Chapter One: The New Kid

      Will was on his back, falling through darkness, and the only thing he could think about was whether he had any reason whatsoever to go on living. He decided he did. There was someone he had to kill.

      He was falling faster and faster, the updraft whipping at his clothes. He knew he’d have to get his body turned around to have any chance of surviving. He twisted his torso and wrenched himself sideways. The air was hot and getting hotter by the second. Soon it would be scalding. Dirt and debris shot up from below, pelting him in the face, as he plummeted through the dark tunnel, dropping fast as a sack of scrap iron. Tunnel entrances flashed by in a blur. He tried grabbing at the roots and outcroppings of rocks that zoomed by but he was going too fast. This can’t be it, he thought, this can’t be the end, it just can’t! Sure, he’d made stupid mistakes; he’d miscalculated the power and cunning of his enemy. But there was still hope, wasn’t there? He had to grab a root. It was either that or die for sure on impact. Impact on what he didn’t know, but no way could it be anything but beyond horrible.

      Will heard his father’s voice echoing through the shaft.

      “Let go, Will, you have to let go.”

      But Will couldn’t, and his fingernails raked at the sides of the tunnel in desperation—and there, a root! For a moment he caught purchase, his hands grasping, palms burning, as the root slipped through his fingers until he wrist-wrapped it and was jolted to a halt, slamming against the side of the dank earth. He sucked wind and blinked away more swirling dirt. Maybe he was going to make it. Maybe he was going to live to see another day. But then he heard a hideous roar as something erupted from below. He was blasted with a wave of thick blistering air, engulfed in a torrent of fetid rain from below. He pulled on the root, his only chance at survival, and, feet scrabbling, tried to climb. Again he heard his father’s voice.

      “Let go, Will. You must let go.”

      But Will refused to let go and held on even tighter. And then the root snapped. Gravity yanked him backward and his head slammed into a rock. He was falling again and he saw the flames and molten lava below as he plummeted down and down. His ears nearly burst from the sound of an explosion and he felt the ground quaking, the earth splitting in two. The end was surely upon him. He thought he saw a face, the eyes swollen and pulsing with hatred, the mouth gaping open. Will screamed, his throat raw from the heat. This was it. In seconds he was going to die. The earth shook again, this time more violently.

      “Wake up, Will. It’s 7:09! Get your skinny butt out of that bed! You don’t want to be late the first day at your new school, slacker!”

      His heart still pounding from the nightmare, Will Hunter sat up, blinked twice, and the room came into focus. His nimrod stepfather Gerald was standing over him, one foot on the bed, shaking it with his foot. Hence the earthquake. His stepfather cracked one of his patented cannon farts, then did an about face and retreated into the hallway. Will looked around the room and saw the packing boxes that contained his life. Rising, he glanced out the window. The moving van that had disgorged all their stuff was gone. He looked down at the tracks the big Kenworth had left on the lawn when the movers backed it up to off-load his crates into the basement. He’d tipped the movers a couple of thousand each to ensure that they’d keep their mouths shut about the crates. To Will it was just part of doing business, because it was important that no one knew what his business was. If someone did find out it could prove fatal. The workmen’s trucks were all gone, too, and Will was confident that they’d done as he’d ordered and the house’s infrastructure had been modified to his exact specifications.

      He looked around the neighborhood