“She was a model, so she shouldn’t be that hard to trace. How deep do you want me to go?” Mel asks.
“As deep as you can go. If she got a splinter in her finger in third grade, I want to know about it,” I say.
“You think Sailor’s right, don’t you?” Mel says.
“I don’t know, Mel. I really don’t. But I think we owe it to Sailor to at least take this seriously. She is the Paradox after all, and if her senses are telling her something, we need to listen.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: BELLS & WHISTLES
The bell rings, signaling the end of the last class of the day. I have to say I’m relieved. Thursday’s are always a major drag, close enough to the weekend that it’s in sight, but far enough away that it still feels like forever until it’s here. It really doesn’t help matters that I don’t need to know any of this stuff they’re teaching us. I mean, I know all students think that, but it’s really true for me.
Either we will fail on our mission to defeat the Horsemen and we’ll all be dead by the end of the year anyway, or we’ll succeed and I can go back to Avalon, where calculus and the Civil War and Shakespeare’s sonnets mean even less than they do here.
I jump to my feet with the rest of the class. Miss Graham moves to stand in front of the classroom door, blocking the exit.
“I’m sorry, did I say you were dismissed?” she asks quietly but sternly.
“The bell went, Miss,” someone says.
“The bell is for me, not for you,” she says calmly. “Now, I expect your essays on my desk on Monday. No excuses.”
She consults a piece of paper in her hand.
“Rye, Sailor, Jinx, Aziza, Ya-Ya, Sunday, and Mel. Please stay back—we need a serious conversation about your group project. The rest of you are free to go.”
Her announcement brings about a series of ooohs from our classmates. Clearly, they think we’re in trouble. If only they knew how right they were.
“Group projects suck, don’t they?” one of my friends says as he passes me.
“Oh they’re deadly,” I reply to snickers from the team.
The class troops out, and Miss Graham closes the door.
“How did I do? Was I teachery enough?” she asks.
“Yeah, but if you keep trying that bell thing, you’re going to be hated, Nexus.” Sailor laughs.
She grins. “Substitute teachers are meant to be hated though, right?”
“I guess,” I say. “Now what’s going on?”
She sits down on her desk and faces the rest of us where we all still remain seated.
“I know what the next weapon is,” she says.
My heart skips a beat. Now we’re getting somewhere, but I wasn’t wrong when I said our group project could be deadly.
“What?” Sunday asks.
“The Spear of Alveron,” she says.
This means nothing to me, and judging by the blank looks she’s getting from everyone else, it means nothing to any of them either.
“It’s good to know I’m not the only one who has no idea what that is,” Sailor comments, looking around at the others.
“None of you have heard of the Spear of Alveron?” Nexus asks.
“I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know what it is,” Jinx says.
Everyone else just shakes their heads.
“I can’t believe none of you know the Avo history properly,” Nexus says. “Particularly you, Sunday. How on earth can you expect Sailor to learn this stuff when you all don’t know it?”
“Maybe if we didn’t have to waste our time coming to school, we’d have more time to learn the important stuff,” Jinx says.
“You mean you’d have more time to waste playing video games,” Nexus says. “Nice try, Jinx. Now, the spear. The spear itself isn’t all that spectacular. It’s just a normal spear. But the tip is made from a special crystal, a crystal forged from dark magic and infused with the tears of a dragon.”
“Now you’re shitting us,” Sailor says.
Nexus laughs.
“Not exactly. The crystal really is filled with dark magic. As for the dragon tears? That may be just a legend. But it’s the magic that concerns us. The magic inside of the crystal allows the bearer of the spear to extract the life force from a being and trap it inside the crystal.”
“So once we find the Horseman, we don’t have to kill him as such? We just need to extract his essence? Well that sounds easy,” Jinx says sarcastically.
“What part of destroying the four Horsemen did you think would be easy before learning of the crystal’s power?” Nexus fires back.
Jinx shrugs, clearly lost for an answer.
“It’s actually not even that simple,” Nexus says. “To extract the soul or essence, the body has to be on the verge of death. It must be sucked from a fatal wound. If you attempt to remove the soul too early, the body will heal itself and you’ll be back to square one. If you attempt it too late and the body dies before the extraction is complete, then the soul will leave the crystal and possess the nearest living thing.”
“Me, in other words,” Sailor says.
Nexus nods gravely.
“Yes. You. So the timing must be exact, as I’m sure you can imagine a world where one of the Horsemen manages to possess the Paradox is a world none of us want to live in.”
“Okay,” I say, shouting over the team as they all start talking at once. “As bad as that sounds, the first problem is how we will even get it. Let’s start with that one. Nexus, do you know where it is?”
“The medallion isn’t lighting up,” Sailor says, pulling it out of her pocket.
“It won’t. You’re too far away from it,” Nexus says. “My sources tell me the spear is somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Someone will need to get out there and scope out the
