Scarlett passed through the kitchen’s ghostly wall and came out in a cold, damp darkness. She spun around in fright, wondering what had happened, but could not see her way back to the restaurant. The cool air smelled of wet stone and mold, mixed with a sharp ammonia-like odor that made her wrinkle her nose and cough. Drips of water splashed at regular intervals from all around. Heavy footsteps echoed from unseen walls.
She halted and raised Excalibur to shed its light over her surroundings. When her eyes had adjusted to the illumination, she discovered she was in a shadowed cavern, in a chamber as large as a suburban home. The floor was relatively flat stone worn smooth by countless feet. Of the gateway there was no sign; she had stepped out of a wall of living rock that glistened with moisture. She coughed again and spat to get the awful taste of the air out of her mouth. Where is this place? she wondered, and how the hell am I ever going to get home?
A rustling noise above led her to look up and make the unnerving discovery that the stalactite-covered ceiling was covered with hundreds of small bats. The little beasts snapped their wings and glared with yellow eyes at the intruder. Scarlett fought down the urge to drop her sword and flee. The sharp stench, she realized, was the odor of bat droppings. I’d better get out of here before I get something gross in my hair, she thought. Her self-control restored, she noticed the thumping of footsteps was fading into the distance. Bruno! He’s escaping! She held Excalibur aloft and took careful steps in the direction of the fleeing villain, picking her way through the muck and debris littering the floor. Some of the debris looked like scattered bones, but she had no urge to stay and investigate further.
The chamber had several exits, each about ten to twelve feet in height and width. Scarlett located a tunnel from which the footsteps echoed most clearly, one from which she also detected a cool breeze. This must the way the bats got in, she thought, and thus encouraged she set off in pursuit. The tunnel ran upward over a long distance and was free of rubble for most of its length. To her surprise, thick electric cables and water pipes ran along the walls and ceiling, mounted in place with rusted metal brackets. Unlit electric lights were spaced along the ceiling as well. Some of the light fixtures were bent or damaged, and most of the pipes were badly corroded with age. Able to see fairly well now thanks to her sword, Scarlett held Excalibur high and began to jog as she went, hoping to catch up to her quarry without running into walls or falling over debris. The stone corridor twisted and turned in great curves as it rose, making her wonder if it had been carved long ago by an underground river. She wondered too if she was running to meet her own death, a possibility that kept her from moving too quickly.
A rumbling echo was followed by a loud metallic clanging. She put on a burst of speed, seeing light reflected on the cavern walls ahead. The source of the light was soon revealed to be luminescent fungi sprouting along the ceiling of the tunnel, not daylight as she had hoped. On the cave floor below the greenish-yellow fungi was a human skeleton. The arms were missing and the skull had rolled away to one side. The rest of the remains wore rotting garments and boots. Scarlett covered her mouth, suddenly ill, but forced herself to step around the corpse and move on. She had no idea how long the body had been there, but no trace of flesh remained on the bones, all rotted away by time or eaten by cavern predators. She made herself think about catching up with Bruno to keep her queasy stomach in check.
What am I going to do with Bruno if I do find him? she thought as she hurried along. I don’t want to kill anyone else, but don’t I owe it to my parents to avenge them? I killed Adele, though I regretted it—or I thought I had killed her, until she came back to life as that damn wolf. How could she do that? It was the same sort of thing that happened to Roger and Hermione-Marcello, and maybe that squirrel Phil, too. If I killed Bruno, what would he come back as? Why is everyone who dies around here reincarnated as an animal? I bet the gateway is doing it. Adele said she could turn Hermione back into human form, though she didn’t say how, and Bruno said he could turn Adele the wolf into Hitler. Roger appeared in the alley next to the gateway as a mouse after he died. The gate has got to be the answer. How does it work? Are Bruno and Adele controlling it? Could I make it do the same, or should I destroy the gate when I get home? If I only knew what I was going to do with—oh, damn it!
The corridor abruptly ended in a thick iron door mounted in a mortared stone wall. The noise she had heard earlier, she realized, was Bruno shutting the door behind him. She walked up and pushed on the great hatch, but to no avail; it was stuck in place, perhaps locked or barred. Then she remembered Excalibur, which her aunt said could cut steel. She raised the blade and carefully poked at the door. The sword tip went through the iron with only a slight effort on her part. In a few moments she had sawed out an irregularly shaped hole in the door. Then she pushed on the cut-out’s center as hard as she could. The large disk of iron fell to the stone floor on the other side with a deafening clatter. She was angry with herself at first for creating so much noise, then gave up worrying over it. It’s not like he didn’t know I was coming after him, she told herself. She then checked what lay beyond—another huge chamber—and cautiously stepped through.
“That was a neat trick,” a familiar voice called. “What do you call that little can opener?”
