by Dan Jolley
She felt hands yank at her, and the funnel of debris all around her began to slow.
“Lily, we have to get out of here!” Gabe screamed into her ear. As he pulled her away, she felt the air slip and then fall from her grasp.
The next thing she knew, Gabe and Jackson were hustling her along the street. They’d made it several blocks away from Argent Court and the Dawn’s creatures weren’t following, but still, Lily sensed that something was wrong.
“Wait,” she said. “Where’re Brett and Kaz?” She turned around looking for them, but Gabe and Jackson were the only ones in sight. “Brett!” she screamed, suddenly afraid. Where was he? Where was her twin?
“We got separated,” Gabe whispered. “They were on the other side of the tornado, and then part of the ceiling fell down between us. But right now we have to move, Lil.” He pulled her and Jackson onto a side street. “We’ll be safe in the tunnels.” He glanced around—on all sides of them, as well as up at the sky. “I hope they’re okay.” He sounded as worried as Lily felt. “I mean”—he glanced quickly at Lily—“I’m sure they are.”
“As am I,” Jackson said. “Unlike Argent Court.” He turned to Lily. “I believe you destroyed what remained of my family’s home.”
“And took care of our little problem with that not so little monster-tentacle-blimp thing,” Lily reminded him, a bit defensively.
Jackson nodded. “Yes. Regrettably, the tornado was quite necessary.”
They came to a stop next to a familiar manhole. Lily remembered vividly the first time she’d ever seen it: the night she and Gabe and Kaz and her brother had found the Friendship Chamber, hidden far beneath San Francisco, and performed what was supposed to be a silly pretend ritual.
Sometimes Lily wondered what her life would be like now if she had never said the words “I am bound to Air!” They echoed in her skull.
On the other hand, if she’d never gone through with the ritual, she wouldn’t have been able to summon a tornado and knock the ever-loving crap out of that giant floating tentacle creature. Lily would have allowed herself a tiny bit of satisfaction at that if she weren’t so worried about Brett and Kaz. “Okay, good idea. This’ll at least get us off the streets.”
Gabe clambered down the ladder, but Jackson balked. “Must we shelter in tunnels again? Surely there is somewhere else we could take refuge? Some locale that does not feature raw, flowing sewage?”
Lily scowled. “It’s not that bad, and you know it. We’ll be safe down there, and this is the best place to wait for Brett and Kaz to turn up. Just be careful where you step.”
Jackson scowled at her but obeyed. She followed him down the ladder, but before her head dropped below street level, she risked a glance down the alleyway, toward an open patch of sky. She could still see the tentacle creature, though it looked tiny from this far away, as it floated out over the bay.
Toward Alcatraz. Toward the breach we tore in the barrier between here and Arcadia.
A voice drifted to her from the sidewalk, some random passerby. “Did you see the size of that blimp? I wonder why it was over the city?”
Lily used a burst of air to close the manhole cover behind her and almost fell off the ladder in surprise when Jackson shouted from below, “I say, who is that? Who goes there?”
Lily hurried to the bottom of the ladder. Gabe lit a floating orb of flame, illuminating a badly startled Jackson standing a few feet away from Kaz, who was slumped on the ground and breathing hard. His overstuffed backpack rested beside him, with the edges of a few handwriting-filled pages sticking out of it. Kaz waved a supremely nonthreatening hand at Jackson, whose eyes had flared gold.
“Kaz!” Lily rushed to him. “Are you okay? Where’s Brett?”
“I’m okay, yeah, I think. And—I thought Brett was with you guys?”
Gabe stepped closer. “You didn’t see him after you left the house?”
Lily’s stomach plunged. Where’s Brett?
Kaz shook his head. “It was all I could do just to put one foot in front of the other.” He peered up at Jackson. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was going to wait for you guys in the Friendship Chamber, but I just got so tired. . . .”
Jackson composed himself and looked down his nose at Kaz. “I was most certainly not scared. I simply did not expect to trip over you.”
Gabe offered Kaz a hand, but Kaz made a sorrowful face. “If you could just maybe give me a couple minutes? That was a long walk. . . .”
Gabe eyeballed Jackson. “All right with you if we just chill for a second?”
