He checked the gauge. It was almost empty, but there were a couple of minutes of oxygen left, which was all he needed.
He dug even deeper in the compartment, found a weights belt and strapped it on. Found a knife and slotted it inside the weights belt.
With the tank clenched in his fist he dived back into the swirling sea and swam as hard as he could, deeper and deeper, feeling the help of the weights belt pulling him down.
He glanced back once and saw the Professor, still struggling under the robed man. Will hated himself for leaving the Professor there.
But first—
There was another flash of lightning, and he glimpsed Elsa drifting further and further down into the black depths. She was no longer moving. Will kicked with all his might, descending with all the speed he could muster.
He gained on Elsa quickly, who floated peacefully downward.
He triggered the air on the tank.
Bubbles erupted from the mouthpiece.
Will held out his hand to grab Elsa and virtually crashed into her unconscious, drifting body. He snatched up the knife, unclipped the weights belt and watched it plummet like stone into the darkness below, and suddenly, his descent instantly turned into an ascent. With another burst of bubbles he pushed the tank's mouthpiece into Elsa's mouth. He used the knife to cut the ropes.
There was no response.
At least not initially.
And then, with a sudden jolt, Elsa came to life. Eyes wide. Arms flailing.
Lightning lit up the water and she saw Will.
She tried to say something, but a gush of oxygen sent the words straight into her lungs.
Will wrapped one strong arm around her waist, and with his other, he began to swim upward, kicking frantically, pulling them both toward the surface.
Toward Professor Fathom before it was too late.
Marco jumped from the cable and joined Luca on the ledge, as did the first two disciples, one carrying the shovel strapped to his back, the other carrying the pick.
But when the second tremor hit, the other three followers of the Crimson Crown—still clinging to the cable—didn't stand a chance.
From the rocky ledge, Marco, Luca and the two disciples watched in horror as the men's hands and feet slipped from the shuddering cable, sending the three robed disciples screaming and flailing into the river of lava below.
They hit the surface of the magma one by one, their robes instantly exploding into flames before the men, still screaming and squealing, literally melted into lava.
On the narrow ledge by the entrance, Dominic Dixon couldn't help but giggle at the horrific vision before him. So distracted by the grisly sight was he, that he didn't even hear the two figures approaching in the passage behind him.
"Dominic Dixon," said a voice out of the darkness of the passage. "This is for Jacques Dumas."
The one-armed man swung about quickly, raising his gun, but before he could fire a single bullet, Eden pulled the trigger of his own weapon and a blinding flare shot through the passage like a comet and struck Dominic Dixon square in the stomach.
He screamed and staggered back a step, but before he stumbled over the edge, the one-armed man caught his balance.
With the flare sizzling like a tiny sun in his gut and his robe quickly catching fire, Dominic Dixon launched himself at Eden and Jake, firing madly.
On the rocky ledge opposite, Marco and Luca looked up at the sound of gunfire and saw Dixon aflame, charging away down the passage.
Marco snapped his fingers at his minions and pointed to the ground in front of the heart-shaped boulder. "Dig! Now!"
In the passage opposite, Jake and Eden dived for cover as Dominic Dixon, crazed and furious and burning alive, staggered recklessly through the passage. Flames devoured his robe and latched onto his hood, burning his eyes. He could barely see and was shooting at random now. Nonetheless, one shot collected Eden in the shoulder of his broken arm.
Jake returned fire, sending another flare across the passage and straight into Dominic Dixon's side.
He squealed again, and then turned and began to stagger backward, away from the river of lava, out of the passage and back down into the darkness of the sea tunnel.
He was like a glowing beacon, burning and sizzling and smoking through the darkness, until eventually he fell backwards into one of nature's deep, gushing sinkholes.
The one-armed man screamed.
Then, Eden and Jake heard a loud splash of water.
Then, the burning light went out, and all they could hear from the well was the hiss of steam.
Dominic Dixon was gone.
