A Sight of Gray
We should never have let her go,” Rutger said. “Someone a lot bigger than me and a lot stronger should have stopped her.”
“Maybe someone a little less roly-poly, I’d say,” Mothball quipped.
They all stood on the hill that led to the forest, looking down in the early-morning light upon the ruins of the castle and the great, slowly churning mass of gray air that still raged in the middle of it all. Sato’s army was assembled nearby, observing as well. The invading, mysterious entity below hummed and buzzed and growled as it spun, crackling when tendrils of bright lightning shot through its surface. Tick watched in awe, knowing the thing had almost doubled in size since he last looked at it from a safe distance.
The Void of Mist and Thunder. Pure power, according to Mistress Jane. How could they rely on her information about what was happening? Well, that was an easy answer—they couldn’t. They needed to get back to headquarters and begin their own research.
“I’m just saying,” Rutger continued, “never in a billion years should we have trusted that woman. Not in a trillion.”
No one really argued with the butterball of a man because what he kept insisting was so obviously true. Soon after Tick had used his own hold on Chi’karda to wink away his mom and Lisa—something he’d hear about for sure in the future—Jane had used hers to wink the rest of them to this spot of temporary safety. The rumbling, machinery-like noises of the Void had grown louder and louder; the ground had begun to shake as its mass crept closer to the Great Hall. They’d needed to get away.
But then she’d gone on about how she needed to do her own part in all of this, and that she’d meet up with them soon enough, when both sides had made some progress. Master George had been furious, his usually red face growing closer to pure scarlet as he lectured her on how this problem needed all of their heads together, and then . . . she was gone. Without a word, she winked away, one second there—disheveled and scarred and exhausted—the next second, gone.
And so, a smaller group of Realitants stood in the chilly air of dawn, watching with empty bellies as an unknown force of gray fog began devouring the universe.
Typical stuff for people like us, Tick thought. Simple job. Hopefully they’d be done in time to beat rush hour tonight and get home for an early supper.
He snickered at his own lame joke.
“Telling jokes in your head over there, sport?” Paul asked him. He stood next to Sofia, and neither one of them seemed to think anything was even remotely funny about their current situation.
“No. It wasn’t that kind of laugh. It was more like the we’re-definitely-going-to-die-so-why-even-bother laugh. You know.”
Paul actually broke a smile, a genuine one, even. “Oh, yeah. Like in the movies. The bad guy always giggles before he gets pushed out a plane or something. Or right as the axe starts swinging down.”
“Uh . . . yeah,” Tick said with a sarcastic nod. “Something like that.”
“Rutger’s right,” Sato cut in, curt and abrupt. “Every single one of us was stupid to let Jane leave. We should’ve shackled her to a tree—something. Now we have three enemies to worry about—Jane, Chu, and that . . . thing down there.”
Master George sighed, looking about as weary as Tick had ever seen him. “Sato. Rutger. My good men. I understand your concern, but I assure you, there’s no way we could have stopped her. Like Master Atticus, she has herself become a Barrier Wand and has power beyond what we even think. I believe there was honor in her once, and I know she couldn’t possibly want the end of her own world—as she puts it—to come about. We’ll have to trust that she is off doing something that will truly help the cause.”
Sally suddenly spoke up. He’d been so quiet, it seemed as if he wasn’t even around, despite his huge stature and ridiculous clothes. “I trust that snicker doodle of a woman ’bout as much as a hen can toss a rooster barn. Cain’t believe she was ever one a-yorn, ole George. Just cain’t believe it nohow.”
“She was,” their leader said through another heavy sigh. “She most definitely was. And, sadly, one of the best we ever had. Who knows what might have been if she hadn’t been assigned to the Thirteenth Reality? Power corrupted her like mold condemns a building. Slowly, but certainly. As it grew inside of her.”
“So?” Sofia asked. “What do we do now? What’s first?”
Master George pulled in a deep breath, sticking his chest way out and adjusting his filthy suit. “Some of us are going back to the Grand Canyon in Prime. We need to put our thoughts together and make sure we understand everything we can. We need to understand before we can do anything to stop this madness.”