Circles of Seven (13 page)

As they marched, the landscape began to change. The dense forest gave way to fields of grass and scattered stones. The terrain undulated with gentle hills guarding each side of their path, and the wind strummed the long blades of grass like a million invisible fingers on a whisper-quiet harp.

The hills rose more steeply the farther Billy and Bonnie traveled until it seemed they were walking in a shallow trench, unable to see over the bordering slopes on each side. The gap in between narrowed, finally ending at an imposing wall of rock. The path led straight into the cliff through a low, dark archway flanked by piles of sand and pebbles.

“It’s a cave, all right,” Bonnie said, “but the hole’s pretty small.”

Billy set his foot at the base of a grassy knoll on their left. “Yeah. Let’s climb this hill and go around. It’s not very smart to go into a strange cave without a light.”

“But we’re supposed to stay on the path, and, besides, we do have a light.”

“If you mean my fire breathing, I can’t keep that up for very long. We don’t know how far we have to go in the dark.”

“But we have Excalibur. You’re real good at keeping it glowing now.”

“That’s true, but it won’t hurt just to take a look around up there.” Billy vaulted up the mildly sloped knoll, taking several leaping steps to the top. The incline leveled off to a grassy plateau, giving him plenty of room to walk around. He shaded his eyes and scanned his surroundings, finally gazing back down at Bonnie. “This ridge follows alongside the mountain, but it gets narrow and goes out of sight around a bend.”

Bonnie set one foot on the slope. “What’s on the other side? There should be a river about a mile or so away, but I didn’t notice anything closer.”

Billy waved his arm. “C’mon up. It’s cooler up here.”

Bonnie ran up the hill, fluttering her wings to give her body an extra boost. She seemed to float to the summit, her churning feet settling softly on the grass as she slowed to a stop.

Billy signaled for Bonnie to follow. “Let’s take a look.” He jogged toward the opposite edge of the plateau, a span about the width of a football field. Bonnie joined him as he leaned over the side.

This slope descended at a steeper rate and plunged far deeper. Instead of a plush green carpet, the embankment was knotted with tufts of wiregrass and littered with fist-sized stones and reddish clumps of clay.

Bonnie pointed toward the valley floor. “Something’s moving down there!”

A stirring mass seemed to be climbing the ridge, lunging bodies and reaching arms taking shape as they drew closer. Billy pulled out Excalibur. “They’re coming this way!”

Bonnie put her hand on Billy’s arm. “Maybe they’re prisoners. Maybe we’re supposed to rescue them.”

The climbing horde drew closer, their speed increasing as dozens of desperate hands dug long, skinny fingers into the clay.

Billy pulled away from Bonnie’s hand, summoning Excalibur’s beam as he drew back the blade. “I . . . I can’t tell what they are. I don’t feel danger. I feel—”

“Save me!” a haunting voice called out from below.

“Don’t leave me here,” another voice cried.

Excalibur’s light spread across the forms, illuminating the bodies in an eerie glow, like fluorescent ink under black light. Contorted faces echoed a purplish luminescence, outlining every feature in startling detail and painting dark emotions on a writhing canvas—sadness, anguish, terror.

Billy swung the beam over their heads. “Stop!” he shouted.

The mass suddenly halted, every form shivering in a sloping field of glowing humanity. Unlike their faces, their bodies were indistinct, possessing head and limbs but no details, more like ghosts than people. Several had climbed within a few feet of the summit, and they reached with stretching fingers, not quite touching the top.

Billy inched his foot back from the edge. Were there hundreds? Thousands? They seemed to meld together, one body attached to the other like a carpet of intertwined anatomy.

He softened his tone, but only a little. “Who are you?”

Dozens of voices cried out at once, calling a variety of names. “Samuel Johnston!” “Beatrice Cooler!” “Teresa García-Ramírez!” “Roland Mattis!”

Billy shook his head. “No! One at a time!”

Names pummeled his ears again, this time louder and more intense.

He waved the beam again. “Quiet!”

Every voice fell silent, and the mass trembled like a litter of chilled puppies.

He let out a sigh. “Okay. I heard the name Samuel Johnston. Would Samuel Johnston please tell me who you are?”

A weak voice replied, “As I said, sir. I . . . I’m Samuel Johnston. I’m a civil engineer from Milwaukee.”

