The Drowned Vault (14 page)

“Like someone slammed a baseball in there and it won’t come out.” He pointed at the charred walls. “What happened here?”

Nolan laughed. “What happened is that I nobly defended your stronghold while you slept.”

Diana raised her eyebrows. “
You
did?”

Nolan shrugged. “Diana helped. As did the charge gun she brought. Unfortunately, despite the strength of the spinster’s webs—Gil tried to tear through the door—they do burn.” He looked at Arachne. “And I’m afraid he now knows which team she’s chosen.”

Arachne sighed, and her eyes seemed to pool with sadness. “Gil can be nice. He just doesn’t react to fear very well.”

Silas arched his one and a half eyebrows and looked at Cyrus. “We’ve seen some rough nights, but that was
the roughest.” George nodded as his brother continued: “I thought you were a goner for a little while. You got hit with a flying statue and dropped like a sack of mud. Mr. Greeves had a glass grenade in his belt that he threw into the mob as they were coming for you, and the electric arcs and the shards caught you a bit when it exploded. Barely missed us. We haven’t seen our dad, but Diana said that she was in the hallways with him for a while and that he was fine—having fun, even.”

Diana nodded. “When I left, he was with Jeb and yelling things in something that sounded pretty Zulu.”

“I’m sure it was,” George said. “It’s his favorite language for fighting.”

“So …,” said Cyrus. “What exactly happened? I don’t remember much.”

Antigone shook her head. “It wasn’t fun, Cy. When Rupert tossed his grenade, they were trying to tear off your patch.”

“Did they get it?” Cyrus looked around the room for his jacket. “Tell me they didn’t get it.”

“My stitches don’t tear, Cyrus Smith.” Arachne’s voice was quiet. Cyrus didn’t know if she sounded more exhausted or sad.

Antigone continued. “Rupe gave you to Nolan, and he dragged you into a vent.”

Cyrus looked at Nolan. The pale, peeling boy smiled slightly.

“How’d it all end?” Cyrus asked the room.

Diana crossed her legs and leaned back against her arms. “People ran and people hid. Rupe and Big Alan and Jeb and the other Field Captains shocked and dropped and chained transmortals in the halls for hours—sometimes retreating, sometimes pushing forward. A lot of them came to and broke free, but a few didn’t. They’re locked up deep for now. Gil and the others eventually retreated into collection rooms and barricaded themselves in. That’s when things got quiet.”

“Footsteps.” Nolan raised his hand. Peeling skin dangled from his fingers like paper flags. He jumped toward the door and picked up a charge gun leaning against the jamb. Arachne stepped back as Diana drew a revolver and followed Nolan.

Everyone else scrambled to their feet.

“Quiet,” said Nolan, and he flipped a switch on the butt of his gun. The electric charge grew, whining in Cyrus’s ears as he held his breath. He couldn’t hear anything else. And then someone rapped quickly on the door.

“Unlock. It’s Rupert.”

Arachne stepped toward the door. “Password?” she asked. She crouched down and lowered her hand to the floor. A brown spider slipped out of her sleeve and darted beneath the door.

“What?” Rupert sounded confused. “I truly hope I didn’t set a password.”

The spider returned and climbed into Arachne’s hand. She nodded, then stood and unlocked the door. Rupert Greeves came in, a charge gun dangling from a strap over his shoulder. He was wearing the same clothes as the night before, but his shirt was bloodstained, the top buttons were missing, and the collar had been torn halfway off.

He had bruises—or dirt, or smudged blood—on his neck, and the old scars on his chest were a sticky mess. His holster was empty, but his wide-bladed sword was still in its sheath.

Rupert shut the door and looked around at the clustered group. “Well, the Polygoners all seem to be alive.” He managed half a smile. “Excepting Cyrus. Well done. Mr. Gilly, Miss Drake, you can return to your duties. Diana, your brother needs you at the airstrip.”

Dennis and Hillary smiled at the group, and then hurried through the door. Rupert patted them each on the shoulder as they left.

Diana holstered her revolver, then mock-saluted Cyrus and Antigone. “Polygoners, ho!” she said.

“Hey, Di,” Antigone said. “Thanks. Seriously.”

Diana grinned back over her shoulder as she left. “We’ll do it again sometime.”

Rupert assessed George and Silas Livingstone.
“You’re not mint in the box, but you don’t look too terrible. Your father might be disappointed—he had to have a nostril stitched back on. He wants you in the dining hall.”

