Seven Wonders Book 2: Lost in Babylon Page 19

  I would have believed that more than this.

  Daria looked utterly baffled. “Marco, who is this man? Is this your father?”

  “No, it’s a thief, playing a mind game!” Aly said. “Don’t listen to him. He thinks we’re dumb, gullible kids.”

  “Am I playing games, Brother Marco?” Dimitrios asked.

  Marco looked away. “You’re early,” he mumbled.

  “Beg pardon?” Dimitrios asked.

  Sweat was pouring down Marco’s face. “Remember what we said, dude? By the river? After I brought you here? My peeps were going to put Shelley in place and take the Loculus. I was supposed to have time to talk to them. About . . . the truth and all. Then I would signal you.”

  “Ah, my apologies,” Brother Dimitrios said. “But circumstances have changed. The Babylonian guards are more forceful than we’d anticipated. So if you don’t mind, the Loculus, please.”

  My brain wasn’t accepting Marco’s words. He couldn’t be saying them. It sounded like a cruel joke. Like some evil ventriloquist was using him to pull a prank on us.

  “I don’t believe this . . .” Aly murmured, her eyes hollow. “Marco, you brought them here. You’ve gone over to the Dark Side.”

  “You can’t have the Loculus,” I said. “Absolutely not. We need to wait for Shelley to work. If you remove the Loculus too early, all bets are off for Babylon. This place will be sucked up into oblivion. Wiped off the face of the earth. Tell him, Marco!”

  Daria stared at her. “Oblivion? What does it mean?”

  “It is the place where Babylon is headed, unfortunately,” Brother Dimitrios said. “Where it should have gone, centuries ago, in the proper passage of time. This city exists outside of nature. You’ve had several free millennia, happy and content, while millions of deaths have occurred in the rest of the world.” He looked at each of us, one by one. “And as for Shelley, based on the writings of an nineteenth-century crackpot? I hate to disappoint you, but it is a comic-book contraption, nothing more. It cannot possibly work.”

  Marco was looking guilty and confused, his eyes darting toward the back of the chamber. We all stood speechless, our brains racing to provide some sort of meaning to all of this. “You brainwashed him,” Cass said.

  “It wasn’t brainwashing, Brother Cass,” Marco said. “I mean, think about it from his point of view. We total his monastery. We destroy the thing the monks had been guarding for years, right? Then we fly away, in full sight. So he tracks us to the hotel. And when I leave with the Loculus, he’s there. On the beach.”

  “So what you told us was a lie!” Cass said.

  “I left some things out, that’s all,” Marco said, “because you guys weren’t ready to hear it. Look, at least Brother D didn’t kidnap me, dude. Bhegad did that. Brother D didn’t take me from my home and stick me on a deserted island. The Karai Institute did that. Dimitrios? He just talked to me. About Massarym. About the snow job Bhegad has given us. About what the KI is really up to. He said, hey, go home if you want. He wasn’t going to force me to do anything—even after all the bad things we did to the monastery. But hearing the truth really knocked me out. I knew I couldn’t go home. Not yet. Because now we have a new job to do.”

  “But . . . the tracker . . .” Aly said.

  “We have ways of controlling those signals,” Brother Dimitrios said. “They are blocked by trace amounts of iridium. A patch, placed anywhere on the body, will do the trick.”

  “Yes . . . iridium . . .” Aly’s face was wan. “So you listened to him, Marco, there in Rhodes. You came to Iraq and went looking for the Loculus. You figured out that only Select could pass through the portal. But then, after our discovery, with Leonard, you saw your opportunity to bring these guys through.”

  “The morning after your treatment,” I cut in, “you went for a jog. The KI couldn’t find you.”

  Marco nodded. “I used that iridium patch. Brother Dimitrios was camped about five kilometers north of the KI camp.”

  “So while Cass, Aly, and I were recovering from our treatments, you had a secret meeting with these guys and told them we’d found the Loculus,” I barreled on. “And the extra good news that you could transport them to Ancient Babylon.”

