LOT'S MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: A Scream of Stone and Glass

I keep making the glass disappear, but it still drags me farther and farther away from the hill.

GONE!

I don't know what I find. I don't care.

As soon as I get rid of one glass wave, another one swells up under me. I have to get rid of this stuff before it rips me all to pieces.

GONE!

But more keeps coming. I'm going to sink under the waves ... I keep thinking of what Glass did to South. Another wave ...

GONE!

This time, I find a slab of rock and hang onto it as it careens down the glass avalanche.

Before I know it, I'm down on the street, away from the hill. The glass around me grows and grows until it's a huge dome sealing me off from everything and everyone else.

I'm alone.

That's when I see one of Grim's orbs. When I cup it in my hands, it starts to glow brighter, lighting up the inside of the dome.

As soon as I see the preacher standing in front of me, I'm thinking it might be better if it was still dark.

"I thought your part in this had done played out, boy. But here you are."

"Here I am," I say. Then, being an idiot, I add, "Why would I miss out on another chance to tell you to kiss my ass?"

He doesn't jump down my throat just yet, but I'm still surrounded by glass. And the fighting's still going on—at Belle Lake, up where the church used to be ... just about everywhere.

Before the preacher says anything back to me, something slams against the dome. The fighting's moved off the hill and is all around us now. Claws slice through the dome, next to where I'm standing. I jump back, but after the glass makes weird crackling noises, it looks as good as new.

"You lookin' a little jittery, boy," the Glass Man says. More claws punch through the dome. We're surrounded by Glass hounds, and this bastard wants me to know it.

Grim's orb floats out of my hand and hovers near my shoulder. It blusters a little, and I get a flash of the fighting. I don't know where it's happening. But we're losing. In that battle and probably everywhere else.

"Come on, Dylan Caid, you usually got a whole lot of words rolling off that sharp tongue of yours." When the Glass Man's done talking, Glass snakes, the ones we saw after some Glass monsters were killed, crawl up under the dome. He leans over and lets them slither into his skin. He's drawing more power from his monsters, pulling Glass magic out of them and putting it inside him.

Good for my friends.

Sucks for me.

So I gotta be ready for anything.

"I don't know how you done what you done, but you gonna undo it. You gonna bring my church back to me, boy," his voice is a low growl.

"I'm guessing you want that bitch Esther back, too," I fire back. "Too bad she's dead."

His face twitches.

"My flock is everything to me, boy."

My eyes narrow. "Is that why you're sending them all off to die?"

"Don't be foolin' ya'self, boy. They ain't the only ones dyin'."

More Glass slithers under the dome. The dome itself seems to vibrate, surging with more and more magic.

The orb flares. Images flicker all over the glass dome, kinda like what happened in the theatre with me and Jamie.

The web-wall cracks and splits open in several places. Red-faced ogres pour in. They have clubs with spikes sticking out of them and barrel into the Nøkken, flinging them off the ground. More monsters, tons of them, with glass dripping from their faces run with them. The three ladies fling more webs around, but glass cuts right through the strands. The Old Bone Woman ... she runs forward with a bunch of other monsters, her sword drawn.