God of Neverland Read online

  Dedication

  For my love, Melissa, who makes me feel like I can fly

  ***

  In Memory of David Wolverton,

  I was already chasing my dreams when I met you,

  but you taught me how to catch them.

  This book would not exist without you,

  and I am a better writer, and a better person

  for having known you. Until we meet again.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Neverland Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Gama Ray Martinez

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Neverland Map

  Chapter 1

  London, 1925

  A shadow, looking very much like that of a boy, ghosted into the train’s control cab through the front window. It came to a stop in front of Michael, which was strange, given how fast the train was moving. He stared at it for several seconds before looking up. There didn’t seem to be anything that could cast such an odd shade, but after a few moments, he spotted a small cloud floating in front of the full moon. That had to be responsible. In fact, if he looked at the shadow, he decided that it didn’t really look like a boy’s at all—even when it seemed to wave at him. So he ignored it, telling himself it was only a trick of the light and a side effect of a long day. After a few seconds, the shadow’s shoulders slumped, and it slipped out through the same window it had entered from—or, rather, the shadow did what shadows do when they’re no longer visible. It certainly didn’t shrug. Michael glanced back at the sky and found that the cloud had vanished into the night, and the doubt flooded in once again.

  “A boy’s shadow,” he said to himself, under his breath. He shook his head to clear away the thought as the train pulled into Paddington, and he occupied himself with delicately bringing tons of steel to a stop.

  He waited until the passengers had disembarked before exiting his cab. The station was practically empty, as his train was one of the last to arrive for the night. People greeted their loved ones and headed sleepily for the exit. A few wandered the area with no apparent place to go, but none of them paid Michael any mind, so he ignored them in turn. It had been a long day, and he shambled toward the exit, looking forward to his bed.

  As he approached the door, though, his eyes caught sight of the small shield and sword that had been chalked onto the ground, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. For a moment, he considered walking past it, but duty had been ingrained in him during his years of service, and even now, he couldn’t just ignore it, no matter how much he might want to. He scanned the area until he saw a cloaked figure not quite hidden in the shadows. The figure inclined its head. Michael eyed the exit and once again thought about taking it. They wouldn’t follow. That wasn’t their way. He could be done with this and go home.

  He sighed.

  It wasn’t his way to ignore this sort of thing, and they knew that.

  Finally, he let out a breath and walked over. The figure was a woman dressed in a long brown coat. Once he got a look at her sea-green eyes, he realized he knew her.

  “Vanessa, what are you doing here? I told the order that I’m done with them.”

  It came out sounding more like a plea than a demand, but Vanessa smiled.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Michael.”

  Her eyes twinkled as she smiled in a way that reminded Michael of his sister, Wendy. Some of his uneasiness drained away, and he exhaled slowly.

  “What do you want?”

  “They want to see you.” Her voice, barely above a whisper, was quickly swallowed by the ambient noise of the station. She raised her hand before Michael had even started his protest. “As an outsider. They’ve granted you a special dispensation.”

  Michael let out a low whistle. Outsiders had been permitted to see the ruling council of his old service, but it had happened only rarely. Michael could count the number of times it had been allowed in the past century on one hand, and he realized how powerful a request this was.

  And how that honor didn’t change anything.

  “I’m done with them. I already told you.”

  Vanessa shook her head, a motion which barely disturbed her dark curls. “This is different. A god has gone missing.”

  Michael stiffened. Instinctively, he looked around to make sure no one was close, but of course Vanessa had made sure of that before she’d started speaking. They were purposefully out of the way enough to be private, while not appearing so clandestine that their conversation would seem conspicuous. Still, he thought he saw a shadow move on the other side of the station, but it had no apparent source. So, despite her well-chosen place, he moved in closer to her. His mouth had gone dry, and his heart raced.

  A missing god. It was . . . unthinkable. Most of the pagan gods had withered as the world moved into the modern age, but a few were still active. Reality depended on them. They could fade, and probably would given enough time, but their abrupt removal could lead to chaos until the universe adapted to existence without them. He tried to sound like he didn’t care, but he knew his reaction had already told his old companion otherwise.

  “The Knights have better agents than me.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “Not for this.”

  “I’ve been out of the game for years, Vanessa. Surely—”

  “The god is Maponos.”

