Vault of Shadows

by Jonathan Maberry

  And the books . . .

  The ancient paper and parchment of the books caught fire. Each book screamed as it burned, and the cries filled the place with a nightmare din that threatened to break Milo’s mind.

  The Impossible Library was dying.

  They were killing it. The Swarm and the Orphan Army. Each was inflicting cruel damage on the world’s last repository of books.

  It was hateful and hurtful and Milo saw no way to stop it.

  He fumbled for his slingshot as he struggled to his feet, loaded it, and ran into the smoke. Aiming at every lifelight he saw. Firing, reloading, firing. Seeing those awful green lights explode, seeing misshapen bodies fall.

  A gray form leaped past him, and Milo pivoted as Evangelyne struck the Huntsman with her front paws just as the killer was reaching with his metal hand for the fallen firedirk. The werewolf’s claws raked the Huntsman’s armor, leaving deep parallel gouges. With a snarl of fury, the Huntsman shoved her away and snatched up his weapon. Then he bore down on her, raising the weapon to strike.

  Milo loosed a ball bearing from ten feet away. Not at the Huntsman’s face or lifelight, but at the back of his alien hand. There was a heavy clang as metal struck metal, and once again the magical dagger went flying. The very tip of the blade cut a burning line across Evangelyne’s cheek, and the wolf yelped in pain.

  Across the room, Mook had picked up a heavy oak mission table and was using it as a shield as he rammed into the ’troopers. Their pulse blasts blew chunks off it, but the rock boy was too close and moving with too much momentum for them to stop him in time. The burning oak crushed them back; then Mook released it, cocked a mighty fist, and punched all the way through one and into the unlucky aliens behind it. Green blood splashed high on the walls of books.

  Shark was down on the ground, using a smaller table for cover as he fired a steady stream of shots at the legs of the ’troopers. Already a bunch of them had fallen, and Killer—the tiniest and least dangerous of the orphans—darted in and out, biting alien faces, scratching insect eyes with his tiny claws. Doing his part.

  Evangelyne lunged once more at the Huntsman and drove him back, and the two fell into the flaming wall of books, vanishing inside a cloud of smoke and sparks. Then she went flying across the room, hurled with savage force by the Huntsman. She vanished into a wall of fiery smoke, but Milo heard her strike something solid. There was no yelp or cry. Only silence and stillness.

  Grinning at his victory, the Huntsman looked around, spotted his firedirk, and reached for it. As he snatched it up he turned to Milo, a wicked smile on his face.

  “And now, boy, let’s see if your life force is pure enough to free my queen from her prison. How would that be? To die so that the queen of all the dark faeries can join me in our conquest of all of space and time. Do you think you will rest easy in your grave knowing how thoroughly you have failed those who counted on you?”

  Milo scuttled away, tossing a small table down between him and the advancing Huntsman. A stack of books fell too and slid across the floor on their leather covers. The Huntsman kicked them out of his way.

  “Where is the Heart of Darkness?” demanded the monster. “You know where it is, don’t you, boy? Tell me now and I may even let you live. Would you like that? You can be my pet, like a monkey on a chain.”

  Milo backed away, searching through the smoke for Evangelyne.

  Shark, Mook, and Iskiel were still holding their own, using the dense smoke to manage a hit-and-run battle against the shocktroopers. That couldn’t last, though. And besides, more and more of the precious books were catching fire.

  Where was the Heir? Where was the secret door to the Vault of Shadows?

  Where was even a splinter of hope in all this madness?

  From the back of the library Milo heard the queen yell for the Huntsman to free her and to slaughter Milo and his friends. Her voice boomed as if from a loudspeaker.

  Laughing, the Huntsman strode forward to commit those murders—for his new partner and to satisfy his own red hungers. He shook out his whip and cracked it at Milo, but Milo flung himself into the smoke. The tip of the lash missed him by an inch and the sonic boom it made half-deafened Milo.

