“Stand back,” he shouted. “It’s coming up now.”
The first time, the stone hit the wall and fell back down, almost beaning him in the face. The second time his throw wasn’t powerful enough. It bounced off the edge of the pit and fell again. But on the third throw, all those years of baseball paid off.
“Got it!” Dalton called.
“Okay,” he yelled back. “If you’ll tie it to a tree, I can climb up—”
“I got you covered,” Natalie shouted. “Jump on, and start climbing!”
Five minutes later, Nass was standing at the edge of the hole, looking down into it with contempt.
“Thanks, guys,” he said. “How’d you know to come here?”
“You’re not going to like it,” Dalton said.
The knowing hit him in the gut, full force. “Clarisse?”
Dalton nodded. “I saw her get in Rick’s car and we followed them. So what’s going on? Where is everybody?”
A sudden flash of lightning ripped through the trees, coming from the far side of the tunnel mound. All three of them turned and looked in that direction. Nass didn’t need the knowing to realize it wasn’t normal lightning. Something major was happening; he could feel it.
“Let’s go find out,” he said, and together, the three of them set off toward the battle.
Clarisse watched Dalton and Natalie pull Nass out of the pit, and then she followed them through the snowy woods to the edge of a clearing. What she saw there made her drop to her knees. She clung to the trunk of a pine tree, desperate to steady her shaking body.
“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no. . .” but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Strange people battled each other savagely and in the weird flashes of light, she could see a huge, writhing snake. It couldn’t possibly be real.
“No,” she groaned again, and tears started running down her cheeks. She’d just wanted to teach ’Nacio a lesson. She’d just wanted to get the money she needed to pay Oscar S. But it was too late. It was too late for everything. Because now she was insane.
“Aimee!” Raphael called to her. Lightning flashed, and he looked over her head. Orias was grasping some kind of big shining ring that was emitting a blue glow, and the closer Aimee got to it the bluer and brighter it became, as if it were emitting more and more energy. It looked like Orias was having trouble keeping a hold on it.
“Aimee!” Raph yelled again. He was standing on the tracks now. “Aimee—stop!”
And she did. She came to a complete stop and slowly turned to face him.
“Aimee?”
She stared at him, a strange, puzzled look on her face. Slowly, carefully, keeping his eyes on the giant snake, he started moving toward her. Behind her the snake lurched forward, its head hovering only a few feet above her. Raphael froze, terrified that any movement would cause the monster to strike.
“Aimee—listen to me,” he said. “You’ve got to walk back to me, okay—slowly.”
Her head was tilted and her eyes slightly narrowed, as if she were trying to place him.
“Come on,” he begged. “It’s me. Raphael.”
And then Orias’s voice cut through the storm. “Aimee!”
At the sound, Aimee smiled. She turned and started moving toward Orias again, unmindful of the snake that watched her hungrily, its massive head drifting along beside her as she walked.
She doesn’t know me, Raphael thought. She looked right at me, and she didn’t recognize me. And then he got it. Somehow Orias, son of Oberon, some kind of dark, supernatural creature, had put a spell on her. Raphael had to get her—and the treasure—away from him.
As Aimee halted near the lowest coil of the enormous snake, the glowing ring Orias was holding sparked brightly. It suddenly jerked out if his hand, spun straight up into the air and hung there for an instant like a sapphire moon, then started falling back down, heading for Aimee.
It landed directly in front of her, a bluish arc protruding from the snow at the center of the tracks. She looked down at it for a moment. Everyone stopped and looked at it. Orias quit struggling with the snake, the Obies lowered their weapons, the Toppers and Flatliners ceased their fighting.
Everyone froze, dreading what might happen next.
The cobra’s head swayed and dipped above Aimee, its keen eyes locked on the treasure. Raphael held his breath.
Take it, the Magician whispered over his shoulder.
Take it, the universe urged.
Slowly, as if sleepwalking, Aimee stooped and reached for the crystal band.
In a blur, the cobra struck—and Raphael struck, too, launching himself over Aimee’s head in a spectacular aerial kick. His heel caught the massive snake right between the eyes and knocked it backward before it could touch her. As he landed in front of Aimee, Raphael could see its coils relaxing, releasing Orias, who floated safely to the ground a few feet away. Aimee ran to Orias.
Take it! the magician screamed in his mind. The glowing ring was stuck in the snow at his feet, where Aimee had dropped it. Raphael reached down and grabbed it, clutching it to his chest. Immediately, it began vibrating so violently that the earth seemed to shudder beneath his feet. Trees quaked. The tracks trembled. Incredible crosscurrents of power slashed through him, scattering his thoughts on the wind.
The snake reared back to strike at him again, and he was vaguely aware of Maggie charging into the scene like a beautiful, modern-day Joan of Arc, heading fearlessly straight for the beast. As she ran, she was reaching into her backpack, which she tossed aside when she pulled out—a crown. The homecoming queen crown.
As Maggie stood beside the tracks looking up at the horrific cobra beast, she’d had a strange moment of clarity. Only a few weeks ago, she had been a normal high-school cheerleader—worried about boys and clothes and being popular. Now, somehow, she was a warrior. And it was time to fight.
