"You dumb piece of junk!" she grumbled. "Relax. It's Dana."
Chapter 43
YOU KNOW how crazy I am about Dana? Enough to actually charge a rod of metal with emotion. Just in case you thought inanimate objects have no emotions, think again.
I wanted to kill her and hug her at the same time. As I was still a rod, I couldn't do either one. She dashed with me in hand to the other side of a junked car--a French make called a Peugeot--and pried the door open. She slid into the backseat, where I returned to human form.
"You weren't supposed to come with me," was the first thing out of my mouth. "This is way too dangerous, Dana. And how did you -- I mean, I didn't--"
"We'll talk about it later, Daniel. Something big is about to happen." She edged up to the opposite window to get a better view of the madness, and I followed. Now we wer e l ooking out on a circle cleared in the middle of the garbage, a circle as wide as a football field.
Opposite where we were, the ground dropped away, and I was surprised to see the ocean on the other side; we were on the coast somewhere.
In the middle of this improvised stadium of trash was a gigantic misshapen metal structure that looked like the result of a fight between a giant squid and a monster truck. It was the source of the vibrations that were shaking everything for a mile around.
I recognized it instantly. I'd read its description many times in The List's file on Beta. The multitentacled monster before me was a Cyndarian spaceship.
Suddenly the vibrations became even more powerful. It looked like it was ready for takeoff.
Bits of garbage began to topple from the piles, and the Peugeot was rained on by ash, pieces of plastic, rusty circuit boards. The ship tried to lift off, but for some reason it couldn't. The force of the flames pushing through its own rockets was literally tearing it apart.
There was a horrendous sound like Godzilla scraping his nails on a chalkboard, and the ship actually keeled to one side. The crowds shied away now, drawing back into the shelter of the trash piles.
And then there was a shattering explosion, like nothing I'd ever heard before. Blue flames, blowing gaping holes in the sides of the spaceship, shot into the air about a half mile.
When the smoke cleared, I could still see the ship, looking more like a used firecracker now. And pouring out of hundreds of holes was its cargo.
The "fuel" that Beta was sending home wasn't oil, or coal, it turned out. It was, well, everything I loved about Terra Firma, stuffed into a cold metal container. Lush green trees, with their trunks, leaves, branches, spilled out onto the ground. Mixed in were what must have been hundreds of tons of flowers, bushes, grasses of all kinds.
And then I saw the passengers.
I could see rows of cages, with animals of all kinds imprisoned inside--dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, foxes, horses. And then there was a cacophony of sound coming from inside the damaged metal shell. Flocks of birds flew out of one hole, where the vibrations had shaken open some cage doors. The birds circled the ship, squawking in the air.
I clenched my fists in fury. Inside that ship was a nature documentary's worth of plants and animals, and it was abundantly clear what Beta wanted with them. All of the wonderful life that Earth had to offer was nothing more to him than fuel.
Chapter 44
THE GHOSTLY FLAMES from the burning piles had gathered, risen, and snaked around the dump to witness the collapse. Now they roared high into the air, and burst apart into hundreds of smaller flames that darted around the base of the broken ship.
Then a rustling, crackling voice swept through the dump.
"The Alien Hunter is here. He is close by. Find him. NOW! BRING HIM TO ME DEAD OR ALIVE! WHOEVER BRINGS ME DANIEL X WILL GLOW FOR ETERNITY!"
The workers scattered at the command, fanning out through the narrow aisles of the dump.
"See why you needed me here, Daniel?" Dana said.
"No," I told her angrily. "This is about me, not you."
"I'm part of you. We're a part of each other. It's all the same."
"Just... disappear, Dana! Disappear!"
We'd wasted precious moments with our argument, because Beta had embarked on his own search. I guess he wanted to glow for eternity, too.
His flames had abandoned ship and spread through the dump, each fire stream covering more ground in a few seconds than a human could in an hour.
