“Maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t come with guarantees, mate.”
“Then why the hell did you come?”
“I told you. Because the dreamtime brought me here.” Wyungare sighed and squatted down again in the corner of the cell. “We can give you the body you want at the cost of your power, or we can take you to safety in the dreamtime, or you can stay here and let them kill you — at which point you won’t hurt the dreamtime anymore. Make your choice.”
“Why are you telling me all this? Why now?”
“Every hero has to have a temptation.”
The Outcast laughed. “Fuck you. Fuck all of you shadow-walkers.” Another explosion rocked the caverns; the Outcast broke his gaze away from Wyungare. “I can’t waste any more time with you,” he said. “I have to go.”
The Outcast left in a gout of purple flame.
“The Jersey Gate is down,” the Outcast said. His face showed the strain of trying to comprehend the fight everywhere at once. “And the Turtle’s just smashed the North Gate. Molly” This to Mistral. “I need you there right now.”
Mistral/Molly nodded. Winds filled her cloak and she rose into the darkening mist.
There was a burning in the misty air. Pulse materialized, his face pale. He fell to one knee.
“We’re fucked,” he said.
“All my Bosch creatures have been killed,” the Outcast said. “I don’t know what’s happening out there. I can’t read the man who’s killing them.”
Pulse gasped in air. “I’ve been trying to burn the guy, but nothing works. He’s killing everyone. Blew up our tanks, wiped out the troops.” He waved an ineffective fist. “It’s just one man!”
The Outcast turned to Modular Man. “Get to the Jersey Gate. Try to retrieve the situation.”
The android turned to Pulse. “Who is it?”
He was afraid he already knew.
“I dunno, man,” Pulse gasped. “He’s young — brown hair, not even carrying a gun. We’ve been throwing everything at him and--”
“Snotman,” Modular Man said. Despair roiled through him.
“And a big robot.”
“Detroit Steel.”
“The Army’s moving into Liberty Park,” the Outcast said. “I can feel the minds of their tank drivers. They’re going over the rubble of the gate. And a lot of men are following. The Wall’s not turning enough of them back.”
Modular Man turned to Bloat. “Surrender,” he said. “Now. While you can still cut a deal, possibly get an amnesty for some of your people.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this shit,” Pulse said. “I should burn your fucking tin head off.” The android turned to him.
“You’re our most powerful ace,” he said. “You couldn’t stop him. Every time you hit him, you just made him more powerful. Snotman absorbs energy! Then he fires it back. I barely escaped him in the past.”
“But you defeated him,” the Outcast said.
“It wasn’t me. It was a joker named Gravemold who was able to suck the energy out of him. And Gravemold isn’t here, is he?”
A wry smile twitched at the Outcast’s lips. “No. He was here, but he wasn’t on our side. And his name wasn’t Gravemold, he was —”
There was an explosion from the direction of the Jersey Gate. The Outcast’s head swiveled up. “We’ve got to stop him.”
“Surrender.”
“There’s got to be a way. Think.”
Modular Man did so. It was, after all, an order.
“Order your people to stop firing,” he said. “All you’re doing is feeding him energy.”
The Outcast gave the order. Kafka relayed it to the troops.
“I’m in Detroit Steel’s head,” the Outcast said. “I’m right behind Snotman. They’re jogging up the bridge. Maybe a third of the way across. They have a young woman with them, lagging behind. Her name is Danny, but I can’t read her. All the Dannys are too strong for me.”
Modular Man decided to ignore this enigmatic remark. “Have you still got enough energy to control matter inside the Wall?”
“Some. Yes.”
“Dematerialize part of the causeway ahead of them. That may slow them down.”
The Outcast closed his eyes, raised his staff, bit his lip with the effort. The amethyst glowed feebly.
He opened his eyes. “Done,” he said. “What now?”
“That was it,” Modular Man said. “That was my idea.”
The Outcast shrugged. “Well. At least you bought us some time till we think of something else.”
“I should consult my creator. Perhaps he’ll know what to do.”
Perhaps, the android thought, he’d know it was time to leave.
There was always a hope.
The corridor ended in another arched doorway. This one had Bloat’s head carved in the center of its lintel. Ray regarded the door suspiciously, but couldn’t detect any trapdoors in the ceiling or floor. No obvious ones, anyway. He stepped toward the doorway and stopped when the carved Bloat-head spoke.
“You’ve been warned,” it said in a voice too high-pitched to be stern. “Please. If you go back now you won’t be hurt.”
“Tell it to Black Shadow,” Ray snarled, but he had to admit that they’d been let off pretty light so far. This crazy underground maze could be a killing field. Instead, it seemed to be stocked with weirdos playing games. He took a deep breath and entered the chamber beyond the doorway, looked around, and stopped.
It was a goddamn underground fairy land. The chamber was lit by some kind of natural phosphorescence in half a dozen muted pastel shades of pink and green. It was at least fifty feet tall and more than twice as long. Its walls were multicolored flowstone. Huge stalactites bigger around than Ray could reach flowed down from the ceiling. The ones in the center of the chamber met their opposite numbers, equally impressive stalagmites, in solid masses of living rock. Interspersed around the giants hanging from the ceiling were hundreds of smaller stalactites, little rock icicles dangling like frozen rain on Christmas day. Bats wheeled around the formations near the ceiling, casting darting, silent shadows that were difficult to distinguish from the animals themselves.
Ray’s powerful flashlight cut through the shadows as he cast its beam carefully about the columnar rock formations sprouting from floor and ceiling. As far as he could tell there were no traps, nor were any of Bloat’s minions lurking in ambush. He turned back toward the party and waved them forward.
“It’s beautiful,” Danny said.
“Yes,” Battle replied, unimpressed. “It’s odd, though.” He reached out and touched a ribbon of flowstone. “These rock formations appear natural, but they would have needed thousands of years to form. These caverns haven’t even been here for months.”
“Bloat’s power” Ray began, and interrupted himself with a wordless shout.
He hurtled toward Danny, leapt, and swung out with his arm above her head. Flesh hit stone, and he absorbed the pain and minor bruising without even changing expression as he batted away the small stalactite so that it fell harmlessly to the floor. If he hadn’t blocked it, it would have hit Danny right on the head.
“That would have speared me for sure,” she said.
Ray felt himself smiling at her, then he whirled at Nemo’s startled cry. The Monster was pointing at the stalactite that Ray had knocked aside. For a moment it blurred as it lay there on the ground; then it shifted shape, changing into a naked, nasty-looking gray creature that seemed to be all teeth and claws.
Everyone watched, startled, as the creature leapt to its feet, snarled, and threw itself at Puckett. It fastened itself on Puckett’s leg and took a big bite.
The dead ace never changed expression. He just reached down and pulled the thing off his leg. It smoked from the acid he exuded from his palms as he twisted its ugly little head right off.