Serial Saturday: "Priscilla Sum" Part 32

Part 32

I emerged from the jungle right next to the first dig site—but it was nearly unrecognizable. The massive ditch that so many people had excavated over the course of a couple years had been completely filled in and leveled in just a couple hours. I kept running, scanning whatever patches of sky I could see for any sign of my parents, and keeping the debris at bay with Auraea’s wind powers.

The sprites surrounded me too, batting aside tree branches and nudging me out of the way when huge boulders rolled past me. One of my steps missed the ground and hit a massive pothole surrounded by rocks—but in that moment, I felt two wind-sprites like wind gusts press against my sides and lift my arms, and suddenly I was floating! My legs dangled in midair as the sprites all but carried me the remaining distance, setting me down on the outskirts of camp.

Half the tents were already torn to shreds and scattered over the main area. The RVs were gone, as well as the bank of generators. The only things left were the huge floodlights, still on somehow in the swirling storm.

“Priscilla!” someone screamed. I had been through so many surreal moments in the last hour that it felt weird to hear my own name. I turned and squinted through the monsoon to see Derrick slipping and sloshing his way toward me.
We caught each other by the shoulders.

“I was scared you didn’t make it!” he yelled over the roar of the rain.
“Where is everybody else?” I hollered back.
“FRED and the dig team left as soon as the storm rolled in!” Derrick replied. “Silver is with Kayce and Jordyn on the boat. Alex is there too.”

The rain beat down on me, pushing my hair low against my face. I reached up to push it back.
Derrick’s expression changed as he noticed the large bracelet around my wrist. “What’s that?”
The churning sea sent waves crashing over the side of the cliff we were standing on. If there really was a boat down there, I seriously doubted it would be there for long! “I'll tell you later!” I said. “What do you mean about a boat? I thought FRED would take everything with them!”

Derrick grinned, even as water streamed down his face. “Remember the one with engine I tried to repair? Well, Professor Silver convinced Stephanie and her group to leave it behind, and I guess Alex figured out how to fix it! Now come on, we’ve gotta go!” 

He turned to pull on my shoulder, but I held him back. “Wait! Where’s Tony?”
Derrick hesitated, a confused look on his face.

“Tony’s right here!”

A bubble of dryness enveloped us, pushing sound away with a suddenness that left my ears ringing, like stepping into the eye of a hurricane. Derrick’s line of sight shifted over my shoulder to the sound of the strange, guttural voice, and his expression morphed into one of panic. I turned to look.

Tony strode out of the forest toward us—but it wasn’t the same guy who had gone into the temple with us. His clothes were trashed, his arms and face were all scuffed up, and his eyes had turned bloodshot, almost the same way he’d looked when I first tried to get the amulet away from him.
Derrick spluttered several times in an attempt to produce the words, “What... the...”

Tony’s eyes focused on me, and his face split into the most terrifying smile I’d ever seen on a person, much less Tony.
I could feel the sprites tugging at me, even if Derrick was too shocked to do so.
It hit me in that awful moment as Tony shambled three steps closer.
The quiet, the stillness, the forest... It all made sense.
“That’s not Tony,” I whispered.
“Huh?” Derrick wheezed.

Phony-Tony stepped closer. Egamad had taken over my friend’s body. Taking over my dad was one thing, because he was already a god—but Tony? I felt violated; I felt sick, seeing the face and body of my friend and knowing that he wasn't the one in control.

I turned back to the young mechanic. “That’s not Tony. Go to the boat, I’ll handle this.”
Derrick gripped my hand, his face full of confusion. “But—“
“Go!”
“All right!”
Derrick scrambled off toward the cliff as I turned to face Egamad/Tony.

“How dare you!” I shouted at the thing.
Egamad/Tony cackled. “What do you mean?” he called mockingly. “It’s just me—your friend and lover!” His voice barely sounded like Tony’s, overlaid with Egamad’s own sickening, rasping tones. "Thanks for freeing me, by the way! I always knew that it would be someone close to my enemies who would end up betraying them--but that it would be you, so desperate to save your friend's life that you never even noticed how I made sure that misinformation about the stone that was my prison was planted in mortal legends millennia ago--it was too perfect!"

