Next to me on the sand, Teddy's tawny head lifted up, eyes glowing. He moved his hand, forming something and muttering to himself.
Emmett said, "Then we just—" He slapped the air with his hand and I saw the blob Teddy was forming fly away. It looked like a half-shaped pistol. Teddy snarled. He pulled up a bow and arrows. SLAP! It spun from his grasp and into Emmett's, who tucked it into his kriot.
"So, you see, after that they—" Emmett kept talking. Teddy mind-lifted a huge pile of creaking refrigerators, twisted metal, half-burned tires—and let it rain down on Emmett the All. Worry flitted through my mind as Emmett disappeared under a pile so much like the one he'd died under. I wanted to cry out to him, but I steadied my voice and said, "So what did you do?"
"At that point, we simply—" Emmett's voice sounded from under the pile. The junk lifted up and flew off in every direction. Emmett the All hovered above the sand, unchanged except for a touch of grease on his face.
"Of course. I see completely why that would have worked," I said. "But since you weren't in the Lexiverse, you couldn't do this: 'Heather wiped the grease from Emmett's face as he continued to trounce his younger brother.'" I glided to his side and dabbed the grease from his forehead.
"Ha!" Teddy propelled himself up, grabbed on, and bit my calf.
I yelped at the sharp sting. "He's biting me!"
"NO, YOU DON'T!" boomed Emmett the All, so loudly I almost wished I'd let Teddy keep biting me. Teddy dropped off me in shock and Emmett pounced atop Teddy.
It looked for all the worlds like a fight between two siblings. Emmett sat on Teddy, holding his arms, while Teddy sobbed, kicking his legs uselessly in the air. Then Emmett grabbed Teddy's arms and I winced as he performed the final humiliation.
"Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!" Emmett slapped Teddy's face again and again with Teddy's own hands. Teddy struggled and yelled, but could not free himself. He flickered back to Bellum's old man form several times, but the shape did not hold.
After Emmett twisted Teddy's arm in a half-nelson and made him say, "Classic Evil is my hero," Teddy was ready to admit defeat.
"Are you sure? You want some more?" I haven't even made you smell your own socks or given you an atomic wedgie," said Emmett. His smile flickered in and out.
"I'm sorry! I give!" squealed Teddy. "I'll tell Mom! No more! I give up—you win!"
"There were no atomic wedgies in 1900," I said, frowning. I didn't approve of any more violence than necessary.
"You're beat and that's final!" Emmett huffed. "Sit in time out until we're ready for you and don't move, or I'll whip you again!"
Teddy snuffled off to stand in a cloudy corner.
"And keep quiet!" said Emmett in a stern voice. "The grownups are talking."
Teddy whimpered, but otherwise stayed quiet and still.
Emmett turned to me, his arms open, but he didn't get too close. I could almost feel his hug through the air, but I realized then—having a relationship with a deity could be a less-than-rewarding experience in some ways. Much as I longed to, I couldn't kiss Emmett the All. Still, our victory over Bellum was a huge relief.
"Think we've done it?" I asked. When Emmett the All's smile shone and sunshine flooded over the clouded plain, I knew.
"You were amazing," said Emmett. "How'd you get me to fight like that?"
I shrugged. "I know how you like to lecture . . ." I rolled my eyes.
"I do! I also like to kiss. You. For an hour. In ecto-time." He gave me a sly smile, while I ducked my head, feeling my face burn. How I'd love to kiss that smile right off his glorious face! But how? Looking directly at him for more than a few seconds gave me a migraine. I couldn't even hug him the way he was now.
"I know we have to deal with Teddy first," said Emmett the All. "I'm so glad you're here. You're so strong. And Aether—I've been so scared of Teddy, but I'm even more scared of what I have to do now. To him." He nodded in Teddy's direction, and Teddy turned, glared silently.
"I'm strong? I make you feel less scared?" I glanced at the golden deity levitating before me—the All, god of the spirit world—and had to shield my eyes.
"You're thinking, He's a god, for the love of All. He should be able to handle this!" said Emmett. "But you don't know Teddy like I do. He's a really scary kid. The lengths he will go to—attacking me in my sleep. Setting the house on fire, before he was three. Then, the day we rode in the zeppelin, I was so excited to be up there, I never imagined what he might do. No one sane would have interfered with those controls. Who would suspect a five-year-old child could be capable of that?"
