But it was not Kitty’s shadow.
Between the open space in the shelf, he caught a glimpse of her still reading to Helena in the corner. Out of nowhere, a blur of glistening steel thrusted into the bookcase. Dust burst as a blade punctured a memoir an inch away from Levi’s head.
It was his older brother, Allister. Rich with a dark complexion, he had thick dreadlocks he fashioned into a snaky ponytail that drooped over his shoulder. The brightly lit room emphasized the teen’s high cheekbones and creamy smooth skin. Even his small gold earrings twinkled.
“Allister!” screamed Levi. His Olympian competitor brother was armed with a sword. It was not the practice foil that he used in fencing competitions.
It was an honest to God sword!
It was an authentic Napoleon saber. It was far heavier than the one he was familiar with. It was long, curved, and deadly sharp. It was complete with a green Leviathan head on the end of the hilt.
Levi sprung alert, walking backwards as his older brother matched him stride for stride. Allister plucked the book he shish kabobbed and tossed it behind him. Levi stared at the tip of the sword that was just inches away from his face. “Where did you get that?!”
Tauntingly, Allister responded by pointing his thumb to a Kevlar briefcase by the edge of the door. “In the rec room,” he answered honestly. “Looks like you’re not the only one who found what your key opens. It looks like you were holding out on me, Levi,” Allister grumbled as he looked around the library. In his mind, using a Leviathan key to locate their father’s hidden resources could only mean treachery. It could only mean choosing to play by his rules. Choosing murder. “I knew none of you could be trusted,” Allister griped deeply. He panicked and shouted irrationally. He threw away all the memories he had of standing up for Levi when his little brother was picked on in grade school. He discarded the good times they had of going to the movies or watching sporting events. “You’re conspiring against me, aren’t you? I’m not weak like Zara. I won’t get killed like her! If the choice is to eat or be eaten, then I choose to eat!” He readied his sword, preparing to skewer Levi and get one step closer to securing his survival.
In a last-ditch effort, Kitty sprinted and jumped on Allister’s back. She yanked at his necklace, strangling him with it until it snapped. He bucked her off like a raging bull and sent her flying. “You bitch!” he roared, one hand on his sore throat, the other raising his saber. “I’ll gut you!”
Allister slashed left and right as he tried to kill Kitty. Novels and biographies fell from the bookshelves as they were hit in collateral damage. Allister sliced through a few to keep them out of his face. Loose pages and shreds of paper flew and twirled around the air like oversized snowflakes. Kitty zig-zagged around the room like a fleeing mouse, eventually crawling under the coffee table for protection.
“Leave her alone!” commanded Levi. Initially, Allister scoffed. However, his eyes widened when he saw what Levi carried. He too had a sword. It was the spare from Allister’s locked Kevlar case. His hand searched for the key around his neck and found nothing. In the corner of his eye, he saw his case’s lid had indeed been flipped open. He grunted at the sight of his property—his weapon—in the hands of his amateur younger brother. “You can’t play father’s game. You can’t go along with this trial,” pled Levi. In the back of his mind, he admitted he was in over his head and in no position to negotiate.
“Trial?” Allister bellowed in a roar of hysterical laughter. “The old fool probably never gave us a way out in the first place. This has nothing to do with the trial. I’m just pissed!” He swung his blade into Levi, unexpecting of what was to come next.
The two blades collided.
“I’ve trained in fencing too!” Levi reminded his brother that he was not completely without experience. They pressed their steel against one another’s at a standstill. Kitty stayed frozen and unhelpful, cowering beneath the coffee table as she viewed the showdown at a safe distance.
“You want to feel my fury?” questioned Allister. “You want to endure my anger—my wrath? By all means, show me what a novice can do! En garde!”
Allister was clearly the superior when it came to wielding a sword. During every moment, he never stopped playing the role of the aggressor. His offensive fighting style kept pushing Levi further and further back. Their blades clanged against each other’s with each move. It was like a dance. Their stances were firm, but their wrists were fluid and precise with each minute movement. But Levi’s skills could only get him so far. He was running out of space to maneuver and was backing himself into a corner.
It was no surprise. He only had about a year of practice in fencing before he decided it was not for him. But for Allister—that was his lifestyle. This was what he lived for. For him, fencing was like breathing. He practiced five times a week for nearly ten years. He had participated in the Olympics a few years ago. Though, he never placed. Father Benedict claimed that it was due to Allister’s temper. The raw skill and grit were there, but Allister was always blinded by his anger.
Levi landed one clean stroke after stepping off an overturned armchair—a mere scratch along Allister’s shoulder. In all honesty, a papercut would have hurt more.
Disgraced that someone well below his league could have landed a hit, Allister ripped off his crimson red shirt and tossed it behind him. His gleaming sweat dripped along the outline of his toned pecs. He knocked the sword out of Levi’s hands, sending his younger brother crashing into a globe and avalanching a pile of books off a nearby shelf. Allister homed in on his unarmed prey. Before he could deal the killing blow, Helena squeezed her eyes shut and pounded her balled fists against Allister’s waist like two feeble hammers. He pushed her down and turned his attention to her instead.
