by L. J. Smith
"Quickly," Mr. Z said, and his smile was more delighted than ever. He rolled the words in his mouth as if enjoying them. "John, Laurie, Paul-help
Kaitlyn downstairs, please. Everyone else follow. Hurry now. This should be very interesting."
Kaitlyn tried to fight Mac and Frost and Renny, but her limbs were too weak. She was more of a hindrance by just being limp.
Gabriel didn't fight, either-probably too many of them, Kaitlyn thought. But she didn't understand why he seemed to be hanging back, the last one down the stairs to the hidden room. She tried to get a look at him as they carried her down, but she couldn't see.
"I want to kill him myself!" Gabriel shouted from the floor above. Kaitlyn felt the pang of a new terror: What if the crystal had driven Gabriel crazy like the others? And it was just showing up now?
Gabriel-
He wouldn't answer her. Because Frost was touching her? She didn't know.
"Come down!" Mr. Zetes shouted as he punched in the combination to the office.
Kaitlyn didn't want to go in there. Did not. She struggled with fresh strength as they carried her through the door.
Then the smell and the psychic feel of the human pupae struck her and she went limp.
They carried her past the crystal to the only piece of furniture in the room, a chair. Everyone else was crowding in. Mr. Z was herding them, gesturing them to pack themselves more tightly. Like somebody trying to fit more people into an elevator. Gabriel was the last. He stepped back to join the others who were lining the walls.
Then Mr. Zetes backed up. He stood, leaning both hands on his cane, looking at the doorway with anticipation.
"They won't come," Kaitlyn told him. Her voice was earnest; she just wished it was steady. "I warned them and they're too smart to come when they know you're waiting."
Mr. Zetes smiled. "Do you hear that, my dear? The kitchen door breaking."
Rob? Are you in the house? Rob, listen to me-don't do it. Stay away! Stay away!
But the imperious tone that had worked with him in the gym did nothing now.
This is my choice, Kaitlyn, Rob said. And Kaitlyn heard footsteps on the stairs.
CHAPTER 15
"Rob, go back!" Kaitlyn screamed aloud.
Rob came in. He was flushed and windblown, his hair a golden lion's mane, his eyes full of all the light of the sky. He had run down the stairs, but he took the step into the room calmly, face alert and purposeful, assessing his chances. Looking for Kaitlyn and the way to get her out.
"Leave," Kaitlyn whispered.
Anna and Lewis were right behind Rob. Stepping over the threshold and into the trap. Behind them was a girl Kaitlyn recognized vaguely . . . yellow curls and tilted eyes ... of course, it was Tamsin.
"A visitor from the Fellowship!" Mr. Zetes said. "We are greatly honored." He actually bowed over his cane.
He didn't move to shut the door. He didn't have to. Once they were all in, he nudged Parte King with his foot, not quite a kick.
Kaitlyn felt power swelling out to hold the new arrivals in the room. As if a fence had been stretched across the open doorway. Rob stared at the lolling creatures on the floor, his face going pale under his tan, the light in his eyes fading with shock.
And even as he stared, he was caught, his movements dragged into slow motion. So were the others.
Like flies in flypaper, Kaitlyn thought. Gnats in a web.
"What did you do to them?" Rob whispered, looking slowly from Sasha to Mr. Zetes.
"The unfortunate pilot study," Mr. Zetes said blandly. "Don't look so alarmed. You'll find it isn't so bad after a while."
"Muhhh," said Sasha.
Rob tried to move toward Mr. Zetes-Kaitlyn saw the determination in his face, saw his muscles cord as he strained. But Sasha and Parte King were watching him. Their power surged up to hold Rob tighter.
Kaitlyn could feel it happening as well as see it. Rob stopped fighting and stood panting.
"Ibu should have stayed away, Rob," Joyce said, in a voice that seemed on the edge of tears. "I wish you had; I really do."
Rob didn't glance at her. He looked at Kaitlyn.
I'm sorry, Kait. I blew it.
Kaitlyn felt wetness spill from her eyes. I'm the one who's sorry. It's my fault we're all here. She looked at Tamsin, wondering if there was any hope. The people of the Fellowship were born to a psychic race, they had all sorts of ancient knowledge. Was there some weapon . . . ?
