Zhai stared at his father in disbelief. All these years he’d felt so empty, so devoid of emotion, so careful not to let himself feel anything. The only emotion he had allowed in was love for his sister, until he met Kate—and he couldn’t help but love Kate. But now he was feeling something new and unfamiliar, an emotion so powerful that it scared him.
He was truly, genuinely angry.
“You can deny it, Father. You can lie to me. You can lie to Lotus and Li. You can even lie to yourself. But I know you work for the Order. And even now, now that I’m begging you to tell me the truth, to help me, to help my friends—you’re protecting them, the men who branded your son. All the long hours you locked yourself away from me I thought it was your obsession with work, but now I know the real reason behind it. You can pretend it was for us—for your family. You can pretend to be a perfect, moral, disciplined person all you want, but I know the truth.” Zhai’s last words came out in something between a sob and a snarl. “The truth is, Father, you’re nothing but a slave.” And he wheeled around and stormed away.
The moment his hand touched the doorknob, however, he heard a sound from behind him, a pitiful groan, and he turned back to find his father standing now, tears streaming down his face.
“Zhai—my son.” Cheung’s voice trembled. “You’re right.”
Cheung Shao unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his bare chest. There, two familiar Chinese symbols were tattooed—the same symbols that Zhai had on his hands. The magical marks the Obies had used to control him.
And this tattoo was directly over his father’s heart.
“The Order used their mark to control your fists, so you would fight for them,” Cheung said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “But my mark is upon my heart, and it is that which they control. I disobey them, and they will break it by destroying all that I love. And then they will make it stop beating. Now do you understand?”
* * *
With one swipe of his forearm, Raphael wiped the dripping blood and sweat from his brow. Already, his wounds were too numerous to count. So far, he’d defeated an ape-like humanoid, a caveman with a wooden spear, a bronze-age warrior with a sword, a barbarian wearing nothing but a fur tunic and brandishing a wicked, spiked club, and a Comanche warrior with a tomahawk. Now, his eyes flicked back and forth amid the swirling mist, searching for his next adversary. His new enemy’s appearance happened so fast that Raph could barely register who he was.
This combatant wore nothing but a linen loincloth and a steel helmet with a large, brush-like flourish on top. He held a steel short sword in one hand and a spear in the other. Raph glimpsed his chiseled abs and bulging biceps an instant before the man’s sword whistled toward his head, and all he could do was throw himself backward, out of range of the deadly blade. He landed on his back and then kicked his legs over his head and somersaulted over and back up to his feet, just in time to see the next blow coming. Somewhere amid the tumult, it registered in Raphael’s mind who it was he was fighting—one of the most elite warriors of the ancient Greeks, a man who’d likely spent his entire life training for warfare. A Spartan. But Raph was already too exhausted to experience anything like fear. All he did was react to the blade when it whooshed toward him again.
But instead of retreating, Raphael stepped toward the Spartan as he swung, moving inside the radius of the blade and blocking the man’s sword arm with a Bong Sau. He transitioned instantly into a Lap Sau, grabbing the meaty part of the man’s forearm and using his own momentum to jerk him forward, off balance. At the same time, he stepped forward into a stomp kick, snapping the Spartan’s knee sideways. The seasoned warrior didn’t emit a single sound of pain, even as his tendons snapped. He did, however, drop his sword, and Raphael snatched it up and beheaded him with it in one swift motion.
There was not a second to acknowledge his victory. Already, an ancient Chinese warrior was charging him, swinging a guan dao—a weapon that looked like a broadsword affixed to the end of a pole—and it was whirling like a deadly helicopter blade.
Raphael watched the wide arc of the blade speeding toward his legs as if to cut him off at the knees. He managed to leap the blade and then he charged its owner. As his enemy tried to reverse the momentum of the pole to swing it back at Raphael, Raph pinned his elbow against his body with one hand and swung his sword with the other. The blade landed solidly in his enemy’s gut, and Raphael yanked it through.
The Chinese warrior fell to his knees and slumped to the ground, dead.
