The group of five, plus the horse, trudged slowly through the night toward the suburbs of the crummy side of Los Vegas. Cars passed them but none stopped.

  Eventually they came upon poor dusty mobile homes, trailer parks, dirt lots, and boarded up abandoned buildings. Every single window flickered with the blue electronic light of violence, sex, and greed beamed into their homes fresh every night.

  From the shadows demons of poverty, drug addiction, and domestic abuse leered at them, holding bottles of liquor that they drank lounging on the front porch of their host’s homes, some with a potbelly wearing a filthy old shrunken white t-shirt, or other human paraphernalia. They looked just like the residents… or maybe the residents looked like them.

  Dave couldn’t look. He dropped his forehead to Dusty’s shoulder and started humming as loudly as he could to block out the sounds. The next time he glanced up he almost leapt out of his shoes and reached for a gun that was no longer there. A huge, black, filthy rabid-looking dog was following them down the street snarling and drooling, with a little demon-gremlin thing on its back like a rider on a horse. The demon rider was shrieking at them and giving them the finger.

  “Hey!” Scott barked at the tiny creature, thrusting out one hand. A ball of fuzzy red light came out of his hand and hit the demon dog-rider square in the chest. It flew off into the shadows, and the dog whimpered and bolted, running away.

  Other demons nearby cheered or jeered.

  “Don’t,” Inu warned. “We don’t want the local demons tipped off. No powers. Not unless it’s really necessary.”

  “I can’t hear you,” David hummed to himself, “I can’t see you. I can’t smell you… my God… what is that smell…”

  “That’s the smell of the Dark Side of the Force,” Dusty said thoughtfully, looking from side to side with curiosity. In the darkness his eyes were glowing white again and his ears were definitely pointy. So were his eyeteeth.

  Scott led them further and further into the maze of poverty, taking random turns. The more lost they felt the more confident Scott became.

  “How is getting lost supposed to help us?” Dave asked plaintively, mostly just to give himself something else to think about.

  “Just wait,” Dusty assured him, patting his hand.

  “Are we lost yet?” Scott asked his group.

  “I think I can still see the bright city lights,” Miradon said, glancing at the horizon above the roof tops.

  “Shit. We have to get somewhere where we can’t see the lights.” He turned to the group, “whatever you do, don’t read the street signs!” And they went on, down anonymous dusty roads to places where all the little old houses looked the same.

  “I can still see the center of town!” Dusty complained after what felt like an hour. “The lights are super bright and there’s all that mazik party crap going on.”

  Dave sighed. “Well, I’m lost. What’s the point?”

  “Man, this sucks. Los Vegas is shit for getting lost.”

  “Unless we were inside a Casino,” Dusty said mournfully. “It’s really easy to get lost inside a Casino. We could try…”

  Everyone made strangled sounds of horror and looked at each other, trying to imagine walking into the middle of the chaos, the very heart of the beast itself.

  “NO WAY!” Inu exclaimed. “That’s like walking right into the den of the dragon!”

  “Ssssh! Don’t wake her up!”

  “Maybe we should send a team in to get lost inside a casino,” Scott said thoughtfully.

  “Like who? You can’t take a horse into a Casino. Or a blue guy.”

  They ignored what looked like a biker gang who glared at them from the porch of a bar that resembled a sprawling shack. Several of the gang members laughed and pointed at their horse, but didn’t follow them.

  “No, a team. Like we send a couple of people in to get lost. Dusty, how are you at getting lost?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  Inu pointed at Dave. “The blind guy could probably do it.”

  Dave shook his head. “I don’t want to go into a casino. Can’t you guys see the things with the things hanging out oozing stuff?”

  “Uh… some of them,” Scott looked uncomfortable, then hurried on, “but that’s not the point! See, we send a couple people inside the casino to get lost, then they get lost and…”

  “And what? What’s the brilliant plan, Mr. Wizard?” David scoffed.

  Scott stopped, looked around, and went silent. They were all standing in a pitch black elementary school playground.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Where the hell are we?” Scott asked, then it dawned on him and he leapt into the air with a cheer. “YES! We’re lost! Quick! Everyone, spread out and yell! WE’RE LOST!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

  Dusty started yelling, “We’re lost!”

  “He’s gone insane. You’ve all gone insane,” Dave grumbled, still not getting the point of this exercise.

  The horse called out gaily, “We’re Lost!”

  Inu shrugged and joined the others, “We’re lost…”

  “Hellooooo, we’re loooooost!” the horse sang.

  Dave grumbled, “Damn right we’re lost, and we’ve lost something else too. You’ve all lost your minds!”

  ───── ??☆?? ─────

  Somewhere far below, in the labyrinthine darkness of the Lower Earth, Madrik the Archon of the Lost sprawled in his control chair.

  It was a leather swivel club chair located in the dead center of a vast, round chamber. The floor was gloss black and every surface of every wall was covered in thousands upon thousands of television monitors so that there was nothing else to see, not an inch of the wall behind them.

  He toyed idly with the remote in his hand, eyes unfocused as he scanned thousands of flickering scenes, expression bored.

  Suddenly he perked up and pointed his remote to one tiny screen on his left. With a button click it’s image suddenly grew, traveling through the other monitors bordering it, taking over dozens of other screens until that one image loomed larger than a one-story building. It showed a group of weirdos with a horse wandering around in a school playground at night shouting that they were lost.

  One of his eyebrows lifted and he gave a tiny smirk. “Got you, my dears.”

  ───── ??☆?? ─────

  “I’M LOST!” Scott yelled toward nearby housing.

