The Paragon Prison, page 18
“Ms. Merical? But she’s no match for Blackstone!” exclaimed Natalia. The Baron seemed surprised. His eyes moved to Iver, then back again. Natalia knew they had a secret, but the Baron didn’t seem interested in sharing. “We should go with her at least. She’ll need our help.”
Iver shook his head. “The rescue is already under way, Ms. Romanov. Let Elaine Merical do her work. She will bring them home. We have to trust her.”
“Leaving so soon?” Father Blackstone said with a sneer. His eyes shone like spears. His remaining Slayer was at his side.
“What do you want?” said Raven as several steam-bots loped past her, oblivious to the showdown.
“Good behavior, for one,” Blackstone replied. “However, killing someone’s pet was not a very promising start.”
“Couldn’t get any dogs to like you?” said Harley.
Blackstone smiled condescendingly. “Absolutely charming. It’s no wonder your father left you back in your own world.” Harley’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I know all about you dysfunctional little twerps and your pathetic secret. You see, I’ve met the other Griffins. You are sad substitutes. Conniving. Weak.”
“I didn’t know we had so much in common with you,” Harley snapped.
“Enough!” Blackstone hissed, clenching his fist and hitting a steam-bot so hard that the little clockwork’s head sailed across the room. “I only need you as a hostage. I don’t need your girlfriend. Maybe feeding her to my pet would teach you some respect.” The Slayer growled menacingly at Raven, its forked tongue lolling from its jaws.
“If you even touch her…” Harley warned.
“And what do you intend to do about it, boy?” replied Blackstone as he threw his gloves to the ground. Back in Harley’s world, Blackstone had been an assassin for the Black Wolf Society with a special interest in killing kids. This version seemed a chip off the same block.
Harley stumbled backward as he watched Blackstone’s shoulders suddenly broaden, claws shoot from his fingertips, and black, heartless eyes glare back at him from behind black fur. Blackstone had transformed into a werewolf, nearly seven feet tall. His fangs glinted eerily in the dim light of the steam engines.
“Wow, that’s quite an overbite you’ve got there.” Raven clenched her fists, ready for anything. “Did you ever think about braces?”
“All the better to eat you with, my dear,” snarled Blackstone. He dropped the Slayer’s leash. “Sic her!”
Harley threw himself in the monster’s path. He might as well have tackled a train. “Raven! Run!”
But Raven didn’t run, even as the beast plowed through a squad of steam-bots, knocking them over like bowling pins. The Slayer roared as it leaped into the air. Steely-eyed, the changeling girl brought out a steam hose she’d been hiding behind her back. She jammed it into the monster’s jaws as it reached her, then threw herself clear.
The Slayer halted, confused. Then it began to feel the pain. All at once, it began thrashing violently, frantically tearing at the hose of death while superheated steam poured from its mouth and nose slits. The monster wailed and kicked. The lenses of its clockwork eyes fogged, then cracked, then finally exploded. Within seconds, the monster had collapsed, its insides completely evaporated. All that was left was a sack of skin and a ribbon of mist coming up from its jaws.
No one said a word as the opponents eyed each other across the foggy battlefield. As for the steam-bots, without eyes to see or ears to hear what had happened, they continued to pursue their primary programming to keep the steam engines running.
Together, Harley and Raven faced down the werewolf. “You seem to have bad luck with pets,” Harley said, wiping away a trickle of blood from his mouth. Tackling the Slayer had been a bad idea.
Blackstone snarled, licking his teeth. “There is one more monster left in this room. And you seem to be all out of fancy rings and steam hoses.”
Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door and in stepped Ms. Merical. She looked around the room, quickly taking in the dead Slayer and Blackstone’s transformation. She took off her white silk gloves and walked up to the scene with brisk steps. “Ah, Diamonte Blackstone.” She smiled kindly. “So this is where you’ve been spending your time. I can’t say I fully grasp your taste in decor, but I am very thankful to see you’ve taken such care of my students.” As she spoke, her eyes lit with that same glittering glow that Harley had seen in the police station when they’d first arrived in this world.