But already the clatter of armor announced the arrival of Raphael’s next opponents: a trio of Roman legionnaires. They formed up in a miniature phalanx, hiding behind their broad shields as they charged Raphael with their spears.
Reacting fast, Raphael parried two spear tips with his sword, then dove and rolled beneath the wall of shields. He sprang to his feet on the other side, bringing his blade up beneath the armor of the forward most legionnaire as he did. The man groaned and collapsed, but Raph had already pulled his blade free. He spun and beheaded the Roman behind him. Now, only one remained. Twice he feigned at Raphael with his spear and then he threw it directly at Raphael’s heart. There was an instant of paralyzing panic as Raphael watched the deadly projectile speeding toward him, but he deflected it with a Tan Sau movement of his Spartan sword. The legionnaire was now drawing his own sword, but Raphael shot forward with a spring attack. With one hand, he blocked his enemy’s arm so he couldn’t draw his blade, and with the other hand, he swung his own weapon at his opponent’s face and split his head in two.
For the first time in what had to be at least an hour, the battlefield was clear of enemies, and Raphael exhaled, releasing a sound that was half triumph and half exhaustion. His mind gave birth to two thoughts at once.
One was: How many warriors can there be out here? I can’t keep going like this.
And the second: I don’t care how many there are; I’ll never stop fighting until I win.
But there was no time for a third thought or even to take another breath. Already, the thunder of more footsteps came toward him through the heavy fog, and another enemy was upon him.
Chapter 11
Zhai felt weightless as he left his father’s study, hurried down the steps, and went out the back door of the house. The sickening revelation he’d just experienced filled him with fear—fear most of all for his father, but also for his family, and for the rest of Middleburg, too. Because if the Obies were capable of completely controlling a man as dutiful as his father, then how could the rest of them even stand a chance? But Zhai thrust these thoughts from his mind. He had other things to worry about now; his wasn’t the only crisis happening in Middleburg.
He passed the pool and the pool house and followed the path through a row of stately fir trees. Behind them, at the rear of the property and out of sight of the main house, the old guest house came into view. Although Lotus sometimes talked about turning it into a photo studio or a greenhouse, she hadn’t mentioned it lately and it hadn’t been used in ages. Zhai didn’t think his stepmother or his sister would notice that the Torrez family had moved in, and his father never came here. A tall young man was laboring in the doorway, sweat dripping down his face as he tried to move a heavy chest of drawers that seemed to be wedged in the entry.
“Dang . . . thing . . . is stuck . . . ” Beet Ingram said, grunting out every word.
Whoever was holding the other end of the dresser moved, changing the angle, and Beet stumbled through the doorway, his thick, white-knuckled fingers still clutching the heavy piece of furniture.
Inside, Nass was setting the other end of the dresser down and wiping the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. The rest of his family was there, too—his mom, Amelia; his dad, Raul; and Clarisse, Nass’s friend from L.A. Benji was also there, stacking boxes in one corner of the room. They all beamed at Zhai as he came in.
“Oh, Zhai, we are so grateful!” Amelia Torrez said, charging Zhai with her arms wide, ready for a tearful embrace. “You are a hero, you know that? A heroic person. When they talk about doing to your neighbors how you want to be treated, they’re talking about you! We just thank you so much!”
She grabbed Zhai in a big bear hug. He patted her on the back for a moment and then gently pulled away. Raul Torrez was already shaking his hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “Don’t worry, Zhai. We’ll pay you rent, and we’ll be out as soon as we find a place. And thank your mom and dad for us.”
Zhai forced himself to smile. “No need to pay rent, and stay as long as you want, okay? I’m just glad to help,” he said, hoping that by the time he had to mention it to his dad and Lotus, he’d have figured out what to tell them. He wished he’d been able to tell his father, but their conversation hadn’t exactly gone as planned, and telling Lotus was out of the question. He’d just have to keep it a secret for as long as possible and hope Nass and his family would find a place soon.
