Paul shrugged and took a big bite of an apple, wiping the juice on his sleeve.
“There are much worse things than fangen,” Master George said with a doomsday voice.
Sofia stared at him, surprised and curious. He returned her look, his eyes squinting despite the fading light. When he said nothing, she finally asked, “What makes you say that?”
Master George glanced at Paul, then looked away toward the western wall of the bowl, now draped in shadow. “Our spies have learned a lot about Jane’s extracurricular activities these past months. She has a place called the Factory, located in one of the heaviest Chi’karda spots ever discovered. Word is she’s created things far more hideous than her precious fangen. Far worse. More vicious by a long shot.”
“What are they?” Paul asked.
Sofia found it hard to believe something could be worse than those flying, snarling, diseased, sharp-toothed monsters.
“She hasn’t brought them out for full usage yet,” Master George said. “We’ve caught only bare glimpses and heard rumors. But her work in using nature to create nature has gone beyond anything you or I could dare scrape up in a campfire tale. Evil, evil things. We think she is also working to isolate the soulikens of . . . very bad people from the past.”
Soulikens.
Sofia had heard the word before, but she’d never pursued its meaning because of countless other things that seemed more important. Master George continued before she could voice her question.
“I haven’t told you much about soulikens, because I myself didn’t know enough. But I’ve spent every spare second since we last said good-bye researching the phenomenon. It might be the most fascinating thing I’ve ever studied—everything from the fundamentals of natural electricity and its role within human biology to old tales and rumors of ghost stories.”
“Well, what
is
it?” Paul asked in an impatient voice. “What’s a souliken?”
The sun seemed to finally disappear for good in that moment, the sky darkening as if all the light had been frightened away. When Master George turned his gaze to Sofia, she almost gasped out loud at how creepy he looked with the angles of his face deep in shadow.
“Soulikens are your eternal stamp on reality,” he said. “They are the means by which you’ll haunt the world far after you’ve rotted to dust and bone.”
And then, for some odd reason, the old man laughed.
~
Thirty hours?” Tick asked, hating how that sounded both long and short at the same time. “We have only thirty hours to save the entire universe?”
The silver-blue glow of the Haunce flared a bit then subsided. “Thirty hours or thirty years—it would not make a difference. There is not much we can do to prepare, and it might even be worse if we did have the time to try. The problem will be convincing Mistress Jane to cooperate. Once you accomplish that, all that will be left is our attempt to rebind the Realities and reseal the barriers.”
Tick felt a bubble in his stomach as he shook his head in disbelief. “Once
I
accomplish it? You really think Jane is gonna trust me for even one second? You’ll have to talk to her, not me.”
The face of an old man frowned back at him. “We are sorry, Atticus. Our ability to appear in this form is extremely difficult to maintain. Once we leave here, neither you nor anyone else will see us again until the moment we make our attempt. The task of having Jane join us is entirely up to you.”
Tick didn’t say anything for a minute, trying to process the new information and its potential ramifications. He felt an incredible amount of pressure draped across his shoulders like an iron shawl.
Finally, he said, “Okay, look. I don’t know how I can possibly do that. I’m not even sure I understand what it is I’m supposed to do. But you said something about my family being safe. I need to hear about that right now. How do you know they’re okay?”
A woman with a big nose responded. “As Jane was building her cache of dark matter and assembling her Blade of Shattered Hope, we watched carefully. We normally do not interfere with the realm of living humans. It is not our place. If Jane had destroyed the Fifth Reality, we would have been shocked and horrified, but we would not have stopped her. However, when the chain reactions that could end all existence were ignited, we no longer had a choice.”
Tick groaned on the inside, doubly annoyed. Both at the long non-answer about his family and the fact that the Haunce would sit back and let an entire world be destroyed. “What does this have to do with my family?” he asked.
An annoyed buzz sounded from the ghostly creature. “We hope your impatience will serve you well since we will have little time left together. No more interruptions. We will not be able to appear in this form much longer.”
The glow changed into three faces before Tick finally nodded.
