Joshua and the Lightning Road

by Donna Galanti

  The Child Collector trotted up beside us. “Taking him to the armory, Hekate?”

  “Yes. I want a demonstration. Perhaps there’s a use for him besides death.”

  “If not, let me at him.” My stomach cramped and I squeezed my arms into my sides.

  “We’ll dispose of him together, brother,” Hekate said.

  That melted mess of a face leaned down into mine and I froze, staring at his one eyeball that flicked over me. “Reeker,” he grunted and poked me with a stubby finger. “I should have taken that Storm Master down when I had the chance. Made him hurt for what he did to me.”

  “It’s done,” Hekate soothed, putting a pale hand on his filthy one. “Be glad he met his end.”

  I shuddered from the chilly mist and fear, as cold on the inside as I was on the outside. My cheek throbbed from where I’d smashed into the saddle, and every muscle in my arms screamed from pulling up on Bo Chez—yet I hadn’t been able to save him.

  Hooves clopped behind us in a battle rhythm, and I looked at the ground, not wanting to stare into that eyeball for one more second, but the Child Collector leaned in closer and forced my head up, his rough fingers pressing deep into my chin. His stink replaced Hekate’s roses, and the memory of losing my mother struck deep.

  His eye twitched and his one good nostril flared with fury. “I would have become a solider to King Ares if it weren’t for what your Storm Master friend did to me. I’ve only got one good eye now, but I’m watching you. And now that he’s dead, you’ll pay for his deed, Reeker.” He massaged his face, as if reliving that night Bo Chez struck him.

  I sunk deeper into the folds of Hekate’s cloak, her evil preferable over his for the moment. She laughed and the Child Collector joined her. Their mockery stung like my face, and hope drained away of ever surviving the Lost Realm.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Around a sharp bend, stone walls shot up before us. A round castle reared up and soldiers peered down from its turrets, bows in hand. The horses slowed to a walk, and we entered the armory below the forbidding message carved into its stone: Vanquish all the weak and weary that pass. Only great souls may bear arms to conquer with might and strength. Ye gods!

  The cold inside me worsened with those words as we passed beneath the dank doorway. I brushed up against chipped stone and winced at its roughness. My thoughts were filled with two things: how to get away from Hekate and her men, and Bo Chez’s last words: I’ll always come for you.

  Hekate dismounted, dragging me with her. I fell to my knees and cried out. I’d kept hope all this time we’d succeed, but now that was as broken as the blocks of stone that lined one side of the arena in jumbled piles, crumbled from the partially caved-in roof. The air floated thick with smoke from wall torches that coughed soot, and black wisps escaped into the gloom through the roof’s hole. The soldiers entered on horseback behind us and lined the round arena. The cadmean beasts trotted in behind them and sat before their masters. All eyes were on me.

  The Child Collector swung his large body off his horse and joined Hekate on a stone platform in the middle of the dirt pit. I stood, my legs shaking.

  “You’re not so powerful now without your Storm Master and his lightning orb, are you?” Hekate crossed her arms, assuming I’d borrowed the orb and given it back. Her robe hung torn and streaked with mud, her hair a gnarled mess from her encounter with Bo Chez. Good!

  I shook my head and croaked out, “No.”

  “The orb is mine. Once we claim it from his body.”

  I flinched at the word ‘body.’ Bo Chez could never be a ‘body,’ or Leandro. They were larger than life. People like that didn’t die—shouldn’t die. My fear and sadness started to churn into something more, a crazy anger at all that had happened to me and the people I cared about.

  “Perhaps we should shake the Reeker upside down, Kat, just in case he has it, to see if it falls out,” the Child Collector said.

  She held up her hand, then smoothed down her hair with it. “First, I want to see his powers.”

  “I don’t have any—”

  “Liar!” She motioned to the Child Collector. “Cronag, search his pockets.”

  He sneered and strode down the platform steps, coming at me. I stepped toward him and spit, wanting to make him mad. Everyone I cared about was gone. There was nothing to lose. He stopped in his tracks at my boldness, then came closer as the enemy crowded around me. A soldier urged his horse forward and more followed. The mist flowed around them, seeping between the cracks of the stone walls. In my exhaustion, faces seemed to float in the haze, like the ghosts of stolen children.

