The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(110)

There was silence at the other end. ‘Oh no! How stupid of me…!’

I worded her immediate concern, agreeing that we both had been very, very careless. ‘They can hear us… Zane can hear us.’

‘My father!’ Tez shrieked. ‘I said his name!’

‘Tez, Tez!’ I hollered into the speaker, ‘Maybe they’re not paying attention.’

I heard a male voice, ‘Tezmarine Halperin, daughter of King Trazuline, you are hereby arrested for the act of treason!’ There was a loud, blood-curdling scream at the other end. It overwhelmed me, as if my body had suddenly been exposed to liquid nitrogen in a chamber.

‘Tez! Tez!’ I screamed.

Silence.

I ran to the cockpit, yelling out. ‘We gotta get out of here! King Trazuline’s cover has been blown.’

Nilo broke away from the steering helm, his eyes blazing. He grabbed my collar and nearly punched me. ‘What! He was helping us, did you blab on him?’

‘No. Tez called me on the intercom. We leaked his secret. Then Tez was screaming or something. Then it went dead.’

Nilo smashed his fist into the palm of his other hand, then shoved me backwards with such force that I nearly fell to the floor. ‘We gotta rescue him!’ he roared.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Mariah, frantic, as she rushed into the cockpit, with Dan close behind.

Sullen, Nilo and I explained our predicament. Our two companions visibly sagged as we revealed the awful truth. ‘We gotta do something!’ Dan shouted. He appeared as if he was ready to dart off somewhere.

‘This battle is not over! We have just begun! We will find Tez, and we will rescue her!’ I boomed, silencing everyone, who looked up to me with awe.

They all glanced at each other, then Dan smiled and said, ‘Yeah, we got Tritillia free!’

Mariah lovingly gazed at me, ‘And we got Ted.’

Nilo piped up, ‘I carried out my duty to Trazuline. He would be so pleased with us.’

I seized the moment of euphoria. ‘Remember Lincoln!’

Mariah burst out in tears. ‘Yes.’

Dan bellowed with pride, ‘Remember Lincoln!’ I could see it in their eyes. Even the new chap we recruited, Nilo, rallied in my words, and we ended with a triumphant yell. It was a tribute to Lincoln, and with our hands bound to the center of our huddle we shouted in unison:

‘For Lincoln!’

‘And we’ll find Liam, too,’ Dan added.

I felt it in my gut. Although I had just heard a second-hand account of what happened to Liam, I believed he was still alive. ‘If Trazuline was helping us, he would have done what he could for Liam.’

‘Yes,’ Mariah agreed. ‘Let us not give up hope.’

‘Wait,’ I said, as my body clearly showed a shift away from the group, toward an exit door to another room.

Dan looked at me with a roll of his eyes, and stated, ‘I know that look.’

‘I will be right back, I have an idea. I think I know where we can find help,’ I said.

‘What are you doing, Theodore?’ Mariah asked, smiling.

I said, ‘Trust me on this.’





21 LINCOLN: ABOMINATION





“My eye lids were weighed down with the advent of death, and my armor was saturated with dark, red, and soupy blood. Ted took one last look back at me before he led the charge up the stairs. I only saw his lips move because the sounds of battle and explosions muzzled his voice.”

He said, ‘Thank you.’

The pain and regret draped over me and shrouded my senses. I thought if I just shut my eyes once, and rested, I could embrace death. The fatal loss of blood was crushing my spirit to hold on to life.

I coughed into my hand, and blood painted it. I watched as Theodore ran up the stairs with the crew.

Visions of my life sped through my mind, flashing across the backs of my eyelids, and my life-reel ended. I was left with a defeated Travis and pinch of life in my pocket.

That piercing look on Dan’s face as he realized I was just about gone. I think I was the first loved one of his to die before his eyes. I regret that my death may have hardened him. I hope he will always be the carefree lad I always have known.

And Mariah—my Mariah. She held my hands as I lay dying, and she looked at me in the eyes. Oh, these eyes. I knew. We both knew.

With that vision of the lovely Mariah dissipating, with the battle sounds fading away, all was blackening between blinks. What happened after was difficult to explain, even for me. A tiny light appeared. It was the size of a tip of a pin. The pin grew to a large circle. The light gleamed into my eyes. I felt different. I felt weightless, as if there was no effort to raise my hands to my eyes.

Then I heard a familiar sound: it was cool rhythm and blues coming from my radio next to the bed. The artist’s deep voice was pounding my eardrums with his smooth vocals, but it was so loud I smashed the snooze button to stop it.

I jumped out of bed hurriedly, stepped onto a cluttered floor, and stretched my T-shirt up over my head. I rubbed my chest and looked frantically in the mirror for a wound, but nothing was there. There was just olive skin and a puny flat chest.

‘Is this heaven? It can’t be,’ I said to myself. ‘Dad!’ I yelled from within the frame of my bedroom door.