Johnny Graphic and the Etheric Bomb (23 page)

“YOW!” Johnny yelled, jumping backward. He rubbed his nose and his hand came away smeared with blood. He had no idea the end of the nose was so sensitive.

Mel snarled and darted up between Johnny and the specter. “Leave him alone!”

Temur laughed at her. “It will go much worse for him in just a little while.”

Mel straightened her shoulders and visibly tried to buck herself up. “You had a chance to kill me back in the headquarters building, along with the others. Why didn’t you?”

Temur brought his face within inches of Mel’s.

Johnny was sick of Steppe Warriors mistreating his sister. He took a step toward the dreadful ghost. But Dame Honoria gripped his arm firmly and muttered, under her breath, “No, Johnny. Not just yet.”

“The khan ordered us to keep you alive,” the Steppe Warrior continued. “I do not know why. But he’s gone now and said we can slaughter you all. Except for the old woman. So, I have something special in store for you,
Mel-a-nie
.” He said her name as if it were some dreadful profanity.

As Mel shuddered and backed away, Johnny stepped to her side. He had to stall this Steppe Warrior. The more time that they could kill—a rotten turn of phrase, but painfully accurate—the better their chances of coming out of this alive. It was a long shot, but it might be the only shot they had.

He hurled his taunting questions at Temur. One after the other.

“Do you
really
believe the bomb will free ghosts from the ether?
Really?

“How come supposedly great warriors like you guys go around murdering innocent, defenseless people?

“Why have two ordinary kids from Zenith been able to twist the great khan into knots?”

Johnny could see his stinging questions had an impact. He didn’t want to go too far and provoke a violent outburst. But he had one more thing to say.

“These people helped you with the bomb.” Johnny nodded at the engineers in their white coats. “Why have you treated them so badly?”

“It was never in the khan’s plan that they would survive,” Temur answered, visibly tamping down his temper. “Now that we know how to make the weapon, we don’t need them.”

“Did you say you’re killing all of us
except
Dame Honoria?” asked Johnny, not quite sure he’d heard the Steppe Warrior correctly.

“Did I not speak clearly?” Temur answered, smirking.

Now it was Dame Honoria’s turn. The old lady drew herself up a little taller. “There’s a reason why I’ve received this special consideration, Johnny. And I’m not proud of it.”

Chapter 45

Before she explained herself, Dame Honoria sniffled a bit. She wiped her hands on her filthy silk robe, then mopped her nose with the back of a sleeve.

“My dears,” she said, looking right at her godson and his sister, “it’s my Percy. My Sweetums.
He
is the khan. One and the same. I found out several days ago. I talked to him.”

Johnny was stunned. Dame Honoria’s change of character now made perfect sense. How do you tell your godson and his sister that your own son, your own flesh and blood, is trying to murder them? You don’t, at least at first. He could hardly blame her for clamming up.

“I know how distressing this news must be,” Dame Honoria said with a sigh of resignation. “I still can hardly believe it. The darling baby whose nappies I changed every day has become a megalomaniac who wants to blow up the world.”

“But if it’s really Percy,” Johnny said, “he’s gotta know what happened to Mom and Pop.” Hope surged inside him. “He was with them that night on Okkatek when they disappeared. He could tell us what he knows.”

Johnny looked at Mel’s wide-eyed expression and he realized that she must be thinking the exact same thing. Maybe
this
would be how they’d find their parents—through Percy Rathbone. So long as they managed to get through this ordeal alive.

But clearly Temur’s patience was wearing thin. “Will you all
shut your mouths
. The khan has commanded us to release the old woman. But the rest remain. The black-haired girl stays and fights me unto her death. After I have taken her head, the rest of you die.”

Johnny’s heart fell into his stomach. This was worse than anything that had happened to them so far. To die at twelve and a half, without knowing what happened to Mom and Pop. It was too cruel.

Temur turned his head and finally noticed the wide-eyed Ozzie Eccleston, still in the firm grip of Marchiano and another Zenith trooper. He peered at Mel. “Tell your soldiers to release that man. The khan requests his presence.”

Her face the very picture of defeat, Mel gave a curt nod and told Marchiano, “Do what the man says, Corporal. Let Ozzie go.”

With grimaces of disgust, the two troopers did just that, and Ozzie—with an air of sneering contempt—flew up into the sky and away.

