David coughed and shook his head. “We’ll only consider the terms from Astaroth himself,” said the small boy.
Max heard the ogres shuffle behind him, rumbling with laughter at David’s demand.
The witch-fires in Augur’s eyes flared with anger. “I speak for his lordship, you miserable whelp.”
“You’re a traitor to your people,” said David, stepping forward to stand just before the monstrous charger. “You are beyond redemption and beneath contempt.”
The ogres ceased their laughter. Mr. McDaniels crossed himself and shut his eyes; even Cooper gaped at David, who stood gazing solemnly at the revenant.
A green mist gathered slowly about Augur; Max knew it did not bode well. He hurried to David’s side just as Augur hefted the murderous black hammer.
“Stop.”
The command rang from far back in the cavern, issued in a musical tenor that rose from the throng of hideous vyes and hook-nosed imps. Augur froze and looked back as a small procession came up the aisle in a merry jingling of bells. A horn blared, followed by another and another until the cavern rang with their call. The armies began to cheer and stamp and resume their guzzling of plundered wine as the procession came into view.
Max saw that it was a delicate golden carriage, pulled by two black wolves the size of plow horses. The gilded coach rolled along, flanked by four deathly knights that looked to have been raised from some long slumber to serve whatever lurked behind the closed red drapes. Marley Augur scowled and wheeled his horse away from David as the tattered flags of conquered countries were raised on waving pikes. A great cry rose up among the assembled horde.
The sound was deafening, drowning out the jingling bells and Mum’s muttered oaths and obscenities. The panting wolves brought the carriage to a stop, positioning the curtained window so that it faced them broadside. Max retched as a miasma radiated from the golden carriage, a nauseating smell of death and disease and brimstone. Several more trumpets sounded, and torches were raised in manic tribute before all subsided to silence once again.
Laughter sounded within the carriage. A soft tenor spoke.
“Do forgive the noise,” it said. “They but halloo their names to the reverberate hills.”
“What?” asked Mum, nibbling at her lower lip.
“It’s Shakespeare,” said Miss Boon quietly.
“Indeed it is, Hazel Benson Boon,” said the amused voice. “I’d wager you’re familiar with all his works. I wish you could have been with me to enjoy them at the old Globe. I was moved to participate in a performance or two, but I fear the bard disapproved of my Iago—felt I’d misinterpreted the character. I’m sure he knew best, of course. . . .And how are you, Max McDaniels?”
Max froze at hearing his name spoken by the presence within the carriage.
“I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance and to thank you personally for rescuing me,” said the voice.
“I didn’t rescue you,” whispered Max.
“But you did,” the voice insisted. “Without you, I’d still be confined within that depressing Rembrandt. So dark, so dreary. As a reward, you shall have the honor of accompanying me as an aide-de-camp before fulfilling your obligation to the witches. You have no objections, I trust, Dame Mako?”
Max heard the witch’s voice inside the carriage. The old woman sounded terrified.
“Of course not, my lord,” she said.
“I’m most grateful,” said the voice. “And Max, is this the one who claims to be your father? Step forward, good sir, so I can have a look at you.”
Sweat ran in little rivers down Scott McDaniels’s face. He took two halting steps toward the golden carriage. The gauzy red drape was pulled back to reveal a pale white face inside.
For the second time in his life, Max looked upon Astaroth. The Demon was as pale as an apparition and radiated a faint luminescence within the carriage’s dark interior. Black hair fell like two bolts of silk past his shoulders and onto white robes. The face was beautiful but shone as cold and dead as a mask. Black eyes crinkled into sickle moons of merriment as Astaroth tapped a serpentine rod against the carriage’s door.
“Closer,” the Demon whispered, beckoning with a playful smile.
With another shuffling step, Scott McDaniels stood a mere six feet from the open window.
“Hmmm,” Astaroth mused, gazing up and down at Mr. McDaniels. “Max must be his mother’s son—they always are,” he added with a knowing smile. “And is the other one David Menlo?”
“He is, my lord,” said Dame Mako, huddled beneath her robes on the opposite seat.
Astaroth slid closer to the carriage window and looked David up and down.
