But it didn’t matter. Now they were going to pay for it. First Dacho would kill them, and then he’d search Valta until he found Duke Malgor on his own. Then they’d probably go through the portal into Harmony and kill all the humans on Earth.
“If—if you hate humans,” Gabriel said. “Then why do you have them living on Solaria? Just for pets?” Gabriel grunted, needling pain tingling across his skin. “You’re weird, you know that, right?”
Gabriel wanted to break free and let the guy know exactly how much he hated him. Not just for all the damage he’d done with that gruock virus, but for what he’d done to Empress Malina and Princess Evangeline.
Recognition filled Dacho’s eyes. His feet pounded forward until he stood just inches outside of the force field that held Gabriel in its grip. The sun glinted off the surface of his silver face shield. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he spat. “On Solaria.”
“Y-yes.”
“Ye-ye-yes,” Dacho mocked. “You’re pathetic.”
Gabriel ignored that comment.
“You want to know why I hate humans so much?” He leaned in and blinked his golden eye. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because when we first acquired your people to work on our planet many centuries ago, you brought disease with you. A horrible virus that our kind wasn’t able to fight. As a result, many Solarians died … and are still dying.” He jolted his gloved hand forward, and the force field inflicted an extra intense zap.
Gabriel yelped, wishing he could yank the gloves right off the lizard freak. Dacho laughed before continuing. “Funny enough, it didn’t kill humans—only the Solarians,” he said with scorn. “We need to find the immunity—the immunity that kills the virus, that you humans have running through your blood.”
Holy crap. That explains why the robots were collecting blood from Crimson Lake.
“You’re trying to find immunities?”
Dacho sneered. “I’ve not given up hope that the ones who are the cause of such horrible disease are also the cure.”
“And then what?” Gabriel asked, afraid he already knew.
Dacho tilted his head to one side. “Once we isolate the antidote, we’ll dispose of most of you.” Gabriel flinched, and he imagined an evil smirk sliding up Dacho’s face behind his silver face shield. “The rest will be inoculated and kept to serve us. As a pet … or a servant, whichever you want to call it. You know how life is.” He waved a finger. “It’s the whole survival of the fittest, as you Earthlings like to say.”
Gabriel wanted to tell him that if humans were able to fight the virus, and Solarians couldn’t, then humans were obviously the fittest. But he shut his mouth, figuring that would only get him zapped again. Instead, he eyed Dacho’s black sci-fi gloves. If he could just reach out and grab them somehow, he could break free. He tried to move his stiff fingers, everything in him a ball of pain, but all he managed was to shift his hands a bit. Maybe he could use his speed to his advantage. If he could just get Dacho close enough.
“I don’t know exactly where to find Duke Malgor,” Gabriel said, panting through the pain. “But I have a map in my pocket that I brought for you. It—it’s a map to find him.”
Dacho perked up, his eyes narrowed. “If you’re lying to me … ” He turned to the other masked Solarians guarding the empress, then twisted back to face Gabriel. “If you’re lying to me, she’s dead.”
Gabriel blinked in understanding, a knot twisting in his gut. He couldn’t screw this up.
Dacho slowly removed the glove from his left hand and dropped it. The hold on Gabriel weakened on his right side where the glove had been facing. His feet touched the ground.
“The map?” Dacho said, his elongated pupils narrowing to the tiniest slits.
Gabriel gestured with his head toward his jacket pocket. His heart thumped faster by the second.
Come on, you snake. Come closer.
Dacho unzipped Gabriel’s pocket. Gabriel took his chance. He whipped his right arm forward and yanked the other black glove off of Dacho’s hand as quick as the speed of light. A force of air shot from Gabriel’s mouth as he was finally released from the tractor beam’s powerful hold.
“Now!” Gabriel yelled to Brent and Piper, hoping they were listening and would snap into action. He snatched up the other black glove from the ground and stuck them both inside his pocket, then hit the dirt running. As he dashed toward the empress, the tigers sprang forward with a roar.
“Smack down!” Brent yelled from behind him.
