by Sarra Cannon
He emptied his entire clip into the three dogs, pushing them back a little bit. The bullets seemed to just fall away, hitting their mark but leaving almost no trace that they’d hurt these things at all.
He couldn’t throw the grenades, and bullets didn’t seem to be harming these guys. What else could he do? He backed away slightly as the dog-like rotters growled and snarled at him.
“Got any brilliant ideas?” he asked as Noah left his post and joined him at the back of the Humvee.
“I have a feeling this is about to get up close and personal,” Noah said, grabbing his bat from the truck and holding it at the ready. “I’m still not at full strength, but I can try to bash them with this. Primitive, but often effective.”
Crash laughed. “I asked for brilliant ideas.”
Noah laughed, too, and Crash was grateful to have such a cool guy to spend the end of the world with.
But they wouldn’t die today. Crash was certain of that. If his dreams were any indication, they still had a long journey—and a lot tougher battles than this one—to face before this was all over.
If only his dreams had shown him how to fight against rotters who were immune to bullets.
Before he could come up with any great strategy, the three on the ground ran toward them at full speed. Noah reared back and swung with devastating accuracy, hitting all three of them in the head and sending them flying backward.
“Ha,” Crash shouted, spraying them with follow-up bullets, just in case. “Take that, dogs.”
“Heads up,” Noah shouted, raising his arm to shield himself as the other two dogs leapt from the top of the truck and barreled into him.
Crash’s heart nearly stopped beating as one of those things dug its teeth into Noah’s skin and locked its jaw tight. The dog violently shook its head from side to side, trying to tear Noah apart.
Crash didn’t see any sign of blood, though, so he had to hope Noah’s stoneskin was still in effect.
The second dog hadn’t been as lucky. Noah had its neck in his other hand and seemed to be squeezing the life out of it.
In the meantime, the three Noah had slammed with the bat were making a comeback, and they looked angrier and more determined than ever. With Noah currently occupied, this left the three musketeers over here to Crash.
With guns out of the question and the grenades too dangerous to use, he only had one thing up his sleeve. When they were back at the hospital, he remembered feeling a deep fire ignite inside his body. Somehow, he’d poured pure electricity into a rotter’s body.
Of course, at the time, he was severely injured and pinned down, which had his adrenaline going crazy. He could, if needed, convince himself that this situation was about to go down the same path.
He tried to remember what that had felt like to channel so much power through his own fingertips, and as he reached for that same fire, it appeared. Like a tiny little ember that had been smoldering all this time. He had just managed to reconnect with it.
So, now he just had to figure out how to amplify it by a thousand and roast these things.
Nothing like the fear of death to motivate, huh?
He dropped his gun to the ground and held his hands out in front of him, feeling kind of stupid because he had no real idea what he was doing. All feelings of self-consciousness fell away, though, when he curled his fingers inward and sparks danced between them like little cracks of lightning.
“Hell, yeah,” he whispered.
He focused all of his energy on that burning ember deep inside, imagining he was pouring fuel onto it, causing it to burn hotter and more intensely.
That intention seemed to do the trick, and the lightning in his fingertips also grew hotter and more controlled.
“Time to test this out,” he said.
He pulled his curled fingers back and then shot them forward, straightening his fingers out at the last second and directing the bolt of electricity at the dog nearest to him.
A flash of lightning struck the dog-like zombie, and it squealed, pulling back and lowering its face to the pavement, dazed and, from the looks of it, slightly singed.
“What the crap was that?” Noah asked, finally ripping the dog-like rotter who’d tried to bite him off his arm. “Did you do that? Or is that something else I need to be watching out for?”
“That was me, man,” Crash said, laughing maniacally and holding up his fingers to show Noah the lightning. “How awesome is this?”
Noah’s eyes grew wide. “Do it again. Here they come.”
Crash cursed and turned his attention to the three dogs again. The one he’d singed had recovered quickly and joined the pack. Now, they were all heading for him.
He had no idea how quickly he could recharge his ability or if he could even get a shot off quickly enough to hit all three. He pulled his hands back toward his body as the rotters leapt off the ground, charging toward him.
With a yell, he put everything he had into the lightning and this time, instead of just a single flash or bolt, he kept pouring his energy into the stream.
A stream of almost rope-like lightning flowed from the fingertips on both hands, combining into a single, thick stream that connected with the head of the rotter he’d hit the first time. Crash kept yelling as he pushed the stream outward, holding onto it for as long as he could, imagining the ember of power inside him being stoked and heated over and over again.
Something shifted in the energy, and all of a sudden, the stream of lightning traveled from the first dog to the second and then the third, like a chain. All three of them fell to the ground, shaking with the force of the electric flow running through their bodies.
Crash held on as long as he could, the energy draining out of him. He grew light-headed, but he could not let go until those things stopped moving.
