The Miranda Contract (11 page)

Luke snapped his jaws tight, grabbing the man’s arm worse than any pitbull. But instead of calling out in pain or trying to shake his arm free, Suleyman brought his other hand down on Luke’s head.

A flash of red mushroomed behind his eyes but he didn’t let go.

Suleyman stood up, Luke still attached to his arm, but hanging limp, on the edge of consciousness. His eyes were bulging, he knew, and he wouldn’t last long, but in the last moments he thought he saw Dan.

The kid was stepping his way over the rubble of the cars, the celebrity girl holding his hand and a third person struggling to push aside the doors to the fast food store.

Luke pressed his jaws tighter.

It was good to see Dan again. After all those years.

The Mad Russian sat again in front of the screen, his hands clutching the sides of the chair. There was a burning smell from the leather and he pushed the energy from inside himself down into the chair and further into the bedrock below. His eyes watched the scene a few blocks away. He could see Danya, scratched but healthy. He could see the girl, too, even less injured, and she was getting into a car, so close to escape again.

And the Russian felt anger like the old days, welling inside him.

The air thickened, a blue vortex swirling around him, pulling the interior of the room into the center, transforming it all into energy. The desk, the lamps, the chairs and wine were all consumed by the maelstrom.

He sat like a husk, his mouth open, his tongue thick and close to his lips. He couldn’t stand it anymore, the sense of losing Danya to the world. And the world had already taken so much away from him.

He let his head fall backward and his eyes rolled with the motion, blacking out the room for a moment. When they came back into focus he exhaled slowly. As his body relaxed, the energy in the room centered in his chest and then lower, and finally he pushed it downward, through the chair, into the ground.

A wild thing, it thundered its way towards the streets above, punching through the rock like a wave, unstoppable. The world shook above and below the surface, and the Russian clenched his jaw, tasting blood, forcing it further and further, whipping it into a frenzy of mad energy.

When it erupted from below, the streets of Melbourne were bathed in a harsh, hateful light. It exploded through the streets, through buildings and brought everything undone.

“Yes,” the Russian said. “Now it is my turn.”

Chapter 16

Dan

M
iranda was doing
well, considering she had just escaped a head on collision with two thrown cars. Dan pulled her up through the broken doors of Birdie’s and down to the curb where Tabitha’s car was waiting.

“Get in,” the cleaner said. Her piggy tails had come undone sometime between Dan and Miranda crashing through the front glass-panes of the shop and then convincing her to help them get out of the city. Dan was amazed how unflappable she had turned out to be.

Miranda stumbled a little and then steadied herself against the car, giving a quick glance over her shoulder towards Sully and the Asian kid who Dan thought was probably Luke Ma. Sully was trying to shake the kid off his arm.

“We don’t have time,” Tabitha shouted. Miranda nodded and ducked her head to get inside. There was a link there, between Miranda and her bodyguard, and Dan wondered whether it might be better for her to stay with Sully rather than risk it with a hopeless guy like him. Tabitha revved the engine and it bunny-hopped forward, letting out a bang from the exhaust.

Miranda fell into the seat and clutched her bag to her chest. Her eyes were looking forward, in shock. Tabitha regained control of her car and lifted her hand to Dan.

“Are you coming or not, Galkin?”

He stepped back, away from the car. Looking down at his hands he saw the bracelet on his wrist glow slightly. The hairs on his arms lifted. He felt a hum growing in his ears and as he turned back to the street he could feel the rising wave of energy unleashed from his grandfather. His fingers spread outward, his palms up. Above him the sky darkened even further and clouds started to flash with lightning, although it was so high up that no bolts could be seen.

The door to the car slammed.

Dan stumbled back to the street, his eyes still looking upward as his hands began to glow. It was as if the energy wave was honing in on him. The ground began to shift and then everything erupted in a white light. A column of energy shot all around him and into the sky, bathing him in electricity. It was like being born, he thought, losing track of everything else around him.

A second later it was gone.

Dan dropped to his knees and cleared his vision. The ground was jagged, the road ripped up and buildings all around him had been pushed backward by the blast.

Tabitha’s car was gone.