Scarlett gasped and prepared to fight, sword raised in both hands—but her opponent was not making any aggressive move. Across the broad chamber stood a tall woman in a ripped-up waitress’s outfit, carelessly holding a large meat cleaver at her side. Both the cleaver and the woman holding it were splattered with blood, mud, and who knew what else. The woman was chewing a wad of gum. “Hey,” said the one-time waitress of the Good Time Chinese restaurant. “I remember you. You were with those other girls at table five. You know what’s going on here?”
Rhonda, was that her name? “How did you get here?” Scarlett called back.
The waitress laughed. The sound echoed all around them. “Hell, kid, you tell me. I backed up into a wall when the cops showed up, and I fell out the other side into here. There aren’t any cops behind you, are there?”
“No, just me,” said Scarlett. “Did you see a big guy run past here?”
“A big guy, like a circus freak wearing a trench coat? Yeah, he went thataway.” Rhonda pointed to another exit tunnel with her meat cleaver. “You lookin’ for him?”
“Yes!” Scarlett made for the exit.
“You know where the hell we are?”
“I haven’t the faintest, but I have to go! Thanks!”
“Wait!” said Rhonda, waving the axe at the smaller girl, who pulled up short at the exit. “Wait just a second. I been runnin’ around here for half an hour with all kind of zombie-wolf creepozoids tryin’ to chew my ass off, and I’m gettin’ tired of it. I don’t know what kind of nuthouse you’re runnin’ here, but—”
“Help me catch that guy, and I’ll do what I can to get us both out!” Scarlett shouted back. “Hurry!”
“Well—okay, I’m comin’. Better you than me in front, though.”
What does she mean by that? Scarlett wondered as she ran into the tunnel—straight into a snarling blur of mangy fur and teeth that rushed at her from the darkness. She shrieked and swung Excalibur in unthinking panic. The severed head and forearms of the creature crashed into her separately from the lower two-thirds of its body. She lashed out once more at the dismembered monster as she backed up, almost running into Rhonda. “Merciful Goddess!” she cried in horror.
“Yeah, they suck, don’t they?” said Rhonda with a sigh. “Good job on that one, kid, but watch it with that switchblade. You almost stuck me in the throat with it.”
Scarlett wiped splattered blood from her face on a sleeve of her ruined sweater. It wasn’t her blood, though it hardly mattered. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I was just . . . sorry.” She gathered her shaky courage and headed into the tunnel once more, at a more cautious pace.
More skeletal bodies awaited her in the rising cave corridor, lying alone or tangled together. She eventually stopped looking at them except to avoid stepping on them, and instead strained to hear her quarry. Bruno was far ahead now. She wondered if he knew this place personally, given the speed with which he was moving. The walls became more thickly lined with cables and pipes, and she passed faded signs written in an unfamiliar European language with strange accent marks.
“So, my name’s Rhonda,” said the axe-bearing waitress, following Scarlett with ease. “What’s yours? Red Sonja?”
“Scarlett!” Scarlett puffed, trying to save her wind. “Scarlett Pendragon!”
“Scarlett, huh? Figures. Where’d you get that sword?”
“My aunt . . . gave it to me!” Scarlett heard a loud clanging noise far ahead, followed by another and another. What’s Bruno doing now? Is he pounding on something?
“Is that glow-in-the-dark pigsticker supposed to be from Star Wars or something?”
A curious metallic clatter sounded from up the tunnel, followed by a rushing, rumbling noise. “Can’t . . . explain it now!” Scarlett gasped. “I have . . . to catch . . . that creep, but . . . getting tired!”
“Good thing I spent time workin’ out in the weight room at Kinsington,” said Rhonda. “They had a nice one, lots of machines and free weights. Great treadmills, too. I’m barely breaking a sweat.”
A definite roar could be heard. Scarlett put two and two together. “Water!” she cried, slowing down. “That’s water coming!”
Perhaps spurred by the flood behind it, a fast-moving shape of gray fur and claws ran out of the darkness ahead. Scarlett reflexively thrust at the monster, twisted her sword to the left, and stepped aside. The dying creature fell, shivered, then went limp, its fanged mouth falling open. It did look like a zombie wolf—but it had run at her upright like a man. How did it get down here? No time for answers now. The roaring grew louder. It was too late to turn back. “I think Bruno’s flooding the tunnel!” Scarlett yelled. She looked at the pipes along the corridor walls. “Grab onto something and climb up!”
Even as she said it, it occurred to Scarlett that she was holding a weapon that she could not put down. The sheath was too small and it was stuffed into her bra, not attached to a belt—not that she was wearing a belt to begin with.
“You better grab something, too, kid!” yelled Rhonda. “Here it comes!”
Scarlett glanced up the tunnel. In Excalibur’s light, she saw trickles of black water running down toward her, swiftly turning into a churning mass of filth shoved along by the torrent behind it. On impulse, Scarlett ran to the wall on her right and jammed Excalibur into the stonework up to its hilt. The area was plunged into darkness as she grabbed for an inch-thick metal cable, reaching up where she last saw it. Her fingers found purchase and she pulled herself up with all her strength. The raging flood reached her and swept past, filling the black corridor with the dreadful stench of dead fish. Unseen objects in the flood struck Scarlett’s boots as she blindly tried to scramble higher. Where is the water coming from? Am I going to drown here? Resolve then stiffened her spine. I am going to make it! Bruno isn’t going to get me without a fight!
