Drop Dead Demons (29 page)

I huffed a deep breath. Then two more. Trying to suck in courage, leaning against the ancient Egyptian sarcophagus for support.

While Jayden had climbed a tall stone pillar to scout the area, the rest of the guys huddled somewhere off to my right discussing the strategy to get to me to the sensor lock thing. The plan entailed Ayden and me sprinting across open space while avoiding Flint’s mechanical psycho assassin squad and their deadly UPFOs — Unidentified Pointy Flying Objects.

Easy, right? So why did my breathing crack

No, more of a creak. Wait. That wasn’t me. 

The lid of the Egyptian sarcophagus swung open with a shuddering
thud
. I caught a foul stench then something gruesome curled around the edge of the wood. Fingers. Long, leathered, peeling like dry, rough bark, nails yellowed and browned, one hanging by a thread of frayed linen. Or gnarled flesh. 

I gulped. “This is so
not
happening.”

But sure enough, an oh-so-super-gross, mummified corpse of some ancient Egyptian royal staggered around the corner and turned its blank, bandaged face toward me.

There was moaning.

It was mine.

I swung my leg into its stomach, felt the bones crumble. King Tut stumbled, powdery bits of flesh crumbling from the hole in its gut, but he kept coming.

I scrambled around the sarcophagus and kicked it hard. It teetered but didn’t go down. The mummy turned toward me. I backed up a few paces then ran full-tilt, launching myself high and latching onto the painted wood coffin like a baby koala on her mama. When it rocked forward again, I leaned my weight into it and, in way-too-slow motion, it toppled over.

As I rode it down, the lid closed and the full weight of the Egyptian tomb crashed onto the mummified remains. With a bone rattling impact, it smashed the should-be-long-dead royal into a cloudy mess of linen, gears, sparks, and dust. I rolled off and averted my face, trying not to breath in some bizarre virus. Or ancient curse.

A spear exploded the dirt next to my hip. I rolled sideways.

Something gray circled above. One of the granite gargoyle statues had taken flight. It made a sudden U-turn and tucked its wings like a falcon diving on its prey. Me.

I rolled again. The gargoyle bombed into the ground. Stone chunks exploded to pelt and bruise, frayed wires spun out like fireworks. One down, but more of his comrades were stretching their wings and clouding the air.

Along with a new shower of arrows. I was ready for a drought.

Scuttling away, I spotted a dagger, grabbed it, and leaned against a tomb of shiny black marble. In between pants, I spit out mouthfuls of bitter grit.

Tristan ran over in a hunched sort of waddle. “Get cover!”

With a grunt, he shoved open the top of the stone tomb, gripped my jacket, and threw me in. I landed on a pile of something hard and uncomfortable. I coughed and waved away the thick, grimy air.

Tristan slid the lid closed but for a crevice of space. When I blinked through the blur and dim light, my skin shriveled and crawled in on itself. I shrieked, high-pitched and horrified. I was nose to nose with the lipless, grinning face of the weathered skeleton of a long dead corpse.

Not that any corpse was ever alive.

My hands pushed through the tattered remains of a tuxedo, knocking aside a jauntily placed top hat as I scrambled off the bones. His arms moved. He reached to hold me in a…
death grip
.

Oh, yeah, there was my macabre sense of humor.

Dagger in hand, I chopped with a mad frenzy in my best re-enactment of the
Psycho
movie shower scene, with plenty of piercing screams — mine — but minus the blood.

The tomb lid slid off.

“Sorry!” Tristan yanked me out. “Didn’t think that one through.” He patted my shoulders. “You good?”

I swatted him off and glared. “Am I
good
?”           

Someone had the nerve to laugh. “Nice one, mate.”

Gee, wonder who.

From his perch atop the ancient column, Jayden shouted, “There’s a weapons cache on the table near the tomb!”

He jumped down as Blake pushed the column over to provide more cover then dragged over a gilded, high-backed throne. I piled up crates until we were protected on all sides.

The rest of the guys somersaulted, back-flipped and dove to join us. Show-offs.

Jayden pointed across a long stretch of open space. “It’s a clear shot.”

The pathway he indicated ran between a hedge of treasure and a blank stone wall and ended at a giant table that housed a mound of weapons topped by a two-foot tall, bronze statue of a spear-wielding warrior on a horse. Beyond that was the tomb, and on the wall behind the tomb, I’d find the cavemanesque spiral etching that shut down the attacks.

Supposedly.

Just had to make the run through the line of fire first. Sometimes it was so awesome being me.

“Go on three.” Matthias swung a crate of fine china plates over the pillar then dropped back down. Arrows flew overhead.

“I’m not fast enough,” I said.

Ayden squeezed my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Yes you are. Stay in front and I’ll be right behind, covering you with this.” He hefted the knight’s shield. “Then I’ll get to the weapons, throw some over to the guys, and we’ll all cover you while you shut down the security and save the day.”

He had such faith in me. It was so adorable.

And so utterly stupid.

Logan grabbed several small statues and scooted his back against the throne. “We’ll provide cover for the both of you.”

“And create a distraction,” Jayden added.

