The zombies nearest Billy turned to stare at him, waiting for him to make a move. He couldn’t pass by them to get to the elevators without going to the Counters first. He also knew that if he attacked them—as Vester and Tempus had done—his end would come swiftly and without mercy.
He could do as he had done before, and go to the Counters to get his “Billy—unDetermined” badge and then get to the bank of elevators beyond the zombies. But he didn’t see much advantage to that. It wouldn’t help him to get any closer to saving his friends, and there was even the possibility that after his first escape from this room, the zombies might have been told that they were to treat a “Billy—unDetermined” badge just the same as a Dawnwalker badge: attack and destroy on sight.
Billy felt his very limited options pressing in on him. He knew he didn’t have long to choose a course and act, though. As before, at any second a Darksider might happen along. And though the zombies were none too bright, a Darksider—even one who didn’t know Billy—would surely be interested in why this boy was just standing there, instead of moving forward to be Counted.
Even worse, perhaps, was the possibility that a Dawnwalker would appear near Billy, and that he would be caught in the magical crossfire that could erupt between zombies and a Power.
No, he didn’t have much time. He didn’t have many options. And he needed to get to Dark Isle and save his friends as soon as possible.
If they’re even alive, he thought. He tried to stop that depressing possibility from entering his mind, but no matter how much he shouted it down, it kept coming back.
What was it that Rumpelstiltskin had said about his wife? Ah, yes, it was, “I know she’s been taken captive. And I know that some very bad things are going to happen to her soon, if they haven’t already.”
So who was to say that all his friends hadn’t already been destroyed by Wolfen’s army? Billy would be the first to admit that he wasn’t the best history student in Mrs. Russet’s class, but even he knew that in times of war the prisoners often didn’t last long in their prisons.
Maybe I should just go home, Billy thought. Maybe I can get to the elevators, and maybe one of them will know how I can get home. Maybe I can just forget about it, forget about them and go back to living my life the way I did before Mrs. Russet first brought me here.
The thought was tempting. It was almost upsetting, in fact, how much Billy wanted to just go home and go back to the way things had been before. But as he thought this, he suddenly felt as though the world was closing in on him. He felt trapped, imprisoned. Locked in a tiny cell that allowed barely enough room to breathe in. The feeling was oddly familiar.
Then, with a startled jerk, Billy realized why the feeling was familiar.
I’m stuffed in a locker again, he thought. Only this time I’ve put myself there.
And it was true. Each time he had ever been put into a locker, the worst part wasn’t the physical act of being shoved inside. The worst part was when Cameron—or Harold, or Sarah, or whoever was tormenting him that day—said, “Stay here. Don’t tell.” It was the worst part because Billy’s tormentors were not just taking his freedom for a moment, they were stealing it forever, because they knew that, come what may, Billy would obey them. Because they knew Billy was afraid of them, and that Billy would never go against his fear.
But he was different now. He wasn’t the same Billy who had meekly submitted to every indignity. He wasn’t the same Billy who had cowered away from the merest hint of any conflict. No. He wasn’t that boy.
“I am the Messenger,” he said aloud to himself. And he was almost startled. Part of the reason he was startled was just because his voice sounded so out of place in this room that had become something of a mass grave. But mostly he was surprised because he actually believed what he had said.
“I am the Messenger,” he said again. Then he turned to the nearest zombie.
As he did so, Terry’s words came to him. Not the meandering crazy-talk that Rumpelstiltskin had spoken for most of their conversation. Rather, Billy remembered when Terry had been strong and tall, when his mind had seemed whole and coherent. “You are the Messenger,” Terry had told Billy. “You speak for the White King. Speak your Message, and you will prevail.”
