The Dragon's Tooth Part 34

The twins were hesitating, picking their prey from among three runners. The coat was rumpled on the floor halfway between Antigone and the worried crowd in the doorway. Thirty feet. Fifteen.

She heard Phoenix crash back off the wall behind her. Nolan was firing again, trying to cover her.

Antigone slid across a tangle of teenage limbs in white shirts and s.n.a.t.c.hed the coat. Turning toward the kitchen door, she ran like a dog in drifted snow, leaping bodies, popcorning up and down wherever her feet could find the floor. She was the only real target now. She was racing two bleeding green men with golden eyes.

The coat flapped behind her like a flag.

Guns were cracking all around. A bullet ripped through her short hair, and a pair of fireb.a.l.l.s swirled over her head and exploded on the wall. Phoenix was roaring. Nolan was yelling. Jax and Dennis were shouting over their shoulders. They reached the door and burst through in front of her.

One of the lean twins was faster than the other. He dove, snagging her ankle.

Twisting at top speed, she fell backward through the kitchen door, slammed onto the floor, and slid headfirst into the island of still-flaming burners.

The kitchen was all stench and burnt food and groaning bodies. Gunner was sitting up with his head in his hands. Jax was sweeping pots off the burners and shouting something. Dennis had tripped over little Hillary Drake and tumbled beneath a table.

Antigone jumped to her feet, dropped her Quick Water on the floor, and jerked her small revolver from her pocket. Closing her eyes tight, she pointed at the door, looked away, and squeezed three times, feeling the gun bark and jump.

Jax had already cleared the pots and turned up the flames. Antigone threw Phoenix's coat across the flickering burners.

A yell as primal as pain itself rose up in the dining hall.

The door flew off its hinges, and the twins entered. Behind them, bellowing in agony, white-haired Edwin Harry Ashes leapt into the room. His right arm was on fire.

Ignoring Antigone, he grabbed the edge of the island and swung up and over it, knocked his coat to the floor, and stamped out its flames.

Jax raised a gun, but Ashes sent him sprawling with the back of his charred and smoking arm. He leapfrogged back over the island easily, crashing to the ground in front of Antigone, staring into her eyes with black rage.

Stammering, stunned, she tried to raise her gun. His left hand closed around Antigone's throat. Bullets. .h.i.t the floor.

Her breath was gone. She kicked and clawed and punched. She gasped, her ears ringing as she watched the twins throw Dennis back to the ground. Her vision blurred. The ceiling and walls disappeared.

And then there was nothing. Not whiteness, not blackness-nothing. And she became part of it. Almost. She slipped to an invisible floor.

Things were exploding. More guns. More fire. She didn't like guns. And she wished Cyrus would stop yelling. She was trying to sleep.

Breathing hard, dripping, Cyrus and Diana ran back up the front steps.

"What now?" Cyrus whispered.

"Time for the plane."

"Do we go all the way around?"

Diana shook her head. "Too long."

A few of Phoenix's men were visible down the hallway, peering through a door. Cecil Rhodes was still motionless, a huge knot over his temple. Cyrus hoped he hadn't hit him too hard.

Gunfire.

"What's going on?" Diana glanced down at Cyrus's hand. He held up the Quick Water.

"Shooting at Nolan's vent."

Diana nodded. "We have to hurry." She slid quickly inside and hung close to the wall, the enormous reptile skin above her.

Cyrus had ditched his club next to Greeves. Now he held the little shotgun in his right hand, the Quick Water in his left. He'd wanted the revolver. Diana didn't care what he wanted. She could hit something with a revolver. Anyone could hit something with a shotgun.

The crowd suddenly flooded back into the hallway as Diana and Cyrus ducked around the corner. Diana jogged down the side hallway and around another corner. She forced a door open and slipped inside. The Africa collection. Cyrus hurried in behind her and shut the door.

"Di?" The room was a black hole.

"Over here," Diana said. "Keep well to your left and come straight on."

Something large and breathing b.u.mped into the back of Cyrus's legs. Yelling, he staggered forward and fell. Teeth clacked together.

Air rushed through the room. Teeth didn't clack. They ground and snapped. In the darkness in front of Cyrus, the gold outlines around Sir Roger's eyes began to glow. The skull was on its ear, rocking in place, trying to bite.

Cyrus kicked it hard, skidding it back into the darkness.

The lights flashed on. Frightened, confused, Diana stood at the switch, looking from Cyrus to the big skull.

"I have the Dragon's Tooth," Cyrus said. "Sterling wasn't lying. I have the tooth that killed Roger."

