AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Evil swarmed through the canopy, calling his name.
++Jackaran Kresimir Shield! We heard you and we have come in answer to your call! We are the only way you will ever get home. Join us and we will take you there now, as one of us!++
Jack was immune to its temptations, no matter how badly he wanted to go home. He knew that any bargain he entered into with The Evil would end up with him a glowing-eyed zombie intent on betraying everyone he loved. Mental tendrils reached for him, but he concentrated on thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with him, lest they betray him. The smell of the dust; the feel of petrified twigs digging into his sides; the dry, ashy taste of some dirt that had somehow got into his mouth …
Slowly, he became aware of a quite unexpected sensation, something he had experienced before in the second Examination but had never felt so clearly in real life. The ground around him wasn’t just dirt. It was a complex environment that spoke to him in a language he could somehow understand. He saw the layers of soil around the tree’s massive roots. He saw the pockets where life had once thrived, from catlike creatures who’d lived in tunnels, down to worms and bacteria. It had once been a vital, thriving place, and even though all the living things had long been taken over by The Evil and amalgamated into its ghastly whole, the ground itself remembered, and it knew of one place in the entire realm where life remained.
Jack thought the ground was talking about him and his friends. They were alive, and the ground could sense him just like he could sense it. But that wasn’t the case. There was another pocket of life not far away … an oasis in the middle of the vast Evil desert….
So excited was he by this discovery that he very nearly exclaimed aloud. It had to be Lottie! Who else could it be? Only with great difficulty did he keep himself still until he felt The Evil swarm pass over him, grumbling and clicking in frustration before heading off.
He didn’t move, even though he could feel Kyle beginning to get restless. Jack couldn’t feel The Evil through the ground, perhaps because it wasn’t life as he knew it. Maybe The Evil was faking going away and was waiting quietly for them to emerge. If they broke cover too soon, they might find themselves surrounded and overwhelmed, and not even Grandma X’s brooches would help them then. So he counted to a hundred, and then he counted to a hundred again. Only when he had finished doing that did he risk bringing his head up to see what was going on.
His dark-sensitive eyes saw nothing above or around him but the dead tree and its branches. With a rustle of ancient leaf litter, Tara sat up next to him, sword at the ready, followed by Kyle. Cornelia unfolded herself from Jack’s arms and fluffed up her feathers.
“Will you take a look around for us?” Jack asked her in a whisper.
She bobbed her head and took off to circumnavigate the tree.
Jack told the others what he had sensed through the ground.
“Which way?” asked Kyle.
Jack recalled the feeling clearly. “That way,” he said, pointing toward the trunk but meaning the desert on the far side. They would have to go around the tree to get where they needed to go.
“And Lottie will be there?” asked Tara.
“I think so,” said Jack. “I can’t imagine where else she could be. This whole place is dead, like someone sucked the life out of it.”
“How can The Evil live here?” asked Kyle. “Don’t its bugs need to eat?”
“Maybe they eat each other,” said Tara with a quick shudder. “I can’t wait to get home.”
Cornelia returned.
“Smooth seas and plain sailing,” she declared.
They unearthed themselves and brushed down their clothes. It didn’t make much difference to their appearance. They remained dirty from head to foot, which was possibly a good thing, Jack thought. Even a small amount of camouflage might help hide them from creatures looking for them across the desert.
“When we get home,” Jack said, “I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“I’m going to eat a hamburger and drink three thick shakes, each a different flavor,” said Kyle.
“I’m going to have a bath and never get out,” said Tara. “And I’m never going to wish I was a troubletwister again.”
Jack grinned at her, although part of him still felt painfully guilty that she and Kyle had been caught up in this. Grandma X had often warned them about the dangers of involving ordinary people in Warden affairs. He could see the consequences all too clearly now.
Tara raised her sword. “Onward!” she cried, so onward they went.
Jaide slipped around the back of the Project Thunderclap tent, keeping to where the streetlights were dimmest and where she was sure no guards were patrolling. She had hidden in some bushes and watched for half an hour before making her move. There was a spot near the school buildings where the tent canvas didn’t quite reach the ground. If she could get in there without being seen, she would be well on her way to being where she needed.
Breathing quickly and shallowly through her open mouth, she broke cover and made a run for it.
“What are you doing back here?”
She stopped and spun around. A young, round-faced Warden in a security uniform was walking toward her from a spot where she was certain there had been no one before.
Convinced the game was up before it had even started, she could do no more than stammer, “I — uh —”
“The entrance is around the front. That way.”
He pointed.
“Right,” she said. “I knew that. I was just checking … this.” She indicated the gap in the tent. “Shoddy workmanship. Doesn’t look very secure to me.”
“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Nothing’ll get past us without a token, though. Don’t worry. If The Evil tries anything, it’ll get an awful shock. Literally.”
“Great,” she said, and when it was clear that he wasn’t going to wander off until she had left, she added, “Well, thanks. That’s good to know.”
She sauntered off around the tent in the direction he had indicated. After ten steps, she glanced over her shoulder. The Warden had disappeared. She didn’t doubt he was still watching, though. He was right: The tent was very secure.
Still, he hadn’t questioned her unusual garb, and when she brazenly walked up to the front flap, no one questioned her there, either. She was a teenager dressed up like a cat burglar late at night, but she had a token so she must be allowed. They had probably seen far stranger things that day.
Feeling slightly foolish for trying to break in the hard way, but no less nervous about being discovered at any second, she walked briskly through the manifold corridors of the giant tent. Perhaps they had been moved, because although she was sure she had memorized them from her visit the previous night, they seemed unfamiliar to her now. There were fewer people, but there was still a great deal of urgency and hustle in the air. When people passed her, they were walking quickly and focused on their tasks. Jaide kept her head down and kept moving, hoping that sooner rather than later something familiar would leap out at her.
When it did, it came from an unexpected direction.
“As speaker for the Portland wards, I implore you to take your ‘Project Thunderclap’ elsewhere.”
That was Rennie’s voice, carrying clearly through the canvas walls.
“We have been much weakened by The Evil’s recent attacks. The breach you’re planning could ruin us forever.”
“The breach will only be temporary,” said a voice in reply. Jaide recognized Aleksandr’s deep, smooth tones. “And if Project Thunderclap is successful, we will no longer need any wards at all. The Evil will be contained to its own realm, unable to menace ours or any other’s again.”
“That’s all very well,” Rennie said, tapping the table with her wooden hand for emphasis, “but what if Project Thunderclap fails, and the wards fail with it? Portland will be exposed, and so will the rest of the world. With our best Wardens defeated, who will turn The Evil back then? This plan is too risky to c
onduct here. Go away and find another town to menace.”
A third voice joined the argument, and Jaide ducked quickly into the shadows so she could hear more as two Wardens hustled by.
“I think you’re being unreasonable, Rennie. I also know you’re worried about Jack and his friends. Don’t put those concerns ahead of the rest of the world, I beg you. We need your cooperation if Project Thunderclap is to succeed.”
“What price is success, Hector? Would you trade your own son and two innocents for a plan that might not succeed?”
“The plan will succeed, and so I have no choice. It is my duty as a Warden.”
Jaide couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Their own father, Hector Shield, sounded as dispassionate as Grandma X did about trapping her sister with The Evil for the rest of their lives. What was it about Wardens that made them so coldhearted?
