[murderous crimson]
[murderous crimson]
The other thing Carter knew about the wizard-scientists was that they liked to speechify. If he could get them talking, maybe he come up with an idea for defeating him that didn’t involve turning into a monster in front of everyone.
“Whoare you, again?” Carter asked.
“Balin,” the wizard-scientist repeated irritably. “Of the wizard-scientists.”
The woman beside him cleared her throat meaningfully.
“And this is my minion—”
“What did we talk about?” she demanded, glaring at him.
“My associate,” he said grudgingly. “Eunice. She’s a gargoyle. Don’t even think of using one of your pitiful gunpowder weapons against us. She’s already turned them all to stone.”
Eunice smirked. “Your cell phones too.”
Carter wasn’t surprised. The wizard-scientists often allied with gargoyles, who made it impossible to either use guns or call for help.
“We wizard-scientists are an ancient order,” said Balin, making a grandiose gesture. “We trace our lineage back to the days of our greatest enemy, King Arthur.”
“King Arthur?” Fen exclaimed, then shot a guilty glance at Carter. “Sorry. I’ll keep quiet.”
“No, no,” said Balin. To Carter’s intense relief, the look he was giving Fen was weirdly approving. “You may ask questions, fair maiden.”
Her eyebrows rose at that, but she didn’t comment. Instead, she said, “King Arthur was real?”
“He was. And so was Merlin—not that yellow-haired fool in the boat, the one he named himself after. The original Merlin was the first shifter. He and King Arthur allied. They fought the original order of wizard-scientists—we were wizard-alchemists back then—and defeated us. We were scattered to the winds, our power broken, and Arthur’s ideas triumphed. It is only recently that we regained our strength, regrouped, and began work on our master plan.”
The surest sign of a wizard-scientist is the unironic use of the phrase ‘master plan,’thought Carter.
Balin gave Fen an expectant look. She played along. “What’s your master plan?”
“To rule the world, of course,” said the wizard-scientist.
Of course,Carter thought.
“We shall create a Golden Age in which wizardry and science rule! But to do that, we must have knights, like the knights of Arthur of old. Our own knights—DarkKnights.” Balin cast a scornful glance over the people frozen on the boat. “There you have a pathetic selection of failed Dark Knights, poorly chosen by wizard-scientists who were brilliant and powerful, but lacked wisdom.”
He pointed scornfully at Pete, who was frozen in the act of checking his now-stone gun. “Peter Valdez, who chose the love of a cripple bound to a rolling chair over the glory of being the Dark Knight Rage.”
Pete didn’t move—he couldn’t—but Carter saw fury burn in his brown eyes. Carter was pissed off too. Pete’s mate Tirzah wasn’t bound to her wheelchair. It was an assistive device that freed her to get around, not some kind of mobile prison.
The wizard-scientist’s skinny finger moved to Merlin, who was poised on his tip-toes with his hand upraised; he’d been caught in the act of reaching up toward the flying Precious. “Merlin Merrick, who chose the love of a ruined warrior over the glory of being the Dark Knight Deceit.”
Merlin’s bright blue eyes sparked with anger. Carter could see that he wanted to shift and go for Balin’s throat, and Carter would have gladly joined him. Merlin’s mate Dali, wasn’t ruined—what an awful thing to say. She was a highly skilled veteran with a prosthetic hand, and if she’d been there, she’d probably have pitched Balin into the swamp. Head-first.
“And Ransom Pierce.” Balin practically spat out the name as he stabbed his finger at Ransom, who was gazing down at Natalie with the beginning of a smile. “He’s the worst of all! He could have been the Dark Knight Despair, and he threw it away for the love of that garish little guttersnipe!”
Balin jabbed his finger at Natalie, whose rainbow hair shone bright as she crouched in one of the acrobatic poses she often absent-mindedly adopted, balanced on the ball of one foot with her other leg stretched out like a kung fu master. Ransom’s eyes smoldered like the fiery gaze of his hellhound, but Natalie’s glittered with amusement.
Carter wished he could find the humor in the situation. He was torn between terror for the others and especially for Fen, the only person present with no shift form and no special powers, and a frantic mental search for a plan to get out of this disaster. So far, he hadn’t come up with anything other than to play along and keep Balin talking until he thought of something. So far, nothing had come to mind.
You can shift,shrieked a monster.
You’re not frozen,another monster gibbered.