Billy searched the sea of bodies for the source of the voice. “Are you a prisoner here?”

Hundreds of voices shouted in a cacophony. “Yes!” . . . “Save me!” . . . “Get me outta here!”

Billy screamed, “Samuel Johnston only! If your name’s not Samuel Johnston, keep your mouth shut!” He let out a long breath. “Okay, Samuel. What’s the deal?”

The voice grew a bit stronger. “I can’t seem to get out of this valley, if that’s what you mean. I try to climb the hill, and something keeps me from getting to the top, like I’m dragging a ton of weights.”

Billy finally spotted Samuel, a quivering phantom in the first row of bodies. He was scratching at the slope with his head tucked near his chest. “What about everyone else?” Billy asked. “Who are they?”

Samuel looked up, a forlorn expression glowing from his bone-white face. “Everyone else? I haven’t seen anyone else.”

Billy waved his arm across the sea of bodies. “But they’re all around you. They’re attached to you on all sides.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The bony fingers scratched again at the ground and reached for the rim of the hill. “I just . . . can’t . . . seem to get . . . to the top.”

Bonnie lowered her arm toward the man, but Billy pulled her back. “Wait!” he said. “Let me!”

Billy returned Excalibur to its scabbard and reached his hand down. Samuel grasped for it, but his hand passed right through. He lunged, groping with outstretched fingers, but they spirited past Billy’s like lines of white smoke. Samuel’s face twisted in anguish. “No!” he shouted, his body shivering. He let out a mournful cry, “Nooooo!” and sank back into the blanket of souls.

Billy grabbed Bonnie’s upper arm. “Let’s get out of here before they start shouting again.” He pulled her into a quick stride.

Bonnie hustled next to him, her wings beating to keep pace. “Isn’t there any way we can save them?”

Billy just shook his head and hurried across the plateau. When they reached the opposite side, he bounced down the slope while Bonnie glided to the path. He stepped up to the cave entrance and pulled Excalibur out again. “There’s no hope for them,” he explained, summoning the sword’s beam. “It’s like they’re all one big mass. They just keep dragging each other down.”

Bonnie’s chin hung low. “Joseph warned us about lost souls. It’s so sad!”

“You’re not kidding.” Billy wanted to say something to lift Bonnie’s spirits, but the image of all those mournful faces in the valley churned up only depressing thoughts. The names echoed in his mind, real names, real people, each with hopes and dreams now lost forever. What did an engineer from Milwaukee do to deserve this fate? What was lacking in the life of Teresa García-Ramírez that would leave her stranded in a valley of lost souls?

Billy shook his head hard, trying to cast off the phantoms. “Looks like you were right. Getting off the path was a bad idea.” He gripped Excalibur with both hands and held it in front of his body. “I guess we’ll just have to see what this cave has in store.” He took a deep breath and marched forward, Excalibur’s light leading the way.

Ashley pecked frantically at her keyboard while Walter leaned on her chair, his glance skipping from the computer to the portal window and back. “Yep. They decided to go into the cave.”

“Can’t blame them for that,” Ashley replied. “It beats messing with those zombies.”

“What’s to be scared of? They looked like gingerbread men that got too close together on a cookie sheet. Billy and Bonnie could’ve handled them.”

“Well, their little excursion helped me calibrate my digital map.” Ashley thumped the tabletop with her finger. “I’m sure one of the knights is in that cave.” After several dramatic keystrokes she slid her chair back and threw on her jacket. “Walter, call Sir Barlow. We’ll need him.”

Walter rushed into the hallway and returned seconds later with the knight. His thick mustache twitched under his wrinkling nose. “I am at your service!”

Ashley held up a gray box about the size of a loaf of bread and began a series of drill-sergeant commands. “Walter, bring Apollo and put this photometer in its place. Barlow, you come here, too. You’re going to learn how to communicate with my computer while you’re watching the window. Walter and I are going on a little expedition.”

Walter set Apollo on the table next to the computer. “An expedition? Aren’t we going to keep watching what Billy’s doing?”

Ashley lifted her briefcase from the floor to the table. “The mission is too dangerous. We have to help Billy.”

“He knows it’s dangerous, and he’s got Excalibur.”

She flipped open the latches and propped up the lid. “True, but he probably doesn’t know the New Table knights are in the circles, and do you think he’d be going in that cave with Bonnie if he knew one of them was lurking in there?”

