Xander stepped onto the balcony through a doorway, holding Toria’s hand. He looked around. “Are we safe?”
“Away from Phemus and Taksidian, if that’s what you mean,” David said. “As far as safe, who knows?”
“Do you think that was it, Dad, Taksidian’s attack on David?” Xander said. “Is Dae safe now?”
“No,” David said. “You’re not cut.”
Xander rubbed his chin. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Jesse’s dad said I had a gash on my chin when I went back and told him about . . . about you.”
“You could have gotten it afterward,” Dad said. “We can’t let our guard down. Not until we’re positive we’ve changed what you said happens.”
If we changed it, David thought, but didn’t say. Instead, he looked around. “Where do you think we are?” he said.
They scanned the area from the balcony. Animals in the streets. Trinket and food vendors. Every structure appeared to be made out of stone, wood, or dried mud. Under the baking sun, the entire scene appeared painted from only hues of tan and beige.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “Looks Middle Eastern or African. Depending on when it is, could be anywhere.”
“Rain’s still coming,” Toria said.
David followed her gaze. A mass of black clouds churned in the far distance. Lightning flashed inside it. Looked to him more like a storm than a simple shower. It made him uneasy.
CHAPTER
forty-nine
Xander pointed his thumb at the room beyond the balcony. “It’s like an apartment in there. Old-looking furniture. I mean, not old for this time, I guess. All rough wood.”
“So,” David said, “what do we do?”
“Wait for the pull,” Dad said. “Then hope Taksidian’s gone when we get home.”
“Well, I hope he is there,” Xander said. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Xander,” Dad said.
“I am! Like he said, he’s not playing games anymore. He came right at us, and he wasn’t using that knife to clean under his nails.” He backhanded David’s arm. “Didn’t I tell you something big was coming? I knew Taksidian wasn’t going to play nice for long.”
David scowled. “When did he ever play nice? He sent the cops after us, then Phemus and his goon-friends. He stabbed Jesse and took his finger. He chained us up—and tried to send us to war! If that’s your idea of nice, remind me never to make you mad.”
“Not me,” Xander said. “Taksidian, and everything he’s done before was sneaky. He got Jesse when he was alone. He got us in Atlantis, where they don’t care. This time, he broke into our house—right through the front door—and came after all of us, Dad too.”
“I agree, Xander,” Dad said. “He just laid all his cards on the table, and he’s not going to stop until either he’s dead . . . or we are.”
“Daddy!” Toria said, grabbing his hand in both of hers. “I’m scared.”
He rubbed his hand over her cheek. “It’s okay, baby. We’ll figure something out.”
David felt as though the storm clouds had filled his head. He wished Dad had an answer, not that he hoped to find one. He was starting to feel that they were never meant to get through this, that Taksidian was always meant to win. He said, “Maybe we should have done what Grandpa Hank did and left the house.”
“After Mom was taken?” Xander said, instantly angry. “Leave her, you mean?” He shoved David hard enough to knock him down.
David landed on his butt, and his head cracked against a stone railing.
Dad grabbed Xander. “Hey! Hey!”
David rubbed his head and glared up at his brother. “I want her home too!” he yelled. “As much as you do! But look at us now! You heard Dad—Taksidian’s not going to stop till we’re all dead. You, me, Dad . . . Toria!”
“You baby!” Xander said. “I ought to—“
“Stop!” Dad said. “This isn’t easy on any of us. It’s the stress. I’m surprised we haven’t bitten each other’s heads off days ago. Now more than ever, we need to be a family.” He cast a sad look at David. “We need to work together.”
Toria dropped down beside David and helped him rub his head. She sniffed, and he realized she was crying. “It’ll be all right,” she whispered between sobs.
He closed his eyes and hated himself. He swallowed, blinked, found his brother’s face. It wasn’t fierce, as he had expected. Xander looked confused and hurt. David said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t, really. I don’t know why I said that.”
