Crystal Force

by Joe Ducie

  Drake smeared another piece of toast in a good quarter-inch of blackberry jam and chomped down on his breakfast. The flood of taste from the jam almost brought him to tears.

  I’m gonna skip today. Stay home with Mum, do a few jobs around the house. He coughed some crumbs from his throat. Go and check out the Alliance warehouse district again and see if I can find the medicine she needs.

  A sharp stab of pain above his eyes made him wince. He saw a flash of burning buildings – a policeman falling and hitting his head on a concrete kerb – and the pain burrowed deeper, as if someone had driven a metal spike through his forehead.

  Drake blinked, and his mother sat across from him at the table, wearing a floral summer dress and smiling at him. Her eyes were full of life – vitality. It had been so long since he’d seen her looking well that for a moment, he failed to recognise her, but her short brunette hair, her brown eyes and warm smile were all too familiar.

  She held a mug of coffee in her hands. Steam rose in lazy circles before her face. ‘Everything OK, Will?’ she asked. ‘Do you need a headache pill?’

  Drake glanced to the counter. The dozens of medicine bottles had been removed. The dishes had disappeared. Some time had passed. He frowned and pushed his plate of toast away. The pot of jam had been replenished, the surface of the spread undisturbed. ‘What’s … all this then?’

  ‘Did you enjoy your breakfast?’ She sipped her coffee, and her eyes seemed to catch the light and sparkle like blue crystal. ‘I could make you some bacon and eggs, if you like. Streaky bacon?’

  ‘I don’t think I should … should be here.’ The pain above his eye felt a lot less like a headache and more like a bullet to the brain. He saw a flash of New York City sunlight, the blades of a chopper rotating against the thin clouds, a pretty redhead, and one bastard of a wasted, living skeleton.

  He remembered.

  ‘You’re not my mother,’ Drake said. ‘You’re not human.’

  The creature wearing his mother’s face smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes – which now shone a dull crimson. Behind that smile Drake thought he saw something else, something … a flash of surprise.

  ‘Well, that was unexpectedly quick of you. You may struggle to sort your thoughts out for a moment, Will. I’m knitting the damage back together swiftly, but this is the only way we can speak.’ She placed her mug down on the table hard enough to slosh coffee against the wood. ‘Far too early in the game for you to retire, William Drake.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Drake held a hand against his forehead. What seemed like litres of blood seeped between his fingers, down his face, and pooled onto the table. He could feel a metal parasite burrowing into his skull. A hot marble fired from an ugly silver revolver. ‘Brand … shot me. Brand’s alive!’

  ‘My toys, fighting amongst themselves.’ The creature waggled her finger back and forth. ‘You have far too much work to do, William – you and Marcus Brand both – before I’ll let you die.’

  ‘Let’s pretend for a moment I have no idea just what the hell is going on …’

  ‘You’ve been drafted, my son, to fight the good fight. I’ve gifted you with my radiance so we can turn this world into a paradise. An Eden, if I can use the local vernacular. It sure is a long walk back there, William, but you’ve got the resolve to see us through.’

  ‘OK. Sure. But a skeleton asshole just shot me in the head.’ He has Irene. ‘And I’m not entirely sure I’m alive. Is this … am I dead?’

  ‘Close enough, but we’re joined at the hip, so to speak. My blood is your blood.’ The creature laughed, and its cheeks split, revealing dark crystal speckled with electric blue light. ‘A minor inconvenience. You’re not playing in the real world any more. Here there be monsters and magic and resets. But, until things change, this is the only way we can talk – on the borders of consciousness. Eat your breakfast, while I fix that pesky bullet to the brain.’

  Drake’s plate was overflowing with blood from his head. ‘What are you?’

  ‘For all that matters, William Drake, I am your god. And you do not get to die before you’ve presented me with the proper tribute.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ Drake asked through gritted teeth.

  The creature that looked like his mother grinned. It rose from the chair and walked around the table until it stood next to Drake. It leant down until they were eye to eye. Drake could smell his mother’s perfume, lilac and jasmine.

  ‘I need you to break me out of prison, William Drake.’

