The Pure: Book Three of the Oz Chronicles (20 page)

“A hand grabbed me out of the darkness
and pulled me forward. Through the darkness I could make out the facial
features of Kavi. She guided me through the mist and gloom until I heard
Bobby’s voice.

“‘I told her,’ he said. ‘She didn’t
listen, but I told her.’

“Kavi helped me lay the Myrmidon gently
on the side of the creek bed. ‘You did good, Bobby. You did good.’ I collapsed
to the ground and sucked in as much oxygen as I could. To Kavi, ‘Next time I’ll
lead and you carry the freakishly heavy ant man.’

“She flashed me a grin.

“I soaked in our surroundings. I could
hear the rain pounding the treetops, but I couldn’t feel the rain hitting us or
the ground. The mist rolled and slowly drifted out of my line of sight. I
noticed for the first time that there was a roof over our heads and walls to
the right and left of us. I stood and placed my hand on the right wall. Rock.
The same with the roof and the left wall. I looked at Kavi and repeated the
sign she had given me earlier. ‘Does this mean cave?’

“She pursed her lips and shrugged her
shoulders as if to say ‘Kind of.’

“I turned and looked into the mouth of
the cave. I was about to meet the one and only Oz.

MIL STO. The letters look so big on the
page they divert my attention from Scoop-face’s session. MIL STO. The ‘E’
seemingly grew larger than the other letters. I move it in front of the MIL.
EMILY. Lou’s real first name is Emily. I can see her now in my mind’s eye. We
were standing in the charred Taker universe. She was walking away with Wes.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

They stopped.

“Lou, what’s your real name?”

She turned to me, tears in her eyes.
“Emily,” she said. “Emily Bristol.”

I frenziedly write the name in the
notebook. It was her. I scramble to my feet. “Emily,” I say out loud.

Something slams against the door. I hear
the sound of air exiting a human body.

“What are you doing, Bones?” Chester’s
voice practically crashed through the heavy wood door.

A pained voice responds. “Nothing.”

“What’s wrong with you? Why do you keep
looking at that door?” Chester demanded.

“Nothing.”

“What are you doing in there?” He barks.
He drags me out of the closet by my shirt collar.

“Let me go!” I shout.

He tosses me to the ground. “This area
ain’t part of the GP pass.”

I scoot back. “Emily Bristol,” I say.

He looks at me confused. “What?”

“I know Lou’s real name.”

“Who’s Lou and why do I care?” he says
stomping forward.

“Snarkel, Snapper, Momma, Jaws, Spot,
Jumper, Hambone, Charlie Boy,” I hear from over my shoulder. I turn to see
Bones standing in the closet doorway with his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Don’t start up, Bones,” Chester says.

“Snarkel, Snapper, Momma, Jaws, Spot,
Jumper, Hambone, Charlie Boy.”

A growl comes from the closet.

“What the...?” Chester says. He looks
past Bones. Another growl. He steps forward. A chorus of growls. Chester leans
in the open doorway. I hear a bark and see Chester stumble back. Charlie Boy
bursts through the door and knocks Chester to the floor. Snarkle, Snapper,
Momma, Jaws, Spot, and Hambone follow. Chester squeals.

“Call them off,” I say to Bones.

“Back!” Bones yells.

The dogs back away from Chester, but
keep snarling. “What’s going on? Where did these dogs come from?” Chester asks,
almost hyperventilating.

“I got news for you, Chester,” I say.
“You’re about to find out you’re a butterfly.”

“What?”

“Keep him here,” I say to Bones.

He nods with a maniacal smile on his
face.

I run down the hallway to Dr. Graham’s
office and burst through the door. The doctor turns and stands. He’s angry at
first and quickly becomes frightened when he sees me.

“Oz... What...?”

“Emily Bristol...” I shout. “Her name is
Emily Bristol!” Scoop-face sits up, a smile spreads across his eyeless and
noseless face.

“What is this all about?” Dr. Graham
asks.