  Someone from a trailer hollered, “SHUT UP!” A dog started howling. Someone or something threw a beer bottle that broke, tinkling, on the blacktop.

  “WE’RE LOST!”

  Distantly a furious tenant shouted, “Who gives a fuck!”

  From somewhere in the trailer park the angry local shouted again, “SHUT UP!”

  “We’re LOOOOOOOooooost!”

  Suddenly the shadows rippled near the back of a school building. Out of them strode a tall thin figure in a white blazer and slacks, stepping into the dim orange street light under the dark Nevada sky.

  He wasn’t human. His skin and roguish, shoulder-length, stylishly cut straight glossy hair were both ebony black. He wore dark Ray Bans even at night, and a pure white leisure suit with no shirt. His teeth were so white they almost glowed as he flashed them a winning smile.

  “Did someone say they were lost?”

  “YES!” Scott jumped up, pumping the air with his fist, then ran toward the figure. He threw himself onto him with a whoop and hugged the Ray-Ban guy briefly and exuberantly.

  Everyone else cheered, except for Dave.

  “Oh my God… he’s an alien,” Dave whispered, horrified.

  He recognized this one. It’s species, anyway. He wasn’t quite the same species as Inu the blue guy, or Dusty the city elf… Dave had seen them on the news when Rune had first come to their world. Groups of them, tall and skinny and ebony skinned with black or silvery hair, wielding unimaginable weapons. He’d seen them from afar when they’d been attacking cities randomly blowing up buildings and causing havoc. They all looked like that.

  “I thought they were all dead!” Dave yelled. “The government told us they were all dead!”

  “Calm down man,” Dusty said quietly, putting a hand on his arm. “Madrik’s cool.”

  Madrik carefully peeled Scott away. “You’re not my type, dear.” He glanced at the group, not in the least surprised by the sight of the blue guy riding the horse. “Quite a few people are looking for you.” He scowled at the impoverished playground and his delicate nostrils flared at the smell. “My, my. What a lovely place you’ve discovered!”

  “Lord Madrik! We’ve lost Charis’s phone and we don’t have any way out of here without using her credit card,” Scott babbled at once.

  “Lost it?” Madrik’s fine arched eyebrows rose. “What a pity.” He flicked his hand and the purple sparkle cellphone slid out of his jacket arm and into his palm like a sleight of hand magician’s trick.

  “YES!” Scott cheered again, grabbing it. “You’re a life saver, sir.”

  Once he’d recovered from the shock of seeing a real, live, flesh and blood alien (but the damn government said they were all dead! What the hell?!) Dave demanded, “Who the hell is this guy?” He scowled at the white leisure suit. He even had matching patent leather white dress shoes. But no shirt, of course; he evidently liked to show off his well-muscled pitch black pects and the gaudy gold chain around his neck with a weird symbol amulet dangling from it.

  Dusty was all grins. He leaned toward Dave and murmured, “This is one of our Professors. Or actually one of Charis’s Astro Movement Professors. He’s like an archangel. Really powerful. And he’s got an awesome apartment.”

  “You have two options, as I see it,” Lord Madrik, Archon of the Lost, told them. He had an oddly civilized accent that Dave couldn’t quite place. “You can find your way, since you’re barely lost at all, and use the cell phone to escape this pit of despair and depravity…” Madrik curled his lip at their surrounds, displaying one long canine tooth, “… or you can stay lost, and come deeper into the lostness, and become well and truly lost.”

  They all looked at each other.

  “Uh… yah. Which would you suggest?” Scott asked.

  Charis, on the horse, continued to snore loudly.

  Madrik pursed his lips and looked at the sky. “I suggest you return the cell phone, come with me, and stay lost. If you are truly lost, then you are lost to the Enemy, and only I will know where you are. That sounds safest, doesn’t it, my dears?”

  They all look at each other and grinned.

  “Okay,” Scott agreed with what Dave thought was far too much enthusiasm.

  Dave shook his head. “How about not.” He eyed the leisure suit again. Something about this exotic fellow and his shining white grin reminded him strongly of the Cheshire Cat tempting them to sample the little cake that said ‘Eat Me’. Any minute now, and Dave felt sure the rabbit hole would appear.

  Sensing his anxiety Dusty said, “Don’t worry. Lord Madrik is cool. I mean it; he throws the most awesome parties.”

  Scott gave the Archon the cell phone back. It vanished up the white leisure jacket’s sleeve.

  The Archangel grinned. It was not an encouraging grin. His too-white teeth were very pointy.

  “Then follow me, my little jollies, down the rabbit hole!” Madrik twirled in a smooth disco dance move and glided — almost moon-walking — back into the shadowy rear end of the school.

  Uh-huh. Dave knew there was a rabbit hole involved. “How about we don’t,” Dave muttered, “I don’t want to do a rabbit hole right now. I’ve had enough fun with the red pill already.”

  In the shadows behind the school a door creaked open. Beyond was total blackness.

  “Come on! Don’t wake Charis up,” Scott ordered, and followed the Cheshire Cat.

  Madrik literally danced down his ‘rabbit hole,’ his eerie voice echoing back to them from what sounded like a very deep concrete tunnel. “Down and deeper, turns and twisting, always lost and always steeper, dance my lovelies dance and spin, see the limbo creeping in…” as his voice faded away to mad laughter.

  The door was pitch blackness. They each walked one by one through it, the horse clip-clopping along last of all. When Miradon had entered the door shut by itself with a creak… and vanished to sight.

  They were gone as if they’d never been.