The Shadow Project (22 page)

“S
wim?” Opal echoed. She scrambled to her feet. “In that?” She looked out across the Lake of Fire, then turned to Michael in bewilderment.

“How else can we get to the spear?” Michael asked.

“Fly,” Opal said at once. “We can fly now that we're out of body.”

“That's right,” Danny put in. “You must have done it, Michael. You've had more OOBEs than me.”

Opal said, “Look.” She took off gracefully and swung out in a broad arc above the surface of the lake, then returned to land lightly at Michael's side. “We can do that.”

“I think perhaps not,” Michael said. But he hardly seemed to be paying attention. He kept staring out across the lake as if looking for something.

Frowning, Danny said, “Why don't you want us to fly, Mike?”

“Because if the spear is guarded, that's exactly what they'll expect,” Michael said. “They'll expect us to come swooping in like amateurs.”

“Who will?” Opal asked. She stared at him intently.

“Farrakhan's guards,” Michael told her. “They'll expect us to fly.”

“He's right,” Dorothy said. “Don't think Farrakhan would leave the spear unguarded, do you?”

“The thing is, Nan,” Danny said, “even if there are guards, it doesn't matter. Try to swim in that, and we're dead before we've gone a yard.”

Dorothy sighed. “Haven't been listening, have you? None of you, except Michael. Didn't I tell you things aren't the same here? Didn't Hector tell you, as well? What did he say? Different laws of physics? This isn't your world or my world, Danny. This is a dream world. This is the astral plane. Things don't work the same way here as you're used to. That lake isn't even hot.”

Danny looked out across the fire again. “Hot enough for me,” he said. He could feel the waves of heat rolling over him across the thin strip of intervening shore. There was sweat on his face and body, had been since he'd woken up.

Michael said, “Only as hot as you think it is. Haven't you worked that out yet?”

“Haven't I worked
what
out yet?” Danny glared at
him. “Know what, Sunshine, I'm getting a bit fed up with Mr. Know-It-All!”

Michael glared back. “And I'm getting a bit fed up with your stupidity. Why don't—”

“Who you calling stupid? You think maybe—”

But Opal spoke up suddenly, interrupting them both. “Michael, are you trying to tell us we can
control
that fire?”

Dorothy shook her head. “No, he's trying to tell you that you can control
yourselves,
which is what you two boys need to do. Can't go squabbling between ourselves when there's work on hand.” She stared them both down, then said, “Listen, this world reflects our world like a mirror. Only not exactly. Distorting mirror, you might say, like we saw in that fun house up in Blackpool, Danny. It's not
real
the way we know real. What you see and feel here depends on what's going on inside your head. You accept fire at face value and it'll burn you, sure enough. But you don't have to.”

“Accept fire at face value?” Danny asked.

“Accept
anything
at face value,” Michael said.

“Good rule for the rest of your life, that,” Dorothy added.

“I don't understand you,” Opal said.

“In my country, they used to say, ‘What you see—it's not what you think,'” Michael said. “That's true here.
You feel hot in this place, don't you?”

“Course I do,” Danny said.

“I don't,” Michael told him. “You see me sweating?”

Danny stared at him. Now that he came to mention it, Michael wasn't, while Danny was sweating like a pig. “No.”

“It's what you chose to
believe,
Danny,” Michael said. “If you take this place at face value, it'll kill you, but if you don't believe in the heat, it can't harm you. In my country there are witch doctors who can kill people by pointing a bone at them. But the bone doesn't work on Europeans, didn't work on the French when they occupied Mali, because Europeans don't believe in it.”

Danny took a step back from the edge of the lake. “Wait a minute,” he said, “this isn't some superstitious bone thing. You're telling me I can stick my head in the fire and I won't get my face burned off so long as I believe the coals are ice cubes?”

“Not in our world, obviously,” Michael told him patiently. “But in
this
world, yes. Look, Danny, you remember those insect things we talked about—the
sohanti
insects you saw flying around Opal when she was out of body?”

“Yes,” Danny said uncertainly. He couldn't see what this had to do with—

“Call them,” Michael said.

“What?”