“Right,” Silas said. “He’s okay, though?”

“He’s more than okay,” Rupert said. “He’s spitting fury and battle cries into a stack of pancakes.”

George laughed, and the two brothers nodded silent goodbyes and hurried out of the room.

Jax stepped forward. His cheeks were flushed. “Mr. Greeves, do I need to head back to the zoo?”

Rupert seemed surprised. “Don’t you want to? I’ve never known you to want to be anywhere else.”

The thirteen-year-old zookeeper shuffled his feet and pulled on his ear. Antigone was grinning. Cyrus saw his sister glance at Arachne, and then he understood. Arachne smiled slightly.

“Well, Mr. Greeves, I’ve always been interested in spiders. I collected thousands of webs for years and used them in the exoskeleton I wear for protection in the Crypto wing. It’s incredibly bulky for me. But, Miss Arachne …” He glanced into Arachne’s eyes, and then looked quickly back at his feet. His cheeks grew even redder. “The spiders do what she says. Do you know how strong a spider-woven sheet of silk could be? I want to learn.”

“Jax,” Rupert said softly. “You can’t. Not any more
than you could watch a bird and then grow feathers. What Arachne does, she does by nature.”

Arachne moved toward Jax, and her smile was genuine. “By second nature, at least.” She touched Jax on the arm, and he looked like he might melt. “James, someday soon I will weave you a sheet and you can make what you will. I’m pleased you like my creatures.”

Jax nodded, unable to speak, and then he made his way toward the door. He paused, looking at the burnt web tatters dangling against the wall.

“Take them,” Arachne said.

Beaming, Jax snatched up the shreds and hurried out into the hall, leaving the door open behind him.

“Jax!” Rupert yelled after him. “I need two pairs of squid at the cube if you can!”

“Yessir, Mr. Greeves!” And the young zookeeper disappeared.

Rupert sighed, shut the door, and turned around. “I am left with two Smiths and two discontent immortals.”

Nolan laughed and dropped into the armchair. “Oh, we hardly count as that.”

“How bad is it out there?” Arachne asked. “What did they do?”

Rupert crossed to the window and looked at the charred walls. “They did enough. Gil, in particular. But they were smart, and now those I didn’t lock up have retreated out of sight. The Estate is as smashed up as it’s
been since a similar night when I was a boy, and yet they didn’t kill anyone.” He glanced back. “And they could have killed many. That mob clearly had orders—rules of engagement from some authority. I think only Cyrus was really in danger of death. That riot was their shot across our bow. They want the O of B to fear them—to fear an uprising in which hundreds might die. But they didn’t want our fear to become deep anger, as it would have if they’d given us a stack of bodies.”

“Why not?” Cyrus asked. “I don’t understand.”

Rupert continued, now eyeing the ceiling. “Then our terror would work against them—strengthening our resolve, convincing us that we absolutely must not dissolve the treaties that bind their powers. Their goal is the resurrection of their own Order, not our destruction. For now.”

Nolan leaned against the wall and crossed his pale, knotted arms. “And have they succeeded? What will happen to the transmortal treaties?”

Rupert studied him. “You want to be thrown to Gil without the Order’s protection?”

“No,” Nolan said. “I’ve had enough of Gil to last all my lifetimes, as you well know. I’m not interested for myself.”

“Gil is not in charge,” Arachne said quietly. “And the
Ordo Draconis
never died; it simply lowered its voice.”

Rupert managed to swallow slowly before he spoke.
“What do you know, Arachne? What have you held back?”

Arachne said nothing. Rupert turned to Nolan.

“What do
you
know?” he asked.

Nolan shook his head. “I steer clear of my own kind. All I know is that Gil went romping with that mob in the Galleria. Cyrus wearing his gory badge around didn’t quiet things any, but they would have rioted even if he’d arrived waving an
Ordo Draconis
banner.” He looked at Rupert and nodded at Arachne. “Press her. She knows more than she says.”

Arachne’s cheeks flushed. “I have always honored my treaty.” All around the room, spiders began to trickle out of cracks and corners as she continued. “Rupert Greeves, I have always told you what I know, but not what I guess. What I knew yesterday is not what I know today. All of my friends, the only family I have had for centuries, have always thought that I was foolish trusting a man like you. Now they call me a traitor to my own kind. Do not mistreat me.”