“Hey, kid!” yelled Rhonda over the thundering current. “You okay up there?”
“I’m still here!” Scarlett yelled back. She remembered her sword and tried to recall where she had stuck it in the wall. Raising a leg and moving it around, she felt her knee bump Excalibur’s hilt, then managed to move the hilt a few inches out of the wall by maneuvering her knee against it. Light from the base of the blade spilled around her, revealing the surging rapids below. The flood did not look as deep as she had feared. Taking a risk, Scarlett carefully lowered herself to the ground and discovered the stinking tide was up to her hips, fordable with difficulty. Pulling out Excalibur with her left hand, she began walking uphill again, her right hand holding a nearby pipe as a handrail. “Let’s go!” she shouted behind her. “Come on!”
“I gotta get me one of them light sabers,” Rhonda grumbled, splashing through the black river after the smaller girl. “Are they on sale somewhere, the real ones?”
Scarlett didn’t answer, as there was nothing she could say, so she continued to fight her way against the current. The water had to be coming from a freshwater lake or river, she decided, given its fishy odor and lack of a salty smell. It was colder than hell in any event. Her waterlogged boots kicked against underwater debris. Each step was harder to take than the previous one, but she forced herself to keep going.
In time she came to another large hatch set in a stone wall blocking the tunnel, but no iron door was in view. A torrent shot through the aperture in a monstrous jet, cascading to the floor up to ten feet down the corridor. Scarlett pulled herself to the right side of the stone wall using pipes and cables as handrails. There, the water was only a few inches deep—but the howling blast of water coming through the narrow doorway was too powerful for Scarlett to force her way through.
Damn Bruno anyway, Scarlett thought darkly, soaked to the skin. He knows he can’t hurt me with bullets or knives, but he knows too well that he can drown me. When I catch him, he’s going down like a lead submarine. She ground her teeth with frustration, staring at the huge jet of water—then had an idea. She looked back and saw Rhonda was not far behind. “Hang on again!” she yelled. “I’m going to try something!”
If Rhonda made a reply, it was lost in the thundering of the waterfall. Scarlett examined the wall on her right. If she was careful, she could climb up on a low pipe, holding an electric cable with her right hand, and hew at the upper part of the stone wall with her sword. This she did, standing on a pipe three feet above the floor, while swinging Excalibur at the wall at a height she judged was above the water level on the other side.
Her guess was not far off. After slicing several times through the stonework and mortar, Excalibur caused a portion of the wall to break loose and collapse to the floor, shoved out by water pressure on the other side. Scarlett continued to hack at the stone until more of the upper wall broke free, leaving a high-placed gap large enough for her to climb out. The water spilling over the gap into the tunnel was not powerful enough to stop her. Once more she jammed Excalibur into the wall for safekeeping, as close as possible to the newly created exit, then pulled herself up until she could reach the lip of the wall and clumsily haul herself through.
On the other side of the wall was a vast dark chamber filled with the roar of water. Scarlett pulled Excalibur from the wall as she got over the top of the barrier, but she then lost her balance and fell off into the freezing, stinking lake. Barely able to keep hold of her sword, she hit bottom and clumsily thrashed about in the current, terrified and disoriented, until she regained her presence of mind and forced herself to stop struggling. Moments later she reappeared on her feet, coughing and sputtering as her head broke the surface. The black water was over four feet high in the room, up to the base of her neck. Chilled to the bone, she raised the light-giving Excalibur with trembling fingers and put her back to the wall of the chamber, edging away from the hatchway so she wouldn’t be sucked through. “Rhonda!” she screamed. “Rhonda, come on! Hurry! Rhonda!” Unable to do more for her companion, Scarlett waded off to find a way out of this mess.
The thundering of water came from the opposite side of the chamber. By the light of her sword she saw turbulence in the water there, around a twisted pipe. The rapid flow was filling the chamber. Smashing the pipe was Bruno’s doing, no doubt, Scarlett thought. His way of cheating to get to victory, though what he hopes to get out of this disaster is beyond me. Maybe staying alive is victory enough for him now. She scanned the rest of the unlit chamber, which she guessed was a hundred feet across, circular with a smooth-domed ceiling no more than twenty feet high. It didn’t look like a cave; it looked more like a manmade room, perhaps a huge cellar or meeting place. The wall behind her was covered with tattered posters sporting the unidentified language she had seen elsewhere in this underground complex. The words had an excess of exclamation marks and capital letters, as if the writings were shouted orders. One poster had the image of a grim, mustachioed soldier with a spiked helmet, holding what looked like a machine gun with a glowing bayonet on the end.
