The Legend Thief (4 page)

"Remember what I promised, Chase," Beau called out as Chase strolled toward the manor. "Any harm comes to Sky and I'll hunt you down after I deal with Morton! I swear it!"

Sky caught a glimpse of the hunters surrounding Beau. Beau kicked the knife into his hand and attacked in a flurry, quickly disappearing beneath a mountain of bodies.

Sky sped south, jumping from Piebald to Piebald like a madman, but by the time he returned to his body, it was already too late.

Sky opened his eyes and stared down at T-Bone's butt. "What in
the .
.."

"He's awake!" Andrew yelled.

They raced through the sewers. Sky kept smacking his head into T-Bone's back, slung as he was over T-Bone's shoulder. Behind them, Sky saw flashlights swinging this way and that.

"About time," T-Bone huffed, sounding winded. "Can you run?" Crystal asked.

"Yes," Sky croaked between slams. "No. Who is that?"

"Police," said Crystal. "Next time give us some warning. Okay? We barely got you out of there."

Sky nodded, but since he nodded with each bouncing step T-Bone took, Crystal probably couldn't tell the difference. "We need to get out of here!" Sky exclaimed.

"You think?" said Hands.

"Tunnel's ahead," said Crystal. "Andrew, drop a can." Andrew flipped on a Fog canister and threw it behind them. Flashlight beams disappeared behind a thick cloud of Fog. They reached.
the
tunnels-dozens of branching passages- and T-Bone banked right toward their secret lair.

"We can't go this way!" Sky exclaimed.

"What?" asked
Crystal.
"Why?" "Set me down!" said Sky.

T-Bone dropped him to the ground. Sky stumbled. The world spun around him.

Hands grabbed Sky by one arm and T-Bone took the other and they started running again, dragging Sky between them. Crystal led them through the tunnels with her black light. Finally Sky got his feet under him and ran on his own.

The tunnel forked ahead.

"Don't go to the lair! Go home-you should be safe there. I'll find you guys when this is over."
Assuming I'm not dead,
Sky thought. He headed for the passage on the right.

"
Ohhh
no you don't!"
Crystal exclaimed, snatching his arm. "You're not going anywhere until you tell us what happened."

Voices sounded back down the tunnel-hunters or police, he couldn't be sure. But either way, he was running out of time. He didn't want to put Crystal and the others in danger, and if they stayed with him, that's exactly where they'd be. Hunting monsters was one thing; endangering his friends to try to save himself was another matter entirely. The question was
,
could he lie well enough to keep them safe?

''I'm going to visit Rauschtlot."

Crystal stared at him skeptically.

"The police are coming," Sky pointed out.

"Some time in jail might give us all a rest," Crystal replied. "Now
talk."

Sky sighed. "The Hunters of Legend are here to kill me. They've got Beau and they'll soon have my family and if you don't go, they'll take you or kill you as well. Now will you go?" "No." Crystal took the passage to the right. "I assume you have a plan?"

They started running again. While they ran, Sky explained what he'd seen.

"Wait, you're telling us there's an army of hunters camped outside your house and you're running
toward
them?" Hands asked.

"Yep," said Sky, watching the tunnels ahead.

"Now that's my kind of crazy!" Hands replied, grinning. They reached a large natural cavern beneath the east cemetery-the home where Rauschtlot the Gnomon had raised her daughter, Nackles, and protected dozens of children from the Wargarou last year, including T-Bone's brother, Dickens.

Tree roots, rocks, and dirt sprouted from the top of the cave. Small streams raced past shattered coffins, which had sunk through from above, and wove between rock formations before disappearing down passages Sky had never explored that led farther into the earth.

If what Chase said was true, then Bedlam was going to try to edgewalk into Sky and take control tonight. Then he would use Sky's prison keys and whatever weird powers were in Sky's marks to free the creature everyone thought was the Arkhon but was really Solomon Rose-and destroy Exile. Sky couldn't let that happen. He
wouldn't
let that happen.

He veered off, leading Crystal and the others along a narrow passage toward the tomb of Andrew's mother, Ernaline Livingstone, and the exit into the east cemetery. There was still no sign of Rauschtlot or Nackles, which was odd. Normally Nackles would've tackled him to the ground by now with her shovel-like four-fingered hands and smothered him in kisses from one of her dozens of razor-sharp rock-shattering mouths- most of which were on her head and hidden by a knit cap.

"What exactly do you hope to accomplish by rushing up there?" Crystal asked.

''I'm going to lead them into the Sleeping Lands." Everyone was quiet. The Sleeping Lands included the north cemetery and much more besides-swamps and crags, broken woods, flooded rivers, floating corpses, ancient monsters, and
death .
..
more
death than Sky could name.

T-Bone whistled. "Risky ... you're as likely to die there maybe more. I know you've laid a lot of traps up there over the last year to keep the monsters away, but your traps are nonlethal; what happens when the hunters escape?"

Sky was quiet. He'd thought about it; if there was any other way to force the Hunters of Legend from Exile, he'd take it. But there wasn't.

"He's not going for the traps, T," said Andrew.

T-Bone looked confused. "What ... the monsters? You can't mean ..."

Hands started laughing.
"The Bolgers!
Sky, you devil! Remind me to never get on your bad side!"

Sky gave Hands a tight grin.

Last Christmas, T-Bone's family had decided they wanted a fresh-cut Christmas tree.
So, T-Bone had cut one down while on a hunt in the north cemetery and dragged it home-an unfortunate decision that had led to an even more unfortunate incident.
The incident had involved Wormwood, T-Bone's gigantic mutt with shaggy hair and a neurotic personality. The incident had also involved two dozen jumbo-size Yule log gift sets (made up of both the log-shaped dessert and the actual hardwood log) and a flood of Bolgers, ugly green-skinned creatures that tended to shrink to the size of a pine needle and hibernate when hungry, but grow to the size of a pine tree when fed Yule logs (either kind, but they preferred the dessert).

