Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (31 page)

She touched my face and I paused for a split second to take
it in.
 
Any longer than that and it would
have softened me.
 
I needed to be a
monster for a little while longer.
 

I stood and dove towards the Pure.
 
I moved so quickly it caught him off
guard.
 
We both tumbled to the ground.
While I still had the element of surprise, I twisted him underneath me and
pinned him to the ground with a knee on his chest and my other foot on his
hand.
 
Before he regained his wits, I
threw three punches into this face.
 

He grabbed me by my spider-leg hair and yanked me to the ground.
 
He whirled himself around and was now
standing over me.
 
“Fine, I’ll kill you
all!”

I kicked him in the lower back, and searched the cave floor
for the drawing.
 
It was on the ground
near the backpack.
 
The Pure and I saw it
at the same time.
 
I rammed my elbow into
the back of his knee, but it didn’t faze him.
 
He stomped on my stomach and stepped toward the drawing.

Ajax and Ariabod roared and flew over me with their fists
above their heads.
 
They pounced on the
Pure’s back and started pummeling him.
 
He fell to his hands and knees with the gorillas pounding away.

I scurried to the drawing and grabbed it.

The Pure blasted out a howl that shook the ground and
caused fragments of rock to fall from the cave ceiling. The two gorillas fell
to the ground with their hands cupping their ears.
 
Lou and the others were on their knees
covering their own ears.

I picked up the torch and stood with it in one hand and the
drawing in the other.
 
“You want this?”

“What are you doing?” the Pure asked.

“I control the Source!
 
You serve me!”

He snarled.
 
“I could
tear you apart before you take your next breath.”

I moved the sketch closer to the flame.
 
“And I could burn this before you take your
next step.”

“Stop!” He looked panicked for the first time.
 
“Be reasonable.
 
It’s the Source.
 
It means everything.
 
You don’t want to destroy it.”

“No, you don’t want me to destroy it.” I moved it still
closer to the flame.

“No!” He got down on one knee and bowed his head.
 
“I’ll serve you. I’ll do anything.
 
Just don’t burn it.”

I looked at Lou.
 
“Take the others.
 
Get out of
here.
 
The worms will be returning
soon.
 
Get to the platform.”

“Not without you,” Lou said.

I turned to Wes.
 
“You know it has to be this way.
 
Go. Get her out of here.”

Wes stood as if he was frozen in time. He didn’t want to
leave me either.

Tyrone made the first move.
 
“C’mon,” he said, “Oz has this.”

He headed for the corridor that led to the cave
entrance.
 

Gordy said, “Dude, smoke this idiot and get out of here
before the oversized fish bait comes back.”
 
He followed Tyrone.

Wes nodded, “Once again you’re screwing me out of being the
adult and taking care of this like a man.”

“You have something much more important to do.
 
Take care of Lou.”

He took her by her arm and said, “Son, you can count on that,
but only until you rejoin us.
 
She’s all
yours after that.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m a puppy.
 
I can take care of myself.”
 
She reluctantly went with Wes.
 
Turning back she said, “You better make it
out of here, Oz Griffin.”

The gorillas flanked the Pure on either side.
 
Their huge fists dug into the cave
floor.
 
They were ready to tear into him,
even though they knew they couldn’t beat him.
 
They could beat another Délon maybe, but not the Pure.
 
He was too strong with the Source this close.

“You two,” I said.
 
“Out.”

They huffed and snorted, but eventually complied.
 

I waited until they were out of sight and then inched the
drawing closer to the torch.

“Oz Griffin, you don’t know what you’d be giving up if you
destroy the Source.”

“I’m not interested in what it can give me.”
 
Closer.

“You can go back!”

I pulled the sketch back.
 
“What?”

“You can go back to before.
 
Your world.
 
No Destroyers.
 
Just humans.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“That’s all well and good, Oz Griffin, but are you willing
to risk a chance to go back?
 
You must
trust me.”

“How can the Source help me go back?”
 
I looked at him suspiciously.

“If I possess it, I am the ultimate power.
 
I can do all.
 
Including bringing your world back.”
 
He started stepping to his left with his eyes locked on me.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I care nothing about humans!
 
They sicken me.
 
I cannot stand that my race is mixed with
humans.
 
I can separate our worlds.
 
Keep the Destroyers here where they belong
and send the humans where they belong.
 
If I bring back the human world, I purify the Délon race.
 
Don’t you see?”

“Back? To the way it was?
 
My parents... Kimball... alive?”

“Yes, yes, the way it was.
 
Your parents, your dog, your friends, everyone you knew before will be
alive and well and have no memory of this place.”
 
He continued to move.

“What about Stevie Dayton?
 
Can you go back to before he... died?”

He hesitated and then said, “I could but why would you want
to.
 
You are here because of him.”

“No,” I said, “I’m here because of me.”