Allister chased Helena down to the other end of the library. During her escape, she flipped the switch for the shelves to start closing. They roared their warning buzz as they slowly began compressing together. Helena tripped and fell but proceeded to crawl through the shrinking aisleway. That did not stop Allister from following closely behind, like a fox closing in on its prey. His odd battle cry reflected this. “I’m a predator!” he shrieked. “An apex predator.” He used no proper form or technique at this point. He was bewildered with rage as he swung his sword recklessly only to have his blade bounce off the shelves. The walls were closing in on them both. Narrower and narrower they became. The shelves of books eclipsed the ceiling lights. Darkness consumed them as the final inkling of light dead ahead shrunk to a mere sliver.
Only Helena made it out.
She had to pluck her leg from the crevice, but her tiny size allowed it. The sound of snapping ribs and crunching flesh behind her was soon drowned out by Allister’s final screams of agony. Only his arm protruded from his sandwich tomb of bookcases that were now fully pressed together.
The floating arm fell limp, but his fingers were still tight, gripping onto his sword’s hilt in a final act of defiance. Soon, even that fell. Kitty and Levi stumbled over to Helena. He crouched beside her, wrapping her in his arms as they caught their breath. He situated himself in front of her so she could not see what remained of their foster brother.
Minutes later, the intercom beeped, and Levi hooked his attention to the speaker mounted on the wall beside the smoke detector. Just like Zara’s poem, it was another eulogy. Their father’s voice echoed throughout the halls.
‘Look sharp my swift blade runner. Strike fast and lunge with grace.
Flustered by all obstacles. Tears roll down your stern face.
Like a bull bewildered with a cape, you are blinded much by rage.
This transforms into a new trial.
I fear you are quite troubled for your age.
Lunge fast my swift blade runner. Sever yourself from your rut.
But since you missed your mark, I fear you’ll never make the cut.’
At that, the old-timey microphone screeched, and the announcement was complete. The room fell silent. T
he second of the Lancaster siblings had fallen. It was not even murder. Ironically enough, Allister died as he attempted that very same act on another member of his family.
At first there were twelve.
Now, only ten Lancaster siblings remained.
PART III
BARGAIN
CHAPTER 9
FINDERS KEEPERS
As dreadful as the sight of yet another mutilated Lancaster was, Levi knew he and the girls needed to keep moving.
Now, more so than ever.
There was nothing more for them in the library other than sorrow and disappointment. Levi did take the Leviathan Blade with him, just in case. He fastened it to his belt, praying he would not need to use it again. The three ran down the hall to another room before any of the other Lancasters could catch them with the newest corpse and get the wrong idea. What stood out about the next room they came across was that it was originally closed and locked, like many of the other rooms in the mansion. Now, the door was partially opened. Someone had been in here.
It was the lounge.
It was where Zara had many of her singing lessons. She rehearsed her lines for theater roles here as well. It was wide and spacious. There were not too many hiding places for any unseen visitors. There was the glossy jet-black grand piano that served as the centerpiece of the room. Other than that, there was a full mahogany bar with a marble countertop built into the corner. Kitty thought it was nicer than some of the bars she saw in restaurants in downtown Blyton. Numerous bottles of liquor, wine, and champagne decorated the wall in a glassy array of rainbow colors. There were a few shelves for books on the opposite end of the lounge. There were nowhere near as many as the library of course, but still quite a few. A pool table stood out as well, with the sticks placed on a rack mounted to the wall.
“This room was not unlocked before,” acknowledged Levi, still soaking in his surroundings. The three of them crept into the lounge, confirming it to be unoccupied. Levi’s suspicions grew as he knew, without a doubt, that this must have been the room that Zara’s key unlocked. He could not remember who had her key last. Levi and the girls pushed one of the sofas and barricaded the door shut, just in case another sibling planned on paying them a surprise deadly visit. He, Kitty, and Helena split up and began searching for anything that could be of use. Surely, there was something their father left for Zara as a resource for survival in this room.
Levi started with the bar.
Perhaps there was a clue left in one of the hundreds of bottles on the wall. He took one down, examined it carefully, then placed it on the countertop. He did this with a few to make certain he did not miss any minute detail. A weapon. A clue. Anything. It reminded him of that old song, Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.
Helena did not help. She just stood in the center, attempting to do cartwheels. She could not quite land any of them. Levi doubted his little sister grasped the gravity of their dire situation. Surely, she had an eyeful of their brother being crushed to death, even if Levi did block most of her view. Was this just playtime in her eyes—a series of morbid games, an upscaled version of when they would play hide-and-seek? Perhaps, her ignorant bliss was a coping mechanism. He would never fully understand that girl. He shook his head and kept on searching.
If only he knew what he was searching for…
Kitty helped, in her own way. She was also off in her own little world as she tried to be of use. She stared at the full bookshelf before her in epiphanic awe. She tugged on the top corner of a book at chest level. When nothing happened, she scrunched her face with sour disapproval. She reached for another book, titled Dying to Know, that stood out to her. She removed it, but nothing. She yanked out a few more and threw them behind her. She was starting to make a ruckus. The last thing they wanted to do was draw more attention to their location.
