by K. K. Allen
I’ve been transported to a tranquil spring of pure beauty, and my worry is momentarily hypnotized. My surroundings flourish with bright green leaves and large flowers that are full and well-blossomed, but it’s the aroma of orange blossoms that stimulate my senses positively. Large oak trees grow tall as their roots sprout endless tangles. The grass scent is fresh and newly cut.
As I approach the pond I’m suspended by fascination. How did Ava’s parents and their volunteers do all of this? My surroundings appear to have the magic touch of an Enchanter; places like this simply do not exist in Apollo Beach.
A bird chirps near my ear and as I turn to view it I watch frozen as the blue bird transforms into a raven right as it nears my head, momentarily blocking my sight. Its wing slaps my cheek, burning the spot that it touched. I raise my hand to my cheek to heal it quickly, then look around to see what’s coming for me next. Now I’m certain an Enchanter did not create this place.
There’s a sinking feeling in my chest but I have no time to determine why, because a black bat swoops in; his eyes blood red. I swear its teeth are in the shape of razors. I duck just as it flies over my head making a squealing sound when it crosses my path.
The entire scene around me transforms from beautiful tranquility to something from a nightmare. I turn back to the pool of water below the fall and watch as the clear shining, moonlit facets darken and thicken, turning to a muddy color. I take a step back as the bubbling brown liquid creeps toward me. My foot catches on something, bringing me down onto my back. The intensity of the fall causes an excruciating pain to shoot up my side. I cringe. I feel a movement up my ankle and look down to see the tree roots slithering around me until their ends become snake heads, reminding me of the awful snake from Weeki Wachee
A scream escapes me as I jump to my feet and run back toward the entrance—but there is no entrance. The hedges that formed the walkway I came from are weaving together slowly and securely, as if the branches are needles and the green leaves are its thread; it’s sewn together, disabling my only escape. I’m forced to turn around. Whoever is doing this wants me right where I am.
As I peer back out at the dark brown muddy waterfall, it quickly transforms again to a flowing and fiery red lava. The squawking of birds irritate my ears as a bright blue glow catches my eye. On the other side of the meadow, another set of hedges untangle, creating a clear and narrow pathway. I know without a doubt that through the passage is where I’m meant to face the Equinox.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The blue glow increases in intensity the closer I step. I tense as I’m about to round the hedge. Will Erebus greet me on the other side?
I inhale deeply and squeeze my glowing green stone that hangs loosely around my neck. By now I know that it glows like this when it senses danger, and the strength it gives prepares me for what lies ahead. I step forward, but as I round the corner I’m not ready for what my eyes unveil.
“Johnny.” My voice comes out strangled and weighted with emotion.
His body is tied up against a tree; head sagged revealing, what looks like, an unconscious state. I throw myself toward him and am surprised to see his face lift slightly. He looks like he has been beaten pretty badly, drained of all energy. Blood soaks through his hair on one side of his head, his clothes are torn and dirty. However he got here, he didn’t come willingly, that much is obvious.
When I’m close enough to touch him I reach for his face. “Johnny.” My whisper is barely audible above my choking. A silent sob escapes me as I call his name again. When he doesn’t respond right away, I put my lips to his. If I transfer my energy to him, at least some of it, maybe he can begin to heal. But before our lips meet he returns my gaze and shakes his head, willing me to stay back. But why? He doesn’t appear to be relieved, or happy, but horrified.
His eyes grow wide as he looks over my shoulder. “Get out of here, Kat. Run!” He manages to speak, but it’s more of a desperate croak.
I swivel around just fast enough to duck in response to a knife that swipes at me—held only by air. It makes a loud whooshing noise in its attack. There’s no one else around.
“Who’s there?” I call boldly.
A giggle is my response, irritating the very core of my body. I know that giggle.
“Ava. I know it’s you. Come out now.”
And she rewards me with her grand entrance around the nearest hedge. “You’re very smart, Kat.”
