by R. T. Lowe
Felix observed him. A bit taller than average height. Plain clothes. If not for the terrible scar, Felix would have thought him unassuming, someone you wouldn’t pick out of a crowd. Lynch’s hand suddenly jerked upward and Felix grabbed it, holding it in an incalculably powerful grip as he swung him in an arc, slamming him to the ground, then raising him up and slamming him down again. Felix held him, intent on bludgeoning him to a bloody corpse. Then he heard Allison’s voice in his head telling him to let Lynch talk, that he might possess knowledge that could be useful to them. Giving in to the voice, Felix released him.
Lynch dragged his fingers through the dirt and lifted his face to Felix, coughing, blood pouring from his mouth and forehead.
“You didn’t have to kill her!” Lucas shouted furiously at Lynch, seething.
Lynch ignored him, struggling to his knees. He held out a shaking hand, palm up.
“Why’d you do it?” Lucas shouted, his face red with anger. “Why?”
In the space above Lynch’s palm, the air itself seemed to come alive, racing in ribbons of black smoke that twisted and curled, forming bands that came together, forming an orb as dark as the darkest night, flames flickering in red and violet.
“Why?” Lynch whispered, blood streaming down his chin. “A Wisp could never understand.” It rose from his palm and moved steadily through the air toward Felix.
“That’s not gonna work.” Felix searched for it with his mind, heart steady, unconcerned. It felt more like mist than a solid thing, but as he concentrated on the core of the strange object it succumbed to his will and he stopped it.
“You can’t win.” Lynch laughed softly, his gums red with blood. He spat on the ground beside him. “This won’t make a difference.” He gestured at himself. “Killing me won’t mean anything. The storm is here and you can’t turn it away. It’s too late.” He smiled and his face went slack. “You can’t win.” His eyes closed and his body tilted to the side, his head swooning lazily—
With a suddenness that made Felix jump, Lynch thrust out a hand and the fiery orb exploded toward him.
Acting on instinct, Felix stopped it and flung it back, Lynch’s dark eyes reflecting the sparks as he sat stoically and watched the vehicle of his death nearing, his expression impassive, realizing his ruse—his final ruse—had failed. There was no fear in Lynch’s eyes, but a look of stubborn defiance… or was it something else? Something grim and ironic that said you can’t defeat me—I’m not the one who has lost today. Lynch’s creation licked at his face and consumed him as if he had been plunged in a pool of black ink. His body cracked and splintered as though it was a stick of charcoal burning in the heat of a fire, lightening, turning gray, and then, like a sand castle disintegrating in a driving wind, he began to shrink before their eyes and Felix understood why Lucas thought Kayla had melted. All that remained of Lynch was a mound of ash.
Felix turned away from it.
Lucas was already walking back through the cemetery, his eyes focused on the ground, searching for something.
“Where’s Kayla?” Felix asked, catching up to him.
Lucas stopped and knelt down, brushing his hand over the grass. “Here maybe.” He held up his hand, squinting at the dust on his fingertips, glittering as the sun’s rays pierced the clouds. “Or maybe not. I guess she’s just… gone.”
“Yeah,” Felix said sadly. He watched Lucas staring at the fine sheen on his fingers. Gone? Just like that? He cleared his tightening throat. “We’d just met, but I… I really liked her. I know that sounds lame, but she was… I liked her.” He glanced around at the devastation, feeling winded, staggered by the suddenness of it all. An hour ago, Kayla was joking around with Lucas. Now she was dead, nothing left of her but some sparkly gray dust on Lucas’s fingertips.
“This sucks,” Lucas muttered sorrowfully, standing. He shivered, running a hand down his drenched backside. “Guess we should go. What would we tell the cops?”
Felix shrugged and gestured at the yawning pit where Lynch had buried them alive. “Comet?” he suggested.
They set off at a jog and Lucas forced a smile. “That’s actually plausible. Either that or a hurricane. Earthquake maybe?”
“Shit,” Felix groaned in disgust when he saw his Wrangler. The hard top and the hood had taken a pounding from the falling rocks.
