TO KILL AN IMMORTAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

The dead watched Kade Constantine. And he watched the dead. It didn’t matter if they were newly dead, ancient spirits, animals, or people, Kade saw them all through the same ethereal lens.

At this moment, it was the old dead. Wispy figures. The ghosts of several people and a few birds gathered on the tracks around him, vacant gazes tracing the slow ascent of his roller coaster car rumbling toward the first precipitous drop.

If Kade attempted to talk to the dead, their acknowledgement would come in subtle ways—a shift of their eyes, a turn of their heads—but they would never speak.

The dead always just watched, voiceless sentinels, faces locked in perpetual emptiness.

Kade put his thumbs in his ears, wiggled his fingers, and stuck his tongue out at the specters. As usual, they didn’t react, but he hadn’t been able to help himself from taunting them.

Seated next to Kade, Ray chuckled, then asked, “How many this time?”

Kade did a quick count. “About fifteen.” Of the very few people Kade had confided in, his older brother was the only person who believed Kade could see ghosts.

“They do anything interesting?”

“Nope.”

“They’re gonna give you the finger one o’ these days.”

Kade laughed, picturing a ghost delivering the rude gesture.

The boy often felt his ability to see ghosts was a grim gift from his brain tumor. A macabre keepsake for a life spent playing Hide-and-seek with Death. Staring beyond the ethereal beings to the hills and valleys formed by the tracks of Oblivion, the fastest, tallest, steepest roller coaster in the world, Kade wondered if today would be the day that Death finally caught him.

He scowled at the thought of Death’s lurking presence. Death would have to wait. Today, he was sixteen. Today, there would be nothing but fun.

Kade wasn’t about to let anyone, or anything, stop him from enjoying his birthday to its fullest. He’d dreamed and prayed for this one, planned out every detail, despite many times feeling as if he wouldn’t live to see it, despite being told he wouldn’t live to see it.

A cool wind brushed Kade’s bald head as the roller coaster car stopped at the peak of the soaring incline, the first drop a yawning chasm below. Kade’s gut fluttered. He broke into a silly grin.

Some riders puked during the first drop of the greatest roller coasters. Some questioned their life choices. Others prayed. Many screamed. Some begged to get off the ride.

Not Kade.

He lived for that moment, in that moment, the knife-edge between fear and thrill. Wearing that silly grin, Kade welcomed the flutter in his gut, the tingle along his skin, the adrenaline rush, the weightlessness, the sensation of his stomach dropping out as the car teetered upon the edge.

Those feelings were life itself.

Even as he had thoughts of life, pinpricks of excitement, they gave birth to sorrowful remembrance. Kade looked to the cerulean sky from the roller coaster seat and spoke softly, “Mom, Dad, I miss you soooo much. I wish you guys were here to see me.”

Just then, a black speck, surrounded by a pale-yellow glow, streaked across the sky. Another black speck appeared and chased after the first. A moment later, the black specks vanished.

Frowning, Kade assumed the black specks had been jets and continued his previous train of thought in that somber voice, “I did like y’all said… I worked harder than anyone. I went out and did things people said I couldn’t. And I’m living my best life. I hope I made you proud.”

Ray reached over and gave his brother a reassuring squeeze around the shoulders. “They’re proud o’ you, lil bro. We all are.”

Kade was proud of himself also. Proud of the things he’d achieved. From making the track team, to graduating high school at his age, earning full-ride scholarships to Ivy League schools, to getting internship offers from game companies, he was proud of it all.

Despite years of acute pain, of excruciating migraines, years of suffering due to his cancerous brain tumor, years of doctors claiming he wouldn’t live to see today, he was still here. Alive. And he intended to keep living.

Shows how much they really know.

Shaking his head, he scowled at thoughts of the naysayers. The doubters. The ones who’d said he was too young, too little, too skinny, too sick, too weak. Not smart enough.

The ones who made fun of his bald head or looked at him funny. The ones whose eyes were filled with pity. The ones who at times had made him feel ugly. Worthless.

He ground his jaw. They didn’t matter one bit. They could kick rocks.

I wonder what they’d say if they were here, if they could see me at Universal Studios, celebrating, living my best life like I told them I would.

This trip, experiencing Oblivion, had been high on his bucket list. A dream come true. The only things he liked as much as great roller coasters were good LitRPG books, anime, and video games, especially ARPGs and MMOs.

Even as Kade had the thought, a warm arid wind gusted, bringing distant sounds from the theme park sprawled far below. The roller coaster train inched forward and stopped again.

A few people screamed.

Kade grinned once more, anticipation honed like a knife. Bracing his stomach for the moment the car shot forward and down the almost ninety-degree drop, he wrapped his fingers tight around the safety bar that pressed down on his thighs and kept his legs locked in place.

“Here we go,” someone yelled.

