Hunters of Chaos (22 page)

Just then the cat slinked between us and sidled up to the wall. She lifted up onto her hind legs. She pressed her small paw against the tiger engraving and backed away. Seconds later the entire wall slid to the side like a pocket door. We were left staring into a dim hallway with lit torches nestled into sconces.

“Oh, uh-uh, no way no how,” Shani blurted immediately. “Follow a teacher into a dark secret basement and pass around a glowing orb? Sure, sounds fun. Follow a black cat into the woods in the middle of the night? Why not? I love cats. But crawling into a creepy temple that somehow has lit torches inside even though supposedly no one's been here for hundreds of years? Now you're pushing it.”

“What happened to ‘If it's a trap, bring it on'?” Doli said, lifting one eyebrow.

Shani winced. “Aw, using my own words against me. Touché.”

I held out my hand. “Shani, we have to find out what's in there. It might help us defeat Anubis. And Ms. Benitez said that we're stronger together. We're already missing one Wildcat. We need you.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Argh . . . fine. But you
so
owe me one.” She took my hand and we ducked into the small opening followed by Doli and the black cat.

Inside, we found ourselves at the end of a long corridor lined with symbols and hieroglyphs. “These symbols are Mayan,” I said, surprised to see some characters I recognized through my frequent museum trips with my aunt and uncle.

“The ones over here are Greek,” Shani added. At my look of surprise she said, “One of my old schools was big on Greek history. I learned all the letters . . . before they kicked me out for hacking into their computer system.”

“Um, guys,” Doli said. “I'm having second thoughts. Have you guys noticed what all these pictures have in common?”

Scanning the wall, I felt like every ancient civilization since the beginning of time was represented. There were Egyptian symbols, Persian, Navajo, Tibetan, Japanese, Greek, even Norse—and some we couldn't recognize at all. But we didn't need to speak any of those languages to pick up the common thread. In every image carved into these walls, the figures were in pain. Horned demons stepped on the backs of people crying out in agony. Men stabbed one another through the chest with long spears. Hellish animals sat engulfed in flames while armies of skeletons danced around them. It was beyond creepy. It was a hallway dedicated to suffering.

And it was giving me serious regrets about entering the temple. Maybe Shani's instincts had been right. I considered fleeing back through the temple's secret door, but then I thought of Ms. Benitez and how she had sacrificed herself for us. When she woke up from the coma—
if
she woke up—I didn't want her to think it had been for nothing.

I steeled myself and continued down the hallway, willing myself to be brave. But when I turned the corner to enter the next room, I yelped. There stood a man with the head of a jackal adorned with a grand Egyptian headdress. He held a long thin staff and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. It was a statue, but it had been realistic enough to make me break into a cold sweat. Goose bumps rose on my arms.

Like the wall, the statue had multiple languages carved into the base beneath—most of which I couldn't read. I remember Aunt Teppy once showing me pictures of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some of the letters I was looking at now reminded me of sections of the Scrolls that Aunt Teppy said were written in Hebrew or Aramaic. But some other words were inscribed in alphabets I actually knew. I got closer and saw three words in Latin that filled me with dread.

“What does it say?” Doli asked, joining me at the statue.

“
Fraternitas de Chao
,” I whispered.

“Um, Fraternity of Cows?” Shani guessed. “That's not so scary.”

I swallowed hard. “Brotherhood of Chaos. This is why Dr. Logan was so interested in this temple. He—I mean, Anubis—must be their leader.”

“Can we get out of here now? Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?” Shani shivered and rubbed her arms, even though the torches made the confined space uncomfortably hot.

I started to tell her that I agreed. We weren't ready for this yet. But just then the light flickered and the shadow of a figure appeared against the wall. We screamed and clung to one another. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see what horrible creature had manifested in the temple that we now knew was an ode to death.

“Ana?” a voice called out. I knew that voice. . . .

“Jason?” My eyes flew open to find Jason standing there in his lacrosse jersey. “What on earth are you doing here?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word, the chamber filled with a bloodcurdling shriek.

