Chapter 19

I watched everyone at a relatively safe distance as we made our way through more hallways. It had all turned into a giant maze to me. It felt that if I were left to my own devices, I would be lost down here for days before finding my way out. Of course, I could probably have Rho or Sebastian lead me to an exit.

I looked ahead. Nobody else would be able to do that. Walker and Rho both confirmed that he worked here with Hayden, which would explain his knowledge of the vaults, but not his near-perfect recollection of where to go and which items to take. Jade and Ruby had never even known about the vaults before this trek, so they would be lost without him.

Granted, Walker seemed to have this course memorized. The spirit of Glenn seemed to be of an opinion that only family should be down here. However, if Hayden and Valory were the last family members to take care of the vaults, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that they might look to other Magi they trusted to help? Had Walker been one such person? It would explain how he knew about the vaults, not to mention how to get around and what was stored where.

As usual, Walker and my mom lead the procession. I thought it was odd when they stopped and looked to the left at what appeared to be a dark hallway. They stood there for a moment and then something came rolling out of the hallway at them. The objects bounced off their feet and they simply stared down at them.

Mom bent and pick up one of the objects. She stood up, holding it in the palm of her hand. She showed it to Walker, and then held it up to her nose and took a deep whiff. Just as quickly, her head lolled about and she fell to the floor like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

I took to running to catch up to them.

Walker looked back at the hallway. Someone stepped out from the darkness. It was a woman. I thought it was Maria, but I wasn’t close enough to be sure.

“Who are you?” Walker demanded. Then he stretched out a hand.

“No!” The woman said. “Stop it! Let me go!” I recognized her voice. It was Maria.

I realized now would be a good time to use the knives that Rho helped me to collect and modify, but before I could palm one, Walker turned to look at me.

“You set this up, didn’t you?” His face was a visage of anger and focused concentration.

I slowed down as I got closer, ready to throw up a rebounding spell between the two of us if necessary. I glanced at Maria but said to Walker, “And what if I did? What are you going to do?”

He studied me for a moment, ignored my question, and then looked at Maria. He pulled her closer. “Where did you get the mothballs?” he asked, sneering.

She struggled against the magic that held her but she didn’t answer.

He pulled her even closer, almost blasting her face with spittle as he yelled, “Where?!?”

She looked up and said, “The same place as this,” and she held up something.

Walker flung up an arm and the item flashed.

Across the hall, Jade screamed and then disappeared into a cloud of dark smoke.

Maria held up the camera and hit the shutter button again. Walker maintained his rebounding spell, only this time Ruby – sneaking up behind Maria – was caught and disappeared in a second cloud.

Maria frantically advanced the film and held it up to snap a shot of Walker. She pushed the camera at his face and hit the shutter button for the third time. This time, she was the one captured by the camera.

I was momentarily blinded by so many quick flashes. When I could see again, Walker was holding the camera. I recalled the camera from the Room of Ghosts. It was broken. So, how did Maria repair it? I also burnt the film in the camera. Where would she get more film?

Walker turned and looked at me. “This, I presume, is from a room you visited while the rest of us were stuck in that fucking blanket?”

I looked at it and shrugged. “I know there are over two hundred and fifty rooms filled with various magical items, but I can’t tell you where that came from.”

The lights in the hallway flickered. Fog formed at our feet. The lights went out, leaving an eerie green glow in the hallway behind us. Maria picked up where she left off back in the room of ghosts. Only, here in the hallways, the enchantments the rooms used to subdue the magical effects of the various items were not present. There was nothing to impede her.

What puzzled me was that, back in the Room of Ghosts, she used other magic items to create these effects. Short of finding a way back into that room and bringing along those same items, how was she doing this?

I looked around, wondering if Jade and Ruby might also appear as smoke ghosts, but the only solid form was the one Maria created. On top of that, she had previously used pink smoke when I was with her, but the green she used now was sickly and made a far more terrifying color.

