Drop Dead Demons (22 page)

We hit ground. Ayden held me to his chest as he took the brunt of the fall on his back, cushioned somewhat by my backpack he still managed to wear. We skidded to a stop. Dust clouded all around, obscuring what little light filtered through the entrance.

I coughed. Blinked away the grit. We seemed unscathed. Limbs still attached, but Ayden wasn’t moving. Terror speared my gut. I patted my hands over him with mild — okay,
major
— panic. No obvious life-threatening injuries.

“Ayden, talk to me. Are you okay? Ayden!”

“Not sure,” he groaned. “Maybe you should keep copping a feel. In fact, you should go a little lower.”

“Don’t scare me like that.” I whacked his shoulder which flared pain hot and sharp deep in my own shoulder. “Ow.”

“Crap.” Ayden sat up and took my arm gently.

I frowned at the puncture, shimmering with rivulets of blood. “Think Coach will let me skip P.E.? Already got my cardio.”

A loud
click
vibrated the air. The buzz saws rotated to life and fed back into the wall. Then, like a missing puzzle piece, the circular stone doorway slid back into place, shutting us in with an echoing
hiss.

Victorian lamps sputtered to life. 

“No!” I ran over and kicked the wall. Slapped it silly. Ow. Stupid. “Is there a lever or spiral or something?”

I turned to demand Ayden’s help, but he was looking around, gawking, visibly stunned.

I followed his gaze. Awe overwhelmed me too.

“Oh. My. God.” I could barely breathe. “Flint doesn’t have treasure. He has a weapon of mass destruction.”

Lamps stuttered and slowly lit the space. Ayden and I stood on a narrow ledge with a lackluster bronze guardrail. Beyond that, the world vanished into a never-ending dark pit of doom, swirling with steaming mist. How far down? Fifty, maybe sixty feet. Couldn’t say for sure, but we gawked nonetheless, craning our necks at the wondrous space.

Flint had somehow hollowed out the mountain, and we stood in the center of its massive, mechanically crazed core.

Golden light reflected off a chaotic puzzle of glittering, rusted gears and rods connected up and down and around the walls. Pipes gleamed copper, gold, and silver as they snaked an intricate maze up the sides. Gauges, bolts, and meters stuck out at odd places, sometimes attached to metal or wooden boxes sprinkled on the walls like fleas. At the bottom far below, a forest of machines billowed steam and sparks.

Gears groaned. Pumps hissed. Belts zipped
.
Chains rattled. Pistons pumped. It was a sauna, humid and hot, my clothes already sticky, my skin glistening beads of sweat. It smelled of wet earth and old metal. 

Rising high dead-center was what had to be a death ray. A transparent cone filled with a writhing, pale blue fog.

We walked across a metal walkway that jutted out from our ledge, across the chasm to a circular room encased in glass. Inside, the air was dry and cool. It smelled stale, but still a welcome relief. Rimming the room were old-school versions of the Ishida’s control tables, making the place look like a Victorian age spaceship.

Brass typewriter keys. Copper buttons looking like unscrewed bolts. A series of gleaming switches begging to be flipped alongside old radio dials and gumdrops of lights blinking red, yellow, and green. Where paneling was missing, wires wormed around turning gears. Above the desks were oxidized green handles mounted in rows and columns. A metal grate hung with rusted tools.

I said, “If Rose gets ahold of this, he’ll blow some city off the map.”

Ayden winced as he shrugged off the backpack and let it
thunk
to the floor. “I don’t think any of these are weapons.”

I pointed to the central canister. “Do you
not
see the smoke-filled deathray?”

“It’s a cooling or ventilation tower.” Ayden bent over one of the metal desks. “Leads the steam out of here, not smoke. This is a control room.”

“Oh.” I craned my neck up, then down to scrutinize the giant metal-machine creatures chugging in the factory below. “Like it powers everything? The tunnels, security?”

