Vault of Shadows (3 page)

Inside the circle, the little figures danced and laughed, but Milo suddenly felt very afraid. There was no humor on their tiny smiling faces. The grins were like jack-o'-lantern grins—cruel imitations of smiles, with no human joy. And there was a kind of hungry delight in their eyes that burned like coals.

“Come play with us,”
they cried.

Milo's fingers kept reaching through the shimmer, and his body tilted forward inch by inch so that his face was right there, almost close enough to feel it on his skin.

“Be safe with us . . .”

As they chanted, the shimmering air above them inside the circle began to change. At first Milo thought it was a column of smoke rising from a fire he couldn't see, but it wasn't that. It moved like smoke, though, swirling and rippling, becoming darker as it filled the air and towered above the figures. The chants of the tiny soldiers increased as they begged Milo to enter the circle.

“He comes!”
cried the little figures, and Milo thought they were referring to him. Not so. They pointed at the swirling column of smoke.
“The destroyer comes at our call.”

The dark smoke was taking shape now. Slowly, though, as if time itself had become uncertain, or as if the very air were reluctant to witness what was forming.

“No . . . ,” murmured Milo, but he could not look away, could not pull back.

“The destroyer comes at our call,”
the creatures repeated, and now Milo could hear a wicked joy in their voices.
“He will open the door and set us free!”

Inside the ring Milo could see the figure more clearly with each passing second. It was huge and almost—
almost
—human. Male, massive, with broad shoulders and a body packed with so much muscle that it looked bestial and deformed, its torso was wrapped in layer upon layer of chitinous plates, just like the Bugs. And like those aliens, it had a set of pincer arms sprouting from its sides, just below the muscular human arms. Insectoid pincers snapped at the air on either side of its cruel mouth. Antennae rose from the sides of its head, and the eyes were the multifaceted eyes of a blowfly. The human arms had been transformed into something monstrous and were covered with plates and ridges from which spikes jutted. Weapon belts crisscrossed the massive chest.

This creature was not a Nightsider or a Bug, or even human. It was something else entirely. Unique in its hideous nature, and unparalleled in its towering, destructive madness.

Even as it took shape in the air, Milo could hear an
echo of what the Witch of the World had said when he'd first seen this monster.

This is the destroyer. This is the Huntsman who will hang us all like trophies on his wall.

Milo screamed.

The dancing figures laughed and cried out in triumph as the Huntsman took shape within their magic circle.

“Here is the one you seek, O champion,”
they shouted.
“Take this boy and do with him as you will. Then lead us to victory over all!”

Milo reeled. These creatures were conjuring the most dangerous monster who ever lived.

The Huntsman, as if able to read his thoughts, threw back his hideous head and laughed. But his laughter was silent, as if he was not yet enough in this world, not real enough, to be heard. He reached out toward Milo, toward the point where Milo's fingers were penetrating the shimmering wall.

Milo felt his will melting away, felt his fingers pushing forward. He felt he was losing himself as the creatures danced and the Huntsman reached.

And then a sound split the air.

Sharp.

Loud.

Not inside the ring. The Huntsman had not found his voice.

No, this was an animal sound. A very particular kind of animal sound.

And it came from behind Milo, off to his left, farther up the slope and beyond the edge of the field of wild sugarcane.

Milo turned, and the action pulled his fingers most of the way out of the shimmering wall. The tiny figures stopped dancing and glared up at him with naked hatred. And the Huntsman's image flickered for a moment.

The sound came again, and again.

Louder. Closer.

Urgent.

And familiar.

Milo licked his lips and blinked, trying to clear his eyes. He heard the sound again and forced himself to turn away from everything in the circle. Something was out there. Something was coming. He tilted his head to raise one ear, trying to catch the full sound. Was it a wild dog? Or, worse, was it a Stinger? Was it one of the Dissosterin mutant hunting animals, the nightmare blend of giant mastiff and deadly scorpion, come to greet its alien master?

