The Drowned Vault (17 page)

“Maxi was a fool,” Gil said. He eyed the pillared vaults of the long, many-walled room, then turned and swung his hammer at the nearest dark stone pillar. The column shattered like a candy cane. Cyrus tucked his head as tiny, jagged rocks rattled through the vaults and skipped off his back.

Gilgamesh raised his arms toward the ceiling, his chest inflating.

“I am awake, little Nikales!” he bellowed. “Gilgamesh of Uruk is awake, and he will never sleep again!”

“Your treaty, Gil,” Nolan said. “Rupert will still Bury you.”

Gilgamesh laughed. “Even now, my treaty is in flames, and at long last. Contained by human law? No
true power? That is not immortality.” He pointed his hammer at Cyrus. “I will open myself to the ancient power and gorge on the sweet taste of battle rage. I will wear the children’s skin like a Scythian king!”

While Cyrus watched, Gil’s eyes rolled back in his head as his muscles seized and writhed beneath his carpeted skin. His jaw unhinged as his arms twisted against their joints, bending against his elbows, bones grinding and cartilage crunching.

Nolan plunged forward, a knife suddenly in his hand.

They had to get out. Now. Cyrus slapped his sister hard. “Tigs! Wake up!”

Nolan rose up and buried his knife in Gil’s chest. Gil didn’t notice, and his spasms didn’t stop. Nolan pounded on the hilt, driving the knife all the way in between his ribs.

Antigone opened her eyes. She grimaced and sputtered her lips.

“Sick, sick, sick. I taste like squid.”

“C’mon!” Cyrus started to drag her off the edge of the bed, then jerked back. A raft of Whip Spiders was bobbing around the bed, pincers and whips stretching toward the mattress, straining for dry land.

Nolan was wiggling the knife in Gil’s chest. He looked back at Cyrus. “Jump!” he shouted. “Go! Now!”

Too late.

Gil’s eyes snapped back down. The hammer swung
up. Nolan tried to jump away, but the iron head caught him in the chest. His body rose out of the water in a geyser, tumbled across the surface, and slammed into a wall.

Gil locked eyes with Cyrus, and he roared.

Antigone sat up, shocked. “Cy …”

Gil waded toward them, knife still in his chest, muscles still sliding and twisting unnaturally beneath his skin.

Behind him, Rupert Greeves splashed into the room carrying a revolver.

Gil spun around. In a flash, Rupert dove beneath the murky surface. Gil stared at the ripples and raised his hammer, waiting.

Against the wall, Nolan stood up, sputtering.

“Go!” Cyrus said. He and his sister jumped off the bed, away from Gil, clearing the island of Whip stings.

Dirty salt water swallowed them. Knees bent, not standing at full height, Cyrus popped just his face up out of the water. Antigone did the same next to him.

Gil was stomping through the flood. Raging through stinging Whip Spiders. Feeling for Rupert with his feet, hammer raised and ready. Nolan was sliding through the water around him, just out of hammer range.

“You’re not immortal, Gil,” Nolan said. “You’ll die. You’ll rot. Your hulk will be dust, a colony of worms.”

Gil wheeled on him, spitting his words. “Thief. I will
knock your head from your body and bury it deep. Is that death enough, Nikales, fruit thief?”

Nolan stood up straight, arms extended from his sides. “So be it,” he said.

Gil stepped toward him, cocking his sledge.

Behind him, Rupert exploded up out of the water. In one geysering motion, he was on Gil’s back, an arm around Gil’s neck, and the long barrel of the revolver in Gil’s ear.

The gun fired.

The giant collapsed into the water.

Cyrus and Antigone stood up slowly.

Chest heaving, Rupert stood, dripping, above the huge floating body. His gun was still pointed at the back of Gil’s head. He looked over at them. “The Smiths pass another test. Nolan, rope? Chains? Something? He won’t be stunned long.”

Nolan bounded through the water and ripped a length of rope off a floating plank.

“Rupe, he went through the rage-warp. A full spasm.”

Rupert nodded. “Then we have even less time.” He holstered his gun, grabbed Gil’s huge floating arms, and pinned them at the small of his back. Nolan began to tie the thick wrists together. “Cy, Tigs, get out of the water. Watch the Whips. Get to the stairs.”

Cyrus and Antigone splashed forward. Nolan and Rupert moved to Gil’s ankles.

“Won’t he drown?” Antigone asked.

Nolan snorted.

“No,” said Rupert. “He won’t.”

