Thoughts raced through her mind. Could I have done something different? Could I have changed it? she wondered. She knew the answer was a definite “no,” but still, she thought about what she had seen, and in particular, the giant, otherworldly cube that had appeared and then disappeared, seeming to release an otherworldly presence. Who, or what, had it been? And what did it mean for the rest of them?
Trey gripped her hand tighter. She glanced at him and then turned to Noah on her left as she detected a slowing in his pace. He was still holding the weapon he had taken with him when they left the facility. Until moments ago, he had kept it concealed, but now he held it tightly in front of him.
Zoe stopped walking first. Both Noah and Trey did the same immediately after. “What’s going on?” she asked, suddenly scared.
Trey didn’t respond but merely stared in front of him, gazing at the fading sky.
She followed his gaze, glancing up as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. There had been fewer people on the streets: shopkeepers closing for the day, people in suits returning from work, and a few tourists examining the local buildings. Now Zoe noticed that they were quickly vacating the street at the end. As the last of them disappeared around the corner of a building at the far end of the street, she winced as a sound began to grow in her mind. It was a familiar high-pitched ringing that rose and fell in waves. She placed her hands to her ears, though it did nothing to stop the sound from growing in intensity. She saw Noah sling the weapon over his shoulder and do the same.
She glanced at Trey and saw that he was frozen and staring straight at the sky in front of them toward the end of the street. She looked in that direction but saw nothing. Seconds later, she was knocked off her feet by some colossal force. She saw Noah go down in her peripheral vision and land in some flowerpots behind him. She crashed down onto a wooden table. Oddly, she managed to take note of the red-checkered tablecloth that flew up around her. She gasped as an incredibly powerful force, like a giant invisible hand, gripped her. It picked her up then placed her against a black railing that ran along that section of the street behind her. She was forced back hard, and the rails dug into her back. She whimpered in pain, but it was a dull, low sound, as she didn’t have much air to speak with.
She was able to turn her head just enough to see Noah pressed firmly against the bottom edge of a shop. He was just under the display window where there was a decorated wooden section. His arms were outstretched and pressed hard against the frame there.
Trey was still standing at the edge of the wide path staring at the sky. As Zoe turned her head just a few degrees more, her stomach lurched as she saw something coming at them from that direction; it was the same stream of black smoke-like substance that had previously come from the floating, rotating cube. The event that had occurred back at Place de l’Étoile had already come to seem slightly unreal to her, and she had briefly wondered if the entire event had even happened. It was only now, as she looked in horror at this thing that was approaching, that she realized that nothing had been imagined; it had all been real. Whatever this entity was, it was now returning for Trey.
“Trey!” she screamed out through the growing cacophony. “Trey! You have to move. You have to move now.”
But he remained stationary, and her mouth gaped open, tears forming in her eyes as the black mass streaked across the sky toward him. As she watched it, her blood pumped through her veins, and she thought that it looked like a million tiny pyramids, all rolling over each other in rapid motion.
Shock. I’m in shock.
She screamed as the black mass shot straight at Trey’s unmoving, and apparently lifeless, body. It hit him in the chest, and what she thought was a solid mass proved to be some other substance entirely as it began to pass straight into him. It was over in seconds. The tail end of the black mass entered his body.
The high-pitched ringing—which had by then become a roaring, screaming sound filled with hate and rage—finally stopped. Zoe found herself free to move again, and as she looked to her left, she saw Noah moving too as he slowly reached for his weapon. She glanced at Trey again and began to stand up. She approached him one step at a time, until a fierce instinct overcame her and forced her to step around behind him, where she would be out of his line of sight.
Go! GO NOW! the voice of instinct inside her screamed, and indeed, she found herself following it, but not fast enough, it would be proven—not nearly.
She heard Trey gasp, and his head rose up toward the sky. He turned swiftly on one foot to face her, and as he did, the cars that lined the edges of the street moved with him, as though they had been drawn into motion by some fierce wind. They screeched and lurched out of their parking spaces to odd degrees and then came to an abrupt stop as he stopped moving. He was facing her directly.
Her lips quivered as she saw that his eyes were black obsidian—the same color she had seen before. The expression on his face was completely blank, as though no personality existed behind it. She vaguely knew what had happened here, but she couldn’t exactly articulate it. What she felt was a profound sadness for Trey himself, for, as she knew she would probably soon see, Trey had been trapped, and would now be subjected to untold future grief.
Noah got to his feet behind Trey, his face determined, and leveled the weapon at his back.
“Noah! No!” she screamed.
Noah fired, and a bolt struck Trey’s back. The impact spread out behind him in an explosion of blue electrical energy, and the surge rose up and down his body in waves.
Trey’s eyes grew wide as he turned back around in the other direction to face Noah. A second later, the weapon in Noah’s hands shattered into fragments, which fell to the ground and scattered everywhere.
Zoe cried out, knowing what was coming next.
With a minute flick of his head, the being that now inhabited Trey’s body exerted its will on Noah.
