THE INTERROGATION ROOM IS WARM AND PITCHBLACK. I rest my head on the table in front of me and try not to fall asleep; but after being up all night, I can’t help myself. Instantly, I feel a vision forming and hear the whispers. I feel myself floating up through the darkness, then, as if shot through a cannon, I blaze through a shadowy tunnel. Black turns to blue. Blue turns to green. The whispers follow me, growing weaker the farther down the tunnel I go. Suddenly, I’m jolted to a stop and everything falls silent. A gust of wind appears with a bright light, and when I look down, I realize I’m standing on the snowy peak of a mountain.
The view is spectacular, with mountains stretching for miles. There’s a deep green valley below me and a crystal blue lake. I’m drawn to the lake and begin descending when I see tiny bursts of light surrounding it. As if I’m wearing binoculars, my vision is suddenly magnified and I see hundreds of heavily armed Mogadorians shooting at four running figures.
My anger is immediate and colors blur as I run down the mountain. A few hundred yards from the lake, the sky growls above me with a black wall of clouds. Bolts of lightning crash into the valley and thunder roars. I’m knocked off my feet as lightning strikes all around me, and that’s when I see the glowing eye form and stare down from the clouds.
“Six!” I yell, but the thunder drowns me out. I know it’s her, but what is she doing here?
The clouds part, and someone drops into the valley. My vision magnifies again, and I see that I was right: Six stands furious between the advancing army of Mogs and two young girls and two older men. Her arms are above her head, and a steady sheet of rain falls.
“Six!” I yell again, and a pair of hands grabs my shoulders from behind.
My eyes snap open and I whip my head off the table. The lights in the interrogation room are on, and there’s a tall man with a round face standing above me. He’s wearing a dark suit with a badge clipped to his belt. In his hands is the white tablet.
“Chill out, kid. I’m Detective Will Murphy, FBI. How we doing today?”
“Never better,” I reply, dazed by the vision. Who was Six protecting?
“Good,” he says. The detective sits, a pen and legal pad in front of him. He carefully displays the tablet on the left side of the table.
“So,” he begins, slowly drawing it out. “Six what? What do you have six of?”
“What?”
“You were yelling the number six in your sleep. You want to tell me what that’s all about?”
“It’s my golf handicap,” I say. My mind tries to conjure up the faces of the two girls behind Six in the valley, but they’re fuzzy.
Detective Murphy chuckles. “Yeah, right. How about you and me have a little chat? Let’s start with the birth certificate you gave to Paradise High. It’s counterfeit, John Smith. In fact, we can’t find a single thing about you prior to you showing up in Paradise several months ago,” he says, squinting as though expecting some reply. “Your social security number belongs to a dead man in Florida.”
“Was there a question there?”
His grin turns into a smirk. “Why don’t you start by telling me your real name.”
“John Smith.”
“Right,” he says. “Where’s your father, John?”
“Dead.”
“How convenient.”
“Actually, it’s probably the most inconvenient thing that’s ever happened to me up until now.”
The detective writes something on the notepad. “Where are you originally from?”
“The planet Lorien, three hundred million miles away.”
“Must have been a long trip, John Smith.”
“Took almost a year. Next time I’m bringing a book.”
He drops his pencil on the table, interlocks his fingers behind his head, and leans back. Then he pushes forward again and holds up the tablet. “You want to tell me what this thing is?”
“I was hoping you could tell me. We found it in the woods.”
He holds it by its edge and whistles. “You found this in the woods? Where at in the woods?”
“Near a tree.”
“Are you going to be a wiseass with every question?”
“That depends, detective. Are you working for them?”
He sets the tablet back on the desktop. “Am I working for who?”
“The Morlocks,” I say, the first thing I remember from English class.
Detective Murphy smiles.
“You can smile, but they’ll probably be here soon,” I say.
“The Morlocks?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like from The Time Machine?”
“That’s the one. That’s like our Bible.”
“And let me guess; you and your friend, Samuel Goode, you’re members of the Eloi?”
“The Loric, actually. But for our purposes today, the Eloi will be fine.”
The detective reaches into his pocket and slams my dagger on the table. I stare at its four-inch diamond blade as if I’ve never seen it before. I could easily kill this man just by moving my eyes from the blade to his neck, but I need to free Sam first. “What’s this for, John? Why would you need a knife like this?”
“I don’t know what knives like that are for, sir. Whittling?”
He picks up his notepad and pencil. “Why don’t you tell me what happened in Tennessee.”
“Never been,” I say. “I hear it’s a nice place, though. Maybe I’ll visit when I’m out of here, take a tour, see the sites. Any suggestions?”
He nods, tosses the notepad onto the table, and then launches the pencil at me. I deflect it without lifting a finger, sending it bouncing against the wall; but the detective doesn’t notice, and leaves through the steel door with the tablet and my dagger.
Soon I’m shoved back into my old cell. I have to get out of here.
“Sam?” I yell.
