Vault of Shadows (31 page)

“Wait!” she ordered.

The others came up behind Milo, and they spread out to study the grisly remains.

That the figure had once been human was evident, but that was all they could tell. It was small, so it could have been a woman or a teenager of either gender. There wasn't enough left to say.

“Tell me that's not Lizzie,” said Shark, his face gray.

Evangelyne became the wolf and bent to smell the corpse. The wolf walked around it and studied it from several angles, then abruptly backed up a step, and became a girl again.

“Goddess of Shadows,” she breathed.

“What is it?” asked Milo.

“I think this was a faerie.”

“A faerie? I thought they were tiny.” Milo said, frowning at the twisted form.

“No. They're the same size as us. When you saw them, it was through the distortion of the faerie ring.”

“Wait, wait, I don't get this at all,” Shark said. “You're saying this is one of those
Aes Sídhe
characters? Why
would they have sacrificed one of their own kind?”

“I don't know.”

“Mook,” said Mook, and Evangelyne pursed her lips in thought.

“That's possible,” she said, then explained to the boys. “There are some scattered faerie folk around this city.
Sídhe
, but not of the
Aes Sídhe.
There are many courts of faerie. It's possible that Queen Mab or the Huntsman captured one and used its death to break the enchantment that keeps the
Aes Sídhe
on the other side of their doorway.”

“That doesn't sound good,” said Shark. “Does that mean she broke out?”

Evangelyne picked up one of the toadstool pieces, studied it, then tossed it away. “I don't know. If Queen Mab has come through to our world, then things have gone from bad to worse.”

“Worse? Really? There's still a worse?”

She looked at him with no trace of humor. “Things can always get worse, boy. Always.”

“Swell.” Shark looked around. “I'm hoping this is a good sign, but I don't see a whole army of faerie warriors anywhere around. Are you sure they came through?”

“I'm not sure of anything, Shark,” she said. “Spells like this require tremendous amounts of energy. It's possible that only the queen herself managed to come through.”

“That would be a lucky break,” said Shark.

“No,” replied the wolf girl, “it wouldn't. If only she came through, then the queen would be desperate to
sacrifice as many innocent lives as possible in order to smash the doorway and free her people.”

“Just once can you find something positive to say? Seriously? Just once.”

“Will you guys cut it out,” barked Milo. “We don't know how much time we have left. Let's get moving.”

They stepped carefully around the faerie ring and approached the front of the antiques store. The window glass was still intact, though a jagged crack ran from upper right to lower left. The lock and door handle were burned, and the wood around them was charred. Milo touched them—and snatched his hand away.

“It's hot.” He pushed against the door with the toe of his shoe and it swung inward, the lock destroyed.

Shark looked deeply uneasy. “You think Queen Mab's in there?”

Evangelyne didn't answer, but her silence seemed more like an evasion than a lack of opinion. Shark sighed.

“Swell,” he said. “Does that mean we're walking into a trap?”

Again she didn't answer.

“You got to tell us something,” persisted Shark. “What kind of magic stuff can she throw at us? Are we talking death spells or is she going to turn me into a frog or what?”

“I don't know,” said Evangelyne. “I'm sorry, but I really don't. You boys keep asking me as if I know
everything
about the magical world. I don't. No one does. You don't know everything about your world, do you?”

“Well, no,”
conceded Shark, “but we don't know what you don't know and we don't know what you
do
know.” He paused and smiled. “You know?”

That put a faint smile on her face. “Look, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be difficult.”

“Too late.”

She punched him on the arm. Pretty hard, too.

“If Queen Mab's been trapped for all this time,” said Milo, “won't she be pretty rusty when it comes to fighting?”

“I wouldn't count on it,” said Evangelyne.

“What about tech? Shark has a pulse pistol. No way she's ever had to deal with that kind of thing before. Won't that give us an advantage?”

The wolf girl brightened. “That's a good thought. I'm not sure if the gun would kill her, but it might weaken her enough for one of us to finish her off. If we can remove her golden torc, then she'll lose much of her power. Without the torc she would be as vulnerable as anyone.”

