Jelly Cooper: Alien (17 page)

There was no wind, but her hair whipped at her face. In his haste, he stumbled on the uneven marshland and stopped his mad scramble to reach her.  It was unusual for his kind to be clumsy, even in the dark.  He forced himself to still and to breathe.  Each deliberate, slow, breath loosened the burning fear strangling his insides.  When his heartbeat calmed, he threw off his immobility and found his way to her side.

Though the heat of the day still clung to his skin and
sweat ran down his temple,
her
skin was cold and dry.  He held her face between his hands and stared into wild, unfocussed eyes.  Her lips moved quickly; her whisper so shallow that he had to place his ear against her mouth to hear what she was chanting.  It was the same thing, over and over:

The Hunters are coming, the Hunters are coming,
the Hunters are coming.

His heart stopped beating.

***
              ***              ***

I sit bolt upright in bed, hurl the soaked duvet to one side and fall to my knees.  Spasms wrack the length of my body as I lean on my hands and dry heave.  Spit dribbles from the corner of my mouth and pools on the carpet.  My stomach cramps again and I struggle to draw breath into my lungs.

The spasms gradually
ease and I roll onto my side and tuck my knees up to my chin.  I lie there, hugging myself into as tight a ball as possible until the terror fades.

I felt his fear; the man in my dream.  I felt the surge of black despair that squeezed his ribcage and crushed his chest when he realised what the woman was chanting.

The Hunters are coming, the Hunters are coming, the Hunters are coming.

But now, they’re coming for me.

I hug myself tighter as the trembling starts.

***              ***              ***

My eyes open a crack and I see that it’s morning.  Brilliant sunshine streams into my bedroom and dust motes float in the air.  I don’t know when I fell back to sleep.  It can’t have been long ago; my head is pounding and my eyes feel gritty and tired.  I turn my head and see that I’m still on the floor.  I roll onto my back and raise my hand to my face.  The carpet is imprinted on my cheek.  I massage the indents.

Every second of last night’s dream is still with me.  It was worse than the nightmares that
I had for months.  Feeling that poor man’s terror, knowing that the Hunter would tear his family to shreds and that he wasn’t powerful enough to stop him, was worse than being dangled over a canyon.

Because that’s now me.
  It’s my family in the firing line, my life that’s about to be torn to pieces. 

If there’s any way of beating this monster, I’ve got to find it.  If I don’t, a lot of people
I love are going to die.  Unless I go to him and give myself up.  The thought went round and round in my head for hours last night.  Should I wait and hear what Thorn can do for me, how he can help me, or will the slightest delay result in disaster?  Am I being selfish trying to find a way out of this mess?  I’m playing chess with people’s lives.  I shouldn’t have that kind of power!  I’m a fourteen year old girl and I’ve never been good at chess.

I close my eyes.  Moments later they snap open.

Where’s Crin?  Why hasn’t he used the collective to reach me?

A
nger burns away the despair. 
He’s
the one who got me into this mess. 
He’s
the one who sent me here and then left me to fend for myself with a murderous maniac on my tail.  This is all
his
fault and now he’s abandoned me
again
!

I decide in that instant that I’ve got to live.  I’ve got to live long enough to do serious damage to that man.

I really hope that while my hand hovered over the enter button last night, Humphrey was Googling Kavalrion with the intensity and ferocity of a gaggle of girls outside a department store on first day of the January sales.  I need to know
everything
about Kavalrion, about Javoria and about how I can get back there.  I’m relying on Thorn to fill me in on the
bashrak
.

I jump
to my feet and head to shower off the nightmare sweats.  As I stand under the jets of water and lift my face to meet the spray, I imagine the threat to my life swirling down the plughole along with the dirt and grime of fear and doubt.  I need to think positive if I’m going to see this thing through.  And I need to get to school and see Thorn.

I shut off the shower wit
h a twist of the wrist, quickly towel dry and pull on my clothes.  I hear Mum at the bottom of the stairs as I walk along the landing.

“Jelly?
  Jelly, hold on a sec.”

My mother’s voice sounds weird. 
I peer over the banister. 

“What’s up, M
um?”

She
looks tired and strained.

Hmm.
I haven’t been completely above board with my parents lately.  I wonder how much they’ve guessed, or how much they’ve always know?

“Jelly, we need to talk.  I mean, there are some things that we need to talk about.”

I smile as gently as I can and skip downstairs.  The effort to appear light-hearted costs me, but I can’t let her see that I’m worried.  Reaching out my hand, I touch my mother’s arm. 

“I know M
um.  We do need to talk, but don’t worry about it, OK?  I’ve got to go to school now.  We’ll talk when I get home.”

“Sure, honey
,” she croaks.  “Have a good day.”

I reach up t
o kiss her on the cheek.  “I will.”

I
grab my bag from underneath the stairs and walk away, feeling terrible and vowing to explain everything to Mum and Dad later.  Or maybe next week.

Oh come on!  How woul
d you tackle telling your adoptive parents that you’re an alien?  It’s not the easiest thing in the world, you know.

I walk down the street and force myself not to look back.

I know that Mum is watching me and seeing her framed in the door of my childhood home seems too much like a talisman.  Especially when destiny is snapping at my heels like a ferocious terrier.

I prefer not to tempt fate.

