Chapter Twenty

The night air was hot and dank. I could feel droplets of humidity seeping through my mask as I swung over Times Square. A fine mist swirled around the billboards, glowing eerily in the lights, and the sounds of the traffic below were muffled, almost as if the mist were sealing the city inside its own universe.

I shot a webline from my left wrist and made a sharp turn down 42nd street. Steady wingbeats thudded through the dead air to my right, and the low hum of Harry's glider made the air shiver to my left. Now and then, through a break in the fog, I saw Nacht snapping from rooftop to rooftop below. It was strange how we were moving, almost in formation.

Manhattan General loomed up out of the fog. Our first stop.

Only a few lights were on in the rooms on the top floor. The swirling fog made them flicker in and out of view, like blinking eyes. I reached the end of my swing, caught the crossbar of a streetlamp and vaulted onto the edge of the hospital's roof. The rooms here were private doctor's offices, with balconies and sliding glass doors.

I stepped off the roof and dropped down onto the third balcony from the corner. The yellow light of a desk lamp glimmered through the glass door. The glass was perfectly clear and looked new; Doc had probably had to replace it completely after Harry had lasered through it a few days ago.

The words echoed faintly in my head. Just a few days ago. It was too hard to believe, and I stopped trying.

My eyes adjusted to the light and I made out the shape of Doc inside the office, sitting at his desk. He was still in his lab coat, but his sleeves were rolled up and his tie hung unknotted around his neck. He sat leaning over the desk, writing something on a form. His eyes were red-rimmed behind his glasses, and in his short hair was more gray than I'd seen before.

Ladyhawk fluttered past me and landed lightly on the balcony, and a few seconds later Harry dropped out of nowhere and landed beside her. Nacht appeared in a crouch on the railing.

Doc looked up and saw us. He didn't look surprised.

He pushed himself away from his desk, came to the door and slid it open, then stepped back to give us room to come inside. Harry followed me in, and Nacht came after him, glancing warily from side to side, his tail flicking like a cat's. Ladyhawk was last, striding into the office as if she expected crowds to part for her. She fluttered her feathers, crossed her arms, and leaned sideways against the wall.

Doc glanced at her, then looked away and nodded at Nacht. "Good to see you again."

Nacht nodded back and shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. Doc turned back to us. His eyes flickered from me, to Harry, then back to me, as if he wasn't sure who he should look at. "So you're going through with this?" he asked.

No one spoke. I kept my eyes on Doc, but I could feel them all turning to look at me.

I nodded. "Yeah."

Doc sighed and passed a hand through his hair, then stood up and went to a metal cabinet hanging on the opposite wall. "I'm finished," he said. "Shire's samples made it much easier."

He took a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the cabinet. "The poison's a narcotic neurotoxin," he said. "It attacks the central nervous system, and it works fast. I've never seen a botanically-based toxin like this before. The closest thing to it that I could find was cone shell venom, and there's no antidote for that." He took something from a shelf and closed the cabinet. "The best I could do was try to trigger an immune response. I introduced the toxin into a type O blood sample and let the antibodies program themselves to recognize the molecules. That should be enough to neutralize the poison before it can do too much damage, if it's deployed fast enough."

He locked the cabinet and came back with a flat metal disc about the size of my palm. It was a dull gray and had a little half-circle of metal projecting out of the back.

"It's like this." Doc slid his ring finger through the metal loop and held up his hand, so that the disc stayed flat against his palm. "If you need it, slide it on and clap it right against the femoral artery. The needle will deploy on impact and deliver the antibodies into the bloodstream. Do it as soon as you can."

I nodded and reached out for it, but Doc didn't let go. "Wait. Listen," he said. "This is all of it. I don't have the equipment or the resources to make a larger amount." He held up the disc. "This is enough for one person. Do you understand me? One." He lowered his hand. "If more than one of you is attacked…"

Doc trailed off. No one finished his sentence.

"I hold," Nacht said. He tugged a lapel of his trench coat. "I have pockets."

