Cloak (YA Fantasy) (28 page)

The next chapter was about Immunes and what the author called the Silent Siege. With Immunes in mortal danger and Dr. Noctua wounded, the Council of Wik ordered all Immunes to take refuge at St. Grimm’s. It was thought that it would be easier to protect them if they were all together. The plan failed horribly. Builders infiltrated the Silent Sanctuary and attacked. Every Immune was killed one by one, until the only Immunes left were the young in the Nursery. The night the Builders breached the Nursery doors, there was a ferocious battle to save the children, but there were too many Builders and too few protectors. Will felt sick when he read Chapter Six: THE NURSERY MASSACRE.

Chapter Ten was about the fall of Special Branch. The author called it, “the elite jewel in ISPA’s crown.” They were the best-trained, most respected defense agency in the world. There were multiple accounts of how Special Branch agents died defending their assigned Immunes against overwhelming odds. At the beginning of the Builder uprising there were over 300 Special Branch agents and when it was over, only three survived—Agent Tony Rizzuto, Agent Yvonne Liska, and Agent Dean Rizzuto.

Will read the three names again. Rizz and Liska had both been in Special Branch together? Dean? The same Dean that Nurse Starr had mentioned to Rizz? Was it the same Dean that left Rizz cringing on the cliffside—his cousin?

The second to last chapter was about Dr. Josef W. Grimm. While the rest of the Immunes were being attacked, Builders had surrounded Josef Grimm’s lab. Grimm, two of his assistants, and two Special Branch agents defended the lab for four days until the Builders caused an explosion, wounding the agents and killing Josef Grimm.

When Will read the names of the agents and assistants that had survived the explosion, he gasped:

Dr. Thaddeus Bump, lab assistant, wounded.

Dr. Elham Dervis, lab assistant, kidnapped and recovered.

Agent Tony Rizzuto, wounded.

Agent Dean Rizzuto, wounded, in a coma.

The book said Dr. Bump was the only one able to remember any details of the explosion. He reported that Josef Grimm was trying to build a prosthetic that would allow him to communicate with Builders and possibly stop the attacks. But the device was volatile and exploded when Builders broke into the lab and attacked. Nothing but the DNA of Josef Grimm was found in the wreckage.

The final chapter in the book was just as Rizz had explained. With Josef Grimm dead, the Builders withdrew and their queen accepted punishment on behalf of her subjects. The end.

Will closed the book and rubbed his face. Rizz had been there when Josef Grimm died, along with Thaddeus Bump and possibly Rizz’s cousin? No wonder Rizz didn’t like Builders. No wonder the enchant world was terrified of them.

Will stood and stretched. Two trays of untouched food sat on his desk. He glanced outside. Night had snuck up on him. It was almost one in the morning. A heavy complaint from his stomach told Will that his clock was right. As he picked through the cold meals, he yawned, feeling the stiffness in his joints. But how could he sleep after what he had just read?

The room went black.

Will held still, letting his eyes adjust. A blackout. Perfect. Light poured in from the crack under his door. The blackout was just in his room? Strange. Will stood and stumbled to the edge of his bed.

“Ouch.” He sat, holding his stubbed toe. There was a scratching sound across the room. His breath caught in his throat.

Against the moonlight, a shadowy silhouette pressed against his window. Something scraped against the pane. Squeals of glass being gouged sent shivers along his spine. He sat paralyzed.

The glass squealed again, then again.

Time stopped.

The shadow shifted its weight and the window made a crackling sound. Will wanted to yell, to call for help, but there was no air in his lungs. The figure scraped once more, finishing a giant circle. Through the slit in the curtain, a white eye flashed against the night.

The glass screeched and fell inward shattering across the floor. Shards showered Will’s bare feet. A cold wind sent goose bumps up his arms, but he didn’t feel it—he was too focused on the snarling wolf enchant that had just stepped into his room.

“You owe me something, boy.” In the thin moonlight, the hunter tapped his eye patch with a long yellowed claw. “Eye for an eye.” The beast sniffed the air and smiled. “Fear, my favorite flavor. I promised to deliver you intact, but my employer will have to settle for a few pieces missing.”