She was wading toward what appeared to be a tunnel leading up out of the room when something black fluttered across the water before her in the glow of Excalibur, heading for the same exit she was. An instant later, hundreds of bats hurled through the room on their way out of the caverns. Scarlett shrieked and waved her sword about in a panicked defense. It didn’t matter, as none of the bats would have a thing to do with her. Her terror soon passed and she felt vaguely ashamed of herself, though she kept her sword ready. As the last bats winged their way through the chamber, Scarlett straightened up and again waded across the room right for the exit.
Halfway there, numb with cold, she heard something move in the water behind her. She started to turn around. Two powerful hands caught her shoulders from behind and pulled her over backwards. She went under instantly, her sudden gasp filling her mouth with water. Excalibur flew out of her grasp. As she struggled, a fanged mouth clamped down on her throat and crushed her windpipe. Blind, mad with pain, and unable to breathe, Scarlett thrashed and kicked but could do nothing against the fur-covered thing that held her down. Her ears filled with a roaring noise. She tried to scream, tried to inhale, tried to escape—and failed. It’s tearing out my throat! Help me, Goddess! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t brea—
The teeth on her throat were suddenly gone as her attacker let go without warning. Free, Scarlett rolled in the water and came to her feet, coughing and gagging. A furious churning took place in the water only a few feet from her, but she could have cared less. She vomited up water, took a shallow breath and cried out because her throat hurt like a railroad spike had been driven into it, then vomited again. After another gasping breath, she realized she was still alive. She couldn’t believe it.
“Die, damn you!” Rhonda shrieked, fighting something in the water a short distance away. Her meat cleaver slammed home into her opponent, again and again. “Goddammit, die when I tell you to die, you ugly son of a bitch!”
Scarlett felt her tortured throat. Her skin was unbroken. The sheath of Excalibur had shielded her from death once more. She stepped back and almost stumbled over something on the floor, under the water. Was it Excalibur? She took a ragged breath and dove instantly, arms out and numb fingers feeling along the bottom. She touched something, but it was long and cylindrical—a human bone. She dropped it and felt about again, blind as a cave fish, then touched something that lit up with a white light. A moment later she broke the water’s surface, Excalibur aloft, the room illuminated with its glow.
“About freakin’ time!” Rhonda yelled. She then flailed at the floating body of the dead zombie-wolf with her blood-spattered meat cleaver with every word she spoke. “Don’t—you—screw—with—me—ever—again!” Gasping from exertion, she shoved the mangled body away and waded over to Scarlett. She stopped just out of reach of Excalibur. “Don’t hit me with that!” Rhonda yelled. “Calm down! It’s just me!”
Scarlett slowly lowered her sword until it went underwater. Rhonda waded close. “You okay? You all right?” she said, still wary—then she dropped her cleaver in the water and hugged the smaller girl. Scarlett hugged back with her free arm. She struggled not to cry.
“We gotta get movin’, kid,” said Rhonda after a few moments. “The water’s getting deeper, and I’m freezin’ my ass off. Where do we go from here?”
Scarlett wordlessly pointed Excalibur toward the exit the bats had taken. Rhonda dove underwater and got her meat cleaver, then together they waded together to the new tunnel. It was made of mortared brick and held a stone staircase leading up. They left the water and slogged up the steps side by side.
“Your giant came through here a little while ago,” said Rhonda, looking at the steps ahead in Excalibur’s light. Someone had left a trail of wet footprints there before them. “Why’re you tryin’ to catch him, anyway?”
Scarlett sighed, exhausted. “He killed my parents,” she said.
“Killed your parents? Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you plannin’ on killin’ him, then?”
Scarlett nodded. No use fighting it. “Yeah, I am.”
“Oh.” Rhonda was silent for a dozen steps up. “That makes sense,” she finally said. “Need some help?”
“I guess.” Scarlett was about to respond further when something stopped her. Something in the air . . .
She halted dead in her tracks, looking up the staircase, and reached for Rhonda to stop her as well. Her companion gave her a puzzled look.
“He’s up there,” Scarlett whispered. She stretched her awareness, listened to what it told her. “He’s not running anymore. He’s waiting for us.”
“You sure about that?” asked Rhonda, her confusion deepening.
Scarlett nodded and moved into the lead. “Careful. He’s going to be real trouble.”
“How can you tell?” Rhonda pressed. “Did you hear him do something?”
“Shhh,” said Scarlett. She continued up the stairs at a slow pace, sword ready.
They reached the top of the stairs and came out of a wall to enter another chamber, one so huge that Scarlett couldn’t see the ends of it. It appeared to be an underground train station. The area before them was a brick-and-stone platform that ended in a drop-off of about two feet. Beyond that were railroad tracks, then darkness. Wary and nervous, they walked across the platform and stopped near the edge. Nothing moved in the vast darkness.
“Where is he?” said Rhonda, turning in place with her axe raised. “You see him?”
Scarlett looked down, moving Excalibur around for better light. She spotted a trail of large wet footprints. They led off the platform and followed the nearest set of rails off to the right. “Bruno went that way,” she said, pointing.