Doc held out the disc. Nacht took it gingerly and slid it into a pocket in the inside layer of his coat.

Doc took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He stood still for a moment, then put them back on and looked up. "So you know how to get in and out of the building?"

"Not a problem," Harry said. He tapped the side of his helmet. "I downloaded the building plans into here," he said. "I have maps of every level."

I frowned. "Into where?"

"Huh?" he said. "Oh, yeah. I installed a computerized display that projects onto the insides of my eye shields. It's still got a few bugs, but it works." He made an attempt at a chuckle. "Trust me, you don't want this thing on your head when it gets stuck on screensaver."

There was a silence. Nacht looked down at the floor, scuffing at the carpet with his foot. Ladyhawk was still leaning against the wall, a hint of a smirk playing around the corners of her mouth, but her whole posture seemed stiff, tense, probably the exact opposite of the image she was trying to convey. Harry shifted.

Doc dropped his gaze. "Look, just…" I saw the muscles in his jaw tense. He looked up again. "Just…watch out for each other, okay?"

For a moment I wasn't sure whether it was really Doc's voice that I'd just heard. I had never heard him sound that way before, so unsure, and so…frightened. It didn't seem right at all. Doc was one of the bravest people I knew. He'd stood his ground with Black Widow snarling in his face, he'd held his own against armed guards when I could do nothing to help him, he'd flown a seaplane straight at an ocean rig seconds away from exploding. Without him we'd all have died that night.

But he was afraid now, and I knew why. He wouldn't be there to help us tonight. He'd done all he could do.

Nacht smiled weakly; it looked forced. "Keine Sorge, Doktor," he said. "We come back."

Ladyhawk snorted. "Though maybe in pieces."

I glared at her, but it was invisible beneath my mask.

We went back out onto the balcony in silence. Harry's glider floated down out of the fog. He stepped onto it. "Thanks, Doc."

Doc nodded back jerkily. Harry gunned his glider and shot away into the night. Ladyhawk walked past Doc and bounded into the air without a word. Nacht hesitated for a moment, then evaporated.

I looked back at Doc, wondering whether I should say something reassuring, they way Nacht had. But nothing came to mind. Nothing true, anyway.

"Thanks," I said finally.

Doc made a valiant attempt at a smile. "Don't mention it."

I turned and dove over the edge of the balcony. The fog rushed up to engulf me. I shot a webline, felt it connect, and swung back up into the sky.

But each time I looked back I saw Doc still standing motionless on the balcony, silhouetted against the light of his office, until both he and the building dissolved into the night.

The Quest Aerospace skyscraper was about fifty stories tall, with a pyramid-shaped roof illuminated by blue and green lights. It looked like there was some construction going on nearby: two towering cranes stood in the empty lot across the street, throwing skeletal shadows over the ground. Traffic crawled past below.

We were all on the ledge of the skyscraper across the street, crouching in a line like a row of gargoyles. I looked over my shoulder at the others. Harry was beside me, his glider hovering a few feet behind him, Nacht a few feet beyond, and Ladyhawk the farthest away. Superhero team, I thought, and had to stifle a crazy sort of giggle. I didn't know what was wrong with me. One moment I could barely force words out of my mouth, and the next I was ready to burst out laughing.

What are you talking about? a part of my brain muttered. Your family's gone. That's reason enough.

Ladyhawk spoke suddenly. Her voice was sharp against the noises of the city and the night. "We should do a reconnaissance." She looked around, almost challengingly, as if waiting for someone to argue. No one did. Ladyhawk ruffled her wings and muttered, "To get a better grasp of the layout."

"Good point," Harry said. He stood, balancing on the ledge, and turned to Ladyhawk. "You and me? We can fly."

They turned to look at me. I stared back, expecting them to say something else, but they didn't. Then I realized— they were waiting for me to speak.

"What?" I said.

Harry shrugged. "You're the leader."

I stared at him, but his goblin face only snarled back silently. The expression on Ladyhawk's face grew into a full-grown smirk. Nacht glanced between us, but said nothing.