Her voice is sticky sweet and the way she says my name ignites the flame in my chest. I should have known Ava was behind all of this—and that she was the Equinox. I want nothing more than to kill her, but just as I’m sorting out ways in my mind to do so, Alec follows her from behind the hedge, and it’s like ice running through my veins.
“No,” I say with a shake of my head. “No.” A tear rolls down my cheek. Although Alec and I haven’t been close for some time now, I never thought his betrayal would hurt so badly.
Ava tilts her head and pouts, mocking me with pure joy. “Oh yes, Kat. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found out Alec was just like us.” Her eyes twinkle with malicious evil as her hands lift slowly, creating a string of electricity from one hand to the other. She looks to Alec, evidently cueing him because he raises his hands too. A ball of fire grows in his hands. His eyes look dead, as if devoid of whatever humanity he once had.
“What are you?” I yell over the sound of the raging fire and the sizzle of electricity.
Ava laughs. “But don’t you already know?”
The answer is yes, I already know, but I want to hear Ava say it. “Tell me why you’re doing this. No one understands. You don’t need to kill us to be powerful. Look at you—you’re already more powerful than any human.”
Ava throws her head back and giggles. “Yes. We are, but I’m just following orders,” Ava says before slanting her eyes and throwing her ball of blue lightning straight for my chest.
My hands shoot out in defense just in time to stop the lightning bullet from reaching me. The pressure of my power pushes against her creation, forcing it back in her direction. Her smile fades and her eyes turn to me with an evil blue glow. The stories Rose shared with us come back to me now, as I experience what she did a decade ago. When Equinox become vulnerable their blue light shines brightly—exposed and unable to hold much of a defense.
I continue pressing toward her and she’s unable to push back; my light is much brighter and more powerful than hers.
Ava glances left. “Alec, help.” She’s frantically pushing against my strength to no avail. To my surprise, Alec isn’t helping her. Instead, he’s dissolving his fire and lowering his hands.
At first, Ava looks like she’s been struck, but then she turns back toward me and narrows her eyes. Meanwhile, Alec runs to Johnny and releases the rope that binds him to the tree. I can’t see their interaction, but I can hear it. Alec is no threat. Then why was he standing with Ava just now?
My concentration returns fully to Ava and her self-made light that’s about to kill her. I hold the flow of light steadily now, hoping she can provide some answers.
“Are there others like you?” I demand, refusing to call her what she is.
Ava smirks. She’s obviously over Alec’s betrayal—or whatever that was. “More than you can imagine.”
“Do they know about us—that we’re in Apollo Beach?”
She continues to smirk while nodding her head.
“What are you after? What do you want from us?” Maybe something she can tell me will stop all of this and protect my friends and family from more violence.
Ava takes a deep breath, as if it’s her last, and speaks. “All I want, is to do as he says,” she snarls. “It’s Erebus, the God of Darkness who wants you.”
“What does he want with me, Ava?”
She smirks just as the lightning reaches her, just inches from her chest. I leave it there, waiting for her to tell me what I need to know—whether or not I’ll like her answer is irrelevant.
Ava raises her arms and releases her neck back so her eyes face upwards—inviting death. I give her what she wishes and propel the lightning creation at her chest. The light soaks into her entire body, illuminating a bright blue color from her insides-out.
I watch, sickened, as Ava smiles while the blast tortures her. Arms wrap around me on either side—Alec and Johnny. They reverse my steps until our backs hit the tree, and with an explosion of light, Ava’s lifeless body crumples to the ground.
I let out a cry and turn to face Johnny and Alec. I look between them, wanting badly to apologize to Johnny, and curious to understand what just happened with Alec. Did he befriend the Equinox knowingly? Is he an Equinox descendant? All I know is that he has powers—made evident by that fireball he created at Ava’s command.
“I hate to tell you this Kat, but it’s not over.” Alec says looking over my shoulder.
