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"My brother tricked me." I can't help grinding my teeth when I remember how it happened. But I force myself to relax my jaw and exhale a long sigh. "This will take time to explain."
"Well, I guess I better cancel my manicure and the appointment with my hair stylist."
"Don't get comfortable with me. I'm still the monster who ruthlessly pursued you, took you hostage, and forced you to give me your body."
"I haven't forgotten that." She leans against the wall, hands jammed into her trouser pockets. "But I need to know how all of this happened and what might come next. You mentioned a first wave and a second wave. I assume you meant the two events we've experienced since the sky split open—the fireballs and lightning, then the fire-breathing dragon-people. Will there be a third wave? Seems like you're the one who knows what Sefton has planned."
"Whatever you think of me, if I knew what would happen next, I would tell you."
"Are you still convinced I'm responsible for everything?"
That's a tricky question. Lying seems ill-advised, but honesty might prove even worse. I may need to bind her hands again to keep her from fleeing. I'd rather not do that, but I will take whatever measures are necessary to uncover the truth.
"Sefton is clearly obsessed with you," I tell her. "He sent his beasts to find you—and to bring you to him, I assume. That's why he left a note encouraging you to wait in the library. But he cocked it up and forgot to exclude you from whatever trance he cast over the people in this city. That's why he needs his minions."
"Only one creature tried to get to me—the fish-beast. And the only evidence I have to support that theory is your claim that it was aiming for me and not you."
"It was." Growling at her won't help matters, but I can't stop myself. The woman is so bloody-minded. "That beast wanted you. So did the creatures in the alley, the ones who abducted you. And I've begun to suspect the beasts in the shopping mall wanted you too."
"Based on what evidence? The fact that you want everything to be my fault?"
Perhaps I am biased. But I know she is the key to understanding what's happened and to finding my brother. Only he knows how to stop the worlds from merging.
I slap a hand on the wall beside her shoulder. "If you knew what Sefton did to me, you wouldn't think I'm the monster. You'd know he is. I had a normal life once, with family and friends, but my own brother stole that from me and threw me into a nightmare world he created."
"Why did he do all of this? I don't understand. Why would anyone want to destroy the world and remake it into hell on earth?"
I doubt she expects a response. Her questions are rhetorical. Even if she genuinely wants to know, I can't explain why my brother has done any of this.
Allison spears me with her gaze. "I want some answers. Here are the questions. You said the Echo is a world populated with desecrations of the human form. What does that mean?"
"They are twisted copies of the beings who inhabit this world. I doubt Sefton planned for them to be that way. It must be an unintended side effect of creating the Echo."
"So when you said Sherry wasn't the woman I knew, you meant that literally."
"Yes."
"But Anti-Sherry knew me."
I try not to groan and end up hissing out a sigh instead. Anti-Sherry? I suppose that's an accurate description of what the Echo creatures are. "I don't know why Sefton's magics caused everyone in this world to be duplicated, with distortions. But my brother called the other world the Echo for a reason. I doubt he chose the name at random. It probably refers to the fact he created twisted copies of everyone on earth and populated his parallel world with them."
The ground beneath my feet begins to vibrate, as if a giant machine has been switched on somewhere nearby. The vibrations bring with them the grumbling, grinding racket of a machine too.
Allison stiffens. "What's that?"
"Not sure."
I walk toward the door, trying not to make noise with my footsteps, and carefully crack the door open to peer outside.
Behind me, Allison gasps.
Yes, I would gasp too if I hadn't lost the ability to move or breathe. What I'm seeing can't be. What Sefton has done so far unleashed horrific terror on the world, but this…
The disk-like opening where the Echo tore through the fabric of this world is expanding. The grinding cacophony seems to emanate from the ever-growing rift in the two worlds. As the opening spreads across the sky, glistening darkness roils outward in its wake like the trail of an obsidian comet.
Allison grips my forearm. "If it keeps going like that, it will—"
"Consume the sky, then the earth."
