Nick placed his sister Carly behind him, while his gaze fixed on Lief, not allowing himself to blink.
"Brother, he wasn't there," Carly whispered immediately, peeking out from behind Nick's shoulder, "The family that trapped me... I remember it very clearly, and he wasn't one of them."
"..."
Lief, who remained with both hands tucked into his pockets, received the information without the relaxed expression on his face changing in the slightest. On the contrary, he seemed to approve of the caution and nodded. "Keeping your guard up against a stranger is the right thing to do, especially in a place as weird as this."
He held Nick's gaze with total calm, without the slightest trace of hostility. "So," he asked, "do you plan to leave now?"
The question managed to loosen the extreme tension accumulated in Nick's body, if only a little.
Leave? It was all he wanted in the world, but he simply couldn't.
"One of our friends is still inside," Nick replied through clenched teeth, pointing his chin toward the chilling house of wax. "His name is Dalton. He's the one who was talking to you earlier."
"Oh," Lief nodded. "The loud guy. Fine, then I'll help you look for him; one more person will speed things up."
A flash of pure hope lit up Carly's eyes, although this time, having learned her lesson, she remained silent.
Nick, for his part, was still gnawed by doubt, but the circumstances didn't afford him the luxury of an interrogation or too much thought. His friend's safety came first.
He directed one last evaluating look at Lief, weighing the mysterious man, and finally, he nodded heavily.
Without allowing themselves to doubt for another second, they pushed open the heavy door of the house of wax. Immediately, a slap of stale air hit their faces, a repulsive mix of dust, old wood, and the sweet smell of paraffin.
The interior was plunged into darkness, broken only by a few threads of moonlight seeping through the dirt-covered windows.
That ghostly light illuminated enough to reveal the silhouettes of wax figures, as realistic as they were disturbing, that seemed to observe them silently from every corner.
"We need to split up, we'll find him faster," Nick proposed, gripping his crossbow so tightly that his knuckles whitened.
"I'll take the basement," Lief said without hesitation, as if volunteering for the most mundane task and not to descend into the place that, by definition, would be the most sinister.
Having said that, he headed directly toward the stairs leading to the lower level.
"..."
Nick and Carly exchanged a look before cautiously searching the first and second floors, moving among the motionless statues.
The basement air was, if possible, even murkier and heavier. Lief didn't even need to strain to distinguish a faint but unmistakable odor layering over the mold: a nauseating mix of chemicals and decomposing flesh.
Following that olfactory trail, it didn't take him long to find his objective.
Dalton was there, tied to a special chair and covered by a layer of semi-solid wax that coated his face and body, giving him the appearance of a half-finished figure.
His eyes were wide with terror, and as soon as he saw Lief, a desperate whimper broke from his throat, causing him to writhe with all the force his restraints allowed.
Lief quickly approached and tore the cloth gag from Dalton's mouth in a single motion and quickly broke the ropes restraining him.
Just as Lief was helping Dalton to his feet, the man was shaking violently, covered in wax residue and incoherently babbling from the trauma, a deafening crash boomed from upstairs.
Bang
The unmistakable blast of a shotgun resonated throughout the museum, followed almost immediately by Nick's shouts and Carly's shrieks.
Lief practically threw Dalton outside the basement threshold. "Find a place to hide and don't move," he ordered, and before Dalton could even react, Lief's figure disappeared, moving with unnatural speed toward the first-floor lobby.
…
There, the scene was a mess. Nick was barricaded behind a column, using it as his only cover while facing Bo, who was armed with a shotgun.
Bo's face was distorted by madness, firing non-stop and tearing splinters from the column with every deafening blast.
Nick, as soon as he found a minimal opening, returned fire with his crossbow, but the shotgun fire was so intense that he barely had time to lift his head.
Meanwhile, the threat was developing on two fronts: on the second floor, another masked man, Vincent, advanced with a dagger in hand, chasing Carly unhurriedly, savoring her panic.
Downstairs, Bo roared with fury and pulled the trigger again, emptying the cartridge in a final burst.
That was the moment!
A gleam of determination lit up in Nick's eyes, and he lunged out from behind the column with the crossbow already cocked and ready.
The bolt whistled through the air and embedded itself precisely in Bo's thigh, just as he was clumsily trying to reload.
Bo let out a shriek of pain, staggering before falling to his knees.
