But he had no choice.
“Hurry!” Marika called as they ran into the tower to save the huntress. “Everyone must already be down in the cellars.”
She clambered down the stairs, sometimes skipping two steps at a time. Jake knew her worry. What if they were too late? Marika wore a stricken, guilty expression—like she should have thought of this idea earlier.
The cellars lay deeper than Jake had expected. Marika passed two landings with doors, but she kept going. The grayish stone grew black around the spiral stairs, possibly scorched by the old fires that had rid the keep of the Skull King.
“Just up ahead,” Marika said, breathless. She pointed to where the stairs finally ended at a slightly open door.
She reached it first, knocked loudly, and called, “Magister Zahur! Papa!”
Jake and Pindor joined her on the landing. The only light came from a pair of iron sconces on either side of the door. Marika’s knocking had pushed the door open wider.
Jake leaned his head inside and saw that more stairs led down farther still. The glow from the landing’s sconces extended far enough to reveal the common room below. He could make out the dark shapes of a table and chair.
“Magister Zahur?” Marika called again, sounding less sure.
Only silence answered her.
“Maybe they’re back in his deeper cellars,” Pindor said. “I’ve heard it’s a maze down there.”
Hearing him, Marika moved slowly, but her fear for Livia drove her onward.
Jake followed at her heels. “Maybe they’ve taken her somewhere else. Maybe up to your place or the Astromicon.”
Or maybe Livia was already dead.
As they reached the common room, they heard a ghostly moan. Someone else was down here.
“Tap the lights,” Marika said.
Pindor searched along one wall near the stairs. Jake did the same along the other. “Found one,” Pindor said.
Jake heard a ringing ting as his friend flicked the crystal bulb with his fingernail. It remained dark. Jake’s hand found another wall sconce on his side. He felt for the chunk of crystal, found it, and tapped the bulb.
Nothing.
…ting, ting, ting…
“It’s not working,” Pindor said.
The scuff of a boot drew Jake’s attention around. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut. The light from the hall was cut off, and a pitch-black darkness fell over them.
“Hey!” Pindor yelled, bumping into Jake. “We’re down here!”
Jake grabbed Pindor’s arm. “Be quiet!” A few steps away, Marika squeaked out in fear.
Pindor tried to shake free of Jake’s grasp. “What’re you—”
Jake squeezed harder, silencing him.
Then he heard it again. A faint buzzing—like a thousand bees. Jake recognized that sound. He’d heard it in the middle of the night. A stingtail. One of the flying scorpions. Then over his head, Jake heard an equally familiar scritch-scritch of claws as something crawled along the ceiling. Another one!
“Marika,” Jake whispered. “Get over here.”
He pushed Pindor toward the stairs. “Try the door.”
As Marika crept toward him, more buzzing rose out of the darkness. Jake remembered Zahur’s comment about the missing stingtail that ended up in Jake’s room—how it was one of six.
The buzzing grew louder and was answered by others in the dark, becoming a deadly chorus.
Jake jumped as Marika knocked into him.
“Stingtails,” she whispered in his ear.
Someone had let all the scorpions loose.
Pindor called down from the top of the stairs in a frantic whisper. “It’s locked.”
Jake and Marika backed away from the scratching of claws and buzzing of wings. They had no weapons—and no way out.
19
DEATH TRAP
Marika and Jake backed from the common room and climbed three steps up the cellar stairs. Pindor stumbled down to join them from the locked door. There was no way out that way. Jake remained frozen on the step. He didn’t want to be trapped in the stairwell when the rest of the deadly scorpions came flying out of the dark.
They needed weapons—and a light.
Then Jake remembered. He had stashed his penlight in his pants pocket after the disaster up in the Astromicon. He scrambled to unbutton the pocket and ended up ripping it in frustration. The button popped off and went flying across the room.
Jake pulled out the penlight and flicked the switch. A spear of brilliant light pierced the darkness. Pindor gasped in surprise and almost fell onto his backside.
Marika clutched Jake’s other arm.
With the burst of light, all buzzing and scratching halted.
“We have to find somewhere to hole up,” Jake said. “Somewhere where those stingtails can’t get at us.”
“Pindor was right about it being a maze down here.” Marika pointed. “There are more rooms beyond this one. If we could make it over there…”
But that meant first crossing the common room.
Jake swallowed hard. The penlight only cast out a thin beam. The surrounding darkness looked even blacker now. As he shifted the beam around, shadows jumped and trembled. The light seemed to create more hiding places, not fewer.
But his light did reveal a closed door directly across from their position. They would have to make a run for it. It was their only chance. Still, what if it was locked? What if beyond it were worse horrors than stingtails? Who knew what else Zahur kept hidden in his cages down here?
A low moan answered him. Jake had forgotten about hearing the groaning earlier. The noise sounded like it came from behind that same door.
“Somebody’s here,” Marika whispered.
But was that good or bad?
Jake risked stepping off the stairs to the floor. He cast his light all around. He searched the floor, the tabletop, and the roof with its shadowy rafters. A flicker of motion drew his eye to the lights hanging from the ceiling. One of the chains swung and revealed a black mass latched onto it.
Jake speared the stingtail with his light. As the light struck it, the monster’s wings snapped wide and blurred into motion with a furious buzzing. Its spiked tail curled high. Angered by the light, the stingtail flew off its perch and dove straight at Jake.
He leaped backward, bowling into Marika and Pindor. The scorpion hit where Jake had been standing—and shattered into a hundred pieces like a broken glass.
Its poisonous tail skittered and bounced to the foot of the stairs.
After a stunned moment, Pindor asked, “What happened?”
Jake reached out and poked the tail with a finger. It felt solid as a rock and cold. He tested it again. The thing was frozen solid, as if dipped in liquid nitrogen. What could’ve done that?