So she had pulled the homecoming queen’s crown out of her backpack and put it on her head. She felt it merging with the ghost crown, and their combined heat entered her brain and coursed through her body, filling her with . . . splendor. That was the only word for it.
An invisible wave of it came up through her feet, down through her head, then out through her fingers, and when she saw the cobra’s fangs descending toward Raphael, she raised her arms, pointed at the snake and said, “Stop!”
And the single clear, crystal stone in the center of the crown—the real crown—shot out a beam of pure, white light.
It flared into the huge, hideous, green-black snake like a detonating star and the ensuing explosion flung the beast away into the woods with a crackling electric charge, where it snapped tree trunks and branches with the force of its passage.
Raphael hardly noticed when Maggie blasted the huge snake demon. Instead, his heart breaking, he stared at Aimee as she clung to Orias.
And then, he realized, something else was happening. The ground vibrated ferociously beneath his feet, and the rumble became deafening. A low, lonely-sounding whistle cut through the storm and he turned toward the sound, already knowing what he would see. A massive train, glowing a ghostly blue-white, sped out of the tunnel, toward him.
A phantom train.
“Raph, look out!” he heard Nass scream.
But he didn’t move. He stood frozen in place as it bore down on him. It whistled again, the sound cutting through every atom of his body, a divine, eerie howl that made him shiver with excitement and . . . anticipation. The sound was pure Shen. It was the treasure. It was death, and life. It was unstoppable. It was the All.
Raphael felt himself smiling despite his terror as the train sped inexorably toward him.
Nass watched in horror as the train struck his be
st friend.
In the instant it hit, there was an explosion—not a fiery one, but an explosion of energy—and it sent a massive shockwave blasting outward from the point of impact. He felt like he was sitting on an atomic bomb as it exploded—the light, the heat, the roar of the blast were all too much to handle. One second he was experiencing everything at once, senses completely maxed out. And then there was nothing.
The next thing Nass knew, he was lying on his back in the snow, staring up at the sky as the last few snowflakes fluttered down. The silence was so profound that he thought for a second he’d lost his hearing. I blacked out, he thought. But how much time had passed? Minutes? Hours?
Then, he remembered Raphael.
He struggled quickly to his feet and, despite his dizziness, jogged over to where Raph had been standing when the train struck him. The knowing was flooding his mind now, overwhelming him with a fear and sadness he’d never experienced before.
“Raph! Hey, Raph!” he shouted. But there was no sign of him, or of the train. Nass glanced around, looking on both sides of the tracks to see of he’d been thrown into the woods. Nothing.
The trees that surrounded them, for a radius of about a hundred yards, had all been snapped by the blast and their remaining branches stripped bare.
“Raph!” he called out again, but there was no answer.
He looked down at his feet and he saw, scattered in the center of the tracks, the shards of the crystal ring. The blast—or something—had shattered it, and the light that had glowed within it was gone.
He knelt and picked up one of the pieces. It was still hot.
Dalton and Natalie were standing beside him, and the rest of the Flatliners joined them. One by one, they all stooped to examine the shattered ring, each of them picking up a shard, turning it over in their hands in wonder. For an instant, Nass thought he saw a wink of light within the piece he held, but it disappeared so fast he figured he must have imagined it.
The Toppers, who all seemed a little dazed, came walking up to stare at the empty space on the tracks where the train, and the cobra, had been.
First Bran picked up a crystal shard, then Dax, then Michael. The Cunningham brothers each took a piece too, and stuck it in their pockets.
It was strange, Nass thought, but it made sense, too. Even if it was broken now—who wouldn’t want to have a piece of something so beautiful—a souvenir of something so amazing it was impossible to understand?
Only Rick seemed unconcerned. He sat on a snow drift, absently staring at the slow-falling snow.
Suddenly Orias Morrow shoved his way into the little circle to stare down at the broken crystal ring.
“No.” It was an agonized whisper. He grabbed a piece in each hand, looked at them a moment and then cast them back to earth. Aimee came up beside him and kneeled to pick up a shard.
“Maybe we can fix it. . .” she suggested. He looked at her blankly and then he took her hand and walked away with her, into the swirling snow.
Slowly, Rick got up. “I’m outta here,” he declared. The rest of the Toppers fell in behind him.
“Where we goin’?” Bran asked absently. “Spinnacle?”
“Nah, I gotta hook up with someone,” Rick told him. “Someone who owes me big time. And believe me—I’m gonna collect.”
As the Toppers disappeared up the tracks Chin, with Anne Pembrook at his side, approached the little gathering, his expression somber. As the rest of them had done, he knelt and picked up a piece of the ring and gazed at it thoughtfully.
“What happened to the Obies?” asked Nass.
“Driven away by the Shen blast,” Chin said. “We should leave, though, before they come back.”
“But . . . where’s Raph?” Benji asked.
Finally, someone had voiced the terrible question aloud. Nass looked immediately at Chin, desperately hoping for an answer, but the old man said nothing; he only glanced at the broken crystal shard in his hand, then slipped it absently into his pocket.