Will kicked harder and harder, pulling Elsa up through the water alongside him. She, too, tried to kick as hard as she could. She could see Will's lungs were bursting and took the oxygen tank's mouthpiece out of her mouth and pressed it into his.
The air gave him an extra push, re-energizing him instantly. But it was short-lived. The oxygen thinned, and Will checked the gauge. Empty.
He looked at Elsa and a silent communication passed between them. She nodded she was okay, she could make it to the surface.
Will let the tank go.
It dropped into the darkness and the loss of its weight gave them even more speed as they ascended.
Above them, not far now, the Professor weakened in his struggle against the man in the robe. His movements were becoming more and more labored until soon he stopped moving altogether.
"Dig!" Marco ordered his disciples. "Faster!"
The shovel hit something hard, something that made a hollow thud.
Marco bent down to brush the dirt and rock away from what they had found.
At that moment, Luca smiled as he saw Jake and Eden appear on the narrow ledge on the other side of the river. They had reloaded their flare guns, each with one last flare each, and then pointed them across the river.
Eden fired, and one of his flares hit the disciple with the shovel square in the head. The man's hood more or less combusted and he dropped to the ground dead, his body convulsing and his skull ablaze.
Luca grabbed the shovel. He smashed the flat end of the blade across the face of the other disciple, who reeled backwards, slipped on the edge of the ledge and plummeted screaming into the lava.
Marco reached inside his robe and pulled a gun.
Luca turned the shovel on him, but Marco pointed his gun straight at Luca's head. "Don't even think about it."
Luca froze.
Marco kept one eye on him and shouted back to Jake and Eden on the ledge opposite. "You shoot me, I shoot him. Now throw your guns into the lava."
At first neither Eden nor Jake moved a muscle.
Marco cocked the hammer on his pistol. "I said do it!"
Eden threw his weapon in first, which was already empty. Jake on the other hand still had one flare left.
"Throw it in," Eden whispered, nursing his wounded arm.
Jake swallowed hard. Giving in to an ultimatum like this was not the kind of thing he had ever done. He only ever had himself to look out for, and the risk always seemed worth it. But now—
"Jake, do as he says."
"But I can make the shot," Jake told Eden. "I can nail him."
"And if you don't?"
Jake swallowed hard.
"Jake," Eden whispered. "It's not worth it."
Jake glanced at Eden, who gently, subtly, shook his head. It was all he needed to do.
Jake pushed out a reluctant sigh and tossed the flare gun into the lava. The flare inside erupted in a blast of fireworks on impact.
Marco laughed.
"Good," he said, and then turned to Luca. "Now, you! Dig out my treasure!"
With the gun trained at his head, Luca pushed the shovel into the earth and dug around the edges of the treasure in the hole. Eventually, he dropped the shovel and knelt. He pushed the dirt and rocks aside with his bare hands and pulled from the earth an iron canister.
Marco's brow creased in confusion. Confusion that quickly turned to anger. He knew the stature was much bigger than this canister.
"What the fuck is that?"
There was a latch on the canister. Luca opened it and found a piece of parchment inside. He unraveled it. There was a message, written in Italian.
"What does it say?" Marco shouted. "Read it!"
"Welcome to eternal damnation," Luca said.
Marco stared at him in utter fury, and then snatched the parchment off him and read it himself.
Suddenly, Luca started laughing.
Suddenly, the clues, the stones, the artworks of Videlle—everything—became clear to him.
"Don't you see? You read the clues wrong," Luca told Marco. "You were supposed to turn Zefferino's name upside-down. It's what Videlle always did. And it was Zefferino's final fuck-you to the world. The stones were the wrong way up. And so were the symbols."
Shane stepped back from the table containing the two books and the two stones and knew he was going to have to do something drastic to free his hands. He knew he couldn't slide his hands under his ass and legs and around to the front; his shoulders and chest were too broad and it was simply not physically possible with his hands bound behind his back.
But he knew he could do it—if he dislocated one of his shoulders.
Suddenly, the door handle turned, and then shook violently against the lock. There was a thud against the door. Eric was trying to get in but couldn't, unlike the water that was beginning to spray in streams and pressured jets around the rim of the door.
