Max.
Yes. I know. You can’t stay there.
The black mass turned toward her, and this time, a head-like appendage reached out in her direction as a screeching sound began to fill her mind.
How? What do I do? she asked in earnest as the shadowy liquid-like form danced its way across the interior carriage toward her. It passed behind people who appeared to be completely oblivious to it as they stared into their near-archaic communication devices.
Close your eyes. Think of something nearby—scan the environ— Stay in the city—do not leave the city!
The black mass had been moving across the windows at the other side of the carriage, and Jane had begun to back away from it. As it moved toward her, it took on a more human shape. Two arm-like appendages reached out from it and rested on the shoulders of two passengers. Then, it moved forward in between them, pushing itself toward her.
Jane backed further away toward the end of the train to where the two men who were planning a robbery were standing together. As she approached them, they glanced up at her and frowned. She glared at them.
“Move, please,” she said politely.
One of the men looked at her in disgust. He looked at his friend and then glanced back at her, uttering something in a gruff tone that Jane could only presume was an obscenity.
Her eyes grew wide as a flash of anger surged through her. I don’t have time for this. “I said get out of my way,” she growled, reaching out for them with the power. Two invisible arms pushed them aside roughly, separating them. They were lifted off their feet and thrown to either side of the train.
Jane proceeded to the back of the carriage and turned around, facing the creature as it drew ever closer. She closed her eyes. For a moment, nothing happened. She opened them again as her pulse quickened. She could see that the black form was only five feet from her. It reached out a hand.
Focus, Jane!
Closing her eyes, she cleared her mind. This time, she saw the rings rotating around her in the sky, and she felt their energies connect with her body. Only knowing that she had to get away, she chose the first destination that came to mind. There was a bright blue flash, and warm air rushed by, blowing her hair back over her shoulders. She opened her eyes to find the city of Bangkok was now zooming past; she had moved to the top of the train.
Not bad, Max said.
Not bad? I’m standing on top of a moving train. It’s 2018. Max! she yelled back at him as she dropped to her knees. She placed her hands flat on the white surface, trying to hold still as well as she could.
Yes, I know. Eh, I’m getting closer to you. Just focus— … sound of my voice— I’ll draw myself to you. In the— … time, you have to get off the train. Look at one of the buildings and focus. Teleport yourself inside.
How?
You’ve already done it more— … once, Jane. You can do it again.
She looked up and around her. The whole sky from left to right was filled with buildings that rushed past. She heard a rasping sound that came from behind her, and she turned to see a snaking tendril of the entity’s black form move up the side of the carriage toward the surface, just ten feet from her.
She turned back around, and summoning all her courage, she rose to her feet again. She walked forward across the surface until she had put a decent distance between her and the entity.
Once again she returned her attention to the city that was rushing by her. Glancing from building to building, she forced herself to pick one, narrowing her selection down to a few options in the distance. There was an extremely tall one on her right, which she presumed was a hotel. Out further on her left, she could make out a beautiful green space, and she thought that would have been perfect, but it was far away, and in the second that she doubted her ability to reach it, she faltered and missed the opportunity. Instead, she turned her gaze directly ahead and settled on the third option. The building she chose was a basic block-like structure that had a modern look to it.
She closed her eyes, and this time, she knew what to do. The rings rose up in her thoughts clearly, spinning around each other, and she reached out to them with her mind, locking into the Machine’s strange energies once more. She saw the window, and its translucent edge passed over her. As it did, the blue light flashed inside her mind once again.
The wind was gone, her hair fell to her side, and there was silence. Jane opened her eyes and found that she was inside the building. Straight in front of her was a wide, long corridor lined with high-end shops.
It was a shopping mall, and as she looked directly ahead, she saw that it was completely empty. Turning around, she saw a curved section that contained more display windows. This surrounded a large, circular opening in the floor, which she walked toward now. Grasping the handle there, she peered below, and as she looked down, she saw a series of escalators crisscrossing each other as they connected to each floor. She counted seven floors in total. As she glanced up, she saw that she was near the top floor; there were only two more above her.
She was about to turn away, when looking down one more time, she spotted two security guards on the bottom floor way below. One of them looked at his watch; it appeared that they were preparing to leave.
Jane turned around and walked back to the center of the floor. The shops were closed, but in the distance—presumably on other floors—she could still hear the sounds of a few last-minute shoppers.
Somewhere behind her, just above the low din of the departing shoppers on the lower levels, a metallic noise began to resound through the upper floor, and it was as though the sound was coming through the concrete itself. Jane turned toward the vibrations and frowned, listening intently. She gasped as they grew in volume. A shop window on her right rattled in its frame for a brief second.
Max?
Yes. I’m still here.
I think it’s here already.
Focus on my voice. You can’t outrun it forever. Pull me toward you.
Can’t you just find me?
Yes, but if you don’t focus on drawing me toward you, it could take longer! Max answered, his voice growing in urgency.