He glanced at Nass and saw something like pride in his face. And it made sense, Zhai realized suddenly. Six months ago, who could have imagined a family from the Flats living on the Shao property? But it was the right thing to do, Zhai knew, the natural thing. And that was all because he and Nass had put their egos aside to look for Raphael together. Their friendship hadn’t come easily and it had taken work, but they had achieved it. It was something they could both be proud of.
“Just make sure you go in and out through the back gate,” Zhai said. “My stepmom doesn’t want people walking around in the backyard. She’s kind of militant about her plants.”
Everyone nodded in agreement including Beet, who was still red-faced from moving the dresser. Looking around, Zhai ran through his mental roster of Flatliners. Someone was missing, besides Emory.
“Where’s Josh?” he asked.
The remaining Flatliners exchanged a glance before Nass answered. “With Emory, at the hospital,” he said. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute while these guys unpack?”
“Sure.”
Zhai led the way out to the back gate, where Beet’s dad’s borrowed pickup truck sat half unloaded.
“Thanks again,” Nass began, but Zhai waved his words away.
“Forget it,” he said.
Nass took a small cardboard box out of his pocket. “What should we do with the shards?” he asked. “Should we each keep our own stash or put them all in one place for safekeeping?”
Zhai looked down at the box in Nass’s hand. This was another example of the trust that had grown between them, that Nass would trust him enough to keep all their ring shards together.
“I think it’s best if we each keep our own for now,” he said. “That way if the Obies come looking for them, they aren’t all together.”
“Cool,” Nass said. “I agree. You talk to the Toppers about theirs yet?”
Zhai nodded. “Yeah—but it didn’t go too well. I’ve got five pieces—mine, Maggie’s, Dax’s, Mike’s, and Master Chin’s, but that’s it. There’s a chance I might be able to get the rest, but . . .”
“But?” Nass prompted.
“But I’m going to have to fight Rick for leadership of the Toppers—and for the shards.”
Nass nodded slowly, taking in Zhai’s ominous words. “Things didn’t go too well with our guys, either,” he said. “Josh is furious about what happened to Emory, and he wants revenge. He wants to fight Rick, too. The other guys gave me their pieces of the ring, but he wouldn’t give me his. So—you gonna fight Rick?”
“I don’t see any other choice.”
“When?”
“Saturday,” Zhai said.
“Don’t worry—you can take him,” Nass said. But Zhai could tell from the look on his face that he was worried. And, Zhai realized, it was probably the first time in his life that he, too, was worried about a fight. More than worried, in fact. He was downright scared.
* * *
Orias Morrow lay floundering in a murky swamp of foul, black dreams. His father was there as he was every night, badgering and belittling him.
Foolish boy! Weak, pathetic half-breed! You had the ring! You had the key to making this world ours! You let it slip through your fingers, and you will pay for that! When I am free, I will reach inside you, grab your intestines, and drag you down to the Pit, where you will scream for all eternity! Then you will know why no one has ever dared to deceive me! Then you will know the true cost of your betrayal!
As he did every night, Orias relived the moment when the ring had shattered. In maddening slow motion, he saw the oncoming locomotive. It wasn’t really a train, of course—Orias knew enough about the nature of things to understand that. It was a transport, a beam of energy like an arc of electricity, emanating from and returning to the All.
But the mortal apparatus of the human brain is a funny thing. Its main function is to process everything it takes in and repackage it in such a way as to be comprehended—thus, to the mortals present, and even to Orias with his half-human brain, the pure vibratory energy they had witnessed had manifested not as a nebulous blast of transcendent radiance, but as something familiar, something expected: a train.
Why had it struck that miserable ghetto urchin, Raphael Kain? And why, when it struck him, had the ring shattered? The artifact was supposed to be a pure relic of the All and thus incorruptible, indestructible. How, then, when everything was within Orias’s grasp, had it all slipped away?
