by Chris Miller
Instead of reaching for his own sword, Rob flung a tired hand out in the direction of his father’s, “…but victory comes by the Author’s hand.” The sword was suddenly wrestled out of Mr. Bungle’s grip, flying across the room and into Rob’s outstretched hand.
Just like that, the tables had been turned. A cocky smile spread across Rob’s face. With renewed resolve he made ready his own attack now.
Ever the picture of calm, Mr. Bungle continued unfazed, “Consider carefully the path of your feet…”
“…and your way will be sure!” Rob shouted, charging at his unarmed father. “Whoa!”
Before he knew what had happened, Rob was airborne, landing hard on his back. His father caught hold of his sword in midair and in one fluid motion spun it around to point down at his fallen opponent’s neck.
“How’d you…?” a bewildered Rob began to ask, looking past the blade to his triumphant father.
Mr. Bungle just smiled and held up the corner of a floor mat that he’d yanked out from under Rob’s feet a moment earlier. Rob groaned and let his head fall back to the ground, his dreadlocks splaying out in all directions.
“Excellent sparring, son,” Mr. Bungle said, relaxing his stance and returning his sword hilt to his belt. He offered one of his strong hands to Rob. “It is written: As iron sharpens iron…”
“Yeah, yeah, we sharpen each other. I know,” Rob said with a hint of attitude, taking his Dad’s hand. “But last I checked iron doesn’t bruise like I do.” He rubbed at a sore spot on his backside.
Mr. Bungle wrapped a friendly arm around Rob’s shoulders and broke into a hearty laugh that Trista and I couldn’t resist joining. Hearing our laughter, the dueling Bungles finally noticed their audience.
“Hunter? Trista?” Rob said with surprise. A huge smile spread across his face. He didn’t waste any time rushing over to welcome us. “Come on in, you guys! This is great! Dad, these are my new friends I was telling you about.”
“It is an honor,” Mr. Bungle bowed his head twice in our direction. “I have heard many good things about you both. A friend of the Author is a true friend indeed.”
Rob looked to be nearly bursting at the seams with pride over being able to present us to his father.
“It’s good to meet you too, Mr. Bungle,” Trista said.
“Please. You must call me by my name, Kim.”
Of all the names I could have imagined for a tough guy like Rob’s dad, the name “Kim” was not even on the list. Kim snapped his attention toward me, his thick crop of black hair springing to follow. “My son tells me how well you fight, Hunter. Would you do me the honor of sparring with me?”
“Maybe another time, Dad. I’m sure they came over for other reasons besides running through drills with us,” Rob said.
Kim ignored his son, his piercing coal-black eyes pressing me for my own answer.
“Well, actually, Mr. Bung…I mean, Kim,” I began, “my sword has been a little out of whack lately. I’m not sure it’d be a good idea to….”
“May I see it?” Kim asked abruptly.
I wasn’t about to say no. “Uh, sure.”
I took off my backpack and retrieved my sword hilt, careful not to grab the twisted black one. Kim eagerly accepted the sword from me and gave it a thorough inspection, sighting down its every curve and assessing the balance of its weight.
Gripping the handle firmly in his hand, he commanded the blade to life, swishing it expertly through the air.
“The sword is perfect,” Kim proclaimed, releasing the blade and offering the hilt back to me with both hands. His intense gaze locked back on me now. “The trouble you speak of will lie elsewhere.” I suddenly got the sense that he was mentally turning me over just as he had done with my weapon, inspecting me down to my very soul, if that were possible.
“Produce your blade,” he challenged.
I hesitated, fearing the pain that had come before.
“Yes, sir. I would, but there was actually something else I was hoping you could help us with….”
Kim ignored my attempt to talk my way out of his challenge and narrowed his eyes. He glanced over at the bow Trista still carried slung over her shoulder.
“May I?” he inquired.
Trista looked over at Rob. He shrugged his shoulders and silently motioned with his eyes that she hand it over. Lifting the bowstring over her head, she handed the weapon to Mr. Bungle.
Kim gently plucked the string, invoking a pleasant tone from its vibrations. The effect of the note in my head was anything but pleasant. I winced from the momentary discomfort.
Kim noticed and commanded me once again, “Produce your blade.”
I jumped. This time his voice had risen to a level of intensity he had not even approached while sparring with Rob. Kim raised the bow and pulled the string back taut, his penetrating eyes still boring into me. I gulped, uncertain of what he intended to do if I failed to follow his order. Breathing deeply, I tightened my grip and tried to draw upon the code I had found so much strength from before: By fear a man appoints his master, I repeated to myself.
In that instant an explosion of mind-numbing pain blasted inside my head once again. I dropped my sword and fell to my knees, screaming in agony as more confusing images fired through my brain.
I was aware of Trista and Rob racing to my aid, but Kim shouted for them to stand back before yelling, “By Truth the Way will be made clear!”
I looked up through my pain just in time to see Mr. Bungle, bow drawn with its fiery arrow of light pointed straight at my head. There was nothing I could do to stop him. He let go of the string. A streak of light pierced my skull and everything around me disappeared into a brilliant white.
