“What do we do now?” Sofia asked.
“Watch me very closely,” Mothball said. She gripped the handlebars, then gently lifted, surprising everyone when the metal connecting her handgrips to the bike bent upward. As she did so, her Windbike rose several feet into the air with a slight surge in its humming sound; the top of her head almost bumped into a low-hanging branch.
“Cool!” Paul shouted.
Tick couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Your hands control everything,” Mothball said from above. “Push forward, go forward. The farther you push, the faster you go. Pull back and you slow down or stop, depending how hard ya do it. And ya go up or down by lifting and dropping the handgrips. Easy as breathin’, it is.”
Tick yelped and grabbed Sato’s shirt as their bike suddenly leaped into the air and backward, then lurched forward and came to a sudden stop. A second later it shot forward again and flew around the closest tree, coming to a halt right above Sofia and Paul.
“It works,” Sato said in a deadpan voice.
At the same time, all of them laughed. Even Sato broke into a smile for the first time since they’d met, looking back at Tick just as it turned back into a frown.
Tick had the strange feeling that maybe he was glad Sato had taken the pilot’s seat after all, since he seemed to already have the hang of it. I probably would’ve slammed us into the ground already, breaking all of our legs.
Sofia tried it next, shooting straight upward until Paul’s head slammed into the branch overhead.
“Ow, watch it!” he screamed. “I’m tall, remember!”
“Sorry,” Sofia said through a snicker. Tick could see her push down and forward on the handlebars as the Windbike came down and flew around the same tree he and Sato had just circled. She came to a stop by pulling back with her hands, hovering right next to Tick.
“Told you it was easy, I did,” Mothball said. She revved her humming motorcycle. “Follow me!”
Her Windbike shot forward into the forest before she’d finished her sentence.
~
“You’re sure of the meeting time and place?” Mistress Jane asked from her perch on the throne, glancing at her brightly yellow painted fingernails one by one.
“Absolutely,” Frazier replied, trying his best to remain calm and professional, even though he knew how unpredictable his boss could be. He’d been put in charge of counter-spying on Annika since he’d returned and he had discovered some very interesting letters in the back of her closet. His relief at being right about her had far outweighed any fear he felt about damage she may have done. His hide had been saved and that was all that mattered.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, looking at the floor. “Dawn. Where the river meets the Forest of Plague. Annika will take the Barrier Wand from your throne room while you sleep, then deliver it to the Realitants.”
“Why doesn’t she just wink away with it herself? Why all the drama?” Jane said the last word with a low and sarcastic drawl.
Frazier swallowed despite his dry mouth. “She’s under orders to keep her cover, stay infiltrated. Keep spying on you.”
“Perhaps we should hide the Wand, end the plan this very minute.” Jane lifted her hand and a small plate with a cup of steaming hot tea floated up from a nearby table and rested on her palm. She took a long and slurping drink.
“We could, Mistress, but then we might lose our chance to capture any Realitants who may have escaped George’s Command Center before your attack. If Annika is not there with the Barrier Wand, they might suspect something and flee before we arrive.”
“Frazier Gunn,” Jane said with a sneer as she leaned forward in her throne, dropping the plate and cup onto the floor with a wet crash. She took off her lemon-decorated hat to reveal the shiny bald scalp underneath. Frazier shivered, knowing she did this only when she wanted to threaten someone. “This is your chance to redeem your pathetic failure of not bringing me those kids the first time I asked you to. If you fail me again . . .”
“You have nothing to worry about, Mistress. I’ll have eyes on the Barrier Wand at all times and the army of fangen are ready to attack. Once the Realitants meet up with Annika, we’ll charge in and take them all. They’ll have nowhere to go.”
“Are you sure the fangen are reliable? Last time I checked, they were still developing, still blind as bats.”
Heat pulsed through Frazier’s veins. “They’re not at full strength, that’s true. But they’ll be plenty tough to take care of a few Realitants, I promise.”
