respectfully. “Pardon Lawmen, but there aren’t a few hundred more of you on the way are there?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Then New Hope is as good as dead,” he moaned, hefting his end of the litter,
readying to be on his way.
“Wait,” Sam ordered. When she used that tone, even a deaf man could hear the
implied violence in it if she didn’t get what she wanted. “Answer my question, please.
What’s going on? Why are people fleeing?”
The dog-eared man licked his lips anxiously, looking from Sam, to Gabriel, and back to Sam again. “The Apostle of Cain.”
“What the hell’s an Apostle,” Sam asked in confusion.
“He rose to power in the Quarantine Zone about a month back, and got all the
mutants organized. His face is so grotesque that he can’t bear to gaze upon it himself, and always wears a mask and a big heavy cloak to hide his mutations. The Emperor sent an entire division of troops to help defend the walls. We just received word that a battle has been fought, a section of the wall is down, and the Imperial Army is retreating in defeat. New Hope is right in the Apostle’s path!”
“Right in the Apostle’s path to where,” Gabriel asked.
“Don’t be daft,” the man looked as though he’d never heard a question so stupid.
“Where else? He’s headed for the Spires of Infinity! You two better head back the way you came until things settle down.”
With that, the two of them took off running southward with their litter bouncing between them.
Watching them go, Gabriel wondered how long it would take an army to reach the town from the walls to the east.
“A month ago,” Sam said thoughtfully. “That’s when I first saw you, looking like a little lost puppy. Remember all those soldiers on their way to the Quarantine Zone?
They said there was someone organizing the mutants and causing trouble.”
“Oh crap,” Gabriel cried in sudden realization.
“What,” Sam reached for the pistol on her left hip. “What is it?”
“I think I just figured out what I’m supposed to do at the Spires of Infinity,”
Gabriel moaned.
“You don’t mean . . .?”
“God, I hope not. I have no idea how to stop an entire army.”
Chapter 27: The Apostle Comes
Shocked by the sudden change in temperature, Kari gasped aloud. Cold beat at
her like a brick to the face, as her tails involuntarily tried to curl between her legs. With her Demon blood always hot in her veins, she was rarely affected by cold, but there was something different about the cold in this world. It was deeper, and sharper, seeping into her.
“No way,” Michael said with wonder in his eyes.
What Kari saw around them was completely unexpected. They stood in a wide,
busy street, with wooden buildings all around. Urgency charged the air as hundreds of townspeople fled in disarray, many carrying armfuls of belongings. It was the people themselves that made Kari stare.
“They’re all Heretics,” she thought her eyes might drop right out of her head.
“All of them!”
“No,” Jonathan muttered, his brow furrowing. “They look like us, but they don’t feel like us. I can’t sense them like I can other Heretics.”
Kari’s senses in that regard were rather lacking, but those of her brothers were top notch. Still, they were far from perfect.
“What do you mean,” she asked. “Look at them.”
“They smell like humans,” Michael shrugged, “not Heretics. What’s going on
here?”
They were drawing stares and it took Kari a few seconds to figure out why. With her illusions disguising them, they looked like three ordinary humans in a place where there were no ordinary humans. She never would have thought to find a world where not having a tail or two was strange. Immediately, she unraveled the illusions around them, and they stood as their normal, undisguised selves.
“Awoo,” Jonathan made a rather bland attempt at a wolf’s howl, saying the word rather than actually howling it.
“Awoo indeed, fellow wolf,” Michael grinned. “Great to be ourselves for once.”
Kari rolled her eyes. “I though you said you were dogs.”
“You wound us deeply, sister dear.”
“How could you be so cruel as to call two noble wolves, lowly dogs.”
“Wolves are beautiful, noble, and loyal creatures.”
“A dog just can’t compare to the majesty and power of a wolf.”
“You said dogs were loyal not three days ago,” Kari pointed out.
“Nowhere near as loyal as wolves,” Michael said, turning to Jonathan. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Think of the women we’ll find here,” Jonathan replied giddily.
“At last, beautiful girls with tails of their own. Let’s see them make excuses now.”
“Exactly! There can’t possibly be prejudices against men with furry protrusions when everyone has one.”
“At last, a world where women can see past their prejudices to the idiocy
beneath,” Kari said sarcastically, rolling her eyes skyward. Her jaw nearly hit the ground at the sight.
Staring at the sky, she was completely speechless. Ignoring her brothers’ attempts to get her attention, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the huge red sun partially eclipsed by a gigantic blue and purple swirled planet. It was the most breathtaking sight she’d ever laid eyes on.
“Oh wow,” the twins said when they followed her gaze.
Unable to look away, Kari wondered if she was dreaming. Surely something like that could only exist in a dream. How could it possibly be so cold with the sun so huge in the sky? Their last world, where they had rested and recovered, had a large yellow sun, and it had been unbearably hot even at night. Maybe it had something to do with the color. She’d never seen a red sun before.
It had been nice to rest after their ordeals. She’d slept for almost a week straight, and the three of them together had eaten enough to feed an army for a month. She’d thought the sky there was spectacular, with seven moons and stars so thick in the night sky that they made solid waves and ribbons of twinkling light. That sky had nothing on this one.
“I wonder where all these people are going,” Kari finally managed to pry her eyes from the eclipsing sun.
“Maybe they’re afraid of the eclipse,” Michael suggested.
“I don’t think so. There’s something strange about this place,” Jonathan
muttered. “Can you feel it?”
Searching with her admittedly lacking senses, Kari felt what he was talking about immediately. Something felt horribly wrong and out of place in this world. She couldn’t quite identify it. It was almost like she could feel the world straining for life, but falling closer and closer to death. Something was twisting the world around them, making it cry out in agony.
“Look at this,” Michael said, holding up his shard of the Gate. It blazed brightly with inner purple fire.
Pulling her own out, Kari found that it was also glowing, as was Jonathan’s.
“What’s going on,” Michael asked.
“I’m not sure,” Kari said. The crystal seemed to hum in her hand. “It’s like they’re resonating with something.”
Dropping the crystal to hang on its cord, Kari was surprised to find that it strained against gravity to hang a bit to her left. Looking in that direction, she saw several towers far away on the horizon. The central tower was pointed directly at the sun above and a barely perceptible beam of light seemed to connect them.