Worst Christmas ever.
Fortunately, when deprived of Yule logs and other foods, the Bolgers shrank back down to pine needles and resumed hibernating on their favorite tree, so it could've been a lot worse.

"I need you guys to do something for me," said Sky. "Find Malvidia and tell her I'll deliver a present in the next few hours, if I survive. Tell her they've taken Beau to Morton Thresher, Bedlam's army is coming, and Bedlam is
not
controlling me. Tell her she owes me for last year-it's time to pay up."

"Sky, you're nuts if you think we're leaving you for even a minute," said Crystal. "Besides, how do we know Malvidia's not helping them?"

Sky held up his hand for silence as footsteps sounded in the tunnel ahead.

"The light-turn it off!"
Sky hissed. Crystal flipped off her black light as three hunters in dark cloaks emerged into a crossroads where several tunnels met less than fifty feet away. Sky clutched the Pounder hand-cannon and pressed himself against the wall beside Crystal.

"What's going on?" Crystal whispered. Sky could see perfectly well in the dark; he often forgot that the others couldn't. Fortunately, Sky always carried the remaining two keys to Solomon's prison with him: the monocle arid the watch. And the monocle, as they'd discovered last year, allowed the wearer to see in the dark. He pulled the monocle from his pocket and pressed it into' Crystal's hand.

The hunters moved slowly into the crossroads, searching each passage with strange, glowing green eyes. Sky held his breath, refusing to move, hoping they'd choose a different passage.

His Hunter's Mark suddenly warmed, something that only happened when he talked to monsters, or when his Eye of Legend freaked out. He sensed a slight tremble in the wall through his Hunter's Mark.

He groaned inwardly at the timing. His Hunter's Mark translated the vibrations, allowing him to communicate in Earthspeak, a Gnomon language composed of complex rhythms sent through the earth like miniature earthquakes. Sky ignored the incoming greeting and, in Earthspeak, yelled...
RUN!

Farther up one of the passages, beyond the hunters, Nackles the Gnomon-Rauschtlot's daughter- dropped silently through the ceiling and shook the dirt from her back. She took in the hunters, who hadn't yet noticed her, and her semi translucent skin suddenly went from gray to blue.

Blue as she stills, Black as she flies, Red as she kills,
Sky thought.

She was waiting and watching. There was still a chance the hunters might just move on down a different passage.

The hunters raised their bows, aiming at Sky.

"Shimmer!" Crystal screamed, apparently realizing at the same moment as Sky that the hunters could see them.

The hunters fired.

Sky hit his force-field-like Shimmer and a blue nimbus of light shot up around him.

Green flames flickered to life around the thick, bone white arrows as they sped through the air. The flames disturbed him, and despite his Shimmer, Sky dove.

All three arrows streaked past him. Hands deflected the first shot into the ceiling with his electrified Collapser staff and pure, dumb luck. The second just missed Andrew and hit the wall. The third arrow streaked toward Crystal. It struck her Shimmer's blue nimbus, slowed, and then stopped a few inches from her heart. The arrow hung harmlessly in the air for a moment, and then it fell, flaring brighter and brighter as it approached the ground.

Crystal threw herself backward, away from the arrow, just as it exploded.

The force-far greater than it had any right to be-launched Sky, who was in front of the others, up the passage, tumbling toward the hunters. He caught a quick glimpse of Crystal, Andrew, Hands, and T-Bone spinning away in the opposite direction back down the passage, and then two more massive explosions buffeted him and the tunnel collapsed, separating him from Crystal and the others.

Sky rolled to his back. Every bone in his body ached. He stared down the ruined tunnel, desperately hoping his friends were okay.

A hunter grabbed Sky by the hair and dragged him to his feet. From his coat, the hunter pulled a long silver knife. He pressed it against Sky's throat and inspected him, his glowing green eyes staring out of his dark face. "You are not as Morton led me to believe." His accent was strange, short and clipped, as if he was biting his words.

'"
Agos
,
kill
ze
boy and let us leave
zis
'
orrible
place," yelled a French woman, even though she stood but a few steps away. Sky wondered if the collapse had affected her hearing.

"Patience, Solange. I do not believe Bedlam has yet taken control of the boy...." Hagos furrowed his brow, but before he could do anything more, Nackles the Gnomon-her skin deep red-rose up behind Hagos, grabbed his head, and smashed it into the wall. Solange turned, but Nackles already had her. With her immense strength-a strength Sky knew all too well

Nackles threw Solange down one of the side passages.

The last hunter raised her bow.

Nackles dove into the earth as if it was water and rocketed out of the ceiling, burying the hunter in rubble as she loosed her arrow at Sky.

Sky hit his Shimmer. The fiery arrow exploded as it hit, flinging him backward. He slammed into the far wall and crashed to the ground as the crossroads started to cave in.

Dirt and rock fell everywhere. Sky stumbled to his feet, dodging debris, trying to get back down the tunnel to find a way to his friends. A rock smashed into his shoulder, driving him to the ground, his Core shoulder pads taking the hit. Through the shower of earth, he saw Nackles toss Hagos and the nameless hunter down the passage with Solange and to safety, her skin gray once again.

As boulders tumbled around her, Nackles smacked the rocks out of the air as though they were gnats hardly worth considering. Her knit cap fell off and mouths all over her body chewed through the falling earth, passed it right through, and spit it out of other mouths.