GHOST CROWN: THE TRACKS TRILOGY - Book Two

by J. Gabriel Gates

  Cle’von was rolling on the ground, holding his arm and crying like a little girl, and Rick lay on his back, still dazed. Not bad work, Raphael thought.

  He turned to see how his crew was doing, but the snow was falling so fast there was zero visibility. Crunching through the deepening drifts, he looked to his left, then his right.

  “Guys?” he called, but a sudden gust of wind swallowed his words.

  Then he saw someone moving toward him through the blizzard. The man was wearing a blue robe, so pale it was almost white.

  Come on!

  Raphael heard it clearly, but he wasn’t sure if the man was shouting at him or if the words were coming from inside his own head. He hesitated only for an instant and then plowed forward into the blasting wind. He’d gone perhaps a dozen yards before he could get a good look at the man. He knew him immediately—long black hair, narrow, cunning eyes and sharp black nails. It was the Magician.

  “Hurry!” the Magician shouted before he turned and plunged forward again. Raphael struggled to keep up. He heard footfalls and shouts as people followed him through the snow—either his friends or the Toppers, he didn’t know which and didn’t care.

  “Where are we going?” Raph yelled, barely able to hear his own voice in the wind.

  Your si-dai needs your aid. The treasure has been stolen. Your moment of testing approaches. Run!

  Raphael’s si-dai—his spiritual brother—was Zhai. Aside from that, he had no idea what the magician was talking about. But he knew it was urgent, and he flung himself headlong into the blinding storm.

  

  The two Snakes had been dragging Zhai and Kate through the woods for about ten minutes. As far as Zhai could tell, they were nearing the entrance to the West Tunnel, but it was difficult to tell with the snow coming down so hard and fast. Kate had stumbled and fallen twice, and for a while, Zhai tried to slow his pace to make it a little easier for her, but as soon as they noticed, the taller Snake pulled one of his long knives from of his jacket, spun it and pressed it to Kate’s throat.

  “You play games with us, slave? Any more games, I cut her pretty little neck open.” He looked at Kate and barked, “Keep up.”

  The blade retracted and he whipped the knife back inside his coat and pressed on; Zhai gave Kate an apologetic glance and followed. Soon the woods gave way to a clearing. Zhai tripped on something and looked down to see he was standing on one rail of the train tracks. They were near the tunnels, just as he thought.

  Here, both Snakes stopped. As Zhai watched, Tall Snake pressed the palms of both hands over his eyes and the marks on his hands began glowing. Short Snake turned to Zhai.

  “Time to earn your keep, slave.” He clenched both his fists and pressed them together, and the marks on his hands began to glow. The mark on Zhai’s left hand ignited with heat as it also started to glow—but the other hand, where he’d burned off the tattoo, didn’t light up. So far, his captors hadn’t noticed he’d destroyed some of their handiwork.

  He felt control of his mind slipping away from him, but it wasn’t the same as before. Now he could resist it. Suddenly, his left side went numb. It was a bizarre sensation, as if someone had painlessly chopped his body in half and thrown the left half away, and Zhai understood what it meant: the left half of his body belonged to the Snakes, but the right half was still his.

  Short Snake removed Zhai’s handcuffs and turned to his comrade, who lowered his hands from his face.

  “What did you see?” Short Snake asked.

  “The half-breed has the treasure,” the other replied gravely. “I don’t know how, but he has it.”

  “So, we take it from him.”

  “It won’t be easy, now that he has its power to combine with his own.”

  “We must summon our lord,” the short Snake said. “It is the only way.”

  His companion nodded. “Let’s prepare our ambush. You and the slave on one side of the tracks, me on the other. And our lord will wait in the center.”

  Zhai glanced at Kate, trying to figure out how he could get her handcuffs off. He didn’t see how he could get hold of the keys Short Snake carried on a ring on his belt, especially with control over only half his body.