"Okay, Daniel," said Dana. "This is the part where you disappear us and then, like, create a rainstorm or something major to take out this maniac."
"Got it."
But I couldn't. I tried, and tried again.
I wanted to howl with frustration. I'd just gone metal a few times like it was nothing.
I didn't have time for a Plan B before we heard a knocking at the window. We hunched down in the car's backseat, trying to make ourselves as invisible as possible, but we couldn't escape Beta's voice.
"I know you're in there, Dan--Dana--Daniel... come out, come out, whoever you are!"
When I looked up, all I could see were rainbows of fire: orange, yellow, green, red, covering every window, enveloping the entire car.
Chapter 45
SO I GUESS YOU'D CALL THIS a really bad emergency situation. A mind-and-body blower.
Right in front of me, hovering outside the rear window, was an indistinct shadow in the middle of the flames-- like a face. The Dark Heart.
"License and registration, please." I could just make out his malicious, self-satisfied grin.
I made a mental note that, if I ever got my driver's license (and right now, the prospect didn't seem very likely), I would never buy a Peugeot. Too many bad memories.
Like maybe I died in one?
I gripped Dana's hand, but my face wouldn't cooperate with my grand plan to show no fear. She knew, she had to know, that fire was like my kryptonite.
There was an incredible sense of heat on my skin, a heat I hadn't felt since I was three years old and preparing to die for the first time.
"Is it hot in here, or is it just--me?" Dana whispered.
"Oh, it's me," interrupted Beta. "And in a moment you'll know firsthand just how hot I can be."
"Can we talk for a minute first, Beta?" Maybe I could buy just enough time to get Dana to disappear. And I had questions.
"About what? About how you seem to have a habit of hiding behind your friends? Using them as human shields? Ha! Daniel, you're truly the most cowardly Alien Hunter I've ever met. You'd embarrass your father... were he alive today."
"You didn't know my father. Leave him out of this."
"Didn't know him? Alas, not true. Your parents had me over to dinner on their last day, in fact. They made some fine potpies, I must say. I fairly devoured them whole!"
If his manic ramblings hadn't shell-shocked me, Beta's evil peel of laughter would have. The flames roared louder than ever, and the car's side mirrors were actually melting. The glass would be next.
And then... well, it didn't take a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to figure out what would happen after the glass was gone.
Chapter 46
BY MY CALCULATIONS, Beta would burn through the car's exterior in a minute or less, and that would be it for me and Dana. Which would also mean no more Joe, Willy, or Emma. No more Mom, Dad, and Pork Chop. No more List of Alien Outlaws. And eventually, no more Earth as we know it.
I couldn't let that happen without a fight. But I didn't have anywhere to escape to. Beta was burning the car from all sides.
I tried every transformation I could think of; I tried tele-porting, which I'd achieved on a few rare occasions. Even if I could make a hole in the roof, or the floor of the car, I would be traveling right through the fire. I could possibly coat myself in carbon dioxide, but how long would that last?
Minutes? Seconds?
Could I do the same thing for Dana at the same time?
There was a whiplike snap as the safety glass next to me cracked all the way across. Then tongues of flame began to lick through the glass,
reaching out for me like Beta's not-so-fickle fingers of death.
"Nowhere for you to go now, Daniel. I hope you prefer cremation over burial. I can't really offer you the latter option. Ha ha ha."
Okay, time travel Now would be a great time for that to kick in, I thought. I'd rewind things a little, get out of this car, run away, get a job doing something a little safer-- like deep-sea oil drilling. My father had said that emotion was the "on" switch...
So I did the most obvious thing that any normal teenage guy would do.
I kissed the girl I was crazy for. And I wouldn't stop-- until I teleported, time-traveled, or died. Whatever happened, I knew this was the right thing to do.
Then the whole rear window fell away in a single piece. Beta reared back, ready to swoop in and incinerate me in a single blazing inferno.
I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, said a prayer.