"S-sure," I stammered. "Whatever you want."

Ladyhawk turned away and dropped from the roof in a falcon dive. Harry bounded back onto his glider and took off into the sky.

I watched them disappear, then turned to look at Nacht. He was still crouching on the edge of the roof, looking off into the distance, lights glittering in his eyes. I looked past him and saw huge spotlights focused on the pavement of a big empty lot a few blocks away. Two eighteen wheelers were parked beneath the streetlamps, and people scurried back and forth, pushing dollies and loading huge crates into trucks with forklifts. As I watched, a pickup truck rolled across the beam of light from one of the spotlights, hauling a trailer loaded with a giant roll of striped canvas. A circus big top, with a huge rip stretching along its full length.

It was the same circus that Ladyhawk and I had demolished. Flashes of swinging around on trapezes in my Midsummer Night's Dream costume streamed through my head. It had been only days since I'd been spouting lines in a high school theater, but the memory seemed faint and foggy, like a half-forgotten dream.

"For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast," I murmured. I don't know why I did.

Nacht turned. "Shakespeare," he said.

I looked at him. Nacht couldn't have seen my expression through my mask, but I guess he sensed my surprise.

"English theater company spend two months in München," he said. "They play this Dream. Beautiful play." A sad little smile flitted across his face. "I see many times. Memorize most of lines, almost, even though they auf Englisch were. Old, strange English, too."

He fell silent. I looked back towards the skyscraper, but Harry and Ladyhawk were nowhere to be seen. The skyscraper was still and empty— the scattered offices with their lights still on were deserted. I stared blankly at the windows, not really seeing anything. Mom, Dad, Benny. Andrea. Were they in there, somewhere?

What was happening to them?

A horrible thought rammed into me like a fist. My family was being used as bait, but Anubis only needed me to believe that they were alive to spring his trap. What if they…what if he had…

Paralyzing fear crept over me like strangling vines. I wanted to run away, to hide, curl up and never move again. I hunched over, wrapped my arms around my knees, and shut my eyes. No. They were alive. They had to be alive.

"Mayday," I heard Nacht say softly. "You…okay?"

I couldn't open my eyes. "I can't do this," I whispered. "I can't lead you."

"You can," he said.

I shook my head. "No."

Nacht said nothing. A car horn blared distantly from the street below.

"What about Spider-Girl?" he said suddenly.

I raised my head and saw him looking back at me, perfectly serious. He opened his mouth again, but before he could speak Harry and Ladyhawk dropped from the sky.

"Not much going on," Harry said. "There're a few people from the cleaning staff on the lower floors, but that's it."

"Not normal," Ladyhawk grunted.

"Not really," Harry said, shrugging. "It's three in the morning."

Ladyhawk shot him a narrow look that disappeared a split second later. She didn't like being corrected.

"But I'm almost positive that what we're looking for isn't going to be immediately visible," Harry continued. "It'll be in the underground levels. That's where we need to go."

They looked at me again, all of them, but I understood what Nacht had meant. If Mayday couldn't do it, then maybe Spider-Girl could.

I stood up. "All right," I said. "Let's go."

It took only a few seconds for us to reach the roof of Quest Aerospace. I landed on the walkway that formed the perimeter of the roof and waited, but my spider-sense was silent. To my left the colored lights threw huge, elongated shadows onto the sides of the pyramid.

Harry bounded off his glider and let it drift down behind him. "Just a second."

He tapped something on his wristpad. The metal surface of the glider rippled and split, revealing a small square compartment inside the left wing. Harry reached inside and took something out. The metal rippled again and melted seamlessly back into place.

"Here." He handed it to me. It was the gizmo, the same one he had given me on the roof of the theater. "Might still be useful."

I nodded. Harry tapped something else, and the glider dropped down to hover about a foot above the roof. Two bright red lasers shot from the ports beneath it and traced a wide square on the concrete, leaving charred lines behind. The glider dropped to the ground, clamped onto the roof, then rose into the air, carrying the square of roof with it.

