bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered (21 page)

I refocused on the power string and gave it a harder pull, it flared briefly and then fizzled. Taking a deep, mental breath, I gathered every bit of concentration I could and visualized the flame growing. That time it flared, grew slightly and then died. I finally gave up after about twenty tries. I was exhausted.

You can’t give up, Astra.

I glared through our mental connection.
You try
!

I can’t. I don’t know what to do.

Remember the exercises we had you do in my office? Use those techniques to grab your power and pull it forward.

She sighed,
Okay, I’ll try.
After several minutes Darma gave up too.

Tension filled me as frustration at my helplessness warred with the sure knowledge that either my mother or Prince Nille would return at any moment. I knew we needed to figure something out and fast.

I’m really cold, Astra.

I gave a mental jerk of surprise.
It was so unlike Darma to whine. Then I realized I was cold too.
She wasn’t complaining, she was stating a fact.

I cast about with my sensing power and found that the dungeon was filled with hundreds if not thousands of flickering cold spots. My immediate reaction was panic. What if the evil Danika and her minions had returned? But surely we would have heard them. Whatever was holding us in thrall didn’t seem to have affected our awareness of our surroundings.

It’s not Mother. Her aura is red and hot. Like Hell.

I forgot, Darma had been hanging there longer than I had. She’d probably already noticed a lot of things.
When did you start feeling cold?

Right after that last time you tried to grab your power.

A light bulb went off in my head.
Of course! Why didn’t I think of that before!

What?

Ignoring her I reached for the power that flickered around me rather than trying to ignite the faltering power within. The dungeon was filled with the unsettled spirits of all of the people who’d been tortured and killed there during the dark ages. I’d recently learned that my power allowed me to channel Earthbound spirits’ otherwise latent power. In fact it actually seemed to draw them to me somehow.

The cold hit me first, like a blast of arctic air through a door that had been blown open on a gust of Winter wind. My muscles convulsed under the icy onslaught, tightening painfully against it. After a split second’s hesitation, the power shifted and surged into me. It hit me so hard I gasped in the physical world and my head slammed back against the rock wall.

Still in my mind, Darma cried out in fear and shared pain. Which gave me an idea.

Darma...try to m-merge...your...p-power with mine.
I was under such siege I could barely shove a thought down our mind connection. She didn’t respond but, as my body swung in the roiling air caused by the sudden influx of necromantic power in the dungeon room, her energy slid into mine.

I was shocked by the depth of her power. It filled me to a painful level, making my skin prickle and my head pound with its intensity. It occurred to me that, if she ever learned to fully harness it, she would be formidable. Darma’s sizzling energy burned against the icy power I’d embraced, warming it so that I no longer felt as if my body would freeze from the inside out and break into millions of tiny bits on the stone floor. The incredible force of our combined power would have been too much for me, except that somehow Darma managed to pull some of the necromantic power into herself. The magics merged and leveled out so that we were both carrying an equal load.

When that happened, my poor battered body finally stopped swinging in the rings and instead jerked, vibrating with energy, against the wall.

I felt Darma’s terror, fed by the fact that she carried within her the rage-filled energy of thousands of dead souls. Her screams reverberated through my head, causing my physical body to break out in a copious sweat. I realized we needed to finish what we’d started and get the magic out of Darma, before she drove me to complete insanity with her girly shrieking.

Compassion R Me.

Darma, focus on the rings. Break them. Now!

Somehow my voice got through to her, despite the shrieking. The power connection between us shivered and pulsed as she struggled to focus the awesome power she held upward and into the hated rings.

I did the same.

For a long moment I didn’t think it was going to work. But then the wall behind me began to vibrate and dust and small chunks of rock started raining down on my head. I’d had that experience before and I knew we needed to move fast and get the Hades out of there.
Darma! Break the damn rings, now!

I let all barriers go on the power I held and it shot up into the space above my head where I knew the rings were embedded into the rock wall. The power hit the wall with a concussive blast that tore my hands loose and flung me through the air. I landed in a heap on the floor and my eyes shot open. Even as my gaze flew to Darma her rings blasted out of the wall and she sailed past me. She landed with a grunt and I ran over to see if she was all right.

Her blue eyes popped open and she grabbed my hand, pulling herself upright. “Come on Astra. I’ve always hated this damnable dungeon. Now I’ll never be able to come down here again.”

I turned and ran toward the door in the wall that led into the tunnel. Around us the dungeon roared and twisted and huge chunks of rock crumbled away and fell, dislodging more rock as they hit with the force of a laser train against concrete.

Small cracks quickly became fractures and fractures became yawning crevices as the dungeon disintegrated around us. The door wrenched sideways, frame and all as I reached for it and Darma shrieked.

I turned to glare at her. “Would you please man up?”

She couldn’t hear me over the roar of the dying dungeon but she recognized the look on my face. Peaking an eyebrow in silent reprimand, she shoved my shoulder and I grabbed the crooked door, yanking it back on its twisted hinges enough that we could squeeze through.

Once in the tunnels I started running, flinging my power out in front of us to light the way. Overhead the tunnel shivered and dirt floated down to coat us.

Reaching back to grab Darma’s hand, I screamed above the din, “Run faster!”

And run she did. I felt her sneakers bashing against the back of my legs, spurring me to new heights of speed in self-defense as the tunnel started to collapse around us.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A Fine Adventure

Through tunnels made of stone they ran, to escape the Devil’s spawn,

Only to find themselves entrapped and to the Devil drawn.

As we ran, I kept nudging my mental drawers to see exactly where we came out of the shadows and reentered the real world. I started to get a slight crackling static when we were about two-thirds of the way through the tunnel.

