If that wasn’t the least helpful thing he’d said among all the least helpful things he’d ever said, I didn’t know what was.
“Keep the crowd back.” I dug in my bag, in the little terra cotta teapot, fingers brushing a very rare dried flower. A flower that could kill a demon.
I took a step. Jean grabbed my elbow, stopping me.
“Don’t—”
I pulled out the velvet bag with the scissors. “I have a plan.”
“You can’t use those.”
“That’s what they all say, but I don’t think they’re right.” I held the bag up toward her. “You get any doom twinges off these?”
“All I get off those is evil stank.”
“But no bad feelings.”
“Yes. Bad feelings. Bad evil stank feelings. ”
“How bad? Honestly, Jean. How bad?”
She scowled. “Not…not as bad as whatever is in that damn vortex.”
“Good enough.”
“No,” she said.
I put my hand over hers. “Trust me. I really do have a plan.” She was going to say no again. I could see it all over her.
But then the vortex exploded.
Chapter 24
It wasthe lack of sound that worried me. The world was fine one second, I could hear the ocean hushing and churning. I could hear the mutterings and other conversations of the crowd behind me. I could hear traffic on the highway, the lap of river water, the call of seagulls and crows.
Then there was a blast—strident and painful like ground zero in a head-on collision—horns blaring, voices screaming, metal grinding.
And silence.
Jean still held my arm. Hadn’t budged an inch. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t moving at all. My heart clenched, fear so sharp I gasped. Then the details of the world around me pressed through that fear, parting it like fingers in Venetian blinds.
Jean wasn’t moving because no one was moving. The entire world had frozen.
For a heartbeat, I wondered if all of Ordinary had been transported into a bubble, into a stone where time, and all living things, stopped.
Correction. All living things that belonged in Ordinary.
Things, other things—including thethingcoming through the vortex—were moving into Ordinary and moving fast.
I pulled my arm away from Jean. She was still frozen in place. I glanced at Than, who nodded once, his eyebrow rising.
I supposed I should have expected a god—even a vacationing god—wouldn’t be affected by whatever was happening. Good. That meant I had back up.
“With me,” I said. My mouth felt numb, slow. No sound came out of it.
Than nodded once again. Maybe he could understand me. Maybe he was just planning on following my lead like we were in the middle of an on-the-job training simulation and it didn’t matter if I were actually speaking words.
I ran toward the vortex. Or at least I tried to. Instead, the tug in my chest flared hot at my first step, and a mind-blurring rush oftheredropped me in front of the vortex, right next to Bathin.
