Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins, page 34
There, on the ground a few yards away, Dallin had crumpled to his knees. His eyes were wide, and he was holding his side and panting heavily. Maggie couldn’t see what had happened at first, but then Grayden—who’d been facing Dallin the entire time—turned around, revealing the small, silver tube he held in his hand.
“Nooooo,” Maggie screamed lunging toward him.
Omer grabbed her around the waist as she swung her fists wildly. She leaned forward and made contact, clobbering Grayden squarely in the jaw, before leaning back and stomping down as hard as she could on Omer’s foot. She twisted her upper body around and bashed him in the nose with the heel of her palm, forcing him to double over, and allowing her to get away.
She raced toward Dallin who was strangely silent, and dropped to the ground in front of him, grabbing both of his arms and looking him helplessly in the eyes.
He held her gaze for a moment, and seemed to be using every ounce of strength he had to keep from crying out in agony. “I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he gasped, “I’m so . . . .”
Just then, Grayden grabbed Maggie from behind and yanked her to her feet. Both he and Omer took hold of her—Grayden on one arm, and Omer on the other.
“Let go of me,” she screamed. “Let go!”
She fought with all of her might to break free as she watched Dallin slump over onto the rain-drenched, leaf-covered ground.
All at once, everything slipped into slow motion as the all too familiar whoosh…whoosh…whoosh surged behind her and an invisible force jerked her midsection backwards.
Grayden and Omer, who were holding her arms, gazed around with puzzled looks on their faces.
In an instant, a bright flash of blue light, mingled with distant thunder filled the murky gray sky. As the whooshing amplified into a roar, the soaking wet, battered and beaten trio was instantly transported off of Lor Mandela.
Ding dong.
Maggie, Grayden and Omer appeared in the entrance of the Fashion Forever store in the Glenhill Galleria, setting off the store door bell alert.
In their confusion, Grayden and Omer let go of Maggie, who took advantage of the situation and bolted away from them as fast as her shaky legs would allow.
She ran frantically down the mall yelling, “Help! Help me,” but no one seemed to be listening. In fact, there were very few shoppers in the mall, and those that were left all appeared to be hurrying towards the exits.
Maggie kept running, heading toward an exit herself, when two security guards came out of a shop just a few stores away.
“Help! Help!” Maggie screamed again.
The guards looked up at her and sped in her direction.
“What is it,” one of them yelled.
Maggie didn’t have a chance to answer. She felt something rush past her head, and watched as a small red disk hit the guard nearest her squarely in the chest. He dropped to the floor and started shrieking as green goo oozed down the front of his shirt.
In the blink of an eye, the other guard fell to the ground wailing miserably as well.
Maggie heard a woman scream, “He has a gun!”
The exodus from the mall that, up to this point had been fairly calm, erupted into chaos as the remaining shoppers stampeded for the doors. People shouted, “gun!” and “There’s a shooter!” and “Out . . . out . . . get out!”
In the commotion, Maggie slipped into a crowd of people, hiding herself from Grayden and Omer. She was almost to the mall doors, when much to her surprise, she heard her name being called from somewhere behind her.
“Maggie! Maggie!” She spun around to see Bridgette rushing toward her, looking rather frantic. “Maggie! Wait!”
“Bridgette, no!”
Bridgette shouted and waved as she ran through the mall. “Smaggs, I need to tell you something! Wait!”
Maggie watched in horror as her best friend stopped right next to Grayden.
At this point, Omer spied Maggie and realized that Bridgette was trying to get her attention. “Grayden!” he yelled and pointed at Bridgette, “Grab her!”
Grayden immediately responded by snaring Bridgette’s arm. He yanked her to him and in one fluid motion, slid a dagger-like object from a sheath at his side and put it to her throat.
“Stop!” Maggie cried. The only people still remaining in the mall at this point were Grayden, Omer, Bridgette and her. “Let her go!” she insisted.
Omer responded and rushed to where she stood. He took her forcibly by the arm and escorted her back to Grayden.
“I don’t believe you are in a position to be calling the shots, Atoh,” Grayden sneered.
