The Dominion Key (19 page)

Reaching under the car, Marvin removed a key and unlocked the driver’s-side door. “There’s only room for four. You kids will have to go on without us.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “We can’t leave you here.”

“We’ll be fine,” Gus said.

Marvin cast a glance toward the approaching headlights. His jaw flexed and his eyes narrowed with certainty. “I can’t wait to make those young whippersnappers pay for trespassing on private property.”

Maybe it was the dim light of the barn or the knowledge that they already had a few decades of experience fighting bad guys under their belt, but at that moment, the two men looked a whole lot like the superheroes on the vintage posters and in the black-and-white photos.

“Uh … if you aren’t coming, then who’s gonna drive?” Milton looked questioningly at Marvin and Gus. “I don’t
know how it was when you guys were kids, but today, they don’t hand out driver’s licenses to twelve-year-olds.”

“I can drive.” Sophie slid into the seat. When she saw the surprised looks the rest of us were giving her, she shrugged. “Marvin and Gus used to bring me along on rides. And sometimes they let me take the wheel.”

“Use these.” Gus handed her a pair of wooden blocks that he’d grabbed off a workbench. “They’ll help you reach the pedals.”

This didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but right now we had bigger worries. Milton and Cassie climbed into the cramped backseat, while I got in the passenger seat. Sophie turned the key and the engine burbled, letting out a series of groans and clanks. When the engine refused to start, Sophie pressed down on the block, pumping the gas pedal as she turned the key again. Still no luck.

I couldn’t believe it, but I was actually starting to miss Daisy.

Sophie took a deep breath. The illumination coming off her skin filled the interior of the car with light. Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Please, please, please,” and gave the key another turn.

The engine roared to life. I wanted to cheer. At least until I remembered we were seconds away from being surrounded by Cyclaurs.

“Thank you so much!” Sophie said. “We’ll call you once our lives aren’t in danger anymore.”

Shifting the MarvelousMobile into reverse, she pulled out of the barn. As soon as we were outside, the windows flashed with the headlights of Cyclaurs roaring in our direction. Sophie jammed the stick shift and we shot forward.

I caught a glimpse of Marvin grabbing an anvil and heaving it at one of the Cyclaurs. The anvil smashed into the robot, ripping its bionic top off the motorcycle. The other Cyclaurs must’ve realized these old dudes were a lot tougher than they looked, and skidded to follow us instead.

Tires kicked up a wave of dirt. Headlights flashed and bounced across a wilderness of trees and tall grass. Sophie
spun the wheel and we hit a bump that sent the MarvelousMobile airborne.

We landed hard on a dirt road. Cyclaurs were all around us. One pulled steady with the passenger window. His bald head glistened in the moonlight. His dark eyes glared down at me. With a swing of his fist, he smashed the window. He looked like he was about to do the same to my skull when Sophie swerved the car to the side, slamming him into a tangle of bushes.

But there were plenty more. Behind us, a Cyclaur ripped one of the tail fins loose. The scream of their engines echoed in my brain.

“Let’s see how well those guys follow us with a smoke screen blocking their vision,” Sophie said.

She hit a button on the dashboard. I turned in my seat, expecting to see the air behind us fill with smoke. Instead, a tiny cloud puffed out of the car’s backside and immediately vanished in the wind.

Milton groaned. “That was disappointing.”

“Marvin must’ve forgotten to refill the smoke-screen formula,” Sophie said through gritted teeth. “Looks like we’ll have to go with the backup plan—
oil slick
.”

She pushed another button. I guess slippery oil was supposed to shoot out from the car’s rear, but all that happened was the windshield wipers started flapping back and forth.

“Stupid car!” Sophie banged her palm against the steering wheel. The impact must’ve triggered something, because there was a loud
FWOOOSH!
All of a sudden, the MarvelousMobile blasted forward like someone had just
hit the fast-forward button. As I gripped the edges of my seat, my eyes flashed to the rearview mirror.

A flame was streaking from the turbine engine. Sophie had turned on the jet boosters.

We left the Cyclaurs in our dust. That was the good news. The bad news was we were rocketing down a dark dirt road at about three hundred miles an hour, being driven by someone who could barely see above the steering wheel.

“WAAAHH!”
Milton and Cassie screamed from the backseat.

A jumble of shapes blurred in the windshield, appearing and disappearing in the shaky headlights. The frame of the ancient car trembled.

Cassie called out, “Watch out for the—
OOF!
” She winced when we hit a massive bump. “Too late.”

I pointed at a dark form that had appeared in front of us. “Tree, tree, tree!”

Sophie swerved just in time to avoid slamming into the tree. But this set her on course to collide with a—

“Ditch, ditch, ditch!”

Sophie spun the wheel in the other direction and managed to straighten the vehicle out on the dirt road again.

“Gotta turn off the jet boosters!” she hollered over the roaring engines.

“How?” I yelled back.

“There has to be a button.”

“Yeah, but—which one?”

Sophie jolted the steering wheel and a twisted log shot
past my shattered window, missing us by an inch. “I can’t keep this going much longer! Just try anything!”

I flipped a switch in the center of the dashboard. Suddenly, the roof launched into the air.

