White Space (54 page)

Suddenly, it felt the red scald of an acid-burn, so stinging and harsh, it let out a howl. What
was
that? Something in the boy, the boy; the boy was
carrying
something!

W
HO ARE YOU?
W
HAT ARE YOU
? L
EAVE!
T
HE BOY IS MI—

Something axed Casey’s legs, and then it was toppling, crashing to the smooth, glassy black rock. Screeching, the whisper-man kicked and spit as Eric wrapped Casey up tight. Eric was alive; he had survived the birds as had Emma, and it knew what she meant to do. It could not fight them all, not at once. No, it would not go back; it would not be
nothing
again.

I
WON
’
T BE LOST AGAIN
, I
WILL NOT!
A great gust of fear, sour and strong, swept through it. The whisper-man gasped in terror, and Casey stiffened with it.
L
ET ME GO!
Y
OU CAN HAVE THE BOY IF YOU—

I don’t want him. I want you
. The intruder battened down with a will that coiled itself in a muscular rope, tighter than any serpent.
I was written for this purpose, this moment. I am your end, and we
will
grapple
.

Y
OU WILL LOSE
.

Probably. I can’t match evil for evil. But I have come to do battle. I can delay you, just long enough
.

W
E CAN SHARE
, the whisper-man thought, wildly.
T
HE
BOY IS STRONG, STRONG ENOUGH FOR TWO, FOR MANY.
T
OGETHER, WE WILL—

Beneath Casey’s body, the mirror-rock quivered as if with a sudden earthquake. The floor of the Peculiar heaved, gave, thinned. The whisper-man felt Emma’s will surge, as strong and sure as Eric’s arms around his brother, as the intruder’s hold on
it
—and the way began to open.

“N
O,
WAIT
!
” it thundered. “L
ET ME
FINISH
!
”

ERIC CRASHED INTO
Casey, smashing the smaller boy down against the rocky floor. Casey’s head struck hard; the man-shadow bleeding from his skin swirled and then draped itself over Casey’s bulging eyes. From her place by Rima’s broken body, Emma had the crazy, wild hope that this—the emergence of this other, the shadow—would be enough. But then Casey screamed again, and his voice still belonged to the whisper-man.

There was a pressure around her hand, and she looked down into Rima’s ravaged face. “D-door,” Rima whispered. Bright blood-bubbles foamed over her lips. “Make a door into … into the D-Dark Passages … Eric c-can’t … h-hurry …”

“Emma!” Eric shouted. Casey was thrashing, bucking and kicking, but both the shadow-man and Eric had the smaller boy pinned, and Eric was close enough to touch. The shadow had whatever power a whisper possessed, but Eric was real. He was solid and strong—and more: Eric was the force and the power of love. “Do it now, Emma, do it
now
!”

“I
WON
’
T LET YOU
!” the whisper-man boomed. “I
WILL BIND YOU
, B
LOOD OF
M
Y
B
LOOD
, I
WILL
BIND—
”

Together, then, and that was as it should be. They were linked in space and time and an eternity of words, bound in a single purpose to a solitary hope. Tightening her grip on Rima, she reached for Eric’s outstretched hand. His fingers closed around hers—

And Emma screamed. A stinging red charge, scorpion-bright and viper-quick,
bit
into her mind, because blood—all their mingled blood
—binds
.

Y
OU
SEE?
The whisper-man boomed through the cavern of her skull.
You
CAN
’
T FIGHT ME
, E
MMA
. Y
OU
’
RE NOT STRONG ENOUGH
, B
LOOD OF
M
Y
B
LOOD, AND
I
WON
’
T NEED YOUR BODY
. I
WILL TAKE WHAT
I
WANT;
I
WILL HAVE YOUR ABILITIES
. I
AM TAKING THEM NOW
. Y
OU FEEL IT, DON
’
T YOU
? M
Y POWER, MY STAIN SPREADING THROUGH YOUR BODY, AND YOU
, B
LOOD OF
M
Y
B
LOOD
, I
WILL
BIND YOU
—

Go
. Not Rima or even Eric, but the shadow-man, the other whisper, the one concealed in Casey’s body.
Hurry, Emma
.

