Above him he saw a tiny figure floating there. Not barking, not swimming. Drifting. And as he approached it, Killer’s body began sinking down toward him.

  Milo grabbed the dog, twisted around, and swam harder than he ever had in his life. Killer was a limp bundle in his hands.

  Mook must have seen him. As Milo swam toward the hatch, a big rocky hand reached out, caught the strap of his satchel, pulled him out of the wrecked ship, and hurled him upward toward the surface. Milo broke into the air, gasping and sputtering, and turned to hold Killer above him as he began furiously kicking toward the shallows. As soon as he could, Milo stood. He slogged through the water to the muddy bank, then dropped to his knees and began working on the terrier, gently massaging his chest to try to find a spark of life.

  “Let me,” said a voice, and he looked up to see Lizabeth standing there. Even though she had just come wading from the water, her hair seemed strangely dry. She took Killer from his hands and laid him on the grass, then knelt and breathed into the dog’s slack mouth.

  Once.

  Twice.

  A third time.

  And suddenly the dog’s little legs kicked out, and he rolled over and vomited a pint of lake water onto the grass. Then he lay there, panting, tongue lolling, with his tail flapping up and down in a pathetic attempt to wag.

  Milo knee-walked over to him. “Lizzie—what did you do?”

  She didn’t answer but simply backed away and headed toward a section of bank where other survivors were crawling out of the water.

  Milo bent and kissed Killer’s head, then turned to say something else to Lizabeth, but he couldn’t see her. Instead he saw Mook come striding out of the water holding Evangelyne in his arms. A weak, trembling Shark staggered along in his wake and did a graceless belly flop in the reeds.

  “God,” said Milo as he got shakily to his feet. He hurried over to where Mook was easing Evangelyne down onto thick grass. “Is she alive?”

  “Mook,” said the rock boy doubtfully. Milo reached past him and pressed fingers against the girl’s throat.

  There it was. A pulse. Surprisingly strong despite the obvious injuries. Milo assessed the damage. Evangelyne’s left forearm was badly broken, with the ends of bones nearly ripping through the flesh. Both legs seemed to be more crushed than snapped, which meant that there could be multiple fractures. Her clothes were torn and Milo could see long rips in her skin. She’d been on the side of the bridge closest to where the hull had hit the lake bottom, and the collapsing wall must have crushed her. Milo was no doctor, but from what he could see he didn’t think there was even the slightest chance of her ever walking again. Not without a lot of special surgery.

  He looked wildly around and saw other survivors kneeling over the badly wounded, each of them fighting their own fear, hurt, and exhaustion to give what first aid they could. Iskiel lay on his back at the edge of the water and Milo couldn’t tell if he was even breathing. It was a disaster, and Milo was not at all certain that he and his friends would survive it.

  Part Two

  MILO AND THE REFUGEES

  “From caring comes courage.”

  —LAO-TZU

  FROM MILO’S DREAM DIARY

  I keep dreaming about the lonely little kid living in some strange place called Gadfellyn Hall. I don’t know his name or anything about him.

  Not until the dream tells me.

  All I know is that the dream gets more real every night. And in my dreams I’m reading his story. But it’s not like I’m sitting there with a book on my lap. I can hear the story in my head, but it’s like I’m telling it to myself.

  Does that even make sense?

  Chapter 24

  The day was filled with horrors.

  And even though none of those horrors involved more Bugs or Stingers or spaceship battles, the horrors were almost more than Milo could bear.

  Friends of his were hurt. Bleeding. Broken.

  Dying.

  Barnaby and Evangelyne were the worst. They lay side by side on beds of soft grass and leaves. Milo didn’t care one bit if Oakenayl would have disapproved of him cutting leafy branches down to provide comfort for them. The tree spirit wasn’t here, and when he’d had a chance to offer help, all he’d done was walk away. At that moment Milo would have been happy to turn Oakenayl into a nice rocking chair. Or a campfire. The creep.

