Now the Shadow laughed. "I"m giving them a little scare and thinning out your forces a bit in the process. But I won"t kill you, Matthew. You need to live."
"Why, when you"re holding all the cards?" I asked.
Mamie stood slowly, her eyes full of a hatred I couldn"t fathom. "Who says he is? His control is fragile and he"s not strong enough to keep me here for long, so he has to force an endgame."
"Your theories are cute, little one, but my real rush is that I"m sick of this game with my other family." He shrugged. "I hate postponing the inevitable."
Her glare grew uglier. "He also killed our brother. He"s trying to speed things up to minimize the risky position he put himself in."
"Hardly," the Dark Master said, sounding amused. "It"s not like my life is on the line."
"What does that mean?" I asked, wishing I could hit him in the head with a shovel.
He sighed in disappointment. "We don"t have the means to battle in a physical world, so we elect champions."
"What he really means is that we"re chess pieces. All of us. While dark energy can pull the universe apart, it"s infinitely slow. And his power is too weak to impact the Earth as a whole," Mamie said. "Dr. Burton-Hughes was right-dark energy started the Big Bang. He didn"t like being cooped up in his little corner of the cosmic cookie jar, so he shattered it, fracturing Tink and her brothers and sending light shooting across infinity. Imagine that, going from whole to broken in a fraction of a nanosecond? It had a benefit though. Us."
"More like a plague," the Dark Master said.
"He"s jealous. That"s what this is all about. Sibling rivalry on a universal scale." Mamie shifted so she was sitting next to me. "That explosion was supposed to put him in control. Instead, it gave the Light something bigger than before: life. We"re made of stars, Matt. All of us. Everything you know originated in a star somehow-Tink and her brothers are the reason we"re alive. And that"s why he"s trying to kill us. What was supposed to be his biggest triumph was his biggest mistake."
"Enough!" the beast roared.
The chains lifted from the ground, pulling Mamie up with them. Like a puppet master, the beast dragged her up the stairs to the dais and made her stand behind his right shoulder. Her wrists were raw and bleeding by the time he dropped the chains. Only now, as her brilliance faded, did I notice the bruises on her arms. Staying strong for me was taking every last drop of energy she had left.
"What do you want?" I asked the Master.
"To make you an offer." He smiled. "I want you to throw the fight. It"s hopeless, Matthew. You fight me, not only do you lose, but you"ll also die in pain. As will everyone you love."
"If you aren"t corporeal, how do you expect to do that?" With effort, I crossed my arms in defiance.
"I know what terrorizes you in the dark. My human servant and her people worked hard to bring my true proxy into your world, and he"s there, even now, while you waste time in Africa," the Master said. "After he kills you, he"ll crush your baby cousin and murder the rest of your family." He stroked Mamie"s cheek. Red streaks scored her skin, and her light faded even more as she cried out. "And I"ll make this one my special companion even as darkness spreads to the four corners of that miserable rock you call home."
Oh, G.o.d, he meant it. I knew it in the depths of my bone marrow. Mamie stood on stiff legs and shook her head. "Don"t do it. Do not take his deal."
"I wouldn"t listen to her. She"ll be mine, suffering my whims forever. I had your brother killed. I"ll torture your parents." He chuckled. "Let my minions use your girlfriend for a few months until she curses your name before I end her unfortunate life. Everyone you love will be the first to die, in agony. Except for sweet Mamie. Oh, no, she"ll be mine."
"What deal are you offering?" I asked, over Mamie"s pleas to ignore the monster.
"Throw the fight. You die either way, that"s a given, but if you let me roll over you, I"ll protect your family forever," he rumbled. "Think of it Matt. They"ll live forever, favored, taken care of. None of them will see a single day of darkness. If I control the light, I can make sure they stay in it."
I"d die either way? A shiver ran down my spine as I realized what I"d been missing all this time, and I stared at my sister, a new plan taking root. That"s what the Jinn"s words meant all along, and Xing Li"s, too. One to shine. Light, once bound, rises to close the rift forever.
To close the portal between our world and the Dark Master"s for good, Mamie had to be freed at any cost. Including my life.
Now I just had to play my cards right. I lifted my chin and met his eyes. "You"d do that? You"d protect them in exchange for my life? Even my sister? You"d protect her, too?"
Mamie cried, "no!" but I blocked her out. The Master smiled. "Of course. We do have some rules around here. A proxy"s last wishes are always honored."
A silver dart of truth zapped into my mind. Lies.
The Dark Master jerked in anger. "You don"t belong here. This is my house!"
And it took all my power to break through to keep you from cheating. Stop your interference. That"s against the rules, too, Tink growled. We agreed, from the beginning, not to fix the fights.
