Greatshadow by James Maxey Page A

furrowed as her eyes adjusted to the shadows before her. Aurora rose up on her knees, shaking her head. When she finally followed the others’ gazes, she whispered, “This is unexpected.”
    The main room of the bar was completely transformed. All the gaming tables were gone, as were the paintings on the wall. No-Face was sitting up, rubbing his skin-flap, dust swirling around him. “Whuduhfuh?” he mumbled as he looked around.
    Cobwebs clung to every corner of the room. The grime was so thick on the floor that No-Face had left a little dust-angel where he’d fallen. Behind the bar, the shelves were empty, save for dirt. There was no evidence that the place had been a thriving business full of people only moments before.
    Menagerie stepped into the room. Aurora and Infidel followed.
    Menagerie muttered something to himself I couldn’t quite catch, save for the word ‘time.’
    “Oh no,” said Aurora, who’d apparently caught what he was saying. “She was too old to go back more than a day or two. She’d never survive a longer trip. She—”
    “You aren’t blind, Aurora,” said Menagerie.
    “Is this a private conversation, or would you care to fill me in on what’s happened?” asked Infidel.
    Relic hobbled into the room. “They won’t betray the Black Swan’s secret. I, however, am not bound by their oaths of loyalty. The Black Swan owes her power and influence to a rather tragic curse. She—”
    “Guys!” shouted Reeker as he rushed into the room, water streaming from his clothes. “You gotta come look at this.”
    The whole building shuddered as he spoke. The air took on the stench of rotten eggs, but Reeker didn’t seem to be the source of the odor.
    Menagerie furrowed his brow. “Did the barge just hit bottom?”
    “All the water’s draining out of the bay!” said Reeker, waving his arms for emphasis.
    “Luhguptaruh,” said No-Face.
    “Good idea,” said Menagerie. “To the roof!”
    Before he finished speaking, where the man had stood there was an owl gliding forward. He flapped his wings once and shot toward the cobwebbed spiral staircase in the far corner of the room, vanishing as he tilted his wings and flew up to the second floor.
    No-Face and Reeker followed without hesitation.
    Aurora grabbed Infidel by the arm. “You took my side,” she said. “Thank you.”
    “What?” asked Infidel.
    “In the fight with the Goons. You defended me when I was down.”
    Infidel shrugged. “It was three against one. I always side with the underdog. It’s nothing.”
    Aurora nodded. “Still, I owe you one.”
    Relic sighed as he hobbled across the room toward the staircase.
    “You women can bond another time,” he grumbled. “Right now, we should follow the owl.”

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    ALL MUST BURN!
     
     
    T HE ROOF OF the Black Swan was a broad, flat deck with four large stained-glass dome skylights and a sixty-foot mast that jutted up from the middle, with smaller masts fore and aft. It had been many years since the bar had actually been moved with sails; the masts now served mainly as flag poles to fly the barge’s banner, a field of pure white with a black swan in the center. Menagerie stood in the crows nest atop the tallest mast, peering out at the bay, his hand raised to shield his eyes from the morning sun. Infidel leapt, grabbing the rigging, and in seconds reached his side.
    Ignoring the main reason we’d come out here, her gaze was instead drawn to Menagerie’s face. It took me half a second to understand why it was so interesting at this particular moment.
    “You have your teeth back,” she said.
    “Owls don’t have teeth, so when I changed back, I grew new ones,” said Menagerie. “Can we focus on the problem at hand?”
    The water was flowing out from the bay so swiftly that fish were left flopping in the mud. The Black Swan was anchored in water ordinarily twenty feet deep at its lowest, but it now sat flat on the bottom, the whole structure shuddering as it slowly