There was a restless movement through the crowd. One man spoke up.
“What, are we supposed to be afraid of a bunch of kids?”
“Is this some kind of prank?” someone else asked.
“Don’t make us ask you again,” Alex said.
With that Kirbie transformed. The vinyl werewolf mask split and fell apart, revealing a very real blond she-wolf. She leaned back, her toothy snout pointing into the air, and let out a monstrous howl. The bystanders screamed, panicked, and rushed back into the museum.
The site had been Kyle’s idea. Public enough that they could get the New Rangers’ attention, but small enough that any bystanders could evacuate safely and efficiently. The lawn was surrounded by huge, solid walls. The only way in or out was through the doors at the back of the museum—doors that Mallory was already melting together, rendering them practically impenetrable.
Kyle took a few seed pouches from his pocket, but replaced them when he noticed an old shade tree planted near a few benches and tables. He hurried over to it and rubbed a hand on its trunk, coaxing its branches to grow and thicken, feeling out its root systems.
“I’ve got a good tree here,” Kyle said. “This’ll definitely come in handy.”
“Good,” Alex said. “Let’s see if we can lure a few of the New Rangers over there. Yeah?”
Kyle murmured something, and the still-expanding tree slammed a branch down onto the ground.
“Yeah,” Kyle said as the tree straightened itself once more. “Do that.”
Alex and Kirbie stood back to back, their eyes darting all around, looking for movement.
“We’re as ready as we can be,” Kirbie said, stepping beside Alex with her eyes to the sky. “Just try to keep Shade’s attention so she’s not digging around in any of our heads.”
“Right,” Alex said.
There was a sound cutting through the air above them—a helicopter flying low.
“Newspeople?” Kirbie asked.
“No,” Alex said. “I don’t think so.”
“That didn’t take long,” Mallory murmured.
“Get ready, everyone. They’re here.”
Something fell from the helicopter, plummeting through the air at an incredible speed. Something blond and human shaped. Titan. He landed in a crouch, one fist slamming into the ground, the other reared back, ready to strike. The earth trembled beneath him.
Alex smiled to himself. The New Rangers had come. But they had no idea that the real action was taking place miles away, where two of Alex’s friends were getting ready to enter the Gloom and rescue Lone Star and Lux—the actual Rangers of Justice.
Alex and his teammates were just decoys.
2
INTO THE GLOOM
The Rook was the tallest structure in Sterling City, a glass-and-stone tower of offices, fancy shops, and luxury apartments piercing the sky above the eastern side of Victory Park. Misty stood on her tiptoes at the very edge of the building’s roof, nothing but open air and a thousand-foot drop in front of her. The breeze ruffled her red curls as she peered across the city with wide eyes.
“Sooooo high,” she whispered.
“Uhhh,” Bug said. He started toward her, but stopped a few feet away. “I know you could just break apart and float back up here if you fell, but you’re kind of freaking me out standing so close to the side like that.”
She turned her head to him, flashing a grin. “Don’t worry. I was always really good at balance and stuff like that. I could probably even do a handstand right here and never have to use my powers once.”
“Please don’t.” Bug gulped. A huge green-and-blue dragonfly circled around his head—Zip. Thanks to Bug’s ability to control insects and see through their eyes, Zip was about to become a key member of the Gloom expedition team.
Near the center of the roof, Gage was carefully setting up the device he’d created using part of the Umbra Gun that had banished many Rangers to the Gloom in the past. The invention, which he called the Gloom Key, looked simple enough—just a metal box with a giant diamond attached to the top of it—but it held a concentration of shadow energy from Phantom, one of the four members of Cloak’s High Council. Only recently had they managed to obtain that piece of the gun, thanks to an incredibly risky infiltration of Cloak’s underground base. The Gloom Key enabled them to enter the Gloom and rescue the Rangers. Lone Star and Lux were the powerhouses they needed if they were going to expose the New Rangers as frauds and bring Cloak to justice once and for all.
