A Buried Spark Page 7

Maybe, I think. Or maybe not.

  “It’s because Iva gave Edie access,” Zachary says. “That’s why she was able to open it. I wouldn’t have been able to open it either.”

  Remote access from wherever Iva is. Maybe she’s being kept out, but she’s still able to control this place.

  Blue light shines from inside the crypt, exposing stairs that lead downward. The light coming from inside is so bright, I can’t see anything but the first five steps.

  “You sure about this?” Zachary says. He glances at the entrance then looks away.

  “We have to,” I say. “Why?”

  He shakes his head. “Gods aren’t really supposed to go in the domain of other gods. It’s kind of a rule.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “This is Iva’s domain?”

  “Well, yeah,” he says. “What’d you think?”

  To be honest, I hadn’t thought about gods and domains.

  “Where’s your domain, god boy?” Taylor says.

  “Not here,” Zachary says, which is no answer at all.

  “Then where?” Taylor asks, raising an eyebrow.

  He meets her gaze. “Somewhere else. Okay? I don’t need to tell you.”

  Taylor doesn’t say a word. She only holds his gaze, like she’s staring him down. But the last thing we have time for is an argument.

  “Let’s go,” I say. I don’t wait to see if they follow. I start down the steps.

  There are forty-four steps leading down. I count them as I walk. Halfway down I look back up, but I can’t see the entrance we came through. It’s masked by the brilliant light. When I reach the bottom, I step to the side, making room for Taylor and Zachary to join me. Zachary is ten steps behind but at least he’s following. He acts like he wants to turn back. Like he thinks Iva is going to jump out and smite him.

  “Elise said how much she liked you,” I say, hoping to calm his nerves. I need him at one hundred percent if we’re going to get through this. Having him worry about some other god attacking him isn’t helping.

  Zachary lets out a small laugh that is way more sarcastic than funny. “Elise has ulterior motives.”

  “And you don’t?” Taylor says. She’s reached the bottom of the steps and stands in front of a closed door. She turns back to Zachary.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

  She rolls her eyes. “You gods all have your own motives. We’re just pawns playing along.”

  “Not true,” Zachary says, hurrying down the rest of the steps so the three of us all stand together.

  “You don’t have anything you’re angling for?” Taylor says.

  He glances to me then back to Taylor. “I’m trying to help you guys get the key. That’s it.”

  “I call bullshit,” Taylor says.

  I turn to the door, because I don’t really care about ulterior motives right now. All I want is to get the black pearl for Iva and get into Simulation Omega. And if Cole really isn’t in the simulation, I need to find him. I can figure out everything else later on.

  “How do we open it?” I ask. The door is a glowing blue panel. There’s no handle, no knob. No way that I can tell to operate it. The outline of a blue square starts at the edges and pulses and hums as it gets smaller. One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four.

  Taylor holds her hand over it. “Pretty sure it’s electrified.”

  I look to Zachary, but he backs up and puts his hands in the air. “Don’t ask me. It’s not my domain. Remember? And no way am I going in first anyway. Iva would be furious.”

  I almost can’t imagine Iva mad, but then I remember Elise’s transformation when she’d had the Oculus. She’d become a different person entirely. She’d transformed from a friendly little girl to a full-on god with destructive powers that could wipe out the world with a thought. I don’t want to see any of the gods like that.

  Except that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I need to get to Chaos and defeat him whether I want to or not.

  “Right.” I turn back and study it. The light pulses at the same rate. One. Two. Three. Four. Over and over again. “Taylor, you see anything?”

  She angles her head as she focuses on the door with the Oculus. I try to find the code that makes it up, to see if I can twist it around and reshape it so we can pass through. But the thing is solid. Whatever power I have, it’s not going to get me through this door. I access my heads-up display next to see if I can interact with the thing, but no luck there either.

  “Nothing,” Taylor says. She traces her finger over the door, holding it a couple inches away so it doesn’t shock her. “Just the squares.”

  Squares. Four of them. Iva’s clue returns to me. Step through the root of the largest. You have to go first, Eden. I unlocked it for you. This has to be the same as the crypt door. It only opened for me.

  Root of the largest. The largest is a four-by-four square, making it sixteen squared. The square root of that is four, meaning it would be the two-by-two square. The second from the smallest.

  “Maybe . . . ,” I say, and I explain the logic.

  Taylor eyes me skeptically. “You’re saying we just step through the second to last square?”

  I shrug, hoping I’m not making a huge mistake. “Well, yeah. But we have to get the timing right. And I have to go first.”

  “And if you’re wrong, we all get electrocuted?” She shakes her head, her short bleached braids slapping against her neck. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” I ask. To me it makes perfect sense. Logical sense. This has to be what Iva had meant.

  “No.” She crosses her arms.

  Zachary gives me a conspiratorial grin. “It makes perfect sense to me.”

  Taylor rolls her eyes. “Of course it does.”

  “You guys ready?” I ask.

  They both nod. I reach out and grab onto both their hands. Then I wait. When the three-by-three square pulses, I take a breath. When it changes to the two-by-two square, I step through.

