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I see Mark right away. He stands in the doorway to Patience Creek, his back to me. Last time I saw him, he was a mess and punched me in the face. Now he’s stiff, his head cocked in a strange way.
“Mark,” I say cautiously. “You’re back.”
He turns to me, his motions all herky-jerky. I see it immediately—how pale his skin is, the dark-black veins that make a spiderweb across his cheek. Mark’s eyes are wide. He’s crying, but other than that his face is completely devoid of emotion. I note that his fingers are clenched into claws, like he’s paralyzed.
“I’m—I’m sorry, John,” he manages to stammer out.
“Mark—”
“They muh—muh—made me.”
I almost manage to spin around in time. Three tendrils of black ooze lance towards me, the tip of each one sharpened like a drill bit. One pierces the back of my shoulder, the other shoots through my hip and the third penetrates my armpit as I raise my hand to defend myself. It’s like being stabbed by something living, something that burrows. I feel the tendrils digging deeper into me. My healing Legacy kicks in, tries to fight them off. When it does, an acidic burning washes over my every nerve ending. I scream and fall to my knees.
“We did make him,” says a cheery female voice. “But we didn’t have to try very hard.”
I recognize her from the Mog communicator and from the others’ stories. The trueborn standing over me is Phiri Dun-Ra.
I twist around in the grass to get a look at her. Phiri Dun-Ra’s entire left arm is missing, replaced by a writhing mass of Setrákus Ra’s black ooze, thick and oily, shaped like a dead tree. The three tendrils spearing me, they emanate right from her. I try to pry them out of my body with my bare hands, but the ooze hardens at my touch, becomes razor sharp, and I only succeed in cutting my palms.
I try to shove her away with my telekinesis. It doesn’t work.
Nothing works.
As I struggle, I see sparks of Loric energy pulsing out of me, traveling up my connection to Phiri Dun-Ra and guttering out inside her arm. Her eyes roll back in her head for a moment. Then she holds out her normal arm, palm up.
Phiri Dun-Ra’s hand glows. A ball of fire rises up from her palm, the flames tinged with purple.
“Oh, this is nice, John Smith,” she says. “I could get used to it.”
More Mogs begin to emerge from the trees around Patience Creek. I don’t know how I missed them, there’s so many. But then I see one step out of a shadow—literally step out from where there was nothing before—and I realize that they’re teleporting in somehow.
Setrákus Ra has succeeded. Some of these Mogs, like Phiri Dun-Ra, have Legacies. No—I won’t call them that. They’re sick.
What word did Setrákus Ra use? “Augmentations.” That’s what these twisted powers are.
An older trueborn, bald and impossibly thin, comes to stand next to Phiri Dun-Ra. His eyes are completely glazed black. He ignores me, staring instead at Mark. The Thin Mog curls a finger in Mark’s direction, and I’m vaguely aware of a sound like locusts moving through leaves.
The ooze under Mark’s skin moves, and he’s forced into motion. He stumbles down the steps of Patience Creek, his hands pulling out something from inside his coat, each movement looking painfully forced.
“We heard stories about these Inheritances you Loric received from your dead parents or whoever,” Phiri Dun-Ra says conversationally, smiling. “Little keepsakes from your dead planet. Here’s a secret, John. . . . Beloved Leader kept some things too. Mementos. Trophies to help him remember his first great conquest.”
Mark holds in his hands something that looks like a rope, except it’s deep purple in color and glistening. Something not found on this world.
I recognize it. Of course I recognize it. From a vision of the past.
It’s the noose Pittacus Lore once tied around Setrákus Ra’s neck. The one that gave him his scar. I remember from Ella’s vision that the material is called Voron, that it only grew on Lorien and that my Legacy won’t heal its wounds.
Mark kneels down and loops the noose over my head.
Phiri Dun-Ra grins at me. “Beloved Leader thought you would enjoy the irony.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“HE DID WHAT?” MARINA EXCLAIMS.
Ella shrugs her shoulders and looks down at her feet. “He . . .”
“She heard you,” I tell Ella, my lips pursed. “She just can’t believe John would do something so completely stupid.”
