by Holly Hook
"Dragons used to have a higher population and loved the mountains," Mrs. Macher said. "It's why the legends say they often stayed there. That, and there were plenty of caves to hide treasure. Mountains provided plenty of shelter before angry Normals learned how to navigate them with weapons. There are few wild places left in the world."
I found it ironic that Slayers had adopted them for the same purpose. Sven shook his head. "The Society are bigger hypocrites than I thought."
"No kidding?" Dirk asked. He and Ellie had been talking amongst themselves the whole time. It was the first he'd spoken to us during the trip, but the tension level didn't feel as high in the SUV as it had when Sven and Dirk were around each other before. I looked at Ellie, who was around eighteen or nineteen. She'd graduated high school two years ago. She and Dirk weren't that far apart in age...but with dragons, age didn't matter as much when you stopped growing old in the prime of your life. Could Dirk and Ellie be getting close?
"And now we'll do to them what they've done to dragons," Sofia said. She adjusted her crossbow on her lap. "I hope Father gets to see what's happening. And that we get to find out who our mother is."
"If she's still alive," Sven said. He spoke with caution.
I was glad to see Sofia's blue eyes less agonized and strangled. She'd taken a while, but she'd come around.
Sven, on the other hand, still carried that haunted look.
"And if there are any more slaves, we will free them," I said.
Sofia let her face drop to her hand. "I should have known Father liked to keep slaves. He did it to us in a way."
Sven nodded. "He can't anymore."
We entered the mountain range. The land went from hills to full peaks in no time. I imagined flying through these mountains and through the mist that covered the peaks. This was a magical place full of moss and vegetation. I could even sense some of it flowing through my limbs as if the power of the earth was stronger here. The feeling increased the more we drove down the expressway and the higher we got.
"We're getting close," Ellie said. "Can anyone else feel it?"
Dirk nodded. "That tingly feeling?"
Sven squeezed me tighter. "It must be the main stash." He spoke with confidence with just enough of his accent to make me warm all over.
The GPS spoke in a happy, calm voice, telling us to take the next exit. Mr. Macher did, driving up an off ramp. A sign warned us about possible rock slides.
"That's nice," Dirk said.
"These are the mountains," his mother said. "I don't know if the GPS will take us all the way to the stash. It must be hidden."
"And the leader might be there," Sven said. "We saw no sign of him in town."
It was the unspoken elephant in the room. Mr. Olsen had taken a moving van full of treasure. I didn't doubt he'd gone to the main stash. He also knew we'd gotten into his computer. It was easy to put the pieces together. My mind drifted back to that blade that froze me to the core.
We drove down another highway for about twenty minutes as the magical feeling increased. It wasn't as intense as the hoard back in Olivia. This magic felt restrained, almost, as if I could sense it in the background but not use it. I wondered if it was because we were approaching stolen treasure.
"The map," Mrs. Macher said, zooming out on the GPS. "It's grayed out here. It looks as if the Society has asked whoever's in charge of these satellite images to block out the location of the stash."
I leaned forward. She was right. To the left of the highway ahead, an entire mountain was blocked out by a gray square. I knew governments hid secret bases that way. It looked as if the Society had done the same thing. They wanted no one finding their stolen goods.
"The road will be hard to find," I said.
"I agree. They must have a secret drive," Sven said. "It might be a good idea to walk instead of taking the vehicles to the entrance."
"Good thinking," Mr. Macher said. "We must park some distance from it. If it's an unpopulated area, it might do to shift and fly if the terrain doesn't allow for us to walk."
"We packed plenty of clothes, right?" Dirk asked.
His parents smiled at him. "Of course."
Ellie laughed and blushed. It felt good to have a not-so-tense moment for once.
Mr. Macher slowed as we neared the large gray rectangle on the map. A few cars had to pass us. The rest of us looked for any drives that might lead to it, but the trees here were thick and the ground uneven. The mountain shielded on the map towered overhead. It wasn't even the tallest of the area. This one was dull on the top as if millions of years of erosion had worn it down. The clouds barely touched the top. The Slayers seemed to have chosen a mountain that dragons couldn't approach without emerging from cloud cover.
