The man monitoring the situation from the middle of the room moved to chase the creature down, a nasty-looking instrument in his hands with metal rods and sparks of electricity shooting into the air.
Tick couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around and leaned his back against the warm glass window, folding his arms. He pushed away the bubbling flames of Chi’karda in his chest.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jane said, her mask set to something that looked like a teacher speaking to a student. “That I’m horrible. That I’m evil. That I’m a monster myself.”
“Yeah, you witch,” Paul said. “That’s exactly what we’re thinking.”
Tick tensed, worried Jane would retaliate. But she kept talking. “However, you aren’t blessed with the same perspective that I am blessed with. You don’t share the vision of what the Realities will become. I need these creatures to carry out my orders, to help me defeat my enemies, to help me achieve my purposes. In the end, no one will disagree that it was worth the bumps along the road. That, as they say, the ends justify the means.”
“Bumps along the road?” Tick asked, surprised at how tight his throat felt, how hard it was to get the words out. For now, he had to put aside the shock and disgust of what he’d just seen. “You’re not even worth arguing with anymore. But you promised to hear me out about something. We need to talk, and we need to talk now. Things are gonna get really bad any second.”
“Yes, I know,” Jane said back in a whisper. “I’ve started to sense it. Something is wrong—”
She didn’t finish because the entire tunnel seemed to jump three feet into the air then drop again, throwing the four of them to the ground. The whole place continued to shake, the groans and cracks of shifting rock thundering in the air. The glass of the window shattered, raining pieces down upon Tick, who knew in his gut what was happening.
The Haunce had predicted it: the final devastation and destruction before the Realities ripped apart and ceased to exist forever.
The end had begun.
Chapter
50
~
Holes in the Ground
Sato and the Fifths walked around the flat, muddy ground of the wooden fence’s interior, kicking at occasional rocks and looking for anything that might give them a clue as to the purpose of the place.
“Why would they build a huge fence around dirt fields?” Sato asked Mothball, who walked beside him, mumbling about how time was a-wasting.
“Has to be a reason,” she answered. “Whoever it is been winkin’ us ’round like pinballs must know what they’re doin’. We’re in the right place, we are. I feel it in me bones. Just need to use them brains of ours.”
Sato knelt down and dug in the mud, throwing handfuls to the side. “Maybe your dad was right. Maybe it’s all underground, and there’s an entrance somewhere in here.”
“Can’t imagine they’d have to dig their way in every ruddy time,” Mothball said, but squatted down to help him. Soon they were a good two feet into the soft earth.
“I know a door wouldn’t be under here,” Sato said. “But if we hit a hard surface, at least we’ll know there’s a building underneath.”
He glanced up to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and stopped. The Fifth Army soldiers had spread out all over the place, following his example by digging in the ground. Sato rolled his eyes and got back to work. These people had gotten a little fanatical in their loyalty to him.
He was all the way to his elbows in greasy mud when the tips of his fingers finally brushed against a rough, hard surface. Spurred by adrenaline, he dug faster, throwing out huge chunks until he had cleared away several square inches of his discovery—a dark stone. Disappointed, he pulled out of the hole and sat back on his haunches.
“What’s bitten your buns?” Mothball asked, looking up from her own pathetic excavation.
“I thought I’d found something,” he muttered. “Something man-made. But it’s just a big, buried rock.”
“Must be a mighty big-un then. Looks like I’ve found me own slice of it.” She pointed toward the bottom of her hole.
Sato crawled over to her and looked down at the swath of bumpy, dark rock. His heartbeat picked up its pace. “You think maybe Jane’s built something down there made out of this stone? Wouldn’t surprise me, now that I think about it—her castle looks like it was made a thousand years ago. Why would her factory be any different?”
“Want us to keep diggin’ around, do ya?” Mothball asked, eyebrows raised.
Sato got to his feet and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout the order, even though his people were already doing it. His first word didn’t make it out of his mouth before the ground beneath him lurched, throwing him on his back. As he scrambled to regain his feet, the earth continued to shake, knocking him down again. Then again.
“Earthquake!” Mothball roared.
The ground moved and jostled and jumped. The world around Sato looked as if he was viewing it from a shaking camera, his vision blurry and bouncy. He concentrated on the ground directly below him, settling his feet into the mud so he could stand up and figure out what they should do. He balanced himself, holding his hands out as he slowly stood, swaying back and forth to avoid falling.
The soldiers of the Fifth appeared as if they were dancing, leaning to and fro, stumbling this way and that, falling into each other then away again. The quake increased in intensity, shaking everything. Sato couldn’t think of one reasonable order or command to shout. What did you do against Mother Nature?
An earsplitting crack fractured the air, like the sound of an entire mountain shattering. A jagged piece of dark stone erupted from the mud about forty feet in front of Sato, thrusting up from the ground like a primitive knife. One of the Fifths had been standing on the spot, and he rose twice his height into the air before tumbling off, a bloody gash on his left leg.
