Wyvern and Company (32 page)

It's the way they're made
, Mom read my mind.
He can
read your mind, too, you know
.

Do not be embarrassed
, Pheligar sent.
Curiosity is
quite natural
.
We have our physique naturally as we feed on energy,
consisting mainly of sunlight. It sustains us and maintains our bodies
.

That is seriously cool
, I returned.

I watched as the corner of Pheligar's mouth curved slightly.
He was smiling.

"Randall Pierce doesn't stay within range of the Sirenali
all the time—we found him easily enough at the mall," Dragon pointed out.

"I suggest nexus echo," Pheligar said, surprising
everybody.

"What will we listen for?" Mom asked.

"Your child's name, and that of the young werewolf,
there," Pheligar indicated Mack. "You can focus the nexus echo so it
will be tuned to one individual, or in this case, two."

"We may need your help to do it," Dragon observed.

"Then you will have that. The young one who died should
not have."

I am in total agreement
, I sent to Pheligar. Yes, it
was probably presumptuous of me to think I could just mindspeak him anytime,
but he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he probably knew I was seething over
Sarah's death. As Pheligar said—it shouldn't have happened.

We will speak later
, he sent, shocking me completely.

No, he didn't sound angry. Somehow, his words held a
promise—as if he wanted to help me in some way. I had no idea what a Larentii
might do to help, but I wanted to stop Randall Pierce. If Pheligar had ideas on
that, I was ready to listen.

* * *

"So everybody is using that nexus thing to listen for
Randall to say our names?" Mack shook his head later as I hung jeans and
shirts in my closet. Mack had settled on my bed, his back against the
headboard, toying with his cell phone while I worked.

"Yeah. I guess," I shrugged. It was time for bed—for
a normal Sunday night. With Sarah's death, our classes were cancelled for three
days. Gina needed the time to mourn. I needed the time to plan.

That's when Pheligar came to visit. I don't know what he said
to Mack in mindspeech, but Mack slid off my bed without a word and went to his
bedroom. I heard his door shut only a few seconds later.

"Please sit, I wish to assess your talents,"
Pheligar said. I stared stupidly at him for a few seconds before doing as he
asked. I took Mack's spot on the bed before nodding to the tall, blue Larentii.

He placed both hands on my head and closed his eyes, as if
concentrating. While a human's hands would have felt warm or perhaps hot after
a while, Pheligar's remained cool and comfortable.

What made me uncomfortable was the fact that he was examining
me so closely. I wasn't sure how to feel about it. After several minutes
passed, his hands moved away and he stepped back from my bed.

"You have received extraordinary gifts from the High
Demon god," Pheligar sighed.

"What does that mean?" I blurted.

"It means you can fold space, young one. Among other
things."

"But I don't know how," I whispered.
I could fold
space?
That sounded preposterous.

"I am shielding us, so no others will know of this,"
he added. "This secret would be best kept to yourself, unless it is needed
in the direst of circumstances. I must think on this." He disappeared
before I could ask any questions.

If I'd been tired and sleepy before, a Larentii had just given
me a jolt, ensuring that I'd be awake most of the night.

Chapter 17
 

Justin's Journal

The last time I looked at the bedside clock before falling
asleep was at four-ten in the morning. My eyes popped open at seven, though, as
if I'd had a full night's sleep. Immediately, my mind began its race again,
troubled over what Pheligar had discovered.

What had Kifirin done to me?

Why had he done it? I was struggling with that one.

Darzi said it was a true gift, and there were no strings. What
did that mean?

My quilt lay on the floor when I moved to slide off the bed;
I'd kicked the heavy cover off sometime during the night. The bedframe squeaked
softly as I rose from the mattress, standing and stretching to my full height.

I'd never really wanted coffee, but considered it now—I needed
to wake up and contemplate everything with a clear head.