“Woooooo!” cried another.

Heart thumping, Kade was sitting in Oblivion’s last car where the experience would be the most intense. In the car directly ahead, his two cousins, Ishmael and Nicole, were chatting excitedly.

Uncle Robert and Aunt Harriet occupied the next car, both sitting stiffly, most likely scared out of their minds. Aunt Harriet was probably praying.

Kade smiled at the thought. As was his ritual when prepping for the first drop on any coaster, he drew in a long, deliberate breath, tilted his head back, and gazed skyward. His eyes narrowed.

What the hell?

The two black specks were back. And they definitely weren’t jets. Not moving like that.

Trailing pale yellow, they flitted back and forth across the cerulean sky like disturbed insects. They clashed together. Sparks flew. They recoiled from each other then blitzed together again. More sparks cascaded. Thunder rumbled.

The black entities flickered apart once more. Fiery blasts and black waves shot from them, slammed into each other.

Between the two objects, the air warped, the fabric of reality seeming to contort and buckle. A ripple streaked across the area as if a colossal blade had cleaved the sky, leaving a gaping wound.

Kade closed his eyes. His mind conjured an anime battle, skills unleashed like bankai or jutsu.

I’m seeing things. I gotta be.

But when he opened his eyes, the glowing black specks were still there, continuing their frenetic dance across the sky.

Oblivion shot forward and plummeted. Kade’s stomach lurched. People screamed.

The sky turned from cerulean to ash, clouds churning into a writhing mass. Daylight became dark in a blink as if the world had thrown on a cloak.

Rain pelted Kade. Rain whipped by wind that sent raindrops flying sideways like watery arrows shot from a million bows.

Violet lightning radiated among charcoal clouds. Thunder cracked and grumbled like bickering gods. Attention riveted on the spectacle in the sky, Kade barely felt the ride or heard the screaming riders.

One black entity fell. A dark form separated from it, plummeted with it. Pale-yellow glowed around both. Above the falling objects, the other black entity remained for a moment before blinking out of existence.

The two continued their descent, pale-yellow glows stark against dark quilted clouds. Kade could make out shapes now. One was like a large sword. The other, a person.

This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.

Kade pinched his arm in a desperate attempt to wake from this surreal nightmare. Nothing changed. Another pinch. Nothing.

He pointed, voice quivering, “R-R-Ray, do-do you see those?”

“See what?” His brother’s strained voice carried over a crash of thunder. “This crazy storm that came outta nowhere? Hell yeah.”

Kade glanced over to make certain his brother was looking in the right direction. Ray was grinning like a big kid, staring up to where Kade pointed.

So, why didn’t he see them? They were right there, glowing, bigger than life.

“Not the storm.” Kade shook his head. “Theee… the person and the sword falling from the sky.”

“The who and the what? You seeing more ghosts?”

Kade was certain these things weren’t the dead. They were solid, not ethereal.

He was about to repeat himself when he realized both the sword and the person were getting bigger. Falling faster. They were the size of tall buildings. Worse still, they were going to hit the tracks up ahead.

Eyes bulging, mouth agape, he gripped the safety bar until his fingers hurt. His heart hammered as if it was about to explode.

The roller coaster train was hurtling down another steep drop when the pointed end of the humongous sword sheared through the metal on the next rise, disintegrated the tracks like so much ash, and plunged into the ground with an earsplitting explosion of dirt and debris.

People shrieked. Shrieks filled with the terror and desperation threatening to choke Kade.

“Oh Goddd, someone blew up the tracks!” Ray yelled. He snatched at Kade, folded his brother in his arms.

Jaws clenched, blood roaring in his ears, Kade squeezed his eyes shut. He was left with the feel of his big brother’s arms, the wetness of the rain, the rumble of the roller coaster train, shrieks, and his thoughts. Thoughts of Mom and Dad smiling down on him, of what could’ve been, of an imagined future life, and one realization.

We’re about to die.

With the realization came an odd calm. A peace. Acceptance.

Ray’s low voice reached Kade as Ray squeezed him even tighter, “I love you, lil bro.”

“I love you, too,” Kade choked out, managing to pry his fingers from the safety bar and cling to his brother, seeking the comfort of a final embrace.

In that harrowing moment, he had a singular morbid thought.

What would Death look like?

The rumble of the roller coaster train on the tracks disappeared, accompanied by a sense of weightlessness. Kade felt himself twist.

The riders’ shrieks intensified. Shrieks that were horror made manifest. Such visceral terror, unleashed by minds on the cusp of an inevitable horrendous end, shattered Kade’s false sense of calm.

He screamed.

His car pitched downward. The world spun and tumbled for a few moments before Oblivion slammed into something with a resounding crash.

Pain shot through Kade. Excruciating pain. Pain unlike any he’d ever experienced.

The world went black as oblivion greeted him.