“What are you talking about?” Olivia asked the frantic Kushman. “Help you get back to where?”
Jefferson Jericho decided the time had come. Even with all these guns trained on him, even if it meant his death in the next thirty seconds. He had to get back to Her protection, back to the Ant Farm, and there was only one way to do that…broken fingers or not.
Flesh to flesh, She had said. He figured that must trigger the process of transportation or whatever the hell it was that would get him out of here.
He stepped out of the ropes and with the courage of desperation lunged past Major Fleming before the man could stop him.
He grabbed hold of Ethan’s forearms, flesh to flesh except for the splints around his broken fingers. Now! he thought as he peered into the depths of the boy’s silver eye, though he was calling mentally to Her, Queen of the Gorgons. Get me out of here NOW!
Ethan clearly heard that call, as if the man was speaking it to him. The room began to fade. He was aware of Dave reaching for him, but it was too late. It was as if the light was simply going out, the walls dissolving, and Ethan knew it was his own body—and Kushman’s too—that was leaving the room, bound for an unknown destination.
Ethan had the impression of a figure standing behind Jeff Kushman—a large, leathery shape with a dark and dimly seen face, and set there were the fearsome, hypnotic eyes of the Gorgon, commanding him to obey but that was the last thing he wanted to do, and as he felt the Other Realm beginning to close in upon him he thought no, I will not be taken…I will not be taken, I’m going back to where I was. He didn’t know how he did it. He just knew he needed to fight, and he was not going to be removed from his friends and the task he had to do. He felt a tremendous pressure, pulling at him as if drawing him into a whirlpool, or over a waterfall to dash him to pieces on the rocks below. But he thought no, no…you’re not taking me…and his strength of will—the strength of will worlds beyond that of the human boy he used to be—was enough to break the power of what was transporting them; it was enough to scramble the signal or block the portal or do whatever was needed to be done, for the figure of the Gorgon behind Jeff Kushman faded away and the presence of the Other Realm was gone, and quite suddenly they were standing in the maintenance room of the mall again, with the light shining down upon all those guns in the hands of the soldiers.
It had happened so quickly that Dave was still moving. It had appeared to Dave and everyone else in the room that the bodies of Ethan and Jeff Kushman had faded almost to shadows and then had come back into focus in the space of time it took for two anxious heartbeats. Dave wrenched Ethan out of the man’s grip, and pushing Ethan aside he laid a right hook into Jefferson Jericho’s jaw with every bit of wiry muscle a tough-assed ex-bouncer, brickmason, and general owner of a bad attitude could throw.
The Tennessee stallion went down so hard most of the people in the room, including John Douglas, thought he was dead.
But the dead man returned to life after a few seconds with a spitting of blood and a moan that seemed to emanate from the center of a tortured soul, and Dave McKane stood over him with fists clenched and shouted, “Stay down, you sonofabitch! Just stay down!” all the while wishing the bastard would at least try to get to his knees.
“We’ll take it from here,” the major said. “You all right?” he asked the boy, who nodded. It was all Fleming could do not to ask Ethan where he had gone—or almost gone—but he didn’t want to know.
Olivia pulled Ethan to her and hugged him. Then it came out of her. Everything…the loss of Vincent, the loss of her world, the tragedy and senselessness of this war, the hardship and struggle, the deaths of so many people she had known and cared for, and though she knew she hugged in her arms a boy who harbored a presence in him that was not of this earth, she didn’t care because she needed someone to love and protect, and just that fast she broke. She began to sob, to weep for the dead and for the living, for those who had long ago given up hope and for those who still hung on to what tomorrow might bring, for those who had lost everything and for those who had kept their families intact only by good luck or the determination of the damned. She wept for those who, like her, kept their loved ones alive by a treasured picture or a memory held like a candle on the darkest night or some kind of Magic Eight Ball to ease their loss. It seemed in that moment that she wept for the young students of Ethan Gaines High School, who had painted a mural upon a wall proclaiming the dream of the Family of Man that had been torn to pieces by the terrible, arrogant power of red and blue fire.
And she wept also for the boy who knew no name but Ethan Gaines, who had once been alive and in the care of a mother who loved him, but was now embraced and guided by an alien force, raised from the dead to carry out a task only that force could understand. He could never go back to what he’d been, before. Never. And neither could anyone else, because even if the war was ended tomorrow…the world was not a computer, and it could not be rebooted.
JayDee put an arm around her shoulders. He leaned his head against hers. He wished he could find something to say, but there were no words. He wished he could weep himself, could get rid of the pain of having to put those three poor souls out of their misery back at Panther Ridge. He looked at Dave, who was rubbing the knuckles of the fist that had almost knocked Jefferson Jericho out of this world.
“We need to get Ethan to the White Mansion,” JayDee said. “The sooner the better, I think.”
“Yeah,” Dave agreed. “How about it, Major? When can we leave?”
“I told you we’d make some improvements to your bus. You’ll need ’em. If you’ll give me the rest of today and tonight, you can head off in the morning.”
Ethan gently pulled away from Olivia. “That would be good,” he said. “Thank you.” He felt weary and a little lightheaded. The joints of his body ached. He knew he was paying a price for the force that was using him. He wondered when it would happen that the part of him that was still human would be completely gone, and the alien within him took total control. He figured he was halfway there already. Would he even know when it happened? Would it be like going to sleep, or dying, or would it be like being a bystander in his own supercharged body?
He didn’t want to think about these things too much, because they scared him. “I think I need to get something to eat and then lie down and rest for awhile,” he said, running a hand across his forehead. “Someplace quiet.”
“What about me?” asked the man on the floor. Still groggy, he crawled away to put more distance between himself and Dave McKane’s fist. His tongue found two loose teeth and tasted blood. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“We’ll find a place to lock you up nice and tight,” Fleming said. “If I’m understanding all this, you’ve been aiding and abetting the enemy. The Gorgons wanted the boy and they got you to help? Save your speech, I don’t care to hear it,” he said, before Kushman could speak again. “In my Army, that’s reason enough for an execution.”
“Kill me? Just like that?”
“Execute you,” said the major. “Just like that.”
“Ethan, listen to me!” Jefferson Jericho started to struggle to his feet, but he saw that McKane wanted to hit him again so he stayed where he was. “I was forced to do this! I didn’t want to! Who would want to help the Gorgons or the Cyphers unless they had to?” He probed his teeth again; one was so loose it was just about to come out. “I can’t…I can’t explain it all to you, but they were protecting me and my people. They were keeping us out of the war. So…it was either find you and take you back—and I don’t know how they do that, that’s way beyond me—or lose our protection. Do you understand?”