There’s even a bronze statue on an unusually tall base of the brown-haired boy the Slayer has just seen wearing a metal glove and carrying a jar full of evil. The statue depicts him dressed in a tuxedo. And giving finger guns.

“No way.” She laughs. “They’ll really let anyone be president these days.”

The front door is locked. The hours posted in a digital display built into the glass inform her that the library is open Sunday through Friday from nine to six. And closed on Saturdays.

The Slayer frowns at the gem. “You couldn’t have brought me through on a day when it was open?”

The gem is unapologetic.

Climbing the jutting concrete walls is a breeze, reminding the Slayer of scaling the vertical staircase at Chuck E. Cheese. Minus the padding and the diaper smell. Up on the second story, she forces open a window and shimmies through, relieved not to hear the sound of an alarm.

She jumps down into what must be the museum part of the building. Overhead pin lights illuminate individual displays loaded down with text on the white walls. Each one includes a life-size Jonathan mannequin. Here’s Doctor Jonathan with his stethoscope and a description of how he cured restless-leg syndrome. And there’s Jonathan dressed like a founding father and receiving the Pulitzer Prize for writing a rap musical. Here’s Jonathan posed with his Teen Choice Award surfboard. Jonathan and a set of his eight-book series of super-best-selling novels, A Song of Sleet and Embers, then another display of him starring in the TV show based on the series.

“This guy has more jobs than Barbie,” the Slayer says, passing by Jonathan in military fatigues, credited with ending all wars in the year 2040. The number gives the Slayer pause. For a second, it seems like a joke. The mid-twenty-first century? Someone get her a hoverboard and self-lacing sneakers, stat. She glances up at the gem. Demondale is a year or two ahead of her own timeline, the world under the sunshade mere months away from the new millennium. But could the portal really drop her off this far in the future?

She hasn’t checked a calendar in every evil reality she’s demolished. Maybe those demon puppets were from the year 3000. How would she know? The idea makes her a little woozy.

In the darkness—somewhere beyond Jonathan the panda whisperer and Jonathan breaking the world-record score for something called Guitar Hero—there’s movement. Heavy footfalls reverberate against the floor.