As soon as he said this, the closest zombies apparently decided that this was indeed a hostile enemy, because they suddenly lunged at Vester. But before they could get to him, Tempus clapped his hands together with the sound of thunder. Completely gone was the feeble and silly man, and now a mighty Gray Power of the Wind stood in his place. A turbulent whirlwind knocked the nearest zombies off their feet as Tempus gestured, and the wind that Billy had first seen Tempus dressed in now cloaked his body once more, the dark gray clouds writhing around him, dark and angry.
But even though the first wave of attackers had been knocked down, for every one zombie that fell two more took its place. Billy could also see that even the fallen zombies were shuffling once more to their feet, turning baleful eyes toward his friends.
But Vester had not been idle, either. As soon as Tempus cast his first spell, Vester had grabbed the tail of his Fizzle. In one quick motion he cracked the snake at the nearest zombies, wielding the lava animal like a whip. The snake bit at every creature it touched, and the zombies in range of Vester’s attack were forced to fall back or be scorched by the terrible heat of the snake.
Tempus, meanwhile, was still using his power over the air to push zombies away from him, knocking them into walls, into each other, into anything.
For a few moments, the zombies could not seem to get through the defenses of wind and flame that Billy’s friends had erected. He heard a sizzling in the air as the lava Fizzle managed to bite several zombies, charring their flesh and causing them to fall back with moans of pain.
But still they came, the Darksiders’ horrible troops merciless and unresting. They couldn’t be stopped, they couldn’t be killed. Slowly, slowly, they pressed ever closer to Billy’s friends.
Billy could see that the Gray and Red Powers who were so valiantly fighting were tiring now. He remembered what Vester had said at Fulgora’s Challenge: that spells took a lot of energy. And he knew from things that Vester and Tempus had said that neither of them was a top-level Power, not on par with a Councilor or someone with that kind of spell strength at their disposal. So Vester’s attacks with the lava snake were slowing, and each of Tempus’s winds was a little less strong and threw a couple fewer zombies away from them.
Through all this, Billy pressed himself against the glass case of the Counter, trying to avoid being touched by any of the zombies nearby. But they had no interest in him, and not a one moved toward him. Apparently Vester had been right: until someone was shown to be a Dawnwalker—either by receiving a Dawnwalker badge as Ivy had or by attacking the zombies like Vester and Tempus were doing—the zombies wouldn’t attack.
But Vester and Tempus had attacked, and they were now paying the price for their courageous stand. The zombies pressed in on Billy’s friends, a horrible writhing mass, frightening to behold. As with Ivy, soon he could no longer see Vester or Tempus. But he could hear the struggle continuing long after he could no longer view what was happening.
Then, quite suddenly, there was silence. The deathly silence of the grave. The undead soldiers that had pressed in on Vester and Tempus withdrew into their semi-orderly mass, once again allowing three aisles to the Counters. Billy saw with some satisfaction that many of the zombies moved with less grace than before, their bones broken by Tempus’s wind, and even more of them bore the burn marks of Vester’s snakebites.
But Billy’s friends were no more. Vester and Tempus, like Ivy, were gone.
And Billy was alone.
He looked around. Every zombie in the huge Accounting Room was now focused on him. Watching. Waiting. He experimented a bit by taking a step away from the Counter against which he had been cowering. At this, the zombies drew close to him, and several reached out their hands to within inches of him. Apparently there was no going back.
Billy turned slowly to the Counter. He pressed the button on the side of the glass case, as he had before.
The Counter dropped a badge into the receptacle. Billy picked it up. Once again, “Billy—unDetermined” was all the badge said. Billy stuck it to his shirt, where it magically remained. He had his eyes closed as he did so, more than half expecting the zombies to lunge at him.
As he put on the badge, he felt a strange coolness travel up his leg. Was this what it felt like when a zombie touched you? he wondered. A cool feeling, and then…nothing?
