“What’d he shoot you with? A BB gun?”
Next time, I’ll try and leave a bigger scar so you can get some respect.
“Ha, ha to the both of ya.”
Before Gregg could say “Huh?” the doorbell gave a passable imitation of a musical machine gun. Ding, ding, ding, ding, d.d.d.ding.
I pulled the door open to see Dave’s smiling face. Before I could chastise him for doorbell abuse he said, “Mighty Finn! The salt-mobile awaits your pleasure!”
“Salt-mobile?”
His smile grew even bigger, and he waggled his finger between Gregg and himself. “Yep, we are your crime fighting sidekick duo, Mr. Salt and Mr. Pepper.”
It was my turn to raise some skeptical eyebrows.
He was unabashed. “What? Look, it’s clear now that you’re a superhero. You are The Mighty Finn and Erik is your first evil nemesis: Snakeboy.”
I tried to glare into the light of Dave’s smile, but in the end, his happy ray vanquished my cynical defense. I chuckled and said, “Okay Salt Boy, let’s get getting.”
He stepped into my path. “That’s Mr. Salt to you, and where are you going with that shotgun?”
“I’m taking it with me.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. No guns, bombs, or swords in the Salt Mobile.”
I scowled at him. “Some superhero sidekick you are.”
“Yeah, I’m the one without the big hole in my windshield left by the Mighty Finn’s shotgun.”
Reluctantly, I left the gun propped near the front door. I turned to lock the deadbolt while Gregg and Dave headed to the car. I heard a rustle in the bushes beside me. Not waiting to be attacked by a giant snake, I ran to the car, flung open the door, jumped in, and slammed it behind me.
As soon as I did it, I cringed at the response I knew would come. It came. “God damn it, Finn! I told you not to slam the damn door!”
I tried to look as sincere as possible when I said, “Sorry Dave, I—” CLA-THWAK! I yelped at the sound and jumped nearly into Dave’s lap with my hands outstretched to stop whatever was coming through my door. Nothing was there—including the window. It had fallen to the bottom of the door.
“Crap! I told you, you twit! You’re helping me fix that. If that window is broken, you’re going to pay for it!”
I winced and said, “I don’t know if I can cover a new window.”
“I’ll take half up front with easy monthly payments for the rest of your life if necessary—plus interest. Why the hell can’t you just shut the door gently like a normal person?”
“I heard something in the bushes. I thought it might be the snake.”
Dave eyed the small evergreen shrubs in front of my house. “Those bushes?”
I nodded.
“You think you could fit twenty-five cubic feet of snake in six cubic feet of bush?”
My ears started to heat up. “Well… maybe he can become a smaller snake.”
Gregg piped up from the back. “You know shape changing can’t work like that. Conservation of mass and all that.”
Exasperated, I exclaimed, “I also happen to know that frigging shape-changing is impossible!”
Dave laughed and started driving. “Got to give that one to Mighty.”
I nodded to the officer sitting in the cruiser parked in front of our house as Dave started plying me for more information.
By the time we made it to Dr. Anderson’s House of Horrors, he was pretty well caught up. The lack of opportunities to run over any giant snakes along the way disappointed me, but I consoled myself that the day was still young.
***
We stood in the sprawling common room of Shady Oaks. Gregg had just stopped me from following him to see his sister. “Finn, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see Jen just now. My mom might still be here. She doesn’t hate you quite as much as my dad, but you are certainly not her favorite person right now.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Gregg waved me down. “I know bud, but we just need to give it some time.”
It hurt, but I knew he was right.
“Okay, but you have to… Oh never mind. I’ll catch you later.” I resigned myself to staying away from Jen, but like so many things I decide, it turns out it didn’t matter. Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.
A scream rang out from the hallway that housed Jen. It was the scream of a young girl in terror or pain. Immediately, the two of us ran to Jen’s room. We arrived there together. Somehow, I’d made it in front of Gregg.
