Crystal Fire

by Jordan Dane

  “Anything?” she asked. “Can you reach him?”

  The girl only shook her head and said, “Let’s get him home.”

  With those words, urgency gripped Rayne by the throat. She didn’t know how to help Gabriel, and Kendra didn’t either. The Indigo girl put up a strong front, but she looked as worried as Rayne was. It took all three of them to get Gabriel into the Navigator.

  They had a long ride ahead.

  Near the Bristol Mountains

  Hours later

  Lucas rode the Harley and Kendra drove the SUV so Rayne could stay with Gabriel in the back. Cradling Gabe’s head in her lap, she stared out the windshield from the backseat—numb—watching miles of center lane stripes roll by the Navigator. The vehicle’s headlights caught the movement of swaying grasses and acres of fence posts as Kendra drove by, pushing the speed limit. The two-hour ride back to the Bristol Mountains felt as if it would never end.

  Rayne held Gabriel and never felt so powerless. None of them could help him. His shudders had faded into something more frightening. He’d collapsed into a deep sleep that none of them could wake him from. After Kendra failed to connect to him using another mind link, Rayne even tried kissing him. That worked before in the museum library, but nothing woke him now.

  In all the excitement, Rayne remembered that she hadn’t called Gabe’s uncle. She had her cell, but just thinking about what she’d say made her sick.

  “I guess I should let his uncle know,” Rayne told Kendra. “If he needs a doctor...”

  “Already done.”

  “But how...?”

  Rayne didn’t finish her question. She doubted that she’d ever get used to how Indigos communicated. Once they got close enough to the Bristol Mountains, Kendra must’ve sent the equivalent of a mental flare to Uncle Reginald. Indigos had their own psychic “friends and family” plan.

  “What did his uncle say? Is this...normal for kids like Gabe?” Rayne brushed her fingers through his hair and touched his forehead. He didn’t have a fever, but that was little consolation. “Why won’t he wake up?”

  “His uncle’s never seen anything like this before. He’s worried.” Kendra met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “He said that Gabriel has blown past being an Indigo and that Crystal kids are...complicated. They’re sensitive and strange things come at them like a magnet from our reality and the other side. That’s all he’d say, but it’s enough to scare me. I’ve never known a Crystal.”

  Rayne shifted her gaze to the SUV’s outside mirror to make sure she still saw the headlight of her Harley behind them. Lucas was like Gabe—complicated. She stroked Gabriel’s cheek and willed him to open his eyes.

  He didn’t.

  11

  Burbank

  3:00 a.m.

  Rafael felt sluggish, gripped by the drugs that still lingered in his system. He slowly opened his eyes and felt the chill of concrete under his shoulder blades and arms. He ached all over. Even his teeth hurt. When he could focus, he saw nothing but stark white and thought he had died. It took time for him to realize that he was in a locked cell with a painted floor, a white padded room no bigger than a closet.

  The white room made him think of heaven...and Benny as an angel. But when the reality hit him—that he was a loser and would never see heaven—Rafael felt like a stain. The only color, to screw up the clean white, was him.

  “Pendejos,” he cursed under his breath as he sat up and leaned against a wall.

  He felt sick and had a splitting headache that throbbed behind his eyes. His feet were ice cold. They’d taken his boots and jacket. All he had on were his jeans, his black Dia de los Muertos T-shirt and a fresh bandage over his gunshot wound that had broken open when they attacked him at the tunnel entrance. His cell was only four walls. No toilet or sink. Whatever the purpose of this locked room, it wasn’t meant for long-term visitors.

  Kendra. Can you hear me?

  Rafe thought of her and hoped she was close enough to hear him. That was a long shot, and his luck had never been good, except for the day he’d met her and Benny, but when he didn’t feel Kendra, he had to move.

  When he could manage it, he got to his feet without puking and went to the door. He didn’t have to test it to see if it was locked. There wasn’t a knob on his side. Only one of those secured doors that opened with a swipe of an ID card. A small wire-mesh window had been blocked from the other side. He couldn’t see anything beyond his cell, but if they expected him to stay quiet until they came for him—well, screw that.

