The Drowned Vault (20 page)

“I saw my chance,” Gil said.

“And you missed it, Gilgamesh of Uruk.” Bellamy glanced back. Gil’s face was black with soot, and his eyes were wild and bloodshot. At least he had a shirt on again. He wasn’t armed, but he didn’t need to be. And he was flanked by three other male transmortals—brutes cut from the same mold as Gil, but on a smaller scale. Bellamy didn’t like being alone with them, but transmortals were all the same in some ways—he couldn’t show his fear. He stared straight into Gil’s huge eyes. “Turns out living forever doesn’t give one a brain, more’s the pits.”

Gil snarled. Bellamy turned back to the window, studying the harbor and the seaplanes clustered on the gray water. He knew how to fight. He could uncoil into bloodletting viciousness between two heartbeats, but he only had one gun, tucked into his belt, and a long knife in his boot. Neither would amount to much against Gil.

Maybe he would need an Avengel after all.

“The old Skelton rooms were empty,” Gil said. “Looked as if they ducked into the vents. We tried to smoke them out.”

“I heard,” Bellamy said. “The whole wing had to be evacuated. Just the touch we needed after you destroyed the water cube.”

“You’ve been helping them,” Gil said. “For all your talk, you’re just another slobbering mortal son of Brendan.”

Bellamy sighed. “Tell Radu Bey that members of his
Ordo
are no longer welcome on the grounds of any holding or Estate of the O of B—but especially here. No treaties, no restrictions, but also no privileges. It’s time you left Ashtown. You and yours, mate. All of you lot. This fight is yours. Leave us out of it.”

Gil stepped up to the window beside Bellamy and looked straight down at the sun-leathered Australian. Bellamy sniffed. Gil’s huge body reeked of smoke and sweat, part singed hair, part wet dog. His thick lips curled into a sneer.

“I’ll leave when I’ve collected those three from you. Not before.”

“Really?” Bellamy smiled and nodded down at the harbor. The biggest seaplane was taxiing away. “That is your plane, isn’t it, mate?”

“There!” Diana yelled.

Through the staggered wall of tree trunks, Cyrus caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off the water. They were a little off course for the peninsula, but not badly. And no plane yet—they weren’t too late.

Cyrus adjusted and caught his heel on another log. Soft wood fragments flew as Cyrus plowed headfirst into
a fern. Before he could even assess the pain, Antigone was pulling him up. She was flushed and breathing hard. The rest of the herd raced on.

“Almost there, Cy,” she said. “You’ve done good.” She looked down at his bare feet. “Oh, gosh.”

Cyrus started to look, but his sister’s hand smacked up into his jaw, holding his head up.

“Don’t look,” Antigone said. Her hair was moisture-glued down, and her eyes were wide. “Not yet. Just run.”

The two began to jog.

“You run well,” Cyrus said.

Antigone laughed. “I have shoes.” As they picked up speed, she thumped his shoulder. “And I have the same genes you do, Rus-Rus. Why wouldn’t I run well?”

Cyrus gave his sister a smirk and began to accelerate. “Same genes, different legs!”

“Cyrus!” Antigone yelled. “Look left.”

As Cyrus hurdled a log and sidestepped a moss-covered boulder, he scanned the tree gaps on his left side. He could see flashes of Ashtown’s harbor—bobbing, rocking sails. And then a glimpse of Gil’s plane, turbo-props whirling, chugging through the waves toward them.

Antigone pulled even with Cyrus, straining to see through the trunks. “Anyone chasing it?”

“Not yet,” said Cyrus. “Come on.”

The two of them surged after the others. Cyrus whooped, and when Diana looked back, he pointed to
the approaching plane. She nodded and started encouraging Dennis and Jax.

Leaping and crashing over driftwood, Cyrus and Antigone finally burst onto the rocky shore. The rest of the group was heading toward the bare peninsula.

The big seaplane was two hundred yards offshore. While Cyrus and Antigone hurried after the others, the plane turned in a slow loop, coming alongside the peninsula, pointed out toward the lake.

Cyrus glanced back toward Ashtown—three small aluminum-shell boats with outboard motors raced out of the distant harbor.

“Go!” Cyrus yelled. “They’re coming!”

On the rocks, Antigone was easily faster than her barefoot brother. She raced ahead to the bigger group, already jogging out onto the peninsula—Diana in the lead, Nolan at the rear.

Cyrus’s ankles rolled, his toes splayed around driftwood, and his skin ground on the rock. Hobbling and wincing, he felt like an old man trying to escape his wheelchair.

He was such an idiot. Boots, boots, boots. Never again without boots.

A rock shattered in front of Cyrus. Shards sprayed his shins and arms and face. A ricocheting bullet whined off into space.

In the bow of the closest boat, Cyrus saw a muzzle
flash—small enough to be nothing more than sunlight sparking on aluminum. Beside Cyrus, a driftwood limb exploded. Again, the bullet whined away.

Cyrus reached the water as another slug snapped through the air above his head. The cold water felt like heaven swallowing his feet and his branch-lashed shins and knees. He jumped into a dive, arms stretched above his head.

A bullet slammed into his pack, spinning him in the air. He splashed through the surface on his back and hit the shallow bottom. He turned and began pulling toward the throb of the plane’s big engines. The pack slowed him down, but he’d make it as far as he could below the surface.

When he grabbed his first breath, the plane was much closer. Everyone else was either on board or climbing into the side door, behind the wing and the roaring propeller. The boats were closer, too. Another bullet skipped in front of him and he dove back underwater. Swimming with the pack on was like flying a flag—a shoot-here dorsal fin.

