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I shake my head and back up to within a couple of inches of the barrier. “My friends come first. Always.”
The ball pulses for a few seconds. Then the voice says, “Very well.”
The light flicks up over my head and cuts through the barrier, vanishing into the crowd of zombies. The deck is rising steadily. The pool is almost empty now. Some of the less sturdy zombies have started to slide down the deck, towards the end dipping into the sea. But most remain pinned to the barrier.
More worrying than the zombies or the disappearance of the ball of light is the fading magic. The bubble around the ship is intact but the magical energy i
s dwindling. I can still maintain the barrier, but not for long.
I think about retreating, closing the window behind me, then building a new one, opening it to whatever level of the ship Bec and the others are on. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. But they might not have even that short time. If they make it to the upper deck, this window offers their fastest route out. If I disable it, they’ll have to wait, besieged by zombies, and that might be asking too much of them. Better to linger as long as I can, and only resort to the other plan if the barrier cracks.
As I make up my mind to stay, a man steps through the crowd. Most of his throat has been chewed away. His head’s attached to his torso by stray strands of flesh and muscle. He puts his hands on the barrier, palms flat. His calm expression is in sharp contrast to the twisted grimaces of the other zombies. As I stare at the man, wondering why he looks different, light flickers in his eyes. I realize that the ball of light has wormed its way into the zombie and possessed him. Before I can do anything, the man steps through the barrier and clutches me.
“Do not fight,” he gurgles, pushing me towards the window.
“Let go!” I roar, wrestling wildly. I manage to slip loose. I think about darting through the window, but that’s where the light wants me to go. Before I can come up with an alternate plan, the zombie grabs me again.
“We do not want to hurt you,” he says, nudging me closer to the window of white light. “You must trust us. We only want—”
I knee the man in the stomach. Even though he’s dead, he winces with pain or the memory of it.
As I prepare to break free, I spot Bec, Sharmila, Dervish, and a man I don’t recognize. They’re fighting against the tilt of the ship, forcing their way towards me, battling through zombies. Bec spots me locked in combat.
“Kernel!” she shouts. “Hold on. We’re almost with you. We—”
“The lights!” I roar back in reply. “The lights are doing this! Don’t—”
“Enough,” the man snaps. “You are coming. Now.”
I reach for his head, to tear it all the way off. Before I can, the man’s eyes open wide and the ball of light gushes from them, as well as from his mouth and the gap in his throat. The light is blinding. I squeeze my eyelids shut, but the glare sears through them and I see almost as clearly as if they were open.
As light streams from the man, he explodes, his body ripping apart as if someone had planted a stick of dynamite inside him. The blast sends me flying backwards, through the window, which shatters behind me, stranding the others and cutting me off from the world of all things human.
TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
THE ball of light sails through the window with me. It completely envelops me, crackling over my creamy brown skin, tickling my hairless scalp, buzzing in my ears. I’m warm and comfortable in its embrace. I think this is what it must be like for a baby in its mother’s womb.
I try to fight the enveloping light, to break free of its hold, but it just buckles and bulges to match my movements. Finally I settle back and conserve my energy, saving it for when I can focus it more usefully.
I study my surroundings. Though the multicolored ball of light holds me in its grasp like fingers clutched around a coin, it’s translucent. There are other lights beyond, patches and panels, a dazzling variety of colors and sizes. They fill the area around us completely. No stars, sky, or planets. A universe of lights.
We’re floating through them, sliding from one patch to another, following some sort of hidden path. I hope. Or maybe there’s no path and we’re lost. Perhaps this is what the lights wanted all along, to strand me in this wilderness. But I don’t think so. We seem to be moving meaningfully. Or is that just wishful thinking?
Whatever the truth, I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Whenever I’ve stepped through a window, I’ve emerged instantly on another world. This is like traveling through an immense tunnel.
“Correct,” the voice says. The ball of light can evidently read my thoughts, which is bad news—I can’t spring any surprises. “We are traveling farther than you have ever been, but we are still in your universe. Space is not as easily traversed here as in the Demonata’s realm.”
“Where are we going?” I ask. Except I don’t ask out loud. My mouth won’t open. “What’s going on?” I cry silently.
“There is no oxygen,” the voice explains. “You are cocooned. It is the easiest way to travel. Don’t worry—it will not last long and you won’t be harmed.”
I’m not sure I trust the voice, but there’s nothing I can do except lie back and accept it. “So where are we going?” I ask again, trying to sound casual.
“You will find out soon,” the voice replies and says nothing more, leaving me to study the spectacular light show in awed, helpless silence.
After several minutes we zone in on a massive patch of green light. As we pass through, the cocoon around me slips away and I tumble to a cracked stone floor. My mouth opens and I drag in a lungful of acidic but breathable air. Pinching my nose shut to block out the stench, I look around. I’m in a domed chamber. The ball of light hangs in the air several feet away, pulsing steadily. The stones around us are throbbing in unison.
Blanking my thoughts, desperate not to betray myself, I back away. There’s an exit behind me. As I reach it, I pause, expecting the ball of light to shoot across and block my way. When nothing happens, I slip out of the chamber and scurry through a short, narrow tunnel.
