Joshua and the Lightning Road (21 page)

Lightning bolts burst from Bo Chez’s hand, splitting the mist like a whip to water, but Hekate’s fingers zapped her blue bullets back as she shot across the meadow. Bo Chez dodged left and right. And then a streak of light struck his hand. He cried out with a great roar of defeat—and the effort of holding back Hekate became too much. He staggered and fell.

“Bo Chez!” I couldn’t stand to watch as we flew closer, but couldn’t tear my eyes away. “No!”

I commanded the other korax to take the kids and the king to the Lightning Gate. They flew off, and Leandro and I zoomed down. His grip tightened on me as we fell from the sky like an arrow released from his bow. The wind rushed by so fast my eyes teared up and everything became a blur. The meadow floor loomed, and we soared across it toward the fight, trees whirling past us. Bo Chez stumbled up and slashed his lightning bolts at Hekate. She twisted and turned away from them in a battle dance, her back to us. Bo Chez stumbled again.

I held the orb tight in my hand, ready to throw it, but was afraid of hitting Bo Chez. Hekate’s horse bucked. Its hoof caught Bo Chez across the shoulder. He cried out and nearly fell. Hekate urged her horse on as if to trample him. He spun away just in time stretching his hands out to hold off his enemies, but they shook, then fell to his side.

And just like that the storm funnel vanished. Bo Chez could hold it no longer.

After a moment of confused silence the freed soldiers surged behind Hekate in a wave. She turned and saw us, gathered her reins, and bolted for us with her army, her vape fingers firing fast.

“Down!” I yelled, and Leandro shoved me into the bird’s back as we flew over the witch toward Bo Chez and skimmed the ground. The end of the clearing rose fast. I commanded the bird to grab Bo Chez. Its talons snatched him up by his shirt, but then it swerved left to avoid Hekate’s blasts, and in doing so Bo Chez slipped, hanging precariously from one giant claw.

“Bo Chez!” I reached for him, but Leandro was already bending down, straining to hold onto my grandfather’s large frame. I lunged further over, nearly hanging upside down, and grasped Bo Chez’s shirt. His face popped red as he tried to pull himself up. Fire streaked past me and our korax shrieked as blue flame struck it. The monster bird flapped its wings and Bo Chez was flung sideways, but he clenched feathers in his fists and held on tight as the woods advanced fast. Our crash was imminent when the bird turned right and circled the meadow. The wizard trees reached their arms out from the edge but couldn’t stop us.

“Don’t let go!” I felt Bo Chez slipping.

Bo Chez looked into my eyes like he had a hundred times, with frustration and humor and love. This look was none of those. This was regret.

“I’ll always come for you,” he said. His feet bounced on the ground as we jerked along. We were going down.

“Leandro, help!” The injured bird dipped and swayed with our efforts.

Leandro dared to look behind us. He still had one hand holding onto Bo Chez while he urged the bird on. “Hold on, sir!”

“Take care of my grandson.”

“No!” Clutching at Bo Chez, I slid further off the bird’s back. Hekate’s laughter filled my ears. So close.

And then hands gripped my leg, pulling me down.

Leandro couldn’t save Bo Chez and me. His stricken face was the last I saw before falling onto Hekate’s horse, slamming painfully into the saddle. She pulled me tight to her chest, and the sickening sweet stench of roses swarmed up my nose as I struggled to get free, but her magic hold was too strong. Trees flashed by in a blur.

She pointed to soldiers riding on her left. “Get to the gate and stop anyone from going through.” They nodded in unison and veered away. I fingered the orb in my pocket, desperate but terrified to use it.

An agonizing cry pierced my ears, and I twisted my head around to see the great winged monster crash in the meadow, a flurry of feathers and dust. Bo Chez and Leandro spiraled through the air. They smashed into the trees and were gone.

“You,” Hekate said to a soldier who rode near her, “go back. Find that Storm Master’s lightning orb and bring it to me at the armory.” The soldier bowed his head and swung around while we galloped along with the remaining army. I focused on the dead korax, hoping against hope that Bo Chez or Leandro would rise up from behind it.

Hekate twisted my head to the front. “Say goodbye to your friends. It’s you and me, Oracle. And your fate is short lived.”

Home was gone. My friends were gone. Bo Chez was gone. Nothing could keep me going now.

