The Crimson Brand (34 page)

Turoc dragged himself through the rough, dusty ground of the narrow labyrinth, hobbled by his injury but propelled by deadly purpose.  He passed the shell of The House of Mirrors, which Ronan had no doubt picked clean before Turoc had even arrived in Dogwood.

The rogue avian who had owned the burnt structure told Turoc and his master much after his expulsion from Dogwood by the very girls Turoc himself had just faced.  He had spoken heatedly of the two girls, cursed their existence with his last breath.  The girls were as formidable as the Birdman had claimed, but also foolish, and very soon would be dead, trapped in the tunnels that would become their tomb.

Though he was not able to harm the red one—the very blood that ran through her veins ensured that—he was by no means compelled to rescue her from the death she’d earned through her own stupidity.

The avian had told them much while Turoc’s venom worked its way into his every muscle and bone: the relics he’d acquired from the old fool Erasmus; his master’s drive for more and more human slaves from this world—but he’d not mentioned Ronan.  Ronan, whose Shamanic magic had allowed him to cross between the worlds.

Turoc took great joy in the knowledge that Ronan would shortly be out of his path as well, and greater joy in the knowledge that his journey out of this world would be as if through fire.

Ronan had earned his pain.

Turoc spied the open area where the people of this world came to cast their refuse—such a wasteful race.  It was empty, but not for much longer.  With Joseph captured, the landfill would soon be out of bounds to him and his helpers.

This very day
, he thought. 
I finish my business in this place this very day
.

The way ahead was too narrow for him—it had never been meant to accommodate him—but Turoc was strong, even if injured and weakened.  He shoved his way through the narrower gaps in the junk maze Joseph Duke, the idiot boy, had so carefully constructed, cringing in pain as his raw, blistered flesh tore and scales wrenched free against jagged metal.  Edges bent, groaned and creaked with his passage, until at last he forced his way through to the dead end that concealed the homunculi’s entrance.

Turoc hissed in pleasure and drew his wand.

He could hear the sounds of struggle in the tunnel below him and knew the girls were close now.  Only moments left to stop them.  If they escaped, he would again be limited by the blood oath not to kill the red one. 

A sweep of his wand brought the wall of rusted metal behind the old refrigerator crashing down, sealing them in and opening his way out of the maze.

Now he could rejoin Morgan Duke in his hiding place and heal before finishing his work in Dogwood, in Aurora Hollow, for good.

The Master wanted this place.  It was one of the few stable portals left between the worlds, like the one on Morgan Duke’s island.  Almost as important, it held great sentimental value.  It was, after all, the place where The Master had killed the one he hated most in all the worlds. 

The woman and her brat had stood in his way for too long.

The time of gentle persuasion had passed.  The time of the fist was at hand.

“Die slowly, little ones,” he said, and began to climb over the avalanche of metal.

A streak of movement above caught his eye.

He searched the sky, his wand at hand, and saw them.

Two more girls, flying on the most outlandish besom he had ever seen.  The one in front wore green robes that flapped in the wind of her passage, and as she turned and dived toward him, he saw the wand in her hand.

Turoc shouted in frustrated rage and sent a curse at them, but his balance was tenuous, his aim bad, and the girls quickly dove lower to avoid certain death.  They passed by him, close enough that he could have swatted them from the air with his tail, but the attempt brought a new molten pain to his seared muscles.

The one in the back half-turned to point her wand at him as they climbed skyward but didn’t use it.  Her mouth was an open O of shock.

He sent another curse after them, one aimed to knock the doltish expression from her face, but her shield spell sent it ricocheting back toward him.  It hit the base of the toppled wall of metal he scaled, shaking it beneath him.  His next curse flew wild.

Then they turned sharply and rocketed toward him again.

