by Jon Jacks
So my intentions were clear after all. I might as well ask outright if it’s possible,
‘All I want to do is give life back to my friends; the life you took from them.’
‘But if you recreate them, my dear, does that mean I haven’t fulfilled my contract?’
He raises his eyebrows archly, like he’s discussing an imponderable moral dilemma.
‘Graham: would you release him from that part of his contract?’
I look to Graham hopefully.
‘You said it wasn’t your intention to have Chloe and Pearl killed, after all,’ I add.
‘Of course,’ he answers after a short, thoughtful pause. ‘If only to see if you really can achieve this!’
I hope you know what you’re doing, Amina!
l look to the Wry Man, wondering if he really will allow me to try and revive Pearl and Chloe.
He gives his consent with a silent wave of a hand and a lowering of his head.
‘If you really are so desperate...’ he says.
Yes, yes; I’m desperate!
But what if this goes wrong!
I close my eyes, think only of all the wonderful memories I have.
I want Pearl back like I’ve never wanted anything else more.
As I open my eyes, Pearl comes into life before me.
*
Both Adam and Graham look amazed.
The Wry Man, naturally, is simply amused.
Pearl however, is even more amazed than either Adam or Graham.
And so is Chloe.
You did it! I can’t believe it! And didn’t you fail science?
Pearl rushes towards me, throws her arms about me.
Kisses me time and time again on my cheeks
‘Oh my God, Amina! How am I going to explain this to Mum and Dad?’
To anyone! But who cares? Me next, me next!
Yes, yes; Chloe next!
Wait, wait!
What’s wrong?
You know how I had a little trouble with zits now and again, well could you...
Chloe!
Okay okay; but remember my sparkling green eyes, right?
Did you really...?
Amina! Just do it!
*
‘Amazing, amazing! And my hair’s still wonderful – and you’ve give me a zit!’
Chloe halts her elated twirl as she feels a small spot on her chin.
‘Chloe!’
‘But my eyes; have I got my sparkling green eyes back?’
She looks excitedly about her for a mirror.
‘You never had spa – wait, you have, you have!’ Pearl turns away from Chloe to petulantly pout at me. ‘Amina! Why didn’t you give me sparkling green eyes?’
‘You two! Honestly!’
‘We’re only kidding!’
‘Are we?’
‘There there; all things restored!’ the Wry Man says gaily. ‘Everything happily back to as it all was before...well, before I came into existence.’
He smiles, yet still manages to appear irredeemably malicious,
‘You know,’ he adds, glaring at the crystals. ‘I think this machine is dangerous, don’t you?’
With the shattering shiver of breaking ice flows, a crack appears in the crystal along the very area where the Wry Man is intently staring.
The crack grows rapidly, the sound of shattering growing with it until it feels like it’s your own head that’s splitting apart.
The crystal slabs completely splinter, exploding outwards towards the room’s glass windows. As the uncountable pieces of crystal shatter the glass, flying out into the air, the whole of the machine begins to explode, taking out even the walls of the room.
‘Quick, we need to get out!’ screams Chloe.
*
Chapter 25
As one – strangely enough – we all dash for the door, Adam following on close behind.
Out in the hall, we head for the staircase, rushing down the steps as fast as we safely can.
Behind us, the explosions continue. The whole building rumbles and quakes. The steps quiver, the metal railings shrieking,
There’s going to be nothing left of Graham’s machine. Nothing, even of the room.
Glancing behind me, I realise for the first time that neither Graham nor the Wry Man are following us.
It might be an awful thing to hope for, but I hope they’re still there; still in the exploding room.
It would solve so many problems so conveniently.
Too conveniently. I can’t believe it’s all going to finish so quickly and easily.
The Wry Man caused those explosions, I’m sure. Which means he must have known he would survive them.
For the first time, Chloe and Pearl are running for their lives alongside me, rather than expecting me to do all the physical work for them.
Maybe now they’ll realise it’s a lot more exhausting than it looks!
*
As we throw ourselves with relieved groans onto the university’s lawn, the explosions are still continuing. They’re taking away almost the whole upper corner of the building we’ve just fled.
Already, people are gathering to watch. In the distance, sirens are blaring, the emergency services on their way.
‘We need to get out of here before the police start asking questions,’ Pearl declares, surprisingly rising back to her feet remarkably quickly.
‘How’d we survive that?’ I ask with a relieved grin at Adam as we help each other to stand.
‘Because he wanted us to, I’m sure!’
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. But I was hoping no one else would agree with me.
‘Chloe?’
Chloe’s lying face down on the grass, Pearl concernedly leaning over her and giving her a gentle shake.
Pearl glances up at us, her face contorted with fear, her eyes brimming with tears.
‘Chloe’s dead!’
*
Chapter 26
‘How can she be dead?’
‘She just ran out with us!’
We kneel down alongside Pearl, hoping she’s made a mistake.
Perhaps Chloe’s just been knocked unconscious, probably when she dived onto the lawn.
When we carefully turn her over, however, we see the blood around her heart, the small piece of sharp crystal embedded in her chest.
