Stones: Theory (Stones #4) (36 page)

“I
’m back.” Jessica smiles.

With a flick of her thumb, she switches her pulse rifle to automatic mode, lowers the tip of the barrel parallel to the ground and rips off a burst of shots at Jhata. The projectiles break against the silky veneer of her red kimono and disintegrate into black dust.

Turning, Jessica fires at Ryzaard.

A membrane of clear armor floods his skin an instant before the bullets splash across his chest. Still sitting, he laughs and opens his arms wide, inviting more shots. Jessica clenches her jaw and lets the rifle fire until the barrel is red hot.

Jhata is the first to jump out of her seat. In a blur, she pulls two Stones out of her belt, drops to her knees and begins firing tightly bound bursts of purple. They shoot out from the tips of her Stones and quickly expand into boiling masses of blue that flash across the divide between her and Matt.

The protective bubble in front of Matt’s face bends inward as the blue energy breaks against its surface.

Jhata stands. “You may be able to protect yourself, but what about your friends? Are you willing to sacrifice them?” She drops into a crouch again and fires a thin white thread of lightning. It punctures the protective shell and barely licks Yarah’s leg. The little girl’s screams of agony pierce the night air. As Yarah drops to the ground, the glow of her Stone fades. The bubble enveloping Matt and the others flickers for an instant like a faulty neon sign about to go out.

Another thread of light shoots out from Jhata’s Stone. She walks closer and fires from a standing position. Jagged shards of plasma bury themselves in Yarah’s skin. The little girl screams as smoke rises from black splotches on her legs and back. The stench of burning flesh fills Matt’s nostrils.

“Matt?” Fear flashes in Jessica’s eyes as Jhata walks closer.

Jhata is five meters away. Her eyes go to the little girl writhing in agony on the ground. “You were a prodigy. A natural. We could have done such great things together, you and I.”

“Now!” Yarah shrieks.

Jessica jumps behind Matt. His gaze drops down, and he instantly stands on the endless plain of Yarah’s mind. The ground shakes as mountains burst out of bare dirt and black storm clouds gather on the horizon. He concentrates on dropping deeper into the Core of her mind so he can join her Stone to his.

He isn’t ready for the onslaught of pain. When it slams into him, he staggers to his knees and struggles to keep his grip on Yarah’s mind. A tide of instinct pours over and through him and threatens to pull him out, away from danger, away from the ripping agony of Yarah’s pain.

Then he sees Yarah’s Stone. At the same instant, he feels her consciousness slipping away, like a blaring siren rushing past. As he reaches for her Stone, a wind tunnel of emotion engulfs him. He holds on and pushes through it until his fingers make contact and close around it like a steel trap.

Raw power surges through him, immense, inexhaustible, limitless. Instantly back in his own body, his eyes snap open and focus on Jhata.

The white threads of death shooting from her Stone break against the protective bubble and disintegrate into a thousand tiny explosions. Jhata tries again and again, but the shell around Matt, Jessica and Yarah is sealed tight.

Then Matt walks forward through the shell, out into the open.

Jhata smiles. “Such a brave young man.”

“Ready to die?” Ryzaard moves to her side and stares at Matt.

As if in unison, bars of pure green plasma shoot from all their Stones at Matt. A clear membrane hugs his body. The green plasma explodes against the surface of his skin without a scratch or mark. Sparks sizzle and jump back at them from the point of contact.

Ryzaard and Jhata both stumble backward, eyes wide.

Without a word, Matt looks at the Stone in his hand, glowing like a diamond cut from the sun. Slowly, he points it at Jhata. A drop of white light extrudes from its tip and hangs suspended in the air. His gaze travels up from Jhata’s feet to her eyes. Opening the palm of his hand, he catches the drop as it falls. His hand glows the same color as his Stone.

Jhata’s eye twitches.

The world blurs around Matt. He lunges.

Finding Jhata’s delicate thin neck, his fingers wrap around it. With on hand, he lifts her up until her feet slip from the ground.

