Storm of Locusts

Chapter 42

I hit the locust men at full speed.

Duck under reaching arms. Slide on my knees, chopping legs apart as I pass.

The smell of burning locust flesh fills my nose. Blood sizzles. Guts coat the ground.

But it’s not enough. They simply re-form.

I rise in the center, hand digging into my pocket. I pull my hand out, fling it open. Bullets scatter, bouncing and flipping across the concrete.

I raise Neizghání’s sword. Think about calling lightning to me. Focus on feeling it. Ask it to come.

And lighting answers.

I feel it, hotter than Honágháahnii has ever been. Searing, blinding.

I scream, and my breath is flames. I swing the blade wildly, incinerating every bug within twenty feet.

No. Control it. I’ve got to control it. I remember what Tó said, to force the fire out. Away. So I do.

Lightning arcs from the obsidian tips, the same way it did for Neizghání before.

Each bullet is a tiny receptor, and as the lightning strikes, they explode. Fire flares in the sky, fifty feet above me. All around me. Rumbling into the earth itself. I stand in a circle of fire that transforms the locusts to less than ash.

The power shudders through me. Hot, electric, with the desire to do nothing but burn.

I think of Gideon. How he hates the world so much all he wants to do is see it destroyed. But his nihilism doesn’t tempt me. I’m trying desperately to stay alive.

But I don’t know if I can.

The lightning strikes from the sky again, recharging what was lost. Fire pours into my body, and I howl flames. Energy snakes through me, crackling across my skin, wreathing me in a deadly electric blue. I am not Neizghání, a child of the sun god. I am only a five-fingered, playing with too much power.

I drop to my knees, overcome. Somewhere far away I hear my name. Faint. Low.

But all I know is fire.

“Let go of the sword!”

Kai? No. Another voice. Ben.

“It’s burning you up, Maggie! Drop it!”

The sword. My fingers flex, and the pommel drops from my hand. The fires extinguish simultaneously, and I gasp air into my lungs. I collapse onto my back, heaving in air like a drowning man, feeling seared from the inside out.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks. I can see her now, kneeling beside me, her brow knit in concern.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

She freezes, hand hovering over me. “I don’t think you’re burning anymore.”

“Bugs?”

“You burned them all, but”—worried eyes dart skyward—“there could be more coming. Can you move?”

“I told you. To run.”

“You said if the dam broke to run. It’s not broken.” As in on cue, the ground rumbles beneath us. Low popping sounds echo across the canyon. The first of the explosives detonating. “But I really think we better move.”

I can’t move. I lick my lips, looking for moisture, but there’s none. The inside of my mouth is raw. My eyes ache as if I’ve been staring at the sun. I have a sudden absurd thought. “My hair?”

“What?”

“Do I still have hair?”

Ben gives me a look like I’ve lost my mind. Okay. Still have hair. No matter how charred I feel, it was a supernatural fire. I’m not actually burned to a crisp. And now that I think of it, my body doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, my body feels great. Healed. And brimming with power.

The ground shudders and sways. More popping noises and the cracks in the concrete from the lightning strikes start to widen. Shit.

Ben gingerly tugs at the collar of my coat. “Maggie. I think we’d better go.”

Something hits my face. Wet. My first thought is bug splatter, but Ben’s still talking and tugging at me, and I can’t hear the locust song.

“Stop spitting,” I mutter to Ben as another drop hits my cheek.

She frowns. “What?” Her hand flies to her own face, touching. She pulls it back and stares in wonder. “It’s water.”

We both turn our eyes to the sky, where the black cloud of locusts has been replaced with thick roiling storm clouds.

“Kai.” I get to my feet. “Where’s Kai?” We both look around frantically, but he’s not where I left him. “The locusts didn’t . . . ?”

“No,” Ben says. “He was at the edge of the dam. Facing the lake. I saw . . . There!”

She thrusts her hand out, finger pointing, but she doesn’t have to. I see him too. A figure floating in the clouds, held aloft in the storm. A bright nimbus of white light surrounds him, and his eyes flash with the silver of thunder. The rain starts to fall in earnest, fat drops splattering the ground like the heavy tread of angels.

Another boom, and Ben and I watch a chunk of the dam break off, tumbling off the edge. Another, and another, and concrete rips apart to cascade over the edge. We stumble backward, toward the eastern side of the dam, as the world starts to crumble beneath our feet.

Ben screams. The ground tilts and she slides. I grab her hand, pulling her off the cracking concrete. But the dam is breaking around us, and soon there will be no safety anywhere in sight. To my right the lake is rising, waves rocking high over the railing, grasping greedily for their own freedom.

Thunder booms. I look up to see Kai throw out his hand, palm forward. He curls his fingers in, making a fist, and slowly lifts his arm upward. I stare, dumbstruck, as the shoreline changes course, rising into the air at his command. A wall of water rises, as if dragged skyward by an invisible force. It’s both beautiful and terrifying. But it doesn’t stay there long. I expect him to fling it back upon itself, but instead he spreads his fingers sharply. Water shatters to mist, evaporating into the desert air and rising up to fatten the bulging storm clouds, catching rainbows in their impossible spray.

“Fucking hell.”

Rainbows.

And I know how to get us off this crumbling dam.

“One more blessing, old man,” I mutter as I pull Ben tight against me and, with only a moment of hesitation, wrap my free hand around Neizghání’s sword. Fire travels up my arm, fills my veins, the power of the storm saturating an already oversaturated vessel.

The world tilts, the edge of the dam coming up fast, a fall into oblivion. I backpedal, trying to keep my balance and my hold on Ben and the sword, but I can’t. My feet lose their purchase. And we fall.

I scream to the lightning, desperate as a deathbed prayer.

Ozone fills my nose, something inside me ignites, and I shatter into flame.