Twisted Secrets: Twisted Magic Book 6, page 4
Below me, Randall and Sasmita were shouting, but I tuned them out. Sachin was screeching too, but I had to focus. The spikes would shift again.
This was quite the security system to keep Creed’s hostage out of reach.
After I worked myself on top of the spike, I pushed off to the next one, above and over. My feet dangled a moment before I managed a good grasp and swung myself up.
My back felt compressed, and my shoulders felt loose and fiery, like they didn’t quite sit right anymore. My body was not designed for so much defiance to gravity, but here I was.
I heard the rumbling scratch right before the spikes pulled from under me. Midair, I righted myself and landed feet first onto the length of another spike. I toppled forward, arms at my side, and threw my weight against the rock wall to steady myself. With the spikes scattered around, I couldn’t easily climb the wall as originally planned. Plus, there were no ports, no indicators of where the spikes would come from, so it seemed safer to stay on their top instead of risking getting one right through the abdomen as I clung to the wall.
Slowly but surely, I made my way to the top of the wall, climbing from spike to spike. Occasionally, they would retract and knock me down a level, but I kept onward, ever close to the small cage where Sachin gripped the bars, watching my every move with heavy breaths.
At length, I neared the top. Balanced tentatively, hunched on the spike just below his cage, I reached up with one arm, slow and careful, and grabbed a bar. He scooted back, giving me space with the bars, his back pressed against the far wall in the cage. The sickly green light that filled the space washed him out, made him look unwell. I hoped it was just the light.
The spike under me jerked back into the wall. I yelped, even though I knew it was coming, and grabbed another bar with my free hand. I brought my legs up, pressing my soles against the rock wall, but unable to find purchase.
I only had one real option here, and that was to break the bars with my magic, which would send me falling to the hard ground far below. Busting out just a few of the bars wasn’t going to be enough for Sachin to squeeze out of the small opening and we didn’t have the resources for a second chance.
“Hey, bud,” I said between gasps for air, my arms burning. “I’m going to knock these bars out, then you’re going to have to climb down, okay? Just like I did, but in reverse. Be careful, don’t rush. As soon as you’re partway down, we’ll time it so you can jump and we’ll catch you, got it?”
He nodded along with my words, but worry sparked in his dark eyes. He looked so much like Sasmita, including the slight pout of her lips, which I had not noticed until now.
I brought up magic, straight into the first bar in my grasp. It shattered into pieces, and I swung back a little. As my fingers on the other bar slipped, I grabbed the next one with my free hand and, bracing my feet on the wall, ruptured the next bar. Then the next. Three more to go, then the final that would send me falling. Hopefully I would be able to catch a spike before they caught me.
As I knocked out the next two bars, Sachin crept forward, prepared to start his descent. When I busted the second to final bar, the spikes below me shot out. I pulled my legs up closer, knees bent as I pressed into the wall.
“You ready?” I asked.
He nodded, leaning forward to survey the ground, and the spikes.
“Be careful,” I whispered as I felt for my magic.
“I think I can get through,” he said.
I estimated the space I had created. “You sure?”
“Yeah, think so,” he said. He pushed his shoulders forward, measuring the width between the final bar and the wall of the opening. “Yeah, I can do it. You go down first.”
I hesitated, but I didn’t have much strength left in my hands to keep clinging to the front of the cage. If I was going to climb down the spikes, now was the time with one right under me. The one last bar wasn’t going to keep him from wiggling out, and the idea of not plummeting through the spikes pleased my vital organs.
Still holding onto the bar, I straightened my legs until my soles touched the length of the spike below me. It wouldn’t remain there forever, but if I could just get Sachin started down the perilous climb, we could wing it from there.
“Okay, come out and I’ll guide you down,” I said. “We have to move quickly but carefully. You’ve seen the way the spikes come and go.”
He nodded and started forward. I reached up for him to help him out. A sharp sound echoed around the room behind us.
Sachin vanished.
I halted, arm still out to hold him. I blinked into the sickly green light, trying to see what I had missed.
