Empire of Bones (Ashtown Burials #3) Read online

  “So,” Cyrus said, “the last couple months …”

  “Have been nearly pointless,” Rupert said. “We have quietly gained a few assets, but fewer allies. Beyond the Boones and the Livingstones, there are no families willing to openly defy the Order.”

  “And the Smiths,” Cyrus said. “And the Greeveses.”

  Rupert laughed, looking at Cyrus. “I had hoped to build an army. But we are the army. We must somehow quell the old gods, and even if we do and we survive, Phoenix will not have wasted his time. He and his new gods will be waiting for us.”

  Cyrus leaned against the bed. “But what about, you know, normal people? Cops? Soldiers? If the transmortals start smashing a town or something, won’t everyone try to stop them?”

  Rupert nodded. “Some will try. And that will add to the tragedy. When the great transmortals rise, the leaders and the powerful among men and women are the first to drop to their knees. Some will submit out of cowardice, while others have always worshipped and fed on power. When they encounter power raw, power primal, they will do anything to taste it, to be near it, to be enthralled. Sacred groves, ziggurats, fiery crags and labyrinths and valleys of bones, wherever the great transmortals make their homes, there also they will be worshipped with the shed blood of men and women and children. Agamemnon sacrificed his own child to such power, in exchange for his greatness. Babylon. Cambyses the Persian. The Scythians and their Amazon brides. All of them made blood sacrifices, all of them paid for strength and power with the lives of others. Wild and savage like the Picts, or ordered like the Aztecs, the Romans, the Nazis—it doesn’t matter. The dark ones demand bodies, they give power, and they drive those who serve them into deeper and deeper madness.”

  Rupert turned and looked directly, deeply, into Cyrus’s eyes. Cyrus blinked, but he could not look away.

  “Cyrus Smith,” Rupert said, “you and I were raised in a world where good men feared only the darkness of other men—and that is enough—where children could laugh at nonsense dragons in nonsense books, where monsters and giants had long ago been chained and hidden away in the deep places, devouring no one, so thoroughly defeated that even wise men and women believed magical to mean the same thing as imaginary. But the dark truths that lie beneath the myths and legends and storybooks are now erupting. We and the world will see the beginning of such … magical times. And, please God and all His angels, may we see them end.”

  Cyrus shifted on his leg, watching Rupert’s eyes lose their focus and wander somewhere distant. Then Cyrus coughed.

  “I’m sorry,” Rupert said. “I shouldn’t make this your burden.”

  “Why?” Cyrus asked. “Because I had some pellets in my leg? Because I whined about it? I promise I’m done. Next time I’m shot, I won’t even mention it.”

  Rupert smiled, but his eyes were still heavy.

  “Seriously,” Cyrus said. “I’ll just think about human sacrifice and bite my lip. And I always want to know what’s going on, no matter how bad it is. I started all this—”

  “No,” Rupert said. “Cyrus—”

  “Fine. I was part of starting all this,” Cyrus continued. “It’s kinda my burden already, Rupe. William Skelton made it my burden when he tossed me his stupid key ring and the Dragon’s Tooth with it.” Cyrus reached up and felt the keys and the empty silver sheath hanging from Patricia’s cool body. “So just tell me what we’re doing next. Another two months of hopping around and meeting with scared people? Hunting Phoenix? Hunting the Ordo Draconis? Even if it’s all math with numbers and cartography, I’m in.”

  Rupert laughed. “You don’t even realize how much you’re like your dad. Just go jump in the lake. Get clean and move around on that leg. I have to skewer that Flint character and then listen to the ramblings of a Mohawked Irishman.” He grinned. “We’ll talk more after. I promise, you’ll hear all the news.”

  Rupert gripped Cyrus’s shoulder and then smacked him lightly on the back of the head before he turned for the door. Cyrus watched his Keeper go, and an old spring banged the door shut behind him. Whatever news had come in, it wasn’t good. Rupert could always be a storm cloud, but he didn’t worry easily.

  Cyrus exhaled and did what he’d promised. He bit his lip and thought about the stories Nolan had told about Radu Bey and the Dracul family, stories Antigone had refused to listen to, stories about kids his age being carried into sacred groves and stretched over mossy stone altars, about forests of stakes sharpened to hold bodies, about whole buildings made of bodies. Then he tried not to limp as he walked to the door.

