by Jamel Cato
The shards jutting from my enemy’s head shrank away and he stopped screaming, though his trembling and bleeding continued.
“What is it you want from me, Kulara?”
“I want you to stop Jaaru.”
“Why don’t you stop him?”
“He has erected a psychic shield around himself and his forces that I cannot penetrate.”
I couldn’t imagine anyone withstanding Kulara’s wrath. “Is Jaaru like you—a force of nature?”
“Jaaru is a mortal to whom I gave too much strength.”
Famous last words of deities everywhere. “Why is he acting against your wishes?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does,” I said. It might have been the only thing that mattered.
I would not have thought a gigantic arachnid could make a humanlike sigh, but that’s exactly what she did. “The only two ways to survive an encounter with an unstoppable predator are to be a bigger predator or show it better prey. On Wruvia, I am the biggest predator. But when the Gates between our worlds were opened, Jaaru was shown better prey: Six billion defenseless minds and a dying environment. He is not coming to Earth to escape me, he is coming to become me. He will replace Gaia and then return to Wruvia to replace me. He will make himself the biggest predator.”
“And wipe out humanity in the process,” I said.
“Yes. He has as little use for you as I do. He only needs your world and its natural resources, such as they remain.”
“How was he able to build a shield against you?”
“He formed an alliance with a non-breather of Earth. She and Naaru constructed the shield on Zuma, where I would have been unable to detect it.”
“What is Zuma?”
“You know it as The Astral Plane.”
I suddenly understood the purpose of Margouix’s research into Astral Physics.
“How can Jaaru be stopped?”
“If you destroy the shield, I will destroy Jaaru.”
It sounded so simple, which made me certain it was anything but. “And how can I do that?”
“By going where only you can go.”
Chapter 32
“Naaru!” I shouted for the fifth time.
I was standing in Pat’s house yelling at the wall of Bobby’s office from the living room. Alan was a few feet behind me, holding one of Ronnie’s golf clubs like a baseball bat and sharing nervous glances with Pat, who stood across from him with her hands gripping the butt of her revolver.
Ronnie sat in a corner with the wheels of his chair locked.
Pat had seemed reluctant to invite me in when I showed up unannounced for the second time in a row. She’d called Alan when I started sawing through the wall of her living room with a drywall knife.
I had tried to explain that I was cutting away the wall to expose the wave receiver’s digital keypad, but this did not seem to relieve her uneasiness. I knew she was probably still flustered from the incident with Tammy’s corpse, so I focused on sawing instead of comforting.
A Krykin wolf stepped out from the billowing portal that had formed in Bobby’s office a half minute prior. To my disappointment, it was one of the larger species that seemed to be detaining Naaru rather than protecting him. I had hoped it would be Blue Streak, the canine in Naaru’s original retinue who had led me to Tammy’s body. Blue Streak had learned to speak English and he told me a great deal about Wruvian society during our walk, including Naaru’s forbidden practice of letting his wolves control their own thoughts when no other Wru were within telepathic range. In turn, I had apologized for the violence and death that occurred at Felipe’s hands when we first met. We were having the kind of cross civilization contact experience that Margouix had been so eager to study.
After visually assessing the four of us and sniffing at the new hole in Pat’s wall, the wolf turned back toward the portal. I gathered it had sent some sort of all clear signal because three Xantu warriors promptly stepped through the portal behind it. These were also of the prison guard variety. The one carrying Naaru in its arms came and stood directly in front of me.
“I am not one of the communication devices you summon at your pleasure, Earth Eater,” Naaru said inside my head.
“You know whose pleasure I’m here serving,” I said out loud.
Naaru waved his palps slowly. “Why have you requested an audience with me?”
I got right to the point. “Where is the third gate?”
The wolf walked up and bared its fangs at me.
Both Xantu flanking Naaru’s carrier moved their claws to the hilts of the blades at their waists.