Noah was knocked off his feet. He flew twenty feet through the air, landed roughly, and skidded along the footpath for a further fifteen feet, finally coming to a stop unconscious and unmoving.
Screaming, Zoe placed her hands on her face. Once again, Trey turned on his heel. This time, he spoke, and it caused her heart to fill with unspeakable terror.
“Ruin. That is what I will bring to this world.” He began to walk toward her. “I will lay this place to ashes… and ruin.” The words echoed in her mind, but also seemed to be bouncing off the walls of the buildings and resounding throughout the entire city.
Zoe’s face was filled with awe then though, for she found that this was not the whole truth as images began to flash in her mind. She was staring into his eyes as these truths were revealed to her. She saw a gleaming, crystal tower of some kind—some giant, mesmerizing artifact that seemed to glow with a strange energy. Then she saw a sparkling diamond, and in the last second of the brief vision, she saw the most beautiful thing she had ever bore witness to: it was a rose, encrusted with diamonds, each one demonstrating some facet of reality. Then the images were gone, and she was staring into those same eyes. Black. Empty. Desperate. She pulled her gaze away from them.
The images had revitalized her, though, and she backed away faster as she heard the incredible high-pitched screeching sound once again fill her mind. Then, as the high-pitched sound reached a crescendo, every window on the street exploded. A million fragments of glass flew outward at once, filling the sky with glittering shards that fell to the ground in a reflective shower. Zoe ducked down next to the railing. Knowing it would do her little good, she placed her hands over her head. Luckily, she felt only a few small shards of glass land on her.
When the sounds of the falling glass stopped, she stood up and shook off the pieces. Then she looked back at Trey only to find him smiling at her. Once again, he started to approach her. This time, she did not hesitate in paying heed to her instincts. She turned and ran as fast as she could. Ahead of her, fifty feet away, a car lifte
d off the pavement by a couple of inches and floated onto the sidewalk, where it dropped down, blocking her path.
She changed course immediately and ran through a gap in the nearest vehicles out onto the street, where other cars rose up from their parking spaces and moved to block off her path. She ran toward the center of the street where two cars were just crashing together, intending to jump over them, but just as she reached them, she felt Trey himself pull at her stomach. It felt as though she had been lassoed, and just as she was about to vault up over the front of the cars, she was pulled backward toward the road.
She fell, hitting her right elbow hard on the ground. The wind was knocked out of her, and for a moment, she felt dizzy. Feeling in her bones that she had little time left, she swallowed and turned over, jumping up to her feet. A streak of pain shot through her arm, and she was sure it was broken as she cradled it with her left hand.
A glance behind her confirmed that Trey was now standing in the middle of the road, just fifty feet from her. A look of determination stole over her face as he began to approach her again. “Go to hell!” she screamed.
He raised his arms, and then the ground began to shake. The glass that had previously fallen to the ground bounced, and she could hear the fragments clink as they moved over each other. The glass then rose up off the ground, a million pieces glinting in the light of dusk. Trey’s arms moved higher until they passed his shoulders and he was holding them out toward the buildings. The glass was now suspended all throughout the street at the height of Zoe’s chest. She refused to close her eyes, despite knowing what was to come, and instead, she stared back into the black, obsidian abyss, unafraid to face death at the hands of this lifeless creature.
That didn’t happen. She jumped backward as something dropped to the ground between them with astonishing speed, and an incredible breaking sound filled the air. At first, all she could see was a fluttering veil of black, and she was completely unable to discern what it had been. She fell toward the cars behind and landed with little pain between the two front sections of the vehicles, which had been sandwiched together. As she looked up, she saw that a man in a beautiful black cloak had landed in the center of the road with such fierce velocity that he had created a hole in the pavement at the center. At the same time, whatever spell had held the glass in place was broken immediately. The pieces had fallen to the ground and were now bouncing all around them. After a few seconds, it stopped, and there was silence.
Zoe thought of moving, but this time, her instincts told her to stay put. Upon setting eyes on this new person, she realized several things. The first was that her world had been spiraling out of control for a long time. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but it was true. Trey had been getting worse. He had been complaining about dreams and visitations from some kind of dark being. She had been content to listen complacently, and now she saw full well what a mistake that was. The second thing she realized was that she needed help—had for quite a long time now—but she had been afraid to admit it to herself. The same deep instinct that had told her to flee only moments ago now told her that she should cling to this man, that somehow, her salvation lay with him.
She watched as he rose up off the ground. He had impacted the pavement with a single fist and landed on one knee. As he stood, she saw that it was his fist that had broken the ground beneath him. He took a moment to glance at Trey. Then, turning around, he looked at her. His eyes locked with hers, and she breathed in sharply as she looked into them, for they appeared to her as infinite pools. He nodded at her, then looked up and around at the buildings as he slowly turned his back to her to face Trey again. She caught a brief glance of Trey from behind the man’s coat and found that the brief smile he had shown on his face previously had now turned to a scowl.
