He raised his hands to his ears just as all the windows in the boathouse exploded and the whole building shuddered. The blast wave knocked Ajay backward into another snowdrift.
“Mother of mercy,” said Ajay.
He wobbled to his feet and staggered onto the porch. He opened the front door and walked straight into the sill before he course-corrected and made it inside.
“Elise? Will?!”
“Up here!”
It was Will’s voice. He sounded miles away. Ajay’s ears were ringing louder than at a rock concert. Ajay launched himself at the stairs, weaving from one wall to the other.
“Good grief,” said Ajay. “A direct hit to the gyroscope.”
As he passed a window in the stairwell, Ajay looked down and saw a snowmobile pull out of a garage and head for the woods. The Paladin was driving. Ajay stumbled through a door at the top of the stairs, where he found Will crouched over Elise, who was unconscious and pale on the floor.
“Is she all right?” asked Ajay, but couldn’t hear himself, so he repeated the question, much louder than before.
Will didn’t seem to hear him either time. He said something and Ajay saw his lips moving but couldn’t hear a word.
“What?!” yelled Ajay, moving closer.
“Use the phone! Call for help!”
“Okay! Where’s Brooke?!”
“In here!”
Will led him to a doorway, where Brooke lay on the floor just inside. Two Knights—Pigtail and Pirate—were slumped crookedly against a wall, out cold. They looked like they’d been hit by a bus. Their masks had been knocked off. They were Hodak’s attack dogs from the cross-country team: Durgnatt and Steifel.
A trapdoor in the middle of the room stood open, and a rope descended to the floor below. Will pointed to the rope and said something.
“What?!” shouted Ajay.
Will yelled into Ajay’s ear, “There’s a phone! In the office downstairs! Kidnapping! Attempted murder!”
Ajay gave the “okay” sign and said, “One of them got away! Snowmobile!”
“I know!” shouted Will. “Lyle!”
Ajay grabbed the rope in the trapdoor and tried a heroic slide to the floor below. He lost his grip halfway down and crash-landed on his rump. After making sure Will hadn’t seen him, Ajay lifted the receiver of the black phone in the office. He had to assume an operator answered because he couldn’t hear a thing.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to yell!” shouted Ajay.
Upstairs, Will gathered Brooke in his arms, carried her into the other room, and laid her gently beside Elise. He covered Elise with his jacket. Will stripped the winter coat off one of the downed Knights and was about to cover Brooke when she opened her big blue eyes.
“Who wins the Drama Club Award now?” he asked.
“You came for me,” she said.
“What?!” he said.
She threw her arms around him and closed her eyes and said into his ear, “You came for me.”
He heard her that time.
Downstairs, Ajay had to shout to make sure he got the message across. He was pretty sure the operator told him help would be there in fifteen minutes.
“I’m sorry!” he shouted to her. “I feel like I’m inside a large bell! Actually right inside it! In a bell tower! And it’s ringing incessantly!”
Ajay hung up the phone and left the office as Will leaped down through the trapdoor, grabbed the rope, and landed—without falling—right beside him.
“You stay here,” said Will. “Take care of the girls, wait for help.” Will headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” shouted Ajay, following him.
“I’m going after Lyle.”
“On foot? Wait, Elise brought her horse. You could take him.”
“I won’t need a horse,” said Will.
OceanofPDF.com
THE CAVES
The snow had slowed to flurries when Will left the boathouse and started after Lyle. The tracks and furrows of the snowmobile led Will deep into the woods. He dodged and lunged over the unfamiliar ground, training all his senses ahead, calling on his speed to keep pace or narrow Lyle’s lead.
Will pulled up his sensory grid, throwing it out ahead to track Lyle, but it felt muddy, imprecise, and he realized that his hearing, stunned by the sonic explosion, played a major role in this ability to “see.” He couldn’t find Lyle anywhere, and as the ground grew steeper and rockier, he needed more time to pick his path. He left the trees and crossed onto a clear plateau that sloped gradually up toward the ridgeline, where, high above, were the caves he’d noticed the other day.
As he crested the next rise, Will caught a glimpse of Lyle on the snowmobile, moving straight for the ridge. As his hearing returned, Will heard a sound like the distant buzzing of a swarm of angry hornets. He thought it must be Lyle’s engine, but then he realized it was coming from behind him.
Three more snowmobiles were cutting and plunging through the drifts, approaching from behind him to the east. Three more Knights: Ben Franklin, George Washington, and the Wolf. All three masks had rifles strapped across their backs. They were less than a hundred yards away.
Will would reach the base of the ridge in another minute. The snowmobiles weren’t gaining on him, but it occurred to Will that catching him might not be their plan. Maybe they wanted to herd him this way and flush him into the open where they could stop, sit back at range, and pick him off with their rifles.
But if the situation escalated to life-threatening, Will knew his insurance policy would kick in. Dave hadn’t let him down yet, four times without fail. He could count on his angel riding to the rescue. Couldn’t he?
Will hopped over a line of boulders and glanced at his watch: seven minutes since he’d left the boathouse. Help should reach his friends within fifteen minutes of Ajay’s alert. He just had to keep the Knights occupied until then.
As he neared the escarpment, Will saw Lyle scrambling up a rough path in the face of the rock. Piles of rubble ran along the edge of the path, offering some cover. Will passed Lyle’s abandoned snowmobile, struggled through a field of loose, crumbled shale, and reached the bottom of the path. He looked up; he had forty yards to climb, with two switchbacks, to reach the ridge. Will ducked behind a rock and looked back.
The other snowmobiles had stopped in a cluster, fifty yards back. The drivers, already dismounted, rifles cradled in their arms, were walking toward the bottom of the ridge.
If they plan to shoot me, this would be the place. And if I want my friends to figure out where the hell I am, a few gunshots ringing out in this cold clear air should do the trick.
Will took a deep breath and sprinted straight up the gradient. Something kicked off a rock three feet to his right before he heard the report of the rifle. Another shot ricocheted to his left, and a third hit just behind him. Will dropped behind a low cluster of rocks, about halfway up the path.
“Any time, Dave,” he grunted. “Now would be really good.”
Will looked up and saw Lyle pulling himself over the top onto the ridge. As Will looked back, a fourth shot kicked off the rocks just in front of him. Will launched himself up the path, pulling with his hands, driving hard with his legs, bursting out of hiding so quickly that the next few shots landed well behind him. As he turned the final switchback, the last ten feet to the top left him completely exposed, so he kept pushing and grabbing and pulling until—
He leaped for the top of the ridge, scrabbled over, and rolled away from it as three shots in a tight pattern zipped just above him. One clipped the shoulder of his down vest and feathers flew into the air.
Will lay still, gasping for breath, cradled in snow as the rifles’ sharp reports echoed off the rocks. He raised his head just enough to look around for Lyle. The ridge, snow laden and only thirty feet across at its widest, ran off in both directions until it curved and disappeared. Another sheer rock wall, unscalable, rose straight ahead of him.