The claw released him on a stone outcropping where he choked out the rest of the river he'd inhaled. The earth trembled ever so slightly beneath him. Gregor forced himself onto his knees. His flashlight was still working. Howard, Luxa, and Aurora lay bloody and gasping beside him. The wave must have caught them as well. There was no sign of the others.
"Boots!" Gregor cried out. His flashlight beam cut into the darkness. They were up very high over an expanse of churning water. Several hundred yards away, he could just see the top of what must have been the opening to the Swag. Ares and Nike were speeding over the water, searching for the others.
"Hazard! Hazard!" Luxa's voice was as desperate as his own.
Boots, Hazard, Thalia, Temp. The smallest, the youngest, the most vulnerable, were all missing.
"Aurora, can you fly? Can you fly?" begged Luxa. But the golden bat was still gagging up water and unable to answer.
The flashlight beam caught something floundering in a shallow area nearby. Ares dove and when he came up he had a sodden Thalia in his claws. And in her claws was Hazard.
Ares gently laid the pair on the stone before he fluttered off again. Thalia was waterlogged, probably going into shock, but she was at least still fighting. Hazard appeared lifeless. His pale skin had a bluish tint. Blood ran from a deep gash in his forehead. There was no movement in his chest.
Howard was over the boy at once, trying to restore his breathing. It took both Gregor and Aurora, who had recovered slightly, to hold Luxa back from Hazard.
"Let Howard do it! He's an expert!" Gregor said as she struggled. If Mareth were here, he'd have just knocked Luxa out. He'd done that to Howard when he'd flipped out the time his bat, Pandora, had been devoured by mites. But Gregor couldn't imagine hitting Luxa that hard.
When she'd calmed down enough that Aurora could contain her, Gregor waved his arms and called to Ares to retrieve him. They flew low over the water, searching frantically for a sign of life.
"Boots!" yelled Gregor. "Boots!" Every second that passed drained another bit of hope from his heart.
He could feel despair overtaking him when a tiny wail caught his ear. "Ma-maa!" It increased in volume. "Ma-maa!"
"Oh, man, she's alive!" said Gregor as tears of relief blurred his vision. "Boots! I'm coming! Hang on!"
"Ma-maa!" came back at him, but they still couldn't find her.
"Where is she, Ares?" said Gregor.
"I do not know! I cannot locate her!" said his bat.
"Ma-maa!" The cry was fainter this time.
Gregor felt the darkness was about to swallow her up forever. "Boots! Where are you?" As if she could tell him. But it turned out she could. For suddenly a pinprick of light caught his eye. Her scepter! Her stupid, silly, wonderful, amazing, and apparently waterproof princess scepter!
They found her in a small pool. Weeping. Her tiara and princess skirt gone. Clutching her scepter. Sitting on Temp's back as he paddled around in a circle, unable to climb up the steep rocks that surrounded them.
"Oh, sweetie," said Gregor as he pulled her up into his arms. "Oh, Boots."
She clung to him but was mad at him, too. "You let go. In the water. You let go of me!" she sobbed, and hit him with her small fist.
"I'm sorry. I tried not to. I'm sorry, Boots," he said, but she was not ready to forgive him.
There was no easy way to retrieve Temp. Ares ended up tossing the cockroach into the air with his snout and catching him on his back. Temp landed with a hollow thud that couldn't have felt too good, but the bug wasn't one to complain.
Boots, on the other hand, was just warming up. "You let Temp go! You let Temp go, too!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," was all Gregor could say as they coasted in to join the others. Howard was still trying to restore Hazard's breathing when the earth began to shake again.
"An aftershock," thought Gregor. "I think that's what they're called." As he locked his arms around Boots he wondered if they should be trying to escape. But where do you run to when the whole world is unstable?
The sharp collision of rock on rock drew Gregor's attention back to the exit of the Swag. The stone wall above the tunnel, already cracked and damaged from the initial earthquake, began to break away. A deafening explosion of sound assaulted his ears, and then he was lying on his side, Boots still in his arms.
He lifted the flashlight just in time to see the avalanche bury the opening to the Swag under a mountain of rock.
Chapter 12