It crashed through the window, but Elliot raised a hand and knocked it sideways with ease, merely taking a single step back. At his side, the cabinet slammed onto the floor, filling a large portion of the corridor. Jane took a sharp breath; she had barely startled him. Glancing over her shoulder, Jane saw on her left another seating area with a small desk in front of it. It was only ten feet from where she lay. Feeling exhaustion overcome her at having to use her powers yet again, Jane got up and ran toward the front of it, dropping down and placing her back against it. She knew it would do no good to hide from Elliot, but she had acted on instinct. She stared straight ahead, taking deep breaths. Then, after a moment, she peered around the corner to face him. The cabinet she had thrown rose into the air beside him. Elliot didn’t take his eyes away from where she sat as he hurled the object in her direction. Jane ducked back behind the desk as the cabinet crashed into the row of chairs behind her and she was pushed forward violently. She lost her breath for a moment, but the desk remained intact. After a few more seconds, she fell back against it.
Ahead of her, about fifteen feet away, Jane saw the double doors from where she had—perhaps stupidly—entered the corridor. Can I reach them? she wondered. If I focus on creating a shield behind me, I can run for them.
Just as she had this thought, a searing sound filled the corridor. Glancing around, she opened her eyes wide when she found the source: Elliot was sealing the door shut. The metal frames around the edges of both sides had turned a molten orange color under the heat. Jane watched as the metal cooled and the traces of smoke faded. Then she heard him again.
Just come with me, Jane. Make this easier. He wants to see you.
Jane’s eyes darted around the small space in front of her. Bracing herself, she glanced back out toward the left side of the corridor where Elliot stood, then turned back toward the now-fused set of double doors. Can I still break through it? she wondered. Hearing Elliot’s footfalls slowly approach from behind, she knew she had little choice left. Jane decided to bolt for the doors, hoping she would be strong enough to open them.
Just as she was about to move, the light behind her became blazingly bright and the hall was illuminated by that same stark, eerie blue that she had seen shine from Elliot’s eyes. Holding up her hand against this new illumination, Jane felt herself grow dizzy. She had used all her energy to conceal herself, and now all she could think of doing was resting. Still, she refused to give in, and she focused. In her mind’s eye, she glanced down the corridor to see that Elliot had created a sphere of glowing energy just above his palms. It hovered there, and in the light that enshrouded his features, Jane saw a trace of a grin on his face. If she ran for it now, he would fire that ball of energy straight at her. She knew he was probably picking up on her thoughts. Still, could she stick to her plan? Could she make it to the door, smash it open with her power, and shield herself from the blast of energy that would no doubt come from behind? If it hit her, she knew that would be it: game over.
Jane was going to find out, she realized, as she found herself already moving into a kneeling position, one fist clenched against the floor and the other grasping her knee, her eyes focused on the door. As she readied to move, Jane glanced behind her one more time. The blaze of light illuminated her features. Then she took a deep breath and resumed her focus straight ahead.
Just when her muscles had primed her to jump, there was an explosion in front of her. The motion was so intense, she found it hard to keep track of what occurred. Both sides of the door were blown apart, ripped from their hinges and sent flying past Jane down the corridor. Some of the tiles lining the walls were ripped away, and several other objects flew with them. Jane reached up her hands to shield her head, but as she heard the various pieces of debris fall to the floor, and then as all grew silent around her, she realized there was no need. Looking up, she saw Max standing just beyond the entrance to the hallway his hand stretched toward the open space where, just seconds ago, the door had stood solid, sealing her in.
Taking deep breaths of relief, Jane felt exhilaration at the sight of him. She watched in awe as Max stepped into the corridor, his cloak fluttering in the new breeze that blew over them down the open hall. She glanced behind her to see that the light from the ball of energy in Elliot’s hands had dimmed, and his look of confidence had vanished. In its place, he had clenched his jaw. An expression of deep concern crossed his eyes.
How did I not detect you? Jane heard Elliot say with a snarl.