“You fancy yourself quite a summoner, don’t you, David?” chided the Demon. “That’s a dangerous business, my young friend. Do you see Dame Mako here?”
David nodded, his hands bunched into shaking fists.
“She’s not terribly comfortable, as you can see. Dame Mako would far prefer to see me confined within a pentacle, but unlike you, she’s wise enough to know it can’t be done,” said Astaroth, wagging a long-nailed finger. “For shame. Did you really think you could compel me to come running? That hasn’t been managed for quite some time, my friend. Do you think you should be punished for your arrogance?”
“No,” whispered David.
“Speak up, child.”
“No,” repeated David, furiously wiping away tears on his sleeve.
“Shhh,” said Astaroth. “There’s no need for that. Come closer.”
David stood rooted to the spot.
“I had thought you might see the error of your ways, but here you remain stubborn and willful. Must your friends suffer for your arrogance?” inquired the Demon.
David shook his head violently, inching forward with muffled sobs. Shaking with rage, Max gripped the spearhead, but restrained himself at Cooper’s glaring insistence. Mr. McDaniels came to Max’s side and held his son close.
David’s meager form approached the dark window with the white smiling face. The great black wolves turned their wet muzzles; the vyes leaned close with expectant grins. The Demon extended two white hands out the window as if to grant a blessing. Trembling uncontrollably, David placed his hand between them.
The two conversed quietly for a moment while the Demon squeezed and patted David’s hand. Max strained to hear what was said, but could not. Suddenly, Astaroth laughed.
“Of course I shall grant your request, young David!” exclaimed the Demon. “You’re just as tender and sweet as the first spring lamb! Augur, have the stakes removed and permit the quaking craftsmen to shut their doors.”
At Augur’s command, the ogres grunted and strained, using the handles of their mauls to pry at the barricades until they could be wrenched from the rock. Swinging the spikes onto their shoulders, the ogres lumbered forward, giving the harnessed wolves a wide berth as they assembled amongst the chattering imps and vyes. Almost instantly, the gargantuan silver doors began to close in a silent display of seamless machinery. David and Astaroth conversed privately throughout, to the Demon’s apparent pleasure.
“Oh, but naturally we’ll leave them be!” cried the Demon suddenly. “We might have kept the doors open, for all you need worry. I always tell the truth, as you well know from that unfortunate book. Aren’t you a precious thing for inquiring?”
David nodded and took a long, shuddering breath.
“Are you going to hurt me?” he asked with a sudden, convulsive sob.
“Of course I am,” said Astaroth, walking his fingers across David’s palm. “You’ve been a naughty, prideful boy, and I’d be doing you a disservice to let such a thing pass. Now answer me a question. . . . Is this the hand that turned those awful pages?”
David nodded.
“And are these the eyes that read those terrible letters?” continued the Demon.
“Yes,” squeaked the small boy.
“And I suppose this is the very tongue that formed those unfortunate words?”
r /> David’s shoulders shook fiercely as he mumbled something incoherent.
“The hand it is,” concluded the Demon, lifting it for inspection. “Witness! I shall consume your sins, leaving you with eyes to see the good I do and a tongue to spread word of my mercy.”
The Demon’s mouth yawned impossibly wide, like a great serpent unhinging its jaws. David turned away.
The jaws snapped shut with horrific force. Max screamed; David crumpled as if he’d been shot. Tearing out of his father’s grasp, Max ran forward to crouch by his roommate, whose hand had been severed at the wrist.
Astaroth looked down at David’s unconscious face with thoughtful consideration.
“The deed is done, the wound is clean, and he is wiser for my gift,” commented the Demon. “His sins are now forgiven.”
Astaroth chuckled, while Max frantically examined David’s injury. Where David’s hand had been, there was no bloody wound, but merely a stump of pale, puckered skin. Not a droplet of blood could be seen.
“Don’t be angry, Max,” said the Demon in a soothing voice. “Help your friend inside the carriage and bring that most curious Key. With the exception of Dr. Rasmussen, the others may go and pave the way of peace with Rowan.”
“But why do I have to stay?” shrieked Dr. Rasmussen.
