“That idiot,” Aoife breathed.
“We have to go,” Mr. Minor said. “Now.”
Dylan stood first but he hesitated before reaching into the bed of the truck and grabbing an old golf club lying there. He hefted it as if to check the weight.
I pulled myself to my feet and watched Brian run into the grouped Getharey. One by one the movement caught their attention. Dark hoods turned to watch me sprint by as Brian made a beeline for the gateway. It was a smart move. It pulled their attention away from the magic sucking machine.
“Not yet,” I said.
A Getharey standing near the machine looked up at the commotion. I could almost imagine its eyes following the taller version of me run through the ruined park. It raised a hand to point a long finger. The others reacted instantly. They moved as one to catch Brian. That must be Yannick.
With moves I would have been proud of on the football field, the other me dodged around grasping three-fingered hands, using large chumps of ruined earth like offensive linemen.
“We need to do whatever we can to destroy that machine,” I said. Most of the Getharey were now in pursuit of Brian. “Go now.”
I hesitated a moment, letting the other three run out from behind the truck. They ran straight for the large cylinder machine. I followed for about thirty yards before veering off toward the rise heading up to the gateway. Yannick stood at the top watching with his back turned as Brian ran wildly below.
I charged up the rise at full speed. My legs burned. The past few days settled into my muscles and half way through I began to worry I wouldn’t even make it to the top. I pushed hard. The rocky rise slipped under my shoes, but I kept my feet. I felt my legs giving out and I still had a good ten yards of rise to go.
I peeked over the side and from that height I could see Brian was in trouble. The Getharey were flanking him, squeezing him into a tighter circle. My first instinct was to yell out a warning to him. My second was to think good. He deserved whatever he got down there.
The odd mix of fear for my former friend and anticipation of him getting what he deserved was like an injection of adrenaline. I pushed the last few steps up the slope and stood on the plateau that held the gateway aloft. I burst past the machine holding the gate open and barreled info Yannick’s back. He tipped forward but kept his feet. Luckily his feet were right on the edge. The rock under his boots crumbled and he slipped from the rise, hitting a few rocky outcroppings on the way down the thirty-foot drop.
My momentum nearly took me over with the creature. I flailed my arms around until I found my feet under me. I took a step back and looked down the cliff. Yannick lay at the bottom, but he was still moving. He pushed himself to his knees and pulled the hood back over his head. Movement flashed at the edge of my vision. Brian, still looking like me, ran at the bottom of the cliff. Right at Yannick. He jumped on his boss just as the Getharey leader pushed himself to his feet. They tumbled in a heap.
I turned back to the gateway and the machine holding it open. I only had a few minutes before they realized I was up here and came after me. I had to figure out how to destroy it quickly.
The machine was blacker than anything I’d seen before with the exception of the open gate way. It had strands of dark light that pulsed in it like it was constructed of living obsidian. The large cone shaped top stood on three legs with feet buried deep into the rocky ground. There were no dials, buttons, or switches that I could see. It was all smooth as wind swept rock.
I reached out with tentative fingers. Who knew what the thing would do if I touched it? Would it shock me? Would it finish the job Daresh and Yannick started back on Seanna’s world? Would it kill me instantly? Caution was never my strong suit. I brushed my fingers against the machine. Nothing happened. I put my palm against it. It felt warm to the touch, but it did nothing. I put my other hand on it and tried to push it. It didn’t budge. Not even a little. It was as solid as a building.
I moved to the larger opening of the cone piece. It was hard to tell exactly what it was doing. There was no light, color, or anything connecting it with the gateway. The only thing I could make out was a slight wave in the air between the two like heat waves rising off a hot car on a summer day. I grabbed a rock and tossed it. It arched through the waves and clattered to the ground. Nothing happened.
I turned to the gateway. If I couldn’t destroy the machine, maybe I could force the gateway closed. That would trap the Getharey on Earth but at least they couldn’t just disappear. It just might buy us some time to figure out how to lower the shield over Gate City.
The gateway’s plight felt like an assault on all my senses. It buried into me as if it were a parasite looking to feed off my insides. It wanted me to remove the unnatural hold on it and close it. I hadn’t been able to earlier, but I might have been too far away. Standing right next to it, I was sure I could close it.
I concentrated. I imagined a door closing. I reached out to the gateway with the energy inside me. I pushed. I pulled. I yanked.
The gateway remained open.
I blew out a breath of frustration. We came all this way and there was nothing we could do to stop it. I couldn’t close the gateway. Couldn’t turn off the machine. Couldn’t destroy it. I was running out of ideas. The Getharey were going to suck all the magic out of the Earth and waltz through the gateway to victimize another planet.
I stepped to the far edge of the small plateau, hoping Aoife and the others were having an easier time than me. Dylan stood a little ways from the machine sucking the magic from Earth, fending off a Getharey with the golf club. Mr. Minor circled the machine. I doubted he’d have any more luck than I was.
My heart leapt. I didn’t see Aoife. Where was Aoife? I glanced wildly around but didn’t see her.
“Gaige!”
