by Martin Dukes
“Can you dodge so many bullets?” asked the Sultan gesturing to his side. He drew a pistol from his waistband. “We shall send you back to Hell!”
“I think not,” said Alex, making the phase, even as a score of fingers pulled at triggers.
The ladder was already leaning against the wall of the tower when Alex materialised at its base, the report of distant rifles echoing from the walls. Amjad was first up, heaving open the door and stooping to secure the ladder’s top. Tanya was next, followed by Kelly, Zoroaster, Will and finally Henry, glancing anxiously over his shoulder as the horsemen came thundering up the road. There were the sharp cracks of rifles and a few misdirected bullets splintered stone from the smooth face of the tower. Henry winced and scaled the ladder with impressive speed.
“Look at him go!” said Alex looking up after him approvingly. “Like a rat up a drainpipe.”
The horsemen were nearly there. He could hear their war cries. The ground shook with the rumble of their hoof beats. Alex could see the Sultan at their head, his sabre raised high as he spurred on his mount to jump the ditch.
The foot of the ladder swayed unsteadily above Alex’s head as Amjad and Henry pulled it up.
A sudden blast of hot wind tugged at Alex’s T-shirt, whipping around the base of the tower and setting up a furious rattling in the bamboo in front of him. It was as though a light had been turned out as the dark storm front struck them, the wind hissing through the grasses and the scrub, building up to a throaty roar within moments. There were tiny things blowing past. One lodged in his hair and another on his shoulder, each held by a silken thread. A dark blur of windblown sand enveloped him.
“Worms!” he gasped snatching at his hair, flicking frantically at his shoulder.
He phased, even as the indistinct dark shapes of horses and their riders loomed around him.
“Shut the door,” roared Zoroaster as Alex materialised amongst them. “Shut the damned door!”
“Get this off me!” cried Alex, a note of panic in his voice.
Tanya’s nimble fingers plucked the worm from his hair. Amjad’s heel ground it underfoot.
The door slammed shut, the latch clicked into place and the room was suddenly dim, lit only greenishly by two small windows high in the wall. The worm storm intensified outside.
“See,” said Will triumphantly. “I told you, didn’t I?” He turned to Zoroaster. “We both told you.”
“Yeah,” said Henry wearily, pressing his eye to one of the windows. “Yeah, you did. You’re very clever people. Let’s get past it, shall we?”
“I’m thirsty,” said Tanya, standing half way up the staircase to look out of the other window.
“We’re all thirsty,” said Zoroaster with feeling. “And hungry, too. We had best hope this storm does not last too long.”
He and Will looked at each other anxiously. Each remembered the storeroom in the room below their feet. Clearly the people who had built this tower had anticipated the need to provide its occupants with supplies for a considerable period of time.
The wind was howling past the tower now, the door rattling in its frame as sudden gusts buffeted the thin metal.
“Can you see the Sultan?” asked Alex, jostling Henry at his place in front of the lower window.
“I can hardly see anything,” said Henry moving aside. “Just blurry stuff. I think there’s fires burning down the road.”
There were screams now, audible over the rushing of the wind as the Sultan and his men succumbed to the tempest of worms. Alex nodded grimly at Henry.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Henry with a shrug. He slumped to a sitting position, back to the wall and exhaled deeply, drawing up his knees and resting his forehead on them. They talked in low voices, Henry describing events since Alex’s abduction to Elysium. He recounted in detail the story of their escape from the warehouse, the skirmish that had resulted in Jemail and Rakesh being left to their fate and of their journey to the tower until the moment of Alex’s reappearance. Alex smiled when he heard of Rakesh’s brilliant improvisation with Malcolm’s high-tech pebbles.
“I found out what the other one did,” said Alex. “You still got ‘em?”
“Yeah, got ‘em here,” said Henry indicating his pocket. “You want ‘em back?”
“Not particularly,” said Alex with a shrug. He felt too tired to care much about anything.
“So what’s it do?”
“What?”
“The other stone,” said Henry irritably. “What’s it do?”
“It opens and shuts locks,” said Alex. He laughed, shaking his head. “But it’s configured so it only works with my DNA. It was never going to work for you. That would have been handy to know, wouldn’t it? You just have to point it at a lock. Ha!”