“Crash, let it go, man,” Noah said, holding a hand toward him, but not daring to actually touch him.
And who knew what might happen if Noah had grabbed his arm. Was Crash’s entire body a giant conduit right now?
He wasn’t sure, but he had never felt anything more powerful and exhilarating than what he’d just done. He released the stream, but only because he felt like he might pass out otherwise.
With them heading to New York maybe even as soon as tonight, he couldn’t afford to completely burn himself out unless it was that or death.
And he prayed that wasn’t a choice he was going to have to make today.
He looked around and realized he and Noah had actually managed to kill all five of those things in a matter of minutes. If the Dark One really wanted them to die she was going to have to try a lot harder than that.
Just then, a giant flash of blue light went off in his peripheral vision.
“Parrish,” Noah shouted, immediately taking off to climb on top of the Humvee and search for her.
“Wait up,” Crash said, following him but taking a quick look behind to make sure those dog rotters weren’t getting up. When they didn’t move at all, he relaxed and climbed on top of the roof.
He’d just had enough time to take in the carnage of all the rotters wriggling on the ground between them and where Parrish stood on top of a city bus when something bright and fast appeared beside her.
Noah shouted out a warning, but he was too far away and too slow to make a difference.
Parrish swung her sword toward the thing at the last minute, but Crash gasped when the rotter simply reached out and grabbed the blade, pulling it from Parrish’s hands and throwing it to the ground.
Within another second, Parrish went flying ten feet onto the pavement below.
Crash didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Instead, he grabbed his gun from the ground and followed Noah over the chain-link fence.
Fourteen
The Boy
They’re in trouble.
The boy was sitting in the living room with Zoe when he felt a disturbance deep down in his core. Their panic and fear filled his heart, but he could also feel th
eir powers rising inside them.
His own powers buzzed against his skin, and he ached to use them.
He couldn’t sit still, so he stood and paced the room, wishing he could figure out exactly how they’d made that connection before. He’d been touching Zoe’s arm at the time, and he was sure that was part of it.
Her connection to Parrish was incredibly strong for just being her sibling in this one lifetime, but the boy could almost feel part of Parrish’s power flowing through the girl’s veins. It was faint, but it was there.
That wasn’t supposed to happen when they reset each lifetime. Yes, their bodies held the DNA of the parents they were born from, and they shared that set of DNA with any human relatives or siblings, just like anyone born in this world.
But for the magic he’d created to work properly, there was also a second set of directions inside each of their bodies. It was a delicate reset each time, and every time they were ready to give up their current lifetime and start anew, he was the one to reset them.
It wasn’t reincarnation, exactly. Not the way humans here liked to think of it.
It was, in a way, less like being reborn, and more like being rewritten, over and over.
That was part of the reason none of them remembered their past lives. Only the original life remained imprinted on their memories.
It was also one of the reasons he was so much younger now than the rest of them.
He was the one to reset the spell and the seal each time, so he was always the last to be reborn. After a thousand years, it had put him a few years off from the others.
Crash was always the first to go back. Then the other three all at once, which was why they usually lived nearby or found each other first, even if they didn’t understand it. They would always be drawn together.
When they’d originally fought against the Dark One, the boy had actually been the oldest of the group. Some from their world had even called him an Ancient.
He was more than a thousand years old before they ever came to this world and had been considered one of the greatest strategists and alchemists ever born.
It was his knowledge that had allowed them to set up their recurring lifetimes here, using the fatalis stone.
He had not created the stone, of course. Only someone with power over both life and death could have created a stone like that, and there was only one person who had ever lived with that kind of power.
Her intention for the stone was very different from the way the boy had used it, though. When the Dark One created it, she had planned to use it to open portals to new worlds, like this one, and then siphon life from any beings there in order to give her and her followers life eternal.
She’d called it the fatalis stone, because it was meant to defy Fate itself. To defy death.
But sooner or later, fate comes for everyone.
The Dark One never understood that. Even now, she still fought for a way out. For a chance, once again, to control her own fate by stealing the lives of others.
The boy was scared that this time, she might actually succeed.
Nothing had gone according to their grand plan here.
Over a thousand years of resetting and rewriting their own minds and powers in order to keep this world sealed away from the Dark One’s power. A thousand years of sacrifice as their powers lay dormant.
A thousand years of Tobias hiding the stone and keeping it safe from this world, and him returning it once in their lifetimes so that they might find each other and gather on the island to reset once again.
A thousand years of trying to keep everyone safe, and when they had finally needed to use their powers and the power of the stone, something had gone terribly wrong.
Instead of coming back to train them and reunite them, Tobias must have been killed. It was the only explanation the boy had been able to come up with. It was the only way the fatalis stone could be here in this world without him.