I knew the Dark Master had an angle, offering me the deal, but now I understood. "You don"t want your proxy to fight me, do you? There"s something about me that scares the h.e.l.l out of you, so I must have a chance against the Shadow Man. If I"m going to die either way, then we"re throwing down."
"You"d sacrifice your own family? Even the innocent Katie?"
I pushed against the floor. My knees popped under the pressure, but I didn"t stop until I broken free of his hold, then stood before him. "You must not know my family very well to think they"d let me save them at the cost of the rest of the world."
"You"d let your sister suffer my attentions for an age?" The beast"s eyes glittered as he regarded her. l.u.s.t seemed to steam from his skin.
Mamie raised her chin and her light brightened a little. "Don"t worry about me being this thing"s pet. I"ll find a way to die alongside the rest of you."
The thought was so repugnant, I almost gave up, but something about Mamie"s expression told me I had to accept whatever fate we faced. I looked the thing in the eye. "If I have to die, I"ll make sure I end your proxy before I go out."
"You want to see this through to the bitter, bitter end?" he growled. "Then so be it! My proxy has been right under your noses all this time and you never noticed. The Dark has been called home, waiting to slaughter every living thing in their path like the ants you are and to clear the way for me."
The Master rose and backhanded Mamie so hard, she slammed into the stone wall behind her. Her screams died with the impact and her light winked out.
"No!" I tried to run to her, but it was too late. With a dizzying spin, my soul was ripped from the room, spiraling through the darkness, until it slammed into my body.
I gasped for breath. My lungs burned and my heart fluttered in my chest. When I was finally able to open my eyes, I found myself surrounded by ashen faces: Will, Mike, Jorge, Johnson. Klimmett and Nguyen stood behind them, and Klimmett had one of those defibrillator machines clutched in both hands.
"The cave"s open?" I croaked, blinking in the sudden light. "Is the fight over? What happened?"
"What happened to us isn"t important. What happened to you?" Will asked. "You died. Your heart stopped."
"I found him." I tried to sit up, but the cave tilted, so I lay back down. "He"s got Mamie." I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain. Fury overrode it. That"s all I needed. "I know one thing for sure, though. The end is coming. In fact, it"s probably already here."
Chapter Thirty-Three.
We walked back to the team as fast as my shaking legs would go, Will staying close by to catch me if I stumbled. His face was still pale as wallpaper paste; my dying had him rattled. Exactly like that dark b.a.s.t.a.r.d wanted.
And I felt like death warmed over, which was probably a side perk for him.
Julie stepped out of the shadow of a small tree near the edge of the path. Dead monsters-creatures that were a cross between a warthog and a leopard from what I could tell-lay in piles nearby. She had a smear of yellowish blood on her cheek and her eyes were cold.
"Did you do all that?" Uncle Mike asked, staring at the carca.s.ses.
"These?" she glanced over her shoulder. "Those were the last wave. I have a bigger pile over near the Humvees."
His mouth worked, like he had no idea whether to compliment her or freak out. Like Will, he looked like he"d already seen too much today.
Julie shifted her gaze to me. "Matt, are you okay?"
I kept shuffling down the path toward the group of men huddled around our wounded. Two lumps, covered by survival blankets, lay to one side. A boot stuck out of the bottom of one of them. We hadn"t come out of this unscathed. Not by a longshot.
My breath caught and Will tensed up. But I wasn"t going into cardiac arrest again-at least not yet. Where were my guys? Who"d we lose? Was that Blakeney under the blanket?
Ramirez came around from the back of a Humvee, saw us and turned to call someone. Lanningham and Blakeney appeared and started jogging our way. Lanningham had a long, shallow gash on his left arm and Blakeney"s face was bruised, but they were okay.
I closed my eyes, thankful. "They"re alive."
"Alive, nothing," Julie said. "Blakeney figured out if you shot these things in the head enough times, the ammo would eventually get through. He killed at least ten of them himself. It probably took four hundred rounds, but he mowed some down for us."
Pride swelled in my chest, replacing some of the residual fear I was hanging onto from the cave. They met up with us and took over for Will, one on each side, to support me on the way back to the vehicles.
"Are you going to tell us what"s going on?" Julie asked.
"Too much to explain," I said. "Except one thing, and it"s time I was straight with all of you."
"Wait," she said as I staggered by. "Where are you going?"
"Fort Carson," I said. "We"re going home."
Lanningham helped me climb into the nearest Humvee, while Blakeney hurried to the driver"s seat.
Uncle Mike took the seat next to mine and confused soldiers were slowly following suit. Will climbed into the seat across from me and I waved for Jorge to join us.
As soon as Blakeney was settled behind the wheel, I said, "Airport. Go."
Blakeney didn"t even confirm the order with the colonel; he put the vehicle in gear and took off, not bothering to check if the others were behind us.