"It's not something I'd look at twice," Steve said.
"Father was about secrecy," Sofia said.
"Don't call him that," Sven said to her. "I don't. Not anymore."
We passed the gray rectangle on the map without finding a drive. The Society had done well, then. "Maybe it's farther up the road and loops around," Mr. Macher said as we left the blocked part of the map behind. A sign told us that the next town was in ten miles. "It won't be too close to that."
"Then we have to look again," Dirk said. "Maybe it's underground. Ted wouldn't know. It's hidden even to his guys."
We turned around at a gas station that looked as if someone had abandoned it for at least ten years and did another search, this time on the other end of the road. Sven leaned over me, facing the rocks and trees. "How did the Slayers hide this?" he asked. "There are no other roads around that mountain. It makes no sense."
"Let me look," I said. In the daytime, my heat vision didn't kick in as much. It cast everything in a strange greenish hue instead. "Over there! Stop!"
A weed-choked dirt road cutting away from this one came into focus. Mr. Macher slammed on the brakes and behind us, the two moving trucks squealed to a stop. Thankfully, no cars were coming up from behind.
"So they put the entrance on the opposite side of the road as the mountain," Dirk's dad said.
"Clever," Ellie added.
"Where's this road?" Sven asked, placing his hand on my thigh to lean over me.
But Mr. Macher pulled in before I could point out the road to him. It headed away from the mountain. I smelled disturbed earth as if someone had been through here not long ago.
"I see it now," Sven said, turning his gaze forward. "Wow, that was hidden." As we drove, weeds slapped the SUV and jutting rocks blocked our view on both sides. We left the road behind. The foliage thickened as the moving vans followed us.
"There's nowhere to turn around here," Sofia said. "I don't like that. You don't go into a fight unless you have an exit strategy."
"We have no other strategy," Mr. Macher said, slowing. "It might be best if we walk from here. No one from the road will see us from here."
Ahead, the road sloped downward. I spotted darkness ahead between two huge rocks that leaned on each other. I guessed there was barely enough clearance to allow the moving trucks through. But I recognized it for what it was right away: a cave.
And one that likely looped back around to the mountain that was still a couple miles from us.
"How did I not notice this?" Sven asked.
"Well, the Society didn't want an obvious drive heading to their mountain," I said.
We got out of the SUV as the two moving vans crunched to a stop behind us. Mr. Macher surveyed the cave entrance that was out here in the middle of nowhere. Far behind us, a single car passed on the highway.
"Well," he said. "Weapons up if you have them. This is the final stretch between us and the mountain."
Chapter Eighteen
Even though we'd brought them, we would not use flashlights unless we had to. That was the first thing we agreed on after Mr. Macher announced we were going in. We wanted no one to detect us.
And we'd do it on foot. Sofia had made a good point about not being able to turn around
if we took vehicles.
"There must be a place to turn around inside," Sofia said. "But we'd probably have to drive through the entire tunnel to get there. By then, we could run into a dozen traps and not be able to escape unless you can drive backwards with skill."
She thought strategy. I liked that.
"And," Sven added. "If the leader is in there, he won't expect us to go inside on foot. He'll expect us to want the cover that vehicles offer. Maybe he even thinks we're taking the treasure back with these vans."
"Once the area is secure, we'll do that," Mrs. Macher said. "It will take a long time to get all the treasure out."
"Why does my magic feel weird?" Dirk asked.
Ellie filled him in. "It's because this treasure used to be ours, but now someone else owns it. It's still magical, but we can't tap it for our power unless we take it back."
Her words hung over the dirt road while Ted and his men listened.
Would our magic be less useful inside? We were away from our hoard, so I feared the answer was yes.
Mr. Macher and his wife walked in the lead.