The flash had only lasted a moment, but amazingly, despite being shot point blank, I felt no pain when at last my vision returned. In fact, the excruciating pain felt moments before the shot was fired was completely gone now. In its place was a remarkable flood of memories, rushing back to me in one massive wave. Suddenly, I could remember everything from the fair. I could remember escaping to Solandria in the flying gondola, even the school fire. Every lost and fragmented memory was filing back into place. Finally, things were making perfect sense again…as much as the strange and sometimes inexplicable truth of my post-Solandria life ever could.
“Ew! What is that thing?” Trista shrieked, backing away from me in terror. From the look on his face, Rob’s infamous weak stomach was about to make a comeback.
I whipped around and saw what they had found so repulsive: the writhing form of some kind of slimy, oversized centipede. A smoldering hole had been shot through its body. The splattered trail of some of its gooey innards left a streak across the floor.
“That,” Mr. Bungle said factually, “was your problem, Hunter. A Quell. It is a Shadow parasite that blocks all recent memory of truth.”
This squirming thing had somehow been living inside my head? I felt nauseated, watching its countless legs grope about for its missing host, knowing they were once comfortably wrapped around my brain before Kim’s arrow severed their hold. Looking me straight in the eyes, Kim nodded to the disgusting Quell.
“Produce your blade,” he said once again in a much friendlier tone.
Needless to say, I didn’t hesitate to follow his orders this time. The powerful blade of light coursed effortlessly from my sword and finished off the revolting creature’s struggle. Trista was the first to speak up.
“Ohhh-kay. That was just about the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.” She shuddered, looking back at my head. “You didn’t drink lake water or something, did you?”
“What? No!” I said in protest. “I don’t know how it got there, but everything about our mission—I remember it now! The Quell must have been what was blocking my memory and preventing me from using the sword.”
“It is true,” Mr. Bungle sai
d. “Quell can cause serious problems such as these.”
“Man that sucker was big!” Rob said, “I didn’t know they could get that size.”
“What do you mean?” Trista asked.
“The Writ describes them as being super small—almost germ-like. There are probably millions of them between the four of us here.”
Trista looked horrified. Seeing Trista’s reaction, he quickly qualified, “Sure, we all contract them, but they can’t live very long in anyone who regularly uses the Code of Life. It’s like a pesticide with them—kills them off while they’re young. You’ll be fine.”
“So, how do you explain Quell-zilla?” Trista asked skeptically.
“The Black-Eyes,” I answered.
The others looked over at me curiously.
“After the fire, when the ambulance took me,” I continued, reliving the moment aloud for the first time, “those emergency workers who took me weren’t real. I saw their eyes—they were black. I mean all black. They had to be Shadow. I don’t know where they took me, but it wasn’t the hospital. They were talking about a chamber, saying they found ‘another one’ and then….”
“What?” Trista asked breathlessly.
“And then I don’t know. They drugged me with something.”
“All of that so they could feed your brain to the giant Quell?” Rob asked. “I don’t get it.”
“Nor do I,” Rob’s dad said, his brows furrowed in deep thought. “It is no secret that the Shadow are a constant threat to our ways, but I do not consider them as a likely source for this terror. Their methods in the Veil have always been ones of stealth. This type of aggressive assault is too risky, more likely pointing to someone else.”
“Someone else like who?” Rob asked.
Trista caught my eye with a knowing look and said, “Tell them about the Watchers and your family.”
I took a deep breath. There was so much to tell, but I touched on the highpoints, briefly explaining my encounters with Vogler, his association with the Watchers, and the background Simon and Desi had provided about my missing father being a target.
“And now...” I choked up, “the Watcher, Vogler…he’s taken the rest of my family. He’s after me too.”
Kim sighed. My story had hit a soft spot in his heart and he looked as if he might tear up.
“Family is one of the greatest gifts a man can have. Please, allow us to do all we can to help you in recovering them. You are welcome to stay with us here until your family is found. Have you notified the police of your trouble?”
“No!” I almost shouted. “I mean…you can’t. Not the police. They’re in on this somehow.”
Kim shot a curious glance at me.
“There have been many myths and speculation surrounding the Watchers,” Kim said. “While the Writ does confirm the existence of these beings, there is little that is known for certain to validate what you have been told. I would caution against drawing conclusions too soon. The truth will always set you free.”
“They took my family tonight!” I almost yelled. “I’m lucky they didn’t nab me and Trista too. There’s no arguing with that, is there?”
“No,” Kim said reservedly, “I suppose not.”
The discussion was interrupted when the doorbell rang once more. The commotion upstairs ended in a hush as Sabrina shouted loud enough for all of us to hear—even in the basement.
“Mom, that big, scary black man from the library is at the front door.”
“Vogler!” Trista and I said in unison.
Somehow he had managed to find us. There was no escaping this man.
Chapter 13
Back to the Bookshop
With each heavy footstep overhead, my heart pounded even louder. Vogler was now inside the house and he wasn’t here for supper.
“Dad, what do we do?” Rob asked, looking physically sick.
“Try not to jump to conclusions, kids,” Rob’s father said. “Confusion will only serve the enemy. We must focus only on what we know. The Author is with us, we have nothing to fear.”
