And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (9 page)

14

“How’d you do that?” Bobby asked, standing tall and stiff. I immediately realized we had a problem. Although we’d spoken to people all along our travels, every conversation had been heavily laced with mental pushes to guide the outcome. This was our first
real
conversation since we had left home.

The man before us raised one tanned hand in a gesture of peace that still felt like a veiled threat. “Settle down, you two. I just came to see what’s going on. Between the sounds in my head and all the crashing around fighting, you guys make a lot of noise.” He could hear us, in his head. He was like us. If I were to write a book report about it, it would be titled
What I Didn’t Expect to Find on My Summer Vacation.
Another person with powers. Right in front of us.

The stranger smiled, but his eyes stayed cold. Calculating. He was in his early twenties, shorter than average but muscular. He had close-cropped, light-brown hair, and his exposed skin was evenly tanned, all the way down to the thick khaki socks poking out of his leather hiking boots. Everything about him seemed to speak of a life led mostly outdoors.

Bobby took a step forward. “Who are you?”

The stranger shrugged. “I’m Jake. Who are you?”

It was oddly straightforward, and caught both of us completely off-guard. “Um. Bobby?” Bobby replied.

The stranger, Jake, gave a half smile. “‘Bobby?’ Like, you’re not sure if you’re Bobby or not?”

I stepped beside my friend and saw his face reddening. Bobby cleared his throat and spoke again. “I’m sure. My name’s Bobby.”

Jake nodded slowly toward Bobby, in a reserved,
nice to meet you
kind of way. “And you?” he said, turning to look at me.

Something happened when he looked at me. Something cold ran down my spine, like a bad omen. Like I was walking on the spot where I would some day die. I didn’t answer.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Huh? What?” I said, eloquently.

“Your name?” Jake said with raised eyebrows, waiting for the reply.

“John. John Black,” I finally said.

Again, Jake gave a nod. “Nice to meet you, John Black,” he said, slowly looking me over, the way someone at the slaughterhouse might examine a steer or pig. Unconsciously, I slid a little bit behind Bobby, not liking the feeling of Jake’s eyes on me.

“If your name is
Jake
, why does your shirt say
Weissman
?” Bobby asked. At which point I noticed that Jake’s shirt did indeed have a patch on his left breast pocket that read WEISSMAN in neatly embroidered capital letters.

Jake seemed bemused by the question. “Do you have a last name, Bobby?”

“Um, yeah. Graden,” Bobby said.

Jake tapped at the patch on his shirt. “Well, I do, too.”

Bobby sighed. “Oh yeah. My bad.” He laughed at himself.

Something was different about Jake. Not the idea that he had powers. He had rejected Bobby’s push — but that wasn’t the odd thing. It was his beacon. It didn’t sound like any other beacon I’d heard, not even Holly’s erratic blast of sound. His was like a radio station fading into static as you drive too far away from the source. There was a normal beacon in there somewhere, it was just obscured. Slightly, ever so slightly, it seemed to pulse or waver.

Knowing all this, knowing that we had met a potential partner or foe, I asked the most important question I could think of. “But why do you have your name on your shirt?”

Jake eyed me, and once again I felt the cold pass over me. “I’m a park ranger,” he said. “Well. Was. I
was
a park ranger. Probably not anymore.”

“What happened? Were you fired or something?” Bobby asked.

Jake laughed. “No, no.” Then he thought about it for a moment. “Actually, probably so. I haven’t shown up to work for, like, I don’t know, several weeks. I doubt they’d be thrilled to welcome me back. Running off without notice isn’t the kind of behavior they look for in a young ranger.” He laughed again.

Bobby wrinkled his forehead. “Okay, so you used to be a park ranger, but not any more, and now you’re here.” He looked to me once, then back to Jake. “But why? And how did you push back when I pushed?”

Bobby didn’t need to explain, Jake understood instinctively what
push
meant. “I came because I could hear you.” He pointed to his head. “In here. Not out loud.” Bobby and I both nodded. “You guys were so busy trying to beat the crap out of each other that you didn’t notice me walk up.” Jake paused to look past us, toward the west. “She’s nearby, too, you know?”

