The Candy Shop War, Vol. 2: Arcade Catastrophe (29 page)

Advancing through the water, Nate and Chris carried the trunk back to the tower and started gliding up the stairs. Risa and Lindy followed.

Taking the chest up the tall tower didn’t particularly fatigue Nate. Once they got some momentum going, the effort almost felt more mental than physical. They just kept toting the chest upward, keeping away from the stairs, walls, and ceiling.

At last they emerged from the lighthouse and brought the chest up to the surface of the bay. The air felt empty and dark after the vivid sensations available underwater.

Lindy and Risa surfaced nearby.

“So far, so good,” Lindy said.

“Should we try to fly with it?” Chris asked.

“Sure,” Nate said.

With the chest between them, Nate and Chris ascended out of the water. They hadn’t risen more than ten feet before Nate’s arms were trembling with exertion. The boys stopped rising, and Chris’s side of the chest dipped. Nate lost his grip, as did Chris, and the chest splashed down into the water.

Nate dove down and stopped the chest from sinking clear to the bottom. Chris took hold of the other side. The girls gathered near.

“It’s too heavy to go far,” Nate said.

“It isn’t bad underwater,” Chris noted. “We could take it through the water to Angel Island. Then we would just have to fly it a little ways to a quiet spot.”

“Alcatraz is closer,” Lindy said, “but Jonas nixed that as a destination, along with Treasure Island and Yerba Buena.”

“He left Angel Island as fair game,” Chris said. “The Tanks will have a tough time getting there. Let’s go see if we can open this thing.”

Chapter Eighteen

The Chest

Working together, with one of them at each corner, Nate, Chris, Lindy, and Risa managed to fly the chest a few hundred yards inland from the Angel Island shore, crossing a small road and struggling some distance up a brushy slope. When they reached their limit and let the chest thump down, it struck the ground with finality.

Risa rubbed her hands briskly. “I lost circulation to my fingers.”

“That thing was heavy,” Chris said, stretching his arms. “This spot seems as remote as anywhere.”

Nate ran a hand over the top of the chest, then down the side. Unlike his body, the chest remained damp. “I still can’t feel how to open it. I can’t even tell whether it’s wood or ceramic or what.”

“I can sort of see it with the moonlight,” Chris said. “The color is darker than I realized. But I had a much better sense of it back in the water.”

“Let me get out the guidestone,” Lindy offered. She had stashed it in her backpack so she could help carry the chest. “Maybe it has a key inside.”

“The chest has no keyhole,” Risa pointed out.

“Well, maybe there’s something else in it,” Lindy said, rummaging. “It seems suspicious that the guidestone turned into a miniature chest. At least the little replica has a lid.”

Lindy produced the tiny chest and started prying at it with her fingers. “It’s stuck, but the lid has some wiggle to it. Wait, here we go.” She lifted the small lid, and simultaneously the top of the chest folded open as well. And then the chest kept unfolding in astonishing ways, as if lid after lid were opening in unpredictable directions. With a startled squeal, Lindy dropped the miniature chest as it transformed as well, mimicking the larger version.

“Whoa,” Nate breathed, taking involuntary steps back as the chest grew and evolved with each new lid that lifted. The unfolding process sped up. Strange new shapes unfolded manically, expanding the chest to improbable proportions.

When the process ended, Nate found himself staring at the entrance to a stone building that extended back into the slope. The structure stood three times his height, with a triangular pediment supported by pillars. Because of how the building protruded from the slope, it looked as if it had been mostly buried in a landslide. A massive bronze door shielded the entrance.

“That was awesome,” Chris said.

“More like freaky,” Risa replied.

“I can’t see inside,” Lindy said. “Same as with the chest.”

Nate crouched, pointing at the ground. “Look, the guidestone matches the chest’s new shape. It’s even partly buried.”

“What’s with the guidestone?” Chris asked.

“It must be some sort of simulacrum,” Nate said. “I think touching it to the chest activated it.”

