The Wicked Passage (A Blake Wyatt Adventure)

by Singel, N. M.

  It turned back to Blake. “So this is what the great Michael Wyatt’s son looks like. Not very impressive, I must say.”

  Blake gripped the book tighter. His heart was thumping so loud, he could swear it was beating through the cover of the book. He stared at Price’s rigid, burned body. “Is he . . . dead?”

  “No. But I suspect when I release him, he’ll wish he were.”

  Blake swallowed hard. He needed to get out of there. Maybe he could outrun this thing, but after seeing what had happened to Hugo Price, that didn’t seem like an option. He wasn’t going to stand there and get fried by this giant blowtorch. If he had all this power, then surely he should be able to use it. But how?

  “Just hand it over, Blakemore Wyatt, and this will all go away,” the creature said, reaching out.

  “No!” Blake tried to make a path through the rows of desks.

  The giant laughed. “Typical Wyatt, stubborn and stupid, just like your father.”

  “My father was not stupid!” Blake clutched the chronicle. Somehow he knew his life depended on it.

  “Well, Mr. Wyatt, although this has been delightful, I no longer have time for your antics. I am going to ask you but one more time. Hand over the chronicle. Now.”

  Blake recoiled into the back wall, hitting his elbow on the old pencil sharpener screwed to the cinder block. Everything normal was telling him that none of this could be real, but the pain in his elbow definitely was real.

  “The book’s mine!” Blake shouted back.

  “Mr. Wyatt, you can make this easy or difficult. I can only assume you’d prefer to make it easy, and certainly less painful.”

  The jewels pressing into his chest from the chronicle were burning holes through the fabric of his Clover Heights football jersey. He smelled the singed fabric. The current of the Rellium started to resonate through his bones again, stronger than before, like some sort of shield around him or like he was wearing full football gear, shoulder pads and all.

  The giant continued to morph grotesque faces. “Fighting is so uncivilized. Flesh collects under my fingernails. Bloodstains blemish my jacket. And my boots always get scuffed.”

  Blake hoped it wouldn't be the same one-sided fight that turned Hugo Price into a piece of charcoal. He glanced at the old man, sacrificed, lifeless, with just a few small puffs of dark smoke rising from his scorched jacket.

  What if that’s what happened to Dad? What if Dad didn’t have a chance against this thing, either?

  But now wasn’t the time to think about that. The battle was on. He wasn’t going down without a fight. Blake planted his stocking feet firmly on the floor and prepared himself for the attack. “You want a fight? You got one!”

  The giant grinned. “Fine, you’ve made your decision.” It retrieved a small black ball from inside his sash and smiled, twisting apart the black, lopsided sphere.

  Blake stepped back. Something in that ball stank. The light in the room suddenly extinguished. He knew he was in serious trouble.

  Blake tried to focus in the pure blackness. “You think I’m afraid of you?” Fear gripped his throat. It was hard to talk. He coaxed out the last of his courage and rasped, “Big deal, you turned off the lights! So what!”

  “You are amusing, Blakemore Wyatt, but your time here has come to an end.”

  Blake tried to find the clock on the wall, a desk, Hugo Price, but even though his eyes were wide open, he could see nothing. Then, looking down, he saw a speck of light from the jewels of the chronicle peeking out from beneath his tight hug. As he loosened his grip on the book, more light from the jewels cut through the blackness. Shadows of objects in the classroom dimly appeared: a desk, the stuck clock, a chair, and the towering monster in front of him.

  “Yeah, well, I got power, too. And I’m gonna use it if you don’t get out of here.”

  The verbal battle ended when the creature incinerated the two desks next to him, leaving two heaps of smoldering ash.

  “Give me that book, you filthy little roach.”

  All this superpower stuff was new to Blake, but he knew what the pros did. So why not? Nothing else was working. Winding up his right arm, Blake shot his open hand squarely at the giant. “Think again, Dragonbreath. You’re going to find out what I can do.”