  Ice ran through Michael’s veins. Maponos was a god of the ancient Celts, the personification of youth. Unlike most deities, he had remained active in a world where few believed in him. He had even built a realm for himself, a place of imagination and adventure. Michael and his siblings had actually met Maponos long ago, when he was a child. It was before his parents had adopted six additional boys who had been brought from the god’s realm. Aside from his sister, Wendy, all had forgotten where they’d come from, thinking it only a child’s dream. The order Michael Darling had worked for—the one Vanessa belonged to now—knew that his adopted brothers had been called the Lost Boys, who had lived in the realm of Neverland, and that Michael had once known the god Maponos by another name.

  Peter Pan.

  “When do we leave?”

  Vanessa motioned to the exit. “There’s a car waiting for us.”

  Michael nodded and fell into step behind his former colleague. A part of him still wanted to believe that this wasn’t happening. That part almost wept as Michael stepped into the car that
would take him back to the life he had left more than a year before. Almost unbidden, the old phrase that he had heard so often before missions popped into his mind.

  Half a league onward.

  Chapter 2

  The car wound through the streets of London, traveling back roads and turning seemingly at random. More than once, they took a series of turns that brought them back to the spot they had been in only minutes before. The old ploy would’ve worked if Michael hadn’t already known where they were going.

  He gave Vanessa a level look. “It’s late, and I’m tired.”

  She shrugged. “Procedures are procedures.”

  “Procedures are why I left.”

  “No they’re not,” she said softly.

  Michael set his jaw and gazed out the window. They had entered one of the more unsavory parts of the city. Most of the lights were out, and the houses they passed ran together into a dark blur. Finally, they came to a stop before a broken-down building. It was the sort of place one would walk past quickly, and even hardened criminals didn’t want to attract the attention of those living inside. Dim lights flickered in the windows of the three-story building. He had the unshakable sense that he was being watched. He shivered as he got out of the car, and he resisted the urge to leave. The feeling grew ever stronger as Vanessa led him to the door. It creaked open before she had a chance to lift her hand and knock.

  The long hall stretching out before them was sparsely lit by flickering light bulbs and lined with hanging cobwebs for as far as Michael could see. A thick layer of dust covered a threadbare carpet. Michael had never been clear on whether the dust itself was an illusion or some other kind of magic at work. Regardless of how it was done, Vanessa left no footprints as she strode down the hall, nor did she disturb the cobwebs. The air held none of the mustiness Michael would have expected in a normal house that had been neglected as this place seemed to be. He took a deep breath, half expecting to be taken by a fit of coughing, but the air tasted perfectly normal, clean even. And yet he felt as if his chest was constricting and that every breath was a struggle. He always hated this.

  He clenched his teeth and started after Vanessa.

  The magic around the house parted like a curtain as he stepped inside, and the fear spell that had been placed on the building released him, only to be picked up by another spell. He could breathe, but now his head spun as they walked through the passages, and he felt nauseated if he looked at any one spot for too long. He knew that even though Vanessa was leading and was still an active member, she would be experiencing the same disorientation. Walking through these headquarters was done only with difficulty, and it was said the house itself determined where you would go.

  Eventually, they came to a stop in front of a plain wooden door. Michael brought his hand to his forehead and looked over his shoulder. His vision swam, and he had a hard time focusing. He would’ve been hard-pressed to retrace his steps back through the twisting hallways. Still, the urge to run, to lose himself in the dusty labyrinth, almost overwhelmed him. He held on to one thought: the magic made him want to run, and he refused to let it. He turned back to the door. Vanessa pushed it open, and the solid wood swung on silent hinges. Michael nodded at his old friend before stepping inside to meet with the people he had left nearly three years ago.

  The leaders of the Knights of the Round.

  The room was dark, with its center dimly illuminated by a single lantern hanging from the ceiling. The flame’s light barely revealed a round table near the wall opposite the door. Five shadowy figures sat around one side, forming a half moon facing the entrance, their features hidden in the dim light. They were distinguished only by the golden pattern embroidered around the inside edges of their hoods.

  Though their identities would be known among the upper ranks of the Knights, when speaking as the leaders, the nobles of the Court would be called only by their titles: the King, the Queen, the Lady, the Wizard, and the Knight Protector, representing Arthur, Guinevere, the Lady of the Lake, Merlin, and Lancelot.

  “Who comes before the Court of Camelot?” the King asked in a booming voice that Michael felt as much as he heard.

  He almost rolled his eyes. The King was always one for melodramatics.

  “Camelot has been dead for over a thousand years, and you know very well who I am.”

