This place gave her whatever she wanted, and she gave it up for free will. Kate could respect that.
But now Doc was talking with her. Kate sometimes wondered if, in another lifetime, Doc Silence might have been a teacher, or a counselor, or a therapist. You sometimes hear about mentors who use manipulation or abuse to get the most out of their students, but every time, at every opportunity, she’d seen him use kindness instead. We could’ve done worse for a mentor, she thought.
“I can’t let her die,” the girl, Alice, was saying.
“We’ll do what we can, but Alice, she’s your figment,” Doc said.
“I don’t know what that means,” Alice said.
“It means your mind, and your magic, gave her life. You can put her back together again. We can’t,” he said.
The bear—I can’t believe I rescued a living teddy bear from a falling castle, Kate thought—took Alice’s hand in his paw.
“I believe in you,” he said. Alice nodded to him gently. Lady Dreamless took Alice by the shoulder and led her over to the unicorn, whose breathing was labored but steady, and spoke with her just out of earshot.
Speaking of broken things and magic, though, Kate thought, watching as Titus transformed back into his human form and knelt beside Billy, who had Bedlam cradled in his arms. Someone else who showed serious guts, Kate thought. She’d have to ask Billy what did such a number on Bedlam’s robotic limbs.
“I can’t fix them, but I’m sure Henry Winter will know what to do,” Titus said, his voice gentle and reassuring.
“We can… call Agent Black,” Bedlam said, straining and clearly in pain. “He’s been messed up in combat before. Maybe he’ll know someone who can fix me.”
“For now, though, I can take away some of the pain,” Titus said. “If you want. Maybe heal up some of the non-mechanical damage.”
“You can do that?” Billy said. “I thought you just learned some tree magic from the boss werewolf.”
“Leto is a healer,” Titus said. “It was the easiest thing she could teach me.”
He placed a hand lightly on Bedlam’s neck as if to feel her pulse, then said a few words in a language Kate knew didn’t exist anymore in the real world. Bedlam’s body visibly relaxed. She leaned into Billy languidly.
“I didn’t even know how much hurt until you did that,” Bedlam said. “Thanks, furball.”
“Any time,” Titus said, standing up. He sounded wrong, and it caught Kate’s attention. She waited until he walked away from Billy and Bedlam to pull him aside.
“What’s wrong,” she asked, trying to avoid sounding sympathetic.
“Nothing,” Titus said.
“If you’re going to keep using magic, you at least need to be up front with me about it,” Kate said.
Titus sighed. He looked her in the eyes, and she saw a distinct look of discomfort.
“The pain has to go somewhere,” Titus said. “You take it away from one place and transfer it somewhere else.”
“You idiot,” Kate said. “You just took her pain onto yourself?”
“Yeah,” Titus said. “She’s not good, Kate. She needs a real doctor soon. Or Sam Barren’s healing powers, if he’s willing.”
“But you just…”
“Kate, I survived an exploding spaceship with burns over seventy percent of my body,” he said. “This is nothing compared to that. It’s okay. It’s all temporary.”
“Don’t ever do that for me, Titus,” she said.
“You going to make me pinky swear?”
“I will show you what real pain feels like if you ever do that for me,” she said.
“Fine.”
Kate looked at the ground.
“You’re a good one, Titus Talbot.”
“I try to be,” he said.
Emily had been chit-chatting with the fairy, Galinda, but suddenly jumped to her feet and pointed up.
“Guys! Hey guys!” she yelled.
Kate followed Emily’s point. The sky looked wrong there, unsteady, almost like waviness of heat coming off pavement in the summer.
“The sky is broken,” Emily said. “Can we safely assume this has something to do with us?”
“Everything usually does,” Jane said. “Doc?”
“The world is falling apart,” Doc said. “Alice, it’s time.”
“Time for what” Alice said.
Doc gestured to the sky, and then the horizon, just beyond the town of Westwick. For the first time, Kate saw some of the residents starting to leave their homes, milling about in the streets, lost and confused.