Laser beams shot out around them from every direction, making red lights dance through the air. It reminded Gabriel of the grid of tracks he’d seen through the portal on the Solarian side. The weapons made high-pitched sounds as they rang out, followed by booming explosions when they made impact with the trees and ground. One blast hit a patch of bushes and caught fire, the sizzling flames growing larger by the second.
Brent pounded his massive gloves over and over into one of the Solarians.
When Gabriel approached the empress, the tigers had already swept in and rushed some lizard men, trampling them. Dirt and the Solarians’ silver masks flew into the air as the tigers roared with revenge for their empress.
Gabriel met Empress Malina’s gaze as fire and ash licked at the sky, the sooty smell hitting Gabriel’s nose like a warning. “Gabriel,” she said, gasping and coughing. “You should have listened—”
“Ahh!” Piper screamed. Gabriel whipped his head around. Dacho held Piper by the throat as the lizard gave his head a quick little shake. Dacho met Gabriel’s gaze. “Whatever power she has is diminished by my shield. Take me to Duke Malgor, or I’ll snap her neck like a twig. You have only seen the beginning of the wrath of the Solarians. You have no idea what is about to hit your planet that you call Earth.”
Gabriel stepped forward, and Piper shrieked as Dacho tightened his grip around her neck. Even the tigers stopped their attack. Only the popping and sizzling of the fire crackled out.
Gabriel’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t let his friend die. And he couldn’t take the chance that he could move fast enough to stop Dacho. It would only take the alien a second to break her neck, and he was watching Gabriel’s every move. His heart sank. They’d lost the fight. Worse, they were going to lose all of humanity. How did they think they could take on other-worldly beings when so much was at stake for their world and for Valta’s?
He eyed the empress, desperate for her to at least know the truth. “I’m so sorry, Empress.”
The empress, looking just as pale and sick as Princess Evangeline, said, “You are a good boy, Gabriel. I know you did your very best.” Then she bowed her head.
Brent and Gabriel exchanged hopeless glances.
Then, from behind Dacho came a loud thundering. From the corner of Gabriel’s eye, he saw a bunch of people running toward them from all over the forest. They were yelling and screaming, the chaos growing louder as they got closer.
Gabriel focused in on a familiar face. His silvery hair was cut short and big wire frames circled his eyes.
Eric! He’s alive!
Eric and hordes of other people from Ericville rushed forward, spears and swords in hand. Except they ran so fast, and with the look of horror on their faces, it seemed like their butts were on fire.
And then a loud buzzing filled the air. Gabriel recognized the noise right away. He darted a gaze to the darkening sky, confirming his suspicions.
Poisonous Solarian locusts!
Dacho released his hold on Piper and shoved her to the ground. She crumbled into a ball like a ragdoll. “Get back through the portal!” Dacho yelled to the other Solarians. “We’ll come back. And don’t dare leave without the receptacle there.” He motioned toward Empress Malina. “We need the cydra!” He dashed toward the Solarian portal, calling over his shoulder as he went. “You’ve already lost the princess. Don’t dare lose another.”
Receptacle? Empress Malina? Cydra? What’s Dacho talking about?
Gabriel’s mind raced as
Eric and the others rushed forward. Eric slashed one creature with a swipe of his blade.
“Hello, my boy,” Eric said to Gabriel as he drew his sword back. “What are you waiting for? We need to get out of here!”
Gabriel jolted alert, just missing the brunt of a laser beam. As the locusts swooped in, and the fire grew to dizzying heights, more laser beams shot through the air, knocking people down and wounding them. He rocketed toward Piper, picked her up, and helped her onto a tiger’s back. Then, whipping across the ground at speeds he didn’t think were even possible, he shoved the Solarians guarding Empress Malina to the ground, tugged her up, and sidestepped a blast from another laser beam. Racing toward a tiger, he placed the empress on its back, thinking she looked like she was about to pass out at any second.
Gabriel was about to scoop up Finley, when Piper jumped back down. She planted her fisted hands on her hips. Gritting her teeth, she glared at a Solarian in the distance who fought with one of the humans. With an intensity Gabriel had never seen on Piper’s face before, she narrowed her eyes and yelled, “Ahhh!”
