He looks up at me, and then to his spear, still embedded in the tree. He runs for it.
I let him, picking up Whipsnap as he runs. With a tug, Ares removes his spear from the tree, turns around and throws it at me. I can feel the spear moving through the air. I can detect its molecules and its origins. The metal, was dug from the Antarctic earth and the shaft taken from a long dead tree that grew in Antarctic soil. My earth. My tree.
With an anger-fueled thought, the spear disintegrates just before striking my chest. It falls to the ground as dust.
As I step toward the Nephilim, a wind swirls around me, bid by my emotions rather than by my will. My hair flails in the air around my head, like living gorgon snakes. A darkness settles inside me and I grin.
Ares sees my cocky smile and balks at the challenge. Then, with an anger matching my own, he roars and charges. He could crush me underfoot. He could bite my head off, or sever me at the midsection with a swipe of his fingernails. He could sting me with that Titan tail or simply thrash me about.
But he’d have to get close to do any of those things. That’s not going to happen.
I lift him off the ground and then return him to it with enough force to shake the it. Before he can recover, grunt or enjoy the pain, I fling him against a tree.
Hearing the monster’s bones break fuels my own dark rage, and I let out a battle cry of my own. As Ares recovers from his wounds at the base of the tree, I rush in and leap into the air.
He sees me coming and raises an arm in defense. His intent is clear, to take the blow on his forearm and then attack with his uninjured arm. But I have no intention of striking him with Whipsnap. The weapon serves only as a catalyst for my attack. I raise Whipsnap over my head and swing the blade edge down.
I’ve read about windstorms so strong and intense that people had limbs torn away, or skin scoured off, but for some reason, I’ve never thought to use the air as anything but a blunt object. Condensing it to the point where it becomes sharp...I’m not sure I would have come up with that without this berserker blood boiling my insides.
An invisible blade of wind cuts through the air with a sound that reminds me of those 1970’s Kung Fu movies and ends with a wet slurp. I have struck Ares’s arm right where he intended me to, but the blow is far more powerful than either of us thought possible. Part of the giant’s arm and his hand fall to the ground.
I land and watch Ares react. The limb rolls twice, stopping between us. He looks at it with a level of confusion that I find funny. The laugh that escapes my lips sounds a lot like Ares’s laugh, only not as deep or resonating. The part of the arm still attached to his body begins to regenerate, but so much is missing, it’s going to take some time.
“My legend,” I say, but the words sound jumbled, like I actually said, “Muaye leoganada.” That I can’t seem to speak right sends a wave of frustration through my body. It’s all the catalyst I need. With a hate-fueled shriek I slash Whipsnap at an angle, left to right and then right to left, carving a deep X in Ares’s chest. It’s unnecessary. Some part of my mind recognizes this. But I don’t care.
I want him to know pain.
To feel fear.
To beg for his life.
I want to delight in his anguish.
A strand of hair blows across my eyes. It’s just for a second, but I see it clearly. It’s hard to miss.
Because it’s red.
Blood red.
I let out a scream so horrible and loud that my throat stings and becomes hoarse before the air in my lungs is extinguished. When Ares proves that we now share the same dark heart by laughing at my pain, I spin around, strike through the air with Whipsnap and send a razor thin streak of air through his neck.
His head comes off his body with a fountain of purple blood and rolls to the ground. The monster is dead. For good.
But I am lost.
I stagger back as the weakness claiming my body resurfaces. I mumble incoherently, only vaguely aware of Mira’s and Kainda’s voices. My foot catches on something and I fall back. But I never feel the landing. I simply slip away into the darkness promised by Ares.
17
I awake as something hard pounds into my gut, pushing the air out of my lungs. I wheeze, trying to catch a breath, but the impacts keep coming. It’s less severe, but it prevents me from catching a real breath.
I hear shouting. The voices are indistinct. The words warped as though shouted through a tin can. But the tone—hurried and desperate—reaches my ears. I try to move in response to the sound, but I’m unable. Am I too weak or am I restrained?
I open my eyes for a look, but my vision is blurry. Everything is distorted and moving, racing past like trees outside a car window.
Another jarring impact rattles my body. When I clench my eyes shut, spots of light explode onto the backs of my eyelids.
Then darkness again.
The car ride is bumpy. Dad tells mom that it’s normal, but I know it’s the suspension. I think mom does too, but she’s just humoring him. I warned him about the problem a few weeks ago, but he didn’t believe me. I’m only eight, after all. I’m not even sure if he remembers dismissing me with a chuckle, but I do.
I don’t mind feeling every bump in the road. I don’t get car sick or anything. But it frustrates me sometimes, when I’m imagining Superman is running beside the car, jumping over signs and trees, or cutting through them with his heat vision. A solid bump can throw me off and my imagination, which is happy to follow its own course, will envision Superman tripping or falling in a heap. It’s embarrassing.
To make matters worse, it’s early Spring. In Maine. This means the roads have not yet been repaired after being scoured by snowplows all winter. Potholes abound, and if steering a car into every single hole in the road were a sport, my father would be the champion.
