It revealed itself as a face, ten feet high and wide, in three dimensions, fashioned out of the sand and eerily lifelike, and Will knew who this was instantly, even before its blue eyes opened and the scarred lips began to move and he heard its voice speaking to him.
“Can you hear me now, mate?” asked Dave’s voice.
“I hear you loud and clear,” said Will.
“’Bout bloody time,” said Dave. “Not for lack of trying on my part. Which cost me no small amount of blood, sweat, and tears, I can tell you that.”
When Will looked around, he realized Elise and Brooke also had their eyes open, and judging by their speechless astonishment, they could hear Dave, too.
“I heard you earlier,” said Will. “You know, when we were down in the tunnels.”
“That’s when I started to get the hang of it from my end,” said Dave. “I could tune into you but the signal was fairly dicey.”
“Yeah, you were fading in and out a lot,” said Will.
“Found out I could boost my signal through your little computer pal—by the way, you oughta check that thing out. I think it’s got some of your actual DNA—”
“You know who this is?” asked Elise, astonished.
“This is Dave,” said Will, trying to keep it as simple as possible. “He’s a friend.”
Dave’s image rotated to face Brooke and Elise. “Don’t give me the cold shoulder, buttercups. Aren’t you even going to say hi?”
“Hi,” said Brooke, wide-eyed with terror.
“How’s it going, Dave?” asked Elise, doing a slightly better job of covering her terror.
“Been worse,” said Dave. “Definitely been better.”
“I see,” said Elise.
“Look, there’s nothing I’d like more than chewing the fat with you lovely ladies but time’s running short, the kettle’s on the boil, and this whole zone’s about to go hot as a monkey’s doodle-dandy.”
“Okay,” said Brooke.
“What did he say?” Elise asked Brooke, who shrugged.
“Where are you?” asked Will.
“Where do you suppose I am, mate? You saw me get yanked through that infernal manhole with your own eyes, didn’t you?”
“You mean, in the cave? When the wendigo grabbed you?”
“Now you’re back on the beam,” said Dave. “I’ve been here ever since.”
“Oh my God, you’ve been in the Never-Was this whole time?” asked Will.
“Time has no meaning in here, mate. In fact, all bets are off, to put it mildly. Took me this long just to set my compass and find a way to make contact. Not the easiest job with a wendigo breathing down your tailpipe.”
“Where did you meet this guy?” asked Brooke.
“On a plane,” said Will.
“Was he made of sand then?” whispered Elise.
“No, he’s like a person usually, sort of,” said Will, then turned back to Dave. “So the wendigo’s in there with you?”
“Old home week for that one. Finally gave it the slip, along with legions of other hideous beasties they’ve stockpiled in here—by the way, how much time has gone by on your end?”
“Almost eight months,” said Will.
“Zounds, this is worse than I imagined,” said Dave. “I’ve avoided capture to date, but they’ve had me on the run from the moment I landed. Never had anyone from our squad on the inside before, so it’s hardly wasted effort—I’ve got a recon report that’d curl your hair—but if I don’t get out and deliver it to the boys upstairs in short order, our goose is collectively cooked.”
“What, you can’t contact the Hierarchy from in there?”
“No chance, mate. All frequencies jammed. I only got through to you because of the unique nature of the Wayfarer-Client connection.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” asked Elise.
“Uh, yes,” said Will.
“I don’t know which would be worse,” said Brooke.
“Here’s the short version, mate, and you’ll grasp the urgency: They’re massing for attack on this end, something fierce. Unless I miss my guess, they’re lining up to launch that invasion we’ve talked about.”
“Really? Then why isn’t the Hierarchy all over this?” asked Will.
“They can’t see in here for starters, and my guess is they’re up to their eyeballs. The OT’s sending out skirmishers and scouts all over the planet—feints and distractions, designed to keep our side busy so they can’t glimpse the big picture. I don’t know how much time we’ve got. D-Day could be right around the corner. The moment of no return is fast approaching.”
“Is he saying what I think he’s saying?” asked Elise.
“The Other Team’s about to break out of the Never-Was and take over the planet,” said Will. “Again.”
“Okay, why should we believe any of this?” asked Brooke defiantly. “How do we know this isn’t some kind of CGI stunt?”
“What, it’s not enough that your boyfriend vouches for me?” asked Dave.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” they both hastened to say.
Will didn’t know how he felt about that.
Dave turned his eye to Elise. “You’re the one who artfully sprinkled all this sand on the canvas. Am I right, ducks? Just the way it appeared in your dream.”
“That’s right,” said Elise, surprised.
“I sent you that vision,” said Dave. “Through your connection to my young friend here. And I think you know what I’m referring to.”
“Oh,” said Elise with a glance at Will; then she quickly turned to Brooke. “Okay, he’s for real.”
“You were on the money, Will. These two are a set of matched pistoleros,” said Dave, and then he winked at them, dropping sand at their feet.
“How can we help?” asked Will.
“Job one: you’ve got to get me out of here,” said Dave. “ASAP. So I can warn HQ posthaste.”
