Stones: Theory (Stones #4) (26 page)

Y
arah puts her head to the floor at the top of the emergency escape stairway and stares down. “The lines are gone.” She lifts her cheek and stands. “Strange.”

“That must have been some blast out on the floor. Looks like you disabled the entire security system. Sorry I missed it.” Matt grabs Yarah’s hand. Together they fly down twenty-five flights of stairs until they reach the bottom.

The exit door is slightly ajar. A knife edge of light comes through it. Matt moves to it with the Stone in one hand and the open cloaking box in the other. Working his shoe between the door and the wall, he inches it open and steps out into the service entrance.

Yarah’s hand touches his back. “Matt, I think he’s—”

Before Matt can react, a heavy object slams into his backpack, pushing him forward and knocking him to the concrete. His arms stretch out to break the fall. As his wrists hit the ground, the cloaking box slips from his fingers and rolls away.

He hears the crisp click of the lid snapping shut.

The Stone in Matt’s right hand flashes into brilliant light. A film of green energy envelopes his body. The next instant, a searing pain rips up his spine. He turns in time to see Ryzaard standing at street level above him.

A river of hot purple plasma shoots out of Ryzaard’s hands and engulfs Matt. The concrete around and under him turns soft and begins to boil. The green energy shield holds, but it’s thinning in places. Microscopic particles of purple bleed through onto his skin, causing incredible pain.

With effort, Matt reaches up and slams his fist against his chest. Blue skin flows around him and stops the pain.

Matt bounds up the steps to street level and stands on the dark road five meters from Ryzaard. His left hand drops to his side and curls into a fist. The fingers of his right hand grip the Stone.

“Now and then you win a battle.” Ryzaard takes a step forward. “But you’re losing the war.” He raises his arms and forms a sphere of boiling blue energy directly above Matt’s head. Then his arms drop, and the sphere comes down and swallows Matt.

Standing in the middle of the blue energy, Matt is wrapped in the protective green membrane, but struggles to hold it together against Ryzaard’s onslaught. Slowly, the green energy membrane begins to grow thin and disintegrate against his will.

“How can one or two Stones stand against my seven?” Ryzaard’s lips stretch into a smile over gritted teeth. “It’s a matter of simple mathematics. And time. I have all night.”

“You’ve tried before,” Matt says. “You can’t kill me.” A burning sensation starts to rip across the surface of his blue skin. He tries to move, but is pinned in place.

Yarah jumps out from the shadows through the emergency entrance. A white cloak of rectangular pixels shimmers around her as she floats over the hot concrete and searches for the cloaking box.

It diverts Ryzaard’s attention for a split second.

The blue sphere fades and Matt breaks free. As he drops to his knees in pain, jagged lightning shoots at Yarah from Ryzaard’s necklace of Stones, tearing deep pockmarks in the metal side of the building. Small bits of energy break through Yarah’s white armor and open tiny holes in her skin like hot pokers in wax.

Her screams echo through the dark night of the Manhattan canyon where they stand.

“Yarah!” Matt says. “Again!” His body drops to the pavement.

She immediately understands. In the time that it takes her to blink, she jumps into Matt’s mind, drops down through multiple levels and finds the core.

Looking out of Matt’s eyes and feeling the intense pain of burning skin, she sees the Stone tightly gripped in his blue fingers.

It becomes her own.

Equal portions of power and joy surge through the muscles and nerves of her small body. She bounds up the steps to confront Ryzaard.

Paying no attention to her, Ryzaard vanishes and reappears five meters away standing over Matt. “I don’t need to kill you to beat you.” He kicks the limp body and gets no response. With outstretched hands, he bends down and picks Matt up.

“Put him down.” Yarah stands a few meters away, staring up at him.

Ryzaard tries hard to suppress the urge to laugh and ends up with a half-smirk. “Feel free to attack me.” A protective layer of blue energy forms around his body.

Matt is completely exposed.

Yarah’s hands go up to her waist. “I warned you.” Wiping the fear and anxiety out of her mind, all that’s left is pure clarity.

In her mind, Ryzaard’s body stands out from the background around him.

As her eyes swing past him, she can see the drops of salt-laden water forming on his forehead. The blue film of energy enveloping him vibrates with a frequency that leaves gaping holes the size of molecules in its coverage.

It’s all like a simple mathematical problem.

And the solution cries out to her.

With a stony face, Yarah lifts her hands and looks down at her palms. Index fingers pointing at Ryzaard, she stretches out her arms and draws a large square in the night air. An exquisite fabric woven of multicolored threads of energy materializes. She reaches forward, takes it in her hands and wraps it around her shoulders, as she had before, like a blanket. It seals around her body.

Her eyes stare back at Ryzaard.

The challenge is clear. Her voice plays on high volume in his mind.

Do you dare attack me?

“Very beautiful,” he says. “But this is no fairy tale.” Gritting his teeth, his eyes flash above her. A large sphere of churning blue plasma emerges from the darkness and hangs directly over her head. It blurs and drops down. The instant it touches the multicolored fibers of Yarah’s blanket, the sphere explodes in a white-hot flash. Windows within a hundred meter radius above them shatter, and the fragments shower down on the street like crystal rain. The pavement below them melts away, leaving the man and girl suspended in air over a massive crater in the street.

