He snatched it up and unrolled it, so eager his hands were shaking. The tightly coiled note sprung closed twice before he finally got it under control enough that he could open it and read its hand-written contents. He’d barely started before Rutger yelled at him to read it out loud.
“Okay,” Sato said, surprisingly not annoyed at the interruption. He cleared his throat and started from the beginning. “‘Dear Sato. This is Tick. Mistress Jane did something really bad, and every last Reality is going to roll over and die unless we do something about it. You were taken to that place you’re in by, well, I can explain all that later. You’re safe for now. But a few hours after you get this, you’re gonna be winked to the Thirteenth Reality. All of you. I need you to convince everyone there to come help me.’”
Sato paused for a big breath and looked around at his friends, all of whom stared back with wide eyes.
“Keep going!” Rutger snapped.
Sato did. “‘There’s a place called the Factory. Mothball should know about it. It’s where Jane creates her fangen and some new things that are worse. I’ll be there in a little bit with Master George, Paul, and Sofia. With any luck, we’ll be working with Jane to fix the Realities. Yeah, long story, but we’ll need her help. Anyway, once we’re done, there’s no way Jane will let us go. That’s where you guys come in.’”
Sato saw Mothball shake her head back and forth, but he chose to ignore her for now and kept reading. “‘The people of the Fifth are known as warriors—even those who don’t do it as a profession. Somehow you and Mothball need to organize them and convince them to come rescue us. The Haunce—don’t ask—also says there are lots of children we’ll need to save while we’re at it. Sato, you have to come! Be ready so when the Haunce thinks the time is right, it can wink all of you to the Thirteenth.’”
Mothball was quietly groaning now—almost wailing—but the note only had a few more sentences. Sato finished up quickly. “‘I know you have a ton of questions, but there’s no way I can explain everything in a stupid note. I hope you can trust me. The Factory, Sato. The Factory. Come and get us. And just so you know it’s me: remember how mad you were that I saved you twice? Well, it’s payback time. Tick out.’”
Sato stared at those last couple of lines for a few seconds. A trickle of doubt had entered his mind upon first reading the note—anybody could’ve sent the note. But now he knew it really was Tick. The tone, the phrasing, the reference to their exchange after Sato had been freed from Chu’s Dark Infinity device—it was Tick, all right.
Mothball let out a sound like a bear with its foot caught in a trap.
Sato looked at her and saw something awful and afraid in her expression. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“The Factory,” she replied in a whisper. “Master Tick’s spot on when he says I should know all about it. Know far too much, I do. Sorry to be a pu**ycat, but if that’s where we’re goin’, then I’m a might scared, that’s all.”
Rutger nodded, his face a full shade paler than it had been before Sato had read the note. “She’s right. Our spies in the Thirteenth have told us all about that nightmare place. I can’t imagine what Tick’s gotten himself into, but if he really is headed for that place of horrors, then we have no choice but to go after him. Just like he asked for. Even though it terrifies me just as much as it does Mothball.” He leaned back to look up at his friend, a ball tilting on a pivot. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you scared before.”
“Hogwash,” she mumbled back.
Sato hadn’t known her nearly as long as Rutger had, but he’d definitely never seen her so afraid—at least nothing even approaching the way she looked now, pallid and sweaty with dead eyes. “Well, what is the Factory?” he finally asked. “Why is it so awful?”
“Tell him, Mothball,” Rutger said. “Tell him what they told us.”
The tall Realitant’s eyes flickered down to her friend, then to Sato. She stiffened her body and held her head a little higher, composing herself. “Well, there’s the obvious bit Tick mentioned. Factory’s full of Jane’s hideous creations, guardin’ every last inch of it. But that’s not the worst part. Not worst by far, the way I reckon it. What chills me bones is to think of what we’ll see if we get inside the ruddy place. Things unnatural and evil. Things that just might cure of us sleepin’ till we drop dead of it.”
“Like what?” Sato asked, his curiosity mixed with a chilling fear. “What are they doing in there?”
Mothball pulled her long, gangly arms behind her and clasped her hands as she stared down at her own feet. “They take animals and . . . meld them with other animals, usin’ the mutated powers of the Thirteenth’s Chi’karda. Meld ’em right together into things you wouldn’t dare tell ’round a campfire.”
Sato held his breath.
Mothball’s head snapped up so she could look him square in the eyes. “But that ain’t the whole of it. Learned somethin’ brand-new few weeks back, we did. Somethin’ that’ll make your heart shrivel and scream.”
Sato swallowed. It felt like a dried clump of dirt went down his throat. “What?”
Tears leaked from both of Mothball’s eyes. “Kiddies,” she said, her voice cracking. “The animals only be tests. She’s done captured a bunch of kiddies and plans on usin’ ’em soon as she’s good and ready.”
Chapter 35
Darkness of the Way
Tick couldn’t believe what he’d done. Even after some time to think about it, his mind still couldn’t accept it. He sat on the forest floor, absently ripping apart leaves from a nearby bush, surrounded by darkness and cool air.
He’d winked something away. All by himself. After all the strange episodes leading up to that moment—the reappearance of the letter Kayla had burned, winking his group from the Thirteenth back to Master George’s headquarters, the near-catastrophe in the Fourth Reality—he’d finally used Chi’karda on his own terms. He’d controlled it and used its power to wink—a thing the Realitants thought only a Barrier Wand could accomplish.
He’d done it all by himself.