She flails helplessly in his grip. Lightning bursts from the Stones on her waist and break harmlessly against Matt’s face and chest. His fingers squeeze tighter around her throat.

“You leave me no choice,” Matt says. “It all ends here.”

Twisting, Jhata’s eyes find Ryzaard, desperation in her voice. “Give me your Stones! Trust me!”

Eyebrows rise on Ryzaard’s forehead. He shakes his head and steps away.

“Then take mine. Kill them all. The only way.”

His heart beating wildly in his ears, Ryzaard’s eyes slam shut, and he throws himself forward into Jhata. He becomes a blur and gets pulled through her eyes into her mind.

He’s standing on an open prairie. A hot, violent wind blows. The ground shifts under his feet. He tries to remember Jhata’s words.

Drop down several levels until you find the eyes.

It’s much easier than he expected. Falling down through layers of color, two points of intense light stand out in the darkness. He runs to them until he stares through her eyes at a Stone in her hand. Moving without hesitation, he scoops it up.

Back in his own body, the full power of Jhata’s Stones, multiplied by thousands, unlimited and unrelenting, becomes part of Ryzaard’s very being. He turns to Matt and sees Matt’s fingers wrapped around Jhata’s throat. She hangs limp in his grip.

Without a word, Ryzaard swings his fist and connects with Matt’s jaw. The bone crushes and immediately reforms itself. Streamers of light ignite and fall away.

Matt stumbles back two steps, but doesn’t release his iron hold on Jhata.

Ryzaard grabs two Stones. Intense light leaks out between his knuckles around the bones in his hands. The soft tissue is like clear crystal.

Jhata was right. The power is intoxicating. With the Stone grasped like a dagger, Ryzaard lunges again at Matt from the side. This time he wraps his arms around Matt’s body, digs his feet into the floor and pushes forward like a linebacker making a tackle.

Spontaneous explosions rise from their skin wherever they make contact. Jhata slips from Matt’s grip and collapses to the floor like a Japanese paper lantern.

Losing his balance, Matt twists, wraps his arms around Ryzaard and pulls him down. Flaming plasma pours off their skin and bathes each other in glowing red as they roll off the edge of the plateau and drop out of sight down the sheer cliff face that ends not far from the ocean.

As they fall through the air trailing fire and smoke, Ryzaard stabs Matt in the back again and again with his Stone. The wounds go deep, but instantly heal each time Ryzaard pulls out the Stone. At the bottom, rocks and boulders vaporize where they crash and roll.

Matt pushes away and comes up on his feet, panting. “Do you really think you can kill me?”

Without answering, Ryzaard lunges and swings. His fist finds Matt’s chest, opens a hole and enters. The cracking of ribs is audible, like pine wood splitting under an axe on a subzero winter day. Blue plasma ignites between them. Matt grips his chest, staggers across the wet sand and drops into the surf.

The ocean water turns to columns of steam filling the air.

Ryzaard rushes into the white fog, jumps on top of Matt and beats down on his chest. The old man throws his head back and lets loose a guttural howl.

Working his feet under Ryzaard, Matt throws the old man off. Running his fingers over his chest, he finds it healed and whole. As Ryzaard comes at him again, Matt jumps to his feet and assumes a boxer’s pose.

They circle around each other.

“You’re losing,” Ryzaard says. “Eventually I’ll wear you down.” He pauses to take a deep breath. “Kill you and all the others.”

“You’re doing just what Jhata wants you to.” Matt wipes blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t you see how she’s using you?”

Ryzaard throws his head back and laughs. “Since when are you so concerned about me?”

“You’re playing a losing game. Your power, no matter how much you amass, will always be a subset of hers. As you get more, she will reign over you, use you like a tool, make you her slave.” A sneer curls across Matt’s lips. He stoops down and scoops up a handful of wet sand. “When you’ve outgrown your usefulness, when you least expect it, she’ll cast you aside like dirt.” He throws the sand to the ground.

