Vault of Shadows (9 page)

Milo could feel Shark staring at him, but he focused on the woods and didn't say anything else. After a long, tense five minutes, they saw Evangelyne—in human form—step out from behind a huckleberry bush and wave at them.

“It's clear,”
she said when they joined her. “The dead Bugs are still lying where they fell. The Swarm haven't come back yet to collect them.”

They followed her cautiously into the trees and emerged inside the clearing they'd used as a camp. The red ship was only partly hidden under its canopy of leaves, but one side was exposed because of the burned oak tree. A few of the surrounding trees were burned too, though only the oak appeared to be destroyed. Bug carcasses lay here and there, and the ruins of the drop-ship and their sky-boards littered the site.

“I'm really surprised the fire went out,” said Shark. “I thought for sure we'd have a forest fire.”

“Not here,” said Evangelyne.

“Why not? Is there something special about this place?”

“Yes.”

When it was clear she wasn't going to say more, Shark said, very distinctly and slowly, “What. Is. Special. About. This. Place?”

But Evangelyne only shook her head.

It was Milo who answered. “Oakenayl.” He glanced at Evangelyne. “Am I right? He stayed behind to fight the fire?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, obviously reluctant to discuss it. Milo wasn't sure how she could possibly know, but he thought she was aware that the oak boy had refused to help him save Barnaby.

“Is he still around?”
asked Shark, who wasn't aware of the incident. “Maybe he can help us look for—”

“No,” said Milo. “I don't think he's going to help.”

“Why not?” asked Shark. “I thought he was on our side.”

Milo looked at Evangelyne, who met his gaze with a mixture of regret and defiance.

“No,” said Milo, “I think Oakenayl's playing for his own team.”

“What? Why?” asked Shark. “How's that work?”

“It's complicated,” was Evangelyne's reply. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Try me,” insisted Shark. “I'm not as dumb as Milo looks.”

“Hey,” said Milo.

The wolf girl stood firm. “Oakenayl's life is his own. His actions are his own. I will not stand in judgment.”

“Not asking for judgment,” said Shark belligerently. “But a little cooperation would be pretty nice right now, since we're
all
fighting the Bugs. Oakenayl may be a weirdo tree kid, but he lives here too.” He emphasized his point by stamping his foot on the earth they all stood on.

But Evangelyne simply shook her head.

Shark turned to Milo. “Any of this make sense to you?”

“I stopped trying to understand this right around the time we found out that pretty much everything that goes bump in the night is real.”

“Except dragons,”
Shark reminded him, holding up a finger like a wise teacher making a point in class. “Let's keep some perspective. Dragons are just silly.”

“Right,” agreed Milo. “Who would believe in anything as weird as that?”

Evangelyne made a small, very lupine noise of pure disgust.

“Boy,” she said tersely, jabbing Shark in the chest, “stop being stupid and find that circuit.”

“First,” said Shark, “stop calling me ‘boy.' We're the same age . . .
girl.
”

Milo turned aside to hide a grin. When they'd met, Evangelyne had constantly—and annoyingly—referred to him as “boy.” Now she was mostly using that label on Shark. The wolf girl had been raised only around adults and tended to try to act like one instead of letting herself be a kid. For Milo's part, he knew he needed to be smarter about things, but he never wanted to grow up. Not really.

“Second,” continued Shark when it was clear Evangelyne wasn't going to reply, “I'm not being stupid, I'm being freaked out. I thought everyone understood that by now. And third, I
am
looking for the circuit. You could stop acting like the queen of planet-freaking-Earth and help.”

Evangelyne sniffed haughtily, but she joined in the hunt. So did Milo.

The circuit board was not where they thought it should be, but with all the explosions and commotion, that didn't mean anything. As they searched, all of them
kept looking up into the sky, seeing only a blue dome and puffy white clouds but dreading what might appear at any time.

“Here!” cried Evangelyne from the far side of the camp. She turned and held up a piece of printed circuitry. “Is this it?”

