Janus the Arrival (The Janus Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

Vicky
was lying wide awake in bed with Gary snoring right beside her, while Ging lay
in a heap on the floor, having rolled off the bed in a drunken stupor a short
while earlier. Ging had turned up sometime in the early hours of the morning
and woken half the neighbourhood. He stank of stale beer and was busy ranting
on about Gary getting more than his fair share of pussy! Vicky had pretended to
be fast asleep, yet having watched the commotion through slightly closed eyes,
she’d tried very hard not to laugh, especially at the point we he attempted to
remove his trousers. It had been absolutely comical to watch, as the so-called
hard guy, got completely tangled up in the legs of his trousers. He’d
completely failed to remove his shoes beforehand, and as a consequence he’d
circled around with one leg in the air, performing what could only be classed
as a very bad pirouette. There was also the fact that his hairy backside had
been on full display, just before he fell rather unceremoniously to the floor
with a loud, and very painful sounding thud. At some point or another, he’d
obviously clambered up onto the bed during the night, before ending up back on
the floor where he’d started. She’d been more than happy to leave him down
there, but Vicky had had to pretend she needed
a certain amount of
sleep
in order not to appear too suspicious. Admittedly, it had become very boring
lying around while those two reprobates tossed and turned all night long, but
at least they’d accepted her story about not needing as much sleep as them.
They certainly weren’t the brightest sparks in the world. She really hadn’t
fancied taking too much of a risk, especially as it wasn’t going to be for that
much longer, providing everything continued to work out as it should.

   
Just as she was considering getting out of
bed, a sudden contraction took place, and this caught her completely by
surprise. Her body was jerked violently upwards. It happened with so much
force, that it lifted her whole body completely off the ground. For a split
second or two she felt as though her insides were being fiercely sucked in. It
was extremely agonising and it instantly made tears spring to her eyes. Vicky
found it hard to believe how much force was being applied, and the commotion
was loud enough to wake Gary who stirred beside her, before raising his head
and shouting at her.

   
‘Lie still you stupid bitch!’ Before
rolling over so that he faced away from her. Vicky knew she couldn’t just lay
there, and managed to ease herself up from the bed. She staggered, looking half
drunk, over to the door with one hand firmly clutching her stomach. Before
long, the intense pain she was suffering, gradually began to subside a little,
allowing her to regain her wits about her. There was now no doubt that Janus
was getting stronger with each passing day. Therefore, Vicky decided there and
then, that the very next evening would have to be the one where she’d finally
rid the world of Danny, before it became far too late. The bathroom door had a
sort of make-shift lock on it. Admittedly, it wasn’t too brilliant at times,
and so Vicky made sure it was fully secure, before setting her mind in
motion.
 
Conjuring up a spinning stone
disk was not a problem, and within a very short space of time, she found
exactly what she was looking for. It was extremely important that she reviewed
her plans just one last time, as she could no longer afford any further
mistakes to occur, especially at such a late stage in the game.

   
‘Get your shoes on Danny.’ Rachel shouted from
the hallway. ‘And hurry it up will you! As they stepped out together onto the
balcony, a few minutes later, Rachel was suddenly approached by one of the
plain clothed policemen who’d been part of the team. She recognised him as one
of those who’d been watching over her right from day one, and a brief
discussion took place about where she thought she was off to without having
sought their consent. Danny followed his mother around the shopping centre,
once they’d arrived about half an hour later. She regularly gazed behind her
every so often, seeking out the two figures that appeared to be shadowing them
wherever they went in the place. It seemed very strange, that although these
people were there to protect them, both Rachel and Danny still felt extremely
uncomfortable in their presence. This was something that they had both
discussed at great lengths over the course of the last few weeks, and although
he’d been against the whole idea at first, Rachel was more than grateful that
Danny had finally managed to cheer up a bit. Having decided that getting them
both out of the house, in order to shake off that awful feeling of being cooped
up all the time would be a really good idea. Despite the protests from the
police team. She now realised that this could possibly have been the reason for
Danny’s recent bouts of grumpiness, and wished she’d thought about it earlier.