  Nothing happened except for a deafening, jeering laugh from whatever stood before him, ready for murder.

  “Terrific,” Blake muttered. “Superpower that doesn’t work.” He retreated to the corner.

  “Knowledge is your power,” the book whispered.

  “Whatever. Some help you are,” Blake said to the book. He tried to contain the violent waves of vibrations coming from the book’s bound pages. He felt like there was going to be an all-out war between this book and the giant, and he was caught in the middle. He struggled to hold the book close to his body, but it wiggled from his grip, shooting streaks of colored light in every direction. Maybe he should just hand over the stupid thing and get the heck out of there.

  “All right, you win,” he told the monster. “Say I give you this book. You’ll let me out of here? No zaps, no microwaves, none of that flame-throwing stuff?”

  “I give you my word.” The creature twisted together both sides of the weird, shiny black ball.

  As light slowly returned to the room, Blake loosened his grip on the chronicle. The book was sweet, but no way was it worth any of this. No one was going to believe him anyhow. Touching the brilliant stones one more time, he carefully set the Chronicle of the Rellium on a desk and stepped back. “There! Ya happy?”

  The giant moved quickly to the glowing book, smothering the radiating jewels with its huge, thick fingers, blotting out the brilliance. “Now you’re mine forever,” the creature said, shoving the book under its arm.

  Blake backed up a few more steps and tried to squirm around the creature, but the giant moved in front of him. “Going somewhere?”

  “We had a deal!”

  “I don’t make deals.”

  Blake looked around at what used to be his history classroom. Quietly he moved his hand into his pocket and slid out his cell phone. Pressing 911 without looking at the display, he waited briefly before quickly smashing the phone to his ear. “Hello! Hello! Come on . . . answer! I need help!”

  The giant hissed. “If I weren’t in such a rush, I’d find your pranks humorous.”

  Blake looked at the display on the phone. A text message was buzzing: You’re mine! Then the giant’s laughing face appeared on the screen of the phone just before it burst into flames. Blake threw the burning phone to the floor.

  Why couldn’t he make his so-called power work? Glancing at the clock, he saw the hands were stuck--just like him. And he had given away the only thing that could’ve saved him: the Chronicle of the Rellium.

  “You’re a sapphire traveler, Blakemore Wyatt. Use your powers,” the book urged weakly from under the arm of the giant. “Strength comes from within.”

  Blake glared at the book. “What powers? You give them to me, then they don’t work.”

  “How enchanting,” said the creature. “The great Chronicle of the Rellium speaks to the boy Wyatt, but it’s useless.”

  Blake hung his head. Now he knew why Hugo Price had told him not to open the dumb thing. He was totally clueless about this good-for-nothing strength. Even superheroes knew what they could do, but he was defenseless, and the silence outside the classroom destroyed any hope that someone would come to his rescue. Maybe he could talk his way out of it--the only ability he definitely knew how to use.

  “Okay,” Blake said, smiling. “You really got me. You’re obviously smarter than me, so I’m sure you see that if we put our powers together, then we really got something. If you knew my father’s strength, then you know what I can do. Whatta ya say?”

  The creature bombarded the remaining desks in the room with fireballs and incinerated them.

  “Whoa, I’ll take that as a no.” Blake stepped back. He had no more ideas . . . except one. Take
the creature head-on. He’d probably end up like a marshmallow stuck in the fire too long, but what else could he do? He did know how to strip a football. The coach drilled that maneuver just last week. Pop it out from behind and then grab it and run. Simple enough, but this was an eight-foot, giant blowtorch ready to kill him--not some wimpy thirteen-year-old kid on the school’s football team. That didn’t matter. It was all he could do.

  Leaping forward, Blake slammed the edge of the book with his fist, launching the chronicle. The colorful lights returned to the sacred text as it spun upward, turning the room into an enormous kaleidoscope. He grabbed the book before the creature snagged it. “Take that, barbecue man!” Blake yelled. “I own you, dude!”