“It’s Dr. Braden’s request,” explained Astaroth with a sly grin. “I’d overrule her, but I’d say she’s earned a bit of discretion, wouldn’t you?”
Max felt a squeeze on his hand; David’s eyes were small slits of pain. His whisper was frantic.
“Pull me away from him.”
Max did as he was told, dragging his roommate away from the carriage. Gasping with effort, David drew himself up. Astaroth watched them from the window; his smile slowly disappeared.
“Stop this foolishness and get inside.”
David glared at the Demon, leaning against Max with his injured arm bent against his side.
“Solas!”
His words were barely audible, but the effect was instantaneous. The cavern was suddenly illuminated with the light of a million flashbulbs—a blinding burst of light that made the vyes howl and the ogres roar with fury. Augur’s horse reared, almost toppling the revenant, while the monstrous wolves snarled and tugged at the golden carriage. Spots swam before Max’s eyes; he blinked rapidly to glimpse thousands of howling vyes blindly clawing at one another.
“Seize them,” said Astaroth, humor giving way to cool reserve.
Before the nearest ogre could stumble forward, David thrust a finger toward the scowling Demon in the window and gasped a sequence of strange, terrible words.
“Ea bethu gaea volk qabar!”
Max lost his footing as the ground gave a sudden jolt beneath him. The cavern floor split open into a great fissure separating them from the Enemy. Several ogres toppled, bellowing, into the crack that yawned wider as the earth shook.
David screamed and great gouts of green-gold fire and molten rock roared up from the fissure, pluming higher and higher until they came crashing down like a wave upon the carriage and nearby horde. Screams and roars filled the air as flesh split and crackled. Max and the others were flung back by the rushing backlash of superheated air that singed their eyes and set their clothes to smoking.
Cooper wasted no time.
“On your feet!” he yelled, wrenching Mr. McDaniels and Miss Boon off the ground. Miss Boon retrieved Mum from where the hag had fallen into a quivering bundle. Max called out to Nick, who ran alongside as he carried David toward the rows of silver sedans parked to the side of the gates.
“What have you done?” shrieked Dr. Rasmussen. “He’ll kill us all!”
Cooper ran back and seized the bewildered man, dragging him toward the silver car and launching him into the backseat, where he sprawled across the others. The Agent slammed the door shut and examined the ignition.
“Where’s the key?” he muttered.
“You have to enter a code,” sputtered Rasmussen.
“Tell me the code!” bellowed Cooper, punching the dash.
Max peered out the rear window. The wall of fire had subsided until only a few tongues of flame licked occasionally from the fissure. Beyond the fissure was a howling, writhing mess of bodies, but the carriage seemed unharmed. Marley Augur and the deathly horsemen had pulled back some distance from the chasm and now galloped toward its edge.
“Cooper—” said Max.
Cooper’s head whirled around; his eyes widened as the horsemen leapt the chasm in an arc of burning manes and smoking armor. The Agent cuffed Dr. Rasmussen.
“What’s the damn code?” he shouted.
“Zero zero six five nine,” blurted out the hysterical man.
Cooper punched the numbers quickly into a dashboard screen and the engine roared to life.
Max pushed David and his father down in the seat as the horsemen approached. Marley Augur lifted his hammer and leaned from the side of his saddle.
“Hurry!” Max yelled.
The sedan peeled forward just as Augur’s hammer descended, crushing the trunk and sending the occupants crashing into one another as the back axle groaned. Cooper swore and swung the wheel around, accelerating rapidly around a column of other vehicles while the horsemen galloped just behind them. Mum screamed as a mailed fist slammed against her window, cracking it into a jigsaw puzzle of fragments. Pulling the wheel hard to his right, Cooper knocked one of the riders from his horse before yanking the wheel back to the left and hugging the pyramid’s perimeter. Max watched the speedometer climb clockwise, pushing him back against the cool leather seat. The horsemen faded into the rearview mirror as they arrived at the side of the pyramid opposite the gates. None of Astaroth’s forces had been stationed here. Three enormous tunnels yawned before them.
“Which do I take?” asked Cooper, downshifting.
