Instinctively, I looked away, like I was witnessing something that no one should ever have to, the unbuttoning of a man before my very eyes. So I sliced downward on the corpse’s body until I reached the bottom of his breastbone. I hardly noticed the chill of the stolen eyes staring up at me anymore, and long moments passed when all I could see from the forest was darkness.
I kept my eyes on the corpse, scared that I’d give something away, that maybe the hope would show in my eyes. “And the boys that you murdered.” My voice shook. “What would the Lord have to say about that?”
Thunder vibrated the air around us, and the bowels of the clouds above let loose. Cold rain poured over us with renewed intensity.
“For just as Jonah was in the belly of this fish,” McCardle called, “so will the Son be in the heart of the earth, for his subsequent rescue from death is what vindicated his mission to go forward.” He turned his face up and let the rain fall on his forehead, run into his eyes, and wet the thin strips of hair on his scalp.
I flattened the kinks of four copper wires in my hand. I was running out of time. The orbs above us had begun to glow a dull bluish tint. Sparks zipped between the cables that connected the generators.
At the next burst of lightning, I saw Owen fiddling with the traps. My breath lodged in my throat. Careful, I wanted to tell him. Don’t get too bold. I wondered if he had seen the gun or if Meg had told him. I was thankful for the blustering storm that offered a cloak.
At the center of the ring, I peeled back the layers of skin, exposing the mealy rib cage underneath. There, I inserted two of the wires in the crevice I’d created. The chest cavity matched Adam’s almost exactly but for the fact that I had no metal plate to give this dead boy.
Another groan came from the distance. The sobbing had continued nonstop. Quiet, Adam.
“He’ll look like an abomination of your son,” I said. “He’ll be an idol. A fake. Look at him.” And there was no mistaking that I was right. This person, this thing, was nothing like Adam. He might have started as someone’s child. He might have been good and kind in life, but there was nothing left of him that was sacred. Dwarfed by the giant monoliths of the lightning generators, I felt like McCardle and I were in the midst of a sacrificial ritual. I wiped water from my eyelashes.
“And thou shalt believe,” McCardle murmured. He turned his face up to the sky and let the rain pour over him. “And thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead.”
The sky above was being torn apart by light. The generators were doing their job. “It’s not safe here,” I said, beginning to shake. “We could be killed.”
The next burst of lightning came from directly overhead. When I looked over, I saw that Owen was gone. And so was Adam. A jab of dread filled me. What if they had left? Was that less than I’d deserve for killing Adam and for lying? I wedged the Swiss Army knife in my fist, ready to fight.
The next lightning strike looked as though it landed somewhere in the forest. The brightness flickered. And then I saw Adam’s face inches away from mine. This time I did cry out.
“Victoria.” He staggered, looking less human than he had ever looked before. His joints were stiff. He teetered unevenly on stilt legs.
Now I smelled the first hint of smoke.
McCardle wheeled around. He dropped the lantern. It rolled on the ground. Another burst of lightning. But this one lingered, caught between the generators’ crosshairs. I had a split second to react.
“Now!” I shouted as if this had been my plan all along. With all my might, I grabbed Adam by the arm with both hands. I wrenched him over, pushing him on top of what was left of McCardle’s son. He splashed into the liquid.
Above, lightning tangled, mixing and blurring. I shielded my eyes. The orbs lit up bright blue, electric with energy. I scuttled back. One great, combined streak of lightning shot down. The glass coffin was a wash of white-hot color.
There was the sound of glass cracking like a footstep on a frozen lake. I held my breath for a heartbeat. The coffin shattered. Liquid poured from broken shards.
“No!” McCardle howled, and it sounded like a dying animal. He lunged for the heap of flesh where his son’s body lay at the same moment that the silhouette of one body emerged. The outline that was Adam arched his spine. He rolled back his shoulders. McCardle realized his mistake too late. He should have known by now what Adam was capable of.
Adam stretched out his arm, grabbed McCardle by the neck, and flung him sideways. The old man crumpled to the ground. The wind burst from his lungs, and he wheezed, clutching his chest. The gun skittered an arm’s length away.
Adam’s eyes shined in the flickering light of the lantern. They were cold. He lowered his chin, and his brow hid his eyes in shadow. I recognized the look from just after his recharges or in the moment that he hurled Knox off the stage. He moved methodically toward McCardle with a slight limp to his gait.