I felt the thrum of the bracelet and the gust of wind from so many sprites bolstering me, fueling the strength that came from my outrage. “Can’t face me yourself, Egamad?” If he was trapped in Tony’s body, then perhaps the mural on the cavern wall wasn’t actually a prediction. “You just had to go off and get others to do your bidding.”

Tony's throat let out a moaning laugh, and he thrust his hands forward. In the sky over our heads, Auraea mimicked the motion, and a massive gust of wind blasted against me. I could hear the sprites screaming as the powerful wind ripped them away from me. My feet slid along the ground, back closer to the edge of the cliff. I needed to deflect the wind somehow.

Fighting to dig my heels deeper into the slick, soft mud, I reached for the amulet and dug the locket out of its divot with my frozen fingertips. I slapped it into the divot marked with the sign of Trikymios, and I felt the familiar lurch in my gut as the waves responded to my signal. I called up a water-spout that swirled and built higher and higher, drawing all the force of the wind in its direction--away from me. Egamad/Tony bounded closer to me, striking forward with a flat hand. A wind moving crosswise to the direction of the water-spout sliced through it like an invisible knife, splitting the one large typhoon into two standing whirlpools. The energy tugged on my hands, pulling in opposite directions. I already needed two hands to control the spinning column of water--there was no way I could be strong enough to handle two with just one hand each! I left them to keep spinning as I called up a ball of water, desperately lofting it in Auraea's direction.

She didn't even break focus from trying to blow me off the edge of the cliff as she batted it away.
"Nice try!" Egamad taunted. "She's in too deep now--I've got her right where I want her, my very own goddess!"

"Mom!" I screamed as I felt my heel recede over the very edge. I was running out of room, and soon I wouldn't be able to resist at all. "Please! You have to hear me!"
"She can't!" The demon roared. "You're too weak! I've won!"

I reached for the amulet again. I was getting better at feeling for the divots and swapping the locket around without breaking eye contact with Egamad/Tony. I flipped it over to the wind side, and prepared to form a tunnel between my hands. The chain from the locket came loose and smacked against my fingers.

"Heads up!" Egamad snarled, and I whirled around to see an entire tree rip free of the ground and sail straight toward me. I dove forward, away from the edge of the cliff, as it crashed down behind me, right where I had been standing a moment before. I struggled to get my feet under me, and staggered to the side to avoid a large boulder rolling down the hill in my direction. Egamad/Tony had moved somewhere else in the chaos. I couldn't find him, but his voice reached me.
"Run, run as fast as you can, little bug!"

A gale-force wind struck me right in the chest, and I tried to form my hands around it, to coax it into a smaller area that I could control--
But nothing happened. I looked at the amulet and my heart sank to my toes. The locket was gone! I had no power without it, no way to resist or fight back against the onslaught. Where had I dropped it?

"Please!" I begged, willing myself to see the wind-sprites around me, even if I couldn't hear them without the power of the amulet anymore. "You have to find my locket! Help me!"

Egamad materialized on top of one of the defunct floodlight poles. "Aww," he mocked, "Is the baby tired of fighting? Is the little weakling calling it quits already?" He reached down and yanked up one of the electrical cables, his telekinesis forming the loose end of it into a lasso. "Well, I suppose it's time for us to wrap this up!" He threw it at me. I could do nothing but throw my arms over my head and brace for impact.

Whumph. I heard it sail right past me, but I felt nothing. A hand rested on my head, and I looked up.
Bright eyes, dark skin, and a wide smile greeted me.
"Alex?" I gasped.

Our erstwhile guide from Thessaloniki turned back to focus on Egamad's attack. He held his arm bent in front of us, and I could see a soft, shimmering light spreading over the space between Egamad and us--an energy shield of some kind?
"But..." I stammered. "How--"

"Shh," Alex soothed. "It's all right. I know what you've been fighting, and you need to know that you're not alone." He gestured around the edge of the shield just like Egamad did, and one of the boulders rolled back up the hill, toward the demon-possessed guy standing on the light pole. Alex had telekinesis too! He turned back to me. "I can't do much to fight him without hurting your friend," he admitted. "Do you still have the amulet?"

I showed him the bracelet cuffed around my wrist. "Yeah, but I lost the locket--"

"It doesn't matter," said the young-looking Greek.

