United as One

  Dust’s body isn’t where it fell. Was the Chimæra still alive? Did it go down after Adam?

  I cup my hands around my mouth and shout into the gulf. “DUST? ADAM?”

  No response. The yelling causes a fresh lance of pain in my lungs. I hold both my hands over the hole in my chest and stagger backwards, supporting myself against the nearest wall.

  Marina and Nine are on their way up to you, Ella guides me. They’ll meet you in the main entrance.

  I can make it that far . . . I think.

  Slowly, I begin to navigate the twisting cavern corridors. I have to pause to catch my breath a few times, and each time I have to choke back a little blood. I glance over my shoulder and notice that I’m leaving a blood trail of my own. Looking back makes me feel a little woozy, my eyes getting hooded.

  Keep going. Straight ahead now. Almost there.

  “Six!”

  I stumble into the main entrance at the same time that Marina emerges from the narrow passageway that leads deeper into the complex. Nine is flung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Never knew Marina to be the bodybuilding type—Nine must have transferred his Legacies before he went down. I cringe when I see Nine’s condition—unconscious, face ashen, missing an arm. Marina makes as if to reach out to me with her free arm, but the shoulder is dislocated, so she ends up awkwardly jerking her shoulder in my direction.

  “Where’s John and Five?” I ask her.

  “Five . . . no one deserved to die like that, Six, not even him.” Marina shakes her head disgustedly as she delivers this news, avoiding my eyes. “John is still down there, holding Setrákus Ra until we can drop this place on top of him.”

  As if to punctuate Marina’s words, another tremor passes through the mountain base. That would be Sam, very slowly demolishing the Mogadorian lair.

  Marina takes a look at the hole in my chest, and her mouth opens like she’s surprised I’m still standing. “Can you make it a little farther? I’ll heal you once we’re clear.”

  “No,” I tell her. “Heal me now.”

  She glances up at the ceiling. “But . . .”

  “Ella, if you’re listening, you tell Sam to cut that shit out!”

  “You didn’t see Setrákus Ra, what he’s become,” Marina says, her eyes wide. “Six, this might be the only way to stop him.”

  When Adam told me about collapsing this mountain, I supported it. But that was when it was a last resort, when none of us were left standing to fight against Setrákus Ra.

  Well, I’m still standing.

  “Fuck that,” I respond to Marina. “I’m not letting John martyr himself. I’m going down there. When I’ve got him, you can go right ahead and drop this mountain on whatever’s left of Setrákus Ra.”

  I add that last part more for Ella, who I’m sure is listening in telepathically, than for Marina. I want Ella to relay that to Sam.

  Keep this place standing. Let me have a chance.

  Marina looks in my eyes, and I can tell she’s trying to decide whether I’ve lost it or not. Then she carefully sets Nine down, the big guy groaning deliriously, and presses her good hand against my chest. As her cool healing energy flows into me, I greedily suck in the first deep breath I’ve been able to take since my fight with Phiri Dun-Ra.

  “I should go with you . . . ,” Marina says. Her gaze drifts towards Nine.

  “No, he doesn’t look good,” I reply. “Stay with Nine; make sure he doesn’t die. Nobody else dies today, okay?”

  Marina finishes healing me. She grabs my hand.

  “Be careful, Six,” she says.

  Feeling rejuvenated, I sprint in the direction that Marina just came from. I remember this place well—it wasn’t too long ago that I escaped from these caverns. Never thought I’d see the day when I’d be running back into its depths, especially not when blowing it up is a viable alternative.

  I won’t let John die down here. He thinks he can win this without the rest of us, thinks he needs to shoulder all this to make up for what happened with Sarah.

  He doesn’t need to carry it alone.

  So I run. My feet slap hard against the uneven terrain. Soon, I’m sprinting down the spiral ledge, deeper and deeper. I can see the disgusting reservoir of black ooze below. I know that’s where they’ll be. I hurdle a fallen chunk of rock, duck under a sagging stalactite and leap from the ledge onto one of the narrow stone bridges to save time. The descent is dizzying, and my heart is pounding.