I felt sweat prickle on my forehead. "I'll go first."

I didn't want to, but I didn't have a choice. If I was the leader, then the risk was mine to take. I walked forward, took a deep breath, and stepped into space.

I landed on carpet and blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to adjust. The room was huge and empty, and lit only by the dim light of the city shining through the windows lining the long wall behind me. It looked like some kind of conference room, or maybe an indoor observation deck. To my left and right, on opposite walls, were two sets of big double doors.

Harry, Nacht, and Ladyhawk dropped down after me. Ladyhawk glanced around. "Now what? I don't see any—"

My spider-sense screamed to life just as an alarm wailed through the room. The sound bounced around the room, blasting into my ears from all directions. In a whir of sliding panels automatic weapons unfolded from slots the ceiling, everywhere, surrounding us. The dim light glinted along the barrels.

I actually heard Harry swallow. "Those weren't in the building plans."

A voice blared through the room from speakers I couldn't see. It was cold and mechanized. "Stay where you are," it said. "Every weapon in this level is trained on you. Any sudden movement will trigger them. You will not have time to react. Stay where you are."

The voice cut off.

"They're coming up the stairs." Harry's voice was hoarse. "They must have been stationed all over the building."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the opaque eye shields of his helmet were tilted down towards the gizmo in my hands. Trying not to move my head, I lowered my eyes to the screen. It was in infrared mode, and the walls and floors around us were only ghostly outlines. The gizmo could see straight through the walls, and even through the steel barrels of the guns…

I blinked. The chambers weren't filled with bullets. Where a cartridge should have been was some kind of hollow cylinder, with a liquid gray blur flickering inside, and a long, cobweb-thin needle. They were darts.

"They're not trying to kill us," I whispered.

My mind whirled. Of course. It was part of the trap. Anubis had known that we would figure out that the chip had come from Quest Aerospace, and he'd been waiting for us. He wanted us alive.

I gritted my teeth. We had to get to the underground levels, and not on his terms.

You're Spider-Girl. Act like it.

A swarm of faint red dots appeared on the gizmo's screen. They had reached the tenth floor.

Nacht's voice shook. "Wh-what we do?"

My eyes darted over the gizmo's screen. The wall to my right had a long, hollow gap that led straight down until it vanished from sight. An elevator shaft. And behind the wall in front of us was a cluster of cables that ran from the bases of the guns in front of us down through the wall and beneath the floor.

The red dots brightened. They were coming. We'd never be able to—

Concentrate! I yelled inside my head. The guns. They were all connected at that spot. If we could somehow destroy that junction, it might be enough to keep the guns from working in tandem. And it might be enough to break their lock on us…

I clenched my fists so tightly that the gizmo shook in my hands. But we had no way to get to it! My web-shooting wasn't powerful enough to break through a wall, and there would be no room inside it for Nacht if he tried to teleport. And Harry couldn't throw a grenade without setting off the motion sensors. Which left only…

"Ladyhawk," I muttered.

Ladyhawk grunted. I took that to mean she was listening. "Your shriek," I whispered. "Can you aim it?"

Ladyhawk slowly turned her head towards me. The guns followed the movement. "What?"

"Can you concentrate the sound on a specific point?"

"I…I've never tried," she said. "Why?"

"Look." As slowly as I could, I tilted my head towards the gizmo. "See that?" I whispered. "All of the guns share that connection. If you can take it out, that'll have to damage them somehow."

Ladyhawk's eyes slid towards the wall in front of us. The red dots on the gizmo's screen grew brighter. Twentieth floor.

I swallowed hard. "Look," I said, trying to turn my head so that everyone could hear, "when Ladyhawk shrieks, everyone drop. Flat on the floor."

Nacht made a faint noise of agreement and Harry dipped his head in a tiny nod. Okay, I thought. Now the second part. "Harry," I whispered. "You see the wall to my right?"

"Yeah."