Jane paused a moment, staring him down as she considered his plan. “Fine, Frazier. But I want you personally to check and double check that the Chi’karda Drive in the Wand is disengaged before tonight. In fact, take the thing out altogether and give it to me so I can sleep with it under my pillow. Without it, they won’t be able to wink away.”
“And Master George’s Wand? What if he tries to wink them back?”
Mistress Jane laughed as she placed the lemony hat back on her shiny head. “Oh, don’t worry about him. He’ll be far too occupied to do any rescuing.” Her face flashed to red as she screamed, “Nitwit! Clean up this mess!”
~
By the time Mothball finally stopped next to an oak tree the size of a small building, Tick was desperate to throw up. After all the dodging and weaving through the maze of trees in the forest, his insides felt as if someone had shaken them like a maraca. When Sato pulled to a stop and lowered the Windbike to the mossy floor, Tick jumped off and ran over to a clump of bushes, where he spewed out every last morsel remaining in his stomach.
Paul made a wisecrack, but by the looks of his green face, he didn’t feel much better. Sofia and Sato seemed fine—as did Mothball—and Tick wondered if it was because they’d been driving.
Mothball removed her backpack and started pulling out all kinds of stuff. A tarp, some blankets, a little stove, packets of food.
“I thought we were in a hurry to meet our spy lady?” Paul asked, still walking off his nausea.
“What’s that?” Mothball asked, concentrating on setting up the stove. “Oh, no, that be tomorrow morning when we meet Annika.”
“Then why all the rush?” Sofia asked.
“Wanted to get far away from the deadies, I did.” Mothball shivered. “The battleground where all those people died is downright spooky if ya ask me. Thought it best to be away a bit before we set up camp.”
“So what do we do all night?” Paul asked as he leaned over Mothball’s shoulder, not bothering to hide his interest in whatever she planned on cooking.
“Eat up, we will. Rutger prepared some right tasty dinners. Rest a bit, get some sleep. We’ll be meetin’ Annika just as the sun comes up, down by where the river that flows through Mistress Jane’s fortress comes out and hits the Forest of Plague.”
“How do we know for sure she’ll be there?” Sato asked, still sitting on his Windbike. “Maybe she’s turned on you.”
“She’ll be there, Mister Sato, no worries.” Mothball ripped open a silvery pack of goop and poured it into a pot on her small stove. “One of our finest, Annika is.”
“What if she’s been captured?” Sato persisted.
“Then ya better be prayin’ Master George survived his little battle and brings us back.”
Tick sat down on a fallen log, unhappy that they had hurried to get here only to sit and wait for tomorrow. It was going to be a long night.
~
“Here you are, Mistress.”
Frazier handed over the cylindrical pack of wires, nanochips, and instruments that made up the Chi’karda Drive, the heart and soul of her Barrier Wand.
Jane took the odd-looking package through her open bedroom door, examining it as though she suspected it wasn’t the real thing. “You put the Wand back where it always rests for the night?”
“Yes, I did. The trap is set.”
“I can’t wait to find out why Annika has betrayed me,” Jane said with a nasty smile. “How f
un it will be to remind her why it’s best to be on my side of things.”
“Loads,” Frazier muttered, almost forgetting himself. “The fangen are ready, Mistress, and are already moving into their hiding positions.”
“That should be an interesting sight to watch—them sniffing along, bumping into things.” Jane pointed a finger through the crack of the door. “Remember, we need the Realitants alive. This is the perfect opportunity for me to learn what that weasel George is planning.”
“Yes, Mistress Jane,” Frazier said. “The fangen will be very . . . eager, but I’ll do my best to restrain them.”
~
The night was dark and cool, and Tick slept surprisingly well until Mothball shook him awake a couple of hours before dawn. He jumped at first, but his senses came back to him quickly.
“Time to be movin’, it is,” she whispered, then moved on to the next person.
They’d all slept on a wide blue tarp, each one of them given a single blanket to make it through the night. Tick had never felt too cold, and the soft undergrowth of the forest floor made for a nice mattress. All in all, he felt well rested once he got up and his blood started flowing.
