I cocked my ear up at the stairwell; yes, the ram was still trapped in that small room for the moment. Our feet pounded down the next set of metal stairs and into the seating area.
“Ellie, Dillon—Aries.”
Dillon’s head popped up. “Where?”
But I didn’t need to answer him. The banging on metal grew closer. Aries had freed himself from the room and was clomping down the stairs. He curled through the entryway and emerged from the stairwell, a majestic, horrible sight. He stood at the base of the stairs, scanned the lobby, and found us. His eyes tightened.
I slid my hand toward the nearest Ellie. “Give me the book,” I whispered. Ellie slowly, painstakingly withdrew The Keypers of the Zodiack and eased it toward me. Aries took in our every movement. But he wasn’t readying himself to charge, not yet. He was enjoying watching us squirm.
I slowly flipped through the pages and found the entry:
“Aries, the ram. April 19–May 13. Thou art the leader of the Zodiack, Aries, and as such, thou hast the confidence, ambition, and determination to tackle the rocky challenges thou adorest. Thy will to succeed is so strong that thou canst be brash, impatient, and stubborn in thy pursuits. Yet thou art a master of finding solutions. Find one for thine own self! Thy legions of friends art more than eager to help, and thy confidence and enthusiasm ensure a lifetime of camaraderie. Make certain, however, that thine ambitions eclipse not thy friendships: Thou hast lost companions in thy quest to remain on top. Thou prize winning above all else, and thou will stop at naught to remain commander o’er all.”
I folded the book shut. I raised my eyes, locking into a staring contest with Aries. I didn’t tear my eyes away to look about the ferry; I knew a handful of commuters were scattered around. Was this really where this Challenge would take place?
A brassy flash flared to my left. I thought I saw Dillon flip open his tuba case and yank the instrument out, but I didn’t dare break my power stare with Aries to check. Really? His tuba? Now?!
The Ellie standing next to me seemed to be watching Dillon, too. “Go, Leo!” she shouted. “You can do this!”
I straightened and Aries snorted. I whipped toward Ellie. The look on her face told me she knew she’d made a huge mistake by saying that.
“Leo?” I asked. My gaze narrowed at her, at this fake. “What do you mean, Leo?”
But I’d made a mistake, too. I’d taken my eyes off Aries. I heard the pounding of hooves on metal, felt the floor vibrate from a mighty animal charging. Ellie shoved me, hard. “Move!” she yelled, and vanished. I landed on my tailbone and skidded across the metal floor of the ferry.
Massive, shell-like horns rammed into the metal side of the boat, punching a dent in the spot where I’d stood just seconds before. The ferry teetered in the water under the impact. A few passengers screamed. My heart thudded in my ears. I cut my eyes away from the thick yellow hooves of the beast just feet away and toward Dillon. He marched toward us, wearing his tuba, still greenish and swaying from the rocking boat. But he was doing a noble job fighting his seasickness.
“You’ve ruled the zodiac for long enough, Aries,” he purred. “Time for new management.”
And then he pounced. The brassy tuba flashed under the too-white neon lights of the ferry—blam!—like a firework, an explosion of light and mist. As Dillon flew through the air, he morphed. Through the fog I could see the shadow of his tuba, still around his waist, turn from shiny, solid brass into sleek, coarse fur and taut muscle. The circle of the tuba horn quivered and tossed, transforming into a magnificent mane. One last blast wailed through Dillon’s horn, but it sounded less like a tuba and more like a…roar.
When he landed on soft, nimble paws, his metamorphosis was complete. He snarled.
Dillon was Leo, the lion. And he was here to take control of the zodiac.
Leo and Aries crouched and circled one another like two beasts in the wild, readying themselves to fight to the death. Except this was the wild of New Orleans. And these beasts couldn’t exactly fight to the death, could they?
Ellie and Brennan eased over to me. Ellie—my wonderful, true friend Ellie. The fake Ellie had exposed herself, had vanished, but my friend was here. I squeezed her hand so tight I thought I might crush it. She tugged me toward the staircase. “Let them duke it out themselves,” she whispered.
