by N. D. Wilson
“No use thinking,” Horace said. “Hope. Pray. Don’t think.”
Smoke was climbing into the sky from both ends of the huge structure. There had been explosions. Rifles were cracking. And then, over it all, Dennis heard the roar of jet engines.
Horace and Dennis looked upriver. The plane was coming in low, rippling the surface of the water as it passed. It looked like a wide single wing, with two snarling jet intakes fixed close together beneath the cockpit.
Dennis had seen the plane before, when it had dropped paper dragons on Ashtown.
As they watched, the plane rose and banked hard over the length of the factory. Four shapes dropped from its bomb-bay doors, one after the other. They punched through the roof, spaced evenly from one end of the factory to the other. But nothing exploded.
Diana Boone backed into the trees beside her brother, loading and firing as fast as she could. Nolan and the Livingstones were facing fewer than before, thanks to Jeb’s sharp eye. But there were still too many.
On Diana’s side, Dan and the Captain were fighting back to back, holding the ramp. The Captain was swinging the iron head and launching grenades. Dan was firing one of the enemy flame guns. Together, they were a swirl of flame and smoke and whirling chain. Diana didn’t have many clear shots that didn’t also risk them.
“Di!”
She twisted back toward her brother’s side, rifle raised and ready. He was pointing at the sky.
The transmortals’ single-wing jet was banking over the factory. Four figures dropped from the plane, crashing through the roof like boulders.
The tattooed men saw it, too. On both ends, they raced back toward the center doors. They ran like two-legged cheetahs, fast and agile. Diana only got three shots off before they were back through the doors, managing to drop only one.
Suddenly, it was quiet. One of the Livingstones was on the ground; the other was on his knees beside him. Nolan faced the door. They hadn’t managed to set one foot inside.
At the other end, the Captain and Dan were entering the smoking doorway.
“Dad was wrong,” Jeb said. “Phoenix isn’t running. He’s holed up a bloody army. We need to get everyone out of here. Now!”
“Help Nolan!” Diana yelled. Reloading as she ran, she sprinted toward the door where first Cyrus, and now his brother and the Captain had disappeared.
• • •
Cyrus crept down a dark hallway. He could hear fighting outside, and occasionally pounding feet on planks, but he hadn’t encountered anyone, only rooms full of archaic machines and dust.
At the next hall, he turned, hopefully in the right direction. Mazecraft. The word sprang into his head. There were techniques for this kind of searching, but they were locked up in books. And not even his Solomon Keys had helped him open those.
With sword and gun raised, he peered into every doorway he came to. His skin was hot and blistered from the fireball that had hit the Captain. Around his neck, Patricia was nervous, constantly shifting her cool body.
The snake heard the noise first, tightening and growing still. A jet. Cyrus paused as the plane roared over the roof, rattling the walls around him.
Twenty feet down the hall, the ceiling exploded as something punched through it and slammed into the floor like a wrecking ball.
Dust billowed toward Cyrus as he staggered back into a doorway. He watched as the shape picked itself up and stood.
Cyrus tightened his grip on his sword handle. Gil? No. A transmortal he hadn’t seen before. This one had a braided beard and long red hair. He drew a wide blade from a scabbard over his shoulder.
A stampede of feet rattled on planks. Cyrus stepped all the way back into the empty room as tattooed men passed by with dart guns raised.
But there was no fight. When Cyrus peered back into the hall, the tattooed men were leading the transmortal the other way. They were on the same team.
Phoenix paced excitedly, limping in circles. The Smiths had found him, and not just the boy and his brother, but the father of them all—the Captain himself.
Phoenix ignored Alfred Mist on the floor. He ignored Dixie as she tried to rock herself free of her chair. He had lost men, yes; he could feel them dying even now—his children. But they were proving to be as strong as he had hoped, and he would make so many more.
Phoenix looked down at Oliver’s body, floating in the center pool. There were transmortals aplenty now—Nolan, Arachne, John Smith. Gilgamesh, when he arrived. Even Enkidu—traitors deserved to be betrayed. But the Captain? What a wonderful, delectable choice!
The two men that had stayed with him fidgeted nervously. Their eyes were distant, like dogs listening to the faraway whisper of a siren. Their nostrils flared, sniffing at battle air.