"The elevator shaft's behind it. After Ladyhawk takes out the guns, throw a grenade and blow a hole in the wall." I swallowed again, but my mouth was as dry as ever. "Nacht. Think you can keep those guards busy afterwards?"

"Ja," Nacht said. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I have idea."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "I'll take care of the rest."

Thirtieth floor.

Ladyhawk's voice was taut. "But what if I can't disable the guns?" she said. "Everything depends on that."

The realization hit me then, so hard that for a moment I forgot to breathe. This wasn't like anything I'd ever done before. In everything I'd done, in all the dangers I had faced, I'd only had to look out for myself. But I wasn't alone now. Harry, Nacht, Ladyhawk…they were in this because of me.

And anything that happened to them would be my fault.

The gizmo's screen glowed. The dots were clearer now. I could make out arms swinging and legs flashing in and out of view. Fortieth floor.

I could barely force my voice out of my mouth. "You said it yourself. We're dead anyway."

Ladyhawk made a noise that could have been a laugh. "You know," she said, "if you weren't such a self-righteous little hypocrite, I could almost get to like you."

Suddenly that jibe made it much easier for me to talk. "Same here. I could almost overlook your murderous vigilantism, if you weren't such a drama queen."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nacht slowly tilt his head towards Harry. "Girls," he muttered. "I never understand."

Harry sighed. "I'm with you, man."

My spider-sense began to buzz. I didn't need to look at the gizmo to know why. They were on the fiftieth floor.

Heavy footsteps clanged against the floor. The gizmo's screen glowed with human-shaped red blobs swarming down the hallways, towards the doors of the room. Twenty feet away, ten feet, five…

"Ladyhawk!" I yelled. "Now!"

Ladyhawk screeched. The noise shot into my ears like metal spikes. I dropped the gizmo and threw myself to the floor, my head ringing, and caught a glimpse of the guns spinning on their mounts, jerking back and forth like snake's heads. They weren't locked onto us anymore.

The gizmo's screen was a mass of red. Ladyhawk dropped to the ground just as the doors burst open and a mass of black-clad guards rushed into the room in a flurry of very sharp, very sudden movements.

The guns swiveled and fired. Darts buzzed through the air and the line of guards dropped like sacks of cement. I looked up and saw the guns spinning uselessly. They were out of darts.

A grenade whizzed past my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my head. The grenade exploded with a noise that would have deafened me if Ladyhawk's shriek hadn't already done the job. A wave of heat swept over me like a sandstorm, and a second later a shower of broken sheetrock and metal bounced off my head and shoulders and fell steaming to the floor.

I jumped to my feet. The left wall was nothing but a blackened crater with cracks radiating out like bolts of lightning. Split wires dangled from the ragged edges of the wall, sparking.

The guards actually stopped still, as if stunned by the explosion. I stared at them, but I was as frozen as they were. Black helmets, black armor. The same guards that had burst through the door at home, flanking Anubis. The guards that had…

A dart buzzed past my head. I jerked away and whirled around in time to see a guard swing a gun at me like a club. Barely thinking, I caught it just before it connected with my skull, spun around and heaved. The guard flew over my head and collided with a guard who had been aiming at Ladyhawk. The two of them crashed to the ground. Nacht appeared behind them and clamped both hands around the backs of their necks. All three of them evaporated.

Whatever bonds that had been holding me snapped. I raced towards the destroyed wall, bounded up to the ceiling and clung there, peering frantically into the darkness of the elevator shaft. The elevator was there, only a few floors below.

I dropped to the floor. A guard ran at me, cursing. I whirled and kicked his legs out from under him. He hit the floor and clawed his way up. "You little—"

Ladyhawk came out of nowhere and pounced. The guard's last curse dissolved into a shriek. Ladyhawk flung him into another guard and snarled, "Whatever you're planning, do it!"

I didn't need any more encouragement. I dashed towards the crater, shot web from both wrists, and felt the ends splatter against the side of the elevator. Then I wrenched.