Rupert studied the flowing puddles of spiders on the floor, all racing toward Arachne’s feet. When he spoke, his voice had softened, though not much.

“What do you know today that was a mystery yesterday?”

Arachne was a statue. Spiders surrounded and covered her feet. They swirled around Rupert’s legs, too, and
up onto his boots. He didn’t move. Cyrus and Antigone backed away.

“You need your army before you speak?” Rupert asked.

“Radu Bey,” Arachne said quietly. “The last Dracul.”

Rupert shook his head. “John Smith destroyed him after he sent those three heads on Cyrus’s jacket rolling. Just before Smith was sent into his own Burial for breaking his vows and becoming a transmortal himself. I’ve read the account.”

“Radu Bey is alive,” Arachne said. “And the
Ordo
with him. He is behind the mob. And yes, the Smiths are to be killed.”

“How do you know this?” Rupert asked. “You were in here all night.”

Arachne nodded at her quietly rippling spiders. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

“Okay,” Cyrus said, inching forward carefully. “I’m really tired of not understanding any of this. Is this really all because they’re angry about the tooth?”

Rupert sighed. “The tooth is resurrecting an old war and an older fear. I had wondered why Phoenix turned to hunting transmortals. But this is reason enough. The Order is in peril. We may be overthrown by our own tributaries.”

“I don’t get the treaties,” Antigone said. “If the transmortals want out of them to go fight Phoenix, what’s the
problem? And what do the treaties even do? Couldn’t Gil just ignore whatever old piece of paper he signed anyway?”

Rupert shook his head. “Centuries ago, the Order offered the nations of men their only possible protection from the transmortals. They were subdued one by one, some with great difficulty, others with no difficulty at all. With the transmortals functionally colonized and their behavior restricted, the Order assumed responsibility for their protection—from men who still hated and feared them, and from each other. Every transmortal has a unique treaty, though many are similar.”

Nolan laughed. “Behavioral restrictions? Is that what you call it? It was a full powers ban—for those with powers. They didn’t need to restrict me and my peeling skin, but Arachne’s spinning is now limited to the natural order. She can spin tough stuff, but she can’t spin anything with supernatural properties—not like she used to.”

“I couldn’t, and I don’t want to,” Arachne said. “No good ever came when I did.”

“But what would happen if you did want to and you found a way?” Antigone asked. “What could the O of B do?”

Arachne’s eyes grew wider. “Burial. Forever.”

“The treaties may have been clumsy, but most were necessary,” Rupert said. “Transmortals were captured
and contained, or they submitted their powers to the authority of the Brendan and were bound to mortal laws in their registered nation of residence—no killing, no theft, that sort of thing.”

“And no political office,” Nolan said, smirking. “No more leading the nations of men. And more relevant to our moment in time—no self-governing orders or societies.”

“The
Ordo Draconis
,” Antigone said.

Rupert nodded. “It was the most powerful of those societies, maintained by the Dracul family until John Smith … well, until he dealt with them in his own somewhat questionable way.”

Nolan’s cold, old eyes were amused. “What Rupert meant to say is that John Smith broke his oath as Avengel by becoming undying himself so that he might face the most dangerous of his undying enemies when they refused to submit to the treaties. The three Vlads—Vlad the Second, his son Vlad the Third, famously called the Impaler and Dracula in some tales, and
his
son Vlad the Fourth—were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and were committed to the subjugation of mortals.”

“They were beyond vile,” Arachne said. “Blood sorcerers with dragon souls, they fed on their victims and mortal followers alike. Well done, John Smith.”

“And amen,” said Nolan. “Smith buried the heads and bodies separately—no one knows where—named
his Avengel successor, had himself condemned for his oath-breaking, and then went cheerfully and more than a little drunkenly into his own Burial, knowing that he’d shattered the
Ordo Draconis
. Of course, he had time to make the Smiths a new family crest—
sic semper draconis
. Thus always to dragons. But as your Latin tutor, I’m confident you knew that already.”

Antigone looked at Cyrus, then back at Rupert. “That’s all true?”

“It is,” Rupert said. “Nolan was there. And despite upheaval and complaints every other generation, the treaties have functioned.”

“Until now,” said Nolan. “This time, things are different.”

Arachne crouched and lowered her palms to the floor. Spiders flowed over them and up her arms. “Now,” she said quietly, “the immortals are dying and their
Ordo
is reborn. They follow Radu Bey.”