The two monsters weren’t alone.
Hundreds of them pour through, their movements stilted and halting, as if each step brings a bolt of agony. An army of ancient darkness, of diseased bodies that should have died centuries ago.
And on some of their arms—silver bracelets with a long point that ends at their wrist.
I stop. Bishop stops next to me, Matilda still in his arms.
“It’s about damn time,” she says, her voice full of appreciation and—possibly—hope that she might live through this after all. “Captain Xander finally broke out the guns.”
Bishop’s roar makes my best sound like a whisper.
“El-Saffani, stop!”
His voice echoes off the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Again, the twins don’t hear. They charge, bellowing, brandishing their clubs.
The pieces click together with a nearly audible snap. We beat the Grownups in the Garden because they didn’t bring the weapons, because they wanted to take us alive. But now we’ve got the shuttle, their only way to reach Omeyocan. How could I have been so stupid? They would rather kill most of us than let us strand them here forever.
The monsters raise their arms. Bracelets glow with a white heat.
The twins almost make it.
A crackling sound I’ve never heard before, like a living animal boiled in oil, then narrow cones of shimmering energy blaze from the bracelet tips. A white flash silhouettes El-Saffani: their backs are black shadows against a blinding light. I see this for a split second, then I can see through their backs.
The El-Saffani battle cry ends forever—a hundred bloody pieces scatter across the floor, rolling and flopping to a wet stop at the monsters’ feet.
A howl rips from my lungs, launched so hard and so instantly that my throat shreds and burns.
Those butchers murdered my friends.
Tears well up. Despair crushes me, compresses me, but I clench my teeth and force it away. There is no time.
I grab Matilda’s wrist, yank her out of Bishop’s arms. The ancient creature falls hard to the floor.
“Everyone, back inside!” I sprint up the ramp. The circle-stars are so fast they pass me by. O’Malley and I rush in. As soon as I’m through the door, I scream to my right. “Gaston! Get us out of here!”
Coyotl and Farrar run to the coffin room. Bishop and O’Malley stay with me in the corridor.
The floor vibrates: shuttle doors closing. Through them, at the base of the ramp, I see Matilda Savage. She’s lying on one hip, looking at me with her single swirling red eye.
My creator’s stumbling, shambling people close in. They point their arms at me, the white glow of their bracelets building to a blinding shimmer.
The shuttle doors hiss shut. One second I am at the edge of death, the next there are red metal walls a hand’s width from my face. I hear something hit the shuttle with a sizzling sound, but nothing comes through.
Gaston’s voice booms from everywhere and nowhere at once, comes from the shuttle itself.
“Get in those coffins! Get in and lie still!”
I’m being pulled—Bishop drags me toward the big room.
I won’t go into the darkness again, I can’t.
My hand is a fist: my punch drives square into Bishop’s eye. I think of Latu in the fraction of a second before Bishop grabs my forearms so hard I feel bones bend.
Gaston’s voice, roaring: “Hang on, we’re going home! Get in the coffins or you’ll die!”
I try to yank my hands free, but Bishop’s grip might as well be the metal bars that once held me in my coffin.
“Bishop let me go I can’t go in there I can’t!”
I am lifted, thrown over his wide shoulder. He carries me into the coffin room.
I punch at him, try to kick him. I rake his back with my fingernails.
“Don’t you dare, Bishop! Don’t you leave me in the dark!”
I rake him again, feel his blood on my fingers. I’m in the aisle now, coffins on my left and my right. People who aren’t already in coffins are scrambling to find empty ones.
Hands grab my wrists—it’s O’Malley.
“Em, stop it! It will be all right!”
I lift my head, see deep-blue eyes drowning in helpless fear. I feel my face twist into a wicked snarl. I hurl my hate at him.
“O’Malley, kill Bishop! He’s trying to trap me in the dark and I’ll die I can’t go back there!”
I fight and kick and twist, but the two boys are far stronger than me. Why don’t they understand? Things bite in the darkness; the shadows want to hold me down and suffocate me. I’ll be trapped again, trapped forever.
This is a trick of Brewer’s. He’s working with Matilda to capture us all, to capture me and erase my mind. They will overwrite me, but that’s not enough for them: they are going to put me in the dark first, to punish me, and—
The world spins. It takes me a second to realize what’s happening, to understand what the padding under my back means.