by Joe Ducie
‘It’s not even a question. I’m bringing her home,’ Drake said. ‘But you won’t hurt or hold my friends. I’ll do what you ask, but first Irene leaves with Takeo and Tristan. Noemi, I can’t ask you –’
‘I stay with William Drake,’ she said.
‘I’m not leaving you. We travel together!’ Irene stamped her foot and drew a line in the air with her hand. ‘Will, after everything you can’t just disappear.’
He smiled at her – infuriatingly calm and missing an arm. ‘Irene,’ Drake said. ‘I need you to follow the web. Please go with Takeo and Tristan and follow the web. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’ll see you again soon, I promise.’
And Irene did understand. She understood all too well and knew she might never see William Drake again.
‘The creature, Bluebird, promised to withdraw,’ Drake told Whitmore, not telling him how he knew that or the bargain he had struck for the city. ‘If I stopped Brand. This is close enough, I reckon.’
‘The Alliance will protect New York – for as long as we can, to give you time to do as you’re told!’
Drake nodded and took a deep breath; he punched Tristan lightly on the arm with a wink, and then wandered over to the portal. Silhouetted against the grey world beyond, Drake glanced back over his shoulder at Irene as Noemi joined him.
‘Be good,’ he said, and leant down to pick up the two glowing crystals. He gave them to Noemi, who placed them in the inner pocket of her burnt cloak. ‘Tristan, remember the plan. I …’ A marvellous grin spread across his face. ‘I love you both. Cheeseburgers and milkshakes when I get back, OK?’
Drake laughed, his eyes flashed with cerulean blue light, and he walked backwards through the portal, ducking his head at the last minute. Noemi followed.
Irene moved to stand between Takeo and Tristan, wary of the Alliance guards. Drake’s and Noemi’s forms shimmered on the other side of the portal, and a light dusting of grey snow – ash – fell on their shoulders. He waved at her.
The portal zipped closed with a loud snap and Irene gasped.
Will Drake was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Blackberry Jam
Drake emerged from the portal into a world he’d only glimpsed in his dreams. He looked back at Times Square and saw Irene and Tristan as if through a distorted lens. They looked far away, further than they should have. He waved at them as Noemi joined him and, with a sound like paper being torn, the portal snapped closed, two halves of reality crashing back against each other to seal the hole in the air.
Drake rolled his eyes and chuckled. ‘Typical. No way to go but forward. We’re being herded, Noemi, I’d bet my last pot of jam on that.’
‘Herded by what?’
‘What, indeed …’ He thought about the crystal creature, about Bluebird, and shook his head. ‘Well, Times Square went better than expected, to be honest. Tristan, you may have gathered, was a double agent. We triple-crossed his pretend double-cross by making Whitmore think it was a single cross, so he could get his hands on those portal crystals in your pocket. We wanted to force Brand through the portal, cut him off here. Better than killing him, you know, because I’m not even sure we can.’
Noemi glared. ‘You felt no need to share this plan with us, your allies?’
‘Wasn’t sure it would work. I didn’t expect to lose my arm. And Tristan took a big risk going back to the Alliance. We had the drone stream our “falling out” back to the Alliance headquarters. Used their own surveillance against them. Whitmore had to believe it, had to let Tristan in with all his data and research he’d done on me and my abilities.’
‘And I take it this excursion was not a part of your master plan.’
‘Well,’ Drake said and hated the way his voice wavered. ‘No, this wasn’t part of the plan. Neither was Whitmore offering me a job with Crystal Force, but it worked in our favour … sort of. Whitmore got what he wanted, in a way. Both me and Brand through the portal.’
‘I do not believe he intended to lose his daughter in the bargain,’ Noemi said. ‘The portal crystals have gone dull, their power expended for now. We may not have a way back.’
Drake shrugged and waved at the world around them with his stump of an arm. ‘We’ll crash a helicopter into that bridge when we come to it. For now, take a look at where we are.’
Towering pillars of twisted crystal marred the landscape, crooked teeth in the jaw of some monstrous beast, under a bruised sky heavy with grey and red thunderstorm clouds. A foul stink of burning metal clung to the air. It hurt to breathe, stung the back of his throat. Some of the pillars, rising in jagged, dusky angles, pierced the clouds and disappeared into the crimson storm.
