Billy: Messenger of Powers (27 page)

“Of course, my boy, of course,” Tempus said placatingly, his hands up. “I didn’t mean any harm. Just get carried away sometimes.”

Vester’s hands balled into hard-knuckled fists at his sides, and Billy worried for a moment that the fireman might take a swing at Tempus. He didn’t want that to happen. Not only was he fairly sure that one hit would cause the knobbly Tempus to shatter into a million brittle tatters of bone and vomit-shirt, but he couldn’t bear to see his two friends fight.

“I’m sorry, Vester,” said Billy. “It’s my fault.” He looked at his feet, embarrassed. “I just don’t know anything about anything,” he said. He suddenly felt genuinely stupid. If he only understood these things—things which were apparently common knowledge among the Powers—Tempus wouldn’t have had to explain all this to him, and Vester wouldn’t have gotten so angry.

But to his surprise, Vester’s anger subsided instantly. He clutched Billy in a sudden hug. “I’m sorry, too, Billy. It seems you’ve arrived in this world with no warning. Everything must be terrifying to you.” The young fireman let go of Billy, giving a smile to Billy, then smiled at Tempus, too. “Sorry to you too, my friend,” he said.

Tempus waved off the apology, but was clearly happy to hear Vester say that. Billy felt his insides move back to their normal position, overwhelmingly glad that Vester wasn’t going to knock Tempus’s head off like a Rock-em-Sock-em rock giant.

“Have you seen Ivy?” asked Vester.

Tempus nodded. “I did for a minute, but she was called away by something. I think there’s a meeting of the Council happening right now, and sometimes her father wants her there during meetings so she can run needed errands or deliver messages.”

Vester nodded and turned back to look at the Recovery Room.

Billy was going to look, too, hoping that Fulgora would come out soon. But before he had looked for more than a moment, something very strange and very frightening occurred.

A small explosion rocked the middle of the arena. Nothing huge, not on the scale of Fulgora’s dragon breath, or even Napalm’s fire bombs. But it sent a discernible noise through all of Powers Stadium. The noise appeared to come out of nowhere, but when Billy looked at the arena, he saw in Close-up that several of the monstrous eel creatures that had menaced Napalm and Fulgora were now floating belly-up in the water below the podiums, clearly dead.

He looked back up, planning to ask Vester what had just happened, but before he could do that Powers Stadium suddenly emptied substantially. About half the audience just disappeared, most of them just fading into nothing in the blink of an eye, and the rest using Imbued keys of varying shapes and types to open glittering doorways which they used to Transport themselves to somewhere unknown.

“What the—” Vester began.

Then, out of nowhere, a new crowd appeared. Not fifty thousand, nowhere near the number of Powers who had just Transported or unProjected themselves out of the stadium. Just a few thousand, perhaps, but enough that the new arrivals were noticeable in the crowd. They arrived with that characteristic “pop” of a Transport, all of them appearing almost at the same instant. The new arrivals looked around for a moment, apparently getting their bearings, then moved as one.

One of them had appeared nearby Billy. The creature—not a person, Billy now saw, but something else—had mottled skin, a dull, faded lattice of green and brown. It reminded Billy of grass that had been left unwatered a bit too long. The creature’s skin also appeared flaky, making Billy think of some kind of weird full-body dandruff. The hair on the creature was similarly ill-looking, a diseased patch of mangy locks that curled in sticky clumps around its slightly misshapen head.

The eyes, though, were what really stood out, and what really frightened Billy. They were huge, far too large for its head, and subtly faceted, making the creature look almost insectile, like the world’s biggest walking bug.

“What’s that?” Billy managed to stutter out.

The creature zeroed in on his voice, and started to stumble towards Billy.

“Is that what I think it is?” said Tempus.

“Zombie!” shouted Vester. He grabbed Billy’s hand. “RUN!”

Similar shouts went up through the whole of Powers Stadium. Billy glimpsed several of the creatures—zombies, Vester had called them—advancing on cowering Powers who were so panicked they couldn’t even move. The creatures reached out grasping fingers, and the instant they touched the quivering men and women, the people fell over instantly. Whether they were unconscious, magically immobilized, or something even worse, Billy couldn’t tell. But he knew he didn’t want whatever it was to happen to him.

He ran with Vester, Tempus huffing behind them to escape the zombie that now pursued them. Billy glanced back and saw that the creature seemed solely interested in him and his two friends, oblivious to everyone else in its path. But whenever it bumped into an unProjected Power—someone who was really there, as opposed to spectating from afar—that person slumped over instantly.

“Do you have a Key?” yelled Tempus.

“Yes, but we can’t use it,” hollered Vester in response.

“
What
?” screamed Tempus incredulously.

“We have to get to the Recovery Room!” answered Vester.

“Are you insane?” puffed Tempus. The old man’s knobby knees were a blur of motion as they ran.

Vester jerked Billy’s hand, yanking him up a stairway that Billy saw would lead to a mezzanine that would take them near the Recovery Room. Billy instantly understood what the fireman was doing, but he didn’t like it. Vester needed to get to Fulgora. The fireman was risking his—and Billy’s and Tempus’s—safety to make sure the love of his life was all right.

Billy saw Tempus shake his head resignedly. He apparently knew, like Billy did, that Vester would not be persuaded to leave without Fulgora. The Gray Power turned for a moment and moved his arms in a subtle motion. A small whirlwind erupted in front of the rapidly-approaching zombie, whipping it around in a circle and then flipping it ten feet back, gaining them some time. Billy could also see that all through the stadium, other windstorms and fires were blazing into existence, as well as trees with writhing branches that blocked the zombies’ forward motion as other Powers tried to defend themselves long enough to escape. A few waterspouts erupted from the pool in the arena, as well, raining streams of water that flushed some of the zombies down into the lowest levels of the stadium.