I nodded, but I knew immediately that it felt wrong. Aries snorted and shoved a twisted horn in Leo’s face, showing off its size. He was bragging (like an Aries) that Leo’s flesh was about to be ripped off its bones. Leo, in turn, growled a low, fierce grumble that filled the ferry like thunder. He was (like a Leo) telling Aries to bring it.
I couldn’t let them fight. Somehow I knew—I had to be the one to defeat them, or I would lose. And I couldn’t just let Dillon—no, Leo!—take over the zodiac. There had been too many changes already. No, I’d have to intervene.
Leo, brash and bold, took the first swipe. With a roar, his sharp claws raked across Aries’s flanks and left four raw, meaty rips across the flesh. Aries bellowed, writhed, and kicked Leo in the ribs. The crack of bone was sickening. Leo skidded across the metal floor with a whimper. The ferry rocked violently with the shift of bulk.
One of the other passengers screamed and pointed at us. “It’s them! It’s those three!” The other passengers nodded, their faces twisting in a flash, morphing from generic faces in a crowd to the soured faces of a mob.
I didn’t have much time. I zipped through the copy of The Keypers of the Zodiack still in my sweaty hands.
“Leo, the lion. July 23–August 22. Leo, thou art a powerful force, though thy temperament shifts as the winds from creative to destructive. Thy demands to be at the center of all are usually rewarded, which makes thee confident and dignified, yet boastful and attention-seeking. The generosity thou possessest is not without fault, as thou demandest both recognition and appreciation. Thine instincts are akin to an animal’s, not surprising, as pride defines thee above all. Thy dependence on risk and luck, while exciting and entertaining to all, can make thy friends feel like mere props in thy games. Be warned that thou art prone to overlook small details, and that oft results in loss. Beware all distractions, Leo. Like the cat for which thou art named, thy distractions are many and potentially deadly.”
Aries had speared Leo with the tip of his horn and hefted him to his feet, goading him to keep fighting. Leo was weak, I realized, from being on this ferry. Cats and water—not a good mix. This battle would end quickly if I didn’t do something fast.
The two beasts tossed and tumbled and growled while the ferry rocked and swayed and pitched; no way could I step in the middle of all those teeth and horns and claws. I looked around the ferry for something, anything I could use as a weapon. I found nothing.
And then I saw it, the thing that had been my most powerful weapon all night. In my very own hands.
I held the copy of The Keypers of the Zodiack over the side of the boat. Of the two, I knew which would be more likely to take this bait. I whistled a shrill, loud blast. Whistled! Another thing I’d never been able to do before.
Both beasts froze and turned their black eyes to me. Both saw the book—their book, The Keypers of the Zodiack—at risk. I wriggled the book with my wrist, teasing the two animals. Sure enough, Leo’s eyes tore away from Aries and followed every twitch of the text.
“Here, kitty kitty,” I whispered. Leo crouched, ready to pounce on the book.
He snarled and his fangs glinted. His tail cracked like a whip. Then his black eyes narrowed and shifted to me. He roared, announcing that he was about to pounce on his prey.
Me. His prey was me.
No, no, no! This was not the plan! “Leo!” I said, waving the book madly. His eyes were drawn back to it. “Here, kitty!”
Hope I’m right about this, I thought.
“Come and get it!” I hurled the book overboard. The pages flapped in the wind, down, down, down toward the mighty, muddy Mississippi.
And Leo lea
ped.
“Dillon!” Ellie screamed.
“The book!” Brennan yelled.
Leo scrambled over the guardrail and jumped after the book. He curled back his lips, bared his mighty teeth, and sank them into the pages of the book. He splashed into the river with the impact of a car crash.
Aries bellowed behind us and charged. The three of us scattered like drops of blood as Aries drove his horn into the guardrail. The four-inch metal crushed under the weight of his blow. He struggled to right himself after his battle with Leo.
I had just enough time to look down to where Leo had landed in the river. His paws clawed at the surface, grasping for something solid. His lion’s body looked small, sharp, pointed when wet, rather than the sleek, muscular shape he had when dry. He tried to roar one final time but ended up sinking below the murky water. His roar reached us in a sickening gurgle. My heart squeezed. I hoped Dillon didn’t feel a thing.
A tear slid down Ellie’s cheek. “Bye, Dillon.”