The ship lurched.
Shane didn't have much time.
He hurried to one wall, leaned to the left and aimed his shoulder into the wall, and then with all his strength and speed, he rammed himself at the wall.
There was a horrible
klock
!
It was the sound of his arm popping out of its shoulder socket.
Shane screamed, the pain rocking his entire body.
There were another two, three, four thuds against the door.
Shane fell to the floor, into the deepening pool of water, not because he couldn't deal with the agony, but to roll onto his back and lift his legs in the air while his right arm pulled his useless left arm down, sliding it under his ass and down the backs of his thighs. He bent his knees and pulled his arms around his heels and toes, bringing them up in front of him.
His eyes blinked back the pain as he staggered to his feet, and with his hands now bound in front of him, he took his left shoulder in his right hand, positioned his arm back into place, and then leaned up against the wall and pushed with all his strength.
He roared with pain once more as his shoulder popped back into its socket.
With the next thud, the door actually bounced on its hinges. The lock held strong, but the hinges bent and buckled. They wouldn't hold for long.
Shane raced over to the table.
He had already figured out the same key to the puzzle as Luca.
The young Texan took Zefferino's stones in his hands now and turned them into an upside-down position.
He grabbed the code book, and flicked through the pages quickly to see if he could find the new, upside-down inscriptions.
They were there.
Sand.
Five.
Tree.
Sun.
Filfla.
His eyes scanned the message and pieced together as much as he could before—
—
Bam!
With one more heavy thud and a tidal rush of water, Eric broke down the door and burst into the room.
Marco threw the parchment onto the ground and aimed his gun at Luca, but before he could fire Luca swung the iron canister at him, knocking the gun clean out of Marco's hand.
It flew through the air and skidded to a halt on the edge of the ledge.
Luca snatched up the shovel once more.
Marco grabbed the pick.
On the opposite ledge, Jake leaped onto the wire cable and started to climb across as fast as he could, hand over hand, to the other side.
"Jake!" Eden called.
"Stay there," Jake shouted back. "You're shot. Besides, I know what I'm doing." Then, under his breath, "I've done this volcano stuff before, trust me."
Marco swung his pick at Luca, who fended him off with a thud and a thwack of his shovel.
"You know you can't beat me at this," Marco warned. "I'm older than you. I'm wiser. And more powerful. I'm your creator, remember?"
Luca shook his head. "And I was your Muse.
Was
!"
He struck at Marco with his shovel, but this time it was Marco who deflected the move, retaliating with a blow directly to Luca's shoulder with the pick.
The pick-end plunged into Luca's muscle, and the young Italian reared backward.
Marco pulled the pick free and a small chunk of Luca's flesh came with it. Luca let out another roar, and then fell backward.
Jake watched from halfway along the cable and poured on the speed.
On the rocky ledge, Marco raised the pick high above his head, but before he could bring it down on Luca's skull, the young Italian stabbed the spade of his shovel directly into Marco's shin, slicing clean through flesh and bone.
Marco screamed.
He dropped the pick and staggered backward before giving in to the pain and falling on his hands and knees.
That's when he saw the gun, sitting on the brink of the ledge only a few feet in front of him.
Marco scrambled as fast as he could.
Luca saw him make a move for the gun. He dropped the shovel and lunged at Marco, but the momentum of his crash-tackle sent Marco, and the gun, crashing over the edge.
The gun toppled and spun and splashed into the lava.
Marco felt himself go over the edge and reached for anything his hands could grab onto.
Luca managed to stop himself at the edge, grabbing onto the rocky surface with both hands, facing downward, but felt a sudden pull around his neck.
As he fell, Marco's fingers had hooked his chain, his silver crucifix.
Luca gasped.
The chain snapped and slipped from Luca's neck, clutched now in Marco's fist.
Luca's arm went wide and grabbed the other end of the broken chain.
Marco thudded against the small cliff-face, dangling over the lava, clinging to one end of Luca's chain.