Lucas slapped his hand against the door. “I think it’s just cosmetic, nothing a little duct tape can’t fix.” He climbed in, slouching down so the now concaved roof wouldn’t brush against his head.
Felix turned the key and the engine coughed hesitantly to life. He let out a sigh of relief. His Jeep was somewhat temperamental, especially in the cold.
“What’d I tell you?” Lucas said. “Takes more than an exploding planet to kill the Wrangler. Of course it’d be nice if the heater worked in this damn thing.”
Felix shifted into gear and wheeled the Jeep around, following a service road he hoped connected to a back exit, wanting to avoid the main one. He glanced in the rear view mirror and cringed at the sight. His face was streaked with blood, his hair tangled, dirty and matted.
“You should clean up,” Lucas suggested. “If it was Halloween, you might be able to pull it off as a zombie costume, but I think we’re still in February.”
Felix slipped a hand in his pocket and turned on his burner. He needed to talk to Allison to let her know—Allison! He stomped on the brake and cursed at himself. Allison was an Empath. How could he have forgotten? He called her burner and she answered on the first ring.
“Felix? You okay? Everything okay?” Her voice was desperate, panicked.
“I’m fine. Lucas is fine. You all right? Is your head—?”
“I had to cut my test short, but I’m okay now. I was in the middle of writing a killer essay on Thoreau’s thoughts on civil disobedience in an unjust state when my head started bleeding all over the desk. I faked a bloody nose and hid in the bathroom until it stopped. What happened to—never mind! You can tell me later. You need to get to campus. Hamlen’s scheduled his next podcast and its today at three. We need to get there before it starts. We’re running out of time.”
“Get where?” Felix asked.
“Mt. Hood.”
“Seriously?” He stepped on the accelerator.
“Seriously.”
“We’ll be there in—” Felix began.
“Where’s Kayla?” Allison interrupted. “You said Lucas was fine. What about Kayla?”
A heavy silence filled the car. “I’m sorry,” Felix said finally. “She didn’t make it.”
Allison went quiet. “Call me when you’re close. Need anything?”
“A change of clothes,” Felix said. “Towels too. And some water. I’m a mess.”
“Okay.” Allison’s line cut off.
“She sounds upset,” Lucas said. “They were tight?”
“Yeah,” Felix muttered, seeing an exit ahead that led to a side road. He turned to Lucas. “Thanks for… for everything back there. You saved my life, you know.”
“I’m aware.” Lucas grinned.
Felix grinned back. “Still feel like you’re completely useless?”
Lucas shrugged nonchalantly. “So I guess you could say you owe me, right?”
Felix brought his eyebrows together. “I suppose you could say that. What are you—?” It hit him. “This have anything to do with Margot Robbie?”
“Damn straight. Laser beams. I want laser beams.”
Felix laughed. “You can have your damn laser beams.”
Chapter 34
RAINBOW’S END
“Mind if we join you?” a voice said.
Carter looked up from the mound of fries he’d dumped on his triple cheeseburger wrapper. Two women had seated themselves across from him. The redhead was pretty, if you were into Irish-looking chicks, and the other one—dark skin, darker hair—had a look in her eyes that reminded him of the lions he’d seen at the zoo last summer.
“I’m Iphi,” the lione
ss said, curling her fingers around Carter’s soda. “This is Natalie.”
“Hello,” Natalie said pleasantly and smiled.
Carter dropped his burger and licked his fingers, eyes flickering to the exits behind them, something telling him these two weren’t here for the Chicken McNuggets.
“Your drink has too much ice,” Iphi told him, nodding at it. She spoke with an accent that sounded vaguely Australian, though he wasn’t sure.
The paper cup, Carter could see, had iced over.
Iphi gestured for him to take it.
He reached for it, carefully. The freezing cold bit into his fingertips. He squeezed it. It was hard as a rock—frozen solid. He lifted it and set it back on the table. His pulse began to race. “How’d you do that?”
“How does one leave a trail of temporarily blind people from Maine to Pennsylvania?” Natalie smiled. She also had an accent, an Irish lilt that made her even prettier.
