The Dark One

FOUR

Michael walked through the front door of his house-or tried to. He didn't get very far because his dad blocked his way.

"You don't live here anymore," he told Michael. "We decided we don't want you. You're staying across the street now."

"Oh, okay," Michael said, trying to sound casual, as if his dad had just asked him to run to the store or something. "Can I get my stuff?"

"You don't have any stuff. We gave you everything you had, and we're keeping it," his father told him gruffly. He gave Michael a push, and he stumbled back out onto the front walk. Michael didn't wait around to be pushed twice. He turned and bolted, his heart pounding like crazy. He started toward the house directly across the street but froze when he saw a woman in the front yard. She was holding a shotgun, aiming it directly at his chest.

"We don't have any more room here," she announced.

"But my dad said-" Michael began.

The woman cocked the rifle. "Another step and you'll be pushin' up friggin' daisies," she warned him.

Scared out of his mind, Michael took off down the street… and found himself in the doughnut shop, a plate of crullers loaded with hot sauce in front of him.

"Nice dream you were having," Trevor commented as he appeared in the seat across from Michael.

Michael spit out the bite of cruller he'd just taken. "Listen carefully. I don't ever want to see you again. If I do see you again, you are not going to be a happy guy-"

"I want to explain-" Trevor began.

"Explain what?" Michael demanded. "Explain why you betrayed me? Why you fed me that line about coming here just to visit your long lost brother? Or explain about why you tried to kill Max? Or maybe why you've decided to become the lapdog of the guy who killed our parents?"

"Actually, all of that," Trevor answered, gazing intently at Michael. As always Michael felt startled by how alike his eyes and Trevor's were. "You're the only family I have left," Trevor continued. "And by the way, your good friend Max? He tried to kill me, too."

Michael pushed the plate of crullers aside and rested his elbows on the Formica table. "You want to explain?" he said. "Fine. Start with why you lied to me, and go from there."

"I was sent to Earth to take the Stone from Alex and give it to the rebel leader. You call him DuPris," Trevor began, all business. "I was chosen for the mission because as your brother-"

"You could infiltrate the group," Michael finished for him, his eyes flashing. "So you used me. What the hell? It's not like we knew each other or anything. We were just brothers." He hated the emotion he could hear coursing through his voice. He hated that Trevor actually had the power to…

To hurt him.

"You've got to understand about the consciousness. It's evil, Michael," Trevor explained. "Shattering it is more important than saving the feelings of any individual. Me. You."

"Our parents?" Michael demanded, feeling his face redden. "Did you ask your idol about them?"

"Yeah. I did," Trevor admitted. He hesitated, staring down at the pink tabletop as if it fascinated him.

"He didn't deny it, did he? And you're still working for the guy." Michael jerked to his feet. "That's all I need to hear." He started toward the door, but Trevor grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him back.

"No, it's not all you need to hear," he said harshly, his fingers pressing into Michael's flesh.

"Let go of my arm," Michael ordered.

"Not until you-"

Michael didn't let him finish. He pulled back his free arm, made a fist, and slammed it into Trevor's jaw. Trevor loosened his grip, and Michael started for the door again. This time one of the tables screeched across the room and barricaded the exit. "Oh, you want to play." Michael turned to face his brother. There was no need to worry about who had more powers in the dream plane. If Michael thought something, it would happen. At least once he realized he was dreaming, which, thanks to Trevor, Michael did.

In a flash a second table knocked Trevor to the ground and pinned him to the floor.

"Are you afraid of what you're going to hear? Is that it?" Trevor cried.

The table on top of him exploded into Formica shards, sharp as knives. Every one of them flew straight at Michael.

Michael didn't even flinch. He thought them right back at Trevor, who spun them around again. The shards hovered between them, shaking as Michael and Trevor both tried to control the weapons.

"If our parents hadn't died-" Trevor began, face tight with concentration.

"Been murdered," Michael corrected, keeping his attention focused on the shards.

"Then the Stone of Midnight that DuPris stole would have been returned to our planet," Trevor said in a rush. "The rebellion might have been squashed. All those in the Kindred might have been forced to join the consciousness."

"So it's okay to kill anyone who gets in the way of the rebellion?" Michael demanded, clenching his fists.

"Yes!" Trevor shouted.

"No!" Michael shouted back.

The shards fragmented and fell to the floor in a shower of powdery dust. Michael and Trevor locked eyes for a long moment. Then, without warning, Trevor disappeared.

I have to get out of here, Michael thought, his body practically shaking from all the effort and emotion he'd expended. The table slid away from the door at Michael's thought command.

"Wait. What am I doing?" he said. He concentrated a moment, and the shimmering, iridescent walls of his dream orb appeared. He stepped through and woke up.

The sheet under Michael's back was moist with sweat. This was not a problem because Michael had no intention of going back to sleep anytime soon. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and found that it was three-thirty in the morning. He'd gotten most of his two hours of sleep.

Michael stood up and pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt. He hesitated a moment, then slid on his shoes, too. It seemed like a good time for one of his late night visits to Maria's room. She never minded him waking her up, and somehow he always ended up feeling a little better after spending time with her. Even if she drove him crazy with too many questions.

He headed out of the bedroom down the hall, glancing at Adam as he passed. Michael paused. Adam had probably gotten most of the sleep he needed, too, and he was always up for hanging out. Maybe he should just stay here and chill out. Teaching Adam some more about life in the real world would definitely take his mind off things. For a little while, anyway.

But the more he thought about it, Michael realized it wasn't Maria or Adam he wanted to be with right now. He needed to see Max. Things had gotten bad between them, and it was time for that to end.

"He's my real brother, anyway," Michael muttered. "Enough is enough."

