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Jack didn’t object to being called that — he was only four minutes younger, after all — because she had complimented him at the same time. They ran back to the car, where Kyle and Tara were nervously looking out the rear window at the looming shapes The Evil made against the town lights. Lottie had nodded off again after the exertion of sending her spirit form to the meeting. Rodeo Dave was sitting restlessly behind the wheel, looking at her in the rearview mirror and frowning again.
He brightened when the twins jumped in.
“Where to now, troubletwisters?”
Jack and Jaide glanced at each other. He never called them that. Maybe the memory block was failing.
“Grandma wants us to get out of town,” said Jaide, “but we think we’ll be of more use here. How fast can Zebediah go?”
He winked. “You’d be surprised.”
“As long as The Evil’s surprised, that’s the main thing,” said Jack. “We’re going to lead it away from the tent.”
“How?” asked Kyle.
“It’s tried to catch us so many times now,” said Jaide, “and we keep getting away. This is its big chance. It’s not going to pass that up — not if we remind it, anyway.”
Rodeo Dave nodded. “Like a bullfight, then. We’ll enrage it while the others deliver the final blow.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Tara. “Let’s go!”
Kyle and Jack put their fists up in the air and Cornelia flapped with excitement, all of which took Jaide slightly by surprise. It was Jack’s idea and she had proposed it. How did Tara get to be the one who made the decision? Probably it had something to do with what had happened to them in the Evil Dimension, she told herself, and what difference did it make anyway, since they all wanted the same thing?
Zebediah roared and surged around in a wide circle, spraying mud. The car bumped back onto the road and accelerated toward the oncoming mass of bugs.
Jack closed his eyes. He had never tried to start a conversation with The Evil before. Normally, it was The Evil trying to talk to him.
++Go home,++ Jack told it. ++Why won’t you just leave us alone?++
++Join us, troubletwisters,++ it responded, ++and you will understand that we have no home. We need no home. We have only us. We need only you.++
Rodeo Dave eased off the gas pedal and swung the wheel so they headed down a line between the oncoming blackness and the tent. As the headlights swept across The Evil, they provided a glimpse of squirming Earthly bugs and slimy seaweed, with larger creatures mixed in, such as fish, eels, and the occasional stray dog. At the fore stood Dr. Witworth, with arms outstretched. Her hands had far too many fingers, thanks to the bugs she had absorbed, and she rode high, thanks to the buzzing of dozens of insect wings sprouting out of her back. Her sickly white eyes tracked the path of the car.
++You and us, together at last,++ The Evil chanted. ++You and us, you and us.++
++We’ll never join you,++ said Jaide. ++Never!++
“Is it following?” asked Tara.
“Looks that way,” said Kyle.
Jack agreed. The leading fringes of The Evil were swaying and changing course. Like a plague of mice trailing a piper, or a really big block of cheese, the black mass turned to follow them.
“Let it think it’s keeping up,” Jaide told Rodeo Dave. “We don’t want it to give up.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll save something for when we most need it.” He patted the dash. The car was rumbling happily down Dock Road, heading for the old cemetery.
Behind them, a single bolt of lightning fired up from the tent into the clouds, sending fierce tendrils lashing like whips in all directions. It didn’t die as ordinary lightning did. It crackled on, sending powerful booms of thunder rolling across the town. Jaide imagined the lodestone releasing all its pent-up energy, through the Wardens, through Stefano. She thought she heard him cry out in something that might have been triumph but might equally have been pain. The megastorm had begun.
Got to keep The Evil distracted, she thought.
++Do you recognize this place?++ she asked as the lighthouse came into view. The Something Read Ward shone with a bright, golden light near where the actual lighthouse globe was housed. ++This is where we first beat you.++
++You will never defeat us,++ it said. ++We are forever. You will join us or die.++
++How old are you, exactly?++ Jack asked. ++Isn’t it time you retired?++
++We have been here forever. We will always be here. Join us and live with us in eternity.++
Jack imagined The Evil spreading across the universe like some terrible, all-encompassing disease, sucking up life and leaving nothing but death behind. It truly might live forever, if it could find enough to absorb.
