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Rayen was down to hours to save Callan’s life. He’d never see eighteen.
At this rate, she might not either.
Callan was trapped in a place far into the future known as the Sphere, an artificial planet, and she was trapped in a small, cramped room somewhere out in the desert an hour away from a place called Albuquerque. The time-travel computer portal for returning to the Sphere was in an Albuquerque boarding school in Tony’s backpack, which Gabby had. Tony had been locked up by security. Gabby hid in another student’s room.
She needed both of her friends to open the portal.
Minutes raced past.
Her heart beat a frantic speed.
“Come on,” she begged her power and gripped the doorknob. That stupid power had yet to show up since she’d been taken from the school and locked in this room. She’d drawn on it to kill a huge croggle monster in the Sphere, but she couldn’t open a locked door right now. Why?
Nothing she tried worked. She was hitting a new level of panic. Holding onto the doorknob, she slumped to her knees on the wood floor.
There had to be a way out of here. But how? The last time she’d used her power it was to save someone else.
She sat upright. That was it! Someone had been in immediate danger each time she’d drawn on her energy.
The danger to Callan wasn’t happening right this second, but it was real and deadly. Could she use that to wake up her power?
Clenching her fingers tighter around the doorknob, she dredged up an awful image of Callan’s enemy—the TecKnati—swinging a sword and lopping off his beautiful hands. Nausea crowded her throat and she flinched at the gruesome image.
A spark of energy warmed her chest, swirling, then the heat spread to her arms and hands. Yes!
The doorknob heated beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes to see if she could picture the lock parts the way she had when she and Tony had opened a door. A vision of metal parts blurred in her mind. The parts tumbled and clicked, banging into each other, faster and faster until she couldn’t tell what they were doing.
Metal jangled together in a loud crash.
She snatched her hand away and fell backward, expecting Takoda to burst inside any minute with another stun gun in hand.
She’d learned about that weapon the hard way.
What she’d learned since coming awake in the desert a couple days ago was terrifying.
She still had no memory, except for a few bits that had emerged to form a strange puzzle still missing too many parts to make sense. Takoda was a Navajo on some council who’d found her at the school. When he came to take her away last night, she’d tried to run. The guards had used that stun gun on her.
Silence outside her room taunted her.
No Takoda.
The door should open.
What if he had someone guarding this building?
Takoda had said he’d be back in the morning, which might be hours away if midnight was as close as she estimated. But it could already be past. Her guess could be way off. Blood pounded in her ears, thudding with each heavy beat. If they caught her escaping, would they shackle her and lock her away somewhere her power would not work?
This was not the time for fear.
She had no idea how long it would take her to walk back to the school. To run back. Everything hinged on her returning before four in the morning.
She had to hurry and hope that Tony was still there, and no one had found Gabby’s hideout. So many things had to happen for her, Gabby, and Tony to return to the Sphere.
Callan and the other MystiK children who’d been captured were stuck there waiting for them to come back.
Returning too late meant Callan would first suffer torture at the hands of the TecKnati, then he’d die a horrible death.
The minute the red moon above the Sphere set and Callan turned eighteen, black wraiths would swarm him. He’d vanish into the ether just like Mathias had, but the other MystiKs in the Sphere didn’t know that.
Rayen stood up. She was the only one besides Callan aware of his horrible fate—the same fate of any MystiK who turned eighteen in the Sphere.
She couldn’t stop the moon from setting on the day he turned eighteen, but she might be able to do something to prevent his death.
I will not lose you, she vowed silently, repeating the words he’d said when he’d fought to protect her from a deadly plant in the Sphere.
But she couldn’t change anything if she didn’t get out of this room.
Caution from the awful memory of being shocked by the weapon had her hesitating to see if anyone had heard the internal lock parts clanging, but she couldn’t stay here any longer.
She put her ear against the door and listened.
No footsteps were coming this way. Takoda had driven through miles of desert on the way here last night. He said only a few locals lived in this small town, but he hadn’t told her if he was one of them.