“Opening the guidestone chest made the actual chest transform,” Lindy said.

“So what happens if we open the little door?” Risa worried. “Will it change again? Will it turn it into a spaceship?”

“Let’s try the actual door first,” Chris suggested. He walked to the entrance of the building and tugged on the bronze door. It didn’t budge. Planting himself firmly, he pulled hard but still got no result.

“It might take them some time, but the Tanks are coming,” Nate said. “We should probably try the little door.”

Lindy crouched and opened the door of the small building. The door to the large building opened in perfect synchronization. Nate was braced for something more, but nothing else happened.

Risa, Nate, and Lindy joined Chris at the entrance. Nate could see a long, shadowy hall with seamless stone walls. Light shimmered in the distance.

“Big chest,” Chris said, the words gently echoing down the corridor.

Nate snorted softly. “A building in a box. It’s kind of like the Hermit making a boat or a barn using some junk in his backpack. Weird magic.”

“Let’s go find the Protector,” Lindy said.

“She’s right,” Chris agreed. “We should hurry.” He bent down to grab the guidestone, only to find it solidly stuck in the ground. “It won’t budge,” he said.

“We’ll have to leave it,” Nate said.

“That means we can’t keep the Tanks out,” Chris said.

“Then, like you said, we should hurry.” Rising off the ground, Nate glided forward. The others followed his lead. The air was cool and still. Glancing back, Nate saw his fellow Jets hovering along the dark corridor, their feet dangling. They looked like phantoms. From up ahead, Nate heard a distant, steady pounding, supplemented by whirring murmurs and rhythmic squeals.

“Hear that?” Risa asked.

“Sounds like a big machine,” Chris said.

“A machine?” Lindy questioned. “In here? This place looks prehistoric.”

Nate increased his pace.

“Be ready for traps,” Chris warned.

Nate slowed a little. He could no longer feel everything the way he had in the water. All it would take was him brushing up against a tripwire in the gloom to trigger some serious trouble.

Up ahead, the hallway elbowed left. Golden light reflected from beyond the turn. The pounding, swooshing, squeaking, whirring sounds grew louder. When Nate reached the corner he stopped, then looked back at the others. “I think I found the traps.”

The hall stretched ahead of him, a chaos of moving parts, the scene lit by lamps embedded in the walls. Razor-sharp pendulums whisked back and forth at high speeds. Deadly blades whipped out of slots in the walls, ceiling, and floor, disappearing only to return, some alternating their vicious swipes, others twirling like propellers. Sharp spears erupted out of deep sockets, thrusting and retracting at a disheartening pace. Toward the far end of the corridor, large pillars pistoned up and down, pounding the floor with implacable force. The other Jets joined Nate, staring down the lethal corridor in despair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chris muttered.

“It’ll be like flying through a blender,” Risa said.

“Like flying through fifty blenders,” Nate said, surveying the lethal obstacles. “It doesn’t matter that we can fly. There are as many traps up high as down low. If we don’t get shredded into pasta, we’ll get crushed into paste.”

“There must be a pattern to it,” Lindy said.

“There’s a pattern,” Chris agreed. “Look at any specific part of the corridor. That pillar just goes up and down, same every time. That spike pokes in and out, over and over. That huge blade swings side to side. But the pattern is designed not to let anything through. We might dodge the first few blades, but then what? It’s the length of a football field!”

“Afterward we’d have to come back,” Risa pointed out.

“Is there a path through it?” Nate asked. “Like if we start on the lower right, then fly along the upper left side, then in the center, that sort of thing?”

They considered the passage together. Light glinted off sharp points and slashing blades. Nate traced possible routes through the obstacle course.

“They covered everything,” Chris said. “High and low, left and right, down the middle. The only hope would be to dodge and dodge and dodge perfectly for a really long time.”

“No way,” Risa said. “We’d have a better chance if we got flushed through a garbage disposal. Or caught under a lawn mower. Or sucked into a jet engine. Or—”

“We get it,” Lindy interrupted. “You’re not wrong. What do we do?”