It practically broke Johnny’s heart to see the devastated look on Mel’s face. She glanced from Dame Honoria to Nina to himself. As if she were saying goodbye to them forever.

This can’t be happening, Johnny thought. He had to do
something!

* * *

When Johnny and the others emerged out of the jungle shadows onto the broad sandy beach, their Steppe Warrior captors herded them to the left, while Mel and Temur went right.

The black-haired girl and the warrior wraith faced each other, sabers drawn.

Without any warning, the specter charged at Mel, raining down a cascade of strikes—sending her skittering backward and off balance.

Johnny winced and blinked at every clang and clank, desperately wanting to put a stop to this madness, but not knowing how. The Steppe Warrior clearly had no intention of letting this become a long, drawn-out struggle.

With one final, brutal stroke, Temur smashed the old army saber out of Mel’s hand, sending it flying. Mel sprawled backward onto the sand.

Johnny’s heart went up in his mouth. Mel was defenseless! She was going to die!

The wraith hefted his blade for a two-handed, sidearm chop through that thin, white, living neck, when—

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Thunderous gunshots!

Johnny couldn’t believe who he saw landing on the sand, right between Mel and her would-be executioner.

Colonel MacFarlane and Buck!

The colonel aimed his revolver at Temur.

Up above hovered almost every other missing Zenith trooper. Repeating carbines and six-shooters drawn all around. Many of them aimed at the head of the Steppe Warrior who was about to decapitate Melanie Graphic.

“Move the slightest little bit, sir,” the silver-bearded officer growled, “and we’ll blow your ugly noggin to smithereens!”

To Johnny, the next silent half-minute felt like an eternity. The Steppe Warriors had their arrows aimed at Johnny and Nina, at Dame Honoria and the scientists. The troopers floating above had the Steppe Warriors in their sights. Johnny had never seen the colonel so furious—as if he were ready to take on hell itself. One itchy finger, and the six living people on this beach could all die.

Finally, the colonel spoke. “Now, what I would suggest is that we all lower our weapons and have a little parley among ourselves.”

Wiping blood from the cut on his nose, Johnny looked all around. Against the odds, all those military ghosts sensed the wisdom of the colonel’s advice and stood still as statues.

“I have terrible news for you, sir,” the colonel said, staring straight into Temur’s black eyes. “I have seen and heard what the etheric bomb did to the spirits who hoped to truly die.”

Several of the Steppe Warriors muttered excitedly to each other, and squinted all the harder at Horace MacFarlane.

“Your khan,” the colonel said, “has not told you the truth.”

Chapter 46

Johnny wished he could get a picture of the colonel, the very image of unstinting heroism. Alive or dead, what a man he was!

“I repeat,” the colonel said. “Let us put our weapons down.”

Temur scowled at the colonel, but nodded and sheathed his curved sword. Simultaneously, the colonel holstered his pistol. All the other soldiers there slowly lowered their swords and pistols.

The colonel nudged Buck forward, until they were a little bit in front of the Steppe Warrior.

“Tell us what you found, bluecoat,” said Temur.

The colonel didn’t need to clear his throat, but did, for dramatic effect. “We all saw the bomb explode. A green fireball miles wide. A colossal mushroom cloud. But…” He gravely shook his head.

“But what?” asked the Steppe Warrior.

“You had hoped the detonation would blow you all the way to your final resting place. Any sensible ghost would wish for that. Am I right?”

“The Eternal Blue Sky,” said a teenaged Steppe Warrior. The boy’s expression alternated between joy and dread. “At last we’ll go to the Eternal Blue Sky.”

“What did you find, old man?” Temur said, his voice laden with suspicion. “
Out with it!”

The colonel described how he, Schecter, and Underwood had flown into the mushroom cloud. How the debris had battered them and scattered them heaven knows where. Schecter and Underwood had vanished utterly—still missing in action.

Johnny stifled a gasp. Those two, they had been his friends. Schecter had taught Johnny how to play poker and Underwood had rescued him once, when he’d gotten stuck out on a boulder in the middle of a rushing stream. He might have drowned, but for Private Underwood.

“Next thing I knew, I was huddling on the ocean floor, with Buck here.” The colonel ran his fingers through the ghost horse’s mane. “Pitch dark and dead quiet down there. Then it began. And I still shudder to think of it.”

