When all who did not belong to the Kingdom of Ohio were on the other side, the young Traveler pulled the material from one side of the wall to the other side of the sphere tunnel, effectively creating a new wall to close off the tunnel that had served as a conduit of trading for over one hundred years. It was a curtain now closed.
Forever.
Clara gazed at the people of a rival kingdom, now shut out from hers and gave a shaky sigh of relief.
She turned to the boy.
Caleb Hart.
The Master of Death. It was time to restore the dead of her sphere to their proper resting place.
I studied Queen Clara as everything was put into its rightful place.
Her eyes met mine then traveled to Jade's.
She opened her mouth to speak but I answered her unspoken question, "I will."
I turned and with a silent command, the dead of Clara's kingdom followed me Outside to rest once more.
CHAPTER 13
I watched the Band stoke the blazing fire with the bits and pieces of zombie royalty and had an aching joy bleed into my heart.
They'd totally needed to go.
I walked toward the heat of the fire, my hand shielding my face from the intense warmth, the smell was the most disgusting I'd ever been around, my eyes instantly watered in reaction, my nostril hairs protesting.
I guess that happened when you burned dead bodies, they smelled rank.
"Will this stop them?" Daniel asked me.
I nodded. I didn't think anyone could raise a headless corpse, or resurrect something from ash.
God help us if there were, I shuddered at the thought.
I watched Queen Clara. Her eyes shone with unshed tears as she gazed at the flames that licked the remains of those that'd been the worst of this world.
An insane Prince and Queen, bent on abusing everyone in their path. But their main focus had been Clara.
My gaze shifted to the zombies that restrained the Zondorae brothers.
I instructed my dead.
"No! You can't do this! You can't use these corpses to keep us here!" Joe yelled, trying to wrench himself free.
I whirled around as I stalked toward them, the zombies clutching the brothers tighter in response to the automatic rage that leaked out of me. When I was so close I could have kissed them, I stabbed a finger into the chest of the brother with the biggest mouth. "You're the one that screwed this six ways to Sunday. You created us by using them. Now your pet projects are taking over and you're pissed?" I yelled in his face, the force of my voice hurting my throat.
"Yeah, what he said!" Jonesy said.
I looked at Jonesy.
He threw up his hands. "Chillax, dude. Let's get the hell outta Dodge."
Right.
I gave the zombies their final instructions while the remaining dead poured back into the wounded and frozen ground.
We watched as the ice slid over the graves, hiding them again until they would be small hills of earth when the spring's warmth returned.
*
The Queen approached me and offered her hand. I took it, shaking it gently and releasing it. A ghost of a smile appeared on her face.
"You were supposed to kiss her hand," John said quietly.
"Did you want to do this?" I returned, just as quiet.
John shook his head. "No, you're boss this time."
I turned my back on the Js, looking at Queen Clara.
I smiled back.
"We are well met, young Traveler," Clara said as I studied her, memorizing her. My gaze shifted to all the strong men who stood behind her, gills of pink flesh ribbons twined around thick necks, eyes different colors but with the same look in each.
Loyalty and protection.
To her.
For Clara.
The one that stood at her back had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.
And the most unflinching.
Clara came forward and reaching up, cupped her hand on my cheek. I made a little sound of surprise, her tender touch caused me to respond in kind and I wrapped her small hand as it lay against my face. Our hands pressed together for a moment and she stunned me with her words... the expression on her face.
Aimed at me, its solidarity rooted me to the spot more than anything could have.
"You honor your world this day. I thank you for saving all that we are." Her hand slipped out of mine and I felt the loss of it like fresh grief.
I understood that royalty was different than birthright, it was a trueness in character, a desire to do the right thing at any cost.
I was reminded of my reason for being here.
"Thank you, Queen Clara." I crept backward, our gazes locked as I joined the others, Randi in the middle.
Randi was ready. Ready to cast the net of her power for the return to our world.
Matthew's large hand held Clara's small one, his chin clearing the top of her head with ease, those blue eyes trained on mine.
"Will we ever see you again, young Traveler?"
"Caleb," I corrected softly.
Queen Clara inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment.
I shook my head.
Sadness crossed her features briefly then vanished.
"Then I bid you good fortune, Caleb Hart," Clara said, her face a mix of grateful sadness.
A bittersweet feeling tightened inside of me. Later, when I was older than Gramps, I would recognize it as nostalgia.
John answered for him, "I think Caleb makes his own fortune, Queen Clara."
Daniel translated.
"Aye, we are more alike than you know."
I felt my sad smile transform into a grin. The most unlikely of allies, from two separate worlds, a common goal for both.
Using all that we were for the good of all.
I saw her watch us as we slipped out of their world, a wash of brilliant kaleidoscopic colors coalesced into a searing brightness which blinded, a constellation of fallen stars, eight in all.
Then we were gone.
Departed forever from her world, Queen Clara's solemn face never left my memory, my lifetime altered because of our acquaintance.****
"Wow, Hart, that was completely weird!" Alex said, his hands on his knees, while he stooped over, trying not to puke up a lung.
I wasn't feeling that special myself as I looked around at my friends. Most of their heads were hanging but a few looked almost perky.
Of course, Randi was doing the best because she was using a natural ability.