There wasn’t much time now. Phoenix limped over to the sleeping form of Alfred Mist, lying beside Lawrence Smith in his pool. The girl squealed, and Pythia rattled her chains. Leaves floated over his head, but he paid no mind.
“Like for like,” he said aloud. “Father for father. Soon, perhaps, it may be Smith for Smith.”
Tucking his cane under his arm, Phoenix placed Lawrence’s cold wet hand on the edge of the pool. He raised Alfred’s heavy arm and placed his hand on top of Lawrence’s, black on top of white. Straightening, he opened the top of his cane and braced himself for the pulse, the burn, and the weakness he would feel when the tooth, the Reaper’s Blade, pinned flesh to flesh. He began to chant.
Gilgamesh exploded through the ceiling like a cannonball, crushing an empty pool and sending a flood of water swirling across the room.
Phoenix staggered back, the water washing around his ankles.
Gil was already rolling to his feet.
“Edwin Laughlin!” he boomed. “I’ll take your head and feed it to my magpies. You think I can’t tear that cloak off your glass bones? You think I can’t gut the pathetic beast you’ll become?”
“Now!” Phoenix yelled, bouncing in place. “Now!”
His two men stepped forward, dart guns raised. Gil laughed as a shower of darts feathered his chest. Then, raising his fist, he collapsed.
• • •
Cyrus followed the tattooed men and the red-haired transmortal to a large, well-lit room. The far wall was stacked high with freezers, and bundled electrical cords ran up into the ceiling. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling where sunlight was flooding in.
From a hall on the other side of the room, Cyrus could hear fighting. Near the center of the room, the red-bearded transmortal stood beside Phoenix, looking down at Gil’s body, which was covered with darts. At least ten of the tattooed men were in the room, guns in hand, eyes on Gil.
On the floor were four pools of water. A fifth had been smashed. There were bodies everywhere. The largest pile was by a big sliding door on the river side of the room, and they were all in orange jumpsuits. A large black man lay by one of the pools, and in that pool and one other, bodies were floating.
“Oh, Gilgamesh,” Phoenix drawled. “Did you forget that I possess the tooth? Did you think I could not potion a paralysis for you?”
Behind Phoenix was a girl tied up in a chair. In the corner next to the girl, something moved. It was another girl, swallowed by her own hair. With a shock of recognition, Cyrus realized it was the girl he’d seen in his dream about being in a grave.
Some of Phoenix’s tattooed men were lugging Gil toward a pool in the center of the room, one of the pools with a body in it. Careful to stay in the shadows just outside the room’s entrance, Cyrus stood on tiptoe, peering down into the pool. He could just make out the face.
Oliver? How? Was the boy dead?
He looked into the other pool and froze. He could see his father’s profile, a face he had last glimpsed in the rain three years ago, laughing. His father was floating in water like Cyrus had always pictured him, except it wasn’t the cold water of the Pacific. His hand was up the pool’s edge, under the black man’s.
“Go!” Phoenix was laughing, yelling at his men
. “I have everything else I need; now get me the Smiths! All the Smiths!”
“Aye, here’s the heart of the fight.” The whisper tickled Cyrus’s ear, and he jerked back in surprise.
The Captain and Dan were pressed against the wall behind him. The Captain’s beard was burnt and melted into smoking lumps. His face was black with ash and blisters. Dan was bruised and singed, but otherwise looked fine.
The Captain loaded his last leather missile into his tube. Cyrus shook his head. “There are innocent people in there, people they’ve captured.”
Captain John Smith didn’t answer as four of the tattooed men jogged around the corner. The Captain smacked the first one in the face with Vlad. The next two dropped as a rifle cracked behind them in the hall, pierced by the same bullet. Diana joined them, sliding another round into her rifle chamber.
The last tattooed man retreated into the room.
“Board! Over the side, lads!” the Captain yelled, leaping into the room and whirling Vlad above his head. Dan and Cyrus followed.
Red Beard rushed forward as the tattooed men showered the Captain with darts. They glanced off his breastplate, snagged in his beard, and pinged off his spinning chain. Then one punched into his thigh, and another into his cheek.
Red Beard caught Vlad in his hands as the Captain collapsed. He lobbed the iron head over a rafter, caught it when it came back down, and wrapped it around the Captain’s neck, letting him dangle.