Ryzaard’s eyes focus on Matt, still lying in the old man’s arms like a limp dishrag. An identical protective skin of multi-chromatic fibers adheres to his body. Tiny explosions dance along Ryzaard’s arms where he touches Matt. He draws his hands back in pain.

Matt’s body floats away behind Yarah before Ryzaard can react.

Yarah senses the anger building in the old man.

A barrage of orange bars shoots out of the Stones on Ryzaard’s chest like machine gun fire. They rake across Yarah’s body for a full minute, never penetrating the protective energy blanket around her.

Throughout the onslaught, Yarah stands calmly with her arms crossed over her chest. A grin threatens to overtake her face. She can read the thoughts going through the old man’s mind.

How can a small girl with one Stone be so powerful?

As the last of the high-energy bombardment dissipates against the multicolored threads, Yarah brings her palms together in the middle of her chest and executes a shallow bow. Her eyes drift above her.

Ryzaard follows with his gaze.

A massive cloud of energy in the shape of a golden dragon bears directly down on Ryzaard. He shoots bolts of lightning to stop it, but the dragon deftly dodges the shots with a quick twist and barrels into Ryzaard’s chest with its jaws open.

Sparks explode as Ryzaard is knocked backward down the street for thirty meters. His body drops to the pavement, still intact and enveloped in the blue energy field, but otherwise motionless. Wisps of smoke rise from his black silk pajamas.

Yarah shoots two more cannonballs of white plasma in a long arc up into the air and squarely down on Ryzaard’s chest. His body jumps up a foot and falls back to the pavement.

She lowers Matt to the street and drops into a kneeling position at his side. Her mind quickly finds Ryzaard, and she enters to find his defenses still intact. Like a rat running a maze, she works through the barriers until she’s standing in the center of his mind on an open plain.

Razor-sharp mountains rise above the horizon.

Resisting the temptation to explore further, she drops down and begins an inventory of his recent memory, picking up where she left off less than an hour before. It lasts for a full minute before she senses the shift in his mental state.

Ryzaard is waking up.

Jumping back out, Yarah stands on her feet and walks to the stairs leading down to the emergency exit. The concrete has congealed enough for her to stand on its warm surface. She scours it for the cloaking box, but it’s nowhere in sight. With no alternative, she backs up and fires a broad beam of red energy from her Stone. The concrete instantly liquefies again. She fires one more time, and it vaporizes in a flash of steam.

The small box lies at the bottom. She floats down and picks it up, still cool to the touch. Then she jumps back to Matt’s side, drops down beside him and releases his Stone back to him.

He opens his eyes and struggles for breath. After a few seconds, he raises himself up on his elbows. “Where’s Ryzaard?”

Yarah points at the smoldering pile down the street. “We don’t have much time. He’ll be awake soon.”

“Amazing. You’ll have to teach me how to do that someday.” Matt stands on his feet with the Stone in his hand. After a deep inhale and exhale, he does a quick internal body scan and heals some minor injuries.

“Found this.” Yarah hands him the cloaking box.

“Good job. Let’s go.” Matt flicks open the lid, and their Stones turn into dark rocks. “To Alexa.”

Yarah nods. They run across the street and down an alley.

The dark sky is just beginning to turn pink around the eastern edge.

I
nside the MX Global building, a lone set of footsteps moves up the spiral staircase. The sound echoes through open spaces on either side. Ryzaard could have just jumped up to the top, but he wants the time to think. Outside, it’s early morning. Half the sky is pale pink. The other half is washed in a colorless purple.

Head still spinning from what the little girl did to him, Ryzaard goes over the last hour in detail. It’s embarrassing. An eight-year-old bested him in combat, leaving him wounded and beaten.

And she did it twice, with only one Stone.

Impossible.

No one could miss the childlike joy and abandon with which the little girl wielded her power. The dragon was a nice touch, lifted right out of a child’s fairy tale.

How had Matt found such a prodigy?

Ryzaard finds himself wishing he had found her first.

Matt had taught her well. Unless Ryzaard can stop her, she and Matt will be a formidable adversary. They must be eliminated before they inflict further damage to his perfect plans.

He had never been in any real danger of death. Over the past months, Ryzaard had discovered that it’s difficult for one Stone Holder to kill another in combat using only the Stones. They protect their Holder in just such a situation. To hurt a Stone Holder requires stealth and surprise. Neither will be easy with Matt and the little girl, especially because of her natural telepathic powers.

And there is the matter of the small stone box.

Thinking back on it, Ryzaard remembers seeing Matt and the girl holding it. It’s the only explanation for the way his own Stones had been deactivated. They must have found a way to extend its effect outside of the box. It will require extra vigilance in dealing with them in the future.

And that is the real lesson Ryzaard has learned.

He can no longer afford to ignore Matt.

T
hey spend the next hour hiding out in Manhattan, collecting gear, making plans.

“Let’s hurry.” Matt stares up at the building. “After we get Alexa, we have to find Jessica. No telling what Jhata’s doing to her.”

“Alexa’s on the seventh floor.” Yarah points up at a window. “Right there. Ryzaard has tracking bugs scattered around her room. And on her. I saw it while I was inside his head. If we talk to her, he’ll know about it.”

“We don’t need to talk. Just grab her and jump to Jhata’s world.” He runs his finger along his jax. “I should be able to get us past security and into her room with this.”

“How can we trust her?”