Kelly thrust her finger upward. “What's that?”
A dark form hovered above the hole in the floor, several feet higher than their heads, almost invisible in the crimson-coated darkness. Nathan gave the violin to Kelly and aimed the mirror at the vague shape. The residual glow swept across the form, a woman suspended in mid-air. As the song ebbed and flowed, she rode the current, rising and falling with the sounds. Her long dress flapped around her legs, but her dangling feet never came within reach.
Nathan gulped. Could she really be who he thought she was? He pressed his hand against the mirror. “Scarlet! Can I have a little more light?”
A gasping reply wheezed from the surface. “Nathan … Dearest one … The stalkers are weakening me … but I will do what I can.”
As the red glow strengthened and illuminated the area, the woman's face clarified. Long dark locks brushed across her face and flew above her head as the cold breeze buffeted her body. Her skin seemed polished, reflective, almost like a Barbie doll's plastic coating, but her identity was clear.
Nathan shivered in spite of the mirror's warmth. “It's my mother!”
“Nathan!” Kelly shouted. “Behind you!”
He jerked around. A tall specter lunged toward him, a long black arm reaching out. Nathan ducked, dropped to the ground, and swept his leg under the attacker. His foot struck something solid. The shadow lurched forward and toppled over him, but Nathan, still clutching the mirror, rolled out of the way and leaped up. Then, guided by the mirror's dimming light, he rushed over to Kelly.
As the shadow climbed to its feet, Nathan pulled Kelly to the opposite side of the hole in the floor. Kelly's teeth chattered. “Mictar?”
“It's got to be.” Nathan's chill heightened. He huddled close to Kelly and pointed the mirror at the slowly approaching phantom.
Had Mictar followed them through the web? If so, why hadn't he attacked earlier?
The tall shadow stalked into the red glow. With a smirk on his pale, narrow face, he stopped at the edge of the hole, holding something in his hand that was too dark to identify. “I must admit that I'm impressed with your courage. I didn't think you would come.”
Fighting off the shivers, Nathan squared his shoulders. “What do you know about courage?”
“Impudent brat!” Mictar took two long strides around the hole, but Nathan and Kelly matched his movements, keeping the stalker directly opposite them. Mictar pointed a long, bony finger. “Either give me the mirror, or begone! This place is beyond your understanding.”
As he spoke, the song died down, and a light, dim and pale blue, shone from an invisible source within the hole. The cold wind eased, allowing Nathan's mother to float down to eye level. With her skin white and her body stiff, she seemed more like an embalmed corpse than a living human. Still, light glimmered in her eyes, a sign that maybe she was alive.
Nathan reached for her, but her hand dangled a few inches too far away. Should he jump? If he caught hold of her, would they fall into the hole? Who could tell where they would fall? Maybe the middle of the three domes where the supplicants lived, but maybe not.
He glared at Mictar. He couldn't give up the mirror. Mictar would just use it to kill Scarlet and take so much energy, all would be lost. But what else could he do? Stall? If so, for what? No one was coming to help.
Nathan held up the mirror. “Give her to me first!”
“Oh, I see. You lack trust.” Mictar gazed at Nathan's mother, his eyes wide as if admiring his prisoner. “If you look closely, you can see that I have kept her alive. She would be no use to me dead. That's why I never took her eyes when I had the opportunity. I needed at least one gifted human to finish my work.”
“So,” Nathan said. “You want the mirror, and I want my mother. We're at a stalemate.”
“Not necessarily.” Mictar pointed into the darkness. “Leave the mirror wherever you wish and walk away from it. While I go to retrieve it, you are welcome to collect your mother and leave.”
A whisper drifted into Nathan's ear. “My beloved, I see where you are now. You are inside the Lucifer machine. According to the stalkers' songs, Mictar has poured the life energy into your mother and plans to use her as a catalyst to activate the energy and spread it throughout the machine.”
Nathan glanced at the mirror. A hint of Scarlet's lovely eyes appeared in the reflection. He couldn't just hand her over to that beast. There had to be another way.
