Chapter 86 - Bullies

  Nobody else felt it, of course. I was the only one who had a control stone, so I was the only one who sensed when one of them was activated. But Kara and Patches both noticed when I froze, then shifted my attention to look south.

  “Selena, what's wrong?” Kara asked.

  “It's another control stone. One of them was just activated, and I'm almost certain it came from the mall.”

  “Oh, shit! So now our big bad is even bigger and badder than before, right?” Kara asked.

  “That's my best guess, yeah,” I replied. I let how totally not thrilled I was about that leak into my voice.

  An already difficult job just became much more so. Two minutes ago, we’d been trying to figure out how to face off against this thing. Now it was even stronger. That wasn't the news any of us wanted to hear at this point. But Kara had different thoughts.

  “I'm not sure that changes anything,” Kara said.

  “How does it not change anything?” I asked. “In my mind, this changes a hell of a lot.”

  Kara shook her head. “Not really. Think about it. Whatever is running the show over there was already too tough for us to deal with, right?”

  “Right. And now it's even worse.”

  “But even before it got a control stone, it was already too much for us to handle,” Kara said. “Now it's still the same as it was before: too much for us to handle by ourselves. That means the game plan hasn't changed at all. We need to gain allies, grow stronger, or both. We just need to do a little bit more of that now than we had before.”

  She had a point. A good one, even if Kara’s optimism was a little annoying. “That makes a surprising amount of sense. What are you thinking for next moves? Same as before, or do we change tactics?”

  “You’re asking me?” She looked surprised.

  I shrugged. “Kara, you’ve kicked ass all over the place in every fight we’ve been in. Yeah, of course I’m asking you.”

  Kara shrugged. “I don’t think this changes anything. We still need allies and more crystals. Patches and his new friends can go round up more ratkin to join us, and we should use your map to hit another cemetery or three.”

  “And maybe ask Turner for help,” I added.

  Kara made a face at that. “Maybe. You know I trust him as far as I can throw him, now.”

  “Add a few Strength stones and you’ll be able to toss him pretty far,” I said with a grin. I’d filled her in about his Charisma and how he was using it. Kara was about as little a fan as I was.

  “Oh, that’s such a lovely image. Maybe I’ll do that, just for the opportunity.”

  I brought the map back out again. It was growing a little tattered, but I’d managed to keep it in mostly good shape. I spread it out enough to see the little Burlington mini-map. It had lots of stuff marked in it—roads, parks, schools, the University, the mall—even cemeteries, thank goodness.

  They weren’t super easy to spot. The map was small, and the color and icon the mapmakers used wasn’t easy to see. But after a little while, we’d found a couple of likely candidates.

  One of them was right near the airport. It was close; that was the good news. It was also right next to the avians’ nest, which meant even if the undead were still in one piece, we’d have to contend with the avians, too. Since Sue was pretty good at taking them out of the air, we could probably handle that. But it was small, too. Much smaller than the graveyard I cleared early on.

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  We kept looking, and soon spotted another site. This one was southwest of the airport and southeast of the mall. It was far enough from the mall that I had hopes maybe our foes hadn’t already found the place, but it was near enough to where we stood that Sue could still get there before nightfall. Best of all, it was big—much larger than the cemetery I’d used to level myself up. Even with the two of us splitting the proceeds, it was still going to push us each up a lot in terms of power.

  I glanced at my watch. It was just past noon. “It shouldn’t take us too long to get there, with Sue doing the running. Want to try for it today?”

  “Sooner is better. That horde is only going to get larger.”

  I turned to Patches. “Gather every Ratkin you can. We’ll meet back here say… Tomorrow, three hours after sunrise.”

  “I will do,” Patches said. “We get ratkin. Then we have numbers, too.”

  We had a plan. I wasn’t sure it was the best one in the world, but it was a start. With the plan set, Kara and I bade our farewells to the ratkin and mounted up on Sue. Before we set off, I looked back at the pile of broken timber that had once been a fort. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, except for disappointment. For a brief moment, that place had been mine. I’d considered giving it to the ratkin, and that would have felt good, too.

  Now it was ruins. Maybe it could be rebuilt, once all of this was done? I hoped so. It felt like a nice place to have a base, although I personally thought that island where we’d slept the night before was a stronger bet. Whether it was going to be home for the long run or not, though, this fort had briefly been home, and losing it was just another in a long series of blows.

  Something else to add to the tally of reasons why I wanted to take this creature and its minions down.

  I slipped the control stone out of my pocket and had an immediate sense that I couldn’t use it. For the first time, I was actually blocked from using the thing to create my own Domain.

  It was good information to have, because it confirmed information I’d gleaned from the memories the stone gave me. Each Domain had a barrier around it, and new Domains couldn’t be created within the zone of control already established by another domain. Until the mall Domain was shut down, nobody was going to turn this fort into one.

  For a moment, I regretted not doing it sooner, but I pushed those feelings aside. I’d had excellent reasons to hold off for the time being. For all I knew, those other Domains were already in full-on war with one another. Once a Domain was set up, every other nearby Domain leader would get information about its location. Since the easiest way to grow one’s Domain seemed to be to conquer another one and steal its control stone, it was a risky play.

  “Everything all right?” Kara asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered, slipping the stone back into my pouch. “We’re inside the mall’s Domain radius. In their zone of control, basically.”

  “Ugh.” Kara got it. She understood why that stung. But she also had the right answer for it. “Well, not for long.”

  “Better believe it!”

  I urged Sue forward, and we shot through the woods, moving south at a steady, loping pace that ate up the ground. Hope ran alongside, quiet as a whisper as she dashed ahead and then came back, constantly scouting the path.

  It didn’t take us long at all to reach Route 2, and once we were there we headed east along the road. We passed the turn off toward Dorset Street, where University Mall lay waiting for us. The huge, stretched out buildings used to feel cosy and welcoming. I’d spent a lot of afternoons there, shopping and hanging out. Now, the place was like a somber fortress, one I knew had a darkness hidden in the center.

  The hotel off to our left was burning, which was a shame. I’d eaten at the restaurant there once—the Windjammer. It was a nice place. We kept moving past, but before we’d gotten far, a scream shattered the quiet of the street.

  I brought Sue to a halt. “What was that? Where was it from?”

  Kara pointed back toward the burning hotel. “Pretty sure it came from there.”

  I looked back toward the building. It wasn’t fully engulfed, but it was headed there fast. We didn’t have the time for major rescue operations, but… I didn’t feel great about leaving people in danger if we could help, either.

  Was that part of being stronger than everyone else? I supposed so. If I had the power to help people, did that create the responsibility to do so? I’d read something along those lines once, and I guess it stuck with me or something, because the thought of just riding on by left my stomach feeling queasy.

  “Let’s go check it out, make sure everyone is okay,” I said.

  “Works for me,” Kara replied.

  I wheeled Sue around, and we headed back up the road, then in toward the parking lot. At first I didn’t see anything but the smoke billowing from the building’s roof and flames jetting out of a few windows. The fire was definitely getting worse. But then I saw it—a mom, with three kids, hunkered down inside one of the cars in the parking lot. The kids were the ones doing the screaming. The mother had a baseball bat in her hand, swinging it desperately at a bird-man who was trying to drag one of her kids through a broken car window.

  Yeah, that wasn’t going to stand. I pushed orders to Sue to bolt ahead at top speed, and my dinosaur responded like a sports car, accelerating so fast I was glad we were both tied in again. We rushed toward the battle like a runaway freight train.

  If there was one thing I could not stand, it was bullies.