Rogue (9 page)

Nick flew by the doorway, tangled up with Todd Hodak in a roiling muscled mass, fists flying. Will heard them hit the far wall with a thud. When he heard the roar of an animal, he glanced out into the next room past Franklin and blinked on his Grid:

As he watched, a tall, thin silhouette quickly morphed and contorted into the outline of an enormous bear. It reared up onto its hind legs, standing nearly ten feet tall, directly in front of Hobbes's glowing shape, mauling the man with both enormous front paws.

Behind him he saw Ajay throw a globe of some kind toward the doorway; it shattered like a water balloon, splashing Courtney's invisible shape with some kind of bright green paint or dye—

Okay, chalk one up for Ajay's idea on how to handle Courtney.

Ajay pointed and fired a second device at Courtney; two lines, weighted with steel globes at the end—like a bola—flew out, encircled Courtney's stained body, and wrapped around her like hypersonic tetherballs, pinning her arms to her sides. Courtney lurched or fell around the corner, just out of sight.

Correction: chalk
two
up for Ajay,
thought Will.

“Will, in God's name, what are you doing?” pleaded Franklin, backing toward the safety of the room's far corner. “What in the world are you thinking of?”

“Just stay out of our way,” said Will. “I don't want to hurt you, but I wouldn't mind it that much.”

The circle hung in the air, about two feet off the ground, half completed. Sweat dripped from Will's face as he strained to hold on to the Carver bucking in his hands and maintain the round line of the portal.

Ten seconds,
he said to Elise.

She appeared in the doorway a moment later, dragging a kicking and screaming Courtney by the hair.

“Give it a rest, bi-yatch,” said Elise.

Elise bent down and let loose a concentrated burst of sound that landed like a haymaker to Courtney's chin. Her head rocked back and hit the floor, and she went down hard on the threshold, nearly unconscious.

Ajay stepped delicately over Courtney's green-stained body, lifted the small device that had fired the bola at her, and blew on its barrel like a gunfighter before sticking it back in a pocket of his vest.

“Busted,” said Ajay.

The circle was now two-thirds complete, its edges smoldering with an unearthly hot glow.

Help the others,
said Will, looking toward Elise.

Elise turned back to Nick as he rolled by the door again, locked in a clinch with Todd, both of them throwing powerful punches.

“You can't be thinking of doing this,” said Franklin, pressed back against the wall. “You can't possibly do something so reckless, Will. You mustn't—”

“You don't get to talk to me anymore,” said Will.

“Lemuel!” shouted Franklin.

Lemuel Clegg came running into the room, bleeding from the forehead, his clothes disheveled, and he made straight for Will like a bullet.

Will saw him from the corner of his eye and let go of the Carver with one hand, just long enough to summon up a thick thought-form shield in front of him. Clegg ran right into it, without knowing it was there. He crashed off it and fell to the ground. Elise was on top of him in a second, throwing a punch that knocked him completely out. Will felt the Carver start to buck in his hand and got both hands back on it before it went off course.

“But you can't go in there,” said Franklin. “I'm begging you, please, you don't know what you're doing—”

“Shut up or I'm going to aim this thing at you,” said Will. “How do you think that's going to turn out?”

“You don't understand—it's not safe!”

“Really? You should have figured that out a long time ago, old man,” said Will.

With a sharp burst of flame, the two edges seamed together as he finished tracing the circle. The rim lit up with fire all the way around, the air inside it dissipated, and the milky membrane he'd seen before appeared. Will took his hand off the Carver's control and the power ramped down. He shook out his arms, still buzzing from the device's unearthly power.

Ajay was at his side. Pulling a scalpel from a plastic protector lining his pocket, he waited for Will's signal. Will nodded at him. Ajay quickly ran the scalpel all the way around the perimeter of the portal, slicing effortlessly through the translucent barrier. The membrane fell away in one thin wet slab, opening a window into the rocky, barren plain of the Never-Was that he'd seen only once before, lit up by its poisonous green and lavender skies.

Will looked toward the other room: “NOW!”

He shoved the Carver securely into his pocket as he turned to Ajay. “Are you ready?”

