Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass (18 page)

Nick didn’t want Theo to see him cry. He swallowed hard.

“I loved her, Nick. And we brought them to her doorstep. Mark my words, they would have found her, and without the
spell, it would have been worse. You wouldn’t have survived. I should have cast the spell over the both of you, but not even my magic was that strong.”

“Why are you showing me this, Theo?”

“Whatever you are planning, whatever you are thinking, it's better to be with us than go it alone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You need to tell me what you’re planning.”

“I’m not planning anything,” Nick snapped.

“I sense it. Your key, it's somehow changed. It's vibrating.”

“So?”

“So I can only assume that means you know what it opens, young cousin. Don’t make your mother's mistake.”

“
She
didn’t make a mistake!” Nick screamed with fury. “
You
did.
Damian
did. You said it yourself. You underestimated them. You thought no one followed you, but obviously one of them did. Go away, Theo.”

“Kolya, trust me. Tell me what the key opens. Tell me, please. I am begging you.”

“Go away.” Nick turned his back to Theo. “I have to prepare for the show.”

N
ICK SAT ATOP MASLOW IN THE PITCH DARKNESS. THEY were beneath a trapdoor-like contraption. In the darkness, Nick's heart beat like a drum. He could hear his blood pulsing through his own veins. Maslow occasionally twitched with anticipation or stamped a hoof.

Nick heard the orchestra begin playing. That was something else he discovered about the family. Those that didn’t perform magic played the violin, the balalaika, or the piano. They were marvelous musicians, and the orchestra at the Winter Palace Casino was, according to the critics, one of the greatest in the world. What made it even more remarkable was that no outside musicians played—only family. Critics marveled that one family could have so much talent.

The orchestra's vibrations sent a ripple through him, as
if he could feel each loud chord. The music, he knew, was traditional folk, although later, they would play a piece by Damian's favorite composer, Shostakovich.

Slowly, the trapdoor parted, and he and Maslow were elevated out of the floor. Nick's hands were sweaty as he held Maslow's reins. His hair clung damply to the nape of his neck. He and the horse rose from beneath the trapdoor as the audience quieted and the orchestra stopped playing. In the silence, a spotlight illuminated them, reflecting on the glittering small gems sewn on his costume and on Maslow's gold and emerald harness. Nick's sword was in a sheath by his side. Its hilt gleamed in the light.

The orchestra began playing again, and the music rose to a crescendo echoing through his belly. Nick waited for his cue: the striking of the timpani.

At the sound, which felt like his own pulse from deep within, Nick dug his heel into Maslow's side. Maslow leaped from his spot and onto the metal pathway. The horse's hooves clipped like thunder along the path, competing with the tim-pani's boom-boom-boom.

“Yah!” Nick shouted, and Maslow charged faster. Nick literally felt himself rising up out of his saddle, as if he was flying himself. He was terrified but excited, his hair whipping around his face.

He could see, in a blur, the snowbank ahead of him, white, cold, and glistening. Tightening his legs around Maslow, he
urged the horse to leap. They flew over the snowbank as the audience shrieked with pleasure and excitement. Next, they leaped over two growling polar bears.

Two enormous Siberian tigers rose up on their hind legs and roared. Maslow rose up on his hind legs. The animals appeared to do battle.

Nick leaped from his horse, sliding across the glacial blue ice, and appeared to stab the first tiger with his sword.

Standing astride the fallen tiger, Nick stared down at the other beast, Sascha, who roared with ferocity that echoed and reverberated to the base of Nick's spine. His scalp tingled.

Nick gestured with his hand and said a silent prayer this would work, and in an instant, the tiger fell to the floor. Nick reach a hand down to Sascha, and in the white tiger's place lay Isabella in a white gown with a fur collar.

Nick helped her stand and took a deep bow while she curtsied, each of them grinning.

The theater erupted in a cacophony the likes of which he had never heard before. It was so loud, his teeth rattled. People screamed, “Bravo!” and shouts rang from the topmost seats in the theater.

“Bow again,” Isabella shouted, smiling and raising her arms high. “You did it!”

“We
did it!” he screamed, barely able to hear himself over the roar.

They bowed deeply, then she curtsied again. People in the first three rows threw red roses, which landed at their feet. Someone threw a bouquet at Isabella, and she scooped it up, smelling the fresh lilies wrapped in cellophane tied with a giant bow.

“Damian is a genius,” she shouted above the noise. “We’re a huge hit.”

“I know,” Nick beamed. Not even pulling off a C-plus on his math final felt this good.

And then Nick spied it.

A single black rose landed at his feet.

He looked up, but the spotlights were so bright, they blinded him. The curtain fell, and he picked up the black rose and faced Isabella.

“They’re here.”

All the color drained from her face.

Above them, he saw a black oil stain creeping along the ceiling. A foul stench surrounded them. Around him, he saw fear crossing over the faces of his family.

There. He thought it.

His family.

“Come on, Isabella.”

“Where can we go?”

The shadows grew in number.

“Do you trust me?” he asked her.

She looked him in the eyes and nodded.

“Come on, then. I know what they want.”

He grabbed her hand in the chaos and led her to the underground passageway beneath the theater and then to the elevator to the vault—the one with no buttons.