Next, his dreams turned to his future, to his fate. He saw himself growing old, but not as humans age. Each year for him was like a generation for the mortals around him. And yet, his perception of time was tied to his life span, not to a mortal’s. Thus, in what seemed to him like a minute, two mortal days passed. In what seemed like a week, more than half a year would plunge irretrievably into the past. By the time he had experienced the equivalent of a human year, sweet, perfect Aimee would already be past the flower of her youth, entering the wilt of old age and the approaching decay of death.
He had not told her of his conundrum—this cruel quirk of relative perception was too much for most mortal minds to comprehend—but it haunted him day and night. He faced the prospect that before he knew it, everyone around him would have died of old age. From one week to the next, new friends would become old, and old friends would die. He had been through it all, eon after eon, but that was before he’d met Aimee and fallen in love with her. And yes, he loved her with a love he’d never thought possible. He could admit it in his dreams.
Of course, he had lied to Aimee about his age, as he was lying to her about everything except his feelings for her. He was hundreds of years old and still had hundreds more to go. In his current persona, he had chosen to be nineteen in order to establish a relationship with her. Now he felt like the world around him was made of sand. It was slipping through an hourglass before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Nothing, unless he had the ring. With the ring came the power not only to move through time, but to manipulate it. With practice (he saw in his dream) he would be able to narrow the gap between his aging and Aimee’s, stretching out her life span, conferring a measure of immortality on her. Then, once he knew he could keep her by his side forever, he would use the ring to open the gates to the Dark Territory.
He would lead his kin, the Irin, the Watchers, the mighty fallen angels, out of the darkness below and set them free to ravish and pillage the earth with neither human nor divine obstruction. With the power of the ring he would also control the Wheel and the celestial staircase, so that not even the exalted angels could come through to interfere with his rule. The Irin masses would adore him as their savior, and he would reign for a blissful near-eternity with Aimee at his side.
He stirred in his sleep, waking enough to remember that the
ring was broken, lost forever, and without it the door to the Dark Territory would remain firmly closed. Orias would be damned to face the millennia alone, watching as everything he came to love slipped away.
As he drifted back to sleep his father’s voice cut into his dreams again, echoing with vicious mockery. Oh no, my son. You will not have millennia to suffer in this place. I will see to that. I will be free sooner than you think. Then you will waste away in the blackest, hottest, vilest corner of the Pit. Soon, my boy. Soon . . .
With a start Orias came fully awake, his hands lashing out as if his father was hovering above him, Oberon’s handsome yet eyeless face inches from his own. He sat up, terrified, but found he was alone in his bedroom, a room shrouded in shadows. Exhaling in relief, he looked to his left, at the bed he’d had moved into his room for Aimee, to make sure she was safe and well. It was empty.
Instantly he was on his feet. “Aimee?” he called. “Aimee!” He hurried into the hall and headed toward the bathroom. As he expected, a yellow light glowed from beneath the door. She was locking herself in his damned bathroom more and more lately, and he had no idea what to make of it. He had used his energy to bind her to him, but to break her connection with the Kain boy something stronger had been needed: the waters of the River Lethe, which flowed through the Dark Territory. All the angels—both exalted and fallen—knew it as the River of Forgetfulness. Orias added a drop of water from it to her tea each day, and it worked. She had forgotten Raphael Kain altogether.
Lethe Water had been used for eons in the Valley of Light when the exalted angels gave humans a cup full of the stuff, a dose large enough to wipe away all their memories of a previous life before the soul’s reincarnation, or before their journey further into the light. Orias didn’t want Aimee to forget her entire identity—the innocence of her soul, her logical way of looking at things and her sweet, steadfast hope that she could somehow help him find redemption—all the attributes that made her who she was. He just wanted to make sure she forgot the Kain boy. But he had to be careful. Too much of it over an extended period of time had been known to make humans go crazy. So he put only one drop of the water in each beverage or fruit cup he made for her, but already she seemed to be experiencing some undesired side effects. This bathroom thing was particularly concerning, given her ability to slip. What if she locked herself in there, then suddenly remembered that Raphael was lost somewhere in time and space? What if she decided to slip away and look for him? She could get lost, and Orias might never see her again.
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