Timescape

  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?”

  —R.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.”

  —JON 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!”

  —SLADE 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.”

  —BINGHAMTON PRESS & SUN-BULLETIN

  “Fast paced action and thrills abound.”

  —KIRKUS REVIEWS

  “A powerhouse storyteller delivers his most fantastic ride yet!”

  —TED 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 means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except 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. — (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 travel—Fiction. 2. Dwellings—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction. 4. Horror stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L6636Tim 2009

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009012367

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 QW 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER one

  CHAPTER two

  CHAPTER three

  CHAPTER four

  CHAPTER five

  CHAPTER six

  CHAPTER seven

  CHAPTER eight

  CHAPTER nine

  CHAPTER ten

  CHAPTER eleven

  CHAPTER twelve

  CHAPTER thirteen

  CHAPTER fourteen

  CHAPTER fifteen

  CHAPTER sixteen

  CHAPTER seventeen

  CHAPTER eighteen

  CHAPTER nineteen

  CHAPTER twenty

  CHAPTER twenty - one

  CHAPTER twenty - two

  CHAPTER twenty - three

  CHAPTER twenty - four

  CHAPTER twenty - five

  CHAPTER twenty - six

  CHAPTER twenty - seven

  CHAPTER twenty - eight

  CHAPTER twenty - nine

  CHAPTER thirty

  CHAPTER thirty - one

  CHAPTER thirty - two

  CHAPTER thirty - three

  CHAPTER thirty - four

  CHAPTER thirty - five

  CHAPTER thirty - six

  CHAPTER thirty - seven

  CHAPTER thirty - eight

  CHAPTER thirty - nine

  CHAPTER forty

  CHAPTER forty - one

  CHAPTER forty - two

  CHAPTER forty - three

  CHAPTER forty - four

  CHAPTER forty - five

  CHAPTER forty - six

  CHAPTER forty - seven

  CHAPTER forty - eight

  CHAPTER forty - nine

  CHAPTER fifty

  CHAPTER fifty - one

  CHAPTER fifty - two

  WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO . . .

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  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.”

  —MARK TWAIN

  “Never, never, never, never give up.”

  —WINSTON CHURCHIL

  CHAPTER

  one

  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 creatures—their 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 human—something about them told him it was true—but they were so different, so animalistic, so . . . creaturelike.

  “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”—he glanced at the creatures, getting closer—“toward them!”

&nb
sp; 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 into—not 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 go—anywhere 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.

  Keal pushed David away. He skipped closer to the creature, brought his foot up, and kicked the thing in the chest.

  The creature flew backward, arms flailing. He crashed into another of his kind, and they both tumbled down the hill. Dust billowed in their wake. Other creatures moved out of their way. One leaped over them, caught his foot, and went down. He was back up in a flash, scowling. He lowered himself and scampered toward them on all fours. Dozens more around him scurried up the hill.

  Keal pointed the pistol at the clouds and squeezed the trigger.

  Instinctively, David ducked. The sound was loud and sharp, thunder from a lightning bolt in his ears.

  The creatures must have thought so too. They all stopped. Several fell back, tumbled, turned, tried to get their feet under them as they moved down the hill toward the rubble below. Others backed away more slowly. One howled, and the others joined in. Their voices grew in volume, a chorus of angry, scared screams. To David, it was somehow worse, more piercing than the gunshot. He covered his ears.

  Keal fired at the clouds again.

  The howling voices spiked even louder. More creatures turned and ran.

  Some held their ground. One, then another, and another, began climbing again.

  David felt a tug on his collar. Dad was pulling at him. Without a word, Keal wrapped a powerful arm around David’s waist, picked him up, and began jogging down the opposite incline. Dad fell in beside them. Xander saw them coming. He spun and booked toward the valley in long, pinwheeling strides.

  Every time Keal’s foot hit the ground, David felt his ribs crush between the man’s body and arm. Air pumped out of his lungs like a bellows. More painful was the damage to his pride: he was twelve, and Keal was carrying him like a baby.

  “Put . . . me . . . down!” he said, each word pushed out on a gust of breath. “Keal!”

  Keal didn’t slow, but he did turn David’s feet toward the ground. When David’s kicking matched Keal’s pace, the big man let him go. David stumbled forward, stayed up, and darted ahead. The woods at the bottom of the hill were still a long way off. Ahead of him, Xander lurched forward, then his feet slid out from under him. He fell back, bounced off the ground, and was back up and running faster than David would have thought possible.