“Isabella, the Shadowkeepers won’t rest until I get them what they want.”

“What's that?”

“I’m not sure. But I
am
sure it has to do with this key and a Fabergé egg in the family vault. I’ll understand if you don’t want to help me break in, but I’m going to do it.”

“Are you insane? You are. My cousin has officially lost his mind.”

“I haven’t. Please, Isabella. Between your magic and my magic, we can do it.”

She sighed. “All right, I hope you know what you’re doing. Damian's going to kill us.”

“If the Shadowkeepers don’t kill us all first.”

The elevator doors opened, and the grizzly bear was inside. It growled, and Isabella held up her hand. “Silence. Obedience.”

The bear shrank back, and they hopped on the elevator, doors shutting with a whoosh. Soon, they were hurtling farther underground, to the vault.

The doors opened again, and Nick was in the area where Theo had taken him through the wall.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to create an opening like Theo did,” Nick said. “We’re going to have to get through the booby traps.”

They raced to the door of the vault.

“You’re crazy,” Isabella said. “Damian designed the booby traps himself. Only he can get past them.”

“No. We just have to think like him.”

“Let's go get him,” Isabella said. “He’ll help us. He will. If what you say is true, then he will help us.”

“No. This is the only way.”

She sighed and finally nodded.

“Okay, first this lock.” Nick stared at it. It was a combination lock like on his locker at school, but there were letters instead of numbers, and the letters were in Cyrillic. “If you were Damian,” Nick asked Isabella, “what would you use as the code?”

They stared at the lock, and then she smiled. “Anastasia.” She twisted the lock to the various letters of the Grand Duchess's given name. “He is devoted to her.”

“I didn’t think he was devoted to anyone.”

“No,” she shook her head. “He has tea with her once a day.” She spun the lock until they heard a click.

“We’re in.”

The door swung wide. Instantly, two white tigers, each larger than Sascha, bounded toward them. Isabella spoke to them in Russian, but they still came at them.

The tigers snarled and snapped. Their teeth gleamed. They snarled so close that their saliva dripped to the floor near Nick's shoes, forming a small puddle.

Isabella repeated her commands.

“Why aren’t they stopping?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated and then said, “Wait!” She spoke a new command, and this time they retreated.

“What happened?”

“The Russian language changes through history. Damian wouldn’t use modern Russian. If he cast the spell, he would make it trickier and use commands from the Grand Duchess's time.”

“Good thing you’ve been passing all Theo's language exams.”

“It's because I don’t make my bed on exam day.”

“No, it's because you are way smarter than I am at language.”

They passed through the room, the tigers now purring like kittens.

At the far end of the room was another door. It had an ordinary handle. Nick tried it, and the door opened, revealing yet another room with a dark marble floor.

Isabella started to run through the door when Nick grabbed her.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“This isn’t right. With Damian, if there's an easy way or a hard way, he’ll always choose the hard way. Irina said so herself. This was too easy. Way too easy.”

He looked down at his performance costume and ripped off a button. He tossed it onto the floor. Instead of landing
on
the floor, it fell
through
the floor, and it was a full two or three seconds before they heard the faint
ping
of it landing somewhere below.

“Oh, he's good,” Isabella said.

“It's too far to jump across.” Nick stared at the far end of the next room. “So now what?”

“How good are your levitation skills?”

“Weak. I’m so new at it.”

“Well, that's our only shot.”

Nick swallowed hard.

Levitation was a leap of faith. A leap of clarity, Theo told him. Nick had done it all of three times, and never for more than a few seconds.

Nick centered himself, took a deep breath, grabbed Isabella's hand, and stepped forward. A leap of belief.

The two of them hovered. Nick had the sensation of walking on wind. They floated over the marble floor, and when Nick looked down, he could see the floor shifting aside and the chasm beneath them.

“Don’t look down,” Isabella told him. “Concentrate.”

They reached the next door, which also turned easily. Another empty room. Nick peered down. The floor looked solid.

The two of them stepped down on the floor. As soon as they did, Nick noticed the walls. They were covered with spiders. Big, fat, hairy spiders.

“Let's just run.”

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Look up.”

Above them was a mama spider about six feet in diameter.

“I feel like a fly,” he whispered.

“What do we do?”

Nick thought of Boris's fire skills. He conjured a fireball in his hands, but it was small.

“I hope you’ve got something bigger than that. Please tell me you do.”

The mama spider shot a web at them. Nick tossed the fireball at her. She retreated, squealing. But now her baby spiders—which were all the size of Nick's fist—started toward them. Nick said to Isabella, “Cast a spell of protection around us. A circle. I’ll do the fire.”

She spoke, while he concentrated on the fire. Soon, fire swirled all around them, small at first, but growing. He
created a tornado of blue and purple and orange flames while they stood in the center, safe.

Nick inched along, smelling charred spider flesh, a stench remarkably like the one produced by Mystery-Meat Mondays at school. When they reached the door, he tried the handle. It turned.

Nick opened the door. They were in the vault.

I
SABELLA STARED IN AWE AT THE RELICS.

“Do you have any idea how powerful all this stuff is?” “Yeah. I have some idea.”