  When he looked back at his captors, they were facing each other, holding hands, their eyes closed. Their tattoos were glowing—but now the light was a deep burgundy, and it pulsed with malevolent power. A shudder went through both men at the same time and something changed. The air grew suddenly warmer, and there was a smell, as if someone had dredged the ancient muck from the bottom of some deep, dank cave.

  A hissing sound pierced the wind, low and brief and frightening, but when Zhai looked around, he saw nothing but the falling snow.

  Then, they were moving. Tall Snake headed to the woods on the far side of the tracks and Short Snake took his place on the near side. Zhai felt his body jerk and realized that the left side of his body was trying to move toward Kate. He stepped with his right foot, too, trying his best to keep both halves of his body in sync. For now, he knew, it would be better if the Snakes thought he was entirely under their control. His left hand grabbed the chain that ran between Kate’s cuffs, and yanked her along, toward the ravine beside the tracks where Short Snake now crouched.

  “Zhai?” Kate asked, worried. He knew she couldn’t tell if he was himself or not, but he couldn’t risk saying anything to her now.

  “Hurry, slave!” Short Snake shouted.

  And Zhai dragged Kate to the ravine. The Snakes didn’t seem to notice his jerky movements as he tried to make the half of him under his control move smoothly with the half that was still enslaved. Their attention was focused completely on the West Tunnel.

  Zhai had no idea what was going to be coming at them from that direction, but he had a feeling whatever it was, it would be deadly.

  

  Still holding hands, Orias and Aimee crossed out of the woods and onto the snowy railroad tracks. The tunnel loomed ominously behind them and she tried not to look at it. Orias pulled her onward, away from the tunnel mound. The snow was falling harder now; she couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of her.

  “Wait,” Orias said, and he stopped walking. He held the crystal ring above his head and it lit up. A spark of light shot around its circumference, penetrating the falling snow like a giant searchlight and giving them greater visibility as they continued forward. Still, she didn’t see their attackers until they were almost on them.

  Two men wearing black overcoats and derby hats were standing near the tracks in front of them, one on the left and one on the right—and they both had two wickedly long knives each, which they twirled threateningly. A moment later, Zhai Shao appeared behind one of them, but somehow, he didn’t seem like Zhai. His movements were strange . . . lurching . . . and something on the back of his left hand was glowing red.

  “You’re outnumbered, half-breed,” the taller man told Orias as he moved slowly toward them. “Drop the treasure.”

  Orias laughed. “Says who? The mighty Order of the Black Snake—a bunch of petty demon worshippers?” He gripped the ring tighter and held it up in front of his chest. It flashed with power again, seething with bright blue-white energy, as it had inside the chamber. The two men hesitated, and in that moment, a blast of deep blue lightning shot from the disk, crackling through the air and sending them tumbling backward into a snowbank.

  Aimee was glad to see Zhai still standing and unharmed, except that his body was strangely twisted and he seemed rooted in place. “Orias—wait,” she said. “That’s Zhai. He’s a friend of mine—and he’s no threat to you.”

  Orias looked at her, his expression guarded. Then he said, “For your sake—I hope that’s true.” He started to pull her onward, but the Snake men were already rising.

  “Big mistake,” the taller one snarled, his coat steaming from the heat of t
he blast and the snow it had melted.

  Aimee heard a deep hiss and looked up. She couldn’t see the beast that rose above them, perhaps thirty feet into the night sky. Only its outline was visible as the creature displaced the flurrying, drifting wall of white with its massive body. It was incredibly long, incredibly thick, and coiled in huge loops. There was a wide hood around its head. And then she saw it through the lashing snow. It was a giant black cobra.

  Orias saw it too, and Aimee heard what he was thinking.

  The god of the Black Snakes.

  Orias released Aimee and held on to the ring with both hands, and the energy within it grew brighter. But it was too late—the cobra struck.

  And suddenly Aimee was standing several yards away from the tracks, at the edge of the forest. It took her a second to realize what had happened: in her fear, she had automatically side slipped. Flashes of blue lightning blasted across the snowy sky and she could see Orias over on the tracks, battling the massive snake.

