Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [69]
My whole body tenses. I try to block it, but the kiss Pearce forced on me flashes in my mind again. Now just the sight of him evokes both shame and seething rage.
“You may indeed have been on the right path to find your family, Ms. Allgood. It’s a shame you’ll never reach them now,” he says almost apologetically.
I turn to Byron. “Pearce is a Curve?” I whisper harshly, jabbing him in the ribs.
Byron grimaces and rubs his temples. “I probably should’ve told you, but I wasn’t sure. He’s younger than most of the N.O. soldiers and highly perceptive, so I suspected he might be.”
Pearce smiles with smug satisfaction. “You don’t do me justice, Swain. I wasn’t just a Curve, but a former N.O.P.E. officer, no less. Not that it matters anyway, since The One Who Is The One has now breached the final frontier.”
The realization blows my mind. “The One is in the Shadowland?” I murmur. The end. That’s what the rumor meant. “How …?”
“Oh, I’d guess that you helped him out with your little power surge back at the palace.” Pearce chucks a bone at a tree across the path with surprising force, and it snaps cleanly in two. I’m guessing he hasn’t forgotten the power surge I gave him either.
He grins, and his sparkling white teeth look positively deadly. “But, regardless, The One has surely reached the rest of the Allgood family by now.” He cocks his head. “You remember watching your dear parents go up in smoke, don’t you, Wisty?” The pain hits me like a jolt of electricity, and my hands ball into fists.
“Of course I remember,” I say through clenched teeth.
Pearce looks off into the distance, gesturing at a fake scene with his hands. “Well, imagine, if you will, your helpless parents and your weak joke of a brother being truly vaporized this time, from the Shadowland to the depths of hell.” He looks at his wrist as if checking the time. “That should be happening … right about now.”
That’s when I hurl myself at him.
Byron panics and tries to hold me back, but I’m practically foaming at the mouth.
“Wisty, you can’t!” He tugs at my arms. “Don’t make him stronger! Let me fight!”
I cast a glance at this scrawny guy, so hopeful, so reckless, such a good friend. “No, B. We’ll do it together,” I tell him.
“Oh, this should be good.” Pearce laughs. “The princess and the toad, joining forces. All right, then. Here we go.”
Pearce walks up the tree as if unbound by gravity, then pushes off and pounces toward us, catlike. I duck, but he manipulates the wind to raise me up and catches me in the face with a stinging backhand. It hurts, but I know it’s just a fraction of what he’s capable of.
He’s playing with us.
I try to focus my power, but then he just … disappears.
The air ripples behind us, and I dodge out of the way as Pearce materializes, but he’s already swiped a boot under Byron’s leg, sending him careening to the ground.
“I could kill you right now, of course, but you guys are just so much fun.” He laughs, watching Byron scramble off the floor.
I snatch Byron’s hand and center all of my power through our connection, a raging, deadly ball of energy circulating through our fingertips and searing into Pearce.
“You still don’t get how this works, do you?” Pearce hovers above us, unfazed. “Tell me, how is it possible that the Prophecy could revolve around someone so imbecilic? You’ve made The One stronger, made me stronger. Every time you use your ‘Gift’ ” — he makes air quotes —“on us, we take a little more and you get weaker. You. Can’t. Win.”
My anger fuels another astonishing burst of fuel through Byron and me, and Pearce winces. Light erupts around us, and I can feel the supernaturally powerful electrical current surging, stinging, smoking.
But though I may be ten times stronger than I’ve ever been, though we’re zapping Pearce with a current far more potent than what almost killed him at the palace, he’s … right.
He’s stronger than we are. Still.
The realization hits me right as Pearce throws one of my own currents right back in our direction.