Milo made himself turn more so that he couldn't even see the little people out of the corner of his eye.

Don't look at them,
he told himself.
Don't look at
him
!

The sounds came from a patch of wild cane, and as Milo watched, the stalks rippled as something headed toward him with increasing speed.

I'm dead,
thought Milo.

Then the canes parted and a figure moved into a patch
of sunlight. Much, much smaller than Milo had expected. White, with brown patches, about the size of a meat loaf, standing on four bandy legs, eyes dark and bright, mouth open to reveal lots of tiny sharp teeth. The animal looked around, sniffed the air, then jolted to a stop as it caught sight of Milo. The little creature's eyes seemed to bug out of their sockets, and the slender tail began whipping back and forth so fast it turned into a blur.

Then it raced toward Milo at missile speed.

It was Killer.

Milo jerked his fingers completely free of the wall and reached out as the dog jumped into his arms, bore him backward, and tried to lick all the skin off his face. Killer slobbered all over Milo, biting his hair, whimpering, and dancing on the boy's chest and stomach.

Milo laughed out loud, and it was that sound as much as anything else that changed the day. The deep cold vanished, and when Milo dared to look, he saw the little figures disappear one by one. For a minute, though, one remained—a tiny woman dressed in armor the color of rotting leaves, with hair as red as flame and a thick band of carved gold around her throat. Above her towered the swirling image of the Huntsman. The monster spoke, but Milo could not hear a single word. However, the red-haired woman seemed to understand. She nodded and then turned toward Milo, and there was a look of such intense hatred on her face that it chilled Milo to the marrow. She pointed a slender finger at him.

“You
will scream as you die,”
she said.
“But only after watching everything you love burn. And then my champion and I will conquer this and all worlds.”

Then she, too, faded. A moment later, so did the hideous, silent image of the Huntsman, and every one of the toadstools. It was as if they had never been there. As if this had all been some kind of waking dream. Or a nightmare that had tried to invade the daytime. The grass was unmarked, and the warmth of the bayou rolled over him and reclaimed the day.

Killer barked at him, demanding his attention. Milo pulled the dog to his chest and hugged him, kissing his head, rocking him back and forth. Grateful to have found him, grateful to have been saved by him.

Four days ago, when the hive ship had attacked Milo's camp, Killer had gone missing. Everyone assumed the little dog was dead, burned to black bones by the firestorm of the attack. Killer's owner, Shark, was Milo's best friend, and Shark been grieving as much for the dog as for the friends they'd lost in that terrible attack. So many people were still missing—including Shark's adoptive aunt and Milo's mom—but finding the dog seemed to prove that being missing did not have to mean gone forever.

Still holding the wriggling dog to his chest, Milo climbed to his feet. There were tears on his cheeks but he didn't care, and besides, the dog lapped up the salty wetness.

“
I got you, Killer,” murmured Milo. “I got you. You're safe now.”

Though he meant that for himself, too. Safe now.

Safe.

The clearing was empty. Not a single mushroom was in sight. And even the memory of that strange song and those cruel smiles seemed to be fading, racing away from him like roaches scattering to hide from the light. Had he really seen them? Had he actually seen the Huntsman?

The more he thought about it, the less certain he was that it had happened at all.

“I must have been asleep on my feet,” he told himself. Killer wagged his tail as if Milo had said something to him. “Just me being weird.”

Milo finally set Killer down and examined him. The terrier was thin and covered with scratches and cuts, and his coat was filthy. The last four days had clearly been cruel to the dog. Despite that, the defiant fires that had always burned in his eyes were undiminished. He might only weigh fourteen pounds, but all of it was grit and determination. Killer had very little “give up” in him.

“I know someone who's going to lose his
mind
when he sees you, boy,” said Milo. “Shark's going to go nuts.”

At the mention of his person's name, Killer began wagging even harder and uttered a high, thin whine.

“C'mon, Killer, let's get out of here.”

