The War for the Waking World (31 page)

The Dreamtreader's eyes went wide at the impact, wide and still. Kara knew immediately what she had done. She watched his motionless body fall away, that horrid expressionless face obscured by the snow, but still . . . there. It seemed like an eternity, watching him plummet. When he finally hit the courtyard, a sledgehammer of regret struck Kara in the gut.

What have I done?
The thought blazed in crimson through her consciousness, but anger subdued it.
This is, after all, what you came to do.
And for a moment, she couldn't tell if the voice in her mind was her own . . . or Bezeal's.

A reckless blur flashed past Kara and descended onto the courtyard. Kara dropped from the air and spiraled down. She landed softly on the snowy turf and found Kaylie kneeling by Archer's ruined form.

“No, no!” Kaylie cried out. “Archer, wake up! You have to wake up! Please, Archer!”

Kara approached silently, keeping her path behind Kaylie. She was just a few steps away.

“You can't die,” Kaylie sobbed. “You're not supposed to die. You promised.”

Kara was right behind the girl now. She was ready. Kara whispered, “Kaylie . . .”

Kaylie spun around, her face a mix of anguish and fury. “You!” she accused, and she thrust out her hands—

But no power of will came forth. In a breathless second, Kara clamped the cobalt manacles onto Kaylie's wrists. “I am sorry, Kaylie,” Kara said. “But it's for your own good.”

Kaylie said nothing in return. She went absolutely blank-faced and mute.
Shock
, Kara thought.
Poor thing
.

Kara flexed her will, lifting herself and Kaylie into the air.

“Hooooroooo!” came a cry from above, as Nick Bushman floated down to meet Kara.

“Rigby and Doctor Scoville?” Kara asked.

“Dead as a Tasmanian tiger,” Nick replied. “Color me gobsmacked, but I thought they'd put up more of a fight.”

Kara shrugged. “They were overwhelmed,” she said, “and . . . they were afraid to kill. I imagine they used a great deal of their mental will to immobilize our forces, rather than taking them out entirely.”

“Ah,” Nick replied, “that was a mistake, fair Dinkum.” His eyes narrowed. “You managed to capture the girl. What happened to Archer?”

Kara shook her head slowly. “He's down below.”

Nick hovered to his left. He squinted, and then his eyes widened. “Dooley! You fair ruined him, didn't ya?”

“It couldn't be helped,” Kara replied, looking away. “It's what we came here to do. Now, come on, we've still work to do tonight.”

“We just gonna leave the bodies?” Nick asked.

“The Harlequin Veil will hide them,” Kara said. “And in Archer's father's mind anyway, his whole family will be united and happy for the rest of their days.”

Nick nodded slowly and shrugged. Then, he flew off toward Bezeal and their portal back to the Dream Tower.

Kara glanced at her captive Kaylie. The girl was still limp and expressionless. Kara took one last look at Archer Keaton.
He'd been a friend once. And he'd been a formidable enemy. It is a shame that
—Kara froze, staring down at the body.

No
, she thought, her mind fraying at the edges.
No, it's not possible
.

FORTY-FIVE

A
NCHOR
P
ROTOCOL

K
ARA GAPED DOWN AT
A
RCHER
K
EATON
'
S
PRONE FORM
. At first, she thought it had been a trick of the falling snow. But slowly, as she descended closer and closer to the body, the details came into sharper focus. Archer's body seemed to be decaying . . . decaying at an alarming rate. But the way his flesh peeled away—something was very wrong.

The swirling wind threw waves of snow in every direction. Its currents swept over Archer's body, taking layers away at a time. Layers of ash.

Kara turned just in time to see Kaylie's form crumbling. The cobalt shackles no longer had anything of substance to which to cling and fell away. Kaylie's form flew away in an ashen whirl, and then was gone.

“No!” Kara cried out.

“What is it, mistress?” Nick called back.

“Shut up, you worthless thing!” Kara screamed. “We've been had! This . . . this is all a diversion.”

“Diversion from what?”

“I don't know,” she whispered. She was more focused on the preternatural silence that had descended onto the battlefield. Snow had a way of muffling sound, but it wasn't that. She began to race around the fortress, but, no matter where she looked, the scenes were all the same: her soldiers, all the enemy soldiers as well, lay still. The spiders and marshmallow warriors and all of the Dreamtreaders' forces were actively dissolving to ash. Her soldiers lost their obsidian armor.
They were plain human beings once more, disoriented and shivering in the snow.

“No,” Kara whispered, “no, no, no, no, no, no! I can feel it. I can feel my power draining!”

“What?”

“They're reversing the Rift!” Kara spat. “I don't know how, but they're turning it back. I can feel it.”

Nick asked, “What do we do?”

“We've got to get back to the Dream Tower!” Kara said. “We've got to stop them!”

“Keep it up!” Doc Scoville commanded over the com link. “Remember, your creation must be large enough to reach the EM levels noted. Eleven teslas . . . no more, no less.”

“Got it, Doc!” Archer yelled over the whipping wind. He and Kaylie stood in the midst of Prairie Creek Redwood Park in Northern California. The colossal trees were swaying, especially the new ones.

