I turn and run trying to lead the piken away, but it soon catches up and knocks me from behind. The force of the hit is shocking, and I fall down a steep slope until my arm finds a boulder to hook around. I look over my shoulder to see that I’m less than a meter from a rocky cliff.

The piken appears at the top of the slope. There it shuffles sideways until it’s positioned directly above me. It roars so loudly my mind blanks. I hear Ella scream my name in the distance, but I can’t breathe, let alone yell back.

It marches down the slope. I raise one of my hands and uproot a small spindly tree near me and launch it at the giant’s chest. It impales its chest, and it’s enough for the piken to lose its footing; and it falls sideways, shrieking and barreling right at me. I close my eyes and prepare for the impact; but instead of smashing me under its weight and knocking me over the cliff, its body hits the boulder I’m holding on to and then bounces over me. I whip my head over my shoulder to see the piken fall down the rocky cliff.

I’m finally able to concentrate enough to float myself up the slope. I hurry back towards the beech tree—to Ella and my Chest—and I hear the cannon’s blast a split second before I’m shot. The pain is double anything I’ve felt before, and all I can see is red and flashes of white. I roll around uncontrollably, writhing in agony.

“Marina!” I hear Ella scream.

I roll onto my back and stare at the sky. Blood drips out of my mouth and nose. I can taste it. I can smell it. A few birds circle overhead. As I wait to die, I watch as the sky is taken over by a colossal group of dark, heavy clouds. The clouds crash and roll on top of each other, pulsing as if they’re breathing. I think I’m hallucinating, seeing visions before I die, when a massive drop of water hits me on the right cheek. I blink as another hits me above my eyes, and then a bolt of lightning splits the sky in two.

A huge Mogadorian in gold-and-black armor stands over me smiling. He presses a cannon against my temple and spits on the ground; but before he pulls the trigger, he looks up at the looming storm. I quickly place my hands on the gaping wound in my abdomen, feeling the icy familiarity surge under my skin. Then the oncoming rain washes over me as the clouds become a solid wall of darkness.

Chapter Thirty-One

BY THE LOOK ON SAM’S FACE I CAN TELL HE’S just about lost all faith in getting out of here alive. My own shoulders sag as I stare into the massive white eyes of the beast that’s rising to its feet in front of us. It takes its time, stretching its muscular neck, veins as thick as Roman columns protruding on both sides. The dark skin on its face is dry and cracked like the stone jutting above its head. With its long arms, it has the look of an alien gorilla.

By the time the giant has pushed itself into a full standing position, fifty feet tall, the handle of my dagger has melted itself around my right hand.

“Flank it!” I yell. Sam runs left and I dart right.

Its first move is towards Sam, who immediately turns and runs along the circular edge of the moat. The beast lumbers after him, and that’s when I sprint towards it and slide my dagger right and left, cutting small chunks from its calves. It rears its head and smashes its nose against the ceiling, and then swings a hand down at me, one of its fingers connecting with my back leg. I’m sent spinning into the wall, where I land on my left shoulder, dislocating it.

“John!” Sam yells.

The giant swings for me again, but I’m able to jump out of the path of its fist; the giant may be powerful, but it’s slow. Still, the cave we’re in is not large enough to run very far so, slow or not, it still has the advantage.

I don’t see Sam anywhere as I stagger from boulder to boulder. The giant has a hard time following me; and once I figure I have enough time, I slowly raise my left arm above my head and rotate my hand so my palm is on the back of my head. The pain shoots from my neck to my heels; and before I give in to it, I keep reaching and feel my dislocated shoulder pop back into place. A sense of relief comes over me, but it’s short-lived as I look up to see the giant’s palm right above my head.

I raise my dagger and its blade punctures the beast’s palm, but it’s not enough to stop it from wrapping its fingers around me. It picks me up, and the strength of its squeeze causes the dagger to fall to the ground. I hear its diamond blade clang; and as I’m turned upside down, I search for it so I can use my telekinesis to retrieve it.

“Sam! Where are you?”

I’m disoriented as the beast turns me right side up again, and it holds me a few feet above its nose. Then I see Sam emerge from a fissure in the wall. He runs and picks up my blade, and a second later the giant squeals in shock and pain. It squeezes me hard, and I push back against its fingers as much as I can. As it stumbles backwards, I’m able to free my shoulders, arms, and hands. I turn on the lights of my palms and shine my Lumen directly into its eyes. It’s instantly blinded and backs into a wall, and that’s when I’m able to pull the rest of my body free and jump.

Sam tosses me my dagger and I charge at the beast, plunging the blade into the skin between every toe. The giant howls. It bends over, and when it does I shine my Lumen again into its eyes. It loses its balance, and I make a boulder behind it dislodge and slam into its lower back. The beast pitches forward, its long arms straight out to break its fall. Its massive hands land in the moat of steaming green liquid—and the sound of its searing flesh comes a second later. I watch as the beast crashes into the base of the electrical force field and the thick stone pedestals holding the Chests. The crash disrupts the force field and sends the pedestals flying across the room, breaking against the stone. The beast lies unmoving.