Great. I’d just turned the MarvelousMobile into a convertible.

With the wind howling all around us, I hit a different button. This one turned on the radio, which was blaring an old-timey bluegrass song.

“I’ll never find the right one!” I screamed.

Then my eyes landed on the steering wheel. I leaned over and pounded the same spot that Sophie had hit before. And it actually worked! The jet engines spluttered out and the vehicle lurched to a more manageable speed.

Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. Spinning in my seat, I gazed through the back window. No sign of headlights. Only darkness.

“The jet booster gave us a jump on the Cyclaurs,” Cassie said.

“Even if it
did
nearly get us killed,” Sophie added.

Milton leaned forward, patting Sophie on the shoulder. “Nice driving skills. I’m calling you next time I need a ride.”

A few minutes later, the dirt road became a paved one that led to the highway. There were hardly any other cars at such a late hour. And in the middle of the night, the MarvelousMobile blended into the darkness well. Which was probably a good thing, since a sixty-year-old superhero
car with a twelve-year-old behind the wheel might draw some unwanted attention.

“Now we just need to figure out how to get to Bear Creek,” Cassie said.

Milton leaned forward from the backseat. “I’m guessing this thing doesn’t come equipped with GPS.”

Keeping one hand on the wheel, Sophie pointed with the other. “Check the glove compartment.”

I undid the latch and the glove compartment swung open. The inside was crammed: Cape repair kit. Bottle of zombie-bite antibiotics that had expired in 1982. Pair of reading glasses. The usual stuff you expect to find in the glove compartment of a car owned by two elderly superheroes.

Near the back, I located a Massachusetts state map. The thing looked like it had been printed sometime before my parents were born. The brittle paper cracked at the edges as I unfolded it. Once it was spread out in front of me, the map took up the entire passenger side.

“Okay … now what?”

In the dim interior light of the MarvelousMobile, my eyes searched the map. Squiggly lines in all different colors. Clusters of city names and random numbers. For all I could tell, it might’ve been a map of the moon.

The stiff paper crinkled in my hand. “Anyone know how to use one of these?”

Sophie shook her head.

“I only use Google Maps,” Milton said from the backseat.

“Same here,” Cassie said.

We could face down motorcycle monsters and superpowered henchmen, but apparently reading an old-fashioned map was too much.

I squinted at the enormous page, turning it one way, then the other. How did anyone ever find what they were looking for with these things? You can’t zoom in or enter the address. It won’t tell you what direction you’re going in.

“Dr. Fleming mentioned that Bear Creek’s in western Massachusetts,” Sophie said, not taking her eyes off the road.

“That’s right,” Cassie said. “And it’s a really small town. So I bet the name is written in really small font.”

I could work with that. Focusing on the left side of the state, I ignored any cities that were printed in bold letters, instead searching the names of towns that were written in such faint, faded letters that I could barely read them. It took a while, but eventually I found it.

Bear Creek.

“Looks like the town’s close to a highway.” I carefully ran my finger along the red line that was thicker than all the other lines around it until I spotted a number. “Highway Ninety.”

“That’s the highway we’re on!” At the next sign, Sophie pointed. And sure enough, 90w was reflected in the MarvelousMobile’s headlights.

“That means we’re going west,” Milton said.

We were on our way to Bear Creek.

After an hour of driving, Milton had conked out in the backseat. Beside him, Cassie was asleep with her head on his shoulder.

I was exhausted too, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Miranda. Her face slick with rain. Her hand reaching out. Her fingers slipping through mine. Her mouth open in a silent scream as she fell.

I opened my eyes, trying to shake away the memory.

“You okay?” Sophie asked. Even though her eyes were focused on the road, it felt like she was looking right at me.

I didn’t answer her question for a long time, just stared at the highway that stretched into the darkness. Finally I spoke in a voice that was barely loud enough to be heard over the howling wind.

“I could’ve saved her.”

Sophie gripped the steering wheel tighter. “You can’t blame yourself. You did everything you could.”

I shook my head. “If I’d held on just a little tighter, she wouldn’t have …”

I couldn’t say any more. But the words filled my mind anyway.
Wouldn’t have slipped. Wouldn’t have fallen. Wouldn’t have died
.

“You can’t save everyone, Joshua.”

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, Sophie reached out with the other and took my hand. Our fingers looped together. Normally that kind of thing would’ve made both of us really awkward, but in that moment it actually made me feel better.

Neither of us spoke. The wind howled, whipping our hair around like crazy.

Right then, I wished we could drive the rest of the way like that. But I guess driver’s safety is more important because a couple of seconds later, Sophie let go and brought her hand back to the steering wheel.

“Sorry.” She let out a nervous chuckle. Was it my imagination, or had she started glowing—just a little—around the eyes? “I just thought … you know—”

“No. It was nice. I mean—not
that
kind of nice.” Suddenly my palms were sweaty. I wiped them against my shorts.

Remember how I said it
wasn’t
awkward? Well, never mind about that. Suddenly, there was enough awkwardness inside the MarvelousMobile to fill a football stadium.

We drove nearly the rest of the way in silence.