He pulled himself up again and staggered towards where it had been only seconds before, but there was a chasm, a rupture in the street. Canyons criss-crossed all around him, and then he saw the car, its front section jutting out of the ground. Dan got to the car and grabbed for the door, but the rain made everything slippery. A tremor ran through the ground and the car shifted, precariously tilting. It was hard to see how far the fissure went, but darkness spread below.

Miranda’s hands pressed against the window.

They looked at each other. Silent. Rain dripped off his face, but time stopped.

There was movement in the reflection of the window, a sliding object. Dan turned around slowly, his hands still gripping the door.

A tow truck turned sideways as it slid down the street, kicking up a spray as it swept through the flooded intersection. Dan pulled on the car door again, pressing his boot against the outside, his fingers slipping on the handle. The rain kept slamming into him, the wind whipping the trash and grit from the street. The truck lifted on to the curb across from Dan and collected the side of a sports store. More people spilled out on to the streets, part panic and part gawking.

Above him, Dan felt the rumbling of a helicopter but in a second there was a flash and a boom which flattened him against the car. The Russian was taking pot-shots at the media. Dan’s breath fogged up the window and for a moment he came eye to eye with Miranda again. Her palms were still pressed against the glass. She wasn’t screaming, wasn’t losing it like he had feared. She just looked at him with her sad, brown eyes. The car lurched again and sank deeper into the fissure.

His fingers slipped back around the handle. The rain seeped through his t-shirt and jeans and the electricity which hummed under his skin snapped and crackled. He had never been comfortable with using his powers in the wet, always worried that he’d end up short-circuiting his brain or detonating into oblivion like his father.

But Miranda was slipping away.

He released his hand, fingers not working, not getting any kind of hold on the slick metal handle. He felt the tingling crawl up his arm towards his chest, the electricity returning to the center, condensing, building upon itself. There was so little of the energy remaining in his system. Since the hotel explosion Dan had been drained and couldn’t pull new energy into his body without immense pain.

And then Sully was beside him, his hands grabbing the car and lifting it back to the surface. Dan saw the bloodied mess on the man’s arm where Luke had bitten him, but there was no sign of Luke anymore. Dan didn’t ask. The bodyguard pulled open the door and Miranda spilled out into his arms. Tabitha crawled across the handbrake and stick to the passenger side. She looked up at Dan through her ruined hair, her wide eyes showing a hint of terror. He helped her out and then stumbled into the rain.

“I wasn’t sure about that,” she said. “We almost…”

They looked at the street but there was hardly anything to show what it had been like minutes before. Birdie’s was on fire, cars were crushed and the power poles were sticking up at all kinds of angles.

“What’s going on?” Miranda asked, her voice cutting through Dan’s silent wonder as he looked around him. Sully wrapped a jacket around her shoulders but she couldn’t keep still. Her face was streaked with black, but Dan wasn’t sure if it was makeup or ash.

“We have to get you out of here,” Sully said simply. He looked at Dan and then around at the devastation. Dan had the feeling that he was being judged. “It is not a safe place.”

“I want to go home,” Miranda said. “I just want to go home, Sully.”

“They’re after you aren’t they?” Tabitha said, arms crossed, and looking at Dan. “You and the girl.”

“It happened before,” Sully added. “Do you have any enemies, Mister Galkin?”

“None that want to blow up Melbourne,” he said, although he wondered whether that was entirely true. “It’s got something to do with this.” He lifted his hand and turned it so the bracelet could be easily seen, despite the fact his skin was now streaked with ash and grease and rain.

“It’s him,” Miranda said. “It’s your grandfather, isn’t it?”

Dan shrugged.

Sully didn’t seem so sure.

“You have to get out of here,” Tabitha said. “The big guy is right. The streets are not safe – for anyone.”

She put a hand on Dan’s shoulder and smiled a little. There was kindness there. Dan felt his throat tighten. It was like everything was falling away and all he’d be left with was some kind of crying mess. He sniffed and looked away, thumping the bracelet against the car.

“You have to look after her,” Tabitha said. “You know that. I can tell.”

“He’s not looking after anyone,” Miranda called out, checking her phone, cleaning its screen.

“You know that,” Tabitha continued, ignoring Miranda. “Don’t you have someone who knows about all this crap?”

Dan nodded. “But the people I know aren’t the good guys,” he said.