Turning back to Mictar, he flexed his exhausted muscles. Now that he knew what was going on, how could he use Scarlet's information?
Backing away a few steps, he pulled Kelly along. “So if we decide to keep the mirror, would you let Kelly and me go?”
Mictar raised the object in his hand into the light — a jet-black violin. “I have no use for you, and I likely will not be able to capture you in an expeditious manner. When I am done here, you will die, so it matters little to me what you do now.” He lifted a white bow to the strings. “If, however, you wish to stay, by all means do so. You might learn a thing or two from a real violinist.”
As Mictar's thin hands gripped the violin and bow like a seasoned master, the words he spoke at the hospital came back to Nathan. Your base use of that instrument proves that you have no respect for its true power. At the time, the statement seemed little more than a verbal slap, but now it echoed as a dark prophecy.
The sight of the black violin and white bow made Nathan ill. Something terrible was about to happen.
Mictar stroked a string, then adjusted its tension. As he continued tuning, Kelly whispered, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“No kidding. It's like waiting for your own funeral to begin. Got any ideas?”
“Dissonance creates the dark energy.” She pushed the violin into his hands. “Here's your weapon to counter it. Go to war.”
“Shouldn't I use the mirror? Won't Scarlet be able to help?”
“Maybe. You hold the violin.” She took the mirror. “I'll hold Scarlet.”
Nathan scanned the dark floor. “Where's my bow?”
“You didn't give it to me.” Kelly pointed at a spot near Mictar's feet and whispered, “Wait. There it is.”
Nathan eyed his bow, maybe two steps to the stalker's right at the ten o'clock position as they viewed the hole, themselves at the six o'clock point and Mictar at high noon.
Mictar began playing. The notes, although perfectly rendered, gave no hint of structure or form. Light flashed from his hands and arced along the bow and over the strings. The same sparkling light that had sucked the life out of so many victims now made the black violin seem to blaze as it poured out measure after measure of dissonance. He shouted into the hole “Sing, my people! Let every Earth hear the sounds that will finally bring them together!”
The voices burst into song again, this time louder and fouler than ever. Cold air blasted from the hole, pushing Nathan's mother higher in the blue light. The dark streams collided with her body and bounced off, seemingly energized and animated as they rushed away.
Gasping for breath, Nathan raised the violin and looked at the mirror, still glowing but only enough to illuminate Kelly as she held the square with both hands. Plucking the strings, he played the opening measure of Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata,” but with one of the strings missing, he had to figure out a new fingering for the remaining ones. And with his raw, bleeding hands feeling like they were on fire, how could he possibly win a battle of violins?
As he played, the notes seemed feeble against the onslaught of the stalkers' song and Mictar's resonating instrument. The stalker glared at Nathan and played more vigorously. Black vapor poured from his violin and streamed toward the feminine body floating above their heads. As if echoing the notes, sparks of white sizzled through the streams and covered her with an electrostatic aura. Her body twitched, shocked by every twinkling light that surged between her and Mictar.
“Louder, Nathan!” Kelly said. “I feel the mirror getting warmer. Give it all you've got!”
br />
Nathan pulled the strings harder. A rush of white light rose from each one, but as it lifted into the air, one of the dark streams zipped by and swept the light away, like a crow snatching a morsel.
As he moved his hand up and down the fingerboard, he played on. More light erupted from the violin. More dark clouds, screaming as they passed, gobbled up the sounds. The mirror's glow strengthened. Scarlet's eyes grew brighter. Red light washed over his violin, and as the next flash of light erupted from his strings, the dark streams veered away as if forced out of their flight by the new fountain of red.
Pain surging through his fingers, Nathan nodded toward the hole. It was time to get as close as possible to his mother. Maybe somehow he could counteract whatever Mictar was doing to her. While he continued the sonata, he and Kelly sidestepped toward the edge. The blast of frigid air pummeled them, but as Scarlet's light strengthened, warmth from the mirror radiated across their bodies and pushed the cold back. Nathan's mother floated lower in the column of air, but her face stayed quiet, expressionless as the stalker's electrified onslaught continued.
