The Hunt for Dark Infinity (The 13th Reality #2) (7 page)

“Can’t wait to see Tick and the others again,” Rutger said.

Mothball couldn’t stop a huge smile from spreading across her face at the mention of the boy, Atticus. “I hear ya, there. Goin’ to give ’im a big ’ug, I will. Paul and Sofia, too.”

“I just wish it were under better circumstances.” Rutger sat back in his chair, hands resting on his round belly. “All this time we spent worrying about Mistress Jane and the Thirteenth, and then this comes along. Nasty stuff.”

Mothball thought back to several weeks earlier, when the first sign of the craziness showed up in the form of a madwoman running through the streets of downtown New York City in the Twelfth. The resident Realitant had witnessed it firsthand, and thought nothing of it until the woman started screaming, “I can’t get it out of my head! I can’t get it out of my head!” and then
disappeared,
winking away to some unknown destination. Thinking on it gave Mothball the creeps.

“’Tis gettin’ worse,” she said. “From what I ’ear, there’s a fragmented Reality that’s gone good and batty through and through, every last one of ’em. A literal madhouse.”

Rutger huffed. “I heard there’s a town in the Sixth where every last person is acting like a cat, crawling around, purring, fighting over milk. Can you imagine how
disturbing
that must be?”

Just then, Master George entered the kitchen, his golden Barrier Wand—its dials and switches set to who-knew-what—clasped in his right hand like a walking cane, and Muffintops right at his ankles. Mothball had the odd thought that she hoped the little tabby cat hadn’t heard the bit about the people-kitties in the Sixth. Could be quite traumatizing for the poor thing.

“Having a bit of a snack, are we?” Master George said as he joined them at the table. “I must admit, I’m quite hungry myself.” He looked around the kitchen as if some food might magically appear in front of him.

“Did you get the letter delivered to Tick okay?” Rutger asked.

Master George blushed, fidgeting with the Wand. “Why, er, yes, yes, it arrived just fine, I believe. Though I might have miscalculated a bit on the exact delivery location.”

“Miscalculated?” Mothball repeated.

“Why, er, well . . . I may have sent it a little . . . to the . . .
left,
if you will.”

“The left?” Rutger asked.

Master George slammed his hand on the table. “Fine! I put the blasted thing right in the middle of their wall! And yes, I’m quite embarrassed.”

“Ya could’ve sliced someone’s ruddy head off,” Mothball said.

“I’m quite aware of that, thank you very much.” Master George looked angry, but it quickly flashed into a smile and a snicker. “I imagine it gave them a jolly good fright, don’t you?”

“I bet you did it on purpose,” Rutger said. “I know I would have.”

“But they got it?” Mothball asked.

“Yes, yes, they got it. I hope they’ll forgive me the debt of mending their wall, however.” Master George cleared his throat, then his face grew serious again. “I’m afraid we have tough times ahead, my friends. This . . . problem is growing, and we haven’t the slightest clue as to its source. If I could, I would begin our meeting this very instant. But, alas, not everyone will be here until the appointed time.”

“What do you have planned for Tick and his friends?” Rutger asked.

Master George put the Barrier Wand on the table and absently rolled it back and forth. “Well, the most essential matter is to figure out Master Tick’s odd ability to manipulate the Chi’karda. Perhaps we can use it to our advantage in this dreadful mess.”

“Figured out where yer gonna send ’em yet?” Mothball asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed I have.”

Mothball and Rutger waited, expecting their boss to tell them the plan. But he stayed silent, staring at an empty spot on the other side of the kitchen.

“And . . .” Rutger prodded.

Master George finally looked up, focused on Rutger, then Mothball. “My dear friends, I’m afraid my plans for them are quite . . . hazardous.”

“Hazardous?” Mothball repeated.

Master George nodded. “I daresay I hardly expect all three of them to survive.”

~

Guilty

T
ick’s eyes flickered, then opened.

Though shaded by trees, the faint forest light looked like atomic explosions, blistering his eyeballs with pain, making him squeeze his eyelids shut once more. He groaned, every inch of his body feeling like someone had mistaken him for a human pi–ata. He hurt. He hurt
bad.

To his right, he heard movement—the rustling of leaves, moaning. Tick brought his hands up to his face, wincing as the movement sent shockwaves of pain coursing through his body again. He froze until it died down, then rubbed his eyes. He finally opened them again, and the light didn’t seem nearly as bad. Carefully, delicately, he pushed himself into a sitting position.

Darkness had crept into the forest, more and more insects revealing their presence in a growing chorus of mating calls. Paul sat with his arms folded, leaning against a nearby tree, his face set in a grimace. Sofia was curled up in a ball several feet to Paul’s right, still moaning, leaves sticking to her clothes as if she’d been rolling around in them since morning. The strange devices Mr. Chu had attached to them were gone.

Surprisingly, Tick felt the pain sliding away, feeling better by the second. Pushing against the ground, he got his feet under him and stood up. Though sore, he no longer felt the pinpricks and bruises he’d suffered from just moments earlier. It was as if someone had injected him with two shots of morphine.

“Dude, what
happened?
” Paul said through a groan, stretching his arms out before him.

Tick stepped over to Sofia, who seemed to be regaining her strength as well. She rolled onto her back, blinked up at Tick, then held up an arm; Tick helped her to her feet.

“Is that guy still your favorite teacher?” she asked, brushing leaves off her clothes. “He’s a real joy to be around, that’s for sure.”

“I . . . I don’t know what—” Tick stopped in mid-sentence, staring at something over Sofia’s shoulder. He squinted to see through the dim twilight, then squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “What the heck is
that?
”

“What?” Sofia and Paul asked in unison, turning to look in the same direction as Tick.