‘When she dived on the lawn,’ Adam says sadly, ‘she must’ve landed on it.’
Chloe dead?
Again?
Pearl glances up at me, her eyes sparkling with hope.
‘Is she...?’
I shake my head.
No; she’s not inside me again.
And suddenly, Pearl’s weeping. She never wept, of course, for Chloe the first time she died.
She’d never wept for herself either.
But now, now it seems so much more like a real death, in ways it hadn’t before.
I’m crying too now.
Adam draws closer, places a comforting arm around my shoulder, pulls me in towards him.
‘We have to go...’
‘But Chloe: we can’t just leave...’
Chloe’s body seems to shiver, until I recognise it’s the effect of disintegrating, dissolving particles. In less than a second, her body has gone, leaving only a small, unbloodied piece of crystal on the glass.
‘Does that mean she never really...?’
I don’t want to complete my question – existed. Adam understands my concern however.
‘No, I’m sure she did; but now her soul has gone, completely gone.’
I pick up the piece of crystal.
‘Such a small thing...’
Pearl rises to her feet, drying her face.
‘We have to go,’ she says resolutely. ‘We need to work out how we’re going to rid ourselves of this Wry Man!’
*
‘He tricked me, didn’t he?’
I have to be honest with myself about this.
The Wry Man had be
en unnerved by the unexpected presence of Chloe and Pearl within me.
It had given me an extra boost of physical strength. He might have feared that it had also given me other powers that might threaten him.
He’d somehow used Adam, at first, to try and persuade me to stop believing the girls were still alive. Maybe he’d even worked through Adam to block off the girls from talking to me.
When that hadn’t worked, he’d used me. My own vanity. Letting me flatter myself I could recreate Chloe and Pearl.
And the Wry Man, of course, had aided me every step of the way.
Once we were separated, we were just normal girls once again.
So much easier to kill. To remove anyone who might cause him problems.
‘But why didn’t he kill us all? In the explosion, I mean?’
‘Because; I don’t think he really wants to kill you.’
Adam pulls a thoughtful expression, like he’s been trying to work all this out.
‘Think about it,’ he continues. ‘Graham loves you; sure, he hates you for turning him down, humiliating him – but he wants you to be impressed by him, maybe even fear him for the power he has over you, rather than continuing to see him as this ridiculous geek.’
‘So you think he’ll leave me alone?’
‘No; to fulfil everything I’ve just said, he knows he has to remove anyone he thinks is keeping you from him. Friends, maybe even family.’
‘Let’s not forget, too, that he’s sending kids’ souls to this monster.’
‘But is he? Sending them to himself? It’s more likely this was originally some way of distancing himself from the Wry Man’s murderous actions; by kidding himself he’s a victim too, being forced to make these “payments”.’
‘None of this, of course, helps us work out how we’re going to defeat them; Graham and this Wry Man.’
‘What do they do in the movies?’ Pearl asks. ‘You know, like setting up some sort of power backfeed?’
‘Or maybe destroying the mother-ship?’
‘No need to be sarcy; I’m only trying to help.’
‘Sure, sorry; I’ll try and be positive rather than negative.’
‘Hey, would that work? Changing the charg – oh, sorry, sorry!’
‘You know what?’ I say resignedly. ‘I think we really are just going to have to kill Graham!’
Betcha missed me, right?
‘It’s Chloe!’ I cry out happily to Pearl and Adam. ‘She’s back!’
*
Chapter 27
My wings flap powerfully, effortlessly.
As natural as breathing.
I soar over the town, looking for any signs of the Wry Man and Graham.
I’m so high, no one on the ground should see me. Sure, anyone flying past might catch a glimpse; but they won’t believe what they’re seeing.
An angel, sparkling in gold and silver. My wings vast and incredibly beautiful.
Where have you been? I’d asked Chloe with relief when she’d at last appeared within me once more.
I needed time; time to work out just what an angel’s capable of.
And then I had grown my wings. I had shone as if made of sunlight.
‘Wow, why can’t I have hair like that?’ Pearl had breathed excitedly. ‘Life’s so unfair!’
Now, from high in the air, I’m seeking any signs that will point me to the Wry Man. I can see the ground clearly, my vision remarkably clear and precise.
Not that I need it.
Spotting Graham is far, far easier than I thought it would be.
He’s finally recognised that he’s acquired a whole host of unusual powers. And he’s enjoying himself, treating reality as he would some easily manipulated game-scape.
Thankfully, he’s in a quiet part of town. One that’s mainly empty this time of day, when everyone’s at work or school. Added to that, he’s in a scrap yard, one mainly full of old cars, but also strewn with other chiefly metallic junk.
He’s bent quite a few of the scrapped cars into elaborate shapes, like modern sculptures.
He’s acquainting himself with his new skills. Getting used to them.
Obviously, he no longer fears that someone might notice him and call the police. Which is worrying; he must already feel pretty confident.
I let Adam and Pearl know where Graham’s hanging out.
Using the miracle of cellphones, of course.
Well, I suppose even angels have to move with the times.