“Might I ask what you’re doing?” spouted Levi, eyeballing the mess she was making as she tossed book after book over her shoulder.
“Oh, come on, Levi” Kitty replied. “You should know by now that your pops was extravagant when it came to designing this house. There must be a secret passageway around here somewhere. And I’ve seen way too many movies to know that there’s going to be some sort of book or key on the piano that opens it up…”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Levi groaned from the other end of the room. “This isn’t some B-rated movie. We need a real clue—something my father left behind for Zara. We’re not going to ‘Nancy Drew’ our way out of here.”
At that, Helena noticed something odd after a rough landing from a handstand. She seemed to be examining the base of the piano. The grand piano sat atop a million-dollar Persian rug from the 17th century. It was old, like most things in the house. Decorated with various bluish gray circles and faded splashes of copper-tinted triangles throughout. Even though it had been restored time and time again, it still looked like an antique. Helena lifted the corner of the rectangular carpet and displayed what was underneath.
There were fine crevices.
When the three gathered around it, they realized it was a trapdoor. The girls helped Levi push the piano out the way until it was completely pressed against the wall. After rolling up the carpet, a hatchway was fully exposed. There was a door in the floor. Kitty clasped her hands, joyously enthused while Levi grit his teeth in disbelief.
“Good job, Helena!” cheered Kitty, patting her on the head. Helena lavished in her praise. Even through her facemask, it was obvious she was grinning ear to ear.
Upon further inspection, it was apparent that there was a keyhole in the floor. Before Levi and Helena could insert their keys to give them a try, Kitty flung the hatch open with a good tug. It was already unlocked. Warm air poured from the dark abyss in the floor.
They figured that the only way it could already have been unlocked was if another one of the Lancaster siblings had found the passageway first. Whoever came earlier was clever enough to place the piano and rug back on top of the trap door. But then, the question was raised of how that could even be done.
“Whoever went down there must have had help hiding this exit,” Kitty hypothesized. Levi nodded in agreement. One person must have stayed behind to return everything to its proper place. Two or more siblings must have worked together. The question was, which two?
At any rate, Levi and the girls did not have much of a choice but to see where this entrance would lead. Sure. They were safe in the lounge for now, but it was only a matter of time before Hiroshi or the others would find them and break down the door. There was no doubt that with Hiroshi’s immense size that he could do it alone.
One after the other, they climbed down a rusty ladder. It was the type that could be found descending into a sewer. The deeper it went, the darker it became. Levi hoped no one would cut themselves on the way down. He figured they would certainly need a tetanus shot after that.
Suddenly, there was a screech. One of the steps had finally given way after what must have been half a century of decay. Helena slipped and fell as she snapped a corroded bar she grasped for dear life. Levi almost lost his own grip as he caught her by the wrist. The bar clanked as it bounced against the inner stone walls of the descending tunnel until it faded into the blackness.
Helena dangled until Levi could swing her back towards the side of the ladder and she could regain her footing. He sighed in relief. Luckily, Helena hardly weighed anything at all. The further down the trio climbed, the damper things became. The air turned heavier and carried some humidity to it. They must have gone down a good fifty feet at least.
“So, is this like a wine cellar?” asked Kitty hopping off the final step to the stone floor.
“We do have a wine cellar, but I don’t think this is part of it. This tunnel is news to me.”
Their cellphones were still one hundred percent jammed in terms of connecting to the internet, calling, messaging, or reaching the outside world in any way. However, everything else worked. For example, the light on their phone that
was primarily used as the camera’s flash. It was just about as good as a makeshift flashlight at this point. It gave them a glimpse of their surroundings. But even that was not very much to go off of. They created shadows that seemed to come to life and scurry away as they pointed their phones around aimlessly. There were barrels coated in dust that lined the walls. Kitty shook some off her hand after dragging a finger along the top. Whatever was in them must have gone bad ages ago. She picked out a splinter and continued down the path as Levi led and lighted the way. It was a narrow corridor. They had no choice, but to walk in a single file line.
The floor felt like cobblestone and reverberated each step they made. Levi came to a sudden halt when he heard someone nearby.
They were worried that perhaps someone could be hiding in one of the barrels, just waiting to spring out and take them all by surprise.
“This is a bunker,” Levi realized, shining his light at a bulky cube. It was a power generator. One with a turning handle that required multiple cranks. He did not mess with it. There were stacks of canned goods beside the generator and cases containing hundreds of bottles of water. Kitty flung cobwebs out of her hair as they turned a corner. There was no longer a single route. The passageway split into multiple paths. It was quickly turning into a labyrinth.
Levi gulped as they shined their lights on some metal shackles mounted to the wall. A couple roaches crawled over them, scurrying after nibbling on what appeared to be a scab of aged flesh stuck to one of the chain links.
“This place is giving me the creeps.” Kitty wrapped her arms around her shoulders, her fingers running along countless goosebumps. Helena clung tightly to Levi’s waist, making it harder for him to keep up a consistent pace. Levi stopped walking when he heard the extra footsteps again. There were definitely more than there should have been.
The Leviathan Trial Page 8