Bridgette looked questioningly at Maggie.
“Let her go,” Maggie repeated. “She has nothing to do with Lor Mandela. I’m the one Ryannon’s after, not her.”
Grayden chuckled. “True, but I have a feeling you would do just about anything to keep her alive.” He pulled the dagger tighter against Bridgette’s neck; she whimpered and gasped in pain, as the dagger’s razor sharp edge sliced into her skin. A crimson stream of blood trickled down her neck.
“Stop it! Please!” Maggie begged.
“Why should I?” Grayden scoffed.
“Because . . .” Holden’s voice responded as he suddenly appeared from out of nowhere, “the lady said please.”
In an amazingly fluid motion, he lunged at Grayden, yanked his arm away from Bridgette’s throat and twisted it up behind him. Grayden flipped through the air, dropping the dagger and sending it sliding across the floor.
Omer charged, but before he’d gotten too far, Holden charged back.
“Get her out of here,” he yelled to Bridgette, pointing at Maggie.
Grayden jumped to his feet and moved to assist Omer. From his pants pocket he pulled out the vystoran sleeve.
“Holden! Look out!” Maggie shrieked as Grayden took aim.
Omer threw a punch toward Holden’s head, but Holden grabbed his fist mid-punch and held it in the air. He looked over and, upon noticing the weapon in Grayden’s hand, wrenched Omer’s arm to the side—a move that positioned Omer squarely in front of him. With a click and a swoosh, the vystoran sped from the sleeve and raced toward them.
Omer’s eyes widened as he tried to dodge the disc, but he wasn’t fast enough. It smacked into his upper arm and exploded into a green, slimy glob.
Holden pushed him to the ground and sped toward Grayden, who was quickly attempting to reload the sleeve.
Omer yelped and screeched miserably as he twitched on the hard tile floor.
Grayden, who realized he was not going to be able to get the sleeve reloaded before Holden reached him, threw it and the vystorans to the ground and dove toward the dagger.
In a flash, Holden changed course and raced for the vystoran sleeve instead.
Grayden scooped up the dagger and turned to face Holden.
Just as Holden clicked a vystoran into the sleeve, Grayden stumbled toward him and swung his arm, slicing a long gash into one of Holden’s thighs. Holden’s leg went out from under him and he landed on the floor with a thud.
Bridgette screamed as she watched him fall.
Suddenly, he rolled to the side, and raised the vystoran sleeve toward Grayden.
Grayden dove out of the way just as the vystoran whizzed past him.
Holden quickly popped another vystoran into the sleeve, but by the time it clicked into place, Grayden was already sprinting away at top speed. He raced down the mall, and within a few seconds, disappeared around a corner.
Maggie and Bridgette sped to Holden’s side. He was lying on the floor in a puddle of deep red.
Bridgette gasped and pulled off the shrug she was wearing. She quickly tied it around the wound in his leg, but before she was even able to secure it, more blood was beginning to soak through. “We need to get him to a hospital,” she cried.
She and Maggie struggled to help him to his feet, but as they raised him up, he moaned and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Hurry,” Maggie instructed, “drop him onto my back!” She hunched over as Bridgette fought to lift his now limp body.
“This isn’t working, Mag,” Bridgette yelped. “He’s losing too much blood!” She mustered all of her strength, jerked him up a little higher and dropped him over Maggie’s back. He stayed on for a second, but then slumped to one side. Bridgette quickly spun around and leaned backwards against Maggie’s side to keep him from sliding off.
“Okay,” Maggie instructed, “head for the door over by Burger Deluxe . . . ready . . . go!” They had no sooner taken their first awkward step, when the very thing Maggie was hoping wouldn’t happen, did. The whooshing started again.
“Bridgette, move!” she wailed.
“He’ll fall off!” Bridgette cried back.
The whooshing grew louder.
“Bridge, you have to get off me!”
“Wait for mees!” A squeaky voice reverberated through the empty mall. “Laaaaaady, Wait . . . Mees can help!”