But the cool feeling dissipated as suddenly as it had come, and Billy remained standing. He risked cracking one eye open. The zombies were still all around him. But now they didn’t seem to even notice him. They just stood still, looking in all directions, clearly waiting for any new arrivals. As for Billy, however, it was as though he no longer existed in their minds.
Tempus was right, he thought to himself. They don’t even really notice me. Because I’m not a Power, and I’m not a Dawnwalker. Not yet, anyway.
But even though he was not in imminent danger of attack, he still didn’t see how his situation could be described as anything less than horrid. No spells of his own, no powers to control, no friends to help, and surrounded by a horde of undead soldiers working for what he understood to be the most evil and powerful Black Power of all time.
And to think I ever believed Harold Crane was scary, thought Billy. The thought brought to mind the image of Harold and Sarah, both looking like they had just wet their pants thanks to Tempus’s spell. Billy almost smiled. Then he remembered what had just happened to Tempus, and the smile disappeared faster than an ice cube dropped in a fire.
Billy felt like crying, just curling up right there next to the Counter and weeping until he passed out. But he couldn’t do that, he knew. He didn’t have the luxury of doing something like that. Not after what his friends had just done. They had gone bravely to their fate. Billy would not—could not—just give up after seeing that kind of courage.
He looked around. What could he use in here? What could be done to get out of his current predicament? He remembered his father talking about his job as a paramedic. In one of the few moments in his life where his father had really opened up to Billy, he had told him about being in the middle of an accident scene that had left over a dozen people in various stages of injury. Billy had asked how his father even knew what to do first, let alone remembering how to do it. His father had looked at him and said, “In any emergency where life is on the line, you calmly assess the situation. Determine a course of action. Then act on it without hesitation.” Well, now Billy knew his own life hung in the balance, and he would have to stay calm and find a way out of here.
As he looked, though, he saw nothing particularly useful, not until…. The elevators! He didn’t know if they were still working, but imagined they probably would be, to allow the Darksiders who might come around to get from place to place on the island.
But would they work for him? And even if they did, where would he go?
Billy decided to answer those questions later, and just take things one step at a time. He was already drowning in an ocean of problems, so these difficulties just added a teacup more of water to his troubles.
And the first problem became readily apparent: no fewer than fifty zombies stood between him and where he wanted to go. He took a step toward the elevators. Though the zombies didn’t make a move to attack him, they didn’t get out of his way, either. There was no clear path to where he wanted to go.
Billy looked for some way around, but saw nothing. The only way out of here would be through the zombies. He took a breath, then oh-so-carefully stepped forward. He walked two steps, and then turned sideways to squeeze between two of the undead monsters. There was barely an inch of clearance on either side of him, and he knew that just touching them would knock him unconscious—if he was lucky. He gingerly took another step, moving to another small space between zombies. And another. It was like he was playing a giant game of pickup sticks, only instead of not being allowed to let any sticks move, he wasn’t allowed to move himself. And the consequences of losing would be much more severe than any game Billy had
ever played.
It seemed to take hours to move the hundred or so feet to the elevators, and Billy’s muscles were quivering from the effort of moving so slowly and carefully. But at last he made it. The elevators stood before him, silent and unmoving.
Then, suddenly, Billy heard a “pop.”
He looked over, and saw someone stepping through a dark hole that had opened in the room at about the same place Billy and his friends had just appeared. Billy could see through the Transport doorway that had been opened. He glimpsed a dark place with lit torches, a place made of dank stone and chains. If there was an encyclopedia somewhere that had a List of Ten Places You Never Want to Find Yourself, the place Billy saw was definitely near the top.
But he didn’t have much time to process the place the newcomer had come from, because most of Billy’s attention was on the person himself.
The newcomer spied Billy almost at the same instant Billy saw him.
“You!” snarled Cameron Black.
Cameron started to run toward Billy, the bigger boy’s hand outstretched, no doubt preparing to cast some evil spell that would quickly end Billy’s existence.
