My next targets were basic, everyday stores. Not the small, homey businesses.
Harder to steal from, yes. But it's the stores that show up everywhere, like Wal-Mart and Target and the one that had the leaf on the logo, that sell the food that's everywhere, like Pop-Tarts and boxed cereal.
And do you know how long it takes for a Pop-Tart to go bad?
I don't know. But it's a long time, because I steal them all the time. They always lasted the longest, of all the things in my supply.
So after hitting up a Wal-Mart and a small Target and an Aldi, my jacket was getting full. It was quite a lot to steal, especially if I wasn't entering the maze again, but my mind was on auto-pilot so that my conscious could focus more on making sure I didn't get caught. I was sure I'd discover the reason I'd taken so much later.
I was double-checking the aisles on my way out – the bread section, which was a shame, because bread was bread just about everywhere and no good to me – when two people wearing different uniforms approached the front door.
Of course, it could be a number of situations. But it was a red flag. One wore an Aldi uniform. Another a black policeman's outfit.
Again, could be anyone they were after. But chances are not something I would take with Sis on the line.
I turned and cursed myself for making my last stop one that only had two entrances. I tightened my jacket and walked as calmly as I could. Like everything was normal.
Like I had when the demons followed me.
Unfortunately, someone very familiar was waiting down the aisle.
"Thought I'd find you here," the hotdog vending lady said. She did not smile at me this time.
Time to improvise.
"Don't touch that!" I screamed, and scrambled backwards. "Don't touch me! Mom! MOM!"
The words felt like hunger in my mouth. Hollow and adorned with poisoned thorns, with the worst kind of pain. But I screamed them.
"MOM! MOM!"
"Hey – hey! Thief! Over here!" the lady yelled, waving her hands. "He's over here!"
"Stop it!" I howled, and finally managed to scramble away from her. I squeezed my jacket tight and flew down the aisles.
My yells stopped. The ruse was done, and my heart was not in for the pointless at the moment. Back to holding every sound in, back to running, back to finding a way out.
The policeman skidded into my aisle, an aisle so much like a maze's corridor, expertly avoiding a mess of refried beans and chili cans.
Nope! Other way!
Great idea, genius. You finally caught onto the basics. Looks like I'm rubbing off on ya, I could imagine Mr. Bombastic sneer.
I was cornered now between the Aldi cashier and the cop. Too late to turn around. Instead, I charged for the wall of chips.
Had to be chips. Couldn't be, like, cans or boxes. Something that wouldn't be crushed.
My climbing was not the fastest in the world, and I lost a box of Pop-Tarts from my jacket, but with some fast footwork I avoided the Aldi woman's grasp. The policeman leapt like a fully-trained chimp onto the shelves beside me.
I yelped and leapt off, sailing over the Aldi woman and into the corridor, which was now open.
Back entrance. Docking ramp. Bound to be guarded, but if I can be fast… The back is closer, anyway…
No! The deli kitchen! It had a side door!
I charged the glass display of mouth-watering meats and leapt over the top, hands planted on the tall surface and nearly knocking the surprised employee flat. And then almost landing in the meat slicer.
This city has more traps than the maze! Later, I would scold myself for that exaggeration.
And then the only thing between me and the freedom of the city's winding, labyrinthine streets was the hotdog woman again. This time she looked like she was carved of stone.
She reached out to grab me. I was moving too fast to stop.
Instinct, life-saving instinct, kicked in. I ducked and used the disastrous momentum to slam into her legs. One hand snapped out behind me and grabbed her arm as she fell. I leaned back and swung us around in a circle, which slammed her head hard into the metal doorframe. It snapped back with a sickening sound and she gasped. Her hands locked onto my wrist.
"Stop it," I said, and it was because I meant it this time. I know I hadn't used my voice in a while, but it was much lower, much colder than I remembered. And much calmer than I felt.
I kicked her off, as hard as I could. Her ribs certainly did not feel like stone. At last, she gasped and let go, slapping onto the tile floor.
Quite suddenly, I felt sick. But I couldn't stay and make it right.