“This is about the end of this
nonsense,” Scoop-face responds. “What do we do now?” I ask Scoop-face.

“Doc here sends us back,” He says.

“See here,” Dr. Graham interrupts. “I
don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m going to have to insist you leave, Oz.
Archie and I are in the middle...” He stops a confused look on his face. “We
are in the middle of...”

“You’re feeling it, aren’t you, Doc?”

He looks at Scoop-face, “What...? I’m
feeling a little disoriented...”

“Say her name again, kid,” Scoop-face
says to me.

“Emily Bristol.”

Dr. Graham falls to his chair. He gasps
and puts his hand over his mouth. “I... I... I know that name.”

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“You spoke her name,” Scoop-face says.
“You are creyshaw. The doc’s starting to see that now.”

“Because I spoke Lou’s real name?”

“The Storytellers gave you this way out,
Oz, so you could get back to where you belong, but you have to realize what you
are. You’re the key. That hasn’t changed since day one. The Destroyers win if
you’re not in the fight. That day in the Georgia Dome when Ajax killed Pepper,
you made a deal with the Délons, if they let your friends go, you would help
them find the Source. They agreed and, when you couldn’t deliver on your
promise, they locked you up here. Only here isn’t here. It’s here,” he pointed
to his head. “The Doc, Chester, the others, none of them are real.” He blindly
motions to Dr. Graham. “Ain’t that right, doc?”

Dr. Graham slowly nods.

“What about you? Are you real?” I ask.

“Me? Yeah. Who would make this face up?
He stands. “The Storytellers gave you an out, a magic word to get you back. You
had to speak the real name of your one true love.”

“True love?” I say indignantly. “I don’t
love Lou.”

He snickers. “Sure... whatever. The
important thing is you spoke her name and now Dr. Graham is forced to send us
back.”

“Where’s back?” I ask.

“The cave. To the time we first met. The
only way this works is if we go back without leaving here. If the Délons know
we’re not here, we lose the advantage.”

I try to wrap my head around what he
just said. “How do we go back and stay here?”

He extends his hand and searches for Dr.
Graham. “That’s where Doc comes in.” He signals for me to come to the couch.
“C’mon, let’s do this.”

I hesitate and then trot to the couch. I
stop before I sit. “Wait a minute. What about Bones?”

“Bones can’t go back.”

“But he helped me.”

“There’s no place for him back there.”

I scrutinize his face. “He’s not real.”

“Not back there he’s not. Only here.”

My heart aches for Bones. I hear nails
clicking on the linoleum. His dogs create a half circle around the couch. Bones
enters the room with a forlorn look on his face. “We can’t just leave him
here,” I say to Scoop-face.

Scoop-face reaches for me and grabs my
wrist, “He belongs here.” He pulls me down. “We have to do this now.” I sit on
the couch next to him. “Bones,” he says. “You’re in charge while we’re gone.
Got it?”

“I can’t go?” he asks, disappointment in
his voice.

“We can’t do this without you and your
dogs, skinny man. You understand? Your place is here. These are the sacrifices
you have to make when you are creyshaw.”

He gulps. “I am creyshaw?”

“You are,” Scoop-face says.

Bones’s disappointment turns to
incredible pride in the blink of an eye. “I am creyshaw,” he says. “I will not
leave this room. We will watch over you.”

Scoop-face leans back. “Do your thing,
Doc.”

“What’s happening to me?” he says
examining his hands. His face twitches and he ages 20 years and then just as
quickly he is a kid of thirteen and then back to his original age.

“We don’t belong here anymore,”
Scoop-face says. “Everything’s gone haywire. We stay much longer this whole
place is going to collapse in on itself.”

Dr. Graham looks at me. “Is this real?”

I nod. “I... I think so.”

“Doc, get to hypnotizing, will ya’?”
Scoop-face says.

Dr. Graham murmurs to himself and then
orders us to close our eyes. He takes us through a breathing exercise and then
begins to count backwards from ten. Just as I am slipping into a deep sleep,
Scoop-face grabs my hand.