Sachin was gone.
“What—”
The spike below me pulled in, cutting off my words as it dropped me through the air. I landed back first on top of the length of a spike. Air whooshed my lungs. I groaned as the spaces between my spine throbbed from falling a quarter of the way down the wall before finding a spike to catch me.
With effort, I rolled over, pulling my arms under me so I could grab the spike as I repositioned, then dangled my legs over the edge. No spikes were in immediate reach, but if I moved fast enough I could land on one farther down before the next row came out.
This would have been much more difficult with the kid—where the hell did he go?
I released my hold just as the spikes pulled in. Nothing waited to break my fall. I braced for impact, landing hard on my soles. New spikes jutted from the wall. I dropped to the ground as one pushed out over my head. It would have taken me, right through the back of the skull.
I scurried away from the wall, toward the shadows of my friends.
“Sachin disappeared,” I said, breathing hard. “He was there and then—”
A glowing, quivering light had appeared beyond us. As my eyes adjusted, I let out a small, low sound.
Randall and Sasmita spun around to face the same direction as me.
A few feet away, Creed stood, cocooned in the same sickly green light of the cell. From his hips, tentacles of magic had sprouted, and they stretched and wiggled, testing out their existence.
I silenced the words on my tongue to call to Randall and Sasmita. The tentacle-magic. Since the day Eliza Brown had shown up, these people had appeared, hunting the dark ones too. They had knocked down the old house in New Orleans and resurrected poor dead Arthur in Haven Rock to find the necromancer. They had been sneaking around Egypt for Faridoon, too.
Given proximity, we could only assume they had been involved in kidnapping and somehow changing Fiona.
Was Creed involved with them?
With one tentacle, he held Sachin off the ground, coiled around his chest. Sachin dug and pushed at the tentacles, but they didn’t react.
“Give him back,” Sasmita snapped, magic arcing up her arms to her elbows. “I did as you asked.”
“You lied,” Creed said with venom. “Look what you made her!”
“It was a ridiculous request,” Sasmita said, voice raising. Her eyes flashed with the same fury as her magic.
“It was the only way,” he said. He sounded strained, distraught.
Somewhere in the distance, a crash filled the air, but it didn’t quite reach us in intensity.
Without warning, Sasmita charged forward. She caught a free tentacle, unleashing her magic. One of the other tentacles pulled back and swiped at her. It caught her in the ribs. She stumbled but lunged forward again. A tentacle swept toward her again, but she ducked under it. She slammed her palms into his chest, releasing electrical magic that sparked and arced through his torso and down his limbs.
The tentacles swung again, in turn, as if they moved of their own volition. Creed was their host, and they worked to defend him as he stood nearly motionless otherwise.
Sasmita caught one of the incoming tentacles and unleashed her magic. The tentacle recoiled, tight against Creed, and then sloughed off his side as if it had been separated with a knife.
Gritting her teeth, she reached up and grabbed the tentacle holding Sachin. She hesitated, and I knew it was because she feared her wave of magic, directed at the tentacle, would harm him too.
Another tentacle swung at her. She caught it with her free hand, magic dancing down her arm and into the tentacle. It spasmed and squirmed until it snapped back away from her. Another descended, coiling around her waist and slinging her into the air. She dangled yards above the ground, but her gaze fixed on Sachin, held up several feet away.
Her blue magic disappeared. Then fire welled up her arms and she slammed her burning palms into the tentacle tightening around her. It pulsed and squirmed under her attack. She bore down, and smoke curled up from the points of contact. With a flick, it shook her free. She dropped down, twisting until she landed chest down on the tentacle extended with Sachin in its grasp. In one fluid motion, she lit herself on fire, her magic consuming her until she existed only as a dark shadow among the flames.
The tentacle shifted and shook, but she tightened her arms and thighs around the squirming appendage. Smoke rose up as the tentacle caught fire. It snapped like a whip, flinging both Sasmita and Sachin through the air.
They landed with a small splash in the stream.