  Cyrus limped less as he moved over pine needles and roots and bare earth beneath the huge cedar trees. He passed two quiet cabins and a leaning outhouse and then made his way slowly toward the lake. Old Llewellyn Douglas was down by the water, seated in his wheelchair on a tiny battered dock, with a big wool blanket and a rifle across his lap. He was wearing a green stocking cap with a pom-pom on top, and a red flannel shirt under a puffy down vest that had once been cream with bright stripes across the chest but now featured a number of large coffee stains.

  One of the Boones’s amphibious jets was floating just thirty yards offshore.

  Cyrus shuffled out onto the dock, barefoot and shirtless, and stood beside the old man in the wheelchair, squinting into the sun. The air was warm and dry, like California, and he filled his lungs with it. Even if he hadn’t been the one flying the plane last night, the taste of the air was all he needed to tell him that he was in the west. Above the dark lake and its fir-covered mountain walls, the sky was low and large. A migrating herd of cumulus clouds seemed to barely clear the jutting trees as they slid east, and the loud blue all around them was close enough to taste. Cyrus loved being among old trees, breathing their breath, rich with age, and giving his own breath back. This air was mixed with the taste of running water from the mountain stream rippling the lake not far from the dock, and damp earth, and even in the sun, it had the small sharp teeth of air that has flown high and grown thin, air that has seen the poles and tumbled through skies of snow.

  “Boy,” Llewellyn said, “you gonna stand there sniffing the wind, or you gonna help me in?”

  “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Douglas,” Cyrus said. “I never said goodbye when you left. You taught us a lot.”

  The old man’s face was carved with deep creases but it still looked hard and taut—like wet and wrinkled leather left to dry in the sun.

  Llewellyn snorted. “Lie, truth, lie, Smithling. You can do better. There isn’t a thing nice about seeing me again, not here, not now, not for you, not for me. No, you didn’t say goodbye, and no, I didn’t cry about it. I didn’t even tell you I was leaving. And as for teaching you … ha! I taught you nothin’. Told you some things, but teaching means learning, and I don’t know how as you learned a doggone thing.” The old man glared up at Cyrus. “Can you fill your sinuses with water and pressure-proof your brain for a deep dive? You been slowing down your heart? No?” He shook his head, bobbing the pom-pom on his hat. “I didn’t think so. I talked at you. I didn’t teach.”

  Cyrus laughed. “Well, I’m not lying. It is nice to see you. I never would have made Journeyman without you. Do you really want to get in the water?”

  “Why do you think I’m sitting here, boy?” Llewellyn growled. “That plane ruins the view.”

  Cyrus looked around. He wasn’t worried about the old man swimming. He’d never seen anyone more like a fish in the water. But with his own bad leg, he might not be able to help the old man back out.

  Llewellyn Douglas set his rifle down on the dock and tossed his blanket on top of it. He was wearing a pair of very short, very old mustard-colored swim trunks, and his bare white legs were mostly bone and sagging skin where there should have been muscles. Cyrus tried to suppress a grimace.

  “I have my suit on,” Llewellyn said. “But only because that young Rupert says I’m not to go without one. Some nonsense about scaring the fish.” He tugged off his hat, and his thin white hair f
loated away from his head, charged with static. The vest and the shirt were next, and Cyrus was left staring at a pale belly the color of a cave fish and ribs that marched up to the man’s collarbones like two ladders in a skin bag.

  Llewellyn eyed Cyrus’s arms and chest, then assessed his own and sputtered out a laugh. “Boy, you’re as brown as a nut, and you’ve strapped on some brawn beneath that skin, too. You almost look the Journeyman.” He held out his hands. “Now get me in the water before I freeze in this sun.”

  Llewellyn didn’t need much help standing up, and Cyrus was sure he didn’t weigh more than a squirrel. The old man was vertical only long enough to fall forward, slithering into a dive that gave off more of a slurp than a splash.

  Cyrus held his breath, hopped on his good leg, and then dropped into the dark rippling water feetfirst.

  Cold.

  Cyrus didn’t gulp; he didn’t flail. Time threw away whole seconds. His lungs were stone. His heart stopped. The fibers in his muscles paused, suddenly asleep. His skin was heavy, numb with shock. He drifted, a corpse lost in icy water. And then, slowly at first, his body began to burn. Icy teeth chewed at every cell, and their bite was fire. His feet bumped the soft, silty bottom, and his legs pushed off with the slow speed of a sloth. Drifting back up, he managed one pulse with his arms, and his head broke the surface into the sun.