"Oh, I've seen what he can do," I said. My father—the flash of spectricity that blew him back, left him burned and withered. I shuddered at the memory of Emmett's oh-so-recent death by arrows, junk—and bb gun. "You do recall how he killed you?"
Emmett the All lowered his head in misery, his light dimming. "That, I am sorry to say, was nothing. A merciful death by Bellum's standards. Shows how much he was weakened from killing a mortal when he was a god."
"What will we do with him?" I asked. "We can't kill him and we can't exorcise him, but we've got to end this. For my father and you and everyone he's cruxed with. He's got to go down." My hands crackled. I wished for one fervent second I could just let loose with the spectricity on Bellum. "He knows the spirit names of the new Coterie. He knows Sam's spirit name and my spirit name."
"Your artifact protects you, but for the others . . ." He stretched forth his hand. "Yes. I'd better give everyone's names the All's blessing. It's the only way to be sure." He intoned them into the clouded air. "Aether, Samhain, Stella Maris, Tense, Oz—receive the auspicious blessing and unending protection of the All."
Emmett bent toward me, a long sigh whispering through his form. It wisped upwards, a curl of smoke barely visible. Emmett glanced at it and let it travel, for once.
"That will protect them?" I asked. "They won't be destroyed, like the original Coterie Four?"
"Their names cannot be used to summon or destroy them," said Emmett. "Nor can yours, even without the Ring of Esperance."
"Well, that's something," I said. "Too bad the original Four couldn't have gotten your blessing, oh All." I squinted a frown upward at him.
"It was not possible." The great All sighed again, smoke curling upward. "Those four kept their spirit names well-hidden. Even I do not know them."
"Oh." This had never occurred to me. "Couldn't you do something to discover them?"
"Ah, Aether, I think they are safer this way," he whispered. "Don't you? Anyway, just because the Bellum hasn't got their spirit names, as you can see—it's no guarantee."
I nodded, slowly. Bellum had still managed to destroy them in other ways. "I think I'm beginning to see," I said. I also felt like I was getting a sunburn. How long could I remain in the All's presence like this? "The All is part of it all. You can't control everything that happens either, can you?"
"I submit to the totality and it brings me into oneness with all things," he whispered.
"So, you control nothing," I said. "What will you do with the Bellum, then?"
"It's a problem," he admitted. "Bellum's more than a spirit. Same as me. He's a power of the spirit world. A god. A deity. Almost a force of unnature. I can't tell you the trouble I've had containing him."
"Couldn't you—send him back to the living world? Make him reincarnate? Wouldn't that take his powers?" I knitted my forehead in thought.
"It doesn't work. He's so greedy for power that he seeks death and destruction in life, so he can get back here. In our last life, he killed us both in a zeppelin accident, as well as our parents, a lot of other people . . ." Emmett choked, his voice tight. He continued, in lower tones. "That's why I stopped reincarnating, gave up being a deity, and stayed a mid-level spirit with no memory of my former selves. To stop him! When I'm a god, he fights me for the Coming End! When I'm mortal, he tries to end me. Any time I try to take a hiatus, live a life, here he comes. He's always got to do w
hatever I do!"
I gently squeezed Emmett's hand, careful to let go quickly. The gentle All spirit had chosen to give up his powers rather than allow his brother to continue in seeking destruction. Yet it hadn't worked. The order of things reinstated itself and they'd sought each other. Even addled, Emmett had sought out the Bellum and found him—through me. Although I'd just helped Emmett win the fight, it tortured me that I'd been instrumental in unmasking the All before Bellum.
"We'll do it together, whatever has to be done," I said. "He killed my father . . . and me, once. And he killed you."
"So many times," said Emmett.
Through the veil of the All's vaporous, flickering incarnation, I thought I saw Teddy smile.
"There is a solution, but it is not easy for me." Emmett's voice caught and he choked back a sob. "I will cast him out. He'll be banished and the threat of the Coming End forestalled. There is a place. If he goes there, he never comes back. Do you remember the portal field, when I first brought you to the spirit world? The hole to the Underwood I warned you not to fall down?"