But none of that mattered now.
All that mattered now was coming together as a group of five and getting to the island to reset the seal on the Dark One’s magic before she grew strong enough to break free.
The boy could feel the stone calling to him like a beacon in the darkness.
He could sense that they weren’t too far away from him now, but with the state of the world, it was a difficult distance.
He’d been thinking of going to get a map from the bodega down the street. He was pretty sure he’d seen paper maps there for tourists.
But honestly, he didn’t have much hope of finding a way for them to get off this island by flying across rooftops. He had learned to go quite a distance when the buildings got sparse in some places, but to get fully out of New York, they’d have to travel across bridges and into areas where there were no tall buildings. Only houses and roads where the rotters would easily get to them.
Of course, he could run faster than any rotter could, so maybe they would be okay.
Maybe they had a better chance of getting out of the city than Parrish and the others did of getting in safely.
If he could just tap into their consciousness the way he’d somehow managed to do yesterday, maybe they could have a conversation about it. He could tell them he and Zoe were together.
Most of all, he longed to talk to his old friends. He knew they wouldn’t remember him the same way he remembered them. That was also part of how the reset worked. He would always be the first to remember, because it was supposed to be his job to activate the stone each time.
Then Crash would dream of them, and they would go about the business of finding each other as quickly as possible.
There was a whole protocol in place, but it was a mess now. The Dark One had somehow managed to mess up all their plans, even from her icy prison inside the earth.
And right now, she was attacking them again.
He’d felt the guardians’ distress in the past, but it had never been this clear.
He guessed it was because of the connection they’d shared. It had closed a circuit between them, but it still wasn’t enough for them to talk openly to each other the way he could to Zoe.
Still, he had to at least try to give them hope.
To give them a clue into how to use their powers against the Dark One.
“What is it?” Zoe asked, standing up from where they had been sitting together on the floor by the coffee table, putting together a puzzle.
He had loved putting puzzles together with his parents. It was one of their favorite ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, short of walking to the park, and even though he knew now they had only been his parents for a short time in this one lifetime out of hundreds, they had been so good to him.
He had loved them.
And he missed the simplicity of their life before this. They’d never had much when he was growing up, but they’d always had love and that was the most important thing a family could have.
The boy motioned for Zoe to join him on the floor in the middle of the room.
Zoe scratched absently at her left arm and pulled her sleeve down over her hand.
“Are you trying to reach Parrish again?” she asked softly.
He nodded, and she smiled a little.
He sat cross-legged and rested his hands on his knees, palms facing up as if he was about to meditate. Zoe sat across from him and imitated his position, not questioning him but rather following along and understanding what he wanted her to do.
“She’s okay, isn’t she? Because when you stood up, you looked worried,” she said. “You can sense her, can’t you? That’s how you knew to come find me? You thought I was her?”
He opened his eyes wider. They hadn’t really spent any time talking about this, but she had figured it out on her own.
She was smart for someone so young, but he guessed he was, too.
He nodded again and pointed to the infinity sign necklace she wore.
“She saved my life,” Zoe said, tears shining in her eyes. “A bone marrow tra
nsplant when I was very young. I think that might be why. I always knew she was special, but I couldn’t explain it. I don’t think she’s ever really seen herself that way, but she is special, isn’t she? Like you?”
He smiled.
That was why he could sense Parrish’s power inside her sister. She was more than just a sibling. She had taken on a piece of Parrish through the transplant.
He wanted to tell her Parrish was the most special, even if she would never admit that to anyone. She had always been humble.
Or maybe humble wasn’t the right word for it.
She had always been blind to her own greatness, and it was one of the only reasons she’d never fully embraced the unlimited power that flowed through her.
Yes, Parrish was special beyond understanding, but until she could see that for herself, her full power would remain locked within.
But if there was ever a time for her to embrace it, it was now. In this lifetime.
They needed her more than she realized.
And right now, she was fighting for her life. He could feel her pain like a punch to the gut.
It wasn’t a physical pain for him. More of a sensation of being hit or thrown. But he could feel it clearly now.
Heart racing. Fear pouring through her veins.
If he wanted to reach out to her he was going to need to do it now. There was no time to waste.
He caught Zoe’s eyes, hoping she would understand to follow his actions. She nodded, her eyes glued to his face.
He took a long deep breath and slid closer to her until their knees were touching.
He turned his palms down and touched the tips of her fingers with his own. He closed his eyes and focused on the blood flowing through Zoe’s veins. He reached out to that feeling inside him that had experienced Parrish’s pain and fear. He plugged into it and deepened the connection, breathing into it and allowing it to flow between him and his connection with Zoe.
Finally, a small zing went through his entire body, like a jolt of electricity, and Parrish’s face came into clear view in his mind.
He’d done it. They were connected.