The Void of Mist and Thunder (The 13th Reality #4) (18 page)

Tick felt a shiver of panic, but he knew he had to put on a brave front for his family. “It has something to do with the Fourth Dimension breaking into our Reality. It’s pure energy, so maybe it can take things from our world and recreate them. Don’t know, though. Come on.”

He pointed down the passageway. The creatures were coming straight for them, marching with purpose. Their faces had no distinctive features—just eyes full of flame. Their arms and legs bulged with gray muscle, and their shoulders and chests were broad, but the wings—on those that had them—were misshapen and barely hanging on. Trickles of electricity continued to dance across the surface of their skin.

The Voids—that’s how Tick thought of them, no other word coming to mind—had reached them and stopped. Now fully inside the castle, they lined up in several rows that reached back dozens of feet. There had to be at least fifty of the things. Eyes of fire, gray skin charged with lines of white lightning. But they were still now, staring at Tick and the others.

Mistress Jane spoke in a whisper. “The Fourth Dimension is even more powerful than I thought. What has it done to my sweet, sweet creations?”

When the gray creatures started entering the castle, Sato’s urgency picked up even stronger. Tick was in there somewhere, and these things looked like nothing but trouble.

He sprinted harder, hearing the thumping of his soldiers at his heels. They reached the torn land where the spinning mass of gray air had churned up the soil and ruined the grass. Sato ran across it, taking care not to trip over the divots and chunks of dirt. The inside of the castle was dark, but an eerie orange light shone from somewhere. Sato wondered if it might be coming from the faces of the creatures themselves, but they all had their backs to him at the moment.

Sato stopped at the threshold of the huge entrance and held up a hand. Tollaseat and the others stopped on a dime, and not a peep came from anyone.

The gray monsters had quit walking, and they huddled close together, watching something on the other side. Sato couldn’t see over their heads.

“Come on,” he whispered.

Trying his best to make no noise, skulking on the front pads of his feet, he moved forward, approaching the back of the pack. He was about ten feet away when one of the creatures turned around sharply to face them. Sato was shocked to see that the thing had two wide eye sockets filled with flickering, hot-burning flames. It was like the inside of its head was a forge, ready to heat up some iron for sword-making.

“What in the name of—” Tollaseat started, but further movement by the gray man cut him short.

A mouth was opening in the gray face, the gap also full of fiery flames, red and orange. It expanded until the upper edge almost touched the eyeholes, an entire face looking in on an inferno. The creature’s long, thick arms ended in stumps that looked way too much like fists coiled in anger. But then the gray man stopped moving. He held that strange, menacing pose with its oven of a mouth stuck in a huge yawn.

Sato didn’t know whether he should attack. He knew nothing about this enemy, or whether it really
was
an enemy. And if it was, he didn’t know what kinds of power it had to fight them back. But he had to do
something.

As he slowly took a few steps toward the creature, Sato’s right hand reached down inside his own pocket and fingered one of the cool, round balls that were nestled in there. He pulled one into his grip, then out of his pocket. It was a Rager, its trapped static electricity bouncing to get out and destroy things.

The gray man started to growl, like a whoosh of air had ramped up the fire in his head.

Tick had been thrilled when he noticed Sato and his Fifth Army come marching through the broken door, many of the soldiers holding Shurrics, those deadly weapons of sound. Sato disappeared from sight—he was shorter than the Voids standing outside—but the heads of people of the Fifth Reality rose above the creatures, and their faces were mixed with awe and excitement. Not much fear.

All of the Voids had opened their mouths wide, fire raging within, their faces slightly angled toward the ceiling of the passage. Their arms were rigid at their sides, stumpy fists on the ends, wilted wings hanging off their backs. A low groaning sound came from the rear of the pack, like the roar of an airplane’s engine as it started up.

The whole scene reminded Tick of a standoff in an old Western movie, and he didn’t like it one bit.

“Mistress Jane,” he said. “If you’ve got some advice, now would be a great time to share it.”

The robed woman stepped forward, seemed to assess the situation for a few seconds, then turned to face Tick. Her mask had no expression, but the roaring, growling sounds were getting louder and louder.

“I don’t know how to fight this kind of power,” Jane said. “The Fourth Dimension has obviously taken my creations and turned them into a weapon of some sort.”

She’d barely finished her sentence when one of the Voids in the front row ejected something from its mouth—a beam of pure flame, fiery and steaming, like a spout of lava shot from a hose. It flew up, then out, then came down and headed straight for Jane’s head.

