the grandiose marble-tiled entrance hall of Dominic’s mansion. He simply had to get his hands on that clipboard.
Feeling ridiculous, he hid in the bedroom where he’d found Amber until Dr. Selavio came out a few minutes later—empty-handed, he noticed.
When the sound of footsteps vanished, Aaron rushed back to the cellar. Once again in the dingy chamber, he scanned the floor around the aitherscope for the clipboard, but the only other thing in the cellar was wine. Casler must have carried it out with him. But the laptop too? Surely, he would have seen it under Casler’s arm.
Aaron twisted to leave, thinking he’d been an idiot, when he caught movement out the corner of his eye. A rack of wine bottles against the far wall.
Heart thudding, Aaron scanned the racks, but everything lay still. Then he saw it again. The wine in each bottle was gently sloshing back and forth.
Dr. Selavio must have bumped the rack. Or moved it. Aaron crossed the room, and his scalp tingled against his skull like it wanted to peel away. Electricity hummed in the air near the back wall, cold as frost.
He knelt and felt along the edge of the wood frame, in between the wine bottles. Yes, the rack was on hinges.
With a tug, the entire section came loose and swung open, exposing the bare wall—and a gaping hole the size of a doorway, jackhammered right through the concrete. No wonder Dr. Selavio had stayed in the cellar.
From out of the dark pit, dank air rushed up Aaron’s nostrils. Just inside the hole, jagged steps dropped into the earth, and he couldn’t see the bottom. The cellar was already underground, the stairs went deeper.
Before he chickened out, Aaron stepped into the blackness and descended, pulling the rack closed behind him. He had done enough stupid things tonight already. What difference would one more make?
The stairs got steeper, thinner. Slimy roots hung from the ceiling—at least Aaron hoped they were roots. It was too dark to tell. Thirty feet down, he hit the bottom. The air purred with the warm smell of machinery. Drips echoed around him.
The stairs had opened into a chamber, and a light switch glowed red on the wall next to him.
He flipped the switch.
The scene that flickered into view made him gasp. It was manmade—but hardly. An enormous granite cavern expanded around him, with rough columns carved into the rock. Bulbs dangled from the ceiling, blinking like sick fireflies.
And Aaron was certain he had found the source of the static electricity he felt upstairs.
Anchored to the bedrock and rising to the ceiling was a device that, if fitted with lenses, could pass as a giant telescope in an observatory. From the machine’s base, power cords snaked into the darkness. Something massive oscillated inside its metal core, and the nauseating rhythm thumped against Aaron’s ribs.
Slouched in a chair at the foot of the machine, casually winding a spool of rope, was Clive Selavio. Blood had dried on his face in crusty black trails.
He made another coil as he watched Aaron enter the chamber. “You know we’re supposed to be together,” he said, “me and Amber.”
“What the hell is this place?” said Aaron, and his voice echoed.
“Be honest,” said Clive, letting the rope unwind through his fingers, “did you kiss her?”
They glared at each other, and Aaron’s blood prickled. Neither one of them blinked.
Aaron nodded to the machine. “What’s this?” he said, still not looking away.
“It’s my father’s.”
“What’s it do?”
“It makes an incision in the clairvoyant channel,” said Clive. He leaned back and ran his hand along the steel shell.
“I thought he fixed leaks?” said Aaron.
“He does, but it’s very much like surgery,” said Clive. “You ever gotten surgery?”
“Not my thing,” said Aaron.
“They have to cut you open first.”
Aaron finally broke their stare. He circled the machine, too curious to hold off any longer. Around back, panels were missing. They hadn’t been installed yet, and Aaron saw what was inside Casler’s device.
A spider web of crystal fibers, sewn together and pulsing like strands of mucous. They were organic, alien—living. But nothing was spinning—the thumping came from the fibers themselves. Aaron smelled burnt ammonia and wrinkled his nose.
The machine telescoped down to a dull metal spike, which was aimed at an operating table crisscrossed with thick nylon straps. The straps were meant as a harness.
“Don’t tell me someone lies here,” said Aaron.
Clive laughed. “I guess you could say that.”
And Aaron noticed the odor of ammonia rose from a stain at the center of table—urine.
The