Dan charged him, only to be kicked across the room. He slammed against the freezers and slumped to the ground.
Sword and revolver raised, Cyrus turned in place with Diana beside him. They were surrounded by men who crouched like wolves, gill slits on their necks flapping in excitement. Phoenix began to laugh.
Arachne stepped out of the other hallway, opposite Cyrus.
“Phoenix!” she yelled. She didn’t wait for an answer. As Phoenix turned, she lobbed her heavy spider bag at the one-armed man in his white coat. Phoenix raised his cane, and the bag burst around it. Ten thousand spiders spilled out onto him, coating his shoulders, his face, his chest, his arms.
Behind Arachne, tattooed men stepped out of the hall. They were dragging Nolan and Jeb and both Livingstone boys with them, along with two heavy transmortals Cyrus didn’t recognize. One of the men pointed a dart gun at Arachne. She didn’t flinch as a dart punched into her shoulder. Slowly, she slumped to the floor.
Phoenix was twisting in place, slapping at himself with his one hand. Two of his men helped, scraping off hundreds of the tiny creatures and stomping through them on the floor. When the spiders had been cleared from Phoenix’s face and hands and hair—hundreds still clung to his coat—he pushed his men away and picked up his cane. He hobbled over to where his men had dropped Jeb to the floor, spun his cane around, and placed the tip of the tooth against the base of Jeb’s neck.
“Miss Boone,” he said. “The rifle?”
Angry tears streamed over Diana’s freckles. She dropped her gun.
Phoenix hobbled forward and stopped beside the pool with Cyrus’s father in it.
“Mr. Smith,” he said, and looked at Dan, who was back on his feet, held at gunpoint over by the freezers. “Mr. Smith.” He turned to the paralyzed and dangling Captain.
Finally, he turned to Cyrus. “Mr. Smith. I fear there’s been some misunderstanding between us. All I plan to do is raise your father from the dead. And you hope to stop me?”
“It’s vile,” Dan said. “You would make him your—”
“Enough, Daniel,” Phoenix said, brushing at a spider that had crawled onto his neck. “I know your thoughts. I’ve wandered them. I want your brother’s.” He studied Cyrus. “Your father would walk again, talk again.” He flipped his cane and rested the tooth on the pair of hands stacked on the edge of the pool. “Would you like to hear his voice?”
Behind Phoenix, the girl tied in the chair shook and struggled.
As Cyrus stared at Phoenix, anger pricking at his eyes, he could see motion all over Phoenix’s white coat. Spiders. Hundreds had survived and they were hard at work. Suddenly, Cyrus understood what Arachne had in mind. The surviving weavers were picking apart the coat at the hem, on the left shoulder, in the joint of the right arm. Ancient threads were quietly fraying—the Odyssean Cloak was being unwoven.
Cyrus had to stall, to give them time to work. “What would he be like?” Cyrus asked.
“Cy!” Daniel yelled.
“Evil, like you?” Cyrus asked. “Or would he be free?”
Phoenix chuckled. “We can find out together, Cyrus Smith,” he said. “I’ll give you a father, and you can give me that Dracul sword.”
“Or?” Cyrus asked.
Phoenix grinned, but Cyrus noticed that his face was sagging, graying even while Cyrus watched.
“Let’s not discuss ‘or,’ ” said Phoenix. “There’s no need for threats. I’d like to think the Smiths could be my friends. Who else is there? The Order?” He laughed. “The dragons? Who else but me?” He pointed at Dan. “Look at your brother. Look at what he has become. With the tooth, his heart need not plague and fail him. It can be mended.”
“I’d rather die,” Dan said.
“And so you will,” said Phoenix. “Unless the Smiths ally to me. And why not? The Smiths could be the backbone of a new, better people.”
Despite himself, Cyrus felt the tug of the offer. He felt Phoenix’s thoughts trying to wander into his own. Of course he wanted his brother’s heart to be whole. And for his father … But what Phoenix promised was an illusion, and he knew it.