“What have you come here for?” the man in the black coat asked.
“You know what.”
“The Machine is gone. The Nexus is beyond your reach—now and forever.”
Trey smiled. “Is it really?” He walked out to Zoe’s right with a casual gait. “Is there any way that I might be able to reach it? Any way at all?”
Silence ensued.
“I tried vast amounts of energy. We both know how that turned out. I tried harnessing the psychic energies of a pre-psionic civilization. That didn’t work. Then, of course, we learned about the ancient technologies—the gateway, for instance. I tried that, and now… now you’ve taken it from me. Although… I do get the sense that Jane herself laid her hands on the Nexus, which I find just fascinating!” He stopped walking and turned to glare once again at the man in the black coat. “I’ll have to pay her at least one more visit.”
Silence came once again from the man in the black coat.
“But you and I both know there is one thing I have not tried.”
“Say it,” the man said.
His voice sounded perfectly flat and even, though it seemed to Zoe that it was filled with venom—perhaps hatred—and she knew something was brewing as her gaze darted between them as this exchange seemed to grow more heated, despite the few words being spoken.
“The one thing I have yet to try is harnessing the psychic energies of a populace on the verge of a breakthrough to the world of the psychic. Like this.”
With lightning-fast reflexes, the man in the black coat raised both hands, so that the palms were pointing straight toward Trey. At the same time, Trey raised his arm with one palm outstretched toward him.
A bizarre, warping sound echoed around the area, and Zoe watched in abject awe as the space between them rippled. It was as though she had been staring at the surface of a clear, placid lake, and a stone had been dropped into it. Her mouth gaped open as the entire surface of the road lifted up and then fell back down with a crashing sound, settling once more.
The man pushed his hands forward, and at the center, where their combined energies met, a surge of white light began to grow and spread outward toward Trey. As it did, translucent ripples ensued from the center—like flowing liquid—and spread out all around them. Quickly, the ripples grew larger, and as their edges touched the cars, they lifted off the ground and flew sideways into the buildings. One red car now rose right off the surface, impacted the second story of one of the beautiful houses, and flew straight through it, destroying that entire front section of the building.
The ripples began to affect the ground at the their feet, and the concrete there was crushed as though it were chalk. The man took a step forward, and a sharp ringing sound came from the center where he stood. The ripples exploded outward again, sending new waves out toward the edges. The growing mass of light was extending to the edges on either side of the road, becoming large enough to intersect some of the buildings, and the concrete they were composed of began to crack.
Underneath all the other sounds around her, Zoe heard Trey grunt, and a fierce, venomous expression stole over his gentle features. In his eyes, Zoe thought she could see signs of struggle as he pushed back. Once again, the transparent energy barrier moved, and new ripples of that translucent power spilled outward from its central point, which appeared to be controlled by the man in the black cloak.
You have to get out of here.
Zoe looked around, her head jerking three hundred and sixty degrees toward the empty streets, looking for the source of the voice.
Did you hear me? I said get out of here. Jump over the cars behind you and run!
She knew then that it was the man in the black coat speaking to her, and she trusted his voice, as it sounded beautiful to her mind. She hesitated for only a second longer, and then, gripping her elbow, she did what he said. Standing up and grimacing with pain, she turned around and raised one foot onto the front of one of the two cars that had crashed together. She glanced behind her briefly and saw that the shockwaves that were spreading out from the central point were becoming more violent. Her hair blew back behind her, and she had the urg
e to raise her arm as she felt the intangible, yet very powerful energy crackle all around her.
GO!
The voice in her mind was yelling this time, and Zoe wasted no time obeying his command. She turned, jumping quickly over the vehicles, and broke into a run as she hit the ground. She was fifty feet away when she thought of Noah, and gasped as she came to a sudden halt, turning on her heel. As she did, she saw that the central ball of energy and light that had grown between them had now become even larger. She frowned as something moved beneath her, and she glanced down at the ground. The street beneath her shook, and the entire earth under her feet rose. She spread her arms to keep her balance, but the earth below slammed back down quickly. A giant crack appeared in the pavement before her and spread out all around the area. One of the buildings on her right surged sideways and crashed into the building next to it.
The energy that had been building between them exploded outward, and the inevitable blast came seconds later. Zoe only had time to duck as she saw the man in the black coat push his arms forward frantically. He was thrown backward off his feet, and in the distance, she saw the same thing happen to Trey. In that brief moment, she could see Trey’s facial expression, and she thought she had never seen a look of such hatred in her entire life.
Zoe observed as the buildings around them caved in when the shockwave hit. Some of them were completely destroyed when their foundations and the walls that formed their bottom floors imploded. In fact, in that briefest of moments she had to see, it appeared that the force of the explosion had obliterated most of the street.
She fell to the ground just in time as the colossal wave of energy approached. It swept over her and spread out into the city beyond, smashing windows as it went. The crashing sounds continued, until finally, she heard the sound of breaking windows recede into the distance and stop. Then, all was silent.
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 37