The Rules. Book 1; The End

by Jon Jacks

  If magic was the answer, Beth couldn’t see what the problem was. Surely, anything could be achieved using magic?

  ‘Then once I have better control of my powers, I’ll make it grow again,’ she firmly declared.

  Galilee chuckled wryly.

  ‘Well, if you’re really a water fay, and all you’re controlling is water, it’s never, ever really going to be enough. Besides, we’d just be endangering ourselves using up energy like that – it has to wait.’

  ‘Wait? Endangering ourselves? Why does it have to wait? It’s magic!’

   ‘What – for a better word – we call magic is just our own reordering of whatever energy’s surrounding us. All these physical laws, they gave it order; but now everything’s malleable, fluid, once again. But there’s only so much energy close by that we can draw on, right?’

  ‘You mean – what? If we use it up, and something attacks us again, we’ve got nothing to defend ourselves with?’

  He frowned, nodded.

  ‘Plus it’s much more tiring using magic than you’d think.’

  ‘If you say so, Mr Know-it-all,’ Beth replied peevishly.

  She was annoyed by the way Galilee seemed to have a ready answer for anything.

  Wasn’t there anything he didn’t know? She found everything so confusing.

  What had Frobisher asked Heddy Back at the farm? To explain how the planets continued to revolve if there were no longer any laws of gravity?

  Didn’t he have a point?

  She pointed up at the sun.

  ‘The planets and stars;’ she said. ‘How come they’re all still up there, if there isn’t any gravity?’

  ‘Gravity still exists,’ Galilee said with remarkable assurance. ‘But like everything else, it’s just not so clearly defined anymore. As long as enough of us expect the planets to keep on revolving as we’re used to, they’ll keep on revolving for the moment.’

  For the moment? Beth wasn’t sure she wanted to ask how long Galilee thought that ‘moment’ would be.

  ‘How come you know all this?’ she asked instead.

  Galilee shrugged.

  ‘I’m only picking it up bit by bit from Machal to be honest.’

  ‘Machal? He’s the magic spirit inside you, yeah?’

  Galilee laughed.

  ‘Well, “magic spirit” is a bit of an odd description. But, yeah, I suppose that’s the easiest way to understand how they can be a part of us. But they’re real enough, Beth. And could be again.’

  Beth shuddered.

  ‘You mean like that holak thing, that burst out of Solly? That was real enough.’

  ‘That’s why we need to take it slow while we get used to them, Beth; so we’re the ones remaining in control. It helps, I must admit, if they’re the good guys. They’re more likely to think you also have a right to exist.’

  Inclining his head slightly, he stared directly into Beth’s eyes.

  She felt that he wasn’t just expecting her to say something, but also to admit something.

  ‘Hmmn, well luckily for me,’ she said, ‘Lynese is pretty shy, if a bit spiky. It’s not easy getting her to talk.’

  ‘Spiky?’ Galilee grinned. ‘Well, I suppose you’d be a bit “spiky” if you’d woken up and found you’d been imprisoned for thousands of years. And yeah, okay; I could understand her wanting to lie low. Your house was attacked because they wanted to kill her – and yes, you too of course – before she was in full control of her powers.’

  ‘But why me? Why did mum have to die, just because they wanted to get an innocent little water fay?’

  ‘Innocent? Water fay? Beth, those firemen wouldn’t go to all that trouble for an “innocent little water fay”.’

  Beth didn’t know whether to be surprised or angry.

  Galilee was just about calling her a liar by saying she couldn’t really be a water fay.

  ‘And Beth, those firemen, right?’ he added. ‘They were the good guys!’

   

   

  *

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Chapter 41

   

  A heavy metallic clunk behind them made Beth jump.

  She whirled around.

  The armoured car had come to halt.

  It was rocking wildly on strained, squeaking springs. From inside, there came a rapid series of clangs and thuds.

  Like bodies careering around. Crashing into levers, boxes and booming metal walls.

  ‘Sarge? Tom?’

