Crystal Force

by Joe Ducie

  Drake and Irene pulled each other into the shore, gasping and soaked. Warm drops of Irene’s blood struck the back of Drake’s good hand as they clawed over the rocks, tearing their clothes and nicking their skin.

  ‘The others …’ Irene managed. She squeezed her eyes together in pain and touched the side of her head. ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ Drake said, shivering. ‘Can you heal –’

  ‘Guys!’ Tristan called. He ran along the shoreline to them, up and over the rocks, looking as cold as Drake felt. ‘Are you OK? I got swept out, I-I couldn’t –’

  ‘What the hell happened?’ Irene asked. ‘The front of the plane just … disappeared. Those poor pilots.’

  ‘We were attacked,’ Drake said, as the whirring blades of a chopper cut through the air. ‘Three guesses who by …’

  The Alliance helicopter, sleek and black against a cloudy sky, flew up over Niagara Falls, biting through mist and spray. A wide searchlight on its underside soon picked up the three bedraggled figures on the rocky shore.

  ‘What do we do?’ Tristan asked.

  Drake got to his feet and glared up at the chopper. ‘We’re not running from this one,’ he said. ‘They want this fight so bad, they’re going to get it.’

  ‘My head hurts …’ Tears cut tracks through the blood on Irene’s cheeks. Tristan knelt down next to her as Drake stepped away.

  ‘Look after her,’ he told Tristan and stuck his middle finger up at the pilot of the chopper. He made sure the searchlight had a good look at his face as he led the chopper away from his friends, further down the shoreline towards the edge of the falls. Come on, you bastards.

  Drake moved his crystal hand in slow circles. Spears of pure, sharp crystal – long icicles of hard glass an inch thick – formed in the air below his spinning hand. He raised his arm, and the spears moved above his head, floating on the air. Four spears, sparkling blue, spun around his head in a fierce halo.

  He let whoever was on the chopper get a good look at the cruel crystal and then hurled his arm forward, as if throwing a javelin. The spears shot through the air and buried themselves in the guts of the chopper. One caught the spinning blades and exploded in a burst of blue fire. The chopper swerved as the pilot tried to recover, and twisted metal rained down over the falls.

  Two down in one day, Drake thought grimly.

  As the chopper spiralled out of control over the gorge fed by the falls, a figure appeared on the edge of the cabin space and leapt from the cabin straight towards Drake.

  The figure landed on his haunches, crouched like a tiger ready to strike, on the small spit of shoreline above the falls. Drake stumbled back, heading over a series of partially submerged rocks that ran along the edge of the cascade. The surge of foam and the roar of hundreds of thousands of litres of water cascading into the gorge was near deafening. The power in the falls shook Drake to his bones.

  He came to the last plateau of wet stone – nowhere to run but over the edge of the falls – and turned back to face the man who had jumped from the chopper.

  ‘What’s the matter, Drake?’ Skeleton Man snarled. ‘Don’t you recognise me?’

  He stood only a handful of metres away, his elongated arms and legs of pale, wasted flesh hanging like dead branches. When he and Drake had faced off a few hours ago, it had been at some distance. At the time Drake had thought some trick of the light had given the man the appearance of black eyes. But no … as close as they were now, Drake saw he had not been tricked by the light. Skeleton Man blinked, and crimson stars flared within the depths of his demonic eyes.

  ‘Should I recognise you?’ Drake asked.

  ‘Oh, we’re old friends.’ Skeleton Man’s voice was like rusty nails scraped against a chalkboard. He lunged, thin arms extended, and nothing but mad fire in his eyes.

  Drake took a step back – the heel of his boot stood on open air above the falls – and instinctively raised his crystal arm. Skeleton Man came to an abrupt stop, caught by an invisible shield of power, his wasted outreached hands a few centimetres away from Drake’s throat. His fingernails were sharp splinters the colour of old driftwood.

  Skeleton Man gnashed yellow teeth against split lips as he struggled against the unseen barrier keeping them apart. Drake felt him pushing against the shield, clawing forward millimetre by millimetre. He tensed his crystal arm and threw all the strength he could muster – imposing his will on the awesome power that had seeped into his mind on the Titan – against Skeleton Man.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  Skeleton Man’s fingernails drew thin lines of blood along Drake’s neck. He grasped Drake’s throat and pulled them both over the edge of the falls with a cry of mad triumph.