  Aly’s eyes were burning. “You used us, Marco. You lied. When you told us to go on ahead, because you had to relieve yourself—”

  “You were bringing these guys over!” Cass blurted out.

  Brother Dimitrios chuckled. “This is the excuse you gave them?”

  “Okay, it was lame,” Marco said. “Hey, it was hard work, guys. I had to move fast. Don’t look at me like I’m a serial killer, okay? I can explain everything—”

  “And we will, on the way,” Brother Dimitrios interrupted

  “On the way where?” Aly demanded.

  Marco opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Brother Dimitrios was glaring at him. Brother Yiorgos handed him a sturdy metal box. He flipped open the lid.

  Marco turned, lunging toward the invisible orb.

  I don’t remember if I cried out. Or what exactly I did. I only remember a few things about the next few moments. Shock. The weight of Marco’s invisible body against mine as he rushed to the door with the Loculus.

  He knocked me off my feet. I hit the ground next to Shelley, which had not turned green. Nowhere near.

  “Watch it!” Aly screamed, as a shower of bronze knives dropped from the ceiling. I rolled away as they clattered to the ground.

  Marco had managed to run straight through, his reflexes quicker than gravity.

  “Follow me!” Cass said.

  “Wait,” I said, looking down at the wheezing bronze sphere known as Shelley. It looked pathetic to me now. A comic-book contraption.

  Picking it up, I dropped it into the pit. As it clanked sadly to the bottom I turned to go. “Okay, Cass, get us out before the place blows.”

  He led us back out through the booby-trapped room. We were all so numb with shock we barely paid attention to where we put our feet. It was a wonder we didn’t get nailed by a new trap. Or maybe by now we’d sprung them all.

  A moment later we were outside. We stared into the faces of several more Masserene monks, at least a half-dozen of them. But Marco and Brothers Dimitrios, Stavros, and Yiorgos were nowhere to be seen. “Where did they go?” I demanded.

  The ground shook. An Archimedes screw toppled to the ground in a shower of dust and water. Vizzeet were scattering to the winds, leaving behind the rags and bones that were once Kranag. Black clouds roiled angrily in the sky, lit by flashes of greenish lightning.

  The monks stood stock-still. From all sides, the rebels were advancing. Most of them held blowpipes to their lips. Zinn was screaming at Daria, and Daria shouted back to them.

  “What are they saying?” I asked.

  “They think these men are your people,” Daria said. “I explained they are the enemy. Oh, yes—one other thing.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I told them to fire away.” Daria pulled me forward with all her strength. I held tight, racing through the garden grounds. Behind us, I could hear the groans of Massarene monks as they fell to the ground. Lightning flared, and a massive ripple ran through the ground, as if a giant beast had passed just underneath our feet.

  We scaled the inner wall, dropping to the other side. As we landed, I heard the crack of gunfire.

  “No!” Aly cried out. “We have to go back! They’re killing the rebels!”

  But the wall itself was crumbling now. We had to run away to avoid being crushed.

  I looked back through the opening and saw the Hanging Gardens of Babylon collapse into a cloud of black dust.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  YOU HAVE TO LEAVE

  WE RAN ACROSS the furrows of grain. A farmer screamed as a team of oxen dro
pped into the earth, out of sight. We fell to the ground, barely missing the crack that grew across the soil like a grotesque opening zipper.

  “Stop here!” Marco’s voice cried out.

  He materialized at the edge of the farm, not twenty yards in front of us. “Go through the city and directly to the river!” he shouted. “I’ll take the old guys and come back for you!”

  He grabbed a satchel from Brother Stavros’s shoulder and pulled out a glowing Loculus. A visible one. The one we’d taken from Rhodes. Marco must have dug it up when he was bringing the Massa in.

  When he was betraying us.

  He knelt again and vanished. I saw the satchel bulge and realized he was storing the invisibility Loculus. As he materialized once more, the three Massarene gathered around him and put their hands on the flight Loculus. Together they rose high above the farmland. The men let out frightened shouts, scissoring their legs like little kids. In another circumstance, it might have looked funny. But not now. Not when we’d been betrayed by one of our own.

