The Paladin Prophecy

THE STATUE AND THE BEAR

Nick’s first bright idea was to try the swimming pool. Two thousand pounds of metal couldn’t float or swim, right? No way. So he took the first swinging door into the pool area. Motion-activated lights flicked on as he hobbled around to the middle of the far side of the Olympic-sized pool and hunkered down behind the lifeguard stand. A moment later, the overhead fluorescents flicked off.

The only light came through glass panels in a pair of swinging doors to the hallway across the pool. Nick heard the statue’s clanking footsteps and saw the Paladin stomp by the first door. Moments later the second door slammed open, the Paladin stepped inside, and the lights flicked on again.

Nick waved to it from the far side of the pool.

The Paladin started around the deep end. Nick countered by moving to the shallow end. The Paladin stopped, Nick stopped. Nick waved again across the pool.

“Can’t catch me,” said Nick.

The Paladin started back the other way. Nick backtracked to match him. When they were across the middle of the pool from each other, the Paladin stopped again. So did Nick, who had been trying not to let it see him limp. Nick tucked his hand under his chin and wiggled his fingers at it.

“Marco,” said Nick. He stuck his thumbs in his ears, wiggled his fingers again, and said in a high falsetto, “Polo.”

This time the Paladin walked straight at him and dropped into the pool. Nick stepped forward and looked down. He’d been right; the thing couldn’t float or swim. But it was walking toward him along the bottom of the pool without any trouble.

“Okay, that sucks,” said Nick.

He hurried toward the nearest door. The Paladin changed course, tracking Nick’s movement, and seconds later stomped up the steps at the shallow end. This time it knocked the door off its hinges as it followed.

Nick limped down the long corridor and pushed through a door marked COACHING STAFF ONLY. He entered a modernized warren of offices and cubbies, videotape study suites, and conference rooms. The hallway lights were on but he didn’t see anyone in any of the offices.

A desk light was on in one of the last rooms; Nick hurried to it. The plate on the door read COACH JERICHO. Of course, thought Nick. One dude in the whole building and it has to be him.

Nick pushed open the door. Lights burning, tablet open, stacks of statistical printouts on the desk. And nobody in the room.

“Crapalicious,” said Nick.

Limping back down the hall, Nick failed to look to his right, where, in the kitchenette two glass walls away, Coach Jericho was leaning down into an open fridge.

Nick pushed through the door into the corridor and left the coaches’ complex. When Jericho stood up and closed the fridge, Nick was gone.

But Jericho heard thudding footsteps and turned in time to see the Paladin storming down the hallway outside his office. Without taking his eye off the metal figure, Jericho calmly set his mug down on the counter. With one hand, he reached for the necklace around his throat—a long, yellowed animal incisor attached to a string of rawhide—and with the other removed a stitched leather pouch from his pocket.

Ajay had heard the sporadic updates between Nick and Will from his walkie-talkie during their ride down toward the lake. But he’d never once removed his locked hands from around Elise’s waist and had seen little more than a blurred and bouncy side-view landscape rushing past them at horrific speed. He’d wanted to plead with Elise to slow down, but whenever he opened his mouth, the words dribbled away before he could deliver them.

Elise never said a word, leaning into every jump and hurdle, steering them away from deeper drifts, attuned to every nerve and fiber of her mount in ways that made obvious dangers seem weightless. The cold didn’t appear to bother her, although she wore only the riding habit she’d had on when Ajay had barged in on her.

She’d taken the shortest route from the stables, thundering straight down Suicide Hill without slowing. That prompted Ajay to shut his eyes and recite every prayer he knew until they reached level ground. As they rounded the lake and drew within sight of the boathouse, Elise finally reined in.

Ajay promptly fell off the back of the saddle into a snowdrift.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Elise tied the stallion’s reins around a tree just off the path. She hugged her horse around the neck, whispered words of thanks, and began trudging toward the boathouse. Ajay hopped to his feet and, steering well clear of the horse, wrestled his walkie-talkie out of his pocket as he slogged after her.

“How much time do we have?” she asked him.

“Will should have gone in thirty seconds ago,” said Ajay, consulting his watch.

“Then what?”

“He said you’d know what to do.”

“Did he?” Elise seemed entertained by the idea. She stopped at the edge of the woods, held up a hand, and Ajay stopped alongside her.

