Crystal Fire

by Jordan Dane

  She didn’t even remember doing it. It just happened.

  “Oh God. I’m...sorry.”

  Boelens clutched his chest and stumbled back, still holding the gun in his hand. He wasn’t down. His eyes grew wide with shock before his face turned mean. When he aimed his weapon, the gun wavered between her and the children in the car. He could still hurt them.

  With tears in her eyes, she shot him again until he fell to the ground.

  “Stay down. Don’t make me do it again,” she yelled.

  Sick. She felt sick.

  Blood pooled on his chest and glistened under the moonlight, thick like black oil. Whenever he choked for air, his throat gurgled and blood trickled from his mouth and drained down his face. After he quit struggling, his chest heaved once before it finally stopped. She listened hard for his next gasping breath, but it never came. His dead eyes stared up at the moon. Rayne wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.

  I killed him.

  She didn’t know if she said the words aloud, but in her head, it sounded as if she’d screamed it. Rayne couldn’t move. Numb and shaking, she dropped to her knees with her ears ringing. She couldn’t catch her breath. When she saw the shadows of the others, they knelt by her, but she couldn’t feel their hands touch her.

  She felt...dead.

  Minutes later

  On the trail of Rafael, Oliver mind-shadowed the life force residue left on the leather bracelet. It led him to the back of the mansion and he felt the energy signature pull his awareness to a spot beneath the foundation. If he had been in an open field, he might’ve thought that he’d found a buried body, but this close to the stone walls meant Rafael was inside and belowground.

  There had to be a basement. Oliver felt the guy’s heart beating. He knew he was still alive, but it sounded weak. Knowing that Rafael needed their help made him pick up his pace and the others followed.

  “He’s in the basement...and he’s still alive.” He glanced at Kendra. “We gotta find a way down there, but I’ll get you close.”

  A terraced back patio glared in floodlights. It blinded him as he rounded a corner. He stuck to the shadows that came from bushes and trees. Oliver crouched low and ran toward a metal grate that jutted out into a flower bed and was flush to the ground. When he got closer, he saw the glint of glass under the metal. A window. He’d seen them before, in old warehouses he’d broken into. It was an escape route in case of fire, for anyone caught in the basement.

  “Help me take this off,” he said to the others.

  The metal screen lifted without much effort. It had been designed for that. Beneath the grill was a small well, shored up by terraced stone. There was enough room for someone to crawl through it. If they broke the glass window, they’d have their way into the basement. Oliver didn’t hesitate. He sat on the edge of the opening and used his feet to mule kick the window. It broke on the second try. If he’d had his boots on, instead of the secondhand sneakers he’d found in Dr. Fiona’s office, it would’ve only taken one shot.

  “They’ll have alarms on this. We won’t have much time.”

  Lucas and Gabriel helped him kick out the shards of broken glass and they walked into a dark room. The only light came from behind them, off the terrace. Alarms were still ear-piercing and he heard the muffled shouts of men that echoed through the house and the grounds outside.

  “This way.”

  It got darker as they went down a long corridor lined with doors. As Oliver crept through the hallway, he tried turning a few doorknobs. Gabe and Kendra helped too. None of the rooms were locked, but they were empty. Each had a large drain in the floor. This section of the basement seemed more like a storage locker, but storage for what? Oliver didn’t like the feel of it. The rest of the mansion screamed of money, but this part felt like something they hid and could hose out.

  By the third unlocked and empty room, Gabriel looked at him sideways, as if he were full of crap and had taken them to the wrong place. But when they got to the fourth door, they found a kid trussed to a metal bar. His hands were tied over his head. With his chin down, he looked almost dead. The faint glow from a high basement window made his skin look like raw hamburger meat.

  Oliver smelled the unmistakable odor of blood and saw the kid’s bare chest was covered in streaks of it. Where his hands were bound, blood trickled from cuts on his wrists. When he’d become too weak to stand, his own body and gravity had done the damage.

