Seven Wonders Book 1: The Colossus Rises (2 page)

“Y
O, SPACE MAN
, watch out!”

I didn’t hear the warning. I was at the end of my bike ride to school, which involves a sharp turn around the corner of the building. You’re supposed to walk your bike by that point, but I was in too much of a hurry. Not that it matters, because most people are too smart to stand close to that corner anyway.

But most people doesn’t include Barry Reese, the Blowhard of Mortimer P. Reese Middle School.

There was Barry’s hammy face, inches away, his eyes as big as softballs. As always, he was involved in his favorite hobby, making life miserable for littler kids. He was hunched menacingly over this tiny sixth-grader
named Josh or George.

I slammed on the brakes. My front wheel jammed. The rear wheel bucked upward, flinging me over the handlebars. The bike slid out from under me. As I flew forward, Barry’s face loomed toward me at a zillion miles an hour. I could see three hairs sticking out of a mole on his cheek.

Then the worst conceivable thing happened.

He caught me.

When we stopped spinning around, I was hanging from him like a rag doll. “Shall we dance?” he said.

All I could hear was cackling laughter. Kids were convulsing. Barry grinned proudly, but I pushed him away. His breath smelled like bananas and moldy feet.

Josh or George scrambled up off the ground. No one offered to help pick up his books, which had been scattered all over the playground.

I don’t know why Barry was a bully. He was rich. Our school was named after his great-great-grandfather, who’d made his fortune creating those little plastic thingies that protect the toilet lid from hitting the seat. Personally, if I were rich and the heir to a toilet-thingy fortune, I’d be pretty happy. I wouldn’t pick on smaller kids.

“I don’t dance with apes,” I said, quickly stooping to pick up my bike to lock it to the rack.

I stole a look at my watch. The bell was going to ring in one minute.

“My apologies.” Barry elbowed me aside and scooped up my bike with exaggerated politeness. “Let me help you recover from your ride, Mario. From the cut on your head, I guess you had a few crashes already.”

I tried to take back the handlebars, but he was too fast for me. He yanked the bike away and began walking fast toward the rack. “Hey, by the way, did you finish the bio homework?” he said over his shoulder. “’Cause I was helping my dad with his business last night, and it got late. And, well, you can’t think about homework before profits. Not that I wouldn’t get all the answers perfect anyway—”

I pushed him aside and grabbed the bike. “No, Barry, you can’t copy my homework.”

“I just did save your life.”

As I locked the bike to the rack, Barry leaned closer with a twisted, smilelike expression. “Don’t think there won’t be some financial reward…”

Before I could answer, he took two quick steps to the side. Josh or George was making a break for the safety of the school yard, clutching an unruly mass of papers and notebooks. Barry thrust his arm out as if yawning. He clipped the kid squarely in the chest and sent him flying, the papers scattering again.

The blood rushed to my head. I wasn’t sure if it was from
the Ugliosaurus hit, the crazy bike ride, the near crash, or Barry’s extreme obnoxiousness. Math test or not, he couldn’t get away with this.

“Here’s my homework!” I blurted, yanking a grocery list from my pocket. “You get it if you pick up Josh’s stuff and say you’re sorry.”

“It’s George,” the kid said.

Barry looked at me as if I were speaking Mongolian. “What did you say, McKinley?”

I was shaking. Dizzy. Maybe this was fear. How could I be so afraid of this doofus?

Focus
.

Barry reached toward my sheet, but I pulled it away, backing toward the street. “Tell him you’ll never do it again,” I insisted. “And don’t even think of saying no.”

Balling and unballing his fists, Barry stepped closer. His white, fleshy face was taking on the color of rare roast beef. The bell rang. Or maybe it didn’t. I was having trouble hearing. What was happening to me?

“How’d you get that little cut on your head, McKinley?” Barry’s voice was muffled, like he was speaking inside a long tunnel. “Because I think you need a bigger one.”

I barely heard him. I felt as if something had crawled into my head and was kickboxing with my brain.

I struggled to stay upright. I couldn’t even see Barry
now. The back of my leg smacked against a parked car. I spun into the street, trying to keep my balance. The blacktop rushed toward me and I put out my hands to stop the fall.

The last thing I saw was the grille of a late-model Toyota speeding toward my face.

B
EEP
…

Beep
…

Harp strings? What was that noise?

The street was gone, and I could see nothing. I felt as if I were floating in a tunnel of cold air. I had dreamed my own death, and then it had really happened. I pried my eyes open briefly. It hurt to do it, but in that moment I had a horrifying realization.

The afterlife was beige.

I tried to cry out, but my body was frozen. Odd whistling sounds drifted around me like prairie winds.

Slowly I began making out voices, words.

Peering out again, I hoped to see cherubim and seraphim,
or at least a few clouds. Instead I saw nostril hairs. Also, really dark eyebrows and blue eyes, attached to a man’s face that loomed closer.

I felt a hand push my head to the side. I tried to speak, to resist, but I couldn’t. It was as someone had turned the off switch on all my body functions. “Extremely odd case,” the man said in a deep voice. “No diabetes, you say? He had all inoculations? No history of concussion?”

“Correct, Dr. Saark,” came an answer. “There’s nothing that would indicate these erratic vital signs. He’s a healthy boy. We haven’t a clue what’s wrong.”

I knew the second voice. It was my family doctor, Dr. Flood. She’d been taking care of me since I was a baby.

So I was not dead, which was a big relief. But hearing your doctor’s voice is never a cheery thing. I was tilted away from the voices, and all I could see were an IV stand, electrical wires, and a metal wastebasket.

It had to be Belleville Hospital, where I hadn’t been since I was born. I must have been hit by a car.

