Alliance

  If that was a little oddball, it was a small price to pay for the man’s goodwill and mentorship. Will knew that the discipline and intensity of their daily work had become his primary method for coping with all his pain and sorrow. Maybe that was enough?

  So Will filed his question about the fire with all the other unanswered ones about his enigmatic coach that he’d accumulated over the past six months. For instance, Is it really true, Coach, that you’re the great-great-grandson of Crazy Horse?

  Oh, and while I’m at it, might as well toss in “How did I run on top of the water?”

  “Here’s your silver eagle,” said Will, and flipped the coin up at Jericho.

  Jericho caught it in the palm of his hand. Standing on its edge. He covered it with his other hand and made it disappear with the flourish of a birthday-party magician.

  Eyes twinkling, Jericho smiled broadly. A rare enough sight that Will was always amazed the man could actually shape his face into one.

  “What did you learn?” asked Jericho.

  “Water’s wet. Ice is cold,” said Will, his teeth still chattering.

  “What else?”

  Will felt a sudden spike of heat against his leg. He stuck a hand in his pocket and found the stone falcon he always carried. The rock should have been freezing, but it was hot to the touch, almost too hot to hold, like it held a living flame inside. He took it out and stared at it, gripping it lightly between his thumb and first finger.

  “It won’t hurt you,” said Jericho.

  Will closed his palm around it, feeling the heat penetrate his skin, but instead of burning him the warmth spread into his fingers and wrist and up his arm. At that moment a falcon’s call sounded, somewhere in the sky high above them. Will looked up but couldn’t spot the bird anywhere; still, he felt his chest open, cold air rushing in, nourishing him at the deepest levels.

  “What else do you know?” asked Jericho, smiling slightly.

  “I feel like I’m back in my body,” said Will, breathing deeply, feeling the surge of heat shoot into his core and from there down and out through his limbs.

  “That means you’re healed.”

  Jericho was right. Will could feel vitality spreading deep into his muscles and bones. His mind tingled. His senses opened up to everything around him. He felt connected to the rocks, the wood, the fire, the sky, the lake. He was alive again.

  He was AWAKE.

  “So that’s what this has all been about?” asked Will. “Me and you. Helping me recover?”

  “You tell me,” said Jericho.

  “Yes.”

  But there’s something more to it than that. Something else going on. You’re helping me prepare … but for what?

  “Tell me what else you feel, Will.”

  The events of last fall projected through his mind like a scrambled movie trailer: the destruction of his life in Ojai, the kidnapping and disappearance of his parents at the hands of Mr. Hobbes and the Black Caps, the attempt on his own life and those of his friends by Lyle Ogilvy and the Knights of Charlemagne.

  “I feel … ,” said Will, taking another deep breath, a surge building in his chest. “I feel really … angry.”

  “Who are you mad at, Will?”

  “The people who did this to me and my family.”

  Jericho paused. “Hate wears you down and doesn’t hurt your enemy. It’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy will die.”

  “I didn’t say I hate them,” said Will, looking right at him. “I just want to take them out.”

  Jericho smiled his enigmatic smile.

  RULE #24: YOU CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING IF YOU CAN’T CHANGE YOUR MIND.

  Returning from the lake, Will burst through the pod door, brimming with energy. Brooke Springer sat at the dining room table, twirling a strand of her long blond curls, reading something on her tablet. She looked up, startled, when he came in, and their eyes met. Will felt an electric jolt but he didn’t speak, hoping she’d break the ice first, say something, anything to him … a single welcoming word …

  But Brooke’s eyes shaded over and she looked away, with only the slightest nod of acknowledgment. No more than you’d give a total stranger sharing a ride in an elevator.

  The same treatment he’d been getting from her since she came back to school three months ago. Will thought hard about finally calling her on the distance she’d put between them, the tension and alienation:

  Why are you treating me like someone you don’t even know when we were so close a few months ago? As close as I’ve ever felt to anyone not named West.

