The Eternal Tomb (11 page)

“What's that?” Oliver asked warily.

“It's just an address. Trust me.”

“Yeah, right,” muttered Oliver, but he took it.

“Be there at two A.M,” said Braiden. “You'll see everything you need to see.”

“But—” Oliver glanced back toward the bus. The journey, his parents…

“Think, Oliver,” said Braiden, sounding frustrated. “Why? Why would they let you go?”

Oliver felt stuck in place. He knew the answer, but he didn't want to admit it. He just wanted to keep thinking about the bus ride and Saguaro Drive.…

“The only way they'd let him go,” mused Dean, “was if they didn't need him.”

“Because they could fulfill the prophecy without him,” added Emalie dejectedly.

“But how?” Oliver managed to say.

“The address,” said Braiden, standing up. “Afterward, you know how to contact us.”

“Wait,” said Oliver.

Braiden turned back. “Yes?”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because we can't get into the Darkling Ball to stop what's about to happen,” said Braiden. “Back when your brother was being Anointed, we had the element of surprise. Not this time. So, unlike Half-Light,
we
still need you, Oliver.”

“That's funny,” Oliver muttered.

“There's nothing funny about it,” said Braiden. “Our mission is to keep the Gate closed. That's
your
goal now, too, Oliver. So we're no longer enemies.” Braiden nodded to the paper in Oliver's hand. “Go see what I mean.” He turned and left.

Oliver stared blankly down at the paper. He unfolded it:
7002 S
EAVIEW
A
VE
. D
OCK
7
.

“We can't really trust him, can we?” asked Dean.

“If Half-Light has a way to fulfill the prophecy without you—” Emalie began.

“Then nothing we're about to do matters,” Oliver finished. With each word, he felt weights sinking inside him. “We weren't going to make it to my parents' house before the time of the Anointment. And if they have a way to do it without me, then we wouldn't be able to undo the prophecy anyway.”

“But how can they do that?” asked Dean. “
You're
Half-Light's last chance, right?”

Oliver couldn't respond. He felt the urge to run again, to get on the bus anyway. Emalie squeezed his arm. “You know we have to check it out.”

Oliver nodded solemnly. That old feeling had returned: the feeling of having no choice, no say in anything.

“F
INAL CALL FOR
N
ORTHWEST
T
RAILWAYS EIGHT-TWENTY-TWO TO
S
AN
F
RANCISCO
.”

Aunt Kathleen returned. “Ready to go?” she asked, but then noticed their ashen faces.

As Emalie explained things to her, Oliver stared out the tall windows, watching the bus driver slap the cargo doors closed and follow the last passenger on. The engine rumbled to life, and the doors squealed closed. There was a loud hiss, and the bus backed away in a slow, wide arc. Faces stared out the rain-streaked windows. Oliver imagined himself there, beginning the journey toward his freedom, his future.…

The bus rolled away into the dark.

Chapter 9

The Backup Plan

OLIVER, EMALIE, AND DEAN
sat on the roof of a city bus, crossing Ballard. Aunt Kathleen had returned to Dean's house to update their parents.

This doesn't change everything
, Emalie thought to Oliver.
I mean, we're delayed, but we can still find your parents, after
.

If there is an after
, Oliver thought glumly, staring out at the cold, wet, choiceless world.

“We're coming up on the address,” Dean reported. To their left, hundreds of sailboats and yachts bobbed in the dark. The breeze was sticky with salt, and tasted sour.

The three leaped off, over a high fence and into a nearly empty parking lot. To their right, a security booth stood beneath a streetlight. Staying in the shadows, they approached the docks. Water lapped and sloshed against the boat hulls. In the distance, a strange yelping sound pierced the night, like the barking of many dogs.

“Sea lions,” said Dean. “There's a colony that lives out on the breakwater.”

“You and all your animal trivia,” Emalie teased.

“Well,” said Dean, “it's actually zombie trivia. Sea lion brains are—”

“Okay, eww,” said Emalie. “No more, please.” Her watch made a tinny beeping sound. “Two A.M.,” she announced.

A car engine reached their ears. They turned to see a long limousine entering the lot.