On the porch near the front of the boathouse, they saw two Knights in masks—the Pigtailed Girl and Pirate—look up in response to a voice calling from somewhere above. Both hurried inside.

“What should we do?” Ajay asked.

“Give me one minute,” said Elise, starting forward. “Then use your radio.”

“And tell them what?” asked Ajay, stumbling after her.

“Tell them to cover their ears.”

“Okay. So should I come with you?” he asked.

“Not until you hear something,” she said. “Then come fast.”

The door from the coaches’ complex led to a flight of stairs. Nick followed them down to another door, which opened into a large, utterly dark space. Nick heard water dripping steadily nearby. When he finally found a light switch and fumbled it on, he realized he was in the locker room’s showers. Still and echoing, the complex folded back and in and around, a maze of half-walls, off-white tile, and stainless-steel fixtures from another century.

Nick looked down and saw blood discoloring his right pant leg from the knee to his ankle. From the pain shooting up his leg with every step, he realized his injury was a lot worse than he’d realized. He caught the reflection of his face staring back at him from one of the mirrors above the sinks and realized something else:

I’m afraid. I’m actually afraid.

Nick held out his hands and stared at them; they were trembling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this frightened. He had to go all the way back to the night when he was five. The night Pop had told him Mom wasn’t ever coming home again.

Well, the hell with this. We’re not playing that tune today.

“Damn, Junior,” he whispered, getting close to his reflection. “You gonna let that oversized soda can take you out? You got any idea what the deposit’s worth on that sucker? You could trade that tin man in for a freakin’ Kia. Come on now, son, get crack-a-lacking—”

The door at the bottom of the stairs burst open. Nick hopped around the corner into the first row of showers and quietly worked his way back into the maze. He settled behind a freestanding tiled wall as he heard the Paladin stalk into the shower room.

Then it stopped. Nick strained his ears for any sound of movement. The leaky showerheads echoing in the empty space around him made it hard to track anything and prompted an even more frightening thought:

What if this steel juggernaut has a stealth mode?

Nick leaned back against the wall on one leg and shifted his gaze from side to side to keep an eye on both approaches.

Plink. Plink. Plink.

One of the Paladin’s fists punched through the wall to the right of Nick’s arm. Its other fist slammed through the wall and grabbed Nick’s left arm, digging into his flesh like a vise. Then the Paladin reached across and wrapped its arms around him, squeezing Nick’s chest. Nick tried to scream for help but issued only a feeble rasp with the last air from his lungs. After that, it was impossible to take another breath. As Nick struggled, his vision started to fade.…

He dimly heard something charge into the showers. It roared, a sound that would have been deafening if Nick hadn’t been so close to passing out.

He felt a heavy shock wave as whatever it was smashed into the Paladin on the other side of the wall. The wall shuddered and cracked, tiles spitting out like broken teeth. Air hurtled back into Nick’s lungs as the Paladin released him, and he dropped to the wet floor, his wounded knee screaming on contact. Nick shook his head, felt his brain coming back online—

And became aware of a titanic battle raging on the other side of the wall. Clanking, roars, chunking thuds: two monsters brawling in a back alley. The whole room shook from the sound and fury.

What the hell?

Nick crawled to the edge of the wall, dragging his bad leg, and stuck his head around the corner.

The Paladin had its right arm wrapped around the neck of an enormous brown bear. The bear reared back on its hind legs, every bit as tall as or taller than the statue. With its other hand, the Paladin whacked at the bear’s back with the hatchet, clots of blood and fur flying with every stroke. The bear worked its vicious jaws around the Paladin’s neck like it was chomping on a soup bone. Its gigantic paws ferociously raked the Paladin’s back. Sparks flew off its curved yellow talons, each one of them as big as a man’s hand.

What the freaking hell?

The Paladin bent its knees, lowered a shoulder, and drove the bear back into the wall. Nick scrambled out of the way as the wall shattered. Both figures crashed into the next stall in an explosion of plaster and tile. The bear rose first, with terrifying speed and agility, swiped at the Paladin, and sent it flying across the room. The Paladin crashed through another wall, obliterating it, landing unseen somewhere near the entrance to the showers.

Nick crawled out of its way as the bear blasted past him. For the briefest moment, he met its eye: black as night, rimmed red with primal fury, but sharp with intelligence behind its bestial rage. Then the bear was past him, galloping away. Nick limped after it toward the ruined entry.