“Isn’t warning HQ something I can do?” asked Will.
“No, mister. As a Level Two dogface, you most decidedly cannot,” said Dave.
“Oh, so I’m Level Two now?”
“Field promotion,” said Dave. “For general excellence. Had no way to tell you.”
Will felt no small swell of pride but had to squelch it quickly. “So how do we get you out of there?” he asked.
“Only one way,” said Dave. “You’ll have to come get me.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” asked Brooke.
“For starters you’ll need that cosmic can opener your pal Lyle used in the cave.”
“The Carver,” said Will. “We were just talking about going to find it.”
“Well, shake a leg, kiddo,” said Dave. “Then assemble every bit of muscle you can scrape together and come on in. You’ll need it. It’s no company picnic in here.”
“I don’t know, Dave,” said Will. “This sounds like more than we can handle, honestly.”
“Maybe so, but what other choice do we have? For what it’s worth, I think you’re up to it, my lad. And there will be help unlooked for, you can count on that.”
“You mean like that silver falcon you sent to help me?” asked Will, lowering his voice.
“Falcon? What falcon?”
“The one in the cave, when the trees were after me.”
“Sounds fascinating, but that weren’t me, mate. They’ve got me so harried I couldn’t summon an angry mosquito—”
“But if you didn’t send it, who did?” asked Will.
“No clue—hang on.” Dave’s face tilted upward, as if listening to something in the distance. “Damn the luck, they’ve locked onto our signal. I’ve gotta scoot, and head’s up, Will. Part of whatever they’re throwing at me might seep through at you—”
A blinding flash of light filled the room
and the sand that had formed the image fell apart and showered to the floor.
Will turned to the girls. They both looked about as stunned as he expected, but Elise was staring up at the skylight, and then a second later she pointed at something.
“What’s that?” she said.
Something small and dark was moving—or falling—toward the window out of the sky at a high rate of speed.
THE CAVES
“Get out of the way!” Will shouted.
They scrambled toward the door but the object didn’t crash through the glass as Will had anticipated. Instead it stopped short and paused, looking vaguely like a car-sized rain cloud, hovering just above the windows.
Then the cloud collapsed into a thousand fragments—something like oversized raindrops—that clattered on the skylight. Instead of beading up and running off like liquid, the drops stuck where they landed, and from each piece Will felt malevolence radiate. The droplets spread out and covered the entire skylight, blotting out the sun.
“That’s not rain,” said Brooke.
All at once the droplets turned a darker shade, a sizzling sound filled the room, smoke rose from the skylight, and Will realized they were burning through the glass.
He heard Elise ask him, What should we do?
Blast ’em.
Elise took a deep breath and let out a focused sonic blast. The skylight exploded out into the air, carrying the liquid with it.
The three stepped forward, looking up at the hole to the open sky.
“We’re going to hear from maintenance about this,” said Brooke.
They quickly stepped back as shards of shattered glass fell back into the room. Drops of the strange liquid hit the floor as well, wriggling around as if electrified.
Elise raised her foot to stomp on one of them.
“Don’t!” Will shouted, pulling her out of the way. “Don’t let it touch you!”
Within moments the loose droplets snaked toward each other in the center of the room, reassembling into something bigger and much more worrying than a rain cloud, something tall and dark and menacing that looked more elemental than humanoid.
Before Will and Elise could react, Brooke walked straight toward the creature before it could completely coalesce and fearlessly laid both hands on it. Ferocious concentration etched her face as she leaned into the thing, and right before their eyes it lost its organizing energy, wilting, falling apart, and within seconds spilling to the floor and dispersing as harmless and inert as tap water.
Will and Elise looked at each other, amazed, as Brooke turned to them, much cooler and calmer than either of them would have thought possible.
“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” said Brooke, looking at her hands, “and I figured that if I changed my intention I could … reverse the flow. You know, take energy away from something, instead of give it?”
“Good to know,” said Elise, nodding.
“Very good,” said Will, still stunned.
Somewhere in the building they heard an alarm sounding.
“Maintenance really isn’t going to like this,” said Elise.
“We better go find the Carver,” said Brooke. “Before school security or mine shows up.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Will.
“And if they grill us about this?” asked Elise, pointing at the ceiling.
“We weren’t even here,” said Will, heading out the door. “Let’s find Nick and Ajay and meet in an hour.”
“By the way, what’s a ‘Level Two dogface’?” asked Elise.
“I’ll explain later.”
Ajay and Nick responded immediately to Will’s page; they agreed to meet at the Riven Oak behind the Barn, each arriving separately but only after making sure they weren’t followed. It was just after three when Brooke was the last to arrive and they set out for the caves. She explained it took extra time for her to send her three-man security detail on a wild-goose chase—checking out the attack at the art studio—before breaking away unnoticed.
Nick led them into the deep woods, using less-traveled paths so they didn’t see another soul until they reached Lake Waukoma. Afternoon winds had kicked up and the lake was dotted with sailboats, so Nick veered away from the water, cut through a final stand of woods, and skirted the edges of the forest as they climbed to the plateau that led to the cliffs. As they walked, Will brought Nick and Ajay up to date, giving them the same info he’d told the girls about Dave.