Maggie looked up and saw Tabbit frantically bouncing toward them. Another whoosh sounded, and Tabbit dove through the air, landing clumsily on Bridgette’s left shoulder, knocking her off balance and further back into Maggie.
“Whew!” The panting little Squanki looked into Bridgette’s horrified brown eyes, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief, as the air around them exploded into a brilliant flash of blue.
CHAPTER XL
SHE IS THE DOOR
“Bridgette, move over,” Maggie insisted, hardly waiting for the blue light to fade. “And Tabbit, you said you could help . . . how?”
Being transported in this manner was no longer a concern to her. Where she was and what was going on was far more important than how she got there.
Bridgette, however, was in a state of shock, but obeyed Maggie and took a step to the side.
Maggie twisted around and lowered Holden to the ground. He looked pale. The leg of his denim shorts and Bridgette’s shrug were both soaked and deep burgundy.
“Please, how can you help him?” Maggie tried again, looking to Tabbit who was caressing Holden’s hair.
“How can you help him? Mees takes him to Salera. Salera’s bestest.” Without hesitation, she turned around and raised one of her little arms in the air. She rolled her hand into a fist, and then opened and closed it repeatedly. As she did, a small dot of glowing blue light appeared. It hovered in the air for a moment, but then stretched down creating the same type of thin portal that she had used to pull Maggie away from Ryannon and his thugs. “Mees takes him quickly!” Tabbit smiled. She reached down and slid her scrawny arms under Holden’s shoulders.
“Uh, can I help you?” Maggie asked, confused as to how this tiny creature was going to lift Holden’s dead weight.
“Uh . . . can I help you?” Tabbit repeated. “Nopes.” She raised her foot off the ground, and thrust it backward into the slit of light. In an instant, the light expanded and with a faint “pop,” Tabbit and Holden disappeared.
“Is this . . . real?” Bridgette’s voice was weak and shaky. “I . . . I was trying to believe you. I . . . I had no idea.”
Maggie put her hand on Bridgette’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know, Bubbles. Weird, huh?” She took a glance around to see if the scene was familiar—and much to her dismay—it was.
They were standing at the edge of the forest—not the one with the big swaying trees, but the one where she’d been chased by a rynolt—the one where she’d seen Ryannon for the first time—and it was no less creepy in the daylight.
Dead, mangled tree trunks and angry, leafless shrubs twisted around each other. A sickly gray, murky haze hung low to the ground surrounding the base of the dead vegetation. The jagged edges of the fog looked just like gnarled, bony fingers that seemed to have choked the life out of everything they had touched. Beneath the gloom, long, angled rips in the soil zigzagged like a hostile maze across the forest floor; and a dark, sharp, crooked mountain served as the appropriate backdrop to the disquieting scene.
“What is this place?” Bridgette breathed quietly.
“I dunno,” Maggie answered, “but I think we better get outta here. Come on, Bubbles.” She took Bridgette’s arm and pulled her toward the half-dead grassy field.
They walked in relative silence. Maggie didn’t speak because she was trying to be strong—forcing herself to not think about or believe that her dad was gone.
Bridgette didn’t speak because she was trying to come to terms with the fact that she was traipsing around some foreign planet.
Suddenly, the stillness of the field was interrupted by the startling cracking of branches in the forest behind them. Maggie stopped in her tracks. Her breath caught in her chest as thoughts of a giant, two-headed animal sneaking up behind them flashed through her mind. Surely, this time she wouldn’t be as lucky as she’d been the last.
She turned slowly as another cracking noise echoed out of the fog. Something was moving; she could see shadows of something through the haze.
“Bridge, if that’s what I think it is . . . .” She didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. The shapes of two human-like figures came running out of the muck toward them.
She and Bridgette both jumped.
“Wait!” She squinted and blinked and then her mouth dropped open. It couldn’t be. “Dad?” she whispered.
The figures moved closer they came clearer into focus.
“DAD!” she shrieked and started running back across the field.
“Angel!” he yelled and ran toward her as well.
Kahlie was with him, and upon seeing Maggie, she started laughing and galloping across the field behind him.
