Billy: Messenger of Powers (37 page)

But would it close quickly enough? The zombies on the other side of the doorway through time and space reached out, trying to get a handhold on the closing door, trying to follow Billy and his friends.

But the hole closed just in time. Billy wondered if the tree at Preston Heights High School had disappeared as well, or if the gardeners were going to have a mystery on their hands. Regardless, however, he was relieved to see that the zombies hadn’t made it through. He couldn’t think of anything worse than being pursued by five zombies.

“Phew,” Billy whispered, bending over and gasping to catch his breath.

“Not exactly my sentiments,” whispered Tempus nearby.

“Why?” asked Billy. But before he had even straightened up, he saw what Tempus was talking about. And immediately wished he hadn’t.

“How could we have been so stupid?” asked Ivy.

Vester muttered something under his breath, something that Billy was pretty sure would have gotten him at least two
months’
grounding, with nothing but bread and water to keep him alive if his mother had heard him say it.

But Billy couldn’t blame him for the sentiment.

They were in the Accounting Room in the tower on Powers Island, the same place that Billy had appeared each time he had come to the island. Behind the group was the mummy with its “This is what happens when you don’t hold your breath” sign. In front of Billy and his friends were the three carnival fortune tellers that would provide the required badges. Behind the fortune tellers were the banks of magical elevators that it seemed could take a person anywhere on the island.

None of that was new.

What
was
new, however, was who else was in the room.

Billy gulped. He knew, now, what was more frightening than being chased by five zombies.

It was being in a room with five hundred of them.

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

The zombies were everywhere.
Everywhere
. They stood so closely to one another that it was almost impossible to see anything
but
zombies. In fact, the only places there were no zombies were three thin paths that lay between the massed bodies of the living corpses, like three woodland trails between tall and frightening trees. Each path lead to one of the three cases that held the fortune-teller-like mannequins—the Counters, as Vester had called them—that provided badges to all the Powers who came to the island. A person would be able to walk to the Counters without having to go through—and be touched by—a zombie, but would not be able to go anywhere else,

Tempus raised his arms with a shout, clearly preparing to cast a spell and go out with a bang that would take as many of the zombies with him as possible.

“Wait!” shouted Vester. He pulled at the old man’s arms.

Tempus resisted. “They won’t get me that easily!” he shouted. “Not this time!”

“But look! Look!” screamed Vester. “They’re not moving! They’re not attacking!”

Tempus lowered his arms and looked around. Billy did likewise, forcing himself to move slowly in spite of the panic that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment. He didn’t want to make any sudden moves that might trip a reaction from the zombies.

What Vester had said was true. The zombies, hundreds of them, were all looking at Billy and his friends. But none of them was moving.

“What are they waiting for?” asked Ivy.

Vester’s eyes closed and he pointed at the three paths between the zombies, the paths that led straight to the Counters. “They’re waiting for us to get our badges,” he said with a tone that sounded almost resigned to Billy, as though he had lost all hope.

“I don’t get it,” quavered Billy. The weight of the zombies’ stares was almost palpable, bearing down on him like a lead blanket.

“It’s the way Powers Island was designed, remember?” asked Vester. “The White King made it so that there would always be an equal number of Darksiders and Dawnwalkers on the island. And the way we know that is because every single person who comes to Powers Island shows up here before anything else. This room is the only way to get onto the island, you can’t appear anywhere else without coming here first.”

“So?” said Billy, still confused, still terrified. “What does that have to do with why they’re not trying to cream us?”

“Because most people can’t tell a Dawnwalker from a Darksider just by looking at them,” said Ivy, suddenly catching on. “So to keep the count of who’s what on the island, the Counters were designed. Then the Council monitors—or used to monitor,” she interjected with a sad frown, “how many of each side came through here.”

“Simply put,” finished Vester, “the zombies are probably under orders to wait until any arriving Powers get their badges, then if they’re Dawnwalkers, the zombies will pounce on them.”

“Then why don’t we just go?” asked Billy. “Just Transport out of here? I know Mrs. Russet said to come here, but she couldn’t have known about….” He gestured wildly at the legions of undead that loomed like terrifying gargoyles all around them.

“Remember that are two types of Transport spell,” said Vester. “If you use an Imbued Object, then it leaves the door open behind you. With this many zombies, it’s certain we still wouldn’t be able to get away: the zombies would just follow us to wherever we went and fight us there. And if we do a Transport spell without a key, then it takes a couple seconds to gear up for it. And I’m betting,” he said in a whisper, “that these guys are under orders to jump on anyone who tries that.”

“So we’re goners,” Billy said, almost moaning. At this point, he had already faced almost-certain death enough times that he would have expected to be used to it by now, but apparently one never got quite used to one’s own impending demise.

