The Awakening: 46

This time, she was close to getting up there. The twin eyes of the building were like huge black voids in a world of perpetual darkness but she was using her talent to light her way. There were stairs here, leading up in a spiral. She guessed it was to scare people and prevent them from seeing what was up ahead. A neat trick but it wouldn't work on her. She had chosen a side already. She didn't have a lot of strength left but she had to get there.

The building was falling apart, which was bad news. Finally, she reached a place where there was a form of solid ground. The opening was a square archway leading to a floor made of orange bricks. When she stepped on them, part of the floor fell apart to some unknown place below. She adjusted her light and saw spikes on the bottom.

This was a trick or a test, just like Teresa's maze. She had trained in this. She knew what to do. She ran across it, not bothering to look back. There was no doubt in her mind that she was being chased by vampires now or those awful bloodhounds that she'd seen at the bottom of the building. The bricks fell below her as she ran. Worse, she had to duck unexpected rocks that were falling from above, as the building was falling down, just like the oil spills, she thought. She ran across to the other room without a problem but there was an unopened door before her. She decided to try and smash herself against it but then the door didn't open that way and the floor below her gave way. She found herself clinging for her life on the doorknob. The door opened, then, and a hand helped her get up.

She was rushed inside, only to be trapped by a tall man with blue eyes. This one didn't look like a vampire but he had the shape of one, tall and muscular with an evil smile and black hair combed to the sides. Was it Arthur Lacroise, Mark's enemy? Is that who Dracula really was?

But, no, this man had fangs and was about to bite her neck but she turned into fog. Then she moved smoothly through the room. Here there was a jail cell guarded by tall vampires and an old woman with a cane. These vampires wore vests, unlike the others. They carried swords at their hips and had metal face masks that covered their eyes only. Around their necks were chains, so all hope of cutting their heads off was gone. It was like they were well-armored versions of the regular vampire. Whoever they were guarding, they really wanted to make sure, that person didn't leave.

Then, she saw something she couldn't quite make out. She was fog and there was a mirror here but she saw herself. What was happening? Was she a white cloud of fog or had she turned herself that way? Then, she saw the prisoner but it wasn't a prisoner just a fading in-an-out of different people. First, she saw Mark, then she saw Francine, then Billy, then some woman she didn't recognize.

"I'm not who you think I am," said the voice of the formless person.

"It's time," Keya heard, waking up. Her eyes popped open to see that Teresa had cut the sleeves of her black and red robe and she was wearing black boots.

She lay on the flat bench of the kitchen where they'd eaten sloppy joes again for what seemed the twentieth day in a row. At least, her stomach wasn't growling at her. It had been doing that for some time now but now it was steady. Her focus was on the light, her part of the plan.

Teresa's plan seemed to be a little complicated now. She had changed it so many times.

It turns out that Chris was a helicopter pilot but that Teresa had somehow used her magic to make the helicopter autopilot them to just the right place where the gargoyles stood in the castle. Teresa and Keya were going to drop into one of the eyes of the castle, while Mark created a distraction at the gates. Brenda was going to be a point man, or in other words a sniper in one of the buildings far away from the fighting. Then, Chris would be the other sniper in the air, in a moving helicopter, where Chris would supposedly come to rescue them if they made out alive, firing a .50 caliber gun out of the helicopter if need be. The part of the plan that didn't fit into any of it, was that they would need to reach the wall first and then be picked up by Chris from the helicopter. So, first Keya, Teresa and Mark would make their way to the gate and then Chris would pick them up with the helicopter. It didn't make sense to her? Why couldn't they just fly straight into the castle and avoid the walls? Parts of the plan were being kept from Keya and she didn't like it.

Keya cracked her knuckles with a smile. It was still a descent plan and she didn't doubt that Mark could create a diversion.

It was just that those high walls worried her. There was no way that Mark could break in through the gate and it was going to be anything but easy for Brenda to get Keya and Teresa through that wall. How was she going to shoot at anything with that in their way. At least, she would protect Mark, which put Teresa somewhat at peace.