Alan and Pat took a few fearful steps backward.
“There are at least twenty-four answers to that question,” Naaru said.
The wolf started barking.
The Xantu holding Naaru threw him to the floor and stomped on his shell, crushing it enough to make dark liquid squirt from the sides.
“No!” I yelled out.
The flanking Xantu charged at us.
Pat shot the leading one in the shoulder, making it flail backwards and lose its footing.
While it was still focused on Naaru, I lunged forward and knocked the center Xantu off its feet with an arm tackle that would have made any NFL cornerback proud. I stabbed it under the armpit twice with my dragon scale blade before we hit the ground. The enchanted blade made the entire left side of the creature’s torso turn black with necrosis. It went as still as Naaru after its back smacked into the carpet.
I rolled over and saw that the third Xantu had veered toward Pat after she had shot its companion. Pat’s second shot sent a bullet into the ceiling after the Xantu skillfully knocked both of her arms upwards with the blunt edge of its blade. It wrapped an arm around her torso as it overshot her position, sending them both careening into Ronnie’s wheelchair.
The collision knocked the wheelchair onto its side and sent Ronnie’s body flying three strides through the air. He thudded into the carpet and began to wail.
Then the entire house shook when a fifteen-foot-tall poltergeist burst from thin air and roared. It looked like a ghoulish mishmash between a snake, a crab and a wind funnel. It had a long thin tail which expanded out in a triangular shape. At its zenith was a gaping maw with concentric rows of teeth that was large enough to swallow a man whole.
Everyone was momentarily frozen by the ferocity of the roar, which had been strong enough to make Pat’s hair sway.
The Xantu near Pat kicked the wheelchair out of its way and raised its blade high above her groveling body.
A long slimy tentacle zoomed out from the poltergeist’s body and pinned the Xantu’s blade arm to the wall.
Alan ducked beneath the tentacle and struck the Xantu in the face with the head of his golf club. He hit the guardian again and again as he shouted, “Leave her alone! Leave my sister alone!”
The poltergeist withdrew its appendage and slithered protectively over Ronnie when it became clear the Xantu was no longer a threat.
In all the commotion, I had not noticed the wolf sneak back into the portal to Wruvia. But it got my full attention when it suddenly reemerged surrounded by a phalanx of Xantu, each of whom was carrying a shield and a ranged weapon, including strange glowing whips with clawed tips.
The new warriors descended upon the poltergeist in an ordered attack pattern, completely ignoring the humans in the room.
I took full advantage of the opportunity and sprinted toward the wave receiver. I was planning to deactivate it by entering the codes Kulara had extracted from Kit Harrington’s mind.
I only made it halfway across the room before the wolf pounced on my back and bit down. My jacket, shirt and undershirt absorbed much of the bite, but I still felt a painful sting. I howled and fell toward the floor.
The impact flung the wolf off my body, but it quickly skittered to a stop and sprang back in my direction.
I tried to roll over and draw my dragon blade, but my right arm became entangled in the cl
aw-shredded fabric of my jacket.
I held my arm up to protect my face as the wolf lunged with its fangs spread wide.
Just then another canine with a bright blue streak in its fur darted from the portal at full speed and met the wolf in midair. The two canines went spinning away from me in a flurry of claws, fangs and growls.
I started crawling toward the wave receiver on my arms and elbows.
From the corner of my eye, I saw one of the Xantu break away from the faltering poltergeist and head toward me with a spear raised.
Pat, who had regained her breath, shot it in the back.
The warrior fell to the ground like a stone.
I whipped my head toward Pat.
“Go!” she shouted, understanding my objective. “We’ll hold them off!”
Alan, his shirt splattered with inhuman blood, made good on the promise by picking up the blade of the warrior he had dispatched with Ronnie’s nine iron and then placing himself directly between me and the pack of Xantu who had all but killed the poltergeist.