The problem was how to find the lost Rangers in the Gloom. Gage hypothesized that the place acted as a sort of dark mirror to the normal world, meaning the smartest thing to do was go into the Gloom as close to where Lone Star and Lux had been sucked into it as possible—somewhere near where Justice Tower had stood. That meant finding a place where they could camp out in secret in the heart of Sterling City during one of the most crowded times of the year. The Rook was their choice, a rooftop Kirbie and Lux had used as a meeting and scouting place back before everything had gone wrong. There were only two ways of accessing the roof: the stairway coming from inside the building and the sky. Amp was busy making sure no one came through the door by jamming the lock shut, using his ability to absorb and channel sound to make sure no one on the floors below heard him.
Their only real threats were Photon and Phantom. Photon, the only flier in Cloak’s ranks, could be seen approaching in plenty of time for Misty to give them a quick exit.
As for Phantom, she was a threat no matter where they were. Since her powers gave her the ability to travel through the Gloom and walk out of a shadow in the real world at practically any moment, they would never find a place out of her reach. All they could do was hope that she wouldn’t discover their location, and try not to let the fear that she could appear at any time distract them.
“All right,” Gage said, standing. “We’re ready.”
Misty stepped back from the roof’s edge. There was no sound but the wind and distant noise of traffic floating up from the street as the four teammates looked at one another.
“What are we waiting for?” Misty finally asked.
Gage tapped on an electronic screen. Inky energy shot from the Gloom Key, and a dark diamond formed on the wall beside the now-barricaded door. A low roaring sound emanated from it.
Gage and Amp put on their goggles, which Gage had specially designed for the mission. Bug’s eyes glowed a golden metallic color. Then Zip did a diving loop and shot through the portal and into another world. They’d discovered that radio waves couldn’t cross planes. Amp, Gage, and Zip would travel to the Gloom, and Bug would stay behind with Misty, following along via the dragonfly.
“So far I don’t see anything strange,” Bug said, scouting out the Gloom through Zip’s eyes. His voice was low and soft, as if he were in some sort of trance. Keeping up with Zip in the Gloom was a strain on his powers. “I mean, other than what looks like miles and miles of shadowy wasteland.”
“Misty,” Amp said, “you stay by Bug’s side no matter what. Keep your eyes open. The slightest hint of trouble and you two take the Gloom Key and get out of here. Don’t worry about us.”
“Got it,” she said, clicking her heels together with a smile. “I’m the only line of defense. No big deal.”
Amp walked to the portal, standing beside Gage as they peered into the roiling darkness. They were both dressed for the extreme cold of the Gloom, in puffy coats and gloves and scarves.
“You ready?” Amp asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” said Gage.
“You guys don’t let anything happen to Zip, okay?” Misty said. “Or yourselves.”
“Don’t worry. Just a quick trip through a nightmare,” Gage said flatly. “What could go wrong?”
Misty didn’t laugh.
Amp held his arm out, ushering Gage to go in front of him.
“How chivalrous,” the inventor said, and then he was gone.
“See you guys in a bit,” Amp sa
id, as he followed Gage into the void.
For a few seconds, the world was nothing but shadows and freezing air, and then the two boys were standing together in near-complete darkness. There was a whirring sound as their goggles automatically adjusted to the dim light, allowing them a slightly clearer view of the world. A glimpse of the Rook’s rooftop was visible in a diamond shape. Zip hovered in front of Amp, who gave her a thumbs-up. She made one circle in the air, signaling that Bug understood. They couldn’t afford to leave the portal open for fear that it would attract Phantom’s attention. It closed in on itself. The normal world disappeared.
Gage and Amp were alone together in the Gloom.
They found themselves near the top of a dark cliff that appeared to be composed of some sort of solid shadow—a substance now familiar to both Amp and Gage after spending hours of time in the Gloom while preparing for this rescue operation. Amp squeezed the side of his electronic watch, starting a timer. Thirty minutes. That’s all they had. Through their training, they’d discovered that after that amount of time they both felt drained and tired. Gage had feared what would happen to them should they stay longer than that.