  I hold my breath, waiting to get shocked. For me to be wrong. But instead we pass through. The only effect I feel is the hairs on my bare arms and the back of my neck raising. I turn. The blue glowing door is now behind us. We’ve made it in.

  “So that worked,” Taylor says. “Now what?”

  That worked. Now we look for the next part of the clue.

  I study the room. With the humming of machinery and the pulsating of lights, I would have expected computer equipment everywhere. But there is none of that. Instead we stand on a ground made of sand. The ocean is far ahead, waves rolling in and out.

  “I’ve been here before,” I say.

  “Yep,” Taylor echoes.

  When we’d first reached the volcano after the garden with the sirens, Iva had brought me here, to the beach, to tell me about the power and the simulation. That wasn’t part of the volcano. She’d brought me to her domain.

  “I really shouldn’t be here,” Zachary says.

  “It’s fine.” I go through Iva’s clue in my mind, trying to piece out what is next. “A red flower. A yellow umbrella. Fourteen monuments.”

  “There’s a yellow umbrella,” Zachary says. He points off to the left where ten different umbrellas decorate the sand.

  “Yeah, there’s one, too.” Taylor points the complete opposite way. All told, from where we stand, at least five yellow umbrellas are visible.

  “Don’t move yet,” I say. “Look for a red flower.” Since it came first in the clue, it has to somehow tie in to the umbrella.

  “It’s a beach,” Taylor says. “There are no flowers.”

  “Except those,” Zachary says. He points to a bar where a bartender stands watching us. He’s got an assortment of glasses ready for us to drink, some with umbrellas, some with pieces of orange and melon staked with small sword
s, and some with . . .

  “Flowers!” I say. “Zachary, you are a genius.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Also humble,” Taylor says. But we’re all happy to go to the bar. Just seeing the drinks makes me realize how parched I am.

  The bartender grins as we walk up, but it’s so calculated that I’m sure he’s an NPC of some kind.

  “A Shirley Temple on a hot day?” he asks.

  Sweat drips down my face at his words. The sun overhead is baking hot, and a Shirley Temple has never sounded so good.

  “Anything stronger?” Taylor asks.

  “Afraid not,” the bartender says. “We’re happy to serve up the best Shirley Temples around.” Rather that seeming upset that he can’t fill Taylor’s request, he beams with pride at his words. Then he slides over a bowl of figs.

  Zachary grabs a fig and pops it into his mouth in a single bite.

  I point to one of the glasses with the red flower. “I’ll take a Shirley Temple in that glass.”

  “A perfect choice,” the bartender says, and he mixes the drink and slides it over to me.

  I drain the glass without even planning to. And the second I set the glass down on the bar, everything around me vanishes.

  XII

  When my surroundings reappear, Zachary and Taylor are nowhere to be found. Neither is the bartender or the bar. Instead I sit under a cabana, my drink freshly refilled and resting on the table next to me. There are two chairs. I am sitting in one, but the other is empty.

  I’ve been here before, except the last time I was here, Iva was in the other chair.

  Root of the largest. Red flower. I’ve followed her clues so far. I need to figure out the rest of it.

  I stand and step out from under the cabana. The ocean water is blue like a sapphire, and waves gently roll in and out, lapping against the white sand. I’m alone on the beach, though umbrellas decorate the sand every so often. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow.

  There is only one yellow umbrella.

  I walk toward it. My heavy boots sink deep into the sand, making each step feel like I have ankle weights on. It figures that the yellow umbrella is farthest away. It’s staked into the ground, near the edge of the sand. I slog through the sand until I reach it.

  Under the umbrella, a plump golden apple sits on a table. I reach down and lift it to my lips, smelling the sweetness. Then I take a huge bite out of it. Energy runs through me as juice drips down my chin. Energy that refuels the power inside me. This is the same type of apple that Iva had placed in the simulation. Possibly the same apple? It’s hard to know. Time and space don’t seem to matter where the gods are concerned. Under the umbrella, I devour the entire apple until there is nothing left except five brown seeds. I tuck them into one of the pockets of my cargo pants, then lift my head to figure out what’s next.

  Beyond the beach and the yellow umbrella a path extends into darkness. It’s filled with mist and a faint blue light, like a haunted pathway through a graveyard.

  Graveyard. That’s it! Lining the right side of the path are grave markers. No, not grave markers. Memorials. I move close to the nearest one and try to read the letters, but they’re all ancient symbols, like the symbols at the entrance to the volcano. Like names of those who are memorialized here. There’s also a line with an angle drawn on it. The ancient way to write the number one. The next one has different symbols and the ancient symbol for number two. On top of each one is a small bowl containing a single black pearl like I am looking for. But not these. I need a specific one.

  The fourteenth memorial. I look at each one as I walk down the path. Three. Four. Five. The path gets darker with each step I take. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

  I move to the fourteenth memorial, ready for the end of this clue hunt. But my eyes find and register the number symbol. Fifteen. There is no fourteenth memorial. It’s another trick.

  No. Iva specifically sent me here to find and retrieve the black pearl. The fourteenth memorial is hidden to make it more secure.