Without answering, Tick walked toward the oddity that loomed over them just a few dozen feet away.

“Whoa,” he heard Paul say from behind him.

Deeper into the forest, several trees had
melted
into a twisting, gnarled, monstrous-looking mass of wood that was as tall and thick as a house. Several other trees had been lifted out of the ground, their roots sticking out like naked fingers, clods of dirt swaying back and forth. Tick could only stare, disbelieving his own eyes. It looked like some giant magician had grabbed dozens of trees, transformed them into liquid wood, and then smashed them together, twisting and squeezing all of it into a deformed, hideous shape.

Sofia gasped, then pointed to a section of the wood-blob near the ground. “Is that what I think it is? Oh!” She covered her face with her hands and turned around, her body visibly shuddering.

“What?” Paul asked, stepping closer to take a look. Tick joined him, and immediately saw the source of her disgust.

Somehow
twisted
into the wood was the body of a deer. Three legs poked out of the main trunk; its face was half-sunk into the wood, the one visible eye somehow displaying the fear it must have felt at the last second before death.

“That’s downright creepy,” Paul whispered.

~

By the time they reached Tick’s house, almost all of the intense pain they’d felt had disappeared, leaving only a weary soreness. Tick, like Paul and Sofia, had hardly said a word on the walk back, trying to figure out which had been more disturbing—the agonizing pain or the deformed super-tree with the dead deer sticking out of it.

“Could this day have been any weirder?” Paul asked as they walked up the porch steps to Tick’s house.

“Maybe if we’d grown bunny ears,” Sofia replied.

Paul let out a bitter laugh.

They walked in to the wonderful smells of dinner, all of them pausing to take a deep breath. Tick was starving. He couldn’t tell what his mom had cooked, but he had a feeling she’d felt the need to prove to Sofia that
she
could cook, too.

“So are we gonna tell your parents what just happened?” Paul whispered.

Tick thought a minute. “Maybe later. My poor mom’s worried enough as it is. No harm, no foul, right?”

“Yeah,” Sofia agreed. “Let’s just stay in the house and stare at each other until it’s time to go meet Master George.”

“Sounds good,” Tick said. “Hopefully we can stay out of trouble for one more day.”

They walked into the kitchen.

~

Mistress Jane felt discouraged.

She sat next to the large stone window of her apartment in the Lemon Fortress, closing her eyes every time the soft, warm breeze filled with the sweet smell of wildflowers blew up from the meadows below. The day was beautiful, the slightest hint in the air that autumn lay just around the corner. Everything was perfect.

And yet, a stinging sadness tempered all of it.

It had been four months since her Barrier Wand had been stolen, trapping her inside the Thirteenth Reality. At the time, she’d been so intrigued by the Realitants’ ability to wink away with a broken Wand, and its potential implications for her, that she’d gotten straight to work—studying, experimenting,
building.
There was a lot about the mysterious power of Chi’karda she’d not yet discovered, and the little group’s seemingly miraculous disappearance had led her to change her thinking. She had already made some exciting discoveries.

However, at the moment, she was very frustrated.

For one thing, her efforts to build a new Barrier Wand had hit a major snag. Frazier Gunn, the leader on the project, couldn’t find one of the key elements for the wire that would transmit the Chi’karda from its Drive packet to the body of the Wand. The needed material was a complicated alloy of several rare metals, and one of them was proving impossible to find within the Thirteenth. Frazier had grown noticeably irritable, obviously realizing the potential consequences if he failed in this project. His room for error with Jane had grown very thin.

But all of this was secondary to what troubled her most.

She was starting to feel
guilty.

She couldn’t remember when it started, or when it had grown to such a staggering weight on her heart. But now, every minute of the day, all she could think about was how evil she had become. When had it come to this?
How
had it come to this? In the beginning, all she’d ever wanted was to make the world a better place, to improve life for all her fellow human beings. It was to fulfill those lofty and noble goals that she’d joined the Realitants years ago, devoting her life to studying the Realities. Though she’d never voiced her intentions, she’d planned from the first day to seek out those things in other Realities that would lead to her ultimate goal.

A Utopia. A perfect world. A haven for all people, where pain and sorrow would cease to exist. Where everyone could be happy.

That was all she’d wanted. That was all she
still
wanted.

And yet, here she was, a fierce and cruel ruler of an entire world, using its mutated powers to create horrific armies of creatures, to repress those who opposed her, to destroy those who dared to fight back. She was a despicable, disgusting person. A terribly
unhappy
person.

But she couldn’t change. Not now. She knew that as clearly as she’d recognized what she had become. It was too late for change. Her plans were in full motion, and if it took her full cruelty and reprehensible reputation to win the battle, then so be it.

She realized what that meant. She was willing to sacrifice her own dignity, her own reputation, her own . . . soul. In the end, though, the worlds would thank her. In the end, everyone would be better off. In the end, life would be perfect.

She looked to her right just in time to see her latest servant-girl, Doofus, stumble through the door and drop a tray, dishes clattering all over the floor.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Jane’s
mood
couldn’t have been worse.

She threw her hand forward, unleashing a burst of the mutated Chi’karda. Doofus shot into the air and slammed high against the stone wall, pinned near the ceiling by the invisible force. Choking sounds filled the room as the poor girl kicked at the air, her heels thumping the wall.

“How dare you enter without knocking, you pathetic slob.” Jane’s voice remained calm and cool, belying the rage and guilt she felt within. With a quick wave of her hand, she made Doofus spring away from the wall and fly across the room. Screams burst from the girl’s throat as the chokehold was released. They quickly faded when the servant shot through the open window and plummeted toward her death far below.