Sara tried to laserbeam Voit as he swooped into the wide open space she had created. Nothing happened. She looked down at the plaque in her hand. She groaned. She had picked up the rat instead of the pig.

“What have you done to my space?,” asked Voit. His large eyes blinked at the

damage.

She didn’t bother answering him. She had to make an escape while he was in shock. She doubted she had very long before he went back on the attack.

She threw her hand up. The threads from the lion paw reached up and grabbed one of the exposed support beams in the wall. She yanked and the threads jerked her off the ground.

Voit flapped his wings and jetted into the air with a growl. He didn’t have time to think his tower was tougher than he had thought. The transgressor was trying to escape from his vengeance.

Sara hit the wall and ran up the metal facing. She tucked the rat in with its brothers. A few more seconds and she would have had some of the more useful tiles. She didn’t know what the rat did, and doubted it could help her at the moment.

She reached the top of the threads with the Dark lord climbing to strike. She pushed off against the wall. She hit the twisted donut that must have been his roost above his chemical mixers. She grabbed one of the bent rods and pulled herself up to firmer footing.

Voit twisted and turned to rush her with a flap of his metal wings. The sprayers built into the front of his flight suit spat out green globes as he strafed the remains of his minor nest. The slime hit and passed through the gridwork of the platform as he roared by his target.

Sara looked for a way out. She could jump to the platform she had spotted from the ground. She figured she would be hit before she reached the stage area. She could keep climbing. Or she could drop over the edge and try to swing out of the hole in the wall before the winged menace came back.

The gate had to be the goal. Once she was inside the inner wall, Voit wouldn’t be able to chase her. The tower was his territory. He couldn’t leave it to chase her when there were other lords and ladies willing to take his area as theirs.

She sized up the gap and ran along the donut. The platform shook at each step. She leaped for the exit.

Voit swooped around and crashed into her as she fell through the air. She hit the doorway like she wanted, but it was with her face. She skidded along the metal floor, picking up cuts from jutting screw heads as she went.

Sara picked herself up with a quick pull of her hands and feet. She looked around as she edged down the corridor. Voit loomed in the enclosed space, eyes glowing in the dimmer lighting from the small bulbs overhead in the ceiling.

“You have cost me a lot of time,” said Voit. He stalked forward. “And prestige. I can’t have that. It will make the others of your ilk think they can raid my domain with impunity.”

“We just want to go home,” said Sara. She tried to draw the blaster. The holster hung on to it. She looked down. The rig had partially melted around the energy pistol. She groaned. “All we want is passage and to go back to our lives.”

“There is no life for you,” said Voit. “You belong to the Dark now. The Light won’t save you. You should have stayed on the edges of the Powers and eked out what you could.”

Sara thought about her kids. They needed her. She wasn’t going to give up. She needed to get back to them. She needed to be there. They weren’t ready to live on their own and face life’s challenges.

And she was going back, even if she had to go through this owl monster to do it.

She pulled the lion sword and the blade extended. She heard the roar in the blade as lightning ran up and down it.

“Get out of my way,” said Sara. “I don’t want to have to fight, but I will.”

“I’m going to add you to my collection,” said Voit. “You’ll be a warning to others who want to invade my domain.”

Sara backed up, realizing she didn’t have to fight. She just had to get out of the tunnel and through the gate. She just needed to buy time.

She swung the sword and lightning blasted at the Dark lord. He let his green shields catch the electricity and wrap it around him. It coated the walls of the corridor in white neon for a second.

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Sara wondered what the sword would do against the shields with the ox behind it. Would it punch through? Did she want to take that chance?

Green globs of snot flew at her from Voit’s harness. She tried to deflect them with the sword, but that just sprayed the stickiness across her. One struck her foot and pinned it to the floor.

That was when Voit charged, pushing against the air without his wings being

unfurled. He struck Sara before she could stab him with the lion sword. Darkness blasted through her mind before she could fend him off.

Sara woke up strapped to a table. She still had the ring and the lion paw on her hands. She supposed Voit either couldn’t take them off, or didn’t care about them. The lion sword hung on a nearby wall in its dagger form.

She strained against the straps holding her arms and chest down. Energy poured out of the ox. Nothing happened. How did she get out of this?

She still had the other three stones in the gauntlet. Could they help her? She had never figured out what the rat could do. She doubted she would be able to figure it out in the time she had left before she became a mummy.

She should have gone around to the other gates. It would have taken more time, but the Light would have let her pass.