The water began to burble and boil, and off the surface rose a fog-like mist. A burst of light shone below the murky depths. Leo shot forth in a gush and pranced toward the heavens. But unlike the others, he paused. He looked back at us, and Dillon’s voice came through in a roar: “Thanks for being such fun playthings.”
Leo’s birthstone clanked to the floor of the ferry. Aries pounced and kicked it. It slid like a hockey puck toward the edge of the boat and clinked against the guardrail, threatening to topple into the river. Brennan dove for it and scooped it up just before it plummeted into the water. He tossed the stone to me. The birthstone was smooth, fiery orange. It took my breath away, that orange stone. It was just like my new world.
“Sic itur ad astra,” I chanted. Dillon’s stone disappeared, bubbling on the palms of my hands.
My chant was stolen by the clamoring of hooves across the metal seating area. Aries was charging, head lowered, right horn leading the charge, right shoulder cocked forward to deliver the mighty blow.
We dove aside. Aries tangled himself in a twist of plastic seats.
Ellie grabbed my hand. “On the next charge, go downstairs,” she whispered. Brennan nodded.
Aries freed himself, and his black eyes locked on me. I saw in those black eyes that he not only hated me because I was the Challenger, he hated me for bringing Leo straight to him. Aries scratched the metal floor with his right front hoof, and it sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. My teeth ached at the sound.
In one swift move, Aries lifted his two front legs off the ground, cocked his head and his shoulder, and propelled himself at us like a battering ram. The three of us dashed toward the stairs that led to the lowest level of the ferry. Just before we reached the stairs, the ferry listed again under the impact of Aries’s blow. Brennan lost his footing and slipped backward. Ellie grabbed his shirt collar and dragged him into the stairwell.
We dashed to the lower level, slamming against the handrails of the stairs as the boat bobbed in the river. Car horns were blaring now, alarms blasting under the jarring force of Aries’s mighty horns. Drivers stood next to their cars, shouting, “What’s going on up there?”
A voice crackled through the emergency intercom system: “All passengers report to the middle deck. Repeat, all passengers to the second level, immediately.” The voice sounded suspiciously like Gemini’s. The drivers of the cars filed upstairs. We would soon be alone with Aries.
The thundering sound of hooves on metal pounded above us. I hoped all those passengers up there were safe. But I knew Aries would follow us. He wasn’t interested in them. It was me he was after.
Ellie led us to a metal lifeboat strapped with ropes to some kind of crane-and-pulley system. She began fumbling with the knots to untie them.
“We need a knife,” I said. I scanned the parking deck of this ferry. Half a dozen cars, but no knife.
Aries had learned from his mistakes. He had morphed back into the captain for this set of stairs. She emerged from the staircase disheveled and panting, jaw jutting forward.
“What do you know?” the captain huffed. “You fight like your father, too.” In a flash, human morphed into ram. My teeth clenched.
Aries, the ram, bounded onto the nearest car, crushing it. He leaped from that car to the next one, the one parked nearest us, in an obvious display of might. Glass flew everywhere, glittering, twinkling, dangerous.
“Ja-len,” Ellie warned. She’d only freed two of the knots with her shaking hands. “I need more time!”
A large shard of mirror flew end over end and skidded under a car parked two spaces up. I shielded my head. “Be right back.”
“Jalen!” Brennan yelled. But I’d already scurried up one car, crouching next to the passenger side. Aries caught sight of me and sprang, crunching the car I was huddled against. The tires exploded. Gasoline soaked me, its smell choking, its fumes blinding. Gas poured into my cuts, stinging like fire.
I could see the gleaming shard of mirror under the car ahead. I had to get to it. I tried to stand but slipped in the gasoline spill. Aries was taking aim, preparing to pounce down on me. I finally managed to get a toehold and push myself forward through the slick gas. I slid under the car ahead of me. I grabbed the shard of glass, cutting my hand I gripped it so tight.
I had surprised Aries, but not for long. He adjusted his leap, and I saw his underbelly fly overhead as I skidded out from under the car, just seconds before it crumpled.
I tossed the shard to Brennan. “Cut the rope!”
He caught the shard of mirror, thankfully. If he hadn’t caught it, it would have shattered and been useless.
