Looking Through Crystal

“He doesn’t need any of that shit” Brian protested, “He can heal himself just as I did, probably even better. He doesn’t need your help”
Barely listening, the paramedic placed an oxygen mask over Jakob’s face and felt for his pulse. Finding nothing, she signalled for her partner, who was dressing the wounds of a young woman injured as Brian’s van careered off the road, to come over. Completing the job, he hurried towards Jakob and kneeled at his side.
“His pulse is pretty weak Nick” his colleague said, “Poor little kid, he’s only about eight. His Dad seems a bit concussed too, seems to think the little ‘un has magic powers or something.”
“We’ll need to get him back to the hospital pretty quick then” Nick said, “I’ll grab the stretcher Kelsey, and we’ll go to St Luke’s, it’s nearer than King Cross”
Snapping into action, Nick sprinted to the ambulance and dragged the stretcher, complete with neck brace and dragged it towards Kelsey and Jakob. Taking his first proper glance at the small boy on the ground, Nick felt a lump rise in his throat. Attending similar cases almost every day didn’t make seeing skinny Jakob soaked in blood any easier. And for some reason, Jakob reminded him of himself, a long time ago.
“Come on then” Kelsey prompted, “I’ll see if his Dad wants to come with him. He’ll need checked out anyway”
They gently secured Jakob to the stretcher before Kelsey knelt down next to Brian, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, one hand clamped over his ear, dazed.
“Do you want to come with your son then?” she asked
“He’s not my son” Brian growled, “He’s not my son and I can’t help him, not anymore. But…it sounds so stupid, but this is the best thing that could have happened to him”
Kelsey shook her head.
“This isn’t your fault sir” she said, “I’m sure whatever happened was an accident, no one could have stopped it. We have to get him to hospital, if you’re not his Dad, can you tell us how to contact his parents?”
Brian shook his head
“You can’t bring his mother here” he said hotly, “I haven’t seen her for almost nine years and I don’t want to see her again. I’ve done some…really terrible things, but I couldn’t help it. My Master, he was controlling me, the way he controls Jakob. He made Jakob use his powers to crash the car”
Stunned into silence, Kelsey motioned for Brian to go on. His story simply sounded like the ramblings of a patient with minor head injuries, but any information about the boy would be of assistance. So far they didn’t even know his name.
“You said it’s not my fault, but that’s where you’re wrong. I took Jakob from the hospital, and I send the others back for Crystal. My Master believes their powers can make his the richest man alive. He thinks they’ll be able to extract precious metals and diamond from undiscovered caves in South Africa. He thinks they can control people’s thoughts more effectively than we can on our own. He’s going to use this to take over the world.”
Kelsey peered at the man, one hand still clutching the side of his head.
“You’ve obviously injured your head” she said carefully, “Why don’t you come back with us to the hospital. They can help you”
Brian got shakily to his feet and looked hard at Kelsey.
“I’m happier than I have been in years” he said, “Because now the Master can’t control me. He injected a demon into my blood, which has left my body when I lost almost every drop in the accident. And he fitted me with an earpiece through which he gave me instructions. And I no longer have to listen, because I have sliced my own ear off”
Her breath catching in her throat, Kelsey struggled to remain clam. This man appeared to be suffering from far more than a minor head injury.
“O-okay” she stammered, “I think you should come with us and have the wound attended to”
Brian shook his head violently, and then winced as blood seeped from under his fingers. It trailed down his neck, a garish red against his pale skin. He smiled sadly.
“I’ll come with you” he said, “If you think it’ll help Jakob.”
He made his way to the ambulance where Nick helped him clamber into the back.
“But you won’t be able to do much for me” he continued, “I have a few years left to set things in order, but now that I have released the demon, I will eventually die”
Kelsey got into the front and started the engine, resulting in a small whimper from Jakob. Brian immediately rushed to the boy’s side.
“Jakob” he whispered, “I’m leaving the organization, I want to help you with your powers. You can do good with them, maybe even help Crystal. You and me, we’re going to prove that Crystal’s not a murderer. But you have to heal yourself first, please Jakob, please try”
Jakob opened his eyes slowly, snuffling quietly in pain. Disorientated and frightened, he reached out for something familiar and comforting, only to find his arms trapped by the straps on the stretcher. He took a deep breath, realizing that the demon was no longer controlling him, although the earpiece was uncomfortably tight against the swollen surface of his head.
“We’re almost there” Brian said, “Jakob; do you want me to phone your Mum?”