  Kendra shoved by him and rushed across the room. The guy must’ve been Rafael. Oliver was happy they’d found him.

  What he didn’t like was that it had been too easy.

  * * *

  Before Oliver cut Rafael down, Kendra rushed to him. She held his battered face in her trembling fingers and kissed him.

  “I can’t believe it. You’re alive,” she cried. “I love you so much.”

  He winced when she touched him, but he kissed her back. Luke and Oliver had to help him stand. He was too weak to do it on his own.

  “Mi vida. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  Kendra wanted time to help him heal, both inside and out. She hoped they would have it, but when she felt a psychic push, she knew something was wrong. From the look on Rafe’s face, he did too.

  * * *

  Gabriel saw Oliver and knew he thought the same thing. Rafael was tied to a bar and looked too weak to move. He couldn’t escape in his condition, but an unlocked cell made their rescue too simple.

  When he heard the scuff of a shoe behind him, Gabe knew who would be there. Alexander Reese blocked the door with several of his men. His father had more armed guards standing in the shadows in the corridor. He expected the man to act smug, but he had a shocked expression meant for him.

  “I shot you. I know I did.”

  “Gracious of you to let me turn around before you pulled the trigger. You always were a coward,” Gabe said.

  “You really are a monster. What are you?”

  “That’s rich, coming from you, but I am what you made me, Father.”

  Gabriel should’ve been more hurt by what the man said, but after all these years of nightmares where he was forced to relive his father’s accusations, he only felt numb. He still couldn’t imagine what it took to kill the woman he’d once loved and hunt his own son, fully prepared to take his life too.

  Monster indeed.

  “You hired men to kill my mother and you hid behind your church and corrupt law enforcement officials to get away with it. And for what? To hide that you fathered me?”

  One of the uniformed guards flinched and took a quick look at Reese. If Gabe had any doubts that his father had wanted to keep his freak son a dark secret, those doubts were gone now.

  “Your kind is a plague on humanity. A test of our worthiness to survive. When I saw what you were, I had to do something, but I don’t expect you to understand. You’re the enemy.”

  Gabriel felt the fire in his belly. He felt infinite and powerful. His body shook with the mounting force of the Indigo collective, souls alive and dead. But this time when he tapped in to his gift, he felt something...different.

  He felt...her.

  His uncle had been right. His mother was here. He sensed her for the first time since she died, and his eyes burned with tears he couldn’t hold back.

  Oh God. She’s here. Do you feel her, uncle?

  Gabriel fought the emotion of seeing his uncle’s face. They both had dreamed of seeing her again, but in the presence of his father, it felt wrong.

  “Justify your choices all you want, but I’m ashamed to call you my father.” His voice sounded deeper and it echoed off the walls. “You are the animal here, not my mother or me or the innocent children you have killed in the name of your twisted doctrine.”

  Although his father’s face had been stern before,
now he looked frightened. He stared at him as if he had two heads.

  “You’ve said enough.” His father’s voice cracked. “This ends. Now.”

  Gabe didn’t hesitate. In a low, contempt-filled voice, he said, “Agreed.”

  Something gripped Gabriel. A jolt of energy surged through his body until he thought his chest would burst. Pressure built in the room that made it hard for him to breathe. When the door shut behind Reese, it slammed so hard it sounded like a gun blast.

  One of the guards tried the knob.

  “It’s locked. It won’t open,” he yelled.

  Gabriel hadn’t shut the door. When he looked at the others, he knew they hadn’t either. From the corridor outside, he heard men crying out and the sounds of a scuffle. A strange light stabbed through the darkness under the door, eclipsed by the shadows of someone running. A sudden burst of gunfire echoed in the hall and sent his father’s men lunging for cover anywhere they could find it.

