And that’s when it happened.
The bag opened.
And opened.
And opened.
With the hordes of the dark places roaring at his back, he poured all his power down into the bag. And through the amulet.
An amulet that was once used for unlocking the Eye of Malachi and taking the bearer from one realm to another.
But was now a different kind of key. One that created a realm.
The van screamed down the road. And as it did, the red bag of Sinzerklaazz scooped up the landscape.
The end of the bag grew. Fluttered into the van. It expanded. Adhered to the walls.
Odom hurried to the front of the van. The bag grew transparent. Revealed a landscape of rolling hills and evergreens on either side of a crumbling blacktop.
The road they had just driven on.
But was now free of orkes and ogres and the nasty things of the dark places.
And it was inside van.
He glanced at the sideview mirror. Behind them was roiling darkness and screaming beasts brandishing all kinds of pointy objects.
No time to slow down.
“Go faster!” he shouted to Rodney.
And somehow, Rodney, the most excellent pizza delivery driver, made the van go faster. While screaming at the top of his lungs.
And Sinzerklaazz’s bag kept scooping up the landscape.
Road, trees, bushes, houses–all of it zipped into the bag and into the back of the van. They hit the outskirts of town. The suburbs went in. The strip malls bounced into the bag.
Down the highway, they went.
And into the bag, the highway went. Along with the shops and side streets and apartment complexes on either side of it.
Into the back of the van. In perfect order. Not a single brick out of place. Not a single blade of grass damaged.
But the roiling horde behind them roared on their tail. Battle horns sounded. Terrible hooves pounded the rocky ground.
He gripped the edge of the bag. Massive energies poured through him. Searing every fiber of his being.
But somehow he held on.
As if he had a choice.
Through the core of the city they went.
And into the bag and the back of the van the towers of downtown flowed in. Sparkling office buildings, concrete sidewalks and parking meters with their worn blue paint–into the bag it all went.
The van roared on. Never slowing.
Neither did the screaming horde of destruction behind him.
Was it his imagination or was there a sound of frustration in those screams?
He didn’t have the strength to analyze it. It was all he could do to stay conscious. The energies of all the realms flowed through him and into Sinzerklaazz’s magic bag. He could sense the bag was never meant for anything like this. Yet somehow it held on.
Just as he did.
The gold and sapphire amulet grew hot in his hand. So hot he imagined his flesh sizzling under it.
But he held on.
If he let go of either the bag or the amulet, it would all collapse.
And the slavering horde would take the city and all its residents.
Toward the other side of the city, heading for the docks, the van zoomed. Into the bag went the little stores and the delivery trucks parked into the alleys behind them. Along with the alleys–dumpsters and sleeping drunks included.
Everything settled into the back of the van, cozy and safe and completely oblivious.
Joggers in the park along the edge Korbahn Bay slid in along with the path their running shoes continued slapping on. Seagulls squawking and wheeling down at the wharf zipped into the van without missing a beat of their wings.
The stately old houses on the hills on the outskirts of the city, along with the forested hills they sat on were slurped into the opening of the bag. They plopped down inside the van, exactly where they were supposed to be, overlooking the shiny towers of downtown.
“Road!” Rodney cried.
By which he seemed to indicate he was concerned about the lack of road.
The last bit of paved asphalt sucked up into the back like the last bit of spaghetti on the plate. Followed by a mighty watery cascade of Korbhan bay itself.
And then there was nothing.
Rodney hit the brakes.
The van spun around. But didn’t stop.
There was no screeching of rubber on pavement. What pavement? It was all in the van. Safe and secure.
In the back, an entire city shone under a strange, greenish white sky. There was no sun to light the city.
It was perhaps a bit much to ask the sun to fit into the back of a 1967 Ford Econoline van.
As the van spun, Hilario glimpsed the hordes of dark armies. They shook their pointy objects and roared their confusion in the darkness. Millions and millions of them.
Through his searing pain he sent out tentacles of consciousness. Lightly touching the minds out there. Finding confused and angry soldiers from the dark realms. And then, finally, the dark lords themselves.
Dozens of them. Even more angry and confused than their poor troops. All of them inside the new realm.
A bubble that encircled them all.
He marshaled his will. He needed to hang on. Hang on long enough to finish this.
He clenched the gold and sapphire amulet in his hand. Pulled it away from the bag.
The van shuddered and jerked.
Rodney the pizza delivery driver stopped screaming and fainted.
“Now!” Hilario shouted.
The Sapphire Witch flowed up to him and took his hand between hers. She jerked back like she’d been slammed with a two by four.
But hung on.
Dark energies flowed from her. Down into the amulet.
He gave her as much energy as he could spare. Which wasn’t much. He needed everything to hold the city safe in Sinzerklaazz’s bag.
She held both of her hands over his. And the amulet. She threw her head back and screamed. Terror or
