Endless, endless spinning.
What had I done?
Unbelievably, the inner data base chose this moment to fill me in on interdimensional pathways. I had inadvertently opened a door to all the doors in existence. Traveling without a destination in mind was one of the most dangerous things any of my kind could do. If you had nowhere to go then you went literally nowhere.
Panic started to set in. Couldn’t Neith or Cyril stop it? My parents knew how to travel. If I’d sucked us all into ‘nowhere’ that seemed like a disorienting ‘somewhere’ to me then they could get us out, couldn’t they?
The inner databank disagreed—neither of them were in control of the door to nowhere—I was. It was up to me to pick a location. How was I supposed to do that? The long enchanting corridor had disappeared—replaced by formless nastiness and a black dot that looked suspiciously similar to a black hole. Astrophysicist I was not, but I knew enough to decide against that as an escape hatch. Or at least I thought I did.
So I had to know where we were going. Okay, well, I would just take us back to my room. The inner AI did a mental headshake. No go. Doors did not loop back to join with themselves. Straight lines only. Okay, not straight, but hell—point A to point B.
Shit fire!
The spinning around me was beginning to take on a wobble of destabilization. Time was running out while I dithered about what to do. Screams became moans and the pressure of other minds felt crushing against the boundaries of my own. I still couldn’t tell just who I’d brought with me or if I was hallucinating I had.
I’d never seen another place. How was I supposed to envision somewhere I’d never been? Wait! That wasn’t true, I’d seen plenty of other planets and places when I shared memories with the relic. I could so do this. I had to.
An image of the Masters ‘brain’ hub sprang to mind. The vision of it was the crispest, most defined foreign relic memory I could grasp—which is to say I wasn’t exactly sure of it, but it was the best I option in a crap situation. Everything else was foggy in my rush to save myself and anyone else I’d doomed to this place. I reached again, just like I had in my bedroom. Sludge was the only thing I could ascribe the sensation to—I was pushing through ooze or forcing my hand down an oatmeal-filled pipe to turn a slippery bolt.
At the center of the dark pinpoint ahead a whiteness flared. Gone was the fear as the discordant wails ceased so absolutely that when I took a breath it filled my eardrums to bursting. My fingers curled on a cold black floor. Streaks of gray soot and ruptured puzzle pieces of metal tinkled and sprayed outward as if time had restarted itself.
Dominic crashed into me from the right and I saw Cyril and Neith disappear behind a glossed column. Someone dragged me upright by my hair until my legs banged against one another and my shoes fell from my feet. My hands had automatically gone to my head to take some of the weight off by pulling on my attacker’s arm, so when the punch hit my gut I was unprepared.
The breath I’d taken in just seconds ago whooshed out. Mouth gaping and gasping my field of vision was filled with a real live Master’s face. No eyebrows arched above the spiked white lashes—the human-looking blue eyes shone with anger. This close, its skin reminded me of iridescent fish bellies. I kicked outward with both feet and braced myself against the Master’s upper body with all the strength I had left. Black dots danced and darted as they spread like ink blots across my sight.
Oxygen—I needed to breathe!
A grunt came after a wet slicing noise and then my tailbone slammed against the floor and shockwaves of pain went up my spine. I remembered to inhale just so I could scream.
Cyril uncrossed two mutated flipper blades from the Master’s neck. The shining flesh on the long throat gaped and then the head toppled backward as silvery blood made a geyser.
Dom and Iz were there all of a sudden. Hands smoothing my hair and feeling my body for injuries. I shut my mouth and pounded my chest as I coughed.
Neith approached, looking around at the wreckage in satisfaction. “You waste no time striking at the root of the enemy, sa. I am much pleased.”
Now was not the time to argue it had been an accident. Plus, I still couldn’t form words yet. My heart was racing double time. Dom’s attention was on the dead Master. Izzy’s bloodless lips looked cracked and her pink hair was dotted with black flakes. It looked like someone had shaken a giant pepper tin over her head.
