Crystal Fire

by Jordan Dane

  Gabe blinked. He looked through the blur of his lashes until the shadows ebbed away and everything came into focus.

  “Gabriel?”

  A girl’s face—cast in a soft light—moved closer to his. He felt the warmth of her body and breathed in the intoxicating aroma of her skin. My precious girl. As much as he wanted to speak to Rayne, he couldn’t. He’d left a thing undone—dangerously unraveled. Something important, but Rayne wasn’t a part of whatever it was—nor was anyone else. He had to be the one to finish it. Gabe realized that now.

  He shifted his gaze and fixed on a dark figure in the room.

  Fainter than he was before, the guy in black hadn’t left. He looked more like an eerie mirage that still shadowed him. This time the macabre vision stared at him with sad accusing eyes. Without words, he demanded something of Gabe that he had yet to figure out, but he didn’t attack him this time. He vanished in a thin trail of smoke, but a part of him lingered—inside Gabriel.

  What do you want?

  The boy had gone and Gabe got no answer. He sat up in bed and shut his eyes to fight off a wave of dizziness. He felt sick, but he couldn’t let that stop him. He threw off his blankets and got out of bed to find he was only dressed in boxers. That should have made him feel awkward around Rayne, but he didn’t have time for that.

  “I have to...”

  He heard the words come from his mouth as he stood by his bed and he barely recognized his voice. He’d lost the echo of the other, but that left him feeling uneasy, as if he had suddenly lost something he should have held on to.

  “What is it, Gabriel?”

  When Rayne spoke, he turned his head and stared at her. Nothing she said sank in. Gabe had something else he had to do. He walked straight for the full-length mirror in his bedroom. He had to see what he knew would be there. After he saw his reflection, he couldn’t move. His face looked back, but the image of someone else was there too—shifting and writhing underneath his skin.

  A shadow stared out through his eyes—the boy in black.

  * * *

  “What’s wr-wrong, Gabriel?” Rayne’s voice cracked. “Please say something. Talk to me.”

  “You can’t...see this?”

  “See what?”

  The way he glared into his mirror—fixated yet repulsed by what he saw—scared the hell out of her. It was as if it wasn’t her Gabriel. He acted as if he didn’t see her—as if he weren’t...

  “Are you awake? Is this one of your...visions?” She’d seen him glaze-eyed before, whenever he hadn’t fully awakened from his vision. “Do you need your sketchbook? Is that what it is?”

  Gabriel needed the release he got from drawing what he saw. She’d seen him do that to break free of a vision before. A finished drawing meant he could wake up. Rayne didn’t wait for him to answer. She rushed to a desk that he had in his bedroom and grabbed the artist’s pad he used to turn his hellish prophesies into real Indigo faces.

  “Here. Take it.” She pushed the spiral sketchbook at him. When he still didn’t look at her and kept his attention on the mirror, she tugged at his arm.

  “Draw what you see, Gabe. Let me help you.”

  Rayne pleaded and when she grabbed his elbow, he finally blinked as if he saw her this time.

  “No. I can’t.” He shook his head. “This isn’t...a vision.”

  “What do you mean? What’s happening to you?”

  “I don’t know, but you shouldn’t be here. He could come back. I’m not sure I can protect you.”

  Gabriel didn’t wait for her to say anything. He grabbed a pair of jeans from his armoire, pulled them over his boxers and zipped up. He looked spooked. While he rummaged through his clothes for a shirt and shoved his feet into unlaced boots, she pushed him to talk.

  “That guy in the helmet? He’s here?” she asked. “I didn’t see him this time. Where is he?”

  Before he walked by her without an explanation, she stopped him until he looked her in the eye. He touched her cheek and heaved a sigh. She wasn’t sure he’d tell her anything until he finally opened up.

  “He’s here, Rayne. In me.”

  * * *

  Gabriel knew he had hurt Rayne when he shut her out. He had to think, and staring into her beautiful gray eyes only clouded his thoughts and flipped his guy switch to protect her. He needed clarity and quiet and the freedom to sense an answer—the Indigo way.