  The creature pressed its lips against Drake’s forehead, against the bullet wound, and sizzling hot pain blinded Drake to all else. His mind reeled. He fell back through a haze of pounding red light and left the blackberry jam behind.

  Sunlight burst through the red, the kitchen disappeared, and a fast wind whistled past his ears high above New York City.

  Still reaching for the chopper, Drake spun in the air, stared absurdly at Tristan’s Alliance drone still following him all the way from the apartment, and then got a good look at the street rushing up to meet him at about a million miles an hour.

  The memory of his mother’s kitchen and the creature was fresh in his mind, and it felt as if someone had pressed a branding iron against his forehead, but he was – somehow, impossibly – alive.

  And falling.

  Come on, magic angel wings. Or that bloody eagle! I’ll take the eagle!

  Nothing, magic or otherwise, appeared to slow his descent, and Drake laughed as he fell alongside the Empire State Building in a spin. A fountain of blue sparks burst from his arm, wild power, useless and hot. The street, so far below and yet getting closer, would kill him just as swiftly as the bullet to the head should have. Alive but not for long. Dead twice in the same swift minute.

  Drake shouted and clapped his hands together.

  His crystal arm erupted with cords of thick blue light. The light became liquid crystal and swam through the air in a hundred different directions. Tentacles, snakes of living light, slammed into the buildings of New York City. Drake was wrenched upward, as if he’d deployed a parachute.

  The splashes of light surged back over against the skyscrapers, both above and below Drake, like a set of waves about to crash against the shore. The waves clutched onto the sides of the buildings, great pillars of blue light gripping the glass and concrete, hardening from liquid light to solid, and formed a slide of smooth, almost ice-like crystal.

  The light caught him, no more than a dozen metres above the street, and he was swept along, the slide carrying most of the speed from his fall. The chopper had disappeared from sight.

  Drake slid along the crystal, wild memories of the Slip ’N Slide at East London Leisure running through his mind as Fifth Avenue blurred past his head. The light ran ahead of him in loops and curves, and Drake began to wash off a bit more speed. The ride made him dizzy, but he couldn’t help but marvel at what was happening. He spun in a loop and glimpsed the drone still following his progress, swift and sure.

  One turn threw him from the slide, along the length of glass windows that formed the wall of some office complex. He caught amazed looks from the men and women inside and flashed them a grin before the light caught him at his back again and curved down towards the street.

  Five seconds later, Drake slid over a rise in the crystal and slowed. The rise gave way to a final spiralling slide of hardened blue light and he stumbled forward, his feet hitting the sidewalk, and almost fell flat on his face amid a crowd of surprised onlookers.

  ‘Whoa, kid!’ said a young man in baggy jeans and a cap, standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, according to the sign and the library across the street. ‘Dude, that was straight up Spider-Man!’

  Drake steadied himself and swallowed hard, checking his body for cuts or broken bones. What felt like a bumpy line of scar tissue above his left eye was all that remained of Brand’s shot to the head. His crystal arm was on display for the whole world to see, but apart from a few developing bruise
s, he seemed to be in one piece. He’d seen the public library out of the corner of his eye. He confirmed where he was – Right back to the start – and took a deep, nervous breath that turned into wild laughter.

  He looked back down Fifth Avenue just in time to see his network of crystal waves and web-like slides shatter into bright light. A million sparks fell like snow. They landed harmlessly on the street, on cars, and on New Yorkers, who shook them off, some laughing, before the sparks faded away.

  ‘What’s up with that arm, man?’ the guy on the corner asked.

  Irene.

  ‘Looks cool.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, you want to buy a wallet? Real leather, man.’

  The Alliance have her … again. Tristan, you little idiot.

  ‘No, thanks. I don’t need a wallet. I need to kill Marcus Brand.’

  ‘You in a movie or something, with that arm? Special effects, man. Lights all up and down town. You sound like you’re not from around here.’

  Drake took and a deep breath and exhaled with all the patience he could muster. His forehead burned and his bones ached. He’d lost Irene to a monstrous madman who had shot him in the head, and a creature from another world was wearing his mother’s face.