I realized two people were missing. I cared the most about one. My voice came back, “Christophe!”
Cyril pointed with a still sharp appendage at the far wall. My brother was safe but appeared stunned, as if the portal jump had thrown him into a state of shock. Rowena wasn’t anywhere. Maybe her full humanness had excluded her from my unintentional jettison into the unknown?
Neith kicked a shard of mangled metal from her path and ran her hands over a still lit operations panel. Blue light illuminated her human form cheekbones as she said to Cyril, “Communications and energy feeds are down in the fleet. This ship can only last as long as its power core and then it will begin to fall apart as the shield disintegrates. We must leave.”
Cyril shook his head. “The ship will track the door we use.”
Neith’s fingers flew across the screen. “No, it will not. I have erased the program and disabled security protocols for this section.” I didn’t miss the alarm in her tone as she passed through the information in a blur. When she noticed my interest she wiped the data from the display and turned her back to it. I caught the image of a planet and a title above it. My inner database was silent on the translation. It was so quiet I wondered if it were gone.
My father paused to morph his hands back to their less deadly form and smeared the silverish liquid that had been a Master’s lifeblood on his bare chest. “Where are we now?”
Dom yelled, “Does it matter? Get us the hell out of here!”
Christophe came to himself with a shudder and took in the devastation to all sides. He walked to the center of the room and gaped. “Zena, what did you do?”
Izzy helped me stand. My bones felt cleaned out and my thoughts were one long buzz of nothingness mixed with a good dose of disbelief. “I have no idea, Chris, no idea at all.”
Neith pulled her hair over one shoulder and pinned me with her navy eyes as she stroked downward. “You went to a place we do not go and not only survived but conquered.”
Iz snapped her fingers. “So what, just like that—bad guys defeated, we all go home?”
Cyril shook his head. “No—more like poked a stick in a hornet’s nest and now we need to run into a lake and pretend we’re fish.”
Christophe cast a panicked glance at the open archways and darkened corridors to the left then right. “How long until they come?”
Neith smirked and nudged the decapitated body on the floor with a toe. “Not long.”
Dom hugged me one armed and demanded, “Why are we still here then?”
Cyril threw his hand out to Christophe and motioned him closer. “We’re leaving.”
I felt the disturbance of the portal forming before I saw the undulating clearness that hovered waist high. Tendrils of tangled elastic blackness wrapped around my neck and pulled.
There was time for my father to scream my name and then I was yanked through another portal, this time against my will.
27 SMOOCHES!
Being choked for air twice in a matter of minutes didn’t do much for my composure. I gagged and my tongue protruded as I struggled not to vomit. The slithering malleable blackness that had latched onto my throat withdrew to settle around Neith’s face and shoulders.
I should have known she couldn’t be trusted. When the portal opened I’d assumed it to be Cyril’s doing with the intent of our escape. Where the hell was I? What did my wayward nut-bag mother want with me?
Someone else gasped and let go of my hand. I looked down at what appeared to be a rock dotted escarpment. Light flared across Izzy and Dom’s faces. Their eyes reflected the bewilderme
nt I couldn’t voice. Cyril and Chris weren’t here.
On the horizon explosions lit up the sky, making the night into an artificial twilight. Tubal structures burst from the inside and fired rubble in great plumes of ash and orange as they toppled. The ground quaked with the tremors of their faraway obliteration. My ears manufactured the screams of the dying.
Neith broke into an explanation, “You see what the Masters do to those that run! This is my home, my world. The fleet you disabled is destroying my people.”
Her strident proclamation was more affronted than emotionally motivated. It was as if the idea of someone or something trespassing on her territory was more distressing to her than the lives that were surely being snuffed out in the distance.
I massaged my neck and swallowed before I croaked, “Why are we here, Neith? What do you want of me?”
She bent close, sitting graceful and composed on her heels and balanced on the balls of her feet. She brushed my cheek with her knuckles as her intense gaze focused on the stars.
“I want them dead.”