“Moooook,” said the rock boy, drawing the word out to suggest that he would be happy to take a swing at the evil faerie queen. Shark patted his shoulder, clearly getting Mook's meaning.

“I'm with Stony McRockshoes here,” he said. “That's the first good news I've had since . . . let me think . . .
ever
?”

“Don't be overconfident,” warned Evangelyne. “Even if she is unfamiliar with your gun, Queen Mab is still
incredibly dangerous. Underestimate her at your peril.”

“Sure,” said Shark, “'cause why should we be optimistic for more than a nanosecond?”

“Look,” said Evangelyne, “I'm not trying to depress everyone. You asked.”

“It's cool,” said Milo. “Shark's just messing with you.”

“It's what I do,” admitted Shark.

Evangelyne gave a grudging nod. “If I were a sorceress, I wouldn't turn you into a frog.”

“That's nice—”

“I'd turn you into a rabbit. Wolves eat rabbits.”

“You,” said Shark, pointing at her, “made a joke. A very, very scary joke.”

The wolf girl turned aside to hide another smile. Then she straightened. “I just thought of one thing,” she said. “There are a lot of stories and legends about Gadfellyn Hall. It's supposed to be very strange inside. Bigger than you'd think, and filled with many halls and corridors, cellars and attics, and countless rooms.”

“So—?” asked Milo.

“So no one knows exactly where the library is. It can only be found by luck or instinct.”

“Again, so?”

“So even if the
Aes Sídhe
are inside, it doesn't mean they'll know how to find the library. Some of the legends say that most of the people who enter Gadfellyn Hall get lost. Forever lost.”

“How's that help us? Are you saying we're going to
spend the rest of our lives playing hide-and-seek with faerie warriors?”

“No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Queen Mab doesn't know how to find the Impossible Library. Neither will the Huntsman if he gets here. But Milo, you
dreamed
of it. You watched the Heir find his way there. You can follow memories of those dreams, can't you?”

“I can try,” he said doubtfully.

It seemed like a thin thread of hope, but it was something, and Milo felt the ground to be more firmly under his feet. He glanced at the others and they shared a nod.

Shark drew his pulse pistol and Milo fitted a ball bearing into his slingshot. Evangelyne morphed into wolfshape, and Iskiel—now grown nearly to full size—scuttled onto Mook's shoulders and uttered a low hiss of challenge. His eyes blazed with heat. Even Mook's placid face seemed to change into a brutal war mask.

Milo went first, his slingshot raised.

Shark held his flashlight in one fist and rested the pulse pistol atop it. As he came in, he shifted right to cover Milo but also keep him out of the line of fire. Evangelyne crept along on silent paws. The only sound was the dull thud of Mook's heavy feet.

From outside, the antiques store looked like what it advertised. Through the grime on the windows they'd seen old Victorian chairs, crystal chandeliers, ornate wardrobes, and tall, delicately painted vases.

Once they stepped inside they saw none of this.

Stepping through that doorway was like stepping into another world. It was colder, older, and stranger, and nothing they'd seen from outside was in here. They entered the large vestibule of what was clearly a huge old house. The vestibule was wider than the entire facade of the store.

“Okay,” murmured Shark, “this is freaky.”

They walked to the end of the vestibule. There were dried leaves and the white skeletons of small animals on the tiled floor. An urn made of hammered brass stood against the wall, and from it sprouted a dozen walking sticks and umbrellas that were draped with dusty cobwebs. The desiccated husk of a long-dead spider hung inside one web.

There were three doorways at the far end of the vestibule. The left one led to a small sitting room furnished with ugly and uncomfortable-looking chairs. A dusty piano stood in one corner. The doorway on the right opened into a larger room with leather chairs, a massive globe hung inside a wooden frame, and a huge old oak desk. On every available piece of wall were the mounted heads of animals Milo had only ever seen in books. Wild rams, lions and tigers, bison, moose, zebras, and even a rhinoceros. They were ancient and covered with dust, their fur or hide worn away, their glass eyes dull and empty. Milo hated that room. Like everyone in his pod he was a hunter, but everything he killed went into a stew pot. The thought of hunting just to gloat over the stuffed heads seemed weird to him.