Besides, the faster they were out of the Gloom, the sooner Alex and his distraction team could stop fighting.
Above them, where the sun should have been blazing gold, a dark orb caused the sky to pulse with a strange, dull glow. It was as if the plane existed as a photo negative of the normal world, except that none of the darkness had bothered to become the light.
The ground they stood on sloped until it gave way to rolling hills on one side, and what looked like a black-sand desert on the other. Amp took a look over the edge of the cliff. There was nothing but darkness, an inky sea, though points of half-formed structures poked out of the murk here and there. In the real world he would have been able to see for miles, but everything in the Gloom was hazy. Shapes in the distance became nebulous, or turned out to be nothing but mirages if he stared at them for too long. The only thing he could make out clearly was the silhouette of something that resembled the building sketched out in the blueprints Kirbie had found in Cloak’s War Room—the structure that was to be built on the ruins of Justice Tower. It was a craggy, imposing building that looked as if it had grown from the ground itself, rising high into the air in a sharp pointed spire.
“What is this place?” Amp asked. “Everything else I’ve seen of the Gloom was miles of nothing. This area looks like someone glued pieces of different maps together.”
Gage was quiet for a moment, as if he was doing some difficult calculation in his mind. His head darted about, though his eyes were hidden behind the tinted lenses of his goggles. When he spoke, there was a hint of wonder in his voice.
“We’re in the heart of the city. I doubt Phantom ever spent much time in the part of the Gloom near the lake house, but she would have been here often. There’s no way of knowing how much of her life Phantom spent in the Gloom. I’ve heard she used to disappear here for days when she was younger. I imagine we’re looking at the kingdom that Phantom built for herself over the past few decades. A place to rule. She did once go by ‘the Phantom Queen.’”
“And that,” Amp said, gesturing to the castle of shadows. “I guess that’s her palace.”
“It’s like something out of an old fairy tale,” Gage said as he tapped away at an electronic device. “I half expect that if we get closer to it, we’ll find it surrounded by brambles. Perhaps she and Shade built it together.”
“Shade was here, too? I thought the others only passed through the Gloom when Phantom was transporting them.”
“That’s true now, but when they were younger—younger than us, I think—Phantom used to bring Shade here sometimes. She was the first person Phantom ever marked with her energy.”
“So what happened?” Amp asked. “Why’d Shade stop coming? Did they have an argument or something?”
“Oh, no. They’re still practically sisters. It’s just that the Gloom got too draining for Shade. Phantom’s powers work with the Gloom. She feeds off its energy, but it’s the opposite for everyone else. That’s why we should only be in here for a half hour, tops.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I used to play a weekly chess game with the Tutor, who taught the High Council when they were young. He was quite a talker when he thought he was winning.”
There was a blip on Gage’s screen. He smiled.
“Ah. Fortunately, it looks like we’ll be heading in the direction opposite of the big scary castle.”
“You’ve got a lock on Lone Star?” Amp asked, his voice growing louder.
Gage shushed him, glancing around. “I do. But it’s faint. More of a general area than a pinpoint.”
“Lead the way. We need to get moving.” Amp wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. He waved his hand in front of Zip, then drew an arrow in the air with his finger, knowing that somewhere only steps away but in a completely different world, Bug was watching.
“Scout ahead,” Amp said.
Gage placed a tiny black cube on the ground—a beacon they would use to find their way back to this place and the portal home. Then they began to walk.
The landscape changed erratically. Everything was constructed out of the same dark elements, but there were hints of the normal world as well. Gage led them over the rolling hills and past a half-formed building that contained several glass windows. A handful of trees dotted a lane in front of it, their branches bare and trunks curved over, as if stooping to greet the two boys.