“Call them,” Michael repeated. “Go on—call them now.” Danny stared at him. “Go on,” Michael urged.

Danny stared at him a little longer, then said, “Okay.” He closed his eyes as if concentrating. After a moment he opened them again. “You see? Nothing happen—” Then he ducked abruptly as three of the batlike insects swooped to circle his head and flew off again. Michael grinned broadly. “Coincidence,” Danny muttered.

“Sohanti,”
Michael said.

After a moment, Danny said, “All right, suppose you're right. Big difference between calling a few bugs and risking our lives in—”

Dorothy said, “Oh, for God's sake—” and dived into the flaming lake.

For perhaps half a second, Danny stood stunned, then, “Nan!” he screamed and dived into the fire himself. The water was cool. There were flames all around him, he was swimming in fire, but the water was cool. In a few seconds he was swimming beside his grandmother. “Sorry about that,” Dorothy said, “but we were running out of time.”

Behind him, Danny heard the splashes as first Michael, then Opal dived into the fiery lake. It took them all less than seven minutes to swim to the island. “You really think there will be guards, Nan?” Danny
asked a little breathlessly. He needed to get more exercise—it was galling that his Nan outswam him, even if she was using a much younger, fitter body on the astral plane.

Dorothy squatted on the rocky apron. “Might be, might not,” she said, shaking her head. “But I didn't want you to fly and I couldn't tell you why back there.”

Michael and Opal were walking out of the water. Liquid fire flowed off their bodies, but not even their hair was singed.

“Tell me now, then?”

Dorothy glanced at the other two, then said, “You had to experience that. No use just hearing how tricky this place is. Michael already knows that, but you had to find out for yourself. You just keep that in mind and you'll be all right.”

Danny said, “Okay, Nan, point taken. What happens now?”

“What happens now is that the three of you retrieve the spear.”

Danny picked it up at once. “You're not coming with us?” He felt relieved but puzzled. His grandmother wasn't the type to back out of anything.

Michael and Opal arrived beside them in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. Michael said, “Farrakhan used a triangle to trap the beast, from what
you told us, so there can't be more than three of us in the Shenlu Chamber.”

Danny was finding him more irritating by the minute. “How do you know stuff like that?” he demanded.

Michael shrugged. Dorothy said, “Michael's quick on the uptake, Danny.”

Danny flushed and said, “Don't suppose you know where we can actually
find
this Shenlu Chamber, do you, Mike?”

Michael ignored his tone and nodded toward a rock face. “My guess would be over there,” he said mildly. As they turned to follow his gaze, a cave mouth opened in the rock.

After a moment, Danny said, “That wasn't there before.”

“You just didn't see it there before,” Michael said with just the barest hint of an infuriating grin.

“Or them either,” Opal whispered suddenly.

Danny went cold. Michael had been right about Farrakhan's guards as well.

“C
lear the parking lot!” Sir Roland shouted. “All your soldiers—get them out of here.”

Carradine was staring paralyzed at one of the steel doors. It bore the imprint of a giant hand. With talons.

“Get them out of here!” Roland yelled. “You too, George. And you, Gary.”

Carradine's paralysis broke. “What the hell is that?” he whispered.

“Get the bloody men out!” Roland hissed. “And get yourself out with them. This isn't an ordinary attack.” He'd only suspected before, but he was certain now.

“Rollie,” George said, his eyes wide, “there are men out there in the tunnel—”

“The men in the tunnel are dead!” Roland snapped. “And you'll be following them if you don't do what I tell you. Along with the rest of the men here.” Not that he knew what he was going to do himself. What could
he do—throw holy water at the damn thing? But it was important to get the rest of his men to safety: the doors weren't going to hold for long.

There was another sonic boom as the doors exploded inward.

T
hey were like something out of the Arabian Nights: muscular, bearded men in turbans, wielding scimitars. A dozen of them were racing toward the little group, with more streaming from the cave mouth behind them.

“Djinn!” Michael breathed.

“What do we do now?” Danny asked nobody in particular.

“Hold our ground,” Opal said grimly.

“In case you hadn't noticed, they have swords and we don't,” Danny said. “We don't have
any
weapons. Plus, there are a lot more of them than there are of us.”