  In a defensive crouch, his gun at the ready, the soldier nervously edged closer to the armoured car.

  He leapt back, shuddering with horror.

  A section of the car’s steel sides seemed to have temporarily come alive. It was sprouting a number of small tentacles.

  ‘What the–?’

  The steel tentacles swiftly withdrew. They instantly reappeared higher up the vehicle.

  When these also quickly vanished, they re-emerged as freshly sprouting limbs along another side of the car.

  ‘Quick! Come back!’ Galilee sprinted forward, reaching out to grab the stunned soldier and pull him away.

  He was too late.

  The metallic tentacles burst out of the armoured car’s front plates.

  Reaching out towards the soldier far faster than Galilee could, they sprang free of the metal. They pierced and deeply embedded themselves in the soldier as if he were made of molten rubber.

  They stretched out inside him, until he appeared to be a writhing, fleshy octopus.

  Galilee jumped back, warning Beth to keep her distance.

  ‘An odrad! Stay back!’

  Beth didn’t need any orders.

  Thankfully, she couldn’t see the poor soldier’s face. But she heard what sounded like a choking gurgling.

  The tentacles, no longer metallic but formed from white, quivering flesh, disappeared and reappeared in quick succession.

  Gradually, they shredded the uniform. Abruptly, a cluster of eyes protruded from what had been the soldier’s back.

  Ungainly walking backwards, the hideously transformed soldier began to slowly approach Beth and Galilee.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Beth saw that Galilee, like her, was steadily backing away from the oncoming soldier.

  Why isn’t he using his powers to keep this…this thing back?

  His hands were raised, as if he were about to create the whirlwinds he had used earlier.

  Yet he was grimacing, his teeth clenched in agony as if he were straining hard to conjure up a blast of air.

  A slight turbulence began to form around his hands. But Galilee appeared to be painfully struggling to create even this pathetic effect.

  The tentacled odrad suddenly exploded from the soldier’s squirming body.

  Leaving a wasted husk to crumple to the ground, it leapt through the air towards Galilee.

   

   

  *

   

   

  A whirling gust at last shot forwards from the boy’s hands.

  Rippling around the odrad, it violently spun the shrieking beast in mid-air.

  With a pained, surprised squeal, the creature was cast aside. It rolled across the ground, a mass of tangled tentacles.

  What looked to Beth like a grotesque hybrid of squid and massive spider hurriedly scampered across the grass, heading for the cover of the hedgerow.

  Galilee, his face etched with the strain, tried to catch it once more in the whirling wind emanating from his hands. The air whipped up the grass behind the rapidly retreating odrad.

   The odrad disappeared into the hedgerow, merging into its branches as fluidly as it had merged into the armoured car’s metal and the soldier’s flesh.

  A swiftly moving wave, it rapidly flowed from one bush into the next, the swaying branches indistinguishable from the woody ten
tacles.

  Galilee’s whirlwinds pursued the retreating beast, churning up and shaking the hawthorns and brambles. But they lacked the strength and speed of the gusts that had earlier torn the hedgerow apart.

  Soon, even these weak squalls petered out. The escaping odrad rippled down the line of bushes, passing farther into the distance with every second.

  ‘What…what did you say that was? An odrad?’

  Beth stared at what remained of the poor soldier.

  His body could have been a shredded, deflated balloon.

  The armoured car was unmoving, silent. Beth didn’t like to think what the soldiers inside looked like.

  ‘Just how many of these creatures are there?’

  She stared at the soldier’s body again, this time with a twinge of fear.

  ‘Fortunately, not that many!’

  Galilee answered almost thoughtlessly. He was looking about himself with a perplexed expression.

  ‘I’m surprised we’ve come across two so close together, to be honest.’

  ‘Gerry!’

  Suddenly remembering her friend, Beth rushed around to the back of the armoured car.

  She was dreading what she would find.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Gerry was still laid out across the vehicle’s back, snoring contentedly as she slept.

  Beth broke into a harsh burst of relieved laughter.

  ‘Asleep! Asleep through all that!’