  He had a place to go for that. Walking through the grand hall of Stewart family portraits in oils with their gilded gold frames, he barely looked up as he shrugged into an ivory sweater. The long history of his proud family line, coupled with the sense of duty he felt to protect the Indigos, had been woven into a tapestry of commitment that weighed heavier now, and rightfully so. The echo of his footsteps mirrored the bracing beat of his heart as he navigated hallways he knew well from his childhood, until he reached a massive wooden door.

  Gabe tugged it open and climbed the stone steps of the tower to head for the rampart, the highest overlook of the Bristol Mountains. He had to tap into his psychic instincts. They’d served him well and he wouldn’t abandon his faith in them now. But he felt a blistering headache and an ever-increasing weakness as he trudged up the steep flight of steps, carrying the burden of another soul inside him—and his doubt.

  Had he done this or had the boy targeted him and won? Perhaps it wasn’t a question of winning or losing. He sensed the boy’s need might trump all that.

  Tower stone radiated the morning chill, and the walls of the spiral stairs smelled of humidity and the sweet pull of childhood magic. The hiss of his footsteps echoed memories. He felt safe in these walls, as safe as if he were in his mother’s arms.

  Gabriel had always appreciated the solitude of early morning, the twilight between his two worlds colliding. He chose to believe that a new day meant that he had survived whatever dark world he’d dreamed, even though there were nights he wasn’t sure which existence was reality.

  He hoped he would be strong enough to deal with whoever he’d brought home from Haven Hills. Like what happened with Lucas, this kid had connected to him through a vision and hadn’t let go—not even after Gabe had shut down his consciousness. He had to know how that could happen. Until he could, he didn’t feel in control. His ability to protect these Indigo kids had turned into utter chaos. Even before Rafael went missing, he had a bad premonition that he had failed before he’d started.

  He was missing something. He had brought this stranger home to his uncle’s estate and put all of them at risk. Even though he hadn’t done it deliberately, the dangerous connection had been made and was still with him. Why? How? He wanted there to be a reason that could help them all, but he didn’t know how to turn things around.

  When Gabe got to the top step, he heaved open the heavy wooden door and pushed through it. The parapet wall of the rampart circled around him as he gazed onto the Bristol Mountains from atop the tower. The lush hills were made more beautiful by the blush of dawn. He breathed deep as a faint breeze swept through his hair and made his eyes water. Gabriel walked to the wall and leaned his elbows onto the stone. He looked over the grounds and searched for the familiar, the hiking trails and gardens that he’d spent time with his mother and uncle as a child.

  When he felt the extraordinary soul stir inside him, he looked to the mountains for answers. If Gabriel had a death wish, he couldn’t think of a better place to be.

  * * *

  Oliver never considered what might happen before he mind-shadowed the life force residue left on the book. He’d done it before, but after a strange voice invaded his head, he indulged his curiosity and went after it. He’d done it out of boredom, fear or whatever. It didn’t matter now. He tripped through a one-way door and now drifted weightless through the rise and fall of a surging darkness, cut loose from everything he had known. />
  Only he wasn’t really free and he knew it.

  He missed Caila, but nothing else. The doctor had said the girl had used him. Any memory he had of her was a lie, so he’d be alone to face whatever would happen and he didn’t know what to think of his reinvented gift.

  At first he felt the attachment of his physical body and took comfort that he could always return—as if that was normal. His meat anchor kept him straddling two realities, but the longer he stayed separated, the more he realized that neither existence made him happy. Not even the power of his new gift gave him peace.

  It only made him want more.

  Until now he had never linked to another soul, except when he used his gift to feel an object that would trigger a vision, but that was different. He’d get a glimpse of a memory or sense where someone was and images would speed past him on fast forward. Only he would know which ones meant something. He’d pick out the things that made sense and pieced them together to tell a story. The way his ability used to work felt like making a movie.