Jackson made sure everyone could see his eyes roll before he turned his back on the group and wandered off down the tunnel.
“Don’t go too far!” Lily called, and Jackson made an elaborately rude gesture at her by way of response.
“Sorry,” Kaz said again. “I just need a sec to . . . catch my breath . . .” His eyes slid closed, and his breathing deepened.
Lily kept her voice low. “OMG. Is he asleep?”
Gabe nodded, looking amused. “Let’s give him ten minutes.” Gabe’s eyes flashed brilliant green in the glow of his flames. “I just realized how strong Greta must’ve been. To be hooked up to the apographon, like Kaz is now, but still be able get to Argent Court and do all that work? Wow.”
It was hard not to grin back when Gabe smiled. Lily would never have said it out loud, but she was so glad he hadn’t ended up moving away to Philadelphia, the way his uncle had planned. Just the thought of it made her depressed.
Gabe divided his sphere of fire into smaller and smaller pieces, and soon the tunnel was lit as if by a swarm of hovering lightning bugs. They floated like lanterns. Or like bullets waiting to be fired.
Fire was beautiful, but it was also dangerous.
Lily’s grin faded as her brain worked, ticking through thought after thought. Brett was still out there somewhere, probably in trouble, maybe hurt. And even though she felt safe from the Eternal Dawn down here in the tunnels, as much as she hated to admit it to herself, just being near Gabe made her feel vaguely uneasy.
How badly he burned that creature that tried to grab him . . .
What if—
What if Gabe ever lost control?
What if she or one of their friends ever got caught in one of those rivers of flame?
Maybe Brett could survive it, since he had bonded to water. Kaz, too, more than likely, if he could surround himself with earth fast enough. But her? Air fuels fire.
One slipup and she’d die screaming.
“I’m sure Brett’s okay,” Gabe said. He was looking at her, concerned.
The worry must have shown on her face, and of course, Gabe thought it was because Brett was missing—not because Lily was wary of his fire. Gabe reached out to her, but she pretended not to notice and took a step away. “I’ve . . . well. I’ve got to believe that. You know? And anyway, it’s not like he hasn’t been able to take care of himself since he came back.” She tried for a smile. “We should probably be more worried about whoever he runs into.”
Gabe grunted in agreement. “Remember that wave he pulled up, out on the island right after he got out of Arcadia? That thing was massive.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fell between them. It stretched out long enough to make Lily want to squirm. “That huge blimp creature,” she murmured, so as not to wake Kaz. “It looked like it was heading for Alcatraz, didn’t it?”
Gabe sat down, and after a moment Lily did as well. Close to Gabe, but not too close. He said, “Yeah. Between that and all those abyssal bats, and who knows how many members of the Dawn are out there . . . and we’ve lost the Tablet. After all we went through, now the Dawn has it.”
“You think we’ll be able to stop them?”
“From merging Arcadia with Earth?” Gabe asked. “From bringing back my evil ancestor, Jonathan Thorne? From using the energy from the breach to build an army?” Gabe sighed and took a long moment before he shrugged. “I think we have to.” His
lips twitched upward.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nah, just a dumb thought I had.”
“Tell me.”
Gabe sighed. “It was just . . . it occurred to me. We’re kind of like the Fantastic Four.”
She raised an eyebrow. He’s trying to get me to think about something besides Brett. It was a sweet gesture. She decided to go along with it. “Oh?”
“Well, I mean, think about it. You’ve got the Thing, who’s obviously earth, right? And the Human Torch.”
“Yeah, fire. Okay.”
“The other two are a little harder, but what’s the Invisible Woman if not air?”
“Gabe, you are such a nerd.”
Their eyes met. Dark brown and green. Lily wanted to reach out and take his hand . . . even better, she wanted him to reach out and take hers.
“You say that like you didn’t know it already.”
Lily chuckled. “So you’re saying the stretchy guy is water?”
“It is a stretch—ha-ha. But yeah, I mean, he sort of flows and takes different shapes like water. Why not?”
She peered down the tunnel, where Jackson stood, practicing his sulk. “So what does that make Ghost Boy?”
“I don’t know. A giant pain the butt?”
