Caleb stood before the mahogany desk in the Captain’s private stateroom aboard the airship. He been stripped of his suit of armor for the second time and wore only leather pants and a rough cotton shirt. If it were not for the fur over his entire body, the shirt probably would have itched.
What did itch was the stiff metallic collar they had placed on him. He fidgeted with it uncomfortably.
Levi, the leader of the Directors’ advance army, sat at his desk ignoring Caleb. He spun the key he had liberated from Nero in his fingertips, inspecting every centimeter of its brass surface.
Levi was dressed like a Roman Centurion, ready to lead his troops into battle. Only it wasn’t his troops he was sending into battle. It was Caleb.
There was a faint knock at the door right before someone poked their head in. “We just crossed over the border into the Northern Territories.”
Levi set the key down on the leather-topped desk. “Any indication we’ve been spotted?”
“None, sir. As far as the grounders are concerned, it’s blue skies all around.”
“Good. Take us to the city Nero identified and prepare to touch down.”
“Yes sir.” The man disappeared, closing the door behind him.
Why would Nero be helping someone who thought of himself as an elite soldier from an extinct civilization? The world had moved on. Humanity had progressed. Yet, this man dressed as if he was still in Rome a thousand years ago. He even made his private army dress the part. Caleb chuckled to himself. The only reason they likely ever won in battle was that the enemy was laughing too hard to fight.
Levi eyed him suspiciously. “I know what you’re thinking, but Nero is not helping us as much as he’s just trying to stay alive. And I suggest you do the same.”
“Or what?”
“That is not for me to decide. I am not the judge. Only the executioner.”
“So if I refuse to help you with your plan, you’ll kill me?”
“We are not the savages you believe us to be.”
“Anybody who wants to use that weapon against anyone else is nothing but a savage.”
“You’re forgetting to see the good in people. With that device we can…”
Caleb felt compelled to correct Levi’s misconception of what it was they were after. “Weapon.”
Levi took a deep breath before continuing. “With that device, we can bring about a level of peace the world has experienced only once before. The same kind of peace that existed when your kind had the device, and used it to keep everyone in line. We only wish to recreate the world as it was so long ago. A world free from war. Free from hatred. Free from violence. Peace is the gift we want to give to the world.”
“And they want to use the most destructive weapon ever created to bring this peace?”
“If it could be done any other way, we would gladly do it.”
He had heard enough and was not convinced. “Then you’ll just have to do it without my help. You can torture or kill me if you want to.”
“I have no intention of harming you. At least not yet. But I will not hesitate to hurt the girl. What was her name? Oh, yes. Dorothy.”
His heart stopped. She was not with him in the warehouse when Levi blew it up. There was no way he could find her, let alone hurt her. He was bluffing.
Levi smiled. “You think I’m bluffing. What would you say if I told you that I would hurt her terribly if you do not cooperate? And the man in the wheelchair who was with her.”
But how? How had they found her? OZ was a big place. It was an entire continent! Yet Levi had come directly to them, when they could have been anywhere.
Levi seemed very pleased with himself as he settled back into his chair. “You think Nero would send you out on such an important task without a way to keep track of you? Like I said, he has been very helpful in finding you. Just as you will be very helpful in finding the boy who hid the device.”
“What makes you think I’ll help you?”
“Along with the leverage I have over you by keeping Dorothy here, safe with me, you’re not going into the city alone.”
The door creaked behind him, signaling someone entering the room. Levi smiled. “And here is your partner now.”
Caleb half turned when a fist slammed into the side of his face. The unexpected attack sent him down to his knees. He looked up into the face of Captain Taylor. Surprisingly, Taylor extended his hand and helped Caleb back to his feet. What was Captain Taylor doing with Levi?
“I thought you worked for the Southern Marshal,” Caleb said.
“I work for whoever’s going to win. And Levi convinced me that she did not stand a chance against what’s coming.”
The truth suddenly dawned on Caleb, like the sun breaking through storm clouds. “You helped them escape from her dungeon.”
Taylor beamed with pride. “And get their ship back.” Taylor looked at Levi. “See, I told you it wouldn’t take long to bring him up to speed. He’s one smart cookie.”
Levi leaned forward, his elbows resting lightly on the desk. “And you think you can keep him under control?”
Taylor pointed to a small box, with a single button on it that sat on the desk. “As long as I have that, it won’t be a problem.”
Levi pushed it over to him and Taylor snatched it up before it flew off the edge of the desk.
Taylor held it up and showed it to Caleb. “I bet you’re wondering what this is.”