By the time I scrambled back to Ellie and Brennan, they’d cut the ropes and were maneuvering the lifeboat into the river. It landed, one story down, in the water. We had to jump now, before the lifeboat floated too far away in the rapid current.
Ellie grabbed an orange life jacket from a metal locker, scrambled over the guardrails, and jumped first.
Brennan climbed to the top of the guardrail but froze, clutching his life vest. He was visibly shaking and it occurred to me that this Brennan was terrified of water.
I was suddenly struck with flashes of a memory. Brennan was ten; I was eight. A group of kids at Lake Pontchartrain, at a rope swing. Let go of the rope, land in the lake. I was too chicken to try. Brennan insisted that the other kids stop clucking at me. He winked and whispered, “You don’t have to try it, but you should.” I remember him slipping into the lake with barely a splash. And I remember that after that, I tried it.
“Sorry, Brennan, but you’ll thank me later,” I said. I pushed him over the edge.
At the top of the guardrail, I looked back at Aries. He had freed himself from the gnarled metal of the car and was taking aim.
I didn’t have the same luxury, the one of taking aim. I grabbed a life jacket off the wall and jumped, shoving my fear of how high up I was aside.
I screamed the whole way down. It was a bad idea, because when I smacked against the water, I immediately realized I wanted that air back. I kept sinking, deeper and deeper into the cold dirty water. There was no bottom to hit and push off of; it was miles below. I opened my eyes for an excruciating moment. Brown water flooded my vision.
Then the forces of nature shifted with a jerk thanks to the life jacket I clutched. My neck snapped back with the change. I stopped sinking, paused, then rocketed up. I kicked toward the direction I hoped would let me find air. My lungs were on fire with strain.
When I finally broke through the surface, I gulped in buckets of air. Ellie and Brennan were a few feet away from me, inside the boat. Both dry—they’d both made good jumps. They hauled me over the side.
I’d been underwater long enough to give Aries an advantage. He had stripped away the guardrails with his massive curled horns, and now he stood above us, just a few feet away. One leap into this tiny metal boat and we’d all drown.
Aries’s mouth curled into a snarl. He had us trapped and he knew it. He shook h
is heavy shell-shaped horns with pride, reared onto his hind legs, and pushed.
There was nothing else to do. I was not going to let my friends get hurt.
I’d come this far. I supposed I should be proud of that. I only wished I didn’t have to let down my mom, my Nina.
From my crouch, I shouted, “I surrender! You win!”
I heard Ellie’s sharp intake of breath beside me.
What would become of me now? Where would the Keepers take me? What happens after the After? Would it be peaceful, heavenly where I was headed? Or would it be a deep, dark, sinister place, black as night? Black as Keeper eyes?
But instead of the crushing weight of Aries, instead of a watery grave sucking us to the bottom of the river, instead of being buried alive under the thousands of pounds of silt gushing through the Mississippi River, a loud thunk sounded. I opened one eye, then another.
A diamond. Aries’s birthstone.
The ram trotted into the heavens, shaking those mighty horns with pride. His winning streak was intact.
I had let Aries win. That’s all she/he wanted. To win. Over and over again. In letting Aries win, I had won.
With shaky hands, I lifted the clear, gleaming diamond into the early morning sky, still hazy pink around the edges of day. “Sic itur ad astra.”
Brennan chuckled. “Smart move, Jalen.”
Half my mouth grinned, but it was forced. I hadn’t meant to win. I had truly wanted to surrender. Did Aries know that? Would it have worked otherwise? My stomach flopped. I had quit.
This new doubt doused some of my fire, leaving behind an unwelcome pile of ash. Would I have the strength to fight the eight remaining Keepers?
“But the book—” Brennan started. Ellie grinned and reached into her messenger bag. She pulled out her copy of The Keypers of the Zodiack.
“Two copies, ever since the other Ellie came around,” I managed to explain. “I was hoping that was a detail Dillon would overlook. I mean Leo.” We were silent at the mention of Dillon’s name.
“The copy I threw overboard was from Fake Ellie,” I said to change the subject. “Disposable. We’ll still have two copies once she reappears, I imagine.”
The 13th Sign Page 9