“Why do I always have to go first?” said Ajay, staring apprehensively into the distance.

“That's what scouts do,” said Will.

“Me and my big mouth,” said Ajay.

He took a deep breath, lowered his head, and stepped through the portal.

“Please, Will!” said Franklin.

He tried to say more but his voice was drowned out by another sonic blast from the next room: Todd Hodak flew past the open doorway as if he'd been shot from a cannon. A loud crash followed as he slammed into a wall, and moments later Nick tumbled into the room. Bruised but otherwise untroubled, he landed on his feet and took in the glowing portal before him.

“Well, that's totally ill,” said Nick.

“For goodness' sake, don't leave me in here alone!” Ajay cried from inside, the sound of his voice strangely buffeted by some kind of oscillation.

“Got your back, bro,” said Nick.

Nick dove through the hole. Will noticed its edges were starting to flicker. No way to know how much longer it would last before it degraded beyond repair. He saw that his grandfather had slumped down to the ground nearby, eyes wide, clutching his chest, gasping for breath.

Elise, standing guard by the door, tossed Will's backpack over to him, sliding across the floor.

After you.
He could hear a slight smirk in her thought.

Will's eye went from the burning circle to the steel locker holding the other aphotic devices. On instinct, he grabbed the flat round disc from inside and shoved it into his bag.

What's that for?
she asked.

Tell you later.

“Coach!” Will called out. “Time!”

A blur sped into the room, shrouded in mist, its form changing even as it rushed toward him—not a bear anymore, that much was clear, but the outline of some monstrously big panther or cougar. By the time the shape reached him and slipped through the circle, he recognized it as Coach Jericho.

A moment later, a raging Hobbes rushed into the room with a berserker's shout, his bald head bloodied, his shirt shredded, bleeding from multiple wounds and gashes. Elise stepped in behind him and let out a shout that knocked him to the floor and sent him skidding halfway to the portal. She ran after him, stepped on his back, and jumped toward the weakening flame circle. She reached out for Will's hand; he grasped it and they jumped through together.

Blinding lights and thunderous sounds assaulted their senses. With nothing else to orient him, Will clung to Elise's hand and felt as if they were tumbling into a void.

Behind them, they didn't see Hobbes scramble to his feet and launch himself through the portal, just seconds before the last of the circle vanished from the air with a rattling sizzle.

And he wasn't alone.

WILL'S RULES FOR LIVING #5:

HEALING TAKES MUCH LONGER THAN YOU THINK. THE BIGGEST SCARS YOU CARRY AREN'T THE ONES YOU CAN SEE.

Will didn't feel them touch down exactly. It felt more like waking abruptly from a dream. He still felt Elise's hand in his, and her face, looking at him, was the first thing he registered seeing. She was moving her lips but he heard only a low, dull hum that obscured everything else.

Can you hear me?
he asked, reaching out a tendril of connection, mind to mind.

She stopped trying to speak and squeezed his hand. Neither of them let go.

At least
this
still works,
she answered.

He could breathe, but it took some effort; the air felt oppressively hot, humid with some thick texture that pressured his lungs. The space immediately around them slowly dimmed from a bright, blank white light into something close to recognizable shapes, like a camera lens adjusting to bright sunlight as you closed the aperture.

What he saw first: rocks, sharp gnarled formations, towering all around them, run through with shining deposits of phosphorescence.

Above the jagged lines of the rocks, that disturbing violet and lime-green sky appeared behind the rocks, a turbulent, toxic paint box.

Will looked down. The ground looked hard, black and shiny, as if an enormous explosion had transformed the rock into blasted glass.

They were in a canyon, Will realized, looking up at the spires on either side of them. The air felt still, hot and dry; he guessed the temperature was around eighty. The sky behind the canyon walls came into sharper focus, and it looked similar to what he'd glimpsed before, only much more vivid now that he was here—the air thickly layered with streaks of purple, amber, and a particularly poisonous shade of green. It didn't even look like it could support any kind of life. But they were both breathing.

And they were alone. None of the others—Ajay, Nick, or Jericho—were in sight. Nothing else moving, no sign of life in any direction.