To prove the point, we strike a pothole so deep that the impact sends a vibration through the car strong enough to yank me completely out of my imagination.
“Dad,” I say, annoyed.
“What?” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t see it.”
“Mark, it must have been the size of Lake Ontario,” my mother says. She sounds annoyed, too, but the way she slaps his shoulder says she’s not. I think she finds his inability to spot giant holes in the ground amusing. Or cute. Which is just...yuck.
A moment later, I say. “Better pull over.”
“Why?” my father asks. “You have to pee? We’re almost there.”
My mother turns back to me. “You can hold it for ten more minutes.”
I sigh. “I don’t have to pee.” I nod my head toward the front left tire. “We’re losing air pressure.”
The slight dip is still subtle, but they’ll feel it in a moment.
“Schwartz,” my father says like he’s about to teach me something. But the whupwhupwhup of the now flattening tire and shimmying front end silences him.
We pull over to the side of the road. My father gets out and inspects the tire. As he does, I slide over and reach for the door.
“Sol,” my mom says in that tone that says, “Don’t.”
My reply is raised eyebrows and a stare leveled at my mother. I’ve always found it fascinating how much information can be communicated through body language and facial expressions. We have a silent argument in the course of three seconds, at the end of which she says, “Ugh, fine. Go.”
I open the door and slide out. I pause for a moment, enjoying the warm air—some of the first I’ve felt in five months. Red buds coat the trees lining the roads. The first strands of green grass are beginning to poke up through the brown. And in a week or so, the lilies in our front yard will push up through the earth and turn skyward. It’s my favorite time of year.
I close the door and find my father crouching down by the side of the olive green sedan, inspecting the tire like he’s an archeologist who’s just discovered the Rosetta Stone.
“You have no idea how to change a tire, do you?” I ask.
&
nbsp; He looks over at me slowly. I can tell he’s trying to think of something to say. Maybe an excuse. Or a joke. But he gives up and says, “I’ve never had to before.”
“The spare is in the trunk. The jack is on the left side.”
He looks at me dubiously. “You’ve changed a tire before, have you?”
“I read the car manual,” I say.
He smiles wide, stands, puts his hand on my head and shakes my hair so blond strands are hanging in my eyes. “You’re my hero, Sol.”
“Whatever,” I say, moving for the trunk.
He takes my shoulders and turns me around. Leaning down so we’re face to face, he says, “Seriously, Schwartz, the way your mind works. It’s a gift. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if you saved the world someday.”
I wake again, this time lying on my back. I’m no longer moving, and I can breathe, though I’m quite sore. But my vision feels off, and it’s dark. I try to sit up, but can’t. And it’s not from weakness. I can feel the tightness around my arms and legs. I’ve been restrained.
A surge of fear races through my mind. Have I been captured? Are Mira and Kainda still hurt? Or dead?
A shiver rolls up through my body, leaving a sickening tension in its wake. When it reaches my head, an all consuming rage flares out, burning my thoughts away and turning my emotions into a howl that explodes from my mouth. But I’ve been gagged, and the sound is muffled.
My teeth grind at the fabric in my mouth, but before I can chew through it, a canteen of water is emptied onto my face, making me gag and sputter.
A woman looms over me. “Shut up!”
I clench my fingers, reaching for her, intending to tear her apart.
“Hey!” she says, sounding offending. She leans closer and slaps me across the face. The impact is dizzying. “Look at me.”
Something about the voice calms me, and I try to look at the woman, but all I see is a vague shape.
“Dark,” I say, then growl and struggle some more.
A flicker of orange light illuminates the space...which I still can’t see clearly. The woman returns, her body lit, but still blurry. My eyes roll back and she strikes me again, harder. “Solomon! Focus!”
Focus...
The word slowly sinks into my mind like a stone, before reaching the depths where a small part of my sanity still resides.
Focus.
“Kat?” I ask.
“I think he’s back,” Kat says, stepping away.
Another person slides into view, this one close and gentle. She slides a hand across my face, trusting me implicitly to not bite it off.
“That might not be a good idea,” warns someone else. Kainda, I think.
“Solomon,” the woman leaning on me says. “Look at me.”
I try to see her, but it’s like looking through a dirty window.
“He’s burning up,” she says.
I know she’s saying I have a fever, but I can’t feel anything beyond a craving for violence.
Kat returns. She grips my mouth roughly, yanks back the gag and drops three small, solid objects in, then pours in water and shoves my jaw closed. I try to resist, but I feel weak now. When she says, “It’s Ibuprofen,” I swallow.
For ten minutes, the woman beside me bravely strokes my hair. And with each gentle touch, I feel my mania subside just a little. I lose myself for a bit, staring at what I think is a stone ceiling.
“Are we in a cave?” I ask.
“Yes,” the woman replies. “We’re twenty miles from the coast. Just a day’s journey from the base.”
I turn toward her. Her face is still blurred, but I think I recognize the shape...and her voice. “Em?”