Though the werewolf towered over her, Blackstone didn’t lift a finger. “I should have known they’d send you, Elaine.” His voice was a low growl as his eyes studied her.
“Even the Baron needs to have luck on his side from time to time,” she replied as she checked Raven for bruises. “And luck is my specialty, as you know. Without it, how could I possibly have found your quaint little home?” She cast a disapproving glance at the surroundings. “But you might have picked a more hospitable residence. With all this steam down here, you could catch your death of pneumonia.”
Harley watched his teacher in wonder. Ms. Merical’s power was luck? He wasn’t even sure what that meant. But evidently Blackstone sure did.
The werewolf eyed the fog suspiciously. “I’ve survived you before. I can do it again.”
“I am afraid your luck has just run out, Diamonte,” she said. Her smile faded to stern resolution.
Blackstone squirmed. “So what will it be? A heart attack? I slip and break my neck? I choke on a dinner roll? What lucky little event do you have planned for me?” His teeth were bared as Ms. Merical regarded him with pity. He shook with indecision. Should he wait and let the unlucky event happen, or should he act now before the bad luck caught up with him? Of course, waiting wasn’t his thing. With a roar, Blackstone lunged at Harley. “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.”
Harley dove behind a small, wobbly steam-bot. It wasn’t much of a shield, but Blackstone hadn’t expected it. Stumbling over the fragile clockwork, Blackstone crashed to the ground in a clatter of metal. Embarrassed, he slowly rose to his feet. He sneered at Ms. Merical. “Really, Elaine? Tripping me? That’s all you’ve got?” Then he paused and looked down. His chest was bleeding. The clockwork’s spindly arm was embedded in him. As he plucked it out, his eyes caught the familiar glint of silver. In fact, the entire clockwork had been plated with silver to keep its innards rust-free from all the steam. But the plating had been so tarnished by the decades of work underground that Blackstone had never noticed that he’d been living side by side with Kryptonite: silver was fatal to werewolves.
He looked up at Ms. Merical. “So this is how you planned it all along….” His voice was dry. He fell to his knees.
Ms. Merical shook her head sadly. “Luck isn’t planned, Diamonte. It just happens.” As she finished, Blackstone watched in horror as the wound in his chest began to shine a brilliant blue and his flesh and clothes around it to blacken and bake like charcoal.
As the burns spread down his legs and arms, he cried out, “You can’t let this happen to me, Elaine. Please, I’ll do anything you ask. Just don’t… just please don’t… don’t let it end like this!” The smoldering fire beneath his skin had by now swept over his shoulders, up his neck, and consumed all that was left, leaving his face frozen in a silent scream. Only his eyes remained alive, and only long enough to see his body burst apart in a flash of blue fire. When the cloud of ash cleared, Blackstone was no more.
Harley stood up and found Ms. Merical standing next to them. She meticulously cleaned an ashy smudge from her cheek with a powder puff and compact mirror. After a moment, she looked back down at Harley and Raven, her face perfect. “Well, I believe it’s nine o’clock. As you know, that’s past my bedtime. Let’s not have any pumpkins.” A portal opened up behind her. Without answering Harley’s look of astonishment, she promptly herded both children through.
INVADERS
“And so that’s the end of Blackstone?” Natalia asked an hour later. She sat at the kitchen table with Ernie, Max, Harley, and Raven as they munched on leftovers. Mostly turkey and potatoes. Natalia quietly noted Raven sitting closer than usual to Harley.
“Ms. Merical’s a superhero,” Ernie said, astonished by the revelation. “The power of luck? I mean, that’s got to be right up there with, I don’t know, Superman or something. How can you fight luck?” He was almost as relieved to have Blackstone out of the picture as he was to see Harley back safe. “Do you think she’s a changeling? I totally bet she is.”
“She ain’t a changeling,” said Logan as the Scotsman entered the kitchen. He was washed, shaven, and dressed in his Templar leather jacket. “She’s not human, either. As for who she is, those in power call her Lady Luck. Things always go her way. Let’s just be glad she’s on our side.” He paused. “At any rate, we’ve got a job ahead of us. Raven, I think it’s time you showed Natalia what you nicked from Blackstone’s lair.”