  Step by step the soldiers inched toward me then stopped. Behind them weapons hung by hooks on jagged rock: bows, axes, pitchforks, swords. They clanked together from a small breeze and swung back and forth. My circle closed in. The Child Collector stood before me, his burned half-face a road map to hell while his vape flicked its killer tongue at me.

  I came here because of Finn, but I wouldn’t be leaving with him.

  The Child Collector walked around me and jerked Sam’s flute from my back pocket.

  He inspected it. “It’s made by the king’s flute maker.”

  “Play it, Oracle,” Hekate demanded.

  The Child Collector thrust it into my hands, giving me no choice but to blow out a sad melody. The sheer butterflies floated down from treetops into the broken fortress. One landed on the Child Collector’s shoulder. He picked it up with his stubby fingers, frowned at me, and then crushed it in his fist. The others disappeared back up into the fog.

  Hekate flared her nostrils. “Very good, ignorant Barbaros. You carry the ancient musical talent of Apollo. Can you heal like him as well?”

  “Even if I could, I wouldn’t show you.” I slid the flute into my back pocket, hoping the Child Collector would forget about my front pockets. He did, but gave me a punch to the head instead. The rock walls moved in and out then steadied themselves again.

  Hekate crossed her arms and pointed to a trough on the side filled with water. “Make it move.”

  “The wood?”

  “The water, you imbecile!” Hekate stamped her foot, her voice growing shriller. A sheen of sweat popped out on her forehead, and she wiped at it angrily.

  “Forget it,” I said, and dodged the Child Collector’s fist just in time. He grabbed my neck and squeezed hard.

  “Poseidon can. You can, Oracle.” Her fingers clawed the air.

  “I’m not your Oracle, witch.” I didn’t care what I said anymore. They were going to kill me anyway.

  She glided toward me, as if her feet floated above the ground. A bruise highlighted her cheek. Where one of Bo Chez’s hail balls had struck? Good going, Bo Chez. But with that, his death flooded through me all over again, and I squirmed to get loose, but the Child Collector’s grip tightened.

  Hiss. Hiss.

  His vape threatened incineration.

  “Move the water, or my brother will snap your neck,” Hekate said. “And then the beasts can feast on you.”

  I dug at the sweaty hand that clutched me but couldn’t break free, my neck burned. “I can’t move water!”

  “Teumesios!” She snapped her fingers. One of the cadmean beasts stood up. “Guard him.”

  The Child Collector let go, dropping me on my butt. The beast moved closer. It opened its mouth, panting at me with rotten breath that curled my insides. The soldier’s horses pawed the ground, inching closer, and the weapons on the wall clanged like a battle alarm as they smashed about from a gust of wind.

  This was not the ideal way to go. I scrambled back and stood up, palms out. “Stop!”

  The beast did. “Why? You’d be a tasty meal,” it said.

  “Not tasty, and I’m not your dinner.” The Child Collector shoved me toward the beast, but I shoved him back. His eyes widened in surprise, then he flung his vape in my face. The snake tongue flicked so close I felt the snap of its breeze on my
cheek. My time was done. At least it would be over quick.

  “Enough!” Hekate threw her hands up.

  The Child Collector lowered his spitting vape. “Soon, boy.”

  “Never, Cronag.” I spit at him again.

  The cadmean beast raced around us, barking and snarling, its thick tail whipping my arms. “Reeker meat! Reeker meat!”

  “Back, Teumesios,” Hekate ordered, and the beast trotted back to the wall. Then she pointed at me with a trembling finger. “You carry the power of Artemis too, malumpus-tongue.”

  That’s when spoken words pulled me back from the edge of death. “That’s because he comes from the Arrow Realm, like me.”

  “Halt,” a soldier yelled. I turned around fast. Leandro sat on a horse in the doorway. He leaned to one side in his saddle as if in terrible pain, a gash across his forehead, and his cloak was covered in dirt. But he was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen.

