organized hers. They clashed. People died and homes were destroyed. Redd knew her imagination to be stronger than Genevieve’s, but her forces were outnumbered and she didn’t have anyone from the Millinery on her side, no one to rival Hatter Madigan. But now she had The Cat. And the seekers. Still, the sting of being roundly defeated and banished from Wonderland by her younger sister had been an embarrassment impossible to live down.
Seething with anger, Redd strode toward the South Dining Room, paying no attention to the explosions going off to the left and right of her, the palace guardsmen falling dead at the hands of her soldiers. An orb generator detonated directly in front of her but, without slowing her pace, she walked through the smoke and flames. She stood in the ruins, face-to-face with her sister at last, and screamed her head off.
She would kill them all.
CHAPTER 10
T HE FORCE of the blast knocked Alyss over in her chair and she was still on the ground, coughing from dust and debris, when she saw innocent courtiers and civilians attacked by a mob of Redd’s card soldiers and fierce ex-Wonderlanders.
“No!”
A hand clamped over Alyss’ mouth. It was Dodge. He pulled her under the table with him. “Keep quiet or they’ll get you too. Stay here and don’t move.”
Alyss wasn’t planning on moving, not out from under the table at any rate. Too much was happening and none of it good. But Dodge was with her. She had him. As long as Dodge and I stay together…
In the quarter-moment after the explosion, General Doppelganger ran behind a thick curtain and pulled a lever attached to a crank half buried in the floor. The black floor tiles of the room flipped over to reveal an army of white chessmen-knights, rooks, bishops, pawns. The chessmen battled the invading card soldiers, blades swinging and bodies falling. General Doppelganger split into the twin figures of Generals
Doppel and Ganger, and each of them split in two, so that now there were two General Doppels and two General Gangers battling Redd’s soldiers. Not that Alyss realized that the poisonous-looking woman who’d shouted “Off with their heads!” was her aunt Redd. She hadn’t made the connection yet because…where was her mother? There, fending off Redd’s soldiers two and three at a time. Alyss
never knew her mother could fight. She flinched with each near hit Genevieve suffered, watching as the queen imagined new weapons for herself-swords, sabers, spiked clubs-whenever one was knocked from her grip. She was always armed with four weapons at once, her imagination swinging two of them, to fend off attacks from behind.
But why didn’t she imagine the card soldiers dead? Alyss tried doing it herself; she closed her eyes and pictured the soldiers piled in a lifeless heap in the center of the room. Bibwit was not there to explain that, by the power of imagination alone, nobody could kill a creature that had the will to live. When Alyss opened her eyes, the room was still in chaos, white pawns and rooks and the occasional knight falling at the hands of the enemy. The cries of pain and defeat still filled her ears.
A body slammed against the tabletop. Dodge put his arm around her, as if that could keep her from harm.
“Don’t move, don’t move,” he whispered.
She huddled against him. She didn’t want to watch any more, wanted to bury her face in Dodge’s shoulder and lift it up again to find the horrid scene over, everything as it used to be.
Hatter Madigan removed his top hat. Holding it by the brim, he flicked his wrist hard and fast; the hat flattened and divided into a series of S-shaped rotary blades held together at the center. He winged the weapon across the room, the blades spinning and slicing through the enemy before embedding themselves in the mortar of the far wall.
One of Redd’s Four Cards pulled the weapon out of the wall. But throwing Hatter’s top hat required a technique not easily mastered, and every time the soldier tried employing the quick wrist-flick he’d seen Hatter use, the weapon only clattered to the floor.
Hatter fought his way toward the top hat, flipping and tumbling through the air, his long Millinery coat flaring like a cape. His steel bracelets snapped open and became propeller-blades on the outward side of his wrists. His backpack sprouted blades and corkscrews of various lengths and thicknesses, like an
open Swiss Army knife.
The Four Card was growing more desperate as Hatter approached. The top hat clanged on the floor one last time. Hatter picked up the weapon, examining it to make sure it hadn’t been damaged.
“One must learn how to use it,” he said. “Here, let me show you the proper way.” These were the last words the soldier ever heard.
Redd strolled through the mayhem of the battle unharmed. Whenever a white pawn made the mistake of attacking her, she flicked him with a long, bony finger and sent him hurling into the stone walls or the pointed end of someone’s spear. It gave her no small pride to see The Cat performing so well in combat, poking fatal holes in chessmen with his claws, easily taking out as many of them as Hatter did card soldiers. She was also pleased to note the speed with which the suit families had fallen into obedience.
No sooner had she ordered the removal of everyone’s head than the Lord of Diamonds bravely stepped forward, bowed, and said, “Your Majesty, we regret that we’ve been deprived of your presence for so long and rejoice that you’ve returned.” The Spades and Clubs echoed him with bows and fond regards of their own. So she would let them live. For the moment. Besides, there was something intriguing about the young Diamond boy. He stood under the protective arm of his father, seeming more interested than scared, as if learning all he could from the violence around him. Who knew? He might grow up to be useful.
Sir Justice Anders cut and slashed at the invading card soldiers. He rescued several chessmen momentarily overpowered by a band of Two Cards, and when he spotted an opening toward The Cat, he made a run at the creature, sword poised to strike.
Dodge saw what was about to happen. “Watch this,” he said to Alyss, proud of his father’s skills and bravery.
But The Cat had no trouble dealing with the leader of the palace guard. With the back of his hand, he knocked Sir Justice to the ground, sent the man’s sword skittering across the floor and out of reach. The Cat picked up Sir Justice and swiped him with a claw.
“Noooo!” Before Alyss could stop him, Dodge bolted out from under the table, snatched up his father’s
sword, and attacked The Cat. “Yaah!”