Dominic pulled me and Iz upright with him and we all took a step backward. He was careful not to let me go. Touch was likely the reason Neith’s little trick had involved them at all.
Izzy spat out, “You’re outta your mind!”
Neith rose and snarled.
I tried reason. “I know next to nothing about who and what I am, Neith. If I can shift my shape I’ve never done it. My one and only portal hop almost killed us. You can’t count on me to topple an empire that spans galaxies.” I ripped my arms free of Iz and Dom, incensed. “It’s a suicide mission doomed to failure!”
She looked askance at me and settled back on one leg.
It hit me then. My mother didn’t care if I lived. I was a tool to her. If I died doing her bidding, then so be it. She was worse than the Masters.
I frowned, desperate to hide the hurt and betrayal. “And you know it.”
Dominic scraped my hair off my neck and growled into my ear with anger-heated breath, “I trust you to take us home, Z.”
Home. What and where was it? I didn’t belong to any certain place with any certain people. I was a rootless tree, growing on air and bullshit.
No—that wasn’t true. There was Christophe, Cyril, Iz and Dom. People I cared for and that cared for me. Where they were I would make my home. The hair on my scalp tingled with the rush of emotions as I reached for the memory of our destroyed kitchen. Timbers piled against the island that Cyril had been buried under entered my mind and I concentrated on the minute details until Neith’s traitorous face disappeared.
When I opened my eyes again all three of us were standing on the island counter as frayed wires snapped and crackled over our heads.
Izzy whooped, “Eff an A! You did it, Z!”
Dominic ducked down and leapt to a somewhat clear spot in the debris. “No sonic boom either.”
He held his arms upward and I fell into them. A crooked stupid happy grin exposed my teeth as his hands slid down my sides to rest on my waist. Iz jumped on her own and ended up falling on her butt when her shoes slipped in the silt and grit. She almost pulled me down with her and we got the giggles hard.
And that was how Rowena found us.
28 THE STRANGE LIFE
My stepmother’s ruined pants had been replaced by a long knit skirt. Nice—while we were all disappeared she’d made a wardrobe change. I wondered what Cyril and Christophe thought about it. Doubtless my father hadn’t noticed.
Rowena’s face paled as her cold gaze searched the kitchen. “Where is Chris?”
The laughter that had felt so good seconds ago curdled in my gut. “They aren’t here?”
Her chin dipped then swayed side to side as it began to tremble.
I’d just assumed when Neith took us that Cyril and Chris would get off the Master’s ship under their own steam. Why I’d thought they’d come here I didn’t know. Of course they wouldn’t have! What if they were out searching for us? Or what if the Masters had somehow captured them? Shit, shit, shit!
As all those worries catapulted my heart into my sternum. Dom kept calm.
“We’ll find them, Z. What about that whole mind reading thing you guys do? Can you hear him?”
I tried. All that greeted me was white noise.
The doorbell rang. We stood there in the middle of chaos and cocked our heads at the mundane sound. I’d just traveled across space, blown up part of a ship, been choked and attacked by a nightmarish alien, kidnapped by my nut-bag mother then found my own way home only to discover my father and brother were missing—again.
Regular old doorbells didn’t belong in this reality. The sound of it penetrated our stunned stillness.
Rowena recovered some of her swagger and arched an eyebrow. “You can answer that. This isn’t my house anymore.” She tossed bored words over her shoulder, “I’ll be in the library—waiting to hear how you’re going to find my son.”
Izzy shoved past Dom and me and into the hall. “Well, c’mon, then.”
The rest of the house was hushed and peaceful. Sun shone in the windows and cast yellow lines on the hardwood planks. A fine film of dust was visible in the air currents. Instead of ringing the bell again, whoever was on the other side of it banged loudly on the heavy wood—enough to make the actual outer doorknocker clink against the metal plate. They were trying to make a statement of impatience. They’d succeeded.