She tested the doorknob again and ... it opened. Her power must have worked. This time.
Outside, the air was dry and cool where it had been hot as an oven during the day. The glow from a giant, not-quite-full moon washed over the stacked pueblo rooms built high into the night sky. Takoda had used the term pueblo, but it was unfamiliar to her. To be honest, with few memories returning so far, most of the things she’d encountered were unfamiliar to her.
Once she regained consciousness last night, Takoda had talked continually during the drive. He acted friendly and asked if she knew about Acoma Pueblo.
No, she didn’t, and they weren’t friends. Her friends had never electrocuted her with a weapon.
He’d explained what a stun gun was, then apologized.
Apology not accepted. She was still a captive.
Moving quietly, she kept picking her way through the quiet town, looking all around. The place had been built on a high plateau. In the distance, mountaintops dusted by moonlight rose against the dark skies. She had to get down from this sandstone mesa to the desert floor.
Had this place still been standing in the future when her people—C’raydonians—lived in the Sandia Mountains somewhere around Albuquerque? V’ru would know. She’d gained the only information she had on C’raydonians from V’ru, an all-knowing, eleven-year-old MystiK in the Sphere. Based on his records, it was believed that she had been born over eight decades into the future.
Her people would eventually live here.
And they would all die here, leaving no one.
Longing hit her with the swift strike of a sharp arrow for a family she couldn’t remember and a life beyond the reach of her mind.
She had nothing. No one.
In the brief, grueling days she’d been in this time, she’d formed a connection with Gabby and Tony back at the school, plus Callan and the MystiKs trapped in the Sphere.
And now someone wanted to take even that from her.
She continued sneaking through the town. No life stirred.
When she finally found the main road leading away from here, her feet picked up speed with each step toward the desert. Freedom was within her reach.
The road dropped off at a steep angle.
She embraced the adrenaline pushing her to go and started running faster through the moonlit night, using the broken white lines on the center of the road to navigate.
How long could she maintain this pace?
She didn’t know, but at least she had a trail to follow. Also, at this hour of night, no one would hear her sneakers slapping the hard surface.
Would this route lead her all the way to the school? She had been unconscious during the first part of the drive.
Breathing hard, she’d been on the desert level only a few minutes when she heard thunder.
She looked up. Not a cloud disturbed the vast sky.
The noise grew louder.
Not a storm, but the thunder of hooves pounding the ground.
Panicked, she looked over her shoulder. Four men on horses raced toward her.
“No!” She pushed her legs harder and spun her feet, searching all around. Where was a place to hide or a way to lose them? Nowhere. She stared at nothing beyond a vast ocean of sand interrupted by an occasional juniper tree.
Racing ahead with all the speed she could beg of her legs and feet. Pain gripped her side. She clutched it and kept running.
“Rayen, stop!” Takoda shouted as he closed in on her.
She was gasping for air. There was no way she’d outrun horses. Slowing down, she stumbled to a stop and spun to face him.
Raising her hands, she begged her power to come forth.
Energy buzzed beneath her skin and hummed in her chest, but nothing reached her hands.
The horses pulled up hard, sending a cloud of dust billowing around her. When it cleared, Takoda climbed down and walked up to her. “You can’t leave.”
Tears would do her no good. She blinked them away and pleaded, “Please let me go back. Cal ... a person’s life depends on me returning.”
“Your people need you.” His voice gentled. “You are special, Rayen.”
How could she tell him that her people lived eighty years in the future and all of them were doomed to die because of a virus? She’d found out the C’raydonian race had descended from the Navajo and other tribes that had intermarried with the Navajo.
But the people Takoda had talked about were not hers.
When the K’ryan Virus, or K-Virus as it was also called, came along over a hundred years in the future from now, it turned C’raydonians into rabid animals who were hunted to extinction.
Her throat was dry from running and the dust didn’t help.