“Bruno’s the giant you’re lookin’ for?”
“Yes.” Scarlett took a deep breath. She could tell Bruno wasn’t far away at all. “Let’s go. I hope he doesn’t have a gun this time.”
They got down from the platform and began walking along the rails. Scarlett’s premonition of danger deepened as she approached another tunnel in the wall ahead, this one obviously sized for a train. The other rails curved away to go out their own tunnels, leaving the underground station. A breeze went through Scarlett’s hair, blowing toward the tunnel ahead. There must be a way to the surface through there, she thought. Maybe when we get out of here I’ll find out where we are.
“I was thinkin’ I should take your friend up on her offer to work for your field hockey team,” said Rhonda. “That’s if I can find a good lawyer to spring me from prison again if I get caught. I don’t think I’m cut out for the food-service industry.”
“How’d you get into prison to begin with?” asked Scarlett, who instantly regretted her words.
“Oh . . .” Rhonda’s voice died off.
“Never mind. Forget it.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Not much of a story, really.”
“I’m sorry I asked, and I apologize.”
“Well, nothin’ would’a happened if my damn boyfriend hadn’t stolen my savin’s and started a meth lab in my house trailer while I was doin’ time in the county for punchin’ out that bouncer in McGrundy’s Pub and drivin’ my pickup through the front door, which wasn’t my fault ‘cause they served me the beer that got me drunk anyway, and then Frank had the nerve—”
“Rhonda, don’t—”
“—to shack up with my halfwit cousin Lisa Marie and get my mom’s second ex-husband Scooter to look for customers in south Baltimore, which pissed off all the big gangs—”
“Seriously, you don’t need to—”
“—and it was probably the Blood Orioles that came out to my place and worked them over them in my livin’ room with my one good working lawn mower, before I could get out there and do it myself when the cops let me out of jail, and it was just bad timin’ that I was out there tryin’ to clean up the mess when that damn sheriff came by to—”
“Stop it! Just stop talking, please!”
“I’m just sayin’, it wasn’t my fault! Nothin’s wrong with me! I’ve been through anger management classes fourteen times!”
“All right! I believe you, I believe you! Forget I mentioned it!”
“Fine, whatever.” They entered the tunnel and walked in silence for a few moments. “Lookin’ back,” the waitress finally said, “I guess in a way it was kind of funny, ‘cause all that was left of Frank was—”
“Rhonda!”
“Well, you asked!”
“I said, forget it! Just look out for . . . forget that, too. There he is.”
“There who . . . oh.”
Scarlett and Rhonda stopped in the tunnel on opposite sides of the railroad track they were following. Hovering in the darkness ahead of them was the tiny flame of a butane cigarette lighter, touching the end of a thick cigar. The cigar was clenched in the pointed tusks of Bruno Nagy’s mouth. After a few puffs, Bruno snapped off the lighter and drew deeply on the cigar. The orange ash illuminated his bestial face. He then exhaled, visible in the light from Excalibur.
“Ladies,” he said in his rough voice, nodding in their direction.
“Why aren’t you still running?” asked Scarlett, feeling much braver now with her sword in hand and Rhonda at her side.
“I can’t,” said Bruno calmly. He turned and nodded at something behind him. Scarlett moved Excalibur to one side to see better. In moments she could tell that the tunnel had long ago collapsed, the rubble pile beginning only a few yards farther on.
“Welcome to Vienna, once the glory of my old home world,” said Bruno. “For too brief a time it was the capital of my empire, the seat of my temporal power, the gem on my crown. We’re about fifty feet below street level. I haven’t been here since I took my werewolf army to Avalon to kill your parents. The remains of my army still roam the subterranean half of Vienna, but I doubt there’s much left above us; the Allies were very thorough in their atomic bombing, I hear. This city alone was hit half a dozen times, leaving only ash and rubble and the once-lovely Danube, which is filling the tunnels below us as I speak. A pity you couldn’t be down there keeping my werewolves company as they drown, but—eh, we rarely get what we want, do we?”
“Looks like we have you trapped instead,” Scarlett growled.
“Indeed,” agreed Bruno. “The only way out for me is straight up, through the ventilation shaft in the ceiling which goes right to the surface . . . but I can’t climb anywhere with only one hand.”
That’s too bad, Scarlett almost said—but something about this picture was wrong. Bruno did not appear desperate, though his circumstances certainly appeared dire. “What are you hiding up your sleeve?” she asked instead, tensing for an attack.
Bruno gave her a twisted grin. “An interesting expression. To answer your question, nothing.” He shook his left arm, pulled back his trench coat sleeve, and showed her the bloodied stump of his wrist, covered with a piece of cloth and tied off with a thick leather belt. He then dropped his arm. He did not appear concerned about his injury.
“You gonna finish this gorilla off by yourself?” asked Rhonda. “Or can I help?”