Scowling, Mictar eased around the circle, but Nathan kept watch out of the corner of his eye and shuffled in the same direction to match the stalker's movements. Kelly backed up, keeping pace. Nathan spotted the bow again. Only a few more steps and they would be within reach.
Mictar shouted into the hole. “We are almost there, my people! This fool with a fiddle is no match for me and eleven of you!”
The cold gale freshened, amplifying the noise and lifting Nathan's mother higher. Her body convulsed. Black streams shot out of her hands and feet and zoomed into the far reaches of the Lucifer machine. A loud crack sounded from below.
Nathan glanced into the pale blue light. Were the glass walls that displayed the earths cracking? Was the machine working to break down the barriers? Shuffling to stay on the opposite side of the hole from Mictar, Nathan looked at his bow, still not quite within reach. He could probably make a leap for it, but what could he play that would counteract this apocalyptic sound? And how many did Mictar say were fighting against him? Eleven? Didn't twelve stalkers surround Scarlet before?
He refocused on the strings and continued his pizzicato performance, adding as much vibrato as he could. His hands ached more horribly than ever, but he couldn't give up. He had to fight harder — pour more energy into the music, fill it with the passion he felt inside for his mother. He had to save her life. He had to battle this monster and rescue the entire universe. Yet, he had only a violin and a plucking finger. How could that possibly be enough to overcome the flood of dissonance? But what else could he do?
A sweet voice drifted from the mirror, soft and indistinct. Scarlet's face clarified in the reflection, somber, unflustered, glowing with crimson light. As her lips moved, her song energized, and the lyrics formed in red clusters of radiance, each one reflecting the character of the word in power, resilience, and emotion.
The strength of pure evil, the darkness, desire,
The greedy, the grabber, the lustful, the liar,
The music of takers can never withstand
The song of the giver, the bloody red hand.
Nathan snatched up the bow and began playing the tune that Scarlet sang. Although the notes were foreign, somehow they came to him just in time to move from mind, to hand, to the strings of his crippled violin.
He plays for his maker, his mother, his bride;
He takes no account of his pain or his pride.
His weapon, his music that calls for a song,
The lyrics of old that bring right to a wrong.
As Nathan played, Mictar locked his gaze on him. The black vapors from the stalker's violin collided with the white that rose from Nathan's, meeting in a striped swirl around his mother's body. Pain scorched his hands. Blood oozed over the bow, but, as Scarlet's song strengthened, he played on.
With fingers of scarlet he reaches for life;
Through boundaries forbidden he plunges a knife.
The heart I laid bare is the flesh on the cross;
The kiss is the wine that sets flames to the dross.
The circular clusters of crimson light emanating from the mirror expanded and ate away at the dark streams that brushed against them. Then, after drifting toward Nathan's mother, the clusters joined in the battle of black and white vapors, lengthening and blending into the swirl. A splash of sparks burned away the blackness in the cyclone, leaving only a spin of red and white. The blue light from the hole faded, and the wind died down, allowing his mother to slowly sink.
Again, Mictar screamed into the hole. “It is time! Sing the death march, and I will activate Lucifer's fist!”
A new song lifted into the air — frenzied, chaotic, screeching. Mictar stroked his black violin furiously, lifting the thickest black clouds yet into the air. The dark streams began to curve. They encircled the hole in dozens of orbits, ranging from lightning-fast rivers of black near the center to slower, more distinct streams as the orbits fanned out near the outer walls of their dome.
The streams congealed, making a single thick cloud of black that spun around Nathan's mother and sucked away the red and white swirl. The new cloud sparkled with purple light, illuminating the chamber with a violet hue. The force of their orbit burst open the outer walls, and the cloud spread out into the webbing. Like a swarm of bees, the sparks buzzed through the strands, eating through them like cotton candy.
