Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee (17 page)

TWENTY-ONE

HIGH ATOP HER CLOUD FORTRESS, tucked away in a giant storm front in the skies above Earth, the Nagas Queen opened her eyes suddenly. She laid her hands on her son’s shoulders as the human witches grew louder in their invocation, repeating the same esoteric refrain over and over while swinging the thick iron shackles around their wrists.

“Good, my son,” she whispered to the young one. He clenched his eyes tight, breathing deeply, nodding and rocking with the power of the black magic. “Your mission is nearly complete. Now for your next task. You must call for your Tanakee protector. You can do it, my son. Call him while my warriors take care of those pesky friends of his.”

Argus breathed deep and pressed firmly on the powerful and wondrous device in his hands. The device that made him feel omnipotent. The device he never again wanted to be without. Lowering his head, he held onto the O/A and thought deeply.

“Takota!”
he shouted inside his mind.
“Takota, where are you? It’s me…it’s Argus! I’m in trouble, Takota! Takota, where are you!”

The queen stood straight and allowed her head to fall back slowly, extending her long, jet-black hair.

“Davos!” she beckoned, and out of the fogginess he stepped, his dreadlocks swaying eagerly on his head. “We need a distraction. Send the fighters back to Wind Whisper Woods, quickly!”

AFTER SOME CONSIDERABLE debate among the five Tanakee, it was decided they would return to the Black Pyramid and watch over their human friends. Though Ayita and Enola had advised against it, Pud and Cheyton wanted to follow Orzabal and help defend their fellow Tanakee from the Nagas. They argued heavily on that account. And Takota, swayed by their reasoning, had almost agreed with them. Almost. No matter how much he feared for his own mother, father, little sister, and all of the others from the cliff village, his real burning desire was to protect the True Soul. Whether that was Jack or Argus, he still couldn’t be sure.

“Takota! Watch out!” Ayita shouted, although her warning wasn’t needed. Takota saw the attack in his mind a split second before it actually happened, just enough time to scramble out of the way from a barrage of soaring serpents. Their sheer mass would have crushed him, and their pointed talons would have shredded him to bits. He had no time to worry about his own fate, though. He didn’t even have the time to help his friends, who’d become the victims of a Nagas ambush.

From all sides the bombardment came. Slender, murky creatures sleeking through the air, twisting and turning with skill that would have been impressive had it not been so terrifying. Takota bounced to his feet, holding his breath as the serpents attacked Pud and Cheyton. Both Tanakee separated into dozens of duplicates each, swatting and kicking furiously, snatching individual flying snakes and bringing them to the ground. With the defenders’ success, the swarm circled more furiously. Then a drove of dark devils descended on Ayita and Enola as they rushed to help, a sudden surge from nowhere, catching them off guard and tripping them both to their knees.

Takota’s heart tugged at him. He fought against his own will. Every shred of his being told him to save his friends. But he couldn’t. A deeper drive took over. A feeling so profound, it virtually tore him from his own skin. A voice. A signal of distress and pain. A distant plea for help. He saw Argus suddenly, after the fog had lifted and revealed the true nature of the message. Argus was in terrible danger and needed Takota’s help immediately.

TWENTY-TWO

“DAD!” JACK RUSHED into the lab and found his mom and sister watching Ben toil on an Eteea machine. Jack had Amelia with him, and stewed with anxiety over her recent mysterious behavior. “Dad! Have you seen Argus?”

“Just a little more Quantum Foam over here,” Ben motioned to one of the many white-coated technicians working with him. “Thanks, guys. This machine’ll be on-line in no—”

“DAD!” Jack shouted, and everyone stopped what they were doing. “Where’s Argus?”

Ben blinked as if Jack spoke a foreign language. Then one of the techs piped up.

“He was in here earlier. Took the O/A and said he was doing some discovering or something.”

“He’s not discovering,” Amelia said. She closed her eyes, held her own shoulders, and breathed deeply. “Something’s really wrong. I can feel it.”

“Amelia, are you hurt or something?” Jack had to ask. “It looks like you’re in agony.”

“I’m okay, really, I just,” she jolted and doubled over, then jolted straight up again, fluttering her eyes. “Everything’s coming at me so fast.”

Commander Klein stood at the door, the two guards by his side.

“Amelia? What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Argus?” Amelia shouted. “He just gets to take the O/A without as much as a peep?”

“Argus is the True Soul,” the commander said. “If he took the O/A, then he has a reason for it. I trust him.”

“Do you trust your own daughter, Commander?” Jack said. “Because she’s starting to have doubts about Argus. Aren’t you, Amelia?”

“I just…” she stammered. “I don’t know. I just know we need to find him.”

“Jack, you’ve been gunning for Argus the whole time you’ve been here,” the commander said.