  Not when we were destroying an entire civilization.

  “He . . . he is truly a magician . . .” Daria said, looking up at Marco in awe. “Will he be safe?”

  “Don’t worry about him!” I said. “Let’s go!”

  Daria and I ran together across the field, with Cass and Aly close behind us. Daria looked bewildered but determined. And I realized how little she knew.

  Not about the Loculus’s connection to Sippar. Not about the fact that the whole civilization she called home was about to be sucked into a collapsing time-space rift. Not about the lambda, or the power of being a Select. Not about the centuries-old battle between the followers of Karai and the followers of Massarym.

  The Ishtar Gate was looming closer. One of the moat walls had cracked, and a crocodile was climbing out onto the rubble. It eyed Cass and Aly as they took a wide berth around it. The turrets of the gate were empty. One of them had partially collapsed. As we sprinted through the gate’s long passageway, we had to shield our heads from falling pieces of brick. We burst out the other side into utter chaos. The stately paths of Ká-Dingir-rá were now choked with fallen trees. Boars, fowl, and cattle ran wild, followed by guards with bows and arrows. I saw mothers scooping up children and running into houses with broken doors, teams of wardum carrying the injured away from harm.

  “Daria,” I shouted as we ran, “you have to leave this city! It’s not safe any longer.”

  “This is my home, Jack!” she replied. “And besides, I can’t—Sippar will stop me.”

  “The mark on your head—we have it too,” I said “It gives us special powers. We can take you through Sippar. To safety!”

  We were approaching Etemenanki now, the turnoff to the wardum houses. I felt Daria let go. “I must help Nitacris and Pul!” she shouted.

  “You can bring them with you!” I said, following after her. “And your other friends—Frada, Nico. If they hold on to you and don’t let go, they can come too!”

  She stopped. “Go, Jack. You must think of yourself. We will follow if we can.”

  “You have to come now,” I insisted. “Later may be too late!”

  She shook her head. “I cannot leave them, Jack. As you can never leave Aly and Cass.”

  It hurt to hear her leave out Marco’s name. And it hurt more to know I could not change her mind.

  “You promise you’ll follow later?” I asked.

  I felt Cass pulling me from behind. “What are you doing, Jack? Run!”

  “Go out the nearest gate,” I shouted to Daria. “Keep going until the trees begin, then head for the river. Look for the rocks arranged like a lambda—the shape on the back of your head. When you dive in, head for a glowing circle and swim through to the other side! Anyone who is touching you can come through with you. Will you remember that?”

  A loud boom knocked us to our knees. The top of Etemenanki tilted to one side. A crack ran from the top level downward, slowly widening, spewing dried-mud dust. I could see courtiers racing out of the building.

  “Jack! Cass!” Aly’s voice cried out.

  “You must leave, Jack—now!” Daria shouted.

  “Promise me you’ll remember what I just said!” I shouted.

  “I will,” Daria replied. “Yes. Now go!”

  Now Aly was pulling me too. I shook her and Cass loose. Daria was running back to her quarters. For a moment I thought of running after her.

  “Jack, they’ll be all right!” Aly said. “I don’t believe Brother Dimitrios. Either Shelley will work, or Daria will come through the portal.”

  “How can you be sure?” I said.

  She drew me closer. “You and I have a lot to do still. If the Massa gets a hold of the Loculi, there will be more deaths. Us, for example. I will not lose you, Jack. I refuse.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Daria had disappeared around the corner. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s book.”

  We raced through the city streets. By now they were a catalog of damage and destruction—roofs blown off houses, milk cans strewn about, injured animals screaming. I saw an old woman sitting against the side of a house, cradling a man in her arms. I had no idea if he was dead or alive.

  When we arrived at the river edge, Brother Dimitrios and the Massarene were already there. They seemed fewer in number, thanks to the actions of the rebels. But as far as I was concerned, one Massa was too many.

