by Jon Jacks
The Wry Man is simply watching all this with an amused grin. He’s not the least bit anxious that he could end up losing this battle.
He thinks he’s already won, doesn’t he?
What?
I can’t hide my surprise, my confusion.
Did I just hear that right?
He thinks he’s already won; but he hasn’t!
Yes, I did hear that right.
It’s Adam – and now he’s inside me too.
*
Chapter 29
Wow, I never realised it would be so amazing being an angel!
I never realised being an angel would be so crowded!
While these two have their little chat, I’m concentrating on avoiding the huge ballbearings Graham is continuing to fling at us. Either that or use my own balls of light to shatter them before they get close.
Maybe we should get out of here!
But Adam isn’t listening to me. He’s still too wrapped up in his amazement that we can pick out the smallest objects on the ground, even when flying so high.
You can see all the pieces of crystal! They weren’t destroyed in the explosion! They were all just scattered over a greater distance!
Wow, let’s take a sightseeing tour, should we? And on my left, we have...
No, no: I mean you have to start destroying the crystals, Amina! Now!
I can’t think why the pieces of smashed crystal are so important. But it’s quite easy to spot the glowing crystals. It’s also easy to instantly obliterate them with a focusing of nothing more than a thought, a converging of both light and gravity that over excites the crystal lattice.
Suddenly, the balls of metal being flung by the whipping waves of steel aren’t reaching so high anymore. The waves themselves aren’t curling as high as they were only moments ago either.
The power of the crystals comes from their interference of the light and gravity fields. They’re quite easy to sense, even when they’re far away, even when small and otherwise hidden. A thought of contracted light and gravity sends them wildly vibrating, forcing them into self-destruction.
As more and more of the crystal pieces snap out of existence, Graham’s power begins to wane. The waves of flowing metal are now relatively small. He’s back on the ground, the wave he was riding no longer capable of supporting him.
Even the Wry Man is starting to look a little worried.
Just as a hologram continues to exist in every piece when it’s smashed, scattering the shattered crystals has simply spread the power of the interfered gravity field!
Then we need to destroy every one!
There are few pieces left. The Wry Man at last looks like he’s making an effort to help Graham fight us. Glancing up towards the section of the row of wrecked cars looming over him, he’s causing them to slide and move as if readying himself to fling them at us.
The semi-flattened wrecks shuffle like a giant’s cards. Then, losing energy, begin to slide over each other, the huge pile leaning and toppling.
With the shrieks of grating steel, they crash down – burying the Wry Man beneath their great weight of contorted metal.
*
He must have been weaker than he thought!
Don’t take any chances: get rid of every last piece of crystal!
We don’t want him suddenly throwing everything off! Like you see in the movies!
Tracing the very last piece of crystal, I send it quivering, shaking, shattering into pieces far too small to cause us any trouble. Then I swoop down, heading towards the crumpled pile of cars: we need to check that the Wry Man has actually died.
Something massive and heavy suddenly barges into my side. It knocks me way off to the side, my wings briefly crumpling under the agonising impact.
Before I can gather my wits, another equally huge chain of rust-covered links bludgeons into me from another direction. It whips me up into the air, like a bird with broken wings.
The cranes! Graham’s using the cranes!
We forgot all about Graham!
But all the pieces are destroyed! He shouldn’t have any power left!
The scrapyard boasts three towering cranes, for lifting the wrecks into place. Now they’re writhing as if alive, as if made of the most flexible material ever invented.
Their chains lash out at me like whips, each strike more painful, more damaging than the last.
I plummet towards the ground, landing on the hard earth with bone-jarring impact. Before I can move, the metal of the nearby wrecks snakes out towards me, coiling around my already irreparably damaged wings like rapidly spreading vines.
I’m trapped. No matter how much I struggle to free myself, I can’t move.
Withdraw the wings! We sprouted them; we can pull them in!
I can’t, I can’t! They must have suffered too much damage!
‘Obviously, my dear girl,’ a voice sneers, growing louder as the speaker unhurriedly draws closer, ‘you missed a piece!’
Unfortunately, it’s not Graham.
Its the Wry Man.
*
Chapter 30
‘I saw you...saw you crushed beneath the cars!’
Even as I say this, I realise I’m wrong. I can see the pile of toppled cars.
Alongside it, I can also see a broken pair of spectacles.
Graham’s spectacles.