Do you really think I can’t shield my mind from yours?
Still glancing behind her, Jane watched as Elliot reeled at the sound of Max’s booming telepathic voice. Indeed, as she turned around and looked up at his towering presence, her jaw gaped open too; she felt electrified. She found herself turning to look at Elliot once again. The ball of energy in his palms sputtered. He dropped his hands to his sides in hesitation, and the energy disappeared.
Glancing back up at Max, Jane frowned, as she saw a trace of apprehension on his face. She was still on one knee, glancing between the two of them. Max continued walking toward her through the corridor, and as he passed her, he spoke to her.
Stay where you are, Jane. His voice was flat and grim.
Jane kept her eyes on him as he passed her, walking slowly, his cloak drifting behind him. As Max moved along the hall, Elliot took a tentative step backward. Max was an incredibly imposing figure, towering in height as he approached the young teen. Elliot hesitated, but then, once again, brought his hands together. Another ball of energy grew there, quickly expanding to a diameter of six inches. Elliot held it in his hands and looked back up at Max. With a desperate, defiant glare, Elliot flicked his hands forward and the glowing sphere of energy flew from where he held it.
It zoomed toward Max at what seemed to Jane an impossible speed. Her attention was drawn to Max’s feet, as a ripple spread out from where he stood. It was as though the surface he walked across had transformed into a thick liquid that moved quickly to encompass the area around Max as he continued moving forward. Then, as the ball of energy was about to reach him, it halted almost completely in its rapid trajectory, appearing to virtually stop. However, as Jane looked, she saw that it was still moving, just much more slowly. Jane checked her own hands, turning them over, but nothing had changed in her vicinity; time was moving normally where she was.
Jane’s jaw gaped open at what she saw next, and at the realization of what was going on. Max had created a sphere of altered time around himself. This new, transparent bubble rippled as Elliot’s sphere of energy intersected it. Then, as casually as one might climb a staircase, Max lifted his right leg toward the wall on his right. As though gravity had shifted, his left foot followed and his hand slipped out of the path of the ball of energy, which missed his fingers by inches. Now Max righted himself and continued walking upright against the corridor’s right wall. The sphere of energy moved across the space where time had been altered, then resumed its rapid trajectory. Jane whipped her head around just in time to see it fly through the open doorway. It exploded somewhere in the room beyond, sending a barrage of flying debris back through the exposed opening. Jane easily deflected it by deftly raising her arm and erecting a shield.
As the pieces of broken wood and metal fell around her, Jane got down on both knees and turned back to see the spectacle unfolding in the hallway behind her. Max continued walking along the wall; it appeared that he had, indeed, shifted the gravity in the immediate vicinity to accommodate him. His gait was confident and defiant. As Max drew closer to the center of the hallway, Elliot’s body language shifted. His gaze darted around the dark interior, the light from his eyes having dimmed to such an extent that Jane just barely saw them. Elliot’s chest rose and fell as he took deep breaths, and Jane resisted the urge to smile as he squirmed. Finally, his gaze settled on something. Jane heard the sound of clattering metal before she saw what it was. In the far left corner, behind where she hid, was a stretcher just beyo
nd her eyeline. Now it was flying through the air and heading straight toward Max.
Jane took a sharp breath as the stretcher tumbled through the hallway at high speed, spinning end over end, its careening, haphazard motion speaking of Elliot’s frustration and fear. Max stopped walking. His feet still held firmly to the side of the wall and his body protruded outward from it toward the center of the corridor. When the stretcher was within two feet of him, Max raised his hand with lightning-fast reflexes and the object froze in midair. After a moment, it began twirling very slowly.
Still watching, her breath coming faster now, Jane saw a white light glow from Max’s palm. She squinted as this new glow filled the hallway. The stretcher was quickly bathed in this same light. A moment later, Jane heard the sound of grinding metal as the object collapsed on itself. Within a few seconds, the entire structure had coalesced, and in its place was a bright, spinning ball of light.