I cringe and turn slowly to see what’s next.
Iris.
She radiates a blue glow around her—but this glow is not the same as Ava’s. Her soul is exposed, faintly making out the lines of the Serpent, Erebus. I am looking at a possessed Iris.
“Good riddance,” Erebus speaks using the young voice of Iris, and he says this with a repulsed glance down at Ava’s lifeless body.
I stand taller. “Erebus.”
Iris smiles but it’s Erebus who controls her movements now. “Should I curtsy?”
I make a sideways glance to see the knife that still hangs in the air. “Please do, so that I can throw this knife at your head.”
I’m angry—angry that he’s done all that he has up until this moment, irate that he made me kill Ava, and furious that he’s standing before me now in Iris’s body. Iris and Ava may not have been the best souls around, but they were young with potential to become something better, until Erebus got to them.
Erebus laughs. “That knife won’t hurt me—but it might damage my beautiful hostess, and for that I will be very ungrateful.”
“How long have you been possessing Iris? Was it you who burned on the Fourth of July?”
Another evil laugh comes from Iris’s body, and then a sneer. “That was the first night I met you, my dear. Your magic is lovely.”
“Iris is dead then.” I say it out loud to confirm my own fears, but I remember what Rose told me about possession. There’s only so much time a person has left to live once Erebus takes over their body. If Erebus invaded Iris on the Fourth of July, then the real Iris is gone.
Like a light flickering on in my brain, my eyes widen at Erebus. “You made Iris catch on fire?”
Iris, Erebus, whoever, sneers. “Yes. I first possessed dear Iris that night. She was all too willing.” His words are trickling with disdain. I wonder if he’s unhappy I know so much.
Without giving him a chance to respond, I propel the knife at a speed that wouldn’t register for a Normal. It hits Iris square in the forehead. Erebus growls at the attack and glows brighter as he raises Iris up, so she’s floating a few feet above the ground. “Tell me, Katrina. How do you like being the strongest Solstice of all time?” He is disturbingly unfazed by the blood running down Iris’s head.
I narrow my eyes at Iris’s levitating body. “How do you know anything about me?”
A loud laugh that is no longer Iris’s carries across the distance between us. “You’re a Summer. I’ve been following your bloodline since the life and death of Astina Somer, rest her poor soul.” Erebus frowns mockingly. “I’ve killed many Enchanters over the years, but none quite as bright as you. You will give me the power I need to finish you all.”
I shake my head. “You can’t kill me, Erebus.” I hold up my arm, revealing my mother’s pendant, knowing that he can look but he can’t touch.
Erebus grins. “Oh, I can kill you.” Then he shakes his head. “But killing you is not what I want—not yet anyway. That pendant only keeps me from possessing you, and I will possess you,” he speaks ominously.
The strength of Johnny’s arms around me help to keep me from lunging at Iris.
“If you so much as touch Kat you will die,” Johnny speaks up. It’s clear in the power of his voice and the grip he has on me that he’s gotten his strength back.
Erebus growls and then hisses, blowing a thick cloud of blue smoke at us, forcing us to gag from its smell—gas and skunk. “You dear boy, are the reason I didn’t get to Katrina when I intended to, and Ava was supposed to kill you. Dear girl was never the best Follower, now was she? I gave her a chance.” Erebus points to Ava’s dead body, and with a swipe of his hand, tosses her over the nearest hedge. She lands with a thud and Erebus turns back to us with a cocked head.
“What did I do? How am I part of any of this?” Johnny yells in anger.
“You saved Katrina from the water.” Erebus spits his words now. “That entire plan was not easy to master but it was all going perfectly until you disobeyed my orders.” Erebus grows angrier and his glow brightens with each word.
The Fourth of July. The Equinox was after me that night.
Erebus continues. “You were under orders to take the pendant from Katrina and leave her for me.” Iris’s voice is changing to something deeper and layered in evil.
I look to Johnny. “What is he talking about?”