‘Well, this is messed up,’ Drake said. He and Noemi stood on a plateau overlooking the warped and twisted crystal world, above a valley of stone ruins and a river of gushing black water speckled with sparks of yellow light. ‘Do you see Brand or Amy?’
Noemi held her hand to her nose, her face pale from the stink on the air, and her gloved hand, hiding her crystal fingers, to the hilt of her sword. ‘No, I do not. What is this place? You recognise it, don’t you?’
Drake shrugged and tapped his forehead, tapped the burn tissue in the shape of a kiss. ‘Seen it before, haven’t I? In some spooky dreams.’
‘This is no place on Earth.’
Drake had thoughts about that but kept them to himself. He had an inkling, a scary instinct, that perhaps this was some place on Earth – just not yet. He took a deep breath, regretted it as the acrid air stung his throat again, and pointed along the valley, upriver, towards a mess of tangled crystal pillars. A spire of crystal as dark as moonless midnight was buried at the heart of that mess, the sharp tip breaching through the lighter veins and crowned with ugly red cloud.
A skyscraper of pure crystal, sharp and ugly even compared to the rest of this place.
‘That looks like the Evil Overlord’s stronghold of doom to me,’ he said. ‘If I were Brand and doing the Dark Lord’s bidding, that’s where I’d head. He doesn’t believe Bluebird wants him dead, though. Uh-oh.’
‘Sweet mercy,’ Noemi breathed. ‘Are you not scared, William Drake?’
Drake felt the red fire burning just behind his eyes and in his chest. The anger and hate that would drive him mad, if he slipped. He wanted nothing more than to stop, to eat a dozen pizzas and sleep. ‘I’m too pissed off imagining how frightened that little girl must be. So, too late to back out now, Noemi. You go where I go, remember? And I’m going thataway.’ He glared into the distance. ‘How far is the tower, do you think?’
‘It looks like a bramble patch of crystal and rose thorns. It’s hard to say, but perhaps a little under two miles.’
‘Yeah, I’d say the same.’
Drake stared down at the stump of his crystal arm, still bleeding a small snowfall of white sparks. Brand will pay for that, too. He wasn’t surprised to see fresh obsidian crystal growing from the bleeding wound. His arm was regrowing. ‘You know, it’s only been a few weeks for me – all this crystal nonsense – but it feels like years. When did things get so absurd?’ He trailed away and sighed. ‘You saw me shrug off those bullets in Times Square, right? Like they were nothing. Whatever the Crystal-X is doing to me, whatever she, Bluebird, is doing to me, I don’t think it’s going to let me stop. What if …?’
‘What if you lose your mind?’
Drake nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s a worry, isn’t it? I mean, hell, who could stop me if I lost control? Carl Anderson brought the eastern platform of the Rig crashing down in his madness – and, knowing what I know now, he could still be alive. Alive and mad.’
‘The Path of Yūgen will keep you sane,’ Noemi said with conviction. ‘And more than that, you are a good person.’
‘I’ve hurt people, Noemi. People that didn’t deserve hurting.’
‘You also just stepped through a mysterious portal and into a dangerous world, chasing a monster that has kidnapped a scared child. You could have fough
t your way out of Times Square. With Brand gone, the Betrayer would have been unable to stop you. You did not give up your chance to escape because Whitmore threatened your friends, you gave it up because that little girl needs you.’ Noemi cupped his cheek and met his gaze. ‘And I love you for that.’
Drake found half a smile. ‘I’m still worried about all this power I have. It could go so wrong.’
‘Our paths have merged for a time, William.’ Noemi squeezed his calloused and bloody right hand in hers. She felt warm, sure – strong. ‘And I will see you to Japan before long. Once we escape this place with Whitmore’s daughter.’
‘Escape I can do, I think.’ His arm was repairing itself, slowly but surely, the crystal curving into a new elbow. ‘I’m gonna find Marcus Brand and beat him with this glowing stump until he breaks, and then I’m opening a door back to … to away from here. Then we’re going for milkshakes and something greasy – pizza, perhaps.’