In fact, he had been wondering what it was.
“I could go into a lengthy scientific explanation about what it does, but it would be faster to show you.”
Taylor pushed the button and it felt like fire ignited in his neck and tore through every muscle in his body. He reached for his neck and gripped the collar, the source of the electrical surge. In no time, he was on the floor writhing in pain.
The pain suddenly stopped and he gasped, as he lay there, helpless.
Taylor bent over him. “You will do exactly as I say or I will rest a heavy rock on that button and let that collar cook you from the inside out.”
Caleb panted heavily as he lay on his back, unable to respond. That satisfied Taylor, who returned his attention back to Levi.
“I don’t think he’ll be a problem, sir. We will find the boy and get back what he stole from you.”
Two hours later, Caleb and Taylor stood in the middle of a marketplace in the Northern Territories. According to Taylor, this was the same marketplace the Totos had been following Jasper. Since he did not have access to the Toto network, Taylor insisted they wander around the marketplace and wait for Jasper to walk past them.
Caleb wore a hooded cloak to hide his feline features. After the mass exodus to the south, there were no hybrids anywhere else in OZ. If someone spotted him, it would draw unwanted attention. Fortunately, for him, the Northern Territories were not a friendly place and people ignored each other quite readily. Everyone, except for one man who called out to every potential customer who came within earshot of him.
As the two of them worked their way through the marketplace, keeping an eye out for Jasper, he could hear what the huckster was saying as they got closer.
“Only sixpence a try. Bring your key, any key. Every key in your house. Be the one to unlock the mystical, magical box and claim the treasure waiting inside.”
Caleb shook his head. Leave it up to Jasper to figure out a way to make money from a locked box. He pointed the huckster out to Taylor.
“I think we found it.”
Jasper tossed another farthing to the bartender. “Keep those sarsaparillas coming.”
The bartender looked at him with his good eye, the non-milky one, while he slid the dirty coin across the counter and poured two fingers of the sweet drink into Jasper’s glass. “If this keeps up, I’m going to have to cut you off.”
Jasper snatched the glass and hovered over it like a dog protecting its dinner. “There’s no alcohol in this.”
“True, but if you’re throwing farthings on the bar, you’re almost out of money.”
Jasper stared down at his reflection in the brown liquid. Being able to read people must be one of the prerequisites to becoming a bartender.
Separated from Nero, and with the rest of the army dead, he found himself in a strange land with no money. In addition, who was going to hire a young kid for anything, and pay him? He had to do something that would give him the freedom he wanted, and the money he needed.
He instantly fell back on some of the scams he pulled off back at home, but quickly realized the inhabitants of the Northern Territories were a much tougher crowd. The still tender burn, from a hot poker pressed into the palm of his right hand, attested to that.
None of his old tricks were going to work here. He needed something new. Something that wasn’t perceived as a scam, yet could still provide him a steady income.
Nero’s box proved to be the perfect answer. If Nero could not open the box, with his vast resources and knowledge, what chance did anybody else have?
So, why not let everyone have a try? Let them bring their own keys and pay for the chance to get at the treasure inside. A locked box holds a secret. Everyone loves a secret. It proved to be the perfect money-making scheme.
For about three days.
Now it seemed that this town’s interest in a locked box had waned and he was down to a few farthings in his purse. It was time to take his box to another town. And next time, he would conserve his money.
Randall sat down heavily next to him at the bar, his face beaming. “I got two more takers for you,” he said as he nodded toward the door of the tavern. Two men stood at the entrance, one of them wearing a hooded cloak.
Jasper’s suspicious nature took over. They certainly didn’t look like the usual clients willing to pay for an attempt at the unknown. They must be up to something.
He didn’t take his eyes off the men as he probed his assistant, who was many years older than he was, but none the wiser, for more information. “How many keys?”
“Just one.”
He rubbed the last of his two farthings in his pocket between an index finger and thumb. This wasn’t sounding too good. “Did you tell them the sixpence price is for a bulk discount?”
“I did. They agreed to the one try for three shillings.”
“How much convincing did it take?”
“I should have asked for a whole pound, because they agreed right away.”
This was sounding too good to be true. From his experiences growing up in OZ, anytime it was too good, it wasn’t true. His suspicions were all but confirmed and he couldn’t let his overwhelming need for money override his finely tuned survival instincts. He knew when not to get sucked into a trap.
“They’re not customers, Randall. Send them away.”
“No, no. They are customers.” Randall held out his open hand, three shillings clinking together in his palm. “They’ve already paid. See?”