“See?” Ayden smiled with encouragement. “No problem.”

Nope, no problem. Just a colossal disaster.

“Don’t worry, babe.” Blake twirled a sword in one hand and a spear in another. “The only thing getting near your cute butt is me.”

“Blake!”

This was nuts. I’d never make it. I’d trip, fall, become a pin cushion.

“One,” Matthias said.

Sure, he was counting. Counting on me getting dead.

“Two.” Matthias risked a peek to the second floor.

Tristan wrung his hands. “She’s gonna die.”

“Thanks,” I glared. Didn’t help hearing my own thoughts out loud. But somehow his lack of faith spurred my courage and a spunky desire to prove him wrong.

I sunk into a runner’s stance. Ayden crouched behind me and lifted the shield.

Matthias gave me a nod. “Thr —”

“Wait.” Ayden caught my arm.

Oh, thank God. I collapsed against the pillar, body trembling so hard I was near convulsing. Spunk was gone. Ran away screaming and took courage with it.

“Stay here.” Ayden dropped the shield, gathered several china plates, and chucked them into the path we were supposed to take.

Gears cranked and rumbled. In sporadic locations along the empty wall chunks of stone slid away like opening windows. Then, with the hissing sound as if we’d disturbed a nest of seething king cobras, darts shot from the openings, shattering the plates before they hit the ground.

“Are you k-kidding me?” I wiped my hands on my jeans. “That’s crazy.”

“That’s classic,” Ayden said. The other guys nodded. At my blank look he said, “The shooters on the second floor want to chase us into that line of fire. The weapons cache is bait to encourage us to do just that.”

I felt cold. “An ambush.”

“Like I said, classic.” Ayden shrugged out of his jacket.

“What are you doing?” I didn’t think my heart could pump any harder. “We’re not still
going!
”

“Not you. Just me.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, my mom sets up stuff like this all the time.”

“It’s true,” Jayden confirmed. “And in this exercise, Ayden is the best of us all.”

As the rest of the boys began throwing things into the path, which produced an endless stream of darts-o-death, Ayden stared with a rapt, almost trancelike intensity. 

“What are we doing?” I asked Tristan as I grabbed a small chest and tossed it. 

“The darts are triggered by motion sensors,” Tristan said. “We keep throwing stuff to activate them so Ayden can study the layout and memorize their trajectory.”

Ayden waved a casual hand. “You just have to read the position of the projectiles and navigate around them. No problem.”

“Seriously? Your mom is whacked,” I said.

“But in a good way,” he grinned. “I’ll get to the weapons, send some over like we planned, and someone else will get you across to shut security down. No problem.”

He kept saying that. I’m not sure he understood what it meant.

“I’m ready.” Ayden stood behind the throne, stared at the walls, bounced on his toes, and with his face a stark mask of determination, sprinted into the line of fire.

It was a beautiful—and frightening—thing to watch.

Darts rocketed across in rapid succession while Ayden moved like he was working a gymnastic floor routine. He leapt, flipped, twisted, spun, and rolled. At one point he skidded on his knees, leaned back so far his head skimmed the floor, turned over, spun on his belly then was up again, contorting his body to elude the lethal punctures of a gazillion missiles of death. 

Ayden slid underneath another table, and his final dive dropped him in the far end of the room, underneath the large wooden table where he was tucked between the slabs that held it up, and safely beyond the scope of the darts.

Ayden slapped the floor. “Yes!”

We all cheered. At least, I did when I could finally release that breath I held.

The darts ceased firing. A soft
clicky-clack
rustled up the alley followed by a
ding.
Almost like a grandfather clock prepping to chime the hour. We scanned the room for the source of the sound.

And found it.

On the table above Ayden, the bronze statue of the barbarian warrior moved. The stallion reared, legs pawing the air in robotic motions, steam billowing from its snout.

“Ayden, watch out!” I yelled and pointed.

Ayden looked for danger, but he couldn’t see through the table above him where the warrior raised his spear.

“Move!” the boys shouted.

But too late. The warrior plunged his spear through the thick wood of the table like it was Jell-O.

Matthias swept his arms forward expecting to launch every shadow in the room into an attack that would demolish the statue. Blake slammed the ground with his palms and twisted like he could blast the table sky-high and shatter it into mere wood chips. Logan swirled his arms as if mixing a volatile vortex to tornado the threat into oblivion. Tristan squashed his head in hands, eyes hard in concentration trying to will Ayden into moving. Jayden snapped empty hands out to create a tidal wave that would annihilate all in its path to save his brother.

But it was all wishful thinking because nothing happened. We had no powers here. It seemed I was the only one who remembered.

I cocked back my arm, then shot it forward. My explody power didn’t happen, but I hadn’t expected it to. I didn’t have the years of luxury powers-on-demand, which in this case, was an asset. So instead, I threw the dagger. It rocketed out of my hand and across the room.

Darts shot from the walls, trying to knock the weapon out of the air. 