Almost on cue the world shifted strangely. It was as if they had blinked and in the short time their eyes had been closed, the world had changed subtly. Tabitha was standing slightly further away from Dan than she had been before; the fires licking through the cars back at Birdie’s had leapt in intensity; and Sully was on the ground, head down and bleeding from a gash to his forehead which had dislodged his turban.

The world shifted again. Another blink.

Tabitha was covering her mouth, eyes wide as she looked at Sully. Dan had spun around and was looking away, Miranda had vanished. Sully had got to his feet again but his left arm looked useless.

A third blink, and Dan knew he was facing Grandfather Time: a drinking buddy of the Mad Russian. The man had appeared on the street, although it wasn’t really in his character to be so bold. His legs were very thin, but long, and the tuxedo he wore seemed to cling to his narrow frame. The top hat which sat above the man’s rather grey face, was tall and followed the lines of his body. He held a cane in his gloved hand and looked around the street with a casual air.

Dan felt Miranda bump into him, her hands holding onto his shirt as she kept close, keeping the chaos just out of sight. She was breathing hard, pulling on his shirt with each heave.

Sully wiped blood from his face and gave Dan a single nod of his head before turning to face the gentleman in the middle of the road. At first Dan had no idea what the nod meant, or even whether it was a nod or simply the man’s way of shaking himself back into a clear state of mind.

Then Sully threw his fist in a wide arc and nearly collected Grandfather Time’s head; but there was no chance of landing any blow on a man who could stop time. The air between the two men shimmered and Sully’s fist slowed, almost frame by frame, until Sully was suspended in a frozen position.

Grandfather Time stepped around Sully and looked him up and down slowly, taking in the bodyguard’s face and clothing. Then he stepped further past Sully and stood facing Dan and Miranda, both of his hands neatly clasping the cane.

“Good evening, Daniel,” the man said, and he raised one of his hands to gently tip the brim of his top hat. “There is a matter your grandfather wishes to discuss with you… and the young lady in your custody.”

Dan stepped back, Miranda so close that they moved together, fumbling over the broken road. He looked at Sully again, frozen and so vulnerable. Grandfather Time watched them retreat, his eyebrows raised only slightly.

“Do you expect to simply walk away from this discussion, my boy?”

“I don’t expect anything,” Dan shot back, still stepping backward. They were at the street corner next to a car park. He tried to pull his mind back to the electrical world, the second world he knew so well, but there was too much going on around him. The bracelet was sending a ringing sensation through his body and into his ears, distracting him from searching the surroundings for something to draw upon. There were electricity lines everywhere, of course, but he couldn’t make a connection.

The air shimmered again.

A hand pressed down on Dan’s shoulder and he winced under the pressure as Grandfather Time appeared suddenly behind him, his fingers digging in to Dan’s skin. With a twist, the old man pulled Dan down to a kneeling position. He held Miranda around the wrist with his other gloved hand and she was pulling at him with both hands.

“It is time,” he said simply. Dan looked around and up to the man’s eyes and he saw the distinctive hourglass pupils. He had first seen them years ago and they had given him nightmares for weeks. He tried to twist himself free but the man held him fast.

And then there was a sharp crack and Grandfather Time staggered backward, his fingers lifting from Dan’s shoulder and clutching frantically at his own. A second cracking sound followed.

“Don’t just stand there!” Tabitha shouted as she leaned across her car, leveling a handgun over the roof. She fired a third shot and Dan dropped to the ground as he saw the flash, but the bullet went wide.

Grandfather Time looked at his hand, stained red from the shoulder wound. Dan had never seen the man pause for so long.

“Look after her Galkin!” Tabitha shouted and fired again, the fourth shot connecting with Grandfather Time’s leg. He collapsed to the ground, his leg snapping out to the side.

Dan reached out and took Miranda’s hand, pulling her quickly to her feet and then across the road to the car park. The two of them leapt over debris and through the boom gates, the sound of another gunshot behind them.

As he passed the second rate lighting in the car park, Dan ran a surge of energy through them, and then through the rest of the lights contained in the building; blowing them into darkness. His reserves were nearly dry. He’d never felt so hollow. They reached the stairwell and Dan pushed Miranda ahead, the heavy clank of the door closing behind them leaving them in total darkness.