  “I’ll get you, boy, and I’ll tear the flesh from your bones!” roared the monster.

  “Bring me his heart!” screamed the queen.

  Terrified, Milo ran, but he barely got ten feet before he tripped over a figure that lay slumped on the floor. He fumbled through the gloom and found a slack arm. When he bent close and blinked his eyes clear, he saw who it was.

  “Evangelyne!” he cried, dropping to his knees beside her. She was no longer a wolf. Sprawled and bleeding, her eyes open and glazed with pain, her mouth smeared with blood, one fist clutched tightly to her chest, the leather thong of the small pouch hanging from between her fingers.

  “M-Milo . . . ?” she called in a faint, fading voice.

  “I’m here,” he said. Burning books fell from the shelves all around her, and Milo swatted them away. He knelt and pulled her to him, leaning over her, wanting to shelter her even if it was the last thing he could do. “We have to get out.”

  They could hear the Huntsman and the queen yelling and promising bloody horrors. Evangelyne looked at him and then up at the burning library, her eyes filled with panic and despair. It was all ending. This was no heroic fight. This was a slaughter and a failure and it could only end one way. The Huntsman would win. Then he would free Queen Mab and the whole of the universe would tremble as it began to die.

  “Oh, Milo,” whispered Evangelyne, “I’m sorry.”

  Milo wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. Bringing him here, failing to protect the Heart, losing her fight with the Huntsman? Or maybe she was as sorry as he was to see all these books burn, and to know that everything everywhere would also burn.

  The smoke darkened as a figure came toward them.

  It was over.

  Then a voice said, “What have you done to my books?”

  Chapter 56

  Milo looked up to see a boy standing there. He looked to be no older than eight or nine. Dressed in old-fashioned clothes and shoes, like someone from the nineteenth century. Brown hair combed to one side, big eyes behind small glasses. But all of this was transparent, like an image painted thinly on glass, or like a weak hologram. Milo could see all the way through him. But his gaze was drawn to the boy’s eyes. They were filled with such deep hurt that it made Milo’s own eyes sting.

  Milo recognized him from his dreams.

  Here was the Heir of Gadfellyn Hall. A ghost of a lonely boy who had lived and died in a forgotten library a long, long time ago.

  “I . . . I . . . ,” began Milo, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. He had no idea how to properly address a ghost.

  The Heir, however, was not looking at him, and Milo turned to see the Huntsman coming through the smoke, pushing it away as if its presence offended him. The firedirk blazed in his powerful fist. Behind him the battle raged and the fire spread out of control.

  “No,” said the boy. “No.”

  His voice was soft, but somehow it shook the whole place. Milo could feel it strike him in the chest.

  And in the next instant the room changed.

  Everything stopped.

  The fire froze in place as if it were something painted on the air. The smoke, too. The shocktroopers were caught in a tableau, some of them leaping forward. Glowing bolts of deep blue destructive energy hung in the air in front of their guns. Mook was crouched down, turning to shield a screaming Shark as huge splinters of rock were blasted from the stone boy’s body. But it was stopped. Halted in the midst of Mook being blasted apart. Killer was frozen in midbark.

  And the screams of the queen had stopped too, as if she were equally frozen.

  Milo looked down at Evangelyne. She was frozen too. Utterly still.

  Even the Huntsman—with all his devastating power—was caught immobile, a foot raised to step within stri
king distance of Evangelyne. Like everyone else, he had simply stopped. On the floor near where they stood lay the firedirk.

  But Milo was not frozen. He looked up at the Heir and saw tears glisten on the boy’s transparent cheeks.

  “My books,” murmured the ghost. “Look what they’ve done to my books.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Milo.

  The Heir looked down at him and studied him for what seemed like a long time. “You’re so full of fear. You’re afraid of everything,” he said.

  Milo said nothing because he didn’t know how to respond to a statement like that. The Heir nodded, though, as if Milo had spoken.

  “Why did you bring your war to my house?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Milo. “We came here because we needed your help.”