We slowed our pace and headed out of the field, into the woods. The soldiers fell into ranks behind us, two rows, side by side on our narrow path. The trees grew closer, creeping in on me like bars in a cage. Red eyes sprung from the murky woods and grew in number as black fur leapt at us from the fog. Cadmean beasts rode along now, and my cage grew smaller and more deadly.

The Child Collector trotted up beside us. “Taking him to the armory, Hekate?”

“Yes. I want a demonstration. Perhaps there’s a use for him besides death.”

“If not, let me at him.” My stomach cramped and I squeezed my arms into my sides.

“We’ll dispose of him together, brother,” Hekate said.

That melted mess of a face leaned down into mine and I froze, staring at his one eyeball that flicked over me. “Reeker,” he grunted and poked me with a stubby finger. “I should have taken that Storm Master down when I had the chance. Made him hurt for what he did to me.”

“It’s done,” Hekate soothed, putting a pale hand on his filthy one. “Be glad he met his end.”

I shuddered from the chilly mist and fear, as cold on the inside as I was on the outside. My cheek throbbed from where I’d smashed into the saddle, and every muscle in my arms screamed from pulling up on Bo Chez—yet I hadn’t been able to save him.

Hooves clopped behind us in a battle rhythm, and I looked at the ground, not wanting to stare into that eyeball for one more second, but the Child Collector leaned in closer and forced my head up, his rough fingers pressing deep into my chin. His stink replaced Hekate’s roses, and the memory of losing my mother struck deep.

His eye twitched and his one good nostril flared with fury. “I would have become a solider to King Ares if it weren’t for what your Storm Master friend did to me. I’ve only got one good eye now, but I’m watching you. And now that he’s dead, you’ll pay for his deed, Reeker.” He massaged his face, as if reliving that night Bo Chez struck him.

I sunk deeper into the folds of Hekate’s cloak, her evil preferable over his for the moment. She laughed and the Child Collector joined her. Their mockery stung like my face, and hope drained away of ever surviving the Lost Realm.

Around a sharp bend, stone walls shot up before us. A round castle reared up and soldiers peered down from its turrets, bows in hand. The horses slowed to a walk, and we entered the armory below the forbidding message carved into its stone:
Vanquish all the weak and weary that pass. Only great souls may bear arms to conquer with might and strength. Ye gods!

The cold inside me worsened with those words as we passed beneath the dank doorway. I brushed up against chipped stone and winced at its roughness. My thoughts were filled with two things: how to get away from Hekate and her men, and Bo Chez’s last words:
I’ll always come for you
.

Hekate dismounted, dragging me with her. I fell to my knees and cried out. I’d kept hope all this time we’d succeed, but now that was as broken as the blocks of stone that lined one side of the arena in jumbled piles, crumbled from the partially caved-in roof. The air floated thick with smoke from wall torches that coughed soot, and black wisps escaped into the gloom through the roof’s hole. The soldiers entered on horseback behind us and lined the round arena. The cadmean beasts trotted in behind them and sat before their masters. All eyes were on me.

The Child Collector swung his large body off his horse and joined Hekate on a stone platform in the middle of the dirt pit. I stood, my legs shaking.

“You’re not so powerful now without your Storm Master and his lightning orb, are you?” Hekate crossed her arms, assuming I’d borrowed the orb and given it back. Her robe hung torn and streaked with mud, her hair a gnarled mess from her encounter with Bo Chez.
Good
!

I shook my head and croaked out, “No.”

“The orb is mine. Once we claim it from his body.”

I flinched at the word ‘body.’ Bo Chez could never be a ‘body,’ or Leandro. They were larger than life. People like that didn’t die—shouldn’t die. My fear and sadness started to churn into something more, a crazy anger at all that had happened to me and the people I cared about.

“Perhaps we should shake the Reeker upside down, Kat, just in case he has it, to see if it falls out,” the Child Collector said.

She held up her hand, then smoothed down her hair with it. “First, I want to see his powers.”

“I don’t have any—”

“Liar!” She motioned to the Child Collector. “Cronag, search his pockets.”

He sneered and strode down the platform steps, coming at me. I stepped toward him and spit, wanting to make him mad. Everyone I cared about was gone. There was nothing to lose. He stopped in his tracks at my boldness, then came closer as the enemy crowded around me. A soldier urged his horse forward and more followed. The mist flowed around them, seeping between the cracks of the stone walls. In my exhaustion, faces seemed to float in the haze, like the ghosts of stolen children.