Will glanced over at Elise. She was crouched, scanning in every direction, on high alert. She looked alarmed but not frightened. A badass warrior, alert, capable, and ready to strike, and he felt reassured by her presence, glad she was here with him. Elise sensed him watching and glanced over, arching an eyebrow.

Where do we start, hotshot?

Find the others,
said Will.

He reached for the small walkie-talkie on his belt. He stuck in an earbud and flicked on the device, keeping the volume low. He tuned it to the frequency they'd all agreed to use and heard nothing but low static and electronic interference.

“Ajay, Nick, this is Will. Can you read me?” he whispered into his wrist mic, then thumbed through a range of frequencies, hearing nothing but the same static.

She tried her walkie as well, heard the same discouraging static, glanced over at Will, and shook her head.

Gee, that's a shocker,
she said.
Our good old twentieth-century American technology doesn't work in an alien, demonic dimension.

Worth a try,
Will responded.

He pocketed the walkie as they moved along but left in a single earbud in case it came to life, on the chance that the high walls of the canyon turned out to be blocking the signal.

Ajay shouldn't be left alone for too long out here. He'll have fourteen kittens.

Yeah. They came across almost together. We'll have to hope Nick or Coach found him first.

Will pointed toward the widening mouth of the canyon.
Let's start this way. I can run ahead and check it out, see if I spot them?

Splitting up at the first sign of trouble in a place you don't know, yeah, that's a classic, West.

Okay, okay, we stick together.

Like duct tape on superglue.

They walked toward the end of the canyon that looked like the way out. The glassy surface underfoot proved slippery, almost like ice, broken up every few feet by sharp, jutting splinters of rock.

Watch your step,
sent Will.

Elise carefully touched one of the jagged splinters as she passed it.

These things are as sharp as a razor. Maybe I should just blast the whole place flat before one of us slips and gets impaled.

And announce we're here to whatever ungodly hostiles might be in the area? That's right up there with splitting up in the Bad Idea rankings—

Okay, okay. We get one stupid idea apiece. Low profile, play it smart.

We'll be fine,
sent Will.

But he still felt absurdly exposed, picking their way through this steep ravine. Anyone or anything could be watching them from up in those rocky, broken walls, laden with a thousand hiding places.

Will's hearing had finally normalized, and he noticed a dull flat buzz in the still air that went right through him, agitating his nerves and compounding the oppressive weight of the atmosphere.

As they walked along, Will tried to transmit a mental message to Dave, as he had many times over the last few months, hopeful that it might be easier to reach him now that they were in the same zone. He waited, tried again, but got back nothing in return. He made a note to send out regular transmissions, every few minutes or so, to see if the channel to Dave opened up.

How big do you think this place is?
Elise asked.

It could be limitless. I mean, it's not a “place” like we know it, in our sense of the word, right?

Elise looked over at him and squinted.
That kind of makes my brain hurt.

They drew closer to the wider mouth of the canyon, where a flat plain that looked like a vast, dry, rocky riverbed opened up ahead of them. The shards of sharp rock gradually disappeared from the lowering ground, which took on less of a glassy finish. Will stopped and blinked on his Grid, curious to see if it would function here. The familiar lines and hues of his enhanced sensory vision appeared, but nothing showed up as a heat signature and there were no signs of life. No small animals, no vegetation, nothing.

A strange thought occurred to him, and he shared it with Elise:

It doesn't even feel real. Like the whole place was manufactured and they didn't finish it.

Artificial,
she replied.
I feel it, too. It's creepy as hell. I'm really glad you're here with me. I don't know if I could handle this solo.

You could handle anything.

She looked away, an expression on her face he'd only seen once before. Eyes downcast, blushing…Had he actually embarrassed her?

“Let's keep moving,” she said out loud. “They've got to be here someplace.”

Elise took the lead, striding out five paces ahead of him. She pulled a long serrated dagger from a sheath strapped to her right leg and held it expertly at her side, poised for action. Will blinked off the Grid and followed her.

“I've got a new technique I've been working on,” she said, not looking at him. “I think it may be kind of similar to that thing you can do.”

