Shadows of Neverland (Second Star Book 3)

by Josh Hayes

"Peter," she cried into the comm. "We can't let them get away! We have to stop them."

  The small orange beam vanished, and Peter just stood there in midair, watching. Why was he just standing there?

  "Peter! They're getting away!"

  "It's no use," Peter said. He hung there for a moment, then began slowly gliding back down to the ground.

  She ran out to him. "We can't just let them go!"

  Peter dropped the new beam rifle as Wendy reached him, his expression solemn. "It's too late. Black's won. There's no way we can win against that."

  Wendy stopped short, stunned at what she'd heard. "No," she said, shaking her head. "We can stop him. We have to."

  "And how do you propose to do that, Wendy?" Peter barked.

  Wendy stepped back, shocked at his tone. She looked into his eyes; the boyish sparkle she loved so much was gone. Those bright green eyes, usually so full of fun and adventure, had turned into dark pits of sorrow and anger. His cold stare twisted her stomach. This was not the same man she'd woken up next to.

  Above them a skiff appeared, flying out from the Graft Fortress, smoke billowing out from one of its engines. It slowed, descending through the air, and touched down near the line of destroyed Blackhand skiffs. Tom rushed over, embracing his brother as he hopped down from the craft.

  Wendy looked around at the devastation surrounding them. The bodies of Black's soldiers sprawled out awkwardly, smoke curling up from the destroyed skiffs, torn-up earth and jungle from cannon fire. She looked out at the line of trees to her right and saw the faintest hint of smoke filtering up through the canopy. Another wave of nausea came over her as she turned back to Peter, tears welling up in her eyes.

  "They killed him, Peter. They killed Ace."

  Some of the hardness faded from Peter's eyes at her words. He pulled her close, pressing her head into his chest. She felt him take in a ragged breath, then Peter Pantiri did something she'd never seen him do before.

  Peter cried.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Now

  The compass display twitched again. If he hadn't been focusing on the instruments, John probably wouldn't even have caught it. In the hour since Wendy had finished telling them about Ace's funeral, there hadn't been really anything to say. The lull in the story caused John to have to focus on something other than Wendy's words, and the only thing other than the blue sky outside to look at was the skiff's instrument clusters.

  John waited and a second later, the display blinked again.

  "That's not good," he said, frowning.

  "Hmmmm?" Wendy asked.

  "That's the second time my displays have flickered in the last hour."

  "Is that significant?"

  "Well, if my display goes out, we won't have any way to get back to the city, so I'd say that's pretty significant."

  Wendy glanced at him, eyebrows raised.

  "Sorry, just been cramped up in this seat for too long."

  Wendy eyed the instruments panel in front of her. "What do you think is causing it?"

  "No telling."

  "Whoa, guys," Michael said from the passenger compartment. "Starboard side, about five hundred feet out."

  John leaned forward and arched his neck to see around Wendy.

  Wendy put a hand on the window. "Well, that might explain your gauges."

  Outside the skiff, a boulder the size of a house floated in mid-air. Green moss grew in patches over the surface, strands of roots hung from the underside.

  "Well, that's new," John said.

  "That's impossible," Michael said.

  "Come on, Michael," Wendy said, not sounding the least bit surprised. "You know better than that."

  Quickly, John rechecked all his gauges. They all appeared normal, but he kept his eyes locked on them nevertheless. "If gravity out here is messed up, we probably don't want to stay in the air much longer. Gravity does bad things."

  "There's another one," Michael said.

  It took John a moment to find it, but eventually saw it, another massive rock slab floating several hundred feet away and higher than the first.

  "They look like broken pieces of the spires we've been flying over," John said. "See the color rings? And the bottom, there, looks like it snapped off somehow."

  The further they went, the more floating spires appeared, some smaller pieces, others enormous pieces of earth seemingly ripped from the surface. John got the sense that some fierce battle had been fought here ages ago, and it didn't look like anyone had actually won.

