“Maybe we can find something to smash the glass?” Cedric said as he got to his feet.
“What?” James asked. “There’s nothing that’s not attached to Y’Luc. Lumen, ask him what we should do.”
Lumen focused what was left of her mental energy on interfacing with the ship. There was nothing. It was as if the ship was now unconscious too. “I can’t reach him. They’re blocking him from me. It’s like he’s unconscious, but his basic systems are all running normally.”
“What are we going to do?” James asked.
“Talk to Paragon,” Lumen said. “Ask them what the hell is going on!”
James held his right cuff to his mouth. “Skipping Stone to Paragon, come in.”
The cuff was silent.
“Skipping Stone to Paragon, come in, please.”
Nothing. More Silence.
“Why aren’t they answering?”
“This was their plan all the time,” Keira said in a ghostly voice from behind them. “That jolt of energy gave me a vision again.”
James, Lumen, and Cedric hurried over to the glass cage.
“Darkfeather is Alexander and me.”
“What?” James asked.
“What does that mean?” Lumen inquired.
“The reason we haven’t seen Alexander since we were on the base, the reason I’ve never been able to get near him is that if we touch it creates a time-space vortex.”
“Like a black hole?” Cedric asked.
“That’s it. Darkfeather is when Alexander and I touch. That’s what’s going to stop Nibiru.”
“But that will kill us all!” Cedric said, frightened.
“But it will stop Nibiru,” Keira said. “That’s all they care about.”
Alexander sat up and then stood to watch what was happening.
Lumen panicked. “We can’t let them do this to us. They tricked us!”
“Of course, they tricked us,” Keira said. “These cuffs are on full power right now, absorbing our powers, so we can’t stop their plan.”
“Why did your mother go along with it?” James asked.
“I don’t think she knew.”
“She kept wanting to meet with us, but that never happened,” Lumen said. “Maybe she was trying to warn us.”
“Maybe,” Keira said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We fell right into their trap.”
“Look!” Cedric said and pointed to the viewing panel.
The Nibiru object appeared, huge and spherical, and was coming closer. It was almost upon them.
“That’s impossible,” Keira said. “We were hours away from intercept.”
“How could it have drifted this close to us in such a short time?” James asked.
The wall and ceiling lights began to flash again followed by a loud siren. A robotic voice began speaking across the ship. “Warning, proximity alert. Nibiru object detected. Deploying Darkfeather device.”
The glass wall separating Keira and Alexander began lifting back into the ceiling.
“Oh my God!” Keira screamed. “Alexander, stay on your side. Don’t come over here!”
In the excitement, Alexander slumped down against the glass and began whimpering.
“Alexander,” Lumen said as she approached him on the other side of the glass. “You’re going to be all right. Just don’t move from where you are, okay?”
Alexander nodded to Lumen.
“Good boy.”
“Warning, proximity alert. Nibiru object detected. Deploying Darkfeather device.”
The floor panels underneath Keira and Alexander began slowly tilting up in the far corners, tipping them toward each other. Keira screamed again. Alexander began crying hysterically. Lumen and James slammed their cuffs against the glass, trying to break through, as Keira and Alexander began to slide toward each other.
“Guys!” Cedric yelled over the siren. “Guys! What’s happening to the object?”
As Keira and Alexander tried to steady themselves, James and Lumen watched the Nibiru object begin to separate. It looked like a giant mouth opening to swallow them up.
A huge surge of green and white energy shot out of the object and bolted through the ship. The siren stopped. The overhead lights stopped blinking. The electrical devices Paragon had installed began shorting out, one by one, in clouds of smoke and sparks. Y’Luc called out telepathically to Lumen, who ran over to her console. She pressed it in a few places.
“What’s happening?” James asked.
“Y’Luc is awake again. The energy burst overloaded all of Paragon’s equipment and brought him out of his coma.”
“Guys!” Cedric yelled again.
“What is it?” James asked.
He and Lumen turned in time to see the huge Nibiru object closing over the ship.
“What is that thing?” Lumen asked. “Are we being eaten?”
All the lights on the Skipping Stone went out.
Keira screamed.
“Y’Luc, help us!” Lumen called out. “Help us!”
Suddenly, they were floating in the darkness; the artificial gravity had failed. James felt himself bump into the ceiling. He felt Y’Luc exhaling.
“Keira, hold yourself in place,” Lumen shouted. “You too, Alexander. Press your body into a corner, and don’t move.”
“Okay!” Alexander answered from the blackness.
A loud sound came crashing through the ship as if it had just collided hard with something. Y’Luc trembled. Then there was silence. Another sound started, like a winch pulling something. The whole ship began vibrating as it moved toward the sound.
“What is that?” Cedric shouted.
The lights blinked on and with them, the gravity. Everyone dropped painfully to the floor. Lumen was terrified, thinking Keira and Alexander would touch. To her surprise, the floor panels had shorted out as well and retracted flat. Both Keira and Alexander were cowering in opposite corners of their glass enclosure.
“Y’Luc,” Lumen said. “Lift up the glass panels.”
With a whooshing sound, the glass cage slid up into the ceiling, releasing Keira and Alexander. Lumen began to run over to them and then stopped when she heard Cedric moaning behind her. She went to help him.
James stood up, rubbed his injured knee, and looked out the front viewing panel. There was a faint light coming from somewhere, but no stars or galaxies. The ship was definitely on the inside of something, something gigantic. James thought he could see movement in the faint light. Something was in silhouette, maybe a person.
The ship’s hull began to open by itself with a loud groaning sound, and the entry ramp deployed.
“Is Y’Luc doing that?’ James asked.