Something collided with the wolf enchant’s temple. His head jerked to the side and he snarled. Something else flew in from the other direction, smashing the brute in the ribs. The wolf turned to defend himself from an unseen assailant. There was a quick sound of scurrying feet, and a dark shape swept the hunter’s legs out from under him, sending him to the floor.

A second later, hard fingers wrapped around Will’s wrist and pulled him off the bed just as the wolfchant shredded the mattress. Will was dragged across the room.

With a crack, the balcony door was ripped off its hinges and the Builder with the red mark pulled Will into the light of the atrium. It had been the Builder who had thrown himself into the wolf enchant’s head and ribs. It had been the Builder who had knocked the wolf to the floor. And now this Builder was Will’s only hope.

The white-eyed monster lunged.

Will was hoisted up the wall. The Builder climbed with incredible speed, swinging Will around balconies, fifty stories above the floor. Behind them, the wolf was in pursuit, plunging his claws into the wall as he leapt from one balcony to the next. The hunter caught hold of Will’s pant leg. The Builder’s grip on Will’s wrist slipped.

Terrified, Will used all his strength to kick the hunter. The wolf enchant tumbled backwards into space, his arms and legs flailing. Will thought it was over, but the beast caught a balcony. He glowered and started to climb again.

The Builder made sure Will had a firm hold of his vest. Then, with all six limbs gripping the wall, he climbed with a new burst of speed. When they reached the crystal dome at the top of the atrium, Will looked around—there were no exits, just a dozen air vents not much wider than a bathroom sink. They were trapped. The Builder had climbed to a dead end.

The wolfchant licked his teeth.

With urgency, the ant enchant carried Will over to one of the small, round vents, ripped off the grate and pointed inside. Will stared at the hole and shook his head. He couldn’t crawl in there. He wouldn’t even fit. The Builder pointed again then motioned to the wolfchant, who was only a balcony below them now. It was the hole or the hunter.

Will closed his eyes and put his hands over his head. The Builder slid him into the vent like a torpedo. The tube wasn’t wide enough for Will to move his arms or legs, but the Builder pushed his feet, sliding him deeper into the darkness. As they picked up speed an angry, frustrated howl sounded behind them. They’d left the wolf empty-handed.

Will’s relief at escaping was fleeting, as the terror of speeding through a mountain in a black tube took hold. The Builder pushed faster and the stone duct sloped downward like a long slide. Little shafts of light from vents lit the tube as Will sped along. They came to a fork in the tube and Will slowed to a stop while the Builder appeared next to him, his mandibles lifting into a smile. He pointed to Will, then to the fork on the left, then to himself and the fork on the right.

“Split up?” Will shook his head, but it was too late. The Builder had already pushed him into the plummeting tube.

Will twisted and looped, hurtling wildly in every direction. Just as the tube leveled out, the Builder appeared in front of him. Apparently, he had taken the other route so he could be in the lead. He waited until Will had a hold of his vest, then pulled him forward. After ten minutes of tunnels, the Builder slid Will into a shaft tall enough for him to stand crouched over. Ducts lined the walls, and the floor was covered in pipes. The Builder moved down the tunnel, motioning for Will to follow.

“Where are we? Is this the way out?” Will whispered, stopping to look around.

The Builder scurried back and grabbed his wrist, tugging him along like a child leading a parent.

After a while, they came to a junction where five tunnels intersected. The Builder stopped and twitched his antennae down each tunnel.

“Oh, great. We’re lost.”

The Builder smiled, then shook his head. No. Jumping to the ceiling, the enchant slid back a large slab of stone to reveal a softly lit hole. He helped Will climb up, then followed, closing the door in the floor behind him.

Will was in a small, stone room, a lot like the one he’d seen on the history tour. He had to crawl to avoid hitting his head. Christmas lights hung from the ceiling. The walls were decorated with old paintings of Builders that must have been salvaged from the hidden room in the Gathering Hall museum. A table sagged under the weight of hundreds of books. Books were everywhere, stacked in every empty space. There was a mattress and a reading light against one wall, next to a box with two neatly folded vests identical to the one the Builder wore.

