“He speaks truth,” whispered Mordrecai, like a serpent in Blue’s ear. “You could rule them all. You could even conquer the other Elements. All would fall before you.”
Blue’s eyes became distant, her face unreadable.
“Very well, Billy Jones,” she finally said. “True it is and true it shall be that none may take the Dagger from the hands of the living.” Then her face curled in a dangerous snarl, and her teeth gnashed together. “But Blue shall take it from your dead hands, and true it is and true it shall then be that all shall kneel before Blue, and shall feel her strength, and know her terrible caress.”
Blue plucked something from the side of the coral castle. It was a shell, pink and lovely, a thing of surpassing beauty and fragile-looking as sea foam. Blue brought it to her lips, and blew into it.
No sound came forth, but Billy could feel something happening around him. The myriad fish and sea creatures that had surrounded him and Artemaeus fled, hiding in the crevasses and cracks in the coral castle. Even Artemaeus turned tail and swam away from the non-sound of the shell.
Mordrecai was last to go, looking at Billy with a smile that he did not care for, as though he was already celebrating Billy’s death. Then the Darksider, too, took refuge within the coral structure.
Soon, only Blue and Billy remained.
“What other weapon do you have, Blue?” asked Billy. He was asking as much out of nervousness as out of a desire to find the other prophesied weapon.
Blue just smiled at him with her cruel rows of shark’s teeth. “Do you not know, son of prophecy? Have you forgotten everything?”
Billy cocked his head. Serba had said something similar. But what was it that he had forgotten?
The question was pushed out of his thoughts when Blue swam languidly toward him. “Well, you shall not know. For Blue is Deep, and has much to hide.” She pointed Excalibur at Billy, the diamond blade bright against the water. “But Blue needs not more than the Sword of Earth and her own powers to best one mere mortal.”
Billy’s heart sank. He knew it was true. She had Excalibur, for crying out loud. And though he held the Dagger of Flame, he didn’t think that was going to be enough.
Blue flicked her tail, and suddenly she was upon him. Her sword moved impossibly fast, so fast that it cut the water itself asunder. It swung toward Billy in a deadly arc that would end in his body. And though the power of the scabbard might not let him bleed, might even protect him from a DeathBlade – at least temporarily – he doubted that it would stop him from dying if he was cut in two.
There was a ringing in his ears, a sound so bright and loud that it shook his bones in his body, his teeth in his head. It was the mother of all explosions, the sound of a nuclear blast exploding right on top of him, and Billy realized after a moment what it was: as fast as Blue had moved, he had matched her, speed for speed. His arm had swung of its own accord, bringing the Dagger of Flame up just in time to parry Blue’s deadly attack.
The mermaid snarled, and swung the sword again. Again Billy defended himself from her strike, but only barely. Again the ocean seemed to swirl with the sound of the two blades clashing. Blue swum around Billy so quickly it was dizzying, moving to his right, to his left, above him and below. She flashed out with the sword, trying to find an opening.
But as had happened before, Billy’s hand seemed to be guided by perfect skill. Though the dagger was smaller than Excalibur, Blue could not penetrate his defenses. Each attack was met by a defense, each thrust with a parry, each stab with a counter-strike that kept her swimming outside the reach of his flashing blade.
The fight stretched on, and Billy gradually became aware that a change was being wrought in Blue. The mermaid’s eyes lost more and more of their striking sea-tones. The flecks of gold and silver and brown grew brighter, and began to be the dominant colors, crowding out the blue. The mermaid’s scales began to slough off of her skin, and underneath them was something alien, something sickening. It looked the color of limestone, but was soft and pulsating. Her tail, once a living thing in itself, and now bleached and dead, slowly changed in color and texture. The coral bones faded and seemed to melt into one another, looking less and less like coral and more and more like some kind of stony outcroppings.
The Earth was taking Blue, Billy knew. No matter what happened, she was going to either die, or become something that was an atrocity to the Elements. A creature that was neither Water nor Earth, neither dark nor light. A monstrosity.
But the transformation did not sap Blue’s strength or her speed. Her attacks came with continued rapidity and force. Billy managed to deflect all her attempts to kill him, but didn’t know how long it would be before she managed to get through his defenses. And he realized quickly that, while Blue could attack and defend, Billy could only defend: his blade simply was not long enough to try to get Blue without her first running him through.
Part of him was glad of that. While Blue was a creature that was so different from him as to be a complete mystery, he also knew that she was an important part of this world. She meant something to the Wateressence. What it was, he did not know, but he did not want to steal the life of this strange creature.
Not that he could. All he could manage was to continue deflecting Blue’s attacks. So he did that, while trying at the same time to figure out some way out of this situation. If he lost, he knew that Blue would flood the earth, destroying everyone he loved and knew. Was this the end of the world that had been prophesied?
No, it can’t be, he thought. It can’t end this way.
But he realized that the thought was as much hopeful thinking as it was anything else. This could be the way it all ended. And after that, Blue herself would die, corrupted by the power of the very sword she had sought.
Billy wondered if something similar would happen to him if he managed to get through this alive. Would the Dagger of Flame kill him? He hadn’t noticed it changing him, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t happening.