  Drake kicked away from Skeleton Man’s clawing grip, drawing a thin scratch down his face. The falls battered him like a ragdoll and forced him farther away from the monster.

  Drake fell, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  This is it … I won’t survive this. Drake didn’t want to die. His mind flashed to Irene, bleeding and scared up on the shoreline. I’m so sorry. And then he thought of his mother all alone in London, never knowing what had happened. He’d promised her he was coming home.

  The churning waters at the base of the falls grew bigger and bigger, and Drake closed his eyes against the impact.

  He had time to take a deep breath and –

  The fall came to a stop in a blaze of bright light and an echoing screech. Something grasped Drake’s crystal arm, and he was pulled along the falls, through mists and freezing rain, held in the talons of a glowing blue eagle. The bird that he had conjured, somehow, during the plane crash had him in its grasp. The shining wings rang with the high chime of glass against glass and soon Drake soared above the falls again. Without needing to be told, the eagle carried him back over to the rocky shore and deposited him near his friends.

  As he landed, the glowing magic or whatever the hell it was of the bird dispersed into a thousand falling sparks that seemed to get sucked into his crystal arm. A fly buzzed around his ear, and he swatted it away.

  ‘Irene!’ Drake shouted. Noemi and Takeo, just as drenched from the crash into the river as the rest of them, stood next to Tristan.

  ‘Will,’ Tristan said. ‘Your eyes –’

  ‘Stand back!’ Takeo roared, and he drew his pistol from the holster at his waist. ‘He’s taken by the madness!’

  Noemi unsheathed her katana and set herself between Drake and his friends. Drake scoffed, flicked his hand, and knocked her aside, as if he’d pushed her on the back. In a single movement she danced with the blow, spinning on one foot as gracefully as a leaf on the wind, and brought her blade to bear against his throat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Drake asked, feeling cool steel against his skin. Irene eyed him as if seeing a monster.

  ‘Your eyes, William Drake,’ Noemi said, ‘are as red as blood.’

  Over the worry he felt for his friends, Drake heard a buzzing in his ears, which increased in volume and rattled around his head like … Like the laughter of that creature from my dream.

  Overwhelming fatigue washed over Drake, and he fell to his knees, gripping the sides of his head. ‘Make it stop …’ he muttered. In the dark crystal of his arm, he saw his eyes reflected back at him. Two points of crimson light, laughing at the world. ‘Make it stop!’

  An inferno quashed his thoughts in waterfalls of blinding pain – flowing faster than the Niagara River – and he fell on his back. What had Noemi told him would prevent this? Balance … Drake whimpered and gazed up at the night sky, strewn with grey clouds like enormous cathedrals lit with ethereal moonlight, as his thoughts descended into bands of red fire.

  Irene managed to sit up as Drake fell, one hand pressed to the wound on her head gushing blood into her eye, and tried to crawl over to him.

  ‘Irene,’ Tristan said, loud enough to fight the thunderous falls. ‘You’re bleeding a lot. Just – just stay still …’

&nb
sp; Irene cursed and felt the familiar bubble of power flowing through her arms. She didn’t concentrate on what she was doing, and a surge of energy from the palm against her forehead knocked her back like a blow from a hammer. She saw stars – more stars – and felt the wound stitching itself back together, fusing the skin above her left eye and pulling at her eyebrow.

  The power sent the world spinning again, but through her right eye – the one not slick with blood – she saw Noemi approach Drake. He was writhing on the ground, mad light flickering within his eyes. She hoped that meant he was fighting the madness. Noemi knelt next to him.

  ‘Takeo, hold his shoulders,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t hurt him!’ Irene managed to blurt out. The ache pounding behind her eyes nearly blinded her. She tried to sit up again and couldn’t manage it. ‘Don’t you dare! Tristan, don’t let them –’

  Noemi cast Irene a quick glance as Takeo held Drake down, stopping his thrashing. A line of blue light crossed her lips, as if she’d applied electric blue lipstick. The Japanese girl leant in close next to Drake and whispered in his ear.

