Nightmare’s Edge (33 page)

“That’s exactly what Solomon said.” Francesca’s voice faltered. “He’s ready to die to protect me.”

“He is?” Nathan’s throat pinched his voice into a squeak. “That’s cool, Francesca. That’s very cool.”

“Nathan?” The new voice was definitely male — strained and shaky. “Francesca’s playing the key now. I’ll await your instructions.”

He looked up again. The two Earths drew closer together, but now a dark form materialized, a cylinder that hovered about two hundred feet above the ground, like a black pipe lying on its side. It sprouted three cylindrical branches, one of which lengthened and snaked slowly toward them. Yet, it wasn’t really moving at all. Air molecules seemed to burn in place and blacken, becoming part of the cylinder as it stretched downward.

It stopped at least a hundred feet in the air, and the end stretched wide, like a mouth ready to swallow anything lying below. The wind suddenly calmed. The air felt eerily alive, as if every particle carried an electrostatic charge.

“We have the coordinates!” Daryl yelled. “It can’t be more than a hundred yards away!”

“Find the spot, tell the others their numbers, and make sure they’re playing. I’ll be right with you.” Nathan tossed her the IWART. It sizzled as it passed through the supercharged atmosphere.

She snatched it out of the air with one hand. “Gotcha, boss.”

Still holding the cell phone, Kelly ran to his side. “Did Mictar hear the coordinates?”

He shook his head and pointed at the stalker, who was now struggling to his feet. “It doesn’t make any difference. The creep will just follow us.”

The cylinder’s branch drew closer, now no more than fifty feet high, but the center point hovered over another part of the lawn, a section closer to the palace. Kelly blinked at it. “What’s that dark thing?”

“I’m guessing Sarah’s Womb is searching for the foundation point, too. It’s almost like she can’t quite stretch that far.”

Holding a hand over his bleeding stomach, Mictar sneered. “Pitiful! Sarah calls for healing from a quack who doesn’t even know her illness.” He straightened and pointed his bow at Nathan. “Go ahead and try, fiddle boy. Play the magic song and see if your bloody hands can heal Sarah’s wounds.”

Nathan looked at his palms again. They seemed more raw and blistered than ever, completely incapable of playing even a simple tune, much less a world-saving symphony.

“And don’t forget,” Mictar continued as he waved his black violin, “I will be right behind you to corrupt every note you play.”

The sky darkened again. Screams echoed all around. The crowd broke through the police blockade, some running toward them and others just scattering. A cacophony of screams, police whistles, and car horns filled the air.

Squeezing the neck of his violin, Nathan backed away. For some reason, the stalker seemed more malevolent than ever. This was the monster who killed Nathan and Kelly Blue, consuming their eyes along with their vital energy and leaving them limp, lifeless, and staring into the endless void through empty sockets.

As a familiar lump grew in his throat, he reached for Kelly’s hand. “C’mon. Let’s catch up with Daryl and Clara.” They turned and ran. With the air still electrically charged, popping sounds rushed past his ears. The sounds of panic magnified. Screams pierced his brain, raising images of Felicity, blind and alone, still clutching her walking stick while leaning against her morbidly etched tombstone. The ugly girl no one cared about still awaited her hero.

Nathan swallowed the lump. He couldn’t be everyone’s hero. It was all he could do just to stumble along on this crazy path, this impossible task that called him to play in concert with two virtuosos in different dimensions. At the moment, he felt more like Nero than a hero. Would he be playing a fiddle while Rome burned to the ground?

Across the field, Daryl walked slowly, her gaze locked on the IWART. Clara stayed at her side, looking on and apparently checking the numbers on her notepad.

Above, the cylinder branch still hovered, crackling, sizzling. Now the size of the palace itself, its mouth undulated as if buffeted by an unfelt wind.

When they arrived, Daryl stopped and pointed at the ground.

“I think this is the spot. Earth Blue’s numbers didn’t change, so your mother is playing at the right location, but Earth Yellow’s did change by a little bit, and I couldn’t get hold of Solomon Yellow to let him know.”

Nathan looked up. They stood right under the center of the dark mouth. Within the tube, all was blackness. “Keep trying.”

He lifted the violin and bow into playing position, but even curling his hand around the bow sent horrific pain up his arm, and pressing his fingers against the strings did the same. He couldn’t play this thing. It was impossible.

