The few figures in the front were walking forward, through the door. Their eyes shone with brilliant displays of fire, as if they were windows into a furnace. Tendrils of lightning shot across the surface of their slick, colorless skin.
Then Tick saw two people standing between him and the oncoming creatures.
“Mom!” he yelled, breaking into a run to reach her. “What in the world are you doing out here?”
She turned to face him, as did Lisa, and Tick’s heart broke a little when he saw the fear in their eyes and expressions.
“We’re trying to figure out . . .” his mom began to shout, but didn’t finish. She pulled Lisa behind her and came toward Tick until they met. “It hardly matters. What are those things?” She gestured to the briskly walking gray people about fifty feet away.
Mistress Jane joined Tick, her red mask staring with a slight look of awe at the oncoming ghostly figures. The fire of their eyes reflected off the shiny, wet-looking surface of the red metal covering her hideous face.
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.