“They’re alive,” I said.
“Thank God,” Connor said, laughing and relaxing a little. “Wasn’t sure if my brain was running up to speed yet or what.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him his laugh was still coming off as a little bit whack-job. Instead, I kept my eyes on the two creatures, watching as the second one began moving as well.
“They’re guarding something,” I said, “but surely not that art piece. What, then?”
“That’s for us to find out,” Connor said. He looked over at me and pulled aside my coat, revealing the holster on my belt. He tapped at my bat. “Looks like you’re going to need a bigger bat.”
“Screw the bat,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a roll of Life Savers. “I’m going with Plan B.”
“Which is…?”
Connor watched as I started crunching down the entire roll.
“If those are some kind of guardians, then they’ve got to be guarding something. And I refuse to believe they just like hanging out by that hideous installation because they like it. I’m going over there using a little restraint and subtlety for once.”
“Geesh, kid,” Connor said. “It’s like I don’t even know you. When did you put on your big-boy pants?”
“When my foolishness got Jane into this mess in the first place,” I said, feeling a twinge of guilt.
“By all means, then, lead on.”
“Nothing like taking the direct approach,” I said, and headed straight for the accumulation of blocks, cubes, and gears. I raised my fist and knocked on one of the blocks of wood. It was solid, and the flesh of my hand did little to make a sound against it.
The second I started thumping on it, the statues came fully to life. From where I stood next to their stone bases, the size of their bodies was even more imposing. Claws and talons formed at the ends of their arms and legs. I stood there, caught somewhere between impressed and terrified. The two of them hooked their talons into the edges of their stone pedestals as they bent down to grab for me, their stone claws reaching out. If Connor didn’t grab my arm and pull me out of the way, they might have crushed me. He ran off down one of the adjoining corridors to our right, and I followed. My heart sank as I saw the hallway dead-end up ahead with a tall wall of curtained-off windows.
I looked back over my shoulder. The two statues had leapt off their pedestals and, despite being made of solid stone, raced after us with far more agility that I thought possible. I turned and ran faster, only to find Connor at the dead end, climbing up the curtains. I sprinted the last twenty feet and started up after him, finding the dark blue fabric made me feel as if I were climbing up an ocean.
About fifteen feet up, my arms started to burn with the effort. I had closed the gap with Connor and was about three feet below him and to his left when I felt one of the statues grabbing for me. It was like being swatted at with a gravestone. The other one lashed out with its claws and grabbed a handful of Connor’s trench coat, tugging at him.
“Keep holding on, kid!” Connor shouted. “Don’t let go, even if they pull you off!”
It was easier shouted than done. I did what I was told and dug my fingers firm into the fabric as it continued pulling at me. Above, there was a tearing sound as Connor fell free, but he was still holding on to a long strip of curtain as he went. With his section of the curtain weakened, it wasn’t long before I felt mine give and I fell back toward my living statue, covering it with the fabric as I tumbled behind it. Connor was already back on his feet as I struggled to mine.
“Pull!” he shouted and yanked at the fabric still clutched in his hands. It rolled over the statue and when it finally came free of the creature, I realized what Connor had done. Light streamed in from the windows behind the tears in the fabric, falling in large swatches across his statue. The low grinding sound of its movement slowed, and the parts exposed to the sunlight started to transform into an unmoving mass of solidifying stone. I couldn’t pull at my fabric fast enough. My statue seemed wise to what was happening and tried to bound away, but daylight was already hitting the surface of its skin. It was already midleap and got about ten feet off the ground before its own solidifying weight brought it crashing back to earth. Unbalanced by its petrified parts, it toppled over, flapping around on the floor of the mall.
Connor and I dropped the remains of our curtains and ran back toward the fantastical structure they had been guarding.
Once we arrived, we stood there marveling at it. “It’s not an art piece,” I said. “It’s a door.” As art it had been hideous, but as a locking mechanism, it was the most ingenious and extraordinary structure I had ever seen. Blocks of wood, steel, and glass were interlocked in a pattern of gears that looked like the interior of a giant watch.
“So now what?” Connor asked.
“I have no idea,” I said, running my gloved hands along the surface of it, feeling all the gears and slots where things could be shifted. “It is a door, and a complex one at that. I can’t begin to find where, or how, it opens.”
Connor looked over his shoulder. “Well, we need it open… now.”
I studied the door, hoping it might suddenly make sense to me, but it was beyond my comprehension. “Give me a week,” I said, slipping off my gloves, “and I might solve this Rubik’s Cube by traditional means, but I’m going with something more nontraditional.”
I put my hands on one of the large metal gears that stuck out, letting its coolness sink into my hands before pushing my power into it. The electric snap of connection filled my mind’s eye with images of people going through the intricate puzzle of opening this door. I pulled my consciousness up the surface of the here and now, slowing the images down in my mind so I could take the time to re-create each and every step as I experienced it.
“Hurry it up, kid,” Connor said. “I can’t be sure how long those stonies are going to stay half-frozen like that.”
“Don’t rush me,” I said. “I’m psychometry-ing as fast as I can here, Connor.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sure the homicidal statues will understand.”
“Not helping,” I said, pushing myself into the vision of the next step. One of the glass blocks needed to be slipped over and down to release the next metal gear. I did as I saw. Connor fell silent while I ran through the motions and hurried through the rest of the puzzle. I had no idea how long I had been at it, but when I heard the final click of release set in the gears, I pulled out of the vision, shaking from my sugar depletion. I turned to Connor, dazed, only to see that the two half-stone statues had nearly struggled their way back to us. One dragged its lower half along using only its arms, the stone of its legs gouging a trail in the floor as it went. The other limped with one solid stone leg slowing it down. Too weak to speak, I let my weight fall hard against the door and it opened inward. Connor looked over in time to see the door swing open. Turning his back to the living statues, Connor leapt over me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me into the area beyond the door. He let go of my arm and I rolled across the floor as I caught glimpses of him heaving the door shut behind him. The sound of pistons and the whirr of gears fired up as the lock re-engaged itself.
“C’mon, kid,” he said, helping me back to my feet. He reached into my inside coat pocket and pulled a roll of Life Savers out. He snapped it in two and handed them to me. “Let’s get moving. I don’t know if they know how to get in here, but I don’t want to stand around here to find out, either.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled through a mouthful of candy.
We were in a dark corridor that led to a point of light about thirty feet from us. Connor headed toward it and I followed, scarfing down Life Savers as I went. The light was coming from a distant arch and grew brighter as we drew closer, but it wasn’t like the daylight outside the Gibson-Case Center. It looked like it was early-evening light, as if we were walking toward a sky fading into sunset. Connor stepped out of the tunnel first. I came through and stopped dead beside him. What I saw seemed impossible, and my mind had a hard time drinking it in.