The cube stopped rotating with a final sound like brief, muted thunder. An awesome light erupted from inside it, spilling out gradually through cracks in its surface that grew wider with each passing second. After a moment, the entire blackened surface of the cube was gone, burned away by the tremendous light, and then only that radiance—the glow of another world—shone through. Zoe looked around the area, since she was not able to look directly at the cube; if she had, she would have surely gone blind. She saw that the streets were lit up as bright as day and cast with incredible new shadows everywhere. Trees were cast onto buildings like ghosts; windows opened up into rooms where she saw incredible detail, closets, doorways, and people hiding around them, as if that was even possible under the circumstances.
Slowly, Zoe managed to draw her gaze to the right, where she knew Trey was standing. Against the light, she could barely make out his figure, but she could see the silhouette from where he had raised his arm to shield his eyes from the light, and in the brief glance that she got, she knew he had changed. He was himself once again. Whatever presence had locked him out of control of his own mind and body, it had already left him, and now, she was desperately scared for his safety.
Thinking of him, and unafraid for herself, she held her hands up and walked toward the light, taking great care not to look into it.
“Miss Delahunt!” Trey yelled.
Zoe heard him scream, and the sound of his voice made her heart quicken. She walked faster. “I’m here, Trey.” She could see him now, just a few feet away, and she reached out for him. He had already reached out a hand, and she found it and grasped it, finding it slick with cold sweat. She held it tightly and drew him to her as the light in front of them began to decrease. She placed one arm around him and shielded her eyes with the other.
They watched as, slowly, the light in front of them dissipated, and after a few moments, Zoe could make out what appeared to be a mass of moving particles. Shapes reconnected and disconnected to each other, taking on human form, but only just. The light was gone completely, and it took Zoe a few moments to have any comprehension of what she was seeing. The thing that appeared before her was mostly a formless black mass. Parts of it seemed to be composed of a transparent mist, and others seemed to be liquid in nature. On the left side of the roughly human shape, where one would expect to see an arm, such an appendage now appeared, spilling out from its side as a liquid. Parts of it dripped down to the ground below, forming a small pool. After a few seconds, the mass recoiled to the other side, and the liquid spilled back up into its form, sending a shockwave across its surface. This reminded Zoe of what one would see if one were to toss a stone into a pond.
Something was happening beneath the mass. Two black bubbles appeared and began to take the rough shape of feet. What appeared to be a mass of liquid spread down around them, as though whatever this entity was, it was trying to create a human form for itself. One solid foot appeared. The other one remained a black pool of smoke and oozing black liquid on the ground. The entity lifted its “foot” slowly into the air.
Zoe’s mouth opened wide then, and acting on pure instinct, she grabbed Trey and pulled him back toward her, backing away from the being frantically. She somehow knew, without question, that this entity was extremely powerful.
She watched as it slammed its foot down on the ground below. Immediately, the concrete there broke. Zoe heard the ground split underneath, and a crack appeared and spread out toward them. The surface shook below, and she watched as the fissure traced its way across the surface and then continued behind her. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she saw it reach one of the buildings at a corner, which shuddered as the crevice impacted it. The being’s foot went through the ground to a depth of several inches, and a cloud of dust rose up there and floated off into the air. A few seconds later, the shockwave came.
Zoe looked around as a trembling began beneath her. She backed away faster, and the buildings began to shake around them. She and Trey struggled to stay on their feet as the ground shook violently. Zoe fell on her knee and yelled out.
Trey was at her side instantly. He grabbed her arm forcefully and helped her up. In the trees that surrounded the area, the birds stirred from their resting places and fled in large flocks, filling the darkening sky.
She looked at Trey. “Thank you,” she said, and he smiled at her. She looked around as the sound of the voice once again began to grow in her mind. This time, it was different; the mask had been removed, and the truth was revealed. It was cackling, and she had never heard anything like it before. It grew in intensity and spoke of both evil and tremendous joy.
She grimaced, holding her hands to her ears. After a moment, the cackling stopped, and she stared at the being. To Zoe’s terror, it began to move toward them. It lurched with one dripping, formless appendage after the other, making its way across the concrete—arm over malformed arm. She immediately tried to run, grasping Trey’s hand, but she was held firmly in place by an invisible power. Unable to move even an inch, she watched in growing horror as this being drew closer to them. When it was a mere five feet away, it stopped and appeared to examine them. Though its face was formless and running, she could somehow tell that it was looking at Trey.
THANK YOU, TREY. THANK YOU FOR FREEING ME.
Upon hearing these words, Zoe felt as though her heart had frozen. The air temperature in the area had dropped, and she was getting colder with every second that passed. She realized quickly what was happening: this thing—this entity—was drawing the energy from all around them, and now she could feel ice crystals form beneath her eyes. In their vicinity, the vapor in the air turned to ice, and then they were surrounded by freezing, glimmering dust. She watched, unmoving, as the being seemed to turn away from them. She was glad for a moment, until, to her utter terror, Trey addressed the creature.