  After a long moment Drake seemed to relax. Noemi put her face over his and kissed him with her glowing blue lips. Drake bucked, as if he’d been zapped with one of those batons carried by the guards on the Rig, and the red light in his eyes flickered and died. He sighed in relief, and Noemi fell back, smiling.

  She kissed him.

  Irene felt some of her strength returning. She grasped Tristan’s arm and pulled herself up into a sitting position. ‘What did you do?’

  Noemi stood and gave Drake space. Her face was pinched in pain and she held her stomach as she rose. Drake coughed and sat up.

  Irene felt such relief when she saw his eyes. Brown and normal, if a little bloodshot. She moved in close next to him.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he rasped.

  ‘Am I OK?’ Irene swatted his knee with a hand covered in blood. ‘You stupid idiot! You went over the falls and … and … I need to wash my hands.’

  Irene crawled over to the water’s edge and dipped her hands in the fast current, washing away the blood. She still felt a touch dizzy, but at least the world had stopped tumbling around. She leant close to the water, splashed her face, and cleaned her hair of blood as best she could. In doing so, she felt a bump above her left eye – where her wound had been. Irene thought for a moment that it was a scab on the wound, but it didn’t hurt when she rubbed at it. She had no chance of seeing her reflection in the dark, swift-moving water, but it felt as if a line of scar tissue crossed her forehead, through her eyebrow and down to the corner of her eye.

  What happened? Did I … did I heal it wrong?

  ‘Irene?’ Drake asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. She brushed her wet hair down over the left side of her face, to hide the damage until she could get a proper look at it herself. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘We need to move,’ Tristan said as Irene turned away from the water and back to her companions. ‘What now?’

  Takeo and Noemi exchanged a troubled look, and the large boy stroked his chin. ‘We need transport,’ he said. ‘Come – we must get away from here and find a vehicle.’

  Drake struggled to his feet, and Irene got her shoulder under his arm to help him up.

  ‘What about that … that thing?’ she asked, running her hand over her hair and making sure the lumpy scar tissue above her eye stayed hidden. Surely it’s not that bad … ‘The creature that pulled you over the falls?’

  ‘Skeleton Man,’ Drake said, slapping his cheek a few times. He looked so tired. ‘He said we were old friends. But I think I’d remember that face.’

  Chapter Eleven

  On the Road Again

  By the time Drake and his companions had headed upriver a bit, wading across shallow parts of the Niagara and crossing onto the proper shoreline and into the town of Buffalo, emergency services and all kinds of busy vehicles, helicopters, and news vans had descended on the site of what had become a multiple aircraft crash.

  Sodden from the river and trying to look inconspicuous – not so simple when one member of the group carried a sword and another a gun – Drake’s group stuck to the road running parallel to the river. Noemi walked with a limp, but Takeo and Tristan had emerged from the crash relatively unscathed. The surge of water had swept Noemi and Takeo from the aircraft as soon as they had unclipped their belts.

  Now that the adrenaline from the crash and the ensuing fight had worn off, Drake was shivering from the cold and from the terrifying thrill of going over the falls. Buffalo was a few hundred miles from Newfoundland and Labrador. No snow had fallen, but the night air still had a fierce bite to it. He needed time to hang one of those fiery orbs before the cold turned nasty and his toes started falling off.

  ‘Hang on,’ Drake said. ‘We’re not in Canada any more, are we?’

  Irene shook her head and pointed back towards the falls with her thumb. They stood on a small, grassy hill overlooking the river on one side, with the town on the other. ‘We crashed in the United States. I guess we’re illegal immigrants or something at the moment.’

  ‘Not the worst crime on our list,’ Tristan said.

  ‘Damned if that list isn’t getting a bit long, though.’ Drake shook his head. ‘We need to get out of this cold.’

  ‘We need a car,’ Takeo said.

  Irene sighed. ‘Warm showers and a change of clothes before anything else, surely.’

  ‘Hot chocolate,’ Tristan chimed in. ‘A whole barrel of it.’

  ‘We can’t stop moving,’ Drake said, in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘Not even for hot chocolate. How are we going to get a car?’