All these weapons, seemed to be at hand for Mark and Teresa, something that Keya had been completely unaware of until she just recently learned of the plan, not that she was privy to any information about it before this. Mostly, some things of the plan had not been told to her.

"Well," Mark said, "Basically, we're going to try and get most of the city back and rendezvous in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of downtown--here--pay attention--here." He was saying, putting the Map right next to Keya's head. Keya got up, not liking the joke.

She was still wearing her old battle uniform, a pair of blue tights under a white T-shirt and black zipper jacket. Now, she was to change back into her white dress with a simple bullet proof vest underneath.

She went to change quickly, as they were pressed for time.

Mark was already in a black suit with red tie to match. He said it would help him blend in with the enemy but both Keya and Teresa suspected that if he was going to die, he was trying to do it with a bit of style. Keya didn't put it past Mark to try something so stupid. Even in her world, Mark was less than rational. Why did he want to keep coming to the library? What did it matter that he keep a form of stability? Didn't he ever worry about his love, his precious Wendy?

Keya knew better than to ask him that question but it was one that burned at the back of her mind. She wondered if Billy would ever worry about her that way. She doubted that. Billy was too involved with learning how to travel. He was probably trying to concentrate on traveling now.

Blink! Amee's Military Warehouse had everything they had thought to want from a store. Billy used his newfound talent to travel them from one part of the store to the other. Most of the things they needed were protected by glass cases, so he had to be a little creative by making voids move across glass, so it would get cut in whole squares, so they could retrieve some of the more protected ammo. Billy got a few bombs and three or four smoke grenades. He also got a grenade that if it exploded, it released a nauseating gas that stunned people for a one mile radius. Billy couldn't explain to Simon what he needed it for, so he had to shush him with a finger for now. Simon just nodded and put the items in his magic pockets. He was carrying the yellow pants now because Billy had gotten him some proper camouflage gear. He was now wearing green and black army pants and an army hat. with an army jacket over a blue and light bulletproof vest. The magic dust had made it fit him and also lighter. For Billy's purposes, it had just made the vest a little bigger.

Blink! The gun department. Two forty-fives.

Blink! A whole row with dart boards. Skip.

Blink! They appeared in a place full of sports accessories. From here, Billy got some knee and elbow pads and put them on. He still wore his original Vampire Academy jacket but over his vest. He also sported some fancy new blue and black camouflage pants that the Air force was sporting in this dimension. It certainly wasn't Billy's dimension. He didn't have the heart to go back there for now. Too much of his earth was being torn apart by the council's foolish traveling.

Blink! They were in an area of experimental rifles, all around them the whole room was protected by glass. Jackpot. Tired and out of patience, Billy rapidly traveled them to the sports section again and grabbed two bats.

Blink! They were back.

"You get this row and I'll get that one. Watch your eyes and crush these glasses. Get as much of it as you can. When the owners come, we'll Blink the heck out of here."

They were picking up what looked like small metallic bugs. Some were used as cameras and these they ignored but others were remote-controlled bombs that they could easily use to explode on some vampires. Billy didn't know much about war and tactics but he knew that if you were far away when something exploded, you were safer than your enemies. He just hoped he didn't blow up anyone that didn't deserve it. After some minutes of glass shattering everywhere, the authorities did show up and Billy and Simon's hands were full of gadgets and junk. Billy put his arms around Simon and Blink! A lion stared at him.

"Oh," said the lion, "It's you."

Simon fainted.

"Great," Billy said, "Now look what you did."

"They came again yesterday looking for you. Not that I care. Not that I care. I'm just saying. They were looking for you but I don't care. You didn't impress me with the way you hunt, is all I'm saying."

Reo sat right next to the lion and was licking his paws. "He gets like this when he likes someone."