Zebediah bumped off-road again, swinging around the tiny church next to the Rock and paralleling South Beach. The hulking mass of The Evil followed, swarming over everything in its path.
++Everything dies,++ said Jaide. ++Even you, sooner or later.++
++Never,++ it said. ++Only those who reject us will die — humans, Wardens, and troubletwisters alike.++
Something large crashed down in front of them, as though from a great height. Mud splattered everywhere. Rodeo Dave spun the wheel, barely avoiding a collision.
“That’s the clock of the church steeple,” said Tara in amazement as the object went by. It was little more than tangled stone and metal now. “The Evil must have ripped it off and thrown it at us!”
Jack and Jaide looked at each other and wondered if they had gone too far. They didn’t want to antagonize The Evil into killing them.
++Tell us again why we should join you,++ Jack said. ++What do we get out of it, exactly?++
But The Evil didn’t answer. Something else crashed heavily in front of them, this time a giant chunk of dripping granite uprooted from the breakwater. Rodeo Dave spun the wheel again, and Jaide realized with a sick feeling what The Evil was doing.
It was herding them, forcing them to come around so they had no choice but to drive right into its waiting mass.
“Go around the Rock,” she told Rodeo Dave. “That might stop it from throwing more things at us.”
“Right-o,” he said. “Hold on tight!”
They bounced and jolted across the terrain, narrowly avoiding the Cutting, a slice of hillside that had been removed to make way for Crescent Street.
++Running only delays the inevitable,++ The Evil said. ++Join us and know an end to fear.++
“Look!” cried Kyle, pointing out the side window, up to the slope.
The Evil had swarmed up to the very top of the Rock and rose over it like the mutant child of King Kong and Godzilla. Projectiles came thundering down on them, and only a sudden burst of speed spared Zebediah from a crippling impact right through the engine. As it was, the near misses were ver
y near, and it was clear that with The Evil holding the higher ground, their luck was bound to run out eventually.
Grandma X’s house on Watchward Lane came into view, and Rodeo Dave made for it. The weathervane was pointing straight at them, and at The Evil rising up behind them.
The bench that sat at the top of the Rock crashed down in front of them, followed by a thick tree trunk and two large boulders. Zebediah skidded, but there was no way to go around the obstacles. The Evil had blocked their path completely.
Zebediah jerked to a halt. Rodeo Dave put the car in reverse and twisted to look behind him. He revved the engine, but didn’t go anywhere.
Jack could see why. The Evil was rushing down the side of the Rock like an avalanche. If they went that way, the end would only come sooner.
“We could lock the doors,” Tara said, looking up the hill. “Will that help?”
“For about a second,” said Kyle, swallowing.
They sat frozen for a moment, out of ideas.
Then the sound of something smashing made them whip their heads around to the front. The old stone bench had been turned to rubble, and as they watched, two heavy stone fists lifted the tree trunk, snapped it in two, and threw it away. A broad, stony face leaned down to peer into the car.
++EVIL BAD,++ boomed a mental voice that sounded like two mountains clashing. ++TROUBLETWISTERS RUN NOW RUN RUN RUN.++
“Angel!” exclaimed Lottie, blinking in sleepy surprise through the windshield. “I thought I was dreaming. What’s she doing awake?”
Jaide gaped at her, then turned back to the giant. The Something Growing Ward lifted one of the boulders and threw it at The Evil so hard that it trailed red fire before it hit Dr. Witworth square on. Bugs flew in all directions.
“I think we’d better do what that thing says,” said Rodeo Dave, putting his foot down as far as it would go. “Have we distracted The Evil enough?”
Jaide looked for the tent through the trees. It wasn’t hard to find, although its bright yellow glow had faded to a simmering red. The lightning flickered and went out.
“I hope so,” she said. “Get us out of here!”