Jasper snatched all three shillings from Randall’s hand. No sense in letting money go to waste.
“Fine. But take them by Draco first. He will determine if they are customers or not.”
Jasper grabbed Randall’s collar and pulled him back to the bar as he started to walk away. “You can forget about your cut if he kills these two like he killed the last one. We don’t need the kind of attention another body will bring. The townspeople are already spooked that there might be a monster running around loose, and if there is another victim, there will be far too many guards posted around the city for us to continue our business arrangement.”
From across the room, Caleb watched Jasper control the conversation between him and Randall.
Taylor leaned over and whispered, “Is that the kid we’re looking for?”
Caleb nodded silently.
It certainly looked like Jasper. But he behaved very differently than he had ever seen him behave before. In fact, if he didn’t know better, it looked as if Jasper was acting like a crime lord. But he did know better. He knew Jasper, and he was no crime lord. Sure, he ran his fair share of scams, but what kid growing up in OZ didn’t? It was a dog eat dog world, and now, Jasper was acting like the biggest dog of them all.
Randall shook himself free from Jasper’s grip and rushed over to them. “Okay, it’s all set. Follow me.”
They followed him out of the tavern, Caleb taking the opportunity, as the door opened, for one last glance at Jasper. His seat at the bar was already empty. Caleb looked around the tavern, but Jasper was gone. This was not a good sign.
Once outside, he had to run to catch up to the others. Taylor was already engaging Randall in conversation.
“Is it far?”
“No, no. It’s close.”
Randall seemed exceptionally nervous. Another bad sign.
A few minutes later, Randall slipped into a side alley that ran between two multistory buildings. The space between the buildings was so small, Randall had to angle his body sideways just to fit.
He craned his neck back and waved them in. “This way.”
Caleb and Taylor exchanged a look. They would have to enter one at a time just to fit.
Taylor took a step back and thrust a hand into his pocket, most likely resting a finger over the button of Caleb’s electric shock collar. “After you.”
The space was too small to make a move against Taylor anyway, so he angled his shoulders and stuffed himself into the tiny crevice.
It was a tight fit. The mismatch stones of the walls tugged at his cloak and pulled back his hood, exposing part of his face.
Halfway down the alley, Randall stopped at a door set into the side of one of the buildings. A look of horror crossed his face when he noticed Caleb was not human.
He fumbled the key into the door as Caleb inched his way closer. Randall disappeared and the door slammed behind him.
Caleb reached the door and twisted the knob, but it was locked from the inside.
Was this part of their plan from the beginning?
Or did Randall panic when he saw Caleb’s face?
Either way, the door was locked and they were wedged into a very tiny space.
Taylor grunted behind him. “Don’t just stand there, open the door.”
Caleb rattled the door handle. “He locked it.”
Taylor shifted around uncomfortably. “Don’t toy with me.”
“I’m not.”
The sound of rock grinding on rock was accompanied by the wall pressing Taylor into the building behind them. He shot forward to join Caleb in the doorway. Within moments, the alley was completely sealed and they were both crammed together into a tiny space.
Their faces so close, Caleb winced at Taylor’s hot breath as he spoke. “If I wasn’t touching you, I’d shock you so hard for getting us into this mess.”
The door flung open and they both fell into the room, Caleb falling onto his back with Taylor landing on top of him. A shaft of light pierced the hazy darkness from the single window on the high ceiling. His earlier guess at this being a multistory building was incorrect. It was tall, but the one room stretched from the ground all the way to the top of the building.
Caleb’s enhanced vision enabled him to see in the semi-darkness. The only door out of this room was the one they had come in. And now, the walls of the alley had sealed that up, leaving no way out.
The rustling of chains brought his attention back to the center of the chamber as a large half-human half-lizard creature stepped into the shaft of light. His wrists were bound by chains that stretched to twin holes in the wall behind him, but the chains were still long enough to give the creature free rein over half the chamber. Fortunately, it was the other half of the chamber from where Caleb and Taylor slowly picked themselves up.
Caleb had seen every type of hybrid imaginable back in the Southern Territories. But they were all mammal based. This is the first one he’d seen that was reptilian.
The creature held on to his chains and tugged at them, unable to get any closer. It let out a mighty roar that nearly emptied Caleb’s bladder. He had been trained as a master assassin since before he could walk and feared nobody and nothing.
Until now.
Nothing in his training or experience prepared him to stare into the cold eyes of a reptilian hybrid. There was no doubt that if the reptilian hybrid were not chained to the wall, he would’ve already torn them to shreds without emotion or remorse.