"Is it like hell?" I asked.
"It's hell, old school," said Emmett. "It's sheol, the land of night. A place of shades, devils, and wickedness, unmitigated evil and unthinking meanness. The inhabitants don't suffer in flames. Teddy's done enough of that and it doesn't deter him. His punishment will be to deal with himself and others like him. That is all. He cannot leave once he enters. He will be forever trapped."
"So, when a spirit is so reprehensible that they mostly harm others . . . I suppose they go under the wood," I said.
"Some do. If we catch them, yes. They go down there," said Emmett.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the small form of Teddy creeping closer. His eyes bugged out at what he heard, then he began fading.
"Emmett, your brother!" I said. Before he disappeared completely, I summoned him. "Teddy Fitzhugh, come here!"
Teddy screeched and kicked, but summoned thus, moved closer and closer to Emmett's outstretched hands.
"See, this is why I need a psychic!" said Emmett the All. He nodded his approval at the surrounding clouds, the junk, me. "He's still weak. If we hurry, a powerful spiritualist presence like yours will give me just enough edge on him."
Emmett gripped Teddy's arm, while the little boy squirmed and kicked.
"No! Please!" Teddy started to really blubber, tears rolling down his round cheeks. "I don't want to go down there!"
His tears made me tear up as well. He appeared to be no more than a little kid. But that kid had caused more senseless suffering than I could comprehend. Teddy had to go, for the safety of everyone in the worlds.
A twist of my ring showed the location of the nearest Underwood portal. I focused on the location, pointed my finger at a junk pile, and we watched a pinpoint hole open up into a wide portal. Larger and larger grew the whirling gray vortex. Unlike the ghost portals, this one stretched out horizontally, inviting us to walk in.
"An Aether portal!" said Emmett. Had he really known I could make portals? If so, he wouldn't have had to die. Had I only tried a little harder in the Lexiverse, I could have gotten us both out alive.
But I didn't know. And I doubt mortal Emmett did either.
Emmett grabbed one of Teddy's arms and I grabbed the other. Despite his screaming and struggling, we walked him into the portal between us. We hung on to him as the portal spun us, in case he tried to make a break for it. But Teddy really was greatly weakened and did not managed to escape.
We alighted outside Dead Town. There, in the gray, dead earth of the flat field, several portal holes pocked the smooth surface. Teddy shrieked when he saw the deep hole leading down to the mysterious world of the Underwood. He fought with incredible strength and Emmett could barely hold him. Then I placed a hand on Teddy's head and he calmed, stunned.
"Do it now, while he's quiet," I said, shuddering and looking away.
"Teddy, for two thousand years, I've loved you and you've followed me and brought destruction everywhere we went. I never wanted to hurt you—" Emmett choked up and blinked. "But it's time for you to go where you can't hurt anybody anymore. I'm releasing you, Theodore Fitzhugh, to the Underwood of the Damned."
Emmett held Teddy's body out over the hole. Teddy struggled violently, yelling and screaming, and succeeded in throwing Emmett off balance.
"Hold on to me!" Emmett shouted. I grabbed his coattails. This close, the portal pulled at us with a sucking sensation. Emmett attempted to lower Teddy into this suction.
Teddy suddenly flipped upside down and broke loose. He zipped upward, trying to fly out of reach, but Emmett and I together managed to grab him. I held his legs, while Emmett gripped his arms. Together, we lowered Teddy—the Bellum—downward, into the hole.
Still Teddy hovered, clawing the air just above the hole, for a long minute in ecto-time.
"One . . . two . . . THREE!" shouted Emmett and we gave a big heave.
"Ha HA!" said Teddy, and he spun down into the hole and disappeared. Relieved, I tried to back up. Only then did I realize Emmett and I were terribly off balance and caught in the portal's suction. Now it pulled us, inch by inch, down the slick sides of the hole. Emmett threw his muffler, trying to hook the edge, but the smooth surface yielded nothing for the scarf to catch on. Emmett and I grasped hands, whirled above the portal for one breathless moment. Then we tumbled down, down, into the spirit portal. Emmett strove to float us up, but the suction only increased under the portal's lip. We were sucked helplessly downward, spiraling into the dark depths of the Underwood.