  “Mierda! Open the door. Me cago en tus muertos!”

  Rafe pounded on the door with his fist and yelled. No one came. He knew that telling these people what he’d do to their dead relatives wasn’t a good way to win them over, but he didn’t care.

  Minutes later

  O’Dell hated working the backside of midnight. The church didn’t pay overtime and he had no ambition beyond the money. To kill time he’d eaten his second helping of General Tso’s chicken and fried rice, a reheat from a take-out order that he had stashed in his minifridge. His office smelled like Chinatown and broccoli farts.

  His operations bunker had only a skeleton screw on the graveyard shift. Three guys manned the computers and ran the church’s Tracker facial recognition program that targeted Indigo kids in their database system, searching for them on the streets of L.A. Big screens projected flashes of color across a bull pen of desks cast in murky shadows, the command center located steps down from where his office was behind them. The only reason he was still there had been that Mexican kid, the one that Boelens had brought in, on his orders.

  He knew the boss would give him special instructions. That’s why he’d contacted the man using the encrypted phone he’d been given. He’d never seen the guy’s face. Hell, he only guessed that the head of operations—his boss—was a man. The way he talked, the guy had to have a dick. Plus whatever he said in his disguised mechanical voice, he sounded like a RoboCop knockoff.

  “That kid is awake and he’s pissing me off.” His number-two man, Boelens, poked his head into O’Dell’s open door. The guy had a lizard stare. He never blinked.

  “Have you heard back on what we’re supposed to do with him?” his man asked. “I know what I’d like to do. That pain-in-the-ass freak is giving me a tumor.”

  Boelens had only one reason to be here at this hour. He hated Lucas Darby and Kendra Walker after they humiliated him and derailed his night raid at the tunnels. A rat’s nest of Indigos had gotten the better of him, especially the unnamed rocker boy with the British accent.

  O’Dell never saw the Brit. He’d been injured on that mission. He made himself a medal—his own version of the Purple Heart—that he’d hung on his office wall. He’d been shot in the foot. His weapon. His finger on the trigger. No one else knew that and he saw no point in shedding light on what really happened. Who would believe him? After that night he started treatment to have his snake tattoos removed from his forearms. No one would hear why he’d done that either.

  “I haven’t—”

  Before O’Dell could finish, his encrypted phone rang with the ring tone for the Justified TV show. He should have been happy to finally get the return call, but it always made him nervous to talk to the boss. O’Dell cleared his throat, picked up the phone off his desktop and turned his chair so Boelens wouldn’t see him sweat.

  “Hello?”

  “I don’t have much time. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  O’Dell gritted his teeth. He went from nervous to mad in two seconds. The bastard had kept him waiting for nearly a full day, as if he had nothing better to do. Now he expected him to spill his good news, pronto. That was bullshit.

  “I had my men stake out those tunnels, like I told you I would. Just like I figured, one of those Indigo kids came back. The Mex, Rafael Santana. I got him with
me in a Burbank holding cell.”

  There was silence on the line. He thought maybe the guy hung up.

  “Is he connected to that...Crystal kid, Lucas Darby?”

  “Yeah, he’s linked to a whole nest of those mind freaks, including the Brit who sent you that message through Boelens. I figured you’d want to know. We could have a gold mine of Indigos if we play this right. Any special orders? We could work him over, see what he knows. My man Boelens has a way with these kids.”

  “No. Leave him to me. I’ll make arrangements to pick him up, but I want you there personally to make the transfer. Do I make myself clear?”

  O’Dell narrowed his eyes and spun his chair back around. Boelens was still standing at his doorway. Without a word, the guy shrugged and jutted his chin to prod him for information. Boelens would have preferred to make hamburger meat out of the Mex, but he wouldn’t get the chance.

  “Yes, sir. Crystal clear.”

  After O’Dell ended the call, Boelens had to know. “So? What are we supposed to do with this kid?”