Izzy had to stand on tiptoe to see through the peephole. Her features went long as she whispered a warning, “Uh, Z, I’m not sure you should…”
I hip bumped her over and bent to the copper ring. The view was curved and blurred but I saw immediately what had thrown Iz off her rails. Dr. Miller’s dark-dyed part was too close as he put his ear out to listen. I got a good view of his blackheads and then he stepped back to stand with two police officers. He clutched a plastic clipboard to his sweater vest and motioned with a tweed covered arm for the uniforms to bust the door down.
I rested my forehead on the tiny circle and fanned the flames of anger inside. With ‘Fletcher’ gone that shithead was gonna try and take custody of my welfare again. I’d told Dom I could fight my own battles. Now was as good of a time to prove it as any. Izzy was talking low behind me with Dom—probably filling in the gaps of who, what and why.
My hand turned the knob like it belonged to another body. When the door didn’t open I cussed under my breath and turned the bolt to unlock it. Great way to start out!
A fist almost knocked me in the nose. One of the uniforms, an older Asian man with a receding hairline stepped down from the wide porch and dropped his arm from the aborted knock he’d been about to deliver.
Dr. Miller’s cold smile was triumphant. “Ms. Skala, I’m here in light of recent circumstances to inform you that a full review of your mental capacity has been requested.”
He held out stapled papers which I ignored. “I see.”
The papers began to rattle in the wind and Miller crumpled one end in an attempt to keep them from blowing away into the vine covered shrubs. One of the big dragonflies that had welcomed me home yesterday swooped between us. Miller dodged the huge insect with a wild flail then remembered his purpose.
His glare was undeserved. It wasn’t like I had insect minions.
I felt the air shift behind me as the door opened wider. Dr. Miller’s frown deepened when he spied Izzy but he didn’t address her.
“You are to come with me now. If you don’t make a fuss these gentlemen won’t have to cuff you.” At the word ‘cuff’ his top teeth grazed his bottom lip and the tip of his fat tongue licked the corner of his mouth.
An urge to punch Miller right smack on the hairy bridge of his nose struck. I fought it valiantly. That’d get me locked away for sure. Aggravated assault in front of police witnesses—yeah. Not a winning course of action. Neither was I going to get in the back of the police cruiser parked by the dancing dolphin fountain.
I snatched the papers from his
hand and began to read in earnest. Blah, blah, blah—legal nonsense, party identified as me, lack of guardian, revert to care of Institute for interim, yada, yada and yada.
My eyes raised and I acknowledged the two sweaty necked officers impatiently swatting mosquitoes before I said, “This doesn’t mention an evaluation at all. It says if I don’t have a legal guardian I’ll have to take up residence at the Institute until a new one is assigned. My particular need for a babysitter is only for the first year of my probationary period. I also have a seventy-two-hour window to present the new appointee.”
The older uniform whose silver name plate read ‘Cho’ in block letters motioned for me to pass over the papers. He moved his lips as he skimmed the document and then he asked, “Can you show me where it says you have a grace period?”
His partner was a young black man with the aura of a gym junky. His whole demeanor was alert and focused on Cho.
I smiled before I supplied, “Fourth page, second paragraph down.”
From inside I heard uneven footsteps. Step then slide, step then slide. Izzy objected, “Rude!” before Rowena barged up next to me. The porch steps were wide but they felt small with her at my side. For a little person my stepmother commanded a ton of space. I towered head and shoulders above her but she still made me feel small sometimes.
She flipped her blonde hair and demanded, “Dr. Miller. What is the meaning of this visit?”
Miller stammered, “M-Mrs. Skala. I’m within the scope of my duties to see to any newly released charge. Ms. Skala is not under the care of an authority figure at the moment.”
Rowena crossed her arms under her cleavage and inhaled. Cho wasn’t even pretending to read the orders any more. The gym junky partner was practically drooling. Dr. Miller noticed and grimaced.
Rowena wrote in the air with one dainty index finger as she said, “Why don’t you just pencil me in then, sweetie? It’ll be like old home week ‘round here.” Her drawl went overblown as she smiled wide and artless.
The Blood Key (The Wander Series Book 1) Page 15