  He didn’t gasp. Blinking, he opened his mouth and air came out, but he couldn’t expand his lungs to inhale again. Llewellyn’s face bobbed in front of him.

  “Glacier lake,” the old man said, and he spat. “The stream right there is fresh snowmelt, down from the heights. Nothing like it to make you know you’re alive, and to ask if that’s how you’d like to stay.” Llewellyn smiled. “Don’t take too long making up your mind.” He slid through the water to the dock and dragged himself out.

  Cyrus managed to inhale and turn back toward the shore. He had an audience. Rupert and Antigone were watching. Antigone held a towel and a shirt. Behind them, he saw Diana and Arachne approaching. Diana was tan and freckled and chatting, but Arachne was cool and quiet, with skin like spider silk woven and polished into pearl. Off to the side, hulking in the shadows beneath a cedar tree, he saw the huge shape of Gilgamesh of Uruk, looking surly and scratching his hairy cheek with a massive six-fingered hand. Gil was wearing a pair of blue oil-stained, oversize mechanic’s coveralls that were too short for his legs, too tight for his thighs, and apparently unable to be zipped up past his bulging woolly chest. Gil looked too heavy for this world, denser even than the trees beside him. Cyrus didn’t like seeing the transmortal without chains. Buried for good would have been even better.

  Clearly on guard beside Gil, Captain John Smith stood with his arms crossed over a glistening gold breastplate. He was smaller than Gil, but just as dense. Beside each other they looked like men made of stone in a world made of cloud. But the Captain seemed to be enjoying himself a great deal more. He was wearing baggy camouflage pants tucked into his high Elizabethan boots, and his sword was low on his hip. His thick, square-cut beard almost reached his chest, and his rough hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. His cheeks were creased by centuries of smiles and songs, and his pale sun-bleached eyes shone, even in the shade.

  Cyrus sputtered. He coughed. He wasn’t … quite … able … to swim.

  “Cy?” Rupert asked. “You coping?

  The Captain laughed. “Have ye never seen a rat drowning? The lad’s a flesh anchor yearning for the bottom.” The Captain shot Gil a warning glance, and then strode forward and marched out onto the dock, stepping over Llewellyn Douglas without a glance.

  Spitting and kicking in place, Cyrus watched the Captain draw his sword. The dragon-etched blade sliced air and light as the Captain flipped it, catching the steel perfectly in his bare hand. Crouching, smiling through a squint, he extended the hilt to Cyrus.

  Cyrus couldn’t speak, but he shook his head. He shut his eyes, took a breath, and sank. Underwater, he followed the steps he’d been taught, contracting his torso around full lungs, forcing blood to flow. He felt his heart quicken in his chest. And then he contracted his will. The cold couldn’t stop him. It was nothing. The fiery needle teeth were in his mind. He was loose. He was liquid. He pointed his arms and slithered forward. Moments later, he stood on silty stones, walking awkwardly up onto the bank. His teeth suddenly clattered without asking permission first. His skin was made entirely of bumps.

  “Wow,” Antigone said, worried. “It’s really that cold? I think I’ll skip.”

  Cyrus, shaking, glared at Rupert Greeves, and his Keeper spread his guilt out with a smile.

  “What?” Rupert asked. “The water sorted your leg pain, yeah? How about a little gratitude?”

  Cyrus fought to settle his quivering chest and steady his breathing. Then he nodded at Gilgamesh, still watching from beneath his tree.

  “Why?” Cyrus managed. “Why. Gil’s. Loose.”

  “Get dry,” Rupert said quietly. “We are all that we will be, and it’s time for a plan. Gil’s part of that. Arachne’s here to make him behave, and the Captain’s here in case he doesn’t.” He turned to Antigone. She was hugging the towel and shirt to herself and chewing her lip. “Will you show him where to go?”

  Antigone nodded and moved toward her brother.

  “Grand,” Rupert said. “Don’t be long.” He turned, striding away through the cabins, and the group trickled after him, with the Captain at the end, pushing the nearly naked Llewellyn Douglas in his wheelchair, beneath his mounded clothes.

  Llewellyn winked at Cyrus as he passed. “I might have done a little teaching,” he said. “The water ain’t killed you yet, boy. And she’s had her chances. Yes, she has.”