In that respect, he realized, the looming threat of death was a lot like talking to girls. He also realized at the same moment that it was a bit odd to be thinking of girls at a time like this, and forced himself back to the more immediate problem: staying alive.

“All of us goners? Not necessarily,” said Tempus. The old man was chewing his lip thoughtfully, looking around with an uncharacteristically coherent expression.

“What is it?” asked Vester. “You see some way out for us?”

“Not for all of us,” said Tempus with a sad shake of his head. “But perhaps,” he added, “for one.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ivy. “We can’t Transport anyone out of here, any more than we could do it for ourselves.”

“I don’t think we have to,” said Tempus. He thought another moment, then continued. “It’s like you said, Ivy, the zombies are waiting for Dawnwalkers. But one of us
isn’t
a Dawnwalker.”

Billy was confused, until Vester snapped his fingers. “That’s right!” he almost shouted. Then he looked at Billy. “You’re unDetermined, both as to power and affiliation.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means, my boy, that you’re about to be on your own,” said Tempus.

“No!” said Billy, almost shouting.

But Ivy and Vester were nodding. “I think he’s right,” said Ivy. She looked at the three aisles between the zombies, each of them leading right to the fortune tellers that would seal the doom of any Dawnwalker who came to the island. “I think that no matter what Tempus, Vester, and I are about to get caught. But you….” she looked at Billy. “You they might not get.”

“No, it’s not true,” said Billy desperately. “You don’t have to be caught, none of you do. We can all get out of here, we just have to think. And besides, even if I
didn’t
get caught, I wouldn’t know what to do here! I wouldn’t know where to go!”

Vester, Ivy, and Tempus all looked at him with sympathy. Billy felt sick inside, not just at the fact that his friends were talking about sacrificing themselves, but even more so about the fact that in this moment of terror, they seemed to be more concerned about his mere feelings of fear than they were about their own certain capture and possible death.

“What do I do? What
can
I do?” he finally managed in a small voice. None of his friends had an answer for him.

Finally, Ivy stepped forward. She hugged Billy tightly. “We don’t know what you can do,” she admitted. Billy could see she was crying a little, her green tears once more tracking down her face. He ached for how she must be feeling. To have lost her father and now perhaps to face her own death in the same day. Billy couldn’t even imagine the depth of her pain. Even though Billy and his own father didn’t have the closest relationship, he didn’t know how he would go on without knowing his father was safe.

“We don’t know what you can do,” Ivy repeated, “but we do know you’re special. Lumilla knew it, even Eva Black and Wolfen seemed to know it. Maybe the Unicorn will come again. Maybe something else will happen. But I think that Lumilla knew this would happen. She knew that we would have to be taken by the zombies, and that you would be left here without us. Somehow she knew. Just like I know that whatever you are supposed to do next,
you will find a way to do it
.”

She kissed his cheek, then straightened up and without another word marched quickly down one of the aisles to the nearest of the three Counters.

“Wait!” Billy shouted. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was Ivy really going to just give up and go to her slaughter?

Tempus’s hand on his shoulder answered that question. “Don’t, boy,” said the old Gray Power. “It’s her way. The way of the Greens. Though there are exceptions to the rule, most Greens will save others’ lives, but not fight for them. This is the path Ivy has chosen, and it is her right to choose it.”

As he said this, Ivy arrived at one of the Counters. She pressed the button on the side of its case, and the mannequin-like figure dropped a badge into her waiting hand. The instant she took it in her hands the nearest zombies lunged at her. All Billy got was a short glimpse of her before a blanket of zombies came between him and the Green Power, making her impossible to see. There was not a sound, but when the zombies finished their nefarious work and then moved back into their previous positions, Ivy was gone. There was no trace of her left.

Billy’s lip started to quiver. Was she gone forever? Had she been eaten? Or just knocked out and Transported somewhere? He had no way of knowing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vester and Tempus share a meaningful glance. Tempus nodded, as though Vester and he had just shared some silent communication about something terribly important.

“Go to one of the Counters now, Billy. Move as far away from us as you can,” whispered Tempus. His voice was unlike Billy had ever heard it before. It was even more chilling than it had been right after Billy’s Gleaning, when he and his friends had been trapped under the earth and Tempus had whispered, “He is coming, he is returning, he is returning, he is here,” over and over in that strange haunted voice of prophecy. The voice Tempus spoke in now wasn’t haunted, it wasn’t feeble or scatter-brained.

It was deadly.

Billy hesitated. He felt rooted to the spot. Leave his friends’ sides? After what had just happened to Ivy?

“No,” he whispered, though he was now almost as frightened at the terrible look on Tempus’s and Vester’s faces as he was of the zombies around them.