Ayden nodded as his fingers trailed over the machinery. “And probably the school, his house, back in the day.”

“How?”

“I’m guessing water power,” he said. “From the gorges, rivers, waterfalls. This is amazing, but,” he pulled his hands from the controls and checked his watch, “we’ve got to get out of here. School’s going to start and your family will start asking questions.”

“One of these has to open that door.” I went to jab a button.

“Whoa!” Ayden caught my wrist. “Don’t touch! All those machines down there, even if they hadn’t been neglected for a hundred years, might be unstable and explode.”

“Ooookay.” I frowned and fingered a handle sticking out of the wall. It broke in my hand. Swell. “Since when do you know anything about engineering?”

“I try to ignore Jayden, but some of his babbling sinks in.” Ayden squinted at the buttons and switches.

I gently pulled another handle. A long and narrow drawer slid out of the wall. Something glittered and quivered. I reeled back.

“Stop touching things!” Ayden swept me behind him.

A display case sprung out. Silver rimmed edges framing two pieces of glass encasing a crisp cream-colored map.

“I think it’s the layout of the plant below us,” Ayden said.

I swiveled it around. “Town’s layout is on the other side. Look at the waterfalls and behind it, the portal.”

Ayden’s face was grim. “Why would he draw a double spiral over the portal? There isn’t one there. We knew about the ones at school, around town. No idea what it is. I researched the symbol, but there’s nothing in the Mandatum history books.”

I squinted at the map. “I don’t see any mention of the treasure vault. Or sanctuary.”

“We’ll have to look later.” Ayden raked his hand through his hair which had lost a lot of its spike to the humidity. And demon attack. “Check the other drawers. I’ll look for a way out.”

A few drawers later I found a series of books with titles such as
Centrifuge Chillers, Pneumatic Air,
and
Associated Pumping System.
Meaningless. Boring. Until…

The small leather-bound book had no title, but engraved in the bright clasp holding it closed was the double spiral. Inside, crisp pages were covered with an elegant handwritten script, easily read, if I recognized the language. I didn’t. 

On second glance, I did recognize three words.
Divinicus Nex
and
Bellator.

“Find something?” Ayden said.

“Not sure.” I put it in the bottom of my tattered backpack that Ayden had left on the floor, then stuffed some of the other books we found on top. “I’ll give these to Jayden.” If there was a Divinicus connection, I was betting he could figure it out.

Three drawers later—

“Elevator manual!” I held it high.

Ayden looked around. “There is no elevator.”

Ayden pulled open the metal-latticed doors, then turned the handle of the door behind it and motioned for me to exit the elevator first. I walked out and turned around. Even without the flashlight, I knew where we were.

The high school. Specifically, we’d just stepped into the hallway from the very same alcove which I’d stumbled into when I was trying to hide from Ayden and Blake. The one where the stone walls had transformed into metal, and some buttons had appeared out of nowhere, and the latticed metal had tried to “cage” me in. According to Flint’s maps and diagrams, the tunnels and school were riddled with them. 

Ayden chuckled. “This was the creature trying to eat you?”

“How was I supposed to know?” I backhanded Ayden’s arm, but instantly regretted the move when we both winced.

He took my hand as we gimped ourselves outside, through the fog and down the high school driveway, ducks quacking in the distance as the day readied to emerge from its slumber. While Ayden relocked the padlock and chain on the iron gates, I went to grab my bike, the sweet aroma of honeysuckle strong as I pushed aside the heavy vines climbing up the stone wall.

The bike wasn’t there.

I looked around, confused. “Must be searching in the wrong spot.”

I turned to check a different area, but the distinct click of a gun cocking and a flashlight beam flooding me in a spotlight sent me into freeze mode, heart thundering.

An authoritative voice commanded, “Hands up and turn around slowly.”

I did so, then squinted and brought one hand down a little to shield the light directly in my eyes. I couldn’t see much more than a vague silhouette of a man, but there was definitely a handgun. Pointed at me.

