A doorway. A portal in the darkness, framed by that eerie orange light.
He mentally flew towards it. The opening expanded, growing larger and larger as he approached. Everything was symbolic now, and he went with what came. His body—his conscience, his imagination, his thoughts—catapulted through the portal, and suddenly the air exploded with light. He closed his eyes. He no longer felt the hands or presence of his two partners, even though he knew they were still there. Until this was over, Tick was on his own.
His feet touched a hard surface, and within his mind, he opened his eyes again.
He stood in a field of white snow. The sky above him was a piercingly clear blue, and the sun shone down with all its power, reflecting off the whiteness with a brilliant light that he’d first felt when entering the portal that had brought him here. He turned in a circle and saw that there was absolutely nothing in any direction. Just flat land and snow as far as he could see.
If anything could symbolize the Nonex, this was it.
There was one thing. Off in the distance, maybe fifty feet away, he thought he saw something blue—a bruise on the endless sea of white. He headed that way, his feet crunching and sinking slightly in the cold stuff below him with every step. There was no wind, but the coldness of the air bit into his skin, as if someone had just flicked on his senses with a switch. He looked down at his clothes and saw them magically transform from what he’d been wearing by the fire back on the beach to a huge parka and heavy pants and boots. Gloves and a thick wool hat on his head completed the transformation. Much better.
As he got closer to the spot of blue, it grew in size, but not just because he approached it. It literally grew, expanding outward like a drop of food coloring on a paper towel. Tick stopped and watched as its leading edge came toward him, then stopped at his feet. He could see that it was frozen water, but the icy lake seemed unnatural, as if it were made up of that nasty colored stuff used to create small ponds at the miniature golf place.
Tick dropped to his knees, knowing this was what he was supposed to do. Crystals of snow plumed out from behind him, dancing across the surface of the deep blue ice. Somehow they avoided a portion of the lake, forming a perfectly white rectangular frame. Tick knew what would happen before it did.
The rectangle flickered like a television coming to life, and then a moving image appeared on the ice, replacing the blue.
Tick leaned forward, placing his hands on the outer edge of the cold, frozen lake. What he saw stopped his heart for three full seconds. His mom and his sister, marching toward a huge wall of broken stone. They were led by two creatures that he’d run into before—long, gangly things that seemed to be made from coils of solid smoke.
Sleeks.
Chapter 12
Creatures
Lisa had felt terror before. When she and Kayla had been taken to that strange house with those strange women and the earthquake had hit. The storm of lightning and thunder. That had been her first true taste of fear.
And now she was experiencing it again.
The creatures that had taken her and her mom were ruthless and brutal as they dragged the two of them down the slope and across the grass to the broken castle. Their grip was hard and their pace furious.
They walked along a stream, the rushing water sparkling and glinting in the sunlight, the sound not doing a thing to help soothe Lisa’s nerves. She remembered Tick telling the story of his first visit to the Thirteenth Reality and the battle that had been fought here with the fangen. At the time, she could never have imagined that one day she’d be in the same place, in the same kind of trouble.
“What do you want with us?” Lisa’s mom asked for the twentieth time. And for the twentieth time, the creatures said nothing.
Lisa looked at the Barrier Wand that was still in her mom’s clutches, surprised that one of the monsters hadn’t taken it from her. If she remembered Tick’s tale completely, the castle of Mistress Jane was another hotspot for Chi’karda, so her mom would need only a free minute to switch the dials and instruments and wink them out of there. They just needed the right opportunity.