His thoughts were pulled back to the fight when Blue surged forward with a flurry of attacks that came so fast and so strong that Billy was hard-pressed to defend himself, even with the skill imparted to him by the dagger.
Still, he did defend himself. And he wondered how long this could go on. Blue’s skill with Excalibur was extraordinary, but so was his own ability with the dagger. Would they fight on forever?
Apparently Blue had the same thought, for she cried out in rage and suddenly stopped her attacks. She swam away from Billy, out of range of the dagger’s point. Billy thought about throwing the dagger, as he had done when the boulders had almost crushed him and his friends on the White Cliffs of Dover. But he decided against it. At best, he suspected that Blue would just block the attack the same as he had blocked all of hers. And what if she somehow managed to grab it once it had left his grasp? Then all would be lost for sure.
So he just floated, waiting. Blue swam back and forth in short bursts, growling to herself. The timbre of her voice continued to change, the song disappearing, replaced by a grating, growling tone that reminded Billy of stones being hauled out of a quarry.
Then she stopped swimming and stared at him. “Blue wished to fight Billy with the weapon he sought, to add to his humiliation, and to show all that she is supreme even against the White King’s weapons. But if that will not work, then she shall use her own power. The power of Blue.”
With that, Blue held out a hand toward Billy and slowly closed it into a fist.
At first, Billy felt nothing. Blue smiled and dropped her hand to her side. Billy noticed that her arms were looking less flexible, less sinuous. And her hair was beginning to gray, no longer floating in a beautiful cloud of green, but hanging over her shoulders and back and chest in a dank mass.
He didn’t observe anything else, though, because he suddenly felt uncomfortable. His chest was pounding. His arms and feet started to tingle, and he suddenly had a headache that would make the worst migraine crawl away and hide in shame
.
Worse, he suddenly felt as though he had been seized by a giant hand, or a vise. He was being squeezed over every inch of his body. The pressure was barely noticeable at first, but then it grew uncomfortable, then painful. And finally it was nearly unbearable.
What’s happening? Billy wondered. He gasped, and a bubble of air escaped his lips. The air bubble floated up and disappeared in the distance, and as it went Billy realized what was happening.
She was changing him back! Blue had given him the ability to survive in the Deep. It was all that had kept him alive this long, and now she was taking it away!
Billy’s free hand went up to his throat, which was burning.
“We offered you free passage, and safety within the realm of Blue,” purred the mermaid. Her tongue ran over the tips of her teeth, and Billy saw to his horror that the mermaid’s shark-like teeth were falling out, being replaced by craggy bits of jutting rocks, tiny stalactites and stalagmites in her gaping mouth. “But Billy Jones refused, and so we will give him his wish. He shall return to himself, and Blue shall take him, body and soul.”
Billy felt unconsciousness begin to circle his thoughts like a hungry shark. He fought it, but knew he didn’t have long. In desperation, he threw the Dagger of Flame at Blue. She laughed harshly, and used Excalibur to bat the blade away. It returned to Billy’s grasp, but it was wobbly, as though its ability to fly straight and true had been compromised.
Billy gasped, and felt water start to seep into his lungs. He was drowning. He was being crushed.
And there was nothing he could do.
He was going to die.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
In Which Billy sees Dreams die, and finds Water’s Grave…
Blue swam toward him. Her tail was rocky, unwieldy in the water, but she still swam quickly, and was upon him in an instant. Billy tried to lift the Dagger of Flame, but couldn’t even move his arms. The pressure of the ocean was so great that it completely prevented him from moving. He felt like he weighed a thousand pounds.
“You Challenged Blue,” said the mermaid. She blinked, and suddenly the blue was all gone from her eyes. Two shining gems now glittered in her eye sockets. But they were not beautiful. Like the rest of Blue’s transforming body, they seemed unnatural, and strange. Evil.
“You Challenged her in her own domain, in the middle of her seat of Power,” continued the shifting creature. “And now Billy Jones shall die. Here ends the story of the Messenger, and the quest of the Seeker.” She grinned, and seemed to think for a moment. “But is death enough?” she asked. “Is it sufficient to punish such pride, such hubris?” She shook her head. “We think not. True it is and true it may be that death is a thing that can be fearful, but it can also be a release, a blessed gift.”
Billy gagged. Breathing was almost impossible. He had only a few seconds left, he guessed. And there was nothing – absolutely nothing – he could do about it.
“Blue does not wish to give any gift to such a Challenger, to a one who would steal her treasures, and discover her secrets. Not even the gift of the final relief of death. Not before we take everything… even hope.”
Suddenly, Billy saw an image in his mind. He saw himself in the halls of PHHS, walking along hand in hand with Blythe. They were happy. All was well. She turned to him, and leaned in to kiss him. But in the instant before she did, her face changed suddenly. She looked down, and Billy saw that her legs had dissolved into a puddle of water. She was melting.
“Help me!” screamed Blythe. The words bubbled and burbled from within her, as though her insides were turning to liquid as well. Billy reached for her, but when he touched her his hands went right through her, coming away wet and dripping.
