I looked for them for close to an hour, but even though their trail went due north, I lost them after the third set of explosive scorch marks. That had to be a good sign. They had to have gotten away.

  The timer was ticking down until the Tier Two dungeons opened, though, and twins or not, Tori and Jessica were expecting me back. It hurt, but I had no choice but to hope Zane and Carol were okay somewhere.

  By the time I got back to Museumtown and climbed the ladder, I’d just about convinced myself they were.

  Jessica was out; according to Tori and Calvin, she’d been called away to heal someone again. I sat Tori and Calvin down and told them everything that had happened. By the end of it, she couldn’t stop crying.

  I put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in as she sobbed. “We’d saved those people, Hal. We’d fucking saved them!”

  “I know.”

  “They were on the right path to getting stronger, and those kids needed Brian. You’re absolutely sure it was him? Because it might not’ve been him. Or maybe it wasn’t someone. Maybe it was something. A monster.”

  “I know—“

  “What the fuck do we do about it? We’re going to do something about it, right? If you won’t, I will—“

  “Tori, I know!” I interrupted. “I know someone killed him, and I know we need to do something about it. What I don’t know is what that even looks like. We should think about leaving.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” Calvin said. “I know what we’re going to do.”

  I looked at him. So did Tori. She reacted almost like she’d forgotten he was sitting in the corner, but she only kept eye contact with him for a second before looking down. I couldn’t meet his gaze, either. He was furious, but his jaw was set under his beard. “I’m going to take a quick look for the twins. Tori, you’re going to keep an eye on your mom—“

  “Step-mom,” she said reflexively.

  “—and Hal, you’re going to get ready. We don’t know who killed him yet, so the best thing you can do is get stronger until we do.”

  Tier Two Dungeon: The Void (Floor One)

  Objective: Survive the Void’s Embrace (0/1)

  Objective: Defeat the Three Bodies

  Objective: Survive (0/1)

  Completion: 0%

  Magical Flux: Spells’ effectiveness will be unpredictable based on location.

  Guarded Entrance: You cannot leave this dungeon until this floor is completed.

  Gauntlet: Dungeon monsters respawn quickly. They do not drop experience orbs until the dungeon is cleared.

  Getting inside The Void turned out to be easy.

  There weren’t any guards, and the bikers weren’t paying attention. The door just hung open like the place was open for business. Only the gray fog wall hinted that it wasn’t just another day at the Adler Planetarium—at least, from the outside. All I had to do was run up the stairs and through the fog. Easy.

  Once I got inside, though, that was a different story.

  The entrance opened to the half-circle lobby, which I’d assumed would be filled with exhibits. Instead, it looked like a twisting, turning maze with walls of nothingness. Colorful orbs hung mid-air, and when I looked up, I couldn’t see a ceiling; there was nothing up there but darkness and stars. The whole place reeked like nothing—it smelled like the complete absence of any scent. I was suddenly very aware that I hadn’t cleaned up in several days.

  Around the door, a small circle of LED lights half-lit the entrance.

  I took a step forward across the line.

  The floor started glowing; it shone brightly, hot pinks and yellows reflected from the illuminated stars overhead. The colors formed a headache-inducing but obvious path forward, and all around, other paths split off into the darkness. The puzzle was clear; there was an obvious way forward, but the dark, narrow paths might hold shortcuts or offer a safe haven from the monsters. If they respawned quickly, those places might be useful.

  I couldn’t feel any difference in my power level as I walked through the maze. In a way, it was frustrating; I wanted to figure out what the Magical Flux message was all about.

  Something rushed out of the darkness, slamming down on me as something hummed around it. I swung the Trip-Hammer, which whirred and screeched, and the monster went rocketing back. I caught a glimpse of it as it flew, crunching into the maze’s wall somewhere ahead.

  Saturnite: Level 32 Monster

  I hurried into the maze and rushed the yellowish orb as the ring around it broke into pieces. It floated backward. The air filled with crackling dust that sparked and shimmered. It scoured my face like a dust storm, but I closed in, fired the Trip-Hammer again, and cracked the Saturnite down the middle. It stopped moving and vanished, but didn’t leave an experience orb behind.

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  Another sphere, this one red and with a massive dot on its surface, opened fire with a laser that felt a lot like the one the Eyes of Perfection had used. It sliced into my arm; my skin burned like it had on too many sunny summer days. I ducked around a corner, readying the first finger Taser and taking aim.

  It didn’t follow me.

  Instead, the moment I stepped into the next star’s white-blue light, the Jupiter-looking sphere rose back into the air and spun away, orbiting around the first orange supergiant. That was good to know; I’d need to clear this whole place out, but—

  “You’re sure you saw him go in here, Tommy?” a familiar voice said.

  I froze. My heart dropped; I’d known they were coming in, but I thought I’d have a few more minutes. And I’d hoped they’d think they were alone. I poked my head around the corner and took a quick look, then pulled back.

  There were four of them. And I recognized them all—Eddie’s gang. And just like that, I knew who’d killed Brian. I had no proof, but I knew it all the same.

  “Yeah, I saw him. He’s poaching from you, boss,” the second one—Tommy—said. “But he can’t get out unless he gets past us. We’ve got him stuck.”

  “Like hell we do,” Eddie growled. “You and you, watch the god-damn door. Tommy and me are going hunting.

  “Got it, Eddie,” a third voice said.

