MirrorWorld

What has he done? Whatever it is, I’m going to undo it. And him.

I peel the mask from my head, let him know I’m still alive and kicking—and coming for him. And then I wink out of the mirror world and charge toward his position.





58.

I race through the cavern, alone except for the dead Dread Squad men behind me. The air is crisp, clean, and a welcome change from the tang of the mirror world. A distant roar reveals the underground river’s outlet, which pours into the cavern, beyond my sight, no doubt flowing away, back into the earth.

Lyons had been a good hundred feet from me when I started running. If he’s still pushing forward, he’ll be within reach in just a few seconds. He’ll be surrounded by his soldiers, too, but I really don’t care.

At all.

Brief winks of light mark the arrival of the Dread Squad. Seven of them.

Not enough, I think. But then I remember what’s happening in the mirror world. That he sent seven of his protectors says he realizes the danger I present. But he’s still underestimating me. Had he really understood what I can do, he’d have sent everyone.

While the seven men take aim, I roar. Carried along with my voice, moving at roughly the same speed, is a whisper of fear the likes of which these men have yet to encounter. It’s a gift, I realize, from the matriarch, and it’s painless. The matriarch did a little more than return the last bits of my memory. While I can’t feel the fear effect myself, I somehow know that it’s on the level of what a Dread mole can produce. And I remember that feeling. It nearly broke me. No amount of drugs can overcome such raw, unfiltered terror.

I push it in waves, each invisible torrent crashing into and through the very souls of these men. I become their worst fears, in the flesh, rushing toward them. I’m so focused on generating this mind-numbing fear that I almost don’t notice I’m also pulling the assault rifle’s trigger, sending the last of my ammo into the seven men, ending their fear forever.

When the last of them drops in a heap, I stop, draw my Desert Eagle, and slip back into the mirror world, intending to put a bullet in the back of Lyons’s head.

Instead, I’m met by a thick fist, driven into my gut. I stumble back, pitched over, sucking air. The handgun drops from my grasp. Bent over, eyes shut, I can’t see a thing, but I know everything has changed during my brief time in the cavern.

“I saw you coming.” Lyons’s voice is deeper than before. Stronger. So is his punch. “You always seem to find a way to surprise me, but not this time. It’s your turn to be surprised. Your turn to feel fear.”

When he says “fear,” a ripple of energy flows through me. He’s pushing fear at me, but not hard enough. I barely feel it. Still, he’s adjusting to the change faster than I did. And in ways I didn’t.

He’s stronger, faster, all his previous ailments repaired, and then there’s the glow radiating from under his skin like … veins of color.

Oh my God … The refinements he made to the Dread DNA that allow a human being to sense the world like a mirror-world resident were intensified, or perhaps lessened, with his own personal batch. How long has he been changing? Did the alterations to his own DNA effect his mind? Is all of this a result of some kind of faulty rewiring? He wouldn’t be the first person to have boosted aggression from a body-altering substance.

“Look at me, son,” Lyons says.

Catching my breath, I crane my head up. He stands above me, looking bigger and meaner than ever. He’s nearly bursting out of his armor. Thick veins pulse with red light just beneath the skin of his neck. He’s becoming more Dread with each passing second.

“I can see it in you. The fear.” Lyons chuckles. “Look around, Josef. Your treachery has failed.”

He’s right about that. The only Dread left in the colony are dead or dying. That is, except for the matriarch, which still hasn’t climbed out of its hole. Is it hiding? Knowledge surfaces, answering the question. It’s rooted. The larger the colony, the older the matriarch. It’s actually part of the colony, unable to rise up again, held in place by the colorful veins that feed everything in this world. If it leaves, it dies. And if that happens, the Earth dies on both sides of the mirror. The matriarch I killed in New Hampshire had been a youth, loosely rooted and inexperienced. It should have never left its colony. It would still be alive if it hadn’t.

But staying hidden beneath the ground isn’t going to help this subterranean behemoth at all. The Dread Squad numbers have been whittled down. A large number of the bodies littering the arena floor are human. But there are still forty of them, most uninjured, some aiming RPGs at the tendrils slowly warbling behind Lyons. Others are repositioning the machine guns on either side of the matriarch. If it rises, they’ll cut it to pieces.

I am the last hope for both worlds now.