Johnny shakes his head. “The Equinox killed my parents, and he left his marking all over my parent’s boat.” He turns back to me, knowing that this alone explains so much. He continues at a rushed pace. “Iris came to me and told me about someone in town who carried a pendant of the Equinox. She told me that it was you, that you were evil, and I needed to steal the pendant from you. Somehow she knew that I was searching for the Equinox—and she wanted me to think that you were the one I was after. At first, I wasn’t convinced, but she knew that I would recognize the symbol on the pendant.” He glares at Iris—err—Erebus.
I think of the knife wound on Johnny’s back and need to stop the bile from rising to my throat.
“That’s why I knew to be there that night to save you from drowning. I was supposed to toss you back into the water.” His eyes explore mine as he speaks. I know this is hard for him to say. “But I couldn’t, Kat. I looked at you, and there was something—“ He shakes his head, unable to finish his sentence. “I didn’t know why, but when I looked at you I couldn’t follow through. That’s why I had your pendant. I was going to give it back—I just wanted to know what it all meant first.”
“And this one,” Erebus is sneering at something to my other side—Alec.
I look at Alec now who appears to be as peeved as Johnny and myself. “What do you have to do with this?” I ask him.
His eyes flutter to mine and then to Erebus, as if he doesn’t want to let him out of his sight. He doesn’t say a word making Erebus grow angrier.
“You side with this—Enchanter?” Spit flies from Iris’s mouth and sprays us all.
“I was never on your side, Erebus. Ava was a fool to trust you.”
“Okay, so you failed, and I have the pendant now.” I say this to distract an evil Erebus from Alec. “It’s never coming off of me. So now what?”
Erebus blows another puff of smoke at me, but with a flick of my wrist, I use my powers to swipe it away.
“How did you know I had the pendant in the first place?” I ask. He knew about me all along. He wasn’t testing me on the Fourth of July. He caused that wild fire so that I would use my powers and grow weaker, so that Johnny could steal my pendant.
Erebus curls Iris’s mouth up at the corner. “Because I know who gave your precious pendant to you, Katrina.”
He waits for me to ask but I’m already shaking. I don’t need to ask. The memories come flooding back—of my mom wearing the pendant around her neck for as long as I knew her and then handing it down to me, in what
I thought was a coming of age thing. Turns out my mom wanted to protect me from the Equinox. Right after that, she died—but my mother didn’t die of a heart attack. She was killed by the Equinox because she was no longer protected. Erebus must have been right there, knowing and waiting, lurking in the wings so that he could destroy her and get closer to me—and Rose.
“You killed my mother.” My trembling words cause Erebus’s smile to grow wider but he doesn’t respond.
“You’re very smart, Katrina.”
My body shakes with rage and I’m blinded by hatred for the Equinox and love for my mother—all at once. I tear myself from Johnny’s grasp and start running with everything left in me. I leap the ten feet or so it takes to reach Iris’s body and pull Erebus to the ground. Once my hands are around his neck I stare into his eyes and burn a hole through his head until I can see the earth below.
Erebus hisses. I can feel pressure on my chest, as if someone is pushing me off of Iris, but I am too strong.
Johnny and Alec appear on either side of me, helping me contain Iris’s body as she writhes and screams against the force. My mouth drops open as Iris’s body becomes motionless and her blue glow fades, forming into the shape of a serpent that slithers above her. It hisses and darts at me as if it’s going to attack but it reels back just as quickly—he’s afraid of me.
The serpent slithers through the air creating some distance between us before speaking. The voice that speaks next sounds foreign—nothing like the voice that came from Iris. This voice is deeper, with a rich Greek accent. It sends unkind shivers all through my body.
“I was getting tired of that body anyway.”
Johnny pulls me back into his arms. Alec is beside us, his arm on my shoulder.
“I’ll be back for you, Katrina Summer—and next time, I won’t give you the courtesy of a leisurely chat.”