  I didn’t stick around. Instead, I disappeared into the maze. They were hunting me; I’d never been in this situation before, and I didn’t have a straightforward solution to this problem. Eddie clearly held a grudge, and I wouldn’t get him alone again. Even if I did, he’d have learned from our last fight. It’d be harder to crack his shield, and I didn’t have the same tools as before.

  Was I a killer?

  I ran past a pair of blue spheres that dropped the temperature around them until I was shivering in my tattered armor. That question needed an answer, because these guys were killers, and I was stuck in here with them.

  I had an idea.

  A terrible idea. But if I was right, I could clear out the gangers, beat Eddie, and position myself for the boss fight at the gauntlet’s end.

  I ducked off the lit portion of the maze and disappeared into the darkness.

  Eddie cracked the knuckles on his free hand. Behind him, Tommy’s magic had snared another one of those planet-ass things—he stood as far from the star overhead as he could to maximize his power. Eddie resummoned his shield and slammed it into the stony yellowish sphere until it cracked and shattered.

  It exploded.

  He got the shield up in time to block the worst of it. Tommy hit the ground hard. He rolled, then pushed himself up to his feet. His head swiveled, and he blasted one of the tiniest planets out of the sky. “We should go back and grab Jake and Barrett. This is too much for the two of us.”

  “Hell no. I’m not losing him,” Eddie growled. The Voltsmith was in here, and as long as Jake and Barrett sat at the door, it didn’t matter if they cleared. Eddie doubted that the guy could finish the boss of a Tier Two Dungeon solo, and there wasn’t anything else of value here. These damn orbs didn’t even drop experience.

  The bastard had vanished, but Eddie wasn’t worried. He was pissed. He’d been pissed since the moment that hammer crashed down on him. Then The Captain had told him not to get payback? That’d be fine. Eddie could endure the humiliation. What he couldn’t endure was this bastard poaching his boys’ dungeon. The Captain had assigned this one to his gang. It belonged to him. Him and his boys.

  And the Voltsmith was stealing from him.

  “It’s only a matter of time until we find him,” Eddie continued. “I’ve got business with him, and he’s not slipping out of my hands again. Keep moving!”

  He charged around the corner. A massive red orb fired at him, but his shield caught the laser and reflected it into the sky. Behind him, Tommy was casting a spell; a pair of smaller planets appeared, tearing themselves apart to throw stones toward him. Eddie roared. He swung his shield and bashed the big one over and over until it disappeared in a cloud of stinking gas.

  Tommy yelled something. Before Eddie could respond, the two smaller planets crashed into him. He blocked one, but the other hit his leg. It burned, and Eddie saw red.

  The two planets were already halfway dead. He’d destroy them. His shield snapped toward the first one as it zipped away. He swung toward the second. It exploded. But the remaining one flew high and launched more stones his way. They pinged off his shield, rattling his arm.

  His second screamed again. He sounded further away. Eddie didn’t care. His entire focus was on the monster in front of him. It drifted a centimeter too close, and he swung. It exploded.

  The red mist cleared.

  Eddie was bleeding from a half-dozen cuts, but they weren’t so bad—not any worse than a skid-out on his bike, and he’d walked away from a dozen of those. “Come on, Tommy,” he said, gritting his teeth and moving further into the maze.

  Tommy didn’t say anything.

  A chill ran down Eddie’s spine. The temperature felt like it had dropped twenty degrees—like he’d just ridden into a storm, but without the water. It could be one of those blue planets, but Eddie didn’t think so.

  He looked around. Tommy was gone.

  “You there, buddy?” Eddie asked.

  For almost a minute, Eddie stood there in the silence and darkness. One of the small, rocky planets reformed, and he broke it—but not before it opened a shallow but painful gash on his cheek. He couldn’t hear anything.

  Then he caught an orange glow around the corner, and a voice echoed through the maze. “Tommy can’t come to the phone right now, Eddie.”

  “You’re trying to scare me.” Eddie snorted. He wouldn’t be intimidated by this guy.

  “No. No, I’m not,” the Voltsmith said.

  Eddie stretched out. His shoulders popped, and he started walking into the maze.

  “Wrong choice.”

  A wire—blazing orange—zipped out of the darkness. It caught him in the leg. Eddie started laughing—the impact felt like a foam dart, not a bullet. Then his laugh turned to a cut-off scream as his leg muscles stopped working. Electricity poured into him, and he collapsed. But Eddie endured it. He didn’t lose his head; after all, he’d been through worse. As he hit the ground, the shield slammed into the wire, cutting it.

  His leg felt like Jell-O. A planet closed in on him—a dark, reddish tone. It closed in, dust trailing in its wake, and he swung at it. He forced himself back to his feet, limping away from the dust-covered orb. Dirt stuck in his throat, and he coughed. Was it cutting his insides? He spat, and the loogie came out brown.

  Eddie rushed the planet, shield up and mouth closed. When he crashed into it, the whole thing disintegrated. The air filled with dust, and he hurried out of the room.

  Another wire zipped over his head, hissing and sparking orange. He ducked. The weighted end hit his shield and bounced off.

  He coughed up more dust, tore his shirt, covered his face with it. Everything hurt, but he’d endured worse.

  Eddie made up his mind. Tommy was dead; there was no way he’d survived the Voltsmith and the maze alone. If he wanted to avoid joining his friend, he had to leave.

  He turned around, bellowing for his boys to leave their post.

  “They’re not around, either,” the Voltsmith said. “I took care of them. Eddie, you haven’t trapped me in here.”

  Eddie shivered again. Something glowed orange ahead of him. Planets reformed all around. And the voice continued. “You’re stuck in here with me.”

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