But now the zombies moved, closing in quickly on Cameron. It seemed that he, too, had to go to the Counter before he would be allowed to do anything else. “No,” shrieked Cameron. “I’m a Darksider, you idiots!” But it was no use. The zombies herded the bigger boy to a Counter and wouldn’t let him near Billy.
Billy, meanwhile, had turned around and was hurriedly stabbing at the elevator call button. He waited a very long time—maybe one millionth of a second—before hitting the button again in a rapid series of stabs that he knew would leave his thumb bruised. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of here.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered.
Cameron had gotten his badge now. “Cameron Black—Darksider,” it said.
As soon as he stuck it on his shirt, the zombies started to clear a path for the bigger boy to move to the elevators. “Move, move!” screamed Cameron, unable to get to Billy as fast as he wanted. The Black Power’s hand was stretched out again, and Billy said a quick prayer that Cameron couldn’t do anything long distance.
Apparently Cameron couldn’t, because in spite of how hard his heart was now beating, Billy was grateful to feel that it was still beating. He kept stabbing the elevator button.
Cameron was within twenty feet now.
Billy was sure he was breaking all the bones in his thumb. “Please, please, please, please,” he said in a wheeze that disturbed him to hear coming from his own mouth.
Fifteen feet.
Ten feet.
Nine….
Eight….
Seven….
DING!
Billy almost fainted with relief—which would have been a very bad strategy under the present circumstances—as the nearest elevator slid open with a musical chime. “Whaddya want?” it asked in a familiar New York accident. It was the same elevator that had taken Billy and Vester to the stadium to see Fulgora’s Challenge against Napalm. Without waiting for a reply to its question, the elevator said in a bright Bronx tone, “Hey, it’s you! Where’s your buddy, the fireman?”
Billy threw himself into the elevator. Behind him, Cameron screamed in rage and then said something under his breath. Billy felt something nameless whip by him, numbing the tip of his ear. Whatever spell Cameron had tried to throw at him, it had just barely missed.
“Close!” screamed Billy. Cameron was raising his hand again, clearly close enough to hit Billy with something awful that would end his adventure right now.
“Where you wanna go?” asked the elevator.
“UP!” was all Billy could think to say.
“You got it!” said the elevator. Cameron said a word, and then moved his arm like he was pitching a fastball right at Billy’s head, but at the last second the elevator’s doors slid shut. There was a muffled thud outside at almost the same instant.
“Ow!” howled the elevator. “No respect, I tells ya.” Billy felt the elevator begin to move upward, and saw as before flashes of the floors they were passing. He felt like kissing the elevator. “Ever since the place got put under new management,” the elevator was still saying in its cabbie-like voice, “everything’s just the pits.”
“Sorry,” Billy said automatically, still reveling in the experience of being neither zombie-zapped nor Cameron-creamed.
“Yeah, you’re all right,” said the elevator. “You and your buddy, what was his name?”
“Vester,” said Billy sadly.
“Yeah, he was a good one. Good sense of humor. Not a lot of folks with senses of humor, especially not these days. Here,” it continued, “you look pooped. Take a load off.” A seat popped out of the side wall, and Billy dropped into it gratefully. He felt like a tire with all the air let out of it, flat and spent.
The elevator was still talking. “Yeah, now it’s just nasty people. No politeness, now it’s just ‘Go here,’ and ‘Do that,’ and ‘No, I will not take my dead bodies up the stairs.’ It’s enough to make a grown elevator cry.”
“Sorry,” said Billy again. This time, he was more talking to himself. He felt very alone once again, the elation over his narrow escape dissipating and a sense of solitude, fear, and desperation taking its place. Vester. Tempus. Ivy. All of them gone. Maybe unconscious wherever they were, maybe worse.
Billy sniffled in spite of himself. He felt hot, stinging tears. Partly they were fear, partly they were shame. He felt embarrassed. Ivy, ever the hopeful pacifist, had gone with dignity to her fate. Vester and Tempus had fought like Roman gladiators, without fear even though there was no hope of victory. And what had Billy done? Cowered and ran.