Chapter 47
IN MY MIND, I saw my father the day he died, felt the last hug my mother had ever given me, heard their voices chatting upstairs in the kitchen, unaware that The Prayer was fast approaching, that the happy life we had known was about to go up in flames, along with our strangely idyllic Kansas farmhouse.
In a way, I had been born out of that fire. It had forced me to become the Alien Hunter I was today. Maybe it was only appropriate that fire would kill me, too. Maybe this was my fate from the very beginning.
Speaking of which, maybe I'm already dead.
Chapter 48
I COULDN'T FEEL the heat anymore, or the car's springs poking through the backseat. I couldn't hear Dana panting with anxiety. And I couldn't hear Beta's crackling, hellish voice taunting me, either.
I opened my eyes... to see that I was lying on a gravel driveway in front of a very familiar white mailbox. Set back from it a little ways was a sunlit farmhouse. There was no mistaking it.
"Well, Toto," I said under my breath as I stood up, "I've got a sneaking feeling we're not in jolly old England anymore."
Unless this was heaven, or hell, or purgatory, or nirvana-- I wasn't ruling anything out at this point--I was back in Kansas, at the very house where I'd spent the first three peaceful and wonderful years of my life.
This place was so full of history for me, and I felt like I was drowning in the thoughts, feelings, and memories that were flooding into my mind. I took a deep breath and asked myself how this could have happened.
My father had mentioned holes in time, created by powerful events. Well, I guess what had happened at the dump might qualify. But how had I ended up here? The only powerful event that happened at this house in Kansas was--
Before the thought had even finished, I took off running at full speed toward the house.
And that's when I heard the first shots.
No! Please! Not again! Please--not again!
Those were the same awful sounds that I'd heard time after time, in my dreams, on the road, making dinner, always playing in the back of my head. The deadly, deliberate "pop, pop, pop" that meant my world would never be the same.
The kitchen was around the side of the house and had a back door that opened onto a small herb garden that my mother had been cultivating. I ran into the garden recklessly.
I remembered that long-ago day of murder and destruction like it was yesterday. The Prayer would be in the basement by now. Still, I hesitated before opening the door and looking in.
Then I had to see.
The kitchen was totally trashed, just as I remembered it. The wall opposite me was blown out and the table where I'd made my first drawing with crayons (a perfect copy of van Gogh's Starry Night ) was in shreds.
But I had eyes for nothing but the two people who lay on the floor.
I remembered the last time I'd seen them, looking down as I left the house, a tiny, scared three-year-old disguised as a tick, hitching a ride on The Prayer's own fur. My mom and dad had been face down on the floor. Dead.
That image was burned into my memory.
But it wasn't how they looked now. My father was propped against the wall, my mother's head lowered.
I took a step farther inside, but stopped when my father looked up at me, right into my eyes.
"Daniel! Don't come any closer." His voice was barely a whisper. "You can't help us now."
I could only stare at him, but I felt my eyes filling with tears.
"I heard the portal open. It could only be you, son. You shouldn't be here, though."
"The Prayer. I know he's here! I've been waiting twelve years to find him." My hands balled into fists. "He'll pay for this, for everything he did to you and Mom."
My father shook his head slowly, with difficulty. "No, it isn't time for that. You're not ready. You have other work to do. Like dueling with Beta."
My mother stirred, her eyelids fluttered open halfway, and her face jerked in a way that twisted my heart. She's trying to smile for me, isn't she?
I could barely hear her, but I could still tell what she was saying. "Daniel... you've grown up well. I'm so proud of you. You're handsome, and you're brave."
"We love you, Daniel. We always will. Now, before he comes back... look around you ." My dad gave a gasp then and rolled over.
I stood there, sobbing quietly in the middle of our garden. The herbs I was crushing underfoot smelled magical. Thyme, mint, lavender. Everything I remembered of my mother's scent.
"Look around you" My father's last words.
So I did. I knew what I was seeing had to be real, but the colors and smells seemed brighter, sharper, like the whole rest of my life had been a dream and I was just now waking up into the real world.