Another breath, and he decided to risk it. Humpback whale or not, he kicked into his fastest crawl stroke. In another moment, he felt the hurricane wind thrown back by the propeller, dusting the water’s surface. He raised his head to find his sister at the side door, waiting for him with an extended arm.

She grabbed one hand, and Nolan grabbed the other. A second later, Cyrus swamped onto the floor inside the plane, and Nolan was slamming the door behind him.

Inside were several luxurious leather seats with glistening wooden tables between them. Back in the tail, there was a massive web-netted cargo space. In the opposite side door, Rupert was manning a huge gun hanging from the ceiling. A large glass shield was mounted around the barrel.

“Stay down!” Rupert yelled. Dennis, Jax, and Arachne were crawling into the tail. Diana was already there, pulling a long rifle out of the cargo space and slamming in a magazine.

Rupert was dripping wet. His wild eyes landed on Cyrus, and he nodded at the cockpit. “Get us out of here! Go!”

“Me?” Cyrus yelled. But Rupert didn’t look back again. His gun was chewing through a belt of rounds. A bullet from the boats splattered on his shield, sending tiny cobweb cracks through the glass.

Cyrus shrugged off his pack, grabbed his sister, and dragged her up into the cockpit. As Antigone took the copilot’s chair, Cyrus perched on the edge of the pilot’s seat, which was set far back from the wheel. His bare feet found the pedals, and he grabbed the wheel and scanned the controls for the throttle.

He found it and jerked it to full. The left engine roared, and the plane began to turn, twisting toward the peninsula.

“Two engines!” Antigone yelled. “Cyrus, two engines!”

Two engines, two throttles!
Cyrus thought. He reached down and pulled the second throttle.

The right engine kicked in, and the plane lunged forward—straight at the shore. Pressing down on the left foot pedal with all his strength, Cyrus fought to turn the plane. The pontoon under the right wing hopped out of the water as it scraped over a rock before splashing back down.

A bullet punched through Cyrus’s window, and he ducked low in his seat.

“Okay!” Cyrus yelled. “We’re okay.”

He straightened the plane, moving toward the heart of the lake, and they began to pick up speed, bouncing over the choppy waves.

Cyrus watched his speed climb.

One of the boats was racing right in front of them, catching air off the waves. Gil was driving. A man with a rifle was bouncing too much to get a good shot.

Cyrus held his breath, bit his lip, and pulled back on the wheel. Nothing.

Antigone lunged forward and flipped two levers on the dash. “Wing flaps!” she screamed, and the plane
nosed off the water. But Cyrus had already pushed the wheel in again.

The plane slammed down and plowed over Gil’s little boat. Metal squealed and metal crunched. Antigone bounced into the dash, and Cyrus slammed his face into the wheel.

Bleeding out of both nostrils, Cyrus sat up and jerked the wheel toward his chest. The fat-bodied plane tore itself free of the water and slid up into the air with wings shivering, engines roaring as they climbed toward the sun.

Antigone was on the floor. “Ow,” she mouthed. She climbed back into her seat and leaned toward Cyrus. She had to yell to be heard. “I think you just flattened Gil! And your face!” She laughed suddenly. “Go, Team Smith!”

Cyrus wiped his bloody nose on his arm and grinned.
“Sic semper draconis!”
he shouted.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and lifted him out of his seat. Rupert Greeves dropped him onto the floor halfway out the cockpit door and stepped over him to slide behind the wheel. He banked smoothly right and then leveled out, staying low over the lake.

Cyrus sat up slowly. “Sorry!” he yelled.

Rupert glanced back and curled half a smile. “Still alive, yeah? Test passed!”

ten
DIXIE MIST

D
IXIE SAT IN BED
and stared at her alarm clock. The hands were in the right place—the little one past the four a ways, and the big almost to the six. And the clock was still ticking. She hadn’t been sure it would be. She never was.

Scrunching her face impatiently, she looked around her tiny room. A diagonal slab of moonlight ran from her window down to the lemon oil polish on the plank floor. That chunk of moonlight looked as solid as a metal slide. It was all the humidity in the air. Light just sat on it like that. But Dixie wasn’t turning on the air conditioner. That would mean turning on the generator, and she didn’t know when she would get more gas for that old thing. Five big cans had been full when her daddy had left. Now she only had one, and it was half full.

People got nervous when an eleven-year-old tried to buy gas—especially when that eleven-year-old looked nine. And nervous people asked questions, and then made phone calls. Plus, she was miles from the nearest
gas station. Closer if she headed back through the woods behind her house and crossed the swampy tail of Rodney Lake into Mississippi. But that came with its own troubles. Still, she’d do it when she had to.

“
If
I have to,” Dixie said to herself. Her daddy might still come back and do it. She almost sighed, but instead, she sniffed the sigh away and glared at the moonlight, at the floor, at the clock.

It had been 189 days since Alfred Mist had kissed his daughter, told her he had a job to look into, and stepped out their homemade screen door. He’d even been careful not to let it bang behind him. He always was. Now that he was gone, Dixie was careful for him.

The big hand clicked onto the six. Dixie waited. She drummed her fingers on her bare knees. The windup alarm was sloppy. She refused to set the alarm for 4:29 a.m. just to trick the clock into ringing at 4:30 a.m. And when she set it for 4:30 a.m. and it actually rang at 4:31 a.m., she felt insulted. She didn’t care that it was old. No excuses. The clock only had one job to do. She had as many jobs as she could think of.

The big hand clicked another spot, and the little hammer tried to rocket between the twin bells, but Dixie’s hand slammed down before the noise had a chance to work itself up into a fit. She hated those bells. Why go to the trouble of making bells if you were going to make them off-key?