The Leveller - Julia Durango Page 0,63
and I don’t want to waste them on wild shots. Instead, I channel the playground, and swing for him with everything I’ve got. Combat boots first, I make contact with his skull and knock Sailor Cap to the floor below.
Feels good, but it’s a temporary fix.
The dwindling boneheads get smart now and regroup. There are only eight of them left. Three peel off to gang up on Wyn. That leaves five for me, and they quickly form a skeletal ladder underneath me. My BFF, Sailor Cap, begins to scramble up to the top again. He’s ripped the skirt and apron off his dress, so he’s just wearing the bodice now, which somehow looks obscene. I quickly load my crossbow and take aim, but below me a bonehead lands his axe in Wyn’s thigh. Wyn falls to the ground.
Crap.
Wyn manages to lop off the head of the offending skeleton with the Gladius sword, but he’s still got two more coming in. I shoot my crossbow downward and quickly pick them off, one after another. Wyn turns his head up and starts to smile at me, but his face turns to instant alarm.
“Behind you!” he yells.
I spin around and find myself eye socket–to–eye socket with Sailor Cap. He raises his saber to strike, but I fling my crossbow at him, hoping to knock him off the tower. He drops his saber and sways left and right, swinging his bony arms in frantic circles for balance. Which he achieves.
CLICK CLICK sound his teeth, and the skeleton on the bottom passes up a hatchet he’s got stashed in his leg warmers.
I am so not in the mood for an axe to the head.
“Think think think!” I order myself.
Sailor Cap reaches out an arm and tries to snatch me from my hook.
An arm. That’s it. I lunge toward him and grab his arm, pulling as hard as I can.
“Learned that trick from you, pal,” I say as the entire arm shaft comes out of his shoulder socket.
Sailor Cap now has the hatchet in his hand, the one still attached to him, but I don’t give him a chance to raise it. I swing that dismembered bony arm with both hands and knock his skull right off its block.
“Home run, baby!” cheers Wyn below, still struggling to get to his feet on his injured leg.
I wave my bony bat in victory, then quickly access my inventory. I’ve still got four skeletons left but now I’m on a roll. I grab the machete, then click the switch on my harness to release the line. As I come barreling down the rappelling rope, I slice right through the skeleton tower, counting as I go. “Four, three, two, one!” I holler, landing on my feet with a flourish.
I release the harness, drop the machete, and run over to Wyn.
“Are you okay?” I ask, kneeling beside him.
“You are amazing,” he answers, and I try not to look too pleased by this.
“I asked how you were,” I say. “Do you think you can walk?”
Wyn shakes his head. “Whole right leg is totally worthless. Just leave me here and go press that damn Reset button before something else happens.”
He’s right, of course, but still I hesitate to leave him.
He reaches both his hands up now and takes my face between them. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he says, then pulls me in for a kiss. It’s a short kiss, more like a peck, really, but it still takes my virtual breath away.
All of a sudden it rushes back to me. Wyn . . . the top of the hotel.
“Now go!” he yells, breaking into my memories.
“Right,” I say, hopping to my feet.
As I run for the Information Desk, two things happen.
One, Rico Suave appears.
Two, I see that he has a minotaur.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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I DON’T BELIEVE THIS.
“Guard the hostage,” Rico Suave orders the minotaur. “I’ll take care of this one.”
This one? I think. I am a ball of fury at this point. Because I know there’s a human brain behind Rico Suave, a real person keeping us imprisoned here, putting us through death by zombies and skeletons and exploding penguins . . .
Not to mention the Black, for God’s sake.
He has been mentally torturing us. I want to kill him.
“Inventory!” I yell, though I’ve got nothing left but an oak shield and a pair of brass knuckles. Oh well. Sometimes you have to make do. I equip myself with the knuckles and charge.
My sudden offensive takes Rico Suave by