“Then I will make it so.
 
I will send you back to before Stevie Dayton’s death.”

I considered his offer.
 
“What about Lou?”

He tried to look sympathetic, but he couldn’t pull it
off.
 
“I understand your affection for
the girl.
 
It is a very human thing, but
I understand it nonetheless.
 
She is
pleasant in so many ways, and I know humans put great value on
pleasantness.
 
But, I am afraid I cannot
send her back.
 
It is beyond my abilities
even if I had possession of the Source.”

I felt something a Délon shouldn’t feel, sadness.
 
It was a strange feeling and physically
weighed me down.
 
I found it difficult to
even hold the torch.
 
He wasn’t lying to
me.
 
I knew that the second he said he
couldn’t send Lou back.

He stepped toward me and I tightened my grip on both the
torch and the sketch.

“How do I know you won’t just kill me once I give you the
Source?”

“You don’t, Oz Griffin.
 
But I can promise that I will kill you if you do destroy it.”

I started moving the torch way from the sketch.
 
If he could send us home, I had to take his
offer.
 
I stopped. He wouldn’t be sending
us home, would he?
 
Lou wouldn’t be
coming with us.
 
She belonged with us...
with me.
 
“And what happens if I burn
it.”

“Chaos,” he said, “General Roy was not meant to rule this
world.
 
When he supplanted me, he
triggered the collapse of order in this world.
 
Each Destroyer race is vying for control.
 
The Délons are holding on, but barely and not
for much longer.”

“Chaos?” I said thinking back to Tarek on the platform with
Nate.
 

“It will be war.
 
A
war that will consume everything in this world. You and your friends included.”

I snickered.
 
“A good
friend once said to me, it is sometimes best to cause chaos than it is to
encounter chaos in an effort to avoid it.” With that I brought the torch down,
lit the drawing on fire, and flung it to the floor.
 

The Pure screamed in horror.
 
He dove for the sketch, but I tackled him to
the ground.
 
He was so concerned about
the Source he panicked. He didn’t know whether to fight me or go for the
drawing.
 
It continued to burn while he
grappled with the decision.
 
By the time
he knocked me off him with a single punch, the sketch was nothing but a pile of
ashes.

He picked them up and stared at the gray and black
specks.
 
His body started to shake as
they slipped through his fingers.
 
“What
have you done?”

“I’m starting a war that you’ll have to fight.”

He turned with rage in his dead eyes.
 
“You gave up your home for what?
 
Because she can’t go back with you?
 
You destroyed yourself because of your
affection for that girl?
 
This is what
it’s like being human?
 
Pathetic and weak
and stupid!”

“No,” I said, “this is what it’s like to be in love.”

“Then love is your ruin, Oz Griffin.”
 
He stooped and prepared to pounce.
 
Something whizzed over my head. I felt the
air being split in two.
 
I heard a dull
thud and saw the shaft of an arrow sticking out of the Pure’s cheek. Turning, I
saw Lou reloading her crossbow. I should have been mad at her for coming back,
but I was glad she did.

“Down,” she said as she aimed.

I dove to my left.

Another arrow left her crossbow and hit the Pure in the
hand he was using to extract the first arrow from his face.

I stood and motioned towards him, but stopped when I saw
the ground giving way behind him.
 

I didn’t wait to see why.
 
I knew why.
 
The worms had come to
feast.
 

“Run,” I said to Lou.

She fired one more arrow. It struck the Pure in the
shoulder. Then she bolted in front of me down the corridor.
 
The ground behind us showed the telltale
signs of the worms burrowing their way underground.
 

Another group of worms was waiting for us just outside the
cave entrance.
 
They surfaced and
submerged like fish in water.
 
Without
saying a word, I picked Lou up, put her over my shoulder and leapt over the
worm pit.
 
We made it to the platform
with them nipping at my heels the whole way.

“Damn it to hell, Lou,” Wes said.
 
To me, “She got away from me.
 
I couldn’t go after her because of the
blasted worms.”

I backed away from everyone on the platform.
 
I was still Délon, and that meant I could
smell their blood.
 
I could tell if they
were scared or angry or relieved, and each odor signaled a taste sensation in
my head that I wanted to satisfy.
 

“Why are you still purple?” Gordy asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.
 
“I can’t shut it down.
 
Not
completely.”

“I told you,” Wes said.
 
“It was a bad idea.”

Lou shoved me back.
 
“You idiot!”

“Take it easy, little girl,” Wes said.
 
“Oz will work through it.”

“I’m not talking about that,” She said.
 
“He could have brought it back.
 
He could have gone home.”

“What?”
 
Wes asked.

“It’s true!
 
The Pure
offered him a deal!
 
The world back to
the way it used to be for the drawing! And he didn’t take it!”

“Oz?” Wes looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“It wasn’t that simple...”