“I have not,” Jack contested. “Argus has been gunning for
me
. He’s taken everything from me…He’s become me!”

“Honey,” Liz stood next to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“No!” he pulled away. “It’s time I said this,” he directed his comments at the commander. “It’s time to get this all out in the open. I’m the True Soul! Me!”

“Jack, my boy,” Ben tried to console him. “We’ve been over this…”

“No we haven’t,” Jack said. “Not really. We’ve just taken the commander’s word for it. That’s all,” he looked at the commander again. “You haven’t even told us why you think he’s the True Soul and not me.”

Commander Klein folded his arms.

“That’s highly sensitive, highly classified information.”

“Don’t give us
classified
,” Amelia sounded disgusted. “You’d better start giving us some answers. And I mean the truth. Starting with why you used me without telling me?”

The commander sighed, letting a tiny crack of weakness show through his rough and tough façade.

“Honey, I—“

“Daddy,” she narrowed her stern stare. “The truth.”

“I had to, Amelia.”

Jack sensed Amelia’s anguish after the commander’s admission. It wasn’t anything she said or did. In fact, on the outside, she maintained a tough composure, usually reserved for the dead.

“That’s it? You had to?” her tone was flat and calm. Too flat, too calm. Jack felt her ready to explode at any moment. The commander must have felt it too.

“Please don’t be angry with me, honey,” he bent to her height, taking her hand. She jerked away. “Amelia, please don’t be like that.”

“Like what? Like you? Secretive? Using people without their knowledge or permission in your little experiments? How did you do it? How did you use me to find Argus?”

“It wasn’t like that at all,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to find him. All I was trying to do was see how far your abilities would go, that was all. I was just testing you, and let me tell you, honey, you’re one talented girl. I’m so proud of you,” he tried to hug her, but she would have none of it.

“Why do I feel like you’re still not being honest with me?” she asked stubbornly. “I mean, you bring us here to this...place. And you’ve never told me where Mom is. Where is she, Daddy?”

“You’re mother,” he turned his head. “She…she didn’t want to come here.”

“She didn’t want to come!” Amelia chuckled cynically. “Well I can see why. Look at this place…we’re like prisoners. What are you doing, really?”

“I’m only helping you,” he paused, obviously fighting for the correct words. “That’s all I’ve ever done. I helped you.”

“Helped me what?”

“You know,” he stuttered. “Helped your abilities grow.”

“So all this time I’ve been thinking I was losing my mind—the visions, the nightmares, the auras I’ve been seeing all my life…all the times when I was shunned, picked on and made fun of. I was run out of town so many times I can’t count.”

“I know, honey. And I’m sorry, but we had to go through that.”

“Don’t tell me that,” she sobbed. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. And don’t tell me I had to go through it. Do you have any idea how much it hurt when my best friends would turn against me time after time? I don’t think you do. Or maybe you just don’t care.”

As her eyes filled with tears, her father clutched her and this time she allowed it, but only for a moment. Then she pushed him off and looked into his eyes.

TWENTY-THREE

“HELLO, TAKOTA,” Argus had a distinctive voice. Even though Takota didn’t see the boy, he knew who it was. “Thank you for coming.”

“What’s wrong!” Takota tried to break free of whatever had hold of him. He felt heavy and weak, feet like enormous boulders, arms like tree trunks. “Why’d you call me here? What happened!”

“Relax, relax,” Argus laughed, but not pleasantly at all. His happiness sounded cold and calculating. “The more you struggle, the more the dimensional inhibitor works on you.”

“Dimensional inhibitor!”

“Just a little device to keep you from going anywhere. Of course, I had to be quick. It had to be turned off when you teleported into it, and I had to turn it on at precisely the correct time.”

“And you did an excellent job, my son,” said someone familiar. Takota peered into the blackness and his heart jumped.

“Davos!” he commanded an instant army to appear, willing himself to divide into a thousand dimensional duplicates and destroy this vermin once and for all. Instead of a glorious feeling of multiplicity, though, he got an intense pain in his head, his ribs, his legs—everywhere, agony. He cried in torment and clutched his gut.

Both Davos and Argus chuckled spitefully.

“I told you not to fight it, stupid!” Argus barely got the words out over his laughter. “It takes the energy you put out and turns it against you. You can’t do anything about it, Takota. You’re trapped.”

“Yes,” Davos got closer. His pale eyes turned all black and he produced a vicious snort. “With the help of your little friends, you thought you had me beaten. Well, as you can see, I have some help of my own now. And soon your friends will lead us to the rest of the Tanakee, and finally to the Children of the Blue Crystal. We will destroy you. All of you. And after we do, nothing will stand in the way of Essinis.”

“Stop!” an imposing figure darkened the doorway. Davos jumped to attention. “This meaningless jabbering won’t get us any closer to our goal.”

