The children brightened. A small boy piped up. “Is the experiment over?”
The Professor nodded. “For tonight at least. When we find Sarina, we might try again.”
“Where is Sarina?” It was Lena. “Is she okay?”
The Professor looked down and smiled at the girl. “She went for some fresh air while we practised. She’ll be back soon. You’ll see her soon, but now, it’s time to go. Don’t worry, we’ll soon find another way to get Nathan.”
He ushered the group of kids to the two agents, who led them out to the waiting mini-bus.
When the warehouse was empty again, the Professor turned back to look at the collider and wiped his brow. He glanced up at Valkrog, and wondered if he was imagining the laughter in the creature’s eyes as they tracked him. Dealing with the creature would have to wait. He needed to find Sarina. Where was she? Had something gone horribly wrong?
He looked back at the machine, then up at the creature. They would be safe enough. He strode to the door Agent Blanchard had forced entry through earlier, and out onto the street.
~~~
At that moment, Sarina was steadying herself against a wall, some distance from the warehouse. She was pretty sure it wasn’t the best thing to be doing—a twelve-year-old girl to be wandering around dark and deserted streets at night—but then again, not much of her life was normal right now. Especially that last thing. Walking away from helping your friends was hard enough, without being struck out of the blue by a vicious image of writhing oversized snakes crawling all over you, dominating your entire mind, along with a bone-freezing wave of dread which flooded your body from head to toe.
Paralysed with fear, the vision had forced her to stop and lean against a wall, until both the horrific images and the sensation had passed.
But she knew the exact source of the problem. The Professor had obviously gone ahead and tried to construct the portal without her. Her guilt at not being there clutched at her heart, but ... who knows how her brain would have coped? Or not. She stood straight and took in a deep breath. To go on? Or turn back and help?
Rona’s words seared through her head:
‘I believe in asking for help. My accident happened at a dark time in my life when I had become withdrawn and I cut off from sharing my thoughts and feelings with those around me. I believe when we share, we care. If I had been able to share my issues—my blacking out and the dizzy spells—then I would have gained the help I needed. I am grateful that my art was able to show me the way forward and shine a light on my path, as it does today.’
Was this a sign?
She thought of the dreamer-kids, trying valiantly in the warehouse to reach Nathan, despite that horrible creature staring at them; and suffering the nightmare of the snake pit. Wasn’t she supposed to be the mighty Orange Witch? What had happened to her newly-found inner strength? Would she ever feel it again?
She remembered Paolo. Would he have walked out on his friends? He certainly wouldn’t have cowered in self-pity. He would have tried hard, until he ran out of all options. If she chose not to help now, could she really live with herself?
Perhaps it was about time she confided in the Professor. Perhaps it was about time she confronted herself—and stopped hiding behind the fear of going crazy.
She turned around.
~~~
Professor Harrison reached the end of the next block, but he could see no sign of the girl. He could go no further. Leaving the collider unguarded was one thing, but leaving the bird-creature was another. He turned back and walked quickly down the empty street, and strode back into the warehouse.
Where he stopped in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening! A pile of severed ropes. The bird-creature was gone.
“Missing something?”
He whipped around. “Sarina! Thank goodness you’re safe. What happened?”
“I slapped myself around the head and listened to the advice of a new friend. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when the rest of the kids had that awful snake pit vision.”
He looked at her sharply. “You saw that? Without an Intensifier, or being connected to them?” She nodded.
He blew a low whistle. “Impressive.” He slapped his forehead. “What am I thinking? The creature has escaped and I’m standing here being curious about your strengths? What an idiot I am. Listen, Sarina, while you weren’t here and before the kids showed, Makthryg sent a message through Valkrog. He has Nathan.”
Sarina looked at him, aghast.
He felt his face tighten. “I’m afraid it gets worse. Unless I instruct Valkrog in the use of the collider, he will kill him.”
“How does he know about the collider? And now he’s escaped, what do we do—Oh!”—she clapped her hand over her mouth—“The kids. Where are the kids? Are they okay?”
He nodded. “I sent them back to the lab with Agent Blanchard. Safest place for them. As for how Makthryg knew about the collider ...” he shrugged. “Perhaps Nathan told him.”
Sarina shivered. “Let’s hope he didn’t torture him for it.”
The sudden silence was broken by his phone ringing loudly from his pocket. He pulled it out and looked briefly at the screen before bringing it to his ear. He looked at Sarina. “It’s Blanchard calling now. Yes, Blanchard? Fire away.” The voice in his ear spoke urgently, terribly. “No, I understand. You did what you could. Let me think. I need to secure the machine first. I’ll call you back shortly.”
He walked over to the crate, sat down and exhaled.
“What is it, Professor?” Sarina walked over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder.
He looked at her and felt his eyes betray his anxiety. “Valkrog obviously knew where the lab was. He has the kids held hostage on the bus. He has threatened to ... to harm them, if I do not do as Makthryg requested. This time with no tricks. Any tricks and both Nathan and a child die.”