“I do,” Xander said. He stepped closer and held a hand out to him. David accepted it and stood, and Xander pulled him in and hugged him. He said, “I’m scared too, Dae.”
Toria stood and wrapped her arms around the two of them. Dad joined them, squeezing them all tightly together. As corny as a family hug would have seemed to David under any other circumstance, this time it seemed right. More than right: neces-sary. Dad had said it—they were a family, they needed each other. None of them would have made it this far without the others. And David knew without a doubt that they wouldn’t survive another day if they didn’t work as one, if they didn’t feel like they could hug like this.
The sound of pounding feet in the street broke the moment. They turned to see five men coming toward them. They were dressed like—
“Roman soldiers,” Dad said.
“Rome?” Xander said. “Again?”
The soldiers wore leather body armor, metal helmets, and pleated skirts. They carried swords and spears. Two bran-dished the same kind of whip David had carried here from the antechamber—and lost. In fact, the old man who had taken it was leading the pack of soldiers. He stumbled along, prodded by shoves and cracks of the whips. He protected his head with one arm and held the other extended in front of him. He was pointing at the Kings.
A soldier grabbed the old man and tossed him into the side of a building, then stared up at the balcony. He jabbed a sword at them and yelled, “Vos totus vestrum! Subsisto qua vos es! ”
“Time to go,” Xander said.
CHAPTER
fifty
The Kings ran through into the shadowy room off the bal-cony. Xander led them to a wooden door and opened it. Steps descended into deeper darkness. Then a door banged open below them, and daylight splashed against the walls, broken by the shadows of moving men.
“Back in!” Xander said. He pushed them into the room and shut the door.
“Here,” Dad said, running to a glassless window. He climbed through and reached back for Toria.
David climbed through, dropping onto a flat roof. Xander ran to the window and swung his leg over the sill.
David turned to see Dad kneeling at the far edge of the roof, peering over. Then he dropped onto his stomach, spun around, and slipped over the edge. David helped his brother out. When he looked again, Toria was gone.
The brothers ran to the edge. Dad and Toria were standing directly below them on another balcony. Dad reached up for David. He rolled onto his stomach and slid backward into Dad’s hands. Xander dropped down beside them.
“I heard the soldiers shouting in the room,” Xander reported.
“Won’t take them long to figure out where we went,” Dad said. He darted through a doorway, and the others followed. A man, woman, and two kids sat at a table, bowls of liquid and chunks of bread in front of each. The man bolted up, knocking his chair backward.
Dad held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he said.
The man yelled and pointed at a door. Dad opened it, and they piled through. A short flight of stairs led to a different street from the one they had seen.
“We’d better keep moving,” David said, starting up the street away from the building whose balcony the portal had dumped them onto.
“Any pull yet?” Xander asked.
“Toria,” Dad said, “let me have the robe. You keep the necklace and ring. If you feel a tug from them, let us know.”
“Looks more like a tunic than a robe,” David said, once Dad had i
t on.
“No pull yet,” Dad said, lifting the fabric and letting it drop.
“Where are we going then?” Toria said.
“Just walk,” Dad said. “Moving targets are harder to hit.”
The streets were narrow, more alley than avenue. They rose and fell, twisted and turned, seemingly at random. Stone bridges crossed overhead from building to building, adding to the town’s cramped feeling.
They passed bakeries and butcher shops, stonecutters and woodworkers. They stopped to rest in front of a blacksmith. The man pounded on orange-glowing metal. Each strike of his hammer kicked up an explosion of sparks. He stopped, ran a forearm across his brow, and scowled at them. He said, “Quis operor vos volo?”
Dad shook his head. “Nothing, thanks.”
The man waved his hammer at them. “Adepto ex hic, tunc,” he yelled. “Vado, vos extrarius canis!”
They hurried away. “Man, what a nice guy,” Xander said.
“I think he called us dogs,” Dad said. “Canis is Latin for dog. It’s where we get our canine.”
