Quest (The Quest Saga)

11 - At The End Of The Sand

Dean didn’t want to answer the door, he was too distraught. It felt to him like his Dad had been taken all over again. He made his way to the door, one foot at a time.

“Dean? Are you there?” The voice hit him like a slap in the face. He ran to the door

Nearly pulling it off it’s hinges Dean embraced the girls in one swift leap, nearly knocking them like bowling pins.

They hugged for a long time. Taryn showed him her crystal, it was the last one remaining out of the three. Dean told them about the voices, the ‘Here they come’ chant but the girls had heard it too.

“Cyba is probably coming to get that.” Katherine added, pointing to the crystal. The clouds moved faster than normal, the wind had picked up too. The three were too busy discussing what to do to notice though. Cyba was most definitely on his way. However the clouds were swirling, they were going down an imaginary plug hole.

“What is that?’ Katherine asked nervously. The clouds were swirling faster and faster, going down the plug hole with lightning speed.

“Here they come.” Dean growled with a venom, he was plotting - he was going to get revenge. The girls would stop him he knew, he mustn’t tell them.

The beach was beautiful at this time, late in the evening. You would probably call it night time but it was late summer and the sunlight was still prominently burning the sky a deep red. However that was to the east, to the west was a wildly different picture; the pier’s grey silhouette was dotted with white twinkly lights that counterfeited the stars once the sun had set, except that tonight the stars wouldn’t be visible - because of the swirling, chaotic storm clouds overhead.

The seagulls were avoiding the clouds. Which was one sign of danger surely, they all had migrated to the east side of the beach, culling and sitting neatly on the green seaweed encrusted rock pools and dunking their curious little heads into the water to nap at the crabs. The tide was out, at its further most point, it would be back in soon and they would have to migrate again, it was a good thing seagulls had little luggage, the removals would cost a fortune.

The clouds seemed to be waiting for the tide to come in. If it was possible for clouds to wait, thought Dean, he decided they not because usually the clouds didn’t hesitate to pour down on him when they could have waited just a minute longer to allow him to reach the safety of his home. The sun had eased under the horizon a little more and the green-yellow light was pushing the deep red further down. The sky was a dark blue which turned ebony black as you reached the clouds, like a bottomless noir abyss, it then occurred to Dean that perhaps it was a hole in the sky, and the clouds really were getting sucked in. The worst part was he knew what was coming through.

He tapped Katherine on the shoulder, “How do you work the crystals? How do you fire them?”

“Just hold it tight and think about shooting the object, the rest will come naturally.”

Taryn joined the conversation, but she was making a big mistake, “Where’s your Dad?” Dean’s eye burned with the hurt and pain of an orphan. Taryn choked on her words with surprise, she blurted out her justification as quickly as she could.

“Cyba said you got him back.”

“Oh, did he now?” Dean's voice was stone dead, but his eyes were manic. He hands moved before his brain could think, He needed a moment. Just to think. To sort his thoughts out. But it was too late. Taryn was on the ground. Yelling. Crying. She was rubbing the back of her head. Then. Yes! He had it. The crystal. He ran off.

“Dean! Dean! Oh my god! Taryn are you all right?” It had been to sudden for Katherine to take in, she was kneeling net to Taryn now, helping her, her mind drifted to Dean though.