The Curse of the King

  I struggled to get free. My attacker was trim and barely taller than me, but his strength was awesome. There aren’t too many things more awkward than being dragged through a jungle by your arm. I stumbled in the brush and nearly fell three times.

  He came to a stop near a fallen tree, set me against it, and whispered, “Speak softly.”

  It was not a he voice at all. I watched in disbelief as my assailant removed the black mask. My throat dried instantly, and I had to swallow to speak.

  “Mom?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  REUNION

  MOM’S HAIR WAS close-cropped, almost like a boy’s haircut, but nothing could hide her humongous smile. “I am so, so sorry, Jack,” she said softly, “but that place where I found you . . . it had cameras.”

  “It’s o—” I said, but her arms were wrapped around me before I could get to the “kay.”

  I didn’t think about cameras. Or about the island at all, or my body’s time clock or the fact that my friends were nowhere to be seen. In that moment, seven years disappeared and I was a little kid again. I smelled mac and cheese bubbling on the stove, and a blast of chilly air through the kitchen door. I remembered the curve of her arms and her sweet smell and even her little, barely audible sob.

  “I don’t mean to smother you,” she said. “I have been waiting to do this for years.”

  Smothering was okay. I gripped her as hard as I could. There was so much I wanted to say. A geyser of thoughts rose up inside me—angry and giddy, desperate and confused, all tripping over each other to get to my mouth. “How could you . . . why didn’t you . . . Dad and me . . . all this time—”

  “Shhhh,” Mom said, placing her fingers on my lips. “Not so loud, Jack. There’s so much I need to tell you. You’re right to be upset. I never meant to abandon you and your dad, you have to know that.”

  “I do know,” I said. “The Omphalos put a contract on your life. Number One told us.”

  “Yes,” she said, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “I had no chance against him, Jack. If I hadn’t carried out my plan in Antarctica, I would be dead now. And then I would have no chance to find a cure. No way to save you. I wanted to tell you and Dad, but it all happened so fast.”

  “But why?” I said. “Why would someone want to kill my mom?”

  “Because I was hopelessly naive,” Mom replied. “All I wanted was to find the cure, and I thought the Massa and Karai wanted that, too. But like the princes they were descended from, they couldn’t agree. They worked in secret from one another, while kids all over the world were dying. You were going to die. I decided to force them to work together. So when I began to unravel the G7W gene, I declared I’d give my findings to the Massa as well, so that our chances of finding a cure would be doubled. I asked the Omphalos to reach out to Aliyah. Instead, he ordered his people to kill me and take my work. I had no choice but to turn to the Massa. They took me in, no questions asked. They accepted my findings. Valued my work. But to be safe, I created a new identity so they wouldn’t connect me to you.”

  I nodded. “So it’s true. The Karai are the bad guys.”

  “No, no, it’s not so simple.” Mom shook her head, wiping her cheek. “You must understand, Jack, Professor Bhegad would never have wanted anyone to harm me. He was a mentor and a good, kind man, even if he didn’t always show it. And I see now that the Omphalos only wanted to make sure the information didn’t fall into the wrong hands. He saw that raising Atlantis would bring devastation. So their work is good, Jack.”

  “But their leader was ruthless . . .” I said.

  “Is,” Mom murmured.

  She began to cry, and I couldn’t help myself either. We both rocked back and forth in each other’s arms. “I wish we could both go home,” I said. “I wish we were all normal again.”

  Mom nodded, gently pulling back and looking me in the eye. “We’ll get through this, Jack. We’ll get the Loculi and save your life. I swear it.”

  “Mom, Number One is threatening us,” I said. “She thinks we stole the Massa’s Loculus shards. But someone else did—”

  I stopped short of mentioning the rebels. But Mom touched her finger to my lips, as if to shush me. “Of course you didn’t. No one did. The shards are where they have always been since we got back to the island, in a secure hiding place very close to Aliyah.”

  “Wait. What?” I exclaimed. “So she lied to us? Why?”

  “The same reason she lied about the xylokrikos and the electrified trap that wasn’t.”