  Lucas, Kendra and Oliver did too, but Gabriel and his uncle stood their ground. Gabe held on to the rush of power that he’d built up. When he shotgunned and felt the fragments of his essence blast into the room, he saw the light shoot from his eyes and felt the burn of blue flames rising off his body. He sensed the strength of his uncle and the others when they stood and joined him. Weak as he was, even Rafe did what he could.

  Their energy melded with his into one force and he magnified their abilities.

  Gabriel thrust his hands at his father and two of his men, hitting them with the full strength of his power. One man’s chest caved in and he dropped where he stood. His father’s body smacked against the back wall and collapsed to the floor in a heap, and another guard got pummeled beside him. He cracked his head on stone and when he slid down the wall, he left a bloody trail.

  Lucas hit those left standing with an illusion that made the room spin and buck under their feet. More than one door tempted them to save their sorry asses, but the openings slammed shut when they tried to run. Every time they got to their feet, they stumbled like drunks. Gabe had to block Luke’s illusion from his mind. It felt too real and made him sick.

  He sent a message to Kendra. Look out! Ten o’clock.

  A guy to her left lunged with a knife, but Kendra didn’t back down. She glared at him and dominated his brain with the power of suggestion that left him cowering. She’d manipulated him into turning the knife on himself. His hands shook as he fought not to stab his chest.

  We gotta get Rafe out of here. He’s too weak for this. Kendra shot a glance toward Rafe and Gabe knew what she meant. Rafael and his uncle conjured the dead in these men’s minds. Dark spirits screamed across the room in a flurry of terrifying visions that never ended. Rafe’s body shook with the effort. With his blood loss, Kendra had been right to worry.

  Gabriel gave her a nod and went where he was needed.

  Oliver had multiplied his body and created an army of dark warriors in sinister black helmets. Their glistening bodies looked ghostly in the pale light as they fought, but the real Oliver had a brawl on his hands. Two of Gabe’s father’s men had him cornered and were using their fists.

  Gabe could’ve finished it using his powers, but with too much adrenaline flooding his veins, he balled up his fists and gave Oliver a hand. He had to hit something. Anything. With Oliver at his shoulder, Gabe threw punches until his knuckles felt raw. Oliver pounded the guy next to him so hard that the man’s feet came off the floor. His new friend had seen his share of street fights.

  Even with the room in utter chaos, Gabriel sensed a dark presence. He landed an uppercut that sent his man to the floor and looked over his shoulder to where his father had fallen. The man wasn’t there.

  His father had grabbed a gun and slowly aimed it at him, but before Gabriel mounted a defense, he heard a shout.

  “She’s here,” Rafael called out to him. “The lady.”

  Rafe struggled to stand and stared across the room to a dark corner. Even his father turned and lowered his weapon. He must’ve seen what Rafe did—what they all could see now. The wall undulated into a blur. Its porous surface punched through with stabs of light until a blinding ball of energy emerged. It vibrated the air and sent tingles over his skin and the hair on his arms stood on end.

  “Mother?”

  Gabe felt her love in the dazzling light that hurt his eyes, but he couldn’t look away. His mother flooded him with memories. In a rush, they hit him until he felt as if he’d lived a lifetime of loving her.

  She must’ve glutted his father with images too. Gabe could only imagine how dark they must’ve been. His father looked terrified. When his mother drifted between him and his father, the man raised his weapon again and aimed for Gabriel.

  “You want your freak son? He’s yours,” his father shouted.

  When Gabe heard the gun blast, he expected to be hit. He had stood in the bullet’s path. There was no way his father could’ve missed, but he felt nothing.

  His mother swallowed the man with her light and he cried out in a bloodcurdling scream. A gut-wrenching crush of bone sent shivers over Gabe. When a dark pool oozed across the floor, it leached out from under the brilliant glow. The sight sent the remaining guards scrambling for the door. They scattered and ran, leaving their dead and wounded behind.

  “Mother?”