A clanking sound emanated somewhere deep within the opposite wall. The reptilian hybrid responded by spinning around and pulling as hard as he could on the chains. It didn’t do any good and he was pulled back to within a foot of the wall before the chains stopped retracting into the holes.
A deep voice echoed to them from the darkness above. “Why are you interested in the box?”
Before Caleb could respond, Taylor was already talking. “You enticed us with your sales pitch.”
“But you had only one key, and you didn’t negotiate.”
“Where I’m from, money is not a problem. Your price sounded very fair.”
“Do you know what is inside?”
“We were hoping to find that out when we opened it.”
“How do you know your key will unlock the box?”
Caleb placed a hand on Taylor to stop him from responding and took over the negotiations.
“You tell Jasper that I have Nero’s key.”
The room fell silent, except for a faint snarling and the rustling of chains from the other side of the room.
After a moment, a more familiar voice echoed from above. “Caleb?”
Finally, a friend.
“Hello Jasper.”
There was a sound of rocks grinding on rocks and stairs began to form that led to a niche high up along one wall. Jasper appeared and rushed down the stairs. He charged at Caleb and embraced him in a huge bear hug.
“It’s so good to see your friendly furry face.”
Caleb hugged him back. “I missed you too.”
Jasper looked around, ignoring Taylor. “Where’s Dorothy?”
Taylor, not wanting to be ignored, replied for him. “We have her.”
Jasper frowned. “What do you mean, ‘you have her’?”
“She will stay safe as long as we get what is inside that box.”
Jasper jabbed a thumb at Taylor. “Is he with you?”
Caleb half smiled. “Not exactly.”
Taylor took a step forward. “He is my prisoner. You will take me to the box at once.”
Jasper crossed his arms. “Or what?”
Taylor glanced sideways at Caleb. “Or I will make him suffer as no one has suffered before.”
Jasper glanced around him and laughed. “And just what can you do down here? You don’t exactly have the home field advantage.”
Taylor removed the small box from his pocket. “This button controls your friend’s shock collar. If I hold it down long enough, his heart will stop and he will die.”
Before Jasper could respond, a grinding sound drew their attention to the stairs receding back into the wall.
Jasper called out, “Randall, what are you doing?”
Randall appeared at the niche in the wall, “What I should have done a few days ago when you first approached me with our deal.”
Gone was the stuttered and slurred mumblings of the simpleton. Instead, it was replaced by the eloquent speech of a mastermind criminal. “You have a very unique scam there, Jasper. I think I can do a lot with that. Thank you for your contribution.”
His disappearance through the niche was followed by a hollow thunk in the wall behind the reptilian hybrid. All three of them looked over as the hybrid pulled on his chains, testing to see if they would pull farther out of the wall.
Which they did.
Jasper swore and sat down roughly on the floor in defeat. “I can’t believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book. Scam the scammer. I thought he was a simpleton. It’s a shame I won’t be around to tell my grandchildren about the best scam ever pulled on me. I’m not even going to be around to have children.”
Caleb grabbed Jasper and pulled him back to his feet. “How do we get out of here?”
Jasper stared right through him, lost in his own thoughts. “We don’t. I don’t know if you noticed the grates in the floor. That’s for our blood to drain away after the lizard man eats us.”
Caleb tossed Jasper into the corner and then whipped off his hooded cloak. They had one chance to survive this and he didn’t need that heavy cloak getting in the way.
“Taylor?”
Taylor was staring at the hybrid, frozen like a statue.
“Taylor!”
Taylor’s head jerked in his direction.
“Get ready to trigger my shock collar.”
Taylor gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“As soon as I grab the lizard, you trigger my collar.”
The reptilian hybrid kept pulling the chains out of the wall until they ratcheted to a stop. The chains were now looped at his feet, and looked long enough to let him reach anywhere in the chamber.
He was eyeballing the three of them, trying to decide which of them to save for dessert.
It was now or never.
Caleb shot a sideways glance at Taylor. “Get ready.”
Taylor snapped out of whatever he was thinking and shouted.
“Wait!”
“No time!”
Caleb leaped through the air. The monster responded in kind and met him in the middle of the chamber in midair.
They collided heavily and fell to the ground with a thud. Caleb struggled against the powerful strength of the creature and screamed over his shoulder. “Do it now!”
For some reason, Taylor did not trigger the collar.
On his back, he gripped the monster’s arms and pushed up against the sharp lizard claws as the reptilian hybrid pushed down on him with all his weight. Caleb craned his head over to look at Taylor. “Do it!”
