The Angel Weapon

by Scott Wilson

  “We have to go!” Annika cried. She pulled Caden up and leaned him against her shoulder. The two of them hobbled back out the stage door they’d come through. They stumbled past Father Yohan, Dom, and Five all lying on the ground. Deber stood up slowly as they passed and followed them through the doors. Behind them panicked yells filled the hall.

  “Where is Father Yohan?”

  “Gotama has forsaken us!”

  “Metl is almost here!”

  Once Caden and Annika limped through the giant door to the staircase, they came to another door with a stone lock. Annika blasted the lock to pieces with her magnetizer and swung the door open to a balcony outside.

  Annika stopped. Even Caden, only barely conscious, could see it.

  Because it was everywhere. Metl took up the entire sky. It was about to hit the Earth.

  Chapter 17

  The End of the World

  There wasn’t any sky left. Metl filled it with its metallic surface and fiery red X as far as the eye could see. Only tiny slivers of blue cowered in fear around its edges. All of Salem’s bellrocks were ringing in panic as people flooded the streets, screaming and pointing at the sky.

  “Gotama’s Ant …” Annika whispered. She lowered Caden off her shoulder and he slipped to his knees like a lifeless doll.

  “Annika, please,” Caden begged. “We’re out of time. There’s only one way to stop this.”

  Annika shook her head. “I’m sorry, Caden. I can’t do it. If stopping the end of the world means I have to destroy my best friend, then screw the world—it’s not worth saving.”

  The sky turned red. The glow spread out from Metl’s burning X, rippling through the air as if the sky were set on fire. All of Salem was bathed in the blood-tinted light. Caden’s heart raced, pumping sickness through his body. This was it. It would all be over any second now.

  But then the red started to shrink. Along the edges of town, the red color receded inward. It grew smaller and smaller, narrowing down around Salem, then the center square, then the church … and then Caden.

  A single beam of intense red light shone down from Metl’s X right onto Caden. It was so bright he couldn’t look into it. He covered his eyes with his hand, peering through the cracks. Everyone in Salem looked up at him, wondering what was going on.

  Caden had no idea what was happening. What was this? Was Metl showing everyone whose fault it was that they were all going to die? Did it have some sort of sick sense of humor? His hand still covering his eyes, Caden stood up.

  And then he realized he could stand up. The burning, the pain, everything awful that he had been feeling, was gone. He looked down at his arms—the burns and scars had vanished. Somehow, he was healed. Suddenly Caden found himself able to stare into the red light, and he did so with awe.

  A voice spoke to Caden. It wasn’t the metallic Watson-like voice he’d heard before in his head. It was clear, powerful, and human.

  “Caden,” it spoke, “you have a choice.”

  Annika and all the Salem townspeople looked at Caden. They could hear the voice too. It boomed across the town.

  “You must choose, Caden. Are you willing to destroy your world, to sacrifice everything—your friends, your loved ones, and everyone else you’ve never met—to know everything? Or will you instead save your world, and know nothing?”

  Caden waited for more, but that was it. The voice spoke no more. Caden didn’t know who it was or how he could possibly respond to it, but he knew what his answer was. So he did what he could—he shouted it.

  “I want to save everyone!” he yelled into the red light. “I don’t want anyone else to die!”

  Caden gasped for breath. His throat hurt from yelling so loud. He wasn’t even sure if the voice had heard him until it boomed again.

  “You are not ready yet,” it spoke.

  The red light disappeared and, perhaps it was Caden’s imagination, but Metl seemed to grow smaller in the sky.

  “Metl is shrinking!”

  “It’s going away!”

  Cries of joy came from the crowds. Caden couldn’t believe his eyes. Around the edges of Metl, blue sky was returning, growing larger every second as the giant metal sphere retreated. He had no idea how, or why, but Metl was moving away from Earth.

  Cheers erupted from below and townspeople broke down in tears of happiness as Metl became smaller and smaller. After a minute it was half the size it had been, and another minute later it was back to its old size of the moon, except it still had the glowing red X.

  “Caden saved us! Caden saved us!”

  One voice rang out above all others in the crowd. Caden looked down. It was Evan, the giant butcher. He stood tall among the mobs of people and pointed up at Caden and Annika with his bandaged arms.

  “Caden saved us!” he yelled again. “We are Caden’s Ants! We are Caden’s Ants!”

  The crowd joined him, putting their hands together in prayer position and bowing nonstop, all of them facing Caden. They chanted and repeated the words over and over, lowering and raising their heads in unison.

  It made Caden sick.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” he yelled. He had to keep shouting before they finally listened. Everyone below gazed up at Caden in wonder. He knew what was happening. They’d seen him speak to Metl. They’d witnessed him save the world. They were going to turn him into a new god to replace Gotama.

  That’s not what Caden wanted. He wanted them to know the truth.

  “The Church is a lie!” Caden yelled to crowd. “For years, they’ve been lying to you! Go inside the church, go up the stairs, and you’ll see. They’re using Iltech. They’ve been doing experiments on the Nobodies’ parents. Gotama isn’t real, and Iltech isn’t evil. They’re just all lies by the Church!”

  Caden wasn’t even sure if the townspeople could hear him. There were a few looks of confusion, but most just gazed at Caden with relief from not being smashed by Metl. Caden readied himself to speak again. He’d say it as many times as he needed to get through to them.

  “There he is!”

  From behind, a group of Holy Police spotted Caden through the doors. They ran toward him, but the townspeople who had rammed into the church barricaded their way.

  “That boy saved us!” they shouted at the Police.

  “He just stopped Metl from destroying the world!”

  But the Holy Police didn’t care. They armed their crossbows.