Walter nodded. “That’s a good point, but I’m not sure we should be sticking our noses where they don’t belong.”

Ashley thrust her hand into her briefcase and rummaged through it. “It’s not like we’re going to mess up their mission. All we’re going to do is find a portal into the other dimension and warn them. It’s not right that the bad guys can interfere and we can’t.” She pulled out a handheld computer and attached a cable from it to her laptop. “I’m downloading a program to my handheld that will receive Apollo’s data. The other photometer will transmit to my laptop and then to my handheld, so we won’t lose track of them.”

Walter flicked his thumb toward the window. “Isn’t there any way we can use this portal?”

Ashley shook her head. “Patrick’s note said that Billy and Bonnie were transluminated by Excalibur and absorbed into the other dimension, and I don’t have any way to duplicate Excalibur’s beam. The black knights must have found another entry. Apollo and Larry will help us find the portal, and when we do, I’ll analyze it to figure out how the knights used it.”

Walter raised a finger. “I’ll bet those—”

“Black cloaks have something to do with it?” Ashley finished.

“There you go again! How do you do that?”

“It’s just deduction, Walter. Don’t have a cow.” She cocked her head toward the wall near the smashed door. “I saw the cloaks over there. We’ll pick them up on the way out.” She turned her laptop toward the knight. “Sir Barlow, get ready. I have a lot to teach you and not much time to do it.”

Barlow straightened his body and firmed his chin. “My mind is a steel trap, Miss.”

“Good . . . I think.” She put her finger on the computer screen. “These flashing dots are the bad guys. The point in the center is Billy, and, as you can see, he’s getting close to this bad guy. It’s your job to watch the portal window and tell me what’s going on. Just talk to the computer. I’ll hear you. And my voice will come through the computer speakers here.” She put a hand on the knight’s elbow. “Got it?”

Barlow bowed his head. “You can count on me, Miss.”

Ashley snatched her handheld computer and scooped up Bonnie’s backpack from the floor, slipping a strap over one arm and unzipping the pouch. “Walter, grab the cloaks and stuff them in the backpack. I’ll carry that while you carry Apollo.”

Walter gathered the cloaks into a wad. “Won’t we need a flashlight or something?” he asked, pushing the bundle into the pack.

She dug into her jacket pocket. “I have a penlight on my keychain. It’ll be enough.”

The two hurried through the old corridor and found their way outside. Ashley jumped off the portico and ran ahead into a massive green expanse that stretched out over several acres, alternately watching her step and gazing at her handheld computer. Walter followed, keeping a keen eye on the woods that bordered the manicured lawn. Fog had settled in, shrouding the trees in a mantle of ivory mist, but the full moon gave enough light to keep them from colliding with the plant beds and decorative boulders that lay about the grounds.

He pulled his jacket closed and shivered. With all the talk of enemy knights, he wondered if some of them were watching the mansion and if they knew he was on Billy’s side. Out in the middle of this glorified pasture he felt like he was wearing a neon “shoot me” sign on his back.

Ashley stopped and looked all around before turning toward the nearest border of the lawn. “That way.” She sprinted toward the trees, her tennis shoes scattering droplets as she dashed across the fog-dampened grass.

Walter ran as fast as he could, still carrying Apollo. He finally caught up when Ashley slowed down just inside the forest edge. She gazed at the tiny screen on her computer. “Billy and Bonnie are still quite a ways to our southeast, but in our dimension we don’t have a clear path like they do in theirs. We have to trudge through these woods.”

“How about an update from Barlow before we go in?”

Ashley spoke into her computer. “Barlow. Anything new?”

A buzzing voice replied. “Young William seems to be deep inside the cave now. It’s quite dark, but I can see the stony walls in the glow of Excalibur. He is moving slowly, and I assume the young lady is following behind.”

“Maybe we can still catch them,” Walter said. “Let’s follow your gizmo and get moving!”

“Let me get a reading from Apollo first.” Ashley studied the screen and then gazed at Apollo, shaking her head and muttering, “Strange.” Her brow wrinkled into tight ridges. “The spectrum is all out of whack.” She waved her free hand through the saturated air. “This whole place is like a swirling vortex of weird electromagnetic patterns, like someone has thrown in all the wrong ingredients in a pot and stirred it up.”