Milo retrieved his slingshot, cinched the flap of his
satchel, did a full turn to check the surrounding woods, and then clicked his tongue for Killer. They set off through the cane, moving as fast as caution allowed, making sure to leave no marks of their passage, relying on skills and smarts to stay safe and to ensure that death did not follow them back to where their friends waited.

FROM MILO'S DREAM DIARY

So much has happened that sometimes I have to stop and think about it to keep everything straight. That's important because when I dream, the story sometimes changes. In my dreams, my mom was with me when I met the Nightsiders.

In my dreams, the Nightsiders weren't strange monsters. They were my brothers and sisters. All of them.

Evangelyne Winter—the strange, moody werewolf girl.

Oakenayl—the grumpy tree spirit, who, I'm pretty sure, would be totally cool with it if I got eaten by the Bugs.

Mook—the rock boy.

Halflight—the fiery little sprite who flew around on the back of a hummingbird.

And Iskiel, the fire salamander who could explode and then re-form like a phoenix.

In the real world they were strangers. Weird and a little
scary and completely cool. Except for Oakenayl, who really was a jerk.

But in dreams they were my actual family.

And the stone, the little black jewel called the Heart of Darkness, wasn't something that belonged only to the Nightsiders. In my dream, it was something that had always belonged to my family. When we snuck aboard the hive ship to steal it back from the Huntsman, it wasn't just to help the Nightsiders. It was because my
family
needed it back.

My family.

This
family.

How weird is that?

And . . . what would Mom think of all this? I mean . . . what
will
she think, when I find her?

A
fter almost an hour, Milo and Killer had nearly reached the camp. As the crow flies it was a twenty-minute hike, but stealth requires a longer path. He found no toadstool rings and heard no more strange songs from tiny people, and with every step he doubted more and more that it had even happened. How could a bunch of little creatures like that conjure the Huntsman? If they were Nightsiders, why
would
they? It was so crazy and made so little sense that it only reinforced his belief that he had somehow managed to have a dream while walking through the swamp.

Something suddenly rustled in the leaves above them and they both froze, Killer with bared fangs and hair standing in a ridge along his back, Milo with a sharp stone in his slingshot.

But then the thing that had made the noise crept out onto a bare section of a heavy limb. It was bigger than an iguana, with smooth gray-green skin marked with glowing lines of intense red that swirled and eddied with fire. It was no illusion, Milo knew; those fires really burned beneath the creature's skin. Killer snarled with a mixture
of brave defiance and obvious terror, but Milo lowered his slingshot.

“It's okay, boy,” he said to the little dog. “Iskiel's a friend.”

The fire salamander flicked out his forked tongue and hissed softly at Milo.

“Good to see you, too,” said Milo, though in truth he had no idea whether the hiss was a greeting or not. A moment later he found out, because Iskiel half turned and used his jaws to pick up something that was out of sight on the limb, and tossed it down. It landed with a metallic clank at Milo's feet.

Milo and Killer both jumped backward, and once more Milo brought up his slingshot.

It was a hunter-killer.

Specifically, a boomer. A Dissosterin murder machine. Shaped like a yard-long steel centipede, with hundreds of legs made from stiff red wire. Each segment of a boomer contained a separate explosive charge packed with shrapnel. A single boomer could destroy a Humvee and kill everyone inside. Boomers were only one of dozens of insect-shaped robots employed by the Bugs to do exactly what their group name suggested: to hunt and to kill.

Milo lowered his weapon, because it was clear that this particular hunter-killer was never going to cause anyone any harm. There were deep punctures and claw marks on each of the many sections, and the edges of the fang holes were smeared with a purplish goo. When Milo
glanced up, he saw Iskiel open his mouth to display his teeth. Drops of the purple goo gleamed on the tips. Even though Milo hadn't seen this substance before on the fire salamander, he was sharp enough to understand what the creature was showing him. It was some kind of venom, and from the burned-wire stink rising from the boomer, there was no doubt that Iskiel's venom was pure acid.