Randall and I took off toward them as Creed spun around to face where Sasmita flailed, fire extinguished, to gather up her son from the water. His body lay limp and she tugged him to her chest as she turned to face Creed head on, wet hair in her face, the fire in her eyes brighter than any magic.
She would destroy Creed before he had a chance to take her son again.
“You have betrayed the goddess,” Creed said with a snarl as more tentacles emerged from his flesh. “I am her disciple, her protector. You are to be—”
Something enormous and dark dropped from the ceiling out of sight. It landed on Creed. In the flashes of light as Sasmita held up an engulfed hand, I made out the monster goddess wrestling Creed to the ground. Her jaws unhinged and she plunged her mouth into his chest, as if rooting for something delicious. The next moment, she yanked her head back, blood dripping from the still-beating heart in her maw.
Creed crumbled against the ground, and his tentacles of magic vanished.
The goddess monster shook her head and gulped down the heart. Then, she scanned the room for her next sacrifice.
“Run.” I didn’t yell, barely spoke loud enough to be heard.
None of us had to be told though.
Sasmita was on her feet, Sachin’s unconscious form in her grasp as she stumbled out of the water and took off into the caverns. Randall and I were right behind her. The monster goddess’ footsteps pounded against the floor as she pursued us.
We veered toward the direction of the door, the portal that would lead us back to the office in the ramen shop. At least, if the door was where we remembered it to be. I had been back and forth through this expanse and gotten twisted around.
Then we were back under the lamps. My soles crunched through glass of the fallen light that had nearly ended my adventure here early on. We kept running. I thought to offer Sasmita help with Sachin, but she didn’t slow down. I barely had the breath to keep going, let alone form words.
Finally, the simple thin door came into view, built right into the rock wall that ran endlessly to either side. I had no idea what we thought we were doing, but as we approached the door, I reached for the knob. The monster goddess closed in on us. I yanked open the door and stepped back, ushering Sasmita through with Sachin. Randall tried to let me pass first, but I shoved him. He grabbed my arm and tugged me through with him. As the monster goddess reached us, I slammed the door shut.
We tumbled backwards, gasping, staring at the door. I expected her to beat her way through, but the door remained closed, silent.
I stepped forward and, muscles tensed, touched my palm to the door. It flared red.
It was, indeed, a portal, but we had concluded that already. I suspected Creed had taken some precautions with his prized goddess and sealed her in behind the door.
That meant we would get away, but sometime, someday, that portal was going to open—either by an unsuspecting curious soul, or another devotee gone searching for the Forgotten Daughter, or she would find a way out herself.
That would be a story for another time. Today, we had to get Sachin to safety. As we scrambled from the room, Randall doubled back around and yanked the laptop off the desk. He tucked it under his arm and headed back for the exit.
Maybe it was because I had been dealing with so many paintings lately, that I didn’t trust any of them, or perhaps because it just didn’t seem right that someone as dark as Creed would have an idyllic scene decorating his office; either way, I yanked the framed cottage painting off the wall and hurried after Randall and Sasmita. The painting was barely anything after lugging around those enormous portraits with their swanky frames.
We burst out of the office and into the kitchen and prep area. The employee that had met us when we first arrived stood behind the counter leading out front, holding up Randall’s sword for inspection. The sheath lay next to the register.
The man swung the sword once, testing it out. From behind, Randall knocked him aside. The guy slammed against the counter. Randall clenched the hilt, twisting it free, and then grabbed the sheath. He strode off with Sasmita and me as we barreled out the front door.
Outside, a chilly wind swept by. We hunkered over, staying close together, as we hurried down the empty street, heading toward where we had agreed to meet Otilia and the others with the motorhome. I kept glancing back, expecting we would be pursued, though I doubted anyone who could had any interest in chasing after us.
We passed by the parking lot to another small shopping center. The motorhome was parked longwise over several parking spaces, and Amari stood outside, back to the motorhome, one foot raised with the sole pressed against it.
