Rising (33 page)

“Okay,” I said “everybody just step back.”

The three of them took one giant step behind
me.
 
I tried to block them out and just
zone in on the center log.
 
Seconds
ticked by.
 
I closed my eyes and thought
of last night when those shadow scouts grabbed me.
 
My first reaction was terror, but then it
became a sort of caged anger.
 
I thought
about how Clara was coming toward me and how I had felt helpless to do
anything.
 
No reaction.
 
I didn’t feel a thing, not even the slightest
sensation inside my gut.
 
Jeremy shifted
his feet, distracting me.
 
Not opening my
eyes, I took a deep breath.

Okay, let’s try something else.
 
I let my mind go back to that night on
Clara’s porch.
 
I liked the way she
looked in that long coat, her wide eyes gazing up at me in the dark.
 
I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that
had seized me, making me kiss her without even thinking.
 
I had just wanted to be close to her, very
close.
 
When we were together like that,
her intense emotions melded with mine, amplifying my own.
 
I couldn’t even express exactly what she made
me feel.
 
It was a jumble of things, good
things—admiration, hopefulness, awe, and something more.

I sensed it rising abruptly, flaring up inside
my chest.
 
I opened my eyes, zeroing in
on the target.
 
I urged it on, willing it
to break away from my body.
 
My right arm
shot out instinctively, reaching in front of me.
 
I closed my eyes briefly, glimpsing Clara in the
dark—hazel eyes, arms around me, pulling me closer.
 
Without even thinking, an orb of pressure
tore through my body, flowing out of my hand, careening toward the target then
blasting all three logs.
 
They splintered
backward; one jagged log of wood tore straight into the side of the tin shed;
the other chunky pieces and sawdust flew several yards into swampy water.
 

The strange part was that I felt completely
calm.
 
In fact, I felt great.
 
It was like purging all of my emotions at
once.
 
I turned with a smile.
 
They weren’t exactly smiling.
 
Well, except for Jeremy.

“Which one were you aiming for?” he asked.

“The middle one,” I said. “Uh, sorry about your
shed.”

“Don’t worry about it, Gabriel.
 
I’d say there’s no doubt that you can use
it.
 
You’ll just have to try and harness
it now.”

Reflecting on what just happened, I realized
that fear stifled my power.
 
Only in that
state of joy was I able to summon it.

Ben jogged up beside us, shimmering white
again.
 
It was so weird how he acted all
casual about it.
 
He was putting his
phone in his pocket.

“I’ve been trying to call Melanie, but I just
can’t get a signal out here,” he complained.

“No.
 
Sorry, you can’t get cell service out here,” said Homer.

Ben turned to me.

“I think we need to go see Melanie.
 
She needs to know everything we do.
 
She needs to know she’s a part of this.”

Homer glanced at his old Timex on his left
wrist.

“You might want to do that,” he agreed.
 
“It’s about time for me to check in with
Herrald
, anyway.”

“I thought you didn’t have a phone,” said Ben
before it dawned on him.
 
“
Ohhh
, I get it.”

Jeremy snorted a laugh.

“We can continue tomorrow, and you should bring
Melanie.”

“Sure thing,” said Ben, jogging back to the Jeep.

“You might want to turn your lights off,
Sunshine, before we get back into town,” said Jeremy, following behind him.

“How do I do that?”

“I don’t know, but Melanie might freak out if
you show up on her doorstep like a knight in shining armor, minus the armor.”

As we drifted back to the Jeep, Clara stopped
and turned abruptly.

“But, Mr. Homer, where did this power come
from?
 
I mean, why us?
 
How did this all start?”

Homer smiled and gazed across the water for a
moment.
 
He seemed to be recalling some
distant memory.
 
We circled back toward
him.
 

“In my time on this island, I have spent many,
many hours in deep meditation.
 
I have
tried to travel beyond those primitive people and their first encounter with
the dark giants to seek the source of our power.
 
But, it is beyond me, beyond my reach. When I
travel as far back to the beginning as I can go, everything turns white.”

“Whoa,” said Jeremy, “so even Obi-Wan has his
limits.”

“Yes,” agreed Homer with a smile, “we all have
our limits.
 
But, I can tell you this, we
were given these powers for a specific purpose.
 
It is not only our privilege to have them, but our obligation to use
them well.
 
Only then will we fulfill our
destinies.”

“Dude, I love the way you talk,” said Jeremy,
clapping him on the back and heading to the Jeep.

“Later, Obi-Wan.”

“Clara,” called Homer before she walked
away.
 
“I’ve been wanting to know
something for a very long time.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“What color is my aura?”

Her face lit up with a wide smile.
 
Something flipped in my stomach.

“It’s completely white.
 
And,” she sort of laughed, “it’s got glittery
sparkles all in it, kind of like Cinderella’s dress.
 
It’s very, um, comforting.”

Homer chuckled softly.

“Thank you, Clara.
 
I’ve been curious for some time now.
 