“She must have taken whatever she liked from the real world and brought it here,” Amp said quietly, his eyes lingering on a decades-old phone booth that sat in the middle of the nothingness.
“The metal and glass seems to be doing better than the organic matter. Things just decay into nothing here,” Gage whispered, gesturing to a grove of skeletal trees that looked as though they would crumble under the slightest touch.
“Right,” Amp said quietly.
“Oh, I apologize,” Gage said a bit awkwardly. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right. I gave up any hope of ever seeing my parents again a long time ago.”
Amp walked on. His parents had been among the Rangers who had been lost to the Gloom a decade before. And while Gage had surmised that Lone Star and Lux could definitely have survived their month in the dark plane, he’d admitted that doing so for ten years was rather unlikely.
They passed between two craggy cliffs. Their footsteps made soft pads on the ground. Amp took in each echo, storing the noise inside himself as ammo. He’d found that being inside the Gloom for extended periods of time temporarily dampened his powers, and so he made it a point to actively absorb any stray sounds. Zip flew several yards ahead of them. Amp kept one eye on the dragonfly at all times. The last thing he wanted was to miss a message, or have the insect disappear in some shadowy crevice, never to be seen again.
“I keep thinking I see movement just out of the corner of my eye,” Amp said.
“I know,” Gage said. He touched the side of his goggles, and the lenses changed from black to a dark green. “Something about this part of the Gloom feels like it’s much more alive than where we’ve been training. But I’m registering nothing as far as heat vision goes.”
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.” Amp pulled the strings of his hood, tightening it around his face. He shivered. “If we run into anything in this pass, we’re done for. We’ll be stuck.”
“If you have a map of the Gloom, I would happily lead you a different way,” Gage said calmly.
They carried on, communicating only with nods and gestures as the space between the cliffs got smaller, the darkness closing in above them as their goggles whirred, adjusting to the lack of light. Until finally the tops of the shadows began to recede and they could make out an opening at the end of the pass that promised at least a little more breathing room.
It was at about that time they realized they wer
e being followed.
There was a sound from behind them, like silverware scraping against a dinner plate. It echoed off the walls of the cliffs so that they were unable to tell exactly where it was coming from.
And then there was a rasping laugh, deep and menacing.
The boys didn’t wait to see what had made the noise. They sprinted for the exit to the cavern, Zip rushing overhead. Then they were in open air again, surrounded by hills and boulders and mounds of craggy shadows jutting up into the sky.
“We’re getting closer,” Gage said, staring down at his screen, and then taking a moment to look over his shoulder. Nothing came out of the pass between the cliffs. Nothing had followed them. At least, nothing they had seen. But the shadows around them were moving of their own accord, roiling and bubbling and yawning and stretching. The two strangers in the Gloom continued to run, Gage leading them around ponds full of impossibly dark pools and black columns that rose from the ground with seemingly no purpose.
“I hear something behind us,” Amp said through heavy breaths. “It’s faint. I don’t know what it is. But it’s definitely getting closer. I can hear it breathing.”
It was as if by admitting this, the thing behind them allowed itself to make noise, and they could both hear something scrambling to catch up with them, and again a sound like screeching metal.
And then another noise, right in front of them. Bang. Gage and Amp stopped dead in their tracks. Amp shot his hand forward, concentrating all the sound energy the Gloom hadn’t sucked out of him, readying for attack. Gage froze, his tracking device in hand, a yellow blip pinging on the screen.
The new sound had come from a long piece of wood brought down against the top of a craggy shadow above them. It was sharpened on one end, like a spear. A man was holding it, staring down at them. He had a square jaw with a dimpled chin set beneath a straight nose. The skin around his eyes was dark and creased and stood out against his pallid skin. His hair was greasy and askew, slanting off to the right like a ramp.
His blue-and-white uniform was full of rips and tears, the entire right sleeve missing. Hanging from one shoulder was the smallest scrap of gold, which complemented the starburst on his chest perfectly.