Daniel frowned. John thought of another way to phrase it. "What be the count of males as compared to females?"
Daniel had been raised fragment and they dealt very much in numbers. Thievery and trading wares made their prowess for math legendary. Daniel fashioned his answer so his group would also understand, "There be fifteen males for every one that is female."
The girls sucked in their breath.
I frowned, no wonder it was so screwed up here.
John explained, "We must use the salt which began the ruination of your sphere and combine it with the advances of my world to halt its destruction."
Clara understood. "I do apologize... however, I surmised you may be..."
John held up his palm. "It is fine. I do understand the trepidation over the same ingredient being used for repair that was the cause of the sphere"s demise."
"You go, Terran!" Jonesy fist-pumped and John blushed a fine, clear red.
"Can it, dumba.s.s," Tiff said. "He"s getting" his mojo on." She gave a big grin to John and he gave a small smile back, pleased.
Clara nodded as the Band studied Alex, who returned their stares with equal regard.
John grabbed the salt, and sprinkled a large portion over roughly a half meter area. Jonesy stepped forward and John nodded. Before Jonesy put his palm on the patch of salt that lay hissing where it made contact with the sphere wall, John said, "Don"t be stupid, Jonesy. This matters."
"Yeah, yeah, Terran, keep your boxers on. I got this."
And with that, Jonesy laid his palm on the sizzling area. Instantly the spot began to glow and Jonesy straightened where he stood, his face going from his typical nonchalant expression to a shrieking intensity. The Band cl.u.s.tered around, watching the boy with skin so brown it was almost black, prove out a different kind of magic entirely.
Clara watched as light like the bolts of lightning she remembered watching as a child from the safety of her chamber, wound their way like wily snakes, branching away from his dark hand. They formed a grid-like pattern that carried them like tendrils of perfect, symmetric brilliance to the offending holes, closing them in as water poured in a cup. They throbbed and contracted, the light pouring into the holes, which were once dim, now became solidly opaque, gradually deepening.
After minutes that became long enough so twilight stole around them, Jonesy lifted his hand off the sphere wall. He turned to Clara and smiled, she gasped at how white his teeth were in the impending gloom. It was startling.
"You can tell me," Jonesy said, hand to his chest, ready to bow.
Tiff rolled her eyes but I said it, he"d done okay. "You"re the greatest, Jones."
"Yeah, I got that," Jonesy said with snark, but his face was tired and his body looked strained and wrung out.
It"s not every day that you light up a whole world.
We looked at the sphere, lit with a soft glow, whole again. The scars from the salt punishment were pinkish, but already moving toward the original milky incandescence of the sections that weren"t compromised .
My friends were all grinning at the remarkable structure, us for different reasons than the people of Clara"s world.
Jonesy said, "It can"t be all bad... our abilities."
I thought about it. "Yeah, but the reason behind them sucked."
John nodded.
Clara looked at the young Travelers. "We find we cannot enter the sphere, the door is..." she trailed off.
Lewis Archer smiled. He"d done his Lock-Manipulator job a little too well. He put his hand on his chest, puffing up and replied, "Allow me."
He gracefully strode to the huge portal while the whole group muttered and Archer jumped up, slapping the locks on the top. Then repeated it, swinging low to nail the dual locks at the bottom. Everyone heard the locks tumble together and snap to the unlocked position.
One of the sphere guys spoke for the first time. "Do they all possess magic?"
"I don"t!" Bry said, raising his hand. The Band swung their heads to look at him and he dropped his hand. They walked over to the ma.s.sive doors and with one Band member on each side they heaved it to the right, rolling it smoothly on its internal runners.
It slid open and the light of the sphere tunnel poured into the Outside, illuminating the murkiness of where we all stood, the grave markers standing like stout guideposts of death in the background.
"s.h.i.t!" Archer yelled.
Hearing his alarm, the Band readied their weapons. The Js and I ran up behind him as the Zondorae brothers fell out of the Pathway with a practiced drop and hop. I glanced to make sure Jade was near me then looked back at the scene inside the sphere.
What really got me excited were the black tranquilizer guns that stood at attention in their hands. Pulse-activated, of course.
Looked like c.r.a.p was gonna go down.
Typical.
CHAPTER 11.
"Jonesy!" I screamed when I saw one of the Zondorae brothers raise his gun at the guy that was with Clara.
"It"s pulse, Jones!" John bellowed into the suddenly still air.
Jonesy turned his head and touched the sphere, his hands biting into the wall. A surge of light bloomed underneath his palm and jumped to the floor, running underneath their collective feet where it threaded up to where Joe Zondorae held the gun.
It jammed and he dropped it, zapped and smoldering with the electromagnetic surge executed by the Jonester.
"h.e.l.l!" he yelled, looking at his brother for a.s.sistance.