He reached the smashed wall in time to see the Paladin stand from the wreckage. As the bear charged with a thundering roar, the Paladin extended its sword. The bear’s momentum carried it straight into the blade, which thrust cleanly through the animal’s left shoulder.

The bear gave a strangled howl. The Paladin yanked the sword out and the bear staggered back, blood gushing from the wound. The steel knight stepped after it and raised the sword overhead, about to land a killing blow.

Afterward, Nick couldn’t explain why he did what he did next. It didn’t involve conscious intent so much as blind instinct. He picked up an intact sink from the debris, screamed like an insane Viking berserker, and smashed it as hard as he could into the middle of the Paladin’s back.

The porcelain shattered into a thousand pieces. The Paladin didn’t react; the impact hadn’t moved it more than a quarter of an inch.

But Nick had regained its attention. The statue turned and looked down at him, and its cold steel eyes seemed to recognize its original prey.

It swung the sword at him. Nick dodged back as the blade blasted tiles and furrowed into the concrete foundation. He took another step back, then another, and the Paladin followed him. Looking beyond it, Nick saw the bear limp around a corner and disappear into the darkness.

Nick didn’t have a Plan B, but hey, if he bought it now, at least he’d go down fighting. No quit, no white flag. That had to count for something. And he’d saved the bear. That seemed important, in the moment.

Nick hobbled back a few more steps, out of the showers and into the locker room. The Paladin kept coming. Then Nick’s back jammed into the metal countertop in front of the equipment cage.

Nick’s last resolve collapsed, too spent and broken down to make another move.

“Okay,” said Nick. “Okay.” He tapped his heart twice and held up his right hand. “Love you, Pops.”

The Paladin stopped right in front of him. Studied him. Sword in one hand, hatchet in the other. Then it raised them both. Nick closed his eyes.

Nothing happened. Except that Nick felt a weird little tickle around his back and arms.

He heard a sound and thought of the waves off Marblehead in the middle of a nor’easter that he’d seen once with his dad. He’d never forgotten that deep, rumbling ocean drumbeat. That same sound was coming from somewhere behind him now, rushing at him like one of those massive gray combers.

He opened his eyes.

The Paladin stood frozen in place, weapons raised above him just as Nick had last seen it. But it was struggling fiercely, almost imperceptibly, in the grip of what looked like thousands of tendrils shooting out from behind Nick.

Nick dropped to the floor and dragged himself off to the side, then turned to look.

Thin ropy strands of what looked like putty-colored string wriggled through the painted white cage, through every small diamond-shaped gap across the whole broad face of its middle section. Tendrils extending out and wrapping around every square inch of the statue. They moved in concert, like a nest of a thousand snakes. Nick watched in amazement as they wove themselves around the Paladin until it was completely covered and gradually, finally, helplessly unable to budge.

Nick looked past the tendrils into the darkness behind the cage. He got an impression of a huge, indistinct quivery mass pressed against the other side of the steel and he knew that ocean roar was issuing from this thing. Something in the middle of it glowed the color of blood.

Like an eye. Like the eye of some giant freakin’ octopus.

The metal of the statue groaned as the tendrils squeezed relentlessly tighter. Then something yielded inside it with a sound that reminded Nick of a breaking bass guitar string. All at once, the tendrils released the statue and retreated through the air, waving gently like sea grass.

The sword and hatchet dropped to the ground. Something soft and black dropped out of the Paladin’s right heel and melted to ooze on the floor. The statue cracked and shattered, crumpling to the ground in a dozen pieces.

Nick felt wooziness wash through him and knew he was about to black out. He watched, mesmerized, as the mass of wandering tendrils lifted something down to him, but he didn’t feel afraid. He realized what it was and knew what it was for and struggled to stay awake long enough to use it.

The tendrils gently held the receiver of the equipment cage’s black phone against his ear. As he watched, another cluster of tendrils flowed around the base of the phone and pressed the C in the center of the enamel button.

Nick heard the operator answer.

“Dr. Robbins, please,” he said, shocked at how calm he sounded.

While he waited for the operator to find her, Nick’s eyes drifted to the gate in the steel cage just to the side of the counter.

Bizarre. I never noticed that before.

The lock is on the outside.

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