Step by step the soldiers inched toward me then stopped. Behind them weapons hung by hooks on jagged rock: bows, axes, pitchforks, swords. They clanked together from a small breeze and swung back and forth. My circle closed in. The Child Collector stood before me, his burned half-face a road map to hell while his vape flicked its killer tongue at me.

I came here because of Finn, but I wouldn’t be leaving with him.

The Child Collector walked around me and jerked Sam’s flute from my back pocket.

He inspected it. “It’s made by the king’s flute maker.”

“Play it, Oracle,” Hekate demanded.

The Child Collector thrust it into my hands, giving me no choice but to blow out a sad melody. The sheer butterflies floated down from treetops into the broken fortress. One landed on the Child Collector’s shoulder. He picked it up with his stubby fingers, frowned at me, and then crushed it in his fist. The others disappeared back up into the fog.

Hekate flared her nostrils. “Very good, ignorant Barbaros. You carry the ancient musical talent of Apollo. Can you heal like him as well?”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t show you.” I slid the flute into my back pocket, hoping the Child Collector would forget about my front pockets. He did, but gave me a punch to the head instead. The rock walls moved in and out then steadied themselves again.

Hekate crossed her arms and pointed to a trough on the side filled with water. “Make it move.”

“The wood?”

“The water, you imbecile!” Hekate stamped her foot, her voice growing shriller. A sheen of sweat popped out on her forehead, and she wiped at it angrily.

“Forget it,” I said, and dodged the Child Collector’s fist just in time. He grabbed my neck and squeezed hard.

“Poseidon can. You can, Oracle.” Her fingers clawed the air.

“I’m not your Oracle, witch.” I didn’t care what I said anymore. They were going to kill me anyway.

She glided toward me, as if her feet floated above the ground. A bruise highlighted her cheek. Where one of Bo Chez’s hail balls had struck?
Good going, Bo Chez
. But with that, his death flooded through me all over again, and I squirmed to get loose, but the Child Collector’s grip tightened.

Hiss
.
Hiss.

His vape threatened incineration.

“Move the water, or my brother will snap your neck,” Hekate said. “And then the beasts can feast on you.”

I dug at the sweaty hand that clutched me but couldn’t break free, my neck burned. “I can’t move water!”

“Teumesios!” She snapped her fingers. One of the cadmean beasts stood up. “Guard him.”

The Child Collector let go, dropping me on my butt. The beast moved closer. It opened its mouth, panting at me with rotten breath that curled my insides. The soldier’s horses pawed the ground, inching closer, and the weapons on the wall clanged like a battle alarm as they smashed about from a gust of wind.

This was not the ideal way to go. I scrambled back and stood up, palms out. “Stop!”

The beast did. “Why? You’d be a tasty meal,” it said.

“Not tasty, and I’m not your dinner.” The Child Collector shoved me toward the beast, but I shoved him back. His eyes widened in surprise, then he flung his vape in my face. The snake tongue flicked so close I felt the snap of its breeze on my cheek. My time was done. At least it would be over quick.

“Enough!” Hekate threw her hands up.

The Child Collector lowered his spitting vape. “Soon, boy.”

“Never, Cronag.” I spit at him again.

The cadmean beast raced around us, barking and snarling, its thick tail whipping my arms. “Reeker meat! Reeker meat!”

“Back, Teumesios,” Hekate ordered, and the beast trotted back to the wall. Then she pointed at me with a trembling finger. “You carry the power of Artemis too, malumpus-tongue.”

That’s when spoken words pulled me back from the edge of death. “That’s because he comes from the Arrow Realm, like me.”

“Halt,” a soldier yelled. I turned around fast. Leandro sat on a horse in the doorway. He leaned to one side in his saddle as if in terrible pain, a gash across his forehead, and his cloak was covered in dirt. But he was the most awesome thing I’d ever seen.

A rush of soldiers rode by me on horseback toward him. They blocked my view, surrounding Leandro, their horses cutting up the ground around him.

“Back,” Hekate commanded her men, and they parted the way. “Let me see him.”

Leandro sat up straighter with a grimace and walked his horse slowly into the circle of Hekate’s men. One of her soldiers lay unconscious across the saddle in front of him—and behind him he led Bo Chez on a rope.