  Mom’s raised eyebrow told a complete story. Of course. How could I have been so thickheaded?

  “She’s manipulating us,” I said. “She knows we’d assume the rebels stole the shards. And that we’d go after them. So she’s using us to flush them out of hiding. To do the work she can’t do.”

  Mom nodded. “That is how the Massa work.”

  “Okay, we have to tell Cass and Aly,” I said, looking over my shoulder. “Last I saw, they were headed to the beach.”

  Stiffening, Mom reached out and grabbed my arm. “Don’t . . . move . . .” she whispered.

  Directly ahead of us was a thrashing sound. Mom crouched behind the bush, pulling me with her. “With the opening of the rift,” she whispered, “there are all manner of beasts in the jungle.”

  “If it’s a vromaski . . . ?” I said.

  Mom gulped. “We run.”

  As we tensed for action, I heard another rustling noise—this time, behind us. I spun around in time to see Cass and Aly burst through the trees.

  I put my fingers to my lips, and they fell silent. Mom was focused on the sound ahead of us, pointing a small gun. Through the trees emerged a massive figure with no hair; blackened skin; and filthy, ripped clothing. As his green eyes focused on us, Mom pulled her trigger.

  “No!” screamed Aly. “Don’t you know who that is?”

  The giant attacker put a hand to his neck and fell to his knees. It was only by the sound of his roar and the scar on his cheek that I knew who he was.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  PREPOSSEROUS

  MOM TOOK AIM again, but I knocked the gun from her hand. “Stop! You just shot Torquin!”

  As Aly ran toward the giant, Mom’s mouth fell open. “But his face! I didn’t recognize him.”

  “He was in an explosion,” I said. “He—he should be dead.”

  “Now he is,” Aly called out.

  “No!” Mom said. “It’s a tranquilizer bullet.”

  With a grunt, Torquin glanced at Aly, confusion dancing across his slitted eyes. His face was swollen and mottled with angry orange-red blotches. The lashes and brows had been scorched off. His unruly thick red mane was gone, leaving only a few ragged tufts of blackened hair.

  I ran to him as fast as I could. Aly, Cass, and I tried to lift him to his feet, but it was no use. At nearly seven feet tall and three hundred pounds, Torquin was either going to fall or stand on his own.

  Mom came toward us, frantically rummaging in a leather pouch. “He’ll need an antidote. That dosage was enough to take down a rhinoceros.”

  “Pre . . . posserous,” Torquin mumbled, his eyes crossing.

  “Hold out his arm!” Mom pulled out a small vial and quickly yanked the cap off a hypodermic needle.

  Torquin was swaying back and forth groggily, singing a song from The Little Mermaid. Lifting his arm was like trying to grab a tree trunk on a moving lumber truck. Mom broke three needles on his thick skin before she could administer the antidote. She sat with him, snapping her fingers in his eyes and slapping his cheeks to keep him awake.

  In a moment Torquin’s eyes fluttered. He lowered his chin and let out a belch that rocked his entire body.

  “I think he’s feeling better,” Cass said.

  Aly gave him a gentle hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

  I leaned close. “Torquin . . . it’s Jack, Cass, and Aly. How did you survive that explosion?”

  “Barely,” Torquin gr
umbled, eyeing Mom warily.

  “It’s okay, she’s on our side,” I said. “She’s my mom.”

  Torquin’s eyes went from slits to saucers.

  “I submit to no group,” Mom said. “I am a free agent representing the interests of my son and the Select. I will keep your secrets and help you in any way.”

  “Saw explosion coming . . . ran . . . too late . . .” Torquin said. “Blew me into bushes. Woke up and walked to street, flagged taxi . . .”

  “You got a taxi?” Cass said. “I wonder if it was the Massa spy?”

  “No spy,” Torquin said. “Driver saw me and ran away. Torquin drove cab to airport.”

  “So you got here with Slippy!” Aly said. “You slipped under the detection.”