  When Gabe knew his father was gone, he reached toward his mother and her light changed into the soft flicker of candlelight. She appeared to him dressed in her velvet robe and tiara, as he would always remember her. She reached for his hand and her fingertips touched him, sending a jolt of extraordinary power through him, coupled with her love. When a sad smile graced her face, a tear rolled down her cheek that glistened like a diamond.

  I’m so proud of the man you’ve become...but I couldn’t let you take the life of your father. I had to protect you, the only way I could, his mother’s voice whispered inside his ear. I will always love you, my precious boy.

  Before he could say what was in his heart, she vanished with her light and the room went dark. She left a ghostly image of white on his eyes and the energy sucked from the room with a noise that popped his ears.

  “Mother...please. Stay with me,” he called out to her, but she didn’t return. “I love you.”

  His mother had come to protect him—and be the one to exact revenge on a man who had wronged them both. She’d blinded him so he wouldn’t see her do it. Stunned, Gabriel felt numb. His eyes burned with the tears he’d been holding back.

  In the sudden stillness of the room, no one spoke. No one breathed. Gabe sensed the others standing next to him and felt their eyes on him. He stared down at what remained of his father—nothing more than a stain to be cleaned.

  Whatever he had felt toward his father, it was over now.

  The grief and the mind-numbing loss he had for his mother would never bring her back. Nothing would. He’d have to find a way to live with that. He hurt inside and out, but with his father gone, how would he channel the hate that had become part of his nature now? Hate and love were opposite sides of a coin. Filled with both, he wouldn’t find it easy to stop either one, but he’d have to find a way if he wanted to reclaim his life.

  As the energy drained from his body, he felt the void his mother’s love left in his heart and all he wanted to do was fill it with Rayne.

  23

  Outside the Estate of Alexander Reese

  After 1:00 a.m.

  It was eerily quiet as they walked through what was left of his father’s mansion after his dead mother had ended the fight. Gabriel smelled the coppery stench of blood. Splatters of it marred the once-pristine walls, and boot prints in smears of crimson soiled the floors. Lucas and Oliver helped carry Rafael. He had a bad leg and was too weak to hold up his head, even though he tried. Kendra never left his side.

  But before
Gabriel had made it through the front gates, he’d heard what had happened between Rayne and Boelens from the Effin brothers. He ran to her, not waiting for the others. Nothing could keep him from her.

  He pictured what had happened and every step became a punishment. When he came upon the spot where she’d parked the vehicles, he spotted her in the shadows with Caila. When she saw him, she broke into a run and landed in his arms, crying.

  “Did he hurt you?” He cradled her and whispered in her ear, “I never should’ve left you.”

  “I killed him. Oh God, I killed a guy.”

  “Not just any guy, Rayne. You did what you had to. You’re alive and you protected these kids.” He couldn’t let her go. Tears ran down his cheeks and he ached over what she’d been through, but he kept his voice strong for her. “You’re safe now. I’m taking you home.”

  Rayne’s body shook and she kept talking, almost not hearing him. He could tell she was in shock. When he looked up, he saw Caila. She shook her head, letting him know it had been bad.

  “She’s taking it really hard. She doesn’t deserve this,” Caila said. “She was so brave. I couldn’t have done what she did.”

  Rayne listened to the girl’s voice and calmed down long enough to stop sobbing and look him in the eye.

  “I’ll be okay. We’ve all been through a lot. I’m just glad we found Rafael and that you’re all right.” Rayne put her hand to his chest. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d lost you.”

  Gabriel brushed the hair from her face and kissed her tears. He wanted to be alone with her, but Caila had stayed for a reason.

  “I know this isn’t my place. I don’t know you very well, but...” the girl said. “...if you want to forget what happened, I can help you do that.”

  It had been such a simple offer. Gabe didn’t know what to make of it and Rayne looked confused too. When she pulled from his arms and went to the girl, he wasn’t sure what she would say.