  As they rolled away, Antigone handed her brother the towel and he buried his face in its scratchy thread, rubbing his skin warm.

  “Cy,” Antigone said. Her voice was serious, and Cyrus looked up into his sister’s wide eyes. “I know your leg is hurt and you’re completely frozen and I got Rupe to agree to let us into his powwow, but there’s something more important that I have to show you. Something I haven’t shown anyone.”

  “Okay …,” Cyrus said.

  “Like, right now,” Antigone said. She handed him the shirt she had been holding. It was old and green with a white tadpole on the chest bent into the shape of a lightning bolt. “Symbol of the Douglases, apparently,” she said. “Put it on.” Cyrus obeyed slowly, still slightly shaking. As soon as his head was through, she grabbed his hand and began to drag him away. Wincing, hobbling over tree roots, Cyrus pulled back. Antigone stopped and assessed him, tucking her hair behind her ears.

  “Fine,” she said. “We really don’t have time.” She turned around and braced herself. “Jump on.”

  “Tigs.” Cyrus laughed. “You’re a bug. I’ll crush you. And my shorts are soaking wet.”

  “I’m an ant,” Antigone said. “I could carry Rupe if I had to. And I don’t care about wet. Just get on before I get mad. I’m serious, Cy. You and your stupid leg are too slow right now. Do it.”

  Cyrus put his hands on his sister’s shoulders and hopped onto her back. She groaned, and he felt her buckle a little as she grabbed for a grip on his legs, but she stabilized quickly.

  “Giddyup, Tigger,” Cyrus said.

  “Shut up, Rus-Rus, or I’ll drop you on a rock.” Antigone gasped, and then she raced away.

  Antigone carried her brother past their cabin and then veered for the stream. As the trees thinned and the stream and the meadow and the tilt-rotor plane appeared, she turned upstream and uphill, and the ground became rocky.

  Finally, chuffing like a dying train, Antigone staggered around a boulder and stopped in front of an old outhouse. She dropped Cyrus, and he leaned against the warm stone, waiting for an explanation.

  “Okay,” Antigone wheezed. She bent at the waist, coughed, and straightened. “Rupert told us not to use this outhouse. Animals down inside or something. Will attack if you try.” She put her ha
nds on her head, breathless. Her face was flushed and wet with sweat, but she wouldn’t slow down. “Perfect, right? No one would come here. So I did. And they’re fine, Cy. They’re perfect. It’s solved. And it’s crazy. Seriously, all-the-way, I-can’t-even-believe-it crazy.”

  “Wait,” Cyrus said. “What are perfect? The animals? You fixed the outhouse?”

  “No!” Antigone barked. “The globes! Skelton’s paper globes that you dropped in the motel pool!”

  “I didn’t drop them,” Cyrus said. “The wind—”

  “Doesn’t matter!” Antigone said, and she held up both hands. “With everyone around all the time, I brought them up here. We thought the water ruined them but they’re fine. They’re more than fine. They’re solved. And now I know why everyone was so mad when Skelton made us his heirs. Horace wasn’t lying. Skelton was rich, Cy. Way crazy go-to-the-moon-and-back rich. And he didn’t just show up to the motel and make us his Acolytes all spur of the moment. He knew what he was doing. It was all a plan.”

  Panting, she put her hands on her hips and smiled. “Wanna see?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she tugged open the old outhouse door and stepped aside.

  “Get in there.”

  Cyrus stepped onto a sighing plank floor, and Antigone followed, banging the door shut behind her. Enough light trickled in through the cracks that Cyrus could watch his sister hop up onto the wooden toilet bench with one dark ominous hole, then pull the two stiff and folded globes and a flashlight down from a dust-covered shelf.

  Antigone held up the first globe, and it looked like a collapsed umbrella.

  “Okay,” she said. “So no one could ever decode all that ink writing. Not Nolan, not Rupert. Nobody. Some of it almost made sense; some they thought was maybe a weird Sanskrit. But everything they tried to translate ended up being nonsense.”

  Cyrus nodded. “Right. Get to the new stuff.”

  Antigone beamed. “It was nonsense, Cy. The ink on the paper globes was a distraction all along. The real stuff was written into the paper. It just needed you to dissolve all that ink off in the Archer’s stupid pool!”