Remembering these words, Billy again felt the hairs on his neck and arms stand on end. Somehow, he knew that Terry’s words were true, just as he had known that Terry’s poem was truth. Whether it was some Element or some other force, Billy knew he had heard Truth. Not mere truth in the sense that it is true that two plus two equal four, but Truth in the sense that there were some things that were woven inextricably into the fabric of the universe, engraved on every atom of existence. Billy had heard Truth in Terry’s poem, and he could not deny it.
And, knowing this, he also knew that he had to act on what he knew.
He walked to the nearest zombie. He stood directly in front of it so that the zombie’s huge, faceted eyes were focused only on him. Billy was disconcerted to see that this particular zombie was wearing the tattered remnants of the uniform of a fast food restaurant that Billy knew quite well.
That explains why they never got my order right, he thought crazily, his mind obviously trying to hide from the thought of what Billy had set himself to do.
Billy cleared his throat noisily.
Yup, he thought at the same time. Crazy must be a contagious disease, because I’ve definitely caught it.
At the noise, the zombie moved its neck slightly, adjusting its gaze downward to look more directly at Billy, but other than that it showed no sign it was aware of Billy’s presence. Nor would it, Billy knew, unless Billy tried to attack it or to escape. Then, the zombies would close in on him quickly.
But Billy planned neither to attack nor to attempt an escape. Instead, he hitched himself up, standing as tall as he could—which wasn’t very tall at all—and then he spoke. His voice cracked as he did so, breaking the dignity he had hoped to achieve, but even with that, he was proud of the fact that not only did he manage to get the words out, but he did so without wetting his pants.
“I am the Messenger,” he said. “I speak for the White King. And I bear a message for Wolfen.”
At these words, every single zombie in the room turned their dead, huge eyes on Billy. They moved in unison, so perfectly synchronized that they seemed to be attached somehow. But at the same time, there was no rustling of clothing, no murmurs, no noise at all. The movement of hundreds of zombies brought no sound, only the deep silence of the tomb.
Billy resisted the urge to shrink back under the force of the many undead eyes that now focused exclusively on him. In fact, to his surprise, he felt braver than he had just a moment before. He spoke again, and this time his voice did not crack. It was deeper, more confident.
“I bear a message for Wolfen,” he repeated. Then, with his newfound strength, with a look so powerful and dignified that he felt like his own mother might not have recognized him in that instant, Billy continued. “The White King will speak, and I will be his mouthpiece.”
The zombies looked at one another in confusion. Clearly this was outside the range of instructions they had been given. Tempus had said that zombies were good for simple tasks, and here Billy was obviously pushing them beyond their capacity to act.
Billy walked closer to the zombie he had been talking to. “Do not look away from me, foul creature!” he shouted. The words surprised even him. For a moment, it felt as though Billy was not himself, that he was merely observing his body, which was being controlled by someone infinitely wiser, stronger, and better than Billy himself could ever be.
The zombie jerked its gaze back to Billy, and to his surprise, Billy thought he saw something totally unexpected in the zombie’s weird gaze: fear.
Billy, still strangely disconnected from his own actions, seized on that fear and used it like a weapon. “Yes, fear me,” he said in a voice no longer entirely his own. He was no longer Billy. Or rather, he was Billy, but Billy had very
suddenly become something new and greater than he had been only moments before.
He had become the Messenger.
An almost audible hum could be sensed through the room, as power built within its walls.
Billy pointed a finger at the zombie, then repeated the words, “Fear me, and tremble, for I am the Messenger. I am the one come to prepare the way for the White King’s return. I am the one who will destroy the world.”
He leaned in close to the zombie, finger still pointing at the undead creature.
“Take me to Wolfen,” he said, his voice cold and menacing.
And with that, he reached out and grabbed the zombie’s hand in his own.
Instantly, a cold pulse flashed through Billy’s body. His heart skipped a beat, then sped up.
Then it stopped.
Darkness closed all around Billy.
He sank to the ground.
His eyes closed.
