Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [30]
“Wait, are you serious? I meant you against me, Pearce. What kind of coward has a guy twice his size fight in his place?”
“Oh, this isn’t about courage at all, Whit. It’s much bigger than that. I’m interested in seeing what you can do. A test, if you will. As in, to see if you can not die.”
Chapter 30
Whit
THE GIANT AND I circle each other, my mind racing to come up with a not die plan.
The truth is, the odds aren’t exactly in my favor.
I’m a pretty solid guy, and I’ve gone toe to toe with many a gargantuan thug during football (often called foolball, the way we played it, since it was such an insane version of the sport). But Rency is built like a bulldozer, with his veins popping out of his thick arms like ropes. Even when he crouches down, I barely come up to his chest.
Rency has a glint in his eye, and he looks around at his bros, who all start laughing, and a knot forms in the pit of my stomach.
It’s quickly replaced by a sucker punch from the giant that leaves me gagging and doubled over.
Then a knee explodes into my chin, a clublike fist spins me around like a top, and a metallic taste fills my mouth. Through double vision I can just barely make out my sister’s anguished face.
Pearce looks disappointed on the sidelines, as if he’s about to lose a bet.
Then something happens that I can’t quite explain. Something clicks, and a knowledge, an understanding, a power, is unleashed within me.
I slide forward as if following some secret choreography, jab my left fist like a thunderbolt to connect with Rency’s chin, cross for a body sack with my right hand, then spin out of the giant’s reach.
Jab, cross, left hook, pivot, low jab, spin, wham! My body moves without my direction, anticipating the man’s every move and applying advanced hand-to-hand-combat techniques I’m sure I know nothing about. As my firsts connect with his jaw, then his temple, then his kidney, it’s like I’m standing outside myself.
I feel furious. I feel powerful. I feel invincible.
I feel … out of control.
My arms are incredible deadly weapons of steel that Rency doesn’t have a fighting chance to fend off. His face is practically roadkill, and his left arm is hanging at a weird angle from his body, but I can’t stop.
As my boardlike hand connects with the giant’s kneecap, I’m relieved as Rency finally goes down like a rock, his face distorting into a mask of pain.
He’s not dead, but it’s over. I look down at my fists, unable to comprehend what just happened.
Pearce steps into the circle. “Loser.” He scowls, putting his hand on Rency’s mammoth square head, and the giant crumples, the two empty eye sockets of his skull gaping up at us.
My stomach churns. I am never going to get used to that.
“Well done, wizard,” Pearce says, the jovial tone returning to his voice. I tense, understanding the underlying threat. “That was certainly an entertaining little act you put on for us. Unfortunately for you, your sister is the only Allgood The One really needs. Since she is The One With The Gift, you are … what’s the word? Expendable.”
Pearce bounds, catlike, and before I can direct my newfound defenses his way, his deadly hands are gripping the sides of my head, searing into my temples.
The world burns bright, then shatters.
Life rearranges itself into just two words, flashing in bold, blinking letters across my consciousness: stop and pain.
It’s … excruciating. My eyes roll back but snap open to punctuate each new bolt of agony pulsing through my body. I see: one of Pearce’s icy blue eyes, squinting; the top of a tree, its bare branches clawing at the dismal sky; Wisty’s slender fingers across her mouth, holding back a scream; a white-hot, blinding light.
My brain is a fried egg that can’t seem to process anything, a short-circuiting mass of nerves screaming for this experience to end.
But it goes on. And on. And on. Why isn’t it over yet?
My vision comes into focus again just long enough for me to see the shocked look on Pearce’s face, and then his features harden