  “Nothing.” O’Dell glared at his man. “Someone’s comin’ to load him up. I’m to hand him over personally. Guess the boss trusts me.”

  “Yeah, that must be it.” Boelens smirked with a raised eyebrow. “Just promise me that I get to wrap the kid up in a nice bow, ready for pick up.”

  O’Dell rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t leave any bruises they can see.”

  Boelens grinned and left. He was an easy man to please.

  North of L.A.

  Dawn

  Belly-down, Rafael lay in the back of a moving van without windows. The vehicle vibrated against his bruised, aching ribs, a farewell token from an angry dude who never blinked. But Rafe couldn’t do anything about his pain. His hands had been handcuffed behind him, and his legs were zip-tied together and trussed to his cuffs. He felt like a pig heading to slaughter.

  He’d been beat before. Plenty. The worst part was where beatings took him. He relived the anger of his father, the screaming and the smell of alcohol on his old man’s breath. He experienced every cut, bruise and broken bone in his past again, as if it were fresh. Most of all he felt like the loser he was—especially after what he let happen to Benny. All he had to do was keep the kid safe, but he’d fucked that up.

  Shit.

  The drive went on forever, plenty of time for him to dwell on his mistakes. Mostly he thought of Kendra. She’d never know what happened to him. When he left her behind, he only had one thing on his mind—feeling Benny’s spirit. He never thought what leaving would do to her. He felt like a coward, a useless shit like his old man.

  He drifted in and out of consciousness. Once he woke up to the sound of church bells in the distance and the road noise sounded as if they’d driven through the suburbs before they got onto another freeway and more miles. After the van got off the highway and slowed down, he heard the sound of water. It reminded him of a river and that made him sleepy, but parts of the road were rough and that hurt his ribs.

  When the van finally came to a stop, he heard voices outside.

  “Hey! Let me out, pendejos,” he yelled.

  The vehicle rolled on. When no one came, he laid down his head and closed his eyes again, but this time the van slowed its speed and stopped after only a few minutes. The panel door opened and he felt hands yank at his body.

  He grimaced in pain when they dragged him out, punishing his gunshot wound and his throbbing ribs. After they cut his legs loose from his cuffs, men in black uniforms hauled him to his bare feet, and his knees and ankles felt stiff and numb. He squinted in the early morning sun with his eyes watering. After he stumbled, two men held him by his arms and dragged him.

  Rafael didn’t let them see how much they hurt him.

  The men lugged him into the shadow of a dark mansion, a fancy place almost as big as the Stewart Estate. That stone-and-brick house towered over him and looked more like a museum. Armed guards patrolled the grounds and manned the entrance where they took him, but Rafael noticed something strange.

  Each man stared at him as if he had horns and a tail. That only made him mad.

  “What are you lookin’ at, cabron?” Rafe glared at one and struggled against the tight grip of the guards. He tried looking tougher than he felt, being dragged by the arms.

  “Some of these men haven’t seen one of you Indigo freaks up close. Not here anyways,” a gruff voice came from his right.

  “But you have?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen enough to believe in the cause. Your kind, you’re nothing but animals.”

  Rafe scowled at the man. Kendra had once explained the word irony to him. He understood what she meant now.

  “Why is it that bullies with the hardest fists always point the finger at the other guy...calling him the animal?” Rafe asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “What is this place?”

  “Shut up, head case.”

  The man was done talking. When he wrenched his arm, Rafe felt a jolt of pain shoot through his ribs. He winced but didn’t make a sound. He had too much to think about. He didn’t miss the significance of what the guard told him. He was the first Indigo brought here—to the kind of mansion built for powerful, wealthy men.

  That meant Rafe was special for a reason. And since he hadn’t been blindfolded, and they let him see the boss man’s house, that meant something else too. He wouldn’t be leaving here—breathing.

  Knowing that should have scared him, but it only made him want to see Kendra one last time.

  Stewart Estate

  Dawn

  Something woke Rayne. She lifted her head with a start. With her eyes wide, she gasped at the sudden noise of a dog’s whimper.