Darzi was the only one in the kitchen when I shuffled in, my
bare feet scooting across the tiled kitchen floor. Dad said the tile was
Italian. The polished stone was cool and comforting to my bare feet, and that
was the most important thing to me.

"You wonder about things," Darzi said, sipping tea
from a souvenir mug we'd bought on a trip to Yosemite years ago.

"Huh?" I didn't know whether to stop and ask
questions or go ahead and find something to drink, first.

"Get drink. We talk. Conversation remain secret."

"Okay." I didn't want to argue, and my head needed
serious clearing. For the first time ever, I made coffee for myself, poured
half-and-half in it to make it almost white and then stirred several teaspoons
of sugar into the cup.

"That wake you up," Darzi snorted as I set the cup
on the island and took the barstool next to his.

"What are we talking about?" I asked, sipping the
hot coffee and almost grimacing at the taste and heat of it. I ignored that and
sipped again, hoping the combination of caffeine and sugar would work at
something close to the speed of light.

"Drink more," Darzi encouraged.

I did.

"Things happening," Darzi began. "Not supposed
to happen."

"Yeah," I snorted into my cup before drinking more
coffee. Sarah's death had settled on my shoulders like the heavy quilt on my
bed. I couldn't kick that weight off as easily, however.

Pheligar's discovery had me befuddled, too. What good was any
particular talent, if you didn't understand how to use it? He'd said to keep it
to myself, too. What about Mack? Mom and Dad?

"Stop worry." Darzi placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Things happen in own time. Kifirin give gift. He not do lightly. Someone
else ask him to do this."

"Who?" I huffed. I couldn't imagine why anyone might
take an interest in me.

"Mighty one," Darzi shrugged. "Have
reason."

I had no idea what any of that meant, and when I
Looked
for information, nothing came up.

That was interesting
.

"Kifirin move time," Darzi said. "With me. Not
from now. He asleep now."

"What does that mean?" If Darzi meant to explain
things, he was only confusing me more.

"You," he tapped a finger against my forehead,
"past. Me," he tapped his chest with the same finger,
"future."

"You're saying you're from the future?" I shook my
head. After little sleep and a likely overdose of coffee and sugar, perplexed might
best describe how I felt.

"Exact," Darzi's nod was emphatic. "Things
change, your past. I come. Help."

"Do you mean that this isn't how the past was supposed to
be?" I almost stopped breathing.

"Yes. You hit nail. Exact."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked after drawing
in an unsteady breath.

"You different this time," Darzi sighed and drank
more of his tea. "More. Have to be."

"You make it sound like these things have already
happened once," I said.

"Exact."

* * *

I probably shouldn't have tried it, but Yosemite was closed to
visitors after the spawn attacks only a few weeks earlier. So many things had
happened since then.

I folded space to Yosemite, discovering it was easy.

I needed to fly. I'd gotten a taste of it, and hadn't had time
to savor or enjoy it. I did so now, riding thermals above Half Dome and El
Capitan. Grasses in the valleys below those mountains had gone yellow with the
season and shone golden in the early-morning sun.

I imagined what it might be like to fly over the Fresno pack
on a full moon, so I could watch Mack, Beth and the others run. I'd seen Dragon
flying over the ocean on Mom's private planet.

I wanted to do that, too.

More than anything, though, I wanted to take Randall Pierce
down. He and his father had stepped over the line long ago, I imagined. Who
knows if Raymond Pierce had locked Mack in a cell with a known killer on his
own volition, or whether those he'd befriended had instructed him to do so?

It didn't matter—Mack almost died.

Sarah did die—a stupid, useless death. Randall, his dad and
those they'd allied with wanted to hurt me in any way they could. Their focus
had shifted from Mack to me, almost in a blink.

Why?

I wasn't sure anybody had an answer for that.

Time to go home
, a voice filtered into my head. I'd
never heard that voice before. It didn't speak to me again. The thing was, I'm
not sure I could have disobeyed it, anyway. I folded space to Fresno.

