Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon (31 page)

I call her name over and over and over
.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“I
DON'T THINK
so.”

I blinked upward into Cass's face. His hair was haloed by a fluorescent ceiling light. I was in a glaringly bright room with puke-green walls and a tiled floor. My arm was attached to an IV stand, and by the wall was a wheeled table with beeping medical machines. “Huh?” I said.

“You called me Mom. I said, ‘I don't think so.'”

“Sorry,” I said. “The Dream.”

The fragments of images dispersed like fireflies at daybreak.

Cass smiled. He looked like a little kid with a guilty secret. “She made it,” he said. “Aly. She disappeared into the crowd.”

“Really?” I sat up and immediately regretted it. My head throbbed, and I shot my hand up to feel a bump that was swollen and hard as a handball. “Ow. That's amazing!”

“Yup, their knickers are totally in a twist over it,” Cass replied. “Sorry. That's a Marco expression. But there's some hope. Maybe the KI will find her.”

I sighed. “Not with that iridium band around her wrist.”

“Oh,” Cass said. “Right.”

The door opened. Brother Dimitrios entered, wearing scrubs. “Welcome, Jack! So sorry about André; he got a little overeager with his stick. We will be sure to set him straight. So good to see you up and about.”

“Wish I could say the same,” I grumbled.

“I bring good news,” he went on. “I know you must be concerned about your friend Aly's well-being. But not to worry. Naturally we know where she's gone, so I'm figuring a half hour . . . an hour, tops.”

“You're lying,” Cass piped up, then immediately burst into giggles. “I can't believe I just said that. Me, to a figure of authority. Ha! But it's true. I can tell. Your mouth—it's really . . .
thgit
!”

Brother Dimitrios's smile fell. Now I was laughing too.

Our lives these days were all about traps. Trapped on the island, trapped into going to Greece, to Ohio, to Iraq. Trapped inside some dank underground evil headquarters. Aly had broken the spell. Even if it was for an hour, a few minutes—she had done it. She was free.

“Well, it seems we're in a giddy mood,” Brother Dimitrios said. “This is good. You must think we're monsters. We're not. You'll see. There is much to do, much to show you. Including a surprise or two. Come.”

An orderly rolled a wheelchair into the room. Before I could say a thing, he lifted me into it and began rolling me down a hallway, following Brother Dimitrios and Cass.

We headed up a steep incline. The walls were painted with colorful murals depicting the building of the pyramids and the luxurious courts of the pharaohs. My good mood was slipping fast. It was bad enough to have been stolen away to a tropical island. I was just getting used to that. Now what? What were we supposed to do here? The place was clammy and cold and depressing. “Where are we?” I asked. “What happened to Marco?”

“I thought you'd never ask,” Brother Dimitrios said. “This is an as-yet unexcavated pyramid. At first our archaeologists thought it would be an early one, a simple mound. These preceded the bench-shaped
mastabas
, which were in turn followed by the so-called step pyramids that looked something like layer cakes. But we have found this discovery to be easily the equal of the wondrous pyramids in this valley—all built to comfortably house the bodies of pharaohs and the queens, who would bless the land forever. And now it houses us!”

“Guess the blessing ran out,” I murmured.

As we turned into another corridor, Brother Dimitrios had to duck under an uneven ceiling. “These particular pathways are original, thus a bit cramped. The pyramids seem rock solid from the outside, but they're built with many inner corridors. All the original paths are at an incline. The pharaoh could travel up or down—up toward the sun god, Re, or down to the ruler of the dead, Osiris.” He smiled. “Imagine, if you will, chambers stuffed with gold and jewelry—all designed to pamper the pharaoh!”

“Thanks for the history lesson,” I said with a yawn. “But if you expect us to be super-excited about hanging with dead pharaohs, sorry. And if you expect us to be brainwashed like Marco, sorry twice.”

“You never told us where Marco is,” Cass said.

“You're right, I didn't,” Brother Dimitrios replied with a half-smile that reeked of creepiness.

At the top of the incline was a big rotunda. We paused there. It was an impressive place with a polished tile floor. To the left and right were frosted glass doors leading to inner rooms. Straight ahead, at the opposite end of the rotunda, another pathway continued onward. The circular walls were painted with detailed scenes—a baby facing down a fierce griffin, a dark young hunter catching a vromaski with his bare hands, an old man surrounded by admirers on his deathbed. All from the life of Massarym, I figured.

But my eye was drawn to a portrait of a dark, bearded man sitting on a stone block, his fist on his chin as if in deep thought. Around him were images of the Seven Wonders, arranged like the Heptakiklos.

At his feet were seven sheets, each with a crude sketch of one of the Seven Wonders.

The breath caught in my throat. I'd seen those plans in a dream—a dream in which I was Massarym, and I had created them myself.

The orderlies wheeled us to the left, and Brother Dimitrios paused at a frosted glass door.

“Security clearance!” he announced.

A voice, odd and mechanical-sounding, boomed out from unseen speakers. “It's good to . . . see you . . . welcome!” it said in weird, jerky tones that crackled like a bad phone connection. “. . . to have you here . . . Jack and Cass.”