“How's it work?”

“I send out these short bursts of sound, fast, hundreds of them in a series, and when they bounce back to me, I process them to—”

“Echolocation,” said Will. “Like a bat.”

She shot him a snarky look. “Like a
dolphin.
”

“Okay, like a dolphin,” he said. “I didn't mean
you're
a bat.”

“It works like this,” she said, turning toward the open riverbed in front of them.

He couldn't hear any of the sounds she made, but he could see her concentrating intently as her mouth moved silently.

“So?” he asked. “Find any fish?”

“Something's moving,” she said as she pointed to their right. “Over there.”

Will looked in that direction, and then blinked on his Grid. The ground flattened out in that direction, with nothing immediately visible breaking the horizon. But he picked up a faint heat signature, about human sized, and it was moving rapidly around in the same general area.

“Want me to go check it out?” he asked.

“I can run, too.”

They took off in that direction. Will geared down so Elise could run alongside him, but he was still surprised to see that she kept up without much effort.

A small rise in the ground before them prevented Will from seeing what they were headed toward, but in about half a minute they crested the rise and looked down into a small clearing twenty feet below, surrounded by the edge of a forest of strange misshapen trees.

The heat signature turned out to be Ajay, running around the clearing, dodging and ducking and weaving away from what looked like a small dust cloud following him in the air.

“Ajay!” shouted Elise.

He glanced up toward them, frantic and harried, and Will noticed he was wearing his dark glasses.

“They're after me but I can't see them!” he shouted. “Help!”

Will and Elise sprinted down the slope to the clearing and the nature of the dust cloud revealed itself.

Insects, a thick swarm of them, vividly multicolored, the size of large marbles, snapping and swiping at him with rows of vicious barbed pincers. As Will moved closer, he could hear them emit an angry buzz like the high-pitched revving of a thousand model airplane engines.

“Take your glasses off!” Will shouted as they ran.

Ajay stripped off his glasses, looked up, saw the swarm, apparently for the first time, and started running around at twice the speed. “Well, that was the most horrible piece of advice in history!”

A chunk of the swarm broke off from the rest of the cloud and headed for Will, flying right at his face. He saw just enough of the ones in the lead to register they had something like hideous human faces. Without thinking, he summoned up a thought-form in the shape of a large bag, snapped it shut around them, and hurled it down. The insects dropped to the ground at his feet and he stomped on them repeatedly, sending spurts of green and violet fluid shooting in every direction.

Ajay continued to dart and dance around, trying to escape the main body of the swarm. Will saw Elise take in a deep breath.

“Ajay, hit the ground!” shouted Will.

Ajay instantly dropped flat, just as Elise projected out a hard crack of sound that rippled through the air like a cannonball and hit the center of the swarm square on. The bugs scattered, torn apart by the force of the blast that passed just above Ajay's prone form.

Ajay covered the back of his head with both hands, grunting and issuing squeals of distress, trying to squirm himself even flatter to the ground as he felt the dead bugs falling onto him and the ground all around him. As Ajay thrashed, Will walked over and knelt down beside him, patting him on the back.

“Ajay, take it easy…Ajay!”

Ajay looked up at him, his eyes manic. “Are they gone? What kind of madness is this? What manner of godforsaken hell have you taken us to?”

“Ajay, snap out of it,” said Elise, moving around to his other side, taking him by the arm. “We don't have time for one of your freak-outs at the moment.”

Ajay turned his head slightly, saw the bodies of the bugs scattered around him, and looked over at Elise. “Invisible bees the size of atomic jawbreakers, and you don't think I have the right to freak out?”

“You couldn't see them with the glasses on,” said Will. “We don't need them here.”

“Where are Nick and Jericho?” asked Elise as they lifted him to his feet.

“I have no earthly idea. Nick came through the opening just after me, I thought, but I never saw him. I ended up just over there by that big rock.”

“Where'd the bees come from?”

“They came hurtling at me out of a mud hive on the side of the rock that could house a family of rottweilers. How did you two find each other?”

“We were holding hands as we passed through the portal,” said Elise.