Suddenly a smoky creature appeared behind Jason. Just like the cats when they'd emerged from the ashes of the vase, the filmy form of an almost see-through bat wavered in the air. Then it began to solidify, its furry body taking on monstrous life. It spread its black leathery wings like a cloak and blocked out the light of the flames behind it. For a moment all I could see were its glowing red eyes, pulsing with menace.
One of the Chaos Spirits!

I froze, looking at Jason with a growing sense of dread. Paranoia reared its ugly head again. Had he followed us here?
Has he been following us for weeks?
I thought of all the times he'd shown up unexpectedly when the Wildcats were together. I wondered about the time in the library when I'd been sure someone had been eavesdropping on us. Then there'd been the night Ms. Benitez was attacked, and the way he'd just happened to be near our dorm the night we'd come back from practicing our transformations. Now he was here again, only this time he seemed to have brought one of Anubis's minions with him. Could it be? Had Jason been spying on us for Anubis?

“Ana, look out!” Doli cried, pointing at the bat. It flapped its midnight-black wings, let out another terrible shriek, revealing its vampire fangs, and charged.

J
UST BEFORE THE BAT CRASHED
into us, right before it seemed it would sink its terrible teeth into my neck, it exploded into hundreds of pieces that glowed red like the embers of a fire. Even after all the crazy things I'd seen since arriving at Temple, watching a bat blow itself up on purpose still shocked me to the core. “Oh my God!” I had time to scream, right before the force of the explosion blew us back and we ended up in a pile on the hard stone floor. I groaned, feeling red-hot pain sear through my arm, which was pinned beneath me. Shani's hip was jammed into my stomach, and for a few moments I couldn't breathe. Beneath me, I heard Doli moan.

“We need to get out of here!” Shani screamed, scrambling off of me and pulling the rest of us to our feet.

I couldn't have agreed more. I wasn't ready for this. My hands were shaking uncontrollably and I felt sick to my stomach. I thought I'd been scared when I'd first been faced with my jaguar, but it was nothing compared to how I felt now, trapped in a buried temple with a demon that clearly had enormous power. Ms. Benitez had been wrong. We were out of our league.

But there was no way out now. The pieces of the Chaos Spirit had flown into the creatures carved into the wall, and one by one they were coming to life! At first they seemed to be moving statues, pulling themselves out of the soot-covered stone like animated pieces of rock. But as they crept out of the wall, the stone fell away in clumps, revealing the flesh-and-blood creatures beneath. Poisonous rattlesnakes hissed and slithered down the walls, flicking their forked purple tongues. Black-widow spiders with fat bodies and hairy legs scuttled out of every crevice. Crows formed by the hundreds and gathered in ominous clouds above our heads, preparing to dive. Everywhere were the servants of death and destruction.

It was like no nightmare I'd ever had before. But it was real! I looked at Shani and Doli and saw the terror in their eyes. What hell had we walked into? I choked back a sob. In seconds the plague of snakes and spiders and birds would descend on us and that would be the end of us. I thought of Aunt Teppy and Uncle Mec and how destroyed they'd be if I never came home. Thinking of them gave me one last gasp of courage. There was still one chance for us to get out of this alive, and we had to take it now.

“Wildcats!” I yelled into the chaos. “We have to shift!”

But would it work this time? My heart pumped with so much fear and confusion, I couldn't clear my mind, couldn't let go as I'd done in the woods. But when I clamped hands with Doli and Shani, the magic sparked and crackled around us. I felt my eyes enlarge, and the dark room seemed to blaze with sunlight. I fell forward on heavy paws, and my muscles stretched beneath my spotted coat. Doli now stood beside me, her regal puma's body rippling with muscles. To my right Shani crouched in her golden lion's skin, her heavy paws scratching at the stone floor as she eyed the prey all around her. Doli nudged us with her nose so that we formed a tight circle, facing our foes. Shani lifted her head and gave a thunderous roar, and we ran toward our enemies.

Doli used her extra-long hind legs to bound onto a stone altar in one graceful leap. She positioned herself on the edge of the lip and jumped, landing directly on top of a huge snake that had been slithering across the floor toward me. Doli crushed its head and bit off its rattling tail. Meanwhile, Shani leaped onto her gold-colored back legs, swiping birds out of thin air with her powerful paws. Using my slightly smaller size, I crawled beneath a low stone bench and then rose to my full height, knocking the bench over and crushing dozens of venomous black spiders.