“No, he says something has control of the ship,” Lumen said. She was helping Cedric with a cut over his eye. Keira and Alexander were both watching James.
“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”
“But James—you have no powers. You have nothing to protect you.”
“It’s all right. If this thing wanted to hurt us, it would have done it already. Let me see where we are.”
James walked through the hallway to the sealed vestibule that lead to the entry ramp. He quickly put on his space suit and helmet. James opened the door to the ramp and then closed it behind him. Slowly he crept down into the darkness beneath the ship, the lights on his helmet illuminating the way. James turned toward a faint light to his left and caught sight of the silhouetted figure again.
He approached it.
“Welcome, James,”
“Who are you? What is this place?” James asked, his voice shaking. “What do you want from us?”
“One question at a time please. Don’t you recognize me?”
“No. Who are you?”
A light came on behind James. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the Skipping Stone was in some type of hangar made of a strange glowing substance like electric lava. He turned back toward the owner of the v
oice, no longer in silhouette.
“I’m Kun,” the alien said. “Your father.”
18.
JAMISON FELT the sweat drip down his back inside the radiation suit. He’d been pulling top secret artifacts from the wreckage underneath Fort Bragg all day. He passed the Geiger counter over a large concrete slab that was badly scorched and twisted. Jamison waved at the rescue crew and then pointed to the spot. A crane reached down and, after a few minutes, negotiated lifting the heavy concrete block. As the slab rose, a bright orange glow emanated from underneath it.
Jamison stood back. “Tell Dr. Albion I think we found what she was looking for,” he said into his microphone. “I’ll have it airlifted down to Paragon.”
The crane reached down again and gently scooped up the huge glowing hive from the twisted metal and broken concrete. The crane lowered it into a metal shipping crate. Two men in radiation suits placed the magnetic lid on, sealing it up. Another man used a stencil and yellow spray paint to mark it with the radioactive symbol. An autonomous forklift picked up the crate and drove it into a waiting freight elevator. Once at ground level, the elevator opened, and the forklift carried the crate to the back of a cargo plane that was just about to take off. The crate shimmied up a conveyor belt until it came to rest alongside other objects on their way to Dr. Albion at the Paragon Academy. Inside of it, the hive pulsed and turned. A small rupture opened in its side, releasing a flood of radioactive fluid, which leaked out of the box and into the cargo bay.
And from within the glowing hive, Paul emerged, stretched out his forewings, and yawned, letting his mandibles feel the air for the first time.
THE STORY concludes in the next volume, Twelve Heroes.
More from Andrew Demcak
The Elusive Spark: Book One
Being different is a challenge, especially for James Kerr.
He’s no average teenager. James begins to channel a dead writer’s poetry and then discovers he has the power to manipulate electricity. At the same time, romantic feelings for his best friend, Paul Schmitz, make him realize he’s gay. But he has little time to explore the drastic changes in his life before heartbreak strikes at the hands of Paul’s violent father. James is sent to The Paragon Academy, an institute specializing in juvenile paranormal research. There he meets Lumen, the mysterious daughter of a famous Korean actress. Lumen’s psychic ability might just be the thing that helps James unlock the secrets of both his poems and the origins of his supernatural talents.
The Elusive Spark: Book Two
With so many hunting her for the power she possesses, Keira Fairchild needs a friend in her corner.
On the run from the Paragon Academy and a ring of slave traders, Keira is searching for answers. Who is the mysterious alien trying to contact her in her dreams, and why is he being held captive? Keira learns she isn’t alone. James, Lumen, and Paul are teens with powers like her own—and all of the teens are in danger. They’ve been sent by their alien father to look for Keira. The kidnapped alien needs their help, and the unscrupulous Dr. Albion has a plan to rob them of their powers and destroy them. In the battle that awaits them, standing together is their only chance.
It’s not easy being Todd Williams, a fourteen-and-a-half-year-old gay musical prodigy. The bullies, Bob and Ari, at his fancy private school make his life a living hell. Todd’s drunken, irresponsible mother, Eddie, constantly embarrasses him and puts his artistic future in jeopardy. And now, his best friend, Jennifer, who plays clarinet with him in the orchestra, isn’t speaking to him. Maybe Leroy, Todd’s friendly poltergeist, knows what’s going on with her. To top it off, he can no longer rely on Jennifer’s help in the race to solve a puzzle that could lead to a buried treasure. Todd must learn to stand alone. He’s finding out that growing up is far scarier than he ever imagined.
Readers love A Little Bit Langston by Andrew Demcak
“This was a great, quick read, and lots of fun—exactly what I needed during a long hot summer day and a week of insomnia.”
—Queer Sci Fi
“Don’t miss out on A Little Bit Langston. I will be holding my breath until the sequel comes out.”
—Skye Allen
“This book started strong, and I was immediately hooked on the mystery of James’s powers.”
—Love Bytes
ANDREW DEMCAK is an American poet and novelist, the author of four poetry collections and five Young Adult novels. His books have been featured by The American Library Association, Verse Daily, The Lambda Literary Foundation, The Best American Poetry, and Poets and Writers. He has an MFA from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, CA. He is currently the Senior Collection Development Librarian for Oakland Public Library. He lives with his husband, Roland, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Website: www.andrewdemcak.org
Connect with Andrew: [email protected]
By Andrew Demcak
Ghost Song
THE ELUSIVE SPARK
A Little Bit Langston
Alpha Wave
Darkfeather
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
[email protected] • harmonyinkpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Darkfeather
© 2019 Andrew Demcak.
Cover Art
© 2019 Kanaxa.
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-863-8
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64080-864-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906002
Digital published February 2019
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
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