The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(54)

Firing up my lifters, I blasted into Travis, driving him through the main kitchen window with my X73-21’s—my power shoes. The window shattered, gouging my forearm. The impact knocked Travis unconscious, and I carried his limp body. He was mine now. Grinning to myself, I ascended into the clouds to a dizzying altitude of around eight-thousand feet. My back strained as Travis’ massive frame tired out my arms.

I felt nauseated. It was becoming difficult to take in air. I flew higher, and I felt light-headed at about twenty thousand feet. It was freezing, and the clouds surrounded me. I saw stars and then I blacked out. My plan was to drop Travis to his death. Travis must have come to and started to yell, because he woke me up. He was falling at a faster rate than I was, and the distance between us was diverging.

We were both falling to our deaths. I was trying to maneuver with my shoes, but I could not see where I was going. Travis continued to fall and then in a flash I realized: Zane didn’t ask me to kill Travis.

I wasn’t some rogue killer acting on impulse. I finally gained control and propelled myself toward the Earth. I drew closer to Travis. The space between the ground and our falling bodies was swiftly decreasing, and I was closing in on him. I needed to save him. His scream went to silence, as I finally stood behind him, and grabbed his jacket by the shoulders. Just when my thrusters on my X73-21’s were about to overheat, he and I jointly had significantly decelerated. Rooftops were appearing in view, and we were almost at a standstill.

Travis sported a wicked smile as he looked up at me, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Ted.’

Before I could reply, he shot out blasts from his electronic bracelets directly at my X73-21’s. Sparks flying, my super shoes went haywire, and all of a sudden, I was rocketing toward the woods behind my grandparents’ house.

Out of control, I turned back to look at Travis. Glowing, he ported at the last second, and just like that, he was safely gone. I strained to deliver myself safely to the ground, but it was futile. My body bent against the pines behind my house and I scraped through them, as I ungracefully landed among the branches of the tree. I lay there for a moment, breathless.

Moaning with pain, I flew up the back wooden steps of our deck. I ripped through the locked screen door, and barreled into the house.

My grandparents lay lifeless on their sides at the entrance of my bedroom. Their bodies were corpses; cold, dead, and unfeeling. Desperately, I told myself they were just sleeping, that they would recover and come alive again. But their still-open eyes!—to my horror, they were blank and devoid of the souls who had been at one time, Marv and Laverne.

I had lost my grandparents, whom I had loved so deeply. I had nothing, and the pain from the anxiety was closing in on me, suffocating and wringing out my heart. I had no one.

Attempting resuscitation, I methodically pumped their chests and compressed air from my lungs into their mouths. No success. Shedding tears, lying on my back, exhausted—I felt failure. I had no father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother to have or hold. I rolled over and struck my fist against the ground repeatedly, sobbing and thrashing about.

I hopped up to my knees. After I finished whimpering on the floor, I shook my grandparents, screaming their names, striking their chests again. I ran to the wall and drove my fist through the drywall. My knuckles were bleeding. I slouched down, sliding downward against it. I ran my fingers through my hair, and sheet-rock dust clumped onto my sweaty locks.

I thought out loud to send the signal—Migalt! I am under attack at my house, and my grandparents are dead!

It didn’t matter what I thought. No one answered. I slumped into an acute state of shock, shedding tears and feeling totally vanquished.

Still no response. I presumed from Migalt’s abrupt retreat hours earlier that Zane and his army may have been under siege as well, as Odion had definitely sought out something after Migalt attacked him. My grandpa once told me that I should not worry about things that I cannot control, and instead focus on what I can—myself.

Feeling extremely guilty about leaving the corpses upstairs, I resolutely rose to my feet and walked to the basement in search of clues to the imminent crisis. There was no time to lose. I stood before my grandfather’s workshop, furiously formulating possible explanations.

What was Travis after? What did he want? More importantly, what did Odion want?

A brilliant breakthrough popped up in my head.

‘Aha!’ I cried out.

The metalons—were Dietons. My grandpa must have discovered them around the house, thanks to me. And he was just about to unlock the secrets to a power that Odion could not tolerate in a human.

I hastily pulled out drawers in his studio, causing several sheets of diagrams and mathematical equations to flutter to the floor. I picked them up.

As I stood up, my eyes captured a gleam of metal. Right by his experiments was a shiny pistol. Perhaps he expected evil to pay a visit.

For a moment, I wondered what my grandfather wanted me to do. I had never used a gun in my life, except for pretense during laser tag. My anger clouded my judgment and I grasped the gun. It was heavy and frightening. I placed it down quickly, because my grandfather would never want me to touch something so powerful. To handle a gun, one must have respect and technical knowledge. I figured it was the papers he wanted me to grab.

There was no way I could decipher these complex theorems and equations, so I grabbed what I could, and I scooted upstairs. I snatched a pen and a pad of paper from the dining room table, and sprinted outside to launch my body through the air.