Chapter Nine
The Underwood
Emmett caught me in his arms before we crashed into the jagged, rocky floor below. Then he released me. The rapid drop had knocked the breath out of me and I hovered unsteadily on my own. I squinted into the darkness below us.
A new world! The Underwood was vast indeed, a cavern of black rock that stretched much farther than I could see. Above, formations like huge tree roots garnished the ceiling. I could hear the faint rippling sound of an underground stream echoing from far away. Here and there, glowing orbs bobbed suspended in the air, lightning the cavern. Far in the distance, cold green lights flickered. They resembled tiny camp fires. I thought they might be signs of habitation, but from where we floated, I couldn't judge their size.
"Wait up here a moment, Aether," said Emmett. He swooped downward and I could see his slight glow in the gloom, gliding along the floor of the cavern. Then he was floating by my side again. "It's rocks and earth. Seems harmless enough," he whispered into my ear.
I rubbed my ear to rid it of the tickle from his ghost whisper. I noticed he was glowing, but only in that subtle, ghostly way. Not in a way that burned my eyeballs and gave me a throbbing headache.
Holding Emmett's hand for balance, I lowered down to the cavern floor with him. His hand didn't burn mine, only buzzed a little. Then we landed on the rugged cave floor and my mouth went dry with panic.
"Emmett, we're in the Underwood!" I said.
"I know!" He gulped. His form wavered in the dark air.
I spun in circles, trying to see everywhere at once. "Where's Teddy?"
Emmett copied me, lifting up off the cave floor as he spun. "I don't know!"
Nothing moved in the vast darkness surrounding us, neither spirits nor little boys. Emmett glided up ten feet and scanned all around. "I don't see him anywhere. But we're here. We're definitely in the Underwood." His teeth ground together in a terrified expression that had "Yipes!" written all over it. He glided back down to my side.
"He did go in, didn't he?" I said. "If we had to sacrifice ourselves like this, at least we stopped the Bellum. Right?"
"I'm certain I saw him go down," said Emmett. "He knocked us off balance. That's why we fell in."
Our heroism wasn't making me feel a lot better, though. I stared into the void of the seemingly infinite cavern.
"Oh, Emmett!" I wailed. "What are we going to do? Trapped forever in the b
owels of the Underwood! I just knew it! I had a nasty feeling that something would go wrong."
Emmett chuckled, despite the situation. "I wish you'd mention it when you get those nasty feelings. We spirits of Dead Town like nasty feelings." He gave me a wicked grin.
I laughed. I took another long look at him. He faded out, then reappeared, that same ghostly glow surrounded him.
"You look . . . different," I said. "Like a mid-level spirit again."
Emmett shut his eyes tight and folded his arms. He rose off the ground, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Then his eyes popped wide open. "I'm afraid the All incarnation is no more."
"Hidden again?" I groaned. "Are you certain? I was hoping you could deity us out of here or something."
"I believe I explained this at length—" Emmett shook his lecturing finger at me.
"I know, I know," I said. "Once anyone enters the Underwood, they can never return.
"That is correct. I'm glad you paid attention." He lowered the lecturing finger, frowning. Probably because I'd robbed him of the opportunity to give another lecture.
"So where did the All go?" I asked. "Since you seem to want to explain things."
"Oh, well obviously," he huffed. "I'm . . . I'm not entirely sure." He felt his body over from head to toes, a mystified expression on his face. When he got to his spats, he said, "I seem to have de-unified. Do you still have my Nonbook?"
I patted my sleeve and nodded. "My guess is you lost the god powers because we're down here. Maybe I can incant you again?"
Emmett nodded, dark shadows dancing across his face. "We may certainly try to incant the All, my little protégée. However, the loss of the All manifestation may be an effect of the Underwood. In that case, the All may not manifest here. This is Lord Plouton's realm. No one from Dead Town or the upper regions has ever returned from the Underwood so obviously, we don't know its effects. I do know the Underwood is powerful enough to hold a deity with the same power level as the Bellum. It has held Lord Plouton for these many eons." He gave me a look as serious as the grave. "It most likely will hold me as well."
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