Joshua and the Lightning Road

by Donna Galanti

  I’ll always come for you, he’d said.

  He tore through the fog, speeding up from behind our enemy. And hope shot through me as if I had been pierced by Leandro’s arrow.

  Hekate saw him and yelled to her men, the ten or so soldiers left to fight. They turned in an arc, heading right for Bo Chez.

  Leandro reined his horse in. “Quick,” he said to me. “Get off and into the gate.”

  “No!”

  “It’s not your day to die a hero.” And he left me no choice as he dumped me on the ground.

  “Your Majesty.” Leandro held out the reins of the other horse to him, and the king mounted it in one swoop.

  “Take these.” Sam ran over and handed his and Charlie’s vapes to them. They grabbed them and, together, cantered off after Hekate.

  “Send the kids home,” Leandro yelled back at me. “You too.”

  “Not without Bo Chez!” My words faded away as horses stampeded the meadow.

  Leandro circled around to join Bo Chez, and Hekate and her men raced after him, away from us.

  I ran to my friends. Fear filled Finn’s face, his freckles jumping up and down as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

  “Did the other kids get through?” I said.

  Sam nodded weakly, and his pinched face told me how much older and tired he’d become. By now the Moria plant’s magic had to be wearing off, and Leandro didn’t have any more leaves. Sam’s time was running out. So was all of ours.

  “Hurry!” Sam directed the remaining kids under the gate. I pressed my fingers to the column next to him, wanting to soak up its legendary power as it hummed with electricity. Its carvings flowed in and out of one another as if they were gathering up the gate’s energy to zap everyone home. Time to use it for good instead of evil. The kids looked at me with wide eyes, scared and hopeful all at once.

  “We’re almost at max capacity,” Sam said, peering at the Lightning Gate key he’d pushed into the gate like a puzzle piece. He studied the scroll and pressed a series of jeweled squares on the golden box that lit up and flashed. “There’s room for only two more on this trip.”

  “Charlie, get out of here.” It took all the energy I had left to push him under the gate.

  “Wait!” He reached in his pocket. “Sam, here, the bag.” Sam hesitated, but I grabbed it for him. “I’m glad I followed you, Joshua!”

  “Stay cool, Charlie,” I said. We once thought we’d never leave this place, and now goodbye came so fast. He’d see his brother again.

  “You’re the cool one, Joshua.” And we smiled at each other. “Au revoir, mes amies!” He shoved a piece of bark in my hand, then ran into the crowd of kids. “That’s goodbye—”

  “For now, until—”

  “We meet again, my friends!” Then he disappeared in the crowd.

  I opened my hand to see Charlie’s final picture, roughly drawn with the charcoal from a burnt stick. On it, two kids painted on easels next to each other by a creek. One tall. One short. And they were smiling at each other. It was signed. Joshua and Charlie went home.

  Awesome.

  I slid the bark into my pocket, careful not to smudge it, and turned to Finn. “We’ll meet back at my house, okay?” I pushed him forward.

  He smiled bravely, but his lip wobbled. What if they all got blown to bits instead of saved? He punched my arm weakly and said, “Ham and cheese.” And I knew it would be okay. He ran into the gate.

  “That’s it,” Sam said, and punched a final button on the gate key. “The default setting. To return them from where they each last came.”

  Then the lights on the key box died.

  A quick glance to the meadow showed Bo Chez and Leandro dodging vape fire. But for how much longer?

  Sam’s fingers shook as he tried another combination on the key. It wouldn’t light up again. The fight grew closer. “Hurry, Sam. Hurry!” I croaked out, my throat dry from racing breaths that barreled up my throat.

  “I’m trying! I thought I had it, but now it won’t work!”

  The ground trembled. A rumble of hooves echoed close.

  “Sam, can’t you fire the gate’s weapons?”

  He shook his head, studying the scroll and working the panel furiously. “Only kings have the secret code to fire Lightning Gate power.”

  Just our luck. The king was fighting for his life right now, and he barely missed Hekate’s fingers of death. I pulled out the orb and prayed it wouldn’t hit Leandro, Bo Chez, or the king as I threw it at the mass heading our way. Blast!