The guard who’s been sitting outside my cell jumps off his chair and swings the nightstick at my fingers. I let go of the bars just before they’re crushed.
“Shut up!” he orders, pointing his nightstick at me.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” I ask. Getting him inside my cell sounds like a pretty good option.
“I could give a damn, peewee. But if you keep it up, you’re gonna regret it real fast.”
“You couldn’t hit me if you tried; I’m too quick and you’re too fat.”
The guard chuckles. “Why don’t you just sit back on your bed and shut your mouth, huh?”
“You know I can kill you any time I want to, right? Without even lifting a finger.”
“Oh yeah?” he replies. The guard steps forward. His breath smells rancid, like stale coffee. “What’s stopping you then?”
“Apathy and a broken heart,” I say. “Both of those will go away eventually, though, and that’s when I’ll just get up and leave.”
“I can hardly wait, Houdini,” he says.
I’m extremely close to taunting him inside, and as soon as he unlocks the door, Sam and I are as good as free.
“You know who you look like?” I ask.
“Tell me,” he says.
I turn around and bend over.
“That’s it, punk!” The guard reaches for a control panel on the wall, and as he’s stomping towards the door of my cell, an earsplitting blast rattles the entire jail. The guard stumbles into the bars and smacks his forehead, falling to his knees. I drop and instinctively roll beneath the bed. Pandemonium erupts—yells and gunshots, clanking metal, and loud bangs. An alarm goes off, and a blue light flashes in the corridor.
I roll onto my back and twist my hands to get a firm grip on the chain binding my wrists. While using my legs as leverage, I straighten myself and snap the chain binding my hands and feet in two. I use telekinesis to unlock my cuffs and drop them to the floor. I do the same with the pair around my ankles.
“John!” Sam yells from down the hall.
I crawl to the front of the cell. “Right here!”
“What’s going on?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing!” I yell back.
Other prisoners shout through their cell bars, too. The guard who fell in front of my cell grunts and struggles to his feet. Blood flows from a gash on his head.
The ground shakes again. It’s more violent and lasts longer than the first time, and a fog of dust barrels down the corridor from the right. I’m temporarily blinded, but reach my hand through the bars and yell to the guard, “Let me out of here!”
“Hey! How’d you get your cuffs off?”
I see he’s disoriented, wavering a few steps to his right, a few to his left, ignoring the other guards who run by him with guns drawn. He’s covered in dust.
A thousand gunshots come from the right end of the corridor. A roar of a beast answers them.
“John!” Sam screams in a pitch I’ve never heard from him before.
I make eye contact with the guard and yell, “We’re all going to die in here if you don’t let me out!”
The guard looks towards the roars and terror spreads across his face. He slowly reaches for his gun, but before he can touch the grip it floats away from him. I know that trick—I saw that in Florida on a midnight walk—and I watch as the guard spins in confusion and runs.
Six becomes visible in front of my door, the large pendant still around her neck, and from the second I see her face I know she’s pissed at me. I also see that she’s in a very big hurry to get me out of here.
“What’s down there, Six? Is Sam okay? I can’t see anything,” I say.
She looks down the corridor and concentrates on something, and a set of keys comes floating down the corridor, right into her hands. She inserts them into a metal panel on the wall. My door unlocks. I run out of my cell and I’m finally able to see down the corridor. It’s extremely long, with at least forty cells between me and the exit. But the exit is gone, as is the wall it should be on, and I’m staring at the giant horned head of a piken. Two guards are in its mouth, and drool mixed with blood falls from its razor-sharp teeth.
“Sam!” I yell, but he doesn’t answer. I turn to Six. “Sam’s down there!”
She disappears before my eyes, and five seconds later I watch another cell slide open. Sam rushes towards me. I yell, “Okay, Six! Let’s trash this thing!”
Inches from my nose, Six’s face appears. “We’re not fighting the piken. Not here.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask.
“There’s more important stuff we have to do, John,” she barks. “We have to get to Spain immediately.”
“Now?”
“Now!” Six grabs my hand and pulls me after her until I’m running at a full clip. Sam is right behind me, and we’re able to get through two sets of doors with Six’s keys. As the second one is flung open, we’re faced with seven Mogs running with cylindrical cannonlike tubes and swords. Instinctively, I reach for my dagger, but it’s not there. Six throws me the guard’s gun then holds me and Sam back. She lowers her head in concentration. The lead Mog is spun around, and his sword slices across the two behind him, turning them to ash. Six then kicks the Mog in the back and he falls on his own sword. She’s invisible before he dies.
Sam and I duck the first tube’s blast, and the second one singes the collar of my shirt. I shoot, emptying my pistol as I slide into the piles of ash. I kill one Mog and then pick up his dropped tube. Hundreds of lights spark to life the second my finger finds the trigger, and a green beam cuts through another Mog. I aim for the last two, but Six has already appeared behind them, lifting both to the ceiling with telekinesis. She slams them against the ground in front of me, then back to the ceiling and then again on the ground. My jeans are covered in their ash.