He’s planning something, Scarlett thought. He’s too cocky. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Stay back until I can—”
“You forgot,” interrupted Bruno, tapping ash from his cigar with his right hand, “that I said I had dabbled in sorcery.” He put the cigar in his mouth and drew in a huge breath.
Danger! screamed Scarlett’s instincts. “Get back!” she yelled to Rhonda. “He’s going to—”
Bruno took the cigar from his mouth and blew out a brilliant fountain of yellow fire as if he were a human flamethrower. Scarlett, already in the act of backing up, saw the tongue of dragon flame roaring at her and threw herself on her back, arms crossed in front of her face. She hit the rocky ground hard enough to knock out her wind. Searing heat scorched her exposed skin and roasted her still-damp clothing. Acting on instinct, she slapped at her clothes and rolled on the ground, half aware of Rhonda’s screams nearby.
When the flame-fountain subsided, she quickly got to her knees. Small fires burned here and there in the tunnel around her. A breeze blew the smoke upward to the ceiling and out a ventilation grill, but the air was still hazy. Rhonda was on her hands and knees on the other side of the tracks, wheezing and coughing as her clothes smoldered. The flame-fountain had missed her, being aimed at Scarlett instead.
Then Scarlett discovered that Excalibur was not in her grasp. It was not anywhere within reach.
It was about ten feet away, pinned to the ground beneath Bruno’s right boot.
“My supernatural powers are strongest on this world,” said the bestial giant. “I heal at a tremendous rate as well. My hand will be entirely regrown in a day’s time; the pain has already ceased. And I lied when I said I was trapped. I have the power here to summon a gateway of my own, only briefly but sufficient for any purposes of escape. I will use it shortly to take you to my master, Fenrir, receive my reward, and continue in my master’s service. Your friend’s flesh will feed the survivors of my werewolf legions, as did the flesh of the scientists and wizards who created them. Our adventure together is done.”
Rhonda snarled, then leaped to her feet and charged, her cleaver swinging back for a lethal blow. Bruno leaned back as she reached him, slapped the blade out of Rhonda’s hand, then backhanded his attacker a split second later and sent her flying back across the railroad tracks. She rolled on the ground, then lay unconscious in a tumbled heap.
Bruno smirked at Rhonda’s body, then looked down again at Scarlett. His red eyes glowed. “If you are searching for last words, I can recommend those of your father, spoken to me at his death. ‘If there is justice, let it swallow you, and if there is goodness, let it wash your stain from mortal view, for all eternity.’ Always good with a phrase, your father. Now it’s your turn. Last words, my dear?”
Scarlett looked daggers at the giant but bit back the curse on the tip of her tongue. Her face relaxed, and she stood up. She had one last idea. What was it Bruno had said? You are the daughter of a great power. You have within you the magical potential of your mother, mixed with the human courage and stamina of your father. You are a tremendous danger to the future plans of my master, Lord of Wolves. She closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled. She visualized summoning all the psychic power she had, whatever it was and whatever it could do, and prepared for what was likely to be her final act.
Bruno raised his chin and waited.
Scarlett opened her eyes and calmly said, “I call upon the Fates you cheated to take their vengeance against you, at this moment of your triumph.” Then she waited, too.
Bruno’s face cleared with surprise. He looked around expectantly, mildly concerned—then smiled again. “It would appear,” he said to Scarlett, “that your wish has fallen on deaf ears, or else the Fates have better things to do. Maybe I will cheat them again in the future, since they don’t mind my abuse. Now, however, we must be off. To be on the safe side, you don’t mind if I put a gag in your mouth before we leave, do you?”
Scarlett merely glared at him.
“Excellent,” said Bruno, and he reached for her with his good right hand.
A halo of white flame flashed around Bruno’s form, turning him into a black silhouette for an instant. In the next instant, Bruno was encased in a fine silvery mesh, a second flash illuminated his burly shape from behind, and he trembled and shook from head to toe, fanged mouth open in a mute roar. Purplish sparks leaped and snapped from every part of him, curling in the air like mad snakes.
The electrical display ceased. The air smelled of ozone. Bruno rocked on his massive feet, then toppled forward and slammed into the stone ground face-first.
Hovering in the air behind where he had been standing was a circular hole in space, about six feet across. Stepping through the hole was a man wearing a dark gray business suit and Ray-Ban sunglasses, carrying a large black weapon that looked like it belonged on the set of a bad science-fiction movie. Smoke drifted from its muzzle. Behind him came a woman wearing a gray skirt-suit and Ray-Bans while holding a similar device that also smoked. Both wore earphones wired into their suit jackets.
“Excuse me,” said the man in a brusque tone. He knelt and felt the side of Bruno’s misshapen head. “Clear!” he called back through the hole in space. He pulled a black rectangular box from inside his suit jacket and stuck it to the silver webbing on Bruno’s back, then stood. The woman in the gray skirt-suit helped a dazed Rhonda to her feet, offering a handkerchief for her bloody nose.
The air around Bruno then sparkled—and the unconscious giant disappeared into thin air.