"I'm sorry!" I yelled as I ran into the streets. I lost myself in the glazed zombies they called healthy, happy, living people and once I was far enough away from the exit, began to walk like them.
Two blocks away, my heart was still pounding, and with every calm step, it felt like I was still running. Someone had noticed my escape.
When I dared to look back, though, it was not one of my previous pursuers. They were either injured or caring for said injured. It was the cook I had nearly kicked; he was following me with a mimicked glazed look. Two other store employees flanked him.
Something told me they were not coming to avenge the toppled meat slicer.
Just as they were close enough that I could see their pale dog eyes, I bolted. Disguises were wasted on them. Behind me, three howls made seemed to make the sky and buildings shatter.
More echoed from around us. All around us. Footsteps that ran heavy and fast stood out like drums among a room of singing Deaf.
I shoved around the scary zoned-out people and ran, and I didn't even have to hold my hand. Too slow. The thick stream was too slow.
I felt hot breath on my neck.
My hands tightened on my jacket. The edge to one of my Mythomagic decks bit into my thumb.
I ran.
The city was loud and tall and scary, but little by little, I got ahead. I did not stop running. Nothing was worth the price of stopping. Nothing was worth any chance I had at seeing her again.
And so I took no chance and I ran like mad.
I was ten minutes into the maze and mentally preparing myself for its familiar, intriguing games by the time I remembered I had sworn the place off entirely.
oOo
I was suspicious when the small tunnel ran straight into a familiar corridor of dirt and grainy stones.
No way. Too similar to the way I'd left it. The way time went in the maze… Well, I was almost sure it moved slower here than on the surface, but it shouldn't be like this. It should have moved already. It'd had plenty of time by any standards.
I could already hear it groan and hiss and creak as it came to get me. As it delivered its next horrors. The familiar terror crawled up my throat.
Why had I come down here again?
Whatever the reason, leaving it was not an option. I was positive that if I turned around, the exit would be gone. Just as Mr. Bombastic's cave would not show up if I walked towards where I'd seen it.
But even from the intersection, I could see his glow coming from inside the small enclave.
"No way," I breathed, and thought, maybe it is luck, and ran for it before the maze could snatch him away.
It was a traitorous thought, though. Of course it wasn't luck.
I was greeted with a ferocious battle cry and a fierce tackle.
"Hi-yah!" he screamed. "You can't sneak up on-"
"It's me!" I yelled as my jacket's teeming contents were scattered. "Just me! Minos!"
He scowled and ripped my sword from its scabbard. "Like I'd believe it for a second. Tell me; if I cut your head off, will it grow back, or might you disintegrate and leave a prize at least half worth my efforts?"
"You wouldn't have to cut my head off," I said. "That metal is Stygian iron. It's why the wounds in your stomach are worse than they look. Which is why you shouldn't be jumping around like an idiot." To prove my point, I lightly prodded his naval.
He gasped and stumbled off me, but left the sword. I took it gratefully.
"How long was I gone?" I asked as I gathered the food.
"Hours. Long enough for me to have another ambrosia cube. You're lucky," he smiled as he took a Pop-Tart box for himself. "Do you know how much mental control it takes to command this maze?"
"You didn't make this cavern stay," I protested as I handed him a hot dog. "That's impossible. Nobody controls the maze." Except maybe the real Minos.
He snorted. "I can. You wouldn't understand."
Right. I'd momentarily forgotten who I'd come back to.
Why did I come back here, again? This jerk's stupidity was going to get me killed whether I owed him or not.
There wasn't even any shock when I realized that all the extra food I'd taken had been intended for him from the start.
He grinned and happily dug into his hot dog. A pleased expression blessed his dimly shining face.
I didn't trust him.
I never had, but now I was honestly beginning to worry. Fear was creeping up my spine at the thought that I could read his facial expressions so well. That meant he might be able to read mine. And having someone read you was dangerous.
The maze, for example.
That was the real reason. The maze was patient, but it never stopped working. Oh, no. It still intended to eat me. I knew that well.
The question wasn't why I'd come back. It was why the maze had let me.
What trap are you planning? Is this even remotely entertaining to you?