He stood. “This is not your fight now, Sarina. I must secure this device and go and offer myself to Valkrog in exchange for the children. As long as he lets them go, I will gladly sacrifice myself to save them.” He looked down at her. “And you, and Nathan. I will find a way to bring him back.”
Sarina looked up at him with her chin jutted. “Professor.”
He frowned. “What?”
“You’re forgetting something. Something a very good friend of mine in the other world once reminded me about. ‘We have the Orange Witch,’ he said. Well, we still do. It’s as much my fight as yours, Professor. Neither Nathan nor Paolo would have rested until they had tried everything possible. I came back here to tell you I would do what I could, or I would be the one to be sacrificed. I was going to tell you about a problem I have ... one that runs in my family—and I will tell you later, but right now, we have to rescue those kids.”
He smiled at her. “Brave words, Sarina, but—”
“I’m just a twelve-year-old girl?”
“Well, I didn’t mean it quite like—”
“It’s okay. Anyway, I learned something from Nathan when we were last in Paolo’s world.”
He creased his brow. “What’s that?”
She smiled up at him. “Always have a plan.”
He held her at arm’s length and studied her face. “I too, have a lot to learn from you both, Sarina. Tell me quickly while I secure the collider and we’ll call Agent Blanchard.”
She nodded and watched the Professor move about the collider and the cage. “Do you know about my fight with Valkrog?”
He looked up and nodded.
“I’m pretty sure I don’t have those powers—to control the cold plasma, I think Nathan called it—in this world, but I do know one thing. Valkrog would do anything to take revenge on me. Even if it meant disobeying his master. You saw that look he gave me.”
“Do go on.”
“Why don’t we lure him away from the kids? Just long enough for your men to get them to safety. I’ll distract him, and you and Agent Blanchard can capture him.”
He fiddled w
ith the clasp on the cage. “A high risk plan, Sarina. You place yourself in the hands of everyone around you.”
Sarina looked at him. “No more than they have done for me in the past. Look, Professor. What is higher risk? Letting that thing control your machine and have the dreamer-kids be at his mercy? Or blind it with revenge? I know that creature’s desires better than anyone else in our world. It will work.”
He nodded. “As much as I hate to put you in that position, I think you are right. It could be a chance to distract him. Let me call Blanchard, I’m sure he is itching to take action.” He picked up his phone from the crate and punched the numbers in.
“Blanchard. Where are the creature and the kids? ... Good. Tell him I am on my way. Have your agent ready on your signal to pull the kids out of the bus and into the building and secure them. We’re going to provide a distraction. And, Blanchard? ... Be ready for a fight.” He listened for a while, then hung up.
He looked at Sarina. “Valkrog apparently flew in as they entered the building’s underground car park. That’s where he is now. He is in the bus with the kids. Blanchard and the other agent are covering them. We are expecting some of Blanchard’s team to arrive, but they’ll take longer than us. So for now, it’s just us. If we manage to capture the creature, then we’ll have a counter-bargain to save Nathan.”
If we can ever open a portal again, he thought.
“Professor?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me something? If we are successful?”
“Try me.” He smiled.
“Will you make sure I get to the National Young Artist’s Competition Finals?”
He smiled again. “Sarina, if we are successful, I will make them come to you! Now, let’s get out of here and teach that creature a thing or two.”
~~~
They pulled up outside the steel-barred, floor-to-ceiling automatic gate that lowered at night to secure the car park’s underground entrance. Sarina quickly got out and moved away from the barrier, and waited for the Professor to join her.
She looked at him, and felt the tension in her jaw. She would do her best to save the kids—or die trying. She took a deep breath; let it out, then whispered to the Professor. “I’ll wait here then? You and Agent Blanchard get him to the gate. I’ll make him angry, and that’s when you’ll release the gate by remote. Agent Blanchard will jump the creature, and you and the other agent will free the kids. Is that right?”
The Professor nodded. “That’s the plan. Your plan actually.” He sighed. “Sarina are you still sure—”
She pressed her finger up to his lips and whispered. “We will win. Those kids are depending on us.”
“Sarina, wherever you get your courage from; we need to bottle it. Good luck.” He walked to the gate and didn’t look back.
If only you knew what it was like on the inside, she thought as she moved away into the shadows and waited while her legs slowly turned to jelly.
The Professor grasped two of the vertical bars of the steel-latticed gate and pulled them roughly to and fro, making a loud clanking noise that echoed around the empty underground car park. “Hey! I’m here. Let the kids go. They’ve done nothing to you, they’re just children.”
A vicious laugh rose up from the ramp behind the gate. “I see you came to your senses. The children mean nothing to me. I do not care if all, one ... or none, survive. But you do. And it is by your actions that they will judge you. Besides”—the rasping laugh came again—“I have one who is special to you. Or had you forgotten?”
Sarina shuddered. The creature was trying to use Lena as a bargaining chip. She hoped the Professor would not cave in and give himself up to save his daughter. But she needn’t have worried. He showed masterful control.