Carter shrugged as if to say I don’t know what you’re talking about. “How do you know that was me?”
“This is where the trail ends,” Natalie answered.
“Not very discreet,” Iphi commented. “Reckless—in fact. Blinding people and stealing their money is a good way to draw attention to yourself.”
“No shit,” Carter said casually. “You think I don’t know that? I was trying to get noticed.”
Natalie glanced at Iphi and smiled as if she’d just won something. “I told you. This one’s smart.”
Carter ate a fry, observing them. “So who are you guys with? Is it like a secret organization or something, like the X-Men?”
Iphi shook her head wearily. “This isn’t a movie.” She sighed at Natalie. “Kids these days, I swear, half of them think they’re performing for an audience. They’re intolerable. No wonder the testing’s left to psychopaths.”
“Don’t mind her,” Natalie told him gently. “We are a bit like the X-Men, but much cooler, and there are more of us.”
Carter dipped a fry in ketchup and chewed it up, his heart soaring. “How many?”
“Thousands,” Natalie replied, speaking the word slowly, letting it linger in the air.
“Wow,” Carter said softly, leaning back. “Who’s your Dr. Xavier?”
“Who the hell’s Dr. Xavier?” Iphi folded her arms, glancing around distastefully.
“The leader of the X-Men,” Natalie explained, smiling patiently. “You should really get out more often.” Her gaze shifted to Carter. “We can’t tell you who our leader is—not yet. Not until you prove yourself.”
“Prove myself?” Carter swallowed down another fry. He reached for his drink, forgetting Iphi had frozen it. “What do you mean? Like a test?”
“Exactly,” Natalie said approvingly. “Think of it as an initiation.”
“What makes you think I want to join your, um, what do you guys call yourselves?”
“Drestianites,” Iphi said.
Carter repeated the word to himself, liking how it sounded.
“Isn’t that why you created a trail?” Natalie asked him. “Isn’t this what you were hoping for?”
“Maybe he’s got a point.” Iphi frowned at Natalie, shaking her head. “He doesn’t know a thing about us or who we are or what we’re trying to accomplish.” She smiled sadly. “Perhaps he’s not the right fit. Not everyone, after all, is meant to be a Drestianite.”
“You have to let me in!” Carter blurted out, sounding more desperate than he’d intended. “I was just shittin’ you! I need to be with people like me. Please.”
Iphi smiled at him as if he had disappointed her. “That’s it? Begging to admit you without even a question?”
Carter let out a breath of relief. Iphi was just busting his balls. They wanted him. That’s why they’d tracked him down. “I get to ask questions?”
They nodded.
“Who’s Dr. Xavier?”
“Not that question,” Natalie replied pleasantly. “Try again.”
“It’s all connected, isn’t it?” Carter wiped the grease off his fingers. “The New Government, everything going on, and the weird monsters and everything. I saw the Deathhead yesterday. It was freaking amazing! You guys are, um, well, in it, aren’t you? You and the Drestianites?”
Natalie laughed. “Yes, Carter, we are very much in it, and yes, it is all connected.”
The weight of the world seemed to lift from Carter’s shoulders and he felt an incredible sense of vindication. “I knew it. I knew it!” He smiled and banged a fist on the table.
Iphi smiled back, and this time Carter thought it wasn’t meant to get a rise out of him. “You’re better than these people.” She waved a hand at the patrons, families with young kids and a group of high schoolers throwing wadded up wrappers at one another. “They’re just Wisps.”
“Wisps?”
“Normals,” Natalie replied sweetly. “We call them Wisps.”
“Oh.” He felt the word on his lips, relishing the idea that he wasn’t like them. He was different—better. “So what do I have to do to meet Xavier? What’s my initiation?”
“Well,” Natalie said softly, giving Iphi a discreet sideways glance, “not all of us are on the same, well, team. There are people like us—Sourcerors—who want the world to go back to the way it was before the New Government began fixing the Wisps’ mess. They want the Wisps to reclaim control, and for us, the ones with actual power, to return to the shadows.”
