Keepers of the Labyrinth (15 page)

24

L
il ran harder than she had ever run before. Headlong they ascended into a snake-shaped passageway, nothing but breath and footsteps between them. Lil watched doors slip past on either side. She swung her torch to the right and the left, searching for the next labrys, the next clue. Finding nothing.

“Does anyone see the battle-ax?” she whispered as she tried to still the disk that swung at her side.

“I don't see one,” Charlie said from right behind her.

“We're going to have to go somewhere,” Kat said from the back of the line. “I can see their flashlight.”

As if on cue, the flashlight flickered like a stark strobe, casting their shadows in front of them.

“We have to go faster,” Lil said as they rounded another corner.

“We have to hide,” Sydney said.

The flashlight beam turned the corner and licked at their heels.

“Right there!” a voice behind them shouted, and the chamber echoed with a blast. Lil covered her head as rock ricocheted from the wall and sprayed on them like shrapnel. She searched the shadows, hoping beyond hope that there was an archway, a tunnel, maybe an invisible door like in her dorm room—anything that could free them from certain death. She heard a footfall falter. Now was not the time for unsteady steps, she thought as she grasped Sydney's arm.

A door loomed on their right, and Lil could make out a cast-iron handle at the center of it. She jammed to a halt, and the others slid to a stop behind her. Lil tried the latch. The door easily gave way. She held her hand to her lips, gesturing for quiet, and prayed as she pushed the door. It slid open as though the hinges had been recently greased. They ducked inside. She grabbed the bolt and slid it into place. A click echoed through the chamber. Lil took a deep breath and let it out as silently as possible as she squatted down, leaning hard against the door.

Footsteps stomped and voices echoed past.

“Do you see them, Fe?” the man hissed.

“They must be up ahead,” the other voice said.

Lil clutched the end of the torch, her knuckles white as the footsteps faded into the distance. She swallowed, trying to catch her breath, her vision wavering in the torchlight. She told her racing pulse to still, and in doing so felt a second pulse against her skin. She looked down at her arm. How long, she wondered, had Sydney been gripping it? She looked up into Sydney's face and then shifted her position to follow Sydney's gaze into the interior of the chamber.

A shockwave of fear buckled Lil's muscles, sending her knees onto the floor. She stifled a scream. Three doors led out of the chamber. Against the one on their left, three corpses were pinned as if they had met their fate while trying to exit. Three arrows pierced their backs. Lil stared at the one closest to her. A strange-looking necklace had come unclasped and lay on the stone floor. It looked to be a circle with a lightning rod through it. She scanned the rest of them. Three sets of large rubber-soled boots hung from three sets of thin-skinned ankles. Three heads rested together in a dying embrace.

Lil turned back to the door, placing a hand over her mouth, trying to stop herself from retching. She listened as the footsteps faded in the distance.

“Let's get out of here,” Lil said, voice wavering.

Sydney squeezed her forearm. “Don't.” She nodded to a rope that extended from the bar on the door.

Lil's eyes followed it as it ran from the end of the bolt into the wall, where it disappeared behind the stones.

“Up there,” Sydney said, pointing toward the ceiling. Lil raised the torch high, spotting three giant bows with oversized arrows protruding from the shadows. Stone arrowheads, filed to fine points, winked in the candlelight.

“It's a trap,” Kat whispered, exhaling.

“I guess that is why we follow the labrys,” Charlie said.

“We didn't have a choice,” Lil said.

The others nodded silently.

“I think if this goes slack,” Sydney said, noting the rope once more, “those are going to fly.”

Lil gulped and looked over to the bodies on the far wall. They had met the same fate.

“Maybe we could leave the bolt in place but cut off the part that bars the door? Cut the latch?”

“That might work for a minute,” Sydney said, “until we open the door. Then the rope is going to withdraw into the wall anyway. Same result.”

“Plus, what are we going to cut the bolt with?” Charlie asked.

Lil looked from corner to corner.

“Where do you think the other doors lead?” Kat said. “That one”—she pointed toward the one with the corpses pinned to it—“has already been opened.”

The door swung slightly on its hinges, like an open fence gate that had been loosened by the hands of time. Lil shook her head. “I don't want to find out.” The hinges moaned and bent against themselves like they might break away any second. “But maybe—”

“What are you thinking?” Charlie asked.

Lil looked from the broken hinges, to the hanging door and back to the others. “I might have an idea.”

25

L
il ripped a corner of her shirt away and secured the fabric around her face with a knot behind her head.

“I'm going to need some help,” she said as she walked over to the corpses. Kat and Sydney shrank back, but Charlie groaned and went forward. She pulled a clean handkerchief from her pocket, unwrapped it from an extra fountain pen and tied the kerchief around her face.

“What are we doing, Lil?” Charlie's whisper was muffled by the fabric.

Lil knelt down by the first body, choking back the urge to gag as the torchlight illuminated the leathery skin. “We need to move the bodies and remove the door,” she said.

“I wouldn't disrupt a resting place,” Kat said, getting up from her spot.

Lil looked from the bodies to Kat and back again. “I don't think they're at rest,” she said. “I don't think they were ever at rest here.”

Kat's eyes brightened with tears.

“Maybe we could set them peacefully to the side,” Lil said.

“I would highly recommend not touching them at all,” Sydney muttered. She pressed her glasses up her nose and pulled her sleeves down over her palms, kneading them with her fingertips.

“It's our only way out of here,” Lil said, turning her attention back to the corpses.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Charlie said, pulling the sleeves of her sweater over her hands.

“Here,” Kat said, untying her cardi-wrap from her shoulders and holding it out to Lil. “Sydney's right. You can't touch them. You're going to get sick.”

