Game of Cages

Whatever it was, it was coming right at me.

I sprinted up the stairs and leaped to the left. The invisible thing he’d thrown passed behind me, erasing the steps and wiping away part of the upstairs floor. And it had grown larger, too. I looked through the hole it left at the open mountainside and wondered just how far it would go before the spell stopped turning something into nothing.

Just ahead was the servants’ stairs leading down to the back door. I ran to the top as another jet of white fire swept through the floor below, destroying the lower flight and wall beyond the way a lazy hand might clear fog off a misty window.

I turned and ran back the other way, leaping over the gap in the floor. The whole building shifted and jolted, and I fell to the threadbare carpet. Somewhere close, lumber cracked and splintered, making noises as loud as gunshots. I needed to get out of this house and out of Zahn’s sights as fast as I could, and the most direct way was through the big arching front windows.

The room with the white sheets over the furniture was just ahead. I lunged upward and threw my shoulder against the door. It didn’t open—it broke into pieces, already cracked from the collapsing jamb above it.

Once through, I fell to the floor, sliding on my knees along the sloping floorboards. The room was collapsing toward a huge hole in the center, and I could see the piles of basement clutter all the way down at the bottom.

The whole house shuddered. A wardrobe tilted away from the wall and slammed to the floor. I struggled to my feet as it slid at me, and I tried to jump up and run along the flat back of it but ended up clumsily stumbling across it instead.

I sprawled on the floor again as the entire house lurched. Plaster dust fell onto the back of my neck, and I managed to stand. I did not want to die in here. Not like this. Another blast of white fire sliced upward through the floor, cutting the wall with the tall front windows from the rest of the house.

Everything leaned toward the front, and I thought the whole building might fold up right then, pinching me into jelly. There was no way to get out by the front—the gaps were too iffy to jump, and I couldn’t trust the floor to hold me even if I made it across. I had to try the back of the house.

The floor dropped beneath me—just a foot—but it was enough to slam me to my knees again. I imagined myself falling backward onto all that clutter below: the overturned chairs, furniture corners, everything. At this height I’d be lucky to only break my back. Goose bumps ran down my back and arms, and I scrambled on my hands and knees toward the door.

Stephanie came toward me.

God, the smell was awful. I struggled to my feet, determined not to die on my knees. She was standing on a cloud of silver smoke a foot or two off the buckled floorboards. Where her eyes should have been, two worms wagged back and forth, their mouths gaping wide enough to show little teeth.

The wall behind her suddenly vanished, and I knew another spell was coming. I lunged at her just as she reached me, but I was faster. Her ankle squished like a bag of jelly when I grabbed it, but I squeezed tight and pulled, tipping her off balance. She fell back as the spell advanced, and I leapt up toward the broken doorway.

Zahn’s spell swept over her and erased her from the world. I grabbed the edge of the doorframe and pulled myself through, barely clearing the edge of the spell.

I scurried along the hall toward Regina’s room. She had a window in there, even if getting out that way would leave me on the wrong side of the house. The floor was so crooked that I had to run along the corner where it met the wall. The building groaned and shuddered, and something somewhere close snapped. The sound was as loud as a sledgehammer’s blow.

Regina’s door was already open, although her bed had slid against the crooked frame. I climbed over it, kicking at the covers as they tried to tangle my legs. I tread on Regina’s framed photos, smashing the glass.

The exterior wall leaned above me. When I lifted the window, it slid open like a blessing. I caught hold of the bottom of the sill and started to pull myself through just as everything began to come apart with a sound like a series of small explosions. My footing fell away and the wall rushed toward me. In a burst of desperate strength, I pulled myself through the open window, ignoring the sawdust billowing into my face and the shards of glass striking it.

The wall plummeted around me as I lurched through it. I tumbled down the outside of the house, feeling as though I had used the last of my strength and willpower. I fell into the grass, and somehow landed on the side of the house, practically right on the spot where Fat Guy had been crouching when I’d cut his shotgun apart.

I forced myself to sit up. I was exhausted, and when I looked up, I saw Zahn and Ursula standing where I’d left them. Both were staring at me; Ursula looked pale and shell-shocked; Zahn had a grim smile on his face.

I couldn’t make myself care anymore. I’d destroyed the sapphire dog, just as I’d said I would, and I didn’t have any more willpower left. Not after everything I’d done. I was finished, and they could see it on my face.

The Plexiglas cage behind Ursula and Zahn had somehow shrunk. I looked at it more closely and saw that it wasn’t only the cage that had changed shape. Everything—space itself—had bent toward the cut in the sapphire dog’s neck. The cage, the battery, and the ground they rested on bowed inward as though the world was being pulled into the predator’s body.

But Zahn didn’t see it because he was focused on me. He opened his coat and drew a playing card from an inside pocket with well-practiced ease. The warp suddenly expanded, and the edges trembled as though under tremendous strain. I could feel the distortion inside me, like an urge to scream.

Zahn turned toward it, surprised. Ursula gasped. The warp suddenly swelled and both of their bodies twisted as though they had stepped into a funhouse mirror.

Then the warp released in a single overwhelming blast.

I remember the light, but I don’t think there was any sound. I felt myself silently lifted up and thrown across the grass.

The light was bright and pure. It filled everything, and it seemed to be full of watching eyes.

I woke on the grass at the base of the hill a couple of dozen feet from where I’d been. Nothing seemed to be broken. I snapped my fingers and heard the sound, which was a tremendous relief.