  For a second, silence filled the room. He could practically feel them scowling at his disrespect. Stories said that their order had been founded by Merlin himself to protect humanity against supernatural threats, and that the true purpose of the original Round Table had been to stand against such forces. But these people fancied themselves the heirs to Camelot, and they had pulled Michael back into a life he had left after having given so much; he was in no mood to indulge them their arcane fantasies.

  “Sir Michael—” the one on the far right said in a feminine voice.

  “Just Michael,” he interrupted the Knight Protector. “I left the Knights a long time ago, remember?”

  The cloaked figures looked at each other before the Knight Protector continued. “Michael, then. The god Maponos is missing. He has not entered the world in over a year, and the link to his realm has grown tenuous.”

  Michael shrugged, and relief crept into him at the thought that they had overreacted. “A year isn’t really that long for him. He gets distracted easily. He’s probably off having some adventure.”

  “Do you think we would have summoned you if it were something that simple? His realm hangs on to this world by a thread. It could snap at any time, and Neverland would forever be lost to this world.”

  Michael looked away. It was several seconds before he could speak, and even then, it felt like the words were being dragged out of him. “Maybe it’s time for that to happen.”

  Vanessa moved in close and spoke softly. “Would you destroy every wonderful thing in the world?”

  “Peter isn’t all wonder, Vanessa. He’s chaos incarnate. That’s not necessarily a good thing.”

  “Maponos holds the dreams of children all over the world,” the Lady said, either ignoring or not hearing Vanessa’s question. “Do you think it would be a small thing for that to die?”

  “Not a small thing,” Michael said, “but not necessarily a bad one.”

  “The land is wasting away, Michael,” Vanessa said. “Creatures are disappearing and the sun barely shines. The waters are murky and I’ve heard rumors all the fairies have fled.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Our agents around the world have been gathering reports of children’s nightmares,” the Wizard said.

  Michael snorted. “Children have nightmares all the time.”

  “The same nightmare? One of a boy who is not a boy trapped by darkness?”

  Michael hesitated. “A boy who is not a boy?”

  The Wizard nodded. “When a three-year-old says those words, we listen.”

  Michael stared, having no response to that rather damning evidence.

  “You may no longer see any value in it, Michael,” the Knight Protector pressed on, “but Maponos . . .” The pause felt like it lasted for an eternity. “Peter is your friend, and I do not believe that you have changed so much that that no longer matters to you. More important, you have been to Neverland, where none of the Knights have. You have spoken to Peter face-to-face and have fought by his side. If there is another more capable than you to deal with this matter, we do not know him, but all of that is beside the point. You will accept this task.”

  Michael stiffened. “Will I? I seem to recall leaving you and everything you stood for.”

  “And yet you came when you learned why we wanted to see you. You had decided you would accept this task before you set foot in this house. Now stop playing these games.”

  “Games? Who is dressed up in robes, living in their little clubhouse with their special rules and secret codes? I left to get away from your games.”

  Michael seethed. A part of him wanted to just walk a
way at this point. The magic of the house would prevent him from leaving unless the Court allowed it, but he doubted they would stop him if he just turned and left. Still he hesitated. Because the Knight Protector was right. If Peter really was in some sort of trouble, he couldn’t just abandon him. The Knights? They could have their dusty house and even dustier ceremonies. Michael had left the Knights because he had been tired of such mysteries, of things beyond the comprehension of most people. He wanted no more of a life in the shadows. No more adventure. No more danger. He just wanted to be part of the ordinary world, like everyone else.

  But this was Peter.

  He let out a long breath. One more mission. He shuddered at the thought but recovered before the Court could notice—although he could see Vanessa looking at him with a combination of curiosity and sympathy.

  Okay, he thought. I can do this much before I put the Knights, Neverland, and everything else behind me. For good.

  He searched his memory, not only for what he had learned of Peter when he was a child, but also for everything he had learned during his time with the Knights. He would need materials he no longer had access to—materials he’d rarely had access to during his own time as a Knight—and he doubted the Court would like the idea of giving those to an outsider.

  Well, that puts the fate of Neverland in their hands, doesn’t it?

  “I’ll help,” he said, smiling at the thought of their reaction to his next request. “But before I do, I need access to the catacombs.”

  Chapter 3

  The eruption was everything Michael had expected. And hoped for. All five members of the Court shot to their feet. Each tried to shout over the others, which made understanding any of them all but impossible—not that he much cared what they were actually saying. On top of that, the magic of the house responded to the Court’s reaction, and the air vibrated against Michael’s skin, alive with power. A grin had crept onto Vanessa’s face. No doubt she had been expecting this. She gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.