The Wicked Passage (A Blake Wyatt Adventure) by N.M. Singel Page B

shimmering like stars in the nighttime sky.
    “I present the Parabulls,” the chronicle announced.
    “No way, a pair of bulldogs?” Blake knelt in the squish and ran his hands down their backs. His arms felt good as they brushed against the soft fur. Warmth rushed through his body.
    The grass changed from blue to green to purple when he touched it. This was sweet. He could really get used to all this superpower stuff once he figured out how to use it. “What are their names?”
    “Guinevere and MacArthur. They’ll take you to a time and place of great importance. You’ll understand the lesson by the time you get there.”
    “Get where?”
    “Where you’re going, of course.”
    “Oh, that helps.” Blake pinched off a length of the tall sapphire grass, which re-grew instantly. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it to the ground. “I don’t even know where I am now.”
    “You’re in the den of the Parabulls, Saphir Pré.”
    “Wherever that is.”
    “That’s here.”
    “But I don’t know where here is.”
    “Here is here,” the book said.
    Blake grunted out an exasperated little aarrgh. “I know here is here, but where is here? Wait, don’t answer that. Let’s start with all this lesson stuff you keep babbling about. I’m completely clueless.”
    “History’s lesson. We’ve been trying to tell you about the Tolucan spies who are--”
    “Wait. These Tolucan people are the bad guys, right?”
    “Bad guys?”
    “Bad guys, like we’re the good guys, and they’re the bad guys.”
    “This is not a game, Blake,” the book said. “You’re underestimating the seriousness of this threat. Their goal is to destroy history.”
    “All right, just chill a minute. Maybe I’m messed up with all this time stuff, but who really cares if they destroy history? It already happened.”
    “Did it? What if history never happened?”
    “There’d still be some kind of history. Maybe not the same history, but something would be there. Wouldn’t it?”
    “I’ll try to make this very simple. There would be absolutely nothing. No past, no present, no future. Time can never be divided. The past, present, and future are all happening right now, simultaneously.”
    Blake stood, scratching his head. “All right, Book, now I’m totally confused.”
    “Blake, look at it like this. What would happen if you took the wheels off your dirt bike? Could you ride it?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “’Cuz it wouldn’t have wheels.”
    “So what? You have the rest of the motorcycle.”
    “Ya couldn’t get very far without wheels.”
    “Exactly. You need the whole motorcycle, right?”
    Blake took a deep breath and listened to his stomach rumble. None of this time stuff was making any sense.
    Maybe I just need some food. “So tell me again what I am supposed to do.”
    “Protect history.”
    “But I don’t know anything about history.”
    “You will. But, beware. Evil stops at nothing, and the wounds of the past are deep. The Parabulls cannot protect the future without the past.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “No more time for questions. We must proceed.” The book tucked itself gently under Blake’s arm. The Parabulls glanced back at him before they headed into the sapphire grass.
    “Wait!” Blake scrambled after them into the weird grass. “Hey, don’t leave me here!” Panicking, he shoved the strange grass aside. Tall blue grass waved in the silence. “Hey! Come on. How am I supposed to find you?”
    He stood for a moment when he heard a man’s voice directly in front of him. Pushing back more of the grass, he heard the voice again, louder.
    “Lord, grant that our voyage is not in vain and that my death does not come at the hands of my own men.”
    Blake moved closer to the voice. “Hello? Someone else here?”
    “Please forgive me, Lord. I never meant to kill these men.”
     

CHAPTER 6
    ONE SMALL PROBLEM

     

     
    Kill what men? And whose voice was that? It didn’t sound like