“Time to decide,” Doc said. “This world will only stay stable and whole if you will it to.”
“I don’t need it anymore,” Alice said. “I should have never built it in the first place.”
“Then you have to send those people home,” Doc said.
Alice’s eyes went wide.
“I don’t know how,” she said.
“There’s no trick to it,” Doc said. “You have incredible innate abilities. You brought the town here to your world—not the Vizier. You did. He just gave you the idea. So all you have to do is tell it to go home. Magic is never easy. But sometimes it’s very simple, if you know what to do.”
Alice closed her eyes. Kate thought the kid might start hyperventilating as she watched her breathing grow faster and faster. For a disconcertingly long few minutes, nothing happened. And then:
“Doc,” Jane said. “The town.”
Where Westwick once sat, a vast, empty field remained.
“I told it to go home,” Alice said.
“Good job,” Doc said. “And now it’s our turn. Jane, you still have the planar knife?”
“Sure do,” she said.
“Want to do the honors?” Doc asked.
“I have had more than my fill of magic for the day,” she said, handing him the razor-thin dagger.
“That’s fair, Doc said. With a deft flick of his wrist, he cut open a thin sliver in reality. The blue beyond felt familiar and welcoming after the time they’d spent under this strange red sky.
“Let’s go home,” Doc said.
Without asking, Emily picked up the unconscious unicorn with a bubble of float and carried it through. Billy went next with Bedlam, then Lady Dreamless and her dogs, both of whom were limping and battered but able to move under their own power. Kate shook her head in disbelief as Lady Dreamless and the hounds rippled on their way through the portal, reverting to the earthly disguises they’d shed when they came here.
As Jane was about to step through, she paused, then turned to Emily, who was close on her heels with the unicorn.
“Em, where did you say you left the zombies?” Jane asked.
“Oh,” Emily said. “Oops?”
“Um, Doc…” Jane said.
“It never ends,” Kate said, leading the charge as the rest of the Indestructibles ran through the portal back to Earth.
Chapter 59: You can’t just drop a town
Jane knew they were safely home the moment she heard Sam Barren yelling at them.
“Doc Silence! You can’t just drop a town… on a town!” Sam yelled. The old man was walking at them as fast as his legs would carry him, hat in one hand, the other gesturing at Doc violently.
“Hey, silver fox,” Emily said cheerfully. “Good to see you too!”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Sam said. “All I know is I’m standing here trying to figure out how to get a warning to you and suddenly the whole town just blinks back into existence.”
“Magic,” Doc said.
“Whatever,” Sam said, stuffing his hat back onto his head. “Speaking of which.”
Sam thumbed over his shoulder to where Natasha Grey stood waiting for them, dressed in just the right ensemble to mimic one of Sam’s Department of What agents.
“She’s been hovering like a nervous soccer mom,” Sam said.
Doc gestured for Natasha to join them. Sam’s agents were all over, talking to
some of the Westwick residents who had already emerged from their homes. They all looked bedraggled and exhausted. Not, Jane thought, unlike people who had been seeing their own personal nightmares on repeat for a week.
“How bad are they?” Jane asked.
“The townsfolk?” Sam said. “Confused. Scared. Exhausted. But none of them seem to think what they went through really happened. They’re asking if there was something in the water, or a chemical explosion that kicked a hallucinogen into the air.”
“Close enough,” Titus said.
Natasha Grey joined them, patting one of the Great Danes as it looked up at her in greeting.
“I thought you were going to keep King Tears occupied if he tried to cross over,” Doc said.
“I thought he was going to come threaten me again,” Lady Grey said. “Clearly, and much to my undying shame, I overestimated my value to him. Where is the old scoundrel, anyway?”
“Dead,” Kate said.
“I very much doubt that’s a permanent state for a necromancer of his talents,” the sorceress said. “But we’ll deal with that later.”
“What else is going on, Sam?” Doc asked.