The cables snapped. The elevator crashed through the wall in an explosion of metal and sheetrock. Guards yelled and dove out of the way. The elevator skidded across the floor and slammed into the opposite wall so hard that ceiling panels clattered down around it. I leaped across the room, jammed my fingers into the seam between the elevator doors and forced them open.

The window beside me exploded like a bomb. Arrows of glass sped through the air as Harry's glider jetted into the room and whipped over the floor like a boomerang, knocking guards out of the way like bowling pins. One guard tumbled towards me. I caught him and tossed him into the elevator. He crashed against the back wall and slumped over, gasping. I webbed three more together and flung them after him. They fell in a heap.

All around me was complete mayhem. My spider-sense sent me dodging and leaping in all directions, evading darts and blows from guns. All I could see flashed past my eyes like disjointed scenes from a film: Harry grappling with five guards with darts ricocheting off his armor, Nacht snapping in and out of existence, Ladyhawk grabbing a guard by the throat and drawing back her claws…

"Ladyhawk!" I yelled. "No!"

Ladyhawk turned. Her lip curled. "Too final for you?" She flung the guard at me. "Then you deal with her!"

I caught the guard by the collar just before she hit the floor and hauled her up. "She goes overboard," I muttered. "Me, I'd rather just see you in jail."

"G-g-guh…" the guard gurgled.

"You're welcome." I tossed her into the others inside the elevator, who had just been climbing to their feet, and turned just in time to see Ladyhawk grab hold of a guard and fling him headlong out the window.

I raced forward, fired a webline and snatched him out of the air. "Will you stop that?"

I grabbed the end of the webline and swung it like a whip. The guard sailed into the elevator and crashed into the middle of the group already inside. Ladyhawk spun around. "If you don't have the guts to—"

"Shut up and move!" I pushed past her and dashed towards the elevator, shoved one of the guards back inside, then grabbed the doors and dragged them shut. I leaped and somersaulted across the top of the elevator, clamped my fingers onto the broken cables dangling from the elevator's roof, and ran straight for the windows.

The elevator tore across the floor after me, gouging through the carpet. The window rushed towards me, the cranes beyond it black against the sky. Broken glass crunched under my feet, and then I leaped into space.

The elevator crashed through what was left of the windows and flew into the air after me. I shot a webline that connected squarely with the steel beams of the crane and let my momentum catapult me forward. The elevator soared after me like the tail of a kite, and over the wind roaring past my ears I heard muffled screams from inside.

"Earning your money now, aren't you?" I yelled.

I reached the end of the swing, let myself fall, and caught hold of the huge metal hook dangling a few yards below the end of the crane. I wrapped the elevator cables around the hook, spun a knot of webbing around them, then dropped to the elevator roof and punched a hole through the metal. The guards were lying in a heap at the bottom, and a few had their helmets off and were busy throwing up. I shook my head. They wouldn't suffocate, but it would be a few unpleasant hours before they managed to get out.

I shot a webline at the building's roof and sailed back through a hollow window. Harry and Ladyhawk were standing in the middle of a room completely empty of guards. Nacht materialized beside them. The room around them was as deserted as it had been when we'd come in, aside from the blast marks, sparking wires, and gaping hole in the wall.

Harry pulled off his helmet. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He smiled crookedly. "Huh," he said. "That wasn't so hard."

Ladyhawk pointed at me. "Yes, even though we might have been faster if this idiot hadn't kept—"

That did it. I whipped my arm up and shot a jet of webbing straight at her face. Ladyhawk squawked and reeled backwards. I turned away. "Nacht? What did you do with all of the others?"

Nacht pointed out the window at the gleaming lights of the circus below. He grinned. "I put them in with cargo. Hope they wake before they get to Charleston."

Ladyhawk ripped the webbing from her mouth. "You—"

Harry interrupted. "It's not over yet."

I turned. "Huh?"

Harry pointed at the floor, where the gizmo lay, miraculously still in one piece. It was still in infrared mode.

Nacht crouched down and squinted at the screen. "What are those?"