“Does that mean you know where we are?” David asked.
“Somewhere in the Roman Empire, if I had to guess.”
A man ran past them and turned left onto the next street. A group of soldiers on the street trotted by, followed by townsfolk—three or four at a time, then larger crowds.
“Something’s happening,” Xander said.
“We should head the other way then,” David said, looking back past the blacksmith.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Dad said.
Toria squealed. “I feel it!” she said. “The ring, it’s pulling my hand!”
“Let me guess,” David said. “That way.” He pointed to where the people were pouring by.
“Look,” Dad said. The hem of the tunic was fluttering, rising up toward the next street.
“Figures,” Xander said.
“Let’s go,” Dad said. They rounded the corner and joined the flow of human traffic. People were stepping from side streets to join the progression.
“What’s happening?” Toria said.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Dad said. Ahead, the street rose and bent left, preventing them from seeing where the crowd was heading. But a rumble of loud voices told David they were not far away from the attraction.
He looked into a side street as they passed. More people heading their direction, and a woman writing on a wall. He walked on toward the bending street. He said, “Are you sure—“
He stopped. His heart fluttered. It felt like a bird in a cage, beating against his lungs, tickling his stomach. He began trembling.
Dad, Xander, and Toria didn’t notice. They continued walking, starting up the incline toward the bend. David turned around, and on shaky legs returned to the side street. He froze at the intersection. The woman’s back was to him. She wore a flowing brown tunic that might have been fash-ioned from a burlap sack. Something like a towel covered her head. She was using a piece of black coal or chalk to deface the wall of beige stones. But it wasn’t words she was writing. It was a symbol, the top of which he recognized. She stooped to complete the image, then stepped back to assess her work: it was Bob, their family’s cartoon mascot.
David tried to yell out. “Mmmm-aaaah! Mmmm-aaaah!” His mouth would not form the word he wanted.
But the woman heard him. Apparently believing she’d been caught committing a capital crime, she turned panicked eyes on him. Her expression morphed from surprise to confusion to joy. She flipped the towel off her head.
In David’s eyes, everything blurred out of focus, everything except her face. Hazel eyes, glimmering with wetness. That smile, connected to his heart as surely as his veins and arteries. Cheeks so smooth their touch to his own cheek never failed to calm even his worst moods. All of it framed by locks of hair the color of hay and the texture of silk.
All sound faded from his ears, leaving only his heartbeat.
“Mom!” he cried, and ran into her arms.
CHAPTER
fifty-one
She swept him up like a warm breeze. Her arms squeezed him, her hands moved over his back, through his hair. “Dae . . . Dae . . . David, is it really you?” She pushed her face into his neck, then pulled away to look at him. She kissed his cheek, his forehead.
He pressed his lips to her skin, tasting her tears. He rubbed his face against her shoulder and pulled himself into her embrace. After finding out about his impending death, he had wanted nothing more than the comfort of his mother’s arms. He had believed then that he would never have that again. But here it was, the comfort of her arms, her smell, her whisper-ing love.
She leaned back for a longer gaze. “Look at you,” she said, wiping his face. He hadn’t realized he was crying. “What have you done to yourself ?” she said. “Your eye! Your cheek!” She touched his bruised skin, but it didn’t hurt at all.
He smiled and said, “You won’t believe all we’ve done, looking for you.”
“I know you’ve been looking,” she said. “I saw the Bob faces. Did you see mine?”
“You . . . where?”
“Oh, my goodness,” she said, brushing her hair off her wet cheeks. “Feudal Japan . . . World War I Germany . . . the Titanic . . . “
“Yes!” David said. “I saw it on the deck of the Titanic. That was really you? I wasn’t sure.” A tear rolled down his cheek, and he wiped it away. She pulled him into another hug, pinning his broken arm between them. “Ow!” he said. “Ow, ow.”