Or, unnatural if you figured in the evolutionary leap that had been forced on us by the Graysheet's interference. Just thinking about all that they'd done and how they'd made it happen got me just as pissed as I could be. I helped Jade up and her hair swung forward in a black curtain in front of her face. I pulled the chunk that stood in front of her vision and tucked it behind her ear.
She looked green. "Ugh!" Jade covered her mouth and I watched as she struggled to clamp down on her nausea.
John said, "I think it's some sort of extreme motion sickness."
"Vertigo?" Archer asked.
John nodded.
"Nah," Alex said. He gave us serious eyes, "I saw those dick holes jab each other with serum or some crap after they fell out of their Interference Pathway." He looked at us and it started to come together for me.
"Right. It makes them sick and they were shooting themselves up with the counter," I assessed.
Mia crossed her arms, her hands trembling as she did. "This is not a pulsegame, Caleb. Plain speak please," she said, still polite.
I guess girls didn't dig gaming talk. You had a skill and there was always a way to counter said skill. Duh.
Okay. I looked at her. "The deal is, the..." I looked at the girls and tempered my language, a little, "scientists," I said with keen derision, "are just regular guys." My eyes met theirs and they nodded. "So, the pathway must shift their shit around, and when they come back together, their bodies are all misplaced." I thought of my dad and added, "At the molecular level, even."
John rolled his eyes at my explanation but it was simplified for the mouth-breather challenges I might encounter. Like Jonesy.
But surprisingly, he was on board. "So they use some crap that neutralizes the effects of the transport?" His eyebrows rose.
I nodded and John made a low noise in his throat.
Sounded like surprise to my well-trained ears. I had grunts and non-articulated verbiage down to a damn science. Hell, I was male, I was born to understand that. That females couldn't understand all that and they were supposed to be communicators? A mystery.
Jade scowled at my thought processes, which had slid right to her from our clasped hands.
I shrugged helplessly.
She tried not to laugh and got the crooked mouth instead. I had made that a contagion in my group, I thought with perverse pleasure.
"What?" Tiff asked, seeing the private joke as it formed.
Jade flicked her eyes to mine, the color gradually returning to her sallow complexion. "I think Caleb was wondering why girls don't understand caveman speak."
I frowned. Actually, that was not totally it, but....
"I do, ya morons," Tiff said, another bubble collapsing the oxygen in the small space of the hideaway.
Of course she did. It was almost a cheat, with the five brothers.
Sophie uncovered her ears and glared at Tiff, who smiled back. "I don't think it's a 'skill'," Sophie said, air quoting with her crimson fingernails.
"Anyway," Bry began, deflecting a cat fight with ease, "they get sick so... it's bad news for me." He jabbed a finger in his chest.
Shit, he was a mundane. He just got his atoms or whatever rearranged and now he was gonna croak.
Bry saw my face fall and got fear on the edges of his.
Randi shook her head. "No, I think my power, whether we traveled the dimensional highway or not..."
"Negated," John prompted and she nodded at him.
"Canceled out the sickness problem." Her eyes met Bry's and he exhaled in a relieved expulsion.
"Thank God," he muttered, his hand stroking his chest like his heart was going to fall out of his ribcage.
"Chill, you're fine, Weller," Jonesy said, crushing his second lollipop and grinding the sweet sugared crystals with his teeth.
Sophie smiled. "If we're alive then everything is okay with you, right Jonesy?"
He looked at her in a puzzled way. "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?"
The guys looked at the chicks and felt the weight of the difference in the sexes descend, the barrier there.
We smiled at each other, the boys on target and the girls confused about our willingness to brave the unknown.
Typical.
I smiled as we straggled out of the hideaway.
We felt like we'd accomplished something that day. The memory of helping a world that wasn't our own, stranding the scientists in the middle of the shit they'd started, it was an accomplishment.
Of course, that just meant that Parker and the Graysheets were going to duel. They'd eventually find out about his involvement.
And mine.
In fact, as Gramps would say, it was coming full circle.
And it was going to bite me in the ass.
Story of my life.
*
The sunlight winked off my windshield, temporarily blinding me. It speared my eyes as I slowed beside the curb of Jade's foster family's house.
The dump.
I knew before I pushed the shifter into park that Howie would be there, gunning to give me shit again.
He was painful in his regularity. It was almost like taking a crap, it happened every day. But he was like constipation or something.
A turd to be flushed down the porcelain goddess.
Nice.
I swept out of the car, the morning biting at my heels a little, autumn had come and with it, that familiar crispness. I gazed up at the sky, the summer hanging on even as fall deepened the blue unmercifully, the sky went on forever in the month of October. I tore my gaze away, clamping down on my daydreamer tendencies with an effort.
The weekend was here and the whole pack of us were headin' out to Gramps, The Parents too. Gramps was my house for now.
It felt weird.
And right.
Onyx had transitioned right into living with Gramps. Sometimes, like the traitor he was, he'd even sleep at the foot of Gramps' bed.
I looked at the crooked stoop where Jade lived and saw her descend the steps, Howie barking at her heels.
That's what I saw anyway, a well-trained guard dog on a leash it didn't like, sniffing for trouble.
And I was here to deliver.
See how that shit worked out?
I'd rounded the back end of the Camaro before I even knew it, bouncing up on the curb and striding to where Jade was walking, her high heeled boots clicking on the cracked cement.
Frazier saw me coming and smiled evilly. The asshat knew I had to watch it.
The probation wasn't up yet. If I used the dead, they'd lock me up.
What he said next slowed my step.