Maggie and her dad reached each other and Maggie dove into his arms.
He hugged her, lifted her in the air and swung her around. “Where’ve ya been?” he chuckled as he returned her to the ground.
“Oh, ya know,” she replied, grinning ear to ear and crying at the same time, “only everywhere!” She embraced him tightly and sobbed. “Ryannon . . . he . . . he said you were dead! He said . . . he said . . . .”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed, “we probably would’ve been, but we,” he glanced over at Kahlie, “we escaped.”
Kahlie gently placed her hand on his arm. “And, we probably shouldn’t be standing out here in the open,” she advised.
“Oh, of course not,” he agreed. “Come on girls. Let’s get outta . . . huh?” he paused and grimaced, “Uh, hello Bridgette.” Apparently, he’d just noticed she was there.
He looked at Maggie questioningly, who shrugged her shoulders and then wrapped her arm lovingly around his, and leaned her head onto his shoulder. Words could not begin to describe her current state of happiness.
“Excuse me,” Kahlie started, “I hate to bear bad news, Atoc, but I don’t quite know where we should go. Everything is different here.”
Maggie’s happiness was suddenly obliterated by the sound of one word—atoc. She looked from her dad to Kahlie, unable to fathom what had just happened.
“Dad! Why are you letting her call you that? Why don’t you tell her who you are? Wh . . . why are you playing along with their little game?”
“Angel . . . .”
“No!” Maggie shouted. “NO! Come on! You can’t believe this! How can you possibly be this gullible?”
Jonathan’s expression became contemplative. He acted like he hadn’t heard a word his daughter had screamed at him. “Her father the key and . . . and she is the door.” he breathed.
“WHAT!” she shouted. “What have they done to you?!” She turned on her heels and stomped away.
“WAIT!” His voice boomed with such authority that she didn’t dare take another step. Bridgette and Kahlie watched as he marched up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Listen to me,” he began forcefully. “You have to remember! Everything . . . everything depends on it.”
Maggie had never heard her father talk this way before. She couldn’t pinpoint it. His tone, his expression, and the confidence he exuded—something was very different.
He continued, a bit more gently, but still with unwavering conviction, “Audril,” he looked deep into her eyes, “Angel . . . remember.”
All at once the field around her disappeared, and she stood alone in a large ivory room with lace curtains fluttering in a cool breeze. To one side, a tall pearly dollhouse sat in the corner—four little dolls were lying inside on the floor. She walked over to it, and ran her hand along the top of the roof.
Slowly, Kahlie—or an image of Kahlie—materialized next to her.
“Are you all right?” Kahlie asked. Her voice sounded like it was miles away.
Maggie turned to face her. She didn’t know whether it was really her or not, but somehow, it wasn’t important.
“You were over there,” Maggie answered in a daze, pointing towards a green chair across the room. “I was playing with my dolls.”
Kahlie nodded, but did not speak.
“You called me Buzzy . . . Buzzy Bug.”
Again, Kahlie nodded, and in an instant the images around her changed.
Now, she was outside, standing at the edge of a large sparkling lake. “Mystad,” she breathed.
Next to her, the tiny image of Tabbit took shape. Tabbit spoke, but her voice was wise and serious—not the odd, squeaky little voice Maggie was used to.
“You are the Child of Balance, Atoh.” She rolled up and down on her toes as she spoke, and didn’t look directly at Maggie; her words seemed to be intended for someone who wasn’t there. “You know what it means . . . the Advantiere. Tell the ator. Tell her, Atoh. You know what you must do.”
A faint rumbling sounded from the hills in the distance.
Once again, her surroundings changed. She was running down a big hallway—running and scared.
“Get in there!” It was her dad’s voice, but she couldn’t see him.
Her feet tangled, and she stumbled and fell, landing in a room that looked like. . . “The kitchen,” she whispered, “the battle!” She didn’t have to see it to know what was going to happen next.
Suddenly, there was a war all around her. She scrambled backwards across the floor and watched as, one by one, Kahlie, her father, and her mother all appeared in the room.