Gary Zondorae didn"t hesitate, walking toward whoever was closest with a chilling nonchalance, his stride eating the distance. Nailing everyone within two meters; he made the tranquilizer gun work for him. The darts were small, filling the chamber like a standard nine millimeter. I thought he was just animal enough to have a round loaded in the chamber.
I looked at the guns and though they resembled metal, they"d fire just fine, their organic components having survived the Pathway. These Graysheet minions would have everything they needed to make their time here work towards their advantage. The Zondorae brother leveled his gun at the huge males of the Band and chambered another clip.
I paused, rage surging through me as I saw a grin replace his blank expression.
I"d wipe that smile off soon enough.
The Queen Clara"s shoulders slumped in defeat, the Traveler"s guns were trained on them again, three of their darts buried into the boy with skin the color of night, his collapsed form was on the ground of the tunnel as the mob approached them.
There were hundreds.
The Band readied for war, the entirety of the Kingdom of Kentucky pouring from the heart of Clara"s kingdom toward them, their dirty and starving faces telling her what her end would be.
Most were men, the criminal element loosed upon her sphere, having looted, pillaged and Guardian knew what else, Clara thought on a mournful note. Regret took up residence in her heart as she met Matthew"s eyes.
How would they ever survive this? There were not enough Band to defend, the situation appeared far worse than even her wildest speculations.
Clara noted that Daniel and Edwin wore the darts as well, their manner not fully alert. The poisonous sleep worked on them as she watched.
They would be cut down unprotected, the twilight drug working its black magic against them.
Their bodies would succ.u.mb even when their minds did not.
"Caleb," Jade whispered and I looked into her worried eyes, her love and trust shining out of them like a spear of hope.
Piercing my heart.
My soul.
I squeezed my eyes closed as the mob came, my jaw clenching with the realization of what I"d have to do.
What I"d always known there was potential for.
I looked at the filthy criminals who moved toward us; forty meters out, closing in fast. My gaze swept over the huge guys, the Band, I thought randomly. Then finally, my gaze fell on my friends. Jonesy was unconscious from whatever c.r.a.p had been in their guns. I took note of the Zondorae brothers having satisfied smirks across their faces.
They wanted these people to suffer, to be una.s.sisted.
Well tough s.h.i.t.
Jade had been touching my arm, getting an emotional radio signal of the feelings that were screaming through my psyche, vibrating like a tuning fork before finding its errand.
In this case, the dead.
Jade looked up at me, permission standing in her eyes. "Do it," she finished her thought.
John"s eyes widened when he saw where I looked.
The graveyard lay like a sleeping army outside the sphere.
Waiting.
The Queen "Clara," Sarah nearly wailed, tears running down her face. Her voice, her manner, told Clara the same thing she had been ruminating on but a moment before.
What could they be about before this insurmountable violence?
"We will prevail," Clara said even as she mourned her survival and that of the people that were near her. She had utterly forgotten the Travelers behind her.
The Band had not, standing in the center of the sphere tunnel, grouped in pairs with half facing the screaming group of degenerates who had overtaken Clara"s peaceful sphere. The other half faced the two from another world.
It was Matthew that caught the look between the two young Travelers, the dark one who controlled the dead and the one with hair more fiery than Clara"s.
It took him but a moment to ascertain the direction of their thoughts.
It was even more rapid for Clara, who screamed in ringing terror, "No!"
Even as the young Traveler"s face straightened into a mask of concentration, the air was instantly heavy with his will, his intent.
Death sang around who were present.
The dead would weep no more but rise again.
No matter who they were, what they had been, they would rise and do the bidding of the young Traveler.
Clara knew it and was afraid.
For Caleb Hart did not know who would answer his call.
Clara did.
Fear gripped her with icy talons, sinking into the meat of what made Clara brave, her fort.i.tude shaking like a home without a foundation.
Matthew saw her reaction and knew what she feared.
He was too late to stop it, too late to temper Caleb the Traveler.
Only raise some, he thought too late.
Not all.
I didn"t know who I"d raised, I was just hoping it was enough. The first two of the dead who came forward looked like they may have been people of importance before they died.
I gave a mental shrug. Not that it mattered who they"d been as I saw the crowns that crested their heads, their eyes not quite alive in faces with skin gone gray, the flesh pulled taut.
Huh, I raised them kinda fast, they were lookin" a little corpsey. I gave a little smile as Tiff walked up beside me.
"Kinda a rush job, Caleb," she said, not unkindly.
"Yeah," I looked down at her. "I was sorta in a hurry so lay off."
"Right," Tiff said, looking at the royal pair of corpses. The man was tall, the vestiges of what had been blond hair clinging to a scalp that showed through in patches, dirt from the grave sticking in brownish clumps. But it was the woman, her black eyes soulless, her hands in tight fists of anger that got our full attention.