Max looked up at Elliot. Do you think you can hurt me, child? he asked, his telepathic voice booming—cold and dripping with an ancient, serious tone that Jane had heard only once before.
As the blaze in his hand diminished, Jane saw that some new material was swirling there. When the light dimmed further, she saw it was the very metal of which the stretcher had been composed. Then, with a cracking sound, the swirling motion stopped and the ball of metal suddenly became solid. Jane’s brow creased as she thought about this. She surmised that Max had taken all the matter of which the object was composed and transformed it into this sphere. She guessed it was only four inches in diameter, and she imagined it could do a lot of damage; no doubt it was extremely dense.
With a flick of Max’s wrist, the sphere flew from his hand and toward Elliot, moving at a speed that seemed impossible to Jane. She barely had time to register what followed. Elliot raised both hands, where the dim bubble of a shield appeared. Almost simultaneously, the ball smashed against the barrier that Elliot had barely had time to construct. The sphere ricocheted off the shield and exploded upward through the ceiling. Jane heard several more explosions, and eventually, a final one as the sphere presumably burst through the roof and continued on its trajectory.
Her curiosity piqued, Jane reached out with her telepathic senses, looking upward and searching for the sphere. It was nowhere nearby. Scanning further, she finally found it with her mind’s eye; it was high in the sky, and as best as she could tell, it was nearing the upper atmosphere. As it escaped earth’s gravity, her psychic reach could track it no longer and she let it go, returning her attention to the hallway.
Glancing down, she saw that Elliot had fallen to the corridor’s left side and that Max had resumed his slow, predatory pace toward him. With a psychic scream so loud she thought it would blind her, Max spoke again.
I AM ETERNAL.
The walls trembled and Jane winced. Then the shaking stopped and silence resumed. Jane watched as Max reached out a hand. The wall behind Elliot made a cracking sound. After a few seconds of pressure, it buckled outward and exploded, sending large blocks of concrete flying into the open air beyond. Jane heard the heavy debris distantly crash onto the road below.
Elliot was standing once again, backed up against the open space from which a new gust of wind blew through the hall, sending Max’s cloak billowing backward. Jane gazed at the two of them, her eyes wide open as she realized that the scene before her was one of the most unusual things she would see in her life. However, this thought left her quickly as she realized, by his body language, just how desperate and scared Elliot was. Though she was relatively young, Jane knew one thing for certain: People did desperate things when they were scared. She shook the thought from her mind, but it was too late. His eyes had locked on hers; he had found the weak spot that had been right there from the moment Max had entered.
Jane could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as the blue flares of light rapidly returned to Elliot’s eyes. Before she knew it, the tiles lining the walls were exploding around her. She screamed and used her hands to shield her head, but she knew that at this point she may not be strong enough to stop them. From her peripheral vision, she saw Max twirl toward her, still firmly fixed to the corridor’s side wall.
“Jane!” he yelled.
Still grimacing as the tiles pelted her arms, Jane peered upward. There was no time to warn him. She watched as Elliot reached out both hands like clamps. Max was frozen solid. His neck arched back, and his body seemed strained as he was caught in Elliot’s grip. The tiles beneath his feet cracked, and for a moment the light from Elliot’s eyes became almost blinding. Jane saw that Max had managed to turn his head only a few degrees—he probably would have thrown Elliot onto the street if he’d had just one more second—before the wall beneath him imploded, crushed by the weight of Elliot’s power.
The tiles around Jane had stopped falling, and she took a deep, terrified breath. She let her hands fall to her sides and she kept her eyes on the gaping hole in the wall, beyond which she saw nothing but blackness. Despite every other emotion running through her, tears threatened to fall first. She stood up and disregarded the fact that Elliot was now turning back toward her with a new confidence—and rage—in his gait. Jane glanced at him for a moment, then returned her attention to the room beyond, where she had heard Max fall. There had been the sound of a secondary impact, where he had presumably crashed into a wall, and then falling remains, but nothing further. Max had not gotten up.
