“Hey Dante! You wanna go outside and play?” Rin bounded into Dante’s room, panting happily.
Dante looked up from his book. “No, Rin. I’d rather stay in.”
Rin’s face fell, and he whimpered. “Why?”
“Look! I don’t wanna go out, okay!?” Dante snarled. Rin’s eyes went wide and he cowered, backing towards the door. Dante had never yelled at him before. Rin didn’t like it when people yelled; it frightened him.
Dante sighed, closing his eyes. “Rin, just go away, please? I wanna be alone.” Rin nodded obediently and backed out the door, closing it behind him.
Dante sighed again. What was wrong with him? He’d never yelled at Rin before, and staying in bed all day wasn’t his style, but every time he thought of getting up his limbs would grow heavy and he’d sink back down onto the mattress, burrowing ever deeper under the covers.
A knock on the door startled him, and it took every bit of his control not to shout a particularly strong curse. “What?”
“Dan, it’s Hatch. You okay? You been in there all day.”
Dante suppressed a violent surge of anger. It was none of Hatch’s business if he wanted to stay in his room all day! “Yeah, Uncle Hatch. I’m fine,” he replied tersely.
The door opened and Hatch appeared, gazing down sternly at his nephew. “You sure? You don’t sound fine.”
The frustration that had been building in Dante for almost two weeks finally exploded. His teeth clenched and his eyes began to glow a bright, painful green. He reached out and grabbed the heavy glass paperweight from his nightstand; his fingers tightened around it as he prepared to hurl it at Hatch, but before he could it shattered into thousands of small pieces, crushed by the unnatural strength in Dante’s small hand. “Get out!” he snarled, unable to control the wildly seething beast within him.
Hatch’s jaw dropped and he backed away, closing the door behind him.
Dante sighed and settled back into bed, a heavy curtain of exhaustion slamming onto him, pinning him to the bed. He tried to fight back even as his eyelids drooped; a long breath rattled in his chest as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
~*~
“He what?” Mich raised a doubtful eye at Hatch.
“I’m tellin’ you, Mich—he was gonna THROW that thing at me!”
Mich stood outside the Femmes’ meeting room; the others were already there waiting for her. “Look, I’ll deal with this when I get home, okay? Is he still in his room?”
“Yeah. He’s been real quiet ever since. Hasn’t made a peep.”
Mich nodded. “Then just have Nev keep an eye on him, and I’ll be home as soon as I can.” She placed a hand on Hatch’s arm. “I’ll get to the bottom of this, all right?”
~*~
The blackness slowly parted, as if it was an exceptionally heavy theater curtain, and Dante blinked, gazing at the vast plain spread before him. The long grasses swayed gently in the chill breeze, the endless blue sky cold and looming, stinging his eyes. Where was he? Where was his room?
“Do you know where you are?”
Dante whirled. A Peter clone dressed all in black stood behind him, his shoulder-length blond hair waving gently in the breeze. Dante knew most Peter clones to be kind and friendly, with a gentle, loving spirit. He locked eyes with this Peter and felt his blood run as cold as the ice that lurked within the clone’s eyes.
“No,” Dante said, suddenly feeling very small and helpless.
“No matter,” the Peter clone said. “Do you know who I am?”
Dante shook his head.
“Oh, come now, boy. Think.”
Dante scrunched his forehead. “Um . . . Petrov?”
The Peter clone shook his head. “Not in so many words, no. I am the original Petrov, you could say.”
Dante bit his lower lip, his mind working furiously to figure out what that meant. He tried to remember what his mother had told him about Petrov’s origins, how he was a clone of—
“P-Peter?”
Peter smiled broadly; a smile, however, that contained no warmth. “Very good, my son!”
Dante’s temper flared. “I’m NOT your son!”
Peter didn’t flinch. “Oh, and temperamental, too. Just like your mother.”
“What do you know about my mom?”
Peter approached him, his movements smooth and unhurried. He knelt down in front of Dante, his eyes even colder up close. Dante shivered.
“I am the one who gave your mother her powers. She denied herself the limitless power I offered her. I am here to offer you the same.”
“The same?” Dante repeated.
Peter nodded. “The power to kill, to heal, to save, to condemn—I can make you a god if you wish.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re special, my boy. You’re far more powerful than your mother, and with my help you’ll exceed far beyond anything she and that clone you call ‘Dad’ could ever teach you.”
Dante glared, his nostrils flaring. “No thanks. My parents’ll teach me everything I need to know.”
Peter’s frosty smile turned nasty. “Will they, now?”
Though only nine, Dante had a keenness of perception foreign to most children his age. “Now just what does that mean?”
Peter stood and turned away, heading up the hill. Dante hesitated for only a moment before following. Peter climbed to the top of the hill and stopped, gazing down into the valley with an expressionless, steady glare.
“What are you stoppin’ for?” Dante asked. He was tired of not knowing where he was and what this evil incarnate who wore Peter’s face wanted. He wanted to go home.
“Just look,” Peter said. “Your parents won’t be teaching you anything more.”
The hill sloped downwards, angling at a lazy pace to a broad stretch of land, where almost a dozen antlike figures were converged. Dante squinted, his vision telescoping and bringing the action into stunning, horrifying detail.
Most of the swarming figures—who were all male—were dressed in black, armored and armed with swords and clubs. At the center were two people. One was dark-haired, wearing a white shirt, the other wearing blue, with a shock of fiery red hair. Dante, however, did not need anyone to tell him who they were.
“MOM!!! DAD!!!”
On to Three
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Back To Mich’s Universe