“Seriously?” Carter exclaimed. “You’re telling me there’s like a supernatural battle going on between people like us?” He thought about that and a wide grin spread across his face.
They nodded, smiling. For some reason Carter didn’t understand, they seemed to find him amusing.
“This is even cooler than I imagined,” Carter said, thinking about the scene in Captain America where the Avengers battled each other. Now that would be cool.
“So what we want you to do,” Iphi began carefully, “for your… initiation, is to help us eliminate one of the leaders of the Order.”
“That’s the other side,” Natalie explained quickly. “They call themselves the Order of something or other.”
“Okay,” Carter said thoughtfully. “I can do that. Who are we eliminating? Is he tough?”
“His name is Felix,” Iphi said. “He’s no pushover. But we have a plan, and if you follow it very carefully, and if you do exactly what we tell you, we see no reason why you won’t pass your test.”
Carter rubbed his hands together eagerly, wondering about Felix and what kind of powers he had. “When do we start?”
Chapter 35
MT. HOOD
The chair lift carried Felix and Allison up the north side of the mountain, the snow covered peak looming in a clear, gray blue sky.
“This just doesn’t make any sense,” Allison complained. “Someone left the lift running, but there’s no cars. We shouldn’t be the only ones here. Especially the way they set up this podcast. Usually they keep the location a secret until just before it starts to keep the protesters to a minimum. But this one was plastered all over Hamlen’s website hours ago.”
“Yeah, it’s weird,” Felix agreed and twisted his neck to look back toward the base of the trail, the chair swinging as he shifted his weight. The slope was pristine, a wide open field of beautiful white powder unmarked by skis or snowboards. “If they knew what kind of danger he was really in, they wouldn’t be telling the world about it.” He turned back, breathing in the cold mountain air. “I skied here a few times in junior high. The lodge made these incredibly addictive Cherry Cokes. My parents didn’t even cut me off. Must’ve thought I’d burn off the sugar skiing.” He searched for where it used to stand, trying to remember where it was in relation to the parking lot. “It was already closed when you moved here, right?”
“Yeah.” Allison tugged her hat down over her ears. She wore a heavy coat and gloves, but she didn’t own a pair of snow pants, and Felix could tell her jeans weren’t providing adequate insu
lation against the chill.
“I always liked Skibowl North more than the others,” Felix reminisced. “The runs up top were awesome. I thought it was bullshit when they shut it down. Snowmobiles caused the avalanche and they shouldn’t have been anywhere near the trails.”
“Bullshit?” Allison smiled in disbelief. “The avalanches destroyed the lodge and most of the trails and killed four people.” She shrugged as if admitting to doing something illicit. “I might’ve read some articles while I was waiting for you.”
“You’re being awfully nitpicky.” Felix nudged her, hoping she might laugh. On the drive from campus they’d only discussed Kayla and the circumstances of her death for a short while. He’d been trying to cheer her up, but it seemed Allison was going to internalize her grief, a coping mechanism he was intimately familiar with since he’d spent months cocooned in his lucid fog last semester.
Allison smiled, but it felt a bit strained.
“There it is.” Felix pointed at a log cabin up ahead. “Brunn’s Warming Hut.” He held out his gloveless hands and rubbed them together as if he was keeping them toasty fireside. “Three o’clock, right?”
“That’s what his website said,” Allison replied as the lift ascended the slope and plateaued to a flat stretch where skiers used to dismount and ski back to the base or stay on the lift and continue up toward the summit. “Looks super cozy,” she added sarcastically.
They jumped off the chair and stared down at what appeared to be boot tracks in the knee deep powder. “Someone’s been here,” Felix observed.
“Aren’t you a master tracker?” Allison said, smiling despite herself.
Sensing an opportunity to cheer her up, Felix knelt down and bent his neck low, skimming his nose across the disturbed snow, sniffing like a bloodhound on the trail of a fleeing animal. He stood tall and announced with authority, “Three women were here eleven minutes ago. One was wearing Lucas’s cologne. They had a breakfast of yogurt and toast. They love Grey’s Anatomy, long walks on the beach, and books about chicks who are secretly psychotic.”