  Iskiel woke from his daze and slithered through the makeshift camp, using his stored fire to ignite the gathered wood. Apparently he didn’t care much what Oakenayl might think either.

  Mook, likewise, did everything he could. True to his rocky nature he was tireless and steadfast. He carried the wounded into the woods and helped construct the shelters. And when hungry alligators came sniffing around, Mook picked them up and hurled them into the center of the lake. None of them came back.

  The mosquitoes did, though. They swarmed in and brought squadrons of blowflies with them. And as the day wore on, the heat seemed to flow directly out of an oven. The trickiest and most unnerving part of the day for Milo was helping Shark set Evangelyne’s broken bones. It was horrific work that made her scream. The pain woke her up, and then the shock slammed her back down into her personal darkness.

  When they were finished, Shark sagged back, his face gray and sweaty, his eyes glassy and filled with fear. “That . . . was . . .”

  He couldn’t finish, and didn’t need to. Milo wanted to throw up.

  Mook stood over her, standing watch and clearly feeling as helpless as they did.

  “Mook?” he inquired softly.

  “I don’t know,” said Milo. “She got hurt before, when we were fighting the Huntsman, but when she transformed she got better.”

  “Then that’s what she has to do,” said Shark. “Go all wolfy.”

  “Right, but she’s unconscious and I’m not really sure if she’s strong enough to do her transformation.”

  They looked up at Mook.

  “Is she?” asked Shark.

  The rock boy spread his hands and shrugged his stony shoulders uncertainly. “Mook?”

  As he got to his feet, Milo said, “Mook, could Halflight help her? Could she? Do you know where she is? Can we, I don’t know, call her?”

  The rock boy looked away as if not willing to meet Milo’s eyes. “Mook,” he said unhelpfully.

  “We need help,” insisted Milo.

  “Mook,” said the rock boy again, very softly. He turned and walked over to the bank and stood looking out across the water.

  Shark, who had overheard, also got to his feet, and wiped his bloody palms
on his jeans. He still had no shirt, and his brown skin was crisscrossed with pink scratches and shallow cuts. Nothing that needed stitches, though. Normally Shark would be terribly embarrassed to be seen without a shirt, but the circumstances had canceled that out. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know,” said Milo. “None of them will tell me what’s wrong with Halflight. Or where she is.”

  “You think she’s dead and they’re just not saying?”

  “I don’t know. I mean . . . why would they?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  They looked around at the big forest. Some of the trees were young, having grown wild since the invasion. Others were very old, suggesting that for the most part these woods had always been here. That might mean it was state forestland, a park, or the forested edge of someone’s property.

  “Where do you think we are?” asked Milo, but Shark was one step ahead of him. He removed his compass from a pouch on his belt and studied it. He turned in a slow half circle and then pointed.

  “Okay, our old camp is behind us, so Mandeville has to be north and a bit west of where we’re standing.”

  “How far?”

  “No idea. C’mon, let’s see if we can find a landmark.”

  They walked back to the water’s edge and peered through the gloom. The clouds were getting thicker as twilight had begun working its way toward them, and the air smelled like rain. A thick mist was drifting across the lake, but Milo could make out something big and angular farther along the bank. He tapped Shark and pointed.

  “Is that the causeway?”

  Shark made a sour face. “What’s left of it.”

  The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, according to their geography teacher, used to be one of the longest bridges in the world. Nearly twenty-four miles. It once connected Metairie, near New Orleans in the south, to Mandeville in the north. That was before the Dissosterin hive ships arrived. Now all that remained were the steel and concrete supports and stubby, jabbing shards of the roadway. The rest had been blasted down to prevent human resistance fighters from moving troops and equipment. The bridge was crammed with an entire army division when the pulse weapons opened up on it. All those brave soldiers and all those tanks and fighting vehicles had plunged into the water. New Orleans fell the following day, and now a hive ship hovered over it, though currently the monstrous craft was hidden by the clouds.