Part 21 (2/2)

”Stars,” said Lilly, gazing around the domed ceiling.

”What did you do?” I asked.

”All I did was put my hand on it.”

The lights coming out of the sphere had made the dome above us into a map of the night sky, though it was dimmed by the electric bulbs strung around. It was funny to think that someone had made a dome here, complete with a fake sky, long before Eden. Lilly looked from the stars to the floor, with its land and water shapes. ”So, this room is like a giant map.”

”Yeah,” I said. I let the pile of maps fall to the table and started toward Lilly. There was a clink of gla.s.s and then a rolling sound. I looked down to see that I'd kicked something on the floor: a gla.s.s cylinder. It rolled in a slow circle, stopping against the outstretched fingers of the Nomad woman.

”What was that?” Lilly asked. She took her hand from the obsidian. The stars went out.

I bent down. It was a vial, missing its top. It had a yellow-and-white label and was mostly empty, except for a few leftover drops of blood. I picked it up and looked at the code printed on it: YH4-32.1 I felt a burst of adrenaline, my head spinning. ”Uh-oh,” I said.

”What?” Lilly arrived beside me as I stood up. I looked down at the Nomad. Her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling like she'd seen something awe-inspiring up there, or awful. There was a bullet hole in her chest. A pool of blood with crusted edges spread out from beneath her back. I looked at her outstretched arm, leaning on the wall. The palm up, covered in blood. Not a smear, but instead evenly covered, almost like it had been painted on.

Lilly stepped past me and reached down to the body. There was a long, narrow knife in a sheath on the woman's belt. Lilly unsnapped the b.u.t.ton and took the knife. She stood up and slipped it into the waist of her shorts. ”Just in case,” she said.

I nodded, my mind on other things. ”The blood,” I said vacantly.

Lilly looked down at the body and exhaled slowly. ”Yeah, gross.”

”No.” Things were spinning into webs. Dr. Maria taking my sample the day before yesterday, those looks she'd given me, given the bodies, up in the Preserve. ”My blood,” I said. blood,” I said.

”What?”

”The-” I was going to explain what this had to mean. Dr. Maria was working with the Nomads. She'd given them this vial of my blood, but to do what?

I looked around. There. A few feet back up the wall from where the Nomad had fallen was a small recess, a little triangular alcove carved into the wall at chest height. It was just above her feet, like that's where she'd been standing when the bullet hit her.

”Over here.” Inside the recess there was a depression carved out in the shape of a hand. It almost looked smooth in the shadows but, peering closer, I saw the spikes. Tiny little pins made of something white, maybe bone. They were polished to perfect points. There were maybe twenty, s.p.a.ced out around the handprint.

Lilly peered in at it. ”Yowch,” she said. ”That would be like putting your hand on a cactus.”

”Yeah,” I said. I moved my shaking hand toward it.

”What are you doing? Owen!” She grabbed my wrist.

”It's my blood, on the Nomad's hand,” I said. ”She covered her hand with my blood to use this. The siren said the key was inside me.”

”What?”

”Back in the tunnels,” I said.

”Oh,” said Lilly. ”But, so... you think the key is your blood.”

I nodded, but it was more like I knew. knew. Almost like that boy Luk was watching me and smiling. Almost like that boy Luk was watching me and smiling.

”The key to what, though?” Lilly asked.

I took a deep breath. ”Let's find out.” I tried to ready myself, to tense all my muscles as I put my hand over the spiked impression. I was shaking, but it seemed more like antic.i.p.ation of what was about to happen than for the pain. I lowered my hand, the magnet pulling.... I pressed down, felt the resistance of my skin, bending against the little spikes.... And the popping as needle after needle broke through my armor, pierced me like a piece of fruit. Each stung, the pain a quick jolt, and then my whole hand began to come alive with screaming. My arm shook. I squinted against tears.

”Breathe,” Lilly whispered, rubbing my shoulder.

