“The round rock in the sky.”
“Oh, yeah. That glowy thing. Still not doing it.”
“Dutch, you won’t kill me. We’re gods, remember?”
“That’s something else I want to talk to you about. How does that work exactly? I mean, what if I’m thrown into a wood chipper?”
“Later. Hand through heart.”
I let out an annoyed breath and turned toward him. “This is so weird.”
“Just concentrate.”
“What if I materialize while I’m still in your chest?”
“You won’t. That would actually take more concentration than what you’ll be doing.”
I put my hand on his chest. “In what way?”
“That would be purposely taking someone’s life.”
“I thought you said—”
“Not my life. Just in general. You can only do that if that is your strongest desire. If you really and truly want to kill someone. Otherwise, you can’t materialize inside me. It’s like a built-in safety switch.”
“How do you know all this?”
“It took me a while to figure it out.”
I drew back my hand and straightened again. “You figured out how to kill someone using this ability?”
He lowered his head. “I did.”
I blinked. “And have you … I mean, did you ever…?”
After a long moment of silence, he said, “I have. Once. I was in a maximum-security prison, Dutch.” He let that sentiment hang in the air and faced me again. “Hand. Heart.”
I lowered my head. Forced myself to concentrate, then let the molecules in my hand drift apart. It was like sand on the wind, and slowly, I pushed them through his chest.
I expected to feel … something. His muscle. His rib cage. His left ventricle. But I didn’t feel anything.
“It’s because you are no longer on the plane where my body is,” he said, reading my mind.
Not literally. God, I hoped not literally.
“And, no, I can’t read your mind.”
Holy crab apples.
“You—or, more accurately—your hand is on the celestial plane while the rest of you and all of me are on the mortal one. It’s all about shifting from one plane of existence to another.”
“Then how did you…? Why did I come earlier?”
“Ah, that’s the next class. Advanced Cellular Manipulation for Fun and Profit.”
I laughed, and suddenly my hand was physical, lying against his chest again. Over his heart.
I jerked it back. “I didn’t do that.”
“Told you.” His grin was infectious. “You can’t just materialize inside someone without a lot of practice.”
“And a lot of anger, I suspect.”
“Yeah, that, too. Try it again.”
We did the hand-through-the-heart thing a few more times, then advanced to him standing still while I walked through him. Through his body. Literally. He stood in front of me, hands in his pockets, while I dematerialized my whole everything and just passed right through him.
I laughed the first time I did it and clapped my hands like a kid on a waterslide. Then I cleared my throat and returned to my normal state of absolute coolness.
Just kidding. I have never been to the state of Coolness, though Ubie told me he drove through it once.
“Meet me over there,” Reyes said. He dematerialized and rematerialized on the other side of the room. It was a large room. “Your turn.”
I drew in a lungful of air, then shifted onto the celestial plane. Wind whipped around me. Thunder crashed. Lightning hit. The colors were so bright I lost sight of Reyes and rematerialized where I stood.
“Again,” Reyes-Wan said.
“I can’t see you.”
“Then you aren’t looking.”
That was helpful. I shifted again and tried walking to where I knew Reyes stood.
“Don’t walk over here. Be over here.”
I gave up. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re channeling Obi-Wan or Yoda more.”
“Dutch, don’t make me come get you.”
That sounded menacing. Shifting for the seven millionth time, I tried to block out the storms raging around me. The scalding wind threatening to peel the skin from my bones. The thunderous roar. The clouds opened nearby, and a beam of light shot down to take a newly departed home.
Okay, don’t walk. Be.
I could be.
Reyes appeared in the distance. Much farther than he should have been. I fought the urge to put one foot in front of the other. I was incorporeal. Utter mist. Could I float?
I tried to lift off the ground. Nope.
If I couldn’t float—an activity I’d seen Reyes do countless times—how was I to get from here to there?
“Dutch, be here.”
I glared at him, clenched my fists, and … ordered space out of my way. One second later, I appeared. Right in front of him.
“Good. Now here.” He disappeared again. A second later, he was another few hundred feet away.
Ordering space to move aside, I did it again. I beamed up at him.
“Good. Now materialize.”