"No-no, I don't care. You're trying to make me care because you fixed...certain things but I don't."

"What did I fix? What's he talking about?" Billy asked, stuffing items into the side pockets of the pants.

The lion and tiger didn't seem to be surprised at seeing the items disappear inside, nor that the items were disproportional to the size of the bag.

"You fixed the air," the tiger said, "When you made that boom."

"That wasn't me," Billy said, "It was Mr. Faint over here. What was wrong with the air?"

"The voids were appearing, as though a hunter was coming through but no hunter was coming."
"You mean that the explosion fixed the void?"
"Yes," the lion said.

Billy frowned, thinking. So, they could be repaired but an explosion like that would do a lot of damage to the surrounding areas. "That's actually good to know," Billy said. "But I have to figure out another way."

"You hunt again, child?"

"I hunt forever," Billy said, "It's my destiny."

"Shoot," the tiger said, "Now he'll love you forever."

Billy smiled at them and slapped Simon's cheek. "You awake?" Billy asked him. Simon got up. "Sorry," he said, "I'm still not used to traveling so much at one time."

"Let's go meet our destiny, my friend."

And they vanished. As they left, the lion said, "Quit looking at me like that. I don't care that they're fixing it. I don't."

"The girl insists that you bring it, so you will bring it," Mark said, handing Keya her book.

"And where are we going to put it?" Teresa asked Mark.

"Just do the trick and stop being foolish."

"Very well," Teresa said, biting her lip.

Suddenly, there appeared on her dress near her chest a string zipper. Teresa zipped it down and put the book close to it. The dress ate the book and zipped itself back up.

"You just have to say book and it'll spit it out. Be ready to catch it, too. These magic bags can be rude, you know."

"Wow," Keya said, "Why didn't you want me to have the book?" Keya was rarely ever concerned with figuring things out but this was something that would later bother her, if she didn't know.

"Um," Mark said, now looking from Teresa to Keya, "Well, you better tell her."

Teresa crossed her hands, "Let's just go."

"She didn't want to let you go," Mark whispered at Keya, "Let's just say that I'm not the only one that loved my sister."

Keya smiled, a tear forming in her eyes. She gave Teresa a hug from behind. Teresa turned around slowly. In her hands appeared a slingshot. Teresa kept the bony white thing in her right hand for a minute longer. The holsters was a shiny emerald green now. "I," Teresa said, choking up, "I'm going to miss you, my precious little girl. Take it. Now, I got you a little something of my own devising. The other girl loved it, as well. It's just another trick to me, you know. But you, you do tricks without magic, that's amazing."

Teresa brought out a necklace with a small pouch in the center. "You don't have to say rock," Teresa said. "If you're aiming to hit someone, the rocks will come," she whispered in her ear as she tied it around her neck.

Keya examined the pouch. "Thank you so much."

Teresa gave her a stern stare and said, wiping away a tear, "That's enough of that. Let's go. You look ready enough."

Ahead of them was an orderly set of bunched up benches that had been put in front of the entrance to guard from intruding empires. Teresa waved a hand and they parted to the sides forming a path for the three of them to walk through. Brenda and Chris waited for them in the other room, a small hanger, Keya guessed.

In the next instant, they were fifty feet from what looked like a beaten part of Los Angeles. "It's here," Billy said, "Keep a sharp eye out for vampires."

"During the day?" Simon asked him. "I'm sure."
"For some reason," Billy said, "I don't think it'll be day for much longer."

Billy looked up and saw that black and gray clouds were forming.

"Crap," Simon said, "Is that magic?"
"Or a weather system gone extremely wrong."

Simon stared at him.

"No time for jokes, I guess."

Here, there was a mountain of dirt with an edge. They could see over it to where the city loomed in utter despair. Streets were littered with garbage and, in places, nothing but glass was on the streets. A few cars were overturned on the streets and in various places there were vehicles through the buildings themselves. "Tsunami, you think?" Simon asked.

