“Wuss,” Paul muttered. “Ow!”
Tick heard the punch on Paul’s arm that he’d fully expected.
“Doesn’t matter right now,” Tick said. “What matters is that the Haunce is a collection of millions and millions of soulikens, and it acts like a guardian of the Realities. Sort of a gatekeeper or a watchman. Whatever. But we gotta trust it.”
“Yes, indeed,” Master George added, his voice already a little winded as they tramped through the forest. “The Haunce has the Realitants’ highest respect—there’s no doubt in this matter. What the Haunce says, we should do.”
“Okay,” Paul said. “So what is it we’re gonna do?”
Tick walked around a huge oak then settled back in on the course his instincts marked as east. “Well, ultimately the Haunce, me, and Jane are going to link and use our . . . power”—how he hated using that word!—“to rebind the barriers of the Realities that are falling apart.”
“Yeah, ultimately,” Paul said, a major hint of doubt in his tone. “But something tells me we’re not gonna like hearing what you keep avoiding—what we have to do to get to that point.”
Tick winced. Paul had hit at the heart of the matter. “Um, yeah, you’re probably right on that one.”
Tick felt Paul’s hand grab his arm as Paul forced him to stop and turn around.
“What!” Tick shouted way too loudly. But then he remembered what the next stage of the plan was and that being quiet didn’t quite play into it. Now that he had to tell them what the Haunce wanted, he was terrified of their reaction. They weren’t going to be very happy.
“Come on, dude,” Paul said, almost pleading. “Don’t make me give the corny speech about how we’re all part of a team. Tell us what’s going on.”
Tick shook Paul’s hand off his arm, but then nodded. Paul was right. He had to tell them. “Sorry. Obviously I’ve been avoiding that part.”
Paul folded his arms disapprovingly. “Yeah, obviously.”
“Come on, Tick,” Sofia said. “Just tell us real quick.”
Master George put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, not seeming to care one way or the other.
Tick thought furiously for a second. It hadn’t sounded so bad when the Haunce had told him about this part. But then again, they’d been tucked away safely in Tick’s home at the time. He decided to just get it over with. “Jane has a new creation—something called a Sleek.”
He expected everyone to repeat the word or start asking questions before he could continue. Instead, they all just stared at him, waiting.
“Once she had the fangen all figured out and perfected, she moved on to other creatures. And from the sound of it, always nasty and terrifying creatures. No big surprise there. But she always works with a purpose. The Sleeks are what she created to guard the Factory. And, um, we’re getting really close to the place where they’ll be hunting through the woods.”
Tick saw fear flash across his friends’ faces, and seeing that made him feel even more scared. “The Sleeks sound really, really awful. The whole purpose of their existence is to hunt down anything that’s not supposed to be in these forests. They’re tall and thin when seen straight on, but most of the time they’re impossible to see clearly. They have ten times the strength of a fangen, and they have almost magic abilities using Chi’karda. The Haunce said they’re wispy and fast, almost like living smoke mixed with wind. And once they catch sight of you, forget escaping. No way, according to the Haunce. But don’t worry—there is some good news.”
“I’m having quite a hard time seeing the good news in any of this,” Master George said.
Tick looked at him. “Well, there is. Kind of. The Sleeks aren’t allowed to kill what they hunt down. Mistress Jane wants to interrogate any intruders.”
“Oh, no,” Sofia said. “Don’t tell me . . .”
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Paul added.
Tick was relieved they’d gotten it before he had to say it, but he did so anyway. “You guessed it. The Haunce wants us to find them. We have to let the Sleeks capture us.”
Chapter 36
The Speech
Sato sat alone, his heart like a dying filament inside a light bulb, about to burst and flame out at any second. What Mothball had said—about Jane planning to use human kids for her creations—horrified him like nothing ever had before. He knew a lot of bad things had happened in the history of the world, but this had to top it.
Killing was bad enough, but . . . what was the word Mothball had used? Melding. Jane was melding animals together . . .
He slammed the door on that thought. His mind had already slipped close to an edge overhanging a dark and awful abyss from which he didn’t know if he could escape. He needed to keep it together. Hold onto the anger, sure. Let it fester and boil inside him until he had no choice but to go forward in a rage and do what he had to do to stop what the witch was doing. But he couldn’t allow himself to sink back into that dark place which had once haunted him every day after seeing his parents murdered, burned alive by Jane herself.
He shook his head, slammed another door in his mind. Looking around, he saw that the people of the Fifth were gathering around him again, though a bit more timidly than before. They must have seen the anguish on his face, enough to scare them a little.
But that look of awe still clung to their expressions, their eyes filled with something he could only describe as hope. Which was good. Ever since reading the note from Tick—and especially since Mothball’s revelation about the Factory—he’d been heading down a path toward a decision. He didn’t even quite know if he consciously controlled this path, but every part of him walked along it.
He was going to do exactly what Tick asked. Somehow.
The tall people of the Fifth inched closer and closer, surrounding him on all sides. Sato craned his neck to look through the scant open spaces to where Lisa and the rest of Tick’s family huddled far outside the crowd, still seeming to revel in their reunion and the good news that Tick was alive.
Mothball and Rutger had told them about the note—all of it. Now wasn’t the time to hide anything from anybody. Sato knew that the Higginbottoms also had mixed feelings, and more reason than ever to worry over their son. Just another twist of the path Sato traveled. Just another reason to make things happen, no matter what.