"Sir?" Lanningham asked. "Want to tell us why we"re bugging out without even cleaning up the scene? We"re leaving those things to rot."
"After what happened to us in that cave, if Matt says go, we go," Uncle Mike said. "I"ll have the general"s office coordinate a clean-up effort with the local security forces."
"Are you all right?" Jorge leaned forward and peered at my face in the failing light. Sunset had begun. "You shouldn"t be moving around so much. You need to recover."
"I know I died, but-"
"Died?" Blakeney stared at me in the rearview mirror.
"Long story. I have some important things to tell everyone first and I need to do it before the memories fade." Even now, the whole trip seemed blurry. "The best place to start, I think, is at the beginning."
For the next twenty minutes, I told them everything I knew. About the dark hall, the Master, Mamie-Supreme, and how I"d moved between worlds. How Dr. Burton-Hughes was right, and we were p.a.w.ns in a game between cosmic players. I didn"t tell them about the Master"s bargain-none of that mattered. I was going to fight, even if he said I"d die. That decision was made.
I did, however, reveal the most important thing: my vision in Peru.
"A dark army," I said, "Plowing across bright desert sands, with us racing toward them in Humvees. Here"s the thing, though-every desert we"ve visited had red sand, not yellowish or white. So, I wondered if it was the Sahara or the Gobi, someplace we"d never gone. Then the Dark Master said something about being "under our noses the whole time," and I figured out exactly where they"ll strike."
Not one of them questioned the validity of my vision, or if I"d been brain damaged while I was dead-a testament to everything we"d been through together, everything we"d seen, and how the power of the knives was to be trusted.
"Where?" Uncle Mike asked, urgent and angry.
"Colorado." I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. I was exhausted. Being dead had tired me out. "They"re hiding in the Great Sand Dunes."
"The national park where I took Brent climbing for his fifteen birthday?" Someone punched the car door. "That means they"re less than two hundred miles from Fort Carson."
"Right on both accounts," I said, as the last of my energy burst slipped away. I would slide into unconsciousness soon. "Tink? If they need anything, talk to Jorge."
I will. You gather your strength. It"s time.
I rubbed the pentagram tattoo on my wrist. Soon I"d find out if my worst fears for the future would come true. As sleep swallowed me up, I hoped we wouldn"t be too late.
I slept until we were somewhere over the Atlantic. Consciousness came in stages, but I finally woke up to a raging post-magic hangover. Ignoring the headache, I sat up to stretch muscles cramped from lying across a row of airplane seats. Out of nowhere, a flash of a mission with Schmitz popped into my mind, with his dog tags swinging toward my face. G.o.d, I missed him. I missed all of them. Instinctively, I reached for my own tags and clutched them in my fist. Would this be all anyone remembered me by? Would Ella forget me after I was gone?
Most of the team was either asleep or playing cards, but Ramirez, Aunt Julie, Uncle Mike, Jorge and Johnson were huddled around a laptop a few rows over.
Murphy came plodding down the aisle and saw I was awake. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty, all better now? Cardiac arrest aside, a nine-hour nap is excessive, especially when we had to carry your heavy a.s.s onto the plane."
He was smiling, so I knew he wasn"t mad, but it was like he read my mind. Enough wallowing-I had work to do. "What"s up with them?" I pointed at the officers. "They"re staring at that laptop like their lives depend on it."
His smile faded into a scowl. "Our lives do depend on it. You should get over there and take a look."
Wondering what fresh h.e.l.l was in store, I joined the group. "Everything okay?"
Uncle Mike"s eyes met mine. "Not even close. You were right."
"About?" I asked, getting a bad, bad feeling.
He sighed and moved to one side so I could see the laptop screen. "This is a live feed from Great Sand Dunes. The President ordered a state of emergency and put the park under National Guard control until we can get there."
Great Sand Dunes park, at least from the pictures Brent had brought home from his trip, was a wildly beautiful place. Where else would you find a mix of mountain hiking, a river to play in and giant dunes all in one place? It was like a mini-desert dropped into the middle of a ski resort.
Now it was shrouded in darkness. "Where are the mountains?"
What we were watching was a CNN live simulcast of the park. The dunes stretched out in the forefront, but behind it, where a view of the mountains should"ve been, was a dark haze that stood out against the sky. Haze wasn"t the right word, though, because the fog writhed and changed shape too much.
It was my vision from Peru. Only real, and worse than I ever imagined.
"Here they come," Johnson said, his deep voice tense. "See? There."
"G.o.d, I hope they know what they"re doing," Julie said.
Before I could ask what they meant, a pair of fighter jets streaked into the frame. Small projectiles shot out from them into the dark ma.s.s and the planes veered sharply away.