But Tamsin's face undeceived her. Tamsin was gazing mutely at the two creatures on the floor, her lips parted with pity and helpless sorrow. She didn't even seem to recognize the possibility of fighting.
Aspect, Kaitlyn thought. The philosophy of the fellowship nonviolence passive resistance.
It wasn't going to get Tamsin very far here.
"I didn't realize that this morning would be so productive," Mr. Zetes said happily. He was doing everything but rubbing his hands, gloating. "These last two days have been splendid-just splendid. And now we'll finish up."
He took a step toward Rob, unaffected by the dragging power of the human pupae.
"I'm going to leave you down here to get acquainted with my former students," he said. "I think in a short time you'll all be on the same level of communication -especially if I tie you in actual contact with the crystal. Contact is quite painful, especially in large doses in the beginning. But of course you know that already."
"We can't just disappear," Anna said. "Our parents will come looking. My parents know about you already. They'll find out what you've done and then they'll kill you."
"In other words, I won't get away with it," Mr. Zetes translated, still bland. "Go on, say it, my dear; I don't mind the cliché. But the fact is that I will get away with it. Literally, you see. I have many different residences across the country; even abroad. And the crystal isn't as much of an encumbrance as you might think. I've already brought it to the United States from a very far place." He looked at Tamsin as if this were a shared joke.
She didn't respond. He shrugged very slightly and went on. "So, you see, I can take my crystal and my students wherever I go-and that's all I need. I'll leave you here, of course. In your parents' care."
He gave his terrible smile.
Kaitlyn was proud of her mind-mates. They stood in the doorway, snarled with invisible thread, but none of them broke down or showed any fear. Anna's head was high on her slim neck, her dark eyes proud and self-contained. Lewis stood squarely, fists clenched, his round face stern and unreadable. Rob looked like a young and angry angel.
I love you, Kaitlyn told them. I love you and I'm so proud of you.
A voice broke into her admiration.
"I won't go with you! I'll stay here with them," Lydia said passionately.
Mr. Zetes frowned just a little. "Don't be ridiculous."
"I won't go! I hate what you're doing. I hate you!" Lydia's elbows were at her sides, fists held shaking near her shoulders. "I don't care if you win this time; I don't care what happens to me; I don't care, I don't care- "
"Be quiet!" Mr. Zetes said brutally. Lydia was quiet. But she shook her head, dark hair flying from side to side.
"You'll do as you're told," Mr. Zetes said. "Or you will be left here, and I don't think you'll like that." He looked at Joyce, his pleasure in the morning obviously spoiled. "All right," he said abruptly. "Let's finish, so we can get to breakfast. Take those chains off the boys and bring them over here."
Kaitlyn's eyes went to the chains on Parte King and Sasha. They had one on each ankle. Which meant one for her, Rob, Anna, and Lewis each. Tamsin probably wouldn't try to fight.
Then Kaitlyn looked up, because something was wrong. Joyce wasn't moving to obey Mr. Zetes. She was shaking her head.
"I'm not asking you to do it, I'm telling you. Joyce!"
Joyce shook her head again, slowly and decisively, her aquamarine eyes on Mr. Z's face.
"Good for you, Joyce," Kaitlyn said. To Mr. Zetes, she said, "Can't you see? They
're all turning against you. It's going to keep happening, too. You can't win."
Mr. Zetes had gone purple.
"Disobedience! Disobedience and insubordination!" he shouted. "Is there anyone here who still understands loyalty?" The piercing eyes flashed around the room. Bri and Renny looked away from him: Bri glowering, Renny with his shoulders angrily hunched. They were both shaking their heads slowly.
Mr. Z's gaze settled on Jackal Mac. "John! Take the key from Joyce and remove those chains immediately!"
Jackal Mac obeyed. He started to feel all over Joyce's pockets for the key, but she slapped his hand away and pulled it out, slowly, staring at Mr. Zetes all the while.
Shambling to the center of the room, Mac unlocked the chains from Sasha.
"Give them to me," Mr. Zetes said impatiently. "Then remove the others."
When Mac did, Mr. Z looked at Rob. Kaitlyn could see that he was fighting to regain his smiling malevolence. But he couldn't do it. He was an angry old man taking revenge.