Almost in tears, Jakob nodded. All the anger of the night he’d dreamed about Brian had vanished now that he knew the truth. He wanted his Mum to hug him tight and tell him that everything would be okay.
But he knew it wouldn’t.
As the ambulance drew up outside the hospital and Jakob was wheeled down a seemingly endless corridor, he felt as though he was being pulled into the centre of the earth. From the other end, Brian screamed at him to heal himself, but Jakob felt to weak to do anything but sleep.
“No pet” a nurse said each time he closed his eyes, “Try to stay awake for me”
Tubes were inserted into his arms, making him cry out. Women wearing masks stitched his wounds, pulling his skin this way and that until he felt like a string puppet. A mask was clamped over his face, making him feel claustrophobic and edgy. And then he was placed gently in a clean white bed, wired up to bleeping machines, alone and frightened.
Drifting in and out of consciousness, images flashed before Jakob’s eyes. Enormous skulls with luminous eyes danced around the room, growling manically and howling like wolves. Screwing his eyes shut Jakob lay shivering and sobbing, until someone caught hold of his wrist.
“Jakob” Brian shouted, “Stop it, calm down. You have to get out of here; the master’s coming to get us “
Incapable of moving as far as the door, Jakob shook his head.
“Come on” Brian urged, “Please try Jakob, try to heal yourself, he’ll be here any minute”
Trembling in fear, Jakob stared at the ceiling. Without being told, he knew he had to focus his energy on one point in the room for his powers to have any chance of working. With a burst of courage, Jakob sat up slowly and rocked gently back and forth, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Continuing to rock, Jakob felt a powerful heat rising in his chest. His entire body prickled, slowly becoming lit in a dim purple glow. Taking several deep breaths, Jakob’s bruised face stretched into a grin as he rose off the bed and floated several centimetres in the air. Stretching out his arms for balance, Jakob watched as the numerous cuts and bruises healed over, leaving his skin clear. With a triumphant whoop, he gently lowered himself onto the bed, and hopped to the ground.
“See” Brian said, “Now do you understand why the Master wants to use your powers? And Crystal’s are much more developed than yours. Jakob, I know your mum’s probably told you how violent I was, but I was being completely controlled by the Master. Only now, I don’t have that problem”
Grimacing, he reached behind his head and gently unwound the bandage covering his wound.
“I sliced my own ear off Jakob” he said matter-of-factly, “As soon as I had healed myself after the crash, because I realized that it was the only way I was ever going to be free. You Jakob, you lost so much blood in the accident that the demon escaped. You might feel free, but you still have the earpiece, and he will still be able to give you orders, threaten you. I want you to trust me Jakob; I want you to trust me enough to remove your earpiece for you. It won’t hurt; you can use your powers to block out pain”
“No” Jakob gasped in horror, “I’m not going to let you cut my ear off”
Brian sighed.
“Okay then” he said, “Maybe, maybe in a few years. We’ll have to get out of here though Jakob, quickly, before the master finds us”
Dashing to the door, a sudden thought struck Jakob.
“Brian” he said, “What about Joey. I mean, if me and Crystal have these powers, does Joey have them too. Is the master looking for him as well?”
Opening the door and pushing Jakob into the corridor, Brian shook his head.
“Joey doesn’t have any powers” he said, “And the Master knows it. He wants you and Crystal to destroy Joey with yours. He believes that a person strong enough to kill their family deserves eternal life. And he can give it to you”
Jakob stared at him blankly, his heart pounding.
“The Master is over three hundred years old” Brian whispered, “So am I. Only now that I have removed my earpiece and released the demon, I won’t live very long. We injected ourselves with the blood of a vampire every night, everyone in the organization did. And the master wanted you to be part of that, so that he could use your powers forever.”
Mouth open in shock, Jakob felt his eyes prick with tears. Not only was he horrified that anyone would want him to murder his own brother, he felt an alarming jolt at Brian’s revelation about the Master’s attempts for eternal life.
“But that’s not fair on the vampire” he said, “Can’t we get him out when we go back for Crystal, we can’t just leave him there with the Master”
Brian, only half listening, pulled Jakob out into the corridor. Blinking like a frightened rabbit, one hand clutching his wound, he dragged Jakob into the harsh light of the hospital halls. He peered around corners, inching along the linoleum at a snails pace. Choking on the overwhelming stench of disinfectant, Jakob followed, still marvelling at the extraordinary events which occurred earlier. Suddenly, he felt Brian push him backwards, staggering in shock. A familiar, twisted face appeared around a pillar, smiling nastily and rubbing its bald head.