I nearly fell over the edge as I started and spun.
“What the hell are you doing?” she puffed.
“Trying to figure out how to close the gate,” I replied.
“We were going for that one.” She pointed at the machine Mr. Minor circled.
“Yeah, and I was going for this one.”
She looked like she wanted to argue about the nuances of the plan but didn’t have the breath. Not that there was ever a real plan. The Getharey were in complete control with their three machines. That shield that shimmered overhead would keep out any help until they had what they wanted. Earth’s magic. Then they could just skip back through the gateway and nobody would be the wiser to the true damage done until we started turning on each other.
“Oh no,” Aoife whispered.
I turned to follow her gaze. What little hope I might have had buried inside me fled. The Getharey who had been chasing my doppelganger had noticed her brother and Mr. Minor. Us, too. Some of the cloaked figures pointed and headed toward them. Others moved for the rise heading up to us.
“I think we’re in trouble. Again,” I added.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I might be able to hold them off with my telekinesis as they come up, but your brother and Mr. Minor...”
“We have to do something,” she said. She made for the path down, but I grabbed her arm.
“We can’t go down there. What would we do? We’ll just end up getting caught or dead ourselves.”
“I can’t leave him down there alone,” she practically screamed. “He’s innocent in all this.”
“So are you,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’ll go,” I said. “Maybe I can fight them off or something.”
“Wait!”
I turned to see a wild look in her eyes.
“What?”
“Can you close the gate?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted “It doesn’t react to my commands.”
She grabbed me by the shoulders and looked up at me, making sure our eyes met. “Are you the Gatekeeper?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said wit
h confusion.
“Gaige, are you the Gatekeeper?” she asked me again.
“Yeah,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster to satisfy her.
“Then you can close it!” She turned away from me and faced out toward the ruined park. “You better be ready to close it.”
I stepped beside her. “What are you doing?”
A larger number of the Getharey were mounting the rise up to us. A few were going after the lesser targets of her brother and Mr. Minor.
“Shh,” she hushed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Two of the Getharey closed in on the magic sucking machine fast. One slammed Mr. Minor into the machine while the other took a golf club to the head.
“Aoife...” My words stuck in my throat as a feeling washed over me. I felt a desperate need to go through the gateway. I turned, but a hand grabbed my arm.
Aoife kept ahold of me, but she stared out at the park and the Getharey below. Her eyes burned a brighter gold than I had ever seen them glow before. The only thing keeping me from diving through the gateway was Aoife’s grip.
As one, all the Getharey slowed. Their hoods cast around in confusion for a moment. They were confused by the feeling that washed over them. If they felt only a fraction of what I felt, Aoife had complete control over them. It was only a matter of time before...
They moved. It only took one to start scrambling up the rise again for them all to start. They crawled over one another to get to the top. I tried to take a step back, but Aoife’s hand on my arm held me in place. The Getharey crowded in on the plateau, bumping into each other. They twitched and pushed but made no move to go through the gateway.
The gathering creatures pushed Aoife and me closer to the gateway and edge of the rise beyond it. The drop was a long one and I didn’t think we’d be able to survive as well as Yannick had.
“How’s this better?” I asked.
“I’m trying to make them go through,” she said through gritted teeth.
“It’s not working,” I said needlessly.
I was getting nervous. We were completely boxed in by the Getharey and more were pushing their way onto the top of the rise. If they snapped out of the single-minded goal of going through the gateway, we had no way to go other than down. A thirty-foot drop might not sound that bad until faced with it.
“Can you close the gate?” she asked yet again.
I looked at the black hole in the air. It pulsed from my attention. It tugged at me. Pulled at me. It wanted me to take over control of it.
“Yes,” I finally said with confidence.
“Then, close it behind me.”
“What?” The statement yanked my attention from the gateway.
Aoife turned golden eyes on me. “Close it behind me.”
“You’re not going through it,” I said. It came out half question, half statement.
“They won’t go through unless I do. They’ll follow me.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued.
“Yes.” She smiled, but it was laced with a sadness I couldn’t even begin to describe. “Yes, I do.”
“Aoife—”
A new emotion hit me. I wanted nothing more than to get away from the plateau. The park. The gateway. I almost turned and jumped off the side, but the emotion pulled back a bit.
“Don’t follow me through,” Aoife said. Her voice sounded weird—doubled like it came from a speaker with the reverb turned up. “Close it behind me. This is the only way.”
“No, it’s not,” I argued, but I couldn’t find the words to go on. I couldn’t think of any other way. “Aoife…”
“Tell my brother and everybody else that I love them.”
“I can’t do this without you,” I pleaded.
She reached a hand to touch my face. “I love you, too, you idiot.” There was none of the usual bite to the words.
“Don’t leave me alone. I’ll be lost without you.”
She smiled. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be a great hero, but right now, it’s time to let somebody else be the hero.”
She stepped back and dropped her arm. I tried to follow, but my body wouldn’t move. The undeniable need to stay right where I was rooted my feet to the spot.
