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  BALANCER

  The Final Deity

  When teenagers Nicole and Amy save a child from a freak wildfire, they unwittingly trigger a bizarre sequence of events. In the following days, Nicole finds herself caught up in more extraordinary happenings, until she is forced to confront the startling truth about herself: She has the power to give life or take life from every living thing around her. As Nicole tests the extent of her powers, her activities attract the attention of mysterious agents who believe the girls are part of a larger terrorist plot. Now on a trail into the unknown, Nicole and Amy will be forced to question just what is real — and who they can trust.

  Copyright © Patrick Wong 2013

  All rights reserved

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a database and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise)without the prior written permission of the owner of the copyright.

  Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To my dad,

  who passed away from cancer

  while I was writing this book

  Wild Arm Gestures

  Stretched out on the springy forest floor, Nicole held a soft brown pine cone in front of the summer sun, blanking out the immediate brightness. She had stayed like this for ten minutes now, marveling at the contrast between the smear of blue sky and the vibrant green at the top of the tall pines that towered above.

  The afternoon light cast long shadows across the ground, gently warming the tree sap so that the forest had become fragrant with a delicate aroma of pine. Nicole caught it now, inhaling deeply, and closed her eyes again.

  She liked the muffled sound here in the hazy forest, which had seemed to fall the second she’d entered from the hot, sunny banks of Lake Fairfax. The tranquil atmosphere was so soothing that after a few minutes of collecting firewood, she’d set down the pile and taken a moment to gather her thoughts. She liked the way her dark hair had fanned outward, blending in with the pine needles and brown earth of the forest floor.

  The distant thud of excited footsteps drew a grin from Nicole. A shout farther away confirmed her best friend’s imminent arrival. Moments later, Amy stood over her, hands on hips, with a mock cross expression on her face. The sun behind her wild mane of ginger-blonde hair made her look practically ferocious.

  “I knew you’d be here daydreaming,” she said, only half joking.

  Nicole patted the space next to her invitingly. The sound, she thought, was a little like the hollow noise Tarzan made when he thumped his chest.

  “Nope. No time. It’s nearly four already!”

  “I thought this break was meant to be restful.”

  “We can rest later. First, the show!”

  Amy stuck out her hand for Nicole to take. With a little groan, Nicole let her friend heave her up, and she stooped to pick up her firewood and head out.

  Nicole knew what this was really about. Next time they arranged a weekend trip to the lake, she made a mental note to check what Drake Jennings and his family were planning. She had wondered why Amy had seemed so particularly keen to make it this exact weekend, and she’d foolishly been convinced that it was because it was the last one before school began again at Oak Wood High.

  Since they’d pitched their tent in the camping grounds at Lake Fairfax a few days earlier, Amy had repeatedly found some excuse or another to swing by the family camping area and bump into Drake. This morning, a nosy yellow Labrador had managed to find its way into their food stash and steal a pack of bacon. Nicole seriously doubted that the dog had miraculously learned how to unzip a tent overnight, and she suspected it was all a sophisticated ruse to earn Amy another trip to the store. That was when Amy had mentioned to Drake that she and Nicole were filming their next YouTube show this afternoon, and he’d promised to be watching — which explained the rush now.

  The show had originally started as an assignment for a social media Web project at school. But the best friends continued to create shows even after completing the project. There wasn’t always a point to the shows, and their followers were made up of twenty or so school friends who responded with humorous quips and comments. If Nicole and Amy kept the bickering to a minimum, filming was a blast. Truth be told, Amy was more into it than Nicole was. Secretly, Amy hoped that something they’d do would go viral. Her celebrity gossip magazines were jam-packed with people who had stumbled into stardom, and she spent a great deal of her spare time working out how to get some of what they had. One of these days, there’d be an article charting Amy Madigan’s meteoric rise to fame. For this ambition, she exhibited the kind of drive that Nicole saved for studying and homework.

  While Nicole was collecting firewood, Amy had spent half an hour fixing her look, and had even tried to tame her frizzy blonde hair, though with minimal success. The sheer rigmarole (this was one of Amy’s favorite words, and was always accompanied by wild hand gestures) of actually looking halfway decent doubled her prep time. Amy had never responded well to Nicole’s suggestion that she cut her hair short and save herself all the trouble.

  “Ta-dah!” Amy presented herself. “We go live in ten minutes.” She looked around and admired her surroundings. “By the way, you picked an awesome spot, Nicole. I walked through some pretty sad-looking campsites, but ours is the best by far. Gorgeous flowers, lush green grass, towering trees, birds singing, and a … what is that?” Amy recoiled in overly dramatic horror and disgust.

  Nicole slowly walked over, already knowing this would be something pretty un-shocking. “What?”

  Amy just gasped and pointed.

  Nicole picked up a stick and poked the fuzzy thing. “Well, whatever it is or was, it’s dead and it’s not going to hurt anybody. We are in the woods after all. What did you expect?”

