In Stone (21 page)

“I don’t think we’re alone,” he whispers into my ear. “I’m going to remove my hand, but we have to keep a low profile, understand?” I nod, and as promised he releases my lips. I stand up to his chest as if challenging him to a fight. I don’t mean to be so aggressive. But I can’t rein it in.

“I’m going in there,” I snarl in his ear.

“No, you’re not.”

“You can’t bench me this late in the game.”

“I’m not the one benching you,” he argues. I can hear the anger restrained in his whisper.

“It’s just a threat. They can’t keep me here. You wouldn’t let them.”

“I’m fairly certain that I won’t have a say.” Jack surveys the darkened space some more. Then he stands right up to the entrance of the arch. He stretches out his arm. It crosses the threshold. He waits a few seconds then retracts it.

“What are you doing?”

“Testing.”

“Testing what?” To my shock he spits in his palm. The glob of white foam fizzes and expels a burst of steam before it evaporates. It’s boiled clean away. Double Crap.

“You still want to go in there?” I chew on my tongue and say nothing. “You can throw,” Jack says. “As I recall, you threw a pretty mean rolling pin once.” The memory pulls up his lips, and mine.

When I was seven I used to play baseball. I was pretty good until Mom thought it was too aggressive. Mom thought everything was too aggressive. If she’d had it her way I would have spent my entire childhood encased in bubble wrap.

“Do you think you can throw it?” I check out the distance from me to the burning river. It’s a good hundred-feet away. Maybe I could if I bowled it. I take the knife in my hand and toss it around a bit. It weighs next to nothing, so there won’t be too much air resistance to contend with. The blade is as thin as paper. Maybe if I dart it it’ll glide just like a paper plane. How hard can it be? Easier, I’m sure, if my palms weren’t soaking wet.

“Beau?” Jack prompts after a long silence.

“What if I miss?” I reply, drying my hands on my jeans.

“You can only try,” he encourages.

I play with the blade some more. Consider another hundred different ways I can launch it as I juggle it from palm to palm. I wish I had slingshot. I wouldn’t miss if I had a slingshot. Breathe. No pressure. Only the fate of the world as we know it. Shake it off. I eventually decide on launching it handle first like the knife throwers in the circus.

“Just relax. You can do this.” And then we can go home, I silently remind myself. Home. For the first time since we left Plumbridge, I realize how much I’m missing home.

“Don’t cross that arch, not even by a toenail,” Jack catches my hip as I step up to the invisible line.

“You’re making me nervous,” I inform him, and he lets his hand drop. My heart thuds. I’ve got my very own internal bass line going on. I don’t dare exhale. Suddenly my target, the burning river, seems ten million miles away. Don’t think about it. Just throw. Just throw it. And then, just like that, my arm flies forward, and I chuck the knife as hard as I can.

It’s heading in the right direction. Spinning circles like a pinwheel just like the rolling pin had. It’s car crash TV. I’m stuck in that awful place of not wanting to look but not being able to tear my eyes away. I bite down on the side of my mouth, drawing blood, as the knife begins its decent into the fire. Air is caught in my throat. It’s in. It’s going in.

Until something gangly and green appears from nowhere and snatches it out of the air. My heart sinks. Half a second more and the blade would have been submerged. I look on in horror as a mass of gangly green creatures descend from the ceiling. They crowd around the one now holding the knife. I’ve seen one of these creatures before. Seen its insides as they rained down on me.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, look at me,” Jack says, grabbing hold of the tops of my arms. “You have nothing to be sorry for. That was perfect.”

“But it still exists. And now they have it. What are we going to do?”

Hysteria breaks out in the lava room. The creatures are screaming and hooting like a pack of wild banshee. I lose sight of the blade as it’s tossed around the group. A fight breaks out.

“Beau.” Jack’s face droops with despair; his head turning from me to the entrance of the arch.

