The Drowned Vault (40 page)

C
YRUS EXAMINED
the factory from the shelter of the trees. It had five large entrances on this side, and more small ones than he wanted to count. Somewhere in there was his father’s body and Phoenix and the tooth. In a minute, Cyrus would be in there, too. He hoped Phoenix was already preparing to escape down the river, but not really. Cyrus surprised himself—he wanted to see him. He wanted to face him, and he wanted to fight.

Cyrus had taken a revolver from one of the three cases they’d carried up from the river. It rested in a holster on his right hip. Nolan, even paler in the sun, had two long knives tucked into sheaths at the small of his back. Beside him, the Captain was standing with his face tipped back, savoring the sun with his eyes closed. He had Vlad on his left hip, just above his sword hilt. A short grenade launcher like the one from the plane was slung over his right shoulder. The leather football-looking rounds were belted around the black tube.

“We have to make sure he doesn’t come this way,”
Jeb was saying. “We should split up and push into all the doors at once.”

Diana shook her head. “I don’t think so. We don’t know what we’re up against in there.”

“A lot of guys with tattoos,” Dan said.

Jeb pointed at the closest door. “If we all push in at the same door, they can escape out the other doors and into the bayou. We need them to go into the river.”

Cyrus tried to assess the situation. Too little sleep, he thought.
Doesn’t matter
. Too little training.
Maybe. But also doesn’t matter. You’re here now. This is really happening. Think
.

The Livingstone brothers carried short, antique-looking double-barrel shotguns with pistol grips. On their belts, they each had a bag full of shells, a thick bladed knife, and a small club. The sun cast a gnarled shadow beneath Silas’s eyebrow scar that made him look a lot older.

Cyrus waved at the factory. “What do you two think?”

George glanced at his older brother, then stepped forward. “Leave your two best marksmen out here, centered on the building. They can cover any attempted escape in this direction, or any attempt to circle around and surprise you from the rear. Then divide in two, and send a team in on each end and work toward the center. Hopefully, that will press them into retreating on the river.”

Silas and Jeb were nodding. Diana shrugged.

“Who are our best marksmen?” Cyrus asked.

The argument was short. Everyone knew the Boones were the best shots in the Order. But Diana didn’t want to be left outside. Eventually, Jeb quieted his sister’s objections.

“Ridiculous,” Diana muttered.

“Okay. Teams,” Cyrus said. “Nolan leads one, the Captain leads the other. Smiths go with the Captain. Livingstones go with Nolan. Arachne …” He looked around. “Arachne?”

“Cy …” Diana was pointing. While they’d been talking, Arachne had quietly drifted away from the group. Now she was walking up one of the factory’s ramps. She didn’t try the large sliding door. Instead, she tried a smaller door beside it, pulled it open, and stepped inside.

“Treachery,” the Captain said. “Transmortal treachery!”

“No,” said Cyrus, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not that.” He looked around at the group. “Everyone ready.”

“No,” said the Captain. “You’re a Smith, lad, and are Kept by the Brendan’s Blood Avenger. Ye need a blade leading this parade.” He unbelted his sword, the sword from his own tomb that had parted the skin on Cyrus’s neck with just a touch. “You’re worthy enow to smite with
this, Smithling.” He wrapped the belt around Cyrus’s middle and cinched it tight. The scabbard dangled most of the way down his leg. The Captain grinned. “War! Can ye hear the blood drums beating in thine ears? Can ye feel the prickling lightning in thy limbs? Come! Let us send this Phoenix back to his ash.”

Turning suddenly, with Vlad crooked in one arm and his new hand-cannon in the other, he began to run toward the far end of the factory. Dan and Cyrus ran after him, revolvers in hand. Cyrus fell behind as the sword clattered and kicked against his legs and darted between his shins. Finally, still running, he switched the revolver to his left hand and drew the long blade, letting the scabbard bounce limp.

The blade was light. Lighter than the sabers he trained with in Ashtown, even though the blade was longer and thicker. The hilt felt familiar enough, but the steel looked samurai. As the sun glanced off it, he saw the ghost of an image—scaled, long, reptilian.

