The Pyramid of Souls (6 page)

   "Well, how would I know that?"

   "You might have simply asked. But anyway, Pasha says that in the evening, as most of the animals were sleeping, he happened to want a drink of water, and as he was scurrying through the stalls, he saw a Shadowkeeper. An enormous beast—the stench nearly caused him to faint. Worse, there was a black bird flying overhead, dark and sinister."

   Nick felt all the air in his lungs rush out of him. He tried to swallow.

   "What?" asked Isabella. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

   "Not a ghost."

   "What then?"

   "What's worse than a ghost?"

   "A Shadowkeeper?" Isabella whispered.

   Nick nodded. "I have something to tell you. And you're not going to be happy with me. But you can't tell anyone else."

   "I don't like the sound of that. Last time you asked me to keep a solemn secret, cross my heart and hope to die, I nearly
did
die in a desert."

   "Please, Isabella. Just promise."

   "All right. I promise."

"Cross your heart."

"Yes. Cross my heart. But I
don't
hope to die! Now tell me."

"A raven has been following me."

   "What?" She leaped from the bed and grabbed Pasha. "Maybe that's why your magic powers are waning. The Shadowkeepers are coming." Her cheeks drained of color, and her pale eyes widened. "Nick…what if they come during the convention? There will be so many clans here, so many people. Every single room in the entire hotel is booked. What if they disguise themselves?"

   "We'll
feel their presence," Nick
said. "When I'm near a Shadowkeeper, my skull pounds like someone is beating it with a hammer. And there's the stench."

   Isabella wrinkled up her nose. "Yes, there is that."

   "Their smell reminds me of the time this kid left his lunch bag with three hardboiled eggs and a tuna fish sandwich on the bus all day when it was ninety-eight degrees out. That afternoon, when we got back on, it was a barf-fest."

   "I've never smelled that, but I'll take your word for it."

   "My point is, they won't be undetected. If they come to the convention, they won't get away with it, Isabella."

   "We need to tell Damian and Theo."

   "No!" Nick said firmly. "Not yet. I don't want to run to them every time I see a shadow or a black bird. I don't want them to feel like they have to be overprotective of me. I want them to count on me. Besides, if we tell Damian and Theo, we'll be in lockdown. We won't be able to do anything."

   Isabella bit her lip. "I would miss pizza. All right." She nodded slowly. "But at the very least, we must go get Pasha's family. I don't like thinking of the little mice down there. Sascha can take care of herself, and Penelope and the lions can, too. But mice? Come on!"

By the time they reached the stalls, the sun was setting fast over the Las Vegas strip, and the lights were coming up. Nick always felt blissfully dizzy as the neon danced its crazy rhythms and illuminated the world, writhing in syncopated beats.

   The two cousins slipped into the stalls with Sascha between them. Isabella set Pasha down, and they followed the scampering mouse as he wove through the legs of horses and around piles of hay until he arrived at a cozy little nest near Maslow's trough.

   "Come here, my little angels," Isabella whispered, a tremor in her voice. She scooped up three baby mice, each just the size of her thumb, and handed them to Nick. Then she picked up Pasha and his wife, Dashia. "Come on," she urged Nick. "Let's go. Hurry!"

   The two of them turned, and then Nick smelled it. "Please tell me that's like…elephant poop or something," he whispered.

   Isabella bit her bottom lip and shook her head. "No. That's Shadowkeeper stench if I ever smelled it."

   "Put the mice in your pocket in case we have to make a run for it," he whispered.

   The two of them hurriedly tucked the mice away. Isabella put Pasha and Dashia into her jeans, one at each of her hips, peering out, trembling. Nick put the three baby mice in his shirt pocket, where they popped up and looked out, little black eyes wide with fear, noses twitching as they sniffed the air.

   "Get down, babies," he urged them.

   Maslow began kicking the hay in his stall, his snorts low and rumbling. Soon, the other animals grew agitated as well. Nick heard Penelope's trumpeting call. He grabbed Isabella's hand, and they backed up against his horse. "Maybe we should climb on Maslow and ride out of here."

   But it was too late. Sawdust from the floor of the stall blew into their eyes, so Nick and Isabella ran around and hid behind Maslow. Nick patted his horse's neck and whispered in his ear, "Easy, boy. I know you remember."

   Maslow was one of the rarest breeds of horses in the world, an Akhal-Teke. He was a magnificent, metallic gold, bred to race long distances. Theo had told Nick that the Russian horses, like Maslow, were known to race over two hundred miles across the plains without water. With Nick urging him on, Maslow had carried Nick and Isabella far into the Nevada desert, outrunning flying beasts in the night in the last showdown with the Shadowkeepers. Maslow had bravely stayed by their side as the evil monk Rasputin, the leader of the Shadowkeepers, had appeared, ready to kill them all. Maslow's muscles twitched. The horse clearly sensed a Shadowkeeper now.

   Nick felt the tiny mice trembling in his pocket. His own head pounded. He rubbed his temples.

   A large, black, foul-smelling shadow grew in size and cast the entire stall into pitch blackness. Nick whispered, "We're trapped in here."

   The shadow swirled, forming a funnel like a tornado. It spun so fast that more sawdust and bits of hay flew up. Maslow reared on his hind legs. Nick could barely see; his eyes stung with dirt and dust.

   "Ouch!" Isabella cried as sawdust flew at her face.

   When the funnel stopped spinning, a Shadowkeeper stood six feet high, its wrinkled, leathery wings outstretched and encompassing the stall from one end to the other. Its face— once human, but now reptilian—was scaly, yet slick with ooze. Its noxious odor made Nick feel sick.