I slipped my hand into Sven's. As he walked to the entrance, his sword banged against the iron leggings he now wore thanks to Sofia raiding the shed. Many of Ted's men had put on armor and carried crossbows. As we entered the maw of the cave, Ed warned them to follow in silence and not to turn on any lights. "I'll lead you," he said. "Dragons can see a little in the dark."
My gray vision took over as the sun vanished. The cave was cool enough for the walls to be barely visible. The tunnel was only wide enough to allow one vehicle at a time. It went on for a little before curving to head back to the mountain. Tightening my grip on Sven's hand, I studied the walls for any signs of a trap. The road continued to slope downward and a wet, musty smell filled my nostrils. Leaves crunched underneath my feet, remnants of things that had blown in over the years.
And Mr. Macher saw the first trap before we even reached the curve.
"Everyone," he said. "There's a cliff up here where the curve starts. A driver who doesn't know they have to turn right here might drive off of it. The same goes for walkers." Mr. Macher shuffled forward as I stood on my tiptoes to watch him. He peered down into an abyss meant to swallow cars. "Someone could see this too late and not brake in time. There's—there's an old Volkswagen way down at the bottom. Looks as if it's been there for decades."
Somber silence fell over us all.
"They let people drive into traps?" Ted asked.
"That's the Society for you," Sven said. "I believe it."
Mr. Macher shook his head. "Might have been kids just looking for a place to make out. They died instead." He waved us around the curve, walking away from the drop-off. "Everyone who can't see in here, move to the left as you walk and hold on to the wall. That will guarantee you won't fall off the cliff. Hug the curve and continue."
Armor clanked as men moved to the wall as he instructed. I pulled Sven as far from the cliff as I could as we made a full turn to head in the opposite direction. It was almost like navigating a parking ramp in the movies though I'd never been in one.
The magical sensation strengthened as we left the first trap behind. It still carried that blocked feeling I couldn't describe.
Mr. Macher stopped again. I did, too.
"What's going on?" Sven asked.
"There's another trap," Dirk's dad said. "I see a wire across the road."
It took a second for me to notice it. The wire was brighter than the surrounding rock. It must be a bit warmer than it. It looked like one of those speed detecting ones you saw on the freeway.
"Don't stop on that. Obviously," Dirk said. "If we'd driven down here, we would have nailed it."
"And then it would have unleashed whatever trap this is," Mr. Macher said.
"I can't see it," Sofia said. "We might need a flashlight to go any further. All of us who aren't dragons need to step over it."
She was right. "I agree with her," I said. "So far, I see no cameras in this tunnel." I checked the smooth walls. There was just the wire, sticking out from two holes in the walls and stuck to the ground. Even trying to move it might be dangerous.
"Then there's electricity down here," Sven said. "There must be. The leader would have some source of power."
"How does he hide all this?" I asked. My gut filled with dread and I wanted to throw up. But I'd need that energy in case I had to shift. "I mean, he didn't hide this well before that car drove off the cliff back there. But he'd need power from somewhere to run things."
"I don't know," Sven said. "This place doesn't feel right."
Ed handed Sofia a flashlight, and she used it on the wire. "Everyone," she instructed to Ted and his men. "Step over. I'll keep the beam on this wire. Don't even let your weapons touch this." Sofia's intense blue eyes were commanding. Confident. She was just as tough as her brother.
It took a few minutes for all of us to step over. Sven and I let go of each other for a moment to do so. The men took the longest, having only the beam to see by. But everyone made it over.
"There will be more traps," I said.
"I agree," Sven added. "They will expect someone to come in here on foot instead of drive. So far, what we've come across deals with vehicles." He spoke with little accent. Sven had trained to deal with life and death. He and Sofia were in their elements here.
"They might be anti-dragon traps," I said.
"But the Society doesn't want other humans in here, either," Sven said, tightening his grasp on my hand. "Or anyone else. These traps will even kill me and my sister."
"What could they hide in stone?" I asked.