  Nothing like this.

  Because Dr. Fiona had made him stronger and different, this time he had crossed paths and marked the soul of someone more powerful. Maybe it didn’t matter who did the tagging. What was done was done. He got pulled into the boy’s existence and he’d never seen or felt anything like it before. One minute he’d been in an alley, the next he was—

  Where, exactly?

  He drifted and stared across a cosmic passage. When everything shifted to shadows and slowed down, colors became more vivid. Brilliant glimmers of light oozed across a vast expanse like the Northern Lights through the night sky. He sensed other souls like him and felt rooted to something bigger. He didn’t know how he understood this. He just did.

  Perhaps his link to the boy gave him insight they shared.

  But when the hypnotic beauty of the light came to an end, he felt his soul surrender to gravity as if he had a phantom sensation of the body he’d left behind. Oliver wasn’t sure he liked how that felt, but he didn’t have time to brood over it. After a dim glow intensified and nearly blinded him, the streets of L.A. were gone as the shadows lifted. He passed from one reality into another in the blink of his eye.

  Unlike his first meeting with the boy in the alley, this time he saw through a body not his own. Gabriel’s body. He remembered the name that the girl had called him. Once Gabriel had opened his eyes, Oliver felt him rush to a mirror. He knew what the kid saw because he saw it too. The freak show of looking through someone else’s eyes scared him, but something else shocked him more.

  Gabriel radiated a pulsing cobalt blue with spears of crystal that magnified the light. Oliver had heard other kids talk about seeing an aura. Every human being had one, but not every Indigo saw them. He hadn’t been able to—until now. Maybe Gabriel had something to do with his new ability. Indigos had an aura of cobalt blue, but he’d only heard rumors about those who had a different kind of light. That’s how he realized what Gabriel was.

  A Crystal child.

  Oliver had been hit by something he never saw coming. He was in the process of becoming a more powerful Indigo than he ever thought he’d be. Whatever Dr. Fiona had done to him, it had triggered a change that was still evolving. But he didn’t feel strong enough to stir things up with a Crystal child and he didn’t know how to break the connection. From the look on Gabriel’s face in the mirror, he didn’t either.

  Oliver had to figure it out. If his old gift still functioned, he would’ve known where Gabriel was by now. The information Dr. Fiona promised would earn him his freedom, but something was off. He had to stay focused and keep his eyes open—Gabriel’s eyes—to get what he needed and move on.

  Just do it. You didn’t ask for this, any of it. Oliver gave in to his dark thoughts. You don’t owe this kid anything. The truth was that he didn’t have much to go back for—except a girl who had filled him with lies—lies he wanted to believe, yet couldn’t now.

  But as he stood atop the world, inside Gabriel, and stared across a picture postcard of mountains in perfect stillness, he wanted more than the life he had before Caila changed everything.

  Gabriel made him want more...feel more. He had opened a door to an infinite way to live and made him realize that Indigos didn’t have to live in fear—or die as victims. As Oliver gazed over the most beautiful mountains he’d ever seen, he didn’t feel alone for the first time in years. He felt connected to the earth and to a consciousness he’d never experienced before.

  He wanted to breathe in hope for a new freedom and feel the warmth of his Indigo family in this place where he felt others like him. But when he suddenly realized—that he couldn’t breathe or feel anything—a sudden panic hit him hard.

  He was thrust back into the dark isolation of the helmet and couldn’t catch his breath. Trapped inside Gabriel’s body felt like sinking into a crushing quicksand. His senses were gone. Even his eyesight was borrowed as long as Gabriel let him see. He felt empty and dead. This wasn’t his body. How long could he exist like this? If he died with his consciousness inside Gabriel, who would know—or care?

  He had to find a way back. Had to.

  12

  Ward 8

  Morning

  Fiona dodged traffic in her Mercedes as she listened to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” She pulled into the parking garage at Haven Hills and waved through the guard station without slowing down. With more important things awaiting her, Fiona screeched to a stop in her assigned spot nearest the elevator that would take her to the basement and Ward 8. After she clipped her ID badge to the lapel of her navy suit, she took one last look in the car mirror.