*
I land gracefully a few steps away from Graham.
He not only looks surprised, but also completely awestruck.
‘Amina? Oh my God! Amina! You’re more beautiful than ever!’
He begins to stride towards me as if expecting to take me up in his arms. To lift me up off my feet, to whirl me around in jubilation.
Stay right there!
It isn’t me who says that. It’s Chloe. And Graham can hear her.
‘Chloe?’ He chuckles happily. ‘You were wrong,’ he says calmly, turning towards the Wry Man. ‘She did come back.’
The Wry Man shrugs, like it’s no big deal, no big problem.
But the Wry Man can get things wrong. That’s interesting, surely?
‘Maybe you’re going to have to finish her off after all: your girlfriend, I mean.’
Graham looks mortified by the Wry Man’s suggestion.
‘No, no; not the gorgeous Amina.’
He turns to face me, his expression one of complete innocence.
‘I could never hurt you, Amina. Well, not unless I absolutely have to, obviously.’
‘So, my dear: what is it you’re actually expecting to do here?’
The Wry Man smirks, as if he knows I haven’t had the chance to work out how I intend to end all this.
I’m hoping, I suppose, that I can rid us all of the Wry Man while somehow ensuring Graham lives – even though there’s a side of me (particularly one called Chloe) that thinks he doesn’t deserve to.
‘You’ve been brought into existence by an interference of the light and gravity fields,’ I say to the Wry Man.
He nods, an impressed expression on what passes for his face.
‘That, I presume, is Adam’s take on all this? Rather than your own?’
Why are we explaining all this? Just kill him!
Adam said the more he fears what were capable of, the weaker he’ll be.
Oh, and Adam’s suddenly our only brain, is he?
I nod graciously in reply to the Wry Man’s question.
‘And what is an angel but an interplay of light and gravity?’
The Wry Man breaks into a mock yawn.
‘Adam again! You really must learn to think for yourself, girl!’
Amen to that!
I agree. The talking is over.
I hurl a ball of condensed light towards the Wry Man.
But, thanks to the stupid warning I’ve just given them, Graham is ready for it.
The rows of stacked, wrecked cars lying either side of me abruptly warp into waves of flowing metal. The metallic waves swiftly curl around me, some wrapping closely about me. Others take the flying ball of light into their whirling motion, sending it flying off uselessly into the air.
With a whip of my wings, I leap into the air, flying up and out of the rapidly constraining grip of the coiling metal waves. The waves briefly follow me, ascending higher and higher like writhing serpents. Eventually, the coiling waves run out of energy or metal to draw on, becoming ever thinner. At last, they start dropping away like exhausted giant beanstalks.
I try to hit the Wry Man with another orb of sheer light, a condensed gravity field compacting even light and sound waves.
Again, though, Graham uses his control of matter to spin flowing streams of metal protectively around him. The curling waves absorb and redirect most of the sphere’s force, redirecting and dragging it along into their own movement like a child on a waterslide.
The orb explodes, disinteg
rating only the metal around it. It’s too far away from the Wry Man for him to suffer any damage.
‘Isn’t this amazing, Amina?’ Graham chuckles elatedly. ‘I dissolve the linking gravity field, restoring a new one of my own choice!’
There are other, more urgent cries, this time coming from the scrapyard’s large, wooden gates. The small door in one of them opens. Adam rushes into the yard, Pearl closely following behind him.
‘Stay away,’ I yell out a warning. ‘He’s more dangerous than–’
Graham takes advantage of the distraction. Not to hit me, but to strike out at the one I’ve just displayed so much concern for.
He doesn’t even bother making it an elaborate attack either. He simply warps the piles of wreckage Adam is running by, de-stabling them enough to send them crashing to the ground everywhere about him.
Then as an old steering wheel shaft snaps and breaks free in the chaos of screeching metal, Graham propels it towards Adam’s heart. As fast and as deadly as a spear.
The bar of speeding, rusted iron effortlessly skewers Adam.
He falls, his death so swift he doesn’t even have time to express any shock on his face.
*
Chapter 28
I told you we should have killed Graham!
She’s right.
I’m about to swoop down to Adam’s side, even though I don’t think there’s anything even I can do for him. Thankfully, Chloe senses in my movement what I’m intending to do.
No! We’ll only make ourselves an easy target.
She’s right again.
The main thing now is avenging Adam; and yes, that means killing Graham!
‘His death’s all your fault, Amina!’
Graham is shouting at me. He’s almost at a similar height to me now, having risen up high on one of his soaring waves of flowing metal.
‘You should have chosen me, not him!’
Glancing back down towards the wooden gates, I’m relieved to see that at least Pearl has taken the sensible course and ducked back through the door. There’s nothing she can do here.
She would be the next to be killed if she stayed.
Amina! Fly!
Without waiting to ask why, I surge forward with a sharp snap of my wings. Behind me, a globe of metal whooshes through the air.
Graham has worked out another way of using his talents. Although he can’t reach this high with his flowing metallic rivers, he’s discovered he can make them whip like slings, throwing separated spheres of flowing metal.