  I push through the thirteenth and fifteenth memorial stones, leaving the path behind. There is only darkness and fog ahead. I’m swallowed by the darkness. But it has to be here. It’s the reason I’m here. But one wrong step and I could get lost. I squeeze my eyes closed and try to picture it there in my mind. I try to build it with my power. And when I open my eyes, directly ahead of me is a small hill. On top of the hill is the fourteenth memorial.

  I don’t need to see the number marking to confirm it, but all the same it’s there. The ancient way to write fourteen. The memorial also has four symbols. Greek letters.

  My name in Greek letters.

  There you’ll find the symbol that I made for you, Iva had said.

  The symbol made for me. My name.

  Sitting on top of the memorial is a small bowl. I can’t see in it, but I reach my hand up and feel around, finding the black pearl. I grasp it with my thumb and forefinger. As soon as I do, the symbols of my name vanish from the memorial.

  The pearl is warm to the touch, and even in the fog, it shines like it’s made of gloss. Whatever it’s made of, whatever it’s made for, this is what Iva wants.

  XIII

  I step back from the memoriaL. The world around me shifts again, and I’m back at the bar. Taylor and Zachary are still there, holding their Shirley Temples in their hands as if nothing has changed.

  “I got it,” I say, holding up the shiny black pearl.

  Zachary cocks his head as he studies it. “I wonder what she wants with that.”

  “You don’t know?” I ask, thinking of all the other memorials, each with their own pearl. Maybe it’s her secret. Maybe none of the other minor gods are aware.

  “No idea,” he says. “But with Iva, you never know.”

  “When did you get that?” Taylor says.

  I shrug. “Just now.” And I give them the very brief overview of what happened, leaving out the part about my name being on the memorial.

  Taylor holds her hand out and even though I want to keep it safe, I hand the black pearl over to her. She flips it around, like she’s looking for something. The entire surface appears the same to me. Solid black with no markings or imperfections or anything that makes it look like anything other than a decoration. Then Taylor holds it up to the Oculus.

  Immediately she pulls it back. “Oh . . . I get it.”

  “Get what?”

  She puts it to the Oculus again, then flips it around. And around again. Over and over she does this as if she’s trying to look at it from every possible angle.

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  She holds it close then far away, and her mouth drops open slightly, like she’s about to say something.

  “I see possibilities,” Taylor says, finally handing it back to me.

  “Possibilities of what?” I ask.

  Taylor runs her fingers along the scars on her cheeks, something I notice she does when she’s thinking. “At least twelve things that might happen with this.”

  I roll the pearl around in my palm. All I see is the black surface, but with the Oculus, Taylor must see possible futures.

  “Can we talk about this once we’re out of here?” Zachary says, glancing around. “I don’t like being in Iva’s domain.”

  My guess is that Iva doesn’t like Zachary here any more than he likes being here.

  I nod slowly, placing the small sphere in one of my pockets. Now that we have it, it’s time to leave.

  We backtrack from the beach to the doorway we came through. There’s no lock from the inside. We simply step through. Then we’re up the stairs and outside the crypt door. While we’ve been gone, the dead have had a chance to regroup. They wait for us, only steps away. Zachary steps forward with his palm raised, and they hold their position. Their eyes are filled with the desire to get to us, to pull us
apart limb by limb, but he keeps them back.

  I draw up the image of Florida, of Emily’s front door. It appears in my mind perfectly, and I create an inventory item of it. Then I select Transport, grabbing hold of Zachary and Taylor before I do. The dead, seeing their chance, lunge after us, but we’re gone just in time. We’re free from them, safe . . . at least for the time being. But before I can take a step, I fall to the ground as a vision fills my mind.

  I’m standing on a shiny black surface with vines reaching down from above, supported by a ceiling that isn’t there. The sky above is orange and yellow, like it’s alive with fire. In front of me is a building that seems to be made of pink and black glass. In front of it, huge spiky rocks jut up from the ground, blocking my path.

  “Save me, Edie,” a voice calls. It’s thin and weak, like it’s been calling for me for ages and I haven’t come.

  “Thomas?” I shout across the distance. I can’t see him. The rocks are blocking everything.

  “I’m holding on as long as I can,” he says. “But if you don’t make it here soon, he’s going to reprogram me.”

  “I’m coming!” I shout, and I begin to run forward, toward the black jutting rocks and the pink building. But arrows fly out from the rocks and I fall to the ground. I’ve been hit by at least ten of them. I try to stand, but my knees buckle out from underneath me.

  “Hurry, Edie!” Thomas says.

  I try to hurry. I really do. But another wave of arrows comes, burying themselves inside me.

  I try to call out to him, to tell him I’m sorry, but words take too much energy. My mouth won’t listen to my brain. My fingers claw at the ground as I try to pull myself forward, but the black surface is like glass, and there is nothing to get a hold of.

  Then the vision fades.

  I’m on the ground, back in Florida. Taylor stands guard, but Zachary squats next to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  Not, I’m not okay, I want to shout. My brother needs me, and I can’t get to him. But then I remember that Zachary is trying to help me. He can get me to Thomas. He can help me save him.