‘Hah; you swapped places with Graham, didn’t you?’
He nods, grins.
‘There was too little power for us to continue sharing it.’
‘And the crystal piece I missed? Where’s that?’
He chuckles.
‘Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’
‘Actually,’ I say, tiredly, ‘I’m glad there’s one last piece: otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to do this.’
I think Adam into existence.
And he stands before me.
He looks shocked, even angry.
‘Amina! You shouldn’t be wasting your–’
I think Chloe into existence.
And she stands before me.
She’s even angrier than Adam.
‘Amina, you idiot! We can’t hope to beat this guy now!’
She’s right.
I’m no longer an angel, of course.
At least, I’m no longer bound by the metallic coils that had wrapped around my wings. I rise to my feet, shrugging off the agony I still feel in every bone.
Fortunately, it seems, being an angel has saved me from suffering the very worst damage; but I’m still painfully bruised.
And that’s when I realise where the very last piece of crystal is.
*
Chapter 31
I couldn’t sense it earlier, of course.
It was veiled from me, by the interference of light and gravity caused by my own angelic body.
The crystal was just one more, smaller source of interference hidden amongst much greater energy fluctuations.
It’s the crystal that originally killed Chloe.
The piece I’d slipped into my pocket.
I withdraw it, stare at it in wonder. If only I’d known earlier that I still had it on me.
The Wry Man chortles merrily.
‘Oh dear; so you’ve found it? But thankfully, you’re no longer capable of destroying it.’
He holds out his hand expectantly, waiting for me to hand it over.
Pearl chooses that moment to open the small door in the gates and stride into the yard. She’s no doubt wondering why it’s all gone so quiet in here.
Everyone briefly glances her way, even the Wry Man.
When he turns to face me, he frowns irately when I show him that my hands are empty. That I’m no longer holding the crystal.
‘But where did you–’
His voice is fading. His whole body is fading.
Dissolving. Pixilating.
I’m not telling him how I destroyed the crystal, of course. I remain tight-lipped.
His face contorts
through stages of confusion, anger – fear.
And then, at last, he’s no more.
*
Chapter 32
‘How...where’s the crystal?’
Adam asks the question, but I can see by the expressions on Pearl and Chloe’s faces that they also want to know how I managed to destroy the piece of crystal.
‘I suppose my stomach acids are getting rid of the very last of it,’ I say, giving them a less than beatific smile.
Crunching the crystal has made a complete mess of my once amazingly gorgeous zirconia teeth.
*
‘How’d you know your teeth would be strong enough?’
Again, this might be the question the girls would also want to ask. Then again, they might have preferred to ask how I could do such a thing to such perfectly beautiful teeth.
‘Calcite is a polymorph of calcium carbonate with a Mohs hardness of three – oh, did I just say that?’
I’ve no idea where that thought came from, where I’d learned that fact.
‘Oh no, Amina!’ wails Chloe. ‘Letting Adam take up residence for a while has instilled a bit of Graham’s geekiness in you!’
‘I think by geekiness she means intelligence,’ Adam grins, slipping his arm around my waist as we walk out of the scrapyard.
‘Come to think of it: how did Adam come to take up residence? He couldn’t have had a soul – could he?’
‘Well, obviously he’d acquired one,’ I answer, having briefly wondered this myself.
‘You can’t just acquire a soul – can you?’ Pearl says, frowning doubtfully.
‘Maybe you can if someone has given up their right to theirs.’
‘Graham? You mean Graham?’
I nod.
‘And it’s a good job too, of course; as it’s probably only because of your souls that you’re all still here. Despite every last piece of the crystals having been destroyed.’
I reach into my pocket, this time withdrawing not a crystal but Graham’s glasses. I’d picked them up before leaving the yard.
I slip them onto Adam’s face, messing up his hair as I do.
‘There,’ I say proudly, even though I accompany it with a broken, doubtful grin. ‘Now if the eyesight of Graham’s parents is as bad as his, you might be able to pass off as their son.’
‘Not unless he ditches the leathers he won’t.’
‘And how’re we going to tell our parents that, Hey, you know what guys? We’re actually still alive!’
‘You figured out how to defeat the Wry Man,’ Adam says. ‘So you can figure out what to tell your parents.’
‘You know what?’ I say. ‘No matter what excuse we give them – they’ll just have to live with it, won’t they?’
End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Coming Soon
Queen of all the Knowing World