They missed, and the blade buried into the barbarian’s gut, wrenching him off the poodle-sized horse which leapt off the table with a strangled, high-pitched whistle of steam and disappeared into the mass of treasure. Before he went down, the warrior plunged the spear through the table and out the bottom side, but only a few inches. I was way proud of myself.

Until I saw Ayden sprawled on the ground. Bleeding. And he wasn’t getting up.

“Ayden!” Jayden jumped up, planted a hand on the pillar and launched himself out into the line of fire.

Matthias leapt and grabbed Jayden’s shirt. Arrows and darts
hissed
and
whished
. Matthias hooked an arm around Jayden’s neck and hauled him kicking and screaming back into our shelter. The bladed tips
pinged
off the pillar or
whooshed
overhead.

“Blake!” Matthias barked.

Blake, his face somber, took Jayden and restrained him in massive arms.

“I can do it!” Jayden screamed.

“So can I!” Logan said.

“Too dangerous!” Matthias ordered. “We’ll find another way!”

Logan snapped off his jacket and loosened his tie. “I’m going.”

“Dude, no!” Blake tried to grab him too.

Logan ducked out of the way. Jayden wriggled free. Matthias and Blake pounced on Jayden to keep him from running blindly into the darts. Logan lowered into a runner’s stance.

“Tristan, stop him!” Matthias said.

Tristan and I lunged. Grabbed Logan’s legs. Held on. He struggled. Fear pounded blood through my head, ready to explode from my veins as I looked around for something, anything to help Ayden.

“I’m okay.” Ayden’s head came up.

I breathed relief. Took his sweet time letting us know.

Ayden pushed off the floor.

“Careful!” Tristan shrieked.

Ayden paused and cautiously avoided the spear poking through the wood as he sat up and leaned against the table base. I couldn’t stop staring at the blood on his shoulder, screaming red against his white shirt.

“Take it easy, mate. We’ll be right there.” Matthias turned a hard look on Jayden. “We’ve just got to come up
with a plan
before we go running around halfcocked and getting killed.”

“Cut me,” I said.

“What?” the Hex Boys around me all stilled.

Matthias’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t imagine that, did I?”

“Ayden, throw us a knife!” I said.

“No!” Tristan and Jayden shouted.

“Yes!” Logan countered.

Ayden nodded. “Good plan!”

“Good?” Tristan blinked. “Are you two having a fight?”

Some clanging. Darts hissed. A knife with a gold filigree handle thudded into the back of the throne above Blake’s head. I moved to grab it.

Blake plucked it out first. “Babe, you’re not thinking straight.”

“She never is.” Matthias snatched the knife and held it out to me. “But right now that might work for us.”

I smirked. “Careful, Aussie, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

I reached to take the knife, but Matthias caught my wrist, reeled back his arm, and stabbed the blade into my hand.

I screamed. The Aussie laughed.

Okay, it was only a prick. On my finger. But his serial-killer plunge and deranged look of delight got my heart pumping.

A drop of blood oozed.

“You’re a jerk.” I pulled back, but he wouldn’t let go. “Hey!”

“Hold on.” He looked around, paused a beat, then wiped my bloody finger on the floor. 

“Oh, thank you.” I wrenched my hand back. “If I get the Black Plague, I’m infecting you first.”

Something rumbled louder than the fight. The floor shimmied. The UFPOs stopped spearing through the air because even Sally Security noticed our newest arrival.

From the darkness at the far end of the room, Fido slid out on her overabundance of legs. At the sight of me, she lifted her head, opened her mouth, and from the deep recesses of her belly, she bellowed a fierce T-Rex-worthy roar.

Sally Security renewed her attacks. Arrows and darts got caught in Fido’s fur or simply bounced off her skin. But the spears hit hard, and I flinched in empathy every time they struck. Fido snarled and snapped, took hit after hit but wouldn’t back down. When a nasty looking gargoyle swooped down from above, she caught it in her pincher antennae, shook it hard, and slammed it into the wall. It shattered in a raining ooze of oily goo that drenched the rest of the statues.

Nothing like having my own homicidal diva of a demon.

Tristan whimpered, “We are so dead.”

“Nope,” I smiled. “She’s our saving grace. Fido, over there!” I pointed to Ayden.

As she glided over us to get to Ayden, I jumped up and ran.

Someone yelled, “Wait!”

But I didn’t.

Instead, I darted beneath Fido’s belly, using her wall of scuttling legs as cover from the darts. When we reached the table Ayden was under, Fido curled her body around it while I weaved out from her legs and lunged into the tiny alley of space between Alexander the Great’s tomb and the wall. With a jerky side-step and using shaking fingers to feel over the rough stone for the etching, I moved along, praying a dart didn’t explode out of nowhere.

Heat flared under my hand. A double-spiral, chest high. Thank goodness.

Beneath it the stone cracked vertically, then two small doors swung open. Inside was a hollowed out copper box with a green button which was lit up, a red one which wasn’t, and a bronze lever. I yanked. The green light died as the red flickered on.

The lights went out. Followed by ear-piercing screams.

The lights flickered back on.

I found my breath and screeched, “Did it work? What happened?!”

“You idiot!” Matthias bellowed. “You killed them all!”