  Horses fell. Screams filled the air. Sam frantically worked at the key in the Lightning Gate. The orb came back to me. I threw it again and again. No hesitation now.

  The kids cried for help, hiding behind me. “Hurry, Sam!”

  He pulled out the gate key and pushed it back in.

  “It’s jammed!” He took the key out and tried it again.

  Fire bolts spun like spears before us. Vapes lashed out with their deadly tongues. Arrows rained down.

  “Got it!” He cried.

  I turned my head to see, barely dodging vape fire. The key’s squares flashed with brilliant color. The gate glowed, and a golden sheen moved through it like liquid. Its glimmer grew so bright it was like the sun itself. The kids standing underneath it shimmered. White light exploded from the gate. The air sizzled, and the kids vanished.

  The last thing I saw was Charlie’s head above everyone else’s, and Finn’s freckles.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I pulled Sam down behind the Lightning Gate. He gripped the bag that was his one hope.

  It had grown too murky now to see well enough to throw the orb, and I could barely make out Leandro’s cloak. Vape smoke surged with the mist like steam from an angry brew. The king fired his vape at his own soldiers, now loyal to Hekate.

  Bo Chez raised up his arms and threw them out with a grand sweep. A gray ball burst from his hands. It exploded over Hekate and her men, trapping them in a giant storm. Bo Chez then raced on his horse around the massive ball tethered to him, dragging it along. The dust had cleared enough to see the soldiers inside. They smashed into the walls of the storm ball to bust through it, their horses dashing about in panic, but none could break free.

  “To The Great Beyond!” Bo Chez yelled, and took off into the woods.

  “Wait, Bo Chez!” Don’t leave me again! I want to go with you!

  But he was gone and the ball he dragged rolled around the trees, stretching like a slingshot between the narrow spaces and then forming a ball again in the open. It soon disappeared into the woods. Leandro turned back toward us, the enemy gone, when Hekate and the Child Collector appeared behind him through the trees. They had broken free somehow from Bo Chez’s storm! And what had happened to King Apollo?

  “Leandro, watch out,” Sam and I yelled at the same time. Hekate and the Child Collector bashed into Leandro’s horse. He almost fell, but gained his balance and turned on them, just missing Hekate’s fire power. He aimed his vape at the Child Collector, who scowled at him and raised his vape, too. Zap. Zap. They missed each other!

  The Child Collector saw me hiding behind the gate and turned his horse my way, his red face forever scorched in my mind. I swore he would never hurt anyone again.

  He galloped faster, and as he raced closer, it felt like Hekate’s entire cavalry of horses thundered through my chest. My legs shook, but I willed them steady.

  Yeah, just you and me.

  The trees around the field waved their arms, and the mist swirled faster as if they both urged me to take down this monster.

  “You and your grandfather stole my rightful life,” the Child Collector shouted at me. “You’re going down, Reeker. Payback!”

  Power surged through me.

  Time to stop the Child Collector before he killed again.

  This monster had killed my mother, stolen Finn, then me, and profited from our enslavement. If it weren’t for him, I would
have known my mother.

  He would not take Leandro too.

  I didn’t understand all that had happened, but Leandro had sacrificed himself to save us—and he was doing so again.

  This would end here and now.

  Closer and closer the Child Collector got. His horse snorted as he kicked it on.

  His one eye burned bright from his scarred flesh. He rushed at me, pulling his horse up fast.

  I stepped out from behind the Lightning Gate and flung the orb with all my might as he leapt for me.

  The Child Collector’s mouth hung open, and it was the last I saw of his frightening face before the orb entered his mouth. Boom! He disappeared in a flash, except for his cloak, which floated to the ground. His horse ran off. The orb landed back in my hand. Dizziness flooded me. I swayed and let out a huge breath.

  Payback.

  “No!” Hekate’s wail echoed around the battle zone. Sam and I backed up as she galloped toward us, but it was her brother’s cloak she headed for, nearly falling off her horse to pick it up. She rubbed it across her cheek, her shoulders shaking. “Cronag, my Cronag.” Her tears wet the only thing left of him. “You’ll never get that new body now.”

