CHAPTER 24
noch Bloodwyn stood several cautious feet away from the Saint
Bernard, winding a silk handkerchief around his injured wrist. His
eyes darted toward the platform where the demigod had resumed his
disturbing stillness, arms crossed, immobile, and apparently
lifeless. The mist at Malakkan’s feet fanned out across the stage,
hovering like a bank of green fog. The three iridescent shadows
surrounded him, their wailing temporarily ceased.
Casey wondered why Malakaan and the Moquidin hadn’t launched an all-out attack. They were certainly capable of overpowering him and Penny, with or without the bow. Bloodwyn too, for that matter. Even if they’d been surprised or possibly frightened by the bow, they had to realize that a boy and a dog weren’t going to be able to fend off a concentrated assault. He decided that Malakaan was once again playing a cat and mouse game, assuming he was in control and biding his time.
“My conference with the monsters revealed one of my assumptions to be true,” said Bloodwyn. “You have the power to see that he lets your sister return to her baby dolls.”
Casey was dumbfounded. “How can I do that?”
“A fair trade. You stay here in her place. I return the girl to her mother.”
Casey began to wonder if Bloodwyn was simply goading him.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Doctor. If that’s what Malakaan wants, why didn’t he just snatch me, like he did the rest of those poor people?”
“Apparently, try as he might, you kept slipping through his clutches. It may be difficult to pinpoint a specific individual, and his rebellious Moquidin may have intentionally misled him.”
“Lucky for him that you oozed into view to help him out,” said Casey. “You don’t do anything without strings attached. What else were you trying to bargain for? A return ticket? A chance to haul out as much of this stuff as you need to become rich and famous?”
“I am rich and famous, Mr. Wilde,” huffed Bloodwyn. For a moment, the arrogant archaeologist sounded so much like a petulant little boy that Casey had to laugh.
“Oh, come on, Doc,” he said evenly. “You wrote some books that only a few eggheads will ever consider reading. I doubt if that would be quite enough to satisfy the vanity of a desperate character like you.”
Although Enoch Bloodwyn didn’t move an inch, his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Malakaan’s offer to make a trade won’t last forever.”
“So why don’t you stay?”
“He doesn’t want me, but he will trade for you.”
The air crackled with electricity. An angry wind howled through the vast room, clacking the stone tendrils of the columns together, and thickening the air with flying ash. On stage, the Moquidin shrieked and circled around Malakaan, who stood with arms outstretched. His face was taut with anger, and sparks crackled around the onyx orbs in his eye sockets, making them burn with reflected fire.
“You are running out of time, you stupid little brat,” shouted Bloodwyn. “Do what’s right, or you and your sister will both be stranded here. Is that what you want?”
He considered making a grab for Casey’s arm and dragging him to the stage, but the presence of the Saint, teeth bared, made him quickly scrap the idea. Bloodwyn turned and sprinted back up the curving stairs alone. He approached Malakaan with head bowed, dropped once again to his knees, and began scrabbling rapidly in the dirt.
Squinting his eyes against the wind strewn ash, Casey felt his heart leap. Standing at the foot of the second staircase was Officer Holstein. Just behind him, stood Dot Clydesdale and two of the braves in buckskin. Casey felt like cheering. Help was on the way.
“We’re over here,” Casey called. “We’re right over… Oh no!”
Officer Holstein’s color drained away. His head tossed from side to side as his facial features melted into a ghostly mask. Dot Clydesdale was gripping the stone railing, a determined expression on her face. One of the Kokinoke braves stood with fists clenched. The other had begun to slowly grow pale and indistinct. They were fighting the transformation, but it was clearly a losing battle.
The Moquidin Holstein rippled toward Casey, its high thin yowl joining the voices of other living shadows. Fingers stretched like tentacles and wrapped around the bow, but Penny’s teeth sank into the distorted arm. Holstein’s voice rose up in an agonized scream. Casey yanked hard, snatching back the bow as the creature made a temporary retreat.
Dot had vanished along with the Kokinokes. Dark silhouettes flickered around the room, but instead of the unified front they had presented at the shoe factory, the shadows moved erratically. Some of them seemed to be colliding together in conflict. Casey considered Dot’s comment about free will, and hoped Malakaan might have the beginning of a revolt on his hands.
Bloodwyn knelt before the demigod, furiously drawing symbols in the ash. The strange words he uttered sounded uncertain, even desperate. A hot gust of wind whipped across the stone floor of the platform, wiping away every trace of what had been written. Bloodwyn was staring blankly at the clean swept floor when, in one swooping movement, Malakaan yanked him to his feet.
Bloodwyn flailed, trying desperately to pull away, but the monster’s pale hand was impossibly strong. He yelped as sparks began to sputter and spit around the steely fingers that gripped his arm, scorching the sleeve of his coat. An instant later, Malakaan sent him skidding across the platform and over the edge, to land in a groaning heap.