‘Cheeseburgers, you said in Times Square. You always remain remarkably upbeat, Will.’
Drake grinned. ‘I’m tired and hungry, and somewhat armless, but I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen my entire life, Noemi, despite the mad worry. Not going to pretend otherwise. I think every kid sitting in another boring maths or science class daydreams about saving the day. In a way, I’ve won the lottery.’
‘Perhaps, but the cost is far greater than a daydream,’ she said. ‘Far greater. Shall we? There are tracks in the fall of ash, heading towards that towering crystal monstrosity. I believe, I hope, they were made by Brand.’
Drake hoped and believed, as well.
A rough path of scorched earth, strewn with nothing but flakes of ash, led down from the plateau towards the river. Noemi did not let Drake’s hand fall as they set off towards the churning river of black water. After about ten slow minutes of winding through the rubble, he and Noemi found a wider path running alongside the river. Stark, dead trees, the wood long since petrified, stood every ten metres or so, amid the ruins. The water flowing to their left, speckled with yellow light, stank of decay. The path ahead looked rocky but seemed to strain towards the obsidian spire.
‘It’s all so grey and dead,’ Noemi said. She tilted her head. ‘I sense no life here.’
‘You can … sense life?’ Drake shrugged. ‘Huh. Cool. Another of those talents I’m not supposed to ask about?’
‘Precisely. This world is dead. In New York, for example, if I opened my senses I would be blinded by the sheer number of people and living things. Here, only ash moves. I can sense you, and the occasional flicker ahead – perhaps young Amy – but nothing else.’
Drake grunted and something not quite grey caught his eye, buried under dust and loose rock. He skirted around a broken tree and kicked at the rock, clearing the mess away to reveal something familiar – something that confirmed his worst suspicions.
‘Well, bugger me.’ He needed to sit down, but worried he wouldn’t get back up.
‘What is it?’ Noemi asked.
Drake knelt down instead and pulled a faded red and blue sign, about the width of a hubcap, from under the rubble. It was ruined, scratched and dusty, and would never shine again, but the single word on a blue background, surrounded by a dull red circle, was unmistakable.
‘Underground,’ Noemi read the sign. ‘Underground?’
Drake whistled low and shook his head. ‘Yeah. These are all … all over London,’ he said. ‘They mark entrances to the Tube – to the underground subway.’
He let the sign fall from his remaining hand and gave the ruins, mostly old stone and pulverised concrete, another look. He eyed the river beyond, the curve of the land, and what might have been roads and the husks of old bridges, and a building that might have, once upon a time, been a clock tower with an impressive set of bells.
‘Will?’ Noemi’s voice was nothing but a whisper.
‘Blimey, I should have seen it sooner …’ He chuckled, but nothing was funny. ‘This was a city, Noemi. This was London.’
From the airport, Takeo drove Irene and Tristan through the city streets in a rented black sedan, and it was only then, after they were certain the Alliance could not be listening in, that they spoke freely of all that happened in New York. Irene listened, hugging her knees close in the back seat, as Tristan explained Drake’s plan – a plan that had got him trapped in a strange world, with only Noemi for company.
‘He told me pieces, little pieces, when we first got to the city and we were sitting on the steps of the library,’ Tristan said. ‘Drake knew we wouldn’t be able to escape from the Alliance in New York. All the cameras, the networks, and the people looking for us. I told him what he already knew, confirmed we were already caught.’ Tristan smiled softly as they headed east across the city. ‘So he went into Rig-mode, as if we were trapped in a prison again. He typed out a rough plan on his phone and showed it to me. Basically, the plan was to get the other portal crystal from the Alliance and use it to get rid of Brand. With Brand gone, we had a chance. I don’t know how long he planned it or whether the idea just came to him then. But it was good. Goodish. And, you know, after the Rig I was willing to trust him.’
‘I wonder why he didn’t trust me with more of this plan.’