The math test!
I had visions of a blank sheet of paper with a big, fat zero. I willed myself to open my mouth. To tell them I was all right and had to get to school. But nothing moved.

“A highly rare set of symptoms,” Dr. Saark said, “but it fits exactly into the recent research I’ve been doing…”

Dr. Flood exhaled loudly. “We’re so lucky you were in town and could rush here at such short notice.”

I felt fingers at the back of my head, poking around where the upside-down V was. I felt a rush of panic. I figured I was about to become the first kid in the world with a prescription for Grecian Formula.

Heavy footsteps plodded into the room. “Excuse me?” Dr. Flood said. She sounded confused, maybe annoyed. “What are you doing here?”

“Chaplain,” a gruff voice answered. “New on job.”

While Dr. Flood dealt with the chaplain, Dr. Saark pushed my head back and slipped something in my mouth. He held my mouth shut, forcing me to swallow. From under his sleeve, I could see a tattoo that looked like two winding snakes.

What did he just give me? Could he see my eyes were open? What kind of doctor had a tat like that?

What was a chaplain doing here?

“But…I never sent a request for a chaplain,” Dr. Flood said, sounding completely confused. “Are you sure you’re in the right room?”

“Yes, correct,” the man replied. “For last rites. Hospital rules. These situations…you know.”

Last rites?
As in, the prayers spoken over people about to die—
those
last rites?

I panicked. I was obviously in worse shape than I thought. Then my body lurched violently, and everything turned white.

“He’s flatlining!” Dr. Saark shouted. “Dr. Flood, notify the OR. I need a gurney, stat!”

My body convulsed. I heard choking noises—my own. And hurried footsteps as Dr. Flood left the room.

The room was a blur of colors. The two men—Saark and the chaplain—were on either side, strapping my arms and legs down. My head jerked backward, and I thought it would crack open like an egg.

Hold on. Don’t die
.

Dr. Saark stood over me, his face red and beaded with sweat. “
Now!
” he said.

The chaplain was nearly a foot taller than Dr. Saark and at least fifty pounds heavier, but he snapped to, fumbling for something in his inner pocket. I could see his face for the first time—green eyes, ruddy skin, curly red hair, and a deep jagged scar that ran down the left side of his cheek and disappeared into a bushy beard. He pulled out a long syringe with one hand, and with the other wiped my arm with an alcohol pad. As he leaned down, I realized I’d seen him before.

I tried to call out. I opened my eyes as wide as they could go. I stared at the man’s face, willing myself to stay awake.

A word escaped my mouth on a raspy breath: “Red…”

I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. As the room went black, one last word dribbled out.

“…Beard.”

A ring of fire, screaming animals, the end of the world. I am being attacked by a hose-beaked vromaski, whose breath is like a roomful of rotting corpses. Its head is long and thin, with a snout like a sawed-off elephant’s trunk. It has the sinewed body of a striped, shrunken cheetah, with long saberlike fangs and scales in place of fur
.

As it thunders toward me through the burning jungle, its stocky legs trample everything in its path. In the distance a fireball belches from the top of a volcano, causing the ground to jolt
.

The beast bares its teeth. Its crazed red eyes bore into me, desperate and murderous. But rather than running away, I face it head-on
.

Mostly, I think, I’m an idiot
.

I have a weapon in my right hand, a gleaming saber with a pearl-inlaid handle. It must weigh a hundred pounds, but it’s so well-balanced I barely feel it
.

I rear back. The polished blade of the saber reflects in the vromaski’s red eyes. The creature roars, hurtling itself into the air, its teeth bared and aimed at my throat
.

I swing with two arms. The saber
shhhhinks
through the fetid air, slicing off the beast’s head. Blood spatters onto my face and uniform, a brocaded tunic with a helmet and bronze chest plate, now washed in crimson
.

Before the slavering monster’s head hits the ground, a creature swoops down from above, its gargantuan wings sending a blast of hot air into my face. With a screech, it grabs the bloody head in its talons and rises. I stumble back. Its wingspan alone is three times my height. I watch in fright and awe, recognizing the great beast somehow. It has the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion
.

NO
.

The dream is not supposed to be like this. Before it was more of a game, the most awesome and scary 3-D video game ever. But now it feels different. The heat sears my flesh. The weight strains my muscles and the smells sicken me
.

I turn to run, and I spot…her. The queen. But she’s not the same either. She’s got darker skin than before and a long face lined with worry. Behind her, the land falls off steeply, and I see a vast plain stretching to the horizon. But I follow her glance, which is looking toward a deep valley near us, a depression in the
middle of the jungle. She points to a cave opening and looks at me pleadingly. Something has pained her deeply, but I don’t know what—has someone attacked her? Stolen something?

“
What do you want me to do?” I shout. But she looks blankly back
.

The sky suddenly darkens. In the distance, behind the queen and far below us, I see something growing. A dark blue watery mass at the edges of the vast plain. It is moving toward us, changing shape, roiling and spitting. It seems to be swallowing the earth as it charges, crashes downward, and shakes the earth
.

In the valley, the cave is beginning to collapse
.

The queen’s mouth drops open. I see a crack growing in the earth. Trees, bushes, still aflame, drop inside the gaping maw. I must leave. I can prevent the destruction. But for the life of me, I don’t know how. All I know is that I must leave. I must race downward to the ocean. I must find someone—someone who looks a great deal like…me
.

I run. But the crack is now opening in my path. My brain is telling me I’ve been here before. This is where I die. I am heading for the hole
.

I can’t dream my own death again. Can’t
.

Somehow I know my brain can’t take this one more time. If I follow through, if I fall into the hole and die, this time it will be for real
.

The flying creature swoops down. I feel its talons burn their way into the back of my head. In the shape of an upside-down V
.