“I understand you wish to return home, Valkrog. I will not stand in your way. We have no desire to imprison you in our world. But you must realise we have conditions. Harm a hair on the head of any of our children and you will find us worthy adversaries, who will see you dead.”
“I am already as good as dead. My power is fading; for what reason I know not. I need your machine to take me back to my Master. He will make me whole again, as he has before. Attack me at your peril; your children will be the first to die.”
Screams drifted eerily from the car park as the kids listened in, and Sarina grimaced. Surely the Professor would have to use their signal soon? He was treading on dangerous ground.
“First you must come to the gate and show me the children are safe.”
“You take me for a fool. Open the gate and give yourself up.”
The Professor banged the steel barrier and it shook, echoing its rattle in and out of the building. “The building is in a lockdown and your attack escalated our security precautions. This gate remains closed for a minimum period. Of course, if you wish to wait ...”
An angry screech blasted through the opening. “I will not release any children until YOU come to ME.”
The Professor shrugged. “Then our deal is already rotten, through and through.”
Her cue!
The Professor stepped aside quickly and flattened himself against the wall on one side of the gate. Sarina moved forward a little. She pushed her shoulders back. Time for some of her best acting.
“Valkrog! What’s the matter? Are you scared?”
“What is this?” The voice hissed.
“Do you wish to die, alone in our empty cave? For that is what you have just ordered for yourself.”
She heard low muttering and hissing.
“Witch! What trickery is this?”
“No trickery, Valkrog. They have ordered me to pursue you, since you will not release the children. Which I will do with a flick of my hand. I believe you have felt the Orange Power burn you before?”
She heard more cursing, then the metallic tapping of talons against concrete. It was working. Valkrog was coming up the ramp. She steeled herself. Now she had to really provoke his anger. “Ha! I see you come to your senses. You have come to surrender—”
“Nothing of the sort.”
The creature appeared in the dim light behind the gate and Sarina could not prevent a gasp escaping. He had Lena clutched in his hand. She flicked her gaze at the Professor, who could not see what she was seeing, and widened her eyes momentarily. He raised his shoulders in a tiny shrug. He had no idea what she meant. She would have only seconds longer to keep up her act before the creature realised she was bluffing.
She sneered. “You bring a child as protection, Valkrog. How weak. How pitiful. Then you will both die!” She raised her hands as if to cast blasts of crackling orange at the creature, who in a fit of snarling rage had punched the rails of the gate, making a metallic crash reverberate across the dark and empty streets. It was her signal.
The Professor pressed the remote in his pocket and the gate began to lift.
At the same time as Lena bit heavily on Valkrog’s amputated finger stump, and then ran back inside.
The creature let out an ear-splitting screech and clutched his hand, but also began to stagger forward to Sarina, who still had her hands raised.
As soon as Valkrog was through the gate, the Professor slipped through the gap and raced away down the ramp, and into the darkness.
Leaving Sarina with the creature.
She had one last possibility. Backing her hands up even higher, she shrieked at the top of her voice. “You will feel my power burn your skin!” She thrust her hands forward—and the creature actually cowered and flinched. Enough for Agent Blanchard, who had crept around from behind, to leap on the creature’s back and throw him to the floor.
She watched the two of them thrashing around on the concrete apron, not knowing what to do. Such was their fury, it was hard to tell in the dim light who was who. Not that she would be much help, even if she could separate them.
A figure appeared at the gate. It was the other agent. He was beckoning frantically for her to run through the gate. Leave Agent Blanchard?
>
Reluctantly, she gathered herself and ran past the wrestling figures, hearing the smack of bone on flesh, and shuddering as she ran through the gate. The agent waiting had already pressed the button and the gate was closing as she ran through and down the ramp.
The bus was abandoned and the door to the lift foyer was closed, but the agent ran past her and swiped his card. The doors slid open. “In you go, Miss.”
She turned back. “But what about—“
But the agent had already gone. Hopefully to help Agent Blanchard. Or give him a gun, or tazer or whatever these mysterious men in black used.
Still shaking, she walked to the lift, pressed the single button and waited. No more than a minute later she was inside the lift and ascending. She felt the tension falling away from her as the lift rose and she sank down to her knees against the corner.
The lift juddered to a halt and the doors slid open. The Professor rushed in, his face anxious, and looked around the lift before spying Sarina in the corner. He ran over and embraced her. “Sarina?” He pulled back to look her over. “Are you hurt?” She shook her head in a daze. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He pulled her up. “Come on out. You’re in shock. You need to rest and to take some fluids.” She nodded and leaned on him as they stumbled out of the lift together, to a rapturous round of applause from the assembled kids, fronted by Lena. They were all shouting “Sarina! Sarina! Sarina, the Orange Witch!”
She managed a weak smile as her tears came.
The Professor sat her down in a nearby chair. “Can you rest a moment, and ask one of the kids to bring you a drink? I need to check on Agent Blanchard.”
She nodded. “Please. He needs help. The other man went too.”
The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults) Page 47