Story Thieves (11 page)

“Magi, let's discuss this,” the boy in black said, but the Magister ignored him.

“Your father comes from a world like mine,” the Magister told her. “Did one of your writers invent him, too? Were his actions his own, or forced upon him? Don't you see, Bethany? If your father and his world were created to follow a story, then he had no freedom! His will was not his own!”

“I don't like where this is headed,” the boy said. “Maybe it's time we all relaxed and took a deep breath—”

“Help me!” the Magister shouted at her. “Help me free these worlds from living according to another's whims. Give them back control of their lives!”

“What are you asking me?” Bethany said, taking a step backward.

The Magister held out his hand, and a Kiel Gnomenfoot book flew into it from a nearby table. “I'm asking you to use your power and deliver the people of these worlds into your own, like you have for Kiel and me. Free them, that they might no longer be controlled and can live their lives however they wish, subjected to no one's whim or story!”

What? Bethany's mouth dropped open. Bring every fictional character into the real world? That was
beyond
crazy!

“Magi, there would be chaos,” the boy said quietly.

“And what do we have now, Kiel?” the Magister asked. “I
will not let myself be controlled! Not by Dr. Verity, not by Jonathan Porterhouse, not by
anyone
. How else do you propose to free us all, if not this? Destroy all writers on this world?”

“Of course not!” Kiel said quickly. “But—”

“I cannot let this injustice stand, apprentice. I cannot and
will
not.”

As bad as things seemed before, this was twenty miles beyond that. Bethany concentrated on breathing in and out, desperate for someone, anyone to tell her that everything would be okay, that this wasn't happening—that she was dreaming or imagining it, or living out some kind of waking nightmare.

“There must be another way,” Kiel said, holding his hands up for calm. The Magister sighed, dropping the Kiel Gnomenfoot book he was holding to his side.

And that's when Bethany realized that there might be a way out.

They were both right here, after all. With the book so close, maybe she could just grab it, then jump both Kiel and the Magister back into the story! At this point, even if they still knew they were characters, at least that was worlds better than unleashing every fictional character ever into the real world!

But to do that, she'd need to keep them talking, and paying attention to anything other than what she was about to do.

“You have no idea how many stories there are,” Bethany told the Magister, her eyes everywhere but the book in his hand. “It would take us years to free all the characters. Centuries, maybe.”

“Then we shall start this very moment,” the Magister said, and laid the book down on a nearby table, then held out his hand to Bethany. “Help me. Help me right this enormous wrong. We shall free all the peoples of these worlds, and let them live their lives the way they wish, with no one telling them otherwise.”

Bethany bit her lip and took a step forward. “Can I . . . think about it?” It was so close now, just a few feet away. She could almost jump for it at this point—

The Magister's eyes narrowed, and the Kiel Gnomenfoot book burst into flames, leaving nothing but a blackened spot on the table.
No!

“I believe you may not be treating this request seriously,” he said, his tone sliding down in temperature. “Perhaps you should take some time to consider it, along with Jonathan Porterhouse.”

“Don't do this,” Bethany pleaded, but her feet had already begun to sink into the floor. She gasped, trying desperately to stop herself, but the marble floor felt like quicksand. The more
she struggled, the faster she sank. “Please! Let me go, and I can still fix all of this!”

“I could just siphon your power from you,” the Magister told her as she descended. “Simply free these worlds myself. But then I would be no different from a writer, taking away your choice.” His eyes glowed as he stared at her. “I will give you time to make your decision, and hope you choose correctly. For both our sakes.”

And with that, Bethany's head sank into the floor, and everything went dark.

A
ll the years of boredom, math tests, gym classes, working at the library, and imagining exciting worlds that he'd never be able to visit—all those years had been worth it.

First of all, Owen was
Kiel Gnomenfoot
. That still made him tingle all over with awesomeness.

Second, Charm,
Charm
, was here, right next to him. Well, pushing a cabinet into the spot where the door had been previously with her superstrong robot arm, but still, close enough!

And third, he was about to fight robot soldiers. With
magic
.

“Ready?” Charm said, clicking her ray guns on in a tough, awesome way. “I'd prefer not to have to do all the work this time. Try to hold up your end of the fight, will you?”

“You take the ones on the left. I got the ones on the right,” Owen told her, grinning. He took out his wands and aimed them at the door. Now what spell should he use?

Spells? . . . Uh-oh. He didn't
know
any spells.
Yet.

“Actually, give me one minute,” he said, and turned around to where the Magister's spell book sat halfway across the room.

“What?”
Charm shouted, just as the cabinet exploded inward, covering them both in wood fragments. Laser beams blasted through the doorway, exploding all over the room and incinerating whatever they touched. None had hit the spell book yet, but it was only a matter of time.

That just confirmed exactly what Owen needed to do. Something
heroic
.

“Cover me!” he yelled, since that's the kind of thing that one yelled in this type of situation. “I'm going to grab the spell book and hit them with something huge!”

“WHAT?” Charm shouted again. She fired her ray guns frantically through the door. “Don't be stupid! You're not even using a shield spell!”

“Who needs one?” Owen told her, then ran in a crouch toward the middle of the room.

Lasers hit the floor all around him, some just inches away, but Owen barely even noticed them. All he could think about were the readers, the thousands of readers who were on the
edge of their seats, watching him do something incredibly stupid and dangerous and not even get touched.

This must be making Bethany crazy!

“They're coming in!” Charm shouted. “I have to fall back!”

Owen glanced behind him at the door, where red eyes glowed from the smoke-filled hallway. Science Soldiers! He almost stopped moving, he wanted so badly to see what they actually looked like. But Charm shoved him forward, firing behind her as she ran.

