The Last Guardian

“Did you hear that, Berserkers?” Salton asked the half dozen pirates squashed into the stairwell behind him. “Just point and shoot. And don’t worry about hitting the person in front of you, because we are already dead.”

 

 

They stood in the red-bricked corridor, praying for some humans to wander past. After all this time, it would be a shame if they didn’t get to kill anyone.

 

Ten feet below, in the wine cellar, Butler hefted two bottles of Macallan 1926 Fine and Rare whiskey.

 

“Your father will not be pleased,” he said to Artemis. “This is thirty thousand euros per missile.”

 

Artemis wrapped his fingers around the door handle. “I feel certain he will understand, given the circumstances.”

 

Butler chuckled briefly. “Oh, we’re telling your father about the circumstances this time? That will be a first.”

 

“Well, perhaps not all the circumstances,” said Artemis, and he opened the door wide.

 

Butler stepped into the gap and lobbed the bottles at the ceiling over the pirates’ heads. Both smashed, showering the Berserkers with high-alcohol liquid. Holly stepped under Butler’s legs and shot a single flare into their midst. In less than a second the entire bunch of pirates was engulfed in a whoosh of blue and orange flames, which painted the ceiling black. It didn’t seem to bother the pirates too much, except for the one with the peg legs, who was soon left without a leg to stand on. The rest lived on as skeletons, bringing their guns around to bear on the cellar door.

 

“The house will save us?” asked Holly nervously. “That’s what you said.”

 

“Three,” said Artemis. “Two…one.”

 

Right on cue, the manor’s fire-safe system registered the rise in temperature and instructed eight of its two hundred nozzles to submerge the flames in sub-zero extinguisher foam. The pirates were driven to their knees by the force of the spray, and they yanked their triggers blindly, sending ricochets zinging off the walls and down the stairs. The bullets played out their kinetic energy on the steel bannisters and fell to the ground, smoking. In the corridor, the pirates’ bone temperature dropped over a hundred degrees in less than ten seconds, making them as brittle as pressed leaves.

 

“Here we go,” said Butler, and he charged up the stairs, crashing through the disoriented pirates like a vengeful bowling ball. The unfortunate Berserkers shattered under the lightest impact, disintegrating into a million bone crystals, which fluttered in the air like snowflakes. Holly and Artemis followed the bodyguard, racing down the corridor, their feet crunching on bone shards, not stopping to collect weapons—most of which had exploded in the fire, rendering them useless.

 

As usual, Artemis was sandwiched between Butler and Holly as they fled.

 

“Keep moving,” Holly called from behind. “There will be more of them, count on it.”

 

There were more pirates in the panic room, feeling very pleased with themselves.

 

“This is the smartest thing we ever done,” said Pronk O’Chtayle, acting commander. “They comes in here to hide from us, but we is already here.” He gathered his bony crew around him. “Let’s go over it again. What does we do when we hears them?”

 

“We hides,” said the pirates.

 

“And what does we do when they comes in?”

 

“We pops up real sudden,” said the pirates gleefully.

 

Pronk pointed a bony finger. “What does you do, specifically?”

 

A small pirate who seemed to be wearing the remains of a barrel stood by the wall. “I bangs on this here button, dropping the steel door so’s we’re all trapped in here.”

 

“Good,” said Pronk. “Good.”

 

The sound of staccato gunfire bounced off the vaulted ceilings and echoed along the corridor to the panic room.

 

“They’re coming, comrades,” said Pronk. “Remember to kill ’em several times just to be sure. Stop slicing when yer arms fall off.”

 

They squatted in the gloom, light from the outside glinting on their blades.

 

If Bellico had probed a little deeper into Juliet’s memories, she would have realized that the panic room could be accessed or sealed from the outside, remotely, or with a voice-activation program. But even if she had known, it would not have made any sense for the humans to lock themselves out of their own haven. That would be pure insanity. Butler barely paused on his way past the panic-room door to talk into the small speaker set into the steel frame.

 

“Butler D.,” he said clearly. “Authorization prime. Lock.”

 

A heavy door dropped down, sealing the panic room completely and locking the giddy bunch of Berserker pirates inside. Artemis had barely a second to glance under the door.

 

Is that a pirate wearing a barrel? he thought. Nothing would surprise me today.

 

On reaching the laboratory/office work suite, Butler held up his fist. Artemis was not familiar with military hand signals and crashed into the bodyguard’s broad back. Fortunately the teen did not have the heft behind him to budge the bodyguard, for if Butler had taken so much as a stumbled step forward, he would have surely been skewered by one of his sister’s arrows.

 

“I see,” whispered Artemis. “The raised fist means Stop.”