As Raven pulled out the folded paper, Max regarded the Goth girl, who didn’t look quite so Goth with her hair smelling like Brooke’s lilac shampoo and her eyes scrubbed free of black eyeliner. And unlike her caustic double in Max’s world, this Raven was kind of nice to hang out with, if you didn’t mind the occasional kick in the head.
Natalia scanned the paper closely, then nodded. “Well, I think that explains just about everything.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ernie.
“This is all about Smoke, that’s what. Everything! Don’t you see? He hates this place, and everyone here. He wants his own Earth where he can be a big shot.” She set Raven’s paper on the table. “See that? It says Earth Gamma. See the Latin next to it: Veneficus Absentis. It means there’s no magic on Earth Gamma. Smoke could set himself up as king. That what he’s been up to all along. He just needed to keep anyone from getting in his way. He kept Von Strife away by poisoning his sister. He keeps us busy by hiring Blackstone. Meanwhile, he’s taught himself to use the Paragon Engine somehow…. I guess I have to give him credit for that one.”
“But why would the picture be in Blackstone’s place if Smoke was the one going to Earth Gamma?” asked Ernie.
“Maybe he promised to take Blackstone with him. A werewolf would do pretty well in a place like Earth Gamma.”
“I don’t think Blackstone will be going anywhere anytime soon,” Harley said with a laugh.
Logan gripped Harley’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Good to see you again, kid. Heard you gave one of those Slayers a case of indigestion. And Raven here steam-cleaned another. Nice work.”
Harley grinned. “Lost a good ring, though.”
“I’ll get you another. Now, grab a drumstick and go see Monti. There’s a chance we could save the other Griffins, and it may be up to you to make it happen.”
“What?” Harley nearly choked. “I only just started learning about Paragon Engines.”
“Get!” Logan ordered. Harley excused himself and disappeared down the hall. “Now,” continued Logan as he turned back to Raven, “you sure you’re up to joining us? We’re asking a lot from you, and you’ve already been through a battle of your own.”
Raven nodded coolly. “You need someone with brains on the team.”
Logan nodded. “All right. Things are moving fast. Go time is oh four hundred. That means you lot have a few hours of sleep you’ll be wanting. When the alarm sounds, you better be on your feet.”
Harley found Monti laboring over a DE Tablet, feverishly coding something in with an occasional cross-check from his notebook. He started at Harley’s knock, then rolled his chair back and smiled weakly at him. “So I hear you took out a Slayer with your bare hands.”
Harley shrugged as he looked at Monti’s screen. “Wow, you’re doing some heavy-duty work here. What is it?”
“Oh this?” Monti perked up. “It’s called the Gearz worm. A little something I’ve been working on to remotely shut down Von Strife’s army of clockworks. It should work. I think. In theory, anyway.” He paused, then looked up at Harley. “Sorry I was such a jerk at first. I just, well, I didn’t know you, even though you knew me. With all this coming to an end, I’m sitting here regretting that I didn’t talk to you more. Spend more time, learning about whatever it is that you like to do. What you’ve done. I procrastinated, I guess. I always do that. Then it’s too late to change things.”
Harley smiled. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Parallel worlds are crazy things.”
“Yes, they are,” said Monti with a sigh. “I’m not really good at talking, you know. I don’t get many visitors at the lab. But, well, anyway, Natalia said you never knew your real dad. Had to be weird to see him in this world.”
Harley sat down next to Monti and picked up an interesting-looking gadget. He examined it absently. “I’ve fought monsters. Zombies. Werewolves. Even met a vampire once—pretty cool guy, by the way. But being alone with Henry was the most scared I’ve ever been.”
“I know what you mean. I was raised in an orphanage until I was twelve. Then out of nowhere, my mom reappears. She yanks me out of the only place I’ve ever known and moves me into her apartment on Cheap Side. I was so freaked out I didn’t leave my room for a week. She used to shove tiny sandwiches under the door.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “You ever think about looking up your real dad?”
“Henry seems like a pretty cool guy. If my dad is still out there somewhere, I think I’d like to meet him.” Harley paused. “Just don’t tell Natalia.”