Brett’s voice echoed down the ladder from the manhole. “You guys do realize anybody up here can hear every word you’re saying?”
Lily sprang to her feet, relief flooding her whole body. “Brett?”
Brett clambered down the ladder, and Lily bounded to him and threw her arms around him. “Oh my God I’m so glad you’re okay they didn’t catch you did they are you hurt the rest of us made it!”
Brett gently disengaged from her. “Okay, take a breath! I’m fine. Had to ditch a couple of hunters, that’s what held me up.” He turned toward Gabe. “But seriously, what’s the point of having a secret hideout underneath the city if you’re just going to sit right here at the entrance?”
Kaz had awakened, and Jackson rejoined the group as he got to his feet. “That apographon! I feel like a dead battery!” Kaz said through a massive yawn. He stretched and yawned again. “Calling up that stone wall almost made me black out, and that was with Jackson’s help.”
Brett looked at each of them in turn. “The Dawn took the Tablet, didn’t they?”
Gabe nodded bitterly. “Yeah. We screwed up big-time.”
Brett closed his eyes, his face creasing in a pained expression. But when he opened them again, they glimmered with the ocean’s deep blue-green. “So we’ve got to get it back. Before the Dawn revs up the evil. And listen, there’s all those bats on Alcatraz, and it looked like that was where that giant flying yuck monster was headed. I’m betting that’s where the Tablet’s going to end up, too.”
“Right,” Gabe said. “That’s what I was thinking, too. They’re gonna use it on the breach. Split it wide open.”
“It will amaze you,” Jackson said, “but for once I am in total agreement.”
“Okay.” Lily raked a hand through her hair. “Okay. So we think we know where they’re going, and we think we know what they’re going to do, more or less. So what do we do?”
Brett shoved his hands in his pockets and showed them all his teeth. “I say we get to the bay and crash the Dawn’s party. Just like they crashed your house, Jackson.”
The tunnel lit with a faint yellow iridescence as Jackson’s eyes turned solid glowing gold. “Yes,” he said, not sounding like an eleven-year-old boy at all. “Yes, let’s.”
8
Gray light fought its way through the low-hanging cloud cover as the five of them made their way to the end of Pier 39. Gabe kept an eye on the restaurants and shops they passed by, but the overcast weather was keeping almost everyone inside. The only people in sight were two cops and a homeless man. The group hid from the police, but after they emerged and passed the man huddled on an unfolded cardboard box, Gabe dug out a crumpled five and gave it to him.
“God bless you, son,” the man said through a straggly, yellow-white beard. Gabe figured he had to be at least seventy.
“You shouldn’t be near the water.” Gabe glanced out at Alcatraz, its bulky silhouette clouded by the distant swarm of abyssal bats. “It’s dangerous today.”
The old man nodded solemnly. “Okay.”
A minute later, Gabe glanced over his shoulder and saw the man, folded cardboard under one arm, scurrying away up the Pier 39 concourse. Maybe he’ll be okay.
I wonder if we will.
Gabe had no idea what was going to happen once they got to the island, but with the Eternal Dawn’s creatures so thick around the breach, he didn’t see any way for it not to be something terrible.
No one spoke as they reached the observation deck at the end of the pier. Flagpoles and coin-operated telescopes dotted the heavy railing, and Gabe leaned against it, staring out over the choppy gray waves. “No sign of the flying tentacle thingy.”
“No, but . . .” Beside him, Lily touched his arm and pointed.
Standing near Gabe’s shoulder, Kaz said, “Wow. Subtle.” Jackson snorted. Brett stayed silent.
Lily was pointing at a yacht making its way across the water, straight toward Alcatraz. Gabe didn’t know much about yachts beyond what he’d learned from a few minutes of a show on the Travel Channel, but it was obvious that the sleek, white, futuristic craft was a million-dollar vessel. Or two million. Or ten. It looks more like a spaceship than a boat. Gabe figured it had to be forty feet long. The kind of thing super-rich people would throw parties on and show off for the rest of the world.
What really caught his eye, though, and what must have grabbed Lily’s attention right off the bat, was the name emblazoned on the stern: Arcadia.
