EARTH ONLINE

Chapter 19 — Draw a Circle, Curse You / Give Me Back My Grandpa

The first gunshot tore the silence apart.

Cole twisted and threw out an arm, shoving Mr. Reyes off his feet. In his sharpened sight a silver bullet drifted, almost slow, through the space the teacher had filled, and buried itself in the wall — and Cole's eyes snapped to the line it had flown, fixing the shooter's position.

"Toby," he said, low and fast. "Kill the gym lights."

A nail shot through the air and smashed every bulb. The world dropped into black.

"Cole — what are you doing?" Wes hissed.

Cole crouched and, with a speed no one could follow in the dark, drew a clean circle on the floor. The others saw only that he'd dropped down; none saw what he did. He stood.

"Drawing a little circle," he said, even, "to curse him."

The students slipped out of the gym by its four separate doors.

Another round split the dark and punched through the concrete floor.

"A police pistol's effective range is fifty meters, a hundred at the outside," Toby whispered.

They moved in three groups. Wes and Mr. Reyes took the two weakest Reserves — survival first, an ambush only if it came free. Cassie went with Joy; Cole knew Cassie had a power and stood a notch above an ordinary Reserve. Cole and Toby took the spear point.

"Why didn't the Stowaways crunch the glass this time? Why didn't the gate traps trip?"

"They struck twice last night," Cole murmured. "The second time the glass gave them away — so they won't make that mistake again. They came in some other way."

The two of them left the gym and pressed to the wall. Cole swept the dark, eyes narrowed. The campus was thick with trees, their black shapes hissing and tossing in the cold wind — the only sound in a killing night.

"Give me a na—"

Cole flung himself left; the bullet still grazed his right arm and slammed into the wall between him and Toby. They traded one look and split — the gunman was set where he could see them, and a clustered target was a dead one. Worst case, they'd agreed before the fight, you run apart and give him nothing to mass fire on. This was the worst case: the enemy in the dark, themselves in the open, and the deadliest of the three hidden behind a gun.

Cole, the wooden staff in his fist, broke for the nearest classroom building at a dead sprint. Rounds chased his heels, punching the ground one after another. At the doorway he paused half a heartbeat — a bullet crossed his eyes and sank into the wall — and then he was inside.

And the moment he crossed the threshold every hair on his body stood up. He whipped the staff up behind his head on pure reflex, and a tremendous crash rang out at his back — a heavy blade against wood, the staff notched deep, Cole driven two steps forward, the attacker rocked back one.

"Strong," a hoarse voice sneered. "But you die anyway."

The man came on without another word. Cole brought the staff up to meet him.

Saber and staff hammered together, again and again, both of them blindingly fast, the dark ringing with it. The blade was longer than the staff; the man opened cut after cut along Cole's shoulder, his waist, his elbow, driving him back, plainly on top. With a weapon that good he barely had to aim, and he was a Stowaway besides — vast strength behind every swing, each one keening through the air.

Cole's dodges came slower and slower.

And then, as the man heaved the saber down at his skull in a great confident arc, the young man who'd been scrambling a breath before bent suddenly backward at the waist — the steel sang past his face — and with the staff in his right hand and his left braced on the floor, Cole swung low and cracked the staff across the man's knee.

A muffled grunt of pain. The crack of bone was loud in the dark.

The man staggered, nearly went down, caught himself on the saber.

Cole rose, wiping blood from his chin, and saw his enemy clearly for the first time. A huge man, six-foot-two at least, shaven bald, corded with muscle, a blue-black tiger's head tattooed on his left arm. He'd lain in wait in the nearest building — and had nearly taken Cole in the first instant. Cole did not let himself relax. A Stowaway healed as fast as he did; already the cuts on his own body itched, scabbing over.

He took the broken knee for the opening it was and lunged with the staff — and was a step too late. The man was already up, saber rising to meet him.

The current turned again. Now Cole pressed and the man gave ground, blocking, and as the seconds passed the man moved faster, the shattered knee knitting back toward whole.

Cole roared and swung the staff straight at his head.

---

"To hell with hiding, then!" The man flung the saber away, planted both hands on his hips, and faced the descending staff without a flicker of fear. He dropped his weight, his eyes went round, and he bellowed from the gut:

"Kid! Give me back my grandpa!"

Cole caught only the last of it — grandpa — and hadn't even finished being baffled by it when a cold unease flooded him.

He wrenched the staff in midair, slamming it into the wall instead, and the rebound kicked him down the corridor — and the instant he broke off his attack the big man's jaw cracked wide into a perfect ring, and a blast of searing air poured out of it, and a heartbeat later, fire.

Hands on his hips, eyes bulging like a temple guardian's, the man breathed flame straight at Cole.

Cole turned and ran.

The fire was faster. It curled around in front of him, close enough to singe the hair at his brow; he ducked under it and it hit the wall, the white plaster crackling and sheeting off in burning flakes. Cole went along wall and floor on hands and feet, dodging, while the corridor turned into a dragon's throat, the air temperature leaping, the concrete scorched in long black streaks. His staff, caught in the wash of it, was already a length of charcoal.

The fire died. Cole crouched, dragging in breath.

The big man was barely winded — his knee carried him freely now. He scooped up his fallen saber, laughed wild, and came again. Bare-handed, Cole could only weave away from the blade.

The man hacked without art, just swinging, and Cole had never learned to fight either; the two of them simply traded on the raw, brutal bodies a Registered Player and a Stowaway had been given.

"Anyone who's seen my power," the man snarled, "dies."

The saber came down at Cole's face; he slid aside and ran. The man pounded after him in triumph.

The moment Cole cleared the building, a round cratered the ground at his feet.

He looked drenched in sweat — but his eyes were cold and sharp, fixed dead on the muzzle-flash. The fire-breather chased at his back; bullets burst around his feet, and twice he barely jerked his head clear of one. By the ninth shot, Cole and the bald man had both run into the gym.

The six bodies lay there as they crossed the threshold.

The man checked for half a breath — then sneered, and swung the saber down at Cole.

And the thing he did not expect was that, at the exact moment his blade fell, the black-haired young man who'd done nothing but flee all night turned, and faced him squarely.

"Wrong—" Danger howled up in the man's gut; he tried to throw himself backward. But his body had already committed to the swing, the saber driving straight down at Cole — and he watched the young man raise his right hand to meet him in the same motion.

Except there was nothing in that hand.

The bald man's eyes stretched wide. He never blinked once — and yet, between one instant and the next, he saw a giant match appear in Cole's grip.