“How many more?” Kaylie cried out from approximately sixty yards away.

“We're at nine teslas!” he yelled back. “We're going to need a bunch!”

“Got it!” Kaylie turned back to the forest and summoned up her will. Not ten feet away, the turf erupted as a towering sequoia thrust up out of the ground and surged skyward. While that one reached its full, mature height of 375 feet, Kaylie turned, hovered away, and created a new one.

“That's perfect!” Archer yelled. “We're almost there!”

“It's getting harder!” Kaylie cried out. “Can you feel it?”

Archer frowned.
Getting harder?
With all the momentum generated by the surging EM waves, it should be getting easier.

Archer turned to his side of the new forest, called up some will, and created a massive Sierra redwood. This time, it hurt. “What . . . was that?” Archer muttered. He hit his com link. “Doctor Scoville, come in!”

“Here, Archer,” came the doctor's static-filled voice. “What is it?”

“We're getting some pushback or something,” Archer explained. “It's getting harder to create things this big.”

The com link was silent.

“Doctor Scoville?”

“I was afraid of that,” came the reply, so low it was almost inaudible over the wind. “As we push back the Rift, as we restore the normal EM balance, we're beginning to lose the extra power it granted us.”

“'ow far, Uncle?” Rigby cried out into his com link. He stood on the massive left shoulder of Christ the Redeemer, the statue of Jesus that overlooked Rio de Janeiro from the top of Corcovado Mountain. While Archer and Kaylie were pushing EM waves from the east to the west in California, Rigby and his uncle were pushing from west to east from Rio. If Doc Scoville's calculations were correct and their efforts strong enough, they might just be able to push the waves back into their natural location. Rigby clicked his com link again. “Uncle Scovy, 'ow . . . much . . . more?”

“Not much,” Doc Scoville replied. “One more statue should do it. My calculations make it approximately eighty feet tall with a mass of 635 metric tons.”

“I'll get it.” Rigby thought for several moments.
What'll it be this time?
He had already created monumental statues of the British Brawler, a favorite comic hero from his past, as well as Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill, and King Arthur.
Who now?
Then, he blinked. “Of course!”

Rigby poured will into this invention and focused down Corcovado's slope. He built a tall figure, standing upon a hexagonal pedestal. Slowly,
it took shape and grew, layer upon layer. Rigby kept one eye on his digital display. Up the statue went, nearly eighty feet. A few more details, and he was finished. But the digital display showed the statue still short a few metric tons.

“I know.” Rigby gave the statue a pair of laboratory goggles. He tapped his com link and said, “What do you think, Uncle?”

Doc Scoville looked down the slope at a colossal statue of . . . himself.

“Nephew,” he muttered self-consciously into the com link, “I hardly think I'm deserving of a statue, especially among such company as these!”

“Nonsense, Uncle,” Rigby said. “You're already a giant in the scientific community—even if they never recognized you as such.”

“You're too kind.”

“Well, then?” Rigby asked.

Doc Scoville checked and rechecked his instruments. The small displays were strapped all the way up his arm like large wristwatches. “We're there! We've done it! So long as the statues and the Keatons' trees hold their integrity, the earth's EM fields should continue to push back to their original pre-Rift state.”

“Can I go, then?” Rigby asked.

“Are you sure about this?” Doc Scoville asked. “Haven't we already had enough of this?”

“You promised me,” Rigby growled. “Look, I 'aven't much time. Kara's bound to 'ave discovered our doubles by now.”

“Go, then,” Doc Scoville said quietly. “Just go, but be careful. Kara's not to be trusted. She's fooled us all before . . . including me.”

“Point well taken,” Rigby said. “I love you, Uncle Scovy. Good-bye.”

Doc Scoville sighed and shook his head. His nephew's plan was madness, sheer madness. He smiled grimly and thought,
I guess it runs in the family.

FORTY-SIX

F
RAYING
E
DGES

W
ITH
F
REDERICK LOOKING
ON
, K
ARA STORMED BACK
and forth behind the engineers in the Dream Tower's Research and Development lab. “Where . . . are . . . they?” she demanded.

“What's the matter, mistress?” Nick asked. “The Dreamtreaders beating you again?”

Kara threw her will at Nick, lifting him off his feet and pinning him in the corner between the wall and ceiling. “You! Be silent!” she hissed. “Your treatment may be wearing off, but you'll do as I say.”

Nick winced but managed a defiant grin. “And what do you say?”

“I say, hang around!” She flexed her will once more and threw a chain net that hemmed Nick in like a metal spidersweb. There was no hungry arachnid in this web, but the chain links were made of heavily magnetized cobalt.

Kara spun back
to Frederick and the engineers. “Well? Where are they?”

Frederick leaned over the monitors. “Hold on,” he said. “There's a ton of active EM out there right now. It's making it hard to track them.”

“And where is Bezeal?” Kara growled. “He was supposed to be back here already.”

Frederick said, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Kara slammed down the tower-wide intercom. “I want a platoon of guards around the communication station!” she demanded. “The Harlequin Veil must stay operational at all costs!”