“That's probably who we're here to see,” said Oliver.

“What's with vampires being so punctual?” Dean asked.

“We like neat numbers,” Oliver replied.

The limo stopped at the far end of the lot. Doors opened and shut. Two vampires started out onto one of the docks. Two more remained by the car, standing guard.

“This way,” said Oliver. He led the way out onto the nearest dock, number thirteen, then hopped up onto the bow of a small yacht. They slipped along its side, then jumped over a canal to a boat on the next dock. They crossed this dock to the next boat, and jumped again.

They reached dock seven and crouched on the stern of a sailboat. At the dock's end was a giant yacht, long, sleek, its window tinted black. The two vampires stood below it.

“Hello, Gentlemen.” Malcolm LeRoux appeared on the yacht deck. The two vampires levitated up and followed him inside.

“Come on,” said Oliver, but Emalie grabbed his arm.

“They'll have security.”

“Then what do we do?” asked Dean.

“I'll go,” said Emalie. “I can be invisible to vampires. You guys can watch from the tree house.” She pulled back her sleeve to reveal her tattoo. “Meet me there.”

They sank back, and reappeared around the fire. It was night in the Delta now, the fires on other platforms bright in the fog. The forest world was hidden below, the river gurgling unseen.

“I think from here I can use the conduit charm to bring you guys along with me, in my head.” Emalie pulled off her necklace and held the tiny red beetle scarab in her palm. Then she held out her hands for Oliver and Dean to join in a circle. She blew on the hand with the charm, then closed her eyes.

There was a sense of movement. Oliver saw the docks again, but now through Emalie's eyes. He felt her mind tighten a bit as she concentrated, and then the world flickered just slightly as she made herself invisible.

Emalie jumped down to the dock, neared the yacht, and levitated to the deck. Ahead was a set of doors into the warmly lit cabin. Above was a second deck, and then a small top deck with a captain's wheel. A vampire stood there. It was Leah.

This will be a cinch
, Emalie thought.

Oliver noted that confidence in Emalie's voice that she got during moments like this. She almost sounded excited about the danger. Like it fed her.

Come on
, she said, hearing his thoughts.
This stuff is cool
.

Maybe to you
, Oliver thought back. All he felt was worry.

Emalie entered the boat, passing through an elegant living room. Other than a slight side-to-side rocking motion, they could have been in an apartment building somewhere. There was a dark wood bar with a pewter carafe and goblets. A large, medieval oil painting hung on the back wall.

Ahead was a spiral staircase.
Down
, Oliver guessed. Emalie agreed, and descended to the deck below, entering a narrow hallway. Candles in glass vases were mounted on the dark, wood-paneled walls. The hall ended at a door, white light bleeding from its edges. Voices echoed from behind it. Emalie approached the door and with another tightening of concentration, she passed through it.

The small room was bathed in white light. The walls were lined with steel tables and glass cabinets crowded with bottles, tinctures, and machines. A steady beeping sounded. Malcolm stood, arms folded. Beside him was Tyrus, holding a file folder.

“What do you think, Doctor?”

Dr. Vincent was bent over, a syringe in one hand, and in the other, Oliver recognized the vial with the writhing centipede. “I think it's taking,” he said. “We can be fairly certain.”

Sitting before the doctor, in a wheelchair, was a young vampire boy. Oliver guessed he was about fifty, fourteen years younger than Oliver. He wore a white hospital gown, and stared up toward the ceiling, his eyes vacant. His arms and legs were strapped to the chair with thick leather restraints.

“How can we be certain of anything?” Malcolm scoffed. “It's impossible to know what's going on in there.”

“Well…” Dr. Vincent turned to the counter and exchanged the syringe and vial for a small device the size of a cell phone. He held it close to the boy's face. Three spindly metal fingers extended from the device's top and sides. Their sharp tips moved directly toward small black holes on the boy's face, one on each cheek and one on the forehead. They sank into his white skin. The boy began to shake lightly, but his eyes remained open, blank. Tiny arcs of rainbow color started to swirl around his face.