Milo and Shark raced over to her, and Shark snatched it out of her hand and cuddled it to his chest as if it were his precious child. “Come to Papa!” he said.

“Is it okay?” asked Milo breathlessly. “Is it damaged . . . ?”

They stood in a tight cluster as Shark examined the circuit board. “No. I think it's . . . yeah . . . it's good,” he said, turning it over and peering at every inch of it. “There's one little crack, but it's just on the plastic. The wires and leads are all intact.”

He blew out his cheeks in obvious relief, then glanced nervously at the ship, then up at the empty sky.

“You still have your tool kit?” asked Milo.

Shark shook his head. “Lost it when I ran. Let me see if I can find—”

“No time,” said Milo, unclipping his own from his belt and pressing it into Shark's hands. Then Milo slapped him on the shoulder. Hard. “Go!”

FROM MILO'S DREAM DIARY

Before all this happened, before I met Evangelyne and the other Nightsiders, I never believed in prophecy.

I mean, sure, I knew the word, and words like it. Prophecy, divination, fortune-telling, all that stuff. I've read enough books and stories to know about people who said they could tell the future. Prophets and seers and like that.

Even after I started dreaming about the Witch of the World, it was all just faerie-tale stuff. Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter stuff.

I never thought it would be real.

Now I know different.

Which makes me wonder about the new dream. About the book.

Is that just me being my usual weird self? Or is someone trying to send me a warning?

'Cause that's pretty much how these things have been working out for me.

S
hark hurried inside the ship, refusing any offer of help, saying he worked faster alone. That was fine with Milo, who stayed outside to scavenge anything of value from the Bugs. He found seven pulse pistols that looked to be undamaged, as well as knives, alien tool kits, and more of their unnameable gadgets. There were more of the grenades, too, and these he gathered very gingerly and put in his satchel. He knew he didn't have time to disassemble the wrecked drop-ship, but he managed to salvage three sky-boards, and these he dragged onto the red ship. If they were really able to find an Earth Alliance team, then this tech could be a game changer, especially if the scientists could reproduce the stuff. The thought of EA soldiers on sky-boards and armed with pulse weapons made his heart race. That might actually level the playing field.

If only things worked out right.

Evangelyne drifted along with him, watching him but saying very little. Every now and then she would touch the small leather pouch that hung from her belt. Although he had not seen her put the black jewel in there, Milo was certain that's where the Heart of Darkness was. She
carried it with her just as he carried the crystal egg with him. Two jewels. Perhaps the two most important items in the world, and they were being carried around in a bag and a pocket by a couple of kids.

As far as Milo Silk was concerned, the world as he knew it was totally nuts.

He knelt by one of the fallen shocktroopers and studied it. Even in death the alien soldier was frightening. So big, so heavily armored, so strange. Milo touched the creature's natural chitinous shell. It was as cool and rough as lizard skin, but as hard as lacquered wood. He ran his fingers over the lifelight, even though the jewel was now dark, showing no signs of the fierce life that had driven the 'trooper.

“So strange . . . ,” he murmured.

“What is?” asked Evangelyne.

“These 'troopers . . . don't you ever wonder about them? About what they think?”

“No. Why would I?”

He glanced up at her haughty, harsh face. She was pretty, but her scowl made her look like a carving of some stern ancient queen. Regal, but completely removed from the people around her. Evangelyne was like that even around her own kind. Milo knew it was a defense mechanism—against her fear, against the grief of having lost contact with her family, against the dread of what the Huntsman and the Swarm were trying to do. And maybe against having to feel anything at all. It was easier
to fight, and to go on fighting, if you felt nothing. Milo had heard some of the adults in the camp, even his own mother, talk about that. Emotions were fatal, they all said. They made you act rashly, they sparked stupid risks, they created dangerous hesitation.