“What you see, it's not what you think!” Michael shouted. But then the first of the djinn were on them.

Instinctively Danny stepped between the first attacker and his Nan, but then the rest were upon them and he had no time at all to do anything except fight for his life. The nearest djinn swung his sword in a high, sweeping
arc aimed at Danny's head. But Danny dropped to one knee as the sword whistled past, then bounced up again like a rubber ball and kicked out hard at the djinn's right leg. For an instant he was seized by the horrifying thought that the djinn might not be solid, that it might be a creature of smoke like the thing that came out of Aladdin's lamp, but his foot connected with a satisfying thud—and the djinn, caught badly off balance, went down heavily.

Danny glanced around, still looking for Dorothy, but he was in the middle of a melee now, a jumble of moving, thrusting bodies, and was unable to see any of his friends. Two of the djinn closed in to grab him, but Danny was smaller and more agile than either of them and dodged aside. From his new position he caught a glimpse of Opal, who was surrounded by sword-swinging djinn yet moving with such fluid grace that none of them seemed able to lay a finger on her. She was so beautiful that Danny felt a pang of jealousy about Michael, not that a knight's daughter was likely to look twice at Danny anyway. But then the moment passed and he was fighting for his life again.

He struck two more of the djinn, fighting low and dirty, and had the satisfaction of seeing them go down. He was still desperate to find his Nan, make sure she was all right, but more and more djinn were piling into
the fray. Why had Nan told them to hold their ground? It would have made more sense to run from this lot, run fast. But too late for that now.

He heard the singing whistle of a sword just before it struck him in the upper arm, cutting deep. Danny screamed and clapped his free hand to the wound, as blood seeped through his fingers. The pain was mind-numbing. He twisted away as his assailant drew back his scimitar for a second blow. Then he saw Dorothy, down on one knee, trying desperately to protect her head with both hands. A djinn stood over her, sword upraised. Despite his wound, Danny hurled himself forward and head-butted the creature in the stomach. To his satisfaction, it jackknifed forward and dropped its sword.

“I'm getting you out of here!” he gasped at his Nan and seized her arm. His grip made bloody fingerprints on her skin.

Dorothy staggered to her feet, and now he could see she too was injured: there was a gash across one side of her face. He tried to pull her away from the battle zone, but they were surrounded now and the djinn were closing in. From somewhere beyond the sea of waving swords, he heard Opal scream.

Then, out of nowhere, Michael was beside him, miraculously wielding a captured sword. “Call the bats!” he shouted.

Danny looked at him stupidly. “What?”

“Call the bats!” Michael repeated. He was actually fencing with the djinn, and doing it well. They fell back, leaving a space around the beleaguered trio.

The bats? “I can't!” Danny shouted. His eyes darted from djinn to djinn in panic.

“Yes, you can! You've already done it once!” Michael shouted back. “I'll hold them off until you do.”

Why did he want the bats? Danny spun around, dragging his Nan along with him. The djinn may have fallen back, but they were still surrounded.
Oh, God,
Danny thought. He closed his eyes and tried to call the bats, but there was no way he could concentrate.

“Hurry, Danny!” Michael shouted.

A black-bearded djinn dashed forward and snatched Dorothy out of Danny's grasp. “Nan!” Danny screamed. A blood mist of fury swept across his vision. He wanted a sword desperately. Something seemed to snap inside his head.

The bats came. They flew out of Danny's mind in a rustling, squeaking cloud, hundreds, thousands more of them than had ever appeared before. They swarmed like giant bees.

The djinn vanished. It was like some mad conjuring trick. One minute they were there, the next the rocky landscape was empty. Even the bats were gone. Danny
grabbed for his Nan and hugged her. The slash on her face was gone. He glanced at his own arm and found it completely healed. Opal was walking toward them, also unharmed, a look of relief on her face.

“What you see, it isn't what you think,” Michael said, and smiled broadly.

After a moment Danny said, “What happens now?”

Michael's smile faded. “I suppose now we brave the Shenlu Chamber in that cave.”

“After you,” said Danny quickly.

Michael gave a Gallic shrug and walked toward the cave mouth.