What I saw there stopped me cold—until Gregg ran me over. A man stood next to Jen where she lay strapped onto the bed. He had his hands on her head. Jen was screaming in terror and pain. A cold, black shadow covered the man, and it was reaching into Jen’s head with eagerly questing black tendrils. Gregg quickly hopped over me and ran to grab the man.
“Greg, stop!”
I didn’t want to see Jen’s soul torn out when Gregg pulled the man away. Gregg’s feet stuck to the floor and he went down hard with an exclamation of pain. The man stood up in surprise when Gregg hit the ground. The tendrils reaching into Jen didn’t break, they just stretched. I didn’t even spare Gregg a glance. I imagined my shield between Jen and the crazy guy and then put everything I could into it. The golden dome sprang into existence between them. Suddenly, it was the man who was screaming. He lurched back from Jen as if burned and fell onto the floor. The golden light severed the pseudopods plunging into Jen. Happily, the remnants seemed to flail for a bit, then just evaporate. The man climbed back to his feet and looked at me with wide crazed eyes.
About the time I realized that the man and his shadow were inside my dome with me, he charged. I scrambled to my feet and turned to run, but he was quicker. He tackled me before I even made it to the hall. Suddenly cold knives of pain slammed into my skull. I felt something trying to suck my life out through my head. It was sheer agony. Instantly, the cold spread through me and threatened to paralyze me. I dropped my dome and brought it back as a skin-tight golden suit surrounding me. The cold instantly disappeared, though I could feel the darkness licking against my shield. It felt like a giant diseased slug pressing on my brain, but it couldn’t physically touch me—if that term even applied.
The man screamed again and fell off my back. I rolled onto my butt and found him scrambling away with angry hunger in his eyes. I expanded my golden dome again asymmetrically past him to cover Jen. When the dome touched the man, he hissed and backed away.
Triumph filled me, and I felt like I’d been promoted from punching bag to… to, ah, grocery bag. I got up and started pushing the man toward the far corner of the room. He scuttled back until he couldn’t move any farther. I held him there and shouted at Gregg to get Jen out. I heard Gregg remove the straps holding her down, and the two of them scrambled from the room.
If you took away the blackness that nearly covered the man, he certainly didn’t look scary.
He looked like an accountant on March fourteenth with 500 tax returns to complete. His thin, tannish-gray hair was running away from the battle for his forehead, and a scraggly white beard tried unsuccessfully to make up for its cowardice. Not too scary, till you saw his wild, despairing eyes. Eyes that let me know he was capable of doing anything to escape from under the black slime slowly devouring his essence.
I weighed my options. I could try to push my shield through him, but I had no idea what it might do to him. I didn’t need another Holly on my conscience—shadow free but comatose.
As I paused there, I started to feel the strain of holding up the shield. I was pushing too much of myself through it, and apparently I was reaching my limits.
Spring agreed. Finn, drop it and run, or you’re going to collapse again!
I hesitated a second, considered what always happened when I ignored her counsel and then followed her advice. I dropped, turned, and ran. The man behind me screamed in rage and charged after me. As I ran toward the door, looking over my shoulder, Tom, the big, burly order
ly ran in. It was a case of an immovable object being hit by a rubber ducky. I bounced and fell back to the floor with a squeak. Pain speared through me from my tailbone, but I couldn’t afford to stop and whimper. There wasn’t enough space to crawl between Tom’s legs, so I scrambled back out of the way.
Tom grabbed the screaming man before he could take advantage of my indisposed disposition and immobilized him. He was obviously adept at his job. Unfortunately, I don’t think his training covered invisible black soul-eating pseudopods stabbing him in the head. When that happened, it was his turn to scream and fall down. The Karma Fairy was being exceedingly egalitarian in spreading her fertilizer today.
The man was on me like a crazed, toxic-waste covered, accountant. This time, I brought up my shield and then physically flipped him over me with a move my uncle had taught me. I didn’t execute it particularly well, but it worked. My unexpected success stunned me, and I almost missed my chance to follow up on it.