   
Across the way, outside the shoe shop, a
busker could be seen playing a badly weather-beaten, but well used acoustic
guitar. This was accompanied by a pre-recorded soundtrack, which blasted very
noisily from a portable amplifier that stood right beside him on the pavement.
On impulse, Danny walked across to the man and decided to toss a few coins he’d
had floating around in his jacket pocket, into an upturned hat that lay by the
man’s feet. The musician immediately looked up and gave him a smile. He then
nodded his appreciation, gave the boy a quick wink, and then carried on playing
the sad tune that relayed a story of how he’d lost the love of his life, which
left him feeling so lonely and blue. Rachel looked on and smiled. It was good
to see Danny looking so happy once again. She’d noticed that music always
seemed to have an instant calming effect on him, and then she suddenly
remembered that she’d promised to buy a new CD for him, as part of the
collection he’d recently started putting together. As expected from someone
with such a high IQ, Danny was not really into the type of music that would
normally have been associated with a boy of his age. His musical tastes were
more akin to those of someone classically trained, with just one exception,
which was a very odd one indeed. This involved his love for a group who went by
the name of Hawkwind. Their heavy rock sound clearly contained a very distinct,
deep monotonous drone, and this appeared to have a strange hypnotic effect on
the boy, whenever he listened to them. Danny hadn’t been aware of it at the
time, but this type of music was very similar to a sound that had once been
produced on Pagos. It was this, that had had the ability to charm the
Dra-Na-Zee to the extent where they’d become extremely docile under its
influence. Therefore, this was the point at which they’d become very easy to
control. In some ways it was very similar to the snake-charming techniques
found in India, and this was known to be the greatest weakness to the alien
race from which he belonged. The Shaadra Wars of Pagos had been very brutal.
They had included the use of the previously mentioned chemical known as
DonoZome, which once combined with a whole range of other deadly weapons that
the Dra-Na-Zee had developed over the years, made them a very feared authority.
Yet surprisingly, the main downfall of this race, had ultimately been caused by
the two-legged wormlike creatures known as ‘Sandling’s. It was them who had
overthrown the Elders by the use of something known as the ‘Charming Method.’
In fact, it was exactly this piece of weaponry being so badly handled, that had
been the main cause of them destroying themselves. Unfortunately the Sandling’s
were a very simple race who’d lived deep in the deserts of Pagos. Therefore,
along with a whole set of other circumstances at the time, they’d totally
failed to foresee that by causing the downfall of the Dra-Na-Zee, they’d actually
be creating a ‘Domino Effect’ that would finally lead to the destruction of
both Pagos and themselves.