  But if he said one word about this now, he knew his restraint would break and he wouldn’t be able to stop until he’d poured out everything he’d been holding inside.

  Not the right time.

  Will grabbed some water from the kitchen and sailed straight to his room. He closed the door loudly, but with control, then paced around from wall to wall, trying to decide where to start.

  He grabbed Dad’s List of Rules and opened it randomly, looking for guidance, and the List didn’t disappoint. His eyes fell on:

  RULE #74: 99 PERCENT OF THE THINGS YOU WORRY ABOUT NEVER HAPPEN. DOES THAT MEAN WORRYING WORKS, OR IT’S A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY? YOU DECIDE.

  Okay, thought Will. Today let’s say worrying works. What do I do next?

  He flipped through the book again, stopped randomly, and landed on:

  RULE #22: WHENEVER YOUR HEAD IS TOO FULL OF NOISE, MAKE A LIST.

  That felt like the best advice Dad had ever given him. His notebook couldn’t help him work this out; he needed to go old-school technology. Will locked the door, sat at his desk with an oversized sketchpad, and went to work getting it all out on paper.

  And whatever you do, don’t start with Brooke.

  Six weeks remained in the school year; then summer vacation loomed, a yawning void he’d been dreading, with no idea how he’d be able to fill it. But that could be a plus. Now that he felt back on his game, he had six weeks to identify what he needed to do and how to go about it. All the unfinished business from last fall that he’d had to hang on a hook, for self-preservation, while his mind, body, and soul knit themselves back together.

  Will began writing down questions in big capital letters:

  HOW ARE THE KNIGHTS OF CHARLEMAGNE CONNECTED TO MR. HOBBES AND THE BLACK CAPS?

  Will had every reason to think the Knights were finished after they’d tried to kill him last November. Ten of the twelve Knights had been arrested. Only the group’s leader, Lyle Ogilvy, and Lyle’s partner in crime, Todd Hodak, remained at large. Todd hadn’t been seen or heard from since the attack. Lyle’s whereabouts, a frequent subject of campus rumors, remained unknown. Will knew there wasn’t much left of the Lyle he’d known, after barely surviving an attack from the wendigo that he’d summoned to destroy Will.

  But can I be absolutely sure that the Knights were destroyed?

  Will and his roommates had discovered frightening proof of a connection between the men he called the Black Caps—who’d chased him out of Ojai, then kidnapped his parents and made it look like they’d died in the plane crash—and the Knights. They’d found a videotape of a meeting recorded by Ronnie Murso—the roommate Will had replaced in their pod, who’d been missing for nearly a year. A tape that, before he and his father disappeared on a fishing trip, Ronnie had gone to heroic lengths to hide from everyone but his roommates, leaving a coded trail of clues to his secret that Will and his roommates had been able to crack.

  Ronnie’s recording covertly captured a meeting between the Caps’ leader, the fearsome bald man Mr. Hobbes, and Lyle Ogilvy. Hobbes could be seen giving Lyle a piece of aphotic technology he called a Carver, a mysterious device that could be used to open a portal between here and a dimension called the Never-Was.

  Will had learned (from his dead–undead–
badass Special Forces helicopter pilot–guardian Sergeant Dave Gunner) that the Never-Was is a purgatorial dimension where the monsters he called the Other Team came from. A prison where this elder race of beings had been banished from Earth eons ago by the celestial organization that Dave worked for—the Hierarchy. The same group Dave claimed Will now worked for as well, as a low-ranking “initiate.” With the treacherous help of human collaborators, like the Knights and Caps, the Other Team had long been planning a jailbreak in order to retake control of the planet, and the agents of the Hierarchy were all that stood in their way.

  When Mr. Hobbes, posing as a federal agent, tried to kidnap him, Will also realized that the bald man was some kind of monster/human hybrid himself. Hobbes hadn’t shown himself since. How could he and his roommates hope to stop creatures like Hobbes and his minions? He could barely write fast enough to keep up with his thoughts, trying to make sense of all the connections.