Before Sam Barren could answer, Alice took off at a sprint. Jane saw her leap into a woman’s waiting arms. They looked similar enough that Jane figured it had to be her mother.
“Becca Lapine was with my agents when the town reappeared,” Sam said. “I had them bring her here. Figured you’d succeeded at whatever you went over there to do.”
“Succeeded is a stretch,” Billy said.
Bedlam was attempting to stand, pushing off Billy’s attempts to continue to hold her. She wobbled on her feet, and when Billy hooked a protective arm around her waist for support, she didn’t argue.
“What happened to her?” Sam said.
“Took one for the team,” Bedlam said.
Doc was observing the mother daughter reunion. Becca touched Alice’s stark-white hair curiously, but seemed to relieved to have her daughter back to dwell on her transformation. Jane found herself watching him watching them.
“What are you thinking about, Doc?” she asked.
“That a mother who is on the road three weeks a month and a father recovering from a heart attack are going to have a hard time with the fact that their daughter is possibly the most powerful natural magic user of her generation,” Doc said.
“Makes you wish there was a Hogwarts you could ship her off to, huh,” Emily said.
“Well, there’s us,” Jane said.
“There’s us,” Doc said.
“I mean look how well Emily turned out,” Titus said.
“I’m right here, Chewie,” Emily said.
“We’ll figure something out,” Doc said.
More and more residents of Westwick filtered out into the streets. Friends embraced as if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Parents held children like they could be taken away at any moment. Some wandered alone, dazed, as if looking for answers to questions they couldn’t remember. Others sat down and wept openly.
“This whole town is going to need therapy,” Billy said.
Sam’s phone rang, interrupting his concentration as he made a rare use of his powers to finish patching up Bedlam’s physical injuries. He apologized to the cyborg and answered.
“Yeah, agent, go ahead. Yes, the Indestructibles are back too, why—a pool full of what?” Sam said. He put a hand over the receiver of his phone. “Do any of you know something about an in-ground pool full of… zombies?”
“Look, the pool was convenient,” Emily said. “This isn’t my fault. It was a tactical decision.”
“I’ll deal with this,” Doc said.
“Thanks,” Emily said.
“Oh no, you’re coming with me,” Doc said. “You’re my assistant.”
Emily harrumphed but did as she was told, leading Doc toward the pool she’d used as a holding pen.
“Sam, Jane, I could probably use your help on this one,” Doc said.
“Me?” Sam said, indignant. “What can I do to help with a pool full of zombies?”
“Well, you are the oldest person we know,” Emily said.
“I hate all of you,” Sam said.
“I’ll catch up, one minute,” Jane said.
As Doc, Emily, and Sam raced off, Jane shifted her gaze back and forth between the conversations Alice was having with her mother and the one going on between Natasha Grey and Lady Dreamless.
“Keep an eye on them, huh?” Jane said, leaning in conspiratorially to Kate.
“Planning on it,” Kate said.
“I have a bad feeling about all of it,” Jane said.
“I always have a bad feeling,” Kate said. “Paranoia has its benefits.”
Jane touched Billy on the arm.
“You two should fly home. Don’t wait for us,” she said. “Have Henry take a look at those limbs.”
“I’ll wait for Doc to teleport us back,” Billy said. “It’ll be easier on her injuries.”
“I can take it,” Bedlam said. “Stop treating me like I’m broken.”
“You are literally broken right now,” Billy said. “Like that’s not a metaphor. You really want to fly at supersonic speeds without a windshield?”
Bedlam winced.
“Fine, we’ll wait,” she said.
Jane gestured at Lady Grey with her eyebrows.
“You could ask her for a teleport,” Jane said. “She owes us one.”
“Absolutely not,” Billy and Bedlam said in unison.
“Okay then,” Jane said. “Wait for Doc it is. I’ll be back after we deal with the zombies.”
“Hey Jane,” Bedlam called out. “If you run into any of that King Tears guy’s creations and they ask you to put them out of their misery…”
“Oh, Bedlam, I don’t…” Jane started to say, but Titus interrupted.