  David looked behind him. The first of the pursuing creatures appeared on the crest of the hill, and started down toward them.

  CHAPTER

  two

  WEDNESDAY, 6:30 P.M.

  PINEDALE, CALIFORNIA

  Flat on her stomach, Nana slid backward up the third-floor stairs toward the hallway of doors.

  Toria crouched on her grandmother’s back, holding on with everything she had—a grotesque horsey ride in which neither horse nor rider had any fun. Nana grabbed at every step.

  “Hold on, Nana!” Toria screamed.

  But Nana’s fingers would slip off one step, then another, and the two of them would bang up, up, up.

  “No!” Toria yelled. She swung her head around, expecting to see someone, something at the top, waiting for them. No one was there, just the light from the hallway, flickering on and off. She knew what was happening. Jesse—her great-great-great uncle, or something like that—had talked about it the night before: the portals wanted Nana back. Time wanted her back, and it was pulling her back. But she belonged here. After thirty years, she had made it home. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair!

  “Let go, Toria!” Nana yelled. “You have to—” Her fingers slipped.

  They bounded up three more steps. Almost to the top.

  Nana groaned. “You have to stay here, Toria. You can’t let it take you too!”

  Toria gripped tighter. She knew her weight must have been awful for Nana, pushing her into the stairs, as the force yanked them up. She didn’t care. She wasn’t going to let her grandmother go.

  “Jesse!” Toria called toward the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

  The big men who had come out of the portals earlier that day had broken down the two walls that separated this staircase from the main house. Now it was a straight shot to the second floor. But Jesse was hidden around a corner. He had come to help when the pull on Nana had started. He had grabbed Nana’s wrists, but lost his grip. Now he was down there somewhere, crawling without his wheelchair.

  “Jesse!”

  Nana let out a painful-sounding grunt, and they shot up the rest of the stairs and jarred to a stop. Toria almost flipped off her grandmother’s back. She caught herself, clutching her hands on Nana’s shoulders. Nana was holding on to the sides of the doorway. Her legs hovered a few inches off the floor, quivering under the strain of the pull.

  “Hold on, Nana,” Toria said. She pushed her face into the fabric between the woman’s shoulder blades. “Hold on,” she whispered. “Please hold on.”

  CHAPTER

  three

  “Wait! Wait!”

  Keal stopped them before they’d reached the woods. Xander was the farthest down. He skidded and wound up on his backside again. He got up, brushing away dirt and grass.

  David stopped more slowly. When he turned, Keal was facing uphill. The creatures had reversed direction and were heading away, back over the crest. As they walked, their oversized heads swiveled to cast curious glances over their shoulders. Again one howled, and the others joined in. Only one remained facing Keal, Dad, David, and Xander. He was braced on the hi
ll, bony shoulders rising and falling. He yelled an unintelligible word and clawed at the air toward them. He gestured to his comrades, urging them to continue the attack, then screamed in what David thought was frustration when they ignored him.

  “They weren’t after us,” David whispered. “They just wanted us gone, away from their home.”

  The creature seemed to stare right at David for a long time. David wondered what he—and Xander, Dad, and Keal—would do if the guy suddenly ran for them. That made him think of the gun, and he saw that Keal had returned it to his waistband. The back of his shirt was hiked up over it.

  David touched Dad’s arm. He said, “Let’s go. Keal, come on.”

  Keal held up an open hand.

  The lone creature finally turned and trudged back up the hill. At the top, he looked at them once more, then disappeared down the other side.

  Dad rubbed David’s shoulder. He said, “What are you thinking, Keal?”

  “I’m thinking we gotta get to that portal.”

  He turned, and David saw in his face the Army Ranger Keal used to be. Keal said, “Right, Ed?”

  Dad nodded.

  Keal held up the tam-o’-shanter and blanket Xander had given him in the antechamber. “And these things say it’s over that hill.”

  Dad hefted the butterfly net and looked at the picnic basket that was lifting off his body, tethered to his neck by a strap. “That’s right.”

  “If those creatures are guarding that area,” Keal said, “we’re not going to get to it . . . easily.”

  “It moves,” Xander said, stepping up to David’s side. “The portal moves. It drifts around.”

  “You want to wait for it?” Keal said.

  David looked into Dad’s and Xander’s faces. None of them wanted to wait. David wasn’t even sure they could; they’d always assumed the time they could spend in the other worlds was limited. And the items became more insistent about getting home the longer they stayed. He didn’t want to think what would happen if the items started dragging them, kicking and screaming, into those creatures’ camp.