The fog began whirling in a spot a dozen paces away, and the green glow focused on that spot. Very quickly, the glow and fog formed Maria’s lovely figure, however, the face she presented was anything but lovely. She was angry and let us know it.

“You!” she screamed and pointed. “You do not belong here!” Her voice echoed throughout the hallway and made me think of a banshee. Worse, she seemed to be pointing at me.

To test my theory, I took several large steps to one side. Her pointing, accusatory finger followed me. I glanced sideways at Walker. He watched me more than Maria, very likely still believing that I was the one who cooked up this plan. He didn’t look confused or scared. Anger clouded all of his emotions and I feared for not only Mom and Maria, but all of us.

Maria dropped her arm. She took several deep breaths, looked up, and seemed to spew green fog at the ceiling.

The green fog followed the ceiling toward me. I called up my armor, not sure what this was about when the fog came down on me like torrential rainfall. It was thick enough that I quickly lost sight of everything around me.

I felt nothing, but my vision was obscured. I was also certain that Walker had lost sight of me as well.

I tried to step out of the fog-fall but found that I couldn’t move. I looked down. Ice had formed around my feet up to my calves, sticking to my armor, which locked my feet to the floor. The ice continued to grow up along my legs but never penetrated my armor.

With the same eeriness as before, I heard Maria whisper directly in my ear as if she stood with her body pressed to mine, “Relax and pose for him.”

I raised my arms like I was reaching for the ceiling, and felt them lock into place. Then I asked in a return whisper, “What’s the plan?” I wasn’t even sure she could hear me.

“To scare him,” she whispered.

“It’s going to take more than freezing me into place to do that,” I said.

“He’s already scared,” she said. “Remember, he can’t lose you. If he does, he’ll be stuck down here forever.”

“Wait,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean he’ll kill you to win this fight?”

She didn’t answer.

I wanted to ask more, but the cold was starting to get to me. Even with the jacket and its magical enhancement to keep the wearer comfortable regardless of the temperature.

The fog pulled away from the ice, but the ice kept me from seeing what was going on. I could hear things, however.

I heard yelling, a scream, and various moans from Maria. A second scream followed by more yelling, and then the ice around me began cracking.

I struggled to move and speed up the breaking. When I was certain enough was gone, I dropped my armor and was able to step out of the remaining ice that tried to hold me to the floor.

I looked around and found Walker standing over mom in a combat stance. The fog was gone, the lights were back on, and Maria was nowhere to be seen.

I looked at Walker. He was breathing heavily as if he had just sprinted a mile. His eyes were wide, however, and he was visibly agitated. “What happened?” I asked.

He looked at me, gestured for me to remain silent, and then spun around.

In my ear, I heard, “I’m still here.” It was unnerving, but no more than that. There had to be more to what she was doing than what I knew about. Either that or she was simply saving me from what she was doing.

I looked at mom. I spotted several small round objects. They were mothballs, and after watching what happened to my mother, I knew better than to pick one up and sniff it. However, if Walker scented one, he would be as helpless as she.

Then I spotted the camera. Walker must have dropped it after I was frozen. If it had a new roll of film, there would be plenty of exposures for me to capture Walker. Unfortunately, I couldn’t free Maria without freeing Walker.

Maria did something that made Walker spin and cast a spell down an empty hallway. She laughed and I heard it too.

“We have to stop her, Seth,” he said. He glanced down at my mom and said, “There’s no telling what those mothballs have done to your mother.”

I got angry. “Excuse me? You have kept her in perpetual danger to force me to do what you want, but now you show her sympathy?”

He shot a glare at me. “You would know exactly what I did to your mother because I would tell you. But, neither of us knows what those mothballs do.”

I wanted to say, “It seems fairly obvious to me,” but that would be callous on my part. Mothballs are meant to keep insects and rodents out of stored clothing. Why would someone enchant them to knock out anyone who sniffed them?

“Dammit!” I exclaimed. It pissed me off that Walker was acting as my conscious in this. It would be so much easier if I could knock his ass out, and look after my mom.