I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I lingered, waiting for Clara to move out of
earshot.
 
Homer waited patiently for
whatever was coming.

“Homer, earlier today, you seemed a little
disturbed by noticing that Clara and I are, well, that we’re together.
 
I was wondering why.”

His face was completely expressionless, no hint
of his thoughts.

“I suppose it’s natural for you two to be drawn
to each other—the sword and the shield.
 
It doesn’t surprise me, actually. However, there is the risk that your
feelings for each other could endanger the clan and others that we must
protect.
 
I’m certainly a little more
worried after sharing that vision with you today.
 
But, Gabriel, you are your own person.
 
You must decide what is best.
 
I will not interfere in this.”

He clapped me on the shoulder in a fatherly
way.
 
My eyes were on the ground.

“Put that out of your mind.
 
For now, you must focus on wielding your
power and making it obey your will.”

I nodded, trudging back to the Jeep.
 
‘Put it out of your mind.’
 
Put her out of my mind?
 
Easier said than done.
 
How do you stop thinking?
 
How do you stop breathing?
 
I glanced ahead.
 
Her head tilted back as she laughed loudly at
something Jeremy was saying.
 
She tucked
her auburn hair behind one ear.
 
Freya
flashed to mind.
 
My heart sank.
 
If it kept her safe, I could do it.
 
I would have to.

Part 2:

The Descent

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

--Dylan Thomas

***

A world of gray swirled
in the heavens.
 
The massive storm moved
like a giant worm, inching slowly to earth where it would burrow a great, black
hole.
 
It was the perfect guise for the
myrkr
jötunn
.
 
The ghostly mass, shrouded in a veil of
tempest, eked its way toward unsuspecting prey.
 
Humans below were not aware that this oncoming storm was a harbinger of
hell.
 

Hovering among his
lesser brethren within the eye of the storm was a frightful beast; immense
beyond the standards for any
myrkr
jötunn
.
 
His gleaming eyes
were shadowed by the brow of his massive skull. His horns, the only dark giant
crowned with them, twisted and pointed backward.
 
An enormous cloak whipped wildly around him, and
dragon-like wings beat against a rogue wind.
 
To the slaves, he was Great Master; to his race, and even the
Setti
he battled in this world before, he was
Bölverk
. His body trembled with
pleasure, sensing
the oncoming descent and the awaiting feast.

A torrent
of wind squeezed into the eye, but it did not move the creature from its fixed,
mid-air position in the least.
 
Miles
below, a tip of brown earth emerged into sight. He bellowed a long, loud
unearthly sound that echoed out across the eye and into the violent winds
encapsulating the beasts. Hundreds of ash-eaters responded with anxious
shrieks, flapping ghastly, tattered wings in the hurricane’s circling
gales.
 
Tendrils of blue lightning
streaked across the gray sky.
 
En masse,
the beasts descended as one.

The city
was not nearly empty.
 
The slaves had
done their jobs well, instilling the fear that leaving would be as dangerous as
staying.
 
Half the population still
cowered somewhere in the dark.
 
Bölverk
touched its clawed feet to the cobblestone pavement, sensing the
humans’ electromagnetic energy everywhere around him.
 
He eyed the many tall buildings in this city,
very unlike his last visit to this world. The humans of this era were more
advanced.
 
He smiled, pleased to see the
human species had reproduced so well over the millennium.
 
His race would feed in abundance and
replenish its slave population before returning home.
 
The screaming had already begun.

His chief slave appeared
in front of him with bowed head and on bended knee as required.

“What words do you bring,
slave?”
                   

The
blackened figure, a former human from their last feeding in this realm, was a
larger creature of their specimen. He had once been a fierce warrior.
 
This one had been the most loyal of the
slaves to
Bölverk
, reporting more often than most, as if it felt
true allegiance to its master rather than fear.
 
The others reported when they were weak and needed to feed.
 
This one came of its own will, drawn to the
dark comfort of its master’s presence.
 
Even so, it would never rise above its station as servile pet.

“Great
Master, there is only one clan of
Setti
within this
territory.
 
They are young and weak.
 
I encountered their Vanquisher who is hardly
even aware of his power.”

“Power?
 
They have no power.
 
None that will hinder the
myrkr
jötnar
.”

The slave
had not raised its head, waiting for its master’s bidding.
 

“Have the
outer bands begun their work?”

“Yes, Great
Master,” came the prompt reply.
 
“They
are feeding already.
 
The city below
awaits your mighty hand.”

The
colossal creature slit the air with its sword-like arm above the slave’s
head.
 
The slave did not tremble, but
waited in eager anticipation for its reward.
 
The sharpened black arm split into seven bony fingers that wrapped
entirely around the slave’s head, even trailing slightly down the neck.
 
With a small guttural sound from the giant’s
throat, its internal energy obeyed his will, sliding along its arm through its
fingers and into the head and body of the slave.
 
The slave shivered delightfully in response,
feeling the beasts’ power flow into him and his own strength multiply.