FORCE.
That is what Kara Windchil wielded like a hammer. When she unleashed her will into the chamber, Kaylie didn’t see it coming. She felt it. Waves of irresistible power crashed into her, knocked her off her feet, and sent her cartwheeling violently along the chamber floor.
The pain of the initial impact was immediately eclipsed by the turbulence of being thrown about like a doll. Kaylie lost her crossbow and nearly lost Patches as she tumbled with the force waves. Then something took hold of her arm. The grip was iron-tight. It yanked her sideways out of the power tide and drew her down to a heavenly motionlessness.
Kaylie didn’t even realize she was crying until she looked at her rescuer and said his name. “Rigby.”
“Don’t get used to it,” he said with his usual smirk.
They were huddled behind a ridge of stone so black it might have been obsidian. It was shelter from Kara’s force wave, but Kaylie knew it wasn’t going to last. Doc Scoville lay on his side groaning and holding his ribs. “Your uncle?” she mumbled. “He’ll be okay?”
“Uncle Scovy’s tough as an old tree root,” Rigby said. “You’ll see.”
“Right, then,” Kaylie said through her sniffles. She wiped away the last of her tears. “I’m going after Nick.” She stood up, using her will to deflect Kara’s force wave, like a stone dividing a river current.
“What are you doing?” Rigby whispered urgently. “Get down.”
Doc Scoville cried out, “No, Kaylie!”
But Kaylie was already moving toward Kara. “Why are you doing this?” Kaylie screamed, no hint of fear or sadness, only fierce indignation. “What’s wrong with you, Kara?”
Kara drew back her arms, descended to the ground, and strode toward Kaylie. Her tide dissipated in an instant. “There is nothing wrong,” Kara said, her voice simmering. “Look at me.”
Kara’s form was suddenly surrounded by green fire. Her aura grew to a blinding flame, and then faded to reveal Kara in a breathtaking gown. Sapphires, onyxes, and other dark stones glistened along her sleeves, at her neckline, and in clusters upon her full-length skirt. She moved with languid grace, confidence, and purpose. “You see?” Kara asked. “I’m perfect.”
“But you used to be so nice,” Kaylie muttered.
There was a slight hitch in Kara’s step.
“Archer had a crush on you,” Kaylie said. “Did you know that?”
Kara stopped. “Where is your brother? Why wouldn’t he join you here?”
Kaylie didn’t answer. “You’ve got to stop this, Kara,” she said. “It’s bad. It’s really bad. People are dying out there.”
“I am sorry, Kaylie,” Kara said, clenching her fists. “But this is for the best.” She was about fifty feet from Kaylie when she unleashed another blast of force.
Kaylie was ready this time. She pushed up a massive amount of will as a shield and tossed Patches to the side. The doll pinwheeled through the air and started to grow. Patches landed on his feet, doubled and redoubled his size, and then rammed into Kara from the side. She landed in a jumbled heap. When she pushed herself up from the floor and looked up through mussed hair, her eyes crackled with red electricity. “You little snot!” Kara rasped. “You might be strong for your age, but you’re no match for me!”
Kara levitated back to her feet. Shimmering steel armor replaced her black dress, and she drew a wickedly curved dagger in each hand. She flung a dagger at Patches, stabbing deep into the oversized doll’s back. Patches staggered to one knee, and then exploded in a ball of red light.
Kaylie covered her eyes, and when she looked again there was nothing left of Patches but piles of singed fluff.
“Playtime is over,” Kara hissed. “My turn—”
A blur. Something moving very fast barreled into Kara, knocking her sideways.
“Pick on someone your own size!” Rigby snarled. He adjusted his top hat, and then held out his hands, each palm full of red lightning.
Kara flopped over and rolled to one knee. Her eyes became huge and haunted. Her mouth hung agape. “Rigby . . . it can’t be. Y—you’re dead.”
“Come now, Kara,” Rigby teased. “You’re smarter than that, aren’t you? It was a ruse. A little trickery, you know.”
“I saw your body,” Kara muttered. “You weren’t breathing.”
“How ’ard do you think that was to fake? Never would ’ave worked, though, if the Scath ’adn’t ’elped. You enjoy their Something Really Scary game?”
“The Scath wouldn’t allow this,” Kara muttered. “They are loyal to me.”
“Let’s just say I appealed to their fundamental nature.” Rigby suddenly turned away from Kara for a moment. Perplexed, Kaylie watched him put one hand up to his mouth as if he might shout. But he didn’t make a sound. A silvery bubble appeared at his lips. It looked very much the same as a bubble made with chewing gum, only shimmering with a metallic sheen. Rigby seemed to release a strong breath, and the bubble sailed across the cavern, whirling and bobbing like some will-o’-the-wisp. It even managed to hop over the stone that hid Kaylie and Doc Scoville.
When the bubble popped, Kaylie distinctly heard Rigby’s voice say, “Uncle Scovy, you and Kaylie get out of ’ere. I’ll keep Kara busy so you can escape. I’ll do my best to get Nick out too. Run! Run now and don’t stop ’til you’re free of this place!”
Doc Scoville groaned as he sat up. “You heard the lad. We’re leaving, Kaylie.”