  A rush of soldiers rode by me on horseback toward him. They blocked my view, surrounding Leandro, their horses cutting up the ground around him.

  “Back,” Hekate commanded her men, and they parted the way. “Let me see him.”

  Leandro sat up straighter with a grimace and walked his horse slowly into the circle of Hekate’s men. One of her soldiers lay unconscious across the saddle in front of him—and behind him he led Bo Chez on a rope.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Bo Chez!” He staggered and went down on one knee, but Leandro pulled him up. I looked at Leandro, wanting answers, but his gaze passed over me as if he didn’t even know me.

  Leandro pushed the unconscious soldier off his horse and he hit the ground with a thud, but didn’t move. “He’s not dead, but he’ll have one bad headache when he comes around. He took me by surprise, but didn’t fare well.”

  A soldier dragged his moaning friend away.

  “Remove his weapons,” Hekate ordered. A soldier moved forward, but Leandro held up his hand and dismounted. He tugged Bo Chez along, my grandfather’s big head hanging low, but I could still see the blood that trickled down the side of his head from a nasty cut and a red-purple bruise swelled on his cheek.

  “I have none,” Leandro said.

  “We’ll see about that,” the Child Collector said, gripping my neck painfully again. I tried to wrench free but he squeezed tighter with his calloused hands. Struggling only rocketed more pain through me, so I forced myself to be still.

  The soldier searched Leandro, finding nothing, then shoved him to his knees, taking Bo Chez down with him. I lunged forward but the Child Collector yanked me back and my teeth slammed together hard, vibrating into my jaw.

  “I. Want. The. Lightning orb,” Hekate said, emphasizing each word with icy calm.

  “And I want to end this Storm Master for good,” the Child Collector said. “Let me at him.”

  “Leave my grandfather alone!” Courage sparked in me at knowing Bo Chez was alive, but he shook his head at me.

  Hekate turned to me, eyes wide like two black coals in her white face, and pinched her lips together in a red slash. “Grandfather? How lovely. Two family members with ancient powers. What luck.”

  The Child Collector shook me. “This filth is your grandfather?” He let one hand off me and twisted a grubby fist at Bo Chez, who tilted his head up just enough to look at the man he had scarred to save my life. “You dishonor the most honored post there is.” He spat on the ground. “And your blast to my face killed any career as a soldier. I’d be out winning battles now, not collecting these Reekers, if it weren’t for you. You’ll pay—and then some.”

  “Leandro, let him go,” I said. “Why are you doing this?” He didn’t answer me, his face set like stone.

  “Yes, Leandro, let him go,” Hekate said. “The Storm Master is mine.”

  Leandro looked around at the army before him, and Bo Chez hung his head again. The horses snorted and stomped the ground. The silence grew, as did the Child Collector’s pressure on my neck. Through the roof’s hole, tree branches bowed down as if listening—and waiting—and the soldiers collectively took a step forward on their horses, vapes ready to strike.

  “I’ll trade you the boy for the Storm Master,” Leandro finally said, standing again and tugging Bo Chez up with him. “He would be most useful to you in battle.”

  “No!” I twisted to get free, but the Child Collector knocked me in the head. Pain flared, and the world became a shadowy shape for a second.

  Hekate looked at Leandro. “And why would I trade the Reeker for him?”

  “Because he’s not the Oracle.”

  She stepped closer to him, her robe swirling angrily. “What do you know? Enough of this!” She waved her arms. “Soldier, search the Storm Master for his orb.”

  The man stuck his hands all over my grandfather but found nothing. The orb pressed against my leg, begging to be found, begging to be thrown.

  “Where is it?” Hekate screamed, her wild eyes and hands scratching at the air inches from Bo Chez’s face, her bruise a match to his. He flinched but didn’t step back.

  Leandro pointed at me. “He has it.”

  My heart sunk like an anchor inside me.

  All heads turned to look at me. I wanted to disappear. The Child Collector kicked me toward Hekate, who now glared at me with narrowed black eyes like pits of poison.

  All my loyalty and newfound love for Leandro dried up. I’d been angry enough to punch someone before but never wanted to kill them until now.