Dr. Rasmussen’s red-rimmed eyes blinked at their options as he strained to peer through his broken glasses. “The left one goes to Amsterdam,” he muttered. “The right to Berlin.”
“What about the center?” asked the Agent.
“The Black Forest,” said Rasmussen. “We have an emergency depot there.”
“Behind us!” yelled Mr. McDaniels, staring white-faced out the rear window.
Racing up behind them were the horsemen and Astaroth’s carriage, pulled by the rabidly snapping wolves.
Cooper shifted and stepped on the accelerator, speeding toward the center tunnel.
Max saw the Demon’s white face appear out the carriage window; Astaroth extended a grasping hand toward them. Suddenly, the entire car bucked and lifted off the ground as though batted by an invisible hand, sending them spinning about like a top. They slammed back down in a grinding squeal of rubber and gears, the car careening wildly from side to side, while Cooper fought the wheel. The Agent barely managed to guide the car into the tunnel, shaving its right side against the entrance in a screaming shower of white sparks.
Miss Boon shook Dr. Rasmussen. “What’s the exit velocity?” she asked.
“What?” said Dr. Rasmussen from where he hugged the floorboards.
“The exit velocity!” snapped Cooper. “To get through the barrier.”
“Three hundred kilometers per hour,” croaked Dr. Rasmussen. “You must be very precise!”
Max watched an imposing black wall grow larger as Cooper shifted and accelerated. Behind them, the horsemen and carriage had entered the tunnel in a distant flicker of burning manes and glinting gold. The car’s engine whirred louder. Max saw the needle wobble toward the necessary number. Sparks and smoke billowed from the damaged rear. The car rattled and shook.
“Brace yourselves,” muttered Cooper, struggling to keep the damaged vehicle straight as they hurtled toward the black wall. The engine began to whine; the needle seemed to hover and stick at 280 kilometers per hour. Cooper scowled and slammed his foot on the accelerator as the cabin was suddenly illuminated from behind. Max swiveled about to see the tunnel behind them en
gorged with fire. Flames leapt and raced along the tunnel walls, threatening to engulf the car as it strained to speed ahead.
The black wall filled the windshield. Max screamed and shut his eyes.
Nothing happened.
The car gave only a gentle shudder, going dark momentarily until they passed through the barrier. A dull roar, like distant surf, filled the cabin, but no flames managed to permeate the solid wall behind them. Rocketing ahead, the sedan fishtailed around a banking turn and climbed up the long, gentle incline that would bring them into daylight.
12
A FLYING FORTRESS
The car managed to carry on for twenty miles before its engine whined and it began to meander drunkenly. They had seen no traffic, not even a glimpse of a pedestrian or villager, as they sped out of Frankfurt past homes and shops that offered no hint of light or chimney smoke in the cold, gray afternoon. Cooper wrenched the vehicle back into the proper lane, glancing warily at the rearview mirror.
“Is there anyone back there?” croaked Mr. McDaniels.
“No,” said the Agent. “I doubt anyone will be coming.”
“But Dr. Braden will know where we’ve gone,” muttered Rasmussen darkly.
“I doubt she survived all that,” said Cooper, shaking his head. “And with her gone, the Workshop is safe for now—they can’t enter after Astaroth promised not to.”
“Bah!” scoffed Dr. Rasmussen, settling into a quiet simmer.
The car labored across the countryside toward the Black Forest. As they sputtered along, Max glanced anxiously at his roommate. David was curled like a cat across Miss Boon’s lap with his injured arm bent up and under his chin. His eyelids were closed tight, fluttering with fever, while Mum peered intently at his puckered stump, now smeared thick with Moomenhoven balm.
“Is he sick?” asked the hag, sniffing at David.
“I don’t know, Mum,” said Miss Boon, stroking David’s blond head. “He’s suffered major trauma and expended a tremendous amount of energy. He needs to go home.”
“Is that where we’re going, then?” Max asked hoarsely. “Back to Rowan?”
“I think so,” said Miss Boon. “We need to get David to the healers and we don’t know yet what to do with Bram’s Key. Don’t you agree, Cooper?”