They moved back into the vestibule and approached
the last doorway. This one brought them into a long hallway with framed pictures of disappointed-looking people in old-fashioned clothes. None of them looked any happier than the animal heads they'd seen on the wall.

At the end of the hallway was a long stairway that swept upward into shadows.

“What is all this?” asked Shark. “How can all of this be in here?”

“We're in the ghost of a house,” said Milo, remembering what Evangelyne had told him. “This is Gadfellyn Hall.”

They stood at the foot of the stairs and listened for any sound. The old building creaked and moaned as cold winds blew through its bones. Milo had expected the place to feel dead, like a spent battery or a crashed drop-ship, but it wasn't. It
looked
dead, but it felt . . .

He tried to put it into words in his head. When he'd piloted the red ship, there had been a sense of resistance and resentment, but that's not what this was.

It knows we're here,
he thought.

A small gust conjured a tiny dust devil on the landing above them. It dissipated and the dust floated down toward them.

It knows we're here and it doesn't like it.

He almost said that to the others, but when he glanced at them, he saw they were all looking nervous enough already. They were feeling uneasy, too.

Evangelyne changed back into girlshape and stood chewing her lip, one foot on the bottom step.

“I
don't see any footprints,” said Shark, trying to sound hopeful. “Maybe no one's come in yet.”

“Faeries don't leave footprints,” she said.

Shark sighed.

“The Huntsman would, though,” said Milo. “We saw him flying the other way. I don't think he's been here yet. That's something.”

Evangelyne said nothing, which Milo assumed was not a good sign.

“Look,” said Shark, “tell me this much at least. These dark faeries . . . can we fight them if they're here? I mean, we're not exactly a pack of bunnies. I got my gun, Milo's an ace with that wrist-rocket, and you three are all sorts of creepy-weird-dangerous. Tell me we at least have a chance.”

Mook clacked his fists together and gave a single stern nod. “Mook.”

As before, the rock boy's meaning was clear enough.

“Glad to hear it,” said Shark.

Milo didn't feel too reassured. If Queen Mab was here, they were about to face a dark sorceress of legendary power. He wasn't all that confident in a bunch of kids—however tough they were—fighting someone like her.

He didn't say it, though. No one needed to hear that right now.

Without another word they all began to mount the stairs.

W
hen they were halfway up the stairs, Shark asked, “Maybe I don't want to know the answer to this, but how did Queen Mab even know we were coming here?”

Evangelyne climbed several steps in silence, clearly unwilling to answer.

“Yo, Vangie,” said Shark, “if you know something, maybe you'd better share.”

She paused and her hand strayed to the leather pouch. “It's the Heart of Darkness.”

“What about it?”

“It's hurt.”

“Yeah, we kind of
know
that. It's pretty much why we're here. What does that have to do with Queen Mab?”

Evangelyne sighed. “The stone isn't just a piece of rock, it's not a simple piece of quartz. It's
alive.
It's attuned to the heartbeat of the world.”

“So?”

“The heart of this world is the heart of magic,” she said. “It is the heartbeat of all shadows. This jewel is the last of its kind left on this Earth. All of the others have been destroyed or have been taken into the shadow worlds. That's
why this stone is so important. Now that heart is wounded to its core, and anyone who is in harmony with the magic of our world can hear it scream.”

Shark's mouth hung open.

“Mook,” said Mook sadly, nodding.

“Queen Mab can
hear
the Heart of Darkness?” gasped Milo.

“Yes. And she would know that we wanted to heal it, just as she would know that we had to seek out the last doctor of magic. The Heir.”

“I'm going to bang my head on a wall for a while,” said Shark. “Really, I think it'll help.”