Timescape
Authors: Robert Liparulo
Tags: #ebook, #book, #Fantasy, #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Young Adult, #Adventure
PRAISE FOR THE
DREAMHOUSE KINGS SERIES
“If you like creepy and mysterious, this is the house for you! Every room opens a door to magic, true horror, and amazing surprises. I loved wandering around in these books. With a house of so many great, haunting stories, why would you ever want to go outside?”
âR.L. STINE, BES T-SELLI NG AUTHOR OF THE FEAR STRET AND GOOSEBUMPS SERIES
“To call the Dreamhouse Kings series a young adult novel is not to do this splendid tale justice. With Harry Potter sadly retired, here is a series ready to step in and fill that massive void. The same portal that spirits brothers Xander and David off on a journey through time whisks us away across a brilliant landscape of imagination and adventure. A new and future classic in the world of young adult fiction.”
âJON LAND, BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF
THE SEVEN SINS: THE TYRANT ASCENDING
“Dreamhouse Kings is a non-stop action ride into history's wildest adventures. It's my new favorite series!”
âSLADE PEARCE, AGE 13, ACTOR
 (
OCTOBER ROAD, AIR BUDDIES
)
“. . . exciting, imaginative and well-written, reminiscent of Madeliene L'Engle's dimension-hopping novels (
Wrinkle in Time
) . . . a fascinating new world and mythos for readers of all ages.”
â
BINGHAMTON PRESS & SUN-BULLETIN
“Fast paced action and thrills abound.”
â
KIRKUS REVIEWS
“A powerhouse storyteller delivers his most fantastic ride yet!”
âTED DEKER,
NEW YORK TIMES
BEST-SELING
AUTHOR OF
KISS
AND
SINNER
timescape
BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
Comes a Horseman
Germ
Deadfall
Deadlock
DREAMHOUSE KINGS SERIES
1 House of Dark Shadows
2 Watcher in the Woods
3 Gatekeepers
4 Timescape
© 2009 by Robert Liparulo
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherâexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Page design by Mandi Cofer
Map design by Doug Cordes
Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
®
. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Liparulo, Robert.
  Timescape / Robert Liparulo.
    p. cm. â (Dreamhouse Kings ; bk. 4)
  Summary: David, Xander, Dad, and Keal discover that Taksidian wants their house for himself in order to use the time portals to build an empire, and unless they can find his weakness in time, the future of the world itself may be in danger.
  ISBN 978-1-59554-500-8 (hardcover)
  [1. Time travelâFiction. 2. DwellingsâFiction. 3. SupernaturalâFiction. 4. Horror stories.] I. Title.
  PZ7.L6636Tim 2009
  [Fic]âdc22
2009012367
Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
FOR MATTHEW
“It is not flesh and blood,
but heart which makes us father and son.”
READ HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS,
WATCHER IN THE WOODS,
AND GATEKEEPERS
BEFORE CONTINUING!
“It's not the size of the dog in the fight,
it's the size of the fight in the dog.”
âMARK TWAIN
“Never, never, never, never give up.”
âWINSTON CHURCHIL
David watched the horde of humanlike creatures surge up the incline toward them.
“Dad?” he croaked. He reached out for his father, but Dad was too far away. His legs refused to budge, locked in place by the sight of the approaching creaturesâtheir spindly limbs jittering up and down as they climbed, their pale skin almost glowing in the sunlight, their mouths spewing out howls and snarls, their eyes crazy, desperate.
Along with his dad and Keal, Uncle Jesse's caretaker and friend, David stood at the top of a hill between two valleys: the one behind them, peaceful and pristine; the one in front cradling the ruins of Los Angeles. Between them and the destroyed buildings lay a massive junkyard of concrete slabs, rusted hunks of automobiles, twisted and broken debris. It all seemed to have been blown against the hill, the way litter gathers in gutters. It was from this trash dump that the creatures had emerged.
And as soon as they had spotted the Kings and Keal, the creatures attacked.
Creatures
, David thought. They were humanâsomething about them told him it was trueâbut they were so different, so animalistic, so . . .
creature
like.
“Hey!” Xander yelled. He was thirty paces down the peaceful side of the hill. “Let's go! What are you waiting for?”
David turned, yearning to be tearing down the valley with his brother, putting acres of distance between himself and the approaching horde. He called, “Dad says the portal's that way, toward”âhe glanced at the creatures, getting closerâ“toward
them
!”
Dad and Keal held the items from the antechamber: a parasol, a butterfly net, a picnic basket. The stupid things had given them no clue of the dangers they had just walked intoânot the way the helmet, shield, and chain mail had predicted Xander's journey to the Roman Colosseum. But the items served another purpose. Besides allowing whoever possessed them to open the portal door, the one that led from their house in present-day Pinedale, California, to some other time, some other place, they also showed the way home by tugging you to the portal that would take you back.
Right now, they were urging Dad and Keal to descend into the other valley, right into the arms of the creatures. David shook his head: everything about this world was messed up.
“What?” Xander said. His mouth hung open, only slightly wider than his eyes. Fear made him appear much younger than his fifteen years. He waved at the woods and meadow below him. “But we came from over there!”
David knew Xander understood the portals better than that. The portals' homes
sometimes
appeared near the ones that dropped them into the other worlds, but they could be anywhere.
“Not this time, Xander!” he said.
But that didn't matter, did it? They couldn't follow the items' prodding, not now. He broke from his stance and crashed into his father. He pushed him toward Xander. “Dad, let's goâanywhere but down there!”
Dad nodded. He hooked a hand around the cast on David's broken left arm and pulled David away from the creatures. The one nearest was so close David could hear its panting and the rattling of the pebbles it dislodged as it scrambled up the hill; he could see a thread of spit spilling over its trembling bottom lip.
Keal rushed forward, pistol in hand. He thumbed the hammer back.
David tore away from his father's grasp. “No!” he yelled. He stretched out his left arm. His cast prevented him from reaching Keal's arm, but then he lunged with his right, catching Keal's bicep, knocking his aim toward the sky. David squeezed his eyes closed, expecting the sharp crack of the firearm. When it didn't come, he looked: Keal was glaring down at him.
“David!” he said.
But the creature had stopped mere feet from the top of the hill, almost on top of them. He stared at David, blinking, confused or startled. An old scar ran vertically down his face from forehead to jaw. There seemed to be no muscle separating his facial bones from the white skin that clung to them: sharp cheek bones and chin; hollow cheeks, and eyes almost lost in the pits of his sockets. His head seemed too large for his scrawny neck and bony body. Wispy brown hair clung to his skull and sprouted here and there on his face.