“Please tell me you’re not considering going in there.” My eyes travel back to the crazed creatures. Some of them are spinning, using their wings as weapons to slice and dice. Others are just ripping at limbs like they’re tearing tissue. Armless, legless, and even headless torsos are fighting it out. So much chaos and carnage. It looks like there was an oil leak. Jack kisses my hand, and I turn to him instantly.

“Jack, even if you can take out every single one of them, you can’t pick it up. You just can’t.”

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I can’t let them keep it down here. I need to get the blade away from these animals.” I laugh at the absurdity.

“What? Like you’re going to make for a more moralistic animal when it’s in your hands?” I didn’t mean to say it; it just sort of slipped out. He doesn’t argue, which makes the guilt swell.

“I need less than a second to destroy it. I’ll use the second that falls between me and the monster. Beau, you have to run back to the wall. Rachael will come and find you. She swore that if we were not back by nightfall she’d come looking for us.”

“I can’t just leave you here...” he cuts me off by planting a hard kiss on my lips. It tastes of a bitter goodbye, and I want to refuse it, but I can’t. I push my body up against his and throw my arms around his neck.

“I’m sorry,” he confesses before his lips leave mine.

“This is good luck, not goodbye,” I affirm as he pulls away from me. Anguish stains his face. He takes one last look in my eyes and then sprints off into an arena of uncertainty.

I don’t look. I just start walking.

A million thoughts flood my mind, not one of them bordering on the pleasant. In the end, I’m useless. None of it matters now. I carried the knife all the way here, but at the final hurdle, when I’m needed the most, this place renders me useless and Jack dead. Suppress. Suppress. Suppress. Suppress. To allow a flood of melancholy to infiltrate now would be idiotic. This place would magnify it, use it to gatecrash my mind and pull me into another state of unshakable hopelessness. Concentration is key as I start slipping back around the spikes. I wonder if Rachael will blame me. I wonder if she’ll even let me leave the Underworld alive.

A loud roar echoes through the air and bounces around the icicles. It is nails in my feet, forcing me to a standstill. It’s a man’s cry. Jack. The question is, am I going to let common sense rule my emotions and ignore it? My heartbeat starts a gallop, and my vision shakes. I have to pull the donated sweater off because suddenly it’s choking me. I’m swimming in a volcano. And then I know that there is no question. I don’t have a choice. The same fever that I’ve felt a dozen times on this trip is setting in.

Good.

I’m willing it. I want it to pull me under, make my eyes black and my body strong. Fire is coursing through my veins; the same sticky swell of blood pools in my nose. I hock it back and swallow it down before it can drip out. The Demon traits want to run toward the painful cry, and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

Good.

RUNNING AT THE SPEED
of light when your body switches from human and fragile to strong and virile is indescribable. Literally, it’s over so quickly there’s really nothing to say about it.

I’m across the threshold in nanoseconds. There’s no turning back now. The memory of Jack’s evaporating spit springs to mind, and I find myself waiting for my skin to blister and burn, but it doesn’t. It’s less like stepping into a furnace and more like stepping into a sauna. There’s no time to consider why I’m not melting.

At first Jack doesn’t see me. He’s too busy brawling with five of the creatures. Fists are flying everywhere. The green beasts are spitting black. Jack is spitting red. I don’t see the blade, but there’s so much ducking and diving and weaving and bobbing that it’s hard to focus on any one thing at all. I watch Jack toss one of the creatures over his shoulder. His back slams hard against the floor. It splits, and breaks apart. But the pieces find each other, and glue themselves back together.

Breathless, Jack pauses. He spots me. To say he looks unimpressed by my presence would be a colossal understatement. If I survive this I’m not sure I’ll survive him. I just shrug. I know he wants to come over and bark at me for ignoring him, but one of the creatures lunges at him, and he’s dragged back into the fight.

I see the knife. It’s in the hands of one of the creatures. The dammed demon is like a shadow, creeping up behind Jack, holding the knife just above his head, poised and ready to plunge into Jack’s back. Jack is too busy fending off four of the beasts. He’s completely unaware of the danger he’s in.

