“Let an expert do it,” I told him with a grin. He dropped it into my hands and I sat on the low stone pillar, turning the box so its eyes would face me when they opened. Thad pointed the light straight down as I moved my fingers along the sides of the box, clicking down the levers just as I’d done before.
I’d moved two of them, when suddenly there was a noise.
All three of our heads shot up to look toward the source. It’d been so soft that if they hadn’t reacted at the same time, I’d have thought it only my imagination. I’d heard a tiny, hollow clang, like a pencil being dropped into a pot or a penny hit with a hammer. But in the silence that was the crypt, even that sound felt decibels louder.
“What time does the place open?” I whispered to Thad. He’d darted the beam of his flashlight down instinctively, covering it with his palm. I felt Callista’s fingers tighten on my shoulder.
“Not until ten,” Thad replied. “I checked. They do lunch and dinner.”
We sat in a hush, no one moving, all of us hardly daring to breath. The only light in the room now came from Thad’s red, glowing hand that hid the flashlight. We listened. My fingers still hovered over the third lever.
Nothing.
“The wall,” I thought aloud. “One of the chips fell off onto the stairs.”
They let out the breaths they’d been holding. Thad uncovered the light again, Callista shaking her head and grinning at how ridiculously skittish we were. They leaned over me as I worked the lid like a master, finding and clicking the third lever.
As I did, the tiny gears started to whirr, the two pieces over the eyes parting. Callista stood beside me enraptured, her hand on my shoulder to support herself as she leaned over for a better look.
The gears continued to turn on their own unhurried course, winding until the metal eyelids stopped. Eerily, there were now four pairs of eyes in the room. The ones set into the box hovered in the same clear liquid as I’d seen before. Except these eyes were bright and brown, almost the color of white oak wood. Their pupils were wide as if already detecting that it was dark in the room, or maybe because somehow after all these years they were recognizing me.
A scrape.
I jumped, all three of our heads going up again. Had that been another sound?
Thad extinguished his light yet again. What was making that noise? It was like we were in a cave, all senses heightened by the silence. If a mouse had ventured down that far and bit into a kernel of corn, the noise might have made us jump.
“I heard it,” Callista confirmed shakily.
“Was it another rock?” Thad whispered. I clutched the box close in my arms. Was that faraway sound the creak of a shoe or just my imagination playing with the emptiness?
“Silent alarm?” I said. I wanted to see if Thad was shaking his head but I couldn’t see him at all. We sat like statues, waiting, letting it sink in just how cornered we were if…
Psss.
It came from the doorway: a tiny hiss like a snake.
Then a flash of light burst so powerfully that all of us lifted our arms to cover our faces. The room that had been black was immediately white for half of a second, like a camera bulb going off across the room.
It disappeared as quickly as it had exploded.
A fizzle of smoke.
Another pop.
Another flash.
This time, I saw everything. In the doorway were the figures of three people, two of them wearing police armor with long lenses on their goggles—night vision. The man in the center was Wyck. In his hand was a long tube that continued to explode with light like a rock concert, popping like guns and spraying smoke all over the room. He threw it at us, and like a stop-motion movie, I saw the flare cutting through the distance.
They’d found us!
The flare went on and I found myself running, seeing Thad and Callista dive across the room to escape the two men that came after them. Then the room went black and I shouted for them, voice echoing as I struggled to find where the door was, where it was safe to stand, where the arms that clamped over me were coming from.
The room went white again.
Black again.
I kicked and yelled and fought, getting free only to be thrown into the wall with a heavy body leaning against me. The case fell from my hands as the light flashed again.
No, no, no. Not now! How did they find us?
The room went black. I heard Wyck shout an order, a scrape as the Blade’s case was picked up off the ground.
White. Callista screamed for Thad and I screamed for Callista, a flying punch from Thad knocking one of the men to the floor as others stormed in, ordering us to the ground. The sounds of their megaphones burned my ears in the cramped space.
Black. My fist threw the heavy man off me and I heard his back hit the opposite wall.
White. The lights shone off claws that now filled the room. Wyck still had his hidden but now he was holding the Blade case in his arms, grinning in his wildly terrifying way as he stared across the room from me. The officers slammed in to Callista and Thad, who were trying to get around the masked night-vision men who’d cornered them. Get out. Run, both of you!
Black. There were shouts and grunts of pain. My claws sliced ahead by instinct and I heard them slash across something sickeningly, the front of my clothes sprayed with a warm liquid.
White. I saw the door. Wyck had his back to me, already leaving. Callista and Thad beat the men away.
Black. I made a run for it.
The rapidly pulsating light and the smoke clouded my vision. The noise deafened me. But I was able to run, to chase after Wyck. I heard the guards shouting after me, reaching to grab me by the leg, so I pushed them aside as I stumbled into the hall.
“Go!” I heard Thad shout, pushing me ahead. I needed the Blade! Where was Wyck?
Thad pushed me harder so I obeyed, with he and Callista right behind me. I heard one of the officers shouting for others in the hall to grab us but I leapt over their heads, throwing myself into the air and crashing against the glass of the bookshelves. I heard things clattering, my feet catching faces as I went over them, then I was on the stairs and running, running, running.
“Hurry!” I shouted to Callista and Thad, not able to waste a second to look back. I heard the men behind us, the same who’d been so stealthy now caring nothing for how much noise their boots made on each step. I was going so fast that I knew any second I would trip, my foot would catch the end of one of the stairs and then they’d have me. But somehow I managed to keep going, always staying three steps ahead of our pursuers.
I could see the top! The light of morning had started from outside, a gray glow spreading down through the basement and through our hole, so dim that if I hadn’t been underground I wouldn’t have been able to notice it. The clanging behind me continued, the yelling, the pops and flashes…
Like a bird running from his cage, I dove through the rocky opening in the wall, rolling across the stones and scraping my arms and cheek. I couldn’t stop, scrambling up the steps, around the counter and back into the kitchen now lit by the morning. The door was still open…
I skidded through and suddenly I was in the air. The slam of clear, smokeless sky was the greatest relief, clearing my senses, giving me the strength to fly even faster. The ground was already disappearing and the dark clouds were within reach.