“Kid,” he says, “I know this old face of
mine ain’t much to look at, but promise me you won’t do anything different. No
matter how much I beg you, don’t change what you do to my face.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he snickers, “I am creyshaw.”

“You’re feeling relaxed, completely at
ease,” Dr. Graham’s hypnotic monotone voice drones on. “You’re getting sleepy
now. As you feel your self falling into a deep sleep, you find yourself back in
the cave where you belong.”

I opened my eyes and struggled to
breathe. My head felt as if somebody had driven a spike through it. I sat up
and surveyed the doctor’s office. I felt something sliding down my chest, and
howled in horror when I saw a shunter crawling down my torso. I batted it to
the floor. It hit the soft clay surface. That’s when I realized I wasn’t in Dr.
Graham’s office. I was in the Pure’s cave.

“Holy crap,” I heard someone say.

I turned to see Gordy staring at me.

“It’s really you, ain’t it?” he asked.

I reached up and touched my face. “I
think so. How old am I?”

Gordy shrugged. “I don’t know. Ain’t you
a couple months younger than me?”

I study his face. He was a
chubby-cheeked kid of about fifteen. I pumped my fist in the air. “I am back.”
I jumped off the gurney. My legs were weak and my knees almost buckled before I
caught my balance.

“Easy, now,” Gordy said. “You’ve been
getting your brain sucked for a long time.” He reached out and grabbed my arm
to steady me. “The old sour puss was pretty impressed. He said he ain’t never
seen anyone survive as long as you did.”

“Sour puss?”

“Nothing I want to talk about,” I said.
I looked around the cave. “Where is our lovely host?”

“Headed toward the opening,” Gordy said
nodding his head to the right. “He heard a noise.”

“Noise...” I said. “Scoop-face!” I
stepped away from the gurney and tumbled to the ground. I was covered in clay.

“Scoop what?” Gordy said helping me to
my feet.

“A friend of mine,” I said out of
breath. I regained my feet and placed my hands on my knees. “He was that
noise.”

“Oh,” Gordy said. “Ewww, that’s not
good. Purey-boy don’t like visitors. He turned the last guy inside out.”

There was a minute of uncomfortable
silence as I absorbed the information.

“You understand I mean that literally,
right,” Gordy said.

“I suspected as much,” I said stumbling
through the mud floor on weakened legs.

I saw Gordy duck his head and drop his
chin to his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“You picked up where you left off,” he
said. “You’re bound and determined to do this hero thing. You know that is
really kind of annoying.”

“You going to help me or not?” I asked.

“Of course I’m going to help you. I’m
the plucky sidekick.” He put my arm around his shoulder. “Besides at the rate
you’re going, you’ll never get there on your own.”

With that, he helped me navigate the
twists and turns of the cave until we could see beams of light bouncing off the
rock walls. I looked ahead and saw what looked like the silhouettes of two men
(or boys) and an ape. They were tending to another man on the ground. The Pure
was nowhere to be seen. “Scoop-face... ahhh... Archie,” I yelled.

The three silhouettes peered down the
cave. I can hear them chatting, but it is nothing more than muttering from my
vantage point. I step forward and see something moving to my immediate right. I
nearly jump out of my skin when I see two white eyes staring back at me. The
twisted figure of The Pure stepped forward.

He leaned in. “This isn’t possible,” he
hissed.

I leaned back. “What’s not possible?”

“You. This. You can’t be awake. How are
you able to walk... to stand... to breathe? I have not released you.”

“Who’s there?” I heard Archie yell.

“Stay there, Archie,” I said.

“This is a trick,” The Pure said.

“No trick,” I said. “I’m here, and I’m
staying this time.” “Who’s there?” Archie called out again.

“Stay there!” I shouted.

“Let them enter,” The Pure groans. He
sniffs. “The small one’s blood smells so sweet.”