  Protecting the glowing text in his arms, Blake darted around the furious giant and dodged skyrockets whizzing past his face. He grabbed the sizzling metal door handle and immediately let it go. “Aaaahhh!” he screamed, his skin seared. He had to get out of there. Ignoring the burning pain in his hand, he forced the handle down and pushed his way into the hallway.

  “Whoa!” Blake's feet began to sink into something squishy. It definitely wasn’t the hallway.

  CHAPTER 5

  PASSAGES

  Where the heck am I? Blake turned around. The door to the classroom was gone--everything was gone except for miles and miles of waist-high, waving bluish-purple grass surrounding him.

  “Second lesson, Mr. Wyatt,” the chronicle said, still tucked under his arm. “Courage is simply fear without a place to go. Real powers lie within.”

  “Holy cripe, what is this?”

  “More like where is this. You’re in Saphir Pré, the sapphire fields of the Parabulls.”

  “What happened to Hothead?” he asked, not really caring about the answer. He ran his hand over the soft, blue grass. It changed color under his fingers.

  “Release my pages.”

  Blake positioned the book in front of him and stepped back. The cover slowly opened as the chronicle drifted closer to him. The word Determination glimmered crimson at the top of the page.

  Blake read the strange lyric. Something familiar and at the same time foreign resonated through his brain. A mysterious new world hidden inside him was revealing itself.

  Determination

  Much will be said of the man from Genoa

  Sailing west with three little ships from Spain.

  The words will be loud, and the results will be clear,

  The words Prosperity, Progress, and Pain.

  But another stands aboard this ship.

  One who opens all eyes.

  Someone who sees, and knows, and understands,

  And hears the other sailors’ cries.

  Wyatt is the name,

  Plucked from another time and place.

  By winds and birds and compass points,

  Delivering the Admiral from disgrace.

  For when Columbus takes to the sea,

  And unfurls Maria’s sails wide,

  A secret evil walks her decks,

  And destiny almost dies.

  The journey is long for an Old World to take,

  But the wings know the migration.

  The Ancient Mariner with a dream to catch

  Succeeds by Determination.

  Blake Wyatt stared at the glowing page. He felt a trickle of sweat down the back of his neck. “Why is my name--”

  The chronicle snapped its cover shut but remained hovering, interrupting the boy’s question. “Your assignment, Blakemore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  A sweet-smelling breeze whooshed through the blue grass. The scent reminded him of a plate of warm cookies, only better. Then he heard something squishing through the grass. He stumbled backward, looking for a thick patch of grass to hide behind. No way did he want to meet up with that hotheaded giant again. But from the tall violet grass a waft of glowing golden mist appeared, settling a few feet in front of him. Two English bulldogs emerged from the swirling vapors, their iridescent coats shimmering like stars in the nighttime sky.

  “I present the Parabulls,” the chronicle announced.

  “No way, a pair of bulldogs?” Blake knelt in the squish and ran his hands down their backs. His arms felt good as they brushed against the soft fur. Warmth rushed through his body.

  The grass changed from blue to green to purple when he touched it. This was sweet. He could really get used to all this superpower stuff once he figured out how to use it. “What are their names?”

  “Guinevere and MacArthur. They’ll take you to a time and place of great importance. You’ll understand the lesson by the time you get there.”

  “Get where?”

  “Where you’re going, of course.”

  “Oh, that helps.” Blake pinched off a length of the tall sapphire grass, which re-grew instantly. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it to the ground. “I don’t even know where I am now.”

  “You’re in the den of the Parabulls, Saphir Pré.”

  “Wherever that is.”

  “That’s here.”

  “But I don’t know where here is.”

  “Here is here,” the book said.

  Blake grunted out an exasperated little aarrgh. “I know here is here, but where is here? Wait, don’t answer that. Let’s start with all this lesson stuff you keep babbling about. I’m completely clueless.”