The Solarian dropped to his knees, slamming his hands around his head and screaming in pain.
Epic! She’s brain-blasting him straight through his face shield!
The other Solarians hurried toward their portal—as fast as they could with the cold already seeping into their bones. As they passed back through the crackling beams of electricity, zipping sounds that reminded Gabriel of a bug zapper sounded out.
With a hoot of victory, one of the people from Ericville finished off the Solarian that Piper had hurt with her brain blast.
But the locusts were swooping in. They had already stung several people whose faces blew up to the size of melons. They staggered around. It would only be minutes before they were all dead—killed by the plague the Solarians had created. Somehow, Gabriel needed to stop them.
An idea raced into his mind. He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of Dacho’s black sci-fi gloves, then the other, and slipped them on. The gloves tingled his hands, but it didn’t hurt.
He ran toward the locusts, ignoring Brent’s and Piper’s warning calls.
“Come on, you suckers!” Gabriel yelled, smacking his hands together, waving his arms high in the air. The tingling feeling stopped in his hands. He must have gotten used to them already. “Over here!”
The locusts stalled for a second in the sky, then honed in on Gabriel’s voice. “Here!” he yelled again.
As quick as an arrow, the mechanical locusts shot down through the sky toward Gabriel. Heart racing, he held up his gloved hands like Dacho.
Nothing.
Crap! How did Dacho work these things?
He shook his hands. “Abracadabra!”
Nothing.
“Hocus pocus!”
Maybe I broke them when I slapped my hands together.
The locusts swarmed in, and Gabriel stumbled back a few steps. Panicking, he flipped his hands back and forth looking for some way to make the gloves work. The glint of a small, silver button at the base of each middle finger caught his attention. The dirt on the ground in front of him sizzled as saliva from the locusts hit. Puffs of smoke filtered into the sky adding to the fire’s burning embers.
Gabriel pressed one button, then the next, sweat slicking down his back. The palms of the gloves lit up into sizzling beams of light and tingling sensations ran through his hands again. He must have deactivated them when he smacked his hands together.
“Gotcha!” Gabriel exclaimed, slamming his hands up into the sky just seconds before the locusts struck. The insects froze in place.
“Awesome!” Brent yelled, coming to a skidding halt beside Gabriel. “Now what?”
It was a good question. And Gabriel wasn’t sure what the answer was. He couldn’t stand there forever holding the locusts off. Eventually he’d either get too tired, or the gloves would give out or something.
“I’m not sure,” Gabriel admitted.
Brent whipped his head around to the Solarian portal. “They should go back to where they belong.”
“Yes, lad,” Eric said, stepping up beside them. “Brent is right.” He leaned in as any good scientist would, curious about the mechanical creatures. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Just look at those things, would you? They must have been brought over in a huge crate. That saliva won’t mix well with the atmospheric conditions of that gateway back there.” He lifted his chin toward the Solarian portal.
“You sure about that?” Gabriel asked.
“Not really,” Eric admitted with a shrug. “But it’s a theory.”
Gabriel squinted as he focused on moving the locusts toward the gateway. He shifted his hands slowly, and the locusts moved with them, held by the tractor beam. “Sick!” he yelled.
“But wait,” Eric said. “If my theory is correct, there’ll be an explosion. It’ll probably be small, but we need to get out of here.”
“Okay, go.” Gabriel continued to move slowly toward the Solarian gateway.
“But what about you?” Eric asked. “You might not be able to get away.”
“I got this. Get Empress Malina to Leejor, and everybody else away from here.”
Eric hesitated, searched the area for other possible solutions, but then met Gabriel’s confident gaze. “Let’s head out!” he yelled.
Gabriel watched as Piper climbed up on the tiger behind the empress. “Hurry!” she called as the tiger took off.
Brent slapped Gabriel’s shoulder as they moved along, the loud buzzing of the locusts mixing in with the sizzling fire. “Dude, you sure about this?”