Soon everyone was sitting or lying on the cold stone floor, too exhausted to speak as the worm storm beyond the walls swept their enemies away and scoured the surrounding lands with fire and wind. Tanya slept curled up like some small creature, her blonde hair dirty and matted. Will and Zoroaster spoke in low, slow voices about their journeys in Zanjd. Kelly sat in the triangular space behind the staircase, her face and thoughts lost in shadow. Alex sat on the bottom step of the staircase, head in hands, and he let his mind wander restively over the events that had led to this grim circumstance. One thing was certain; none of them could ever be the same individuals they once had been, before fate had brought them to Zanzibar. Kelly, whose scars were of the mental variety, rocked slowly back and forward as she wept silently into her sleeve. Henry, whose scars could fairly be said to cover both categories, wondered if the light-headedness he felt was due to loss of blood, despite the crude bandage of torn cloth that Zoroaster had applied to his latest wound. Shazad’s sword point, the terrible helplessness he had felt, the shameful wetness in his trousers at that moment that might have been his last, all these things haunted his thoughts.
“Terrible weather we’re having,” said a loud, mocking voice in their midst, and the reflective calm was suddenly shattered. In an instant all were on their feet, Henry grasping for his sword and Alex for his baseball bat.
Garek stood amongst them, a broad, ironic grin splitting his sallow, bearded features. In his right hand he held one of the pebble-like objects that seemed to serve so many functions for angels. Alex swallowed hard as he saw what dangled loose in Garek’s left hand – the grim black sword that had seemed destined to sever his head. Perhaps it still was.
“Take it steady now,” said Garek, glancing quickly over his shoulder and taking a step back towards the door alcove. “We don’t want any unnecessary violence, do we?”
He gestured with the pebble as Henry and Amjad stepped forward.
“Necessary violence, now that’s a different matter,” he continued. “Be warned. This here little beauty is a weapon, one quite capable of blowing you all to tiny pieces. Very nasty. Come no further, or I shall use it.”
He made a sudden lunge for Tanya, who was clambering to her feet, grabbing her by the hair, swinging her off balance and yanking her brutally in front of him, the sword clanging to the floor, the arm that had held it tight around her throat and the pebble pressed to the side of her head. Tanya squealed and sobbed, her face transfixed with pain and terror.
“Hold it right there,” he snapped, even as the others advanced on him. “Or I blow little missy’s brains out.”
Everyone stopped, glancing uncertainly at each other. Garek positioned himself with his back to the door. “There now, we don’t want anyone appearing suddenly behind me, do we?” he said with a significant nod towards Alex, who was cautiously establishing his inner self within reach of the dark portal.
“Don’t even think about it, Alex,” he said in a low menacing voice that had quite lost the sarcastic edge that had first distinguished it. “One move from you and she dies. A very simple relationship, yes? Even you can grasp it. Think about it very carefully.”
“What do you want?” asked Alex, trying
desperately to keep his voice from trembling.
“Oh, Alex,” Garek sighed. He shook his head with mock sadness. “Alex, Alex, Alex. I think you know what I want,” he said, changing his grip on his hostage.
“My head? What can you want with my skull now?” asked Alex, shaking the object in question. “The Dodekakephalon’s gone. I smashed it up.”
“You did!” agreed Garek. “And for that you must pay. I’m a completist, you see, and I’m going to finish the job I set out to do, even if it takes my last breath to do it. I’m going to take your skull, sonny, and you are going to let me.”
“You’re a monster,” said Zoroaster. “A devil, not an angel.”
“Shut up old man,” said Garek. “What do you know? What do any of you know? Ignorant mortals… Come on, Alex, how’s it going to be? Am I going to take your head now or am I going to kill all your little pals first and then take your head?”
“You’re crazy,” said Henry, his fingers fidgeting on his sword hilt.
Alex bit his lip. Was this the choice he really faced? Was there a choice? Must he really offer to die in order that his friends should live?
“It’s not going to happen,” said Will glancing sidelong at Alex. “We’ll all go together.”
Garek turned the pebble suddenly towards Amjad, who had begun to move. There was a sharp snapping sound, an instantaneous shockwave in the air, and Amjad was suddenly groaning on the floor, writhing in pain.
“Damn! My legs! My legs! Aagh!” he gasped.
“Oh dear, how tedious,” said Garek directing the pebble at Henry now. Henry lunged forward. Too late. Another snap, another shockwave, and Henry was picked up like a rag doll and hurled back against Will and Zoroaster. Will, taking the full force of the impact, was thrown against the wall, his head making violent contact. He lay still, a trickle of blood flowing from his ear. Zoroaster struggled to raise himself on an elbow, while Henry groaned and rolled from back to front, coughing and retching.