I scrambled up and jumped on him as he was getting to his knees and crawling away. I held my shields tight against me. I had no desire to have that vile thing touch me again. I would have rather bathed in raw sewage. The accountant was slender though taller than me. I must have outweighed him by 30 pounds. I landed on his back, flattened him, and held him down with frantic strength. I heard and felt a sickening crack when he smacked his forearm hard against the tiled floor. He screamed in agony and rage. As sick as the thought of breaking his arm made me feel, I couldn’t chance easing up, so I held on for dear life while trying to figure out what to do. The blackness had begun pushing and flowing over my shield. I could feel its sewer-imbued chill, even though it couldn’t touch me. My current shield was smaller than my last and not as hard to hold as the larger one had been, but I knew I couldn’t keep going much longer. Therefore, I did the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t end up with me covered in icky black goo. I started pushing my shields out again. Slowly, I pushed out against the blackness. The mad accountant screamed in rage and pain below me while saying happy things like “I will kill you and eat you!”
I tried not to pay attention to his verbal attacks but continued my slow press. I could feel the resistance of the darkness as I pushed it down. It receded grudgingly, first clearing the man’s back, revealing only a small amount of the scintillating red aura underneath. As I moved the shield down, more and more of his body emerged from the receding black tide. He continued struggling to be free, but I kept him pinned and soon had pushed the shadow off him completely. To do that, I pushed it through the floor. The man fell limp underneath me. I kept pressing, my focus growing narrower and narrower as fatigue pulsed through me. My head started pounding as hard as my heart.
Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off the accountant. I struggled to maintain my concentration and energy output. Dr. Anderson was there, lifting the man off the floor and as he did, the sight of a pale red aura stretching from the limp man through the floor sickened me with panic. The shadow still hadn’t let go.
“Don’t move him anymore,” I said weakly. “You’re stretching his aura. The shadow’s still holding it.” I shivered as the room seemed to get colder.
Anderson stopped, confusted and conthwarted. “Okay, Finn, what should I do?”
I had no idea why he was asking me. I didn’t know, but if I didn’t do something, I was going to pass out yet again, and that was sooo last month! I hissed, “Just stand up—slowly.”
The good Doctor was stronger than he looked because he did as I asked and raised the man very slowly but steadily. I could scarcely believe that he could even lift the man against the awful pull I could feel on my unseen shield below the floor. As I watched, the accountant’s aura was stretched farther and farther, flashing into white incandescence under the strain. I waited for the non-sound of it tearing. But, it didn’t tear like Holly’s had. Slowly, like stretchy glue being peeled off a magazine, it began releasing from the unseen shadow below. It was almost free when it finally tore. The bulk of the man’s aura snapped back into him, but he moaned in pain in the Doctor’s arms.
I pushed the shadow as far away as I could, then my shield collapsed, followed by me. The world closed around me, and I struggled to maintain consciousness. It was all I could do to hang on. I heard and saw people moving around me but didn’t have the energy to care. Someone sat me down on a chair and soon after, I felt a cold glass being raised to my lips. I heard Jen saying, “Come on, Finn, it’s Dr. Pepper—your favorite.”
I took a small sip, choked on it, and then took another. Soon, I had it in my hands, and shortly thereafter, I had drained it. The cold liquid’s chill reminded me of the cold of the shadow, but I swear I could feel the warmth when the sugar hit my bloodstream, so I drank it all. My brain started working again, and I soon realized that a room full of people watched me. Jen and Gregg were close. Tom and another orderly stood behind them, near the door, keeping a crowd of curious onlookers out.
“Is he all right?” I asked my friends.
Gregg shrugged. “The little guy? I don’t know. I don’t even know what was going on here.”
“A shadow was riding him, Gregg. It was attacking Jen, so after we got him away from her, I pushed the shadow off of him.”
Jen said with wonder in her voice, “I saw it! You saved me, Finn! I just knew you were the one!”
Jen leaned forward and gave me a long hug. Her solid warmth and pleasant musky smell overwhelmed me, but there was something more. I felt warmth spreading from where her red and blue aura touched me. I let her aura warm my soul and her body warm mine.