The sword was sharp; that’s all that mattered. And it felt good in his hand. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

When the Captain reached the farthest ramp, Cyrus was with him. Breathing hard, he made his way up, glancing toward the other end as he did. Nolan and the Livingstones were in position and waiting. Jeb and Diana were centered, lying in the grass with rifles extended. There
was no reason to wait, no reason to start thinking again, to start worrying about …

Cyrus stopped his mind.

The big sliding door was chained. He slid his new blade down behind the rusted links and jerked down. Surprised, he watched the iron split and tumble loose. The sword was a lot more than sharp. Grabbing the door handle, he tugged. The door rattled along its rails, revealing … darkness. Dust trickled out into the sun. Cyrus inched forward, blade raised.

A tiny flame flickered to life in the darkness. Shadows moved inside the room and a roiling fireball suddenly swirled toward Cyrus. With a yell, the Captain jumped to the front and the fireball shattered around him. Cyrus dropped to the ground in his shadow.

Somewhere distant, Cyrus heard Nolan shouting. And gunfire. As the fireball died, Cyrus scrambled backward, raising his revolver. Dan had sheltered against the factory wall, beside the door. The Captain stood inside the doorway, legs spread, armor glowing with heat, hair smoking. Bellowing like a bull, he swung Vlad from the chain on his left wrist like a medieval mace. From his right hip, he fired his first grenade into the dark room.

Lightning flashed inside and thunder shook the ramp under Cyrus’s feet. The Captain and Cyrus tumbled backward.

Dazed, Cyrus rose to his feet, clutching the sword in
front of him. Dan was halfway down the ramp, shaking his head and trying to stand, his back to the door. There were bodies just inside the doorway—Cyrus could see tattoos beneath scorched skin.

Cyrus heard Diana shouting over the sound of rifles firing and a more distant explosion. Glancing down the length of the factory, he could see that the far end was burning. In the center, shapes were flooding out of the building, parting, and racing toward the ends.

This didn’t look like running away. The Polygoners were being surrounded. But that didn’t matter. Not just yet.

Tall men, lean and tattooed, stepped out of the doorway. In the sunlight, their skin was tinged green. Cyrus had faced creatures like this once before, but never so many. Six, seven stepped onto the ramp. Some carried the four-barreled fire-belching guns that had burned down the Archer. Others carried something smaller—pistols with short belts of darts dangling beneath the barrels.

The man in front raised his dart gun and pointed at Dan’s back. Cyrus didn’t hear himself yelling as he ran forward. Dan twisted and flipped to the side in a way the old Dan would never have been able to do. The dart punched into the wooden ramp where Dan had just been.

Cyrus heard a roar from behind him and felt the trailing heat of the Captain’s second grenade as it passed over his shoulder, plowing through the air toward the
tattooed men. They parted like cats, like vapor, and the grenade disappeared into the room behind them. A moment later, the world shook again. Thick black smoke billowed out the door, engulfing Phoenix’s men.

Swinging his sword and shouting, Cyrus plunged into it.

His blade sliced into something, and he heard a scream. Smoke burned his throat and eyes as he pressed on, blindly executing the thrusts and slashes of a training routine.

Someone grabbed his blade and pulled him forward. A hand clamped onto his throat. Cyrus raised his revolver and fired blind.

He tripped over his falling attacker, and then collided with a wall. Holding his breath, smoke tears streaming down his face, he followed the wall until he found a door.

Somewhere ahead of him was a prize he was willing to die for. Cyrus went through the door.

Dennis Gilly sat in the open door of the plane beside John Horace Lawney VII and gnawed his fingernails. The blunderbuss sat across Dennis’s legs; Horace wouldn’t let him touch the Boones’ launcher.

There had been no movement on the river side of the factory. The windows were still shuttered. The doors were still closed. The boats and the plane were still lashed to the pylons.

But from the other side of the factory …

“Do you think they’re okay?” Dennis asked Horace. “We should have gone with them.”

“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.