  She had intended to check her lipstick, but seeing the accusing doubt in her own eyes made her turn away. She’d gotten a disturbing phone call from the night-shift nursing staff. Oliver Blue had been found—collapsed on the floor of his cell in a coma—with a book clutched in his hands. He held the book so tightly that it took two nurses to pry his fingers loose.

  Fiona got out of her car and headed for the bank of elevators. Her heels clacked on the cement and echoed in the garage as her mind raced with dire thoughts about what might have happened to the boy. It didn’t take long for her fleeting concern for Oliver to turn into her real worry. She pictured Alexander Reese’s face. Others on staff could talk about a boy slipping into an unexplained coma and word could get to Alexander. If she couldn’t turn this situation around, she’d have to answer to him and explain why she hadn’t told him about Oliver—or asked his approval for her deviation from church protocols.

  She reached for her ID badge and fingered the key that hung with it. That key locked away all her secrets. She had downplayed it to staff, saying it was archived materials from a previous work assignment. No one had questioned her. The records she kept there went back years, files on the kids she had performed unusual procedures on or marked as special—kids like Oliver.

  Her cutting-edge experiments would be revolutionary to anyone with half a brain. Unfettered by conscience, she had made better progress without anyone looking over her shoulder, second-guessing her with their mundane morality.

  “Come on,” she muttered as she hit the elevator button several times.

  When she got to the ward, a nurse greeted her at the double doors.

  “We have him in ICU. He’s unresponsive, but stable...for now.” The nurse handed her a clipboard with Oliver’s updated condition. “Awaiting your orders, Doctor.”

  In step with the nurse, Fiona read as she moved. When she entered the ICU, she saw the activity in Room 4. Oliver was the only critical patient. The intensive care unit was small and well equipped. Of late it had mainly been used for patient recovery after her experimental surgical procedures. The new direction she’d taken with Oliver had put a hold on surgeries.

  The overnight emergency would get noticed, especially sin
ce she hadn’t been on duty to do damage control.

  The night doctor on call had started the initial diagnostics, ordered lab work and performed a brain scan to assess the severity of the boy’s condition. With Oliver’s eyes closed and no verbal or motor responses, he had scored a three on the Glasgow Coma Scale. More tests would be coming on her orders now, but with Oliver in such a deep coma, his body functions would have to be managed. At the sound of a steady beeping heart monitor and the hiss of a respirator, Fiona knew what she would see when she entered ICU 4.

  Oliver had a tracheal tube in his mouth. His narrow bed had electrodes and colored leads snaking from his body that were plugged into the equipment that would monitor his condition and keep him alive if his body failed.

  “Clear the room while I examine my patient.” Fiona stared down at Oliver with her jaw tight until every nurse left the room. When she was alone with the boy, she did a quick exam that shed no light, but she had a theory.

  “You found him, didn’t you, Oliver? This Crystal child.” She stroked fingers through his hair. “What did he do to you?”

  She’d seen the aftermath of what the other Crystal child had done at the L.A. County Museum of Art. Complete annihilation. Perhaps this boy had done the same to Oliver’s mind. If he did, her lab rat would be useless to her now.

  Fiona seethed with anger. She’d been beaten again—outsmarted—by an unnamed kid she had to get her hands on. He existed. She had no doubt, even if Alexander didn’t believe he did. She’d prove it to him. Fiona pulled open the door to ICU 4 and gave an order to the first nurse who walked by.

  “Bring me Caila Ferrie. Strap her into a wheelchair and bring her here. Now.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Fiona crossed her arms and stared at Oliver from the door. If there was a chance to read his memory in his condition, the strange Indigo girl, who bartered in memories, might be her only hope to discover what had happened to the boy. With any luck, she’d get what she really wanted—a Crystal child worthy of her attention.