"Chill," Mr. Bombastic said through a full mouth. "Don't worry about it, I kept the fort while you were gone. Nothing's ever snuck up on me before and nothing ever will."
Ugh. He was not helping me much.
I looked him up and down cautiously as we ate our miniature feast and packed what we didn't devour. There was fresh blood on him but he could at least sit up and move around a bit on his own. And I'd fed him. That was an enormous thing, I knew, whether he'd accept that or not. Surely it was safe for me to leave him now.
A hard ball of some emotion struck me at that thought. I had no name for that emotion. I didn't know if it was good or bad, dread or anxiety, fear or wonder.
Mr. Bombastic, during my thoughts-
-Darnit! I was pushing our luck farther and farther, why couldn't I control my mind, the maze was reading me at every moment of every day, without rest, without escape-
-had poked two holes in his artificial pastry and was using it as a mask. After a moment, he shoved in a new space for his tongue, too, and goggled at me through his new creation.
"I see you," he grinned.
I sighed. "And I could see you from a mile away. Why do you do that?"
"Do what?" he asked, biting into his mask.
"Glow."
Suddenly he wasn't smiling. "What's wrong with glowing?"
"Nothing, it's just-"
"Shut up."
There was an urgency there that dismissed our conversation. Instinctively I hit the dirt and drew my sword. Mr. Bombastic quit chewing and cocked his head to one side.
The ambient noise of the maze, as I'd been subconsciously monitoring, had not changed. Today there were gentle clatters and low, drawn-out hisses.
I stared at him, willing him to speak.
He set down his food and leaned against the wall. His face was grim as his ear picked up more of whatever had alarmed him through the dirt and roots. Or perhaps he was worried the maze was faking it.
No. It was not faking it.
Not the most elaborate trap, I thought. It was still toying with us.
But it was not faking this new threat.
Mr. Bombastic tapped the floor twice. Paused. Twice again. Pause. Once.
Can you stand? I mouthed. I didn't like the answer his face gave me.
For a moment, I didn't really care that he was most likely a hindrance in a game I was, of course, always so close to losing. He was close to losing, too.
And a ghost had once told me that Laelaps was not buff and strong but a thin, desperate dog.
From down the corridor, a chorus of dog-like yips came barreling back and forth along the walls. By the time it reached us it was like clapping thunder.
I closed my eyes and curled up beside the ashes of the fire, feeling the hard-packed dirt beneath me. The dogs' cries faded. Mr. Bombastic's questioning poke was miles and miles away.
The maze's groans slowly grew louder. Until they were battle cries.
It's hard to say exactly what belonged to the maze and what belonged to the ghosts. They were much one and the same, seeing as the maze claimed ownership over the ones who'd never found their ways home. And as time marched on the sounds began to blend into one another. They became something timeless in turn.
There were clicks. Hisses. Crooning noises.
Oh, yes. There were a few close enough.
"I knew there was something I liked about this cavern," I whispered as I got up off the ground. Outside, the dogs had found our corridor. Their howls were excited and loud enough that I could feel them vibrate across my blade as I gripped the hilt.
Mr. Bombastic had joined me next to the entrance. His form was glowing much brighter now. The light had leaked into his eyes, and they'd become hellish pools of a mythical obstinacy.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled a cartoon that portrayed radiation with a similar glow.
I shoved my sword through the ashes and into the dirt.
"There are three nearby; two to our left and one beneath us," I said. "Try not to hit them, please. It kinda hurts and I don't have that kind of Band-Aid."
He looked at me like I was insane. "Three what?"
It wasn't until then that I remembered I was afraid of my magic, and even so, it felt like a memory; not something I'd ever truly feel now or later.
A surge of aching, refreshing cold shot up my body as a full set of phalanges burst from the dirt.
Mr. Bombastic said nothing.
Outside, every noise stopped.
My comrade's eyes widened and, ever so slowly, as if he were holding in his own screams as I had done countless times, lowered himself to the floor. Terror swam in his glowing, suddenly not-so-determined eyes.
The skeletal hand felt around blindly. I gently guided the fingers to the hilt of my sword. Dirt rumbled as it approached.
Outside, something growled and snarled. "You. Come out."