More cracking noises erupted from beneath their feet. Nathan grimaced at the sound. The channels between the earths had to be multiplying. He played harder. They were losing the battle, but what choice did he have? The cosmic fabric was being eaten away by the swarm of dark energy, and the universe lay in his hands — his aching, bleeding hands.
Now crying as his mother spun slowly in the swirling wind, he swayed in time with Scarlet's song, a new song, a louder and more plaintive cry.
O light of dawn! O sound of spring!
O freedom bells! Arise and sing!
Without your voice, without your song,
All light is dark, all right is wrong.
Reveal your aid, your shepherd's staff
That kept my life from being chaff,
That stayed the stalkers' bleeding verse,
That eased my supplicating curse.
As Scarlet's voice faded, a new song arose in the swirling wind, the familiar vowel sounds of the stalkers, yet carrying a strangely beautiful melody.
Kelly set her feet as the wind whipped her hair wildly. “Nathan!” she shouted. “It's Abodah!”
Nathan searched for the source. A tall figure emerged from the torn webbing, leaning into the tornadic flow of dark streams as she sang.
“Abodah!” Mictar shouted as he continued playing his violin. “Begone, you traitor! You have no business here.”
Still fighting the wind, she staggered up to the edge of the circle and scowled. With a series of short notes, she sang her answer.
“I am not your slave,” Kelly translated, her shouts beaten back by the cyclone. “Nor am I a traitor. I have come to set these captives free.”
Mictar sneered, but he seemed out of breath as his fingers continued to fly up and down the violin's neck. “It is too late. Lucifer has the catalyst in its grip, and the dark energy is ripping apart the barriers. It would take much more than a singing supplicant and a boy on a three-stringed fiddle to stop me now.”
Abodah set a hand on Nathan's shoulder and sang a soft tune.
“Stop playing,” Kelly said. “You are only delaying the inevitable, and you must be strong enough to follow my counsel.”
Nathan lowered the violin and shook out his stinging hand. “What do I do?”
A deep crease spread across Abodah's forehead as she sang again.
Kelly had to lean close to Nathan to battle the wind as she translated. “Sacrifice. When we stop this machine, the supplicants will be the only way to create dark energy.” She pointed at the hole. “For the sake of bil
lions on the three earths, you must go down there and kill all three.”
19
TO SLAY A SUPPLICANT
As the wind blasted his face, Nathan looked at his mother, now vertical and spinning faster and faster. Heeding Abodah's advice had already accelerated Lucifer's destructive force. “What about my mother?” he asked.
“Leave her where she is,” Kelly said, still translating for Abodah. “If you are going to accomplish your mission, she will be a hindrance to you. You cannot drag her with you and effectively carry out this plan.”
“How do I get into the supplicants' domes?”
She pressed her lips close to his ear and sang seven high notes. When she straightened, she continued her song, and Kelly gave it words. “That is the key to Scarlet's dome. Lower each note by one octave to open Cerulean's, then another octave to open Amber's.”
Abodah paused, shifted her gaze toward Mictar, and sang a final few notes.
“Go now,” Kelly translated. “This stalker of souls is mine.”
As Abodah walked slowly around the circle, Mictar stayed put, his face defiant as he continued playing his violin. Still, a hint of concern crept across his eyes. With her head erect and her stare fixed, Abodah closed in slowly, raising her hands, palms out, as if creating a shield in front of her.
Nathan backed away from the edge of the hole, fighting the blistering torrent. Kelly did the same. Still shouting to compete with the riotous noise, she tucked the mirror and took Nathan's hand. “Are you really going to do what she said?”
“I'm not sure yet, but I know one thing I'm going to do.”
“What?”
“I'm going to get my mother.” Taking a deep breath, he nodded toward the hole. “When I get to the bottom, I'll try to signal if it's safe.” He let go of her hand and ran toward the hole. When he reached the edge, he leaped up and out toward his mother's spinning body. With a grunt, he collided with her and, still clutching his violin and bow, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, then locked her waist between his legs.