Aru blinked. “Wait—everyone here wants to watch the world…get destroyed?”
When King Jambavan said that there were others like him, Aru had pictured hermits in a cave making peace with the end times. Not people showing up in chicken costumes and singing opera in the background.
“Some dance with the hope that as we are folded back into the universe, we might find the happiness we missed out on in this existence,” said the yaksha, a wistful look in his eye. “Others dance because there is no hope left. The Sleeper’s army is unstoppable. Even the Pandavas have abandoned us.”
“That’s—” started Brynne, but Aru silenced her with a quick glare and tapped the camouflage petal on her clothes.
“Okay, so your solution is to, what, throw an Apocalypse X-Factor contest?” asked Aru.
The yaksha ignored her. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Do you have a talent or not?”
Uh-oh…She hadn’t thought this far ahead. “It’s, um, a secret,” said Aru.
The red door inched closer. It looked alarmingly glossy…as if it were slicked with blood. The yaksha smirked.
“But if you give us a chance, it’s really going to blow you away,” said Aru, trying to angle her steps backward. “It’s just so overwhelming that we honestly can’t share—”
The yaksha gestured at the red door of rejection to move a little closer. Mini winced.
Brynne tapped into their mind link. What if we just made a run for it? I could use Gogo to blast us through—
“And don’t even think about running in,” said the yaksha, bored. “That arena is protected by living hurricanes. You would be shredded to ribbons before you even got a chance, so unless you know some higher-ups, I’d say it’s time to go—”
“We know people!” said Aru. “Right?” She looked at her friends and nodded, encouraging them to follow along.
“Oh yeah?” said the yaksha. “Who?”
Rudy’s mouth opened, no doubt to drop his trademark I’m a prince line, when someone else spoke instead. Someone Aru hadn’t expected.
Aiden stepped forward, his face a little pale, his camera hanging dejectedly from his hands. He set his shoulders, stretched his neck, and said, “The apsara Malini.”
The yaksha squeaked. “Malini?”
Aiden merely shrugged. “Yeah, you know, formerly one of the biggest celebrities in the cosmos? With a voice that once summoned a tsunami?”
The yaksha’s sunglasses dropped off his nose. “No one has seen her in ages! You can’t possibly know her!”
Aiden held out his camera, the display reeling backward to show a picture of his mom. It must have been the last picture he took at home before this quest. His mother’s expression was both hopeful and worried. The sun was streaming through their kitchen windows, capturing her Otherworldly loveliness. Aiden changed the display so it revealed something more casual—a selfie with his mom.
“Oh my god…” said the yaksha. “It’s really her. You really do know her!”
A stray wind ruffled Aiden’s hair. The outline of his body took on a glow.
“This is kinda overkill,” muttered Rudy.
Uh-oh, here comes the Wifey smolder, said Mini.
“I’m her son,” said Aiden. “I’m the only one who inherited her gifts before she renounced the Otherworld completely. I mean, c’mon, look at me.”
Don’t look, said Brynne through the mind link.
Aru squeezed her lids shut. The apsara powers Aiden had inherited from his mother were a fearsome weapon. When he really wanted to—and he rarely did—Aiden could make it seem like all the light had been sucked out of the world and into his eyes. His voice would take on a starry, velveteen quality, and mortals taken by surprise would end up doing something stupid in response. Like waltzing without music. Or singing. (Not that Aru had ever done anything remotely embarrassing when Aiden showed off his apsara powers….)
“You believe me,” said Aiden.
When he spoke, a warm breeze swirled around them. The air took on the sweet smell of lilacs. Aru’s cheeks warmed.
“You know who I am,” said Aiden. “You’ll let us in without any more questions.”
“I see,” said the yaksha in an entranced voice.
“Good.”
Aru opened her eyes when Aiden’s voice lost its sparkling quality and became normal again. The red door seemed a little farther away now.
“The son of Malini is always welcome,” said the yaksha pleasantly. A moment later, a hard look reentered his eyes as he considered the rest of the Potatoes. “But what about them?”
Aiden glanced at them all, and Aru could see a small battle being waged in his face. Then he sighed.
Next to her, Rudy sucked in a breath, whispering, “Oh my god. It’s happening, isn’t it?”
“What is?” asked Mini.
Aiden closed his eyes as he turned back to the yaksha. He raised his hand, gesturing at the Potatoes. “This…”
Oh no, thought Aru.
“This is my band.”
Rudy barely restrained a squeak.
The yaksha watched all this rather indifferently. He shrugged. “Very well. I’ll give you this chance, son of Malini, but the judges will want some real proof that your band deserves a spot on the Final Stage, or you’re out. Understand?”
The big red door moved back sulkily.
Part of Aru was delighted. They’d gotten in!
The other part was not so thrilled. Aru wouldn’t exactly call herself musically gifted….She could play what she called “the nose guitar”—humming a tune while holding down one nostril and pretending to strum the other side of her nose—but it was not very popular at parties. In fact, Brynne had said on more than one occasion that it would be a very useful torture technique for prisoner interrogations.
The yaksha swirled his hand in the air and a pink clipboard appeared. His sunglasses—which had magically levitated back onto his face—transformed into a pair of reading glasses.
“And what’s the name of your band so I can add it to the roster?”
Aiden frowned. “Uh—”
“IT’S RUDY ROCKS!” shouted Rudy. “WE’RE KNOWN AS RUDY ROCKS. THERE IS NO OTHER NAME.”
Rudy was so excited that Brynne had to grip his shoulders to hold him in one place. Even Mini, who hadn’t smiled once since the incident with the World Elephants, cracked a grin.
Aiden sighed again and turned back to the yaksha. “What he said….Our band is Rudy Rocks.”
The moment the Potatoes were admitted into the pavilion—with a brisk “Someone will be with you shortly. NEXT!”—its interior changed. From the outside, it had looked beautiful and tranquil, with its glass stage and the floating portal door.
Inside, however, it was chaos.
Aru could now see dozens of tents behind a giant semicircle of bleachers. Performers disappeared in and out of the flaps. Various acts were warming up on the field: jugglers, winged dancers, a trio of treelike creatures sprouting roses as they sang, and a band of fire performers who were literally walking flames. Wooden platforms with numbered flags floated in the air to the left of the main crystal stage.