  The Loculi had been packed in two satchels. The Massa had them now. We had lost, and we would have to deal with it.

  “I’m going to bring these guys through, two by two,” Marco said. “It’ll take a few trips. Or you guys can help me.”

  Aly, Cass, and I stood on the riverbank with our arms folded.

  “I will stay for last,” Brother Dimitrios said, giving us a stern glance. “To make sure all goes as planned.

  With a shrug, Marco held out his arms. Brothers Yiorgos and Stavros held on tight. Together they ran into the water.

  * * *

  I don’t remember much of the trip, except that I burst through to the other side near one of the other monks Marco had apparently just pulled through. He was gasping with panicked high-pitched squeals, like a little kid. “Okay . . . I’m okay . . .” he kept saying.

  Was I okay? Were Cass, Aly, and Marco?

  I could see them bobbing on the river, not far away. I trod water, catching my breath. Testing my body for symptoms of sickness. What if we were to collapse right now, the way we had last time we came back from Babylon? Where was the KI?

  I looked downstream, to where I knew the compound would be. All I saw were piles of blackened canvas and debris.

  On the riverbank, Brother Stavros had sidled over to keep an eye on me. “What did you do to them?” I demanded.

  “We had to take action,” Brother Yiorgos shouted.

  “Action?” My stomach sank. The water temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. I scanned the shore but saw no signs of life. “Are they alive?”

  “Never mind,” Yiorgos said. “Come to shore.”

  Professor Bhegad . . . Torquin . . . Fiddle . . . Nirvana. What had happened to them? Had they escaped? Been taken prisoner?

  I didn’t want to imagine the worst. I never thought I’d feel so much for the people who’d captured me in the first place. But compared to the Massa, the KI seemed like a bunch of happy aunts and uncles.

  We were near a stretch of riverbank, barren but for a dusty, new-model van. “I would advise you to swim with us,” Brother Dimitrios called out. “The vehicle is very comfortable on the inside. And quiet. We will have much to discuss.”

  Yiorgos was swimming toward me, looking suspicious, as if I were going to swim away—to what? No one was there to rescue us now. “I’m coming,” I grumbled.

  Marco was already near the shore, holding tight to Cass. Aly wasn’t far behind. I swam hard against the current. Each time my face lifted out of the water, I noticed the empty, peaceful opposite shore. It was hard to imagine that right
now, in a dimension we could not see, a ziggurat was falling in super slow motion. The earth was opening up, fires were spreading, and an entire city was on a crash course with destruction.

  After Sippar busted up, what would happen to Babylon? Would it be pulled apart like taffy, exploded like a bomb—or just vanish into space? We knew that time had split almost three millennia ago. But how did time de-rift?

  And where was Daria?

  I glanced backward. If she took an hour to reach the shore in Babylon, she would show up a week and a half from now. I’d be long gone. She would emerge into a world beyond her most bizarre imaginings.

  If she came.

  “Brother Jack!” Marco shouted. He and the others were walking in waist-deep water now. As I let my body drop and my feet touch the sand, I could see three more Massarene on the shore. They looked almost laughable in their brown robes and sandals, carrying rifles in hand. But no one was smiling.

  “If we run away, what will you do?” I said. “Shoot us? How will you explain that?”

  “Dear boy,” Brother Dimitrios said, “you do not want to find the answer to that, and neither do we.”

  “Give these guys a chance, Brother Jack,” Marco urged. “You might be surprised.”

  Cass was staring at the remains of the camp downstream. Tears inched down his cheeks. “Brother Jack . . .” he said, practically spitting the words. “What do you know about brotherhood, Marco?”

  Aly put her arm around his shoulder. The two of them turned to the van. I was in no hurry. My face felt funny, my chest as if it had expanded a whole other size. I looked back over the water, scanning the surface against all logic for another face. Hoping to hear another voice, accented with Aramaic, calling my name.

  But I saw nothing.

  I knew I would have to forget. Somehow. And maybe someday I would.

  But I would never forgive.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE