The Crystal by Jones M (ready to read books .TXT) 📖

of it being heard was eased by the noise the people made below me. The erboon's blood oozed onto the knives and jumped onto my skin and clothes like a small fountain. After some more furious stabbing, the erboon stopped fighting. Its body gave up as it succumbed to death. Then the worst began to occur. 

It started falling.

I flew down with it, trying to hold it in air, but to no avail.

"We see you and we're underneath you! Chant an invisibility spell on yourself, but make sure that we can see you," Justin spoke in my mind. I didn't waste any time in chanting the spell.

Then I could see that I was about to fall onto something, or someone.

I noticed Logan, Selena and Justin back off.

"Let it go!" Selena screamed. I did as she said, finally gaining control of my levitation powers. In three seconds, the erboon hit the ground with a loud thud. I slowly flew back onto the ground to stare at its form. Then I reversed the inconspicuous spell.

I nudged it with my shoe, checking if it was dead. I got no response from it, proving so. My eyes widened as blood kept oozing from its form.

"What the hell?" Logan asked as he stared back and forth at the erboon and me with a look of shock.

I suddenly collapsed onto the concrete floor, clenching my sides that had been injured.

"Emery!" the three people shouted before kneeling next to me. Selena rose my shirt up to inspect the damage. Her hands covered her mouth, proving that the injury was worse than I thought.

Logan moved his hands onto my wounds. I flinched at first, not sure of what he was doing. Then I felt it. The pain was subsiding until it was no more. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion as I looked at the spot where Logan was touching. He removed his hands, showing no claw marks on my form.

My eyes widened in astonishment. Logan could heal?

"Emery, we need to go," Justin said. "Logan has a concert to perform in five minutes." I swiftly stood up from the floor before holding onto the erboon's dead body. My eyes widened at the sight of blood on the ground. I chanted a spell to collect all of it, and it was weirdly floating around the air.

"Thank you for being around," Justin told Logan with a smile. He grabbed onto my hand and Selena’s. I got a glimpse of Logan’s bandmates approaching before we teleported to Crystalia.

CHAPTER 10

Emery’s P.O.V

Selena, Justin and I teleported to the outside of Crystalia’s castle. We were heading inside just as the Queen and Prince Erick were heading towards us.

“Are you okay?” they asked me at the same time, observing my form for any injuries.

“An erboon stabbed me with its claws, but Logan healed me before any damage got worse. I’m okay,” I replied. They gave me confused looks before sighing in relief.

“Let’s go to my study room,” the Queen said. “We can talk more about the incident when we’re in there. I don’t want wandering ears when we have this talk.”

We followed the Queen until we reached a room that resembled a library. It had navy blue walls with several book shelves and a window with a view of the afternoon sun and the mountains. It was past midday, and the sun was on its course to set.

We all settled down around a table in the middle of the room.

“We need to find out who has been controlling the erboons,” Erick started the conversation. “Not only did they try to barge their way into Crystalia, but they also risked our exposure to the whole world!”

“Risked? It is too late! Almost everyone in New York already saw the erboons,” Selena stated as a fact. “Let’s just hope it does not reach the news.”

The Queen sighed as she thought silently.

“I have no idea of what we can do to reverse the damage that has already been done.”

“We could wipe their memories of the erboons,” Justin suggested.

“To do that, we’ll have to wipe out their memories of the day. The possible outcomes would be that people will believe their times and dates are wrong. Or they’ll catch up to what had occurred. But then, the chances of the latter happening are very small.” Erick said, taking a moment to think through his brother’s suggestion. “That could work, bro!”

“At least that would be dealt with,” Erick’s mother said. “But what would be done about the erboons and whoever is controlling them?”

“To deal with that, I believe we’ll have to go to Eva’s castle,” I said, receiving no response for a moment.

“No, we can’t,” Justin said, refusing adamantly with a fearful expression. “That’s basically the erwiches’ hideout! We’ll be walking towards our own death like a cow going to a slaughterhouse!”

“There has to be some other way of dealing with this,” Selena said as she stared at all of us with worry.

“There isn’t. The erboons are always around Eva’s castle. We don’t know how it looks like in there, so we basically can’t teleport there,” I stated.

“If there is one thing I know, it’s that witches are afraid of erwiches and erboons,” Justin’s mother said. She rose up from her seat and walked around the room in thought.

“I know what we can do,” she said. “Emery will have to go to the castle.”

“What?”

“NO!”

“Are you crazy? She’ll be killed in there!”

Sounds of protest danced around the air as I processed what the Queen said. My heart thudded as fear grasped my heart with a firm clutch. I did not know what propelled her to say something like that. If there was something I was sure of, it was that the Queen was smart in making decisions. The one she had just made seemed unexpected. But then, I was the one who came up with the suggestion in the first place.

“I didn’t say that she has to go alone,” the Queen shouted, silencing everyone.

“I’ll send her with some of my guards.”

“You’re crazy, mother,” Erick said, earning a surprised gasp from me. I didn’t expect that from him. His mother gave him a look of disapproval before focusing on the conversation at hand.

“She can’t go there!”

