Balance of Power

by Stan Lee

  Copyright © 2017 Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Disney Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-1368-6

  Visit disneybooks.com and disneyzodiac.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One: The Mountain of Fire

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two: Mindscape

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three: The Descent

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue One: Greenland

  Epilogue Two: Lystria

  STEVEN LEE inched his way down the rocky wall, grabbing at one handhold after another. Don’t look down, he told himself. You’re not gonna fall. There’s a rope holding you up, a big thick cow-wrangler-type rope strapped to the harness on your back. You’re not gonna fall.

  Just don’t look down.

  He looked down. The chamber was wide and dark, made of yellow-and-brown rock dotted with shiny mica deposits. Little streams of water trickled down the walls. The cavern floor was at least six meters below, with a surface almost as jagged as the walls. If he fell, he could really hurt himself.

  Okay, he thought, reaching for an outcropping in the wall. You looked down. That was a mistake. But it’s okay. Just don’t fall. Don’t fall. Do. Not. Fall.

  He fell.

  The rock wall whizzed by at a dizzying speed. His harness pulled tight against his waist, but the rope went slack. Great, he thought. The rope’s no good if it’s not tied tight enough!

  He scrabbled and grabbed, slowing his fall, but his gloves kept slipping off the slick rocks. He twisted his body, willing the Tiger—his Zodiac avatar—to emerge, to take control of his reflexes. But the Tiger was silent.

  Stupid, he thought. The Zodiac powers are gone, remember? That’s why we’re here!

  A thick hand grabbed his arm, arresting his fall. Steven cried out; his shoulder felt like it was being pulled out of its socket. Another large hand grabbed his harness.

  Steven looked over at his rescuer, a big man in paramilitary gear with a pack on his back. The man, Malik, had anchored himself against the side of the wall by digging a pair of mountain-climbing pitons into the rock and hooking them on to his own harness.

  “Welcome to the volcano,” Malik said.

  Volcano. The word echoed in Steven’s mind. He’d been trying not to think about that.

  “You’re all right,” Malik continued. “Just flex that shoulder a few times.”

  Steven nodded, struggling to catch his breath.

  Malik shifted his muscular body, depositing Steven easily onto a small outcropping. Like Steven, Malik had once wielded the Zodiac power; as the Ox, he’d been almost supernaturally strong. Now he was merely very strong.

  “You two havin’ fun up there?”

  Steven squinted down, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. About a meter below, another big man was anchored to the wall, grinning up at Steven and Malik. A long scar ran from the man’s thick blond hair down his face, through his missing left eye.

  “I wouldn’t call it fun, Nicky.” Malik’s voice echoed off the rock walls.

  Nicky reached up. “Want a hand down, kid?”

  Embarrassed, Steven shook his head. He turned toward the wall and grabbed for a handhold, then stepped off the ledge onto the next small outcropping. Slowly, hand over hand, he descended to the floor of the chamber.

  When he reached the bottom, he shrugged off his harness. With the Tiger’s power, he thought, I could have made that descent in half the time. Being normal is overrated!

  Nicky and Malik made their way down the wall above him. When Nicky—Dog—had held the Zodiac power, he’d boasted a carpet of yellow fur over his entire body. Dog had been a fierce fighter. He was both heavier and stronger than Steven, but when they’d fought hand to hand, Steven’s agility had made them an even match.

  Nicky and Malik had both worked for Maxwell, the man the Zodiac team had been formed to stop. After Maxwell turned against his own agents and stole all their powers, they joined Steven’s team. Like Steven, they were just ordinary people now.

  “Kid?” Nicky asked, jumping the last meter or so to the floor. “You still breathing?”

  “I just fell twenty feet,” Steven protested. “Give me a minute.”

  Nicky turned to Malik, laughing. “I don’t think the kid’s used to working with this team.”

  “We’re all adjusting.” Malik smiled. “I’m not used to taking orders from a fourteen-year-old, either.”

  “Fifteen,” Steven said. “I’m fifteen.”

  Nicky and Malik were right. Steven was used to operating with his old team, the team he’d worked with so many times in the past. He missed having them by his side: Ram, Rooster, Pig, and especially Rabbit.

  But those particular teammates were occupied elsewhere. And if Steven was to pull off this mission, he’d need the help of every ex-Zodiac he could find—even those, like Nicky and Malik, who’d been enemies in the past.

  Nicky turned to stare up at the hole they’d entered through, a hundred meters above. It was barely visible in the dim light, a dark spot on the yellow rock ceiling.

  “Josie!” Nicky yelled. “You comin’, girl?”

  A fourth figure dropped into view, descending in a perfectly straight line. She let out her support rope with even, expert movements. Like Malik and Nicky, she was a trained soldier with years of combat experience.

  And I’m just a kid, Steven thought. But I’ve got to lead them. Somehow.

  Josie touched down and shook off her harness. Her eyes were blank; her movements seemed unenthusiastic, almost robotic. She didn’t look at any of them.

  “Joze?” Nicky said. “You with us?”

  She turned and walked away.