“Found you” it hissed
Racked with terror, Jakob let out a blood curdling scream and bolted along the corridor. Brian followed, panting in fear and still clutching his bandaged wound. Reaching a staircase, Jakob took a gulp of air and raced upwards, slipping and sliding as he ran. Sweat poured down his face, mixed with tears of panic as he stumbled over the last few steps and into a ward. Shocked at the sudden arrival, several elderly patients stared as the two blundered past their beds and onto the balcony.
“Jakob” Brian said breathlessly looking over the railings, “We’re on the eighth floor, there’s no way down”
A loud clatter erupted as the Master crashed through the doors of the ward and sprinted towards Brian and Jakob. His pale face twisted in anger and his cloak billowing, he extended gnarled hand in which he clutched a walkie talkie. Realising that they were trapped, Brian let out a moan of defeat and sank to the ground. His hair was matted with blood and his face colourless and drawn.
“It’s over Jakob” he muttered, “This is it”
Staring into the calm, collected eyes of the Master, Jakob felt something surge through him. This man had injected a demon into his blood, forced Brian’s car off the road. And now he was going to take him away and force him to use his powers for his own greedy purposes. He had murdered his own son, and he was expecting Jakob to do the same to his brother, simply to prove that he wasn’t afraid to. He was holding Crystal, who was probably as bewildered and frightened as Jakob was. He had been using a vampire’s blood to stay alive for three centauries, keeping the vampire imprisoned in the basement of his organization headquarters. And now he had defeated Brian, the one person Jakob was counting on staying strong.

Fuelled by anger, Jakob grabbed Brian by the wrist and hauled him to his feet. Beads of sweat arose on his forehead as he thought about what he was planning to do. For the first time, he trusted his powers completely.
“Come on” he hissed, “We have to go back for Crystal…and the vampire”
Brian shook his head.
“We’re trapped Jakob” he said, tears beginning to pour down his cheeks, “There’s no way out”
The Master obviously has a similar train of thought, as he stopped in the centre of the ward, looked scathingly at the two small figures on the balcony and snorted in delight. Taking exaggeratedly tiny steps towards them, his entire form shook with excitement.
“Yes there is” Jakob said determinedly, “Because I’ve got one thing he doesn’t have. I’ve got my powers. And that’s something he can never take away from me, even with his money and his organization.”
Hoisting himself onto the balcony’s railings, Jakob held out his hand.
“What have we got to lose?” he said to Brian
Stunned by Jakob’s composed and sincere manner, Brian accepted the boy’s hand and clambered onto the shaking metal frame. Screwing his eyes shut against the cold November wind, Jakob held out his arms and steadied himself. His stomach turning over, he looked down at the ground eight floors below. Minuscule people moved like ants below them, alongside brightly coloured spider sized vehicles. Trembling, his mouth as dry as a desert, Jakob curled his hand tightly around Brian’s.
Suddenly realizing what they were about to do, the Master darted forwards, making a grab for the back of Jakob’s filthy coat as he and Brian dived from the balcony. For a few seconds he held fast, and Jakob and Brian were dangling under his firm grip. But filled with determination, Jakob wriggled and kicked until he felt the Master’s grip on his coat cease, and he plummeted downwards.
Still clutching Brian’s hand, his eyes closed, Jakob used every ounce of strength he had left to pull himself into a sitting position. Extending his free hand and kicking his legs out gently, Jakob found himself floating on the breeze. Daring to open his eyes, he spotted the Master leaning over the balcony, cursing and swearing His eyes swivelled to Brian, whose mouth was open, his eyes wide with wonder. Moving his right foot smoothly into a kick, Jakob turned himself around in the air, pulling Brian with him. Suddenly knowing what to do, Jakob peddled with his feet pointing downwards, unexplainable joy flooding through him. His heart thumping with happiness, he guided himself and Brian towards a children’s play park below. Tears of delight pricking his eyes, Jakob landed neatly in a sitting position on a bench, Brian beside him.
“Wow” he breathed
Brian turned to him, his hair ruffled and standing on end. His face was flushed with excitement and admiration for the tiny boy beside him.
“You know what this means” Jakob said softly, “I’m controlling my powers now, not the master. We can get to Crystal a lot faster than we can, and we can get her out of there”
His face growing serious, Brian rubbed the back of his neck anxiously.
“But Jakob” he said, “Even if we do get Crystal out of the headquarters, what’s going to happen to her. Her adoptive parents left her behind when they moved away form Berkeley, and we have no way of contacting them. The whole world thinks she murdered Mr Badger; even her teachers said she was violent”
“I know” Jakob murmured, recollecting the conversation with Miss Marks the day Adrienne had told him about Brian. It seemed several lifetimes ago.