Billy shook his head. "I don't think so. Vampires have a lot of free time."

A part of a building had been completely demolished by something, a missile or rocket it looked like.

"Hear that?" Simon asked.

"Hear what?"

"There's an eee sound coming from somewhere."

"It's time to travel," Billy said. He touched Simon and they vanished from their rocky promontory.

Blink! They were at the top of a building close by. Billy had set his eyes on the ceiling of it earlier. He, then, realized he was staring at a kid his age wearing dirty goggles and blue overalls. He had a rocket launcher and it was aimed straight for them.

"We're human, we're human!" Billy exclaimed.

Then, a loud boom distracted them.

Another person walked out of the room. She looked extremely like Francine, only a lot younger. She had on a blue robe with the sleeves cut. "Travelers? Here?"
"Not travelers," Simon said, standing up proudly, "The traveler. The one. Billy."

"Travelers who aren't from the council? Now, that's good news," the girl said, putting a hand on the rocket launcher. The boy lowered it, giving her a mean stare. The two exchanged glances for a second.

"That's a good boy," The girl said. "So, what are you two doing here?"

"We're here to rescue Mark," Billy said. "What was that explosion?"

"My fault, my fault," the guy with the rocket launcher said, "I thought you were vampires."

"That explains the eee sound," Billy said, looking down at Simon with a frown, "It's not the first time someone younger than me almost killed me."

The girl went over and shook his hand, "Teresa, at your service. But, once again, what are you doing here?"

"I'm Simon and this here is Billy and I'm not sure what exactly we're doing here."

"We're here to save a pompous ass."
Teresa laughed, "You've met Mark, I see. We've been trying to save him for days now. Ran out of ammunition a long time ago."

Billy smiled, "Well, I believe we can help with that."

Billy shoved the pants into her hands. Teresa almost dropped them, "Oh, no, we don't need undergarments."

"Simon, open the bag for her."

From the pants, they took out six bombs, three smoke grenades, sixteen remote controlled bees, an array of gadgets that he didn't understand, three knives, a slingshot for some odd reason, two 45's and, of course, two bats. Teresa eyed everything with a form of awe while the other just went over the stuff.

"Could be useful. Just a bunch of junk. It looks like you raided an army store and completely avoided the useful stuff--wait, is that a slingshot?"

Teresa raised an eyebrow. "Don't mind Ruben. He doesn't see real value in things that go boom. A slingshot, though, that will come in handy. Our last one broke."

"I don't know how that got in there, actually," Billy said.

Simon looked down at the floor and whistled. "You know, I wanted to try one out."

Behind them was a small shack that Billy guessed they were using to hide in. The clouds were looming closer over them.

From the shack, came out another girl, one with white skin. If not for that, she could be the exact replica of Keya with beautiful blue eyes, instead of brown ones. Billy sighed. Great. He really wanted to forget about his world's Keya and now here she was. "Serena," Teresa said, "Just in time. We found you a new toy."

At least, her name was different.

"Bugger!" The girl cursed, "Ain't this a new day. Is that a slingshot! Brilliant!"
She ran at it but something held her in mid-air.

"No, no!" Ruben yelled. He, then, sighed in relief. "Phew. See what you get for dumping your junk on the floor. She nearly held it in her hands."

Billy watched the girl stuck in mid-stride. Only her eyes moved. "Um," Billy said, "I'm guessing one of you froze her with magic."

"Guilty," Teresa said.

So, the young Francine was also a witch.

"What's wrong?" Simon asked, staring at Serena. He was so fascinated with the way things changed from dimension to dimension. He'd been staring that same way at Teresa for a while.

"Our young heroine here plus a slingshot without enemies nearby are the wrong combination. If you don't mind," Teresa said, picking up the slingshot from among the things. She held it, carefully, then made it vanish. "Safe in a pocket now."
Serena unfroze, "Never get to have any fun."