“You useless magic-spewing pile of winged-cat droppings!” she yelled, smacking him with the back of her human hand. “This is what I meant by me doing all the work!”

If anything, she actually looked even cuter when she screamed like that. Owen flashed her a grin, then pushed himself the last few feet to the spell book, which miraculously had remained untouched, despite its pedestal being riddled with burn marks from the lasers. He yanked the book down and held a hand out over it, just as Kiel had always done.
Give me a powerful and impressively cool spell to use on the robots!
he thought.

A golden glow flooded through his body, like chicken noodle soup when you were sick in the middle of winter.
Owen almost gasped. It just felt so right. All his life, he'd been waiting for something like this, and finally,
finally
it was here.

“Stand back,” he told Charm, then stood up in the middle of the laser fire. “SCIENCE SOLDIERS! I will return thee to the metal pits from whence you came!”

“Are you insane?”
Charm hissed, yanking at his cloak to pull him down.

“Insanely awesome,” he told her, then winked.

Kiel
always
winked.

Five Science Soldiers entered the room, their lasers firing everywhere. For just a second Owen stopped to marvel at how cool the robots were. They'd evolved throughout the series, starting as just plain metal humanlike robots, but by book two, Dr. Verity began inventing new types. There'd been the Science Spies, who looked exactly like humans, and the Science Police, metallic robots in uniforms who stood on every corner of every Magisteria town in book five, watching for any hint of magic or rebellion.

But these . . . these were Science
Soldiers
, the most dangerous of them all. Their entire bodies were weapons, bombs ready to explode as a last resort, taking out anything nearby. Their arms were basically laser rifles with hands, those hands each holding
more
laser rifles. And their eyes could see through anything but metal, scanning constantly for magical energy.

Honestly, they'd have actually been pretty scary if Owen hadn't known they'd never managed to hit either Kiel or Charm in any of the six books so far.

“I've got just the thing for you, my friends,” he told them, raising his hands. “A little spell called Explosion of Fiery Greatness!”

“You said that was too
powerful 
!” Charm hissed from right beside him. “You'll kill us both!”

“I've got this,” Owen told her, then ran through the spell in his mind. “Hope you like your explosions ENORMOUS!” he shouted at the robots, the spell's energy coursing through him. He raised his hands, then released the power straight at the robots.

And then everything exploded into fire and chaos and awesome.

J
onathan Porterhouse's basement wasn't much of a dungeon. If the Magister had wanted them to suffer, he should have checked to make sure he wasn't dropping them into what looked like a movie theater, only with comfier seats. Three rows faced a large screen at one end, with a projection room at the other.

Bethany sat in one of the cushy chairs, her eyes on the floor, deliberately trying not to look at the clearly terrified Mr. Porterhouse, who sat two seats down from her, his eyes wide and locked on her. She wasn't sure exactly what to say: There wasn't a much more awkward conversation than trying to explain that an author's fictional characters had attacked him in his own house because you were half-fictional yourself, and your friend had wanted to meet them, but then they'd escaped using your power.

Except maybe explaining that now one of his characters wanted to free every other fictional character ever invented
into the world, which might be fine if it were just Sherlock Holmeses or Gandalfs, but got a little questionable when you started talking about aliens, dragons, vampires, and other people-devouring characters.

“So,” Bethany finally said. “I hear the books have sold well?”

“You have no idea how they end, do you?” Mr. Porterhouse whispered, his eyes flashing to the ceiling.

Bethany slowly shook her head. “I, uh, haven't actually read any of them.”

For just a moment irritation passed over Mr. Porterhouse's face. “You haven't . . .
none
of them?” He shook his head. “Doesn't matter. The ending is what's important. The Magister . . . he's not a hero. At the end of the final book, Dr. Verity tells Kiel that the Magister planned on using the Source of Magic to destroy Quanterium, just like Dr. Verity wants to destroy Magisteria. They're both villains.” He ran his hands through his hair nervously, his eyes flickering to the ceiling and back to Bethany. “Do you understand what I'm telling you? That man up there is crazy, and willing to wipe out a planet full of his enemies. We have to get out of here,
right now 
!”

“What?” Bethany whispered as loudly as she dared. “You authors and your stupid twists! Look at what you've done!”

“I didn't know he was real!” Mr. Porterhouse hissed back.

“So he's just going to kill us?” She sat back in a daze, fear and confusion fighting each other in her head.

“I don't know!” Mr. Porterhouse whispered. “He's off book, so he could do anything at this point. All I know is what he was capable of in the story. And that was to destroy an entire world to make sure his people were safe.”

“Yup, he's going to kill us,” Bethany said with a short nod, then shook off her confusion and fear, at least enough to think. “Okay. We can't stay here—”

“Oh, really? We
can't 
?”

She glared at the author. “Is there any way out of here other than the stairs? Since those lead back up to the crazy magician man?”

Mr. Porterhouse shook his head. “Not even a window. I don't like the glare when I watch movies on the big screen.”

Perfect. At least there wouldn't be a glare when the Magister came down to blow them up or whatever. “How about a book? Anything at all down here?”

“Everything's upstairs in the library. I doubt there's so much as a piece of paper down here.”

Bethany glanced around, growling quietly to herself in
frustration. Mr. Porterhouse wasn't wrong. Not only were there no books of any kind, there wasn't much of anything. Just the chairs, the movie screen, and the movie projector in the back, connected to a computer. Great, everything was digital. That didn't help when your weird book powers didn't work on a computer screen.

She just about gave up, then noticed a white booklet on the desk next to the projector.

Instruction manual. Hmm.

What would happen if
she
wrote something on paper, just even a simple sentence like
The monkey hated the elephant with a passion, and the elephant knew why 
? Would she be able to jump into that paper? Was that enough of a story? Or did she even
need
a story?