  “We shouldn’t have brought her,” Malik said.

  Nicky glared at him. “Maybe we shouldn’ta brought you.” He turned and followed Josie over to the far wall.

  Steven frowned. When he’d worked with her before, Josie—Horse—had been a ball of energy, a determined fighter who never gave up, with or without her powers. She’d guided Nicky in their defection from Maxwell’s Vanguard army, leading him and telling him what to do.

  But something had changed. Josie seemed almost hollow now, a shell of her former self. And Nicky was taking care of her, instead of the other way around.

  “We’re not very deep yet,” Malik said, running his eyes up and down the wall. “This volcano goes hundreds of feet farther down. How ’bout a scan, kid?”

  Steven nodded. He reached into his pack, pulled out a thick headset, and fitted it over his eyes. A night-visi
on HUD schematic appeared, bright against the black background projected by the virtual-reality device.

  Green lines sketched out the uneven cavern floor and the angled walls rising up all around. Three red dots, indicating Steven’s teammates, shone within the chamber. Readouts scrolled down the left side of his vision: SENSOR RANGE 3.2 KM. BATTERY LEVEL 94%. CHAMBER HEIGHT 24.7 METERS. WIDTH (MAX) 16.7 METERS. FLOOR PITCH 8.4˚.

  Along the right side, a menu of options presented itself. ZOOM. SEARCH. BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST. INFRARED LEVEL. REFRESH/REBOOT. He selected ZOOM and panned the image down.

  “You’re right,” he said. “There’s another chamber below this one. I don’t see any life signs down there.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Malik replied. “If Maxwell’s got Vanguard soldiers hiding in here, they’ll be shielded from our scans.”

  The image zoomed out, revealing the volcano’s entire shape: a mountain bisected by a large open mouth. Below the main caverns, a network of tunnels and corridors snaked through the earth. Steven zoomed in on one of those passageways, four or five levels beneath the ground. Three more red dots winked on, smaller ones this time.

  The second team, he thought. Their objective was as important as his—more important, actually. He wanted to contact them, to make sure they were all right. But he had to maintain radio silence for now.

  “Any Zodiac power signatures?” Malik asked.

  Pain stabbed through Steven’s forehead. The HUDset was Vanguard tech, stolen by Malik when he’d made his exit. They’d managed to equip only one unit for the mission, and Steven had barely had any time to practice with it. It gave him a headache.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The Zodiac tracker,” Malik said impatiently.

  “Right, yeah.” Steven reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device, the size of a thumb drive. He pressed it into a port on the HUDset, just above his ear. A large menu item appeared on the HUDset display, flashing blue: ZODIAC TRACKING.

  “Is it scanning?” Malik’s voice seemed far away. “That’s your tech, not ours. I don’t know how well the devices sync together.”

  “I think so.” The entire display went black for a moment, then winked back on. “It’s kinda buggy.”

  “Hurry up,” Nicky called from the other side of the room. “I wanna get my powers back!”

  Once again Steven zoomed the schematic view up through the chamber, to the volcano’s mouth high above. He panned back down, past the three red dots indicating the positions of the second team, and plunged deeper into the subterranean labyrinth. The ZODIAC TRACKING text blinked blue the entire time. Steven waited for the device to detect something—anything—infused with Zodiac energy.

  “Nothing,” he said. “No Dragon, no artifact, no energy traces at all. No nothing.”

  “Again: not a surprise,” Malik said. “Maxwell has wave blockers, same as you, that can shield the Zodiac energy so it doesn’t show up on scans. Doesn’t mean the artifact’s not here—but we’re not gonna find it the easy way.”

  Steven glanced at the readout menus on the side of his display. The power level read 46 percent. That seemed low. “This thing’s getting hot,” he said, tapping the HUDset.

  “Zodiac scanner’s probably draining the battery. Better turn it off for now.”

  Relieved, Steven flipped the lenses up off his eyes.

  Malik was already walking away, across the chamber. Steven followed him over to Nicky, who stood above Josie. She was down on one knee, staring at the floor.

  “Joze?” Nicky said. “We gotta go. We gotta find the jee—the jin—the juju—”

  “Jiānyù,” Steven said softly.

  “The thing,” Nicky said, “the artifact, the old brass widget that’s got all our powers in it. You wanna get your powers back, don’t you?”

  Josie turned halfway around. There was hardly any expression in her eyes.

  “We don’t even know if that ‘widget’ is here,” she said.

  “We’ll find it!” Nicky turned to Steven and Malik, his eyes pleading for help. “What’s this jye-annie thing look like, anyway? Is it a boring artifact like a pot or an urn, or a cool one with skulls all over it?”

  “The jiānyù is a sphere,” Malik explained, “a little bigger than a softball. It’s built to absorb and contain the Zodiac powers. When it’s holding them, it’s been known to morph into the shapes of those powers: an exaggerated ram or tiger. I dunno how it does that…something to do with the tech inside it.”

  “The tech enhances it,” Steven said. “But the jiānyù was built centuries ago…during the Shang dynasty in China.”