“If they ask,” Titus said. “We’ll take care of it.”
“Mercy killings?” Jane said.
“You weren’t there in the warehouse,” Titus said. “If they can be saved, we save them. That may not always be the case.”
“This is awful,” Jane said. “I’m glad this guy is gone.”
“Me too,” Titus said. “Me too.”
Chapter 60: The perils of middle management
Andrew Keppler awoke in the thin forest outside Westwick, unsure how he got there or how he survived. The last thing he remembered clearly was an explosion of light, and watching King Tears disintegrate before his eyes.
Keppler wouldn’t waste any time mourning that egomaniac, but he did start to wonder where he was and how he’d get home. Staggering, he wandered back into Westwick, visible a short, clumsy walk away, and tried to parse out exactly what had happened.
The streets were no longer empty. Neighbors talking in hushed tones. A lot of people avoiding eye contact with each other, as well as with Keppler himself, as if everyone had done something embarrassing at the company Christmas party and nobody was sure who saw them do it.
Keppler checked his pockets. Still had his wallet, still had his phone. Good enough, he thought. I can do anything with those two things.
“You okay, man?” a middle-aged guy said, sitting outside a coffee shop that still had its “closed” sign hanging in the door.
“Yeah,” Keppler said, scratching his hair. He found a twig stuck to his head, plucked it out, and tossed it aside. “Yeah, it was a weird day.”
“Rumor has it something got into the water supply,” the man said. “People hallucinating.”
“Really?” Keppler said, feigning interest. “Seeing things?”
“Yeah, some folks are pretty messed up about it,” the man said. “I mean, not the first time in my life I’ve hallucinated, to be honest, so I’m not worried, but man, but the garden club apparently is pretty freaked out.”
“As garden clubs sometimes are,” Keppler said.
“Yup,” the man said amicably. “The funny thing is everyone said they saw one th
ing in common: the sky was red. That’s weird, right? Mass hallucination. Maybe it was something in the water.”
“Or it could’ve been magic,” Keppler said.
He looked at the stranger with a long, blank stare. The other man began to lean back uncomfortably. Keppler burst out laughing.
“I’m just kidding,” Keppler said. “Definitely drugs in the water.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” the other man said. “Anyway. Glad you’re okay, man.”
“Thanks,” Keppler said. “Say. I’m from out of town. Do you know if there’s a cab service here?”
“It’s a pretty small town. You won’t have much luck just catching one driving by. But try Patriot Cab Company. They’ve got a website. You got a phone?”
“I do.”
“Everybody’s got a phone these days,” the man said. “Silly to ask. Anyway. Good luck, dude.”
“Thanks again,” Keppler said. He took out his phone as the stranger walked away, looked up the cab company on his browser, and called for a ride. It took the car a half hour to arrive, but sitting there in the California sun, Keppler had time to take stock of what happened, and how he survived.
King Tears wasn’t wrong, he thought. Not about rebuilding. He was rebuilding wrong, and he was a sociopathic monster, but he was right about not throwing away the infrastructure the Children of the Elder Star had built. Keppler had no interest in raising the dead or commanding an army of abominations, but running a massive, cryptic, world-spanning corporation?
He could get into that. And he was pretty sure he was the only person in the world who knew where the bodies were buried and where the passwords were jotted down.
The taxi arrived, a surprisingly nice vehicle with Patriot Cab Company emblazoned on the side in red, white, and blue. Keppler held up a hand to signal the car and hopped inside. The interior was also unexpectedly high quality, with leather seats that looked barely touched. There was a distinct sea water stink to the interior, though, that undercut the leather and new-car smells.
“I need to get to the airport, please,” Keppler said. He looked himself over, covered in dirt, pants torn in a few places, shoes scuffed and sloppy. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stop at a menswear place along the way. I’ll pay you for your time to wait. Somewhere upscale if it’s not too far out of the way.”
The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child Page 28