"What?" Diana blinked. "You're serious?" She shook her head. "Don't tell me. We don't have time. Get up and come on."

They ran across the room to a small door set between shelves. Diana opened it, and they stepped into old brooms and mops and buckets.

"Shared closet," she said, and kicked open another door, shattering a brittle jamb.

The next room was lit. Card catalog cabinets taller than houses lined the walls. Flights of spiral stairs on wheels dotted the room. Across from each other, two middle-aged women were facedown on the same desk, a plate of food and a scattered game of chess between them.

"Keepers' Catalog Room," Diana said. "Tough job. Every item and collective holding of the Order is listed in here."

Cyrus set his shotgun and Quick Water on the desk, pinched cheeks and lifted tongues. After the drops, the women's faces went back onto the chessboard.

Diana rushed off to another door.

They crossed a hall, went downstairs into a machinist's shop, upstairs through an old coal-chute door, and out into the rain.

Turning his back to the wind, Cyrus checked his Quick Water again.

Diana was running down the hill.

"Trouble!" Cyrus yelled. "Di!"

She didn't hear him, and he didn't care. Antigone was running in his palm. Cyrus raced alongside the building, dodging window wells and columns. He could see the kitchen's garbage stoop, and he pa.s.sed beneath the lit wall of windows. He could hear the yelling.

Climbing the stairs on the garbage stoop, Cyrus pulled back the hammers on his shotgun and put his shoulder into the door, forcing his way into mayhem.

A woozy Gunner was on his feet. Jax was down. Dennis was down. Two tall green men stood above them, their eyes on Nolan, bleeding and blackened, as he emerged from a heat tunnel. The kitchen door was off its hinges, and on the other side, dozens of people were trying to lever themselves off the red dining hall carpet.

Cyrus ignored all of it.

A man with gorilla hands was strangling his sister.

"Drop her!" Cyrus yelled.

Snarling, the man threw Antigone to the floor and faced Cyrus. "Smith!" he said, stepping forward. "I drained your father's blood. Your brother and mother. And this"-he kicked at Antigone's crumpled body-"your wretched sister. And you. All of you will die."

Cyrus's gun had two triggers, side by side. He pointed at the man's broad chest and pulled both of them.

Mr. Ashes rolled backward with the blast, and then rose to his feet.

"Right," said Cyrus. "You're one of those."

He dropped the gun and reached for his neck. His fist closed around the keys. Pulling them free of Patricia, he clenched the tooth between his knuckles.

Ready, he raised his fist.

The angry ape of a man froze, and then smiled. His anger drained away, and while the mayhem in the kitchen rumbled on, he picked up his white coat. The right sleeve had burned away up to the elbow.

"Come on!" Cyrus said. "Come fight! Are you scared now?"

As the coat slipped over the man's shoulders, Cyrus watched him change. The veins and creases in his face smoothed. His arctic hair blackened.

He thinned, his body stretching, lengthening.

Dr. Phoenix stepped forward. "Boy," he said. "Your mind is as open to me as was your pitiful brother's, as was your unfortunate mother's. It is as open to me as the sky to the bird, as the sea to the shark. I'm afraid that I must be quite insistent. Give me the tooth and those keys."

Smiling, he held out his unburnt hand.

Cyrus shook his head. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but it's not going to work."

The man reached Cyrus. "The arrangement can still be friendly. I am no longer Mr. Ashes. I am prepared to show mercy. I will spare your mother. Perhaps even your brother. They are sleeping so peacefully in my plane right now. My sons could bring them in."

Rupert Greeves, eyes rolling and foam dripping down his short beard, staggered into the kitchen on wobbling legs. He was carrying Cyrus's small club.

"Phoenix!" he bellowed. "Your cowards fled." He tried to cross the kitchen, but the twins jumped back, shoulder to shoulder, weapons raised, barrels ready to spit their b.a.l.l.s of fire. Nolan stepped beside Greeves.

Dr. Phoenix didn't turn. He smiled at Cyrus.

Give him the tooth, Cyrus thought. No. Hit him in the stomach.

Phoenix shook his head.

Give him the tooth. Cyrus shook his head at his own thoughts. They weren't his thoughts. He looked at Phoenix's temple, gauging the distance.

"No," said Phoenix. "On the tip of an arrow, maybe. Carved into a bullet, perhaps. If only you had thought ahead. Would you like your family to live? Or would you like to be responsible for their deaths?"

Greeves staggered forward, bellowing and swinging his club at the green men. He slipped and hit the ground.

