by P. J. Hoover
Collect the Key
Reach the End.
Defeat the God.
Books by P. J. Hoover
Game of the Gods Series
A Broken Truce
A Ruined Land
A Buried Spark
The Dying Earth Series
Solstice
The Hidden Code
The Demigod Chronicles
Furiously Awesome
Tut: My Immortal Life Series
Tut: The Story of My Immortal Life
Tut: My Epic Battle to Save the World
The Forgotten Worlds Trilogy
The Emerald Tablet
The Navel of the World
The Necropolis
Camp Hercules Series
The Curse of Hera
A BURIED SPARK
GAME OF THE GODS
BOOK 3
P. J. Hoover
Roots in Myth, Austin, TX
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A BURIED SPARK
Game of the Gods Book 3
Copyright © 2019 by Patricia Jedrziewski Hoover
All rights reserved.
Cover design by KimGDesign
A Roots in Myth Book
Austin, TX
For more information, write
[email protected]
www.pjhoover.com
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without express permission of the
copyright holder.
ISBN: 978-1-949717-10-5 (trade paperback)
ASIN: B07WN8YGJ7 (Kindle ebook)
First Trade Paperback Edition: August 2019
For my readers, thank you!
Table of Contents
PROPHECY
I
II
HOME
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
ENTRY
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
DIGAMMA
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
DELTA
XLIII
XLIV
XLV
PROPHECY
I
Taylor and I watch as Cole and Pia get farther away on the glowing river. The lava bubbles beneath them, threatening to reach the floating platform where they stand, but the platform moves with it, lifting gently to keep them safe.
To keep Pia safe.
I ball my hands into fists. I knew it. I hadn’t trusted her from the start. I’d wanted to, once Cole told me what she’d been through, but from the second we’d seen her in the simulation, my sensors had gone on high alert. My instincts had been trying to tell me, but I’d pushed them away. Still I’d never thought she’d manage to turn Cole against me. It’s one more horrible reminder of what we face in this game.
Trust no one.
I swallow the hurt that builds inside me. I’d never thought Cole was included in that statement. Above everyone else, Cole was my rock. Now he’s gone.
His voice echoes in my mind. We weren’t meant to be together. I see that now.
Except we were meant to be together. I’d known it from the moment I met him, back in Louisiana, when this whole disaster started. How could I have been so wrong?
Taylor grabs something from the dark ground we stand on and throws it hard toward the river of lava. It’s discarded code formed together into a huge flat chunk of metal. Based on its size, I have no idea where she gets the strength to do this, unless physical rules don’t apply the same way here in the Nether Zone as they do in the other zones we’ve been in. It spins through the air like a Frisbee, nearly reaching Cole and Pia, but falls short before reaching the floating platform they ride on.
“Get back here!” Taylor shouts. She grits her teeth together and punches the air. “Don’t you leave us here!”
Cole doesn’t look our way. But Pia . . . She turns to look, and the edges of her lips lift into a smile I hate more than the gods who placed us in this game in the first place. If I ever see her again—no, scratch that. I will see her again, and when I do, I’ll . . . what? Would I kill her?
I don’t know. I’m not a killer . . . not deep down. But this goes beyond anything that has happened so far.
“Edie, they’re leaving,” Taylor says, as if she thinks I don’t notice.
“Maybe there’s . . .” My words trail off. There’s what? A mistake? There is no mistaking what is going on. Cole’s words had been clear. No matter how much I want them to be something else, they repeat over in my mind. Cole has turned against me.
“There’s nothing except a bullseye painted on them when I see them,” Taylor says. “Now how do we get across this stupid river?”
I squeeze my fist and force away the rejection that flares in my mind. I am stronger than this. I am not going to give in to it. Cole is gone. I have to accept that and move on. Move forward. And moving forward means doing what we came here to do. We have a key to find, hidden here in the Nether Zone. The only difference is now instead of just having Owen and Abigail looking for the key, Cole and Pia are also on an opposing side. I am not letting any of them stand in my way. I’ll fight them with everything I can.
“We need payment,” I say, hardening my face. I make a pocket in my mind, and I file away my feelings for Cole. There is no room for them if I want to get the key first. I have to pretend that Cole is no one except one more competitor. And sure, maybe our number of opponents has dwindled, but that only means the ones that are left are the strongest. Owen. Abigail. Cole. Pia. Taylor. Me.
And Hudson. He’d followed Owen and Abigail. And hopefully he can stop them. Or at least slow them down.