  Torquin nodded, glancing around the woods. “And you found rebels?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “They’re here somewhere, Torquin,” Mom said softly. “They operate at night with tiny acts of sabotage—setting fires, stealing food and equipment, disabling security. I don’t know how they are surviving or how many there are. The Massa have not mounted a full-scale search for them yet, but it will happen soon, now that Dimitrios is back on the island. He suspects they’re somewhere near Mount Onyx. But the place is surrounded by video feeds and nothing has ever been detected.”

  “We have to find them, Mom,” I said. “And we have to get those shards. We have the missing piece, and it will fuse with the others. We can make that happen.”

  “The Massa have the Loculi of Invisibility and Flight, too,” Aly said. “If we can get them, we’ll have three.”

  “There’s a fourth Loculus, too,” Cass said warily, “but a god ran off with it. Long story.”

  “Can you get them for us, Mom?” I said. “The two Loculi and the shards of the third one? We need to get them and meet up with the rebels, and we have to do it all before darkness. If we’re not back by then, they’ll start coming for us.”

  Mom exhaled, looking back toward the compound. “It won’t be easy. If they catch me, it will change everything. They will kill me.”

  “They can’t catch you,” I said. “Not after all these years, Mom. Promise me, please. Promise me they won’t catch you?”

  Mom met my glance levelly. She looked as if she’d aged just in the last few minutes. “I guess I need to make up for lost time, don’t I? I promise, Jack. I have gotten very good at avoiding detection.”

  I nodded, but I felt as if someone had turned me inside out.

  Torquin turned and blew his nose, sounding like the horn of an eighteen-wheeler.

  “I will return to this spot as quickly as I can and give this signal—” Mom stuck two fingers into her mouth and let out a raucous, three-note whistle. “Torquin, I will need you to come with me. There’s one person I have to extract—someone the Massa may use as a hostage. She’s a bit of a handful, but we can’t leave her behind.”

  “Who is person?” Torquin said dubiously.

  “Her name is Eloise,” Mom said.

  “What?” Aly blurted out.

  Cass’s face drained of color. “No. Absolutely not. Number one, she’s disgusting. Number two, she’s bratty. Number three, she’s obnoxious and gross—”

  “Number four, Cass,” Mom said with a sigh, “she’s your sister.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  MY SISTER THE MONSTER

  AFTER CASS FINISHED cackling, he picked himself off the ground and wiped off clumps of jungle leaves. “Oh, thanks,” he said. “That is hilarious. I like your mom, Jack. She doesn’t take life too seriously, even at times like this. My sister! Ha!”

  Mom’s expression was dead steady. “Cass, I need your cooperation on this.”

  A laugh caught in Cass’s throat. “Hrm. So you—I mean, this is a—you can’t . . . um, Mrs. McKinley, you don’t know me, but I can assure you I don’t have a sister. I’m an only child.”

  “And I’m a geneticist,” Mom said. “Your parents gave birth to a girl when you were four years old. At the time, you were in foster care. Like you, she became a ward of the state.”

  Cass nodded. “I was with the Hendersons.”

  “They called you Li’l Runt,” Mom said. “You slept in a room by the laundry machine. There were four other children.”

  “You didn’t have to remind me of that,” Cass said.

  “G7W runs in families, Cass,” Mom said. “It’s not so surprising she has it.”

  “She does look like you,” Aly volunteered.

  “She speaks Backwardish,” I added.

  Cass put his head in his hands. “Won em toohs.”

  As we walked toward Mount Onyx in search of the rebels, my head throbbed and my ankles looked like the surface of a pizza. I felt like we’d walked into a flash mob of mosquitoes. I’d slapped my own face so much I nearly dislocated my jaw. Above us a team of monkeys took turns dropping nuts on us and screeching with hilarity.

  “Ow!” Cass flinched. “Why is it they always seem to hit me?”

  “Shhh,” Aly said. “We have to hear Jack’s mom’s whistle.”

  “Tell that to the monkeys!” Cass said.

  I looked at my watch. 4:43. “We have to be patient.”

  “Right. She and Torquin have to deal with my sister the monster,” Cass said, as another fistful of nuts rained around him. “Maybe she’s actually up there with her look-alikes.”