Takota placed every ounce of his concentration into willing his physical form away. It didn’t matter where. Anywhere but in that cage. But nothing happened. Nothing, that was, except a round of cruel laughter.

“Try all you like, Takota,” the tall, almost too slender being seemed to be floating in a cloud. “You will never be able to get out of that cage with your interdimensional powers, so you might as well just give it up and do what we ask.”

“Who…what are you?” Takota didn’t really want an answer.

“My name is Neera. I am queen of the Nagas in this galaxy. In fact, I am the queen of ALL the galaxy.”

“You’re not the queen of the Tanakee!”

“Oh, I will be,” she said. “Or the Tanakee will be destroyed. All of them. Just like the Children of the Blue Crystal.”

Takota’s insides churned. He didn’t want to hear another poisonous word from that evil monster. Her sinuous hair flexed to get a good view of him, a living hairdo rising about her head, curling upward and sending him a hundred mean-spirited looks. He saw their eyes, the tiny little skulls of the numerous serpentine beasts—her true form. She turned his stomach. And she kept talking.

“Your precious Eteeans have been infiltrated. There is no hope. We will be victorious. Now the only question is, will the Tanakee survive the transition to Essinis, or will your kind perish like the humans?”

“I like the third option,” Takota fought his revulsion and glared in the fake woman’s artificial eyes.

“Third option?” she repeated quizzically.

“Yeah. The one where Jack, Amelia, and my friends kick your butt!”

“HA!” her resonant laughter seemed to get lost in the mist. “You are not in any position to be making threats, little one. You don’t seem to understand the gravity of this situation. At this very moment your friends are at our mercy. Jack has been stripped of his True Soul status, and of the O/A. Not only that, and most importantly, we’ve replaced him with our own son.”

“Argus.”

“You finally get it,” Davos said. “Stupid animal. We slipped him in right under your nose.”

“You didn’t slip him anywhere,” Takota contradicted him. “I had an idea all along Argus was up to no good. So did Jack.”

The queen answered arrogantly.

“I don’t believe you. And even so, you did nothing to stop it. That was your downfall. Now, we are in charge of the last vestige of resistance to Essinis in the entire universe. And you and your friends will witness the end of humanity, the end of time and space as you know it. You will witness the new kingdom of Essinis!”

She clapped her hands, or what she tried to pass off as hands. They didn’t look exactly human to Takota. Too perfect. Too slender and elegant. She reminded him of those toy dolls at Winmart, the ones that were supposed to look like a woman, but really bore no resemblance to the real thing. At her beckoning, more human shapes appeared out of the clouds. These humans seemed authentic. They moved like people, and they had much more of an imperfect appearance, with long, black capes down to their feet and dark lace shrouding their faces. A terrible trio, the one in front much shorter and stouter than the other two. It didn’t take long for Takota to recognize who they were. And when they began to murmur a steady, rhythmic chant, his instincts were confirmed.

“I know these women! They’re the ones who were helping you against Teresa Tree! What are you trying to do?”

The queen explained calmly, “I knew my own powers wouldn’t be able to penetrate your will. You would never agree to do what I want you to do—”

“That’s the one thing you’re right about,” Takota said. “Everything else, you’re dead wrong.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “You are the one who’s wrong. I’ll get what I want…one way or the other,” she clapped again, and the witches flinched, bowing and curtseying while increasing their chattering, both in speed and in volume.

“What are they doing?” Takota felt a stirring in his stomach, a coolness that threatened to pervade his entire body, slinking in his veins like ice water, freezing his insides. “What are they doing to me!”

“Casting a spell over you, silly. We Nagas are not as adept at spells as Earth witches. They have a special and unique power to possess, to control, especially lower animals such as yourselves.”

“Lower animals, huh?” he growled.

“That’s right,” she said. “Go ahead…fight it. That way you’ll be weakened enough for us to extract one of your duplicates.”

“What?”

“You heard me!” she snapped. The witches were startled, but kept chanting. “We’re going to induce one of your dimensional duplicates to appear. After we make all of your Eteean friends believe it’s the real Takota, it will take your place as the protector of the True Soul.”

“Argus’s protector,” Davos added, standing far enough away to be safe from the queen’s lash, but close enough to be heard.

“NO!” again and again, Takota smashed his fists against the walls of his tiny prison.

“Yes!” the queen swished her hand at the witches. “Do it…NOW!”

The women snapped into action, each of them waving a ceremonial dagger above her head and repeating an incantation that would have sounded completely foreign to any other creature but a Tanakee. Takota understood the vile language. He heard the words loud and clear, yet still didn’t get what it all meant.

Tanakee…Dimensiana…Pluribumis…Takota…Pluribumis…Dimensiana
…

They worked themselves into a frenzy, dancing and crowing and reveling in their own corruption, conjuring a blinding tempest which crackled and flowed with power of the most debased kind. The witches aimed their energies at Takota, hitting him with a blast of ethereal force, knocking him to his heels.