Kaz was right. Subtle.
“That boat belongs to the Dawn, right?” Lily turned to face the rest of the group. “I mean, it has to. So what do we do?”
Jackson looked as if someone had shoved a whole lemon into his mouth. “Clearly we need to reach that craft. The odds are excellent that the Emerald Tablet is aboard it.”
Gabe nodded. “Yeah. And we need to try to get it back before the yacht reaches that.” He waved a hand toward the island. “That wall of bats. Brett? Can you do that invisible-water-shield thing again? So they don’t see us coming?”
Brett’s eyebrows quirked. “Here? On the ocean? You better believe I can.”
Gabe looked at Lily and Jackson. “Then we just need transportation. Which of you wants to give us a lift?”
“Oh.” Lily drummed the fingers of one hand on her upper arm. “I could get us there, but the wind might disrupt Brett’s illusion thing. I don’t know . . .”
Jackson grunted. “Yes, yes, leave it to me to be the linchpin of this entire enterprise.” He shouldered past Lily and Gabe and climbed the low fence, perching on top after he’d swung his legs over. “Mr. Hernandez, I suppose I have no choice but to ask you to do the honors.”
Brett sneered at Jackson as he climbed over the railing. “Yeah. Everybody get close.” Gabe, Lily, and Kaz clambered over, and as the five of them clustered together, Brett summoned a shimmering sheet of liquid up from the waterline. It surrounded them and rose into a familiar cylindrical shape as Jackson conjured a broad, flat disk of golden light.
“You may talk if you must,” Jackson said, gesturing everyone onto the disk. “But mind your balance. Should you be so foolish as to fall off, you will be on your own.”
“All aboard,” Gabe said. It came out more solemnly than he’d meant it to. They all stepped onto the disk with Jackson, Brett getting on last, and as the shimmering cylinder closed around them, Gabe knew that the five of them had just disappeared from view.
“Very well,” Jackson said tightly. “Off we go.”
They skimmed across the bay, only a few inches above the water. Gabe was pretty sure he could feel it each time a whitecap brushed the disk’s underside.
“God, I can’t believe this,” Kaz muttered.
> Lily said, “Can’t believe what?”
“That we’re all just okay with this. Hey, look, there’s a ship controlled by the Eternal Dawn, a bunch of people who want to kill us. And it’s heading straight toward, like, every abyssal bat ever. You know what would be a great idea? If we sneaked out there and climbed on board! When did this happen to us? When did we start saying, Hey, let’s go put our lives in danger! It’ll be great!”
Lily smiled but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. Gabe tried for a grin, but it didn’t feel right, so he went for earnest instead. “We started saying that when we found out the world would end if we didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Lily said. “That pretty much sums it up.”
As they skimmed farther into the bay, Gabe sensed something strange. It was hard to describe, but it felt like a pull, reaching out to him across the water. “Guys . . . do you feel that?” He strained his eyes, staring at Alcatraz’s shoreline. “From the island?”
“I believe it is emanating from the breach,” Jackson said without turning his head.
The breach. The breach Gabe had caused. It felt like a hole in the world. A hole with slick, steep sides that he would surely fall into if he got too close.
“Get ready, everyone,” Brett murmured. “We’re almost there.”
Gabe dragged his gaze away from the island and concentrated on the yacht. Brett was right. At the speed Jackson was carrying them, they’d reach it in less than a minute.
Lily said, “Well, I don’t see anybody on board. That’s a little weird.”
Kaz shrugged. “I was watching the bats.”
“The yacht’s probably got some kind of ward on it,” Brett said. “Like the ones your uncle and Greta drew everywhere. We should be extra careful.”
Jackson guided the golden disk up to the side of the yacht and whispered over his shoulder, “Does anyone see any wards?”
Gabe scoured the boat for any trace of fire, but he didn’t detect anything. The rest of them either shook their heads or muttered, “No.” Jackson nodded and slowly began to raise the disk, lifting them up toward the railing. As he did, voices drifted down to them, and Gabe grabbed Jackson’s arm, making a hold on a minute gesture. Jackson frowned but kept the disk where it was, so they could all listen but still be out of sight from whoever was on deck.