“Pip?” I said before I thought maybe silence and secrecy were better ideas.

“Yep. Her. I’ve talked with her, once. We don’t see eye to eye on things, unfortunately.”

“On what things?” Bobby asked.

Jake rolled his shoulders, like a fighter loosening before a boxing match. “The Gorgols. I’m assuming you saw her on TV, right? Seems like they played it back a million times.” Again, we nodded. “Yeah, I don’t like her doing that. The Gorgols may be big, but they’re just animals trying to live their lives. Stay out of their way, and you’ll be just fine.”

“That’s your solution to the Gorgols attacking people?
Stay out of their way
?” I asked. “What if that’s not an option? What if you
are
their way?”

Jake’s glance toward me turned the thermostat from
cool
to
ice-cold
. “The park, where I was a ranger. It’s in the desert. Most people avoid it, especially in the summer, which was just fine by me. But in the spring and fall, people would come out from the nearest cities in droves. Minivans with four TV screens, brand-new hiking boots, loud voices, kids running all over, destroying things, and everyone leaving their plastic junk-food wrappers when they finally left. You know what happens if one of their little rug rats bumps into a den of rattlers or some other animal that lives in the desert? No matter what — no matter if one of the kids gets bit or not, they want to kill everything. Exterminate the natural creatures. It makes me sick.”

Bobby looked confused. “Yeah, but with the Gorgols, aren’t
they
the ones who don’t live here? Who are running all over, destroying things?” Seemed like a logical extension of what Jake just said. I puffed up my lower lip, looking at Bobby.
Nice work, friend.

Jake just shrugged it off. “I’m not so sure. I think those creatures have been on this earth for a long, long time. Much longer than any of us. They’re like bears that just woke up from hibernation. Can’t blame a bear for coming out of its cave after the winter and looking around for something to eat, can you?”

“I don’t think they’re from this —” I started.

Jake raised a hand. “She’s almost here. So… I’ll see you around, I guess.” With that, Jake gave a polite tilt of his head, then turned and ducked into the trees.

“Hold on!” Bobby called. “Why don’t we all talk together? Figure this out?” But Jake was gone, his fuzzy beacon diminishing even as another one got louder and clearer in our minds.

“I guess you boys have a choice to make,” a voice said from behind our backs. A voice I had only ever heard in a dream. Amazingly, it sounded just as I remembered.

Pip.

15

She spoke to Bobby almost exclusively. Like she had nothing to say to me at all. Maybe it was because she didn’t know me, or maybe somehow she knew I knew things about her and she didn’t like that. Her red hair flowed in waves down over her shoulders and her untucked flannel shirt. Jeans and boots completed the outfit — rugged, but, you know, in a kind of attractive way. Something dark poked above one shoulder,. The hilt of the sword she’d used when she attacked Omicron. Despite my powers, I found her self-assured demeanor intimidating. Not because of veiled threats like Jake, but instead from the sense of her calm certainty that she could kick both of our asses if she wanted.

Pip and Bobby talked. Around me, sort of like I wasn’t there or didn’t exist. It got me a little pissed off. She brought up our
choice
— what were we going to do about the Gorgols? Fight them with her, or let them go like Jake was doing? I tried to interject. To say the whole reason we came across the country was to try to stop the Gorgols.

Then I told her how the creatures were coming for my sister. And I saw a strange gleam in her eye. Compassion?

But she simply turned to Bobby and said, “Is that true?”

“Yep.”

She looked Bobby up and down, even spared a quick glance at me. “Did you bring weapons?”

Bobby struck a mock-confident pose and smirk. “We
are
the weapons, babe.” For a moment, he seemed very pleased with his joke.

Then a blur passed from where Pip had been standing to where Bobby was suddenly sprawled on the floor. When it cleared, Pip was leaning over him, sword raised over her head.

“
Ow
,” Bobby said, rubbing at his left leg. “What’d you do that for?”