  Stunned at her sudden show of emotion, Sam and I were frozen, but Leandro wasn’t. He’d reached her, firing his vape at the witch. She stumbled twice, a blast nicking her side, then hauled herself up on her horse, cloak in hand. She and Leandro circled one another like boxers in a ring as their horses tore up the ground, their breaths beating the air in angry chuffs.

  Leandro shot at her again. This time her horse sprung away just in time. Then, in a split second, she threw her hand up in the air. Blue light from her fingertips struck Leandro in the chest. He fell off his horse and was still.

  So still.

  Leandro, get up, please. But he didn’t.

  Hekate reeled her horse around and headed to the Lightning Gate.

  Sam pulled me back as Hekate grew closer, and her hair whipped through the air like angry snakes. My orb was ready in hand. Could I hit her or would she grab the orb again, unhurt?

  And still Leandro didn’t get up.

  Sam pushed my hand down and stepped forward.

  “Traitorous Prince!” Tears streaked her pale face in blotchy patches. She raised her hand at me as she closed the gap between us. “And you, Oracle or not, you’re dead. You killed my family. Now I’ll kill you!”

  Sam quickly stepped to Hekate’s other side as she reached us and grabbed the reins of her horse. “You won’t kill my friend.” And he flung the open bag. A white cloud poofed in the air, then fell on her.

  And he said, in a voice louder, stronger, and more confident than I’d ever heard him use, “Ashes to dust, is what’s left of me. Unless, to live, I pass this to thee. Then ashes to dust now you will be.”

  A terrible screech exploded from Hekate. Her horse stopped in its tracks and through the air she sailed. She landed face down, clutching her brother’s cloak, as still as Leandro.

  Sam and I crept up on the fallen witch. Her green robe and hair fanned out over the ground. A faint groan grew deep inside her into a rumbling bawl. She pushed herself up, thrashing her head about, her hands and face as shriveled as Sam’s had been. Only then did I think to check out Sam. He was a kid again! He looked at his hands and arms in amazement.

  The curse had passed.

  “Cronag, I’ll find a way. Bring you back,” she croaked as she transformed into an ancient hag. Wrinkles crisscrossed her face. She pulled at her hair and it fell out in white clumps. Sam and I stepped back as Hekate clawed her face. “My beauty,” she hissed, pointing at us, but her gnarled fingertips no longer sparked. A cloud burst from her mouth, and her sickening rose scent wafted over me, then disappeared. She moaned and sank into her quilted grave.

  “No one owns me. Can you hear me? Can you?” Sam shouted at the wadded up pile of green shuddering on the ground.

  “I’ll. Be. Back,” the lump whispered, and then was still.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  We ran to Leandro’s side.

  Sam dropped down beside me. Leandro’s long hair spread out around him. His hand clutched at his dagger, unmoving, and a gash on his forehead blazed against his pale skin. He looked so different with his eyes closed—like an ordinary dad in some movie, asleep on a Sunday morning before his kids tackled him and woke him up. I slid my hand down the scar that cut across his face, then put my finger on the large hole where Hekate had struck him in the chest. His heart was beating! “Sam, he’s alive!”

  Quickly, I shoved aside Leandro’s cloak and grabbed his worn satchel, desperate that he be wrong about the Moria leaves, and pulled out a few glow sticks, his journal, and his son’s bow, wishing all the while he was awake and angry at me for going through it. I slipped my hand into his bag and ran my fingers around inside. Nothing. This couldn’t be happening!

  “Joshua, you’ve done what you could.” Sam touched my arm. “I know it’s hard to lose a friend—”

  “No!” I had no description for what Leandro meant to me, but it was more than friendship. I looked up to him, learned from him, needed to draw from his hope that he’d one day reunite with his wife and child—I needed that as much as I had needed to find Finn and return home. “He’s got to live.”