“It’s out of my hands, Erick!” the Queen replied. “Think about it. She is the crystal. She has more powers than any of us combined. I have faith that Emery will eradicate the cause of the problem and we’ll have little to no dead witches.”

“She just discovered that she was a crystal two weeks ago!” Justin countered, joining his brother in the argument. “You have to give her some time to get used to that fact. She needs to practice her powers and to identify what they are, including their strengths and weaknesses. What if she dies, mother? I can’t lose her like we lost Dad.”

Tears clouded my vision as the terrible memory played through my mind. I shook it off before I could recall the pain that I felt on that day.

“I know, Darling. I consider Emery as a daughter. But even if she doesn’t go, we might lose all of our guards if we send them by themselves. With her, we have an advantage.”

The Queen let out a stressed breath before she patted her hands on her sons’ shoulders.

“I’ll leave you four to talk about this among yourselves,” she said before walking out of the room.

Logan's P.O.V

“Where were you guys?” I asked once I saw Liam, Harry, Ethan and Zane join me on the stage. Our fans screamed once they saw the other four emerge. Selena, Justin and Emery had teleported about a minute ago, and my mind was currently fighting on whether to tell my mates the incident that involved the erboon.

“We were busy getting dressed. Why, did something happen?” Harry asked with raised eyebrows. I looked at our fans before I faced him. I decided it was a bad idea to tell him and the rest about the erboons then. I would have to inform them later.

I blinked at him before shaking my head in disagreement. He smiled at me before facing our audience. Then the concert commenced.

***********************************************************************************************

“Thank you, everyone!” Liam shouted, struggling to close the bus door. I was with him—well, behind him. The fans were a screaming mess, some even crying.

“I love you, Liam!”

“I want to have your kids Logan!”

“Come in my mouth, Harry!”

Trevor suddenly appeared in the crowd, struggling to pass through the horde of screaming people.

“Let me through!” he said, pushing past some girls who were trying to enter the tour bus. Liam and I backed away as he jumped into the bus. In an instant, he had the door closed. Liam and I looked at each other before giving our bodyguard a look of disbelief. I couldn’t believe he closed it in less than a minute whereas Liam and I struggled for five minutes. It did not help that we were exhausted from the tour.

Our bodyguard ignored the look, proceeding towards the front of the bus.

Liam and I walked to a black sofa on our right. We collapsed on it, sighing in exhaustion.

“That was exhausting,” Liam said.

“I know, right?” Ethan said in exasperation. “I never knew I could sing for an extra hour than usual.”

The concert took about six hours on that day.

“Sing?” Zane said in disbelief. “Try handling the fans. I love them, but they can sometimes be a bit crazy,” he said as he motioned to his ripped shirt. Apart from that, his styled hair was ruffled so much it looked disfigured. The boys and I shook with laughter as we pointed at him.

Just as we were leaving the stage, one of our fans jumped on Zane and started attacking him with kisses. She had dug her fingers in his hair and almost had sex with him in front of everyone!

“They do love us,” Harry said with a smile, earning a nudge from Zane’s elbow. Harry grunted as he clenched his side.

“Sorry, Zane,” I said with a smile, earning a shrugging wave of a hand from him.

“So what was it that you wanted to tell us before the concert, Logan?” Harry asked through a few grunts of pain, shocking the hell out of me.

“What? Didn't you think I would remember? It must be something for you to not tell us before we perform because we know you say anything before we perform.”

It was true. I could say and do the silliest things on tour. Sometimes I wouldn’t have a censor on my mouth.

I shifted in my seat as I felt uneasy with the information I held.

“Okay. I didn’t want to tell you guys before we started performing, but Emery was in the concert with Justin and Selena.” Everyone jumped towards me and looked at me as if I were some large screen TV.

“What was she doing there?” Liam asked.

“There were erboons in New York. She was fighting one right above the stage.” I proceeded to tell them the injuries she had and the fact that I healed her.

“Is she okay?” Ethan asked, earning a bored look from me. I couldn’t believe they skipped the part where I healed her.

“She’s okay,” I replied. “She teleported with Justin and Selena after they dealt with them.”

“We need to find out what’s going on.”

“Wait. The erboons were in New York. How did they come to Chicago?” Ethan asked with furrowed eyebrows. Thinking about it, it was quite strange. It wasn’t like they could fly super fast and be anywhere on earth within minutes. Right?

Right?

“Guys!” Trevor called out, interrupting Ethan and making us still for a moment. Ever since Martin, Chris and some guards from Crystalia joined the tour for one week to protect us from erwiches, Trevor had been suspicious. We had told him that they were our friends from New York, but he did not believe us. So we had to be extra careful on the conversations we had about witches and magic. At that moment, we panicked because we thought he heard what we were saying.

“Have you seen the news?” I mentally sighed in relief as my bandmates relaxed.

“Does it concern us?” Liam asked. Trevor gave us a confused look.

“No, but you may find it interesting,” he said as he motioned to the flat screen TV in our tour bus that was turned on. There was a woman saying something about a weird flying creature that resembled a large baboon. The boys and I moved closer to the TV, only for our mouths to drop in shock.

That’s what Harry saw up close? That’s what Emery was fighting?

“What do you think they are?” Trevor asked.

“I don’t know,” I lied. Then there was another video of a flying woman