Chapter Two

Waking Up, Alive

AIR RUSHED INTO my lungs; my heart beat furiously in my rib cage. My eyes flew open. I looked around me. I was sprawled out on the grass, my shoes dangerously close to a smoldering fissure in the ground. Steam and smoke lifted into the night air. I sat up and crawled toward the fissure. Hot air and the smell of phosphorus buffeted my face. A crack to the Gloom had opened in Homer’s Glenn.

“Oi,” a familiar voice called to me, “Elijah, is that you, mate?”

My eyes focused on Barn standing across the fissure holding his PlasmX defensively. “I heard a terrible explosion while I was watching a wuxia movie in the second-floor front parlor and came to investigate. Looks like a gate to the Gloom opened up.”

“Yeah, I was down there.” I pointed toward the fissure.

Barn lifted effortlessly over the smoke and steam and landed softly next to me. He closed up his PlasmX and put it in his pocket.

“Mate,” he said, “I’ve been worried about you.”

“I know, Barn.”

“You’ve been acting loco, mate.”

“I know.”

“You gotta stay away from your dad.”

“Shit, tell me about it.”

“Austin, he loves you.”

I looked away. I loved Austin. But, I was broken inside. There was a spark of hope inside me but too much darkness and anguish as well.

“Mate.” Barn kneeled next to me. “You have burns on your face.”

“Embers from the Gloom.” I explained, “They rain down from the sky.”

“Shit,” Barn said. “You really were there.”

“Yeah, this boulder flew at me…” My voice trailed off as I spotted a large rock embedded in the grass nearby. “Devlina, she was here battling Henges.”

“The Elite Guard of Zid’dra.”

“Those two are fighting.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, I got knocked into the chasm and right into Zid’dra’s lair.”

“What did that wanker want?”

“He says my blood is linked to Devlina.” I didn’t tell him about how Zid’dra said to push myself because that’s what Magicals do. I wasn’t like my father; he gave up long ago. I was going to be nothing like him. I was going to push myself to be better than him.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Bollocks,” Barn said. “That would explain why that daft cow has been lurking around you the last few months. She wants something.”

“Zi’dra says she needs me.”

“Aye,” Barn said. “To wreak havoc for him.”

“Yup,” I said. “And he wanted to kill me because he said that would weaken her.”

Barn stood and pulled out his PlasmX.

“Well, that’s not happening.”

“Barn,” I said, “the Áuqala saved me!’

“Wait, what?”

“Yes, she appeared. Evangeline. My great-great grandmother.”

“That’s brilliant.”

“She says I can make things better.”

“Of course, you can.”

“She wants me to see Máurso.”

“Good,” Barn said. “He will train you in Xem Sen Ou. And to meditate and you will become a powerful warrior just like me and Austin.”

Suddenly, tears welled in my eyes. I stepped forward and pulled Barn in for an embrace.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

Two powerful beams of light cut through the smoke and steam drifted out of the fissure. I squinted while Barn covered his eyes with his hand.

“Oi,” Austin called to us, “Anti-coven League! Here to check what’s going on!”

“We have weapons,” Cecilia Kang chimed in, “lots of powerful weapons that can destroy monsters in a blink of the eye!”

“It’s us, mates!” Barn shouted.

“Barny?” Austin called back.

“Yes, Lostin,” Barn called back, “along with Elijah.”

Austin gasped. “I thought…well, I hoped…I mean, I feared for the worst….”

“I’m okay, K-kangy.”

Austin leaped over the fissure, landing softly between Barn and me. He peered at me through his thick glasses.

“You have burns on your face,” he said, examining my body, “and cuts on your arms and hands, mate.”

“I got in the middle of a battle between Devlina and the Zuscoe.”

Austin suddenly pulled me into a tight embrace, and tears erupted from his eyes.

“Kangy? Are you crying?”

“I thought you were dead…”

I hugged Austin tighter. “I’m alive, Kangy.”

We clung to each other for another moment.

“Do you know where Devlina went?” Barn asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “She warned me of a boulder flying at me, and the next thing I knew I was tumbling into the fissure there.”

Austin glanced over the side, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Smells like farts and feet.”

“The Gloom.”

Austin’s eyes widened. “Mate, you fell to the Gloom?”

“Yeah,” I said softly, the cuts on my arms and burns on my face becoming painful.

“Okay, let’s get you home,” Austin said.

“I can stay here—” Barn began but was interrupted by the ground heaving underfoot. Barn swayed, trying to keep his balance, but fell over. Austin wrapped his strong arms around me and sank to the ground. I gazed into his eyes. He smiled softly.

“Austin!” Austin’s parents called from the other side of the fissure, “Are you okay?”