Gil’s floating body shivered. Arms tugged at the ropes. Tree-trunk legs shook as Nolan cinched the knots at his ankles. The huge back arched, but Gil’s face remained submerged.

The yell rippled the water. Cyrus could feel it in his legs even as he reached the door.

“And now,” said Rupert, “we run.”

The four of them were silent in the halls and on the stairs—but for the sound of slapping wet feet and dripping water and occasional spitting and snorting. It wasn’t long before Rupert was leading the strange train through the broad upper hallways. Nolan trailed behind. The damage from the riot was still strewn across the floor, but the cleanup crews were gone.

And the bells had stopped ringing.

Outside the Galleria, a large silent crowd was pressed in around the big doorway. Someone was speaking inside.

Rupert tapped shoulders, and a narrow alley formed for the wet train. A swarm of whispers surrounded them as they pressed through.

“Rupe, do something,” a woman said. “The treaties gone … they can do anything they like!”

“He can’t …”

“… discharged as Avengel.”

“No Avengels at all now …”

“
Ordo Draconis
an ally?”

“… Hell’s own daftness.”

“Radu Bey …”

“… Radu Bey.”

“Radu …”

“… Bey.”

Rupert reached the doorway and stepped inside. Cyrus squeezed in next to him. Antigone hooked her arm in his and wedged herself forward. Nolan hung back.

“Bellamy Cook!” Rupert shouted.

Every head in the Galleria turned. The men and women standing in the aisle parted to the sides, leaving an empty path all the way to the dais where Bellamy Cook stood, draped in a long bright robe, intricately embroidered with maps. Old men and women were seated in a half circle behind him.

The wiry man had shaved, and his mud hair was oiled into curls. He smiled. “Mr. Greeves,” he said. “You appear to be all wet.”

“I have bound Gilgamesh of Uruk in the Polygon, after the attempted murder of two Journeymen of this Estate. It is his final violation. He is eligible for Burial.”

A whisper danced through the crowd.

Bellamy Cook let his head drop, chin against his
embroidered chest as if lost in thought. When he spoke, it was to the floor, but his sharp voice filled the room.

“The Brendan will not consider Burial in any case. We no longer have authority over our immortal allies. Gilgamesh of Uruk is accountable to the laws of his own Order. As soon as they have a chance to establish themselves, I suggest that you notify them of your charges.” Bellamy looked up. “As for you, Rupert Greeves, Keeper of the Ashtown Estate, we thank you for your service. Our allies in the
Ordo Draconis
now offer
us
protection, and all the strength we could ever need. The primitive office of Avengel—”

Rupert took another step forward, and his booming voice rattled the upper windows.

“I am the Avenger of Blood! Where my brothers fall, there I will be. Where my sisters stumble, there you will find me. My road is paved with shadow, and my bed is made of pain. I am the Keeper of unmarked graves and the walker of forgotten tombs. I am the point of Brendan’s spear, and the hunter of Brendan’s enemies,
wherever
they may be. So I have sworn, so it has been, so it shall be—till Death bend me and the ground take me.”

For a long moment, the room was silent. And then Rupert was backing slowly away, pulling Cyrus and Antigone with him. Bellamy Cook nodded at the front row. Tall shapes began to stand, but the crowd was already closing, swallowing their Avengel and his Smiths.

• • •

Outside, the heat haze suppressed the sun’s glare, but not the sun itself. The fire orb sat high in the sky, pearly perfect without its flame halo. Cyrus would have normally given it more appreciation, but he was jogging to keep up with Rupert’s long strides. They’d lost Nolan, but somewhere in the crowd Rupert had snagged Dennis Gilly by the back of the neck, and he was now dragging the porter alongside him, delivering a long string of instructions into the boy’s ear.

Antigone looked at her brother as they ran. “What now?” she asked. Her wet hair was slicked straight back, and the blood on her forehead had dried. Her bare feet didn’t flinch on the gravel path. As for Cyrus, his head was splitting, salt water was still draining out of his sinuses and down the back of his throat, and his whole body felt like he had fallen out of a tree. It was even hard to jog straight.

He snorted and spat on the gravel. “I think we’re leaving,” Cyrus said. “With Rupert.”

Ahead of them, Rupert released Dennis with a whoop and slapped his backside. The porter raced away without a glance back. Rupert turned.

“Smiths!” He was almost cheerful. “No time for pain. Hurry now, hurry.” Rupert’s steps were long and quick, his thick arms arched away from his body like a gunfighter’s, and his head was always moving, his eyes sweeping
their surroundings. Even his nostrils were flared, like he was catching traces of some enemy in the air.