To my left I noticed flames waving side to side. Jason had pulled a torch from its sconce, wielding it like a lacrosse stick—just as he had shown me—and was using it to beat away a flock of crows. One bird's shiny onyx wings caught fire and soon its furious flapping spread the flames like a wildfire. In seconds the whole cloud was ablaze.

I felt a tiny pang of hope. Jason was fighting on our side and holding his own.
Was I wrong about him?

I didn't have time to think about it now, though. Instead I fought by his side. A thick snake wrapped its body around Jason's leg, rearing its head back to strike. But I sliced through its flesh with my claws, knocking it away from Jason just in time. Then I used my jaws to shatter the snake's skull.

“Ana—I,” Jason said, sparing a moment to eye the serpent as its headless body continued to writhe on the floor. But there were more where that one came from. From the other side of the corridor, an army of snakes crawled its way toward us, circling one another like an angry nest of bees. “I can't believe any of this is real!”

He lunged with the torch, slamming the diamond-shaped head of a snake hard into the floor. Not bad for someone who couldn't believe this was actually happening.

“I have an idea.” He ran in the opposite direction, leaving me to face the poisonous snakes alone. I ran toward the oncoming serpents, swiping at the one closest to me. It rattled its tail and moved to bite down on my paw, but I leaped out of the way, letting its strike meet with hard stone. We went back and forth for a while until I felt a growing heat at my back. Jason had returned with five more torches pulled from their sconces. “I can't believe I'm playing defense with a giant cat!” he said, gesturing for me to get behind him. Quickly, he laid the torches side by side across the length of the hallway. The snakes would not cross the barrier of fire. They hissed and snapped, but the fire held them in place. Then he pulled one last torch from the wall and threw it directly into the middle of the pile of serpents.

The charred smell of burning snakes filled the chamber.

Eventually the room grew quiet and still. I turned my head to find Doli and Shani standing among a sea of corpses. We had destroyed the creatures that the Chaos Spirit had unleashed on us. But I felt too wary to be relieved. It couldn't be that easy!

In the calm, I checked on the only truly vulnerable being in the room—Jason. He had scratches on his face and hands, but other than that he seemed to be unharmed. Physically, at least. I could only imagine what was going on inside his head. I might have been a cat, but I wanted him to know that I was still me. Since I couldn't form human words, I nuzzled my head into his hand.

He crouched down as I sat on my haunches. “It's really you, isn't it, Ana?” He reached tentatively for the spotted fur of my cheek. “Can you understand me?”

I nudged his hand.
Yes, I understand.

“I'm sorry about what I said the other day. It was just—seeing you change like that—I didn't know what to think. You have to admit this whole thing is crazy!” He looked around at the torch-lit walls and the other Wildcats. “But I think I'm starting to get it.” He paused, holding my head in his hands and gazing into my large yellow cat eyes with his blue, clear-as-crystal human ones.

I had such a strong urge to hug him then that I feared I might turn back into a human, which wasn't safe to do just yet. So I licked his arm to let him know he was forgiven, then turned away.

Shani came over to stand beside us, waiting to catch my attention. She pawed at the air, staring at a hidden chamber that had been revealed when I'd overturned the stone bench. I struggled to see, but even with my enhanced eyesight, it was hard to make out anything inside the secret room. So I crept closer, sniffing the air for clues. Nothing I smelled made any sense to me. Finally I inched my way inside the smaller room and let my eyes adjust. But when they did, I squeezed them shut again, desperate to block out the nightmarish sight.

In the center of the room was an altar made of human skulls. Hard-shelled black beetles scuttled in and out of the eye and mouth holes. And around the base were strewn the bones of countless bodies. I screamed at the top of my lungs—which came out like a strangled roar. I started to back away, my claws scrambling for purchase on the dirty stone floor.
Let me
out
of here,
I thought frantically. But just before I could back all the way out into the other room, I caught a brief glimmer of light. Hold on. . . . Was that . . . ? I scooted closer to the altar, my heart pounding.