She coughed and croaked, “I can’t ... save anyone here.”
Takoda said something to one of the riders, who tossed him a bottle of water. He handed it to her. “Drink.”
She grabbed it and guzzled down the cool liquid. When she wiped her mouth, she asked, “Why won’t you let me go back? I don’t have any family on your reservation. I’m not from here.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Where are you from?”
If she told him, he’d think she was insane. “You wouldn’t know the place.”
“You were sent by the spirits.”
Just when she thought she had exclusivity on being strange, he one-upped her. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean.”
But she had a bad feeling that she just might know since she’d met a few spirits yesterday while she slept. Callan had held her during the night, consoling her after the spirits had told her they were her ancestors, that she had a destiny, then disappeared before she could get answers.
That seemed so far away now.
Takoda spoke in a calm voice as if he were trying to cajole her into doing as he wished. “Come with me, Rayen. I have someone you must meet.”
She considered the situation she was in and wondered if she could draw on her energy again if she envisioned Callan being hurt. But she knew in her heart that she would not harm this man and his friends. Not if he didn’t threaten her first.
What was she going to do?
She felt a new presence join them and glanced to her left, then closed her eyes for a moment, searching for patience.
The glowing image of an old man, in a seated position with his legs crossed, floated above the ground. Her annoying ghost was back.
He was also Acheii, her great-great-grandfather.
Acheii said, “You must listen before you can be heard.”
Rayen curbed the urge to give him a biting retort about how he always showed up at the worst times, with unwanted advice, and never helped her out. Such as during the dream when she met the other spirits. Acheii was the one who’d kept her from asking questions.
She wanted to convince Takoda to return her to the school. That might be hard to do if she started talking to the wind since no one else could see the old guy but her, so she ignored Acheii.
She looked at Takoda. “What time is it?”
The ghost answered, “Time for you to learn more of your destiny.”
Rayen refused to even glance in his direction.
Takoda looked at his watch. “The new day began four minutes ago.”
Just past midnight.
Licking her dry lips, she asked, “How far away is this person you want me to meet?”
Takoda pointed to his left where a tiny campfire burned bright as a candle in the sea of darkness. “Not far.”
“If I go with you, will you take me back to the school?”
“I will do what our shaman decides.”
They wanted her to see a shaman and that person had final say. She couldn’t get away from four men on horses. If she convinced this shaman to let her return to the school, horses or a vehicle would be faster than on foot.
She asked, “How far is the drive to the school? I wasn’t awake for the whole trip.”
“Sixty-five minutes.”
That meant she had to be out of here by two-thirty to have enough time to return to the school and still have about thirty minutes to find Tony and Gabby before their four o’clock deadline to leave. Heading to the school sooner would be better.
“You waste precious time,” Acheii said with brusque impatience.
“Don’t you think I realize that?” she snapped at the space where Acheii had floated. The space was now empty.
And Takoda had witnessed the whole thing.
As had the three silent men on horses.
She didn’t want to see the wariness in his eyes, but she rarely got what she wanted these days, so she turned to Takoda.
No wariness. No questions about talking to herself. He waved his hand toward his horse. “We should go.”
Once she was seated behind Takoda, he made a clicking sound and his horse flew across the desert.
Wind blew hair loose from her ponytail. A memory swirled in her mind of riding at night through a desert with her hair whipping in the wind. She reached for the memory, dragging it to her with anxious fingers, begging her mind to give her something from her past.
The memory unfolded slowly. She and her father were on separate horses.
He’d ridden with her to someone he said would protect her.
She could see it all so clearly now.
A beast was after them. Red demonic eyes glowed. The same type of sentient beast that had chased her two days ago when she’d awakened in the desert.
That deadly thing had come from the future, too. It had followed her here, to this time.
The vision wavered like a reflected image disturbed by ripples in a pond. She focused all her attention again, desperate to mine more of this one memory. Her father yelled at her to keep going and to do as the elder told her. She would never disobey her father, but when he’d turned off to lead the beast away from her, she’d panicked momentarily.