And the darkness claimed him.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
In Which Billy is Surprised who he sees, and Becomes what he Is…
When he opened his eyes, Billy had a sudden understanding of what anvils must feel like. He felt as though a large sledgehammer was pounding white-hot nails into his skull, then those nails were being removed and some kind of strong acid was being poured through the holes and directly into his brain.
“Uhng,” he said. It was the best he could do at the time, and he was actually proud of it. Though not exactly scintillating conversation, it beat out his first impulse—to throw up and immediately pass out again—by a mile.
“Uhng,” Billy said again. Then, to make sure he drove the point home to any listeners, he said it two more times, adding the word “oog” to the last one, just to show he was more than a one-trick wonder.
After this short but heartfelt monologue, Billy dared to crack open one eye. This resulted in a whole new deluge of acid-brain-pouring, so he closed it again. He tried opening the other eye, which had similar results, and so he closed that one as well.
After a moment, he reasoned that maybe the trick was to open both eyes at once, sort of like diving right into the deep end of a swimming pool. He tried this, and quickly discovered that when the swimming pool was full of brain-melting acid, diving into the deep end was probably a bad idea.
In spite of the pain, however, he managed to keep his eyes open, blinking through a haze of tears and trying to make out where he was. At first, all he could see was a dark blur. However, after only a few minutes his sight cleared up to the point where he could see a slightly less dark blur.
Progress, he thought. At this pace, I’ll have the vision of a tree bat in only a few short years.
“Billy,” said a voice.
Billy’s head whipped toward the sound so fast he thought his neck might snap.
“Ivy?” he whispered.
“Oh, it is you,” came the voice. It was rich with happy tears, but sounded strangely muffled.
Billy smiled. He didn’t know where he was, but he was among friends. Or at least, he was among friend. And if Ivy was close by, things couldn’t be all that bad, could they?
“Ivy, what’s going on? Are you all right?” said Billy. He was still blinking madly, trying to get his eyes to remember that he was in charge and that he preferred them to function at all times.
“Oh, Billy, it’s been terrible,” said Ivy. Billy could hear his friend sniffle. “My father, and Vester, and Tempus, and Mrs. Russet,” she began.
“What about them?” Billy almost shouted. “Where are they? Where are we?”
As he said this, his vision slowly started to resolve. He saw that he was in a cell of some kind. It was cubical, about ten feet to a side, but instead of being made of bars and concrete, the ceiling, floor, and walls were all made of what looked like thick glass. And as far as he could see, there was no entry or exit anywhere. Just a perfect, unbroken cube. He wondered how he was going to keep breathing, since the place certainly looked airtight. But then he realized that living long enough to run out of air was probably a best-case scenario anyway, and just let go of that line of thought.
As he looked around, he saw that he wasn’t alone. There were other cubes. Thousands of them, it seemed, all stacked on top of each other in a mountain of transparent cells. Billy’s own holding cell was about ten cubes above the ground. He could see straight below him to the mass of other glass cells underneath his. They were all full, all the cubes he could see. Each one held a single person in it. Some of the people slept, others paced back and forth in their tiny compartments. Some were screaming in fear, others moaning with dreadful resignation to their fates.
He looked up, and realized he couldn’t see the sky: row upon row of other cells were stacked above his, and the mass of bodies above him obscured his view. He couldn’t even tell how many rows of cells there were above him. There were enough that they all blurred together at some point. The weight of the cells and the people in them seemed to press down on Billy, making him feel claustrophobic as no trip through the depths of the earth had managed to do. He felt like he had been stuffed in the world’s most awful locker.
Billy looked to his left and right now, trying to spot Ivy among the hive of Dawnwalkers who were imprisoned in this magical jail of sorts. At last, he spotted the Green Power, and gasped at her appearance. Ivy was still clothed in her plants, but those plants were completely wilted, if not dead. Scattered brown and yellow leaves littered the floor of her transparent cell, and the rest of the vines that still wrapped themselves around her looked brittle and pale. She was slumped against the wall of her cell, a cube that was only about twenty feet away from Billy’s.