“Where do we get payment?” Taylor says.
So vividly I see Cole collecting the prize. “Cole got the coin in the gaming zone.”
Taylor’s scowl is filled with distaste. “The gaming zone. Hell no we’re going back there.” The gaming zone had nearly kept all of us. There are still plenty of kids trapped there. Plenty of kids we can free once we get the key and gain entry to Main Control Room Alpha. It’s where we’d found Pia. I’d freed her. And that’s when everything had changed.
I can’t go back to the gaming zone either. If I did that, I could be lost forever. Even thinking about it, remembering how good I was, makes me want to delve back in and see if I can make it to the next level. There was such a bliss in it. No worries. Only the game. But that is not going to happen.
I turn back to where we came from. The world gate I’d created is gone, blended back into the code that makes up the Nether Zone. Even now, when I focus, I see the bits of code streaming everywhere, making up everything that exists in the virtual world around us. I’d seen mor
e when I’d had the Oculus. It had heightened my ability. Now Taylor has the Oculus—inside her eye socket, so there is no way I’m getting another chance to look through it.
“Do you see anything with it?” I ask. For me, I’d seen through the layers of the virtual world and back into the real world. I was able to see some of the destruction being caused outside. It almost felt like I could pass right through. And then there was Elise. She’d looked through the Oculus, and she almost hadn’t been able to resist its power . . . as if there is more to it than I was able to see.
Taylor finally shifts her face away from her anger at our current situation. “Anything? More like everything. Edie, it’s crazy.” She opens and closes her eyes, alternating which is open. “I don’t even know what all this stuff is. It’s like layers upon layers of colors and images and . . . I don’t know. There are flickering pictures, but I don’t know what they are. What’s it supposed to be showing me?”
Raven had desperately wanted the Oculus. But even though it was there, in her simulation, it was like she was afraid to take it from Amos herself. Afraid or unable to. That was why she tried to trick me into getting it for her. But after seeing how badly she wanted it and how much it tempted Elise, I knew I could never give it to her.
“The layers of the worlds,” I say. “At least that’s what it looked like to me.”
Taylor closes her right eye and keeps only the left one open, the one with the Oculus. Still so fresh in my mind is Amos cutting her eyeball from her head and devouring it. But I don’t bring this up for obvious reasons.
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to focus on any one thing,” Taylor says. “There’s just so much stuff.”
We don’t need to focus on all the layers, only the one we’re in right now. We need to find a way across the river of lava.
“Try to pull back your focus,” I say. “Think only about the Nether Zone. Can you see it?”
“What? Are you an expert?” Taylor snaps.
Same old Taylor. Instead of annoying me, it actually helps me calm down.
I can’t help the grin that slips onto my face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m just glad you’re here.” I don’t know what I would do without Taylor. She is without a doubt the strongest of us all.
“Yeah, well anyway. I’m doing the best I can here.” She pulls her head back as if that will help her focus. “This layer is really dark. And all this shit around here . . .” She kicks one of the many bones that litter the ground. “It’s getting in the way.”
“Is there anything we can use?” I say. “Some kind of payment?” I pull on my powers and try to bring the bits of the world together into a coin like Cole had, but the zone seems to be working against me. It won’t let the object manifest.
Taylor shakes her head. “Give me a second.”
While she tries to focus through the Oculus, I tap the wristband that I still wear. I hope for the green concentric circles to appear. For Zachary Gomez to pipe through on my heads-up display. The tiny screen flickers, turning solid green for two full seconds, then back to black and stays that way. I tap it a few more times trying to get some response, but there’s nothing. It’s dead, like everything else around us. Like my powers.
No, I can’t jump to conclusions. It could be that my powers need time to recharge or something.
“Okay, wait a second,” Taylor says. “I’m starting to see things.” She nods toward the river of lava. “Like out there. I can’t see the other side. But there’s an invisible path, kind of, floating above the river. Like a road made out of computer code. Do you see it? Maybe you can yank it over toward us.”
I focus again on the code of this world, but instead of trying to create a coin for payment, I grasp in the air for the path she’s talking about. My mind gets hold of a tiny piece of it. A small spark forms in my brain, and I almost have it. This is progress. I grab for more of it, but the second I do, it slips away.
I shake my head. “Almost.”
“Yeah, well, almost won’t get us across,” Taylor says.
This is true. I try again, but it’s worse this second time. It’s like the simulation knows what I’m hoping to accomplish and is actually stopping me. Like someone besides Pia and Cole doesn’t want me to get across. Still I try a third time. This time, the moment I attempt to grab hold of the code, a spark shoots into me, throwing me backward.