  The Heir pointed to the Huntsman. “You brought him here.”

  Although the face and body were those of a child, the voice was different. Older, sadder, stranger.

  “I’m sorry,” said Milo.

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am. I’m sorry he followed us here. I’m sorry he brought Queen Mab. I’m sorry we started a fight. I’m sorry your books got burned. I’m sorry for everything.” Milo let go of Evangelyne. She didn’t fall but remained where she was, as if she still leaned against him. He got heavily to his feet and faced the ghost. The fact that this actually was a ghost terrified him. The fact that the ghost had the kind of power he’d just demonstrated brought Milo beyond fear into something he didn’t even have a name for. Milo steeled himself to say the rest of what he had to say. “But I’d do it all over again if I had to.”

  The ghostly boy wore no expression on his face. “Why?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  The Heir nodded. “Why would you bring all this pain and violence and destruction here? Why would you want that?”

  Milo’s fists clenched into knots. “Want? Want? I don’t want any of this. My friends are dying. A lot of them are already dead, including a little girl who never did anything to anyone. The Huntsman killed her. My dad’s missing, and maybe he’s dead too or maybe they’re turning him into a monster. My mom’s missing too, and she could be dead right now. I’ve lost almost everything and everyone I ever cared about. Why would I do all this over again? ’Cause maybe if I did I’d get it right. Do it better. Fix it.”

  “How is that my concern?” asked the ghost coldly. “What do I care about the world? What do I care about people? My books are my family, and because of you people, some of them are dying.”

  “Then you have to know how I feel. Do you think I want any of this to happen? I’m not actually nuts.” He pointed to the Huntsman. “If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at him.”

  The ghost studied the Huntsman but made no comment. He took off his glasses, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, cleaned the lenses, and put them back on. Milo could see all the way through him and it was totally freaking him out. His own hands were shaking so badly, he wanted to hide them behind his back.

  “Look,” said Milo, “you left us that note. You said you know why we’re here. Does that mean you know about the Heart of Darkness?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “You know it’s damaged?” Milo asked.

  Another shrug.

  “Do you know what will happen if the Huntsman and Queen Mab get hold of it?”

  This time the Heir did not shrug, but he seemed to be listening.

  “My friends and I came all this way to ask you for help,” Milo said.

  “Why?”

  “Because the Heart of Darkness is broken and you’re believed to be the only one who can fix it,” said Milo. “Is that true? They call you the last doctor of magic. Is that what you are? If so, then we need your help. The whole world needs your help.”

  The Heir bent and took the pouch from Evangelyne, opened it, and spilled the cracked jewel into his palm. Milo made no move to stop him, because he was dead certain there was nothing on earth he could do.

  “Pretty,” said the Heir, then held it to his ear. “Still alive.”

  “But it’s dying,” said Milo. “You can hear that, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  The ghost shrugged again.

  “Is that a yes or a no?” demanded Milo.

  “Fixing this is easy,” said the Heir. “Tell me why I should. What would you do with the Heart of Darkness if I repaired it?”

  “Keep it safe,” said Milo at once. Then he thought about it and added, “And see if I can help my friends use it.”

  “To do what?”

  “To find out how it works. To re-learn the spells, I guess. To figure out how to open the doors to the shadow worlds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . because . . .” Milo fumbled for an answer that would make sense. “Because if we don’t, then we can’t stop the Swarm and the Huntsman. They’ll destroy everything and ruin everything, and all the Nightsiders will be lost forever in the shadow worlds. And all the Daylighters here will die.”

  “There are worse things than death,” said the ghost.

  “Maybe when I’m dead I’ll understand that. Right now, though, I’m trying to do the best I can to save my friends and find my parents. I’m trying to stop the Huntsman and Queen Mab and the Swarm from ruining everything.” Milo walked over and stood in front of the fire that had paused in the midst of burning a wall of books. “You think that the worst thing that could happen is the Huntsman burning your books? I watched my whole camp burn. I watched friends of mine burn. And die. They were real people, real lives. Real stories. Gone. Just like that. I’d give anything to stop that from happening again.” He turned and pointed to Evangelyne, to Shark and Mook, to Iskiel and Killer. “The Swarm are taking everything away from me. Everything.”

