Adrian placed a hand on the door and braced himself. Behind him, he pictured Smokescreen and Red Assassin taking up position.
Setting his jaw, he yanked open the door.
A skeleton stood on the other side.
Ruby squeaked and swung her gem at it—instinct, Adrian guessed, as much as anything. It struck the skeleton between two rib bones and the whole thing shattered, collapsing to the stone floor with a melody of wooden knocking. Its skull rolled against Adrian’s foot.
Heart pounding, he swept his gaze upward. They were in the catacombs. More coffins were surrounded by walls of bones, shelves of skulls. Two standing candelabras held white taper candles that were nearly burned through and a curtain of femurs and clavicles hung across the space, obscuring what was kept behind it.
Phobia? Is this where he returned to when he evaporated like that? Adrian pictured a video-game character being sent back to the start of a level each time they were killed and a laugh stuck in his throat, turning into a choking cough.
The bones at his feet began to shake. They shuffled across the floor and gradually reassembled, until the skeleton stood upright before them again. Its hollow eyes and toothy grin were unchanged, and Adrian wondered if it was only his imagination suggesting irritation coming from the figure.
The skeleton bowed low at the waist and, without lifting his head, gestured dramatically toward the bone curtain.
Adrian stepped inside, giving the skeleton a wide berth. As soon as Ruby and Oscar were inside, the creature climbed up onto a wooden board hung over a sarcophagus, crossed its arms over its chest, and fell asleep. Or, died.
Adrian was still studying the skeleton when the entire curtain of bones fell, crashing into the stone foundation. They scattered to each corner.
He spun around. Air left his lungs. Disbelief mottled his thoughts.
Ace Anarchy.
Ace Anarchy.
He didn’t fully trust his eyes. He couldn’t be entirely sure. There were few photos of the villain without his helmet, and those were largely from his youth—before his rise to power. This man was not young. He did not look powerful either. His pallor was gray and cracked with wrinkles. His hair thin, his body more reminiscent of the skeleton who had welcomed them than the broad-shouldered prodigy who had overthrown an entire government and cast the world into a period of fear and lawlessness.
But his eyes. Dark, nearly black, and every bit as keen as Adrian would have imagined.
He was levitating, his legs crossed like a meditating monk as he hovered over the floor of fallen bones.
And his voice was strong, if also laced with a bone-deep weariness.
“Charmed,” said Ace Anarchy, baring his teeth, “I’m sure.”
Adrian was thrown against a wall. His back struck the stone so hard it sent rivulets of dust raining from the ceiling. He grunted and strained to move, but while his limbs inside the suit were free, the armor itself was immobilized.
Adrian cursed.
Telekinesis.
He’d thought the suit would protect him, but of course it wouldn’t, not against a telekinetic like Ace Anarchy.
The catacombs filled with white smoke, so thick Adrian couldn’t see past his visor. He struggled harder. If he could just move his arm, he could get to the switch on his chest that would retract the suit—
It was no use. Ace wasn’t going to release him.
He heard Ruby’s battle cry and he imagined her swinging her dagger-sharp bloodstone at Ace Anarchy’s throat, but then her cry turned into a yelp of surprise.
Adrian’s entire body tensed, and he fought against the invisible bindings again, but it was useless. He slammed his head against the back of the helmet and forced his muscles to relax. He had to be calm. He had to think.
There were grunts and cries of unleashed fury, and he found himself wishing that the smoke wasn’t quite so thick so he could see what was happening.
Adrian urged his heart rate to slow. Think. Think.
His fingers flexed and for a moment he thought Ace’s control of him was loosening, but then he realized that Ace wasn’t concerned about his fingers, not when he had his body secured from neck to wrists to ankles.
He turned his head as much as he could within the helmet. The dust was thick on the wall. It had coated his suit when he had crashed against it.
The smoke was beginning to thin and he spotted Ruby and Oscar a dozen feet away. Ruby was on her knees. Her wire was wrapped around her own neck and she had her fingers curled between it and her throat, desperately trying to keep it from strangling her. Her fingers were bleeding, the blood glinting as it began to crystallize. Oscar knelt beside her, his expression frantic as he tried to help her loosen the wire.
Adrian could see no sign of the villain through the smoky veil.
He curled his armored fingers, pressing a fingertip into the wall. He drew the first thing that came to mind—the simplest thing he could manage. A circle traced into the dust. A single curved line sprouting from its top. A few scratches bursting at its tip.
A bomb.
A wick.
And a spark.
“Oscar,” Adrian grunted as he pulled the bomb from the wall. “Take cover!”
Oscar’s eyes widened. He grabbed Ruby beneath the arms and hauled her behind one of the coffins.
Adrian let the bomb fall. It rolled a few inches from the wall and exploded.
The flash was blinding. The blast pummeled against Adrian’s body and knocked a hole through the wall. Adrian fell forward, landing on his hands and knees. He immediately clapped a hand to his chest and retracted the suit, though he was left coughing from the smoke and dust in the air. The room was darker now. The explosion must have toppled one of the candelabras, extinguishing what little light it had provided.
He crawled across the floor, searching for Ruby and Oscar as he blinked the debris from his eyes.
He found Ruby’s garrote first—the wire tangled with a pile of bones. It was coated with tiny red gems from where it had cut into Ruby’s skin.
“Smokescreen?” he said. “Red Assassin?”
“H-here,” Oscar responded, coughing.
A furious roar drew Adrian’s attention upward.
Ace Anarchy was no longer levitating. His simple, loose-fitting robes were splattered with white dust, and the fabric fluttered as he held his arms outstretched to either side. He stood in the center of the catacombs, his face contorted with a rage that had been nonexistent moments ago. His mouth curled, almost grotesque in its anger.
Adrian braced himself for an attack. He expected the sharp bloodstone to fly up and try to stab him, or Oscar’s cane to try to club one of them over the head, or even to be pummeled by a thousand bones.
He heard the sound of stone grating on stone.
Adrian scrambled to his feet, unsure where the noise was coming from—until he witnessed the heavy lid of one of the coffins. It slid off the sarcophagus and crashed to the ground, driving a crack through the stone.
Adrian’s jaw fell. His heart pummeled against his chest as the entire coffin turned first onto its side, the weight of it shaking the compromised cathedral foundation around them. The bones of a centuries-old corpse were flung from its shell.
Adrian stumbled back a step. He had heard stories of Ace Anarchy ripping buildings off their foundations. Knocking bridges into the water. Sending tanks crashing through store windows.
But that was when he was strong. That was when he had the helmet. Before Max took some of his power.