  Takeo cracked his knuckles and pointed down a quiet suburban street at the bottom of their hill. Old oak trees thick with green leaves lined the street, and the only sign of life was a man whistling a tune and walking a golden retriever. ‘I have an affinity with machinery,’ he said.

  ‘What? You can use your power to start an engine? Is that your talent, like Noemi’s invisibility?’ Tristan asked.

  Takeo looked at him askance. ‘No, little man. My uncles in Japan are mechanics, of a kind. I will see to the vehicle.’

  ‘We got a bag full of money here,’ Tristan said. ‘And don’t you ninja folk have, like, credit cards shaped like throwing stars or something to access all that wealth and resources you were talking about earlier? We could just buy a car from the classifieds. Or rent one.’

  ‘It’s getting late,’ Irene said. ‘Where would we do that? And we’re in America now. I don’t know how well Canadian dollars spend here. Maybe this close to the border …’

  ‘I … good points,’ Tristan conceded. ‘All in favour of stealing a car then?’ He raised his hand.

  Follow the web. Drake sighed and did the same.

  Irene stood alone and shivered, her hair draped over her face. Drake wanted to put his arm around her and pull her close. He didn’t think she would appreciate that.

  Noemi clasped Takeo’s shoulder. She almost had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his cheek and give him a small kiss. ‘Be careful. We’ll meet you on the corner just down the road, by that house with the white fence.’

  Takeo nodded and swept down the hill, hiding in the shadows and moving with a great deal of stealth for someone so large.

  Drake watched him go and sighed again, hoping he didn’t steal some little old lady’s car. ‘One more for the list,’ he muttered.

  ‘Do you think the fall killed that skeleton thing?’ Tristan whispered.

  Drake watched Tristan, feeling uncertain. Something in his tone seemed off.

  Tristan’s teeth chattered in the cold air. ‘The fall would have killed him, yeah.’ He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

  Drake and his friends – and Noemi – were waiting behind the trees on the other side of the street from the house with the white fence when Takeo pulled up in a silver hatchback. They piled into the car and Dra
ke was glad to be out of the cold. The engine rattled, and the driver’s side window had been suspiciously shattered, but the car was moving.

  ‘Older vehicle,’ Takeo said. ‘Twenty-twelve model. Less security. No Alliance wireless tracking.’

  Irene huddled into the passenger seat for warmth. Drake, Noemi and Tristan were squeezed into the back – Drake in the middle, Tristan on his left and Noemi on his right. She had unclipped her katana and rested the blade across her lap. The end of the sheath rested over Drake’s legs.

  ‘Heating, please. Full blast!’ Irene fiddled with some dials on the dashboard, and a burst of cool air that quickly turned hot flowed through the vents.

  ‘Can you wind your window up, Takeo?’ Drake asked. The giant boy, squished into his seat, gave him a withering look over his shoulder. ‘Jokes, my friend. I got, like, seven of ’em.’

  Funny guy, aren’t you? We should get you a spot in the common room on Saturday nights, the voice of Marcus Brand whispered in the back of his mind. Drake flinched and ran his tongue over the spot in his mouth where he’d lost a tooth, from what he’d suffered at Brand’s hands. That beating had finally given Drake the resolve he had needed to follow the web and make his escape.

  Takeo kept a safe distance from the other cars on the road, and after about five minutes, the heat from the vents was enough to let Drake relax. They all sat in uncomfortable damp clothing and silence. Tristan was fiddling with his phone, which seemed to have taken a bit of water damage. He cursed and slapped the device against his palm. The drone was stuffed in the backpack at his feet, amidst the revolver, several thousand dollars of Canadian currency stuck together from the dunking in the river, and the strange blue portal crystal.

  No one questioned where Takeo was taking them. For now it was just good to be away from the water.

  ‘What was that bird thing?’ Irene asked. ‘It was made of the crystal, wasn’t it? How did you do that, Will?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Drake said. ‘Honestly, I’m tired of saying that, but it just happened. Take a look at this, though.’ He pulled up the sleeve covering his crystal arm and showed them all a sphere embedded above his wrist. No bigger than a marble, it shone with a calm, ethereal radiance. ‘That’s the eagle,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me how I know that, but I do. It’s a part of me – I think, if I concentrate, it could come back out.’