“But you came here to defeat Kara,” she argued. “I don’t understand.”
“We bit off more than we could chew,” he muttered. “That’s become a rather tiresome habit of ours. In any case, there will be another day to fight. We need to go now while we can.”
“How do we get out?”
“The elevator.”
“But I blew up the elevator.”
“And . . . why is that a problem? You are a Dreamtreader, aren’t you? There are other ways, right?”
“Oh,” Kaylie said. “Duh.” She stood up and gave a mental command to Patches. The doll reassembled itself and came running in their direction.
Rigby, meanwhile, stood his ground before Kara. He summoned up an ornate walking cane and began to twirl it. Red lightning crackled with each revolution of the cane, and Rigby said, “The trouble with being so smart, Kara, is you can overlook the simple solutions to certain problems.”
He’d not even finished the final syllable when he pointed the cane and unleashed a fist of feverish red electricity. The power surged into Kara, lifting her from the ground and throwing her backward. She struck the rear of the cavern with an audible crack.
The sound was so sudden and shocking Rigby thought that, perhaps, he’d done it. He’d caught her off guard and hit her with such a powerful attack he’d knocked her out or at least disabled her. But Rigby, too, had learned from some of his past mistakes. He wasn’t about to play games with Kara.
He summoned up his will, dredging up a portion much larger than usual, and began to build. Stone by six-ton stone, Rigby built a crypt over Kara’s prone form. The weight alone should have kept Kara down. But then Rigby created a chain net, draped it over the crypt, and secured it by pounding twelve-foot stakes into the cavern’s solid rock floor.
Half-spent but exhilarated by the successful attack, Rigby bounded to Nick’s side. He knelt down. “G’day, mate!” Rigby announced cheerily. “Or whatever you blokes down under say. Come on, then. Up with you.”
But Nick did not stir. Rigby’s breath caught in his throat. Trickles of blood were coming from the corners of Nick’s eyes. Rigby put his ear close to Nick’s face. “C’mon now, Nick, you can’t let her take you out this easily!”
Rigby waited anxiously for a breath. And it came. It was a faint breath, somewhat irregular, and positively reeking of garlic, but it was there. “Nick, you there?”
“Rak-ta, Shak-ta,” Nick muttered, “come . . . come to me.”
“What?” Rigby said. “Speak English, would ya? Nick, snap out of it.”
“Bonzer, mate,” Nick whispered, his eyes springing open. “I feel like I was hit by a Mack truck.”
Rigby sat up little, breathed a sigh of relief, and said, “Glad you pulled through. Next time, remember: a little defense goes a long—”
A sound stopped Rigby in mid-sentence. It was a rumble, but not a deep thunder sort of sound. More like a churning of many stones turning over and over and over.
Rigby stood up and prepped his will. The ponderous chain net still covered the crypt, still secured it to the cavern floor. It wasn’t trembling. There was no evidence it was moving at all.
“What an amateur,” came a voice from behind, and Rigby felt himself picked up by the seat of his jeans. He flared up red lighting from his fingertips and from his walking cane, but it did nothing to stop him from being manhandled, slung around, and hurled across the cavern.
Rigby had the presence of mind to recognize his body’s trajectory. He used his will to exert force against the opposite wall of the cavern, to slow his approach. But even as he slowed down and defeated the possibility of being pulverized by the wall, something tore the shoulder off his jacket.
No, it had cut through the jacket, his shirt beneath, and opened a burning gash in the flesh of his shoulder. Rigby landed in a crouch just in time to see a dozen more of Kara’s daggers flashing toward him. Rigby held out his top hat, and it turned into the shield. A few daggers careened off the shield. Several others buried themselves hilt-deep.
“Playing for keeps now, are we, Kara?” Rigby said, casting away the shield. His top hat reappeared in his right hand, and he swept it upon his head. “I didn’t think you ’ad it in you.”
Red electricity sparking all around her, Kara appeared from thin air over Nick’s prone form. “You want the Australian, Rigby? Come get him.”
In spite of his better judgment, Rigby strode toward Kara. Halfway there, he froze. There in the shadows, just over Kara’s shoulder, were two sparkling eyes and a Cheshire grin.
“Bezeal,” he muttered, taking a hesitant step backward.
Kara began to laugh. She dropped to a crouch and reached forward. Rigby couldn’t tell what she was doing. When she stood, she held the end of a six-foot wide strip of stone. With will-augmented strength beyond anything Rigby had ever imagined, Kara whipped the stone as if it were a blanket. The motion sent a quaking tremor rolling across the cavern floor. Rigby tried to leap out of the way, but it took his feet out from under him and sent him cartwheeling into the air. He came down in a heap near the stone where Kaylie and Doc Scoville had been hiding.
Rigby rose to a knee and nearly blacked out. He blinked and rubbed the back of his head. “Ah, they got out,” he whispered. He glanced across the cavern to Nick. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “I’m not up to this. Not yet.”
Rigby fled. He sprinted to the torn-down elevator shaft, and began climbing like a frenzied spider. Kara’s voice followed him the whole way. “Run, run, Rigby! It will all be over soon!”