“And” Brian continued, “She can’t come with me, it’s too dangerous”
“She can stay with me” Jakob said, “She my sister, and Joey’s. It’s not like…my Dad’s going to be there anymore”
A silence washed over the pair, both lost in their own thoughts. Recalling the night he had first discovered exactly who Crystal was; Jakob felt a lump rise in his throat. He remembered comparing the situation to the life of Laurel Weir, a girl at his school. Only now that he’d been pulled into the Master’s plot and flown through the air with Brian, Laurel’s family seemed almost ordinary.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Jakob noticed a filthy homeless man shuffle past the bench and sit down against a tree, hugging his knees to keep out the raw wind. He unwrapped what appeared to be a sandwich, although it was so thick with mould and dirt it was hard to tell what it was. Noticing Jakob staring, he nodded politely and took a bite, seemingly relishing it.
“We better get going then” Brian said, “Do you think you could fly us all the way to the headquarters? Or maybe we should go for a train, there’s a station just around the corner.”
Barely listening, Jakob walked slowly towards the man, breathing deeply as he realised who he was. Ignoring Brian’s calls, Jakob sat down beside the vagrant.
“Hello sonny” he said kindly, “You alright”
Jakob nodded, smiling.
“I remember you” he said, “And I still have to say sorry for running away from you at Halloween. I was…a bit upset”
Thinking back, the tramp’s suddenly stretched into a grin as he recalled the frightened little boy in a skeleton outfit.
“Yeah” he grunted, “I always wanted to go trick-or-treating as a kid. I wanted to be superman. Even now, when I’m alone here at night, I imagine what’d be like to fly”
Crouching beside the two, Brian caught the last line of the conversation and laughed. It was cosy, homely even, the three of them chuckling away together under the tree in the park. For a moment, Jakob almost forgot his troubles.
“Hey” he said suddenly, “How about lunch, I haven’t had anything to eat since before my Uncle Mike found Crystal”
For the first time, Jakob realised how hungry he was. Winking at Brian, Jakob turned his attention to an ice-cream van, parked near the swings. The vendor, having sold nothing for hours, had taken a walk to the nearby shops, leaving his van behind.
Curling his hands into fists, Jakob willed the fold-away counter to open. His eyes grew hot, glowing as sparks danced across their surface, filling his head with stars which glittered in the darkness. And then, all at once, the counter opened.
“What do you fancy?” Jakob asked the stunned tramp
He shook his head, mouth open in shock and unable to speak. Chuckling quietly to himself, Jakob concentrated on the van’s freezer, mentally pulling open its heavy doors. Shaking all over but beaming with pride, Jakob watched as three Cornettos drifted towards them, comically winding their way in and out of trees and coming to a halt several inches from Jakob, Brian, and the homeless man.
Wordlessly, each reached out for the ice-cream, licking it apprehensively to check it was real. But after several noisy slurps, each of them settled against the tree and devoured their snack eagerly.
“Well” the man said, crunching the last of his cone, “You got magical powers or what?”
“Something like that” Jakob said, “But we really have to go now”
He got to his feet, brushing the grass from the back of his coat, and looked at Brian.
“I think I can get us to the headquarters” he said confidently, “What about the master, will he be there?”
Brian shook his head.
“It’ll take him hours to get back from this side of the town” Brian replied, “But we can cut over the hills and be there in an hour, maybe even less if the weather stays dry”
Turning to face the tramp, and suddenly feeling as though a tennis ball was lodged in his throat, Jakob mumbled his goodbyes.
“Aye, well” the man said, “Thanks for that, it was a nice ice-cream sonny. You off to save the world or something?”
He looked a little wistful, perhaps realizing that this little boy was going to achieve what he had longed for all his life. His eyes full of tears, Jakob clambered after Brian onto a nearby bench and stood on its back.
“Think you can get off the ground from this height?” Brian asked, “Or do you want to go up the tree?”
“This is fine” Jakob choked, not daring to look back at the homeless man who had retreated into a pathetic, curled up ball. Rubbing his face with the rough surface of his muddy coat, Jakob jerked his hand free from Brian’s tight grip.
“Hang on” he muttered, sliding from the bench and running back to the tree.
The man’s swollen eyes opened at the sudden noise, and he smiled crookedly.
“Saved the world yet sonny?” he asked weakly
Jakob shook his head and offer a tiny hand to the filthy, smelly bundle.
“Come with us” he said softly.