To Sato’s right, a huge gap in the ground opened up like the yawn of a sleeping giant; several soldiers screamed as they plummeted into the darkness below. More rocky pillars jutted up from the dirt, and more holes appeared out of nowhere, the crack of splitting stone like hammers on nails. All the while, the world shook and trembled. Still, Sato didn’t know what to do. Everything had gone to complete chaos, and he had no idea how to gain back control.
He’d barely noticed Mothball sliding away from him when he felt the ground disappear beneath his own feet. He fell into an abyss, an embarrassing squeal escaping his throat when he landed on top of his tall friend ten feet below. He heard her grunt as she pushed him off. He rolled across dark, wet stone, barely lit by the sky peeking through the long, jagged hole in the roof above them.
Something furry and strong grabbed both of his arms.
He shrieked again as it dragged him into the deeper darkness until he could see no more.
~
The tunnel was breaking apart, splits and cracks and rocks falling. Everything shook.
Tick had fallen on top of Paul, who grunted and squirmed to push him off. Sofia lay just a few feet from them, not moving. Somehow Jane still stood upright, using her Staff as a brace in one hand. She had her other hand raised, fingers outspread, and Tick realized she was using her powers to create a shield around them, the larger pieces of debris disintegrating before they hit anyone.
“Sofia!” Tick yelled over the sounds of splintering stone. “Are you okay?”
She moved, filling him with relief. When she turned to look at him, trying to smile to show she was okay, he noticed she had a long gash on her forehead—the guilty rock lay right next to her. She must’ve been hit before Jane had created the shield.
“Come on,” Tick said to Paul, grabbing him by the shirt. Losing balance with each movement, they managed to scoot their way to Sofia. Tick looked up at Jane. “This is what I was talking about! The Haunce said we had to work together to stop it!”
They bounced in the tunnel like they’d been thrown down a steep mountainside. Jane’s mask
showed no expression.
“Jane!” Tick yelled. “We can’t stay here. We have to get out of here and figure things out!”
“Call me Mistress,” she said, but without conviction. Tick wouldn’t have been able to understand the words if he hadn’t heard her say them before. He couldn’t believe she’d worry about such a stupid thing right then.
“Mistress Jane!” he screamed at her.
She seemed to snap out of whatever trance held her, her mask transforming into a look of concern. Her voice boomed as if she used a microphone. “We need to get above ground—to the dirt fields on top of us. Nothing to fall on us there.”
“Then do it!” Tick called back. “How do—”
He cut off when she gripped the Barrier Staff in both hands and thrust it toward the cracked ceiling of the tunnel. Its upper tip slammed into the rock. A bright burst of white fire made Tick shut his eyes and look down. A new sound overwhelmed the cracking and splitting of rock around them: pounding ocean waves and the familiar shifting of sands. He’d heard that noise before—when his own powers had heightened entropy and dissolved matter.
When he sensed that the brilliant light had died down, he looked up. Jane had created a massive hole that led directly to open air and cloudy skies above them. The cavity was round and smooth, as if it had been carved by the strongest lasers in the world. Before he could fully process it, he saw her grip the Staff in both hands and hold it horizontally, like someone readying for a quarterstaff fight. Then all four of them suddenly shot up from the tunnel, an invisible force lifting them through the gaping hole and into the outside air.
Tick didn’t have the time or energy to wonder about how she did it. They flew like the fangen he’d seen at her castle, out of the collapsing rubble underground, across fields of dirt and mud which had pillars and jagged triangles of rock jutting through the surface. She found a safe spot just outside the large wooden fence they’d approached from the forest an hour or so ago. They landed with a soft bump, and the magic ride was over.
“Whoa,” Paul said. “We don’t even have wings.”
Tick thought it was a perfectly absurd thing to say at the moment.
Chapter
51
~
Flies in the Biscuits
Sato squirmed and kicked and twisted his body as the monstrous, furry thing dragged him across the rough stone floor. He couldn’t see a single thing, the darkness complete. Scratches and burns lit up his skin like biting flames. Even with the movement, he could tell the place around him still shook from the never-ending earthquake.
He decided to still himself and save up his energy for one concentrated effort to escape from the creature. He calmed his body and legs, trying to relax despite the pain. The thing continued to pull him through the black, cool air. After several seconds, Sato went for it.
He thrust up with his pelvis, at the same time planting both feet and pushing off. Tensing his arms, he twisted his body as violently as he could, trying to flip over onto his stomach. The last gasp effort worked—the creature lost its grip on him and Sato heard it trip and tumble across the stone.
Sato scrambled to his feet and ran toward the sound, knowing that he didn’t have time to pull out any weapons, that he’d have only one chance to surprise the monster and attack it. His foot hit a soft lump of something, and Sato pounced, falling on top of the creature. He felt around with his hands, squeezing the thing’s body between his legs as it thrashed around, trying to throw him off. Sato felt fur and sweat. Sharp claws grazed across his upper arm, his shoulder.
He found the neck, gripping it with both hands, and squeezed. Eventually, the thing slowed its attempts to escape. And then it stilled completely, one last gurgled gasp of a breath escaping, the smell of it awful and rotten.
