Read The Void of Mist and Thunder (The 13th Reality #4) for Free Online Page B

do.”
    Her words took the lady aback a little, as it did Paul. Was this really the time to ask if they could use her bathroom? Then again, Paul thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard come out of George’s mouth anyway.
    “A question, you say?” Gretel responded. “You say you have a question for me?”
    “That’s right,” Sofia said. “Just one. May I please use your bathroom?”
    The old woman swung her gun away from Paul and pointed it off somewhere in the distance. She pulled the trigger, and a boom rocked the air and smoke puffed up from the gun. Gretel spun the pistol on her finger like a cowboy and smiled, her teeth looking like they’d chewed one too many chicken bones throughout the years.
    “Yes, you may, my darling,” she said. “Yes, you may. Do come in.”
    Sofia glanced back at Paul, who shrugged. They both headed up the steps of the rickety old porch.

    Mothball had always prided herself on being a nice, genuine person who could see the good in everyone. Yes, she loved to tease and rib, but deep down she had a heart of gold, soft and snuggly and warm. At least, that’s what she liked to think.
    But Sally irritated the living jeepers out of her. How in the bloody tarnations had she ended up with him on this mission? The man was like a walking bullhorn, he was.
    “So, Miss Purty Legs,” he said as they walked down a long country road in the Twelfth Reality. “Whatcha thinkin’ this old bag of cornfeed’s gonna help us with?”
    “Don’t know as yet,” she replied. “Just hopin’ I can hear a bloody word that comes out of his mouth over your yappin’ tongue. No offense, of course.”
    Sally bellowed his deep, booming laugh. “None taken, missy. None taken. You should be used to yappin’ after hanging out with that friend a’yorn. Rutger could talk the ear off an elephant.”
    Mothball couldn’t help it—she laughed too. Sally always knew how to make her smile eventually. “The wee little fat man can talk, no doubt about it.”
    “Anyhoo, why we startin’ with this farm boy again?”
    Though she could swear she’d already explained this to him, Mothball did so again. “He’s not really a Realitant, but he’s a friend of ours. Lives out in the boonies so as he can keep tabs better without worryin’ over communications and such. Watches over the world, he does. Has every satellite and radio and cell service you can dream up in this quaint little Reality. We pay him right nicely, too. He’ll know what the goings-on are about.”
    “Goings-on are about?” Sally repeated. “What the heckamajibber does that mean?”
    “We need to find what’s the trouble here. We’re on a research mission, silly bones. Clean out them bloody ears, would ya? Master George explained it all right nicely. Gathering information, we are.”
    “Well, I sho ’nuff knew that! I’m just tryin’ to figger out how you people speak in them fancy lands a’yorn.”
    “I know the feeling,” Mothball muttered under her breath.
    They reached a dusty old mailbox on the side of the road with the word “Tanner” printed on the side in faded black letters. A long, gravel driveway cut through a cornfield before disappearing into a grove of trees about a half a mile away.
    “Here we are,” Mothball said. “He’s waiting for us I ’spect.”
    Thankfully Sally didn’t say another word as they started walking down the long driveway.

    Rutger sat in front of his huge screen, reviewing all the data he’d gathered from the instruments spread throughout the Realities. The ones that had survived the destruction, anyway.
    He missed Mothball.
    Yes, she was a tall sack of bones who took every chance she got to make fun of him. But she was also his best friend, and he hated thinking of her out there without him, especially considering how dangerous things had become. A world suffering from chaos that you can’t help breeds chaos that you can. The thieves and looters and murderers would be out in full