I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) (14 page)

Scrubby trees shuddered in the cool, stiff breeze. A small pond at the bottom of the valley threw back rippled images of the thick clouds racing across the sky, which seemed so close one might touch them.

Terkun’shuks’pai touched a peeling, ancient branch bent by the wind over centuries and then continued walking.

The
pacha
reflected his visualization skills, his ability to master physical forms, and his discipline over his emotions, which influenced the literal atmosphere of the place. It was easy to observe his skills in envisioning the
pacha
and his mastery over the physical—even in this imaginary place—were as sharp and clear as ever. It was equally easy to observe the turmoil in his emotions. If they remained this overwrought for much longer, the darkness of the cave would spread across the valley, filling it with shadows and populating it with monsters—splinters of his psyche that had gone mad from strain. The stronger one’s abilities, the more vulnerable one was to shattering.

Calm. He had to remain calm.

However, despite the dark clouds and strong breeze, the current atmosphere of the
pacha
was pleasant and refreshing. Perhaps it would rain, later. He rather enjoyed storms, as long as they didn’t go on too long.

Lightning flashed across the sky, striking an elegant, wind-twisted, ancient pine tree, which burst into flame and crumpled into ash within a scant moment.

A sign?

Terkun’shuks’pai watched the storm swirling overhead as if pondering what to destroy next. The earth groaned under him, and the cave filled with darkness shed a few small stones, some dirt. It might, perhaps, be wiser to allow the Earth and humanity to burn themselves out or be replaced. Some storms couldn’t be harnessed. They could only be endured and allowed to blow themselves out.

He needed them, though. Especially Pax and the girl. For at least a little while longer.

In the heart of the fire, in the center of Scarlett’s body, Akllana’chikni’pai was building a
pacha
.

A temple.
Her
temple. With its mountain blossoms and its cool, dry air that hummed with static, waiting for a spark. Its worn, carved steps had borne the weight of so many thousands of slaves, some carrying water, others carrying nothing more than the beating hearts within their chests, their skin anointed with oils meant to raise a pleasant scent to humanity’s twisted gods.

The temple she had purified.

In many ways, she was not as strong or as skilled as Terkun’shuks’pai. The stones were featureless, bland gray, the flowers stiff splatters of color against the green and gray of the mountainside. The slaves were fleshy blobs with great, dark eyes; the priests were not much better but were dressed in the bright plumage of jungle birds and their elaborate robes—she had the colors right, if not the textures. The sky was a pure, clear, even blue: even after Terkun’shuks’pai had pointed out to her the variation of the hues from end to end of the horizon in a natural sky, she had been unable to do much more, even at the best of times, than make it
blue
. And right now she was distracted.

But the altar was under her and the sky above her, and the slaves bowed and the priests chanted. And that was enough for her purpose.

Above her, an eagle swirled in the sky, drawing gyrating patterns that might seem poetic but were the natural result of millions of years of calculations driven by bloodshed: an efficient, elegant search pattern, as the bird looked for prey. The bottoms of its wings were streaked with black and white, its face surrounded by gray feathers. Its eyes shimmering like pearls.

The priests had trapped her within human flesh for a thousand years. And, when she was almost about to escape, they had tried, at the last moment, to sacrifice her to their gods.

Fortunately, their gods would have none of it. They were not
nice
gods. The eagle opened its mouth and screamed. From the blue sky, fire rained down.

Gone were the delicate mountain blossoms.

Gone were the worn, carved steps.

Gone were the slaves.

Gone the priests.

Gone the altar itself, melted into burning, splashed stone.

Gone, too, the strands of darkness.

All that was left was Akllana’chikni’pai, and Akllana’chikni’pai was free.

The noisy, useless crowd looked down at Pax, a number of heads haloed by the sunlight overhead. A beautiful day to get staked through his nonexistent heart by a religious nut. In the center—or just off to the left—of his chest was a splintery slat of wood attached to a poster that read
DESTRUCTION IS IMMINENT
. It didn’t hurt. It had at first, but he’d turned off the pain. It was easier than he’d thought. Easier than changing a setting on his laptop.

The woman who’d staked him was bending over him and drooling a thick, ropey string of saliva onto his hoodie. Her eyes were dark blue and, despite the brightness of the day, completely dilated. Her eyelids were drawn back so the white sclera surrounded her irises completely. Her eyes bulged like beads attached to a stuffed animal and twitched so the irises appeared to vibrate. In short, her eyes were completely mad. Pax had to wonder: had they been that mad before he’d sent her husband (he suspected the flying religious nut had been her husband, anyway) flying across the street and into the construction zone? Was it grief (understandable) or zealotry (ludicrous) he was looking at? Or both? Probably both.

The tentacles were protruding out of her and everyone else around him.

“You killed him!” the woman screamed.