“Force resonance readings are exactly where they should be,” reported Dr. Vincent. “I see strengthening in all the areas necessary to receive the Anointment—”

“Nnnn.” The boy began to vibrate, humming like a motor. His wrists and ankles strained the straps.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Dr. Vincent, but he looked concerned as he typed on the gadget. The metal fingers popped free and receded.

“What's happening to him?” asked Tyrus.

Malcolm only stared at the boy. His eyes had begun to glow faintly with a shade of crimson. “Alexy,” he murmured.

Dr. Vincent now traded the gadget for a thick white glove and a small black jar. His jaw was set seriously. “More fragmentation of his mind, disrupting his nervous system,” he said as he unscrewed the little jar. He reached in with two fingers and pulled out a slim, slippery brown creature. It writhed in his fingers, drops of tan liquid spraying the doctor's white coat and Alexy's trembling face.

“What is that thing?” Malcolm asked.

“Lake Naenia leech. We need to quell the tremors, stabilize the force patterns.” Dr. Vincent carefully bent and held the squirming creature over Alexy's nose, then let it go. The leech disappeared into his nostril.

“DAH!” Alexy blurted. He jumped violently, the wheelchair momentarily leaving the ground. Then he slumped. The tremors had stopped.

“The boy is in no condition for this!” Malcolm protested. “He never has been!”

Dr. Vincent now held a long, narrow set of tweezers. He slipped them gingerly into Alexy's nostril, and then slowly pulled the leech free. It wriggled limply. “Well, this was never the ideal plan, Malcolm.”

“All of your reports said that Nocturne would work,” Malcolm sneered. “We never should have needed Alexy at all.”

“What can I say, Gentlemen?” Dr. Vincent began to pack his briefcase. “The very foundation of science is trial and error, same as it is for the universe. We've done our best, and I think we will succeed. Now then.” He grabbed his coat. “We'll see you tomorrow night.”

“Apparently we will,” Malcolm muttered.

Get out
, said Oliver.

Right.
Emalie retreated through the door and back to the dock. As she reached the sailboat deck, Dean and Oliver dropped hands at the tree house and returned to their bodies.

Footsteps clopped on the dock. They ducked as Tyrus and Dr. Vincent strode past. Then Oliver led them away, jumping from boat to boat. He stopped on another sailboat deck three docks over to wait until the limousine pulled away.

“They lied, to me, and my parents,” Oliver said bitterly. “Of course they had a backup. Just like they had me, in case things didn't work out with Bane.”

“Man,” said Dean, “that kid was seriously messed up—”

But Dean didn't finish. He was struck from behind by the boom of the sailboat they were sitting on.

“Don't talk about Alexy like that,” a voice hissed.

Oliver and Emalie turned to see four figures landing on the sailboat cabin. Two zombie boys, a zombie girl, and—

“He's my brother,” snarled Lythia LeRoux, “so be kind.”

Oliver felt a surge of rage, but before he could react, the zombies had him. Lythia leaped down onto Dean, pulled him up by the head with a tearing of hair. She ripped the hindrian necklace from his neck and tossed it into the water.

“Rise, minion.” Dean stood, and when he looked at Oliver and Emalie, it was as if he didn't even know them.

“Tie them up,” she ordered, “and then we'll talk.”

Chapter 10

Uneasy Alliances

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE
leaving town,” Lythia muttered sourly. Her usual sly attitude was gone, and the way she paced back and forth across the deck of the sailboat suggested that she wasn't feeling like her usual mischievous self, either.

“What do you—
cough
—care?” Emalie wheezed, barely able to breathe against the thick, rusted chains that held her and Oliver to the mast of the boat.

Lythia sighed. “Blood bag,” she said to Emalie, “I thought those chains would be tight enough that you'd have suffocated by now.”

Don't try to talk
, Oliver urged.

“What did I tell you, Nocturne?” Lythia continued. “Remember, way back in Harvey's? That I was here to save you—Lythia to the rescue, and all that. And there you were, off on your way to find your parents and be with your soul and yay rah rah! It was perfect. Half-Light has Alexy, anyway, so you would have been free as a bird. But, no, here you are again.”

“You slayed my brother,” Oliver growled, fighting the chains.