I hadn't realized that I wasn't. I was wincing, gritting my teeth, my body like a stone. I pressed harder. The spikes dug deeper, and around me I began to notice that nothing was happening.

I pulled my hand off. It felt like it was burning from the inside out. The holes were bright red, drops of blood bubbling out of them. They grew fat and then started dripping across my hand, making streaks. I rubbed it on my shorts and looked back at the handprint. The little spikes were coated, the blood dripping down, collecting around the base of each and seeping into narrow s.p.a.ces around them.

The room started to shake.

”Owen... ,” said Lilly.

I glanced around. The walls were vibrating, dust falling from seams. A loud crack sounded from behind us and we turned to see the black sphere and its pedestal lowering into the floor. More sharp sounds, a deep rumbling, growing louder, and the floor around the pedestal began to lower too, but in segments, each lower than the next, forming a spiral staircase that led downward.

”Okay...” I watched, stunned. My blood had done this-opened a staircase into a floor, deep in an underground temple. ”What is this?” I mumbled.

”The table!” Lilly darted forward. The floor was lowering beneath its far legs and it was starting to lean into the hole. Lilly grabbed its edge. I lunged for the papers, somehow remembering to slap my nonbloodied hand down on them. As we pulled the table back, its legs squealing, I considered that if it was positioned over these stairs, then that likely meant that Paul didn't know that the floor opened. That this was a secret he knew nothing about.

The rumbling ceased and the floor stopped moving. A wide ring remained around the edge of the room, and the whole middle had sunk. We peered down. The staircase spiraled two times, narrowing as it went. The black sphere seemed to be suspended about halfway down, and below that, something flickered like metal.

I looked at Lilly. Her eyes were wide, but she waved her hand. ”Lead on. Whatever this is, it's for you.”

I almost didn't want to. That vibrating inside me had reached a steady hum that made it hard to think. How could this actually be for me? And yet, was there really any doubt?

I started down the stairs. Each was wider at the edge, tapering to the center. We pa.s.sed below the obsidian star ball, the pedestal, and saw that it was suspended in s.p.a.ce by thin copper rods that stretched out from the wall. A dome of copper hung beneath the bottom of the pedestal, like a giant metal umbrella.

Below, we could see down to a stone-block floor. There was something on it, kind of a triangle shape. It looked almost like the hull of one of the little sailboats up at camp.

The stairs ended above this. A catwalk led over to the wall, to a narrow platform that ringed this lower chamber. Everything was carved from stone. We walked slowly across, arms out for balance. In the dim light spilling down from above, I could see that the boatlike object was about five meters below us. A final set of stairs continued down to it from the far side of the platform. The stairs above us kept the walls all in shadows.

I moved around the platform, keeping my back against the wall, until I got to the far staircase. I climbed down. The little craft was lying on a stone floor. It had more geometric sides than a sailboat, and could probably hold about four people. I stepped in. There were flat seats along the sides. It had a copper mast near the front, and a series of little metal poles, like the ones in a tent, that arched from one corner of the craft to the other, outlining a little dome over the front half of the craft.

In the center of the vessel floor was a triangular block of sleek black metal, and sitting on top of that was an oval-shaped clay object, like a pot. There were three more of these pots strapped inside the bow. Closer to me, I spied a tiny metal pole sticking out of the floor and ending at a little gold b.u.t.ton. It had a curved depression in it about the size of a fingertip. In the middle of that depression was a little round hole. Its edge stuck up a little. It looked sharp. I wondered if this was another switch for my blood key.

”What is it?” Lilly asked from above.

”Some kind of boat,” I said, but I felt like there was more to it than that.

”Are we supposed to do something with it?”

”Don't know.” If we were, I had no idea what. It wasn't like there was any water down here to sail it on, and it seemed way too heavy for us to lift. I looked around at the walls.

Blue flickered up on the walkway.

”There,” I whispered, pointing.

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