Without warning, and just as he began to feel like he might get out of the mess, everything changed as quickly as one wink of his eye.
The endless gray sky disappeared, along with the fog of debris from the countless erupted balls of rock. Blackness replaced it, a sea of stars in the background, as if he floated in the deepest realm of outer space. His sense of movement also stopped, jarring him at first. Pulling in a deep breath, he heard the sound of his own gasp and felt his insides twist until he regained his equilibrium. All was silent as he hung there in the empty void.
Several seconds passed. Then each one of those pinpoints of light around him stretched out into a long beam of brightness, all of them pointed at Tick and moving at a blistering speed.
Lorena stood up, her mind so focused on the Barrier Wand that it felt as though she’d become one with it. The orange light of Chi’karda filled the room, blinding her vision. She couldn’t separate what the Ladies of Blood and Sorrow were doing from the power generated by her own efforts with the Wand. She’d never experienced anything like it. She wondered if this was how Tick felt when he was controlling the Chi’karda directly. She’d quit adjusting the dials and switches without even realizing it.
And then she remembered. She was in the Thirteenth Reality. Things were different here.
Lisa was at her side, keeping quiet—bless her heart—but a quick glance showed that the poor girl desperately wanted to know what was going on. Lorena went back to the business at hand, knowing she couldn’t risk breaking her concentration. She couldn’t put it into words or offer up a scientific explanation, but she had control over Chi’karda like never before, a link to Tick that she wasn’t going to let go of. She was going to bring him home.
Even if she had to die doing it.
At first the arrows of light made Tick feel as if he were in a spaceship that had shifted into warp speed, about to blast to another part of the galaxy. But he felt no sense of motion, and the angles were wrong. As he twisted and turned in the void, he saw long lines of pure whiteness stretching toward him from every direction, like strings of perfectly straight lightning. And he didn’t need a manual to know that their purpose was not to brighten his world so he could read a book.
The beams kept coming.
He could easily shift his body, even move away if he wanted to, but there was no point. The things were heading for him no matter where he looked. Unless he winked to another place, those long strings of white were going to reach him. Besides, where would he wink? Could he even wink out of the void? He felt surprisingly calm, confident he could deal with the problem.
The first needles of light reached his body.
Just like the vines, they wrapped around his arms and legs; some slipped across his chest, others slithered along his ribs and side and along his back. He fought at them by flailing and kicking out, but it did no good. The Chi’karda he’d gathered before still swelled inside of him. He lashed out with the power, but that did no good either. It was as if the ropes of light were without substance until they needed it to serve their purpose, gripping tightly to his body.
There were dozens of the ropes, then hundreds, thousands. They bled together into a brilliant display of pure white light, covering every inch of his body. Only his head remained free, and he twisted his neck to see what was happening, trying to squirm out of it.
The bindings tightened, squeezing the air out of his lungs, but curiously, Tick felt no panic. His breathing remained even. The white ropes kept coming, flying in like eels until they hit his body and wrapped around the other coils of light. He’d become nothing but a head, sticking out of a blinding ball of brilliance with tendrils of light leading away from him in every direction.
Tick knew he couldn’t let it keep going. He closed his eyes, pulled in more and more Chi’karda, filling his body and soul. He felt as if his insides were on fire. Still he kept at it, the power rushing into him like a falling deluge of scorching lava. He found himself liking it, loving the burn and surge of adrenaline, the power that filled him. He let it build, knowing he needed to unleash it but not wanting to. The earlier sensation of being tugged by a strong cable was still there, but it didn’t hurt anymore.
The beams of light quit coming, but it didn’t matter. He was wrapped neck to toe, unable to move a single muscle. The trailing ends of the ropes stretched out from his body in every direction, as if he were stuck in the middle of a giant spider web. All was silent and still, the light blinding.
The cords around him suddenly grew taut, then began to pull at his limbs and torso. Trying to rip his body into pieces.
Chapter 19
Fighting the Void