Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

a Dark Oculator’s attention.
    That’s why most books aren’t true. Sorry, kids.
    I dashed back toward the torturing room. The guards still lay unconscious in the hallway where Bastille had left them. I checked the knothole – Blackburn was still there inside, and he had apparently decided to rough up Grandpa Smedry with slaps to the face.
    “I think I’ll go for a walk…” Grandpa Smedry said cheerfully.
    “Wasing not of wasing is,” Quentin added.
    I gritted my teeth. Then I pulled the velvet pouch out of my pocket and looked inside.
    “Alcatraz…” Bastille said carefully. “You can’t defeat him. You might have a powerful Lens, but that’s not everything. Blackburn will be able to deflect that Firebringer’s Lens with his Oculator’s Lens.”
    “I know,” I said. “Sing, take these two unconscious men and hide them – with yourself – in the Forgotten Language room.”
    My cousin opened his mouth as if to object, but then paused. Finally, he nodded. He easily lifted the two unconscious men, then left down the hallway.
    “Alcatraz,” Bastille said. “I know you want to protect your grandfather. But this is suicide.”
    I waited a few moments for Sing to complete his task. Then I knelt down beside the door and looked through the knothole. Blackburn was raising a mallet, as if to break Grandpa Smedry’s arm.
    “You can’t resist forever, old man,” Blackburn said.
    I activated the Firebringer’s Lens.

Chapter 17
    Immediately, the Dark Oculator looked up.
    I smiled, watching Blackburn turn with a confused expression on his face. At that moment, he was sensing a very powerful Oculatory Lens coming in from the hallway outside. He took a step toward the door.
    “Now,” I hissed. “Run!”
    Bastille didn’t need further command. She took off down the hallway, as did I. However, she obviously held back so that she didn’t outstrip me.
    I held the Firebringer’s Lens before me, and it spewed forth it’s powerful line of light. I ran on, aiming it at the side of the corridor.
    “You’re leading him away!” Bastille said. “You’re using us as bait.”
    “Hopefully, bait that escapes,” I said, ducking around a corner, then pausing to wait. The Firebringer’s Lens continued to blast. A door slammed in the distance. “Smedry!” a voice bellowed. “You can’t run from me! Don’t you realize that I can sense your power?”
    “Go!” I said, taking off at a dash. Within seconds, we were at the section of the corridor with the broken floor.
    “Charles!” I yelled down through the hole. “Trouble is coming your way! I’d run if I were you!”
    And then I took the Firebringer’s Lens and tossed it through the hole. It bounced against a few books, then came to rest on the floor, still shooting a piercing-hot laser of heat up into the air, burning the ceiling, threatening to start several of the bookshelves on fire.
    I grabbed Bastille by the arm, tugging her around the corner and into the Forgotten Language room. Sing jumped as we entered. He had – for some reason that he never explained – propped both of the unconscious men in chairs at the desks.
    Anthropologists are funny that way.
    Now, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I didn’t take the opportunity to point out anything at the beginning of this chapter. Never fear; my editorial comments were simply delayed for a few moments.
    You see, that last chapter ended with a terribly unfair hook. By now, it is probably very late at night, and you have stayed up to read this book when you should have gone to sleep. If this is the case, then I commend you for falling into my trap. It is a writer’s greatest pleasure to hear that someone was kept up until the unholy hours of the morning reading one of his books. It goes back to authors being terrible people who delight in the suffering of others. Plus, we get a kickback from the caffeine industry.
    Regardless, because of how exciting things were, I didn’t feel comfortable interjecting my normal comments at the beginning of this chapter. So, I shall put them here instead. Prepare yourself.
    Blah, blah, sacrifice, altars, daggers, sharks. Blah, blah, something pretentious. Blah, blah, rutabaga. Blah, blah, something that makes no sense whatsoever.
    Now back to the story.
    (And whoever put in that cliff-hanger at the end of the last chapter needs to be reprimanded. It’s growing quite late here, and I really should be getting to bed, rather than writing