I land hard on my butt. Okay, fine. I get the hint. Going about this the straightforward way isn’t going to work.
I unhook the compass from my belt and flip open the cover. The needle spins around one full time and then settles on the river ahead. There is no doubt that it’s the direction we need to go. But maybe there is another way. I spin around slowly. I want the compass needle to point somewhere else. A secret passage. A different path I haven’t noticed. But the needle always points the same way that Cole and Pia went.
“That’s unhelpful,” I say, and I hook it back to my belt. I don’t want to lose it, especially not after Elise fixed it. Without knowing what is ahead or where to go, I can’t be without it.
Taylor grabs a piece of metal from the ground. It’s covered with grime, but she wipes it on her shirt to make a more solid grip.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about being here, Edie,” Taylor says.
The hairs on my arm stand up, almost like at her words, the bad feeling becomes contagious. “What kind of bad feeling?”
She holds the piece of metal like a weapon. The sheered edge looks sharp enough to slice off my forearm. She circles me, as if she’s guarding me. “Something is going to happen.”
The hot air presses in on me from all sides. “What?”
Taylor circles again, listening to the crackle of lava and the shifting of junk that surrounds us. “I don’t know,” she finally says. Then she closes her right eye and looks straight out at the lava. “Something from there.”
The river of lava is the same as far as I can see. Bubbles lift and pop. Streams of darkness and light blend together like a giant mixing bowl. The platform that Cole and Pia disappeared on does not return.
We need to get out of here.
We need to get across.
The two thoughts conflict. Across the river is the key, and we need to get the key. But my gut also tells me that staying here any longer is not a good thing.
I squat back down to the ground, and I scramble through trash until I find a small piece of metal. I flip it over in my palm, looking at the sharp edges where it’s been severed from a larger piece. It almost looks like a bracket, the kind that would be used to hold a computer board. But when I pull my focus back, it turns from the cruddy piece of metal into a stream of data. There are bits and pieces to describe the color, the edges, the type of metal used. Now to use my powers to shift it.
“Edie, we need to go,” Taylor says.
I shake my head. It will work this time. “I got this.” I start with the base metal: aluminum. All I have to do is make the smallest change. A change so tiny that whatever is trying to keep my powers from working won’t even notice.
The spark flares inside me. The power is mine. I shift the code around, making the change, turning it to solid gold. But it still looks like a piece of junk. I reshape it, forming a circle. A coin, like Cole had. Then I change the color, making it shine so brightly that I have to look away.
I hold it up for Taylor to see. “What do you think?”
Taylor shakes her head. “I think we need to leave.”
I stand up. “We need to cross.”
She clenches her teeth together. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
But it is a good idea. We have to get across the river, and now we have a coin as payment.
I take the coin back and flip it up in the air. Only then do I realize it doesn’t have a heads or a tails. I delve back
in, just for a moment, and form Alpha on one side and Omega on the other. The beginning and the end. I only hope we’re reaching the end of our journey.
“Let’s go,” I say, clenching the coin in my fist.
Taylor doesn’t move.
“Come on.” I take a step back toward the lava river. My heavy boots crunch bits and pieces of the junk below.
“No, Edie.” Taylor grabs at my hand.
But the platform appears, almost as if it can sense the gold. The tall silhouette is there, pure darkness with nothing to distinguish fingers from hand from arm.
I yank my hand away from her. “Come on, Taylor. They already have a huge head start.”
Taylor doesn’t move. Her eyes are locked on the river of lava. Her left eye shows no emotion, but her right eye is filled with fear.
Taylor is never afraid. It’s enough to give me pause.
“What?” I say.
“Someone is out there,” Taylor says.
Cole? Or Pia? The cloaked silhouette? Or someone worse?
My steps pause. “Who?”
“They’re watching us. They’re waiting . . .”
Watching us. Waiting. And the second Taylor says it, Elise’s words return to me. Don’t cross the first river. You’ll die if you do.
This has to be what she was talking about. This is the first river we’ve come to since she told me. But we have to get across. The key is on the other side, and we need the key.
My foot lifts and hovers, ready to move forward.
“Edie—”
But she never gets the chance to finish what she’s saying. Something flies through the air and hits the figure on the platform which is almost to the shore of the river. The silhouetted figure explodes in a mass of fire. He raises his arms. The fabric of his dark cloak bursts into flames. He’s covered from head to toe.