* * *

Adam's Journal

"I'm surprised they haven't attacked other small towns by
now," Kiarra said. She drank orange juice and rubbed her slightly-swollen
belly, as if she were comforting our daughter.

"I'm surprised, too, but I don't want to examine that
gift too closely," I said. Darzi was busy at the stove, making poached
eggs for Kiarra, who'd had a craving for them.

"What if all that was just a distraction?" she
asked.

"A distraction from what?" I flung up a hand.

"I don't know," Kiarra grumbled. "Where's
Justin?"

"Here," he walked into the kitchen, smelling of
sunlight.

"Where have you been?" I demanded to know.

"Uh, outside," he hedged.

"You didn't go to Gina's did you?"

"No, Dad. I didn't go to Gina's, as much as I'd like
to," he said. "I just went outside for a while, to be alone and
think."

"If you go outside the walls, someone should be with
you," I ordered. I hated to confine him like that, but I was terrified for
my family. Sarah's death had come too close to all of us. It could easily have
been Gina. It almost was Kiarra. I was furious that I couldn't protect them as
well as I might.

"I'll let you know, Dad," Justin held up a hand to
stave off my growing anger.

"I'm not mad at you, Son," I said apologetically.
"These recent events have me on edge, and I have no idea how to
react."

"Yeah. I hear that," Justin said before pulling a
glass from a cabinet and getting cold water from the fridge.

"What's for breakfast?" Mack wandered in, his hair
ruffled, an oversized T-shirt hanging loosely about his shoulders and wearing
relatively new jeans, which were rapidly becoming too short.

"Poached eggs," Kiarra said. "Have a seat. I'll
help Darzi with the plates."

"I love poached eggs," Mack proclaimed and slipped
onto a barstool at the island.

"Dude, that shirt is three sizes too big," Justin
pointed out.

"Yeah. My mom sent it to me for my birthday."

I knew what that meant—Martin's ex-wife hadn't bothered to
check what clothing sizes Mack needed.

"It's good to sleep in," Mack added. Kiarra put a
plate of food in front of him, so he cut into his eggs immediately.

"Adam," Kiarra looked at me, lifting an eyebrow and
then nodding toward Mack's overly-large shirt.

"I can fix that if you want, so it'll fit," I
offered.

"That would be cool, Mr. G."

I altered the shirt with power, so it fit properly. Mack
grinned as he touched the hem of the shirt—it no longer hung too low on his
body and the shoulders, chest and waist were proportional to his size. I'd also
lengthened the jeans—they weren't riding above his ankles, now.

"That might be the coolest talent ever," Mack said
before going back to his eggs. "If Beth could do that, she wouldn't have
to worry about her fat jeans fitting anymore." He lifted a wedge of toast
and crunched into it with a grin.

Kiarra hid a smile and rubbed his back affectionately.

* * *

Justin's Journal

"I'm off work until next Friday," Gina said over the
phone. "Will you come over?" She sounded lonely. Sad. I wanted to hold
her.

"I have to check with Dad—he says we're all in
danger," I pointed out. Two months earlier, I'd have asked the obligatory
question, then jumped in my car and gone because my parents would have said yes
without question.

Things were much more serious now.

"Will you ask?" I could tell she was crying.

"Yeah. Don't cry, baby. I'll come if I can."

* * *

By the time I found Mom and Dad sitting by the pool and
talking with Uncle Lion and Uncle Dragon, Gina's mom was calling mine.

"They want to go to the mall," Mom sighed, covering
dad's phone with a hand. I stopped in my tracks. It was one thing to go to the
old house, which was protected. It was another to go out in public, which was
not protected.

"But," I mumbled.
Why did they want to go to the
mall?

"There's a memorial service tomorrow at their
church," Mom said. "For Sarah. They don't have anything appropriate
to wear and they're asking if you can go with them. For protection."