“I know the Source,” I said.

The Pure shifted his gaze from the mouth
of the cave to me. “You lie.”

“It’s the truth.”

His head bobbed nervously as he
considered every inch of me. Looking for some sign I was lying. “What is it?”

I smiled. “We’re not there yet. I have
some conditions.”

He wrapped his hand around my throat and
shoved me up against the cave wall. I felt the blood racing through my veins.

“You waste my time with these lies,” he
growled.

I wheezed. “It’s a picture.” My body
began to warm from the raging river of blood that was flowing through my veins.

“Easy, spidey-do,” Gordy said. “If he’s
telling the truth, it would be the bonehead move of the century to kill him
before he has a chance to tell you about this picture.”

The Pure contemplated Gordy’s logic. He
released me and let me fall to the ground. “What of this picture?”

I massaged my bruised throat. “I know
where it is. Your shunter must have jarred something lose in my memory banks
because I know this picture exists. I’ve seen it. I know it’s the Source the
same as I know up is up and down is down.”

“Where is it?”

“Oh, no,” I said standing with Gordy’s
help. “I’m going to keep that to myself for a while.”

The Pure reached for me, and I slapped
his hand away. My blood was searing. He snarled and flared his mandibles. I
pushed him to the cave floor. He landed on his back with a thud.

“Whoa,” Gordy said. “What are doing...?
How are you doing that?”

I opened and closed my hand creating a
tighter and tighter grip with each flex. “The shunter must have done something
to me.”

The Pure crawled up the cave wall like
an insect and hid himself in a dark crevice.

“Listen to me,” I said. “I’ll bring you
your picture, but you’ve got to give me something in return.”

I heard him snivel. “Watch your tongue,
boy. Your strength is temporary. You’ll be weak and useless soon enough.”

I examined the back of my hand. “Maybe,
but I don’t think so. I got this weird feeling that you turned something on in
my brain you shouldn’t have. Funny thing is...” I reached up in the darkness
toward the sound of his voice, found the collar of his ragged shirt and yanked
him out of his hiding place. He flopped to the ground. “I think you know it,
too.”

“Ozzie, boy,” Gordy said. “I think you
better cool off. I seen the old Pure here do some pretty ugly stuff while you
was taking your shunter-faced nap.”

I turned to him. “Just what is your role
in all this, Gordy?” He held up his hand. “Easy now. Easy. I’m your compadre.
Your number one best friend.”

I lurched forward. “Friend? You live
with this slime, how can you be my friend?”

“It was part of the deal.”

I pushed him backward. He stumbled on
the loose gravel of the cave floor. “Deal?”

“General Roy was sucking the life out of
you, man.”

I pushed him again. The sound of his
voice felt as though it was stabbing my eardrums. I was growing angrier the
more he talked.

“He was going to kill you to get what he
wanted. I couldn’t let that happen. So, we made a deal.” He backed away from me
grabbing in the darkness for the cave wall.

“What deal? Who’s we?”

He shifted his eyes from me to behind
me. “She’s we.”

I turned to see General Roy’s sister
standing behind me. “Reya?”

She stepped forward, dead-eyes locked on
mine, her spider-leg hair flailing madly. She sniffed the air. “Still alive.
How disappointing.”

Still enraged, I rushed her. She swiftly
stepped out of the way, and I rammed my head into the cave wall. I dropped to
the ground.

“Hey, not cool,” Gordy shouted. “Not
cool.” He raced to my side.

I rolled over on my back. My head felt
like a cracked egg. My anger was replaced with excruciating pain. “What deal?”
I moaned.

“I found The Pure. I made a deal with
him. If I brought him to you, he would get you to reveal the Source without
torturing you like General Roy was. I couldn’t get to you. So I went to her.
She helped me get you to The Pure.”

I sat up with great difficulty. “Why
would she do that?”

“General Roy is weak,” she screeched.
“He’s disgraced the Délons. I aligned myself with the Pure to save my kind.”