His reassurance was cut short by a shriek from upstairs and the shattering of glass. Mrs. Bungle screamed out, “Sabrina, no!”
Kim tried his best to maintain his composure, but his face was an open book. He was worried. His hand moved for his sword.
“Now can we be frightened?” Rob asked.
“Concerned, not frightened,” Kim corrected his son. “There is a difference.”
Difference or not, there was no avoiding the fact that the threat was real, present and very dangerous. The commotion continued.
“You three stay put while I see what must be done.”
Kim darted up into the fray, leaving us alone in the basement to listen and wonder. None of us dared speak.
“Oh no, you don’t! This is my house,” I heard Kim shout at one point, followed by more destruction.
“I’ve never heard him that mad before,” Rob whimpered.
Tap, tap, tap!
The basement window rattled behind us. All three of us jumped at the sound and spun around, expecting Vogler to be there. It was Desi. She had crawled into the window well and was pointing at the latch. Once I explained who she was, Rob unlocked the window and pushed it open.
“This way,” Desi whispered. “Hurry!”
I started climbing out, but something caught me by the foot. It was Trista.
“What are you doing?” she asked, pulling at my shoe.
“Escaping,” I answered. “It’s me he’s after. I never should have brought you two into this. It’s only causing more trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not safe either, not now,” Trista said, looking as if she were going to cry. “You can’t leave me here!”
She was right. Like it or not, the damage had been done. She and Rob were guilty by association.
“Come with me,” I said, reaching a hand out to her. She took it and the two of us slid our way out of the narrow window and onto the lawn. Rob was still left behind.
“You coming?” I called back. He froze, not with fear but determination.
“No, I’ve got a family to help,” he answered. “Go find yours. I’ll latch the window from inside to buy you more time.”
I nodded my thanks as the window shut between us. Already I could see shadows moving in the stairway behind him. Someone was coming down.
“Follow me,” Desi said, mounting her white Ghost and firing up the engine. Trista and I ran for the black one and did the same. It was starting to rain outside, and the seat was wet.
Bweeeeeeeeeee!
With a squeal Desi’s bike zipped around the house, down the driveway and into the road. We were only six seconds behind, but it was just enough time for Vogler to jump over the front porch railing, run across the lawn and step out into the driveway directly in our path. It was a bold move, but at the speed we were travelling there was no way I was going to stop.
“Hunter, No!” Trista screamed as we neared the inevitable collision with the man.
With the flick of a switch, the bike disappeared and passed through Vogler like water through a hole. Twenty feet later we reappeared in the middle of the road, a little farther than I had planned. There wasn’t enough time to adjust for the distance—I hit the curb hard. A cluster of mailboxes skimmed past my left shoulder as the Ghost lurched onto the sidewalk and into the neighbor’s pristinely kept front lawn. Regaining control, I turned hard right and dug a trench in the moist lawn on the way to the street.
Vogler looked a bit surprised, but quickly recovered and dashed to his black SUV. It couldn’t ghost, but with the flick of a switch he had other special powers: a Hemi engine, flashing lights and blaring sirens to clear the way.
With Vogler closing the gap, we sped up alongside Desi.
“What’s the plan now?” I shouted b
etween us.
“There is none,” she answered with a bit more honesty than I had hoped for. “Just try and lose him, anyway we can.”
“Oh, is that all,” I replied.
“Just follow me, and try to keep up,” she said. Leaning forward, she upped the throttle and surged ahead. I swallowed hard and did the same. Trista tightened her grip around my waist.
“I hope you know what you’re doing!” she yelled.
So do I, I muttered to myself.
Despite our head start, it didn’t take long for Vogler to catch up. What started as a speed race quickly turned into one of agility as we zig-zagged through a maze of streets and alleyways in hopes of shaking him. It didn’t work—the man was unshakeable. That’s when things got interesting.
In a desperate move, Desi zipped up an off ramp from the freeway heading against the flow of traffic. Before I even had time to process what we had just done, I followed; surprisingly Vogler did as well. At first, Desi kept to the shoulder of the freeway, allowing the rush of oncoming cars to stay to our right. It was well past rush hour and traffic was lighter than normal, but that hardly seemed to matter when driving against it. Everything moved twice as fast. An endless stream of headlights blurred past, adding a “warp speed” effect to the whole experience. That’s when Desi did the unthinkable; she pulled off the shoulder and ghosted into the heart of traffic.
“She’s insane!” I said, shaking my head.
“And yet, you’re following her. Look out!” Trista screamed, as a car skidded out of control right toward us. I turned out into the rush of traffic to avoid being hit, but quickly regretted the move. Cars were skidding out left and right as we dodged the oncoming traffic. More than a dozen times we ghosted through vehicles to avoid collisions. Two exits up we pulled off the freeway; unbelievably, Vogler did as well. The chase continued back to the streets of Destiny.
“Why don’t we just ghost through one of the buildings?” I asked Desi when it was safe to pull alongside her again.
“Because we don’t know what’s on the other side,” she answered. “Ghosting isn’t just for fun. You have to be smart about it.”