The Shadow City Page 8

  Gabe recognized Primus’s voice immediately.

  “Wretched little trolls.” She practically spat the words out. “But they won’t be a problem much longer. They may have defeated our leviathan, but now that we have the Emerald Tablet? Well.”

  Lily touched Gabe’s shoulder. She mouthed the word at him: Leviathan?

  He leaned close to her, his lips almost brushing her ear. “Must be the giant tentacle monster.”

  Above them, Primus went on. “Soon we’ll use the Tablet to widen the doorway between here and Arcadia. We will build a glorious army of Arcadian creatures. With them, we will be unstoppable. The children will fall before us, as will all others who dare oppose us.”

  A male voice answered her: “For the glory of the Eternal Dawn!”

  Gabe gestured for Jackson to take them up. As the disk lurched back into motion, Gabe put a hand on the yacht’s hull to steady himself, and just as quickly he yanked it back. The hull felt warm—warmer than Gabe had expected, given the frigid waters it was cutting through.

  “What’s wrong?” Brett whispered. Gabe narrowed his eyes at the hull, unsure of how to answer. Something isn’t right. . . .

  “Primus will most likely have the Tablet, so you should all prepare yourselves for a fight,” Jackson said, his eyes shining gold as they settled on Kaz. “Well, those of you who aren’t entirely useless.”

  Kaz’s shoulders slumped. Gabe would have said something to Jackson about being nicer to Kaz, but just then he saw an odd flicker in the air around the hull.

  What’s going on here?

  The disk lifted over the yacht’s rail and settled onto the deck. Gabe opened his mouth to say, “Wait a second,” but Brett had already leaped off the disk, eyes blue-green and ready. Gabe felt his own eyes flash into flame as he prepared himself to summon fire.

  But the yacht’s deck was empty.

  Kaz glanced around, looking nervous as a rabbit. “Wait. Where is everybody?”

  From the middle of the deck, Primus’s voice rang out again. “Wretched little trolls. But they won’t be a problem for much longer.”

  The sinking feeling that had begun when Gabe’s hand touched the yacht’s hull gathered force in his stomach. He spotted the source of the voice: a set of large speakers in the middle of the deck. The prerecorded words continued, exactly as they had while they’d been listening from below. Gabe strode toward the speakers, stomped toward them. He felt his teeth grind and fire glimmer in his eyes.

  The speakers erupted in flames. Cloth charred, and plastic quickly turned to black molten sludge. Gabe whirled to face his friends, all of whom had followed after him. His flare of anger quickly transformed into fear. “It’s a trap! We need to get out of here!”

  The word “here” hadn’t even fully left Gabe’s mouth before the entire yacht bucked beneath their feet. Gabe fell hard to one knee and saw Kaz crash into Lily and Jackson, knocking them over. Brett lurched but stayed upright, and he stumbled to Gabe’s side.

  “What’s going on?” Kaz shrieked, but before anyone could answer, the truth made itself horribly clear.

  The broad planks of the deck widened farther, their color changing to translucent gold as the ichor of the Eternal Dawn’s creatures seeped across them. From around the yacht’s perimeter, enormous tentacles sprang from the hull and curved inward, reaching.

  The leviathan had never disappeared.

  It was right here. Camouflaged, like the creature from Greta’s hospital room.

  They were standing on it.

  With a wet, nauseating sound like a side of beef being torn in half, a ragged mouth yawned wide, spanning the width of the deck and separating Gabe and Brett from Lily, Kaz, and Jackson. Gabe got back to his feet and started sizing up the jump they’d need to take to get across it, but then the mouth sprouted overlapping sheets of daggerlike teeth. Vertigo almost overtook Gabe as he gazed down into its massive, reddish-brown, slime-coated gullet. He backed away from it as fast as he could, dragging Brett with him.

  From the other side of the leviathan’s gaping, gnashing mouth, Lily screamed, “Gabe! Brett! Look out!”

  Gabe didn’t even try to look behind him. He just threw himself to one side, barely avoiding the massive tentacle that skidded across the deck where he’d been standing. Brett stood his ground. A thick column of water arced up over the side of the leviathan’s body and split into a whirling cage of translucent blades around Brett. One of the tentacles touched those blades and jerked back, golden ooze sprouting from a dozen deep lacerations.