“Thank you,” Lil said, accepting the soft material. Kat took the torch as Lil wrapped her arms, and then she reached over the first body and grasped an arrow. It stuck for a moment and then popped and released, sending the corpse onto the ground. She saw a shoulder bone give way at the joint and turned, hearing the scrape and clack of it hitting the stone. She pressed her eyes closed as someone behind her threw up.

“I don't have the stomach for this,” Sydney groaned.

“Me neither,” Charlie added.

“We have to do this,” Lil said, feeling a sense of revulsion building up inside her. “We'll end up just like them if we don't get out of here. You realize that, right?”

She swallowed and grabbed the second arrow. Charlie took a deep breath, sucking the kerchief in around her cheekbones as she grabbed the last arrow.

“Just close your eyes,” Lil said. She pressed her eyes shut and pulled the arrow from the wood. The corpse dropped onto Lil's foot and she jerked back, smacking her shoulder into the wall.

She set down the arrow and watched as the door creaked and swung on the weak joint. As Lil opened her eyes, she stared into the black interior. The torchlight seemed to die in the face of the darkness. It was unable to go farther. The only thing detectable was the frayed end of a rope, tucked in the corner of the door.

Lil felt a grip on her shoulder and turned. “Let's keep working,” Charlie said.

“All right. Let's get the door off the hinge,” Lil said, trying not to gaze into shadows.

Charlie reached in and grasped the outer edge of the door and yanked on it, testing the remaining hinge.

“It's pretty secure,” Lil said, watching the bolt catch. She handed the cardi-wrap back to Kat and took the torch, lowering it to the hinge and held it there until the wood started to catch on fire. Then she lifted her foot and kicked at the flames several times. Every time she kicked, the fire seemed to wrap farther into the grain, to dig a little deeper. She hit it quickly, just feeling the tiniest bit of warmth beyond the edge of her sneaker. The wood cracked around the bolt. She gave it one final kick, jarring it from its place. Lil grabbed it at the top as it lunged free, balancing it on her shoulder while holding the torch in her opposite hand.

“Let's lift it and throw it into the center,” Lil said hurriedly as the remaining flames climbed toward her fingers. “Put the fire out.”

Lil, Kat and Charlie hoisted the door above the corpses and tossed it into the center of the room. Lil jumped on it, stomping the flames. Fire dissipated to smoke and peeled away from them, twirling toward the darkness and disappearing in the opposite tunnel.

Lil reached down and grasped the edge of the door again.

Sydney came forward, too, and they all pushed their fingers under the wooden edge.

“What's the plan?” Kat said.

“Let's stand it up,” Lil said. They hoisted the door to an upright position.

“I see; we're using it as a shield?” Sydney asked.

Lil nodded. “When they tried to leave”—she looked over her shoulder—“they just darted outside. We need to protect our backs. We'll hold this up like a shield when we open the door.”

“The rope will withdraw,” Sydney said, looking at the door, “and fire the arrows, but we'll be protected.”

“And we'll head back into the hallway. Is everyone clear?” Lil asked.

Charlie, Kat and Sydney nodded.

“On three, lift,” Lil said.

They hoisted the shield up, positioning it so that they were sandwiched between it and the exit.

“Now,” Lil said, grasping the outer edge with one hand to prop it up more securely, “we need to keep it steady while we open the door.” Charlie grasped the outer edge on the opposite side and Sydney and Kat bore the weight in the middle.

Lil held the torch with her free hand, feeling the weight of the door stretching her forearm muscles on the other side. “Sydney, can you grab the latch?”

“Anything to get us out of here,” Sydney said, stepping away from the shield and lifting her hand toward the door.

Lil tightened her grip on the outer edge, praying that this would work. Sydney reached for the latch. “Wait,” Lil said. She turned to Kat and Charlie. “Just make sure that the shield is covering our necks and backs. If it slips, we—we want to make sure we get hit . . .”

“In a nonvital organ?” Sydney finished.

“Right.”

They nodded and Sydney reached for the latch once more.

“Ready?”

Lil took a deep breath. If this worked, they would be back on the path. The path to finding out what happened to her mother. A shiver ran up her back and into her hair. If it didn't work, they would be dead, just like the people already entombed here. She felt the weight of the disk on her neck. Eventually the man and woman would circle back around and retrieve it from her lifeless body.

“We're going to have to go quickly once we're in the hallway,” she heard herself saying. “In case they're out there. In case they smell the smoke.”

“Right,” Kat said.

“This is getting heavy,” Charlie whispered from the opposite side.

“Okay, on three, Sydney.”

Sydney grasped the latch.

“One . . . two . . .”

“Keep it high,” Kat said.

“Three,” Lil whispered.

Sydney pulled the bolt. The rope zipped as it yanked back and spun into the wall. The door swung open.

Lil felt the
thunk, thunk, thun
k
as the arrows sliced through the air, embedding themselves in the wood. The force threw the girls forward, and they collapsed into the hallway. Lil felt a sharp sting in her back.

“Is everyone okay?” Lil whispered, hand tightening around the torch. She reached over her shoulder with the other hand, feeling a small cut where the tip of an arrow had pierced her skin.

“Oui, et t
oi?”
Charlie said.

“Okay,” Lil answered. “Just a scratch. Let's get this off.”

The wood slid against stone as they pushed it off, then Lil grabbed the handle of the door and pressed it closed with a sigh of relief. She turned to the hallway, eyes scanning. It seemed clear in both directions.

“Let's go quietly. And watch for the labrys,” she said.

They turned and hurried as quickly as they could, down the corridor.