Orange fire shoots from Ryzaard’s hands and catches Matt in the stomach. The thin white film around Matt’s body grows fainter. He doubles over in pain.

Ryzaard lunges and brings his Stone down to Matt’s neck.

Matt crumples to the ground.

And then vanishes.

Immediately catching the pull of his jump, Ryzaard vanishes and reappears at the top of the plateau a few meters from where Yarah and Jhata lie.

Matt lies still on the ground facing down, his eyes closed.

Towering over him, Ryzaard looks down at the motionless figure of Matt. “It’s finally over.”

Matt’s eyes snap open. In less than a nanosecond, he releases the Stone back to Yarah. For a passing instant, they stand face to face in the darkness of deep space.

“Your turn.” Matt closes his eyes and opens completely to her.

Through blinding pain that still racks her body, Yarah finds Matt’s Stone and closes her hand around it. Limitless power surges through her. All wounds instantly heal. She looks over at Matt and then at Jessica.

“Now,” Yarah says.

Jessica levels the pulse rifle at Ryzaard’s back and fires at point blank range. Momentarily distracted, he swings around to face her.

In the open space created by his distraction, Yarah’s hands flash out to touch Jessica and Matt. She finds the place previously anchored in her mind. With a silky smoothness, she jumps away and pulls Matt and Jessica with her, along with Alexa and another 500
Chimpotee
down in the valley.

B
efore Ryzaard can react, they are gone. His mind reaches out to grasp the current of movement, but he finds
nothing
.

Somehow, the little girl managed to cover her tracks.

And then Ryzaard realizes that Yarah and Matt joined their Stones together, taking turns at the lead.

Such trust is a rare thing.

Standing alone on the empty plateau, he looks down at Jhata lying on the ground, motionless and vulnerable.

The word floats back into his mind.

Trust.

Dozens of Stones decorate her waist like a chandelier of fine crystal. He thinks of all the wealth and power she has amassed through centuries of tyranny.

Now he can have it all if he wishes.

But only if he breaks the trust she put in him.

Sitting beside her, he drops back into her mind, following the same path he took before, careful not to relinquish his hold on her Stones. He finds himself floating alone in a dark space. No need to hurry. There is time to explore. He looks above him and has the sense of moving up through multiple levels until he stands on the broad plain of Jhata’s mind. The landscape is exactly as it had been before. The mountain ranges are the same shape in the same place. No wind is blowing. The ground holds firm under his feet. A profound silence rests on everything in sight, like a clear veneer of transparent glass is holding it all in place.

This must be the upper level of her mind, the one closest to the surface. Her memories are likely on a deeper level. What treasures of wisdom are to be found in sifting through them? Like the archeologist he used to be, he finds great pleasure in the thought of excavating her past, exposing and analyzing it. Learning from it.

Willing himself to drop down slowly until he senses a new level, Ryzaard opens his eyes on an entirely different scene.

The open prairie landscape is gone, replaced by an almost claustrophobic sense of closure. A roof hangs low over his head. Multicolored organic forms in the shape of abstract tubes, tendrils and spirals drop down from above to touch and merge with the uneven floor. Plastic mounds push upward. All of it is covered with a wet, thin membrane.

He has the sense of being in a gallery designed by Picasso.

Stepping forward, he gently strokes a transparent oblong sphere. Images of a small girl in a sailor dress flood into his mind. As he watches, she giggles and screams, pursued by her father in a game of hide-and-seek.

He brushes his fingers along a drooping piece of flesh that hangs down from the ceiling like a thin blanket. There is Jhata, a little older, running through the streets of a city of glass skyscrapers. Flashes of fire and laser cannon rain down around her. Buildings crumble into piles of rubble. Screams and pleas for help float into his ears. He feels her pulse and senses her fear. He looks down into her tiny hand at what it grips.

Her first Stone.

Moving on, he pushes through delicate structures of lace, images flowing into his mind as he brushes past.