Trapped

"No." Sebastian gave me a hard look. "I want to do this alone."

"You will be doing it alone," I said, "but the first few seconds might be messy. The rod likely takes us back exactly where we started-which means the middle of the cage. If the evil Lucifer is still there… well, it'll take your nanite friends a moment to swoop to your rescue. I want to make sure you survive that moment."

"You think I'm just a helpless kid?"

"No," I said, looking into his angry eyes. "After everything you've been through, you aren't a kid. But you aren't a man either-not if you let stupid pride reject a reasonable offer of assistance. A true man knows when he can use help."

"Oh good," Annah said. "Then you'll let me come too. I was afraid you'd want me to stay here until you big strong males made Niagara safe for womenfolk. But if a true man knows when he can use a help…"

I glared at her. She returned a look of total innocence.

"Let's just go," Sebastian said. "I'm tired."

Annah put one arm around the boy's shoulders and the other around me. "If we're linked together, will we transport together?"

"Only one way to find out," I said. I raised the rod.

‹BINK›

I expected we'd return to blackness-the utter absence of light that had filled the prison cavern once the laser cage stopped working. But now there were oil lamps burning near the entrance to the chamber: lamps held by eight figures in Keeper robes, shedding enough light to see the entire room. Every last cellule had moved outside the prison cube. They must have wanted to avoid getting trapped if the lasers miraculously reactivated. A mound of them now lay heaped where Dreamsinger had fallen-probably trying to penetrate her armor's force field, or to suffocate her by sealing out fresh air. The mound was much smaller than the original Lucifer heap; the remaining mass had reshaped itself into human figures, those who were now dressed as Keepers. The false Keepers were busy assembling devices near the mouth of the cavern, contraptions of metal and plastic and electronic parts. I assumed the devices were weapons, traps to spring on the first Spark Lords who came to investigate. The components of the devices must have been produced by the evil Lucifer itself, in much the same way it created lightbulbs.

A moment after Annah, Sebastian, and I materialized, every Keeper turned our direction… their attention drawn by the distinctive ‹BINK› noise. The black mound pressing on Dreamsinger hissed sharply as if it too had noticed our arrival. The mound didn't move-if it shifted off, the Sorcery-Lord would be able to breathe again-but the Keepers by the entrance dropped what they were doing and charged at us full speed.

Their eyes were on Sebastian. They obviously realized they had only a tiny window of time to kill the boy before his powers reasserted themselves. Already, nanites in the air must have been processing Sebastian's presence; soon they would recognize him and congregate en masse to do his bidding. But not instantly-I didn't know how fast nanotech could work, but I suspected it would take several seconds to analyze the situation and summon sufficient force to provide adequate protection. Most of Sebastian's life, he'd been surrounded by an attendant nano cloud, immediately ready to do his bidding… but he'd left the normal plane of existence, and now that he was back, the nanites needed time to regroup.

Annah and I had to buy the boy that time.

We stepped in front of him, putting ourselves in the path of the charging Keepers. When we'd first arrived, they'd had normal human faces; but in their haste to reach us, they made no effort to control their features. Eyes and skin reverted to masses of granuled black, with here and there a maggot of white from the mutated Jode. All semblance of humanity vanished in a flash… and yet their writhing fleck-filled faces conveyed ferocious hatred, a lunatic hunger to splash our blood onto the cold stone.

I raised my fists the way Impervia always did when facing drunken rowdies. Beside me, Annah did the same. Our job was simple: keep the Lucifers away from Sebastian, even if we ourselves got torn apart in the process.

I wanted to tell Annah I loved her but that seemed so trite.

The Lucifers hit us like a battering ram. I managed to throw a punch in the split-second before impact… but my fist simply buried itself in yielding grains of sand, and then I was knocked off my feet by the sheer mass of attackers.