“No!” Billy screamed, terror and pain and loss ripping through him.
Then the image was gone, and he found himself once more hanging in front of Blue. Still choking, still dying, which everything he had just seen and felt had occurred in just a fraction of a second. It wasn’t real.
But though it had not been real, though it had been just a vision, he still felt the ache of losing Blythe, as real in his heart as if he had been to her funeral. He wanted to cry, but even that was forbidden him: his lungs were too full of water to cry, his eyes were being pressed shut by the pressure of the world’s oceans.
Even in the depth of his suffering, Billy realized what had just happened. Just as Brown Powers could see History, and Red Powers could see Memory, so Blue Powers had the ability to see Desire. Blue was taking his deepest hopes… and destroying them. She was stealing his dreams. He would not only die, he would die utterly, completely bereft of hope.
But knowing that did not give him the ability to fight off what was happening. Another vision came. This one of his mother. She had gray hair, and her round face was more wrinkled than he remembered it being, but it was her. She was driving in a nice car. She was happy. And Billy knew somehow that she was going to see him. She was driving to his high school graduation. To see him graduate, and hear him give his valedictorian speech.
Suddenly, the car hit a puddle. The puddle was deep, and the car’s wheels lost contact with the road beneath, hydroplaning on a sheet of water. Billy’s mother tried to maintain control of the car, but the wheel spun like a living thing beneath her hands. The car rotated once, twice. Then it flipped over. End over end it went, crushing itself under its own weight.
It finally came to a stop, upside down in the middle of the road.
Mrs. Jones was hanging from the seat belt. She looked over and realized that she had flipped over into the opposite lane of the road.
A truck was coming right at her.
The truck tried to brake, but it hit the same deep puddle, which stretched across the entire road. Water splashed, and the truck spun as though on an axis. But though spinning, it was still heading right at the destroyed car in its path.
Billy’s mother watched the truck bearing down on her. She began to cry. And then she died, thinking of how she would never see her son again.
Again the vision disappeared, and Billy felt like he had shrunk to nothing. Blythe was gone, his mother was dead. His desires and hopes would never come to fruition. All was lost.
He was fading, faltering. Dying.
Blue closed her crystallized eyes and sighed. “Your hopes are delicious to destroy, Billy Jones.”
And Billy, hopeless, knew it was over. Nothing could be worse than this.
“But we still have time for one more, I think,” said Blue. “One more hope to kill. One more treasure of your mind to steal.”
Another vision. Billy was running down a football field. He was holding the ball in well-muscled arms, a PHHS football jersey stretched tightly across his broad chest. The stands were crowded, and everyone was screaming.
“Bil-ly! Bil-ly!” screamed the crowd.
Several players from the other team tried to stop him. Billy dodged around one. Another grabbed him, but he flung the defender away with ease.
Only him and the goal line now.
And then, suddenly, the crowd was silent.
Billy glanced at the stands. They were empty.
Only not empty. There was one person on them. One solitary figure, its face shrouded by distance.
“Go, Billy, go!” screamed the figure, as though whoever it was had not noticed the rest of the crowd’s disappearance.
And that was all right. Billy noticed the crowd disappearing, but it didn’t matter. This goal was for the one person that remained. He would finally do something he had tried to do his whole life.
He would make his father proud.
Billy ran for the goal line. But before he got there, the sky suddenly darkened. Rain began to fall, a shower so sudden and fierce it was almost like a hurricane. Billy saw his father, still too distant to make out his features, slip in the stands. Mr. Jones’ body lurched as he tried to right himself.
Billy veered to the side. He dropped the football, but didn’t care.
Not
Dad, he thought. Not Dad, too!
He ran as fast as he could, closing in on his father.
But he was going to be too late. He was always too late. Always a disappointment.
Sure enough, his father lost his battle with the slippery rain and with gravity. He fell, tumbling forward down the bleachers. Thud, thunk, thud, a cacophony of awful sounds as every part of his body struck the unyielding metal of the bleachers.
Billy felt darkness closing in on him, and knew that this was it. He was going to lose his father, and then he was going to die. Blue had won. She would take the dagger, she would keep the sword. His friends would perish. The world was doomed.
But he was still locked into the horror of this vision. He leaped over the chain link fence that surrounded the football field, landing on the sidewalk beyond just as his father fell facedown in a boneless mass at his feet.
“No, no, no!” Billy screamed. He knew without even looking that every bone in his father’s body had been broken. He could see that his father was breathing, but knew that it wouldn’t be long. Just like Blythe, just like his mother, his father was doomed. Billy was going to lose him.
Billy didn’t want to see his father die. He knew it would destroy him. But he had no control over himself. He reached out, and turned his father over.
Blood was everywhere.
“Help me,” Billy’s father whispered.
Billy screamed. He screamed so hard and so long he felt he must go insane.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
The vision was gone.
Billy was floating in the Deep once more. He was crying, weeping, saying “Dad, Dad, Dad” over and over again.
He cried forever, it seemed. And only gradually did the reality of that sink in.
He was crying.
He was no longer drowning.
Billy: Seeker of Powers (The Billy Saga) Page 11