Randall let out a small sigh. I agreed; apparently, Amari and Otilia hadn’t yet become BFFs.
When Amari saw us, she lowered her foot to the ground and strode toward us as we came to meet with her.
“You found him, I see,” she said. “Is he sick?”
“He hit his head,” Sasmita said. She felt around his hair and held up her hand. “I haven’t found blood, but he’s been through so much. I need to get him inside, onto a bed.”
Amari stepped out of the way and Sasmita headed into the motorhome. Randall followed her, laptop tucked under one arm, and closed the door behind him.
“Who is the Forgotten Daughter?” I asked Amari as I leaned the cottage painting against the motorhome.
I should just leave this whole mess behind—Sachin was safe, reunited with his mother—but I still had too much left to unravel.
Besides, it wasn’t like we had anything big left to do. All that remained was waiting out our days until the turmoil from the dark witches and mages reached us. Or Kurash tracked us down. Whichever came first.
It was a bleak future, but it sounded like I would be getting a little more downtime for a while.
Amari shrugged, turning back for the motorhome. “No idea. Never heard of her.”
“The guy who had Sasmita’s son, he was trying to resurrect some old goddess,” I said. “He mentioned she was from the Indus Valley.”
“That narrows it down,” Amari said with a laugh as she returned to her place beside the motorhome, foot propped back up on the siding behind her. “The Indus Valley is one the oldest civilizations on earth. Many people lived there, and they had all sorts of deities, some pertaining to a small group, a village perhaps. Eventually the site became a flourishing modern civilization, including the famed city of Harappa. Today, they still don’t even know specifically what all was worshipped around there. She could be…well, anything. This was right after the dawn of modern civilization. We will never know for sure what all happened there. So much has been lost.”
I stretched my back, but a sharp pain under my shoulder blade caught my breath. I eased back down into a slightly more comfortable slouch.
“So you’re saying the Forgotten Daughter could have really been a goddess to some of the earlier settlements of the Indus Valley?”
“It was a wild time, back then. We’re talking about people who traded with Mesopotamians—you know, like the Sumerians, who founded the first writing system.” She reached behind her and drummed her fingers on the motorhome. “There were so many polytheistic tribes that got us to where we are today, some with deities that were squashed and forgotten by the ones that remain noted in history. There are potentially hundreds if not thousands of lost gods and goddesses through the regions.”
My body couldn’t take much more standing, so I lowered to the ground, my muscles tense. Once I sat, my body collapsed in on itself, and I doubted I could ever standup again.
She quit drumming her fingers and lowered her foot.
“There are, for sure, a few that survived,” she said, folding her arms over her chest.
I squinted up at her, against the setting sun lowering behind the motorhome. “How so?”
“Because the quorum works for four of them,” she said.
“Four what?” I asked, but then added, as the realization occurred, “Oh. The consortium. They’re…gods of the Indus Valley?”
“Lesser gods, in the scheme of things, but not to the small tribe that worshipped them, once,” she said. “Story goes—and stories are never accurate, but they’re what we got—that they were the deities for a small pagan tribe, before the rise of Harappa, but near where it eventually developed. There, the consortium walked as pagan gods and goddesses among their worshippers, as five. Four of them blessed a small body of water, and their followers bathed in it, and from that were granted the gift of magic.”
“Sasmita believes her family came from that blessing,” I said, more to myself, but then I realized I had interrupted Amari.
Amari lifted her hands and dropped them again.
“Perhaps. As far as I’m aware, they were the only ones to bestow such gifts. Anyway, in time, there was a disagreement among the five. It was an era of change, of upheaval. Back then, no one lasted long—not even the gods. One of the five was exiled and sent out of the valley. Before long, the worshippers to the five dwindled, joining the congregations of different gods, but taking their blessings with them.” She hesitated before continuing. “Then, the exiled god returned. His presence threatened to rip apart the four, so they gathered their remaining followers and trained them to use their gifts to help build a pocket for them to escape into. There, the four fused themselves together to assure their bond to each other would remain eternal.”
