Chapter 86 - Fractured Ice and Fire
The vortex swallowed Marcus Vane without leaving a trace, but the threat was far from over. The rising water was lapping at the ceiling beams of the turbine cavern, and the remaining strands of our cable were unraveling by the second.
"Julian! Grab the chain!" Clara leaned out over the edge of the platform, extending the heavy maintenance hook attached to the overhead crane.
I kicked off from the top of the sinking cage just as the final strand snapped. The metal cage vanished beneath the black surface like an anchor, sucked into the flooded drain. Holding Lily tightly with my left arm, I threw my right hand upward, catching the cold iron hook.
The jerk nearly dislocated my shoulder. Pain flared white-hot through my collarbone, but I clamped my fingers shut, refusing to yield to the agony. Clara engaged the crane’s electric winch, and the cable slowly, agonizingly hauled us out of the rising floodwaters and swung us onto the solid concrete of the funicular platform.
I collapsed onto the wet floor, rolling onto my back while shielding Lily with my body. Clara fell to her knees beside us, pulling Lily into a fierce, trembling embrace.
"She's breathing. She's alright," Clara choked out, her tears mingling with the cold river water on Lily’s cheeks.
"Daddy... Aunt Clara..." Lily whispered, shivering uncontrollably. "The bad man is gone?"
"He's gone, sweetie," I gasped, struggling to sit up. "He's gone forever."
Beside the control console, the infant in the silver shell let out a sudden, high-pitched wail. Clara turned and gently lifted the baby from the floor, wrapping him in the dry inner lining of her coat. For a moment, we sat in the damp gloom of the vibrating tunnel, the three of us and the orphaned child who had been bred to be a weapon of empire.
"The whole facility is collapsing," Clara said, nodding toward the ceiling where long cracks were spider-webbing across the rock face. "When the river backed up, it compromised the structural pylons beneath the main house. We have maybe four minutes before the entire mountain settles into this cavern."
"The funicular," I said, pointing toward the sleek, bullet-shaped car still sitting on the tracks. "Does it lead out?"
"It cuts through the northern ridge directly into the rail yards at Winterthur," Clara replied, helping me to my feet. "It's automated. It has its own private power line tapped into the Swiss national grid."
We bundled the children into the luxury passenger compartment. Just as Clara hit the emergency launch button, a heavy concussion shook the ground. The glass solarium hundreds of feet above us had given way; tons of reinforced steel, antique furniture, and shattered crystal came crashing down into the turbine room behind us, crushing the catwalks into scrap metal.
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The funicular car surged forward with a high-pitched electric whine, hurtling into the pitch-black tunnel just as the darkness behind us was swallowed by an avalanche of rock and water.
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