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Wispy black smoke slithers across the floor and coils around my legs, and they start trembling. My body feels as if it’s on fire. My throat muscles clench.
“Guys …,” I croak.
“Cameron?” Gonzo asks, his eyes full of concern.
“It’s them,” I manage, just as the kitchen doors are blasted off their hinges with the force of an explosion. The fire giants have found us.
“This part of the wrestlin’ show?” a man at the next table asks his friends.
A second explosion rocks the Konstant Kettle. People scream as debris rains down and flames pop from the walls. But I can see they’re more than flames; they’re ginormous, burning men with black holes for eyes and mouths made of sharp, flickering teeth. They’re fast and determined and merciless, and they bring chaos in their wake. With glee, the fire giants leap from the walls and land wherever they like, smashing tables, kicking chairs, ripping up flooring; everything they touch burns down to ash. Two of the creatures crawl along the ceiling, biting into it with their teeth, tearing huge holes in the cheap white acoustic tiles. The place fills with choking smoke. Mothers grab children; truckers leave their All-U-Can-Eat Freedom Pancake Towers untouched; the waiters and busboys abandon the kitchen and coffee stations and run for the safety of the exits, screaming in panic.
“Cameron! Dude! We gotta get out of here!” Gonzo’s offering me his hand, but I can’t move. My legs won’t work.
The smoke parts, and the Wizard of Reckoning gleams in the firelight like some cyborg knight, a black cape fluttering behind him. He’s added a cape, cheeky bastard. He seems taller and stronger than the last time we met. My brain’s saying run but my body won’t translate the command. The wizard points right at me, and my stomach goes into free fall. Leg muscles jerk and twitch and tighten up completely, and I crumple to the floor.
“Cameron! Get up, dude!” Gonzo shouts.
Using my arms, I drag myself under the table and hug my knees to my chest, struggling for breath. Across the restaurant, the Wizard of Reckoning peels his space suit from his chest. In the center is a big black abyss, and I feel like I’m being pulled in.
“No,” I croak. “Not yet.” I close my eyes tight, trying to resist the pressure squeezing me on all sides.
And then, I feel nothing.
Open my eyes, and I’m lying in the grass blinking against the light of the sun. The choking smoke is gone. In fact, the air smells sweet. Really sweet. Like flowers. I sniff in a big noseful of it.
“That’s lily of the valley you smell. Delightful, isn’t it?”
“Ahhhhh!” I scream. I sit up quickly and scramble backward on my hands, spider style. My eyes do a quick inventory: flowers, grass, paper lanterns, bright sun overhead. And a few feet away is the old lady from the hospital. She’s still in her gown with her tags around her wrist, but now she’s also wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and a cow-hide-patterned apron. She snips at things in her garden with a pair of long, thin shears.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” I gasp.
The old lady smiles and opens her arms wide. “This is the place I told you about—my house by the sea.”
“What? This is crazy—two seconds ago, I was in a restaurant and it was burning and …” I hear it. The sea. I turn around. Behind me is a two-story farmhouse overlooking a calm ocean. The waves lap the rocky shore, back and forth, back and forth, making me sleepy. Peaceful.
“For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth.” The old lady scrutinizes me. “You’ve got a spot of jelly on your cheek, dear.”
I wipe at my face. “Okay, seriously? I’m starting to freak out.”
“No need for that,” she says, and hums to herself. “The Copenhagen Interpretation. I just love them! I hear they’re Inuits?”
“I … I left my friends in the diner with the fire giants and the freaking wizard.”
“Agents of chaos,” she snaps. “Oh, these are frightening times. Are you sure you’re all right, dear?”
“I’m so tired. Just want to sleep.”
The old lady purses her lips as she flattens out the long stem of one weed, trying to figure out where to make the cut. “You could do that. There is a bed right upstairs with a window that looks out on the sea. Very good for sleeping. But I thought you were searching for that doctor, the one with the cure for what ails you.”
“Dr. X?” I murmur. Sleep sounds so nice right now. “Yeah. I’m supposed to find him. That’s what Dulcie told me.”
The old lady cuts the stem and the weed shrivels up and dies. Something else comes up right away, a blue flower. “Well, you could stay here, if you like. Get off the road. Go to the beach. Or we could make waffles. I adore waffles, do you?”
“Waffles are good,” I say.
“They didn’t have waffles in that wretched hospital. Just that damn gluey oatmeal,” she snipes.
“The thing is, I’m supposed to save the universe, ’cause it … it needs saving,” I say, but I’m so exhausted. “Maybe just a quick … nap.”