Chapter 26

Ragers and Squeezers

As Tick dove forward, his shoulders smashing into the side of Jane and tackling her to the ground, somewhere in the back of his mind, he was aware that once again he was saving a person who’d devoted her life to doing evil things. No matter her intent. They crashed to the ground, and Tick felt a hot streak fly above him, almost enough to singe the hairs on the back of his neck.

He rolled off Jane in time to see the short stream of liquid fire sail past the rest of the crowd and hit the wall on the other side of the stream. Instead of splashing like lava, the fire sparked and burst into tiny explosions, crumbling some of the stone. Chips of rock rained into the water. But the weapon—or whatever it had been—left no trace, evaporating into the air with a puff of steam.

Jane and Tick jumped back to their feet, and everyone faced the Voids. Their mouths were still open in firing position, but none of them were doing anything just yet.

“Could it have been a warning?” Tick’s mom asked. “Is there any way we can talk to them? If they’re really from—”

“They
are
from the Fourth Dimension,” Jane interrupted. “And talking to them would surely be a waste of time. I can’t imagine they think like us, talk like us, see the universe like us. Our comprehensions of the Realities are probably as different as those of a spider and a redwood tree.”

“Or more like a human and an ant,” Tick murmured. “Maybe we’re nothing more than something they need to step on.”

Jane shook her head slowly back and forth. “We need to kill them, plain and simple. Atticus, prepare yourself. Pull in your Chi’karda, boy.”

Tick felt a rushing behind his ears, his heart thumping. He turned to Mordell and made sure he avoided eye contact with his family. “Take . . . please take my mom and sister somewhere safe. Please.”

“Atticus Higginbottom!” his mom said, planting her feet and propping her hands on her hips. “We can do just as much—”

Another one of the Voids shot a stream of flame and lava from its mouth. The fire sliced through the air toward the wall then curved, swinging around to head for Tick’s group. Everyone collapsed to the ground—Tick yanking on his mom and sister’s clothes—just as the deadly cylinder of bright red and orange flew over them and splashed into the wide stream next to the passage. Sparks and shoots of fire went everywhere as the water boiled and hissed for several seconds. Then it ended.

Tick grabbed his mom and looked her in the face. “Let me do this, Mom. You need to keep Lisa safe. Let me do this!”

Another burst of fire and lava came shooting through the air. This time it was Lisa who shoved Tick and his mom out of the way. The fiery stream slammed into the floor where they’d been lying. Sparks showered onto Tick; he swatted them off his shirt and stamped out the little fires around him.

“Mom!” he yelled. “You have to go! Jane and I can fight them off!”

There was no more argument. Mordell helped his mom and Lisa get to their feet, and then the three of them sprinted back down the passageway, heading for some place Tick hoped would protect them. Maybe the Great Hall. He turned back to the Voids in time to see another stream of fire erupting from a creature’s mouth. The lava shot forward in a violent burst, as if the thing wanted it to reach the three fleeing women.

Tick acted without thinking. He triggered something in his heart, deep within his chest, and pulled something out with his mind and soul. A spinning cloud of orange sparkles ignited into existence around his body, and he threw some of it at the flying barrage of fire and lava. They met in midair and erupted into a fireworks show, sparks dropping and dancing on the ground. But it had worked, and Lisa and his mom disappeared around the bend, with Mordell on their heels.

It was Jane and Tick now. They exchanged a glance that somehow said,
Here we go again. Enemies working as allies.

They stood side by side and faced the army of gray men, the Voids from another dimension. Tick wanted to say something but kept his mouth shut and waited for the battle to begin.

Sato had pulled back his men and women, funneling them through the broken door and onto the flattened grasses outside the castle. Three of the gray men had fired spouts of flame and lava at his army, and one of the attacks had hit home, enveloping a giant woman named Erthell in fire. Two of her companions had thrown her into the river to put out the flames, and then stayed to help her back onto the bank.

Sato wasn’t running away either. Without any kind of shield to protect themselves, he wanted to fight back from cover. He and several other soldiers lined up against the wall outside the entrance to the castle, Shurrics at the ready. Even more soldiers stood right behind them, ready to jump out and throw Ragers and Squeezers—the nasty little grenades with metal hooks that contracted into whatever they hit—at the enemy to cause distraction and pain.

“Ready the volley!” Sato shouted. “As soon as they fly and ignite, we start pounding them with sound. Ready?”