And she thought,
Push
.

The cynosure fired. The purple maw gaped, and she felt the change as the rock thinned and pulled apart, and then the chains of light that were Rima and Eric and Emma and, yes, even Casey’s many colors flared to life—but there was a faint smear of red that Emma knew.

Bode?
A jolt of surprise and joy.
Bode! Is that—

In part. I am Battle, and what remains. His secret, and gift
. The shadow-man’s thoughts were as airless as the fading images of
a distant dream.
Hurry, Emma. You don’t have much time
.

She saw what it meant, and felt it, too. A seeping black stain was working its way through their chain, because
it
had Casey and so did Eric. So did they all. A whisper left a stain, and they were all bleeding, their blood mingling because they were willing to sacrifice for one another. They were
willing
.

Emma!
It was Eric. The blue and gold of their mingled chain pulsed with urgency.
Go, Emma, go! Break this place wide open, and do it now, Emma, do it
now!

She
pushed
, and the mirror-room groaned under the effort. All of a sudden, a door blistered and broke open in a great, convulsive shudder as a glistering bolt of light, more powerful than the hottest sun, erupted from the cynosure. A nanosecond later, the Peculiar exploded, shattering in a blistering halo of energies—

AND THEN THEY
were through and falling fast into somewhere, some
when
, completely new.

It was like nothing that had come before. There was light, not only the brilliant path laid by the cynosure but the hard, bright diamonds of a crowded galaxy. Those must be the many worlds and times of the
Nows
, and this, the Dark Passages, a hallway with infinite branch-points. Above, below, all around, the way spread itself in a dizzying cluster of galaxies, and they rocketed through, sweeping past worlds; past doors and realms and an infinity of
Nows
. Choose a door, any door, and
push
; pop onto the White Space of another story, a different timeline, a new—

Something nipped her skin. A needle, a sting as viper-quick as the bite of the whisper-man trying to scorch its way into her body—and yet not, because she also
felt
it: a tenebrous
finger
on her arm. She started, her focus wavering. What was that? She thought of the inky tentacles swimming up from snow as Rima’s nightmare broke apart and remembered the moment she’d pushed through that black membrane in Jasper’s basement: that
hand
swimming around her wrist to pull her in, just as McDermott reached through the Dickens Mirror and pulled something out. It had never occurred to her to wonder if there might be more than one monster.

But now, she remembered what Lizzie said:
You don’t want them to notice you
.

The cynosure was a focus and path, a lens and lighthouse … and a … a
beacon?

My God
. The realization broke like a wash of icy water.
They’re the moths, and I’m the light
.

Something shot out of the black and battened down on her wrist. An instant later, something else slinked around her waist, a third teased an ankle, a fourth curled around her right thigh. Whoever these creatures were, whatever lived in the Dark Passages swarmed. Or perhaps they were the fabric of darkness itself, the space between galaxies and all matter: a living web that grabbed and tugged and latched on like leeches; and their sound, the whispers that were a clamor and then a river swelling to a roar, crashed through her mind.

They see the cynosure
. She felt the panic scrambling up her throat.
That’s why it’s so dangerous to cross. They know we’re here; we’ve been seen!

Y
OU
SEE?
Y
OU CAN
’
T GET AWAY
.
The whisper-man was
still strongest in Casey, but despite the shadow-man, its gelid fingers were surer now, beginning to creep over her thoughts, and she knew from the sudden gasp in her mind that Eric felt it, too. Of course it had been there all along; in the illusion of Lizzie, it had touched them all. In a way, it was finding bits and pieces of itself in them. Perhaps its stain—what Frank McDermott had discovered as the twin to all his horrors—was the midwife of the nightmares of all their lives.