Having
been dragged around the shops for most of the day, Danny was feeling extremely
bored and a little unsettled. However, as they strode back to the multi-storey
car park together, a building site located opposite, suddenly caught his
attention. He felt different in one way or another, and his senses were telling
him that something was seriously wrong. His immediate thoughts were that Vicky
was close by, but then Danny realised that an accident was about to occur at
any moment now. Just as they were about to cross the road, he spotted a jib
crane suddenly moving out of the corner of his eye. This was followed a split
second later, by a loud snapping noise, as the cable carrying the pulley block
broke apart directly in the middle. The winch section suddenly emitted a
strange metallic groan, then its load instantly gave way under all of the
pressure. The heavy machinery it had been carrying at the time, hurtled towards
a group of workers standing directly underneath. They could do nothing about
what was to happen, and they all stood staring up in sheer horror, while
completely frozen to the spot. Without even thinking about the consequences
that would follow, Danny concentrated his gaze on the falling object. He knew
he had to work fast, and fortunately for the workers, he managed to summon up
every inch of will power that he could possibly muster. Two streams of yellow
light instantaneously erupted from his eyes and hit the falling object directly
in the centre. They landed with such force that they immediately sent it
spinning off in the opposite direction, only to land harmlessly in a mountain
of building sand at the far end of the site. A deathly silence surrounded the
place all of a sudden. All eyes turned towards the young boy, who stood looking
all innocent, while clinging tightly to his mother’s hand. Rachel was totally
stunned, as were the two police escorts who’d also stopped dead in their tracks.
Danny quickly let go of Rachel’s hand, and aware of the awkward predicament
that he now found himself to be in, he immediately ran off in panic. He headed
towards the car park, closely followed by his mother and both of the
constables, who still couldn’t comprehend what they’d just witnessed.
Once they finally caught up with him and
explained that he’d only be safe if they left straight away, he seemed to see
sense and allowed them to escort him back to the car. Much as expected, the
journey home was embarrassingly silent, with Danny refusing to utter a single
word about what had taken place. On reaching home, the car eventually pulled up
outside the underground garages, where one of the policemen promptly set about
parking the small black Ford Fiesta. Having clambered up the concrete stairs to
the fourth floor together, Rachel had literally just opened the front door when
Danny shot straight past her, and ran upstairs to his bedroom. She heard as he
slammed the door shut behind him at the top, and she couldn’t blame him for
just wanting nothing more than to be left alone right now. Unsure of exactly
what to do next, with both policeman having gone to report what had happened,
Rachel eventually decided it would probably be best to leave him alone and let him
calm down under his own steam. She felt extremely frightened right at that
moment. She was completely unsure of what the boy was truly capable of, and she
really needed some time to think things over logically, before going upstairs
to see him.

Twenty
minutes later, Dana sat alongside with her colleagues, and listened as Rachel
relayed what had happened. It also helped that she had the backing of the two
policemen who’d been present at the time of the incident, and had already
reported their side of the story to her earlier, over the phone.

   
‘With all that’s gone on, I’d say it’s a
good job that we were on our way over here in the first place.’ Dana told her,
glancing across at Huey, Duey and Luey, who sat together looking like three
wise monkeys on the sofa.

   
‘Do you mind if I try and speak to Danny
alone.’ she added, looking back at the others for any sign of protest, but
finding none.

   
‘Of course not,’ Rachel replied, as she
watched the detective rise elegantly from the chair, then head off along the
hallway, before hearing her marching up the stairs towards her son’s bedroom.
Once outside, Dana knocked twice and then stood and listened. She then
announced her intention before reaching down to try the handle. Finding the
door already unlocked, she took a big, deep breath and cautiously entered the
room. Much to her surprise, Danny was sitting on his bed in the lotus position.
The boy sat with his back to her, and he made no movement whatsoever to
acknowledge her presence in the room. Stepping around to the front of the bed
to confront him face to face, she soon realised that he was in a deep state of
meditation, and knew that disturbing him right at that moment, could possibly
be dangerous.

Danny
had travelled the corridors of time a good many times before. He was by all
accounts, fast becoming an expert in locating whatever information he happened
to be seeking at any given time. However, at that particular moment, something
was very different in comparison to previous journeys he’d been on, and he soon
realised that he appeared to be being guided by a strange, unknown presence.
Luckily for him, it seemed to have a friendly
feel about it, and Danny instinctively knew that he was in safe hands. However,
a short while later, he established that he was no longer in control, and
subsequently found himself floating down a wide brightly lit tunnel that
appeared to be going on forever and ever. Initially it twisted and turned, a
bit like the flumes at the local water park that he’d visited with his mother
earlier in the year. Nevertheless, eventually the tunnel opened out much more,
and Danny was suddenly deposited into a huge cave.
This
was bathed in a magnificent array of colours. It also had the sun reflecting
away between a set of large icicles that seemed to spread out in every
available direction. This simply helped adorn and add even more of a dazzling
presentation to the stunning surroundings that were already around him. It took
a good few minutes for his eyes to adjust properly, before he realised that
there were five figures that looked to be human, now standing right before him.
The closest and seemingly the tallest at first glance, appeared to be a man
with extremely handsome features and a very welcoming face. The next four were
the most stunning looking young women that Danny had ever set eyes on. What was
even better, was the fact that they looked just as happy to see him as he was
to see them.