by Ugo, Kachi
This far away from Eastern Mount Desert Island, Peter only had to contend with the physical drain of using his power. And over the last couple of days, his stamina had only grown.
Peter tapped his power core, causing it to flame, then lifted his hands and pulled on all tree leaves within a one-mile radius. Like a suction, his power core sucked almost half of his physical strength to feed such a daring attempt.
Within seconds, he was hidden amid a tornado of leaves whipping around him, even as more leaves joined the vortex. While still in motion, he launched his staff to the Metallic on his immediate right.
In midair, the tip of his staff sharpened to a bleeding edge, then pierced through the Metallic’s chest and heart.
Still heading for the man in the doorway, the staff jumped out of the Metallic’s chest and sailed into Peter’s waiting hand. A Metallic jumped blindly into the vortex, metal objects springing around him.
Peter dived, forcing portions of the leaves to form tendrils. The man’s hands and legs were tied in midair. By the time Peter rolled and came up again, another tendril had strangled the life out of him.
Never for once did Peter break stride.
The Metallic in the doorway had a long enough time to react to the attack. He threw a hailstorm of metal objects at Peter.
Peter brought up his staff, lobbing it vertically ahead of him. The staff stretched itself into a small shield, taking the main brunt of the metal onslaught. Next, Peter threw his hands forward. Following this was a sharp whine as the tornado surged ahead like a shockwave and blasted into the man.
The man was snagged off his feet and thrown inside the house. He bounced off the floor once, then tendrils snapped around his legs and yanked him outside. He bounced off the porch the second time and smashed into the lawn, dazed.
Peter swirled around to help Rose. She was in the process of smashing a small rock into the head of the last standing Metallic. The man crumpled to the ground, probably dead. Rose straightened out of her attack slouch and slapped her palms together. Grains of sand crumbled off them.
Peter let go of his power, his leaves settling to the ground like a rainfall. The drain on his strength ceased, and he gasped for breath.
“Come on,” Peter said. “There may be more in the house.”
Rose searched upstairs, while Peter searched downstairs. Delphina waited on the lawn to keep an eye on the bodies.
Minutes later, they met again in the lobby downstairs.
“There’s no one upstairs,” Rose announced. “It’s a mess up there. There was a huge battle here.”
“The Metallics beat us to it,” Peter said. “The guy who led the attack on the Tree House got here before we did. They might already have the One.”
“I don’t think so,” Rose said. “Otherwise, why was the star still pointing here? It’s either he’s here or there’s a clue here that will lead us to him.”
“So we look around for a clue?” Peter asked.
“Precisely,” Rose said. “I’ll search upstairs, you search down here.” She made to go, then paused and looked at him.
“How did you know to do that stuff with the leaves?” she asked.
Peter glanced out the house at the trees in view. They now looked leafless with spindly branches, while the lawn was carpeted by innumerable leaves. It was just like fall.
“I don’t know,” Peter replied. “I wasn’t thinking. I just did it in the heat of the moment.”
“Huh,” Rose muttered, then headed up the winding staircase in the lobby.
Right there in the wide lobby, Peter could see the dark skies and a blazing star right through the ceiling. He could see Rose moving from room to room with practiced determination, her eyes scanning every surface, every wall, every curious item.
He looked around his immediate environment. The pattern of destruction—the shattered wooden beams, the gaping hole in the western side of the house, the hole in the roof, the pillaged drawers, the large chunks of concrete lying around—suggested more than five perpetrators.
The main team must have caused all of this destruction, then left this second team to probably kill anyone who came looking.
Peter made his way through the rubble. The damage was extensive and exhaustive. He got the feeling that they had been looking for something. The boy? Had he hidden somewhere? Could he still be hiding? Was that why they had left a residual team, in case the boy decided to come out of hiding?
Peter was standing in the middle of what looked like the kitchen when a thought occurred to him.
“Hello! We are Woodfolks, and we mean you no harm,” Peter yelled, hoping the boy would hear him and come out of hiding. Peter waited in the dead silence, hoping for a miracle.
“He’s gone,” was the reply he got, which startled him. He glanced at the doorway and saw Rose standing there with a device in her hand. She led him back to the lobby, where there was a small open trapdoor.
“That wasn’t there before,” Peter said, noting the perfect edges of the hole.
“No,” Rose replied.
She gestured at the silvery artifact in her hand. “This was what we felt. The surge. I used my powers again, trying to search for it, and it led me to the trapdoor.”
The artifact was cuboidal in shape, spanning Rose’s palm length. It had cursive metallic designs along its body with a scarlet jewel embedded into its center.
“Is it glowing?” Peter asked, taking a closer look at the jewel. It seemed to pulse weakly every three or so seconds.
“Yes,” Rose replied.
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Rose replied. “I think it might be some sort of tracking device.”
Peter looked up at Rose. “You think it’ll lead us to the One?”
She nodded solemnly.
“What if it leads us to the Metallics?” Peter asked.
“Is that any different?” Rose asked.