All too soon, she pulled away, locked her eyes onto mine, and repeated, “I knew you were the one, Finn! I knew it.”
Gregg saved me from my growing discomfort at the intimacy of her look and gently drew her back. His eyebrows lowered with concern. “Jen, you look exhausted, too. You should go back to your room.” I was mildly startled. I hadn’t even realized that we’d moved to someone else’s room.
“No, Gregg. I’m not leaving Finn. He needs me right now, and he’s the only one who can keep us safe.”
“I think Gregg’s…”
“Also, I need Finn’s help to complete the transfer,” Jen interrupted.
A pulse of shock ran down my body and obliterated the annoyance caused by yet another interruption. Gregg’s face twisted in alarm. I’m sure it matched mine. “What transfer?”
“The transfer of the priestess into me. After Finn visited yesterday and the drugs wore off, I finally understood why every thing’s been so hard. The crystal holds the soul of Il Saia, the high priestess of Illyria from Finn’s game. Somehow Finn has been channeling her when he was designing his game. His game is real! I mean, she’s real. When Finn and I grabbed the crystal, the priestess’s mind started transferring into me. The tree spirit’s attack interrupted the transfer, and now I’m two half-people.”
Two things amazed me. First, Spring did not rise to this acknowledgment of her part in saving the day, and second, this was the most coherent thing I had heard Jen say in a long while. But, I shook my head at the same time Gregg was shaking his. I said, “Oh, no. I am so not going there, Jen. Last time, it really messed you up.”
Gregg dittoed.
“But, it’s the only way, Finn.” Seeing no help from me, she turned to her brother, “Gregg! It’s the only way I’ll be able to know what to do to stop the black shadows. Can’t you see them all around this place?” Jen’s desperation leaked onto her face and into her voice. She turned back to me. “Please Finn, the world will die if we don’t do this! Once I get the rest of the priestess’s knowledge, I’ll be able to help you.”
At this point, Dr. Anderson came through the door and brought his own brand of happiness to the room.
Jen clutched at Gregg and me on either side of her. “Finn, I’m not going to let him tie me back down. I’d rather die.” I waited for the good doctor’s reaction. His shields were up, but his lasers were down. I still had no idea what he was thin
king.
Gregg grabbed her hand and squeezed. “No one is going to tie you down again, sis.”
I added, “We won’t let them.”
Jen didn’t seem to hear us. “You know they’ll kill me if they can! They don’t want me to know. They know we can stop them. This is the only way.”
Dr. Anderson stopped a couple feet away from us. “What is the only way, Jen?”
“Finn has to complete the transfer of the priestess from the crystal into me.”
Mr. Unflappable flapped a bit at that one. “Jen, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She swelled with annoyance and frustration. “It’s what I’ve been saying all along. I know we’re in terrible danger, and the end is coming, but I don’t know everything I need to know about it. They’ll kill us all! Right now, I’m no use to anyone.I need Finn to complete the transfer of Il Saia into to me! After that I’ll be whole again!”
Anderson stood up and said, “Jen, we can’t just rush into this. We’ll have to plan it out.” Before she could object, he continued, “I’m sure we will figure out the best and safest way to handle this, okay?”
A blanket of exhaustion and defeat deflated Jen, and she slumped into the chair with a small nod.
“Finn, can I talk to you alone?” asked Anderson.
I hesitated and looked at Jen and Gregg. Gregg understood my implied question and said, “Don’t worry Finn, I’m not going anywhere. We’ll be okay.”
I followed Anderson down the hall till we got back to an isolated spot in the commons.
“Finn, you are not going to touch that girl, with or without that crystal. She’s been traumatized by her experience today. She’s just taken a significant step back in her healing process.”
“Yeah, I guess getting chewed on by black sludge will do that to a person.”
“Finn, this is serious. You need—”
This pissed me off. He didn’t know shit. Neither did I, but that’s never stopped me. “I know how serious this is, doc. Which one of us fought that thing off? Which one of us is going to spend the rest of the day feeling polluted and greasy—on the inside?”
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