F
IGHT ME, AND YOU ONLY DRAIN YOURSELF, AND THEN THEY WILL HAVE YOU.
S
TOP FIGHTING, AND
I
WILL HELP YOU ESCAPE—AND THEN YOU WILL HELP ME
.
The whisper-man bit down again, and she grunted, her concentration stuttering. Almost at once, the Dark Passages thickened. She was still
pushing
as hard as she could, but it was as if she were bogging down, as she had been in the energy sink of the Peculiar, as mired as a woolly mammoth caught in a deep pit of black tar. The light linking her to Eric and Casey and Rima was beginning to fade, the colors bleaching away as these others, whatever they were, clawed and grabbed. Her mind slid, her concentration—her
hold
on the others—slipping as if she’d stumbled onto a floor made of slick ball bearings.

Help us
, she thought to the shadow-man.
Please, if you helped Bode, help us
.

I can’t do any more
. The shadow-man was a sigh, and already evaporating, slipping like smoke from the chain.
I belong here. You have to do the rest
. The shadow-man was dwindling, fainter than a dying echo.
Don’t hang on too long, Emma. Let go before the infection—

But then the shadow-man, whatever it had been, was gone.

What? Let
go
? What did that mean? No. If she did that,
the others wouldn’t make it. They’d be stuck here. Yet where, exactly,
was
she going? They had no place in any world or Now, not all together. The whisper-man had Casey, and soon, it would have Eric. She would be next, and Rima, her color already so faint, would die soon. If, by some miracle, Rima lived and Emma could get them all through, no
Now
would be safe, not if they brought the whisper-man, too.

Even if I could get rid of him somehow, if we all end up in the same
Now,
wouldn’t we destroy it the way the world Rima created from that snow did when Eric and the others found them?

My God, she’d brought them to the place where they would die. Or drift forever, trapped in the Dark Passages with all these others, whatever they were.

N
OT TRUE
.
The whisper-man pulsed in her brain.
L
ISTEN TO ME
. I
ONLY WANT THE BOY
. D
O WHAT
I
ASK, AND
I
WILL GIVE YOU
E
RIC.
I
WILL FREE HIM;
I
WILL FREE YOU ALL IF—

Emma
. Eric—his essence, that
color
—suddenly surged.
We’re already free, because we can choose
.

N
O NO NO
.
The whisper-man’s panic was electric.
W
HAT ARE YOU
DOING?

Emma
. The cobalt edged with a glister of gold that was Eric shone so bright he could’ve been the deep waters of Superior at sunrise, a
Now
, the promise of a different world—and maybe he was all those and more: not only himself but what endures in memory and across times.
Emma, no matter what …

N
O,
I
WILL GIVE BACK THE BOY!
P
ULL ME THROUGH AND
I
WILL—

Keep going, Emma. Find your
Now.
Find a way out
.

No, Eric
, she thought.
We can’t. It will still—

Go where you can, where you have the best shot …

N
O NO NO NO—

And don’t listen to it, Emma. We have the power to choose, and this is my choice
. Eric was calm, his thoughts like a long drink of cool water on a desperately hot day.
I choose for you
.

Eric, don’t
. In that last instant, she finally sensed what he meant to do.
Wait!

Don’t look back, Emma
—and then …

He let go.

NO!
SHE MADE
a grab, reaching out with her mind, her hand, her
will
—and missed.

That was enough to break them. Her hold on Rima slipped, and then they were all spinning away from one another in streamers of light, like falling stars. In response, the Dark Passages roiled, swelling as the darkness converged in a tidal surge over Rima, so faint, and the rainbow-swirl that was Eric locked in his fatal embrace with Casey and the whisper-man. The Dark Passages rolled over and swallowed them up, and then she just couldn’t see them anymore. The colors died and, with them, Eric’s voice. The whisper-man’s howls cut out, and then there was nothing: no Casey, no Rima. No Eric.

She tried to stop, slow down, but the cynosure wouldn’t let her. Lens and beacon, focus—and a path now, one
she
couldn’t leave. Later, she thought Eric himself gave her that one final
push
as he broke away, so she wouldn’t be able to stop even if she knew how. But she didn’t, and now these beings were swinging around. Sniffing her out. She could feel them
noticing
the beacon from the galaxy pendant, and knew she was almost out of time.