Casey wrapped a protective arm around his sister, holding her close.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t leave you, Pearl.”
Bloodwyn cursed and grumbled as he pulled himself up. The sleeve of his coat had burned away, and his blackened arm looked as though it had been branded. He straightened his shoulders and stalked over to the low archway through which they had entered the chamber.
Casey huddled in the dust cradling Pearl in his arms. Even with Penny to help him, what could he possibly do? They were trapped. Behind them was Bloodwyn. Above them on the raised platform, the monsters waited.
Pearl twitched in Casey’s arms. The color was slowly draining from her face and hair.
“No! He can’t do this!’ screamed Casey. “He can’t turn a little girl into one of those things.”
He pulled Pearl closer. She twisted in his arms, writhing unbearably slowly. The monster was stretching this out, playing with him. Pearl’s green eyes were fading to gray and the bright red of her hair was nearly white.
“It is time you learned, Mr. Wilde, that when I set out to do something. I do it.”
Casey looked up to see Enoch Bloodwyn, disheveled and wild eyed, holding Detective Kestrel’s revolver in his hand. He aimed toward the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The shot exploded, echoing through the amphitheater. The voices of the Moquidin became a confused disjointed chorus. Malakaan turned slowly on the stage, apparently uncertain as to what was happening. Pearl once again lay still in Casey’s arms.
“Well, that made an impact, didn’t it? What you don’t seem to realize, boy, is that you have quite run out of choices. You wouldn’t accept my solution to stay here voluntarily and give up your game of bow and arrows. I am not going to wait around until Malakaan turns that brat into a specter.”
Bloodwyn’s voice was as blistering as dry ice. His injured arm trembled slightly as he leveled the gun directly at Pearl. The room echoed with wailing voices. Malakaan listened intently trying to interpret the barrage of messages he was receiving.
“I see that I’ve confused our friend up there. He didn’t quite expect this turn of events, did he? So what do you say, boy? You choose my way, or you let him win. The monster or…” Bloodwyn emphasized his point by cocking the gun he was holding.
“The other monster,” spat Casey. “Go on, Doctor. Shoot us both, why don’t you? But save a few bullets for yourself. Do you think for a moment that Pike won’t sense what you’ve done? Do you think that my parents won’t take one look at your guilty face and not know…”
“Enough!” shouted Bloodwyn.
Casey closed his eyes and held his breath as Bloodwyn pulled the trigger. The air exploded, leaving behind a burnt and bitter smell. Casey’s ears were ringing but he but felt nothing. He opened his eyes to see smoke forming a slow motion ballet around the muzzle of the revolver.
The gun was aimed high over his head toward the stage. The bullet had slammed squarely into Malakaan’s chest. Pale, thick slime bubbled where the bullets parted the monster’s skin.
Malakaan, uncertain as to what was unfolding around him, let out an agonized roar as more searing lead ripped into his chest. The human disguise began to fall away. His spine curved and his head sloped forward. Seamed skin hardened as double rows of sharp stony plates grew out of the broad back, and powerful hands warped into claws. Human features buckled. Bones cracked. A jutting brow shot forward over moist, sightless white eyes that crackled with green sparks.
His bullets spent, Bloodwyn threw the gun aside and yanked Pearl from Casey’s grasp.
“Better run, kid. I think we may have really worn out our welcome this time. My little distraction won’t give us much time.”
A wild wind sent stone branches smashing to the chamber floor. The drizzle became a downpour, fat drops smacking their skin like lead pellets. Penny let out a single booming bark, and bounded under the stage toward a tunnel on the far side of the room.
“Come on, Doctor Bloodwyn!” Casey shouted, fighting to be heard above the maelstrom, “Follow her!”
All traces of humanity now shed, the monster leapt from the stage. Clawed feet hit the floor, and it crouched down on powerful scaled haunches. Tilting its great head for a moment, it listened to the wailing of the shadows, and sniffed the air like a predatory animal tracking its prey.
Casey and Bloodwyn stumbled through the darkness, bashing into the walls, and doing their best to keep up with the Saint. The floor inclined sharply upward. Casey nearly lost his footing, blinded momentarily as a blast of Malakaan’s green lightning flooded the tunnel, but Bloodwyn’s strong fingers around his arm kept him on his feet.
“Keep moving. The old gang seems to be gaining, and I really don’t fancy a reunion.”
They raced around a corner and slammed into Penny, stopped dead in her tracks. The narrow tunnel stretched on before them arching steeply upward and faintly lit by thick tendrils of glowing moss. Behind them the singing wail was growing louder.
“I am afraid, Mr. Wilde, that this may be the end of the line.”
In front of them, something was waiting in the dark.
It was something huge.
And it was blocking their way.