Johnny couldn’t help jumping in. “What? What began, Colonel?”

“I started hearing voices, Master Johnny, a galaxy of voices. All talking at once. Mostly different, but some the same. As if there were ten or a hundred of the same person. They got inside my head. A chorus of the damned. They came raining down on me.” The colonel gazed at Temur. “Do you understand, sir?”

The warrior, his face suddenly very gloomy, shook his head. But, Johnny thought, he
did
understand. He just didn’t want to admit it.

Mel pulled herself up and took a few reluctant steps toward her nemesis. “I think the colonel is saying, Temur, that the ghosts in the bomb were blown to bits, but not to the Eternal Blue Sky.”

Johnny’s stomach did a flip-flop. Nothing more hideous could happen to a ghost. Shredded to little pieces, but still cognizant, still capable of feeling pain—and utterly helpless.

“Every atom of their being,” the colonel continued grimly, “was screaming with regret. All those ghosts. All those thousands. Torn. Ripped apart. Destroyed but not freed.”

At first, Temur looked dismayed, but then came rage. “
These are lies!
Dirty, miserable lies!
The khan promised an end to our curse.”

“He told us we’d live forever in the Eternal Blue Sky,” whined the young Steppe Warrior.

“Either your khan didn’t know what would happen or he told you an untruth,” the colonel said.

“Your word alone is not good enough,” grunted Temur. “Give us proof.”

The colonel nodded. “Thought you might want something like that.” He leaned over and opened his saddle bag. He reached inside it, grabbing something. Bringing his closed fist around, he snapped his hand open, scattering a half-cupful of fine gravel over Temur’s head.

“What sort of foolery is this?” Temur snarled.

With no warning, a look of absolute pain came over his face. “ARRRGGHHH!” he cried, then stared up at the colonel. “No! NO! It cannot be!”

The Steppe Warrior swayed on his feet and groaned. “I hear hundreds of voices, every one screaming in agony.” He crumpled to the ground and huddled in a fetal position, quivering and quaking.

Then Johnny slapped
his
hands up to
his
ears, trying to shut out the thin, horrible keening of the ruined spooks. Somehow, it seeped into his brain and bones and muscles. Dame Honoria and Mel wore expressions of horror on their faces, as well.

Some of the Steppe Warriors looked as if they were going to sob and shriek. Some tried to remain stoic, their faces rigid and brittle. Still others shook their heads miserably and rode slowly away toward the coral hills.

Now the ancient horse soldiers looked like ordinary ghosts, robbed of hope—vague, diaphanous, without the capacity to touch and affect the real world. Percy Rathbone’s hold on them had ended. Their agreement with “the khan” had been violated by this deception.

As the Steppe Warriors faded away, Johnny noticed Bao whispering into Dame Honoria’s ear. The old lady’s face first showed a look of surprise, then grim determination.

“I believe we have one more job to do before we leave this wretched island,” she boomed. “Melanie, Johnny, Colonel MacFarlane, I need to speak with you.”

Chapter 47

Gritting his teeth—as he always did when he went flying with the colonel and Buck—Johnny was the first to spot the little rowboat. The tiny vessel was heading out to a two-engined floatplane in the big lagoon at the north end of Old Number One.

Despite feeling utterly worn out and starving, Johnny had been determined to go with the colonel on this one last vital mission—to capture the khan. The news photographer in him could hardly wait to snap a shot of Percy Rathbone getting his comeuppance.

When Johnny had told Mel and Dame Honoria that he planned to go with the colonel, neither of them argued. After all, Percy’s deal with the Steppe Warriors on the island had ended once they had witnessed the horrific effect of the etheric bomb. The ancient ghost soldiers presented no further danger. The colonel even figured that it would take only three troopers—himself plus Finn and Marchiano—to apprehend Percy and his blonde accomplice. The rest would stay and guard Mel, Dame Honoria, and Nina.

The ghost horses and their riders circled down toward the solitary rower. Johnny could tell from Dame Honoria’s description that it was Percy. The now-dethroned khan flailed with the oars in a desperate attempt to reach the floatplane. From the door of the aircraft, a woman in an aviator helmet—with copious blonde hair sticking out every which way—urged the rower on.