Eph turned, feeling Zack’s voice right behind him. He whipped back around fast, knowing he had been suckered. His ribs ached. He went into the haze, looking for the bomb. Feeling the ground for the inlaid stones, trying to find his way.
Then before him, rising out of the mist: the Master.
Eph stumbled backward, shocked at the sight of it. Two slashes crossed the monster’s face in a rough X, the result of the Master’s collision and ensuing fight with the Born.
Fool.
Eph still could not right himself or find words. His head roared as though he had just heard an explosion. He saw ripples beneath the Master’s flesh, a blood worm exiting one open scratch mark and crawling over its open eye to reenter the next. The Master did not flinch. It raised its arms from its sides and took in the smoky island of its origin, then looked triumphantly at the dark heavens above.
Eph summoned all his strength and ran at the Master, sword first, aiming for its throat.
The Master backhanded him squarely across the face with enough force to send Eph airborne, cartwheeling, landing on the stone ground some yards away.
Ahsudagu-wah. Black ground.
Eph first thought that the Master had snapped a vertebra in his neck. The breath was knocked out of him when he hit the ground, and he feared a punctured lung. His other sword had fallen out of his pack, landing somewhere on the ground between them.
Onondaga language. The invading Europeans did not care to translate the name correctly, or at all. You see, Goodweather? Cultures die. Life is not circular but ruthlessly straight.
Eph fought to stand, his fractured ribs stabbing him. “Quinlan!” he called out, his voice mostly just breath.
You should have followed through with our deal, Goodweather. I would never have honored my end of the bargain, of course. But you could have at least spared yourself this humiliation. This pain. Surrender is always easier.
Eph was bursting with every emotion. He stood as tall as he could with the pain in his chest pulling at him. He saw, through the mist, just a few arm lengths away, the outline of the nuclear bomb.
Eph said, “Then let me offer you one last chance to surrender.”
He limped to the device, feeling for the detonator. He thought it a stroke of great luck that the Master had thrown him so close to the device … and it was this very thought that made him look back at the creature.
Eph saw another form emerge from the ground mist. Zack, approaching the Master’s side, no doubt summoned telepathically. Zack looked almost like a man to Eph, like the loved child you one day can no longer recognize. Zack stood with the Master, and suddenly Eph didn’t care anymore—and, at the same time, he cared more than ever.
It is over, Goodweather. Now the book will be closed forever.
The Master had been counting on this. The Master believed that Eph would not harm his son—that he could not blow up the Master if it meant sacrificing Zack too.
Sons are meant to rebel against their fathers. The Master lifted its hands toward the sky again. It has always been that way.
Eph stared at Zack, standing with this monster. With tears in his eyes, Eph smiled at his boy. “I forgive you, Zack, I do … ,” he said. “And I hope to hell that you forgive me.”
Eph turned the screw switch from time delay to manual. He worked as fast as he could, and yet still the Master burst ahead, covering the distance between them. Eph released the detonator just in time, or else the blow from the Master would have torn the wires from the device, rendering it inoperable.
Eph landed in a heap. He shook off the impact, trying to stand. He saw the Master coming for him, its eyes flaring red inside the crooked X.
Behind it, the Born came flying. Mr. Quinlan had Eph’s second sword. It impaled the beast before it could turn, the Master arching with pain.
The Born pulled back the blade, and the Master turned, facing him. Mr. Quinlan’s face was broken, his left cheek collapsed, his jaw unhinged, iridescent blood coating his neck. But still he swiped at the Master, slicing at the creature’s hands and arms.
The Master’s psychic fury sent the mist fleeing as, undeterred by the pain, it stalked its own wounded creation, backing the Born away from the bomb. Father and son entangled in the fiercest battle.
Eph saw Zack standing alone behind Mr. Quinlan, watching raptly, something like fire in his eyes. Then Zack turned, as though his attention had been called to something. The Master was directing him. Zack reached down and picked up something long.
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Setrakian’s walking stick. The boy knew that a good twist of the handle shed the bottom wooden sheath, baring the silver blade.
Zack held the sword with both hands. He looked at Mr. Quinlan from behind.
Eph was already running toward him. He got in front of Zack, between him and the Born, one arm over his searing chest, the other holding a sword.