The Drowned Vault by N. D. Wilson

Author:N. D. Wilson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375895739
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2012-09-10T22:00:00+00:00

eleven

THE PROPHET DANIEL

DANIEL SMITH FELT VERY, VERY ALIVE. The first very came from the long bleeding cut down his left shin, carved there by the metal-capped spike on the shoe of one of his opponents. The bone was throbbing, and the torn skin felt more burnt than cut. Blood was sponging into his sock.

The second very came from his ribs. The last hit he’d taken should have broken several of them. One year ago, it would have broken all of them. But one year ago, Daniel Smith would not have been playing rugby or even thinking about rugby. He would have been thinking about how to feed Cyrus and Antigone, and whether Cyrus needed to see a therapist, and how he would never be able to afford one.

Now his ribs were humming, his shin was screaming, his lungs were heaving, and he couldn’t stop smiling as he stood on the sidelines, chewing on his mouth guard, watching the scrum out on the field. Navy-and-gold rugby shirts pressed against the red-and-white of his own university. Even that was still weird to him—his university. He had left his brother and sister in strange but apparently safe hands and had gone off to college. His first two semesters had been amazing, and he’d even managed to get back to Ashtown to see his siblings and his mother twice. Now he was finishing summer classes to make up for lost time, but he’d be back on that strange Estate soon enough, after classes ended and the next rugby tournament wrapped up.

For the first time since his father had died, life felt like it was working—especially with this new body. Getting the body had been horrible. Being kidnapped and wired up by that crazy, twitching cripple in his dirty white coat, having a psychotic invade his mind, all of that had been a great deal less than pleasant.

Dan shivered. Then he clenched his fists, slurped on one end of his mouth guard, and flexed his shoulders, feeling the explosive tension in his muscles. Psychotic or not, the man had done good work. Dan was taller. He was thicker and faster and a great deal healthier. He could hit and be hit harder than he’d ever thought his body could withstand—in high school he’d sprained an ankle in gym class at least once a month. Last match, he’d quit bothering to even tape his wrists, and the coach had pulled him out of the game to lecture him about how to soften an impact so he wouldn’t get injured.

Dan pulled out his mouth guard, spat in the grass, and smiled. He didn’t want to soften an impact. He wanted to reach his absolute maximum, to find the limits of this new body, to discover just how much pain it could take. It bruised and bled and split and swelled, but it never broke. There were times when Dan actually felt almost grateful that Phoenix had grabbed him. If it weren’t for his eyes, he would be.

His eyes had been blue.

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