“Wha . . . what’s happening?” asked Scarlett, scarcely believing what she saw. “Who are you?”
“No names,” said the man.
“No credentials,” said the woman.
“We’re with a certain government agency that watches out for certain . . . different ones,” said the man. “Keeping track of them, let’s say.”
“Are you with the ‘Men in Black,’ like in the movie?” asked Scarlett.
“If I told you,” said the man, “I’d have ask my partner to kill you.”
“Hate that movie,” grumbled the woman. “Got the aliens all wrong. Damn Hollywood.”
“So, you are the Men in Black.” Scarlett then frowned. “But you’re wearing gray.”
“We’re undercover,” the woman explained.
“And gray is the new black, anyway,” said the man. “It said so in last month’s GQ.”
“Okay, sure, whatever. What’d you do with Bruno?”
“Short-range teleporter. He’s aboard our black helicopter on the other side of this dimensional rift, heading for a long vacation in a federal correctional facility—after he’s had a fair trial, of course.”
Thinking she must be dreaming, Scarlett started to smile. “But why are you using a black helicopter if gray is the new black? Shouldn’t you have a gray helicopter?”
The man and woman looked deeply annoyed. “Damn kids,” said the woman. She then put an arm around a woozy Rhonda and escorted her through the circular gateway, holding her black sci-fi weapon in her free hand.
The man reached down and picked up Excalibur by its golden hilt, handing it back to Scarlett with care. “If you’ll follow me,” he said, and he turned and stepped through the gateway.
Scarlett took a last look around, then did the same—and found herself back in the wood-paneled dining room of the Good Time Chinese restaurant. She looked back at the gate hovering in the air, which disappeared when the man pulled what looked like a TV remote from his pocket and aimed it at the gate. He pushed a button, and the gate was gone. Scarlett looked down at Excalibur, which had suddenly turned back into a kitchen knife. This she managed to stick into the waistband of her skirt, hidden under her sweater. There was nowhere else to put it.
..
“You will of course have the good taste not to mention to anyone that you saw any of this,” said the man. “The government would appreciate that.”
“Which government is that?” asked Scarlett.
The agents merely sighed.
“I know, I know, you can’t tell me. But how did you find me? How did you know where I was?”
“Show me the contents of your right pocket,” said the man.
Scarlett did so and came up with a handful of half-melted, water-faded chocolate M&Ms. Only one of the M&Ms was bright and undamaged—a blue one. The male agent picked that one from Scarlett’s hand.
“Cross-universal beacon,” said the agent, examining the M&M. “It contains trace amounts of plutonium-186, its radiation detectable using—”
“Shh,” said the female agent.
“Right,” said the man, pocketing the fake M&M. “Sorry.”
“Those are the M&Ms that Kristen gave me earlier this evening,” said Scarlett. “I’m glad I didn’t eat it.” Then it hit her. “She works for you,” she said, staring wide-eyed at the two agents. “Kristen’s one of you, the Men in Black. She wears nothing but black all day because she’s a Goth, so no one would ever guess that she’s . . . oh, Goddess.”
The agents smiled and looked proud. “She’s a great kid,” said the woman, beaming.
“Gotta love her,” said the man.
“And she’s your kid,” said Scarlett, guessing but knowing she was right. “You’re her parents!”
The agents looked shocked even with their Ray-Bans on. “Need to call home!” they said in unison, and they immediately left the restaurant. Scarlett shook her head, then dropped the spoiled candy on the carpet and looked around. “Tan!” she cried.
“Hey,” said a dispirited Tananda, still wearing her ripped-up field hockey uniform. She stood next to a dining table, holding Tyrfing with its tip touching the carpet. Bandages covered her injured shoulder under her tee.
“Good to see you,” said Scarlett in relief, walking over. “How did everything—?”
“Sucked,” grumbled Tan. “I chased off all the clones so they couldn’t load the books into the time machine or whatever it was, then just as I was going to turn that damn wolf into thin-sliced pastrami, the black helicopter people came and caught her, then they took away everything that looked suspicious and told me not to talk to anyone about it or else they’d post Internet pictures of me in sixth grade wearing my braces. Rat bastards. I didn’t get to kill anything except time. Maybe I should go look for Brian Taylor.” She suddenly lifted the sword and slashed down at the nearest tabletop, slicing it completely in half. The two pieces of the table fell to the floor with a loud clatter. The orange glow of Tyrfing then faded, and the sword turned back into an ornate dagger. “There,” said Tananda, sticking the dagger in her belt. “Now I’ve killed something. Lousy fly.”
“Tan!” cried a familiar voice. “Scarlett!” Max Lane hurried up and threw his arms around them both. “You’re safe! Thank heavens! I didn’t know if we would get to you in time!”
“We?” said Scarlett. “You were working with the Men in Black?”
