“I’ll watch for him.” Sapphira nodded at the trail of giant tracks leading into the woods. “I wonder what we should do about them.”
Walter scooped a beetle out of a footprint’s puddle and set it free on the grass. “If they start causing trouble, Larry will hear about it. He monitors all the media outlets.”
“But we can’t contact Larry without Ashley,” Karen said.
Walter grimaced. “Right. No communications except for … Wait!” He fished in his pocket for his cell phone and flipped it open. “It’s showing a signal, but just barely.”
Karen peeked at the display. “Give it a try.”
“I’ll call Billy. He can check with Larry for me.” Walter punched a speed dial and held the phone to his ear. “Billy! It’s Walter.”
“Talk louder,” Billy said. “It’s really fuzzy.”
“Yeah, I know. Listen. I need you to monitor Larry’s media input. Find out if there’s anything going on with the giants. They might be causing trouble.”
“The San Francisco Giants are causing trouble?”
“No, not the baseball team, or the football team, either. Real giants. Here’s what happened. We had an argument with a dragon that was born at the beginning of time, so Karen fell into a hole that went all the way to Hades, but the hole turned into a spiral staircase, so Ashley and I climbed down a zillion steps to Hades looking for her, at least that’s what the Italian words on the wall said, something from a bad comedy. When we got to the bottom, we found a bunch of giants who grew from the ground like plants and ate worms three times a day, and they were hanging inside antigravity walls for centuries, but this old-as-Methuselah teenaged girl came along and showed us this guy with dragon wings by sprouting fire from her hands, then the giants woke up, and I sliced a leg off one of them, making his boss really ticked, so they climbed out of Hades and went stalking off to make trouble somewhere. In the meantime, this Methuselah girl wrapped us all in a flaming cocoon and shot us out of the ground, but now Ashley’s missing.”
Walter paused and waited.
After a couple of seconds of silence, Billy replied. “Same old stuff, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much, but I couldn’t call you earlier. No cell towers in Hell, you know. So, anyway, if Larry hears anything important, give me a call.”
The connection died, leaving only static buzzing in Walter’s ear. He slapped the phone closed and stepped back to the edge of the hole where Sapphira and Karen stood peering in. “Any sign of Gabriel?” he asked.
Sapphira pointed into the hole. “I think I see something.” A few seconds later, Gabriel’s head appeared, then his wings, flapping hard and scraping against the sides of the pit as he rose. Walter grabbed his arm and pulled him to solid ground.
As he righted himself, Gabriel folded in his wings. “Flying straight up is for the birds!”
“Did you see Ashley?” Sapphira asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “It was too dark to see anything, but since my wings brushed against the walls all the way down, I would’ve noticed if I passed anyone. It’s just a sheer cylinder with rocky sides until you get to a dead end way down below.”
“But how is that possible?” Walter asked. “I was just down there, and there wasn’t any dead end.” He winced. Now they would drill him with questions.
Sapphira pointed at the giants’ footprints. “When the Nephilim climbed the stairs they probably made the shaft really fragile. I guess it collapsed right after you got back and blocked the passageway.”
“That might be it.” Walter finally noticed the chilly air and zipped his jacket. “I guess we’d better try to go back and see if we left Roxil and Ashley behind. We don’t have much choice.”
The cell phone chimed. Walter snatched it up. “Hello?”
“Walter. Billy here.”
“Yeah, Billy. What’s up?”
“Larry says the power grid’s failing in the West, and it’s spreading across the country. Lots of other weird stuff is happening in the big cities, strange creatures stalking the streets, and with no power, there’s panic everywhere.”
“Yikes! That’s not cool!” Walter turned toward the others. “Power grid’s failing. Everyone’s losing electricity.”
Karen stepped close and shouted into the phone. “Tell Larry to switch to emergency power immediately. The solar batteries should hold him for a while.”
Walter pulled away from Karen. “Did you get that?”
“Got it,” Billy replied, “but there’s a lot of static.”