Cass and I nodded. What were we supposed to do, thank him? Or her? Or it?

With a whoosh, the door opened into a room much vaster than I'd expected—an underground space the size of a supermarket. Greenish-white stalactites hung from a ceiling that was maybe twenty feet high. The floor was covered with mats, dividing the room roughly into four sections. In one of them to our left, two soldiers, a man and woman, were slashing at each other with swords.

To the right, deep into the room, four Massa spun and kicked furiously, their limbs churning the air—yet no one seemed to be touching the other. Like a choreographed game of chicken.

The third area, directly to our right, contained an iron cage. In it, a heavily scarred man faced off with a strange, cougarlike black beast. As it roared and charged, the man sprang upward into a flip, kicking his legs out against the bars and landing on the beast's back. In his left hand he held a dagger. I had to look away.

“This is where we train!” Brother Dimitrios had to shout to be heard over the din. “In the great, ancient tradition of the Massa. Because our followers are not Select, they must work extra hard. And they relish new challenges. Behold.”

Brother Dimitrios clapped three times.

A sequence of movement began. First, the empty mat sank downward into the floor, like a stage effect leaving a rectangular hole. Second, a wall of vertical iron bars lowered directly in front of us with a solid thump. It stretched left and right, from wall to wall, as if to separate and protect us from the room. Third, a door in the beast's cage opened.

The entire room stopped and fell silent—swordspeople, kick boxers, animal fighter. Even the beast stood watching, its eyes yellow and fierce.

Slowly, something began to rise up from within the big rectangular hole. The beast bared its teeth and snarled. The fighters drew back their swords and the kick boxers tensed.

Shoulders . . . back . . . a lone figure, facing away from us, stood in the center of the rising mat. He was dressed in a brocaded uniform, his hair slicked to his skull, a lambda shape showing through.

He turned and smiled. His teeth gleamed, his eyes glowed. Energy poured off him with an intensity I could almost see.

“This place, Brother Jack,” he said, “is the bomb.”

“Massa,” Brother Dimitrios said, “you may attack Marco.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

RRRAAAAAGGHH!
T
HE BEAST
leaped out of its cage at Marco. Its teeth glistened, its claws retracted. The sword fighters retreated to the wall.

Marco bent his knees. He sprang from the mat, flipping twice in the air. At the top of the leap, his hand whipped upward and knocked loose three or four stalactites.

They crashed to the floor, breaking into jagged pieces. Marco landed squarely among them. “Here, kitty kitty . . .” he said, scooping a spearlike fragment from the ground.

If he was afraid, he didn't show it. My heart had stopped. Cass had gripped my arm so hard his fingers were raising welts.

G7W
. It was changing Marco by the day. He was no longer an impossibly amazing basketball player and swimmer. His reflexes, his strength, his confidence—it was all something more than human.

If it had done that to Marco, what was it doing to the rest of us?

The beast leaped again, and Marco swung. The stalactite pierced the side of the creature and it yowled in pain. As it crumpled to the corner, the two sword fighters attacked.

As the first one struck, Marco lurched back, holding out the bloodstained stalactite. The sword split it with a dull crack. But Marco was directly in the path of the second fighter, who thrust her sword directly at his chest.

“Stop!” Cass yelled. I flinched and turned away.

When I looked back, Marco had arched backward at an angle that should have been impossible. His body was parallel to the floor. His assailant was flying clear over Marco's head, on a collision path with the giant black beast.

Staggering to its feet, the creature opened its mouth.

With astonishing speed, Marco snapped upright and hurled a piece of broken limestone toward the beast. The shard lodged in its mouth, jamming it wide open. As the beast howled in pain, the swordsman bounced off its muzzle and fell to the ground.

“You're welcome,” Marco said to his erstwhile attacker.

With a thud, one of the kickers connected squarely with Marco's jaw. He hadn't seen that coming. Marco stumbled backward, flailing his arms.

“No!” I cried out.

With an outstretched palm, Marco caromed off the wall behind him, jumping high. He hurtled toward the kickers, knocking two of them out cold.

The others whirled toward him like ninjas on steroids, their feet slashing the air like knives. Marco reached his left hand into the air. “Hip!” he said. Then the right hand. “Hop.”

I gasped. He had two of them by the ankle. He threw them down to the mat, and they slid headfirst into the blood-spattered cage.

The beast-tamer was still huddled inside. All three hundred pounds of him stared at Marco in fearful silence.

“Amazing . . .” Brother Dimitrios muttered. “Absolutely breathtaking.”

Marco stood there, looking around at the chaos. I watched him shake his head as if waking from a dream. “Dang,” he said, “did I do
that
?”

* * *

I backed away. The wall of vertical bars was raised up to the ceiling. Brother Dimitrios was congratulating Marco. Yiorgos commandeered a group of people to mop the floor. A team of burly guys in masks and armor tasered the beast and led it away.

“Extraordinary!” Dimitrios said. “What strength! What promise!”

Marco glanced my way with an amazed grin. He cocked his head and let out a animal-like roar.
“Woooooo-hoooo! I want to do this again!”