After turning the switch to the Earth Yellow position, Daryl raised the IWART to her lips. “Yo! Solomon! Are you there?”

Kelly pointed at the unit. “Call the observatory and see if anyone’s heard from them.”

“Gordon Red can’t talk to the Yellows.”

“Just do it,” Kelly said. “It’s a hunch.”

“Whatever you say, Miss Interpreter.” Daryl set the switch to Earth Red. “Dr. Gordon. Can you hear me?”

After a few seconds, a breathless voice replied. “Yes, Daryl. I’m glad you called. Tony of Earth Yellow has been in contact with Solomon Yellow by cell phone. Solomon’s IWART stopped transmitting and receiving. He says a dark cylinder appeared in the sky and blocked out all light. The only thing they can see is the glow from the IWART’s screen. Francesca is already playing ‘Foundation’s Key,’ but it appears to be making no difference.”

“So do their GPS functions still work?”

“They do. Solomon mentioned that specifically. The satellite signals are coming through.”

“Are you still in contact with Tony?” Daryl asked.

“Yes. The transmitter you and he put together is still operational.”

“Perfect! Get these new changes to them, pronto. Add point zero zero one to the north coordinates and subtract point zero zero two from the west coordinates.”

“Hold on.”

While they waited, Clara nudged Nathan. “Better start playing, or Mictar will beat you to the punch.”

Nathan looked into the field. Mictar shuffled toward them, now stronger, his violin in one hand and his bow in the other. Grimacing, Nathan took a deep breath. He had no choice. It was time to dig deep and go for it.

He pushed the bow against the strings. The note wasn’t quite right, but it was close. It hurt like crazy, but maybe he could go on. Just as he pulled the bow back, the IWART interrupted, making him stop.

“Tony is passing the information along,” Dr. Gordon said. “And the Earths seem perfectly in sync with time passage now, almost as if they’ve been tied together.”

“Yeah,” Daryl said. “It looks like Sarah has sent branches out to the three Earths. It’s almost like she’s making a last ditch effort to get them to dance together.”

The sky grew darker. The black cylinder drew closer, hovering now maybe thirty feet above the ground. As if gagged by the stifling air, the sounds of fear subsided. Mictar, now almost veiled by darkness, stopped and lifted the black silhouette of a violin. With his bow held high, he looked like a ghost, the revenge-seeking phantom of the orchestral opera awaiting the conductor’s first wave of his baton.

Clara stood behind Nathan and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You can do this,” she said as she massaged his muscles. “It’s time to be the hero I know you can be. Release these people from their prisons. Give Sarah the melody she needs to heal the wounds and call the worlds into their dance.”

Nodding, he tried again. This time the first three notes sounded fine. As they rose from the strings, they seemed to pop like tiny firecrackers ignited by the supercharged air. An electric shock surged up his arms, stiffening them. Pain seared across his palms, but he had to go on. The fourth note spewed out flat, and the fifth died out before he could finish the stroke. His heart thumping, he looked back at Clara. “It’s just not right. I have to start over.”

Mictar’s shadowed arms flew into action. The sound of his violin pierced the calm — angry, dissonant, hate-filled. As if set on fire by the mysterious air, strings of sparks flew out from the black violin. Like a vacuum, the black cylinder slurped them upward into its void.

Daryl swallowed hard. “Better go now, Doc. We have a ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’ fiddle duel about to take place, and the Devil’s getting warmed up.”

The cylinder lowered farther, now within reach just over their heads. Daryl tossed the IWART into her bag and withdrew candles and a book of matches.

As she lit one of the candles, Mictar eased closer, now only ten feet away. He sawed his violin. Screeching notes flew out, like discordant demons with wings of fire. Again, the cylinder sucked them into its dark grasp.

Joining Clara at Nathan’s back, Kelly massaged his other shoulder, whispering, “Nathan, God has given you your talent. You can do this. You can play through pain.” She paused for a second, then added in a quavering voice, “Even if you don’t believe in me, I will always believe in you.”

Like a lightning bolt, her words shot straight to his heart. Heat boiled from within and surged through his limbs — pain, sheer pain. Lifting his head, he let out a guttural cry. Then, bending toward his violin, he played. Again the first three notes sounded perfect. Sparks flew, red and sizzling. The cylinder swept them upward as it continued to descend.