“The Tanks would be suited for this,” Nate realized. “They can move super fast, and, even if they messed up, they might survive the damage.”

“Good for them,” Chris said bitterly. “How does that help us?”

“Somebody has to get the Protector,” Nate said. “If we go after it, we’ll find out what our insides look like.”

“You think we should let them have it?” Risa asked.

“I think we should let them
get
it,” Nate said. “Kind of like how they let us bring the chest up from the lighthouse. I’m not saying we should let them keep it.”

Chris shook his head. “They’re too strong and fast. Once they have it, we’ll never get it back.”

“Our whole strategy is built around never letting them catch up,” Lindy said.

“That was before we knew we’d have to go through a meat grinder,” Nate said. “Killing ourselves isn’t an option. Look at that hallway! We’d be lunch meat in seconds! But that doesn’t mean we have to give up. On land, we’d never get the Protector from the Tanks. Our advantage is in the air and in the water. We’re on an island. We’ll have a chance when they leave.”

“They might be in a boat,” Chris said.

“Then we sabotage it,” Nate said. “We sink it.”

“They’d still be strong and fast in the water,” Risa said.

“But they’ll need to breathe,” Nate said. He paused, aware that they were trying to recover the final object Jonas White would need to claim Uweya. Obviously they needed to beat the Tanks. But if they succeeded, what then? The time had come to find out whether Chris and Risa would assist with his real mission. “We need to talk about something.”

“What?” Chris said.

“Jonas White is a bad guy,” Nate said.

“Well,” Chris replied uncomfortably, “he’s kind of scary.”

“Not just scary,” Nate said. “Not just intimidating. Not just bossy. Evil. Jonas White is not the only magician in the world. Some are good, some are in between, and some are really bad. I fought a magician who was trying to take over everybody in Colson. It was Mr. White’s sister.”

“Does that make him evil?” Risa asked.

“She used a treat called white fudge to tame everyone,” Nate said. “It was addictive and made them oblivious to her magic. With his nacho cheese, Jonas is using a similar trick to mess with our parents and many other people. There’s a magical police force that protects the world from evil magicians. Jonas White captured their leader along with one of their best detectives and is holding them prisoner. I’m here undercover. I’ve been investigating the arcade to help them. Same with some of my friends.”

“It’s all true,” Lindy said. “I know about it too. To make matters worse, Jonas White is also making the kids from the losing clubs disappear. His people may tell us they gave them special assignments, but what are nonmagical kids going to do? And why would the kids completely vanish?”

“What do you want us to do?” Chris asked.

“We need to stop Jonas from getting Uweya,” Nate said. “He’s a bad guy, and it’s really powerful. If he succeeds, it won’t just be bad for us. It’ll be bad for the whole area. Maybe even the whole world.”

“Mr. White has those simulacra of us,” Risa said. “How could we fight him?”

“We’ll have to worry about that later,” Nate said. “First I need to know whether I can count on you. I haven’t told you guys much about this yet because I couldn’t risk you warning Mr. White. But I can’t be careful anymore. We’re running out of time. The powers Jonas White gave us are fun, but once he has what he wants, he’ll get rid of us. He’s not our friend.”

“I believe you, Nate,” Chris said. “It makes a lot of things make sense. Is Lindy a magician too? Is that why she sees so well?”

Lindy shook her head. “I have a fake eye. The magician who Jonas captured gave it to me. It sees better than a normal eye.”

“Risa?” Nate asked.

“I’ll help,” she said. “I was stressed he might be evil ever since I saw my wax twin.”

“We have to get the Protector from the Tanks,” Nate said. “Summer is on our side, but she doesn’t think she can get the other Tanks to turn against Mr. White. Which means if we want to stop him, we first need to beat the Tanks.”

“Do you have a plan?” Chris asked.

“I think so,” Nate said. “It depends on what supplies we can find in time.”