Sofia felt a deep anger inside of her, too. “Just kidding. I’d like to do that myself.”
Master George walked over to Paul and offered a hand. “All in due time, Master Paul. All in due time. For now, we need to find water—or we won’t live long enough to put our hands around a sandwich, much less Mistress Jane.”
Paul ignored the offer of help, but did stand up, his face still tensed in anger. Sofia pushed herself up as well, and the three of them began searching through the debris. Jane’s people had to have brought plenty of food and water if they planned on being out here for any significant amount of time. It took only a few minutes to find the stash.
Several coolers with bread, meat, fruit, and big, glass bottles of water—most of which had been packed tightly enough that they hadn’t broken in the chaos—had been wedged between a toppled table and some large computer equipment.
Sofia drank half a bottle of water, trickles of the liquid splashing down her cheeks and onto her clothes. Even though the water was warm, she was sure she’d never tasted anything so refreshing in her life.
They didn’t dare eat the meat, but the bread and fruit seemed okay, and soon they were all sitting together in one of the few spots clear of wreckage, enjoying their odd little meal. The sun had sunk even further, the shadows from the towering rocks stretching all the way across the desert bowl. Full darkness would be upon them soon.
Sofia hated the thought of being in the middle of a desert in the Thirteenth Reality at nighttime. “Guys, this is great to eat and rest a little, but what’re we gonna do next? It’ll be totally dark soon.”
“We’ll probably get eaten alive by fangen,” Paul said, neither his voice nor his face revealing any sign that he was kidding. “Jane’s probably already sent some out here to hunt us.”
Sofia wanted the old Paul back. “You’re real great to have around when things get rough,” she said. “You really know how to look on the bright side.”
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.
Chapter 31
Making Plans
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.