Fantastic. Who wanted to kill me now?

A shadow rushed from the side. The flashlight knocked to the ground and the goon was suddenly kissing dirt with Ayden’s knee in his back, the gun pressing against the base of the man’s head.

“Don’t move,” Ayden growled.

There was a beat of silence then the man said, “Ayden?”

Ayden peered to better see the guy’s face. “Walter?”

“Son of a — Yeah, you idiot. Get the hell off me.”

Ayden stood and helped the
officer
up. Yeah, it was one of Sheriff Payne’s deputies.

“Sorry, man.” Ayden dusted off Deputy Walter’s uniform and handed him back his weapon. “Didn’t realize.”

The deputy holstered the gun and looked at me. “The Lahey girl, right?”

“Yes, sir,” I nodded. The Lahey girl who was going to get seriously grounded when the Lahey parents had to bail her out of jail. And Aunt M. Oh, dear God, I’d never hear the end of this.

Ayden put a hand on the deputy’s shoulder. “Walter, I can explain. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It never is.” The deputy breathed deep, looking anything but happy. “Did you guys do any damage?”

“Nope. You’d never know we were there.”

A new voice rumbled out of the darkness. “I’ve got this, deputy.”

The deputy’s hand jerked to his holster, then stopped when he saw the man emerge from the shadows.

Spurs jingling on red leather cowboy boots, Rose moseyed out dressed like an old-time sheriff. Long, golden curls draping out from a wide brimmed western hat, he sported a brown leather duster coat, jeans, shirt, and vest, complete with a shiny sheriff star pinned to the chest. The two revolvers holstered at his hips captured most of my attention.

I froze, anticipating a gunfight worthy of the OK Corral, but, taking his hand off his weapon, Deputy Walter stood straighter and nodded respectfully.

“Sheriff Payne,” he said. “Good evening, sir.”

That was…odd. Rose looked nothing like Matthias’s dad. Especially in this get up. I kept my mouth shut and shot Ayden a questioning look. He shrugged, looking as confused as I, and moved in front of me. Rose used a knuckle to tip the front of his hat up, then hooked his thumbs in his belt.

“I’ll take care of these young’uns. You go about your business.” Rose hitched his pants up, “And let’s not speak of this again. Savvy, partner?”

Oh, jeez. This was a bad spaghetti western.

But the deputy just nodded again, said, “You got it, sir,” and headed down the street where, now that light began to dawn, I saw his cruiser parked, my bike sitting next to it.

As the deputy drove off, Rose touched the brim of his hat in acknowledgement.

Watching the deputy salute back, I asked, “What was that?”

“He messed with his head,” Ayden told me over his shoulder, then drenched his voice with suspicion as he tilted his head at Rose. “Since when does a Joat have that kind of Hallucinator power?”

Rose unleashed a smile so dazzling I was sure the sunrise was delaying its appearance, too embarrassed to try to compete with the brilliance.

“You flatter me young hunter.” He bowed slightly. “However, it is the gentleman’s pathetic weakness of mind which allows my meager powers to appear great. But on to more important matters. What did you discover? I await with bated breath.” His hands rested on the butts of the revolvers in the holsters.

Ayden’s arms moved out from his sides and his hands lit on fire. Rose raised his brows, then very slowly, his hands, palms facing out.

“Forgive me,” Rose said solicitously. “I mean no threat.” 

“Forgive me, I
do
,” Ayden countered. Fire licked up his entire arms. “You need to start answering questions.”

“Another time perhaps.” Rose sighed, and in a swirl of pink smoke, he disappeared.

Just
poof
. In
pink
.

Ayden and I stared. Crickets chirped. Ducks quacked. Swans honked. And even an owl hooted.

“Uhhh,” I finally mustered after I lifted my jaw off the ground. “Is he supposed to be able to do that?”