I knew we were getting close to the river because the ground beneath our feet turned sandy and squished with moisture. However, as we finally emerged, panting and covered in dirt and debris, from the mouth of the tunnel, it looked like we were still in the shadows.

The air was thick and dense with mist. I could barely see Darma, bent over at the waist and panting as if she would die, just a couple of feet away from me.

Then my mental drawers shifted and Emo’s voice came to me.
Astra are you okay? Captain Lee said some dark haired woman popped into unplanned care and shifted you away.

Out of the shadows, thank the Big Guy. I allowed my weary knees to buckle and sagged to the ground. Cool moisture seeped into my clothing but I didn’t care.
I’m fine now. It was Danika. She took Darma too. But we got out and we’re both fine.

Thank Him for that. I couldn’t feel you at all, it scared me.

I nodded, earning a strange look from my sister, who’d dropped down into the sand beside me. “It’s Emo.”

She bobbed her head in understanding and lay down on her back. Her chest still heaved with the effort of running and she was rubbing the demon mark on her wrist.

That was when I realized mine was throbbing. My eyes widened.
Holy shit, Emo, I think we need to get out of here now! Where are you? We’ll try to come to you.

I’m with Bob, Ralph and Captain Lee in the streets. We couldn’t find you so we decided to do what we could out here. It’s really bad, Astra. Worse than before... I don’t think the humans have much time left.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the air shifting and swirling in the mist. The colors of fire danced on the particles and began to take shape until the Serpent’s lithe form appeared.

He was only a few yards away from Darma, who had her eyes closed and was totally oblivious.

Shit! I gotta go, the devil’s here!

Astra! Where are you...

Darma! Up! Now! We’ve got to get out of here fast!

To her credit she didn’t argue. She shot to her feet and I grabbed her hand. Without thinking I used my power to jump us both over the river. We landed hard on the stony soil of the other side and banged up against the jagged face of the cliff from the momentum of our landing. On that side of the river the cliffs ran almost up to the water. What little ground there was looked nearly impassable.

I suddenly realized I’d put us into a dead end. A rumble of evil-saturated laughter in my head told me I was right, even before the air started to swirl with color again.

Come to me, children.

Our frantic gazes swung wildly around, looking for a way out. A difficult task was made even more difficult by the clogging mist. We really couldn’t see more than a few feet away in any direction.

With my limited skill in space shifting I was more than reluctant to try to shift us to the top of the cliff. Especially since I couldn’t visualize where I wanted to go. I’d probably embed us into the rock wall by mistake.

I had an idea. It was a stupid idea and I didn’t know if it would work. But hopefully it would at least buy us some time. And it was the only option we had at the moment.

I grabbed Darma’s hand and spoke quickly into her mind.
Take a deep breath and hold it, no matter what.

I saw the frown in her mind and the beginnings of an argument.

Just do it! We don’t have time to argue.

The Serpent fully materialized and Darma shrieked. He was mere inches from her.

I acted without thinking. There was no time to plan and calculate. The Big Guy save us, we needed to get the hell away from there.

Breathe now!
I shouted into her mind.

Suddenly movement and sound stopped. I knew when it returned our world would be ugly and cold. I didn’t know how to prepare my sister for what she would experience. All I said was,
the water’s gonna be cold and it’s gonna try to suck us down the river. As soon as we hit it we need to merge power and create a bubble. I think, if we can stay at the bottom for a while we’ll lose him.

The bottom! Astra have you lost your frunkin’...

Sound returned in a roar as we hit the frigid water in the raging center of the Angel City River. Almost immediately I felt Darma’s hand start to slip away from mine as the river’s power sucked her away from me. I could barely hear her scream over the river’s angry growl. I couldn’t throw out my power to lock us in place until I was sure I would take her with me. That meant I had to have a stronger grip on her wet, slippery arm.

I grabbed at her and we went under, shooting several feet down the river and banging up against a sharp rock before I felt her cold skin under my fingers again. I pulled my power forward to give me more strength and started reeling her in. I managed to pull her an inch closer before the river took her again.

The roiling water swung her around and she went under. One flailing foot found my cheek as she was swept away from me.

The blow nearly took me down. I saw stars for a moment and thought I’d pass out. But another kind of pain jolted me back out of it. I took the sharp rock in my stomach and the blow robbed me of breath.

Struggling to breathe, I searched frantically for Darma. I thought I saw a small speck of color up ahead in the water and prayed it was her. Pulling my power forward I used it to propel me toward the spark of color in the water. I glanced off a few more half submerged rocks as I sped through the roiling water but, finally, I could see Darma. She had her face out of the water, struggling to stay above it.

I’m coming Darma.

This was, without a doubt the most idiotic idea you’ve ever had. And that’s saying something.

I mentally bristled.
Hey, I got us away from the Serpent didn’t I?

She laughed in my mind
...and brought us to his doorstep in the next world. We’ll be lucky to survive your rescue.

Hey, I never said it was a perfect plan.
I reached out and could almost touch her, but the river kept swirling me away from her and I didn’t seem to have the strength anymore to fight it. My legs and arms were growing numb with the cold and I could tell that Darma was having the same problem. She’d been clutching a large rock to keep from being washed farther down the river but her face was going slack and her grip was loosening. I wasn’t sure I’d get to her in time.

Finally she screamed,
Frunk this!
in my mind.

Something powerful reached out for me and I slammed up against the rock Darma had been hugging.

Let’s do this!

I nodded and fed my power into hers, which was holding us together on the rock. Her power grabbed mine and I gasped as the incredible weight of it flowed over and around us. It felt like lead as it encased us in a thick, seemingly impenetrable bubble. As the bubble closed, the sound of the river died away to a muffled rumble that sounded distant. Warmth started seeping back into our clammy limbs.