  At the bottom, I slow down and turn invisible. As soon as I reach the edge of the ooze lake, I stop in my tracks.

  A mess of the black oil is spread across the stone floor here, almost as if a balloon filled with the stuff exploded. Some of the tendrils flop back and forth on the ground like fish out of water. Most of the stuff is dry and hardened, though.

  John lies at the epicenter of it all. He looks like he’s been put through a meat grinder. There’s not an inch of his body that isn’t soaked with blood. His skin is shredded, mutilated, bones poking through in places. I think his legs and arms are broken. I watch his chest for a few seconds, hoping to see it rise and fall.

  He doesn’t move.

  I remember the way he was when I first tracked him down in Paradise. Handsome and brave, so naïve. Ready to put his life on the line. I remember holding that hand—the fingers now shattered, cut to ribbons—and I remember the warmth, the comfort that he gave to me when I needed it.

  He died down here alone.

  I should scream. But after all these years, all these deaths, I don’t feel rage and sorrow like that anymore. I feel cold determination.

  Finish this.

  I swallow back bile and turn my attention to the other form on the cavern floor. Frail and withered, an old man, his skin splotchy gray in some spots and, in others, a hardened black like the ooze spread across the floor. Even as I watch, those dark sections of his body slowly disintegrate, blowing away like ash off the end of a cigarette. The old man leaves a trail of the sooty substance as he drags himself across the rocks, inching towards the lake of ooze, his gnarled hand outstretched.

  The purple scar around his neck is unmistakable.

  Setrákus Ra. Still alive. Barely.

  Inch by inch, he drags himself towards the muck.

  I start forward. With my eyes locked on Setrákus Ra, I don’t notice the Voron dagger that John made until my foot bumps up against it. The blade makes a skittering sound as I kick it a few feet across the stones.

  I pick up the dagger. When I look back at him, Setrákus Ra has turned over on his side. His dark eyes cast about, searching for the source of the noise. His nose is completely missing, just a skeletal hole in the front of his face, and his mouth is completely empty of teeth.

  He’s afraid.

  I turn visible and meet his eyes.

  “Hello, old man.”

  He lets out a low moan, turns back onto his belly and increases the pace of his crawl towards the oil.

  I overtake him with ease, kick him in the side and roll him over. My foot actually punches a hole in his body, like kicking into a beehive. His chest is skeletal, concave, with a darkened space where his heart should be. He makes a sloppy swipe at me with a hand tipped with disintegrating claws. I swat his hand away and drop down on top of him, digging my knee into his belly.

  “In a few minutes, this place is going to come down on top of what’s left of you,” I tell Setrákus Ra, keeping my voice cold and steady. “I want you to know, after that, I’m going to track down every copy of your stupid fucking book and burn it. All your work, everything you made—it’s getting unmade.”

  He tries to say something but can’t. I twist my knee lower.

  “Look at me,” I say. “This is what progress looks like, bitch.”

  I hack the Voron dagger into the side of his neck, right at the scar. Setrákus Ra gurgles. I slice again.

  I drop the dagger and stand up.

  I hold Setrákus Ra’s head in my hands.

  It only
takes a few seconds before it starts to disintegrate. I wait until it’s all gone, the pieces of the Mogadorian warlord, the destroyer of my world, killer of my people, of my friends, fluttering through my fingertips like dark confetti.

  I dust off my hands.

  There’s a wet bursting noise behind me. I spin around to see a bubble of the black ooze that had been hovering over the lake pop. Bernie Kosar springs free, shaking off his coat, and immediately leaps to the floor. BK looks at me and lets go a low, plaintive whine.

  We both go to John’s side. He’s a mess, almost unrecognizable. BK lies down on his belly next to him and nuzzles his hand. I touch John’s forehead, smoothing back an errant piece of blond hair that’s sticky with blood.

  “You stupid idiot,” I whisper. “It’s over, and you don’t even know, you goddamn moron.”

  John gasps.