  As Galilee came alongside her, he remained serious, anxious.

  Rather than Gerry, he was looking at the soldier laid alongside her. The soldier’s body had split open, as Solly’s had.

  ‘It came from him didn’t it, that odrad?’

  Beth recognised the way the flesh had parted in great chunks.

  ‘Like the holak came from Solly?’

  Galilee nodded.

  ‘So how come it didn’t attack Gerry first?’

  ‘She was asleep. It probably saved her. It would have heard the men moving around inside first.’

  He was still frowning, like he was trying to figure something out.

  ‘Why have we got two of them here, so close together?’

  He stared at Beth curiously, almost accusingly.

  ‘This Foley; you’ve known him for, what? A few weeks? Months? Years?’

  ‘Well, since I ran away from home. He saw me begging in the streets. Said I should join his group. He took me in when I needed help. So, yeah, he isn’t the nicest guy around for sure; but, you know, perhaps that’s the sort of guy you need on your side when life’s against you.’

  She realised she was being defensive.

  She was suddenly furious that Galilee, just like so many other people in her life, made her feel like she had to explain her actions, her choices.

  ‘Why are you asking me all this? Is it because you couldn’t use you powers? Are you blaming me?’

  Galilee angrily glared back at her.

  ‘See the thing is, Beth, you and Foley coming together doesn’t strike me as just a coincidence. You probably sensed some sort of connection. Even though you weren’t aware of it yet, let alone what it could be. So, what was it drawing you together, Beth?’

  ‘I don’t believe this! You really are blaming me for your lack of powers, aren’t you? So what if there were two beasts here? One of them was a soldier, right, Mr Smarty-pants! He was ordered here! So where’s the coincidence in that, eh?’

  ‘Remember what I said about all authority being corrupt? Yes, he was ordered here, but that might have been for a reason! I can’t tell who’s got these creatures inside them. But some people can!’

  ‘And you think I must’ve had something to do with it? So I’m in control of the army now am I? So, hey, I know there’s this murderous beast just hanging around inside Solly, just waiting to split him open and attack me, but, hey – bring it on! And hey, let’s have an odrad too! That’s what I call real fun these days! Or is it just that – oh yeah, I get it now! We’re all bosom buddies, aren’t we? Just like me and Foley, we’re all somehow being happily drawn together. Because, you know, we’re all birds of a feather, aren’t we?’

  ‘Well look, right, something, or someone, is using up most of the energy around here!’

  Galilee sounded every bit as furious and exasperated as Beth.

  ‘It’s almost impossible to draw on any energy! It’s like someone wanted the odrad to escape.’

  ‘Oh, and that would be me, would it? I’d like a thing like a six-foot spider with tentacles that tear you apart to escape would I?’

  ‘Okay, okay, you’ve made your point Beth!’ Galilee raised his hands resignedly. ‘I’m sorry! But I’ve never come across anything like it before. It’s like someone’s just hardened everything around us slightly. Making sure it’s no longer fluid, no longer usable.’

  Beth looked out across the fields.

  ‘I never saw anything magical happening,’ she said. ‘It’s all just the same, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, see, but that’s the weird thing; it’s been given the barest minimum of order. All of it. Everything around us. And barely any chinks in it, either, for me to use and break up that order to make it usable again. Do you know how much power it takes to do that?’

  ‘Well there you go, see? And you thought I was responsible? Someone who doesn’t even have the slightest idea what you’re rabbiting on about?’

  The sharp rap and bark of machinegun fire stopped Galilee from answering.

  ‘The farm!’ His eyes widened in alarm. ‘That seemed to come from the farm!’

  ‘What? What’s that me dearie?’

  The shots had woken Gerry. Still dazed, still half drunk, she began to slide off the back of the armoured car.

  ‘Going back to the farm are we?’ she asked with a slur.

  ‘Heddy!’ Ignoring Gerry, Beth glanced fearfully at Galilee. ‘And her dad!’

  ‘The odrad,’ he said, confirming Beth’s worst fears.