  “OK, well let’s just make sure that doesn’t end up in the video and ruin the shoot.” Amy proceeded to kick up an unnecessary amount of grass, twigs and leaf matter to cover up the offending dead ball of fuzz. Satisfied that the undesirable object would be beyond the view of the camera, Amy continued with the final preparations for the big show.

  “Wait! Where’s Bob?” Nicole glared at Amy.

  Amy grew a little silent then. “Ah, well …” she added defensively. “He was here a second ago. I thought you had him.”

  “It’s not my turn to watch Bob!”

  The girls had a running joke about a stuffed horse they’d won at a nearby amusement park a few years ago. Both were notorious for misplacing things and frequently liked to blame the other, so Bob was a convenient way to keep the peace between friends. Bob was always to blame for anything that went wrong: “Bob lost your phone,” “Bob spilled ketchup on your favorite blouse,” or “Bob ate your fries.”

  But Bob was also a good luck charm, and the friends always had him nearby whenever they made videos, and over the years he had also become a frequent subject of their photographs.

  “Bob! There you are.” Amy picked up Bob from under a pile of twigs. “OK, let’s try it Discovery Channel-style. Like a fake nature show, you know? Very serious. And present the fact that not many people out there know how to make the perfect s’more. They’re always burning themselves or getting chocolate down their pants and looking like they’ve had an accident. And it’s so, so easy. So we’ll show them step by st
ep.”

  “This will be your version of the perfect s’more, right?”

  “It is the perfect s’more,” reasoned Amy. “Also, are you going to wear that?” she added, eyeballing Nicole’s T-shirt critically. “I have one that’s better with your hair,” she added, no insult intended.

  “Do you have any makeup left?”

  “Sure.” Amy ignored the jibe and threw Nicole her makeup bag, which was the size of most people’s backpacks. Nicole would be covering her freckles as best she could. They were a blight on her summer complexion every year.

  Heading back into the tent, she pulled off her shirt to swap it for the purple vest top, which Amy had laid out on her sleeping bag. As she discarded her top, something fell from her pocket.

  It was the pine cone from earlier. Or was it? Nicole scrutinized it more closely. This one was green and moist to the touch, like it was still growing. She’d pocketed the fallen cone, but couldn’t remember picking up this one.

  “Nix? While we’re young, eh?” Amy hollered from outside.

  After giving her face a quick look in the mirror, Nicole zipped the tent and pasted on her best smile.

  Amy held up her smartphone in front of both of them so that the screen showed both of their faces. There was a stark contrast between Amy’s frizzy blonde hair and green twinkling eyes and Nicole’s dark hair, lean features and freckles.

  “Action!” Amy shouted. She waved at the smartphone. “Hello and hiya from Lake Fairfax!” she exclaimed with her trademark wild arm gestures, from which Nicole had to duck. “Big shout-out to all our fellow campers here!”

  With her mind still on the pine cone and her heart yearning for the serenity of the forest, there was still something else Nicole couldn’t set aside. There was another strange kind of feeling.

  She had an unshakable sense that soon, everything would change.

  Plead Wha?

  The campfire cast a soft glow on Amy and Nicole’s faces as they lay on their blanket, staring up at the bright stars. They had eaten well, though they had saved some of the provisions for breakfast. Nicole had made sure those were kept in her backpack, as they didn’t have time for another unplanned trip to the camp store before departing the next day.

  During the last trip to the store, Amy had bumped into Drake again and managed to remain effortlessly cool. They chatted about how much he liked their YouTube video, s’mores, and the new school year at Oak Wood. As expected, Amy used charming facial expressions and big, confident, swooping gestures.

  Nicole didn’t share the hype about Drake. She had been on the receiving end of Amy’s lengthy descriptions of his cute eyes and perfectly ruffled hair and that most recent hilarious thing he had said. Whatever it was that she was meant to be feeling — like the kind of springy excitement with which Amy came away from any conversation with him — just wasn’t happening for her.

  Amy pointed to the night sky. “So, what’s the big clump of bright stuff?”

  “Hmmm.” Nicole feigned not knowing for a few seconds. She had spotted the Pleiades almost immediately, but was waiting while Amy fumbled with her phone’s stargazing app.

  Amy held her phone upward to try to lock on the star map. She started to curse as she shook it, as if that would have some effect.

  “Signal out?” Nicole asked.

  “Yup. I’ll just have to rely on your supposed talents.”

  “It’s Pleiades.”

  “Plead wha?”

  “The Seven Sisters. Named after the seven daughters of an Amazonian goddess: Maia, Coccymo, Glaucimo, Glaucia, Protis, Parthenia, Stonychia and … Lampado. Credited with inventing ritual dances and nighttime festivals.”

  “You read way too much.”

  “And you count on your phone too much.”

  “Meh …” yawned Amy, clicking her phone shut. “Did you see the lights on in the Jennings’ van when you got the wood?”

  “Nope. Must be out to dinner.”

  Amy let out a noise, which to inexperienced ears would have sounded like a muted hum of understanding, but to Nicole it had an undertone of disappointment. Amy had “happened” to mention to Drake that it was their last night and they were having a camp, and the thought had “suddenly occurred” to her that he might want to swing by, too.