Peter shook his head. The Metallics wouldn’t have left here if they hadn’t already caught the One or found a way to track him.
“You see that pulsing red gem in the middle?” Rose asked.
Peter nodded. “Pulses every three seconds or so.”
“I believe that means he’s still alive,” Rose said. “Of course, this could all be wrong. I don’t know what this thing really is or what it does. All I know is that we felt it when we approached, and if you tried now you’d be able to sense it. What else can it mean?”
Peter could see the frustration in her eyes; he could even hear it in her tone. This was all they had. If they lost the One’s trail here, then the next option would be to go after the Metallics in their home state. That was a deadly proposition.
He tapped his powers. He immediately sensed it. It was like a small sun in his mind. It was unlike what he’d ever felt before. It was different.
Peter opened his eyes, letting go of his power. “I felt it.”
“Feels like a power core, doesn’t it?” Rose asked.
“I was going to say sun, but your description seems more fitting.”
“So, do you think we follow it?”
Peter sighed. What other choice did they have? If only Grey Crawford was awake, he’d know what to do. If only more people believed in the prophecy, maybe they could seek help. But, as it stood, they were on their own.
“Do you know how to work it?” Peter asked.
Rose shook her head. “How hard can it be?”
“A lot hard, if you don’t know how to work it.”
“I believe we can figure it out once we’re moving,” Rose said. “Maybe it pulses brighter or makes a sound or something. We won’t know if we don’t move. But we need to be moving in the right direction to begin with so we don’t waste any more time.”
“I have an idea.” Peter led Rose back out to the lawn.
“Did you find anything?” Delphina asked.
“We found this,” Rose said
, showing her the artifact.
“What’s that?”
“Some sort of tracker,” Peter said, kneeling by the leader of the team there. He was a tall and able-bodied man in his late twenties. He had a black T-shirt that said I EAT WOOD FOR A LIVING. It was probably a really stupid idea, wearing that into Woodfolk territory.
Peter drew his right hand backward, then struck the man across the face. The man immediately snapped out of unconsciousness, his hands grabbing his left face.
He took one look at Peter, then Delphina and Rose standing behind him, and fear descended upon expression. The man began to push backward, shivering, but Peter grabbed a fist full of his shirt and slammed him into the ground.
“Help me!” the man screamed.
“They are all gone,” Peter whispered in a low tone. “You are the only one left. Whether you stay that way is entirely up to you.”
“Make no mistakes,” Peter continued, looking the man in the eye and making sure the man understood just how serious Peter was. “I. Will. Kill. You. If you do not cooperate fully.”
The man nodded submissively.
“Good. Let’s start with something simple. What is your name?”
“Rex.”
“What was your mission here?”
“We were sent to locate and abduct the One of prophecy.”
“Tell us what happened.”
Rex sang like a canary. They had arrived with a simple mandate. Abduct the One. Take his parents alive or kill them, but come back with the One. When they arrived, they were attacked by a bandit of rogue Metallics. There were about thirty of them and the ensuing battle was the cause of the great destruction to the house.
After torturing one of the bandits, they realized that the bandits had been paid by an anonymous person to guard the house. They also found out that the One and his parents had taken off way before they arrived.
Then their leader, Lead Dumont, took most of their men in pursuit of the One and his parents, while the rest of them were to stay behind for another day to frustrate any plans to locate the boy.
“This Lead Dumont,” Peter asked, “was he the one who led the attack on the Tree House?”
Rex nodded vigorously.
Good, Peter thought, filing that information away in his mind. Now that I know his name, it’ll be easier to find him and kill him.
“And what was it he took from the Tree House?” Peter asked.
Rex froze, his lips twitching.
“Answer me!” Peter snapped.
“The Book of Grey,” Rex stuttered. “It’s everything. It’s the Holy Grail of the Woodfolks. It’s the master plan. It’s the book of books. Secrets. Weapons. Prophecies. Strengths and weaknesses. Safe houses. Spy lists. Everything you can think of.”
There was a silence as Peter fully realized what this Book of Grey in the hands of Metallics at such a time as this would mean for the war efforts.
Question is, can I trust you? Peter wondered. Can I take your word for it?
Although Peter hadn’t spent much time with the CIA, he’d learned a lot about intelligence gathering and the tool of misinformation. He knew enough not to believe the word of an enemy combatant under duress, at least not completely.
“What do you people want with the One?” Rose asked, tilting the direction of the questioning.
“I am not sure what the Monarch intends on using the boy for,” Rex said. “I am but a lowly Grunt.”
Grunt? Peter thought. Is that some sort of cadre?
“Really?” Peter said with an incredulous smile. “How does world domination sound?”
“Yes,” Rex replied. “But not by using him in war. No. He’s doing some sort of experiment. There have been whispers of a great machine that would forever ensure the dominion of Metallics forever.
“According to these rumors, the final piece of the puzzle is the One. As soon as we get the One, we will finally have our great machine.”
Peter noticed that as Rex told this tale of a great machine his spurn returned. There was belligerence in his voice and a slight sneer at the corner of his lips.
