by Jenny Goebel
Ian reddened. What was she implying?
“ ‘Power unearned,’ ” Dan chimed in. “He’s saying we don’t deserve to lead the Cahills. And, arrows, those totally have a symbolic meaning of defense. The Outcast is saying that we’re broken. We failed to defend the airship, and if we don’t stay on our toes, this levee failure in the Netherlands—it’s going to be on our hands, too.”
Ian couldn’t stop himself from glancing down at his own hands. He was in desperate need of a manicure, but worse, they felt ineffectual. After failing to stop the second disaster, he’d felt ineffectual. It wasn’t a sensation he was accustomed to. And he didn’t like it any more than he liked dealing with other people’s problems.
Perhaps he’d been a little hasty in his long-held belief that he’d surpassed his role model, Napoleon Bonaparte—a fine Lucian strategist if ever there was one. Ian hated to admit it, but with the fresh taste of defeat in his mouth, he thought he might actually have sunk to Napoleon’s level.
Even though Napoleon had succeeded in conquering the world, he’d ultimately suffered defeat at that distasteful affair, the Battle of Waterloo. Although that wasn’t the first time Napoleon had been forced to abdicate his throne and be sent into exile. The allies had invaded France in 1814 and sent Napoleon to exile on the island of Elba. But he’d escaped and immediately reclaimed his empire.
The cheerful thought struck Ian that the airship disaster was merely his island of Elba. It wasn’t too late to outshine Napoleon. When history books were written about Ian Kabra, there would be no Battle of Waterloo.
Ian puffed out his chest, but no one around him seemed to notice. They were all gripped by whatever it was Dan had been saying.
“Look, I know I was, like, just a little dweeb when Hurricane Katrina went down,” Dan continued, “but sometimes my memory is a colossal curse.
“I can still see the images that ran on the news. Cars floating down the street and people stuck on rooftops. And rooftops were, like, the only thing you could see. Houses, buildings, gas stations—everything was completely submerged in water.”
Hamilton groaned as he gazed out the window at the pool. “Maybe I don’t feel much like going for a swim after all.”
“It’s settled, then,” Ian said in a voice as commanding as his war-hungry Lucian predecessor. “It is time to prepare for battle, chaps, and we will be victorious! There will be no Waterloo!”
To that, Ian was met with nothing but blank stares.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Er, storm or no storm, we leave for the Netherlands first thing in the morning.”
Attleboro, Massachusetts
The Outcast set up troops outside the village. He speculated that a team of archers, goblins, and barbarians would do the trick. The number was great enough to launch a strong attack but would leave him enough manpower for his true objective.
The strategy video game on his tablet was mildly entertaining. He preferred a real-life chessboard and a living opponent sitting across from him. That was, as long as the opponent was worthy. His butler, Mr. Berman, was not.
As the Outcast’s online adversaries reacted to the attack, he took note of the time. The children would’ve received his latest work of poetry by now. The wheels were in motion. Whether the children lived or died made no difference to him. That was what set him apart. That was why he won when others lost.
Family was valuable only as long as it made you strong. If loyalty was blind or attachments ran too deep, family could be a great weakness. Family had been Grace’s undoing.
There’d never been any doubt that Grace was ruthless. But she never seemed to understand that if you truly wanted to win, sacrifices had to be made—even painful sacrifices.
While the online villagers were distracted by his troops, the Outcast would make his real move. He couldn’t care less about his dying archers, barbarians, and goblins. He’d make no rescue attempts. Hiding behind the chaos he’d created, he’d secretly search for the dark elixir—the elixir that would eradicate his enemies forever.
Perhaps this game did possess some improvements over chess, after all.
“Excuse me,” Mr. Berman interrupted.
Mr. Berman had a biddable nature. He’d been an easy play when the Outcast needed to slide someone into position at Grace’s estate before the takeover. The Outcast’s only regret was that he hadn’t purchased the loyalty of someone with a quicker wit and a better poker face. The butler bored him.
The Outcast set down his tablet. “What is it?”
