Page 71 of Search for the Lost

And how had this… entity transferred them back to Earth One?

Subtle details about this place were wrong. Leo had never mentioned any of the bands on these posters, and Crispin was pretty sure—looking at the image on the TV screen—that there was no beach in Kansas. Isn’t that where one of Leo’s favorite films was set?

“You can call me Oberon. ‘Luke, I am your father…’” The man—Crispin decided man was easier than trying to decide what he/it really was—chuckled heartily.

“Don’t bring Star Wars into this. You most certainly aren’t the droid I was looking for. And you’re not my father. My father was a kind and decent man named Oscar who never said a mean word to me in his too-short life.” Leo crossed his arms.

Oberon flashed him a wicked grin. “Ceri said you were dull as a butter knife. She was right.”

Crispin winced. His mother could be cruel.

Leo and Oberon locked eyes, a tableau that lasted for nearly half a minute, during which Crispin noticed that the posters were shifting. The Thrifty Lizards now said The Fifty Lizards, and he was pretty sure the Why She Chose Yellow poster had featured a lemon when he first arrived, not a stuffed tiger and a little cartoon kid in a striped shirt peeing and leering back at him. The boy winked and went back to what he was doing.

The chocolate-brown couch seemed to be slowly slithering to the left while shifting color into something decidedly more puce.

Only Kansas on the TV screen remained unchanged.

One of Leo’s new pets—Spike?—got up and sidled toward the imposter King, sniffing curiously.

“Leave him be.” Leo’s voice was steel. Crispin had never heard him sound like that, and to be honest, it was sexy as hell. If we were alone….

“You’re Mother’s consort.” He’d guessed as much before, but now he was sure it was true. Crispin was the epitome of Order, and so was she. Order needed Chaos; she’d mentioned it before.

Oberon laughed, though it sounded less like merriment and more like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. He got up lazily and sidled over to Crispin. “This one is smart. Not like you, son.” He opened one eye impossibly wide and leered at Crispin. “You know your other half here’s a dullard, right? Not intelligent, like you and me.”

Leo looked like a puppy that had just been kicked.

“Shut up!” Crispin punched the King hard, expecting him to fall back against the creeping couch. “Nobody talks about Leo like that!”

Instead, his hand entered the man’s face, pushing aside his features like putty. It was funny and awkward and gross all at the same time.

A sickly grin spread across Oberon’s split face.

Disgusted, Crispin pulled his hand out of the gooey mess and shook off the bits of Oberon still attached to his fingers. The man’s features reformed as he watched, both eyeballs popping back into their sockets with a slurping sound.

“Eeeew.” Leo’s face contorted, and he shook his head and sputtered. “What does your mother see in him?”

Crispin laughed. “Chaos has a certain… appeal. But he’s like a bad carbon copy of you.”

Leo brightened. “Just like you and Aspin.”

“Awww….” I could get lost in those eyes.

“Ahem.” The King, back to his normal sloth-like self, was staring at them, arms crossed in an unintentional parody of Leo.

Crispin tore his gaze away from his partner. “Where is she?”

“Yes,” Leo said. “Enough of this bullshit. Tell us where they took her.” He advanced on the man, seeming to grow larger, and for once, Oberon actually shrank back from him, his face showing some fear.

Crispin’s eyes widened. “He’s scared of you.” Beneath all his bravado, the King really seemed shaken. Was that why he’d come on so hard—to hide his fear?

“I am not. You’re the fraidy-cat.” Now Oberon was positively shaking. “Like that time you ran from the big Saint Bernard in Discovery Park because it barked too loud? Everyone laughed at you. Or when you got lost in Arden Fair Mall, and cried because you couldn’t find your mommy?” His words practically dripped with derision.

Leo’s eyes went wide. “How do you know all that?”

The King laughed again and aggressively pushed himself into Leo’s face, perhaps sensing he’d regained the upper hand. He poked Leo in the chest hard, pushing him backward. “You were never anything more than a coward. You killed everything you ever loved. Even your parents.” Another poke followed each sentence. “It was your fault. If it hadn’t been for you, they would still be alive and⁠—”

Crispin had watched the whole interaction with alarm, and suddenly it hit him. Why Oberon seemed so much like Leo. How he shared his memories. “Leo, he’s you!” It suddenly made sense. Leo was the new King of Chaos. This… fabrication was all that was left of the old one, who had been subsumed when Leo took on his title. “He’s made of bits of you!”