Taylor responded, “I can’t. There was only enough power for one shock.”
The truth that his collar was a one-time scare tactic was information he would’ve liked to have had before formulating his hasty plan. The reptilian hybrid was bigger and, he was quickly discovering, stronger than he was. Taylor was useless, but Jasper jumped to his feet and yelled something absurd as he ran by. “Just hold him there Caleb. I have an idea.”
The reptilian hybrid’s sharp talons were getting closer to his face. “I think you’ve underestimated my position here, Jasper.”
His muscles screamed with fatigue as one sharp talon pierced his cheek, blood bubbling up through his fur. Pain shot through his whole body. As soon as he couldn’t resist any longer, the hybrid would slash through him with razor-sharp talons and then quickly finish off Taylor and Jasper.
Of all the ways Caleb had envisioned his death, he never imagined it would be at the hands of another hybrid.
The monster was suddenly jerked backward out of his grip and flew away from him. Jasper was just rolling to the side, and barely missed being crushed, when the hybrid impacted with the wall. He collided with the wall with such force, it crumbled inward. As the dust settled, they could see the reptilian’s lifeless legs poking out, half buried in rubble, from the newly punctured hole in the wall.
Jasper was back on his feet and dusting himself off. “I almost forgot about the chain retraction switch. I didn’t think we’d be able to get past the lizard to activate it.”
Caleb shot to his feet and pinned Taylor against the wall. “This whole time, the collar was useless?”
Taylor smirked. “The threat of violence is far more coercive than the act of violence itself. Besides, we still have Dorothy.”
Despite Taylor’s attempt at bravado, Caleb could smell the fear emanating from his pores. There were many things he wanted to do to this man, but he was right. The threat of what they could do to Dorothy would keep him in line.
Jasper tugged on his arm. “Caleb. We have to get out of here. Randall helped me find some people to guard the box. I should’ve trusted my instincts, but I didn’t know anybody here. He acted so… I thought he was simple. We have to get there before he moves it.”
Caleb ignored him and held his face close to Taylor’s and bared his fangs. “If anything happens to Dorothy, I will tear you apart.”
Jasper pulled harder on his arm. “Caleb. Caleb!”
Caleb spun on Jasper. “What!?”
Jasper flinched, but held his ground. “If you want to get the box before Randall moves it, we have to go now.”
Taylor spoke up. “I thought you said there was no way out?”
Jasper pointed to the new hole in the wall. “There is now.”
Jasper disappeared through the hole that led to the inner workings of the chain assembly. It took only a few turns through the labyrinth behind the hybrid’s feeding chamber to reach the door at the other end of the twisting tunnel. Jasper paused at the door and waited for them to catch up.
“The box is just on the other side of this door, unless Randall has already moved it.” He looked at Taylor. “You really think you can open the box?”
Taylor responded immediately. “We have the key and a flask of Dorothy’s blood to activate the lock. We can open it.”
“A flask of her blood?” Caleb gripped Taylor’s collar. “I thought we needed Dorothy to open it?”
Taylor shook his head. “The key has needles that extract blood from the person using it. You hold this flask in your hand, and the key won’t know it’s not Dorothy.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that? He could’ve left Dorothy with the Southern Marshal. Then she never could’ve been used to control him. She would have been safe.
Jasper nodded his head and pushed on the door handle.
Nothing happened.
He pushed harder. “The door’s stuck.”
“It’s locked?” Caleb asked.
“No. There’s no lock on this door. There’s something wedged into the frame on the other side. Help me push.”
The three of them leaned their shoulders into the door and slowly pushed it. It popped open, the small piece of wood that had been used to jam the door clattered across the floor.
This chamber was nearly identical to the reptilian hybrid feeding chamber. It was a single, circular room that stood three stories high with a single square shaped opening at the center of the ceiling to let light in.
Jasper ran up to the table in the middle of the room. It was the only piece of furniture in the otherwise empty room. He slammed his hands on the empty table, dust rising up from its surface.
“It was right here!”
He continued to bang his fist on the table in exasperation when Caleb heard something strange coming from the hallway they had just been in. It sounded like the steady rush of air escaping a poorly sealed steam engine, only it was growing louder.
No. It wasn’t getting louder. It was getting closer.
And the closer it got, the more he realized it wasn’t a single sound, but a multitude of similar sounds happening simultaneously.
By the time the strange noise sounded like it was right outside the open door, it had attracted even Jasper’s attention. “What is that?”
As if in answer to his question, hundreds of snakes flooded through the opening of the doorway, like honey forced through the nozzle of a syringe.