***
              ***              ***

By lunch, I’m on the verge of going nuclear with anticipation.  I haven’t had classes with Agatha or Humphrey and I haven’t seen Thorn all morning, though I know he’s here, in the school, giving lessons like maths actually matters instead of telling me what I need to know to save myself from the hands of a murderous psycho.  I am going to wring his neck when I see him.

If I see him.

Where the
hell
is he?

***              ***              ***

“Jelly, calm down!”

“Calm down?  CALM DOWN!”

Thorn smiles his lopsided smile at me and I almost knock his block off. 

“Where have you
been
?” I hiss.

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Look, I’m sorry, OK.  I missed you before assembly, then I missed you before classes started and I was on detention duty at break.  I would have came straight to you as soon as the lunch bell went off if you hadn’t, erm, been camped outside my door for the last five minutes of class.”

He glances around the room with a wry smile.

I growl something sarcastic and pathetic under my breath and stomp around with my arms crossed.  I’m not ready to forgive him yet.  I’ve been in
agony
all morning.

There’s a tentative tap on the door.  I stomp and harrumph as Thorn lets in Agatha and Humphrey, who are in impossibly high spirits and very, very annoying.

What can I say?  My nerves are frayed. 

“We thought you’d be in here”, Agatha says, all shiny eyed and bushy tailed.
   

“Yes, yes,” I wave my hand impatiently. 
“Enough of that.  Let’s get on with it.”

Humhrey’s
brows sky-rocket.  He narrows his eyes at Thorn.

“What’s he been saying?”

Thorn’s mouth drops open and Agatha mumbles “here we go” under her breath.

“Why?” I quickly ask.  “What did you find out?”

“Nothing,” Humphrey answers.  “Well, some stuff about Kavalrion, but nothing bad. Why?  Didn’t you Google them?”

“
Erm, no, my internet connection was down.” 

The lie springs easily to my lips
, which is a bad thing.  I don’t want to trade a lifetime of truth-telling just because I’ve suddenly become a powerful alien with uber powers. 

“You should have said!” Agatha exclaims in dismay.  “You could have come round to mine.”

“Oh for God’s sake.”  Rhiannon stands in the doorway.  “Why don’t we here it straight from the horse’s mouth?  The man is standing right there.” She gestures to Thorn.

Humphrey grins.  “Your internet down as well last night was it, Rhiannon?”

She pulls a face.

“As if.
  Why would I want to read about Kaval-thingamyjig when I could be reading about celebrities and their handbags?  Of course I looked them up, geek boy.  Didn’t say much, did it?  I gave up after a while.  Anyhow, hope you didn’t start without me.”

“No.
” Thorn smiles.  “We didn’t start without you.  Grab a chair”.

Chapter Fourteen

Finally, he starts.  I try to
control the trembling in my bones and concentrate on what he’s saying.

“Like I said, Cal and Maurice went all over, looking for people with special skills. 
Three years after Maurice rescued Cal, they found a girl called Eustasia Mayers.  Her father was a business tycoon, a hard man; grabbed any opportunity to profit. Not many people liked Winston Mayers and he was happy to spend most of his time at his office.  Eustasia was alone and lonely.  Locals said that she was aloof and a snob, so they ignored her.

Only there was something else that was
different about Eustasia.  She would sit in her window and look out at the grounds and
feel
a storm coming.  She could never explain it, how she knew that bad weather was on the way, but she was never wrong.  Other times, she would rush to answer the door before anyone had knocked, or answer questions before they were asked.”

Thorn shrugs.

“Anyway, she hid her weird ability well, but sometimes she’d let something slip and the house staff would talk.  In time the rumours made their way to the villagers and eventually found their way back to her father.  Winston was a solid, down to earth man.  He didn’t believe the gossip, but still felt the damage that his daughter was doing to his business reputation.  He started planning to send Eustasia away.  He had no living relatives that he knew of and no friends that he could send her to, so he arranged to have her committed to an asylum.”

Thorn’s mouth turns down
at the corners.

I know that I need the full story, but it’s driving me nuts sitting here listening to a tale about people I don’t know, people from the past; people who can’t help me.  I shut my eyes and
deepen my breath.  Things can get out of hand these days when I get over excited or nervous, or annoyed.  I need to gain more self-control.

“Jelly, are you alright?”

I open my eyes to see Thorn staring at me with concern.  I force myself to smile.  It’s a bit wobbly, but it’ll do.

“Not much sleep last night.  Sorry.”

Humphrey’s at my side in a heartbeat.

“Another nightmare?”

I shake my head. 

“No, it was worse.”

I sketch out the dream for them, not dwelling on the despair and terror, though I’m sure the tremble in my voice gives me away. 

“Oh my God.”
Thorn whispers.

Four heads turn to look at him.  He stares at me with wide eyes.

“You dreamt of Eustasia’s vision, but as Cal saw it!  You retrieved his memory!  That’s, that’s
incredible
!”

He
breaths the last word and looks at me like he’s about to get down on his knees and start worshipping. 

There’s a whole lot of that last sentence that I don’t understand, but one thing stands out.

“I can only retrieve my own memories, er, once I’ve had training,” I add hastily as I catch Humphrey staring at me through narrowed eyes.  “There’s no way I could retrieve someone else’s, especially someone I’ve never met and is
dead
.”

Thorn’s eyes are shining in wonder and his reverent behavio
ur is starting to freak me out. 

“You got them from
me
!  You must have subconsciously retrieved them when we hugged yesterday.  Oh my goodness!  I didn’t know that was possible!  I’ve never met anyone who could do that before!”