“Max!” Jane yelled.
No response. She looked at Elliot again, and saw him grin. Jane turned back toward the hole in the wall.
“MAX!”
Nothing.
A tear streaked down her cheek, and now she felt her right hand burn as it had done before. Jane looked down at it and saw a small ball of light glowing inside her palm, just below the bones of her fingers, which were now becoming visible underneath her skin. She winced as she stared at it. It seemed that a cauldron of emotion was bubbling inside her, and the most primary feeling was rage. Her hand grew hotter, and then there was a searing sound—not of heat, but of some other, mystical energy, and it permeated the entire hallway. Jane groaned but tried to ignore the pain. A few seconds later, she could feel nothing but the fire that burned in her hand and the rage that pulsed through her veins, almost clouding her vision.
Get her.
Jane’s head jerked up to face Elliot, her eyes wide open. This voice had not come from him, but she had heard it distinctly, in a way she would not have been able to previously. These words had been spoken by the one directing Elliot—Zatera. Zatera Stri. At the mere thought of the name, Jane gritted her teeth and new anger flared within her.
For a moment, images flashed in her mind of a presence that had lived for millennia, that had conquered worlds and run empires, that had slain both people and races. However, she had no interest in seeing these things anymore, and as someone might sweep dust from a floor, she cast them from her mind.
As though she was no longer in control of her own body, Jane watched as her right hand rose in front of her. When it was perpendicular to her body, her palm flicked upward. Then she felt the power—which heretofore had remained locked almost completely in her unconscious mind—work through her. The light in her hand became brighter, and new incandescent reflections beamed throughout the hallway. Cracking sounds filled the corridor as a blue, crystal-like substance formed along the walls. It seemed to come from nowhere, and it covered every inch of the surface.
Jane’s eyes were glowing with white light, but she saw clearly with her psychic vision, and she sensed fear coming from Elliot in waves. As she realized that the full reach of this vast new power stretched much further, she looked deep into Elliot’s mind. She leafed through his past as one might look through the pages of an old book. For a moment, she reveled in this newfound strength.
So that’s what this is for, she thought, and her lips curled into a smile.
The crystal had now spread across half the hallway, encrust
ing the entire area, from floor to ceiling, with the glinting mass. It was spreading toward Elliot when he decided to act. Instead of simply throwing him, Jane reached out with the power and clamped onto his shoulders, fixing his arms firmly in place. Then she searched for the psychic tether connecting him to Zatera. She found it and followed it.
Seconds later, Jane found herself dashing across the city, through the buildings, and then she was flying over the water. Soon, she was at the tower. She moved through the thick outer wall near the base, and then she was inside it and looking directly at Trey—though she knew it was Zatera who was staring out from those eyes. He gasped as he looked up; their gazes locked for a moment, and she grinned at him. Jane reveled in his reaction, watching as his eyes grew wide and his mouth gaped open in shock.
Then Jane pulled her senses back into the room and released her grip on Elliot. Quickly, she scanned the road below with her newly enhanced senses, knowing that she wanted to shock Elliot enough to convince him to break off his pursuit without injuring him severely. Knowing exactly what she had to do, Jane sent a pulse of energy through her hand and across the space between them. It appeared as a wall of white light, cascading rapidly down the walls, covering them from floor to ceiling. Elliot raised his hands, but he could do nothing to stop the enormous wave of force Jane sent toward him. The energy hit Elliot and he was thrown out into the night, disappearing with barely a yelp.
Jane followed him in her mind’s eye and watched as he fell on top of a red car—exactly as she had predicted. He quickly righted himself, jumped down, and ran—faster than he had ever run in his life—away from the direction of the tower. Zatera would hold no influence over him now, for Elliot had been touched by a tiny sliver of the very power he was seeking. Tremendous fear would overwhelm his senses for a long time to come, and any further attempt to gain control of him or manipulate him would be a waste of time.
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