“Raphael?” Beet shouted, and some of the other Flatliners took up the call, looking around. Nass looked again at Master Chin, but the old man’s expression was unreadable.
“Raph! Raphael!”
The only answer was a distant, mournful train whistle, fading away into the night.
Raphael Kain was gone.
Kate was resting comfortably in Lily Rose’s big old feather bed. Sitting up, in full control of the TV remote, she was happily channel surfing with the sound muted. Dalton sat on the bed beside her and Nass sat in a nearby chair. They dug into the plate of homemade cookies Dalton’s grandma had just brought in.
“I’d offer you another one,” Dalton said playfully to Nass. “But you’ve probably got to rush home so Clarisse won’t get mad at you.”
“Don’t worry about that. Clarisse will have enough problems to deal with when my mom gets a hold of her,” Nass said with a grin. “Miss Clarisse never came home last night and Amelia Torrez is pretty steamed, let me tell you. Anyway,” he assured Dalton. “Clarisse is no longer a problem. You’re my girl and that’s that.”
Dalton beamed at him. “Okay, then. I’ll ask my grandma if you can have some milk, too.”
As if on cue, Lily Rose stuck her head in the door. “You up for another visitor, honey bun?” she asked Kate. “I’ve got a very anxious young man out here, just champing at the bit to get in here and see you.”
“Aye, that I am!” exclaimed Kate and her face lit up like a Christmas tree when Zhai walked in. Both his hands were bandaged.
“Now listen, all of you,” said Lily Rose. “Flatliners, Toppers, Armies of Light or Armies of Night—I don’t care. You all remember that this is my house and it is, always has been and always will be, neutral territory. You got that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came back meekly from all of them.
“All right then. I’ll get you a pitcher of milk to go with those cookies.”
Zhai nodded to Nass and Dalton as he moved to Kate’s bedside. “How are you?” he asked her, a little shy in front of the others.
“As fine as the mornin’ sun,” she told him with a big smile. “Thanks for bringing me here. Miss Lily has fixed me up fine. She said it looked a lot more serious than it was. The herbs from her garden work wonders. I’m right as rain, Zhai—and I think I’ll be goin’ home tomorrow. Well, to my little train car, anyway.”
“Come on,” Dalton told Zhai. “Sit down and relax. Neutral territory, remember? We’re not gonna bite you.”
Zhai smiled and took the place Dalton vacated, next to Kate. Nass passed the plate of cookies to him.
“Thanks, man,” said Zhai.
They all took another cookie and started munching away, and after a moment Dalton spoke up again. “Well,” she said. “Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room, or are we going to bury our heads in the sand and ignore it like most everybody else in this town?”
“You mean like all that weird stuff that happened at the tracks last night?” Nass asked.
“For one,” Dalton said. “And for another, what about Raphael? He couldn’t have just vanished into thin air.”
“No,” Nass agreed. “He couldn’t. We’ve got to find him. Beet and I spent half the night trying to explain to his mom what had happened. She just looked at us like we were crazy or high or something. She’s convinced he ran away.”
“And what about Aimee?” Dalton added. “She acted like she didn’t even know him. Something’s wrong—bad wrong—since she’s been hanging out with that Orias guy. We’ve got to find out what that’s all about, and get her away from him if we can.”
“We will,” Nass said. “But first, we find Raph. The crew and I are putting together search teams and going two-by-two, and starting this afternoon we plan to comb the woods.”
“I’ll help,” Zhai
offered.
“Cool,” Nass said. “We’ll need every man we can get.” He turned back to Dalton. “We’ll drain Macomb Lake if we have to—but we’ll find him. That train couldn’t have taken him far—it wasn’t even a real train.”
“What kind of train was it?” Kate asked quietly.
“Some kind of ghost train,” Nass said. “One minute it was there, bearing down on Raph, and the next minute it was gone.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Kate said. “But you’re not likely to see him anytime soon. I’ve had a bit of experience with that train, you see.”
Aimee stared out the window of her bedroom, down at her father’s perfect lawn, his new, perfect car parked in their perfect driveway, and on to their perfect, pristine street beyond. She couldn’t get over the nagging feeling that she was waiting for someone . . . someone besides her mother. Orias had brought her home last night, after they’d recovered from the shock of the explosion at the tracks, and after he’d promised they would begin looking for her mom soon. And he’d kissed her passionately, sweetly, at the door of her father’s house, with whispered promises of a bright future together.
She’d thought her dad would be furious that she’d been with Orias for two days—and one whole night—but he seemed actually pleased with her. Orias was right. Jack Banfield would go along with whatever he suggested. Daddy dearest, she thought again.
Feeling like a stranger in her own skin, she realized she didn’t belong in her father’s house anymore. And she certainly didn’t want to go back to Mountain High Academy. She was like Orias in that way—there was no place for her. There was no place she felt like she really belonged—except with him.
Only, she couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling that she was waiting for someone else. Someone she’d known before Orias came into her life. Someone who had been important to her.
If only she could remember who it was.
GHOST CROWN: THE TRACKS TRILOGY - Book Two Page 45