“Tut, tut,” clucked Garek.
In that moment Zoroaster heaved at the base of the ladder, which was balanced next to him, causing it to topple towards Garek. An expression of surprise visited his features as instinctively he cast up his arm to protect himself. Kelly, apparently paralysed by shock until this moment, suddenly shrieked and threw herself bodily at Garek. In the same moment Henry, twisting to free his hand, threw an object to Alex, a boy notorious at school for his inability to catch. Nevertheless, in one smooth movement Alex snatched the lock/unlock pebble from the air, and then directed and squeezed it. Even as Kelly’s full weight connected with Garek’s midriff the door latch behind him clicked open. Instinctively Tanya heaved backwards, too. Garek, mouth wide, toppled against the door, which flew open under the pressure of his falling weight. Unbalanced and groping for support, he fell half through the door and onto the ledge beyond, the weapon pebble flying from his hand. The howling gale whipped at his robes as he half turned, raised himself up and threw himself back into the closing gap between door and frame.
“Damn you!” he roared, heaving at the door. Kelly and Tanya heaved back, but it was a losing battle – the crack widened.
“Let go!” screamed Alex, hurling himself full length to grab at the spinning pebble that Garek had dropped.
Kelly and Tanya lurched back. The door crashed open and Garek’s furious figure was momentarily framed against the roaring darkness of the storm. Alex squeezed the pebble. There was a sharp snapping sound, a massive shockwave, and Garek was flung out with a grunt into the howling void. Kelly slammed the door shut. Alex closed his eyes and allowed his head to sink until his cheek lay against the cold slabbed floor.
He opened them again to find himself staring at Malcolm’s feet.
“What’s been going on here?” said Malcolm with a whistle.
“Timing,” groaned Alex, rolling onto his side and looking to where Armand and Dave had also materialised. “It’s all about timing, isn’t it? Why couldn’t you have showed up five minutes ago?”
“The lockdown just got lifted,” said Malcolm glancing around with growing concern. “You haven’t seen Garek, have you?”
“Funnily enough, yes,” said Alex struggling to his feet.
“He just popped out,” added Henry rubbing his head.
“There are wounded here,” said Armand observantly, stooping over Amjad. Amjad was still moaning and twitching with pain, but a little light pressure from Armand’s hands on his forehead and the young man lay still, sighing with relief.
“Anyone else?” he asked, looking at Zoroaster.
“I’ll be alright,” muttered the old man. “Attend to the lad.”
Armand knelt at Will’s side, slipping his broken glasses from his face. He placed a hand on Will’s temple. Dave, clutching a flat box, stood amidst it all looking vaguely bemused.
“Anyone want pizza?” he asked, gesturing with a crust. “I got pizza. Still warm.”
“Not the moment, Dave,” said Malcolm in a low voice, tugging at his sleeve. Dave shrugged.
“Is he going to be alright?” asked Kelly at Armand’s side next to Will, having being released from a fierce hug from Tanya.
“He’ll be fine,” said Armand. “Although I fear he may be a little groggy.”
Will blinked his pale, weak eyes and groped for his glasses. Kelly put them into his hand.
“Broken,” she said. “But you’re okay. That’s what counts, eh?”
“You did good,” said Alex coming up behind her. “You did real good!” She turned and offered him a wan smile, like a ray of sunshine after a grey day. Her eyes were puffy, her face pale and she swept a lock of hair aside as she looked up at him.
“I wasn’t about to lose Tanya and I wasn’t about to lose another man in my life,” she said with an attempt at a smile, her voice unsteady.
He put his arms around her and they embraced, her slender body trembling as her head sank to his shoulder. He stroked her hair, thinking of that moment so long ago now when they had met in the park. Her arms tightened around him. It was as though she read his thoughts. She looked up at him and the smile flickered once more at the corners of her lips.
“Some date this turned out to be,” she said.
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If you enjoyed reading "Caught in a Moment" and "Worm Winds of Zanzibar", you may be interested in reading the third volume in this trilogy, "Angelic Upstart", in which the story is brought to a conclusion. This work should be published in the spring of 2014. If you are interested in keeping track of progress visit my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/martindukesbooks