  A frightened voice came from behind her: “Help me—please!”

  She whirled around to see a slight, pretty red-haired girl chained to a tree, her hands cuffed together. Aimee hurried to her. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I’d tell you if I knew,” the girl said. “I have to help Zhai. I’m Kate—his friend. Can you get me free?”

  Aimee looked at the handcuffs, which were made of steel and looked pretty solid. She glanced around for a big stone or something to smash them with, but everything was covered with snow. But wait, she thought. I don’t need to break the cuffs, do I?

  She took both Kate’s hands.

  “Close your eyes,” she said. “This might feel weird, but it won’t last long,” Aimee warned. And before Kate could protest, they slipped. Half a second later, Kate stood next to the tree she had been chained to and they watched as the empty handcuffs fell to the ground.

  “How did you—?” Kate began, but Aimee was already racing back toward the tracks, tugging Kate along with her. She had to help Orias. She knew it would be bad if the giant snake got hold of the treasure.

  At the tracks, a major battle was raging. Orias had levitated and was hovering ten feet above the earth, his legs now trapped in the snake’s coils. Each time the beast struck at him with its fangs, Orias managed to blast it with the treasure, which only seemed to stun it momentarily. Meanwhile, the two snake men were trying to climb up its coils to slash at Orias with their knives—but each time they came near, Orias blasted them back into the snow.

  As Aimee and Kate approached, the short snake man turned angrily to Zhai.

  “Slave, attack!” he shouted. Zhai lurched in place but didn’t move forward. The Snake grabbed his right hand and looked at the back of it. “I see.” His eyes narrowed. “You have defaced your mark. Then you have ceased to be useful. Slave, kill yourself.”

  He threw one of his long knives to Zhai, who caught it in his left hand. Aimee was dumbfounded to see Zhai spin the knife expertly, and then plunged it toward his own chest.

  “No!” Kate screamed, running to him. Just in time, she caught his arm and stopped him. He looked down into Kate’s eyes, as if trying to take in the love and concern he saw there.

  “You are useless!” the snake man screamed. Zhai didn’t see the blade flying out of the Snake’s hand but Kate did, and she threw herself in front of it.

  “Kate!” Zhai’s agonized cry slashed through the wind.

  Then Aimee saw it. Kate’s coat was already dark with blood as she slumped into Zhai’s arms. Her face was pale, her eyes unfocused.

  “No!” Zhai shouted. “No!”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Maggie charged up the tracks through the storm, next to Mr. Chin, her backpack slung over one shoulder and bouncing against her hip. Anne Pembrook followed a few paces behind. Ahead, flashes of blue-white light sparked through the drifting flurries, and the shouts of combatants drifted on the wind.

  With each step, the ghost crown grew heavier, until she was certain that if she reached up and touched her forehead, she would feel its metal there beneath her fingers. With each flash of supernatural lightning it throbbed, and with each throb she felt another shot of adrenaline rush through her bloodstream. She felt energized enough to run two marathons back-to-back. She had no idea what waited ahead of her, but whatever it was, she was ready for it.

  As they approached the fray, Maggie took in the sight as if there was nothing unnatural about it. Orias was hovering, somehow suspended, above the railroad tracks. Two men wearing old-style hats and brandishing daggers leaped up and slashed at him, but he was holding them off with shots of lightning from the glowing ring he held in his hands. They deflected the blasts with their daggers, but the force of Orias’s attack was driving them back. And there was something else. The snow itself seemed to be attacking Orias, too. Or, she corrected, something displacing the snow—something shaped like a huge, coiled snake.

  “I’ll distract the snake men!” Chin shouted to Maggie through the cutting wind. “Orias has the treasure—he cannot be allowed to keep it. You know what to do.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Anne shouted.

  “Over there!” Chin pointed to where Aimee and Zhai were bending over Kate. “Go see if you can help them,” he said, and then he turned to Maggie, concerned. “Are you ready?”