I realized then that her sword was still in its scabbard, completely encasing the blade. She hadn’t
slashed
at Bobby’s leg, she had
bludgeoned
him.

“I am well aware that you have powers, Bobby Graden —” For a brief moment, she acknowledged me again. “That you
both
have powers. But fighters across the centuries have understood that weapons are a tool to
enhance
the power you already have, even to overcome the odds. Take the biggest, toughest wrestler, and put her up against a person with a sword and average ability, the wrestler loses.”

Bobby stood up, wiping dirt from his pants and shirt. “Well, I didn’t bring anything. Sorry.”

I cleared my throat. “I have —” I remembered something from my travels to find Sol. A sort of a weapon I’d made by accident. There were these dogs. I thought they were big, so I was scared. They turned out to be nothing, just little things. Still, I made a weapon somehow.
Made
it. But it was ridiculous. Why did I open my mouth? I froze, saying nothing more.

Pip squinted a look my way. “You have
what
?”

Well, I had really put my foot in it. I had two choices. Make up a lame excuse or just say it. What the hell did I care? We were three people with very strange abilities. I figured I would just plow forward and accept their ridicule. “When I was traveling, trying to find Sol, I did something accidentally. I think I could do it again if I tried.” I found that believing you could do something greatly affected whether you actually could, at least for me. For me and my powers.

“What are you talking about?” Bobby asked.

“This.” I unbuckled my belt. That was when Pip’s eyes grew
really
wide. “Wait,” I said, raising my hand, palm out. “It’s not what you think! Anyway, well. Just watch.” Since I was already making a fool of myself, I decided to do it with some style. I whipped the belt from around my waist in one quick motion, snapping it out straight. And it froze, solid, mirroring the sword still in Pip’s hand. “Heh. It
worked
.”

Bobby and Pip held their breath.

For like a second.

Then they both cracked up, nearly collapsing to the ground in laughter. “Johnny, what the hell are you going to do with that?” Bobby said. “Give the Gorgols a spanking?”

I knew it looked nuts. A belt, hardened to a solid weapon by my mind and the thorns in my cells. But I wanted to prove my point. So first I willed the weapon to be
sharp
. Then I swung the belt — now technically a sort of belt
sword
— in a wide horizontal arc toward the trunk of the nearest orange tree. It must’ve been eight inches thick.

But my belt sword sliced all the way through it, and all three of us had to leap out of the way of the falling foliage.

“What the —?” Bobby shook his head. “Dude, that’s just…
weird
.”

* * *

We walked for some time, heading west. Pip was 20 feet or so ahead, leading us to the Gorgols, I assumed. Or her secret underground lair, or a trap, or a fast-food restaurant, for all I knew. She didn’t say much to me, didn’t really look at me. So I had no idea.

“What’s her deal?” I asked Bobby. It was obvious that I was unhappy with how she ignored me.

He laughed. “You don’t get it, huh?”

“Get
what
?”

“Johnny, she’s
scared
of you. You
killed
Sol. She was one of the group, in fact the one that stayed right to the end. She knew what Sol could do. Maybe she stayed with him partly out of fear. Then you walked up and killed him. And you’re a couple years younger than her — meaning she thinks you’re just a kid. If you can kill Sol, I guess she really doesn’t know what to make of you. And that scares her.”

“I know she took care of Holly, but still, like you said, she
stayed
with Sol. Is she crazy, too?”

Bobby gave a nod. “Maybe. Maybe we all are. What sane people sneak across the country to try to kill two giant monsters? Besides, it doesn’t really matter any more, does it? Sol’s gone. That ship has sailed. Now we’re all on our own. Or, you know, we are unless we choose to work together, like now. I think she knows she needs our help against these things. And if she’s afraid you’re stronger than her, then she wants you here most of all. She just doesn’t have to
like
you or
talk
to you too much, right?”

“I suppose,” I said.

Ahead, Pip stopped walking, holding up one hand but not even bothering to look back toward us as she spoke.

“We’re here.”