“Ivy,” he said again, “what’s going on? Where are we?”
“We’re in—” she began, but a voice interrupted her.
“You’re in Wolfen’s power,” said the voice. “More than that, you don’t need to know.”
Billy whipped around in time to see a dark hole appear behind him. And out of the hole stepped the owner of the voice, that low, too-sweet voice that contemplated death as a delicacy.
Mrs. Black smiled, her almost happy bearing belied by the animalistic leer in her eyes and the predatory twist of her mouth. “So, my boy, we work so hard to catch you, when all we really had to do was wait for you to catch yourself.” Mrs. Black smiled daintily. “I must confess I’m somewhat disappointed,” she said. “I had hoped to have some…alone time with you.”
Billy gulped. He glanced toward Ivy, and saw that his friend was pressed against the wall of her cell that was closest to Billy, a look of concern on her face. The plants she wore apparently weren’t completely lifeless, because they twitched and writhed with brittle scrapings, echoing their mistress’s fear.
Billy looked back at Mrs. Black, surprised to see that she hadn’t conjured up some kind of enchanted firearm or at the very least a pointy stick to jab him with.
Mrs. Black seemed to understand the look on his face, because her smile drooped a fraction. “Don’t worry, we’ve decided not to touch you. Not yet, at any rate.” Then her shark’s grin returned suddenly. She waved a hand, and Billy felt terror course through him. The Dread. He gasped, and immediately doubled over as Mrs. Black leaned in close. “Lucky for me,” she said, “there are a lot of things I can do without actually touching you at all.”
Another wave, and the fear Billy felt increased, almost immobilizing him in its terrible grip. Silent tears poured down Billy’s face. He felt something warm at his heart, and looked down. Bent double, he could see down the loose neck of his t-shirt, and he spotted Prince in there. The fire snake Fizzle had encircled itself around Billy’s torso, and was now pressing its head against Billy’s chest, near his heart. It was Prince that was giving Billy the feeling of warmth, and with it some measure of resistance to Mrs. Black’s spell of Dread.
Billy blinked back his tears, not wanting to give Mrs. Black the satisfaction of seeing him cry. But he still couldn’t move.
“No!�
�� shouted Ivy, her hands banging uselessly against her glass cell.
Mrs. Black looked at the Green Power and laughed. “Does this bother you, Ivy my dear?” Another dark laugh, then Mrs. Black continued, “Too bad the prison cancels out the Dawnwalkers’ Powers, isn’t it?”
“If you hurt him, so help me, I’ll—” began Ivy, her small fists curled at her sides.
“You’ll what?” interrupted Mrs. Black. She prodded Billy with her toe as she spoke, as though he were a cockroach that was lying on its back, and she was checking him for life before wadding him up in tissue and then dropping him down the toilet. “I know your type, little Ivy. Ever the peace-maker, ever the pacifist.” Mrs. Black’s prodding turned almost into a kick. But Billy hardly noticed. Indeed, he would have been glad to have something to focus on other than the bad memories and terrible feelings of fear and inadequacy that accompanied the Dread. “You’re all about peace and love,” continued Mrs. Black to Ivy. “But when push comes to shove, those things don’t even mean enough to you to be willing to fight to keep them, do they?”
The warmth at Billy’s bosom increased, and he managed to rise slowly to his feet.
“That’s it, Billy,” shouted Ivy. “Don’t let her beat you! Don’t let her get you down!”
“Silence!” snarled Mrs. Black. She waved a dismissive hand at Ivy, and instantly most of Ivy’s plants went from brown or gray to deep black. The flowers and vines around her died instantly, and Ivy winced as though this had caused her some kind of physical pain.
That would make sense, Billy realized in the midst of his misery. If the Powers put their own essences into their spells, that would mean that killing Ivy’s plants would result in some pain to her personally.
Billy: Messenger of Powers Page 32
