Peter Lerangis - The Curse of the King

She was looking at me like I’d just slapped her. But before either of us could say anything, the crowd of medical people began elbowing me away. Dr. Karl was shouting orders. All kinds of tubes were being hooked up to Aly’s arms.

I backed away, standing with Cass. “Boj emosewa,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

I took a deep breath. I felt a million things. Happiness. Relief. Embarrassment. Pride. I could finally feel my body relaxing. That was when I opened my clenched palm and looked at the shard.

It was the size of a quarter.

And the only thing I felt was scared.

* * *

“What if it just … vanishes?” Cass paced back and forth in our hotel room. Behind him was a huge picture window. The sunset looked like an egg yolk spreading on the Pacific Ocean. “We use up its power, it gets smaller and smaller, and then, poof, it’s gone?”

“I wasn’t expecting it to shrink like that,” I said.

“Jack, it’s been getting smaller all along,” Cass said. “I tried to tell you that back home. It must be like a battery. You and I used up some of its power. Aly used up a lot more.”

“We have to preserve it somehow,” I said. “But we can’t exactly hide it away. It’s buying us time.”

“I wish we could contact the KI,” Cass said with a sigh. “I wish we hadn’t been cut off like that. Don’t you think that’s weird—they take Torquin away and then … radio silence?”

“Maybe they’ve given up on us,” I said.

Cass flopped on one of the double beds and stared out the window. “Now you sound like me.”

I could feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. Aly was calling. “Hello?” I said.

“I’m bored,” Aly’s voice piped up.

I put her on speaker. “Hi, Bored. I’m Jack. Cass is here, too. How are you feeling?”

“Good,” she replied. “Too good to be sitting here in the dark in a hospital room. The doctors have finally stopped coming in and gawking. They’re talking about releasing me tomorrow. I’m like the Miracle Girl. I feel like an exhibit at the Museum of Natural Hysteria, and I’m tired of talking. So it’s your turn, Jack. You know what happened to me, and I want you to tell me now.”

I explained it all—the shards, the shrinkage, the healing power, the trip to LA, and my stunt with the Loculus of Invisibility.

When I was done, the phone fell quiet for a long moment. “Um, are you still awake?” I finally said.

“That silence,” she said, “is the sound of my mind being blown. Do you realize what this means? If your two shards fused like that, we may be able to put the whole thing together again.”

“Like Humpty Dumpty!” Cass added.

“Which means we have to get to the other pieces,” Aly went on.

Cass hopped off the bed. “Yes!”

“Whoa, hold on—the Massa took the other pieces,” I said. “They’re probably back on the island right now, trying to fit them together.”

“Exactly,” Aly said. “So there are two possibilities. They manage to do it, and they realize there’s a piece missing. In which case they will be coming after us.”

“Or?” I said.

“Or they won’t be able to do anything with those shards at all,” she said, “because you guys are G7W and they’re not. Don’t forget, the Loculi get their power from us. Without us, there’s a good chance those shards will just be shards.”

“You are a genius,” Cass said.

“How do we get to the island?” I said. “My dad can get us anywhere from Chicago to Kathmandu in a private plane. But even he can’t get to an island shielded from detection. Torquin’s the only person who can get us there, and he’s gone.”

“It’s findable by the KI, and by the Massa,” Aly said. “If they can do it, so can we.”

“How?” Cass asked.

“I’m thinking,” Aly said.

I was thinking, too. I was thinking about Brother Dimitrios and my mom, heading across the ocean. Dimitrios was probably happy to have the Loculus pieces. Maybe the Massa couldn’t fuse the shards, but they could try to fit them together like puzzle pieces. Would Dimitrios find out that Mom had dropped one? What would happen to her if he did?

I began to sweat. Even now, I wasn’t sure which side Mom was on. She seemed to want to help us. Which would make her a mole inside the Massa organization. But she had left Dad and me to join them—faked her own death and kept it secret all these years. How could I trust her? How could I not trust my own mom?

My mind was firing in all directions. I pictured Mom on a plane with the Massa, staring out the window, scared.

“The Massa,” I said. “Somehow we have to get the Massa to take us there.”

“Are you crazy?” Cass said. “We just risked our lives escaping them!”

“Jack, we don’t know where they are,” Aly said.

Something Dad had said on the train was still echoing in my head. The best way to predict how people will act is knowing what they want.

“Maybe not,” I said. “But we know what they want. And it’s the same thing the KI wants.”

“World domination?” Cass asked.

“Loculi,” I replied. “And we still have two of them. At some point—probably after the heat is off us—they will come after us.”

“We don’t have time to wait,” Aly said. “It may take them weeks, or months. That shard is going to shrink to nothing.”

“Exactly,” I said. “We have to make that happen ourselves. We have to make them find us. There are four likely places they are monitoring right now—four places that have the unfound Loculi.”

“The four remaining Wonders of the World!” Aly blurted out.

“I’ll work on my dad,” I said. “You work on your mom, Aly. Explain that it’s a matter of life or death. We get ourselves back to the island and find Fiddle. He’s hidden away with some KI operatives. They’ve got to be planning something. They’ll help us. The moment you get out of the hospital—”

“Wait,” Cass said. “We’re supposed to sneak away, travel to one of the sites, and look for the Massa?”

“No.” I shook my head. “All we need to do is go there. And let them come to us.”

I LOOK OVERmy shoulder. He is not here yet. But he will be.

WHO?

All I know, all I recognize, is that I am back in Bodrum. The last place in the world I want to be. The place where we failed to find the Loculus. Our last stop before NYC, where all our hope was lost—

The others—Dad, Cass, Aly, Torquin, and Canavar—are nowhere. The hotels and houses are gone, too. I’m wearing sandals and a robe. My mind goes from confusion to panic. Before me is an expanse of blackness, the contours of surrounding hills lit only by moonlight.

Bodrum is Halicarnassus. I am in another time. And my Jack thoughts are being crowded out of my head.

In rushes a flood of other, more distant memories. Of beauty and pain. Of deep-green forests and smooth blue lakes, happy laughing families, scholars teaching children, athletes wrestling deadly piglike vromaskis, sharp-clawed red griffins swooping overhead.

Of smoldering clouds and raging fires, blackened corpses and shrieking beasts.

Over my shoulder is a leather sack. Inside is a sphere. It looks like the Loculus of Healing, but I know it’s not. It is fake. I planned it this way. I am also heading in the wrong direction—away from the distant silhouette of the great half-finished structure in the distance. The Mausoleum.