LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: In Some Pretty Deep Skeiron

The first part of my plan is to get Jamie back. The second part of my plan is to, well, get a second part of the plan. There has to be a way to take that church out ... and find it in the first place.

Grim shows up a little bit after Deirdre leaves to get ready for sunset. We don't have much time, so I have Grim warp me to the old theater, to the room with the dolls. It's a place away from all the fighting, for now. And it's where Jamie and me saw the real us for the first time. This might be the last place we see each other as humans ... well, before the end.

Now that I'm here with all those damn dolls with the creepy faces, I'm really wishing that I'd picked somewhere else. But it's too late to find somewhere else.

And Grim won't be here much longer. Me and him have been through a lot together, and it sucks that this close to the end, he's gotta go his way and I gotta go mine. I thank him for bringing me here. I have a lot to thank him for. But that's not what I say.

"You're my best friend," I tell him. He smiled the last time I told him that.

He doesn't smile now.

I want more time to talk to Grim, but some of his orbs start going nuts.

That means the real fighting's started up. We don't say a whole lot. We've already said what we have to and don't have to say the rest.

"Watch yourself out there," I tell him.

"You, too." He pauses and then says, "See you later."

That last part hangs in the air between us.

If that vision holds true, we go out together, or at least die in the same spot. He goes out first, but I don't run. I stay near him.

None of that makes me feel better, though.

I need to worry about what's happening now. So does Grim. I don't have a chance to say anything to him before he warps out of the theater.

Six minutes to sunset.

Grim's doing what he can. Now, I have to do my part.

Surrounded by the dolls, I think about being up here with Jamie, about how she found out about me and how we kissed. Then I uncork the horn and pour the contents onto the floor, like Deirdre told me, too. Then I wrap Jamie's unicorn necklace around my hand. I was going to give it to Dennis, but he punched my lights out before I had a chance. After sucking in a deep breath, I touch each image etched into the horn's smooth surface—a sun and moon, waves, trees. One by one, they begin to glow.

Out the small window to my left, I can see how little light is still in the sky.

All of a sudden, the pool of water on the floor starts to glisten and ripple.

"Please, Jamie ..." No. This isn't about begging. I'm not going to be a wimp about this. I'm going to bring her back. Right now. She's still hidden by that wall. That's what I have to believe. That she's safe.

Deirdre said the easy part would be getting Jamie back. Not that I'm complaining, but why hasn't the Glass Man blasted through that wall of hers to get to her? It could be that she's not a threat. Or maybe that magic in her is pretty damn strong.

Or he's too busy attacking Belle Lake to care.

With everything hitting the fan with the war, the Glass Man has to be too busy right now to worry about Jamie, even if she does have some weirdo Stone thing going on with her.

I need to do the easy part of this—get Jamie out—and then figure out a way to deal with whatever comes out of this portal after us.

That makes me hesitate. Anything could come out of this thing after I pull Jamie out. I can make some of them disappear, but what if there are too many of them? I can't let that stop me.