"Come and get us!" Mr. Bombastic taunted with a brave voice. I kinda envied it.
The growl deepened and the dog-man lowered his canine head to the cave entrance. Saliva as thick as snowplow drifts lined his lips. "Come unharmed to Tribe home. We will harm you there."
He didn't look like he had the patience.
Mr. Bombastic glowed brighter to hide me and my emerging friend behind the light. "I'd like to see you try. I'll give you a bone if you succeed. Good dog! Good dog! Wanna bone? SIT!"
The dog snarled and tore the entrance apart as he pounced.
"BAD DOG! BAD DOG! I TRAINED YOU BETTER!" Mr. Bombastic screeched, pocketknife drawn out of nowhere. I felt the dog's clawed fingers graze my jacket as I leapt aside. The demon crashed into my sword and the skeleton. A chorus of startled whines burst from its throat.
"Gah!" I yelled as its flailing back paws tore a chunk out of my cheek. The demon was writhing wildly now. My world had been reduced to darkness and flashes, darkness and flashes and hard, unpredictable projectiles.
"Get out! Get out!" Mr. Bombastic was ordering from somewhere beyond the thrashing monster. It was his light that I was seeing.
I wasn't sure if it was my sword or his knife that did it, but the next blow to land on me was soft and broken. The panicked, meaty hand burst into golden ash that looked as if it were alight in Mr. Bombastic's harsh shine.
The whole cave, now, blinding.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My hands, blind, fumbled for my sword. My fingers collided with something hard and dry.
Outside, the other dogs were barking and howling and scratching at the walls.
I followed the skeleton's arm with my fingers. Sure enough, curled in its dirty fingers, I found the hilt of my sword. Our new ally clacked her jaw happily and vanished form the cave's small space.
The light, slowly, was dying.
"Come on! Out!" Mr. Bombastic practically screeched. A new, very much alive hand grabbed my collar and shoved me towards the exit. My adjusting eyes made out his piercing ones.
And then we were out, out where the maze's laughingly gentle breezes were free to explore the open corridors and the sounds were given the right to echo impossibly. Out on the game board once more.
There were five of them left, the dogs. Occupied with two skeletons, yes, but still there. The first one caught sight of us tumbling free and shoved aside my allies-
(allies, they were always scary but they were scared of me too and so we were nice to one another and I didn't know if that made us allies but it made us more than what I'd call myself and most other people)
-against the wall, shattering a few ribs, as if they were nothing, and charged straight for us.
"No!"I yelled, and the skeleton in our cave shot out like a bullet. Next to me, Mr. Bombastic gave a strangled scream.
I shoved him aside, sword still drawn, and charged, too.
I was still scared. But my legs were doing that thing again, like my mouth had done. They weren't something I really could control now.
Is this what you called bravery, Sis?
The skeleton fell behind me as the dog reached us. It took a harsh swipe with clawed arm without even stopping. Somehow, though, that wasn't surprising. I was already diving hard to the left. The five weapons passed overhead harmlessly.
I forget the names of all the ghosts that taught me how to use my sword. I can name their favorite colors, though. And I can tell you that they were good at it. I hadn't been, not until I learned how to apply it all to the maze. The maze required... something faster, something better.
My sword swiped hard at the demon as I passed. It didn't even hurt my hand that time. My legs and my racing heart didn't let me check to be sure it was dead - I charged right on to the next two.
One skidded to a halt and howled, scratching at its face, as a piercing light sliced at its eyes. The other leaned down and pounced from below.
I cursed and narrowly dodged losing my foot as I used his head as leverage. I didn't have time to turn or move anywhere else. The dog crashed into a wall and there a skeleton took care of it. I whirled around for the next. It was still reeling from the light; I feigned for its head and swiped at its chest and then moved on fast because I really was hoping they were dying and I didn't want to find out that they weren't.
"Duck!" Mr. Bombastic barked. The order injected a burst of confusion through my mind - why?
But I did, just in case. I was too slow. Something clipped me in the back of the head as I did. If I wasn't moving so fast my balance would have been skewered. As it was, I swerved to that side and skidded to a halt.