“Behind you!” I yell. He hears me and doesn’t hesitate, throwing his elbow back into the beast’s abdomen. It glides backward, sailing through the air for maybe a hundred yards before its wings act as an anchor and pull it to a stop.

Calling out has made me a target. Two of the beasts are coming toward me, stalking me with a bloodthirsty look in their eyes. Fun. That’s the only thought that enters my head when I consider this confrontation. I grin and stand firm with clenched fists. Come and get me.

“Beau, get over here.” Jack’s shout is breathless. I look over at him. His body might be in the fight, but his mind is here with me. He’s spotted the encroaching threat on my life, and suddenly he’s trying to get to me. He needn’t worry.

“I’ve got this,” I reply. As soon as these two attack he’ll see that, and hopefully be able to get his mind back in the game.

There’s a sharp length of stone on the floor by my feet. I grab it, and to my surprise, twirl it like a baton. Oh, it’s on. One of the predators lunges at me, hissing and snarling. I swipe at him. It’s like slugging a baseball. His body glides fifty feet before colliding with a wall and breaking into big chunks. I look over at Jack. A cocktail of pride and uncertainty resides in his arched eyebrows. A wave of smugness washes over me.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much time to bask in my triumphant takedown as the second creature launches an attack. I swipe again. He snatches my weapon, and we tussle over ownership until the length of stone snaps and is rendered practically useless. We both throw down our chunks of debris. Without considering the consequences, I plough into him, and we fight.

I leap around the creature like a light-footed sprite but deliver blows like a seasoned boxer. It’s all going so well, and I’m sure I’m winning until the beast thrusts its fist into my ribcage. The blow knocks the wind right out of me. I hear an internal crunch and lose my footing. My backside hits the ground, and I’m suddenly staring up at one seriously frustrated demon.

The demon fever in me burns out as vividly as I felt it ignite. An onslaught of pain begins ravishing my body.

Peering through the legs of my attacker, my gaze drifts across a battlefield laced with soggy bodies in various decapitated states until finally it settles on Jack.

He’s locked in a clash of strength, teetering on the bank of the molten river. One of the beasts has him in a choke hold. He’s holding the knife and looks unnervingly in control as he tries to force it toward Jack’s neck. Jack is fighting back; he’s holding the beast’s wrists and trying to stop his hands from advancing, but he’s badly beaten. I’ve never seen him look so mortal -- ashen faced, breathless and bloodstained. Parker, Jack Parker, might not win this.

The monsters that aren’t putting their bodies back together stand around, tense and bated, waiting for the moment their brother triumphs and becomes the official owner of the knife.

Will it stop with him, or once we’re gone will they continue to challenge each other until only one remains? Who will fight then, more like Lisa? Which one is strong enough to lead? Which one will pilot them to the surface in search of the Gargoyles? I wonder how many humans will get slaughtered in that search. Mom. Leah. We tried. We really tried.

My opponent rests his foot on my cheek, but apparently, he doesn’t want to squish my skull just yet. He wants me to watch the outcome of Jack’s struggle. Jack’s eyes meet with mine, and we become locked in an intense stare. I wish I could reach out and hold his hand. The demon presses his foot further into my cheek. It’s excruciating. My bones tremble, and my brain buzzes under the pressure. A whimper escapes from my mouth. I’m trying not to let it show on my face, but I can’t help wincing. Then my hands come up and snatch the ankle of the monster. I want to lift it just a little, so I can feel a moments relief from the foot that’s trying to crush me.

I think it’s my reaction that wakes something inside Jack. A reserve of strength. A rush of anger. I’ve never seen his eyes shine this bright; light pours from them. The pressure on my face lifts slightly as the tables turn, and Jack becomes the one in control of the knife and the direction it’s being pushed. He’s turning the demon’s wrist in toward its own chest. I don’t dare let myself get excited. With one final thrust the knife slips into the chest of Jack’s attacker. He growls, kicking the beast and the blade into the river beside them. The hungry lava swallows the body and the embedded blade instantaneously.