Max rubbed his rubber Koosh ball up and down the side of his face. A cluster of the beings in the consciousness never seemed to tire of the sensation, and through them Max shared the deliciousness of the rubber strands bushing against his skin. Their pleasure was almost as intense for Max as anything he'd ever experienced on his own.

Reluctantly he dove away from the Koosh-loving beings and pushed himself deeper into the ocean of auras that made up the consciousness. He focused on an image of Ray Iburg and shot it out into the billions of entities. There was a faint ripple of response, not from Ray himself, but from beings who knew of Ray.

Max caught a current and surfed into another section of the consciousness. He wanted to call Ray from a different spot. Ray was the only adult survivor of the crash-at least the only one who wasn't evil incarnate. He'd taught Max so much before he'd died. If Max could just talk to him-or exchange images and emotions the way the beings in the consciousness did-maybe Ray would have some clue what he should be doing. Because everything in Max's life was falling apart, and there was no one Max could talk to about it. He was the only one on Earth who was connected to the consciousness, and he needed advice from the only other being who had been connected while living on Earth.

Plus he wouldn't mind one of Ray's Elvis impersonations. Something to make Max laugh would be nice. I could always go back to the Koosh crowd, he thought. But it was too easy to lose time in a cluster of auras like that one, too easy to get seduced by the pleasure of physical sensation, amplified as it was by the beings.

Max focused on an image of Ray in his spangled Elvis jumpsuit and sent it out. This time there wasn't even a flicker of recognition, although he caught some amusement and a little fear.

Another current swept past him. Max allowed himself to be drawn along with it and was sucked into a massive aggregation of ice-cold auras. These beings are terrified, he realized. Terrified that DuPris has two of the Stones. Terrified of… of dying.

Max tried to throw out a question, but the cold had seeped too deeply into him. He'd been frozen to the point that he was incapable of throwing the necessary images to find out why the beings feared they were close to death.

Above him he felt a current passing. He tried to propel himself up to meet it. But the numbing coldness made it impossible.

"Max," a voice cried, so far away, Max couldn't make out who was speaking. "Max!" It came louder, and this time Max realized it was Michael calling to him.

The sound of Michael's voice jolted him free of the icy block of auras, and Max found himself speeding along in the current. He had started to break the connection to the consciousness-well, turn down the volume, at least-when a group of beings demanded to know about the odor Max was smelling.

Max concentrated, then sent back the answer-lemon-scented furniture polish. Then they asked him what a lemon was. Max focused on imagining a lemon tree with as much detail as he could.

"Max!" he heard Michael call, soft as a whisper.

Be there in one second, he thought. He threw out the image of the tree to the beings and was instantly bombarded with more questions. He began focusing on the image of a lemon being squeezed.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Max knew Michael had called to him. But he was so focused on the questions before him, he could barely conjure up a picture of Michael for himself. It went from fuzzy to foggy to shapeless, then disappeared entirely.

Isabel was sure she could find herself another cleaning project somewhere in the house, but she felt tired. Totally exhausted, actually.

She told herself it was just because she and the others had run around like crazy trying to find Maria's brother. And it wasn't as if they'd been sitting around on their butts before that. They'd been spending every second trying to get Alex back home.

So she really did have more than enough reason to feel wiped out. And the extreme physical sensations-they could have just been caused by stress. She had as much reason to feel stressed as she did to feel tired. More, even.

Isabel ignored the part of her brain that was screaming about the akino. She sat down at her desk and flipped on her computer, needing some distraction. When the main screen came up, she clicked on the little icon to bring up her list of favorite places. She didn't feel like shopping. And she'd checked out the Chickclick sites a couple of days ago. Finally her eyes fell on Lucinda Baker's web page. Perfect. Isabel clicked it and waited for it to load.

"I wonder if there's a way that my power could boost the modem speed," she mumbled, impatient to start reading. She tapped her finger against the screen until the photo of Lucinda's face came clear. She clicked on Lucinda's puckered lips, then tapped the screen again until the list of guys' names appeared.

Who had Lucinda been kissing lately? Her eyes were caught by a name that had been highlighted in red-Alex Manes. Lucinda just asked us to say hi for her this afternoon, Isabel thought. She can't have already-

Isabel clicked on Alex's name, tapping the screen with all ten nails. As soon as the first sentences came up, she eagerly began to read.

"Okay, I admit I haven't tried Alexander the Great yet! But don't worry, I will. I hate to admit it, but Stacey Scheinin got to him first. She and Alex had quite the little two-person party by the mall drinking fountain. You all know the one I mean. I got Stacey to give up a few details. Not that it was hard. Stacey and I aren't exactly compadres, but we all know the girl likes to brag. Anyway, Stacey gave Alex the full four tongues. 'He knows what to do, and he does it well,' says Stacey. 'Plus he's adorable.' Is it just me, or has Alex gotten a whole lot yummier since he was dumped by La Isabel?"

"Oh, please." Isabel groaned. But her stomach had clenched so hard, it felt like it was the size of a tennis ball. She knew Lucinda wasn't above making stuff up for her site. But there was no way Lucinda would make up something that made Stacey look good. Saying they weren't compadres was quite the understatement. So Alex and Stacey… Isabel shook her head. That just was not right, not after all the mean, catty little things Stacey had said about Alex in the locker room.

Isabel toyed with the idea of posting a response saying exactly that. But it was so not an Isabel move. She would have to-

Suddenly the letters on the screen began to glow. Brighter, brighter, until it hurt to look at them. And still they grew brighter. Isabel closed her eyes, but the light was so strong, it felt like it was penetrating her eyelids.

She fumbled for the computer's off button and finally had to crack open her eyes to find it. Screaming white letters hurtled off the screen. She could feel them penetrating the soft flesh of her eyeballs. The pain was excruciating, and Isabel could do nothing to stop it.

All she could do was cover her face and scream.