After a quick breakfast of granola bars and apples, a unified hush settled on everyone as they helped Mothball pack up her things and stuff them into the backpack. The forest was mostly quiet, the occasional buzz of an insect or howl of an animal in the distance the only sounds.
Tick didn’t know if he’d ever felt butterflies so intense as he did at that moment, waiting to hop back on his Windbike and fly off to meet Annika the spy. From what he’d heard about Mistress Jane, he doubted she would be very merciful if they blew the mission and got captured. What if Sato was right? What if this was all a trap? What if something went wrong? Tick tried not to think about his fears, putting his trust in Mothball and Master George.
“Everyone, gather ’round,” Mothball said once she’d swung the backpack onto her shoulders. They moved together into a tight circle, intently awaiting instructions. “Just yonder there’s a small break in the trees. Once there, we’re going to fly up and over the roof of the forest to make it easy goin’. Just follow me, and we’ll make our way to the meetin’ point by the river. Once Annika comes with the Barrier Wand, we’ll scuttle away right quick and head back for the old battleground in the forest. Got it?”
“Yeah,” whispered Paul. “Sounds pretty easy to me.”
“What do we do if something goes wrong?” Sato asked, seeming to show a little more interest in the group. “What is—how do you say?—our Plan B?”
“Yeah, what if this Annika lady doesn’t get the Wand to us?” Paul asked.
Mothball paused. “Then we fly like the dickens back to the battleground to regroup.”
“Why do I not feel assured this has all been thought out?” Sofia asked.
“Annika’s been preppin’ for months for this, she ’as,” Mothball replied. “But if we don’t get the ruddy Wand, won’t matter much in the end. If we’re to have any ’ope of defeatin’ the Mistress, we need to trap her ’ere for a long time.”
“Then let’s do it,” Paul said, holding his hand out, palm to the ground.
Tick got the idea and did the same, putting his hand on top of Paul’s. Sofia followed suit, then Mothball. Everyone looked at Sato, whose face was hidden in the darkness. After a long pause, he finally gave in, placing his hand on top of the pile.
“Promise me,” he said looking around the circle. “Promise me you people won’t betray me.”
His words surprised Tick, and by the shocked silence from his friends, he figured they were just as taken back.
“Promise me!” Sato yelled.
“Just who do you think—” Sofia began.
“No,” Mothball said, cutting her off. “Sato ’ere had a bit of trouble in his past. Right deserving of his doubts, he is. Sato, I promise I won’t be the one doin’ any betraying. You can bet yer best buttons on that one.”
“Me, neither,” Paul quickly added. “Sato, we’re in this together, man.”
“Yeah,” Tick agreed. “We’re not going to betray you.”
“And you?” Sato said to Sofia.
“I think you need an attitude—”
“Sofia!” Tick snapped, surprising himself.
She paused for a long time. “All right, all right. Sato, I promise I won’t betray you, even though that sounds really lame. We’re all a team, here. Okay?” She said the last word sarcastically, as if to preserve her dignity. “Can we quit holding hands now?”
“On three,” Paul said, ignoring her. “On three, yell . . . Go Realitants.”
“Oh, come on,” Sofia complained.
“Just do it,” Paul replied. “Pump us up for some prime-time action and adventure. Ready?” He bobbed his hand up and down as he counted. “One . . . two . . . three . . . GO REALITANTS!” He threw everyone’s hands up in the air as he shouted the last part with enthusiasm.
Tick and Mothball half-heartedly said the words with him, but Sato and Sofia didn’t make a peep.
“Man, you guys are pathetic,” Paul muttered.
“Let’s just get on with it, Cheeseball,” Sofia said. “Let’s go get us a Barrier Wand.”
And with that, they got on their bikes and flew toward the tops of the trees.