  “Hellboy? What is it?”

  Gabriel’s loyal dog whined and wagged his tail at the sound of her voice.

  “Uncle Reginald?” she called out. The man didn’t answer. Gabe’s uncle had been in the room most of the night, but was gone now.

  Bleary-eyed, Rayne yawned to clear the fog from her morning brain. She looked down and realized that she still wore the same clothes she had on yesterday. She’d stayed with Gabriel in his room. Nothing would have made her leave him. She’d slept in a large tufted chair that she’d moved close to his four-poster bed and used her arms as a pillow at the foot of his mattress. Hellboy had curled up near her and refused to leave too.

  Now the ghost dog had his ears perked and his eyes on his unconscious master. Rayne searched Gabriel’s room to look for any reason that Hellboy had his ears at attention. A clock ticked across the bedroom, and a wind off the mountains sighed outside, but nothing felt off except...Gabriel.

  “Where is he, boy?” she pleaded. “Fetch him home. Can you?”

  Hellboy only cocked his glimmering blue head. Rayne felt the remnants of a bad dream haunting her mind. After the twilight memory came to her in flashes, she remembered it hadn’t been a dream at all. Her nightmare was still happening.

  “Gabriel?” she whispered, but he didn’t stir.

  He lay in his bed, fast asleep, if she could call it that. He looked tanned and healthy, especially after he’d returned home to his uncle’s estate and the Bristol Mountains, but Gabe slept as if he were in a coma. She moved closer to hear him breathe. His long eyelashes touched his flushed cheeks as his chest rose and fell. His breaths were steady. When she felt his forehead, he didn’t have a fever.

  She didn’t understand any of this.

  “Open your eyes, Gabriel. Can you hear me?”

  Nothing had changed since Gabe had collapsed near Haven Hills. When she gazed across his bedroom to catch the first signs of morning, she desperately wanted the new day to bring hope. The soft flicker of a gray sunrise seeped into his chamber from tall windows draped in burgundy velvet. Photographs of his mother and uncle were in ornate gilded fram
es that hung beside colorful mementos from his circus life. His collection of L.A. rock band T-shirts hung in an open armoire. When she smelled his subtle cologne and the scent of his skin, Rayne reached for one of his scraped hands and held it. His inflamed knuckles were bruised. She hated to see him like this.

  She couldn’t lose him now.

  “You’re scaring me, Gabriel.”

  The cold trickle of a tear rolled down her cheek when she kissed his hand. Touching his cheek, she prayed he’d open his eyes.

  “Please wake up.”

  * * *

  Gabriel heard a distant sound, something quite familiar. It nudged his mind like a persistent memory. He knew he wasn’t alone, but a thick haze lay between him and...

  Rayne.

  In a vast wasteland of never-ending shadows, he called her name and sent a message to the hive, until he realized she couldn’t hear him that way. She had been his compass—his way home. When he thought of her, he pictured everything that he loved and the unshakable bonds that he had in his life—his uncle and his new Indigo family, the memory of his beloved mother, Hellboy and the collective of souls.

  Most of all, he loved Rayne. She had brought him home once before.

  After his mother died, he had felt lost. His father had his mother killed, trying to find him. He lived off the grid—hiding from the long reach of the Believers and his father—because he didn’t know what else to do. He thought his uncle would blame him for being the reason his sister had died, but Gabe had been wrong.

  He’d been wrong about a lot of things. Rayne and his uncle helped him see that having nothing to lose wasn’t the thing that gave him an edge. What made him strong were people worth fighting for and freedom and the Indigos’ right to survive. He had anchored to Rayne for a reason.

  She would bring him home again.

  When he thought of her, a pale light cut into his darkness and he smelled the faint lavender and rosemary scent of her hair and the warmth of her touch on his skin. Wake up. He wanted it to happen. Open your eyes! He felt like screaming but couldn’t make his body move until he sensed soft skin and a gentle squeeze on his fingers.