“Robby?” Casey shoved at his shoulder, interrupting us.
Nic sighed and kneeled by the jester. “He’ll be all right. Knight, please stand guard.”
Though I wasn’t exactly happy at getting ordered around, it certainly wasn’t the time to argue. Likely it never would be. He was one of the rulers of Nightmare, after all.
I went outside, took a quick look around, and rushed back in. “We have to leave. Now.”
“What’s wrong?” Ember demanded.
“Nothingness storm.”
Nic swore and slammed his palm down on Robby’s chest. His hand swirled into shadow and melded with the jester.
Robby came awake like he’d been shocked, jerking up off the ground and swinging at Nic, who simply dissolved completely. Robby’s fist passed through Nic’s shadow.
The jester blinked a few times, looked around, then swore when he saw where we were while taking in Ash and Casey staring at him. “That was not supposed to happen.”
“We’ll explain later,” Nic said. “Nothingness storm.” Nic grabbed Dio with his shadows. The winged cat stayed close.
Robby scrambled to his feet, and I led the way out of the crowded one-room cabin. He put his arm around Casey to comfort her as she made a distressed sound at the stark Nightmare landscape.
“It’s going to destroy the cabin,” Ember cried, pointing.
The storm bore down on us. We were too close to run.
“Shadow boy, remember that spaceship I asked for?” Ash pointed toward the sky.
Nic widened his eyes before holding his hands above his head, sending out tendrils of his power until he acted like he grabbed something and yanked back. Moments later, a spinning saucer appeared above us.
“Next time I’ll get one from Dream, but this was closer,” Nic said tightly.
A beam of light grabbed all of us and pulled us up into the saucer, very much like a B-Movie abduction. Which I supposed this could be a nightmare of.
Before I knew it, we were all onboard. A bunch of little green men in silver jumpsuits holding ray guns and things that looked suspiciously like probes stared at us.
Nic shoved them back with his powers, and Robby dashed for a room off to the side.
“Wait, you can fly a spaceship?” Ash’s eyes widened and shock made her voice crack.
“Sure, why not?” Robby couldn’t fit into the pilot’s chair, but he grabbed the controls and caused us to speed away from the blight that threatened to wipe us out of existence.
Ash joined him, staring out the front window.
“So, why didn’t we use a spaceship to travel before?” Ember asked. “Not that I minded the wolves, or walking, or the horses, but this is much faster.”
“Truthfully, I didn’t think of it,” Nic answered.
“Nor did I.” Robby shook his head. “I was never much of a sci-fi fan. It simply didn’t occur to me to take a ship.”
“When is someone going to explain what is going on?” Casey held up her hands when one of the green men pointed its laser at her.
“Take us to your leader,” it demanded.
We all pointed to Nic.
He thrust his hands toward the beings and tendrils of shadow touched each of the aliens. They went still, as if no longer animated.
“We will explain,” Robby said. “Once we’re safe. We need a place to regroup.”