“So you are awake,” said Voit as he entered the mummification room. Belsin clung to his arm. He wore a dark version of doctor smocks, while she had dressed in something like an antique nurse’s dress. “That’s good. I wanted to explain the process to you before we did it.”

“Why?,” asked Sara. She took a better look around the room. Statues were in niches in the walls. She had a feeling they weren’t statues.

“Because talking helps me work,” said the owl man. “And you should know what is going to happen.”

“If you let the freelancers through, they wouldn’t even fight you,” said Sara.

“But I want them to fight me,” said Voit. “I turn them into materials for myself and my beloved Bel. Only a shell remains after I am done. And those I put on display to remind me of victory.”

He waved a hand at the statues around them.

“Of course,” said Voit. “Some do get through. I just don’t have counters to every imaginary weapon out there.”

“I think I am going to need her brain to replace the control center she destroyed,” said Belsin.

“I don’t see why not,” said Voit. “Matter of fact, I will do that first so she can listen to us while we do the rest of the operation.”

“That would be splendid,” said the Dark lady. She clapped her hands together. “It adds that element of helplessness.”

Sara strained against the straps again. They didn’t budge. The dog and horse stones would keep healing her until they were discovered. She faced a lot of pain while they did that. She needed a solution. She mentally ordered the rat to do something to help out.

Purple light struck the nearest mummy. It came to life with a stretch of its arms. Then a smile crossed its face. Voit and Belsin looked at it in alarm.

“How’s it going, buddy?,” said the mummy. “I got something for you.”

“That’s interesting,” said Voit. “I have never seen one of them come back before.”

The mummy pulled two pistols from holsters under its arms. It grinned as it fired at the mad scientists. Voit raised a shield of green light to block the firestorm of metal.

Metal tentacles made of chained links erupted from Belsin’s back. She threw her nurse’s cap down with a gloved hand.

Sara had to change the odds. The two Dark powers would rip her defender apart in the close confines of the room. She needed more mummies to come to life.

The rat exerted its power to reanimate the statues around it.

The mummies stepped out of their niches, picking up the weapons stored with them. One opened the straps on the table to pull Sara out of the way while gunfire and burning air filled the room.

Voit and Belsin retreated from the room. Belsin went first, blocking projectiles with her tentacles as she moved. Voit filled the door with his shield as she moved out in the hall. He closed the door as one of the mummies threw a stick of thermite at him. The metal caught fire as the mummies took stock.

“It’s six on two,” said one of the mummies, taking charge. “Voit will probably try to get out in the open central chamber to pick us off from behind his shield.”

“The tentacles block the shots for the sexy vampire lady,” said the first mummy.

“Voit is the most dangerous,” said the mummy commander. He raised his rifle to look down the scope. “They’re heading down the hall away from us.”

“She’s got crabs with guns,” said Sara. She pulled herself to her feet. One pulled yanked the lion sword off the wall.

“I hate to see what their love life is like,” said the first mummy.

“How are we doing this, Nick?,” asked one of the other mummies.

Sara took a moment to look at the people she had brought back to life. They seemed to be a squad of similarly dressed freelancers. They wore what she considered variations of military dress she had picked up from movies and television. And they were armed to the teeth with real looking guns.

“Voit is going to camp,” said Nick. “He is going to try to pick us off when we try to cross the central chamber. We already know he has the wings, the shields, and the sticky guns. That’s on top of his natural toughness and ability to bend his domain.”

“I only saw the crab things with Belsin,” said Sara. “I didn’t know she had those metal arms concealed in her back.”

“She’s down at the bottom of the vat room,” said Nick, looking through his scope. “Probably waiting on us to go in after her. She won’t have control of the domain unless Voit gave her some of his control. It’s a wide open space where she can shoot at us and block our shots. I don’t see any crabs, but they could be concealed to ambush us.”

“I got the sexy vampire lady nurse,” said the first mummy. He had cat ears on his helmet Sara realized.

“Seek and Ryan, help Tyler,” said Nick. “Cam, Dis, and I will try to take out Voit with the long guns.”

“She’s probably got a shield of some kind too,” said Seek. He had a pair of sticks he spun in his hands. He grimaced under the dirt brushed across his lean face. “Maybe tries to take us out with those tentacles of hers.”

“She can take me out, if you know what I mean,” said Tyler.

The squad groaned.

“Put a lid on it,” said Nick. “We got a job to do.”

They left the mummification room with Sara at the back. She hoped they knew what they were doing.