“I just thought you should be made aware that Nellie Gomez and Sammy Mourad were spotted departing a plane at Mount Fuji Shizuoka Airport. That’s the closest airport to the Tomas stronghold. Should we alert Magnus?”
The Outcast pressed his fingertips together and breathed deeply. “No.”
“No?”
“Do you need me to repeat myself?” The Outcast sharpened his tone. If Magnus knew he was at risk of being detected, he might abort his assignment. The Tomas leader was but one cog in the wheel, and the Outcast needed him to keep turning in order for the project to reach completion. “If Nellie and Sammy somehow manage to make it inside the stronghold, I’m certain Magnus is more than capable of dealing with them.”
“Very well, sir.”
As Mr. Berman turned to leave the room, Amy and Dan’s Egyptian Mau sprang from out of nowhere and landed with all four paws on the Outcast’s tablet. Saladin arched his back and hissed in the Outcast’s face.
The Outcast snatched Saladin up by the scruff of his neck, but the damage had already been done. One of Saladin’s paws had landed on a button, releasing healing potion to all the Outcast’s troops. He no longer had enough energy to go searching for the elixir.
“Mr. Berman!” the Outcast yelled as Saladin hissed again and cleaved the air, trying to claw the Outcast’s unnaturally taut face. “Dispose of this cat!”
Ruthlessness applied to family pets, as well.
Mountain Fuji, Japan
The conditions on Mount Fuji were far worse than they’d appeared from below.
Teeth chattering as he spoke, Sammy said, “Maybe we sh-should’ve st-stopped by the Yosha … Yoshi … ”
“The Fujiyoshida Sengen Shrine?” Nellie supplied.
Sammy nodded.
They hadn’t stopped to say a prayer to Princess Konohanasakuya, the Shinto deity associated with Mount Fuji, because of the clouds rolling in. Passing through the wooden torii gates of the traditional shrine on the north side of the mountain and starting the climb at the Yoshida trailhead would have added five hours to their trek.
But if they had stopped at the shrine, perhaps Princess Konohanasakuya would’ve blown the clouds a different direction.
Instead, they’d done what most climbers did these days, and started halfway up the Yoshida Trail. The Fuji Subaru Line, the windy road leading to the Fifth Station, had just opened up and they were able to bypass the beginning of the trail by hopping on a shuttle.
Of course, when the majority of climbers chose the shorter route and skipped the shrine at the bottom of the mountain, it was late summer. The princess was probably in a better mood in the mild months of July and August than she was during the tumultuous month of April.
Even with the balaclava that covered most of her face, Nellie had to tuck her head beneath her arm with each new violent gust of wind. And the record high temp that Sammy had noted—a balmy forty degrees—was only working against them.
The snow was soft instead of icy. The spikes she and Sammy had strapped to their boots were sinking into the sludge instead of gaining traction. They’d been at it for nearly two hours when a long, dull rumble—as if the mountain were a sleeping giant, groaning and moaning awake—reached her ears. Nellie jolted and her gloved hands trembled.
When the grumbling stopped, she swallowed her fear and lifted one spiked boot from the wet, heavy snow. It sank knee-deep again as she slowly inched forward. She glanced back to see how Sammy was farin
g. When she did, she found that he’d fallen behind as he, too, fought for every step.
Sammy looked every bit as frightened and tired as she felt, but there wasn’t a good place to stop. There’d be no shelter from the elements until they reached the stronghold. Japan’s highest peak was swathed in snow but almost entirely barren of trees. The path stretching to the skyline was a solid blanket of white.
Through the slits of his mask, Sammy petitioned with his eyes. He wanted to turn around, but there was no way Nellie was caving. The Outcast was up to something and she needed to know what. They had to reach the summit.
“Come on!” she yelled. “Pick up those feet!” She didn’t want to be harsh with Sammy, but if she went easy on him, he’d never make it.
Sammy gritted his teeth and glared back at her.
That’s right, Nellie thought. Get angry. “Move it! Move it! Move it!” she chanted as he slogged forward. When Sammy finally caught up, Nellie’s face broke into a tentative smile. “I knew you could do it.”