“You’ll never get it,” he said in a simple, monotonic voice that spoke of a tremendous confidence. As he spoke, the vapor in his breath immediately froze and rose up around them, glinting in the streetlight.
The creature stopped moving and seemed to breathe—if breathing was something that it could indeed do. Did it even have lungs? Was it even organic? Zoe couldn’t make head or tail of what she was seeing. It seemed as though her mind was grasping at it—trying to make sense of what was, to her, nonsensical.
“Even if you get through the gate, you won’t reach the Nexus. You can’t,” Trey said. His voice grew in confidence as he spoke, and the words dripped with gleeful defiance. Zoe could hear the scorn that he held for the creature that had manipulated him for so long and the joy he felt at his new freedom. It lightened her heart.
The creature seemed to struggle harder to breathe.
“They’ll stop you,” Trey continued. Zoe had to resist the urge to pull him back from the entity, were she even able. She could sense the anger build around it, and its form ran from top to bottom in rivulets, as though the emotions it was feeling were causing it to lose cohesion.
Without warning, it whipped around and reached out a snake-like appendage that flew toward them, dripping with liquid tendrils.
Zoe heard the sound from Noah’s Taser rifle. The street was lit up with the incredible blue light of the bolt of energy that came from the weapon. The first shot went straight past them, illuminating the horrifying mass that Zoe understood was the unformed consciousness of the being. The second shot hit the creature right where she guessed its chest cavity would be. There was an explosion of blue electricity that arced all around the being and seemed to disrupt its presence. The tendril that it had outstretched toward Trey and her retracted, and the creature screamed. The roar went beyond simple sound, for the ground beneath them trembled with its anger. Zoe yelled out with pain, but still could move no further as she remained locked in its grasp.
The creature rose from the ground, and as it took flight, it turned, becoming even more formless in its shape. It
left the surface rapidly, forming into a long, thin, black mass that streamed across the top of the buildings, disappearing from their sight.
Zoe began to breathe deeply as she felt the terrible grip of the being’s power loosen. There was an inrush of warm air at a higher temperature—normal weather for spring—as the frozen air around them dissipated. She looked at Trey, who was now staring blankly at place de l’Étoile directly in front of them where the cube had stood.
“Are you OK?”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he appeared to grow tired, and without warning, he collapsed on the ground.
She immediately knelt over him. “Trey!” she yelled, placing her hands on his face. She called his name again and was glad when, after a moment, he groaned.
Slowly, he turned his face up to meet hers.
“Trey, are you OK? Can you stand up?”
In a weak voice, he replied, “I’m fine.” His eyes grew distant, and he frowned. “They’re not, though.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He was looking into the distance at the sky.
Zoe checked in that direction, but could see nothing.
“They’re not safe from him.”
“Who? Who’s not safe?”
His eyes opened and closed, and then his head rolled back as he fell asleep.
Zoe frowned, turning to Noah. He was standing behind her, but she found no answers in his face. She turned back around and reached a hand underneath Trey’s back. Then she reached another underneath his legs, drawing them toward her.
Noah knelt down in front of her. “Let me,” he said quietly as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
She stared into his eyes as her own became wet with tears. After hesitating briefly, she nodded and released her hands from Trey’s body as Noah took her place and lifted him. Noah held Trey close. For a moment, he looked at Zoe. Then he nodded at her, and they both retraced their way back across the circular roadway toward Avenue de Wagram. There was the assurance that the danger, at least for now, was over. The air was still chilly but clear as they slowly made their way back toward the facility, with the gentle lull of dusk beginning to settle around them.
CHAPTER 14
EXPLODE
Jane had crouched low and crept further along the underside of the window, out of sight of the two medical technicians who were working on Morris inside. She took a left and then proceeded further along underneath another window until she came to a solid door. She had looked up then at the security panel, trying to imagine a way that she might be able to smash it and hopefully open the door somehow. This was wishful thinking, she knew, but she was getting desperate.
Suddenly, a feeling of nausea overcame her. She put her hand to her forehead, leaning forward, and for a moment, she thought she would vomit, but didn’t. The feeling passed quickly, and she steadied herself. Once again, she looked back up at the doorway, and reaching out with the mental hands of her mind, / so strong now / she felt the cold steel that encased the doorframe and knew that her power had returned. Silently, she thanked Mike and Ciara, knowing it was they who must have found a way to deactivate the device.
She stood up in front of the doorframe, knowing that in this position, she was just out of sight of the second technician who had initially operated on Morris. Jane reached out with the power, feeling the doorframe—heavy and thick—the taste of grimy metal in her mind, and she pushed hard.
A tremendous groaning sound filled the corridor as the metal began to buckle. She thought of Morris on the other side of the door, and snapping sounds came from the room inside as the bolts exploded from their housing. She watched, as if in slow motion, as the door flew from its frame, sped straight across the room, and slammed into the wall on the far side, barely missing the first technician, who was standing a mere foot from it as it flew past him. The sound it made as it hit the wall was almost like an explosion—an incredible metallic clank. It stayed there for a moment and then slowly fell forward, crashing onto the floor and finally coming to a stop with another loud clang.