“Huh,” said Nick.
“Why am I not surprised,” said Ajay.
The most exposed part of the hike would come when they left the forest and made for the path to the ridge. After Ajay looked ahead and behind and saw no one following, Will activated his Grid to scan the area and confirm. The sun, filtered through a thin layer of cirrus clouds, felt like a hot wet blanket as they crossed the rocky plateau to the base of the escarpment. Will took the lead now—he remembered every detail of the ascent from last fall vividly—and Nick brought up the rear as they started up.
Dripping with sweat, concentrating on every foot and handhold, Will glanced back frequently to make sure the others were okay. Everyone climbed in silence, even Ajay, who labored hard and uttered not a single complaint. When they crossed the summit onto the ridge, they took a water break, looking down over the broad river valley and the lake below.
As they studied the openings in the sheer rock wall ahead, Will passed out maps he’d drawn earlier from memory of the three caves on the ridge. He recounted the fight with Lyle and the wendigo—just the memory gave him chills—and pointed to the center cave as the most likely place the Carver landed after Lyle had thrown it when the wendigo attacked.
Will wiped a sheen of sweat off his brow. The wind felt stronger here but did nothing to moderate the intense heat, which reflected off the face of the cliff like a mirror. In case the Carver had been moved, Will sent Nick to search the smaller cave to the left and sent Brooke and Elise toward the one to the right. Will entered the biggest opening in the center with Ajay, where his vision would be best served in the cave where Will hoped to find the Carver.
“All three connect deeper inside,” said Will. “Give a holler if you see anything.”
They turned on flashlights and comm system microphones and advanced to the openings. Will gripped the stone falcon in his hand, turned on his flashlight, and led the way inside. It had been winter when Will was last here; the cave had felt dead and cold then, almost antiseptic. Now it was moist and hot inside, thick with a rich musk of loam and mold. After the vast spaces of Cahokia, it felt almost claustrophobic. He let Ajay take the lead, scanning the ground, his hungry eyes gleaming in the dim light.
Will turned his light off, blinked on his Grid, and examined the darkness ahead for life or energy, wondering if the Carver might emanate a readable signal. He faintly saw Nick and the girls’ heat signature through the wall to either side, but nothing straight ahead. He blinked the Grid down, turned his light on, and searched crevices and small hiding places with the naked eye as they slowly advanced.
“Spot anything?” Will asked into his mic.
The others answered that they hadn’t.
About a hundred feet in, the cave widened and the three passages merged. Nick rejoined them first, then Brooke and Elise. Will stopped; this was as far as he’d gone the last time. The single larger passage yawned open before them, snaking around a corner to the right.
“Near as I can remember,” said Will, “this is about where Lyle was standing when he threw the Carver.”
They trained their lights forward, spread out in a straight line, and started forward, examining the ground inch by inch.
“What was that?” asked Ajay, stopping suddenly. “I hear something.”
They stopped and listened. Slowly the sound of dripping water somewhere ahead, plinking into a puddle, came into foc
us.
“Water,” said Elise.
“There’s something else,” whispered Ajay.
“What, you got supersonic hearing now, too?” asked Nick.
“If I had a pistol, I’d shoot you,” Ajay said, gesturing for silence. “Listen, don’t you hear it?”
Will closed his eyes to concentrate. He did hear something else, low and steady, almost below audible range.
“It sounds like breathing,” whispered Will.
“Yes, that’s it,” whispered Ajay. “Acoustics in here may be amplifying it, making it harder to trace its source.”
“You guys have gone goofy,” said Nick. “I don’t hear anything—”
Something burst out of the darkness ahead, straight into where their flashlights were pointed, and it happened so fast two of them dropped them in shock. They caught only a glimpse of something that was as tall as the ceiling, long, sinewy, and ghoulishly pale, with eyes like dark shining beacons. It looked toward Will, locked eyes with him for a moment, raised one hairy arm to block the lights, gave out a muffled cry, and then as quickly as it appeared, the specter slipped back into the darkness around the corner.
“Don’t anybody move,” said Will.
“I may need to, Will,” said Ajay, who slumped to his knees. “At least vertically, as it seems I’m having a heart attack.”
“It’s not a heart attack,” said Brooke, putting a hand on his back. “It’s adrenaline.”
“To be precise, it’s called the fight-or-flight response,” said Ajay, struggling to breathe. “And I’m strongly leaning toward flight.”
They instinctively huddled together, fighting the impulse to bolt toward the exit.
“What the hell was that?” asked Nick. “Bigfoot?”
“No, just another stupid death clown from the Never-Was,” said Elise, picking up her flashlight.
“Maybe,” said Will as his heartbeat settled into high aerobic range. “But I don’t think so.”
“Good thing I didn’t scream,” said Elise. “I’d have blown its head off.”
“Why don’t you think it’s a Never-Was thing, Will?” asked Brooke.
“Because it looked more like a wendigo,” said Will.