She looked at his bandaged arm. “Oh, David, what happened?”
He laughed and shook his head. “It’s a long story . . . a really, really long story.” He noticed a nasty scratch on her temple. He touched it with feather fingers. “I’ll bet you have a story too.”
“All of it moving toward this moment,” she said. “This very moment. How did you get here? Where are—“
She looked over his shoulder, and her lips parted. David glanced around. Dad was standing in the intersection of streets. His face bore the same angelic expression as Mom’s. But he seemed afraid to move, as though doing so would shat-ter a hallucination, and his wife would vanish into the shadows of the street.
Toria came down the street behind him. She spotted Mom, shrieked, and ran toward them.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” They hugged and kissed and laughed. “I knew I saw you! I knew it!”
Xander ran up, and Mom rose off her knees to embrace him. Xander appeared to collapse into her arms. He squeezed her and didn’t let go. His shoulders moved in time with his weeping. Finally, they parted. Xander wiped his face and nose. He grinned at David, then Toria. Still holding Mom with one arm, Xander reached out, got hold of David’s head, and pulled him to them. Toria stepped into it.
“Two family hugs in one day,” Xander said. “Wow . . . wow.”
Dad approached, and the kids moved away. All three of them kept a hand on Mom, as though afraid to let her go . . . or, David thought, as though they were drawing strength from her after being drained by her absence.
Instead of the crashing, crushing reunion David, Xander, and Toria received, Dad’s was gentle as a leaf landing on grass. He kissed her, and they stepped into each other for a hug. Dad leaned back, lifting Mom off her feet. He turned, spin-ning her slowly around. Their eyes were closed, and matching smiles stretched across their faces. He set her down, and they kissed again. She placed her hand on his face, and they stared into each other’s eyes.
Xander caught David’s attention, and he rolled his eyes. But he was grinning, and David knew his brother didn’t mind their parents’ affection at all. It was the engine that drove the family.
Toria said, “Xander just rolled his eyes.”
Dad laughed and gripped Xander’s shoulder. He looked at each of his kids and nodded. His eyes were shimmering. He whispered, “Thank you.”
CHAPTER
fifty-two
“Dad,” Toria said. She was staring at her beaded necklace from the ant
echamber. It was lifting off her chest, vibrating.
“The pull,” Dad said. “It’s getting stronger.”
Mom wrinkled her brow. “The what?”
“It’s how we get home,” Dad explained. “The items show us where the portal is.”
“Ah,” she said. “I know about portals. Every now and then a wind comes and blows me into one.”
“That’s the pull,” David said, though he could not imagine getting sucked into one on a regular basis. “But when it takes you, where do you end up—just anywhere?”
“I never made sense of it,” she said.
“Our items want to go home, to the house. If we follow them, we end up back there.”
“I wish I’d had one of those a week ago,” she said.
“Oh, boy,” Xander said. “I wish you had too.”
A roar of voices reached them. A mob of screaming, shout-ing people came down the street from the bend. Had the Kings not been on this side street, they would have been swept away. The horde walked backward and sideways, their anger directed at something that had not yet come into view. Soldiers appeared, clearing a path. They pushed, kicked, and struck the people with the handles of their swords. Like slow-moving lava, the crowd flowed along the street, growing ever larger.
The object of their wrath appeared. Mom drew in a sharp breath and covered her mouth. “That poor man,” she said.
“What?” David said. Then he saw. A man stumbled down the center of the street. Soldiers slapped him with whips, poked him with spears. The onlookers spat at him and stepped in to punch him. “Why are they doing that to him?” he said. His heart ached, as it had for the man on the torturer’s rack. It was inhumane, cruel . . . evil, no matter what the man had done.
The man was beaten and bloody, barely able to carry the heavy cross on his back. Its crossbeam rose over his head, and the vertical post dragged along the stones behind him. The man tripped and fell, and the cross tipped and thudded onto the stones. Soldiers moved in to lash him.