  I wrenched the orb from my pocket before the Child Collector could stop me and threw it at Hekate. “Here!” The horse nearest her reared up, threw his soldier off, and in that instant a dozen vapes were aimed at me. Hekate’s arm flew up and clamped the lightning weapon in her fist.

  My one chance. Gone.

  I got another bash to the head for that. Harder this time. Stars swam around me and I groaned with the blow. When my head cleared, Bo Chez watched me with a contorted face.

  Hekate held the glowing orb in her pale hand and turned it over and over. Its blue faded. “Mine now. And so are you, Reeker. Until I’m done with you.”

  “He’s not who you want, Hekate,” Leandro said, who had calmly been standing by, still holding onto Bo Chez’s rope. “He doesn’t have all the ancient powers required to be the Oracle. He only has powers of two Olympians: Artemis and Apollo.”

  Hekate continued to stare at the orb, two red patches flaming her cheeks. “Go on.”

  “He may have blood in him from each land, and while it’s rare that both would pass on their ancient power from the fallen gods to him, it’s possible.”

  But my mother had been mortal. Bo Chez had said so. Or another lie?

  Hekate turned back to Leandro and slid the orb into her robe pocket. “But his smell betrayed him.”

  “Perhaps your sense of smell is off. Perhaps you smelled him only because he holds powers of more than one Olympian, but not all—not enough to change our destiny and bring back the god’s powers. And perhaps you’ve never encountered a Reeker like him.”

  Hekate paced before Leandro, a finger tracing her blood red lips. “Perhaps … he couldn’t command the water after all, supposedly. Tell me more.”

  Bo Chez just dangled there like a captured animal. Show me what to do. But he didn’t. I was on my own.

  “I work undercover for the Arrow Realm,” Leandro went on. “I seek out those with the ancient powers to draft into work for Queen Artemis as soldiers or hunters.”

  He had said he didn’t hunt kids on his land. Had he lied about that, too? I stared at him, remembering his knife pushed against my neck. A soft, cold rain began to fall through the hole in the roof and the wall below it glistened as raindrops pinged off the tree branches.

  “I met up with this boy, who stole a lightning orb, and his friends, and this Storm Master”—Leandro jerked on Bo Chez’s rope—“and thought it would be useful to stick with them for a while. I planned to lu
re them to the Arrow Realm under false pretenses. It would mean a big bonus for me to deliver mortal children to Queen Artemis along with a lightning orb and a Storm Master.”

  I didn’t want to believe his words and yet it became clear. Leandro had betrayed us all.

  “Explain what you were doing at Apollo’s court.” Hekate tapped her foot faster.

  “I had taken the two boys as my captives and was informing King Apollo that I planned to take them to the Arrow Realm. It was a gesture of good will, being that I apprehended them in his land. Then the Storm Master showed up and changed my plan. And so did you.” Leandro smiled then, and where it once so recently boosted my spirits, it now chilled my insides, for he’d revealed what he truly was. A thief, a liar, and a murderer.

  “And where is the other boy?”

  “He got sick so I eliminated him. Artemis wants strong, meaty slaves to feed the beasts, not sickly ones.”

  “Why should I trust you?” Hekate tapped her foot harder. The bruise on her cheek darkened, marking her like me.

  Leandro’s smile fell, and he pushed his hand into his side as if it pained him from where he crash-landed. I hope it hurt like crazy. “Come with me to the Arrow Realm and see for yourself.”

  Hekate exhaled deeply and glanced at her brother, who nodded, shaking me right along with him. “Perhaps Artemis and I can talk strategy, now that I’ve taken over the Lost Realm. It may help to have an ally.” She swished a hand at me. “Take this one, for now. If I discover he’s other than what you say, you’ll pay with pain.”

  The Child Collector shoved me toward Leandro, who bowed at Hekate and then pulled me to his other side, holding me tight. I looked over at Bo Chez. Why didn’t he do anything? What was wrong with him?

  “And I’ll take care of the Storm Master,” the Child Collector said, curling his cloak in with his fists.