The Revenge of Seven by Pittacus Lore Page A

my Lumen, against the side of the General’s face. He lets out a grunt of pain, but that’s his only reaction to me burning his face, his pale skin searing black and popping. Both of his hands wrap around my throat, big enough that his fingers overlap at the back of my neck.
    He squeezes my neck and immediately dark spots form in my vision. I can’t breathe. With the hand not burning the side of the General’s face, I pry at his fingers. It feels like my throat will completely collapse if I let his grip get any tighter.
    It’s hard to concentrate with him choking me, but I manage to keep up the intensity of my Lumen while simultaneously using my telekinesis. I maneuver my dagger out from beneath my trouser leg. Without a free hand, I gather as much telekinetic force as I can muster and send the blade lancing towards the General’s heart.
    My dagger deflects off his armor. Before I can stab at him again, he tightens his grip on my throat and I lose control of my telekinesis. Feeling faint, it’s all I can do to keep my Lumen burning against the side of his face.
    ‘Who do you think will die first, boy?’ the General sneers, smoke from his own burned face spilling out of his mouth when he speaks. I try to backpedal, to break away from him, but he puts all his weight down, forcing me to my knees.
    Suddenly, a Mogadorian sword is thrust towards my face.Unable to move my head, I can only flinch backwards. The tip of the glowing blade stops just short of my eye. The General’s grip slackens and then drops away entirely. I fall on to my side, gasping for breath, trying to figure out what just happened.
    ‘Through the back. Isn’t that how you do it, Father?’
    Adam holds the General’s broadsword in two hands – it’s almost too heavy for him – and yanks it out of his father’s back. He drove it straight through the General’s chest, the glowing blade piercing that Mogadorian armor as if it were made of tinfoil. I was too busy fighting for my life to notice the force field come down. Luckily, the General was, too. He stares at Adam, stunned. The General must realize his mistake – all the Mogs know the voice command to bring down the force field, but one of them wasn’t fighting on his side.
    The General gropes at the wound on his chest and for a moment I think he’s going to keep coming. But then he staggers, reaching out to grasp at Adam, almost as if he wants to hug him. Or maybe strangle him. It’s hard to tell.
    Adam steps aside, a detached look on his face, and allows the General to fall face-first on to the pavement. Beyond the court, the fighting is over, the Mogadorians all dead. Back in Adam’s front yard, Sam kneels over a wounded Chimæra. Malcolm stands a few feet off from us, on the sideline, watching the scene with the General, a look of concern on his face. I pick myself up and stand next to Adam.
    ‘Adam, are you …?’ My voice is hoarse, throat raw and sore. Adam holds up a hand, cutting me off.
    ‘Look,’ he says flatly.
    At our feet, the General begins to disintegrate. It doesn’t happen quickly like I’ve seen with the many vatborn scoutsand warriors I’ve killed. The General decomposes slowly, parts of him flattening out faster than others. In some spots, his flesh melts away but not the bone beneath, leaving a skeletal elbow jutting up from the ground next to a rib cage, all attached to a half-disintegrated skull.
    ‘You can see where Setrákus Ra augmented him,’ Adam says, his voice almost clinical as he explains. ‘Healed wounds, cured diseases, improved his strength and speed. He promised immortality. But the unnatural parts disintegrate, like the vatborn. The rest, what’s left, that is trueborn, real flesh.’
    ‘We don’t have to get into this now,’ I manage to say, still trying to catch my breath. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the information. It’s just that Adam’s dad is lying dead at our feet and he’s giving a lesson in Mogadorian genetics like