“Good,” the Haunce continued. “When the barriers began to break and the seals began to split, we knew immediately what we must do. We winked you here to Reality Prime, where we would be able to discuss things in private. We also winked your family away from Jane’s prison, as well as a number of people from the Fifth Reality who were located in the area of your Realitant friends—Mothball, Rutger, and Sato. They are together in a special holding place we created long ago—a sort of way station that exists in a quasi-Reality that only we know about.”
“What about—” Tick stopped himself, not wanting to interrupt again.
“Your other friends?” the Haunce asked. “Sofia, Paul, and your Realitant leader, Master George?”
Tick nodded.
“They are in the Thirteenth Reality, where you last saw them.”
Tick couldn’t remain silent any more. “Why didn’t you take them to the same place as my family?”
The face of the Haunce flowed from an ugly woman to a pretty one, then morphed into a man with beady eyes. “They remain in the Thirteenth, because that is where you are going. You will need their help. You will be together very soon, though you will not have much time for happy reunions.”
“Okay, so what do I need to know?” Tick asked, surprised at how steady he felt. He was ready to have this whole mess done and over with.
~
No one had spoken since Master George’s explanation of soulikens. Sofia continued to sit still, staring at the dark shadow of a wall standing a few dozen feet from her. The sounds of the desert were soft and faint—an insect here and there, the sigh of the wind, sand scratching across rock.
When Paul spoke up, it startled her. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her jump.
“Soulikens,” he said. “Basically you’re telling us that throughout our lives we create these freaky electronic imprints on the world that never go away but hang around us like a fog, building and building until it kind of becomes our ghost. Is that what you’re telling us? That ghosts are real?”
“If you could see on a quantum level,” Master George responded, “you’d see an aura of energy around you and others that very much resembled exactly that. A ghost.”
Sofia felt a little creeped out. “Then I don’t wanna see on a quantum level. I hate scary movies, and I hate ghosts.”
“Now who’s the cheerful one?” Paul asked.
“You rubbed off on me.”
“I love scary movies. Especially the ones where lots of people die.”
Sofia couldn’t help but feel happy that the old Paul was starting to come back. “Call me crazy, but I prefer my movies to have the slightest hint of intelligence.”
“When all this is over,” Paul said, “check out
Steve the Slashing Monkey
and tell me that movie doesn’t
bleed
intelligence.”
Sofia couldn’t stop before a snort of laughter came out.
“I knew it!” Paul yelled, his voice echoing off the rock walls. “I knew I could make you laugh!”
“You two are driving me mad,” Master George muttered. “I believe I’m quite ready to get some sleep.”
“But what’re we gonna do?” Paul asked him. “Can’t you get someone to wink us out of this stinkin’ place?”
“Sorry, old chap. If someone hasn’t winked us by now, then there’s obviously been a break in communication. Jane brought us here, remember, and her shield must still be working. And I don’t have my Barrier Wand. I assure you, Sally’s doing his very best to find us.”
Great,
Sofia thought. They had to spend the night in the middle of the desert, with no telling how many creatures of Mistress Jane lurking about.
Just great.
“Well,” Paul said, “at least it’s not cold. I bet we can find some soft sand to snuggle in, Sofia. You in?”
Sofia leaned closer to him and smacked him on the arm. It felt so wonderful that she did it again.
Paul jumped to his feet and ran away, snickering as he rubbed his sore spot. “Man, for a chick who’s a scaredy-cat of scary movies, you sure do know how to punch.”
“I was glad you’d gotten over your sour mood,” Sofia responded as she started looking around for her own place to get some rest, feeling with her hands mostly. “But now that you’re back to normal, I kind of miss the grumpy Paul after all.”
“I love you too.”
She’d just found a nice spot of open sand when a slight thump in the air sounded behind her. It was barely noticeable, and she almost felt it more than heard it. She whipped around to see what had happened.
A shadowy figure of a boy stood between her and Paul, a hump of a backpack on his shoulders. When he turned and faced her, the starlight revealed his face just enough.