She closed her eyes.
I’m nearby now, Jane.
In her mind’s eye, she could see him in darkness, surrounded by flowing blue tendrils of energy, reaching out toward her. She concentrated hard, and in her mind’s eye, extended her arm out to him. She saw him reach for it through the darkness, the flowing blue energy swished aside by the motion of his arm, but just as they were about to make contact, a terrible groan came from straight ahead. Jane opened her eyes and took a step back. The lighting in front of her had changed, and the complex now seemed darker.
Jane, focus! Max yelled in her mind.
But something was pulling at her thoughts. She reached a hand up to her forehead as pain began to grow there, spreading outward. Oh my God. She had closed her eyes to shield herself from the pain, and now she opened them again. A jerking, black, shadow-like presence was tracing its way across the floor from the back of the mall in rapid, spasmodic movements. It danced up the side of the walls where the entrances to the shops were, then drew across them and backed down to the floor, as though trying to make sense of reality itself.
Max, it’s already here, she said as she heard it whispering in her mind.
Jane.
Her stomach churned as the thing approach her, and she placed a hand on it. She leaned over, feeling the immediate need to be sick. With one more glance upward, she could see that the entity had begun to form into the rough shape of a human at the center of the shopping mall.
Nausea overcame her, but just as she was sure she would collapse onto the ground below, everything changed. Her mind filled with light. She stood up straight as the feeling of nausea was suddenly gone, the sickness in her stomach no longer there. She frowned. The presence was still in front of her, but it was no longer affecting her.
The air blew around her, disturbed by something behind, and she turned to look. Max was standing there, just a few feet away. A smile slowly spread across her face, and she suddenly became oblivious to the awful creature behind her.
Max stood tall, a perfect vision against the backdrop of the white walls of the shopping mall. His coat stretched down to his ankles, and it seemed more real and regal than ever. His face was tilted up at an angle as he stared at the creature behind her, and his hands were clasped gently at his front.
She automatically took a few steps toward him, then turned and followed his gaze back toward the entity.
“Don’t move,” he said aloud, and his voice echoed throughout the marble interior with an incredible vigor—to Jane, it sounded like the strongest voice she had ever heard.
She became still—solid—obeying his wishes without question. She watched him reach out a hand, and almost immediately, the floor beneath her began to tremble. A rumbling sound grew around them, and Jane watched in awe as, on either side, the walls began to crack open wide. Large chunks of plaster and block exploded outward from these sections. Some of the windows in the shop fronts that lined the area shattered outward, sending glass toward them in a deadly, shimmering rain. Jane held up her hand and blocked the glass deftly, letting it fall to the floor.
She returned her attention to the broken blocks of marble, which were being pulled away from the walls all around them rapidly. Some of them were as long as a meter, and half as thick. They slid along the center of the floor, just five feet in front of where the entity’s form flowed in a confused, haphazard fashion. Jane watched, her breaths quick, as the thick, viscous liquid that composed the creature’s mass moved around; it seemed to be struggling desperately to take on the shape of a human.
After a few more seconds of this, when the rocks had begun to accrete around its feet, it rose and took on an appearance that was almost human. It reached out a hand that dripped with a strange liquid, but this disappeared immediately back into its ever-changing form, as though the effort was too much strain.
There must have been several tons of rock in front of the creature, and with an incredible ease—as though he were lifting a few pebbles—Max raised his hand toward it and levitated all of it into the air. The rocks rose and hovered in the center of the shopping mall, just fifty feet in front of them. With a thunderous crash—a sound that echoed all around them—the chunks of rock crashed together and locked into a perfect position, forming a solid wall of concrete and marble.
The silence that followed was deafening. Jane looked from Max’s outstretched hand and then glanced back at the wall, staring at it in awe, for its appearance was perfect. She guessed that it was at least a foot thick. The marble was encased in the concrete, and striations of it ran through the surface in dancing, brown lines. To Jane, it looked like art.
“It won’t last long. It’s merely for show,” Max said from behind her, breaking the silence. “He still needs time to absorb what’s happened to him. When his thoughts are more coherent, he’ll realize that I’ve tricked him and come for us.”
“Aren’t you strong enough to stop it… him?” she asked, cutting right to the crux of their problem as she turned back around to face Max. Once again, she felt electrified by his presence. Before, he had been a ghostly vestige. Now, she could sense his muscles and bones, his sinews and blood, and beyond that, she could sense the immense power that flowed around him, like an ever-present humming.
After a moment during which he merely glared at her, he responded, “Yes.”
She wasn’t sure if she trusted his answer, nor was she certain if even he believed his own words. “OK then. What do we do?”
He looked to his left, and Jane followed his gaze as he appeared to scan the mall. Over in that direction, about sixty feet away, she saw a showroom with two expensive-looking—though dated—sports cars. She turned back to him. For a second, she could see his eyes dart rapidly over the location, and she knew he was taking in vast amounts of information.