  THE ABILITIES WE HAVE TO FIGHT WITH

  ME:

  - Speed (from enhanced fast-twitch muscles, as well as … ?)

  - Incredible stamina (extreme oxygen-binding ability in my red blood cells)

  - Amazing restorative ability/self-healing (related to the blood condition)

  - Telekinesis: the ability to create energy and apply it to objects or people with my mind (freaky; no idea WHERE this comes from)

  - Possibly related: the ability to extend my senses away from my body and receive precise impressions about the world around me. Maybe by tuning into patterns of magnetic waves? (Don’t know if this ability has a name—even in fiction—but I call it the Grid)

  - Telepathy: the ability to communicate “thought pictures” and words into the minds of others (likewise, something I’ve been able to do since childhood but never had a name for it)

  - Dad’s Book of Rules … not an ability really, but a damn helpful ace up my sleeve.

  AJAY JANIKOWSKI:

  - Incredible vision, as good or better than an eagle crossed with a top-gun pilot.

  - Photographic memory: registers virtually everything he sees (and somehow doesn’t suffer from brain congestion)

  - Total recall: nothing seen by his eye ever gets forgotten by his mind (Where does he put it all? Check to see if he’s had brain MRI yet.)

  NICK McLEISH:

  - Astonishing strength, agility, leaping ability, hand-eye-foot coordination.

  - World-class fighting skills, champion gymnast, master of half a dozen martial arts

  - Heightened sense of direction (an ability shared by—why does this not surprise me—a large number of wild animals)

  - Virtually—and perhaps stupidly—without fear (this might be less a “power” than a serious mental deficiency).

  Which leads to …

  - (Nick and Ajay: no sign of telepathy as yet. It’s hard enough just talking with Nick.)

  ELISE MOREAU:

  - Sonic power: Able to create, manipulate, and direct sound waves as physical force.

  - Telepathy: At least with ME, able to communicate without words and over undetermined distances (and getting stronger). Also capable of heightened psychological insights: intuition?

  - Precognition and/or remote viewing: Possible intuitive ability to see future events, or ones taking place at far distances (anecdotal; untested and unconfirmed)

  BROOKE SPRINGER:

  - Incredible beauty (okay, not a superpower, but it might as well be based on how it works on me)

  - The uncanny ability to stomp on my heart with the slightest glance.

  He drew a line through that and aggressively erased it.

  - As for more specific powers???? Unknown (and what’s up with that?)

  He made note of Lyle’s powers as well:

  LYLE OGILVY:

  - Telepathic attacks: ability to exert mind control and mental attacks

  - Evil disposition: a possible victim of mind control himself (courtesy of a Ride Along, one of the worst Never-Was monsters)

  - Also, bitten by a wendigo from the Never-Was. Ultimate effects of which are unknown—as are his whereabouts—but what I saw was nasty. Wherever he is, prognosis can’t be good.

  Will asked himself again, Where do these powers come from?

  His working theory: As a result of genetic manipulation performed on us during in vitro fertilization. As part of a secret medical/scientific program called the Paladin Prophecy.

  But it will remain just a theory until we find who did it, and why.

  Will hadn’t heard a single word or whisper from the one person who might have been able to answer that, his mysterious protector, Dave Gunner. Not a peep since Dave was pulled into a portal to the Never-Was while saving Will’s life (for the fifth time!). After taking a bite out of Lyle Ogilvy, the wendigo had dragged Dave back into that horrifying place with him. Will had no idea how Dave could have survived. And where he might be now if—big if—he had. Dave had explained to Will that he was already dead—killed in a chopper crash during the Vietnam War—so could anything worse even happen to him? Will kicked himself for never asking Dave if that meant he couldn’t be killed a second time. Would his guardian angel ever come to his aid again?

  Because given the immense evil we’re about to declare war against, I’ll need all the help I can get. So where do we strike first? WHO’S AT THE EPICENTER OF ALL THIS?