Nathan played the fourth note, then the fifth. Each wracked his hands with pain, but Kelly continued to massage both body and heart. “Roll the stone away, Nathan. Reach down deep and call forth the passion, the breath of God that heals the wounds.”

He played on. Kelly’s words were like magic, so profound, so penetrating. Was she interpreting his music? Was she reading his mind, plunging deeper into his thoughts than he could himself?

Finally, the cylinder lowered to the ground, enveloping everyone in the field, including Mictar. Darkness shrouded Nathan’s vision. Even his violin disappeared. A single candle interrupted the void, illuminating Daryl’s face, now taut and wide-eyed.

But where was Mictar? His foul music played somewhere to Nathan’s left, but how far away? What might he do to win this new battle?

As he continued playing, the aroma of roses filled his senses, and the bite of cinnamon and vanilla laced his tongue. His sparkling notes cast an intermittent red glow over his hands before being lifted into the empty sky.

The wonderful words continued, as sweet as ever. “You are the gifted one, my love, and you are playing the celestial waltz.”

Scarlet?
But he couldn’t utter her name, not while playing. Not with all this pain. And he couldn’t see if the red-haired angel had appeared. It was just too dark. But that voice wasn’t Scarlet’s. It was Kelly’s, though it seemed bathed in pure peace and contentment.

With pain scourging his mind, he stroked the strings with every ounce of passion he had. Mictar responded. Sparks shot upward, red from Nathan’s violin and a jumble of red, blue, and yellow from Mictar’s, giving away his position. He was close, maybe within reach, but the blackness made it difficult to know how close.

Nathan watched the sparks shoot upward into the darkness. His stream mingled with Mictar’s, the two seeming to fight as they ascended. High above, they stopped and mixed into two new streams descending from higher levels, each coming in at a steep angle, a blue stream from the left and a yellow one from the right.

“I hear more violins!” Daryl pumped her fist. “Rock on, Francesca!”

Goose bumps covered Nathan’s skin. His mother had arrived with her greatest weapon, and little Francesca, his darling from the Yellow world, had taken up her bow. The battle was on. The breath of God had taken center stage. Mictar didn’t stand a chance.

Nathan again bent his body and dug deep. Heat flowed from his belly and ripped through his limbs. His hands felt like they were on fire, but he didn’t care. Let the fire burn. Let the blood flow. This performance was for his Lord; no holds barred, nothing left unplayed.

As if given birth by the music itself, the words returned, still spoken in Kelly’s gentle voice, still carrying wisdom beyond her reach.

“Now you are in Sarah’s Womb, my love, a place of comfort and healing. As the trio of gifted musicians mend her wounds, she will rise again. She will separate the worlds and guide them in their dance through time and space. Everyone in her grasp will feel her healing touch — the touch of her creator, the greatest of all healers.”

The mingling of sparks descended, a cyclone of color, like fireworks that wouldn’t die. As the storm reached the ground, Nathan’s stream continued to fly toward it, angling into a horizontal flow. The swirl looked to be the size of the top of Sarah’s Womb, the hole the great violin spanned with its golden strings.

As if drawn by a gravitational pull, Nathan walked toward the swirl. Kelly kept a hand on his shoulder while Clara’s hand slid down to his waist. Daryl kept pace at his right, her candle in hand, while Mictar’s sparks flowed at his left, still mixing with Nathan’s.

When he reached the edge, he halted and gazed across its expanse. The storm of sparks illuminated everything within an arm’s reach. On the other side of the storm and to his left, his father and mother stood, his mother playing her violin with bloody hands. Cerulean walked up behind them, his arms crossed over his chest and his brilliant blue eyes shining. A dark tunnel lay behind them, their path to this central point.

Far to the right, Francesca Yellow stood in a simple white dress, Amber at her side. While Amber shed an aura of glowing gold, Francesca seemed to radiate white. With her dark locks draping her luminous shoulders, Francesca truly looked like an angel. As she played her violin, sparkling tears ran down her cheeks and dripped into the swirl, adding a new color to the musical storm — pure white, like diamonds mixing in with the rainbow streams. She, too, stood in front of a tunnel, apparently her passage from Earth Yellow.

Below, a dark void spread out beneath the sparks, bordered by a perimeter wall that acted as a circular boundary for the cyclone, keeping it from expanding further.