Nellie bit her lip, worried she’d pushed him too hard.
But after Sammy stopped gasping and caught his breath, he laughed into his balaclava. “I didn’t realize the point of this exercise was to go all Hamilton Holt on me. What’s next on the agenda: circuit training or a toning class?”
The vise around Nellie’s heart released. “Maybe I’ll make you do both,” she countered. “You better watch out, science geek. When we reach the top, the Tomas will have plenty of equipment to whip you into shape. First things first, though. Let’s finish scaling this mountain. I can feel the temperature dropping as we speak.”
“Speaking as a science geek, if the temps drop enough, the snow will harden and it’ll be easier to walk,” Sammy said.
Just then, a blast of cold whisked up a small snow devil. It whirled around like a mini tornado between them. “Think what you want, geek boy,” Nellie said, “but I prefer this slush to whatever the gusts are blowing in.”
Sammy cast a worried look at the darkening sky. “You might be right.” With that, he yanked his boot out of the snow and lurched forward.
As Nellie started off after him, she saw something that froze her to the core. An invisible knife seemed to be carving a jagged line through the white canvas of snow thirty feet above them. An earsplitting crack rang through the air, and Nellie’s heart seized in her chest. What should’ve been a heartbeat later, the fissure opened wide and a slab of white separated from the mountainside.
“Sammy!” she screamed as a swell of powder rippled and barreled toward her. His head swiveled on his shoulders. But if he answered her cry, she couldn’t hear him through the booming rumble that came along with the rapidly descending snow.
Gaining speed and substance as it went, the avalanche kicked up a billowing white cloud. The cloud blotted the sky. The sliding snow moved like a crashing wave coming straight for her. It was erasing everything in its path.
Nellie tried to launch herself up and to the side, aiming for the higher terrain where Sammy stood. The last clear vision she had before the ground rolled from beneath her was his outstretched hand and terror flooding his eyes. It matched the terror cleaving her chest.
Picked up by the torrent and pitched like a rag doll down the slope, she lost all awareness of which way was up and which way down. She rolled. She tumbled. The endless white engulfed her. Nellie was only able to measure the world by each new blow it dealt her.
She was lifted time and again, only to then be cast against the hard earth. Had she been carried ten feet? A hundred? She didn’t know. All the while, a barrage of rock—also snared by the cascading snow—battered her sides. Her face. Her legs. There wasn’t a square inch of her body left unbruised.
Nellie searched for something to stop her fall. But with a nearly treeless slope, Mount Fuji offered nothing to anchor herself to as the tide surged. So instead, she thrashed her arms and kicked her legs. In a mock swim, she tried her best to stay afloat and not sink too deep beneath the layers.
When it finally stopped, Nellie was lying on her back; at least she thought she was. She was buried and unable to tell for certain. The only thing truly discernible about her surroundings was that she was trapped in a tiny space with very little air. That’s when panic really set in.
Her stomach muscles constricted. Her rib cage felt like prison bars around her thudding heart. Her lungs gulped air greedily. She was trapped, buried alive.
Nellie knew she had to get her breathing under control. Hyperventilate, and she’d suffocate that much sooner. She forced her lungs to slow down, but she couldn’t stop the shivering. Icy trembles of fear coursed through her body. Enveloped by snow, the chances were slim that Sammy would find her before it was too late.
A tear slipped from Nellie’s eye. It moistened her cheek. But instead of trickling down to her chin, the tear ran to her right ear.
Gravity, Nellie thought. I’m not on my back. I’m on my side.
She twisted and shoved her left hand through the snow, determinedly plowing a path opposite the direction the tear had fallen. When her fist met what felt like concrete, she didn’t stop. She punched through it, and just like that, her hand was free.
Nellie wasn’t buried as deep as she’d originally thought. Her “swimming” had worked. Her heart thrummed with hope as her fingers wriggled in the open air. When someone grasped the hand that had broken through the snow a few minutes late, it nearly burst with relief.