  “It doesn’t matter what he did!” one of them yelled. “He’s still a wanted criminal. It’s our duty to arrest him.” With crossbows pointed at them, the townspeople backed off, letting the Holy Police through.

  Caden turned to Annika. “We have to go.”

  Annika looked up to the top of the church. Caden knew what she was thinking: her mother was still up there. But Father Yohan was gone. There was nothing they could do to help her. And no good would come from sticking around Salem. The Apostles didn’t need Caden to save the world anymore, and the Church would probably just capture him and run their Iltech experiments on him. They had to leave.

  Deber whinnied and trotted up and down excitedly. Caden hopped onto her saddle and helped Annika up behind him. She dug her hand into Deber’s leather satchel, took out the lime-green dress, gripped it tight, and then nodded to Caden.

  “Let’s go.”

  Caden held out his palms. He thought about Metl, now back where it belonged. He thought about Annika not keeping her promise, and how glad he was that she didn’t. He thought about what Jadice had said about his father being dead, and how in his heart—or whatever was beating in his chest—he knew that she was wrong.

  He made Deber rise into the air. She let out a shocked cry and started running frantically as they soared over the town. The townspeople pointed and squealed as the three of them passed overhead. Even the squad of Holy Police on the balcony looked dumbfounded at what they were seeing. They didn’t shoot a single arrow.

  It wasn
’t until they were far away from Salem that Caden let Deber touch down. She hit the ground galloping, happy to not be in the air anymore. Caden closed his eyes, to savor the wind rushing past his face … and to better sense for any electrical signals.

  His father was out there, and he was going to find him.

  Inside the church, the Holy Police pushed back the townspeople from the front stage. There was no sign of Jadice, Five, or Six, but Father Yohan still lay there dead. Dom stood over him, examining his body.

  “These Xs,” he said, inspecting Father Yohan’s angel weapon. “They’re what he used to turn Mr. Stercus into ash. And to heal my eye.”

  Another Holy Police came running down the stairs. He burst onto the stage, out of the breath.

  “Are you Freidric’s brother?” he asked Dom.

  “Yes,” Dom said, immediately turning serious. “Is he okay?”

  The Holy Police didn’t say a word; he just looked down at the ground. Dom gripped the sides of his head. Tears burned in his eyes. No … not his brother. The one person who had cared about him. The one person who had loved him. The one person who didn’t think he was worthless. He couldn’t be dead!

  Dom’s sadness ignited into rage. This was all Caden’s fault. He was the one who had knocked his brother into the electricity! He was the one who had brought those monsters into the church! Freidric shouldn’t be dead, Caden should be!

  Suddenly Dom had an idea. He crouched over Father Yohan and picked up his cold, pale palm. He brushed his fingers over the transparent X and slowly wrapped them around its edges.

  Then, with all the strength in his body, Dom ripped the X off Father Yohan’s hand. Following behind it came out a long metal tube coated in blood. It slithered like a metallic snake as Dom held it triumphantly up in the air.

  Whatever this thing was, it was his now.

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people without whom this book would not exist. First I must thank my agent Mark Gottlieb and everyone at Trident Media Group, as well as my editor Georgia McBride and the team at Month9Books for taking a chance on Metl and believing in it as much as I do.

  Huge thanks to Michelle Huack for running the query contest that got Metl noticed in the first place, and to my mentor Erika David for helping to polish my work so that it stood out.

  I am forever in debt to Charlene Smith, my writing coach, who was the first to read the opening page of Metl and the first to tell me how bad it was. With her guidance and suggestions I learned more about writing in a few weeks than I had up to that point in my life.

  A big thank you to the writing groups I attended for years, especially the Brighton Writers Workshop in Boston and Write Free or Die in New Hampshire. There’s no better way to learn than by having your writing slashed open by a dozen people, and doing the same to theirs.

  Huge thank you to Metl’s illustrator Monika Viktoria for bringing the characters and world of Metl to life in such beautiful, jaw-dropping ways. All of my favorite books have had illustrations in them, and I am so grateful that you made it so Metl can now stand among them.

  I cannot thank my mom Lydia Wilson enough, always happy to read whatever I’d put in front of her, whether it was the same page she’d already seen a hundred times that I’d made tiny changes to, or the entire book after I’d made sweeping revisions. Mom, you rock.

  Thank you to my family, my dad, sister and grandmother for their constant support, and to my friends who were willing to give the early drafts of Metl a look. Gloves, Ali, Ed, Chad and Faroqua, you are all awesome.

  And thank you to my wife Abbey, who was the first to read every chapter of Metl, and whose stamp of approval was required before moving onto the next. Thank you for listening as I went on and on for hours explaining the backstories of everyone and everything, thank you for excitedly giving me suggestions on how to fill in the gaps, and most of all, thank you for comforting and encouraging me on the days when I just wanted to throw it all in the trash.

  And finally, three people I’ve never met, but without whom Metl would have never been written. Thank you Eiichiro Oda, for creating the manga/anime that inspired me and gave me the confidence to believe in myself. Thank you Shigesato Itoi, for designing the game that defined my childhood and the adult I’ve grown up into. And thank you Norton Juster, for writing the book that made me fall in love with learning forever.

  I cannot thank you all enough, but I’ll try my best one last time: thank you.

  Scott Wilson

  Scott Wilson works as an editor and translator for the Japanese news-entertainment website SoraNews24. He runs ScottWritesStuff, a creative writing livestream on Twitch, and in his free time can be found playing video games and Magic: The Gathering with friends. Metl: The ANGEL Weapon is his first novel. He lives in the Japanese countryside with his wife.

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