“Yes, but no, I didn’t mean them.” Max released the girls and waved someone over. Scarlett and Tananda turned and spotted a long-haired brunette walking over in a black cocktail dress. She was attractive, cheerful, and had an easy air of confidence about her. It was also unavoidably obvious that she had the cleavage of a porn star, a 48DD if one there ever was. She was on the verge of falling out of the top of her gown.
“This is my new psychic associate,” said Max grandly, putting a friendly arm around the smiling woman’s waist. “Girls, meet Miss Noe Vember, a paranormal par excellence!”
Tananda gave the busty Noe Vember a narrow-eyed look from head to toe. “Is that—” she began.
“—my real name?” finished the brunette. “Yeah! And I was last year’s Miss November of Pander magazine, too! What a coincidence!”
“Where did—” said Scarlett.
“—we meet? Oh, that was such a coincidence, too! Maxie was leaving the Dutchman Inn this last Saturday as I was going in, and we passed each other in the lobby and we had exactly the same type of luggage, down to the same color and tags, and when he said I looked like I was a natural to be in a centerfold, I knew right then he was psychic, just like me!”
“What were—” started Tananda.
“—we doing to help the Men in Black?” Noe giggled. “Oh, Maxie here told me about that big bad guy that was chasing him, and I said, ‘I bet he’s an invader from an alternate historical dimension or something, you know?’ It was just a lucky guess, but then Maxie said a couple hours ago that he had a premonition about you girls and we should call for reinforcements, I said, ‘I bet the government’s already looking into this guy, so let’s tell them to come get him!’ That was just another lucky guess, but when we did call, not five minutes later this huge black helicopter—”
“Right,” Tan groaned. “Forget it.”
“Miss Vember and I are forming our own detective agency,” said Max. “We’re going to call ourselves the Night Owls!”
“Figures, with those hooters,” muttered Tananda.
Everyone pretended not to have heard that. “We’d better get going,” said Max. “Looks like everything’s finally under control here. Give Roger my best. I’ll see him later.”
“Roger!” exclaimed Scarlett, horrified that she had forgotten all about him. “Where is he?”
“Over there by the animal cage, talking to Adele,” said Max. “Tell him thanks for telling us where he hid the evidence that will put Bruno behind bars forever. The Men in Black will get it out of Rita Barksdale’s basement when she’s not home. Take care, Greenie! Love ya!” He waved as he escorted the giggly Noe outside the restaurant to a waiting taxi.
Tan waved back, then shrugged and looked for Scarlett, only to see that her friend had run off to find her talking mouse. She sighed and decided instead to find the other Leopards and see how they were doing. Her fingers played with the hilt of her new dagger. She smiled. Scarlett and Uncle Max were safe, the world was saved, she had a magic sword, and Scarlett Pendragon had promised her an army of her own. Plus, there was the rematch with the Oakwood Knotholes that coming Saturday. Life was good.
Scarlett, meanwhile, spotted a small white shape on the ground near the aforementioned cage, near the doors to the restaurant. Roger was making faces at a snarling wolf inside the heavy-duty container, sticking out his pink tongue and wiggling his ears. He shrieked when Scarlett snatched him up to her face, but recovered quickly. “Scarlett!” he shouted, trying to hug her cheek. “Thank heaven you’re alive! Your aunt’s at Cedars of Lawndale hospital, but she’s going to be okay! Max and his psychic sex toy said so!”
“That’s good.” Scarlett put Roger on her shoulder beneath her red hair. “Let’s go see her. You can hear about what happened at the same time she does. I don’t think I could stand to repeat the story.”
“I was so worried about you!” Roger sniffled, clutching her ruined sweater. He then began to cry in a long series of tiny squeaks and whines. Scarlett reached up and gently stroked his back—then looked down and noticed the wolf in the cage was watching her through the heavy wire mesh with hate-filled eyes.
“I’ll remember this,” said Adele through curled lips and sharp teeth. “Trust me, Scarlett, I will always remember this.”
Scarlett stared back, then nodded. “I will remember this, too,” she said, “but no hard feelings. In fact . . .” Scarlett walked away, picked something off the floor nearby, and walked back to the cage. “Here,” she said. “A little treat for the road.”
The ruined M&Ms dropped one by one through the metal bars of the wolf’s cage, plopping down in front of Adele. Adele looked down and sniffed at them. “Hey,” she said. “Chocolate! I could use some right now. Thanks!” The wolf licked the mess up in a second, then licked her lips and looked up at Scarlett with a hopeful expression. “Got any more?”
“No,” said Scarlett. “I think that will do just fine.”
The two agents retrieved the cage at that point and picked it up. “Can we drop you anywhere?” one asked.
“Cedars of Lawndale, and hurry,” said Scarlett. “My Aunt Elaine’s there.”
“Our helicopter’s in an unused parking lot across the street,” said the agent. “Let’s go!”
Meanwhile, stuck for safekeeping inside the dumpster behind the Good Time Chinese restaurant, a laptop popped open. “Elaine!” cried a voice from inside the computer. “Bloody hell, Elaine, you promised you’d come back for me!”
Last updated 1/28/07