But Tick wasn’t done sharing a piece of his mind. “And what’s all that garbage about making the Realities better? All you want is power, and you know it. You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
Chu’s face flashed with anger, and he leaned in closer to Tick. His bad breath wafted to Tick’s nose and made him want to squirm out of the bed. “You shut that mouth of yours, do you hear me? Shut your mouth and show me some respect. You could never possibly understand me or my motives. I’ll do what needs to be done, and no one can stop me. Yes, I may have a petty streak in me, and I may have done a few things that I might not be proud of, which is unfortunate for you because when I’m done using you, I’m going to dispose of you in a way that brings me a great deal of satisfaction. It’s something you can start looking forward to.”
Tick lashed out, but the restraints held his arms in place. He was furious and had never wanted to hit another person so much in his life. But he slouched back down onto the bed, knowing he couldn’t be stupid enough to try anything with his power over Chi’karda. He’d just have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to come along.
But at least he had his words. “You’re a pathetic man, Chu. How can you even look yourself in the mirror tonight after standing there and talking like that to someone who’s not even fifteen years old yet? Pathetic and sad.”
Chu, of course, did the most maddening thing then. He laughed as he straightened back up to stand tall. “Don’t goad me on, kid. You can yap all day if you want about how young you are, but we all know the power that’s trapped inside your child’s body. And we all know why.”
Tick paused, surprised by the odd statement. Even though he hated to let go of his anger, he had to know what the man meant. “What . . . why . . . why what?”
Chu raised his eyebrows. “Don’t play dumb with me, boy. Reginald Chu knows all—or at least what he cares to.”
Tick started to sit up before he remembered the restraints. Groaning in frustration, he closed his eyes then opened them again. He needed to find some humility. “I’m serious. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“This is unbelievable. How could he keep you in the dark about this?” Chu looked at him in disbelief. “I’m talking about why you, of all people, have this incredible ability to manipulate and control Chi’karda. Don’t tell me that old man George hasn’t explained it to you yet. He knows. He went well out of his way to confirm it.”
Tick was dumbfounded. “What does he know?”
Chu folded his arms and peered down at him, slowly shaking his head. “Soulikens, Atticus. It’s all about the soulikens.”
Chapter 42
Poor Little Centipede
Sweat poured down Sato’s face, and it wasn’t just from the effort of digging through and tossing aside the countless broken stones that had lain between him and the source of the glowing light at his feet. He was nervous because the massive storm of the Void was growing louder and bigger, its shadow looming over him, Tollaseat, and the dug-out pit in which they stood. They needed to figure out this anomaly and get away from there.
He got down on one knee and inspected the source of the light. It was a slit in the floor, about three feet long and a few inches wide. Although it wasn’t really in the floor—it was more like the rip in Reality he’d seen before when the gray fog had first appeared beside the castle walls. Blue light shone from behind the odd crack in the air, so intense that it was hard to look at it directly. There was nothing else there, as if it were a small window into a river of radioactive material or something otherworldly. The light continued to pulse, flashing every few seconds so brightly that it was blinding.
“How’re we s’posed to figure what she might be?” Tollaseat asked. The man was too long and gangly to try to squat down next to Sato. “Took a bit of work, it did, gettin’ down this far. T’would be a mighty shame to go back empty-handed, now wouldn’t it?”
Sato thought Mothball’s dad had an uncanny gift for saying a lot of words that offered no help whatsoever. “I don’t know. Just let me think for a second.”
He did try to think, and that didn’t help either. He wasn’t a scientist. Somehow he’d become the captain of an army, for crying out loud. But he knew without any doubt that this small spit of shining blue light had something to do with . . . something.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a centipede creeping along a broken slab of stone. Testing some theory on the edge of his mind, he picked up the poor little thing and tossed it into the slice of pulsing light. The bug disappeared in a tiny burst of white electricity, tiny jagged bolts skittering across the blue surface before dying out. There was no sign of the critter.