Yeah, they thought human protection might be enough. I guess
it was a good thing I wasn't. Human, that is.

"I think I want to go, too," Mom lifted off her
lounge chair and stretched after standing straight.

"What?" Dad sputtered.

"If you don't want to go, Merrill will come," Mom
said.

"Then take Merrill. See if Mack wishes to go," Dad
growled. He wasn't happy about the whole thing, but he didn't want to argue
about it with Mom.

"Good." Mom handed the phone to me and stalked out
of the room.

"Uh, hi, Mrs. Allen," I croaked into Dad's cell
phone. "I think we're coming to get you in a few."

* * *

"Are those warheads ready to go?" The General asked.

"They are," Acrimus bowed his head respectfully.

"I find it humorous that they were never checked after
their rediscovery at the military base," the General chuckled. "So
easy to substitute the inner workings of more, shall we say, deadly explosives?
I love the idea of hitting Texas and Oklahoma with ranos missiles instead of
nuclear bombs."

"They'll be obliterated—we have enough warheads for
that," Acrimus agreed. "Now that our servant is dead in Texas,
there's no real need to preserve the state. Oklahoma, well, we know something
is there, through the Elemaiya. We just don't know what it is. Nevertheless,
we'll take two states with eight birds, eh?"

"Two for Oklahoma, six for Texas," the General
agreed. "Time may be short—I anticipate moving when the woman and her
child are eliminated."

"The opportunity has arrived, according to Calhoun,"
Acrimus reported the mindspeech he'd just received. "I hear they've left
their protected compound. How fortunate that Thorsten can retain his blameless
state in this and remain in his position over the others. It is only a matter
of time before the entire race is gone."

"Fortunate, indeed," the General nodded.

* * *

Justin's Journal

Merrill drove Dad's SUV with Mack in the front passenger seat.
Mom, Darzi and Mrs. Allen sat in the second row; Gina and I sat in the
little-used third row on our way to the mall.

Mack was happy to get out of the house, I could tell—I guess
he'd felt like a caged wolf since Memphis.

Merrill was happy to get out, too—even if he seldom did
anything as mundane as going to a mall.

His clothes sure didn't come from any mall. Dad said Merrill
shopped at exclusive clothiers in Britain. He had good taste, too, although he
wasn't nearly as stiff and unrelenting as Dad was about what he wore.

I'd seen Merrill in jeans when he fought spawn. I'd seldom
seen Dad in jeans, he never wore T-shirts and getting him into athletic shoes
took an act of congress. To top it off, he never, ever wanted to wear shorts.
Swim trunks was the closest he'd come, and he really didn't like those, either.

That's where I was—holding Gina's hand and thinking about
Dad's aversion to any clothing that rose above his ankles when Merrill pulled
up at a stoplight on the way to the mall.

The earthquake came first, and it was the worst one I'd ever
experienced.

* * *

"Our targets are locked. Turn the keys and begin the
countdown," the silo commanders spoke.

* * *

Justin's Journal

I'd only seen photographs before.

This was the reality. While the ground shook about us,
fissures began opening in the streets, with concrete and debris falling into
deep crevices. People screamed and attempted to escape their vehicles the
moment they realized what was happening.

That was a mistake.

Following the appearance of the giant, copper serpent on a
street corner not far from our house, spawn began crawling from the fissures
opening in the streets, moving as swiftly as angry insects when their nest has
been disturbed.

Those spawn fell on any brave enough to leave their cars
behind and run. Other cars, still occupied, fell into the gaping holes opening
beneath them with a crash. Gina screamed beside me when a truck close by burst
into flames as it was swallowed by still-shaking ground.

Shining, copper scales glinted in the sun as the serpent
watched spawn devour fleeing humans.
Everything about them is poisonous.
Scales, teeth, spikes, all of it,
I recalled. Some people ran right past
the Ra'Ak. A few ran into him, likely dooming themselves with the poison on his
scales.