Monti laughed. “All right. Fair enough. But for what it’s worth, Natalia is quite the little detective. If anyone could find your father, she could.”
“And she’d never let me forget the favor.” He laughed to himself, then turned his eyes back to the gadget. “Say, what is this thing, anyway?”
“It’s an X500 Take-Down. A little weapon I developed last year for Logan. It’s an air gun powered by MERLIN Tech. It can shoot a small neural inhibitor at high velocity. If it hits a changeling, their powers go out like a light.”
Harley nodded in admiration. “I’ve seen these before, back on my world. Pretty awesome.”
“Take it,” offered Monti. “You might need it where you’re going.”
Harley grinned as he attached the X500 to his belt. “I’ll give it back to you when…” He paused. He didn’t even know if he would be coming back.
“Don’t worry,” said Monti, catching the worry in Harley’s eyes. “The Baron’s plans never go wrong. Which reminds me. We have some Griffins we need to get out of a bind. You ready to take some notes?”
Harley pulled up his chair. “Lay it on me, maestro.”
“You’re not coming with us?” Max asked Brooke as the two of them lingered by the foot of the stairs. The others had already returned to their rooms. The house was quiet. The lull before the storm.
“I have to stay here. To help Dad.” She paused. “You know, it’s weird to think that you’re about to invade our school.”
“I know.” Max had thought about it a lot. Iron Bridge wasn’t just a school. It was a fortress. If the Omega Option failed, Strike Team Alpha would be in big trouble. “I’m glad I met you,” said Max after a long silence. “It’s weird, but it’s like we’ve always known each other, you know?”
“In a way, I guess we have,” she replied softly. “And we always will. Even if it’s not us, there will always be a Max and a Brooke out there in some parallel universe. And for them, maybe tonight isn’t the end. It might only be the beginning.”
“Sounds like a nice place to live.” Max sighed.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “Come back alive, Max….”
Max awoke a few hours later. He stumbled into the shower, then dragged himself downstairs. The place was a beehive of activity. Max ducked under arms, dodged around elbows, and jumped over furniture to finally reach the kitchen, where his friends were gulping down cold oatmeal. Harley looked up at Max, then turned at the sound of his name.
It was Monti. There were gadgets stuffed into his vest pockets, an old keyboard under his arm, and dark circles under his eyes. “I gotta go, Harley. Please tell me you’ll remember everything I told you about the Paragon Engine. You have to do it just the way I said. Got it?”
“Don’t worry,” said Harley. “And good luck on the Gearz worm. It’s brilliant.”
Monti smiled self-consciously. “Well, I guess we’ll find out.” His wristwatch beeped. “Oops. Sorry. Gotta go. Okay, then… well, it was, ah… good knowing you.” He rushed out through the front door.
“Good knowing us?” Ernie repeated nervously. “I thought this plan was foolproof?”
Raven laughed darkly to herself but said nothing. Next to her stood Natalia, decked out like a super spy. Black leather from head to toe, with plenty of buckles and belts. Aside from Agent Thunderbolt, the other Griffins were similarly dressed. But Natalia accessorized with a climbing harness, night-vision goggles, and earrings that doubled as encrypted wireless communicators.
A light suddenly streamed through the lakeside windows in a blaze of shimmering green. The Griffins watched breathlessly as the water of Lake Avalon exploded upward. The ghostly form of a Templar super-carrier, no longer hidden by cloaking shields, rose into the sky. Nearly a thousand feet long, it was still hard to describe at such a distance; but Max recalled the pictures of the ship at school: satin black hulls of meteoric iron, six massive MERLIN Tech aerial propulsion screws, and a crew of skeletal clockwork sailors. It had enough firepower to blow the moon out of the sky.
Acting as its escort were six grim battleships bristling with steam-driven pulse cannons and grinder missiles. Max watched in awe as Captain Hecht’s fleet prepared their jump drives. Then, with another flash, they were gone and halfway around the world. Von Strife’s fleet, stationed at the Tria facility in Italy, was about to be blasted into oblivion.
Monti’s Gearz worm would come next, knocking out the clockwork army. And then…