  He kept their speed steady, refusing to take his hands from the controls. After thirty minutes of careful flying, John realized that despite the strangeness of floating rocks and occasional display interruptions, it didn't seem like anything was actually affecting their flight. He started playing with the controls, testing his theory.

  "What are you doing?" Wendy asked after he'd banked the skiff for the second time.

  "Whatever's affecting those rocks doesn't seem to be affecting the overall gravity of the area. It's not hindering my flight, anyway."

  "Then what the hell is keeping those things in the air?" Michael asked.

  "Hey, it's Neverland, right?" John said.

  "So we're good to keep flying?" Wendy asked.

  John pursed his lips and sniffed. "Flying is one thing. If those glitches turn into more than just glitches, that's something else entirely."

  After a second, Wendy said, "We keep going."

  John strained to keep his exasperation out of his voice. "I really hope whatever you're looking for is worth it."

  ***

  "Now I know how Han felt in Empire," John said, maneuvering around yet another floating spire.

  "I'm sorry?" Michael asked, raising an eyebrow. He'd exchanged seats with Wendy an hour before, allowing her to stretch and eat.

  "In the asteroid field… oh, never mind, it would definitely lose something in the translation."

  Michael jabbed a thumb outside. "I wonder what's down there."

  John looked outside his own window, down at the thick cloud cover hiding the surface from view. Jagged peaks sporadically broke the undulating grey blanket of fog. The floating pieces of rock and earth had grown denser as they travelled deeper in the field. From their position, John couldn't see an end to the expansive field of rock.

  "For once," John said, trying to shake off the unease growing in his stomach, "I'm in total disagreement with you."

  The instrument panel flickered again, some displays blinking off completely. John felt a definite fluctuation in the skiff's power systems. The controls became sluggish in his hand for a moment, but then almost as suddenly as it had vanished, power returned and his steering normalized. The panels, however, remained dark.

  John tapped one the blank displays. "Hmmmm."

  "What's up?" Michael asked.

  After a second the panels returned to life, and John let out a relived breath. He eased back on the throttle, slowing their advance through the floating spires.

  Wendy appeared in the hatch between them. "What's going on?"

  "Lost power for a couple seconds," John said. "And that time the skiff's power systems were affected. I'm not sure how much further we should go."

  "What do you mean? They came back on, didn't they?"

  "This time they did. But the glitches are becoming increasingly worse, we get too far in there and they might not come back on."

  "We keep going."

  John's nostrils flared. "Wendy, I—"

  "We keep going," Wendy said, her tone almost desperate.

  "Wendy, we don't even know if your friends are out here."

  "They're out here. I know they are."

  "But what if they're not? What if there isn't anything, or anyone, out here to find? What then?"

  "Guys," Michael said.

  "Or," John continued, "maybe they don't want anyone to find them. We can't look for them forever. We've only got enough fuel for another day or so before we have to turn back, and eve
n that's pushing it."

  "They're not hiding," Wendy told him. "They don't have any reason to hide. They're out here, and I'm willing to bet they've already seen us and are just waiting on us to make contact. Trying to figure out if we're a threat or not."

  "Look, let's just say they are out here, there's obviously a reason they decided to live all the way out here, and I doubt it's because they wanted to have a whole bunch of uninvited guests knocking on their door wondering if they've heard the good word."

  "Guys," Michael repeated.

  They both ignored him.

  "They'll help us," Wendy said. "Lily is a warrior, she won't just stand by and let this world fall."

  John couldn't take it anymore. "But where have they been since? What have they done for Neverland since they helped you attack Black at the Fortress? When the attack failed, she left. She abandoned you and ran home."

  For the first time that John could remember, Wendy's confidence seemed to be cracking. She slapped the bulkhead. "She didn't have a choice. If she didn't return to tell the rest of them about what happened…"

  "Right, then all would be lost," John said, not hiding the sarcasm. "She abandoned you, and put this crazy idea in your head that someday, when all the stars aligned and the right amount of people did the magic rain dance, they would suddenly appear and save the day, good ol' deus ex machina style."