She pulled around hard to change direction and go help her father fight the sentient killer.
But a second beast appeared, charging toward her.
Whipping back around, she drove her horse hard toward the opening between two sheer rock walls where her father had told her the elder waited in a narrow canyon. When she passed through the rock gap, the beast was close behind, but it crashed against an invisible force. She looked behind her. The beast backed up, changing its form to a giant bird with a six-foot wingspan, long talons, and a vicious beak, watching her with the glowing eyes of a predator.
She reined in her horse, stopping before she ran down the elder on the other side of a small fire.
He wore faded colors of the sunset woven in geometric patterns on a robe that brushed the ground. For a frail man, his voice was strong. “You are Ashkii Dighin, and you have a duty.”
That was the same name the spirits in her dream had called her. It translated to sacred child.
His eyes were two milky orbs incapable of seeing her.
Smoke-filled air teased her nose.
The bird-beast charged, once again slamming up against some invisible field that prevented it from passing through the gap in the stone. The elder’s wrinkled brow furrowed at the bird’s screech. In one hand, the elder lifted a scuffed and battered gourd covered with faint black-and-red images of warriors fighting. He told her, “You must hurry. My magic will not hold the protective wall long. Come closer.”
Every detail of that next minute roared to life.
She slid off her horse and walked toward the fire. The elder began chanting and allowed sparkling granules of sand to sift through his fingers into the fire. He shook the gourd, and it rattled like the tail of a deadly snake. The fire rose into a cyclone of swirling blue and green flames that moved away from the elder and toward Rayen, engulfing her.
A scream rose in her throat, but the flames didn’t touch her skin. She was mesmerized by the strange sensations flooding her. Energy surrounded her then her body stretched and pulled.
The elder shouted a warning.
She couldn’t grasp what he was saying. She was lifted off the ground inside the cyclone as it picked up speed. She could feel the power pulsing through the whirling funnel, spinning faster and faster.
The elder’s voice boomed, but she still couldn’t understand his words.
She pivoted in slow motion, suspended as the world warped around her. The sound of a thousand voices chanted a melody that blended into a kaleidoscope of colors. As she came around to face the narrow opening for the canyon, she realized what the elder was shouting.
The sentient bird slammed the invisible barrier once more, bursting through this time. It flew at her, beak open to rip her to shreds. Then it dove into the cyclone and—
“Rayen! Rayen!”
Takoda stood above her with worry etching his face.
She was lying on the ground, staring up at him and the moon that hung over his left shoulder. “What happened?”
“You passed out the second we stopped. I couldn’t catch you before you fell to the ground. Does anything feel broken?”
She sat up, gave the dizziness a moment to diminish, then shook it off.
Bending her knees, she rocked forward and pushed up from the sandy ground to stand, dusting herself. “Nothing broken. I don’t know what happened.”
That was a lie.
Fear at being attacked in that fire cyclone had been too much. She’d blacked out. But now she knew how she’d ended up here in the past with that sentient beast chasing her. It had gotten sucked into the same cyclone firestorm.
“Are you all right?” Takoda asked.
She would never be all right.
Her life and family lived almost a hundred years in the future. She’d grown attached to Callan, who’d been born fifty years after her entire race had disappeared from this planet. Plus, she was running out of time to save him.
But if she could convince Takoda’s shaman to allow her to return to the school, she still might save Callan.
When Takoda sighed patiently and nodded at someone past her, she turned to find his shaman standing on the opposite side of a small fire.
They were in a narrow canyon, like the one in her memory.
That wouldn’t have been so disturbing if the shaman had not been the spitting image of the elder in her dream, right down to the painted gourd in his hand, the milky eyes, and his next words.
“You are Ashkii Dighin, and you have a duty.”
She started backing away.
No, this couldn’t happen again. Not now.