  The leviathan roared, its twisted, corrupted whale song penetrating Gabe’s flesh and bones. It was so loud, Gabe thought his skull might explode.

  “Gabe! Brett!” That was Kaz, screaming from the other side of the creature’s maw. “The tentacles—it’s trying to push us into its mouth!” Kaz yelped and ducked behind Lily as one of the monster’s limbs reached for them. Lily’s eyes gleamed silver-white, and a thunderous gust of wind blasted the tentacle back into the water. Jackson hurled golden disk after golden disk at half a dozen others—but it was just like the fight at Argent Court. No matter how many they battered, cut, or bludgeoned, the monstrosity just grew more.

  They had to try, though. Gabe called up a scorching maelstrom of flames around him. If the creature couldn’t get through Brett’s blades of water, maybe it couldn’t get through a wall of fire, either. Gabe raised his hands, and the fire rose up into a dome around him. Sure enough, when one of the tentacles swiped at him, it jerked back, slimy flesh charred and blistered.

  But then two more arched high into the air, paused, and came hammering down at Gabe like a pair of pile drivers. Gabe screamed and dived out of the way as the boneless appendages smashed through the fire dome and into the leviathan’s chitinous plating. Those would have crushed me flat, flames or no flames! Why isn’t my fire as powerful as Brett’s water?

  Gabe had no time to figure it out. The sky overhead darkened, the sound of flapping, membranous wings reached his ears, and Gabe looked up to see at least two dozen abyssal bats heading their way. No—they were heading straight at him, ignoring everyone else, and for a moment he feared he might lose control of his bladder.

  It wasn’t his imagination. Gabe had no time to check what was happening to his friends because the sleek, eyeless, horrifying creatures began to dive-bomb him, one after another. Gabe scrambled to avoid their snapping jaws and thrusting, knife-blade talons. The leviathan seemed to have withdrawn to give the abyssal bats room to attack. They’re trying to kill me! Just like they killed Greta!

  The memory of Greta Jaeger, and what one of these creatures had done to her, supercharged the fire in Gabe’s heart. Between one breath and the next, the world seemed to slow down. Everything around him ground to a halt until Gabe was the only thing moving in the entire world.

  No . . . no! That wasn’t true at all.

  Everything was moving, all around him. Moving constantly. Moving at the molecular level. The atomic level. The tiny, submicroscopic particles that made up matter itself. He could feel them, spinning in their infinitesimal orbits, the components of the universe—the protons, neutrons, and electrons that made up the flesh of the leviathan, the horrid skin and bone of the abyssal bats, even the air they all breathed.

  Gabe remembered one of the homework sessions Uncle Steve had helped him with. At absolute zero, there is virtually no molecular motion. But as that motion speeds up, what do you get?

  Heat.

  Gabe reached out and took hold of those molecules. Faster. He felt them begin to speed up. Faster. Hotter. A voice, now familiar, spoke inside his head: burn . . . burn . . . burn! But Gabe clamped down on that voice. It wasn’t going to control him. Not this time.

  He was the one in control.

  And he didn’t need any source of electricity anymore.

  The spinning water blades nearest to Gabe hissed and turned to steam. Brett gaped at him and backed away as the air on the deck warped and quivered. Gabe raised eyes like the h
earts of two volcanoes toward the abyssal bats overhead, and a ring of white-hot fire roared into life around him, rising and expanding.

  Two bats hit the ring and vaporized.

  The rest of them shrieked and circled, diving and rising. Gabe lifted his arms and the white-hot inferno grew larger, gaining intensity. Three more bats crashed into it, and they vaporized just as instantly as the first two.

  I can do this. I can do this! I can clear out all the bats and then burn this freak leviathan out from under us! I CAN TAKE ON THE DAWN AND CLOSE THE BREACH!

  Gabe splayed his fingers, sending tongues of flame shooting up, targeting individual bats—

  And then the world turned blurry and cold.

  Huh?

