Origins (Book 4 of Alfireán age)

Human Torch

"Blast that runt! If I ever get my hands on him, I'll ring his little neck!" Zindelo exclaimed, pacing back and forth.

"Let it go, dad," Siegfried said as he drove the lead takoorah.

"Let it go?! Let it go?!" Zindelo exploded. "Our entire life savings are in that box!"

Ms. Zindelo sighed and sat down beside her daughter. "You know, dear, maybe this is what we deserve for stealing from such nice people."

"Yeah! How could you steal from an angel, daddy?" Tsuritsa, his daughter, huffed, crossing her arms.

Zindelo whirled and glared at his wife. Suddenly, a scrying formed over the place where his bed usually sat.

Drake's head appeared in the image and said, "You may not wish to open that. The compartment contains a rather complex destructive spell. In your vernacular, it's rigged it to blow."

"Turn that stupid thing off!" Zindelo barked, his curly black hair frizzing out in all directions.

Cautiously, one of the gypsies examining the booby-trapped vault reached up to swoosh his hand through the scrying, but a gypsy next to him grabbed his arm. "No, you might set it off."

"Now, as I see it," the child continued. "You owe me and my compatriots quite the apology for stealing our goods and robbing us blind. So, someday in the future, we will call on you for a favor, and you will answer, or you may just never see your ill-gotten goods again."

In a rage, Zindelo lunged forward and swiped at the scrying. "Accursed brat!" he growled and turned on the gypsies at his feet. "I brought you two up here to disarm this trap, not play that incessant thing over and over again!"

Tobar looked up at him. "I don't think we can," he said, standing up.

"Yeah, from what I can tell, there's a weird combination of a small shield inside with a fireball trapped in it," the other gypsy added. "I haven't seen anything like it before, but one thing is for sure: if you open it, the shield will vanish and release the fireball right on top of all the money chips."

The gypsy leader glared at the hidden floor vault and cursed. "Blast that runt. If I ever get my hands on him, I'll ring his little neck!" Zindelo shouted again, his dark eyes burning with rage.

***

Drake rubbed his nose and waved away the dirt. They were trapped down here, and the sinister red glow in the command center was growing brighter by the moment. Anxiety threatened to overwhelm him. Drakovian had just escaped death, and yet it seemed to chase him like a pack of ravenous wolves.

Rex slammed his fist into the dirt in frustration, but to no avail. With sweat dotting his brow, he spun to face the other end of the hallway. "This is insane!" he exclaimed. "Who in their right mind would use lava of all things as a security system?"

"Actually, it makes perfect sense," Olivia answered calmly as the pungent scent of sulfur filled the air and made it difficult to breathe. "Nothing will be damaged by the lava but us, and the shafts can always be excavated."

Valarinnia's voice dripped with scorn, "Yes," she added, "and after that stupid mechanical girl is sure we're dead, she'll just drain the lava away." Her bitter words rang in the destroyed corridor while the ominous red light played across her pale features and cast eerie, dancing shadows on the walls.

"More than likely," Drake agreed, his mind racing as he tried to think of a way out.

Alf's eyes blazed a brilliant blue while he stared intently at the collapsed elevator shaft. "There has to be something we can do!" he exclaimed.