Cyrus shut out Phoenix’s voice. He pushed away all that might be and focused on what was. Time was kind to him. It slowed while his mind raced. Phoenix was smiling, drawling his offers and promises and threats, still unaware of his spider assassins. Two tattooed men on Dan, four on Jeb and Nolan and Arachne, five on Cyrus and Diana. The red-bearded transmortal had his sword drawn and was sneering at the hanging Captain. Cyrus’s father was dead in a pool with a black man’s hand resting on top of his own. Oliver was dead in a pool with his hand beneath Gil’s. And Gil’s hand was starting to move. Cyrus blinked. Gil had a whole chestful of paralyzing darts. His eyes slipped back to the Captain. Only two darts in him; a third unused, tangled in his molten beard. And the grenade launcher, with one last shell, still dangled from his shoulder. The Captain’s eyes blinked in his bulging, flushed face. The corner of his mouth twitched up.
“Fine,” Cyrus blurted. Phoenix paused midsentence and leaned forward on his cane, breathless, gray.
“Bring back my father,” Cyrus said. “And heal my brother. Smiths safe. But that goes for all the Smiths. Do what you want to the Order. They never cared about us.” He tossed his revolver to the floor and flipped his sword around, gripping it carefully by the blade. Cyrus stepped forward, drifting closer to where the Captain hung from Vlad’s chain. The tattooed men in front of him lifted their weapons.
“Why, Mr. Cyrus,” Phoenix purred. “I am pleased. Let him pass.”
The tattooed men drew aside, and Cyrus stepped around a pool, even closer to the Captain. As he walked, he began to extend the hilt of his sword toward Phoenix.
Behind him, Diana gasped. “Cyrus, no!”
Dan’s face was red with anger. “Cyrus, what are you doing?” he shouted.
Enkidu sneered as Cyrus approached. He reached up and patted the Captain’s head. “Aren’t you proud?” he said. His speech was strange and guttural.
Cyrus inhaled slowly as he moved. Now was the moment. Now, he told himself. The Captain was in reach. Now! He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. And then he heard it. They all did.
Another airplane.
Cyrus snatched the dart from the Captain’s beard and lunged toward Enkidu. The tip plunged into his chest, and the red giant staggered backward.
Dan didn’t miss his moment. He bowled into the two men in front of him, crashing with them into one of the empty pools.
Diana dropped to the floor and came u
p with her rifle, firing.
As Enkidu fell, Cyrus flipped his sword, snatched the hilt, and swung the dragon blade at the Captain’s chain.
The links exploded, stinging Cyrus with shrapnel, but the Captain was ready. As he fell, he raised his launcher and fired.
The river-side wall exploded out in flame. Tattooed men flew. Phoenix tumbled, and the concussion sent everyone else sprawling.
“River!” Phoenix screamed. “To the river!” But he crawled for the pools.
Cyrus rose to his knees. He’d lost the sword. On Phoenix’s command, the surviving tattooed men retreated, scrambling through the burning wreckage. Diana fired after them as they leapt through the gaping fiery hole and dove to the water below. Phoenix was kneeling in the pool on top of Cyrus’s father. He was raising his cane above the pair of hands.
Cyrus rushed forward, splashing through the nearest pool and diving for his father. As the stab fell, Cyrus landed on his father’s cold body, knocking the two hands apart. Phoenix cursed as the Dragon’s Tooth scraped across the edge of the pool.
Twisting onto his back in the chilly water, Cyrus kicked Phoenix in the chest and sent him tumbling. A piece of the cloak fell away as Phoenix hit the floor, and a cloud of ash rose.
Cyrus watched understanding bloom in Phoenix’s eyes. Desperate with panic, he crawled toward Oliver’s pool, trailing ash as he went, his coat finally unraveling beneath the small army still clinging to his back.
His stumped arm fell away in a cloud. His feet were gone in puffs.
He slithered across Gil’s darted chest toward Oliver. The big transmortal’s hairy hand still rested on top of Oliver’s.
Gil’s eyes were rolling frantically. His fingers curled, but he couldn’t move his hand.
Cyrus jumped across Gil and grabbed Phoenix’s coat. It came apart in tatters in his hands. Snarling, Phoenix morphed into Mr. Ashes, but with the magic of the coat gone from the world, the beast was weak. He slid into the pool, rolled onto Oliver, and slashed at Cyrus with the tooth.
As Cyrus stepped back, he kicked Gil’s huge six-fingered hand away from the side of the pool.