  I jump back, startled at first, tears stinging my eyes. It’s a sharp noise, and his entire body arches. He spasms, coughs, trembles in my arms. I cling tighter to him. When I look down, I see that his injuries are beginning to mend. It’s slow, almost imperceptible compared to how fast we normally heal, but it’s happening.

  His eyes are swollen shut. One of his hands grasps my upper arm weakly.

  “Sarah . . . ?” he whispers.

  I kiss him. Just a quick one on the lips, tears streaming down my face. I’m sure Sam won’t care. Considering the circumstances, I bet he’d kiss John too.

  John smiles a little, then falls unconscious again, breathing ragged but steady.

  BK turns into his griffin shape, and, very carefully, I settle John onto his back. I climb up behind him. We fly upwards, towards the exit to the cave, leaving the dark stench of the Mogadorian world behind.

  “Ella, guys,” I say to the air, hoping someone is telepathically listening in. “We’re coming.”

  Outside, dawn is just beginning to break.

  ONE YEAR LATER

  “COMING UP ON THE INVASION: A LOOK BACK, we interview—zzt—the courageous members of Australia’s Royal Eleventh Brigade—zzt—who staged a daring raid on a Mogadorian warship on VH Day. But first—zzt—the Loric? Gods? Heroes? Illegal immigrants? Our—zzt—panel discusses—”

  I turn off the television. It gets terrible reception way up here anyway. With the background noise gone, I can focus totally on my scrubbing. My hand’s a little sore from gripping the brush, pushing it back and forth across the stone wall. It’d be easier just to use my telekinesis, but I like the work. It feels good to use my hands, to worry at these ancient paint stains until they flake away, or until my forearms are too tired to continue.

  Used to be there was a painting on this wall of Eight getting run through by a sword. Now that’s completely gone. I scrubbed that one away first. The only prophecy left here is the painting of the Earth split in half, one part alive and the other dead, with two ships approaching the planet from opposite sides. The one I’m rubbing away now.

  I actually kind of like this one, which is why I saved it for last. My reading is that the painter didn’t know who would win the war for Earth. That’s why they left it so vague. It still has to go. I’m trying not to dwell on the past so much anymore.

  I want this place to be about the future.

  So I keep scrubbing.

  “I think it’s clean, John.”

  Ella’s voice breaks me out of my trance. I’m not sure how long I’ve been scouring the wall. Hours, maybe. The muscles in my arm are numb. I’ve probably been buffing stone for a while, the painting completely erased.

  “Spaced out for a bit,” I say sheepishly.

  “Yeah, I’ve been sitting here for about ten minutes,” she replies.

  Ella tracked me down a few months ago and has been hanging around ever since. I’m still not exactly sure how she did it. I guess being a telepath probably helped.

  In the Himalayas, I thought I’d found a pretty good place to hide out for a while, to get my head straight. I heard about this cavern from Marina and Six. Back when they were on the run in India, this chamber of prophecies suffered a cave-in during a Mog attack. I’d arrived intending to excavate and see if anything could be salvaged, but those Vishnu Nationalist Eight guys had beaten me to it. Apparently, the cave is a revered place for them. They’d already started digging it out and let me join their efforts with no questions asked. These days, they secure the area, keep random hikers away and generally stay out of my hair. I guess one of them could have leaked my location to Ella, but I kind of doubt it.

  Looking at her, I think there’s still something a little otherworldly about Ella. The crazy spark that used to be in her eyes has faded, although right now, bathed in the cobalt-blue light of this cavern, I see some of Lorien lingering in her pupils. Maybe she saw me and my project in one of her visions and decided to come help.

  I don’t mind the company.

  Ella’s grown up a lot over the past twelve months, entered those real gawky teenage years that I don’t miss one bit. Her face is suntanned from being outside, her hair braided like one of the locals. She goes to school in the little village down the mountain, and the seven other kids in her class pretend like she’s not different at all.

  She sits cross-legged on the massive table I’ve installed in the center of this cavern—my project—picking at a thread on the tarp I’ve got covering it.