The girl in front sent a barrage of fire spells, her long black hair flying out behind her as her hood slipped.  He blocked the first few with a well-timed shield, but the others pierced the hill of twisted metal below and around him, exploding into flames between him and his attackers.  Fires rose on all sides and the cool metal beneath his coiled body began to heat almost at once.  He sprang forward, blind to what awaited him on the other side of the blazing wall of pain.

He tumbled down the jagged slope to the ground, the torn edges of metal biting into his flesh, piercing and puncturing him, and landed on the stony earth outside the burning maze, one arm pinned beneath him.  He heard bone snap, and screamed with fresh agony.

They came at him again, dropping down at him like arrows. He was weary of this game.

“
Procellium
,” he shouted, aiming his wand not at the girls but at the sky.

Dark gray clouds formed, gathering and reaching to each other with arms like smoke; a wind whipped at him from the east, fanning the flames behind him, then another from the south.  Above him the strange besom spun in the crosswinds.  A second later the first bright tracery of lightning etched glowing lines through the clouds.  The sky rumbled like a waking giant.

The air spun around the landfill in a vortex, growing in strength with each passing second.  Above him the girls spun out of control.  The one in front clutched the handles of her odd flying machine, and the one in the back held tight to the driver.  The vortex closed in on them, spinning them quicker, and then they shot free of it, spiraling away into the distance, still hanging on but abandoning the fight.

The growing tempest fed on Turoc’s remaining strength, sapping it.  When he could no longer maintain it, he lowered his wand.  The wind died at once, the lightning gave another feeble flicker, and the ensuing thunder sounded more like a sigh.  The clouds began to drift and thin.

Turoc propelled himself away as quickly as his injured body would allow, vowing to return and pay the girls back for his pain.

*   *   *

“I can’t get through!”  It was Katie’s turn to panic now.  She pounded against the metal barrier with her fist, the sound echoing down the tunnel like the banging of a gong. 

Penny cradled Ronan’s still, bloody form in one arm and rained spells down on the advancing homunculi.  Her continued barrage chipped away at them, a finger here, an arm or leg there, small chips of stone from their torsos and heads.  She forced them back until their sheer numbers overcame her defenses, and she sent a fireball at them, scattering them like panicked stone monkeys.  The already thin air of the tunnel grew thinner as the flames devoured what was left of their oxygen, and Penny reluctantly extinguished the flames, allowing the homunculi their slow second advance.

They were going to die down there.

“
Penny
!” 

Penny turned reflexively to Katie at the sound of the voice but knew it wasn’t hers. 

Katie quit pounding against the metal and shot Penny an inquisitive look.

“Cover me,” Penny said, and dropped her wand to dig the mirror from her pocket.  Ronan’s limp body began to slide from the cradle of her left arm, and she tightened her grip on him.

Ronan groaned in pain.

Katie’s glowing wand tip appeared over her shoulder, lighting the mirror and the face staring at her.

“Ellen?”

Behind her, Katie gasped.

Below, the first pair of homunculi showed their ugly gray faces again, advancing slowly, warily.

“Where are you?”  Ellen’s eyes squinted against a strong wind that blew her hair back.  “We’ve been calling for you but you never answered!”

“We’ve been busy,” Katie shouted, firing a spell at the advancing homunculi.  It was a perfect headshot, striking the right one between its glowing eyes.  A small crack opened, the eyes dimmed, and it fell heavily onto its back like a toppled statue, stonelike and perfectly still.

“We’re at the landfill,” Penny said.

“Where?”  The sky, a stormy gray that Penny didn’t remember seeing at all that day, moved too quickly past her.  “Are you …?”

“Flying … with Zoe.  We’re
at
the landfill but we can’t find you!”

A small flicker of hope warmed Penny’s insides but was extinguished almost at once.

“Be careful!  There’s …,” she couldn’t think of the proper words to describe the monster they had just faced, “something dangerous out there.  We’re underground ….”

Katie sent more spells flying past her head, and Penny flinched.

“Underground!”  Zoe’s voice this time, distant but audible.