But Milo wasn't so sure about that. He wanted to be stronger than he was, and he knew that circumstances had forced him into the role of (reluctant) hero. It was a role that fit like someone else's clothes. He was a kid and he was okay with just being one. If growing up and getting tough meant he had to stop feeling, then he wanted no part of it.

He touched the darkened lifelight again as he said, “From what I saw when I was inside the Huntsman's head, it seems pretty clear that these shocktroopers are all . . . I don't know . . . kind of like slaves. Or drones, I guess. Their brains are programmed to obey before they even hatch.”

“So what?” she asked coldly. “The whole Swarm is evil.”

“That's just it,” he said. “I'm not so sure about that. Isn't evil a choice?”

Evangelyne came around and knelt facing him, the dead 'trooper between them. Her expression of scorn and out-of-hand dismissal seemed to falter.

“Tell me something, Milo,” she said in a softer voice. “If you had head lice, wouldn't you wash your hair with herbs or a medicine that would kill them?”

He nodded. “Sure, but—”

“And if you had an infection and one of your Earth Alliance doctors wanted to give you a shot, wouldn't you take it, even though all those bacteria would be destroyed?”

“Yes, but—”

She placed her hand flat on the creature's chest, inches away from his. “This insect is part of a swarm that wants to destroy our world.”

“I know.”

“Are you actually telling me you feel
sorry
for it?”

Milo withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels. “Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should start Hug-a-Shocktrooper Day. It's not like that, and I'm not really sure what it is. I guess maybe it's the fact that the 'troopers
don't
have a choice that's bothering me.”

“I don't understand.”

“Well, think about the whole Dissosterin race. I mean, sure, they're not like us, and they don't think like people and maybe they don't even have much in the way of feelings . . . but they're not just dumb bugs. They're not. They built those hive ships and all this tech. They evolved somewhere and somehow. They must have a pretty advanced civilization, don't you think?”

“They're a plague.”

“No,” he corrected, “they're a swarm. Guys like this one follow orders. It's the queens who tell them what to do. And, now, the Huntsman, too.”

She shivered at the mention of his name.

“What does it matter who makes them kill?” she asked in a hushed voice. “All that matters is that they want to kill us, and that means we have to fight back.”

“I know,” said Milo. “I get that, I really do. And I'm scared of the shocktroopers and the Stingers and the whole Swarm. I hate the Swarm and everything they've done. It's just that I don't know if I actually
hate
guys like this one.”

“It's not a ‘guy,' boy,” she said. “It's a killer.”

“So are we, Evangelyne.”

“It's not the same thing and you know it.”

He nodded. “Sure, it's not the same thing.”

“But—what?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “Why are you bothering with these kinds of thoughts?”

It was a very tough question, and while he thought about it he stood up and walked over to look at the red ship. Evangelyne soon joined him. In the gloom beneath the camouflage cover, the red of the ship was as dark as dried blood. It squatted there, serving as both a hope of escape and a reminder of the enormity of what they faced.

“I don't really know what I'm trying to say,” Milo murmured. “I really don't. It's just that . . .”

Evangelyne half turned and touched his arm. It was the gentlest thing she'd ever done, and it humanized her more than anything had since they met. “It's what, Milo?”

“You're going to think I'm nuts.”

“Too late,”
she said, and it took him a little to realize that she'd made a joke. It was the first one he could remember her making.

He grinned at her. “We killed a lot of Bugs up on the hive ship, and if we get the ship and this tech back to the EA, we're going to try to kill a lot more. All of them, right? That's the plan? To wipe them out completely?”

She said nothing, but gave him a single grave nod.

“When we do that—if we even
can
do that—I hope it doesn't make us like them.”

“What do you mean?”

“It shouldn't be like stepping on cockroaches.”

“We have to stop them.”

“I know we do.”

“So . . . ?”

He shook his head. “I don't want to kill because it's what we're supposed to do, any more than I want to do it because we have to. No . . . that's wrong.” He closed his eyes and wrestled the thought into words that would make sense to her and to himself. “I don't want to believe that killing them all is the only choice we'll ever have.”