Behind them, there was a rumbling sound, and the ground trembled. Jane looked down at the shaking floor and then turned around just in time to see a crack spread up from the bottom of the wall that now lined the center of the mall, reaching up toward the top. The sound continued as various other cracks spread out within the structure, breaking it apart further. Dust fell from open gaps, and then there was silence again.
“Jane, you have to open the gate again. Take us somewhere else.”
She turned around to face him. “I… I don’t know if I can.”
“Try,” he said in a strong, firm voice that echoed against the marble-and-concrete interior.
“Where? When should I take us?”
“Stay in this time. Don’t focus on anything other than moving our location. Find somewhere distant, somewhere with open land if possible. Not inside a city,” he said. He hadn’t looked back at her and was still scanning the area where the sports cars were.
She nodded, closed her eyes, and concentrated, but now she found there was desperate fear that she might let Max down by failing. In her mind’s eye, she saw the rings spinning into view, with huge arcs of lightning streaking across them, but at that moment, she faltered, and they slipped out of her reach just as quickly. She was left in the dark, and there was nothing there. She opened her eyes and grimaced.
“Max! I missed. I can’t do it.”
A chunk of rock exploded from the wall behind them and slid across the floor, stopping right in front of Jane’s feet. She jumped backward toward Max and took hold of his wrist, wrapping her hand tightly around his coat, relishing the feeling of the beautiful material. She glanced up at him and cringed. “Sorry,” she said.
He smiled down at her.
For a moment, her heart glowed. He turned once again toward the showroom where the cars rotated silently. There was a beautiful red one moving toward them on the rotary. Jane let go of his hand as he moved away, taking a few brisk steps forward. He raised his arm outward toward the showroom, and immediately, the red car left its perch on the platform and moved toward them.
Jane’s eyes grew wide as the car careened through the thick glass that encased the entire room. It exploded outward and fell to the floor, scattering glimmering shards in every direction. Then the gleaming red vehicle spun across the floor toward them, seeming to be only a single inch off the ground. She watched it move as adrenaline began to pump through her veins.
Apparently, the security guards had responded to the sound of the breaking concrete and marble, and a quick glance confirmed to Jane that they had reached the floor below. The sounds of their foreign speech became more and more apparent. One man looked up and locked eyes with her, then lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke into it. Behind her, the car came to a screeching halt right next to her, and she turned around.
Max moved immediately toward the driver’s side, walking around the front of the vehicle. As he did, he glanced at the doors, and they both opened wide.
Jane jumped backward as the door opened in front of her.
“Get in!” he said sharply.
Behind her, the security guard was just about to reach their floor. She jumped down into the exquisite interior of the car, feeling the leather mold to her body. Straight away, the door closed on her, moved by Max’s power. He stepped down into the seat next to her in one fluid motion, and his coat wrapped around him automatically. His door slammed shut.
“Do you know how to drive?” she asked, her voice high and ragged. She felt like laughing, but she had no idea why.
“Uh…”
“You don’t, do you?”
“How hard can it be?”
The security guard was running around the central circular opening in the mall where the escalators connected each of the various floors. He approached the vehicle, but he stopped ten feet from it as he looked at Max, his vigor fading
immediately.
For a moment, he shouted at them in Thai, but Jane didn’t understand.
“Is there something you can do about this guy?” she asked.
“I don’t have to,” Max replied. He glanced to his right, out the driver’s-side window, as another chunk of rock—this one much more massive—exploded outward from the wall, taking a huge amount of the rock face with it. It landed with a slam and slid across the floor toward the guard, who was now frozen solid. He cringed as he stared at the large piece of rock until it came to rest just a few feet from him.
Through a gap in the concrete-and-marble structure there, Jane could see the rest of the shopping mall. Moving just beyond the gap, she could also see the dark mass, trying desperately to find a way through.
The security guard was shaking as he stared at the hole in the wall. He took one last desperate look through the windshield at Max and Jane, turned, and ran back toward the escalators. When he reached the top of the first set, he ran down it and disappeared quickly from their view.
“OK. The last thing I rode from this world was…”
Jane turned toward him, frowning. “Was what?” she asked, impatience creeping into her voice.
“A horse.”
Silence fell over them. Then, Max turned toward her slowly, and she saw that he was grinning. She gaped at him. “That’s not funny, Max—even if it is true!”
“Well,” he said as he began to run his hands over the controls, “it’s true. It was early twentieth-century France. There were very, very few cars, Jane. What about you? When was the last time you drove?”
There was a slightly curt, sarcastic tone in his voice, and Jane knew why: Most cars in her era were automated, and the need for a driver’s license had decreased dramatically. Therefore, she hadn’t bothered getting one.
“I might not have a license, Max, but I know quite well how to drive.”
Rise (The Ethereal Vision Book 2) Page 25