“Do you live here?” Will asked.

The Builder’s eyes widened, and he put a finger over his mouth.

Oh sorry,
Will thought, concentrating on the words.
Is this your home?

The Builder lifted his mandibles into a smile and nodded, offering Will a tiny cup of a drink that smelled like honey and mushrooms. Will tried to say, “no thank you,” but the dejected look of his little host made him accept the cup.
Thank you.
The flavor reminded Will of his days of boiled lettuce, but he pretended to enjoy it.
Delicious,
he thought.

The little enchant beamed.

In the cramped room, Will finally had a good view of the Builder. Not counting his beach ball-sized thorax and segmented legs, he was about the size of a young child. His immovable, mask-like face was rounded and smooth with large, expressive eyes. Unlike the Builders Will had seen in the Gathering Hall, this one didn’t seem menacing at all. He was much more like the cute cartoon Builder from the children’s book. Yet, Will knew from experience that in those tiny segmented fingers, this Builder still had the strength of ten men.

An intoxicating smell caused Will to turn around. A bed of roses. Grow lights had been strung above boxes that held beautiful red roses—hundreds of them. Will leaned closer and sniffed, then noticed the Builder watching him.

Did you grow these?

The enchant beamed and nodded.

They’re beautiful,
thought Will.

The little Builder shrugged and kicked the ground.

Thank you for saving me again,
thought Will.
I don’t even know your name.

The Builder pointed to the thick band of red that ran down his chin.

Line?

He shook his head no and let his mandibles droop into a frown.

Oh sorry. Um…Bar?

No.

Mark?

No.

Stripe?

The Builder nodded vigorously.

Stripe it is. I’m Will Tuttle.

The Builder nodded once.

You know my name? How?

Stripe walked over to a wall near the bed and pointed. It was completely covered with pages torn from magazines and clipped from newspapers. Stripe tapped the picture from
The New Wik Times,
then scurried over to a pile of books and picked one out. He lifted the book under the picture so that the title lined up under Will’s name. The book was called,
The Last Immune; a Biography of Dr. Josef W. Grimm.
Stripe covered the rest of the title so that the caption and the book together read: Wilhelm Tuttle—The Last Immune.

Will stared. His secret was out.

Stripe brought his fingers to his mouth, pretending to lock it.

Will breathed easier.
Thanks. But,
Will looked around,
why did you bring me here?

Stripe moved forward excitedly and waved his hands at the articles on the wall.

You want me to read these?

The enchant nodded.

Which ones?

Stripe motioned to the entire wall.

All of them?

The enchant bounced up and down nodding.

Okay. Okay.
Will crouched down and started reading. Most of the articles were about the Builder Uprising—reports of the brutality, details of the attack in the Chambers of Wik, Dr. Noctua, and tales of the Silent Siege. Several stories contained in-depth accounts of what he had read earlier. The articles were organized into groups. Small squares of paper were labeled in a child-like script: Reported enchant deaths, Immune deaths, Kidnappings and Targets. In the center of the collage was a crudely drawn picture of St. Grimm’s with the words,
“This is not truthful. Do not be deceived.”

Will turned around and saw that several of the books in Stripe’s collection had the word BANNED stamped on them.
You put those books in my room, didn’t you?

The Builder nodded and urged him to keep reading.

The articles around the St. Grimm’s drawing talked about the death of Josef Grimm. Several called Thaddeus Bump a hero, giving a detailed account of how he helped fend off attacking Builders for days. “Liar,” was written across a picture of Dr. Bump in a cast with his head bandaged.

There were more stories about the “Agents Rizzuto.” Will had been right, Dean and Rizz were cousins. The articles said they were the greatest team Special Branch had ever seen. One story called Rizz the gutsiest agent in ISPA, another said Dean was a communication prodigy, speaking six languages. Together, they held every record at the ISPA Academy.

There were two pictures, one of Rizz with a buzz cut and a uniform—both horns intact. The other photo could have been his twin. Dean was thinner in the face and his horns weren’t quite as large as Rizz’s, but the only obvious difference in their appearance was that Dean had ice blue eyes.