I chuckled. “You’re not doing this for
your kind.”

The Pure hobbled forward. “He knows you well,
my queen.”

I smiled. “Now it makes sense.” I stood
with Gordy’s help. “Wait a minute. I was in... that place... Scoop-face said
the Délons put me there... I’m still there... on the couch... Bones is watching
over us.”

“The Délons put you there, but I’ve kept
you there,” the Pure said. “It was necessary to keep General Roy at bay.”

Reya smiled. “The one called Bones is my
cow. He is our decoy. He lays on a table in Délon City in your stead. His
brain’s being fed upon by a royal shunter. He is most likely dead by now, but
he is just a cow.”

I grunted. Stepping forward I fought to
suppress the anger that had engulfed me earlier. “He is creyshaw,” I said to
Reya.

She took some satisfaction in my tone.
She had gotten to me.

“What about Canter? He’s been helping
Lou and the others.”

“Helping?” Reya laughed. “He works for
General Roy. He hasn’t been helping them. He’s been using them.”

“Why?”

“They’ve long felt the Lou knew of the
Source, too. They had hopes that eventually she would lead them to it. She’s proven
to be a great disappointment.”

I moved down the cave toward the
entrance. “I don’t completely understand what’s going on here, but I’m back,
and I’m calling the shots now. You want the Source you play my way.”

The Pure crawled along the cave wall in
pursuit of me. “I won’t be ordered around by a human...”

“Then kiss the Source goodbye.”

Furious, he groaned like a wounded
animal.

“Control your human,” Reya barked at The
Pure.

He roared. “I cannot.”

“Fine, then I shall do your job for
you,” she said. I turned to her when I heard the sound of Gordy gasping for
air. Her hand was clamped around his neck. “I will snap your guardian’s skinny
neck,” she said.

I smiled. “Go ahead. I’ll just burn the
Source.”

“Fine,” she growled. “Destroy it. Better
no one have it than let it fall in the hands of General Roy.”

“You would have killed me a long time
ago if that’s what you really thought.”

She jerked her hand away from Gordy’s
neck and tossed him toward me. “I am watching you. You betray us, and I will
kill him and the girl and the fat one.”

I caught Gordy before he hit the ground.
“I’ll bring you the Source when it’s time and not one second before.” Gordy and
I headed for the mouth of the cave. “So you were my guardian?”

He nodded massaging his throat. “You
think I was going to trust that Pure puke to keep his word? You made a deal. I
had to make sure he kept his end of the bargain.”

“Yeah?” I said. “I guess that’s pretty
cool.”

“You guess?” he said sounding offended.

I lightly pushed him as we walked. It
was all the thanks I was up to giving at the moment. I hoped he understood.

As we got closer to the cave opening,
the details of the people who had just been silhouettes began to fill in. I saw
Little Bobby’s face first. It was drawn and pale. Mud covered most of his
forehead. He bore a hopeful grin as Gordy, and I approached.

Kavi sat with her feet underneath her.
She let out a guttural whoop as we got closer. The hair on her shoulders stood
on end.

Scoop-face stood to her right only he
was not Scoop-face. Not there. Not in that time. He was Archie Maynard. Young,
fresh-faced, alive in a way I could not have imagined when we first met in the
hallway of the “facility.” He stared at me in confused wonder. I picked apart
every detail of his eyes. They were green with specs of gold. His nose was
strong and prominent. What my mother would have called a Roman nose. He was not
at all what I pictured him to be. He was a few inches taller than me now.
“Hello,” I said.

Archie looked at Kavi. The chimp was
growing increasingly agitated. “He’s okay,” he said turning back to me. “I
think.”

“You know this guy?” Gordy asked.

“We’ve met,” I said.

“We have?” Archie asked.

I stuck out my hand and noticed for the
first time that my arm was now covered in fine light hairs. The dark bushy forearm
I had sported just a few minutes ago was completely gone. “My name is Oz
Griffin, and I am creyshaw.”