  “So, the walls are clean,” Ella says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now you’ve got no reason left to procrastinate.”

  I look away from her. She’s been needling me on an almost daily basis to go out and find the others. I always intended to—the work I’m doing up here, it’s not just for me. However, I think a part of me came to enjoy the solitude and the rooted feeling of the Himalayas. When was the last time I got to stay in one place without constantly looking over my shoulder?

  Plus, I’m a little nervous about tracking everyone down. A lot can change in a year.

  From behind her back, Ella pulls out the wooden cigar box where I’ve been storing the other pieces of my project. She holds it out to me.

  “I took the liberty of getting this for you,” she says. “You can leave right away.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “I wish you wouldn’t go through my stuff.”

  “Come on, John. We’re telepaths. You know boundaries are hard.”

  I take the box from her. “You just want to see Nine again.”

  Ella’s eyes widen. “Hey! Now who’s snooping?”

  She’s right, though. It’s time. No more putting this off.

  Outside the cave, there’s a little snow on the mountain. I jog down the rocky path, into the sunny day, feeling the weather warm up as I get lower. The air is crisp and clean, and I take a deep breath, wanting to savor it, or maybe wanting to stall. I stop just before I reach the small encampment that’s home to a rotating group of Vishnu Nationalist Eight soldiers. One of them spots me and waves. I wave back.

  I take a deep breath. I’m going to miss my solitude.

  Then I leap up in the air.

  It’s been a while since I’ve flown. Even though I’m a little rusty, I’m still better at it now than I was a year ago. As I soar through clouds, feeling their chill moisture on my skin, I have to resist the urge to let out a cheer. It feels good to be out here; it feels good to be stretching my Legacies in a way that I haven’t in a while.

  It feels good to be flying towards a situation that won’t be deadly.

  Well, hopefully not anyway.

  Of course, as soon as I have that thought, two giant paws strike me right between the shoulder blades and send me tumbling towards the earth.

  I shout as I manage to right myself. As soon as I’m safely floating, the griffin makes another pass. I dodge through the clouds, avoiding its beak, its claws—laughing all the while.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say bye to you!” I yell at BK. “You were off sunning yourself somewhere, you lazy mutt!”

  The Chimæra seems to accept my apolog
y, because instead of coming in for another attack, he flies alongside me. I hook onto one of my old friend’s massive feathered wings and let him pull me forwards for a while, laughing and stroking his fur. Before we leave India’s airspace, BK shakes loose, gives me a friendly roar and turns back.

  “I’ll be home soon, BK!” I shout into the wind.

  I put my arms to my sides, keep my legs close together, chin pressed to my chest. It’s my most aerodynamic posture. I turn myself invisible and settle in, my mind emptying out just like when I was scrubbing those cavern walls. I guess I’ve become the kind of guy who meditates.

  It’s going to be a long flight.

  They’re building the Academy in a secluded patch of forest just across the bay from San Francisco. As I descend, I can see the Golden Gate Bridge and the city beyond. Below me, newly constructed dormitories and lecture halls rise up from the greenery, cranes and cement trucks parked nearby where the work isn’t yet finished. It’s like a quaint private school, if you ignore what hides beyond the forested perimeter: an electrified fence, barbed wire, heavily armed soldiers patrolling the Academy’s only exit road.

  Ostensibly, all that is to keep the human Garde safe. I wonder, though, what would happen if one of the human Garde decided they had enough schooling and wanted to wander off campus. Would the soldiers manning the gate allow that?

  I don’t ponder that question for long. That’s not why I’m here.

  For all their security, the Academy isn’t prepared for invisible flying men. I land on the campus without being detected.

  This place was built as part of the Declaration of Garde Governance, a set of laws adopted by the United Nations after Victory Humanity Day. Teenagers from around the world will be sent here to learn how to control their powers and, eventually, to work towards the betterment of humanity. There are other laws, too—stuff about the Loric and the Mogs, rules about when Legacies can be used, that kind of thing.

  To be honest, I haven’t really read them.