I got to my feet and ran over to the wave receiver’s keypad as quickly as I could, steadfastly ignoring what sounded like celebratory battle cries from the Xantu in the room.
I pulled a clear plastic sandwich bag from my jacket. One of Kit’s severed fingers was inside of it. I yanked the plastic away and pressed the fingerprint of the dismembered digit onto the pad of the bio reader. An indicator light turned green. From another pocket I fished out the metal key that Marcus had found in Kit’s house. I inserted it into a lock tumbler and turned right. Another light turned green.
I risked a glance back over my shoulder and saw that two large Xantu were battering Alan to the ground while simultaneously using their shields to block gunfire from Pat.
I concentrated on the keypad. My first two attempts triggered red error lights because my fingers were slipping from the preservation gel that I had gotten on them from holding Kit’s finger. I mercifully saw a green light on the third attempt. My relief evaporated when I realized the shutdown process was not instantaneous. A horrifying popup message on the keypad read, “Initiating deactivation sequence. Step 1 of 3 completed.”
I turned back toward the room. One of the Xantu who had beaten Alan to the ground was marching toward me while another stayed behind to lace my friend with its whip.
I peeked a glanced at Pat. She was firing what had to be her final rounds at the four Xantu who were closing in on her behind the protection of their shields.
I guessed that was it for us. A day late and a dollar short as my Grandmother would say.
Blue Streak staggered between me and the approaching Xantu. My canine friend was bleeding from a dozen claw slashes and a leg that was missing a forepaw. The wolf and the Xantu faced off in inaudible silence as a heated telepathic argument raged inside their heads.
I glanced at the readout. Step 2 had completed.
The warrior, having had enough of the discussion, slashed Blue Streak’s throat with a deft swing of its spear. The canine collapsed to the carpet in a lifeless heap.
I raised my hand inside my jacket pocket like I had a firearm.
The Xantu in front of me crouched behind its shield and shouted something to its fellow warriors that caused each of them to do the same.
It took the warrior less than five seconds to detect my ruse. He leapt up in annoyance and shifted his spear grip for a downward thrust.
I smiled and held up two fingers in a V shape. On Earth that gesture has multiple meanings. At that moment, it meant: Deuces, Homey.
A final green light on the wave receiver lit and everyone who wasn’t human snapped out of existence.
Two gates down, one to go.
After checking that Ronnie was unharmed, Pat went to assist her brother.
Alan was propped up against the sofa with a dishcloth pressed to a wound on his arm when I walked up. One of his eyes was swollen shut, he was covered in bruises and his right leg seemed badly atrophied from the whip strikes, but he had no life-threatening injuries.
“I held them off,” he said as triumphantly as he could muster.
I gave him a gentle fist bump. “That’s not all you did. I used your quantum factoring formula to shut down the gate.”
This lie made him puff up and turn to Pat. “Did you hear that? I saved us.”
She put a hand to his face. “I heard it, Big Brother. I heard it and I saw it.”
I stood. “Call 911 and get him to a hospital.”
Pat rose. “You’re leaving?”
“You’re safe now. The poltergeist is gone and the Wruvians won’t be back. But I have some more business to handle before this is over.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Actually, there is one thing you could do.”
Chapter 33
It was midmorning by the time I got back to Philadelphia. I drove directly to a construction site located at 1410 Franklin Street in the part of West Philadelphia that is now called University City.
1410. Fourteen plus ten equals the twenty-four that Naaru had spoken of. 1410. The incorrect address I seen on the awning outside of Patni. 1410. The number that was etched into Emala Castillo’s gravestone instead of her birthdate. 1410. The address of the property where Roland and Margouix Crawford had been killed in a gunfight with Police thirty years prior.
An entire block of rowhomes had been razed to accommodate a new luxury apartment tower that would cater to the students and staff at the University of Pennsylvania who were steadily pushing out the African American community who had called the neighborhood home for more than a century. It was the exact kind of economic and cultural invasion that Ro Crawford had been protesting when he met Margouix.