There were more dots on the screen, but blue, this time. They weren't emitting any heat. They were already on our floor, cold shapes with eight pickaxe legs and razor-sharp mandibles.

I'd seen those before.

And there were at least a hundred of them.

"Down the shaft!" I yelled. "Go! Go!"

For once Ladyhawk didn't bother to argue. She raced across the room and dove through the crater. Nacht cast me a stricken look, then raced after her. He vanished down the shaft.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK!

I turned. Spiderbots swarmed through the door, their sensors sweeping the room. Harry yanked his helmet on and ran for the shaft. "Come on!"

I tore after him and leaped feetfirst down the shaft. The metal walls hurtled past me. After a few floors I somersaulted in the air and slapped my hands against the metal to break my fall. I looked up and felt my joints lock.

The spiderbots were crawling down the walls of the shaft.

"Oh, great."

The first spiderbot sprang. Legs embedded in the wall on either side of me. I threw out my hands and grabbed the sides of its head. The spiderbot strained forward, clicking. Mandibles sawed the air an inch from my face.

"Get off!" I drew my legs up to my chest and kicked out as hard as I could. The spiderbot flew off me and smashed against the other side of the shaft. I pushed myself away from the wall and dropped until I crashed against the opposite wall. The spiderbots were still coming, their legs sinking into the metal.

I shot a line of web that stretched across the shaft, and then another one crossing it. I threw webline after webline, until a net of webbing spanned the entire width of the shaft. Spiderbots piled against it, jaws gnashing. The webbing strained.

"This isn't going to hold them!" I yelled.

Harry jetted past me, a grenade in his fist. "Got you covered!"

He hurled the grenade straight up. It spun up into the air and clamped onto the webbing. The light on its side began blinking faster, and faster…

Wait. In a confined space, the shockwave would—

The blast tore me off the wall. I threw out my arms, grabbing for a hold, anything, but my palms dragged uselessly over the metal I crashed into Ladyhawk, into Nacht, and then an instant later the ground crashed into us. Twisted chunks of metal rained down, their edges smoking.

I groaned and pushed myself us, every muscle in my body aching. Red emergency lights soaked everything in a strange glow. Ladyhawk climbed to her feet, scowling, as Harry drifted down. "Everyone okay?" I asked. "Nacht…Nacht?"

Nacht looked up at me and said, through gritted teeth, "You…stand…on…my…tail."

"Oh, sorry!" I jumped back. Nacht rolled to his feet, holding his tail ruefully. Beside him, Harry's glider folded in on itself and snapped into a slot on the back of his gauntlet.

Ladyhawk opened her wings and snapped them shut. A cloud of dust and metal splinters flew into the air. "Well done."

Harry nodded. "Thank you."

"That was sarcasm."

"Likewise."

The elevator doors were in front of us, gleaming red in the light. I didn't bother to take a deep breath. I went to the doors, pried them open, and stepped out.

The room behind them was large and bare, the size of an airport hanger, with desks with swiveling chairs and computer terminals lining the walls. Only a few desk lamps glowed at the edges of the room, and deep shadows clung to the corners of the room like bats. But there was a strange humming in the air, even as deserted as this place was, as if a current were running through the walls.

"What is this?" Nacht murmured.

Ladyhawk went over to the nearest desk and began rummaging through the papers on top of it. I pulled the elevator doors shut again and followed them into the room. Harry and Nacht were standing in front of a raised panel a few feet away, in the middle of the room. There was nothing on it, no keys or screens or anything at all. It was just a smooth square of metal, with a tiny, triangular depression in the middle of it.

"That's it," Harry murmured. He stepped forward and stopped in front of the panel. Something glittered in the palm of his hand. It was the key.

Harry held the key out over the panel and turned his hand. The key slid off his palm…and stopped falling.

I stared. The key hung suspended over the panel, bobbing slightly in the air. Slowly, it turned itself over and drifted down into the slot.