"Go ahead and struggle," he told Rob. "You won't be able to move. And when I have you chained, these boys on the floor will move you step by step until you touch the crystal. The great crystal, the last of the ancient firestones. Go ahead, take a look at it." He gestured at the obscene thing towering in the middle of the floor the crystal that shone with its own milky impure light. The machine of death waiting for them all.
"The moment you touch it, your mind will start to burn," Mr. Zetes went on with some of his old fervor.
"In a matter of hours it will burn out. Like a gutted house. Your powers will remain, but you will not."
Kneeling, he brought the chain to Rob's ankle. "And now . . ."
"I don't think so," Gabriel said.
While Mr. Zetes had been talking to Rob, while the human pupae were busy keeping Rob tightly controlled for the chaining, while Jackal Mac was unlocking the other chains, Gabriel had been inching forward. Kaitlyn had seen it, but hadn't known what he could do. He was empty-handed. The pupae would stop any kind of a fight.
But as Gabriel spoke, she heard a swishing snick. The sound she'd heard in Marisol's room and on Ivy Street, when his spring-loaded knife snapped out of his sleeve.
Only this time it wasn't a knife.
He was holding the crystal shard by its thick end, holding it underhanded, like a sword ready to thrust up.
Its tip was only a foot or so from the giant crystal in the center of the room.
Now Kaitlyn understood why he had been the last one downstairs. He'd been in Joyce's room, getting the shard.
"Don't close that chain," Gabriel said. "Or I'll put it on the crystal."
Kaitlyn heard a metallic click and knew that Mr. Z had done it anyway. He straightened up to look at Gabriel. He was alarmed but not panicked.
"Now, Gabriel," he said, and moved a little toward him.
Just a little. Gabriel stiffened. The tip of the shard quivered. Kaitlyn could see it reaching for one of the outgrowths of the crystal, like a stalactite and a stalagmite trying to kiss.
"Stay there!"
Mr. Z stopped.
"Now," Gabriel said. "Everyone who doesn't want to die, step back."
At the same time, Mr. Z was kicking the human pupae. "Stop him! Push him back against the wall."
Parte King, the cricketlike one, rolled over on his side to look at Gabriel. Sasha turned his swollen white head. They were both smiling their face-splitting grins.
Kaitlyn felt the power surge up again, sweeping around Gabriel like sticky running tree sap around a fly, turning to amber to hold him. She saw Gabriel start to lunge forward, then freeze in place, the tip of the shard only inches from a jagged outgrowth.
Her throat swelled, and then she was shouting. "Come on! Everybody! If we all move at once- maybe they can't hold us."
She stood, heard Mr. Z yell, and felt the drag of air. She fought it, shouting, "Get to the shard!
Somebody get to the shard!"
Then it seemed everyone was either trying to move, or trying to stop someone from moving. Bri was trying to move. Her glower had turned to a look of grim resolve, and Kaitlyn realized she'd finally decided which side she was on. Frost was stopping her, blocking her like a basketball guard. Renny was trying to move. Jackal Mac had abandoned the chains and was
grappling with him in slow motion.
Rob and Anna and Lewis were all struggling to get to Gabriel, mostly with their feet stuck to the floor, but occasionally managing a step. Even Tamsin was trying. Mr. Z was turning round and round among them, raising his cane, shouting. He couldn't deal with them all at once.
Then Kaitlyn saw that Lydia was free and moving -slowly but steadily-toward Gabriel and the shard.
"Joyce!" Mr. Zetes shouted. "Stop her! She's right beside you! Stop her!"
But Joyce shook her head. "It's time it was over, Emmanuel," she said. In an instant, she and Lydia were caught in the sticky air, too. Lydia still struggled on desperately.
"Hold them!" Mr. Zetes shouted, and began beating Sasha and Parte King with his cane. "Hold them all!
Hold them all!"
Kaitlyn heard the savage swishing sound of the cane, and the dull thud of the blows. She saw Gabriel's face tighten, saw it go grim with purpose. The shard quivered, moved an inch toward the crystal.
"Gabriel," Mr. Zetes said. "Think of all your ambitions. You wanted to go to the top. Have everything good. Money, power, position-all the things in life you deserve."
Gabriel was panting, sweat trickling down his temples.