The fact that she was wearing a shirt that read
GOD HATES FAGS.COM
and had just stabbed him in the chest with a stake
took away most of Pax’s sympathy. He tried to sit up but helpful hands pressed him back down again. He heard shouts to call 911. Shouts to get out of the way for the paramedics. Shouts that the cops were coming. Shouts telling people to get out of the way so pictures could be taken. Shouts of “God’s will, God’s will,” followed by malicious laughter. Shouting. All this useless shouting.

And through it all, the tentacles writhed and pushed, coming closer and closer.

“Pax!”

He gasped.

“Get off me!” he shouted.

He reached out for Scarlett, but he still couldn’t contact her. He sat upright, knocking a dozen souls backward, including the insane wife. Widow. The sound of Scarlett’s voice echoed in his ears. He could see what was happening to her, could see what was happening in her school.

I shouldn’t have let her go. I thought she had control over her power. I never thought she would…

He ripped the wooden stake out of his chest and dropped it carefully in some citizen’s outstretched arms. No blood.
I must have turned it off when I turned off the pain.

“He’s a vampire!” someone shrieked. “He’s not bleeding!”

His cover, as they say, was blown.

“She just put a stake through his heart in broad daylight, and he’s still moving,” a dry voice responded. “I think that means he’s
not
a vampire, if you check.”

“What is he then?” the first voice shouted.

A feeling of dread, cold as ice, flashed across his skin. If he were human, he would have been covered with goose bumps. He heard a sound like the sky being ripped in half, if the sky were made out of bricks and sheet metal. The ground vibrated. Not much. But enough to make his stomach lurch and tears fill up his eyes. His head automatically turned west. Toward Scarlett’s high school.

He reached out in his mind, hoping to find Scarlett.

Instead, he found Lana, fighting off the tentacles of negative energy with fire. Nuclear bomb levels of fire.

He sort of remembered 9/11. At least, he thought he did. He’d been two. He remembered it as Dad watching a weird movie on TV and crying a lot and Mom disappearing for a long time, which made sense later. She’d been with the injured. But Pax couldn’t remember the planes hitting. Not really. What he could remember was the way the floor had felt when they had. Like the floor itself was shivering.

Like the ground was feeling right now…

He threw up a shield, shoving everyone out of his way. He knew he should stop and think things through so he didn’t fuck things up even worse than they were already. He also knew it wasn’t going to happen. He gathered his strength—his real, new astral strength—and he jumped toward Scarlett.

He jumped over power lines, he jumped over buildings, he jumped over cars and pedestrians. Surrounded by a glowing blue ball of power and heading toward black smoke and screaming and tentacles of negative energy rushing down the streets like a sudden rainstorm, he jumped.

Even though he knew he was already too late.

Scarlett woke up curled on her side, lying on something sharp and lumpy and uncomfortable. For a moment she thought she was at home in bed. She tried to settle down into the one comfortable spot in her shitty mattress but she just couldn’t seem to find it. The sheets were dirty and sticky, like… like someone had dumped a gallon of pudding underneath her and she’d slept on top of it. Some prank.

She tried to push it out from underneath her and came up with a handful of something that smelled like rust mixed with B.O. She tried to work out what flavor of pudding it was. But who makes post-apocalyptic pudding?

Not pudding. Blood.

She woke up with a gasp. Her period…

You don’t have periods anymore, remember?

She rolled to the side and got on her hands and knees. The floor tiles were black and tacky and broken, and the floor seemed to shift under her weight. Gray fog covered the tiles and smothered the light. But it wasn’t fog; it was smoke. She was surrounded by clouds of heavy black smoke that made her mouth taste like electrified dog shit. Her clothes felt like they had melted onto her.

She got her balance under her and stretched her arm out to find what she’d been lying on. She knew finding out was going to make her feel worse. But she had to do it anyway.

She touched cloth, the artificial fiber shit from the polo shirts they had to wear as uniform tops. Wet with a crust of crunchy bits on top. She flinched but patted around some more. Sirens whooped in the distance. Getting closer. Like time bombs.
Not yet. Don’t get here yet.

Her fingers crawled across the wet shirt, trying to find skin.

Instead they found something… sticking out of the shirt. The shirt had been ripped open. Just past it was meat.
A body
. But she didn’t want to think about it as a body. So she thought about it as meat. Vegetarian. If she ever had to eat again, she was going to go vegetarian. Maybe this time she could make it stick. The horror diet. The meat was squishy and gross and not like steak at all. Probably because steak gets cut into chunks on purpose, and this was… ripped. Just like the shirt.

Bones. She touched what were unmistakably broken bones. And a tube that was so big she accidentally stuck her finger into it. She froze.

The smoke picked that moment to clear.

Jamie McIntyre. Her snobby, disdainful, cruel head was at even more of an angle at the end of her long neck than usual. She had a little lump under her chin, on the side of her neck. Broken? Probably. Her eyes were rolled up so only thin slits of the whites were showing. A big fleck of ash was stuck right on her eyeball. Her jaw had slid sideways out of some groove, exposing her lower front teeth and making her look like an angry chihuahua.