Did he not understand how it worked? "Actually it does! You see, that locket had symbols on it--"

"Priscilla, listen to me!" Alex gestured with his shield-arm, and the pane of sheer energy spread in a canopy over us. He took my hands. "The gods blessed it with their blood, did they not?"
I blinked. "Well, yeah..."

"And they explained how it worked, yes?"

I flinched as another tree rammed against the energy-shield, but it didn't go past it. "Auraea said it was activated by blood--what are you getting at?"

"Priscilla!" Alex winced every time the energy-shield sustained damage. I had a feeling that it might even be his own life energy fueling the shield. "Don't you understand what this means? You carry the blood of the gods!"
"No I don't!" I said. "Alex, I'm adopted--we aren't related..."

"Use the spikes! Claim their blood!" Alex shouted as a bolt of lightning zapped the energy shield, tossing him aside like a rag doll, and removing the last of my protection.

A towering whirlpool rose up behind me, sucking me in like a dust-bunny into a vacuum hose. My arms were trapped against my sides. I could feel the spikes resting against my skin, but by clenching my fist I could keep them from breaking the skin.

Egamad/Tony hovered in the air right in front of me as I twisted and wriggled against my watery bonds. It was almost like being trapped in a giant fist.

He brought his hands together in a slow clap. "Well, I must admit, you put up more of a fight than I anticipated from a mere mortal," he growled. "But as you now know, I'm much too strong for you. The only reason I haven't crushed you outright is because, after all, you did free me. But in the end--"

"This is not the end and you know it!" Maybe if I bought enough time, Alex could revive and jump in to save me. "You've been using my parents as your weapon, and the body of my friend as a shield--without them, you wouldn't be able to touch me!"

Tony's eyes blinked, and Egamad threw back his head and laughed. "Big words for a small girl! You fool! I could crush you with only a thought!" The watery grip tightened, pressing my fist against my sides, making my bones ache. "You call them your parents, but I have more claim to their blood than you do! They belong to me, and once you are dead, I can possess their essence, and no one--mortal or divine--can stop me!"

Claim their blood... The words Alex used returned to me, and I remembered how the bracelet had glowed and soaked in the blood of the two gods... Maybe I did carry their blood after all! I released my clenched fist, and the press of the water shoved the spikes against my skin. I flinched and tried to hide it. "Tony doesn't belong to you!" I hollered back. "You possessed him by force!"

"HE LET ME IN!" Egamad roared, zooming in close so I could see the deadness in his eyes. "Without me, your pitiful fellow meat-sack would be rotting in a grave right now! I'm the one keeping him alive! He owes me for that! And just think," he saw my discomfort and relished it, licking Tony's lips with a tongue dark with blood, "This is ALL YOUR FAULT!" He laughed in my face, his breath smelling like rotten eggs. "Face it, girl--I'm smarter than you, more cunning, and more powerful! You can't do anything about this storm I've wrought!"

I knew what I had to do, even though every instinct screamed at me not to do it. I relaxed my hand, and the spikes sank directly into my skin. I felt a sharp sting as the seawater connected with my exposed flesh, but I didn't pull away. The amulet--and the blood it contained--was a part of me now.
"You're right, Egamad," I addressed the demon directly. "I can't do anything about your storm--but that's not because I'm not powerful enough or smart enough."

Egamad/Tony crossed his arms, glaring at me. "Oh indeed?" he retorted.

I lifted my hand... and felt the whirlpool give a little around it. I kept my arms relaxed, waiting for my moment. "I don't have to control your storm--I'm going to fight you with one of my own!"

The confidence oozed from him. He spread his arms--Tony's arms, strained so much that I could see the blue network of veins just below his skin. "Where is this storm you're going to fight me with, puny girl? I know you've lost your precious locket!"

I held his gaze, and put on my most devious grin. "I don't need the locket anymore," I declared. I watched his face as I brought my hands in front of myself, and parted the waters as easily as pushing through a field of tall grass. "And I don't need to borrow power off my parents anymore." I spread my hands, and two typhoons, larger than the one Egamad had trapped me with sprang up, along with a tornado touching down just in the middle of the forest and ripping its way toward us. The power coursed through my whole body, and I could hold myself up in midair with it, free of all restraints as I stared that demon in the face and bellowed, "I AM THE STORM!"

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