Sammy dug her out and clutched her to his chest. Nellie threw her arms around his neck and rested her chin on his left shoulder. She was sore but nothing was broken. She’d been battered, but she was still alive.
By the way Sammy was trembling beneath her grasp she could tell that he’d been equally traumatized. She had to let him know that she was all right. That everything would be okay.
Over the whipping winds, she spoke in as light a tone as she could muster. “Should we say that prayer to Princess Konohanasakuya now?”
Lake Como, Italy
“Are we making a mistake?” Dan whispered.
“What do you mean?” Amy whispered back. Her eyes flicked toward the kitchen, where Ian sat, sipping English breakfast tea from a coffee mug that read The WIZ is king.
“Do we need to try harder to find out who the Outcast really is?” Dan bunched his lips together, gathering his thoughts before he went on. “Listen. He got to Ian’s dad and Jonah’s mom, and he killed Aunt Beatrice. He’s obviously got some serious ties to the family. If we can figure out his true identity, it’ll help us figure out his endgame. Then we can start being protractive instead of reactive.”
“Proactive,” Amy amended.
Dan looked for the twinkle he typically found gleaming in his sister’s eye when she corrected him. It wasn’t there, and that worried him. There’d been a tighter pinch to Amy’s face ever since they’d found out about Grace.
When he’d learned the news, he’d felt like he’d been inside a snow globe that someone picked up and rattled around. But things were starting to settle. Amy and Grace had been much closer. He suspected Amy’s globe had been smashed and he didn’t know how to help her glue the pieces back together.
Dan wanted to say something to comfort his sister, but he wasn’t good at that stuff. So instead he said, “Er, yeah, you know what I mean—we need to get a step ahead of him.”
“Okay.” Amy nodded in agreement, still solemn. “Do you have any suggestions?”
He’d been puzzling this over in his head all morning. “At first I thought Aunt Beatrice’s murder was a threat, but what if she was killed because she had to be silenced?” Dan dragged a forefinger across his throat to get a laugh.
“Don’t be so macabre,” Amy said. She looked away and Dan wanted to kick himself. Bad joke, worse timing.
“Sorry. My point is that our aunt knew more about Grace and Nathaniel than anyone. She would have known them when they first got married. So if Nathaniel is the Outcast … Know what I’m sayin’?”
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br /> That caught Amy’s attention. “You’re saying maybe Aunt Beatrice knew something the Outcast wants to keep hidden. Maybe the key to stopping the Outcast lies in the past.”
“Exactly. Aunt Beatrice’s will is going to be read tomorrow at her house in Boston. Maybe there’s something we could learn. Aunt Beatrice always found a way to get in the last word. I don’t think she’d let a little thing like death stop her now.”
That got a smile from Amy. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That some of us need to go to the Netherlands and some of us have to be at that reading?” Dan replied. “Yeah.”
“We’ll have two separate teams, then.” Ian broke in on their conversation. “A two-pronged attack.” His voice was steady today, if a bit cool, and Dan spun around to face him. Somehow Ian had found the time for a wardrobe change and was wearing freshly pressed slacks and an expensive yet sporty polo. Dan was wearing the wrinkled clothes he’d crashed in the night before.
Dan hadn’t realized that Ian was listening in. And, strangely, Dan felt a wave of guilt, which made him angry. He and Amy had just been talking. It wasn’t like they were strategizing a takeover behind Ian’s back.
“Cara, Dan, and I will book the next available flight to the Netherlands,” Ian continued. “Amy, you and Hamilton will go with Jonah and take his Gulfstream back to Boston.”
Amy’s breath hitched and a splotch of red blossomed on her throat. Dan knew what she was thinking.
The Outcast was raising the stakes. He was planning a disaster that could kill thousands.
The thought of being separated from Amy at a time like this panicked Dan, too. The Cahill kids were cousins, and a team, but Amy and Dan were brother and sister. It was always the two of them and they always had each other’s backs, and yet … Amy released the breath she’d been holding. Dan could see her eyes soften. “Okay by you, Dan?” She held his gaze. “You in the Netherlands, me in Boston?”