  He licked his lips, tasted blackberry jam, and needed to take a moment on the kerb. The drone hovered just above his shoulder, attracting a few curious glances, before abruptly hovering away, downtown and after Tristan on the chopper.

  A few minutes later, Takeo and Noemi pulled up beside him in the silver sedan, and Drake cursed before getting into the car.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dinner with the President

  The helicopter landed on the roof of a skyscraper that dominated the cityscape of downtown Manhattan. The tall spire of a building was constructed of dark metal, with windows of thick, tinted glass the colour of polished sapphires. A cool breeze stung Irene’s jaw, which she was sure was broken, as she was offloaded from the chopper by the masked soldiers, who shoved her along behind what was left of Marcus Brand.

  He killed Will.

  ‘Irene …’ Tristan said. She glared at him through her tears and he fell silent. He was ushered aside by the masked guard.

  Irene was pulled under her arms, her feet dragging across the helipad. A shock so numbing it dulled the pain in her jaw had sent her head spinning. Off in the distance, out in the harbour, she saw the Statue of Liberty and dozens of boats floating around the landmark. Such a sight seemed far too normal. The world wasn’t normal. The world was arctic prisons, glowing crystal, murder, chaos, heartache, betrayal, and the world was full of monsters who would laugh as they shot kids in the head.

  Irene was led over to a set of metal doors. Brand thumbed a button next to the doors. They slid open on smooth rails, revealing an opulent elevator with stained wooden walls and a rich velvet carpet. Irene felt a warm burst of air from within the car, and she began to cry – from stress, sadness, anger, she didn’t know.

  ‘Welcome to Alliance HQ,’ Brand said. ‘Get in.’

  The doors slid closed, leaving Tristan with the chopper pilot on the roof.

  Irene was taken to a room a few floors below the roof. The soldiers opened the room with a swipe card, shoved her into the corner suite, and slammed the door behind her. Irene couldn’t see a lock. She tried the handle and it didn’t budge.

  Locked away again.

  The room was nicer than the cells on the Rig, but it felt far more dangerous. Large windows made up two of the walls, overlooking the streets of New York towards Central Park and the apartment she had been hiding in not half an hour ago. A single bed and cabinet made up most of the room, across from a couch and television. A small kitchenette with a kettle and mini-fridge connected to a washroom.

  Irene stepped into the washroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Her jaw felt as if someone had filled her mouth with sharp nails, or she’d been stung by a nest of angry wasps. Every movement and breath sent sharp bolts of agony shooting through her skull and down her back.

  The wind had swept her hair out of her face and revealed the patch of scar tissue over her eye. Irene’s lips quivered as she fought more tears, tried not to think of Will Drake, and gently cupped her chin with her hand. She hesitated a moment before summoning the gentle crystal power, worried it could go wrong again, but once the cool light touched her skin, the pain in her jaw faded away.

  Irene sighed and slowly rotated her jaw clockwise. She tapped her teeth together and squeezed her cheeks. The pain was gone, and her jaw was healed. A tear escaped her eye and ran down to her lips, salty and bitter.

  ‘Remarkable,’ said a voice from just outside the washroom.

  Irene jumped. She hadn’t heard anyone enter the room, and yet standing in the doorway was a face she knew all too well. He wore his trademark reflective sunglasses, hiding his eyes below a smooth and shiny mane of silver hair, and grinned with teeth white enough to blind. Irene struggled to recall a day where she hadn’t seen this man splashed across TV, magazines, newspapers, and the internet.

  ‘You’re …’

  ‘Yes.’ Lucien Whitmore smoothed the front of his dark suit, worn with a black shirt and midnight blue tie, before clasping his hands behind his back. ‘A pleasure, Miss Finlay.’

  Irene swallowed and held a hand to her throat, uncertain and afraid. ‘If you want me to help you get Drake, it’s too late … not that I’d help anyway.’

  Whitmore stepped back from the doorway and gestured with his hand for Irene to leave the washroom. Irene caught the scent of his cologne – a strong scent that reminded her of oak and snowfall – as she moved across the room, keeping her distance from him and placing the couch between them.