"Recognition of your superiority-you'll never have any of it without me," Mr. Z went on frantically. "What about all that, Gabriel? Everything you always wanted?" Gabriel lifted his head just enough to look Mr. Z in the eye. "The hell with it." Then he gritted his teeth and the shard moved again.
Mr. Zetes lost control.
He began to scream, shrill and piercing, and to beat Sasha again. "Stop him! Stop him! Stop him!"
Sasha's voice rose, too, for the first time since Kaitlyn had seen him. "Muh-muh! Muhhhh! Muhhhh!
Mooooootheeerrrr!"
Kaitlyn screamed herself then. She was crying wildly, fighting the air.
Then suddenly the drag disappeared. The air was air again. Everything that happened next happened in an instant, so that Kaitlyn's mind took it in like a still photograph, receiving the impressions before she could really process them.
She was moving freely. Sasha had turned to look at Mr. Zetes. She could see Sasha's face, not white anymore, but red with the fury of a squalling infant. And then Mr. Zetes was flying toward the crystal, flying, as if a giant hand had thrown him. He smashed into it, into its heavy solidity and sword-sharp outcrops at the same instant that Gabriel thrust the shard forward like a rapier.
It all happened at once. Although Kaitlyn's body was free there was no time to do anything, only time for one thought, sent out to her mind-mates as she saw the shard stab toward the crystal. With Gabriel still holding it-Protect Gabriel! Put your thoughts-around him-
The words weren't very clear, but her intent was. She felt everyone in the web, Rob, Lewis, and Anna, joining with her to help shield Gabriel's mind from the destruction.
Mr. Z's high, keening wail came at the same instant, just as the shard made contact with one translucent facet of the crystal.
And then-
There were all sorts of sounds woven together in the great crashing that came next. There was the sound of an axe crashing through glass, and the sound of a sonic boom that rattled the windows. There was the rushing sound of a freight train passing by very close. There was a metallic sound like all the pots and pans in a kitchen falling to a tile floor at once. There was the rumble of thunder and the cracking of ice on a lake. There was a high, thin sound like the screaming of gulls-or maybe that was Mr. Zetes.
And through all the other sounds, underneath them, Kaitlyn thought she could hear music-the kind of music you think you hear when water is crashing through copper pipes.
Colors that her pastels and ink bottles had never prepared her for. Aureolin yellow with a brightness off the scales. Dragon's blood crimson spreading into tongues of lava pink fire. Ultraviolet silvery blue.
They burst like fireworks, sweeping to the edges of her vision, overlapping each other, bright explosion after bright explosion.
And then they stopped. Kaitlyn saw rainbow afterimages, beautiful fiery lattices printed on her eyelids.
Very cautiously she opened her eyes, lifting her hand away from her face.
A cobalt green stain still colored her vision, but she could see again. The great milky crystal was dust on the ground, glassy dust in the shape of a giant stone plant, or a Christmas tree ornament. The largest bits left were pebble size.
Mr. Zetes, who had been touching the crystal at the moment it shattered, was gone. Just gone. Nothing left but the gold-topped cane that had fallen from his hand.
Sasha and Parte King were lying still. Their faces were frozen into a look of empty astonishment-not peaceful, but not anguished, either. In her heart, Kaitlyn was sorry she'd called them the human pupae.
They had been human beings.
Everyone else was standing pretty much where they had been before the crash. They were all lifting their heads or lowering their hands, staring.
"It's over," Lewis whispered finally. "We did it. It's over."
Kaitlyn was beginning to realize the same thing. Bri and Renny were gazing around them like sleepwalkers who'd just woken up. Free of the influence of the crystal at last, Kait thought. She looked at Gabriel. He was looking at his hand which had held the shard. The palm was pink, as if he'd been lightly burned.
"Did the shard go, too?" Kaitlyn asked.
He turned his gray eyes on her, as if startled to hear a voice. Then he looked back at his hand again.
"Yes," he said, blinking. "When the crystal did. It felt-I can't explain it. It was like lightning in my hand. I felt the power go through it. And the power- it felt like Timon. Like Timon and Mereniang and LeShan-all of them. It was as if they were in there, rushing out." He looked up again, almost furtively. "I guess that sounds crazy."