Chapter
47
~
Annika’s Toss
The dark sky had the slightest hint of purple as the Realitants shot out of the forest and skimmed along the canopy of trees, following Mothball in the lead. Tick knew he should be terrified, but he already felt completely confident in the workings of the Windbikes; they seemed invincible and effortless. The dark and puffy roof of the forest below them looked like a churning sea of storm clouds, making him feel higher in the sky than a few hundred feet. It was a little awkward holding onto Sato at first, but he enjoyed the rush of speed and the whipping wind.
For the first time in his life, he knew what it felt like to be Superman.
They traveled for a half hour before Mothball held up her hand to signal the others to slow down. The black purple of the sky had slowly brightened into a mixture of oranges and reds, streaks of fiery clouds scratched across it. Tick could see that the main forest ended a mile or so ahead, and almost swallowed his tongue when he saw what towered above the land beyond.
It was a massive fortress of stone and rock, still dark against the scant light of dawn. Dozens of towers and bridges dotted its skyline. It had to be the single largest structure Tick had ever seen—bigger by far than even the Seahawks’ football stadium. It appeared that not only had Mistress Jane discovered a land full of something like magic, she’d set herself up in a castle fit for a king from any fantasy book in the library. Tick was in awe and had the sudden urge to explore the place.
The three Windbikes hovered next to each other, everyone in stunned silence as they gawked at the castle of Mistress Jane.
“Calls it the Lemon Fortress, she does,” Mothball said. “Why that woman loves the color yellow so much is beyond me. Looney, she is.”
“Are we sure they can’t see us?” Paul asked.
“Not sure at’all. Come on, down we go. Got to be about our business.” She pushed on her handlebars and flew toward the edge of the forest, the other two Windbikes right behind her.
They passed over the green cliff of the tightly packed trees and descended toward the ground, where a lush lawn of grass and wildflowers was sliced by the sinewy curve of a huge, sparkling blue river that spilled out from underneath the castle before finally disappearing into the forest. Not a person was in sight, and in a matter of seconds, the group had settled on the ground next to the deep, slowly moving waters, close enough to the trees to smell bark and pine.
“Where is Annika?” Sofia asked, not bothering to hide the frustration in her voice.
“Be along directly, she will,” Mothball replied, but her face showed signs of worry as she stared at the Lemon Fortress with a creas
ed brow.
From where they waited, they could see a cobblestone path running along the river and up to a large double-doored entrance of the castle, just a few hundred feet away. Next to it, the river seemed to magically appear from nowhere, bubbling up from under the cold blocks of the castle’s granite. At the moment, not a thing stirred anywhere except for the trickling river and the early-rising birds of the forest.
Tick was about to say something when Mothball shushed him, holding up a hand as she perked her ears, looking around for signs of mischief. At first, Tick couldn’t hear anything, but then the faintest sound of giggling and high-pitched chatter came from everywhere at once, bouncing along the lawn in front of them and from the trees behind them.
“What is that?” Paul whispered.
The creepy cacophony of hoots and howls and wicked laughter grew louder.
“That can’t be good,” Sofia muttered, her eyes wide in her frightened face. “Mothball, what’s going on?”
“Methinks we’ve been found out, I do,” she answered, standing to get a better look at the Lemon Fortress. “Sounds like the fangen to me, and they be comin’ fast. We may have to fight a bit after all. Don’t worry, the lugs are still blind and clumsy so all ya’ll need to do is move a lot and shoot ’em with these little gems.”
She pulled out several dark-green cylinders from a side pocket on her backpack and passed one to each of the kids. They were thin and several inches long, one end tapering to a point. Tick took his and examined the shiny surface, noticing a small button toward the thicker end.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“That there’s the Sound Slicer,” Mothball answered. “Point the narrowed bit at the beasties when they get close and push the button. Keep ’em off ya, it will.”
“What does it—” Sofia began.
Before she could finish her question, the sound of wood scraping against stone echoed through the air. Everyone turned in unison to see the wide double doors of the castle opening outward like the gaping jaws of a monster. The seam in the middle had barely grown a foot wide before a woman with long black hair shot out of it, dressed in a bright green dress, running with strained and frantic effort. In her right hand, she held a long golden rod.