   Maslow kicked his front hooves, rearing up and moving toward the Shadowkeeper, causing the evil beast to back up a few paces. Sascha roared and charged, baring her teeth and inciting the other large cats to roar in solidarity.

   Suddenly, a woman walked out from behind the Shadowkeeper. With jet black hair, a wide slash of a smile, and hideously garish red lips, she looked crazed. Yet something about her was very familiar—something about her eyes.

   "Maria!" Isabella breathed.

   "Who?"

   "I know her."

   "What?"

   But there was no time to explain. Maria, whoever she was, pointed at them with a long talon of a finger, and—despite the tiger, despite Maslow—the Shadowkeeper edged toward them, hissing and squealing like a wounded, feral animal.

   Then behind Maria, a black, wolf-like creature trotted up, fangs bared. It snarled and snapped, saliva dripping from its mouth and pooling on the ground. The beast looked very hungry. Its yellow eyes narrowed to slits, focusing on Nick and Isabella as if planning on making a meal of them. A growl rumbled deep in its throat.

   Nick whispered, "Whatever that thing is, it's like it has rabies or something."

   Suddenly, a hoarse
caw
echoed in the sky. Then there were hundreds of
caws. Nick and Isabella looked up at
the sky through the window of Maslow's stall, which was full of ravens, maybe thousands of them, their cackling calls all echoing across the night. They nearly blocked the lights of Las Vegas, flapping in a frightening, unified chorus of wings.

   "What else can go wrong?" Nick asked.

   "Look!" Isabella shouted.

   The ravens seemed to frighten the Shadowkeeper. The beast drew back its wings, folding them into itself like a cockroach's wings. It moved out of the stall and hissed at the birds. With its sharp claws, it scraped emptily at the sky, like a zombie. Then it changed shape, melting into a slick, oily puddle which the wolf-like beast sniffed.

   Maria pulled a necklace up over her head and opened a triangular vial hanging from the gold chain. The oil moved toward her. She set the vial down and the ebony liquid filled it. Then, glaring at them, she put the cap back on the vial and returned the chain to around her neck.

   The wolf-like creature lunged toward Nick and Isabella. Maslow rose up on his hind legs and kicked out toward it. Maria emitted a low growl of her own, as if communicating with the beast. It drew back to her side, and together they vanished in a burst of black smoke.

   The ravens, now a fluttering mass of darkness, flew higher and sped through the night, out toward the desolate desert that lay beyond the borders of Las Vegas.

   Nick stared at Isabella, his heart pounding. "Who was she—and how do you know her?"

   "She is my sworn enemy," said Isabella. She put her hand to her chest. "My heart is pounding." Her breath was shallow.

   Nick frowned. His cousin was a know-it-all sometimes, but she was also the kindest person he'd ever met, protective of her family just as she was of her tiger (and of all animals). She wasn't the type of person who would have a sworn enemy.

   "What are you talking about?" he asked.

   Isabella shook her head. In the weakest of voices, she said, "Oh, Nick, I have to break my promise to you. This is very bad. Worse than I feared. So we have to tell the family."

Isabella sat down with Nick in the scratchy hay of the barn. Maslow lowered his head and nuzzled Nick's hair as if to make sure he was all right. The horse whinnied softly and twitched his tail.

   "This all happened before you came to live with us, Nick. Before you were born. Before I was born. You know how Damian always says we have a destiny?"

   "Yeah." In fact, ever since Nick had arrived to live with his newfound family, at least once a day, Damian or Theo reminded him of his destiny: magic, caviar, and borscht.

   "We also have a legacy."

   They set the little mice down on the hay. The tiny family now huddled together and looked up at Isabella. Occasionally, Pasha patted her with his delicate paw, as if offering her comfort.

"A legacy? What? Like an inheritance or something?"

"Sort of. Nick, you know how you can Gaze?"

   He thought of how his crystal ball was cold earlier, but he nodded. "Yeah."

   "In some families, you inherit being a good athlete. Or being a talented singer. In ours, you inherit your magic gifts. When a baby is born in the clan, everyone watches for a sign of what gifts the baby has inherited. When I was born, everyone hoped that I would inherit the gifts of animal magic like my older sister, but no one knew for sure. Some only inherit minor magic."

   Nick nodded. The Winter Palace Casino and Hotel had one of the world's most famous orchestras. The players were flawless musicians—critics said that they were equal to the New York Philharmonic and other famous symphony orchestras, but in some ways, they were more amazing, because all of the players were family. There were no auditions. None of them had ever been to music school or conservatory. While brilliant musicians, to the clan, the gift of music, as they called it, was a "minor" magical skill. Animal magic, Gazing, swordplay, spells, levitation—these were parts of the major arts.

   Isabella gathered her knees close against her body, tucking her chin down. "The family watched me, but for a while, I showed no signs of my gift. My father even brought a spider monkey to live with us—one he acquired from Sergei—to see if that might help me. Apparently, the monkey used to make me laugh when I was in my high chair, but I never seemed to communicate with it. And then one day, I was playing with my doll near the tigers—and I heard Sascha speak to me. She was a cub, and I heard her ask me if I wanted to play. I had the gift." She looked at Nick and beamed. "I was so excited."

   Nick wished he had Isabella's gift. When he'd first met Isabella, he'd been jealous of her pet tiger. Since then, he had seen Irina and Isabella control lions, polar bears, tigers, an elephant, jaguars—the fiercest animals in the world were like gentle pets. But only girls inherited the animal arts.

   "After that, Sascha and I slept in the same room. I played with her, ate with her. We did everything together. We grew up together! Then one day, Sascha and I were playing hide and seek. We were out by the animals when a woman appeared—just like today. She was dressed like a
v
a, a
babushka."