The tunnel stretched ahead. It seemed as if it would never end. The faint sound of a car passing overhead followed. We were all walking back under the road. No one spoke. We were all listening for traps or perhaps another vehicle coming up behind us. There was nowhere to hide. My magic wavered. Despite the treasure store ahead, I couldn't latch onto the power coming from it. This hoard didn't belong to us.
Yet.
But once it did...
Mr. Macher made a strange-sounding footstep a few feet ahead. Rather, the floor made a plastic creaking sound when his shoe landed on it, despite it being stone.
The man froze. I glimpsed a brief red glow in his eyes as he looked at everyone else. "That's not right," he said. "Run."
A hissing sound followed.
"Another trap!" Sven yelled, pulling me forward.
The ground wasn't right here. The stone was actually plastic. It was as if someone had installed a cover that looked like the surrounding rock. It buckled in and hit something hard as Sven and I ran over it, joining the Machers. Ted ran after us, crossbow down.
"Explosives!" Ted shouted.
People yelled. The rest of the group backed away while those of us in front ran forward, making it back on to solid rock. The hissing intensified. Sven tried to push me forward, but I was stronger than him and pulled him forward instead. We rammed into Sofia. We had to get as far as we could from the plastic floor and whatever was going to —
Explosion.
The world erupted and reddish light filled the tunnel for a second, illuminating the stone walls and blinding me to everyone's red glows. The tunnel shook as rock crashed behind us. Sven stumbled, trying to keep his balance, as Sofia fell into Mr. Macher and Dirk. Ted cursed and hit the floor, armor clanking.
The deafening noise died. I leaned on Sven's strong body as he held me. Dust filled the air, and I coughed. So did faint smoke. Everything returned to gray , leaving just the now-tight, faint red glows from everyone.
"What was that?" Dirk asked.
"We tripped a trap," Sofia said. "It must have been well disguised if dragons couldn't see it."
"I don't even know if a vampire could have seen that," Dirk said, catching his breath. He leaned forward and coughed. "That cover looked just like the floor. There must have been a pressure plate or something underneath it. That means someone's up ahead, an
d they armed the trap, knowing we'd come this way."
"Um..." I said, whirling.
The tunnel had suffered a cave-in. Boulders blocked the tunnel, separating us from the other dragons and all of Ted's men. Faint shouts came from the other side, worming their way through cracks. It was just me, Sven, Sofia, Dirk, Ted, and his parents on this side.
"What happened?" Ed shouted from the other side.
I let go of Sven and ran towards the boulders. Panic set in as I realized we had no way to go but forward while the others had to hang back. "There were explosives under a cover that looked like the natural cave floor. Someone must be inside the vault already or they wouldn't have armed the trap. Is anyone hurt over there?"
"No," Ed shouted. "I'd have to do a head count to know for sure."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "How good are dragons at moving rocks?"
"Well, I have earth magic," Mr. Boer shouted. "It'll take a while, but I can get these boulders moved. That's especially true since I can't seem to use the magic that's here. I'm going to have to rely on my own energy stores."
He didn't sound confident. "Are you sure?" I asked.
Mrs. Macher appeared next to me and indicated she was to take my place talking to Mr. Boer. "Let's be honest here," she said into one of the cracks between rocks. "This cave-in appears to be thick and until we're able to retake the treasure, it might even be impossible to do. We're two hours from our main hoard and even some of that is missing."
Silence fell.
"He can't move the rocks?" I asked.
Mrs. Macher faced me. "It's unlikely," she said. "There's magic here, but we can't tap it. I've been trying. Using our magic will be difficult. It's likely we'll only be able to shift and use fire."
"Then we're stuck," I said.
"For now," Mrs. Macher agreed.
"There has to be another exit," Sofia said. "Why would Father—why would the Wiglaf Society leader go ahead, arm this, and then shut himself in?"
"He's a coward," Sven told her. "Maybe he has food and supplies to last the rest of his life. All he cares about is his treasure."
I took a breath as the dust cleared. "There's no way to go but forward," I said, taking the lead. Down here, I couldn't bring the weather to my aid. I might not even be able to heal.