  "Listen—"

  Michael cut her off. "Guys!"

  "What?" both shouted.

  "Look."

  John followed the ex-cop's finger out to the distance clouds. He watched for several seconds, seeing nothing but floating chunks of rock. "I don't—"

  "Wait."

  A second later he saw it.

  "Holy shit," John said, not believing what he was seeing.

  In the distance, a long serpentine shape snaked through the clouds, gliding effortlessly through the air around, over, and underneath several long spires before disappearing behind one of the large floating slabs.

  "What is it?" Wendy asked. "I missed it."

  John shook his head, still trying to process what he'd seen. "It can't be that big."

  "No," Michael said. "It was huge. Did you see the size of that thing?"

  It emerged again through a dense cloud and made a loop in the air. The dark body had to be a hundred feet long at least, and as wide as an elephant. Dark yellow stripes, alternated with matte black scales, covered its body all the way to its bright yellow head. Two eyes, dark black pits, sat behind a wide mouth that opened and closed as the beast floated through the air.

  "There's no way something that big can fly," John said.

  "Oh my God," Wendy said, finally seeing the creature.

  "Do you think it's seen us?" Michael asked.

  They all watched it intently for several moments. The long skysnake looped and whirled around and through rock and clouds, but gave no sign that it had seen, or cared about, the new arrivals.

  John flexed his hands, keeping them loose on the controls. "I don't—"

  Wendy interrupted him, pointing ahead of them and below. "There's another one."

  "Yeah, we're getting the hell out of here," John said, checking his surroundings before pushing the throttle forward. The whine of the engines grew and the skiff shot forward.

  "No, wait!" Wendy said, reaching over him, grabbing at the controls.

  John pushed her hands away, taking his hands off the controls for a brief second. The skiff jumped slightly to the side and John cursed, taking hold of the stick again. He glared at Wendy. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  She stared out the windshield, eyes locked on something in the distance, ignoring John's protest. "Shit."

  John followed her gaze and his stomach twisted. The skysnake had stopped flying, frozen in mid-loop, its yellow head and ominous black eyes locked on their small skiff. As they watched, the skysnake's long body began to coil up behind its head.

  "Well, that's not good," Michael said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Now

  The skysnake lurched forward, it's gaping maw open to impossibly wide.

  "Hold on!" John yelled, slamming the throttle forward. He gritted his teeth as they rolled and banked underneath one of the larger spires. They dropped into the shadow of the wide slab, long roots scraping against the roof of the skiff. John killed the throttle, bringing them to a stop under the middle of the large chunk of earth.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Wendy asked.

  Before John could answer, a massive black shape shot past the far edge of the slab, yellow lines a blur as the skysnake tore through the air. Wendy and Michael learned against their windows, watching to see where the terrifying creature went. John didn't care, as long as it wasn't coming at them. He gunned the throttle again and flew out from underneath their cover.

  "Might want to get on those guns," John said.

  Michael shot him a surprised look. "Are you crazy?"

  "We can't keep hiding forever. Those things'll rip us apart."

  "For Graft's sake," Michael said, already bringing the skiff's auto-cannons online.

  "What are you going to do?" Wendy asked.

  "Hopefully not die." John rolled left, banking over another spire. "Do you see it?"

  Wendy moved back into the passenger compartment and a second later said, "No, I don't see it."

  "Me neither," Michael said. "Wait, no, behind us, four o'clock."

  "Above us or below us?"

  "Above."

  "Clever girl," John muttered, pushing the skiff into a dive.

  Michael pressed himself against the side window. "Holy shit, that thing moves fast."

  John gritted his teeth, knowing any second the monster would plow into the back of their little craft and turn them into so much flaming wreckage. He slalomed through a line of spires and cut back abruptly to the right, trying to throw the creature off.

