The Shadowed Manse (11 page)

“So they come back,” Arthur said.

“Hmm … judging from what we’ve seen so far, I think each stone must hold about a dozen shades,” Morgan said. “And then they come back in sets of four at a time. Not sure how long between sets, but the first set came out right after you destroyed them all.”

They walked on into the Training Room and looked around.

“What are those things hanging from the ceiling?” Morgan asked.

“Targets maybe,” Arthur replied, gazing up at the sheets of metal in various shapes and sizes hanging from the ceiling. “I bet there’s a switch that will lower them.”

She pointed to a set of levers on the far wall. “Probably those. I don’t see any other controls.”

Arms walked over and pulled the first lever. One of the sheets lowered from the ceiling. The sheet wasn’t metallic after all, but was some sort of glass material. It was hanging by a steel cable. This particular sheet was the size of a large man, and there was a bull’s-eye painted on its chest. Arthur drew a raygun and took a shot. The ray hit the target dead center. The target flashed bright red and a loud BING-BING sound rang through the Training Room.

Morgan pointed at the levers, counting. “There’s a lot more switches than targets. What do the others do?”

Arms pulled one, and a dozen padded blocks of various heights shot up from the ground all around the room. Arms pulled another, and a rope fell from the ceiling in one spot, nets and walls in others.

“An obstacle course?” Arthur asked, and Arms gave him a thumbs up.

“There are dials under the switches,” Morgan said. “I bet he can customize the entire area.”

Arms pulled a third level, and a platform lowered from above. On the platform were several benches along with dumbbells for weightlifting, plus strangely shaped exercise bikes and punching bags. This gym had everything.

“Well, we know what the rayguns do,” Arthur said. “And my father’s sword isn’t here. So now we just need to figure out your gloves, Morgan.”

Arms stepped up beside Morgan and placed his wrists together. Morgan mimicked him and pressed the gloves together so that the ruby buttons triggered one another. With a barely audible hum and a reddish glow not much brighter than a glow-in-the-dark sticker, the gloves sparked to life.

“Shiny!” Lexi cooed.

“I can feel them vibrating!” Morgan made a fist, and the gloves hummed louder and glowed brighter. “So, what do they do?”

Arthur turned his shoulder to her. “Hit me. Lightly.”

Morgan tapped him on the shoulder with her fist clenched.

ZAP! The glove flashed brightly and sparked on contact, like a pair of jumper cables being touched together. The delicate punch popped Arthur and made him stagger several feet back.

“Ouch!”

He was going to have a nasty bruise on his shoulder. That punch was as hard as any punch Derek had ever hit him with. If she had really hit him … yikes.

Following Arms’ gestures, Morgan made a fist with both hands and kept her palms and the rubies facing toward her. With an air-displacing SWISH like that of a spaceship door opening, the gloves projected a force field out in front of her. The humming energy shield was barely visible; it was just a red shimmer, like a heat wave coming up off of concrete at sunset. The field stretched a few feet over her head and was nearly as wide as she was tall. Following Arms’ cues, she practiced making it bigger and smaller by moving her hands toward and away from her body.

“I think the bigger I make it, the weaker it gets,” Morgan said. “See how the energy looks denser when I bring it close to me?”

Arms gave her the thumbs up.

“Well, that’s going to come in handy,” Lexi said, “seeing as you’re a bad shot.”

Morgan and Vassalus glared at Lexi.

Arms set his helmet down about twenty feet away from them, then demonstrated what he wanted Morgan to do. Mimicking his gestures again, she held out one hand with her fingers flexed wide and bent halfway. The helmet began to drag across the ground toward her.

She started hopping up and down giddily. “This is the best — I can use the Force! I’m sooooo glad we’re friends, Arthur.”

Arthur laughed at her.

The helmet finally reached her and popped up into her hands. Arms bobbed his head and shrugged his shoulders.

“I think he is saying you will need to practice with the gloves more, my dear,” said Vassalus.

Arthur hoped his father’s sword was awesome, because those gloves were way cool and Morgan had them
and
a ray gun. He knew it was stupid to feel jealous, but it was his house and his legacy. Of course, he was supposed to have some sort of powers …

Arms gestured to Morgan and pointed at the control board. She reached out and tried to flip a switch from a distance … but couldn’t manage it. Arms made more gestures, but they couldn’t decipher them.

Morgan huffed. “I think it’s going to take a lot of practice for me to —”

THUNK!

Arthur spun around. A small metal canister had been knocked off a shelf near the front of the room. The shelf held a line of similar canisters. Arthur didn’t know what they were for — he couldn’t read the labels from this far away and he hadn’t paid any attention to them on his way in.

“Oops,” said Lexi sheepishly. “Sorry — one can’t always help which way one’s tail swishes.”

Vassalus turned to her. “Oh Alexis, my sweet, I just want to note something the others may find of interest: That shelf is higher than your tail could possibly swish.”

Lexi’s tail fell flat onto the floor. “Well … you see … um … curiosity and … I don’t have thumbs and … there was this — what’s that sound?”

Arthur noticed the hissing sound a moment later.

Vassalus reared back. “By the Oort Cloud, what is that foul, sulfurous — oh no!”

A trail of smoke began pouring out from the end of the canister, where the lid had been jarred loose. Arms had seen it, too; he sprinted forward and dove toward the container. Lexi and Vassalus uselessly recoiled from the stench, which must have offended their finely tuned animal senses, because it seemed faint to Arthur. The moment Arms reached the container, the lid popped off and flew across the room.

A cloud billowed out of the container. It spun out into a mini hurricane that moments later formed into a monster of solid shadow that was the size of a four-wheel-drive truck with an extended cab and dual-wheels on the back. 