The one behind me howled. I don't know what happened to it, because my halt had come right before the last dog, a hulking thing with five feet on me and hands big enough I could suffocate in his palm while his nails drove the fingers clean through my neck. I hardly saw the hulk of mangy fur in the sickly light before something crushed me against the grainy wall, hard enough that my own teeth clattered to match the skeletons'. Air withdrew from my lungs, leaving them with a painful sting. I didn't get the chance to relieve it.
The large, bulky claws of a dog closed in on my throat.
No! No no no Bianca I'm so scared don't lose hope yet I'll come for you but help me please I'm so scared-
My throat convulsed only to hurt worse. The fingers that'd been so impatient earlier were ravenous now. I ripped at the furry hand until my hands and arms hurt. My palms bled. It wasn't until then that I realized I'd lost my sword.
Around us, the maze still groaned and creaked. The shadows cast by Mr. Bombastic were wild again, jumping and living and thriving.
Hot wind brushed my face. "You've killed Tribe. Tribe-killer. Tribe-killer dies here."
And then suddenly I wasn't so scared.
I still felt fear. But now I felt hate, too. And that made it manageable.
My voice didn't work when I told him to stop. But something else did. I felt it as if I might feel my arm as it sliced through his shoulders and severed the spine, bone cracking and splitting like butter. The dog froze but his hand was limp, powerless. I slid to the rough ground and coughed. For a moment, that's all I was aware of - the ground and the harsh things in my lungs. And the cool, pleasant black mist curling on my fingers.
The wolf-man swayed and slowly toppled. The last surviving one - one I'd failed to kill or perhaps marked preoccupied - was cornered by skeletons.
Already, my legs were moving. Together we ran. was leaning heavily against a wall and motioning for me to hurry.
I stopped and whirled to face the skeletons. When I looked, for a moment, my gaze was also forced to the remaining monster - the single, overpowering objective to watch its blood soak this parched maze in spite and anger and a whole lot else made my whole body shake.
"Uh, bye!" I yelled instead. The skeletons crumbled to bones and sank into the maze themselves.
With them went the edge of my ambitions. The maze seemed to growl hungrily as it tasted their marrow. With the wolves gone, I could truly focus on it again - its cold, pulsing walls and the creaks off somewhere to the right and the hollow growls of other monsters not far from here.
The last wolf blinked blood from its eyes, saw us, and bared its fangs.
"Time to go!" Mr. Bombastic spat. "Now!"
I grabbed him and we limped as fast as we could down the malevolent corridor.
oOo
The maze decided it was at last time for a good hunt.
Howls chased us through tunnels and hallways and side passages and down into slides and sometimes up chutes and across rooms and once we even ran into a dead end, turned around, hit another dead end, turned around and were led in a totally different direction than before to hit another dead end, and so on, until the dog-man was snarling and bleeding and slicing the walls around us to ribbons and a side crawling space opened.
We lost the dog for a while there. But its howls still followed us, so we kept going.
It almost felt good, to feel death on our heels. To know at any moment the floor could fall away beneath us. Or that we might slam into a particularly stubborn wall. Or that acid may begin to fall from the ceiling. To know, wholly and irrevocably, that we were moments from losing the game.
It was familiar. It was what the maze always did.
And so for the next hours, it and us constantly tricked one another. I kept control of my thoughts so that it never saw Bianca and it insisted on surprising us and I had to keep control of my feet, too, and be nimble. Mr. Bombastic had to keep pace. Not once did he complain about any sort of pain. We played for our lives and the maze for...
Well. I have no clue what the maze played for, and I don't ever want to know.
Once, we ran across a snake-like demon. Mr. Bombastic pointed at her and she burst into dozens of flaming fragments, and we kept going.
For thirty minutes straight not long after that, we heard and saw nothing. Aside from that weird axe thing that swung down at us, but I saw it and dragged us out of the way in time.
Just as the mere thought of slowing down crossed my mind, something with a lot of waving, pulsating limbs (that's all it was, I think; there was no thickness or hulk of a body, merely a place where limbs could converge if they wished) came flailing and charging up the walls from behind us.
I laughed at my mistake and we booked it.