There was crashing downstairs, and smoke began billowing out from the hallway that led into the basement. I backed up a couple of quick steps, the fire suddenly reminding me of Beta.
And how he had told me my parents had him over for dinner.
Had he--?
I couldn't finish the thought and only howled in more pain and frustration.
But then I stopped abruptly when I saw something more startling, strange, and beautiful than anything I'd ever encountered on any of the seventeen planets I'd visited.
Before me was a hole in time.
*
PART THREE
THE DARK AGES, MY VERSION
Chapter 49
MY VISION was blurred by tears, but the egg-shaped opening somehow shone clearly through them in an intense focus. It was about twice my height, reflecting a shimmering crystalline light. I could see stars, planets, and galaxies, swirling and coming together the way cogs and sprockets and springs fit together to make a watch tick--but here in front of me was the most amazing and complex timepiece ever.
HI be honest. It also scared me. But you know what? Where I stood right now, with The Prayer's crashing and merciless howling, the smoke pouring out from inside, and, most of all, the two bodies that lay a few feet away from me--those scared me a whole lot more.
So I stepped into the hole.
And found myself falling.
It was the strangest sensation. I've been skydiving a few times (none of them intentional), and this wasn't completely different. And yet... it was.
I wasn't floating in a vast sky or space, sightseeing the grand landscape below me. Instead, the painful Kansas scene was gone in an instant, and now the universe was rushing past me, giving me the gut-busting thrill of racing 250 miles per hour down a freeway.
Sound like fun? Maybe for a nanosecond. After that, my stomach felt like it was being turned inside out and licked by an alien with a spiked tongue. Good thing I didn't start to bring up my supper or I would've been wearing it.
And my brain--well, it felt like it was about to explode as it tried to take in thousands of images that flashed like 3-D IMAX movies on the walls of the wormhole I was racing through. Some things I recognized--wooden ships, warriors on horseback--and others were gone before I could even tell what they were--shadowy figures, patterns, supernovas of color and shape. Events seemed to flow in and
out of one another deliberately. And soon, in among the images, I recognized something else.
Tongues of fire!
A series of multicolored, hypnotic flames writhed like a tortured prisoner. There was no doubt in my mind that it was Beta. And he was chasing me.
I saw flames dancing in gray clouds spit out by a towering smokestack. Fire licking at the remains of an entire city block, its wooden buildings nothing but cinders now. A field of haystacks, all of them burning to ash.
And then, eventually, one image: a lake covered by fire, glinting and sparkling in a moonlit night. Quite beautiful, actually.
A lake covered by fire?
Just as it seemed the fiery lake was about to engulf me, I suddenly gasped. It felt for all the world like I'd just been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer.
I wheezed for breath and grasped wildly for whatever I could hold on to, hoping to finally halt this nightmarish flight through time. And my hands found something reassuringly solid, cold, flat--and still I grabbed at the earth.
Chapter 50
SHAKING MY HEAD rather forcefully, I found that my sadness, the deep, painful sensation that had been gripping my heart, had been blown away, left behind with the rest of the farm, and my mom and dad. Now I was lying on the ground, clinging to a few stalks of straw. The air was humid and smelled like summer.
I just lay there for a while enjoying the quiet peace until I felt a sharp poke in the ribs.
"Is he dead?" I heard a raspy English voice say next.
"Dunno," said another.
"Well, does he have any coin? May as well take what we can get from him."
Fearing the worst as always, I slowly opened my eyes. The two men leaning over me took a hasty step back, and I got a good look at them.
What the--?
These guys looked like they'd gotten their potato-sack clothes at a farmers' market--or a theater costume shop. They were covered in grime, and the ripe smell of unwashed flesh and body odor hit my nose. One even had horseflies buzzing around his mouth and hair-sprouting ears. I wondered if it would be impolite to point this out, and decided that since the same man held a nasty-looking knife, I would let his hygiene issues slide for now.