  “And what do we do when we find this medieval basketball trophy?” Nicky asked. “Blast it to pieces? Lay our hands on it and chant like monks?”

  Steven and Malik exchanged glances.

  “Unclear,” Malik said.

  Josie snorted. Nicky glanced at her with concern, then ushered Malik and Steven away, out of her earshot.

  “What if she’s right?” Nicky whispered. “Maybe it’s not here. The Jay-Z—the jazz hands—”

  “Please stop trying to say jiānyù,” Malik growled.

  “I’m just sayin’. Maybe Vanguard ain’t stationed here at all. Maybe this is just an ordinary deadly volcano.”

  “No,” Steven replied. “We know Kim is here, so this has to be one of Maxwell’s bases. I just can’t believe the big jarhead left it undefended.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Malik said.

  Maxwell had kept a very low profile in the weeks since he’d stolen the Zodiac powers. He hadn’t made any aggressive moves; his private army had pulled out of even its most routine military contracts. He seemed to have diverted his resources toward some secret objective, but every time Steven and Jasmine thought they were closing in on that secret, the trail went cold. The ex-Zodiac teams had explored a half dozen of Maxwell’s former lairs, using information supplied by Nicky, Josie, and Malik. They’d come up empty every time.

  “We’ve gotta keep searching,” Steven said. “Find a way down to the next chamber. And remember: be ready to create a diversion, in case the second team needs one.”

  “Search covertly and create a diversion?” Malik shook his head. “Those are contradictory objectives. We can’t risk this entire mission for one person.”

  Steven glared at him. Malik was a great fighter, even without Zodiac powers; the team was lucky to have him. But sometimes he could be too much of a soldier.

  “Kim’s a very special person,” Steven said.

  He turned away, thinking of Kim—the Zodiac’s Rabbit. Steven had wanted to lead the other group, the one assigned to find her. But the mission required careful deployment of every team member, especially since none of them had their Zodiac powers anymore. Steven was the most likely person to locate the jiānyù, so he had to lead this group.

  As team leader, he’d made that decision himself.

  Josie was still staring at the ground. Steven crouched next to her, touched the uneven surface—and felt something. A rush of energy, warm and familiar, ran through him.

  Zodiac energy.

  A man’s face appeared, filling Steven’s field of view, wavering and shimmering as if it were made of fog—a very old man’s face, with wrinkles all over and eyes sunken into the flesh below the brows.

  Steven reached up for his HUDset, but it wasn’t covering his eyes. This was a vision—one of the strange by-products of the Zodiac power. When the power had been stolen from him, the visions had gone with it. He hadn’t had one for a long time.

  He started to tumble forward. He felt Malik’s and Nicky’s arms steadying him, but their voices seemed very far away. The face filled his mind, focusing on him with an expression of alarm and concern.

  Now Steven recognized that face. It belonged to an old man he’d met in Berlin, a man he’d seen die before his eyes—the man who’d been the Tiger before Steven, before Steven had even been born, in fact.

 
“Don’t,” the old man whispered.

  Somehow Steven knew what he meant. “I must,” he replied.

  The old man shook his head. “Do not seek out the power.”

  “I have to,” Steven said.

  The man grimaced. His face melded and shifted into a full body, the trim, small man Steven had met briefly in Berlin. He nodded, seeming to understand Steven’s words, and pointed a finger downward. Then, in a flash, he was gone.

  Steven shrugged away from Nicky and Malik, shaking his head to clear it. He looked down at the floor, at the spot the old Tiger had indicated. He glanced quickly at Josie.

  Almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

  Together they scrabbled away at the dirt. Nicky and Malik stared at them as if they were mad.

  Josie’s hands were rough, calloused from a lifetime of military operations. Steven had no such experience; he winced as his fingers began to bleed. But he kept digging.

  Seven or eight centimeters down, they uncovered a round manhole cover. Steven grabbed hold of its edge and tried to pry it loose. It didn’t move.

  Josie grabbed it with both hands and flung it into the air.

  The passageway stretched almost straight down. It was dark, curved, and narrow, no more than half a meter in diameter. Steven shone his flashlight into it, but he couldn’t see the other end.

  Once again, he heard the old man’s voice. Don’t, it said. A chorus of voices joined it, warning Steven in unison. Don’t, they said. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

  He knew who the voices were. The other Tigers. The men and women, young and old, who’d wielded Steven’s particular Zodiac power in the years and centuries past.

  Josie’s voice jolted him out of his vision. “If we’re gonna do this,” she said, “let’s do it.”

  She hoisted herself up and vaulted into the hole feetfirst. In less than a second she was gone.

  Steven looked up at the others. Nicky spread his arms and shrugged. “You said we should find a way down.”

  Steven nodded. But in his mind, he could still hear the Tigers, warning him:

  Do not seek out the power.

  The passageway led down through the rock, its walls jagged and sharp. Malik led the way, with Nicky following and Steven bringing up the rear. The end of the passage remained out of sight, beyond a seemingly endless series of twists and turns.