In the midst of all of this, the thing that frightened Billy the most was the panicked look on Tempus’s face, and the fear that flitted in Vester’s eyes. If these two Powers were afraid, what chance would a mere boy like Billy have to get out of this alive?

And then the world exploded.

CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

A moment later, Billy realized that the world hadn’t really exploded. Not quite. But it seemed to.

There was some kind of detonation, a roar so huge that the sound waves themselves knocked Billy off his feet. A sudden hail of pebbles rained down on and around him, plinking on the plastic seats of the stadium. Billy saw that their zombie pursuer had been knocked down by the blast as well, allowing Billy a moment to look around and see what new terror was being visited on them.

As he did, the ground bucked and heaved. Billy heard the sound of stones shearing away from one another. There was a huge thud as a twenty foot high stone landed within mere feet of him. The good news was that it squashed the pursuing zombie flat. The bad news was that it ripped away a large chunk of the stadium, leaving a gaping hole where seats had been. Billy almost fell into the vast crevasse, and was only saved by Vester’s quick hand snaring him away from the abyss.

There were more thuds all around, more rocks falling from the sky. Vester yanked Billy back into motion, still heading for the mezzanine, as Billy looked up. The falling stones were coming from the tower that loomed over Powers Island. The very blocks that made up the huge structure were cracking off and plummeting to the ground below with nuclear blasts of sound. So far, the tower itself hadn’t collapsed, still mostly held together by the great branches of the Earthtree that provided its support. But Billy wondered how long it would be before the entire structure fell to the ground, crushing everything below it to oblivion.

“Come on!” yelled Vester. “Keep up!”

He yanked Billy forward, Billy’s shorter legs pumping as fast as they could to stay abreast of his friend. Billy heard Tempus say a word that his mother had told him was Not Nice, and then muttered something else under his breath. As soon as the Gray Power did so, Billy felt a gust of wind at his back, propelling him forward. The wind increased, and now he, Vester, and Tempus were all being borne forward by a pillow of air, moving faster than they had been running.

“Thanks, Tempus,” said Vester.

“You Fires are all so impetuous,” was all the old man said in response, but he was smiling. The smile dissipated, though, when they got to the mezzanine, and were faced with hordes of screaming people, zombies plowing through them and leaving unmoving bodies behind. Tempus’s forehead wrinkled in concentration as he made the wind upon which the three of them rested whip through and over the crowd, narrowly avoiding the clutching hands of several zombies.

As they passed, Billy could see that no two zombies were alike. Some were short, some were tall, others fat, some so thin they looked like skeletons. But all had that same flaky, grotesquely colored skin, and all of them had huge eyes that seemed to look everywhere at once.

“Now might be a good time to get your fire ready,” said Tempus. “Just in case.”

Vester pulled out his matchbook and struck a match. It sizzled to life, and immediately he pinched the flame between his fingers and put it in his pocket. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Vester said to the Gray Power.

The three of them continued to rocket forward at speeds that alarmed and exhilarated Billy. The space between the mezzanine floor and the beginning of the next level up was limited, and Billy nearly had his head scraped off on the ceiling a few times as they rose to avoid being grabbed by zombies or knocked into by fleeing Powers.

He also thought he could hear several hot dogs moaning that they had been abandoned before being properly eaten. “Woe is me!” screamed one particularly frazzled frankfurter. “Never more shall I know the bliss of being rolled around in someone’s mouth, the pleasure of being sent into his stomach, through his intestines, and at last taking the final step of my journey into—” Thankfully, someone stepped on that hot dog before it could finish its thought, squashing it into a reddish paste and putting it out of its misery.

 At last, Billy and his friends reached the doors to the Recovery Room. Because no one had been near here, the area was relatively quiet. Pandemonium still ruled in Powers Stadium, and huge pieces of the tower were still plunging to earth, but Billy was relieved that there were, at least, no zombies nearby.

As soon as they touched ground, Vester was off and running, Billy and Tempus close behind him as the young fireman ran to the closed Recovery Room doors. He pulled at them, but they were locked. Vester immediately reached into his pocket and grabbed his flame. The small fire elongated and rounded into a recognizable shape: a fire axe. Vester swung it expertly in a great sideways arc that bit deep into the locked door before him. Another swing, and the door splintered into two large, smoking pieces.

Vester collapsed the fire axe like a telescope between his two hands, and put the fire back into his pocket again. Then he ran into the room, Billy and Tempus close behind.

Fulgora was there, still unconscious, laying on a white bed in the middle of the room. No one else was with her; apparently anyone tending her had not felt bound by any kind of doctor-patient loyalty and had fled before Billy and his two friends arrived.

Vester gathered Fulgora tenderly into his strong arms, holding her tight against his chest. One of the fireman’s hands, Billy saw, was now also clutching something tightly, though Billy couldn’t see what. Then the fireman opened his fist, and Billy saw what he had been holding: a small glass marble, the kind Billy had played with when younger. It was bright red, with a streak of orange in its center.

“Ready?” asked Vester.

Tempus nodded. Vester looked at Billy. “I don’t have to tell you, do I?”

“Hold my breath,” Billy said dutifully.

Vester nodded, then maneuvered the marble between his thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his thumb, he tossed the marble into the air. It flew in a straight line for about two feet, then disappeared in midair with a tiny flash of light.

Then….

Nothing happened.

“Well?” said Tempus.

Vester grimaced. “I’m no Artetha.”

“You made the key yourself?” Tempus said incredulously.

Vester looked almost embarrassed—no mean feat with all the destruction going on within mere feet of them. “I like to make stuff,” he said.