Next to me, Nine winds up and kicks a big tuft of dirt out of the ground. “What the hell, Six? Are we like sidekicks now or something? This is bullshit.”
The four of us stand in a clearing about a mile upriver from Niagara Falls. Our stolen warship is parked a few hundred yards away, dwarfing the sparse trees nearby, its tank-sized exit ramp extended. I keep catching glimpses of the monstrous ship out of the corner of my eye, and every time, I have to resist the urge to run for cover. Hard to believe that’s ours now.
Marina runs two hands through her hair. “I talked to him about this, about controlling his anger. . . .”
Nine chuckles. “Was that before or after you tried to stab Five in the face with an icicle? Again?”
“After, actually,” Marina replies stiffly. “I thought he was managing his grief, at least. But flying off alone to do battle with another warship. My God, Six, it’s suicide.”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “You didn’t see him up there. He was pretty much unstoppable.”
“He’s not thinking,” Marina says, shaking her head emphatically.
“Part of him truly believes he can do this himself,” Ella puts in. “And another part of him doesn’t want to see anyone else get hurt. He’s convinced it will be better for everyone if he does this alone.”
We all fall silent for a moment, considering Ella’s words. It’s pretty obvious to me at least that she plucked those feelings right out of John’s brain. No way did he confide that in her.
“Aw, hell with that nobility shit,” Nine says. “This is our war too. I’m going to beat his ass when he comes back.”
“You realize what he’s left us with is a pretty big deal, too, right?” I ask, looking around at the others. I don’t want to spend any more time talking about John. “Delivering these cloaking devices is going to save a lot of lives potentially. It’s the key to humanity being able to win the war.”
Nine scoffs and walks away. Marina sighs and folds her arms across her chest, half turning to gaze out over the river. Ella just stands there, still holding on to the satellite phone that John gave her. I glance down at my own phone, the one that Sam gave me that’s hopefully emulating the cloaking device’s frequency.
Seventeen percent battery life. When that runs out, according to Sam, this crappy old cell phone will forget the instructions he gave it. We better hurry up with this test.
No sooner do I start to worry that we’re running out of time than I hear the rumble of an engine. A jeep drives into view, bouncing over the rough terrain of the clearing, Lexa at the wheel.
Lexa pulls up in front of me and gets out, the engine idling.
“Good timing,” I tell her.
“The Canadians said they’d prefer if we didn’t crash it,” Lexa says with a shrug. “They were real polite about it.”
“All goes well, their car will be just fine,” I reply.
I notice Adam appear at the top of the warship’s ramp. Rex stands behind him—more like hides behind him—looking as timid as a mouse. I take a few steps towards the warship and wave to them. Meanwhile, Nine jogs over to my side.
“Is it ready?” I yell, cupping my hands around my mouth.
“Yeah!” Adam shouts back. “The force field is fully functional!”
I squint at the warship. I can’t actually see the force field from this distance. Like before, when we were flying towards it, you can’t really see the dull blue energy until you’re nearly right on top of it. I edge closer to the ship. Nine puts a protect
ive hand on my upper arm.
“The hell are you doing?” he asks.
I glance down at his hand. “Same question.”
“You don’t want to get too close to that shit,” Nine says. “I had to nurse Johnny back to health after he took a header into one of those force fields.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I reply, and shrug Nine off.
I edge as close to the warship as I dare, right up until the force field becomes visible. Then, using my heel, I dig out a line in the grass.
“That’s our target,” I say as I jog back to the others. “We push the jeep past that with Sam’s cloaking device attached, we know it works.”
“Why bother with the car? Why not just float Sam’s device through the field with our telekinesis?” Marina asks.
“We know the Mogs’ cloaking devices cover an entire vehicle,” Lexa says. “We don’t know that Sam’s has the same range.”
“Assuming it works at all,” Nine adds.
I take the flip phone and set it on the jeep’s dashboard. Then I back up and look around.
“That’s all you need to do?” Marina asks with a raised eyebrow.
“I guess,” I reply. “Sam said it’s just constantly sending out the cloaking frequency or the data packet or whatever the hell.”