Tristan snorted. ‘He didn’t trust me with all of it – just pieces. But look how far he’s come since we met him on the Rig. Back then, he was going to escape without us, if he could. Now, well, think about where we’re going, what he has trusted you with, Irene. For the half a year I’ve known him, there’s been nothing more important than this to him. He knows we would have gone through the portal with him, but he trusted us with this. You’ve changed him, for the better, I think.’
The look on Tristan’s face turned sad and Irene sighed. ‘I care for you both,’ she said. ‘So much. You’re the best friends I’ve ever had. We’ve all been good for each other. We’re better together.’ She paused. ‘So he wanted Whitmore to think you’d betrayed us so you could get close to him?’ Irene chuckled, but clutched her knees hard, worried about Drake and uncertain about what came next. ‘You were like a super spy. A double agent?’
‘Something like that. Either way, I was pretty cool. I mean, not “slapping someone with their own severed hand cool”, but still pretty cool.’ Tristan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘And I don’t think it was about trust, really, why he didn’t tell us more of the plan. He wasn’t making it up as he went along, but he was reacting to a lot of things he couldn’t control. The plan was fluid, random. He was juggling a hundred flaming knives, blindfolded. But Drake is so clever, Irene. I meant that, when we had to pretend to fall out on the balcony so the Alliance would buy it. They were watching through the drone. Sorry, by the way, about what I said.’
‘You are forgiven,’ she said seriously, and squeezed his hands. ‘He is clever. You were right about that. Clever and so very recklessly dumb.’
‘I mean, it’s like he never sees a problem he can’t face, a wall he can’t climb. A trap he can’t escape. He did the same thing he did on the Rig with Warden Storm. Instead of trying to outsmart the problem he outsmarted the man – or men, I suppose – creating the problem. Storm didn’t see it coming and neither did Whitmore or Brand. They expected something smart, but got clever instead. Drake, he’s … scary.’ He paused. ‘Actually, recklessly dumb fits perfectly. Heh.’
Irene hugged Michael Tristan as the car left the main road and wound down a series of alleyways. ‘Call him Will, all his friends do.’
‘He’ll be back, you know,’ Tristan said, fiddling with his phone. ‘Ah, finally found the network.’ He reached into the backpack at his feet and switched on the Alliance drone. ‘And when he does get back, the whole world is going to know his name. Not as the terrorist, but as the boy who stood up to the Alliance and what they did on the Rig.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Irene whispered. Takeo had spoken little since fleeing New York, but she knew his people in Haven had kept Yūgen a
secret for centuries. What they were about to do would blow the lid right off that.
‘Will wanted it, Irene,’ Tristan said. ‘Drag them into the light, he said. Although with a bit more cursing.’ He took a deep breath and held up his phone. ‘Hit send and all the footage the drone recorded, from the train crash to him stepping through the portal in Times Square, will be uploaded to the internet. I missed the dinosaurs at the museum, but I got him falling from the helicopter as Brand shot him. It’s incredible footage, and with what happened in Times Square they won’t be able to deny it. He saved the city. You want to do the honours?’
‘Won’t the Alliance pull it down? They own all the social media sites and stuff.’
Tristan shrugged. ‘Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever. People will share this a thousand different ways, through the old Bluetooth networks and in the deep web. In about thirty minutes, Will Drake is going to be the top trending name in the world. The Alliance can throttle the internet, do their worst, but in the end it’ll be like trying to hold water in a sieve.’
Irene considered, and then nodded. ‘Whitmore will be furious.’
Tristan grinned. ‘Good.’
‘Just hit send?’
‘Just hit send.’
Irene hesitated, thought of Will and hoped that, wherever he was, that he and Noemi, and Amy, were safe. She couldn’t afford to dwell on the fact that he was lost. I’ll see him again. He’ll find a way to escape.
She pushed send on the phone and Tristan slipped the device back into his pocket.
‘Can’t wait to see the fallout,’ he said, as the car pulled onto a side street full of tightly packed terraced houses. The road was narrow, bordered with cobblestoned sidewalk and green hedges.
Takeo pulled over and put the car into park. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Two doors down on the left,’ he said. ‘This is the place.’
‘Maybe you should go first,’ Tristan said. ‘Explain the situation.’