“Do you hear that?” Rupert asked, suddenly pausing on the path. “Too low and too fast.”

Cyrus didn’t hear anything. Antigone shook her head.

“Don’t stop,” Rupert said. “We need you in your rooms now.”

Beyond the buildings that surrounded the courtyard, above the trees that lined the hills, the shape of a strange plane appeared. Rupert was right. It was too low and it was definitely too fast. A second later, the shape had become a roar; another second, and the roar had become the plane—olive green, part boomerang and part stingray, Cyrus had never see anything like it. It was like a single wing, but with two jet intakes crowded into the center like gaping nostrils beneath the cockpit.

The jet ripped through the air above Ashtown, tossing the canvas remnants of the Acolyte tent city like so many leaves. And then it was gone, banking hard and disappearing out over the lake. The roar faded.

In its wake, a blizzard of red paper rings fluttered and swirled quietly through the air.

People were flooding out the big main doors and down the steps into the courtyard. All of them watched the strange rings rain down, spinning as they fell, like the seeds of an unknown tree.

Rupert grabbed Cyrus and Antigone by the shoulders
and pulled them back on course, faster this time. He didn’t let go.

“What are they?” Antigone asked. She grabbed at one and missed.

“You’ll know soon enough,” said Rupert. “We can’t be in the open right now.”

Three steps later, the rings were coming down in clouds, rolling down their shoulders, scuffing along the path in front of them, gluing to their wet clothes and wet hair and damp skin as they moved.

Paper dragons. The head was on the right side of the ring, at three o’clock. The neck and body arched up over the top and then down into the tail. The tail formed the bottom of the ring, looping back up to the head where the tip was folded tight around the dragon’s neck. A flame-shaped wing stuck up off the back, and two clawed legs dangled off the belly, sticking into the empty center of the ring.

Behind the three runners, the crowd was frozen, watching the red paper rain twist in the air and cover the ground.

Rupert forced them into the arched walkway that led to their stairs. He pushed them up the stairs first, but cut ahead and banged the door open with his gun drawn when they reached Skelton’s old rooms.

When he lowered the gun, Cyrus and Antigone followed him in.

The webs on the windows had been tightened and thickened to the point of near darkness, and the spiders were still working. Jax was already inside, sitting in a corner, clutching an enormous backpack. He clambered to his feet when he saw the Smiths.

“You’re alive! Are the squid okay? Did they make it?”

Cyrus snorted. “I don’t know, man. Maybe if they like eating Whip Spiders.”

Jax nodded and sat back down. “Good. They’ll be fine for a while.”

Arachne walked toward them. “Sorry, Rupe,” she said. “I’m not ready for the skins.” She clicked her teeth, and Cyrus heard a rustling behind him. He jumped away from the door as hundreds of spiders began to unroll a rippling silver sheet from above the jamb. It was smooth and light, but it looked tougher than steel wool.

“Fine,” Rupert said. “Things are moving faster than I’d hoped. Lock this place down, but expect Nolan. He’ll be playing shuttle service for some others through the vent. Antigone, do whatever Arachne tells you. Cyrus, you’re coming with me.”

Arachne plucked a paper dragon off Rupert’s shoulder, her eyes wide. “Already? It’s been years.”

“Not years,” Rupert said. “Centuries.”

“Have you opened one?” she asked.

“Don’t need to see what’s in the belly to know what’s
there.” Rupert banged open the doors to Dump Number One and the Book Dump, and then grabbed the knob to the room Cyrus and Antigone had never managed to open. The knob turned, but the door didn’t budge. He looked at Cyrus with eyebrows raised.

Cyrus shrugged. “It was like that when we showed up.”

Arachne delicately unfolded the dragon’s tail from around its neck while Antigone hovered at her elbow. The paper unfolded and uncreased easily in her weaver’s hands—the claws disappeared, and the fiery wing splayed open and flattened into mere paper. Then the body opened and Arachne was holding nothing but a delicate red page with a bizarre outline.

“Well?” Rupert asked. Arachne exhaled slowly, and Cyrus leaned in to see.

In the center of the paper were three small, brightly colored crests arranged in a triangle. The bottom right corner of the triangle was a winged silver chess knight on a deep blue background. Beside it was a red shield with three severed heads. Above them both was a black shield with a scarlet taloned bird with wings spread. In one claw it held a flame; in the other, a skull.