So he doesn’t get any ideas, Peter grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to within three inches of his scrunched up face.
“Tell me! Where did they go?”
Rex trembled once more. “We discovered that they took a cross-country bus to Louisiana. We are not sure which particular bus. All we know is that the bus left about an hour ago.”
Peter glanced at Delphina.
“They’ll probably be on I-81 by now,” she answered his unspoken question. “That should put them in Louisiana in a little over a day.”
“No deviations?” Rose asked.
“There are many other routes that can be taken,” Delphina replied. “But since it’s a bus service, they will take the shortest route and won’t deviate.”
“That is bad.”
Delphina nodded. “We have to get going. We can still catch up with them.” She paused and looked at Rex. “Right after we kill him, of course.”
This caused Rex to jolt away. Before he could get too far, Peter struck Rex’s lower neck with his elbow, sending him into unconsciousness.
“We aren’t killing him.”
Delphina frowned. “And when he regains consciousness? He’ll tell the main team we are on their tail.”
“He won’t remember,” Peter replied. “Where I hit him will cause short-term amnesia. He’ll know something went wrong, but not what exactly.”
“He’ll see all his dead comrades,” Delphina said.
“So he’ll assume that another set of bandits came and killed them,” Peter replied.
“And how did you learn that?”
“At the Farm.” Peter rose to his feet and started walking back to their car.
“You can’t be soft on them, Pete,” Delphina said beside him. “These guys are heartless. You’ve experienced their ruthlessness first hand. They were responsible for Cynthia’s death, and if we fail, they’ll become responsible for Grey’s death, too.
“Today alone, in the last two days alone, they’ve slaughtered us in the hundreds. You can’t be weak in meting out judgment. These bastards deserve everything coming their way.”
Delphina glanced at Rose for support, but Rose shrugged and looked away.
Peter was furious that Del had brought up Cynthia and his father. He remained silent until they were all seated in the car.
He started the car, then turned to face her beside him in the front passenger’s seat.
“I’m not weak, Del,” he replied in a measured tone. “In the past two days, I’ve killed dozens of Metallics, so do not lecture me about killing them.
“One thing I will not do, however, is kill a defenseless person. We will never have this conversation again, and while you are with me, you will never kill a defenseless Levitator, Delphina Bishop.”
Peter didn’t wait for a response. He turned the car around headed southeast, in the direction of Route 61, the One, and possibly an army of Grunts, of which Lead Dumont was leader.
CHAPTER TWENTY
J
ulian stood looking over the lush green side of Mount Desert Island. His vantage point from the spacious room on the fifth floor of the College of Atlantic’s Special Research Complex guaranteed a nice view of the wide parking lot, most of the west side of the campus, and the undulating surface of the mountain.
Before his father’s demise, Julian hadn’t really cared about the WRI’s facilities here in the College of Atlantic, only visiting once or twice. But now he had been to the college every day for the past three days.
The college was particularly alive this particular Tuesday.
Students strolled around campus, chatting and tapping their smartphones, unaware of the dark storm that was gathering above their heads—the storm of war every Woodfolk in Maine and across the country knew was upon them.
Julian watched a group of girls appro
ach the Special Research Complex, laughing at something one of them had said. They looked so happy, so peaceful, with their flailing long hair and shiny new phones.
Julian heaved a sigh. He looked up at the green side of Mount Desert Island and tried to locate the Tree House. He had been told that if he stood in a tall-enough building in the College of Atlantic and looked very carefully, he would be able to see the tip of the Tree House.
After searching for a few minutes, Julian gave up in frustration and looked away. The Tree House was a standing wreck anyway. Seeing it would only cause his slowly burning rage from three nights ago to take him.
Julian first looked at the clock in the room before going over to stand by his father’s frail form. It was some minutes after noon, and Julian, as he had done for the past three days, had left the flurry of activities of a whole tribe preparing for war to spend some time with his father.
Grey Crawford lay on the single bed in the large room, thin and wasted, wearing a plain blue hospital garment. His skeletal structure was visible, hidden only from exposure by the thin film of skin that clung on to it.
Grey’s skin was pale beyond description, his breathing aided by the machines hooked up to him. Virtually all of his body functions were being aided by the life-support machines around him.
Julian still couldn’t understand why his father’s condition had deteriorated so precipitously. It wasn’t as if he was infected by a savage infection that only saw the light of day in science fiction novels.
No, his father had been cut down by shrapnel, which had been Levitated into his blood and was now making its way to his heart. If anything, he should be conscious.
Overwhelmed by the Grey Crawford he saw on the bed, he looked away for a moment.
The room was oval. It was white, spotless, and empty. There was a couch by the wall, but aside from that, the room was devoid of furniture.
Doctor Wallace had explained that part of the reason Grey was dying was the terrestrial climate in which they lived.
Though they were some distance from the east side of Mount Desert Island, its resistive atmosphere—or its rage, when put literally—still held sway over the surrounding trees for as far as, apparently, the College of Atlantic.