  To his horror, Gabe watched the blazing ring of fire choke and die.

  What’s happening? What’s doing this to me?

  He took a breath, about to call out for his friends, but there was something wrong with his throat. The fire gone, the flame in his eyes snuffed out, Gabe gasped for air.

  He couldn’t get any.

  I can’t breathe!

  Gabe’s hands flew to his throat as the blurred, distorted world around him faded to darkness.

  9

  Between the giant flailing tentacles and the diving, screaming abyssal bats, Lily could barely keep track of where she was on the leviathan’s shell, much less watch out for all the others.

  One gust in the wrong direction and I’ll push somebody into the bay by accident! And using her command of air to shove the creatures away from her was getting harder as more and more of them attacked.

  “Kaz!” she screamed, glancing over her shoulder, “On your left!”

  Kaz squealed and threw himself flat as the talons of an abyssal bat whooshed by just above his shoulder blades. “How are we supposed to fight something we’re standing on? We’re like fleas on a giant dog! One good scratch and we’re history! Lily, we’ve got to get off this thing!”

  Easier said than done, with Gabe and Brett all the way on the other side of that giant gross mouth.

  Kaz got back to his feet but huddled between Lily and Jackson, trying and mostly failing to use his backpack as a weapon. He’s not moving fast enough . . . ! Lily grabbed Kaz’s arm and wrenched him out of the path of a blackened, smoking abyssal bat that crashed hard into the spot where he’d just been standing.

  “Holy crap! What happened to that thing?” Kaz cried, staring in fascinated horror as the creature crumbled into glowing, charred chunks.

  As if in answer, a blast of heat reached them from the other side of the leviathan’s broad, fang-filled mouth, and Lily caught a glimpse of Gabe through the bat-winged swarm. A churning circle of fire surrounded him. “I think Gabe happened to it!”

  Lily looked away, trying to hide her worry. She hoped that the Dawn’s creatures were the only things that ended up as blackened husks.

  She didn’t have time to worry, anyway—not while she, Kaz, and Jackson still had their own Arcadian monsters to contend with. She shunted another tentacle away with a pulse of wind. Her lips quirked upward as the out-of-control limb slammed three abyssal bats out of the sky.

  Jackson sent a spinning golden disk into the densest part of the attacking bat swarm, but the beasts scattered before it could do any damage. He threw a contemptuous look at Kaz. “Surely you can do something besides wish ill will at these horrors, Kazuo? What happened to ‘I am bound to Earth’?”

  “It’s Brett’s stupid apographon!” Kaz snapped and swung his backpack at another abyssal bat. “I’d have a hard time finding stones to use out here in the middle of the ocean on my best day, but now?” He grunted and ducked under a leathery wing. “I’m not much better than a paperweight!”

  Lily saw two bats heading straight for her, and she surprised herself by taking in a great breath and blowing at them. A gale-force wind rushed from her lungs, sweeping up both creatures and slamming them into each other. They fell into the water in a shrieking tangle of wings and talons.

  Panting, Lily noticed that the fierce wave of heat Gabe had generated had abruptly disappeared, but before she could turn her head to see what was going on, Brett crashed into the ichor-covered surface at her feet with a thunderous impact—a circle of golden energy binding his arms to his body.

  In horror, Lily dropped to her knees by Brett’s side. Her twin’s eyes were closed, but she could see him breathing, and she couldn’t find any blood anywhere. He’s just knocked out. Please let him just be knocked out!

  She tried to figure out where the energy circle had come from, and traced a shimmering line of magick from it to . . . Jackson?

  The pale boy scowled at Brett, his smooth face rendered aged and ugly by hatred. “What are you doing?” Lily screamed in shock. Why attack Brett just when we need him the most? Why attack Brett AT ALL? “Let him go!” In her voice, Lily heard the roar of a hurricane.

  “Not a chance,” Jackson said, icy calm. “He’s betrayed us.”

  Lily’s eyes went cold as her element surged, and she was about to tell Ghost Boy exactly what would happen if he didn’t turn her brother loose, when Kaz’s trembling voice shouted, “Guys, look out, look out, look out!”

