AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His clothes vanish.
I clamber to my feet. "Gabriel!"
The machine's clamps reach out to grab him. He doesn't react at all, not even when the clamps snap shut and he's pulled into the machine in a spread-eagle position with his arms slightly raised.
I run up the dais but bump into the wards again. This time, I manage not to fall. My heart thrashes in my chest, and my ears have started to ring. "Gabriel, talk to me, please. Are you okay?"
He blinks slowly, like he's just coming out of a trance. "Sarah?"
"Yes, it's me. I'm here. Are you okay?" I don't see how he could be, when a machine has taken control of his body.
"I'm okay. It doesn't hurt."
But he still sounds weird, like he's half asleep or drugged.
"Please go," he says. "Not safe here. For you."
"No, I will not leave."
The machine emits a series of bizarre thunking and cranking noises that make my skin crawl. What is that thing trying to do?
Meanwhile, the creatures increase the pace of their grunting, growing almost manic.
"It doesn't want you here," Gabriel says, his voice almost a whisper. "If you stay, it will hurt you."
"The machine?"
He nods.
A chill shimmies up my spine. The machine doesn't want me here and will hurt me if I stay. That suggests it's desperate, andin turn suggests I have more power than it does. But I couldn't even save Gabriel from the damn machine.
It blares a long, discordant sound that makes my eardrums vibrate painfully.
Then an invisible force drags me out of the throne room, down the corridor, and through the doors into the courtyard. I struggle against the magics, but they sweep me through the castle gates anyway.
And hurl me off the cliff.
I scream as I hurtle through the air, spinning and spinning.
A giant hand catches me.
While my head keeps spinning, since it hasn't gotten the memo yet that I'm not plummeting to my death anymore, I gaze up at the metal-and-flesh face of the golem. I'm lying on my back in his palm. Jarek looks at me and tips his head to the side, seeming for the life of me like he's worried.
"I'm okay," I tell him, once I can sit up without feeling like I might vomit. "Thank you for saving me."
He nods. Then he glances up at the cliff top.
"We can't help Gabriel right now," I say. "I need to escape the Echo so I can get help from my friends on Earth. Do you know of any way I can force the gateway to open?"
He squints his eyes as if he's considering the problem. Jarek starts walking, away from the castle, carrying me gently in his palm. What about Aldith? Should we find her? Maybe she's safer where she is.
I assume Jarek is taking me to the gateway, and I use this time to think about what to do next. Now that the Brain has taken Gabriel, does it still want to keep the gateway sealed? Since it clearly doesn't want me around, I wonder if it will allow me to leave the Echo now.
Jarek approaches the gateway and halts. He shrugs his shoulders, as if he's letting me know he doesn't know how toget me back to Earth. But it turns out I was right. The gateway spirals open for me. Jarek thrusts his arm through the opening and gently sets me down on the street of a city.
The gateway closes. I am alone in the dark, and nowhere near Sanctuary. I stand on an empty street that shows definite signs of the apocalypse—smashed pavement, wrecked buildings, bent street signs, and piles of rubble. But it's the growling noises emanating from somewhere in the darkness that cranks up my anxiety. Echo creatures make sounds like that.
I teleported myself to Gabriel in the Echo. Maybe I can whisk myself to Sanctuary now. So I close my eyes and wish I were there, wish it with every iota of mental strength I have left in me.