  “But why should I help you?” insisted the ghost. “I’m already dead. I’ve been dead for hundreds of years. None of this can touch me.”

  “They’ll burn down the rest of your library.” Milo saw the Heir’s face twitch and knew that his words had struck home.

  “Yes,” said the Heir, turning to study the Huntsman and Queen Mab. “There is that.” He stood for a minute, lips pursed as he considered. Milo waited him out. The room—the world—remained frozen. “If I were to help you, Milo Silk, what would you be willing to give me?”

  “Anything I have.”

  The ghost turned. “And what do you have to offer? Would you give me the Heart of Darkness?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It doesn’t belong to me. I can’t give it to you.”

  The Heir nodded as if that was the answer he wanted to hear. “Then what would you give me?”

  Milo thought about it, and then nodded to himself. All the way here he’d thought about this very moment, when the Heir of Gadfellyn Hall would ask for payment. Everyone had warned him that ghosts were devious and that discovering what kind of payment one would accept was hard. Even Evangelyne had no answers.

  Milo, though, thought he knew what the Heir might want.

  He took a deep breath and reached into his pocket. Then, as he had done with Queen Mab, he withdrew his hand and held it out to reveal the crystal egg. It looked inert and dead, with no trace of the inner lights that sometimes pulsed within its depths. Maybe it, like everything else, was frozen.

  “I’ll give you this,” he said.

  For the first time the ghost seemed surprised. “What is it? That’s not of this world. Tell me what it is and tell me why you think I might want it. Be quick and be careful. We spirits have little patience with the living, and mine is burning away.”

  Milo swallowed. “This is a book,” said Milo.

  The ghost narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What?”

  “A kind of book, anyway,” said Milo quickly. “This egg contains the genetic record of an entire hive ship of the Swarm. It has the DNA of one of their queens, all the DNA o
f her soldiers, all their science and battle knowledge. Everything. Stored in here. I guess this is their library. The Swarm want it back so bad they sent the Huntsman after us, and he’s so desperate to get it that he’s turned himself into a necromancer to find it.”

  “Don’t be so sure you know why the Huntsman sought to learn the dark arts,” said the ghost. “Not entirely. He was already walking a shadowy path long before you even heard of him. He wants the Heart of Darkness.”

  “Yeah, okay, there’s that. But he has to get this back or the Swarm will blame him for it. They probably already do. They have to know that he screwed up and wasn’t able to stop me from taking it. In its way, this thing is every bit as valuable as the Heart of Darkness.”

  The ghost seemed very interested now. He came closer and reached out to take the egg. But then he jerked his hand back.

  “No,” he said. “No, this does not belong in my library.”

  “Why not?”

  But the ghost merely shook his head.

  Milo stood there, stunned and helpless. He’d been sure the egg would be exactly the kind of thing to use as payment. It was unique, and in its way it really was a book. The ghost turned his eyes on Milo and there were strange lights there. Dangerous lights. It was then that Milo realized he was in danger every bit as dire as a minute ago when the Huntsman was stalking him with the firedirk. The ghost, though still looking like a boy, now seemed infinitely stranger and more dangerous. Darker in some way Milo’s mind refused to define.

  “You have not met my prize,” said the Heir in a voice that sounded like wind blowing through a midnight graveyard. It chilled Milo to the bone.

  “Look, please,” begged Milo. “We tried. I’ll give you anything I have. You can kill me if you want to, but please help my friends. Or . . . at least let them go.”

  The lights in the room began to fade as if the shadows were consuming them.

  “Did your Nightsider friends not tell you the consequence of failing to meet a ghost’s price? You don’t just get to walk away. Not you . . . and not anyone who has invaded my home.”