  Her stance wide, Maggie could feel the solid presence of the railroad ties beneath her feet, and the ground beneath that, and the searing, swirling molten core of the earth below that. She felt the whisper of the snow and the humming of the wind. She felt the All, rising within her. And she felt the ghost crown on her brow, its energy circling insistently around her head.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  Master Chin ran with surprising speed toward Orias and his attackers. He hit the short Snake from behind with a flying kick and knocked him face first into the snow. Chin snatched up the weapon he dropped and, dodging the sizzling, snapping blasts of lightning Orias was aiming at the cobra and its followers, he charged Tall Snake with the dagger. They met in midair, their spinning blades clashing together, a dervish of deadly steel.

  “He’s amazing,” Anne whispered breathlessly, but Maggie paid no attention. The power of the universe was filling her and it was about to erupt.

  

  As Raphael plunged ahead through a world of blinding whiteness, a ring of blue-white light burned ahead through the blizzard.

  That is the treasure, the Magician whispered through the wind. Take it.

  Raphael’s legs pounded through the deep snow with renewed energy, but as much as he felt drawn to the prize ahead of him, he was also repelled by the mortal terror infecting every fiber of his soul.

  If I touch it, I’ll die, he thought with a horrifying certainty. But if I don’t get it, the whole world will die.

  He didn’t know exactly how he knew this; the revelation seemed to come from everywhere—the snowflakes around him murmured it, the wind shouted it. Even the crunching snow beneath his feet grumbled out a warning.

  He was at the tracks now, and while his mind told him what he was seeing could not be true, his soul knew it was. Master Chin, looking kind of battered, was fighting blade to blade with the two Obies. A little further in the distance, the Toppers and Flatliners were mobbed together pummeling each other. But what was really astonishing was the giant black cobra rising up in the center of the tracks—and it had Orias Morrow suspended in its monstrous coils. The snake-beast’s hooded head was as big as a boxcar, and it swayed above them all, its fangs bared and dripping venom. And then Raphael saw someone else running toward Orias and the deadly cobra.

  It was Aimee.

  

  Nass groaned in pain and frustration. Over and over he’d tried to scale the walls of the pit, and each time he’d slid back down, his fingers raking painfully, uselessly,
across the sheer walls of crumbling rock and earth. When he heard the fight starting above, he’d immediately tried to climb up the rope, but before he’d gone more than a dozen feet, it had either come untied or been cut and he’d fallen back to the bottom. He’d listened to the sounds of the battle above him, desperate to get to the surface and help his friends, but it had been impossible. He’d even turned his phone back on and tried to call for help, but it kept losing the signal. He was pretty sure he’d be stuck down here forever. Then, miraculously, it rang. He looked at his caller I.D.

  “Natalie?” he asked, puzzled.

  “No, it’s me,” Dalton said. “Where are you?”

  “In a hole,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “At the Eastern Tunnel, near the tracks. You’re breaking up a little, but I could swear you said you’re in a hole.”

  “Yeah—and I’m close by. Take your ear away from the phone for a second. I’m gonna yell—see if you hear me.” They heard him loud and clear, and in another few seconds, they were at the edge of the pit. He turned his flashlight on and off a couple of times to signal them. “You see any of the crew around?” he asked. “I need someone to pull me up.”

  “You got a rope?” Natalie called down.

  “Yeah.”

  “Throw it up,” she told him. “I’ll get you out of there.”

  “Maybe you should get one of the guys,” he suggested.

  “Oh, give me a break,” Natalie shot back. “Toss me up the rope.”

  Nass tried, but it was soon clear that it wasn’t going to work. It was too light and the distance too great. If it was a baseball, he would have no problem lobbing it up there. That gave him an idea. He needed something to tie it to. He shone his light around the pit and found a half-buried stone—about the size of a baseball. With his bare hands, he dug it out of the dirt, twisted the rope around it and knotted it securely.