Jane stepped inside.
The first man, who hadn’t made a sound when the door flew past him, now shrieked, and the steel implement—which looked like a strange kind of knife—flew from his hand as he jumped backward. The knife bounced on the floor, and the man backed away until he hit the far side of the room, next to the broken door.
The second man, who was standing near the control console, hadn’t moved yet. He was glaring at Jane as she stepped further into the room.
She watched as his hand—which had been hovering just over the control panel—moved toward a red, glowing light in the corner of the touch interface. Its purpose was quite clear.
Jane glared at him threateningly and shook her head slowly, her jaw taut.
The man stopped moving and nodded at her. He took his hand away from the console, turned to face her, and held both hands up.
She approached Morris, who was now lying face up, a blanket covering the bottom portion of his body so that only his torso protruded from the front end. She placed a hand on his chest. Beneath the skin there, she searched through his ribcage and felt his heartbeat. She closed her eyes for a brief second and allowed the echoes to travel up through her hand. Then she opened her eyes again, not turning away from his face. “How long will it take you to fix this?”
The man didn’t respond and merely stared at her.
She turned around to face him and screamed, “HOW LONG?”
The man jumped, startled, and raised his hands further into the air.
“Ten minutes—maybe—to remove the implant. Five minutes for recovery.”
“You’ve got five in total. And if you leave any trace of this stuff remaining in his system…” She glanced slowly toward the door in the corner of the room.
The man followed her gaze, his brow furrowing. He glared at the door for a moment, and then his head jerked back to Jane, his face contorted into shock. He managed a brief nod, and then he turned back to the control panel, his hands deftly dancing across the interface.
Almost immediately, the two lights that were holding Morris in suspension in midair began to scatter their beams in a different direction. Jane watched in awe as his body turned away from her. He turned over until his back was facing the ceiling. The man glanced around at him and then entered a final command on the console. The medical devices surrounding Morris’s body came to life and moved directly toward his neck. A thin, metallic, cylindrical object stopped right above the nape there, and a bright red beam shot from it. It cut into his skin and moved across the surface there for a space of approximately two inches.
Jane’s heart thudded in her chest, and she glanced up at the operator’s face. He didn’t turn to look up at her, and instead watched as the laser scalpel did its work. After a few more seconds, the beam stopped, and a two-pronged metal blade moved down toward the wound, pushing the skin apart.
To Jane’s surprise, the man spoke.
“This part’s tricky. The implant is close to his nervous system. I’ve deactivated it, and most of the removal process is set automatically, thankfully… But the final part is delicate.”
Jane watched as he returned to the screen and worked the controls there. On his monitor, a closeup image of Morris’s neck was displayed, showing the wound clearly. It was a gaping red hole, and Jane could only make out raw flesh. Suddenly, there was a clank, and Jane looked back to see that the implant had magnetically attached itself to a small metal platform contained in the series of devices just above his neck.
She breathed a sigh of relief and immediately felt like crying.
“Sealing the wound….now.”
Another high-pitched sound came from the devices just over Morris’s neck. This time, a blue beam was emitted from the laser. It hit the skin on the right side of the open wound and began to move slowly from right to left. As it di
d, the two sides of the open wound were drawn toward each other and knitted together easily. A trail of healed skin was left behind in the laser’s wake. There was only the trace of a scar left, but even that was fading quickly.
Jane frowned as she stared at the blue beam of light. Her stomach lurched. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what. The laser had almost made its way across the entire wound. She looked up around the room and saw only the two technicians standing there. The first was still standing next to the broken door in the corner. The other one was monitoring Morris.
The blue laser reached the other side of the wound and sealed the remainder of the open skin with perfect precision. The medic had his hand over a button on the console, and immediately afterward, he pressed a finger down on it. The color of the button changed from red to green, and what appeared to be an image depicting Morris’s heart rate was enlarged on the screen, taking up most of it. Straight away, the sound of his heart, amplified by the system, began to beat faster.
“Initiating revival process,” a pleasant voice said from above them. “Estimated time to full motor function is ten minutes.”
Jane glanced at the medic, who nodded at her confidently. She turned back to Morris, unable to help the smile that tugged at her lips as she heard this new information. Only ten minutes! Then he would be awake again, and she could talk to him and draw comfort—
Her smile faded as her attention was drawn to the corridor like a magnet, and in her mind’s eye, she saw Lucas crouched down low there. She turned around, but it was too late to react. She saw the flicker of metal through the window on her left out of the corner of her eye as he stood up and raised the weapon. Whirling around, she turned to the open doorway and ran toward it. She heard the shot go off, and the energy bolt from the weapon blew through the window behind her, smashing it into pieces. It flew past her, singing her hair. The blue bolt hit the wall in front and created a shockwave that knocked her off her feet. Falling to the floor, she gasped for air and immediately turned around to see Lucas.
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 17