The evil energy gave him chills, sending him into a rapid quiver, and forcing him to fill his lungs with air. Then the sensation went away, and he felt like someone was peeling the skin from his forearms. The feeling traveled all over his body, the same sort of thing as when he performed the Eteea trick of multiplicity, though he hadn’t initiated the move. It was the witch spell, the foul incantation, and he saw it happen. A single copy of himself split away, and now stood outside the cage, skewing his head and smiling at Takota.

“What the…”

“Takota, meet…Takota,” the queen held back a giggle.

“What did you do!”

“I told you. If you won’t be turned to my side, then I conjured someone who will.”

Takota thrashed the cage wall.

“You’ll never get him to cooperate with you! He’s me! He’s my duplicate, and I’d never help you!”

“Oh, but you’re wrong, little one,” she smiled. “We’ve plucked him from a dimension far, far away from this one. So far away, he’s never even heard of Jack James or Eteea or the True Soul.”

The witches approached the new Takota and encircled him slowly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Takota noticed his glazed look. “What did you do to him!”

“We brought him here a blank slate,” the queen explained. “He’s been placed in a waking trance by the witches. That will make it easier to program his memories with warm thoughts of Argus.”

“Takota!” he yelled at his mirror image as it stood there in front of him, staring impassively into space. “Takota! Listen to me! Don’t believe what they tell you! It’s a lie! It’s all lies!”

The queen patted the new Takota’s furry head.

“Yell all you like. He can’t hear you,” she addressed Davos. “It looks like some of your work won’t go to waste, after all, my husband.”

Takota shuddered inside. Husband? Davos was married to this…thing? What was he thinking? Davos was a thing too. It was just that Davos seemed like a puppy dog compared to Queen Neera.

“What do we do next, my queen?” Davos bowed his head, but Takota sensed no small measure of resentment.

“We let the witches do their job,” she gestured to the lead witch. Takota remembered her name was Gert. The witch nodded somewhat reluctantly, and motioned to her associates much the same way a conductor prepares a symphony orchestra. With both hands, the women pushed at the air and the new Takota recoiled backward on his feet, eyes rolling, mouth agape. He twitched and trembled, tossing his head left to right to left. Then, when the witches came to a terrifying crescendo, all went deftly quiet. The new Takota became stiff as a board. He opened his eyes and stared daggers into Takota, widening his glare until the two of them were locked in a battle of hypnosis, pushing and pulling and, finally, fighting to a stalemate. After what seemed like forever, they both disengaged at the same time. Exhausted, Takota leaned against the cage, panting heavily.

“As you can see, he has your eyecatcher gift. In fact he has all the same abilities you have. Your eyecatcher, your teleportation, your speed, strength, and cunning—even your powers of multiplicity—they’re all there. All the powers of Eteea,” she boasted. “You and he are virtually indistinguishable from one another.”

Takota stared at his duplicate in disbelief.

“This can’t be! You can’t do this!”

“I can and I have,” she flicked her artificially dainty fingers and the new Takota stood straight. “Takota?” she said. The new Takota responded.

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“Are you the protector of the True Soul?”

“Of course, Your Highness. The True Soul must be protected at all costs.”

“And just who is the True Soul? Is it Jack James?”

The new Takota chuckled.

“No. The True Soul is and always has been Argus Cole. Every Eteean knows that.”

“Then why does Jack James say he’s the True Soul?”

“I have no idea,” he answered. “Maybe it’s because he’s jealous. Maybe it’s because he’s a fool,” he turned to Takota, locking stares. “Or maybe he’s working for someone else, like the Nagas, and wants to stop Argus from helping mankind.”

“Good,” the queen said. “That’s good. Now, Takota, what would you do if you knew Jack James wanted to hurt Argus?”

He kept his eyes on Takota.

“I’d do my duty. I would destroy Jack James.”

“Outstanding,” she cackled, then turned an eye to her son. “What are you two waiting for? Go! Go perform your duties, both of you!”

“Yes, Mother,” Argus extended his hand and the O/A appeared. In a purple and blue flash the machine disappeared again, taking Argus with it.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the new Takota crossed his arms. With a blink and a nod, he was gone, leaving behind a swirl of light and a crack of thunder.

Davos rushed to Neera’s side.

“Shall we go too?”

“Just where do you think you’re going?” she widened her falsified eyes at him.

“Isn’t it time for the next phase? Together we penetrate the Black Pyramid, right, my queen?”

At that she laughed deep and loud.

“If you think I’m going to let you take part in this, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m giving you a job suited for your limited intellect, Davos. I order you to stay here,” her wicked stare traveled to Takota. “And watch over our little friend, here. See he stays put.”