   

   

  *

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Chapter 42

   

  There was no more gunfire from the farm.

  Beth looked hopefully at Galilee; did that mean that the soldiers had killed the odrad?

  His tight-lipped frown was all the answer she needed.

  ‘We have to help them,’ he said.

   ‘But…but your powers – what can you do?’

  ‘Whatever it is that’s stopping me, I can’t see it extending that far.’

  ‘That far?’

  Gerry, leaning unsteadily against the armoured car, was still slurring her words.

  ‘What far?’ she added, obviously confused by Galilee and Beth’s conversation.

  Reaching for her, Galilee began to gently help her move away from the armoured car.

  ‘We’d better get her somewhere safer,’ Galilee said to Beth, indicating with a nod of his head the steam pouring from the mass of holes in the vehicle’s sides. ‘The odrad’s wrecked the engine. It could explode, along with any ammunition in there.’

  Gerry continued to stumble drunkenly.

  It took quite an effort to quickly move her to a safe distance away from the armoured car, even with both Beth and Galilee supporting her.

  ‘Beth,’ Galilee said, ‘we’ve either got to leave your friend here, or I’m going to have to run on ahead to the farm.’

  ‘I can’t leave her.’

  Beth glanced nervously at the husk of the solider that lay crumpled on the floor. There would be others inside the armoured car too.

  ‘What about these soldiers? Will they…?’

  ‘Turn into other creatures? As I said, there aren’t usually too many around. Besides, once an odrad has done its work inside, there’s not usually much that’s usable.’
<
br />   ‘“Usually”? That’s two “usuallys” you just used.’

  Galilee shrugged, like there wasn’t much he could do about it.

   

   

  *

   

   

  ‘Catch up as soon as you can,’ Galilee called back as he set off at a sprint towards the farm.

  ‘Come on Gerry!’

  Beth tried to readjust the way she was supporting her friend, hoping to find a more comfortable position that made it easier to support her weight.

  ‘Sober up! Put a bit of life into it!’

   Beth’s own feet caught and stumbled in the ruts of the uneven path.

  ‘Does a water fay know any magic for carrying a drunken friend across a field?’ Beth mumbled irritably.

  Well, there’s plenty of water in these ditches. Usually we’d just splash some water up in her face.

  ‘Not another “usually”,’ Beth grumbled. ‘What’s stopping you – oh yeah, I remember. This “hardening” of the magic Galilee was complaining about.’

  Yes, interesting that, isn’t it? The way lover boy’s powers were restricted like that.

  ‘Lover boy? I’d hardly call him lover boy!’

  Oh come on Beth! You can’t fool me. I’m here inside you, remember?

  ‘What?’

  Beth was aghast. She felt, well, somehow naked.

  ‘You’re saying you can read my thoughts after all?’

  Well, I can when you give yourself away like that, silly! Your emotions, though; now they’re an open book to me. He’s handsome, intelligent, powerful. What’s not to like? Oh yes. He’s a bit of a goody-goody, isn’t he?

  ‘And infuriating, annoying, big-headed, arrogant! He won’t listen to a word I say. And he doesn’t trust me, so I don’t reckon he likes me, do you?’

  Hmmn, sounds like love to me. You’re finding him exasperating, don’t you think, because you wish he liked you?

  ‘Hah ha! That’s rubbish. Read my mind; see, it’s saying, “that’s rubbish”!’

  If he doesn’t like you, what’s he still doing here? The way you’ve been talking to him, I wouldn’t blame lover boy at all if he just decided to take off and leave you to it.

  ‘Look, he’s not lover boy, okay?’

  Beth staggered under Gerry’s weight as they slowly worked their way over a particularly rocky piece of ground. She could easily twist an ankle if she wasn’t careful.

  ‘Any sign that this thing or whatever it is that’s stopping magic being used is fading yet?’

  It’s gradually fading. As if no one’s really controlling it anymore. But it covers a pretty wide area; probably to make sure lover b– your friend couldn’t draw on anything outside it. He did remarkably well to do what he did, considering.