I was there to stop a different kind of invasion.
As I approached the fence surrounding the site, Margouix and Felipe stepped out and blocked my path. Felipe was in full battle armor with the jewel encrusted hilt of an impressive broadsword protruding from a scabbard at his side.
“We cannot allow you to get near the gate,” Margouix said.
“Too bad I’m not asking your permission,” I said as I pulled out my dragon scale blade and continued forward.
Felipe drew his sword. “That is far enough, Moor.”
Before I could respond, Ro Crawford materialized to my right and said, “Margie! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Felipe grimaced.
Margouix said, “Then perhaps you should stop looking, Roland. Must I spell it out for you?”
“Yeah, you must. I gave up everything for you.”
She turned red, which was quite an impressive feat for someone with translucent skin. “You gave up everything for me? Are you insane? The only thing you gave up for me was an asinine pseudo-political, pseudo-Marxist protest movement that would have gotten you thrown in jail or shot by the Police. Oh wait, you didn’t give up that last part. You just roped me in with good sex and a passionate vision so the Police would shoot me too. The sex was never good enough for that. In fact, it wasn’t good at all. I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings, half-Mandingo.”
“Margie,” he said with a bruised ego.
“My name is Margouix! Stop defiling my elegant French name with your trashy, two-packs-a-day, Americanized pseudonym because you were never taught good diction.”
“Bruh,” I said to Ro. “I think it’s time to move on to your next stop.”
He ignored me and focused on Felipe. “Who is this tin man, Margouix?”
“Careful, Moor,” Felipe warned. “The next plane will be less enjoyable with no arms and missing teeth.”
Ro took a step forward. “I will pull you out of that exhaust pipe and wipe the street with your ass.”
“Roland,” Margouix said. “Preston is right. Please move on. Don’t let our last memory be an ugly one. Ça suffit.”
He gave her one last pleading stare before he vanished.
She turned to me. “Preston, I make the same plea
to you. Leave peacefully. We don’t want to hurt you.”
I twirled my dragon blade and said, “Margie, the difference is, sex with me is always full Mandingo.”
I rushed at them.
Felipe whipped his sword in a blinding flash that would have struck a blow too fast and too powerful for me to parry if his entire suit of armor had not begun rapidly compressing in on him like it was running through an automobile compactor. His blood and internal organs squirted from his body as his skeleton was pulverized into a powdery mist.
The ancient Spaniard was the width of a nickel by the time I snatched the skeleton key from a lanyard around Margouix’s neck and dashed through an opening in the fence that was exactly wide enough to fit my body.
She attempted to pursue, but an unscalable wall of osmium rock immediately rose from the ground behind me.
I came to a halt when the shadow of the rock wall placed me in darkness.
A feminine voice inside my head said, “I cannot assist you once you pass the outer boundary of the wave receiver’s reach, Full Mandingo.”
I cocked my head up at Kulara, who had silently appeared behind Margouix and Felipe as soon as I arrived at the site. “I see there’s no celestial rule against nature goddesses having a sense of humor.”
“Jaaru will likely shred your mind into unrecognizable pieces, so I thought you would enjoy being sent to the afterlife with a smile on your face.”
“I didn’t know you cared.”
“I confess that I have grown fond of your tiny organic mind since I merged with it to heal your body. You are fascinating.”
“Does that mean you would mate with me if I were a Wruvian male?”
“I believe this is an instance of what the other Earth Eaters refer to as being a chronic flirt. But the answer is yes. However, I must warn you that mating with me would have you offering a lot more than foot rubs.”
I had no doubt of that. “Thank you, Kulara. For everything.”
“Thank me by succeeding against Jaaru.”
“That’s my plan.”
“The wind’s speed to you, Preston Tiptree.”
“By the rushing of the water, Deep Essence of the Life-Giving Soil.”