Sato fell off the creature, scooting away frantically until his back found a hard wall. He pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees as the dark place continued to shake and rattle around him. Rocks and pebbles rained from the ceiling, pelting his head. A sudden urge to quit—to forget all about his army and his promises and all the horrible things that were happening—almost consumed him, almost made him decide to sit there and wait to die.
But he couldn’t give in. He pushed his fear away and slammed that door closed.
Trembling, terrified, and blind, deafened by the sounds of cracking rock, Sato somehow got to his feet and started running.
~
Master George had to stop every once in a while and force himself to take deep, pulling breaths. The Control Room was abuzz with alerts and flashing indicator lights. Sato and his army had somehow been scattered, seemingly running around—and, inexplicably, up and down—like hornets with a busted nest.
Rutger came running in from the other room where he was doing his best to monitor TV stations around the world. “It’s all started up again! Earthquakes everywhere. Lightning storms in some places. I don’t know how much longer the networks will be able to keep broadcasting.”
“Dear me, dear me. It’s begun, just like Atticus said it would. At least he and his friends are still together—though they just moved a great distance rather quickly. Not sure how that happened.”
“We’re going to have our own worries,” Rutger said, looking down at the clipboard in his hand, charts and graphs filling the first page.
Master George groaned, not needing yet another fly in his biscuit. “What is it, Rutger?”
“All these quakes are gonna send a tidal wave right down on top of us.”
~
The muddy ground rumbled and grumbled around Tick and his friends. The trees of the forest were only a hundred feet away and shook like grasses caught in a wind. Every few seconds a loud crack filled the air as the wooden fence split from the raging quake.
At least nothing was falling on them from above.
Tick got to his feet, wobbling back and forth. The deep mud around his shoes actually helped him keep an uneasy balance. Jane stood nearby, her face blank, swaying with the earth’s movements as she grasped her Staff with both hands. Tick decided to get it all out in a rush, leaving her no time to talk back until he was finished.
“Ja—” He stopped himself. “Mistress Jane. The Haunce is supposed to come here any moment. Then we all have to work together to somehow fix whatever it is you did to the Realities. If we don’t, everything’s gonna be destroyed, and every single person in every single Reality is going to die. So we need to make a deal—we need to put aside our fight and do what the Haunce wants us to do.”
She didn’t respond, only stared at him with those black holes she called eyes.
“Are you even listening to me?” he yelled, unable to restrain himself. “You did this! Now we have to make it better, make it go away. What good is it to you if we all—”
“Don’t insult me, you stupid child!” she screamed back at him, her face transforming to anger so quickly that Tick didn’t see the usual flow of red metal. “I’m fully aware of what’s going on. Of course I’m going to do whatever it takes to fix it. You think I’d be foolish enough to jeopardize my plans over something so . . . human as pride? Now stop your arrogant spouting, and let’s get on with it. Where is the Haunce? Where are we supposed to meet that big cloud of electrical waste?”
Her insults and tone didn’t faze Tick in the least. “I don’t know. It just said I needed to come here and convince you to help. We had to meet here because for some reason, the Chi’karda is stronger here than anywhere else.”
“Of course.” A particularly strong bounce in the ground made her stumble backward. “That’s why I built the Factory here. And why I’m able to do the miraculous things you just saw.”
Tick just happened to look at Sofia as she rolled her eyes, then literally bit her lip to keep from saying something smart. As for him, he didn’t know what to do. He’d come to the right place; he’d convinced Jane she needed to help. What now?
A few minutes passed. No one spoke, only obs
erved the world shaking and cracking all around them. Tick didn’t know when exactly he’d dropped to his knees on the ground, but having the lower half of his legs firmly entrenched in mud sure helped his balance. His thoughts drifted to his family, to his Reality, to what horrible things must be happening there and the terror the people he cared about must be feeling.
Before his heart completely melted into a pool of pity and anguish, he snapped his mind away from it all. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered unless he got the job done right here, right now.
A stiff wind picked up out of nowhere, blowing swirls all around them, pulling at their clothes and hair. Tick squinted his eyes against the flying grit. A few jagged streaks of electricity abruptly knifed through the air in a spot just a few yards away from the group. The thin lightning bolts fired back and forth, collapsing in on each other as if they were trapped inside an invisible sphere. Then it all collapsed into a blinding ball of whiteness, hovering above the ground.
Tick looked away, a big bright spot in his vision. He heard a loud thrum of energy combined with the snaps of popping static. Surges of that now-familiar womping Chi’karda washed over his body in waves of tingles and vibrations. When he finally blinked his vision back to normal and returned his gaze to the spot, the glowing silver-blue orb of the Haunce floated there, its many faces alternating rapidly.
It spoke in a deep and resonating voice, its face changing from an old, wrinkled woman to a young boy as it did so. “It is far worse than we feared. Millions are dead already. Come, hurry. In thirty minutes, the universe will no longer exist.”
The Blade of Shattered Hope Page 26