  A high-pitched whine sounded in the distance, and we stopped. It grew louder like a police siren. “An alarm,” Aly said. “You mom mentioned there were—”

  She was interrupted by the crack of a gunshot. Shrieking, the monkeys almost instantly disappeared.

  “Th-that was from the direction of the compound,” Cass said.

  The blood rushed from my head. If they catch me, it will change everything, Mom had said. They will kill me.

  I began running toward the noise. “Mom!”

  “Jack, what are you doing?” Aly shouted. “Come back here!”

  I ignored her, racing through the jungle. My bug-swollen ankles scraped against thorns and branches. The sun was beginning to set below the tops of the trees, darkening the path. In a moment I could hear Cass and Aly running behind me, shouting.

  Another shot rang out. I was off course. Too far to the north. As I shifted my path, I could hear a thrashing in the woods.

  A shrill, three-note whistle pierced the air.

  Mom.

  “Over here!” I bellowed.

  A shadow materialized between two trees, and in a moment, I saw Mom’s face. At first it looked like she was wearing a half mask, like the Phantom of the Opera, but when I got close I realized the left side of her face was coated with blood. “Mom! What happened?”

  She held up her left hand, which was wrapped in a bloody towel. “The safe . . . was booby-trapped,” she said, gulping for breath. “My hand got stuck . . . I wiped it on my cheek. Face is fine, but the hand will need some TLC. I’ll be okay, Jack.”

  “Did they see you?” Cass asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Mom replied. “I wore gloves. No prints. But I can’t be sure.”

  As Cass and Aly ran up behind me, I realized Mom had a giant sack slung over her shoulder. She swung it around, letting it thump heavily on the ground. “There are three steel boxes inside,” she said, “with the two Loculi and the shards. Each box is secured with an encrypted electronic lock. We will have to worry about that later.”

  “You’re the best, Mom,” I said. “But I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “You guys don’t have the time to—”

  YEEAAAAARRGHH!

  A roar like an angry lion blasted through the jungle. As we all spun toward it, a different voice wailed, high-pitched and nasal: “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew—that tastes disgusting!”

  Torquin crashed through the underbrush, stepping into the clearing. His browless eyes were scrunched with pain and even in the dim light I could see a crescent-shaped red mark on his right arm. Yanking hi
s arm forward, he dragged Eloise into sight. “She bit me,” he said.

  Cass looked at Mom’s belt pouches. “You have a rabies shot in there, by any chance?”

  “Rrrrrraaachhh, ptui! When was the last time you took a bath, Hulk?” As Eloise spotted Mom, then us, the agony on her face vanished. “Sister Nancy? What’s going on?”

  Mom took Eloise by the arm and brought her forward. “Eloise, dear, come meet your brother.”

  “I don’t have a brother,” she said.

  “Sweetheart, you do,” Mom said. “This is Cass.”

  Eloise’s face fell. “The dorky one?”

  Cass waggled his fingers. “Sorry.”

  “I feel sick all over again,” Eloise said.

  “Well, that’s a touching reunion,” Aly said.

  Mom knelt by Cass’s sister, looking her in the eye. “Eloise, the Massa took you from your foster home and told you a lot of things—”

  “They said you picked me!” Eloise replied. “They told me I had no mom and dad.”

  Mom nodded sadly. “The Massa have forced both of us to do things we never should have done. They are keeping many truths from you. Before they brought you here, they did some horrible things to the Karai Institute, the people who first settled this place.”

  “Those were the rebels, the bad guys . . .” Realization flashed across Eloise’s face. “Sister Nancy . . . you’re a spy?”

  “Do you trust me, Eloise?” Mom asked.

  “Yes! You’re—you’re amazing,” Eloise replied. “You’re the only one who’s nice to me, but—”

  “Do you believe I’m telling you the truth?” Mom pressed.

  Eloise nodded silently.

  “It’s a long story, dear,” Mom said, “and there will be time to tell it someday soon. Jack is my son. I was forced to leave him, too. Please, stay with him and your brother. These people have your best interests at heart. Not the Massa.”

  Eloise stared at her feet for a few seconds. Cass moved toward her. He looked like he wanted to put his arm around her, but finally he just stood by her side.