  "Where's he at?"

  "Hold on, I lost him," Michael said, adjusting his position, angling his head, trying to get a better view. "Holy shit!" he shouted. "Down! Down! Down!"

  John shoved the controls forward, putting them into a steep dive. A shadow came over the cockpit and a moment later, the mottled body of the skysnake shot by in a blur of motion. A high-pitched scream pierced the air as the tip of the tail zipped past.

  "Son of a bitch," John said, banking around a spire the size of a house. The angled underside looked like it had been ripped right from the earth, long brown roots and green vines swaying in the air underneath it. Several trees grew from the topside. A slim land bridge appeared on the far side of the spire, connecting it to another twenty feet away. A car-sized boulder drifted into the bridge, breaking apart when it hit, sending bits of rock drifting through the air in all directions.

  As they flew underneath the bridge, small bits of rock and earth bounced off the skiff's hull, giving John an idea.

  "Can you at least give me some warning next time?" Wendy shouted from the back.

  "Wendy, strap in, this isn't going to be fun," John told her, scanning the field around them for the snake.

  Massive chunks of earth and rock filled the sky around them, some connected by small natural rock bridges. Dense jungle and foliage covered many of the larger pieces, like they had been ripped from the earth and pulled into the sky. They dipped underneath one and saw hundreds of vines and roots hanging out of the base. A thick mist hid the ground below and gave the field of floating earth an eerie feel.

  A flash outside his window caught John's attention. He didn't see anything at first, but after a moment he saw it: a small spherical drone, its metallic body glinting in the sunlight. It held steady, a few feet outside John's window, matching their course and speed, almost like it was watching them.

  "Ummm, Wendy?" John started.

  Michael cut him off. "I think I—"

  "Shit, John, pull up! Pull up!" Wendy yelled.

  John didn't hesitate. He yanked back on the controls, bringing the skiff's nose up f
ast. Engines screamed and the entire craft shook under the stress.

  An instant later the skiff lurched forward, throwing John against his restraints. The outside world spun. He lost his grip on the controls, and had to press against the roof as the skiff was tossed about like a child's toy. Warning alarms wailed and the instrument panels lit up like a Christmas tree. A brief feeling of weightlessness came over him as the skiff spun wildly.

  Michael shouted, but his words went unheard. John strained against the g-forces, reaching for the controls. Emergency response training took over, allowing him to block out the chaos around him, focusing on keeping the skiff in the air.

  John fought with the controls, attempting to arrest their spin. They shot past large spires, missing some by mere inches. He managed to flare the engines, pushing them over another land bridge.

  "Feisty little bastards," John said through clenched teeth as he brought the skiff level.

  "What the hell was that?" Michael asked.

  "I'm pretty sure that skysnake bastard saw us. Do you see where it went?"

  "It disappeared in the clouds," Michael said.

  "Great," John said, adjusting their course. Keeping their flight path erratic might work for the short term, but he couldn't see any way to outfly the monster.

  Michael looked back. "Wendy, you okay?"

  "No, I'm not okay, damn it! What the hell are you doing up there?"

  "Well," John said, "I'm trying not to be lunch for that big, evil snake-monster thing."

  "There!" Michael pointed.

  The skysnake appeared from behind a spire ahead, flipping over itself, black pits locked on them.

  John tightened his grip on the controls. "Don't miss."

  Michael shot him a confused look. "What"

  The snake lurched forward, jaws widening to swallow them whole. John slammed the throttle forward and flew straight toward the charging monster.

  "Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" John yelled.

  The skiff shook as the cannons fired, sending a hail of rounds downrange. John held their course until the last moment, then pulled up hard. The skysnake shot under them and John barrel-rolled to avoid its snapping tail.

  "Did you hit it?"

  Michael pressed himself against the window, trying to see. "Yeah, I hit the bastard. Left side."