  What good was having powers if you couldn’t save someone? I turned the satchel inside out and shook it. Still nothing, not one piece of a leaf. Panic growing, I felt around the seams for anything that might cling there—and my finger snagged on a rotted thread. I worked open the hole with my thumb and there, in the seam, hid two more leaves.

  My trembling fingers pulled them out, crushed them, and pushed them through the hole of Leandro’s shirt. Taking a deep breath, I pressed them hard into his wound, trying not to faint from the blood oozing around my fingers. Live, Leandro, live!

  “It’s not your day to die a hero,” I told him as I searched the sky for answers, but found none. The branches of the trees fell limp again and the fog stood still, holding its breath as we waited. I lay my face on Leandro’s chest, desperate for other signs of hope and breathed in his pungent smell of earth and leather … and life.

  “Wake up,” I whispered. “By the arrow of Artemis, wake up!”

  Silence. Mist wet my cheeks. I kept my eyes closed for a long while. Sam tugged at my shirt, but I pushed him away. And then a heavy hand grazed my head.

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  My eyes flew open. Leandro was staring at me. I threw my arms across him and hugged him hard. He moaned in pain and I got off him, forgetting he likely had other injuries.

  “Did you heal me?” he said.

  “No, I found some Moria leaves in your bag.”

  “I thought it was all gone.”

  “A few pieces were hidden,” I said.

  “Maybe it was a combination.” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “So, do you trust me now?” I managed a laugh.

  But he didn’t laugh with me, his face was serious. “You had my trust before saving my life. But I almost failed to save you from Hekate.”

  “We saved each other, Leandro.”

  He squeezed my hand twice before letting go.

  “And Hekate’s dead,” I said.

  “Even the trees came to our aid,” Sam said.

  “Hekate must have cursed the trees here long ago, and now her power, and spell, is gone. I’ve heard stories of how these trees were once defenders of good.”

  “Look,” I said, pointing. Green shoots poked out from the tree branches.

  “Coming back to life indeed.” Sam’s eyes were shining.

  “Now it won’t look like winter here all the time,” I said.

  “And the mist is lifting,” Sam cried, pointing around us. It was true! The lavender sky painted itself lighter and the blue sun shone bright for the first time as the fog uncurled from around the trees and slowly receded.

  “Pe
rhaps the light will finally reach our land with Hekate gone,” Sam said, a rare smile on his face, and he looked like a regular kid for once. “Our land has been cursed a long, long time.”

  “Indeed,” Leandro said. “Funny how one young mortal helped bring that about.” Our eyes locked for a long moment. I didn’t know what brought an end to the mist, or the spell the trees had been under, but couldn’t deny the light that burst from the sky everywhere.

  “Sol,” Sam said in a voice full of wonder, lifting his hands to the sun, then together we helped Leandro up. He looked around. “What about the Child Collector?”

  “The Child Collector ate the orb,” I said. “I blasted him into nothing.”

  “Good,” Leandro said. “Better that there’s nothing left of that vile man. And Hekate is dead for sure?”

  I pointed at her lumpy robe and her brother’s cloak, quickly explaining what happened.

  “The old ones go quickly with a curse,” Leandro said. “She must have been very old.”

  “But she looked young, for a grownup,” I said.

  “Immortality will do that. And evil spells.” Leandro pressed his lips in a fine line.

  “She said she’ll be back.”

  “Could be. There are tales of immortal Ancient Ones coming back from the dead, especially if their power is very strong. But that’s a fight for another day.” Leandro smiled. “It’s good to see you back, Sam. You and Joshua, the great smiters of evil.”

  Whatever a smiter was, it sure sounded good to me.

  “What happened with you and Bo Chez?” I said. “I thought you both died in that crash, and then you showed up with him as your prisoner.”

  Sam seemed confused, so I quickly filled him in on all that happened while he had been sending kids home through the Lightning Gate and fighting off bad guys.

  “I bruised some ribs when we went down.” Leandro winced, holding his side. “We took Hekate’s soldier unaware, got him to confess where she was headed, and after knocking him out and stashing my weapons, we rode to find you at the armory.”

  “What about Bo Chez?” I said.