“We’re in a tunnel,” Penny explained.  “We were almost out but something blocked the tunnel.”

“The … the Snakeman … thing?”  Ellen said, a little self-consciously. 

“Yes!”  Hope and dread continued their tug-of-war in Penny’s chest. 

“It’s gone now,” Ellen said.  “We’re coming down.”

Encouraged by her success against the still-motionless gray man, Katie continued her assault against any that came within range.  A second and third fell, both with cracks in their stone skulls.

A moment later Ellen’s backdrop of meandering gray clouds vanished and Penny saw the burning walls of the metal labyrinth.  Then Zoe’s face appeared in the mirror.  “Make some noise so we can find you.”

Penny and Katie obliged.

Katie pounded her fist against the crumpled metal that blocked their path and screamed “In here!  We’re down here!”

With nothing solid to bang a fist against, Penny simply screamed.

The sudden cacophony drove the few remaining homunculi into a startled retreat. 

The mirror went blank, and Penny slipped it back into her pocket.

Katie continued pounding and they both screamed.  When the homunculi ventured too close, Penny shot spells at them. 

“Get outa’ here!”  The narrow tunnel made targeting the little monsters easy at least, and though every hit she scored damaged them, the minor damage didn’t discourage them from coming back for more.

“Leave us alone!”  Penny screamed and fired with her wand, scoring a perfect hit between the glowing eyes of the lead monster.  It’s stone head cracked and it fell on its face.

The other homunculi retreated again.

The minutes passed, and they were beginning to grow hoarse, when some weighty object shifted unseen above them.  The ground shook around them, the hard-packed earth over their heads rained dust, and Penny grew certain that the tunnel would collapse before Zoe and Ellen could free them.

The homunculi gathered for a last charge, their high-pitched war cries overcoming Penny’s and Katie’s.

Penny slid back as far as she could, pressing against Katie.  There was no more room for retreat.

Then a loud bang sounded, and daylight flooded the tunnel.

Katie was suddenly gone, and Penny pushed herself backward.

As the nearest homunculus reached for Penny, its chubby stonelike fingers actually brushing her shoe, a hand grasped the back of her shirt and dragged her into the open.  She was out, surrounded by Zoe, Katie and Ellen.

Spells flew around her, driving the emerging monsters back into the tunnel. Penny threw a last handful of fire for good measure, then the ground began to shake.  A gout of flame and dirt belched from the open tunnel as the entire underground labyrinth collapsed. 

They backed away, Penny scrambling to her feet, as the walls of rusted steel around them shifted and tipped.  Then they ran.  Zoe turned for her bike but Katie grabbed her by the back of her robe to stop her.  A second later Zoe’s old bike was crushed under tons of twisted, fire-blackened steel.

“This way,” Ellen shouted.

They followed her through a narrow gap in the far wall, then through an opening into the wide space beyond the collapsing junk maze.  An idle bulldozer sat unoccupied at the foot of a hill of trash.  An ugly old camper sat alone on a rise to their right.  Ahead, a locked gate barred entrance or exit.

They ran for the trailer, Penny pausing for one last glance back.

The fire had mostly died out, its available fuel consumed, and black smoke rose into the sky.

“Hurry,” Zoe shouted, and Penny ran to catch up.

She didn’t dare to look down at the still form cradled in her left arm.

They reached the camper, and Ellen drew her wand.  Closing her eyes, she pressed its tip against the closed door, then opened it and dashed through.  The others followed, Zoe last, and she slammed the door shut.

They were back in the hollow, winded and wounded, Katie coughing and barely able to breath.

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said, and the shame in her voice broke Penny’s heart a little.  “I didn’t know you’d gone until Ellen found me.”

Ellen sat on one of the boulders surrounding the fire pit, her eyes still wide with shock.  “I heard you say my name, but you were gone before I could answer you.  I came here but no one was around so I walked until I found Zoe.”