The Hunt for Dark Infinity

Chapter 48

Paul grunted as he moved another chunk of black glass off the pile.

“Isn’t there another way in?” he asked.

“Ain’t nary a one that ain’t blocked!” Sally shouted, lifting a piece the size of a large suitcase. He threw it and Paul watched it split into several pieces upon landing.

Then Paul noticed the silence.

“Hey… hey!” he shouted.

Everyone else quit working, looking about.

“It’s ruddy well stopped, it ’as,” Mothball said, a crooked-toothed grin breaking across her face.

Paul ran away from the pile, craning his neck to look up at the mountain as he got farther away. Though full of cracks and missing pieces, the building wasn’t shaking or falling apart anymore. The ground wasn’t trembling. The air had grown still and silent, the dust already settling to the ground.

“Sofia did it,” Mothball said, waving Paul back over to help. “Come on, gotta clear this pile. Gotta find ’er and Master Tick.”

Encouraged for the first time in awhile, Paul sprinted back and started sorting through the rubble with renewed vigor, knowing his hurt arm would be some kind of sore tomorrow. Piece after piece, chunk after chunk, the Realitants worked together until a shaft of light escaped from within. They’d found a way through.

“We did it!” Paul shouted, grabbing more pieces. Soon they had a hole big enough for them to enter the damaged building.

Mothball went first, then Sally, then Paul and the other Realitants. They regrouped inside, sweeping their weapons back and forth in case of an attack. There wasn’t a sign of anyone or anything dangerous, only dust and debris.

“Come on, let’s-” Paul started to say, then stopped when he saw movement up ahead in the hallway. He couldn’t make it out at first-it looked like an injured animal crawling along, slide-and-stop, slide-and-stop.

But then the dust settled and the figures came into the light. Everything became clear.

It was Sofia, her back to them, dragging Tick’s battered body down the broken hallway.

~

Somehow, Jane finally quit screaming.

She lay on the floor, her mind trying to shut down in order to avoid the sheer agony of her pain. It filled every inch of her, every organ, every cell, every molecule. Her nerves bristled with it. The slightest movement of her ragged breathing sent fresh pinpricks shooting across her skin, through her skin, into her blood and muscles and bone. She hurt, she ached, she stung. The pain consumed her. The only thing that kept her from weeping was the promise of even more pain.

I tried to help him, she thought. I was only trying to help him. How? How could he have done this to me?

Her eyes had been closed for a long time, the prospect of seeing the damage to her body too horrific. But finally, she allowed her eyelids to slide up. The movement sent a new wave of agony across her face and through her head, as if needles had pierced her skull. But she kept her eyes open.

She did not, however, have the courage to move anything else. She saw only what she could from her current position, crumpled like a rag doll. But it was enough to let her know her life was over.

Shards of gold, small but jagged, covered every inch of her body, jutting from the skin at all kinds of angles. Blood was everywhere, seeping from the wounds. Her body was like a sea of red, a million tiny golden icebergs breaking the surface. Most of the shards appeared to be fused to her skin, impossible to remove. She could only imagine what her face must look like. A beast. A hideous beast.

A bit of the old Jane returned to her then. The one who’d been courageous and strong, unwilling to break under any task or trial. The one who’d fought on, no matter what.

Realities help me, I can do this. I will do this.

Bracing herself, Jane counted silently to three, readying her mind and soul for what she was about to do. Then, as quickly and as efficiently as she could, she pushed her arms below her and stood up.

The blood-curdling scream that erupted from her was inhuman-the terrified shriek of tortured demons. The sound tore through the air, filled the world around her, pierced her own ears until they bled. It seemed impossible that she didn’t faint from the pain that had ruptured inside of her like the detonation of a nuclear bomb.

She stood still, enduring. Eventually, the pain lessened. Barely, but enough so that she had the awkward sensation of bliss, a warm calm.

All things are relative, she thought.

Then, a very strange thing occurred to her. She didn’t understand it, didn’t know how the thought formed in her mind or where it came from. Perhaps it had been something Reginald had said in the moments before he ran away, something he’d told the boy about Dark Infinity. No matter-she’d figure it out later. But regardless of how she knew, she did know.

She had changed forever. In the midst of all the horror, perhaps there was a silver lining after all. Yes, she knew. She knew.

Mistress Jane had no Barrier Wand within her reach. No one in her Reality had a Wand to pull her away from this place. No one, anywhere, had a lock on her nanolocator besides those who could do nothing about it. Yet, despite all that, Jane winked herself away, away from the Fourth Reality and back to the Thirteenth.

She did it by thinking it.

Yes, she had changed forever.