"Well," Teresa said, scooping up all the grenades and making them vanish, "This changes things, doesn't it? Do you have a plan to save Mark, traveler?"

"Billy is fine," Billy said, "Because if you start calling me a long name, I'm going to get really annoyed and might just decide to skip the whole thing altogether and the universe can go and mend itself for all I care."

"Yes, yes, don't get upset. Billy's it is."

"What do we need them for? Let's just go get Mark, I can solo this whole mission," Serena complained.

"She's not wrong," Ruben said, "But the more people the better is my guess."

"We're in what you might call a vampire stronghold," Teresa said, "But luckily, I've managed to keep them centralized to one location. See the origins of the dark cloud in the center of town? That's where most of them are dwelling now."

"That cloud is your work?"

] "Took me days," Teresa said, "But I think I got the lightning bolts to go just right. Like I said, you came just in time, almost like it was your destiny."

"Don't remind me," Billy said, trying to forget that the Nordits had warned him that he would fail.

"Our plan is to strike here as a diversion," Teresa said, "While me and you and the boy you brought with you, go into that building up ahead."

Billy looked over the city to where Teresa pointed. A hundred-story building stared at them in the face. It even had a peak. "There," Teresa said, "On the top floor, is where they're keeping him, I can feel it."

"I was going to do it by myself with the lightning acting as a diversion while Ruben acted as a point guard. You know with a sniper rifle but we don't have one of those. The launcher will do, at least he has plenty of bullets for it."

"Leroy, our other member," Teresa said, "He's going to be stationed on the building right across from the dark clouds on the other side of the building. He's our point guard. He's actually got a sniper's rifle. We only hope he made it to the other side alive. He took our large armored vehicle with him but even that may not be enough to get across streets full of vampires."

"Your plan is to create a diversion, so that we could save him?" Billy asked. "We can't just kill them all."

The three people not from Billy's dimension laughed. "No," Teresa said, "Their numbers are....Let's just say we're going to infiltrate an ants nest to try and kill the queen."

"It sounds dangerous," Billy said, sighing.

"To say the least, fool," Serena said. "But you brought me a slingshot, I'd say that makes things even."

Teresa eyed Serena for a minute. "Yes," she said, "Maybe a little unfair...for them, that is. Still, I don't trust you with it. You'll get it as soon as we're clear from you."

"You really think that she shouldn't have the sling shot?" Billy asked, "I mean, what's the harm in it?"
Teresa crossed her hands and frowned. "Just tell me that you're a good traveler and keep the opinions to a minimum."
Billy looked at Simon. He shrugged. Billy shook his head. Well, he had been under worst leadership or, rather, more ghostly leadership. Then, a thought popped-up in Billy's head. "How do you know Mark, exactly, then? I mean, he isn't from this dimension, not the one I'm trying to save."

"Oh, we know that much," Teresa said, eyeing Billy with suspicion. "We're not either. We're Mark's, let's say, team from one of the true earths."

"So you're like, his real friends and you traveled here to save him?"

Teresa nodded. "That's amazing, who traveled you?" Simon asked.

"We got a book," Serena volunteered. "But the witch keeps it in her pocket."
"But wait," Billy said, "Where is the Mark from this dimension?"

"Dead, actually."

"Oh, good," Billy said, "Because I'd hate to think that he was a vampire or something."

"Er," Teresa said, now annoyed, "You know I've been wondering why they've kept him alive this whole time. He may be..."
"Crap," Simon said, "Now, we got more than one problem, don't we?"

"Or less," Billy said, "At least, it didn't catch us by surprise."

Teresa walked them into the shack, "C'mon," she said and they followed her out. Ruben and Serena followed suit at a slow pace. Ruben was wearing his goggles around his neck now, looking ever more weird in a place so torn apart by war.

The shack led directly to stairs that wound downward for a long time. By the time they reached the floor, Billy was winded and the beginning of a tormenting rain had begun.

"And it gets closer," Teresa said, smiling.