The Getharey parted to let her through as she walked backwards toward the gate. She kept her eyes on me, anchoring me to that spot.
“Remember, close the gate once they’re all through,” she said. “When it’s clear, come find me.”
Aoife took one last step through the gateway. The inky blackness greedily swallowed her whole.
The Getharey acted at once. They fought each other to get to the gateway. The nearest jumped through while the others fought. A few fell over the side, but most eventually made their way into the gate.
I still couldn’t move. I stared at the black scar where Aoife had disappeared. Her last words hung in the air. Come find me.
As the Getharey numbers dwindled, I pulled the energy from the well inside me. Somehow the power that fueled my telekinesis was tied to the gate. I hadn’t recognized it when Seanna had me close the gate, but I did now. I drew as much of the energy as I could and focused it on the gate. I willed it to close. Nothing happened. I pushed harder on it. The machine holding it open shuddered.
As if sensing the gate about to close, the last few Getharey on the rise leapt over each other to get through.
I pushed harder on the gate. I imagined myself slamming bodily into an open door. Over and over again, throwing my shoulder into it with every ounce of strength I had.
Cracks ran up the machine with tiny bits of dust bursting out like mini explosions.
The gateway slammed shut. The machine holding it open burst. I turned my head to escape the flying bits of rock and dust.
A Getharey trying to get to the other side was only part way through. A cloaked arm fell to the ground when the gateway shut.
35
RIPPING GATEWAYS
Fool!”
I turned to find Yannick topping the rise. He dragged a body behind him. It was Brian in the human form I had known for years. Tall, lanky, a face much too angular for a teenage boy. Yannick’s hand opened and Brian flopped to the ground, unmoving.
I wondered if I looked back I would see the signs—some kind of indication that Brian wasn’t who I thought he was as we grew up together. He was awkward. Weird. Funny. Off-putting. But what kid isn’t? He was definitely not normal, but if that constituted suspicions of being alien, all kids and teenagers would be shipped off to Area 51.
Now it didn’t matter if Brian was an alien or not. He was dead. There wasn’t any blood. Just a few scrapes from his brief scuffle with Yannick.
“You think you have stopped this? Look around you.” He pointed at the still pulsing magic sucking machine. “I still get what I want.
“And you. You are mine. You think you’ve done something good, but all you’ve done is delay the inevitable.” His yellow eyes glowed as if they were two angry suns. “All I have to do is make you open the gateway so my Getharey can come back and we can finish what we started.”
I stared at his eyes. They were filled with hate and lust. Hate for me. Hate for humans. Hate for anything not Getharey. Lust for what I had. The ability to control the gateway. For the magic my world held.
I felt numb. I should have raged at him. He had been right all along. He was behind all this. Not Seanna. Not Daresh. He caused all the heartache and pain. He caused my parents’ accident. My father’s death. My mother’s…
I looked at Brian’s body. My father’s death. My dad was dead. Somehow—deep in the core of my being—I knew my dad was dead. That person, that thing had been Brian.
Yannick stretched a hand toward me. “Instead of letting you off easy like I did your mother, I’ll—”
“You killed my dad,” I said.
“Worthless human.”
“You permanently scarred my mom. You did all this. You did this,” I said, my voice low and slow.
I should have used my telekinesis to throw him over the side again. I didn’t. I wanted to end it once and for all. I wiped a few tears from my eyes.
“You were right. Daresh was just a puppet to help you get here.”
“Of course, he was, the idiot fool. Now I have what I want!” Yannick spread his arm toward the machine pulsing with magic. “And when I finish taking what I want, I’ll make you open the gateway. I’ll bring my Getharey back to finish up here and then maybe I’ll go finish what I started with your mother years ago.”
Energy surged in me. It screamed under my skin threatening to burst open. Every last ounce of it pushed up to the surface.
“You know what?” I said. “Go to hell.”
Mr. Minor had said I could create gateways if I tried hard enough. I didn’t know where it would go if I did, but I hoped it was somewhere very much like hell. I ripped store of energy out of my body and focused it in front of me.
Somehow, it felt different. Different from using my telekinesis. Different from operating the gateway. It felt as if I had gutted myself with a sword and sliced myself in half.
Yannick hissed and launched himself at me. A black line tore the air and opened up between us. Yannick couldn’t stop his forward momentum. He fell through and disappeared.
I slammed the gateway closed.
I stumbled to my hands and knees. My stomach heaved but nothing came out. My chest hurt. My brain felt fuzzy. It felt as if I was caught in a rip current. Every wave of nausea pulled me further out to a sea of black.
Come find me.
The darkness receded a bit. I dry heaved.
Come find me.
I turned blurry eyes to where Aoife had disappeared through the gateway. Come find me.
I couldn’t leave her on that mountain top alone with all those Getharey. I pushed myself to my knees and let out a few breaths. In through the nose. Out of the mouth.
I pushed myself to unsteady feet. I had to get to Alisundi. Aoife was in trouble. All those Getharey followed her through. What would they do to her if they caught her? How could she survive on the ice-capped mountain top if she did manage to elude them?
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 55