  Lily turned to see a huge abyssal bat, almost twice the size of the others, diving for her with its knife-sharp talons outstretched.

  A volley of softball-sized golden orbs blasted into it like a load of buckshot. The bat screeched, knocked out of the air, and slammed hard into the leviathan’s shell. Lily stared as it slid lifelessly into the bay below.

  Jackson came and knelt beside her. His eyes blazed gold, and a transparent golden shell formed around the four of them. An abyssal bat slammed into it and bounced off, and Jackson hissed, gritting his teeth at the impact. “I cannot maintain this shield for long. You must provide us with our escape route.”

  For a moment, all Lily could do was stare at him. Jackson had just attacked her brother, but somehow he was still on their side?

  “Oh God!” Kaz shouted. “Lily, look!”

  She followed Kaz’s line of sight. Nearing the island’s shore, a cluster of abyssal bats held something in their talons. Something that looked like . . .

  Gabe.

  But there wasn’t any time to do more than think his name. A shadow fell across them, and Lily whipped her head up to see a massive tentacle rising above them, stretching up to its full length. Jackson’s voice in her ear took on a note of desperation. “Lily, please. Get us out of here.”

  Lily glanced at Brett, still motionless on the floor. Then she stood. As she did she felt silver-white air energy dance along her skin, out to the tips of her fingers. She took a deep breath.

  It’s up to me. I’ve got to get us away from here. Concentrate, Lily . . . summon the air . . .

  The screeching of the abyssal bats faded away, along with Jackson’s and Kaz’s voices. Air was all that mattered. Air was everything. Another deep breath filled her lungs with the salty bay winds. It tasted so good. So pure.

  How long has it been since I’ve needed my inhaler? The need for it seemed so far away now. As if she’d never had asthma in the first place.

  Lily’s hair ruffled in the wind.

  The air spoke to her. Sang to her. Every current like a different voice, and all of them needed to sing together. She would guide those voices. Lead them. Conduct them like a massive symphonic choir.

  Lily told the wind to encircle her brother and Kaz and Jackson and finally herself.

  Are you ready to sing for me?

  The voices answered her, trilling, cascading through her mind. Yes, Lily. Let us sing. Hear our song. Feel it. Unleash it.

  NOW!

  Dimly, Lily was aware of the sudden, deafening roar of the wind as it swept them up and hurled them into the air, but to her it sounded like the most beautiful, heartbreaking melody. She saw the leviathan recede below them, its gargantuan shape dwindling as they rose higher and higher, but her head had filled with the song of the air. Lily never wanted to
hear anything but that majestic music ever again.

  Moisture ran down her cheeks as the booming breath of the wind carried them up into the thick gray clouds. The melody saturated her body, thrumming inside her bones.

  I am one with the air. I am one with the wind. I am the sky!

  Brilliant sunlight washed over them as they broke through the cloud cover, rocketing ever upward. Lily spread her arms and twirled, buoyed by the roaring, gusting wind. Her body was weightless.

  I am the air. I am the wind. I will soar forever!

  She touched her face, marveling at the ice crystals forming on her cheeks, and wondered in an abstract way why her lungs had begun to burn—

  And she heard screaming.

  Why would there be screaming? Who would be screaming, up here in the pure, free air? Soon she would reach the edge of the stratosphere, up where the blue faded into black, and she knew she could circle the Earth forever, skimming along the edge of the pure, perfect sky. Lily couldn’t imagine a more glorious, peaceful existence.

  Until Kaz grabbed her arm and screamed into her face. “Lily! We’re too high! WE’RE! TOO! HIGH!”

  Suddenly, the symphony of the air faded. Lily saw her unconscious brother, and Kaz and Jackson. They were so high up that Jackson had passed out, and Kaz’s tears had frozen onto his face.

  Lily gasped and felt the power of air slide from her grasp.

  The four of them fell like rocks.

  10

  “LILY!”

  Kaz’s voice reached her, thin and nearly drowned out by the rushing wind. “Lily, you have to stop us!”

  Lily couldn’t breathe at all. Her lungs refused to work, and her stomach felt as if it were still somewhere up at the edge of space.