The humming grew louder, vibrating through the floor. The panel sank into the floor and disappeared. A moment later the floor opened again. Two panels on either side of the first slid open, and two small machines, almost like projectors, rose out of the floor. A panel on the ceiling above slid open and a third projector slid out, all three of them forming a kind of sideless triangle. The air shimmered inside, like heat waves rising from pavement.

"A teleportation portal," Harry murmured. "This is amazing."

Ladyhawk came back from the desk, a paperweight in her claws. She stopped in front of the triangle and tossed the paperweight into the shimmering air inside it. A spark of green light flared like an igniting match, and the paperweight was gone.

Something clanged inside the shaft behind us, like pickaxes on metal.

"Oh, come on," Harry groaned. "Aren't we ever going to get a break?"

There was only one thing to do, and I knew then that it was what Anubis had intended all along. "Through the portal," I said. "Hurry!"

Ladyhawk stared at me. "Are you crazy? We don't know what's on the other side!"

I pointed at the doors. The metal was buckling. "No," I said, "but what's on the other side of that isn't so great."

A corner of the door bent away from the frame. A spiderbot wriggled its head through the gap, mandibles clacking.

"That's what we were running from?" Ladyhawk laughed aloud. "Maybe they're too much for you, but I can handle those—"

"Oh, halt's Maul!" Nacht grabbed her arm and threw himself towards the portal. Ladyhawk yelled and toppled backwards into the shimmering air. Green light blazed and died away. The portal was empty.

Another thought hit me like a fist. Those spiderbots had targeted us, and they'd follow us straight through. Unless…

"Harry!" I shouted. "Give me a grenade!"

"What?"

"Hurry!"

Harry shoved a grenade in my hands. "Now get through the portal!" I yelled. "Go!"

Harry didn't move. "What are you going to—"

I lunged forward and shoved him as hard as I could. Harry yelled and hurtled backwards into the portal. Another greenish flash erupted from the air inside the triangle, and he was gone.

Metal screeched behind me. I whirled just in time to see the doors rip loose and crash to the floor. Fifteen spiderbots swarmed over it, their legs clanging against the metal. Sweat seeped through my mask. Who was looking out at me through those sensors?

I clenched the grenade. I knew what to do.

Not on your terms.

I pressed the button and threw the grenade. It bounced off the opposite wall and fell to the floor, rolling in a lazy circle.

The spiderbots paused. I saw their sensors narrow and focus on the spinning grenade. The grenade started to slow, but the light on its side was blinking faster, and faster…

I turned and ran straight at the portal. A blast of heat and noise erupted behind me, and suddenly I was hurtling forward and green light blazed and—

I crashed facefirst into dirt.

For a moment I couldn't move. My head swum and my face ached, and something sharp was prickling against my arm.

My brain finally stopped spinning. I braced my hands and pushed myself to my feet, and found myself looking straight up into a night sky blazing with stars.

For a moment all I could do was stare. I had never seen so many stars. At home, even on clear nights, all I could ever make out were just a few pinpricks of light drowning in the glow of the city. But huge stars burned coldly overhead, winking inside the snowy streak of the galaxy, casting a pale light over the ground.

The ground. There was no pavement, no grass, nothing but dry, rocky dirt. Stubby plants twisted up from the dust in clumps, all around, dotting the landscape until they melted into a dark blot on the horizon, a long, serpentine shadow with rippling edges. Mountains.

I looked around and saw the others. Nacht was staring up at the sky, his mouth open. A few yards away Ladyhawk stood still, her back to me, looking off into the distance. I turned, looking for Harry, and saw him behind me, pulling off his helmet. He let it fall and fumbled with something on the back of his gauntlet. The wristpad slid open. He tapped some keys, and a second later a tiny holographic star map expanded into the air above his wrist. The star map spun, zoomed in, and froze in place. Tiny green letters appeared in the middle of the pinprick constellations. Location confirmed.

"Know you where we are?" Nacht asked.

Harry looked up. "Yeah," he said. The star map cast a pale glow over his face. "We're in Arizona's Sonoran Desert."