“Tell me you planned that,” Sam says, following me towards the Chests.

“I wish I could,” I say.

I open my Chest to find everything inside, including the coffee can of Henri’s ashes and the volatile crystal that’s wrapped in the towel. “Looks good,” I say. Sam picks up the other Chest.

“What happens when we go through that door?” Sam says, nodding to the small wooden door we came in through.

We killed the beast and we have the Chests, but we can’t turn ourselves invisible and just stroll by a hundred Mogs. I open my Chest and handle different crystals and objects, but again I have no idea what most of them do, and the ones I do know how to use can’t exactly get me through a mountain of aliens. Looking around the room, I’m losing hope. But it’s after studying the giant’s melting skin and disintegrating bones that I get an idea.

With my dagger back in my jeans pocket, I slowly approach the moat of bubbling green liquid. I take a deep breath and carefully dip a finger in it. Just as I’d hoped, it’s scalding hot but merely tickles my skin like fire. It’s like green lava.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“When I say open the door, I want you to open it and get out of the way immediately.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

Visions of Henri running the Loric crystal over me as I lie on the coffee table, my hands in open flames, run through my mind, and I dunk my hand into the moat and pick up a dripping scoop of the green lava. I close my eyes and concentrate, and when I open them the liquid is hovering over my hand in a perfect flaming ball.

“This, I guess,” I say.

“Wicked.”

Sam runs over to the wooden door, and I nod to show him I’m ready.

He rips the door open and dives to his right. A cluster of heavily armed Mogs are running our way; but when they catch sight of the fiery green ball coming their way, they try to turn around. As the ball is about to splash on the chest of the first Mog, I use my mind to spread it out like a fiery blanket. Several Mogs are hit, and after a moment of burning torture, they turn to ash.

I wing ball after ball of green lava at more Mogs, knocking them down. Sam collects a pile of their guns, and once there’s a lull in the advancement, I grab two more balls of green liquid and run out the door. Sam follows me with a long black gun under each arm.

The number of Mogs running down the dark tunnel is staggering; and with the flashing lights and piercing sirens, it’s a sensory overload. Sam pulls both triggers and mows down row after row of Mogs, but they keep coming. When he’s out of bullets, Sam grabs two more guns.

“I could use some help here!” Sam yells, mowing down another line of Mogs.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!” The mucus-covered walls of the tunnel don’t appear to lend themselves to spreading a decent fire, and I don’t have enough of the green lava in my hands to do enough damage. To my left are the silver gas tanks and silos with their heavy pipes, spouts and aluminum ducts. Next to the tallest of the silos I eye the control panel with electrical wires pouring out. I can hear the screams and roars of the beasts in the barred chambers farther down the hall, and wonder how hungry they are.

I toss a flaming ball at the control panel and it disintegrates in a storm of sparks. The bars of the chambers lining the walls begin to rise, and that’s when I toss the other green ball at the base of the gas tanks and silos.

I grab hold of Sam and sprint with him back into the giant’s chamber. As the explosion erupts, I whip Sam against the stone section between the wooden door and the rising steel gate, and allow the advancing wave of flames to sweep over me. My ears are flooded with the crackle and hum of fire.

Dozens of krauls burst from their open chamber and attack a series of unsuspecting Mogs from behind; several pikens stomp into the tunnel with roars and swinging arms; the reptilian mutant with horns charges towards the back of the tunnel, plowing over Mogs and krauls under the legs of the pikens; the gargoylelike winged creatures buzz at the ceiling, swooping down to take a bite out of anything they can; and the monster with transparent skin sinks its rows of teeth into the calf of a piken. That all happens in a matter of seconds, then they’re overtaken by a sea of fire.

After a few minutes, once the fire escapes up the spiral cavern at the end of the tunnel to continue to wreak havoc throughout the mountain, the long corridor in front of me is littered with ash piles and black monster bones. I extinguish the fire surrounding me and brush my hands off onto my thighs.

Sam is singed, but otherwise okay.

“Brilliant, dude,” he says.

“Let’s just try to get the hell out of here, and then we can celebrate.”

I stick my Chest under my arm and Sam picks up the other. We race through the fire’s destruction; the stench of death is choking. The charred ladder at the end of the tunnel appears stable, and with only one free hand apiece, we climb with difficulty. Our feet hit the burned and blackened spiral ledge, and we sprint around and around until we reach the cave’s center.

The inferno I unleashed did much more damage than I thought it would, and we see piles upon piles of ash; but we also see hundreds of Mogs crawling out of different corridors and tunnels on their hands and knees, burned or still on fire, barking in pain, unable to pick up their guns, unable to do anything as we jump over them. There are other soldiers racing above us on ledges, some with weapons in their arms, others with the wounded.