Chapter Ten

The Paladin Workout

Razor fangs, curling ram horns, a spiked tail, a blade-ridged back, and wicked claws — the nightmarish monster had the shape of a dinosaur merged with a lion. As Arms drew his sword, the beast head-butted him. A trail of silvery blood followed Arms as he tumbled through the air and struck the padded wall with a THUD. He fell limp and didn’t get back up.

The monster crouched, bunched its muscles like a cat ready to pounce on its prey, and locked its crimson eyes on Arthur.

Arthur drew his rayguns. “Oh crap.”

The beast roared and charged.

Arthur fired five shots, and learned an important lesson: Hitting a big target wasn’t as easy as he’d have thought when the target was moving and scaring you out of your mind. One shot struck the beast in the chest, doing nothing; a second shot hit the monster in the foot, also accomplishing zilch; and the remaining shots missed.

Just before the beast reached him, Arthur dove to the side and rolled out of the way. Morgan activated her force field and met the beast head-on. The impact knocked her back against the wall. She struck the pads with a THUMP, but not nearly so hard as Arms had. She sank down to her knees, gasping for air. Her shield had saved her; and she still had her hands up, keeping it active.

Lexi leapt on top of the monster, dug her front claws into its neck, and raked with her back claws. The monster roared and bucked like a bronco, but it couldn’t shake her loose. Unfortunately, all she seemed to do was make it angrier. Vassalus sprang to Morgan's side and stood guard beside her.

The monster stopped bucking, and again charged Arthur. He only managed to get off four shots before it reached him. Three shots struck it in the chest. One shot struck it between the eyes — and did nothing. Unfazed, unharmed — the beast kept charging toward him.

He didn’t dive aside soon enough. The monster’s horns clipped him in the side. He somersaulted through the air and struck the wall.

THOOM!

*****

“Arthur!” Lexi screamed. “Arthur! Are you okay?”

Arthur woke, hurting and winded. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. Morgan was standing over him and shielding him with her force field, as the monster repeatedly head-butted and chomped down at them. With her heels dug into the floor, she held her ground, but just barely, and only because the monster wasn’t charging. If not for Morgan and those gloves, he’d be dead by now. But her shield wasn’t defeating the monster, and it probably couldn’t hold up forever …

Clawing her way up onto the back of the monster’s head, Lexi was doing her best to kill the monster, but was getting nowhere. Vassalus locked his jaws onto the creature’s tail and bit down hard enough to draw dark, smoky blood from it — but without letting up on its attacks against Morgan, the monster deftly wrapped its tail around Vassalus and squeezed him boa constrictor-style. Clutching his ribs, Valet stabbed the tail with his rapier, but that didn’t help at all.

Despite the danger, Arthur drifted back into darkness — then woke with pain flaring in his forearm. What the heck?! Morgan was still shielding him. What had —

Morgan lifted her foot and aimed her heel at him.

“Hey!” he said.

“Stay awake and do something!”

“What?”

“I don’t know … anything! I can’t hold out —” her shield flickered “— much longer.”

The beast chomped down, and the shield flickered and shrunk down so that it barely covered him and Morgan at the same time. But as it bit down, Arthur spotted something: a glowing red dot at the back of the monster’s mouth. That was odd.

Arthur scanned around; he had dropped his rayguns when the monster knocked him against the wall. Ugh, one was under the creature, and the other was … over ten yards away. He’d never get to it before — oh, Morgan’s! It was in the holster on her opposite hip from him.

He rose up into a crouch, reached around Morgan’s waist, and drew her gun.

Morgan elbowed him in the throat. “Don’t touch me, perv!”

Arthur doubled over, sucking wind. “Wasn’t — trying — to —”

The beast struck hard — the shield went out. The creature caught Morgan with its horns and flung her aside. Arthur readied himself to die, but the beast thudded after Morgan. The force field must have angered it. Morgan sat up slowly, too dazed to move or realize how much danger she was in. He had to get over there
fast
. He started toward her, but the beast was already rearing up; he wasn’t going to make it in time.

No
— this wasn’t going to be like with Derek. He wasn’t going to lose someone else — especially not Morgan. He
needed
her. The world seemed to close in around Arthur, as if he were in a tunnel — just like when he attacked Derek earlier in the day — but this time a white mist surrounded him instead of shadows. A surge of adrenaline pumped through him, and again it felt as if two hearts thundered within his chest.

With unbelievable speed, Arthur rushed over, dove in front of Morgan, and lifted his raygun. When the beast attacked, with its gaping maw speeding down toward them, Arthur squeezed the trigger three times, aiming toward the back of the monster’s throat.

One shot struck the red dot.

BOOM!

Thunder echoed through the training hall as the monster burst into a cloud of smoke. Lexi fell to the floor, paws splayed, eyes wide with surprise. Vassalus collapsed onto his side, gasping for air.

The smoke formed into a swirling column that sped across the room and back into the container Lexi had knocked over.

Still clutching his ribs, Valet raced over, and then capped the container. He returned it to the shelf, which held over a dozen similar containers of various sizes. Arms staggered over, weakly, and double-checked that it was closed.

Hurting all over — again — Arthur climbed to his feet. “Morgan?”

“I’ll live.” She staggered over to Vassalus. “Are you okay?”

“I am … fine, dear lady … thank you. Just a few cracked ribs. They will soon heal. We numina are built tough.”

Lexi rubbed against Arthur’s leg. “Master Paladin, I am so very, very sorry about the container. I was just being …”

“Curious?” he said.

“I am a cat, darling. And if I had known …”

“It’s okay,” Arthur replied. “It’s a good reminder that we don’t know how this place works and the servitors can’t easily tell us.”

He examined the shelf. The canister that had opened was the third largest, and it was imprinted with a picture of a creature like the one they had fought, along with a name. Apparently, each canister contained a different monster.