Someone screamed, and it was probably him. Then he heard the steady rapport of a gun. He whipped around to look.
It was Wiz with the pistol aimed straight up at… it. He emptied his entire clip at the thing.
Normally Bruce would have said it was too far away for a handgun. A bazooka might be too small to score a hit, but looking back at the—the living nightmare—he could see the impact right where it was supposed to go. Puffs of explosions dead center between the eyes. Over and over.
He waited for the thing to die. He prayed for it to shrink, melt, or whatever it would do. He’d be thrilled if it went poof in a burst of ashes, but nothing happened.
“Damn it!” Wiz cursed. “It’s changed.”
“What? Why?” Bruce demanded. Hadn’t they said they knew how to kill it? That all Bruce had to do was find it and they’d take care of it?
Josh groaned from beside Wiz. “It’s evolved beyond the story version. It can’t be killed the same way.”
Curses rolled through his mind, but he didn’t have time to let his fury fly because a great deal was happening, and it was all bad. First rule of a firefighter—see what’s happening and breathe. That was all he had to do.
He squinted at the monster as he forced himself to make steady inhales and exhales. He managed to sort out roiling tentacles and bubbling masses that swelled, burst, then collapsed back on themselves. Except it wasn’t collapsing to the same size it was before. Now that he looked with narrowed eyes—and his mind wasn’t busy screaming in terror—he could see little specks of yellow fairy lights all over the thing. They were the pixies, catching something, then pressing it into the demon… which made it grow bigger. In tiny increments, but there were a thousand of those little fairies, each adding a tiny bit over and over.
“You’re making it bigger!” Erin screamed, and she was right.
Just like with the moon, the fairies were catching everyone’s thoughts, their fears, their terror, and making it into more demon.
“Stop that!” Bruce snapped. “Stop them from adding to the thing!”
She glared at him. “It is what we do. We take what you think!”
“And make that,” he realized. Oh God.
“Think happy thoughts!” Laddin bellowed. “Don’t worry!”
Nice idea, but that wasn’t going to work. Not with that demon towering over them.
Then it got worse. Someone cried out, not in fear but in warning. Bruce looked over, and pretty soon he found what they were screaming about.
Kangaroos—a whole herd of them hopping full tilt straight at them. And if he didn’t miss his guess, they were being ridden by gnomes or leprechauns. Who the hell knew? He heard Josh curse and Nero moan, “Not again.”
But then, from the opposite side of the herd, something else appeared—something dark and ghostly. It looked like a Dementor from the Harry Potter series, but someone bellowed, “Lich.” And this time Erin stomped her foot hard enough to grab Bruce’s attention.
“And now you bring its friends!” she screamed.
She was really pissed off, and Bruce couldn’t blame her. Everything they’d done had made things worse. He looked around in panic, hoping to find some help. There were people far more experienced here than he was. Surely they knew what to do.
They did. They squared off with the kangaroos and the lich. They protected themselves and each other. But while they kept everyone alive, they did nothing to stop the demon-turned-swamp-megalith that was going to swallow them whole.
Then Laddin grabbed Bruce’s hand and whipped him around so that they could face each other.
“Happy thoughts!” Laddin screamed. He jerked Bruce close enough so that he didn’t have to bellow. “I love you.”
Right. Happy thoughts. But a few choruses of the Barney theme song weren’t going to save them. The demon was too big, and its friends were going to kill them all long before they figured out how to shrink it.
“Don’t think!” Laddin ordered. Then he pressed his mouth hard to Bruce’s. The kiss was rushed, and they clanged teeth. Before Bruce could adjust, Laddin pulled back. “Feel. Just feel!”
What he felt was crap-his-pants terror, but he didn’t have any better ideas. “Er, yeah. I, uh, I love you too.”
Laddin rolled his eyes, and Bruce couldn’t really blame him. Talk about lame. Mouthing the words wasn’t going to do it. He had to really put his thought, his power—
“You have to feel it!” Laddin said.
Right. He had to put his feelings into it. But he was feeling afraid! He was feeling like the world was ending and it was all his fault.
Laddin lifted their joined hands. “Light me up!”
Light him? Oh, right. Laddin was his light bulb. All he needed to do was push power into the guy’s hands and Laddin would do the rest. Bruce exhaled in relief and pushed as much energy as he could through their matched palms.
He felt the flow of energy, he felt his shoulders relax, and he knew that he hadn’t fucked up entirely, because Laddin would be able to fix things. Except it didn’t work. He saw Laddin close his eyes. He watched as the guy inhaled, as if drawing in everything good about the world, and then exhaled a simple phrase.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
Bruce felt the power of it. He felt his lips curve into a smile, but all around him the noise continued. The demon hissed, the people on the kangaroos whooped as they hopped around, destroying everything in their path, and someone screamed, “Disintegrate!” at the lich.
“Don’t think about it,” Laddin said, and Bruce didn’t have