  Will looked at what he’d written. All the connections pointed to one name:

  WE NEED TO FIND MR. HOBBES

  But Will had no idea where to start! Hobbes had always found him. They knew Hobbes had been at the Center—on Ronnie Murso’s video, six months before he’d found Will. And for all they knew, Hobbes could be connected to the mysterious research program called the Paladin Prophecy, but his real role remained a stubborn mystery.

  They had one other lead to go on. Will’s friend Nando Gutierrez—the taxi driver he’d met in Ojai—had tailed Hobbes and his Black Caps to the Los Angeles Federal Building, tracking them to the office of a seemingly benign academic testing organization called the National Scholastic Evaluation Agency, or NSEA.

  The NSEA turned out to be the supervising agency that had flagged Will’s over-the-moon test scores and brought them to the attention of the Center (Ajay’s and Elise’s as well).

  Not only that, but Will had also subsequently discovered that the Center owned the NSEA, through an organization called the Greenwood Foundation.

  Will boiled the mystery down to the biggest unanswered questions: WHAT IS THE PALADIN PROPHECY? ARE THE KNIGHTS AND BLACK CAPS BEHIND IT? AND DOES IT INVOLVE THE CENTER?

  Will hadn’t proved his theory that the strange powers they’d started to manifest during the last year resulted from genetic manipulation performed during in vitro fertilization. But three of his roommates—Ajay, Nick, and Elise—had been able to confirm with their parents that, like Will, they’d been conceived and born in the same year as a result of in vitro procedures performed at privately owned fertility clinics in four distant cities.

  What odds would Vegas give you on that being a coincidence? What about after you add in that the Center owns the NSEA and all of us end up here fifteen years later, in the same year each of us starts to manifest these strange powers?

  But had all that been done as part of a plot called the Paladin Prophecy? That was THE QUESTION. Which forced Will to finally look at the area that might provide the answer:

  He’d spent his whole life believing that he was Will Melendez West, the only son of Jordan West, a low-profile scientific researcher, and Belinda Melendez West, a part-time paralegal. The Wests appeared to be perfectly ordinary, aside from the fact that they’d moved around so restlessly, every fifteen months on average. A puzzling pattern that now appeared to have complicated reasons.

  Will had since learned that his father was in fact Dr. Hugh Greenwood, the grandson of Thomas Greenwood, the visi
onary educator who had founded the Center nearly a century ago. Hugh’s father was Franklin Greenwood, only son of Thomas, who had succeeded his father as the school’s second headmaster.

  Will had cautiously poked around for information about Hugh and learned that he had taught at the Center and that he and his wife had left the school—without explanation—sixteen years ago. Hugh had also graduated from the Center, but all other details of his parents’ presence here had been erased, until he’d found a photograph in a seventeen-year-old yearbook. He took out the copy he’d made of it from his desk and looked at it for the thousandth time.

  A casual moment of “Hugh and Carol” watching an outdoor student concert, with the following caption: POPULAR SCIENCE TEACHER HUGH GREENWOOD AND WIFE CAROL ENJOY THE ANTICS AT THE ANNUAL HARVEST FESTIVAL.

  It was “Jordan” and “Belinda” all right. Many years younger, of course, and their hair looked completely different—Hugh had a crew cut, while Carol wore a long blond ponytail. Hugh was clean-shaven, whereas “Jordan” had always worn a beard, and Will had only known “Belinda” as a brunette. Neither wore glasses or a hat in the photo, something they’d done frequently during Will’s childhood, perhaps, he realized now, as part of a disguise.

  Why did they go on the run when they did? What made them leave the Center—and the attractions of Hugh’s great family legacy—so suddenly? If I have the timing right, that would have been after they’d known Carol was pregnant but before I was born. Was their flight from the Center related to their finding out about that in some way, and if so, how?

  Biology had been Hugh Greenwood’s subject at the Center, and he was well liked by his students. A trained medical doctor, with a couple of related PhDs, his father’s later work as a researcher in neurobiology clearly had its foundation in his earlier life. But did he do it just to make a living, or was there something more to it?