Billy’s mom had told him a lot of times that fighting usually wasn’t a good thing, and that sometimes it took more courage to run from a fight than it did to get into one. The way she had told him that, he got the sense that she knew about it from personal experience. As always with his parents, she wouldn’t talk about whatever it was in her past that made her believe it so fervently, but Billy believed her.
But at the same time, he didn’t see how his mom’s philosophy about running away could possibly apply here; he didn’t see how running away would be a sign of bravery or wisdom in this case. He hadn’t done anything. He had no power. No Unicorn had come to save the day. All he’d done was provide an audience to his friends’ defeat.
He sniffled. “Say,” said the elevator. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” said Billy.
“Here,” said the elevator. “Have a hanky.” A box popped out of a compartment and Billy took the proffered tissue. He blew his nose loudly. “Don’t litter, though,” said the elevator, and another compartment popped open, with a little sign above it that said, “Biodegradable Trash Only—No Fizzles or Rock Monsters.” Billy tossed his tissue into the trash, then put his head in his hands.
“Hey,” said the elevator. “Cheer up, it can’t be as bad as it seems. Whatever it is, it just can’t be.”
“You’re right,” said Billy. “It isn’t as bad as it seems, it’s about a million billion trillion times worse.”
“Whoa,” said the elevator. “That’s pretty bad.” Billy nodded sadly. “Well, if you want, I can give you some magic that will help, guaranteed.”
Billy felt himself brighten somewhat. Perhaps this elevator was more than just a conveyance: maybe it was one of the allies Mrs. Russet’s frog-message had spoken of. “Really?” Billy asked. “What magic?”
“The magic,” began the elevator, and a drum roll sounded from its speakers, building up the suspense, “of good humor.”
“What?” asked Billy, totally confused.
“Did ya hear the one about the two peanuts who were in an alley and got assaulted?” the elevator asked with a braying laugh. “What about the one where the mushroom walks into a restaurant and the manager tells him, ‘We don’t serve mushrooms here,’ and the mushroom says, ‘Why not? I’m a fun-g
uy.’ Get it? Fun-guy. Like ‘fungi,’ like a fancy word for a mushroom. Ah-hahahaha!” The elevator was cackling semi-hysterically at its own jokes, and Billy could actually feel the thing rocking back and forth with laughter.
Billy just sat there dully, not sure how to react. Jokes were definitely not the thing he needed right now. He needed something tougher on his side. Like a deadly poisonous bear made entirely of smaller but also-poisonous bees. Or at least an F-16 fighter jet.
The elevator was still laughing. Then the laughter petered out, and Billy could swear he heard the sound of jolly tears being wiped from an eye. “Whew! Those never go out of style, do they?” asked the elevator.
Then it dinged. Billy jumped at the sudden sound.
“What was that?” he asked.
“We’re here,” replied the elevator, still wheezing from its fit of laughter. The doors slid open.
“Where’s ‘here’?” asked Billy, but the view he was presented with as the doors opened gave him his answer.
“You said you just wanted to go up,” answered the elevator. “Well, this is as up as I go.”
It was the top of the tower. Nearby, Billy could see the river that bisected the tower, though instead of being bordered by beautiful flowers and leaves, now the river was muddy and full of rocks. The tower itself was covered in rubble, evidence of the fight that Ivy had told Billy about. The Darksiders had taken the Dawnwalkers of the Council, but Billy could see that, like Tempus and Vester, the Councilors hadn’t gone down without a fight.
Nevertheless, this didn’t look like a good place to be. The top of the tower would be open and exposed, nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide if he was found.
“Well?” prompted the elevator, and Billy realized he hadn’t moved a muscle.
“Uh,” said Billy, unsure. “Couldn’t I go somewhere else?”
“Like where?” asked the elevator.
“Um, somewhere to hide?” asked Billy hopefully. A hiding spot would be good. And quick, because he had no way of knowing if Cameron could find out where he’d gone to, or if the bigger boy was hot on his trail.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 27