  Amy made the noise again and then yawned. “Better just you and me anyway.”

  Nicole smiled and stared up at the stars again, the Milky Way having come clearer into view now, its faint scarf of silver draped across a darker midnight blue.

  “That’s Orion there.”

  Amy had no response.

  Nicole looked across to see that Amy’s eyes were closed. She watched her best friend drift into sleep, a gentle snore rising under each breath.

  The night had turned out warm again, and the cicadas rattled steadily in the distance. It was probably time for bed, and Nicole would need a good rest to deal with the drama of Amy’s schemes to meet up with Drake tomorrow. She shook Amy awake.

  “Tent!”

  Amy groaned. “For the bears, right?”

  “Well, of course. Even though I did hang our food on the bear pole away from the tent. But they still might …”

  Amy’s eyes glazed over as she struggled to listen to Nicole’s rant about bear safety. After about a minute, she detected a pause, which indicated the speech was over. “OK, Nix. Food bad. Sleep good. Got it.”

  “You’ll thank me when you’re not mauled to death.”

  Amy dragged herself up to her knees and crawled into the tent. Before following her, Nicole placed a final piece of wood on the campfire to keep it burning for the next few hours of dark.

  *

  The first sound was of an engine revving, and then a kind of low rumble behind it. The noises filtered into a dream Nicole was having about waking up in class to find the schoolroom empty, which didn’t make any sense. Nicole had gone to the window to discover all the cars were leaving. Strangest of all, when she tried to open the door to leave, she realized it was locked.

  Nicole coughed herself awake.

  Her long brown hair was matted to her face, and she couldn’t see at first. Pushing aside some hair, she saw she was back in the tent, which had a strange new air that seemed to go right down deep into her lungs. She took a sip from a bottle of water, and then the atmosphere made her splutter again.

  There was something very wrong.

  Unzipping the front of the tent and grabbing her flashlight, Nicole found out just how much.

  Outside, the smoky stench hit her and the air stung her eyes. It was much harder to breathe out here. The rumbling noise was gathering, and some shouts that were hard to identify rang in the distance.

  It was still night, which made it hard to see, but in a different way. Nicole’s flashlight sent out a straight line of yellow, which cut through the smoky air like a laser beam.

  In the distance, dim shadows were moving, accompanied by what Nicole could identify as people running in panic.

  Fire!

  Nicole dived back into the tent and zipped it up tight again behind her. Amy was already awakening, the smoke having gotten to her too.

  “We gotta move, Ames. There’s some kind of fire out there,” Nicole said firmly.

  Amy knew not to question Nicole when she was like this. She wriggled out of her sleeping bag.

  Meanwhile, Nicole doused two scarves with bottled water.

  “Tie this ’round your face. There’s smoke.”

  “How bad’s the fire?”

  “I can’t tell for sure.”

  Nicole reached for her phone and dialed 911. She’d read somewhere that it was dangerous to assume others would call emergency services instead of you. After a moment of thinking she was connected, the phone registered an “Out of Service” warning. It was worth a try. Seemed like these phones were useless whenever there was a real emergency.

  Amy scrambled for her backpack and began to pile her belongings inside.

  “Just the essentials. We ne
ed to go now!”

  “OK!” Amy’s voice was edged with panic, which made it seem as though she resented Nicole’s bossiness. But out of all the people she could have had with her now, Amy would have chosen Nicole. With a swift glance around the tent, she located Bob and crammed him into her bag too.

  “Do you remember where we left the car?”

  “It’s to the left of the big lot. About ten minutes away.”

  “Keys?”

  Amy checked and found them in her jeans pocket.

  “Sneakers,” Amy reminded Nicole. The ground would be too scorching for summer sandals. “You wouldn’t want those new high-tops to burn up in the fire, would you?”

  “Thanks,” smiled Nicole in return. “Stick together, OK?”

  “Stick together.”

  Seconds later, with water and soda as well as the leftover food stowed in their backpacks, they were ready to go.

  “Remember: Stay low to the ground and keep hold of my hand,” Nicole said. This was as much a reassurance as an instruction, and Amy would obey without question.

  After checking they both had their scarves wetted and tied firmly around their mouths, Nicole unzipped the tent.

  As they emerged into the smoky night, the sounds of cars leaving and the crackle of the fire through the trees had gotten louder. When Nicole looked back, she could see the bright yellow glow in the distance.

  They were going to have to make a run for it.

  Run, Don’t Walk

  About half a mile away, the wildfire was burnishing the dark sky around it with a rich, orangey red, increasing the heat of the night. It was like someone had just opened the door to a massive pizza oven.

  Hand in hand, the friends stooped as low to the ground as they could without impeding their running and left their tent and most of their belongings behind, holding on to the hope that they would be reunited with their things again.

  With her heart pounding in her ears, Nicole felt the terror rise up from the pit of her stomach. Though their eyes were stinging and their nostrils were prickling from the smoke, they pressed on relentlessly, picking their way through the thicket toward the place they had left the car.