Six unlocks another door and we enter a large room with dozens of cubicles on fire. Holes smolder in the ceiling. Mogs are shooting at police, and police are firing back. Six wrestles a sword away from the nearest Mog and cuts off his arm, and then she jumps over a burning cubicle wall. I blast the stumbling one-armed Mog in the back with my tube, and he falls into a black heap of ash.
I see an unconscious Detective Murphy on the ground. Six darts through the maze of cubicles, swinging her sword so fast it blurs. Mogs turn to ash all around her. Police retreat through a door on the far left as Six slices through a circle of Mogs closing in on her. I shoot and shoot, destroying those on the perimeter.
When the room is clear, we run down an empty hallway under a shower of sparks.
“There!” Sam points to a giant hole leading out into a parking lot. We don’t hesitate, each one of us jumping through sparks and smoke; and before I sprint into the cold morning, I see my dagger and the tablet sitting on the desk in the office. I reach over and scoop them both up, and seconds later I’m following Six and Sam into a deep ditch that provides us plenty of cover.
“We’re not going to talk about that right now,” Six says, her arms pumping fast. She dropped the sword a mile back. I tossed the Mog tube under a bush.
“But do you have it, though?”
“John, not right now.”
“But do you—”
Six comes to an abrupt halt.
“John! You want to know where your Chest is?”
“In the trunk of the car?” I ask, my eyebrows raised in apology.
“Nope,” she says. “Try again.”
“Hidden in a Dumpster?”
Six lifts her arms above her head and a gust of wind sends me flying until I hit a massive oak tree. She marches towards me, fists at her sides. “How is she?”
“Who?” I ask.
“Your girlfriend, you asshole! Was it worth it? Was it worth leaving me surrounded by Mogs fighting to get your Chest back to see precious little Sarah? Was it worth getting arrested for? Did you get enough kisses to make up for getting your face slapped all over the news again?”
“No,” I mumble. “I think Sarah turned us in.”
“I think so, too,” Sam says.
“And you!” Six spins around to raise her finger at Sam. “You went along with it! I thought you were smarter than that, Sam. You’re supposed to be some kind of genius, and you think it’s a good idea to go to the one place in the whole world that the police would definitely be watching?”
“I’ve never called myself a genius,” Sam says, picking up the tablet I dropped, brushing dirt from it. Six keeps walking. “And, Six, I had no choice. Seriously. I tried as hard as I could to get John to go back and look for you and help.”
“He did,” I mutter, standing. “Don’t blame Sam.”
“Well, John, while you two lovebirds were hugging and kissing, I was getting my ass kicked doing you a favor. I would have died if Bernie Kosar didn’t grow into this giant elephant-bear animal and help. They have your Chest. And I’m sure by this point it’s sitting right next to mine in the cave in West Virginia.”
“Then that’s where I’m going,” I say.
“No, we’re going to Spain. Today.”
“No, we’re not!” I shout, brushing off my sleeves. “Not until I have my Chest back.”
“Well, I’m going to Spain,” she says.
“Why now?” Sam asks.
Our SUV comes into view. “I was just online. It’s serious over there. Somebody burned a huge symbol into the mountainside over Santa Teresa and it looks exactly like the brands around our ankles. Someone needs our help and I’m going.”
We hop in the car and Six drives slowly down the road, and Sam and I hide in the footwells of the backseat. Bernie Kosar barks from the passenger seat, happy to be riding shotgun for a change.
Sam and I pass the laptop back and forth, both of us reading the article about Santa Teresa twice, three times. The burning symbol on the mountain is no doubt Loric. “What if it’s a trap?” I ask. “My Chest is more important right now.” It might be selfish, but before I leave the continent, I want my Inheritance. The possibility that the Mogs might open my Chest is just as urgent to me as whatever is going on in Spain.
“I need to know how to get to the cave,” I say.
“John! Get real. You’re really not going to come with me to Spain?” Six asks. “After reading all that, you’re going to let me and Sam go alone?”
“Guys, get this. Also out of Santa Teresa, there’s a woman reported to have been cured, out of the blue, of an incurable degenerative disease. Santa Teresa is, like, an epicenter of activity right now. I bet every member of the Garde are on their way,” Sam says.
“If that’s the case,” I say, “then I’m definitely not going. I’m getting my Chest back.”
“That’s insane,” Six says.
I scramble over the passenger seat and open the glove compartment. My fingers find the stone I’m looking for, and I drop it in Six’s lap before hiding in the footwell again.
She lifts the pale yellow stone above the wheel, turning it over in the sunlight, and laughs. “You had the Xitharis out?”
“I figured it might come in handy,” I say.
“These don’t last long, remember,” she says.
“How long?”
“An hour, maybe a little more.”
The news is discouraging, but it could still give me the advantage I need. “Can you charge it, please?”
When Six holds the Xitharis to her temple, I know she’s agreed to let me go after the Chests while she heads to Spain.