“Yeah, man. I’m fast, remember? Just go. I’ll meet you at Leejor’s.”
Brent nodded, then took off on the other tiger as people scattered like flies.
Gabriel gritted his teeth and dug in his heels, focusing on luring the locusts to the portal. With a final thrust of his arms, the insects lurched toward the gateway. At first, nothing happened. Maybe there wouldn’t be an explosion at all. But Gabriel wasn’t going to take a chance. His feet hit the dirt running so fast that he felt like he was floating above the ground.
A second later, a loud explosion blasted out. The shock wave hit Gabriel in his back. Arms and legs flailing, he shot through the air and landed several feet away in a pile of rubble.
The last thing he remembered was hitting his head against a large boulder, as the fire crackled eerily and the world buzzed to black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Something wet and gritty like sandpaper slid across Gabriel’s cheek, the pressure pushing his head back. His head flopped forward again, and the slobbery thing pressed against the bridge of his nose and over one eye this time. The world slowly buzzed back into focus and he cracked open his eyes to the sizzling, popping fire, the ash filling the sky—and a huge white tiger licking his face.
“Ow.” Gabriel sat up and rubbed the welt on the side of his head. “What happened?” he asked, just as he remembered the explosion. His gaze dropped to the golden nameplate dangling from a chain around the tiger’s neck. The word Andimian was engraved in it.
“Andimian!” Gabriel yelled, reaching out to the tiger. “Leejor fixed you!”
The vision that Prince Oliver had shown him—the one of the prince finding Andimian wounded on the palace floor—shot through Gabriel’s mind and made him wince. The huge tiger blinked his blue eyes, pushing at Gabriel’s leg with a giant white paw. He knew the tiger wanted him to move—that he needed to move—before he went up in flames along with the trees blazing around him. He forced himself up, stood on wobbly legs, and then stumbled forward against the tiger’s soft coat.
Andimian stretched his front paws low, angling his body so that Gabriel could climb aboard. Grabbing hold of the leather straps around the tiger’s neck, Gabriel pulled himself up, and at the same time noticed two things. One was that ropes were rolled up and looped around the tiger’s harness. The other was a scroll attached to the straps.
As they soared high above the crackling fire, Gabriel tugged the paper out with one hand and read the note:
Gabriel,
I hope this note finds you, and finds you well. Finley arrived at the palace and informed me of your trouble with Dacho. Shortly before that, word came from Leejor that my mother and sister, along with your friends, landed at his home. However, the empress and princess are dying. Sadly, neither Leejor nor Eric has a healing method for their strange illness. If there is any hope, it will be found from an ancient. Finley told me that you know of the white witch, Cadence, who happens to be just that. Furthermore, it is you who has the ability to move swiftly with the magical power bestowed on you. Therefore you have the best chance of freeing the witch and getting her to my family fast. I implore you, Gabriel Stone: Allow Andimian to take you to Fool’s Well, find the witch, and bring her to Leejor’s. It is our hope that she will have the cure to what is killing my family.
Go well and with haste as time is running out.
~ Prince Oliver
Great.
Gabriel slumped against Andimian’s back, wrapping his arms around the tiger’s neck. The crisp wind beat against his pounding head and a sick feeling churned in his stomach. He was supposed to go in the freaking well by himself? To get a witch out?
Gabriel sighed. And just when everything had started to go right, too. The Solarians leaving Valta? The portal destroyed by the explosion? And the royals safe again? All very cool. Gabriel had known they’d have to get the white witch out of the well in order to release the souls from the vase. But doing it alone? And with the added stakes about saving the empress and princess—from death? Definitely not cool. No, it was worse than not cool. It sucked slime—green slime with maggots. Wells were Gabriel’s kryptonite.
Before he knew it, Andimian dove down through the air. Below, a huge field that looked like a sea of gold spread out for miles. Andimian landed and padded forward. Corn stalks crunched under the tiger’s paws. The whisper of the wind rattled the shoots, creating a sound like an alarm that blared in Gabriel’s ears.
Gabriel Stone and the Wrath of the Solarians Page 15