I hear a sniff, and I wonder if she’s crying. Her hand reaches for my cheek and rubs it gently, the way my mother used to. “It’s me.”
“How?”
“Luca,” she says. “He still sees you in his dreams. He sent us to you, Kat and me.”
“Luca...” I say, picturing the boy, which is easy, since he looks like me. But then the face in my mind’s eye changes. Luca looks angry. Then furious. His eyes go black, red seeps from his skull and stains his hair. He shrieks at me.
Except he’s not the one shrieking, it’s me.
I hear shouting. And a pain-filled scream.
Something hard strikes my forehead and everything disappears.
18
I’m vaguely aware that I’m moving. I see a kind of red haze, but I’m not sure I’m actually seeing it. I sense that some part of me is able to see, and act, but the real me—the Solomon me—feels small and trapped.
Distant voices reach me. The words are hard to make out and the voices impossible to identify. I feel like I know them, but can’t think of names or faces to go with them.
“Look out!”
A shout of pain.
“Here, here! Now!”
I sense a stab of pain, but its more like a memory.
“Down!”
Grunting follows. Then a shout, loud and angry.
More pain. A surge of energy.
“Kainda!”
Kainda? Is that a name?
“Hold on!”
“I’m coming!”
“Hurry!”
“Ready!”
A wave of dizziness spins my fragile consciousness.
Then weightlessness.
“Oh no,” someone says.
“I didn’t think he could do that.”
There’s a whump, and a surge of energy.
“Solomon!”
A second surge of energy follows.
“Solomon!” The voice is screaming. Desperate. “Solomon, please st—”
Whump!
SOLOMON!
Everything stops.
This voice is stronger than the others. It’s unfiltered by the haze.
“Who are you?” I say aloud.
Stop, says the voice. See!
“I can’t.”
Then we are lost.
“We?”
You are connected to Antarktos, and it to you.
I know this. I think.
The earth is your flesh. The atmosphere, your lungs. The water, your blood. You can shape them. Bend them. Control them.
“Who are you?”
Listen! Hear me. As the continent is, so is your body. They are joined. Control your body as you control the wind. Push this evil out. Burn it from your blood. Push it from your pores. Expel it!
“How?” I ask.
Open your eyes.
“They are open,” I say. “I can’t see.”
Then choose to see! Will it!
“Can you help me?”
I...must save myself. For another time. But...I will try.
The real world around me flickers into view for just a second, but it’s enough for me to get a glimpse of my surroundings, and in the brief moment, I understand everything I’m seeing.
Kainda, Kat and Mira are all lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from various wounds. A portion of the surrounding jungle has been bent or broken, all of it leaning away from me. I did this. I hurt my friends. I—
The red haze returns.
I sense my memory of what I’ve just seen grow distant.
No! I shout inwardly.
The voice said to burn it out. Earlier, Em said I was hot. I remember that now. I had a fever. But Kat gave me some painkillers and the fever was reduced, which allowed the berserker infection to run rampant through my body.
But I can stop it. The voice believed it. I can control it like I do the elements.
Burn, I think, and for the first time in a long time, I start to feel heat. But it’s not on the outside, it’s inside. I feel the sting working its way through my body. Itchy pinpricks cover my skin as I start to sweat. Chills wrack my body, and I fall to my knees, feeling the impact keenly. I can feel my body again, though I haven’t quite taken control of it.
A surge of anger pushes back as though the infection has a will of its own. And it ver
y well might. Created by the Nephilim, this virus might have a supernatural element I don’t understand. My perfect memory replays a scene from The Exorcist, a movie I watched during a sleepover at Justin’s house. It’s one of the things in my life I most wish I could forget, especially now that I fear I’ve got some kind of demon living in me.
But I’ve already faced that and won, I tell myself. I expelled the spirit of Nephil. I can push this thing from my body.
I double my efforts, cringing into a ball on the ground, clenching my eyes shut and focusing my attention inward, to my core. I don’t need my white blood cells to attack the virus, or whatever this is. I can do it myself. It takes intense focus to identify the plague, but once I identify it, I’m able to locate it in my blood, in my organs, in my bones.
With a shout of exertion, I expel the madness from my body. The effort nearly sinks me back into unconsciousness, but I sense the plague returning. I didn’t find it all! It’s spreading again!
I scream from the effort this time, but it clings to me. It’s hooked into me and will come back no matter how hard I push. All the burning and purging in the world can’t make it go away.
I’ve lost, I think.
We’re lost.
“I’m sorry,” someone says.
I turn toward the voice as the madness reclaims my body once more. In the moment before my vision fades I catch a glimpse of Em. She looks...sad, but determined.
Then I see the knife in her hand.
She snaps her wrist forward, throwing the knife.
I feel a jolt.
My head turns down.
The knife is in my chest, buried to the hilt.
19
Pain explodes from my chest like my heart is the catalyst for an atom bomb. I can’t scream. In fact, my senses are so immediately overwhelmed that I just fall, crumpling to my side.
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