The Necromancer Trilogy - Eachanstone

Chapter Twelve - Unimpressive Bank Vaults

Celia summoned up the feelings of the entire party with one short, not particularly sweet expletive.

“My thoughts exactly,” Tala grumbled, fading into view. “He’s Legion’s man? In the most secure bank in the world?”

“Legion’s taken the bank,” Chrysanthemum explained, grimly. “He’s put Gain in control. When he wants to, he can find anything in these vaults. Secrets, dreams, treasures…the keys to power. It was a smart move. We should have expected it.”

“But we didn’t,” Sophie sat down on a wooden chest. “Now we’re locked in this place. Locked in and useless.”

“Don’t be silly,” Celia assured her. “Someone is bound to come down here and check on us soon.”

“Do you really think so?” Sophie raised an eyebrow.

“Well, no,” Celia frowned. “I was being reassuring. Sorry if I’m no good at it.”

“Maybe we’re just no good at being reassured,” Tala sighed. “Well, always look on the bright side of life.”

Sophie whistled out of habit and then stopped herself. “What bright side?”

“Well,” Tala looked around, distastefully. “Somewhere amongst all this dust and specially-evolved spiders is going to be that magic paper, right? So at least we’ve got a long time to look.”

Sophie looked around at the unimpressive vault. She’d been expecting Harry Potter style heaps of gold and jewels, with rows of armour and great piles of magic swords. Instead there were chests. There were cardboard boxes. There was even a sack, and it didn’t have a dollar sign on it.

“Yippee,” she said, sarcastically. “I can’t wait to be bitten by a specially-evolved bank spider!”

“It’s easier than starving to death,” Celia dragged the sack towards her. “Come on.”

“Eww!” Tala squealed, leaping backwards and waving her hands in the air. “Eww, this is disgusting!”

Sophie approached cautiously. They had all learnt very quickly to take care what you touched in Vault 342. The box of pig hearts had clinched the matter.

 “It’s a dead rabbit,” Sophie said, looking at the rabbit thoughtfully. “A fresh dead rabbit, I might add.”

“Are dead rabbits good or bad luck?” Celia asked, wandering over. Her hands were stained with suspicious substances but she didn’t look fazed, unlike the rest of them.

“Good,” Sophie said, firmly.

“Bad,” Chrysanthemum objected.

“Didn’t people used to carry a dead rabbit for luck?” Sophie frowned.

“Rabbit’s foot,” Chrysanthemum corrected. “And the implications of a dead rabbit are that something killed it, which is rarely good news seeing as humans are basically rabbits with different teeth and a brain.”

“Which makes them very different really, when you think about it,” Celia tipped her head sideways. “What characterises rabbits? Brainlessness, hopping, fluffy tails and grass. Apart from the first one, humans pretty much lose out.”

“Humans have brains,” Chrysanthemum assured her. “I’ve performed autopsies. I know. It’s a matter of whether or not they’ve worked out how to use them.”

“Moving on,” Tala glared at them both, “I think this place is disgusting. Who keeps dead rabbits in a bank vault?”

“Fresh dead rabbits,” Sophie added.