Nick was already preparing to finish him off, but…
Bang
A clean shot beat him to it.
Lief had appeared on the other side, and the barrel of his Ivory pistol was still smoking.
A perfect hole appeared right in the center of Bo's forehead. The pain and madness on his face instantly froze, and his body slumped headfirst against the floor, no longer making any sound.
Boom
However, almost at the same instant Lief's shot rang out, a violent explosion boomed from the direction of the basement.
A wave of scorching heat mixed with flames erupted like a jet from the lower door, instantly igniting the flammable wax figures and old wooden structures in the lobby.
The fire spread with astonishing speed, as if the entire house of wax had been doused with gasoline, and it began to burn fiercely.
Under the suffocating heat, the layers of wax on the walls and ceiling began to melt, dripping like a thick syrup.
"Carly!"
Seeing the situation, Nick had no time to thank or question Lief and ran desperately toward the second-floor stairs.
Lief, for his part, glanced sideways at the first floor, which was already being devoured by the inferno, and decisively retreated until he was outside the house of wax.
Once outside, he stopped, calmly observing what would happen next.
…
On the second floor, Vincent was momentarily disconcerted by the sudden explosion and the ascending fire. He immediately abandoned the pursuit of Carly and spun on his heels to try to escape, but the melted wax was already pouring down from the ceiling like a boiling waterfall, blocking the route in front of him.
He attempted to cross the viscous curtain, but a huge block of burning paraffin fell directly onto his head, immobilizing him instantly.
His shriek was bloodcurdling and brief, turning him into a twisted "new wax figure," ironically buried in the same macabre artwork he was always so proud of.
…
Meanwhile, Nick had finally found his sister, but the fire and molten wax had also sealed their retreat path.
A sea of flames stretched at their feet, around them, boiling wax dripped non-stop, and the walls, about to collapse, completely cornered them.
They were trapped!
Just as they began to fall into despair, the wall beside them started to emit a sharp screech and buckle, until...
BOOM
The paraffin and boards were torn apart with brutal force, opening a huge hole to the outside.
The night wind, laden with the fresh smell of grass, immediately crept into the overheated room.
Through the gap in the wall, Lief's head peeked in.
He looked at the siblings, who were watching him with their mouths open, and the corners of his lips curled.
"Miss me?"
"..."
Nick was paralyzed by disbelief for a couple of seconds, before his face lit up with a surge of pure relief, followed by sincere gratitude.
"Thank you..." was all he could articulate.
There was no more time for doubt. He took Carly by the hand and jumped through the opening, both falling onto the grass outside.
They had barely landed when the house of wax, completely engulfed in flames, finally could no longer hold itself up.
With a succession of crashes, the structure collapsed thunderously in on itself, becoming an ocean of fire that launched sparks and smoke toward the night sky.
The fire burned all night.
…
The next morning, when the first sunbeams illuminated the scorched earth, the shrill sirens of the police and fire trucks finally approached from the distance. Nick, Carly, and a still-traumatized and silent Dalton were sitting at the edge of the road, watching as the authorities set up the security line around the smoking debris.
After the horror they had lived through, they all looked exhausted, but the joy of being alive surpassed everything.
Nick and Carly stood up and walked toward Lief, who remained apart, leaning against a tree, calmly observing the activity.
"What happened yesterday..." Nick began, searching for the words. "Thank you. Truly. If it hadn't been for you, we..."
"You saved our lives," Carly firmly completed, her eyes full of an admiration that bordered on disbelief.
"It was just a little help," Lief replied, waving his hand dismissively. He saw a couple of police officers starting to walk in their direction to question them and knew it was time to leave.
He turned around and, taking advantage of the officers' distraction, with only a thought, Fenrir appeared out of nowhere beside him.
?
The sound was nonexistent, but the sudden appearance left the siblings speechless at such an openly supernatural scene.
Lief mounted the bike with agility, put on his sunglasses, and, looking back one last time, gave them a casual hand gesture.
"Well then... goodbye."
BROOOOM
The engine roared like a beast waking up, and the motorcycle shot away like lightning.
Under the stunned gazes of the police officers and the siblings, it disappeared in a matter of seconds at the end of the road.
With the wind cutting across his face, Lief felt incredibly relaxed.
"Alright, it's almost time. Time to head home," he murmured, accelerating. "I just wonder what exactly the surprise Airam was talking about will be."
________
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