Lunging forward, Cyrus swung for the temple. Phoenix's left hand swallowed his fist easily, but the tooth plunged deep into Phoenix's palm.

Smiling through the pain, Phoenix began to twist Cyrus's grip, levering his hand back, driving him to the floor. Cyrus's breathing stopped. His mind wouldn't let his lungs inflate. His heart was slowing. The key ring bent and began to give. The silver sheath popped loose in his palm.

No. Cyrus tore his fist free and staggered back, still clutching the tooth between his b.l.o.o.d.y knuckles, his lungs suddenly bursting with air. Phoenix stepped forward calmly.

Cyrus looked at his unconscious sister, at Jax and Dennis rising to their hands and knees, at Rupert and Nolan facing the bleeding green twins and their guns, at Gunner and the waking mob through the doorway in the dining hall. Turning, Cyrus lurched toward the kitchen's back door. He had to lead the hunters away.

Banging out into the wind, Cyrus slipped down the stairs onto the wet gra.s.s. Scrambling to his bare feet, he ran along the building.

Phoenix was yelling. Behind Cyrus, the twins slid out of the doorway and into the storm. Cyrus accelerated through the shadows, brushing his shoulder against the wall. And then his shin collided with a hidden bicycle. Shoving the partially separated tooth and keys into his pocket, he grabbed the handlebars, jerked the bike away from the wall, and jumped into the seat. A large umbrella propeller spun in the wind above him.

He didn't have time to worry. He pushed off down the hill, pumping the pedals.

Cyrus gasped as the wind jerked the bike off the ground. He surged up past the first-story windows and back toward the building. The propeller tip sparked on stone and the bike swung, cracking Cyrus's knee hard against the wall. He wasn't flying, he was blowing away like an unleashed kite. The gusting wind pulled him from the wall, spun the bike in a circle, and forced him toward the trees. Below him, the ground was dark. Treetops were jagged silhouettes waiting to swallow him. Pedaling furiously, Cyrus tried to lean and tried to steer, but he was at the wind's mercy.

A fireball swirled past him, and he felt the heat on his wet skin. He watched it dissipate in the wind as it climbed. The wind spun him around. He was facing the harbor but blowing backward. Two more fireb.a.l.l.s climbed into the sky in front of him, shredded by the wind high above. Cyrus stood, pumping hard on the swaying pedals, and scanned the ground forty feet below. He could just make out the twins, guns raised.

Jerking hard on the handlebars, Cyrus managed to twist the bike around, getting the harbor and the wind at his back. He was racing toward the main building.

Teeth grinding, Cyrus pumped for elevation as the wind threw him forward.

He was climbing, but not fast enough. Statues loomed above him along the roofline. A fireball burst on the stone in front of him, blinding him with light. Another rose up in front of him, singeing his face.

It exploded in the umbrella propeller, raining fire, burning skin.

Cyrus didn't stop pedaling as he fell. The bike crashed into the wall and tumbled down the stone face. The wind tore the blackened propeller free and Cyrus slammed into wet earth with the bike on top of him.

Gasping, blinking, he managed to push the bike off. A green-faced man with strange eyes leaned over him. His eyes were golden. Gills fluttered on his neck. His identical brother loomed behind him.

"Take it!" Phoenix yelled in the wind. "Bring it to me!"

Cyrus's breath was gone, and his mouth was filling with blood. He spat and gasped and felt for his pocket, trying to roll onto his side. Wrong pocket. His fingers grazed gla.s.s and tingled with electricity. The green man pushed him flat and pressed him down. Long hands groped for his pockets.

"Can't," Cyrus gasped. Gritting his teeth, he gripped the lightning bug cube, tugged it free of his pocket, and slammed it against the twisted metal of the bike frame. Gla.s.s shattered. Shards dug into his palm, but the pain was nothing to the roar of electricity that shot up his arm.

Thunder grumbled on the wind.

With his empty hand, Cyrus grabbed at the groping twin's shirt, tugging him down while he raised his electric fist. Green arcs sparked between his knuckles.

A blow slammed into his face, but he didn't let go. A knee crashed into his ribs. Cyrus sputtered, shoving his quivering beetle hand down the man's shirt, just managing to open his throbbing, electricity-petrified fingers, releasing the lightning bug against green skin.

The twin shivered with the current. The storm sky flickered. Too late to get away. Cyrus clamped his eyes shut.

Through his eyelids, the flash was b.l.o.o.d.y red. Pure heat ripped through his body.

He heard nothing. He knew nothing. All was forgotten.