Voodootown

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Twister

Twister took a step back.  As the man had kicked Squat off, she had altered time enough to grab Root and carry her away from the human.  He stared down at her.  "Give me the one that can see the connections between people and I'll let you all go."

"Sorry, mister," Twister said.  "No deal."

A sour-looking frown passed over his face.  "It's not Mister, actually.  It's Doctor.  Doctor Midnight.  A friend gave me the name."

"They're coming!"  It was Camo's voice, coming from one of the walls.  "Half-way up."

"Here too," Ribbon said.

Twister pushed Root back again and reached into the bag of hexes that Flow had given her.  "Now!"  She jumped up, slowed time to a tiny fraction of normal and climbed up the man's body.  When she reached his shoulder, she hurled the hex, a Sleep Mask, at his face.  She jumped down, let time go back to normal as she dropped.  She saw that Blink wasn't much slower.  He appeared in front of Doctor Midnight, dropping through the air, and tossed another hex.

They hit almost simultaneously.  But nothing happened.  Her Sleep Mask hex didn't wrap around his eyes and sedate him and Blink's hex didn't do anything either.

Flow soared over in his rocket boots and cocked his arm back with another hex.  The Doctor backhanded Flow into the side of the wall.  "You didn't think I'd let you hit me with a hex again, did you?"  He opened his right hand, gave it a sharp turn and a cloud oozed out of his palm.  It began to spin as it moved to the street, turning into a small tornado.

From the far edge of the wall, two thralls cartwheeled into their arena, their cloth hands locked together as they spun.  When they neared the ground, they separated, landing on either side of the human.

Twister saw Blink pop up behind one of them and toss a hex.  Instantly, the doll's body inflated like beach ball and it bounced off to the side.  The second thrall, the one closer to Twister, landed next to the miniature tornado.

It stepped toward her, but the tornado altered course and sucked the thrall in.  She saw it spin for a moment, gaining speed, and then the thrall began to rip apart.  Bits of cloth and stuffing flew out until both thrall and tornado were gone. 

"Great," Twister said. 

Above her, the man twisted his hand and another doll sized cyclone hit the ground.

Before it could move into the others, Twister sped up and ran at the tornado.  Running fast, she could move through it, disrupt the air currents that kept it spinning.  She passed through it three more times and it began to die.  She could handle one or two of those at a time, but if Doctor Midnight sent more out, or attacked them some other way, she wouldn't be able to stop it.

With three more turns of his hand, Midnight sent three more tornados spinning off in different directions.

Twister turned to Ju Ju.  "Wall him in."

Then she sped up, sprinted through one tornado and climbed the wall to Ribbon.  She looked over and saw that the thralls were three-quarters of the way up the wall.  Some of them were digging handfuls out of the rock, others were leaping up in stages.  "Retreat," Twister said after she had dropped to normal speed.  "Go meet Root and get out."  Then she jumped down, took out the second tornado before it could pick Ju Ju up.

With one of them left to disrupt, she ran to where she thought Camo might be.  Her friend appeared when she approached and Twister pointed to the way out.  In between them and the exit, a wall was quickly growing around Midnight.  He looked at it and shook his head.

Twister raced off to find Blink.  He met her half-way and she had to slow down, reverse direction to catch him.  "Can you find Squat?" she asked.  "We're out."

Blink stared over her shoulder a moment until Twister shook his shoulder.  "Don't space out now!"  He disappeared and Twister finished her loop of the arena, stopped where Flow had crashed into the wall.  As she did, she caught movement in the corner of her eye.  She turned, saw the last tornado right behind her.  As it began to sweep her up, she brought time to a near standstill and tumbled to the ground, dropped by the suddenly slow wind.  She crawled over to Flow.  He groaned as she pulled him out of the crushed stone and she pulled his bag from his shoulder.  The moment that it took her to dig through the bag to try to find an appropriate hex drained her more than she had ever felt before.  She settled on the closest one, a ketchup packet.  "You have food issues," she said to Flow.

She threw it, waited for it to get close to the tornado, then let time slip back to normal.  Before she could turn away, the tornado turned deep red, grew viscous and exploded outward in a shower of ketchup.  Her face and skin were coated, but she turned to Flow and they rejoined the others. 

All around them, thralls climbed over the walls of the arena and jumped down.  "We need an exit," Twister said.

Ju Ju nodded, looked over at the motionless Bricks as the wall around Midnight climbed over his head.  Then the wall of the arena behind them began to shake and move apart into a tunnel that led past the thralls that were still outside.

A hammering sound came from inside the box Ju Ju had made for Midnight.  Its walls shook and dust drifted down from them.  Another blow and cracks appeared.  Twister pointed the others towards the exit and laid a hand on Ju Ju's shoulder.  "Come on."

But Ju Ju didn't run.  She motioned to Sticks, who stepped up.  The front wall of Brick's glass cage dropped and Sticks hoisted the frozen thrall up on her shoulder.  "What are you doing?" Twister asked.  "You've still got a lock on him.  Leave him here."

"No," Ju Ju said.  "He's coming with us."

Above them the walls of the cage crumbled.  Doctor Midnight shook the dust off his suit and looked down at them.

"Run!" Twister said.  Ju Ju and Sticks joined her, and Midnight followed them.