  “History’s lesson. We’ve been trying to tell you about the Tolucan spies who are--”

  “Wait. These Tolucan people are the bad guys, right?”

  “Bad guys?”

  “Bad guys, like we’re the good guys, and they’re the bad guys.”

  “This is not a game, Blake,” the book said. “You’re underestimating the seriousness of this threat. Their goal is to destroy history.”

  “All right, just chill a minute. Maybe I’m messed up with all this time stuff, but who really cares if they destroy history? It already happened.”

  “Did it? What if history never happened?”

  “There’d still be some kind of history. Maybe not the same history, but something would be there. Wouldn’t it?”

  “I’ll try to make this very simple. There would be absolutely nothing. No past, no present, no future. Time can never be divided. The past, present, and future are all happening right now, simultaneously.”

  Blake stood, scratching his head. “All right, Book, now I’m totally confused.”

  “Blake, look at it like this. What would happen if you took the wheels off your dirt bike? Could you ride it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cuz it wouldn’t have wheels.”

  “So what? You have the rest of the motorcycle.”

  “Ya couldn’t get very far without wheels.”

  “Exactly. You need the whole motorcycle, right?”

  Blake took a deep breath and listened to his stomach rumble. None of this time stuff was making any sense.

  Maybe I just need some food. “So tell me again what I am supposed to do.”

  “Protect history.”

  “But I don’t know anything about history.”

  “You will. But, beware. Evil stops at nothing, and the wounds of the past are deep. The Parabulls cannot protect the future without the past.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No more time for questions. We must proceed.” The book tucked itself gently under Blake’s arm. The Parabulls glanced back at him before they headed into the sapphire grass.

  “Wait!” Blake scrambled after them into the weird grass. “Hey, don’t leave me here!” Panicking, he shoved the strange grass aside. Tall blue grass waved in the silence. “Hey! Come on. How am I supposed to find you?”

  He stood for a moment when he heard a man’s voice directly in front of him. Pushing back more of the grass, he heard the voice again, louder.

  “Lord, grant that our voyage is not in vain and that my death does not come at the hands of my own men.”
>
  Blake moved closer to the voice. “Hello? Someone else here?”

  “Please forgive me, Lord. I never meant to kill these men.”

  CHAPTER 6

  ONE SMALL PROBLEM

  Kill what men? And whose voice was that? It didn’t sound like Dragonbreath’s, but no way was Blake going to hang around to find out. He tucked the chronicle under his arm and plowed butt-first through the thick grass until his foot stuck in a pool of purple squish. He tried pulling away from it but instead landed on his back in the spongy mud. Purple gummy clay caked his hair, his clothes, and probably the chronicle. He looked up as he heard the book speak.

  “So sad, just so, so sad.” The chronicle hovered above him.

  Blake rolled to his side. Muck dropped off the book’s binding in clumps and splattered on his face. The slime oozed down his forehead and into his eyes. Blake wiped it from his face. “Some superhero, huh?”

  “A tragic funeral in the darkness. All because of the frailty of the last sapphire traveler,” the book said.

  Blake struggled to his feet. “What are you talking about?”

  “We had so much hope for you, Blakemore. Now I fear the end is upon us. Dagonblud will succeed after all.”

  “Quit calling me Blakemore. My name’s Blake. Can’t ya just talk normal for once? I almost got my butt kicked by Dragonbreath, and now I have to listen to you talk like a dictionary.”

  The chronicle floated quietly about a foot from his face, as though it was staring at him, thinking.

  “My apologies, Blake. Your ignorance is not your fault.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He wiped more purple goo from his face.

  “You do not yet understand the science of your world--but soon you will.” The book flipped its cover open and flattened the sapphire grass around them in a fraction of a second. Tall blue grass fluttered in the distance. The breeze blew sugary air across the field.