  ‘I am here to help you, Irene – ah, forgive me, may I call you Irene?’ Whitmore chuckled and ran a hand back through his silver hair. ‘To bring you in from the cold, so to speak. You must be tired, given the events of the last week.’

  ‘I’m not tired,’ she said. ‘I’m angry and … and Brand shot Will in the head! Brand killed him!’

  ‘Ah yes, unpleasant business, that,’ Whitmore said. ‘When Marcus emerged from underneath the ruins of the Rig, mutated and … powerful … I almost had him put down. Keep a rabid dog on too short a leash, and he’ll bite you eventually, I suppose.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ Irene muttered and brushed her hair down over her ugly scar. ‘He’s a murderer.’

  ‘The world is full of murderers,’ Whitmore said. ‘Keeping my prisons full and profitable. I didn’t destroy Marcus Brand, my dear, because his madness serves a purpose – it is directed solely towards one young man.’

  ‘Towards Will.’

  ‘Yes. Will. William Drake. A name that has come across my desk more than once in the past eighteen months, given his fondness for escape. A useful skill – one that, in any other circumstance, I’d put to work.’ Whitmore stared out of the window for a moment before turning back to Irene. ‘What is he like? Tell me about William Drake. I have only heard from his enemies, I wish to hear from his friend.’

  ‘What do you care now?’ Irene screamed, and her voice cracked. ‘He’s gone …’

  ‘Sit down, Irene Finlay.’

  ‘I’d rather stand.’

  Whitmore shrugged. ‘Do as you like, but do not waste my time. Every second of my day is worth twelve hundred dollars – that’s thirty-five billion a year. So understand I do not spend that time frivolously or on people that cannot offer me something of value.’

  Irene hesitated, sensing a threat in his words, and sat gingerly on the edge of the couch next to the window, still keeping about half the room between her and Whitmore.

  Whitmore smiled. ‘Wonderful. Now, I’m going to ask you to attend a party of mine tonight, Irene, and before you say no or … perhaps something even less polite, hear me out. Attending this party will help young Mr. Drake, and afterwards, you have my word that you are free to go.’

  ‘You’re not listening. I can’t help him. Your man shot him in the head and h
e fell!’

  ‘And a week ago, the fall alone would have killed him as surely as it would kill you or me, but the game has changed, hasn’t it? William Drake is more than human now. Do you honestly think, given all that he’s done so far, that something so crude as a bullet could stop him?’

  Irene felt a rush of something she didn’t dare accept as hope. ‘You weren’t there. I saw him fall –’

  ‘You’ve also seen him fly.’

  Irene bit her lip, crossed her arms, and stared out at the city. How am I going to get out of here?

  Whitmore’s pocket started ringing. He pulled out his phone and smirked. ‘Excuse me. I need to take this.’ He held the phone to his ear. ‘You owe me two helicopters, Mr. Drake,’ Lucien Whitmore said. ‘And an oil rig.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Scarred Kisses

  Back in the apartment, Drake brushed past his allies and locked himself in the washroom. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror, splashed his face with cold water, and fell back onto the rim of the bathtub with a weary sigh. ‘Irene …’

  ‘William Drake.’ Noemi knocked on the door. ‘Speak to me. What happened? Where are Miss Finlay and Mr. Tristan?’

  ‘Just give me a minute. I was shot in the head.’

  ‘You … no, I –’

  He could feel Noemi hesitate for a moment, and then her footsteps disappeared down the hallway. Drake squeezed the rim of the bath with his crystal hand and the marble cracked under the strength in his limb. A handful of fractured stone and dust fell to the floor.

  He stood up and looked in the damn mirror.

  Above his left eye, touching his eyebrow, was a crooked scar in the shape of a kiss, as if the creature wearing his mother’s face had also been wearing dark lipstick.

  ‘Well.’ He swallowed. ‘How about that for a kick in the teeth?’

  The scar looked like an old burn, soft and almost shiny. He ran the fingers of his good hand over the smooth tissue and suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Brand had shot him dead, well and truly, and whatever was under the Rig – alien or not – had brought him back from the brink using the power in the crystal.