“Tick!” she cried, scrambling to her feet and running to him. Paul reached him just as she did, and they all joined in a group hug. When she finally pulled back, she said, “What happened? Where’d you go?”
“And how’d you get back here?” Paul added.
Master George joined them. “Atticus! Speak, man, speak!”
Tick laughed a little, though it didn’t hold much humor. “Calm down, guys. It’s a long story, and we don’t have much time to talk. We have to get moving. I’ll tell you everything on the go.”
“Get moving?” Sofia asked, feeling a slight chill. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“Some place called the Factory,” Tick answered. “It’s full of Mistress Jane’s little monster pets. But don’t worry. We have a billion ghosts to help us out.”
~
Tick didn’t want to waste a single minute. When the Haunce outlined the plan for what they needed to do to stop the fragmenting of the Realities, one thing bled through all the others: they needed to hurry.
Tick had less than thirty hours to get to the Factory, convince Mistress Jane to help—after getting her there in the first place, of course—then summon all the Chi’karda he could to help the Haunce rebind the barriers of the Realities.
No problem. Then why did he have the terrible feeling that nothing would go right along the way?
Sofia, Paul, and Master George stood in front of him in the darkness. The starlight was not strong enough to reveal their faces, but Tick could imagine the looks of surprise and confusion.
“Seriously,” he said. “We need to go. We’re gonna be winked in five minutes.”
“Whoa,” Paul said, his upraised hands mere shafts of shadow. “I’m not takin’ a single step till you elaborate on this whole ghost business.”
“A
billion
ghosts,” Sofia added. “What was that all about?”
Tick was about to answer when Master George made an unpleasant harrumphing sound.
“What?” Tick asked.
“You met the Haunce, didn’t you?” the old man responded. Tick could barely see him shaking his head. “I’ve met it only once in my life, and if I ever do again, you can bet your bottoms I’m going to have a word or two with it about holding back vital information about soulikens and all that.”
Tick felt a flutter of confusion, but Sofia spoke up before he could.
“The Haunce? What’s that? And why would it know everything about soulikens?”
Tick’s confusion increased. “You guys know about soulikens?”
“You mean
you
do?” Paul responded.
Tick nodded even though he doubted they could see him. “The Haunce told me about them.”
“What is the Haunce?” Sofia shouted.
For some reason a chuckle burst out of Tick. “We sound like the dumbest people who’ve ever lived.” He remembered the urgency of what they had to do. “But come on—we really need to go. The Haunce wants us to stand at the spot where the Blade of Shattered Hope tree thingy was.”
“Why?” all three of them asked in unison.
“He—
it’s
going to wink us closer to the Factory. We can sort things out once we get there. Come on—can you tell where the Blade used to be?”
“Over this way,” Paul muttered. “Doesn’t sound like a good time to start doubting Superman Atticus Higgin-bottom.”
Paul’s shadow moved past him and started walking toward the central area of the dark stone walls surrounding them. Tick followed and heard Sofia and Master George right behind him.
Tick tripped twice over debris and stepped on things that clanged and snapped. The place must’ve gotten really messed up after he’d been winked away.
Paul finally stopped in an open spot and turned to face the rest of the group. “Pretty sure it was right about here. But be careful—some of the sand turned into glass shards.”
Tick felt the crunch under his shoes, smelled something burnt. When they were all standing in a circle, he reached out and took Sofia’s hand, then Paul’s. “The Haunce told me we need to hold hands. It’s easier that way.”
Tick was glad they didn’t argue. Sofia took Master George’s hand, and then the old man took Paul’s. Standing there in the dark desert with the slight breeze sighing as it passed over the towering rocks, Tick felt a major case of the creeps, like they were about to begin a séance.
“Okay!” he shouted. “Wink us away, Haunce!” The words sounded incredibly stupid, but he wanted to get this part over with. He had no idea what to expect once they got to where they were going.
Before this last thought even fully formed in his mind, the tingle shot across his neck and down his spine.