Mortal (15 page)

"Kara, get back!"

David rushed past her, determined to
attack the two rock monsters.

He ducked as a giant battle-axe missed
his head by an inch, displacing a few locks of his blond hair. He
rolled and jumped back on his feet, swinging his blade. He barely
dodged the great strikes, but he sidestepped and blocked them with
all the strength his M-5 suit could muster.

The other monster charged
again.

David raised his moonstone in an arc
and let it go. The brilliant globe left a single trail of white
light behind it as it lit up the cave and flew into the giant’s
face.

The moonstone exploded, and the rock
giant disappeared behind a cloud of brilliant white light. For a
moment, Kara thought David had destroyed the creature.

But when the mist evaporated the
creature stood there, unscathed. Its ugly face was contorted in an
angry frown. It let out a battle cry and charged at David, swinging
its club.

"Oops, I think the big
guy’s angry—but it was worth a shot to see that look on his face.
Did you two trolls ever hear of
moisturizers
?"

David jumped in the air as the club
grazed the soles of his boots. He landed on the ground and
rolled—again the giant spiked club missed him by inches. He pushed
up, parried, and jammed his blade with all his strength into the
creature’s chest—

The blade bounced back. The giant
wrapped his great hand around David’s neck and lifted him up
easily. David kicked out with his feet. His blade dropped to the
ground. The giant roared, and green ooze splattered David’s face.
The rock-man sneered and squeezed harder. Kara saw the panic on
David’s face. The creature smiled, exposing rows of crooked teeth.
David was going to get squeezed to death.

Kara ignored her panic. She searched
the ground for her blade with her unbroken left hand and touched
its cool metal. With trembling fingers, she clasped the handle as
hard as she could and struggled onto her shaky legs. She waited
until the dizziness passed and staggered forward towards David’s
attacker. She couldn’t see the other monster, although she knew it
was there somewhere. She could hear it breathing.

She heard Peter’s moaning from behind
her, but heard nothing from Jenny. Focusing all her strength on
putting one foot in front of the other, she thought only of saving
David. Blinking the wetness from her eyes, her right arm hanging
loosely at her side, she pushed on. She couldn’t just stand there
and do nothing while her friends’ souls were about to die. She knew
she would die trying to save her friends. There was no way she
could defeat the stone monsters, but she had to try.

The other rock monster marched towards
her. It watched her every move, and its battle-axe glinted in the
soft grey light. Kara cringed at the remnants of Peter’s essence on
the edge of the blade. It looked as though it had been dipped into
a bucket of glowing white paint.

She measured them as best she could in
the dim light. She knew their skin was unbreakable and as solid as
rock. It was like fighting off giant cement boulders. And yet,
these were living and breathing creatures, not demons. If demons
had weaknesses, then these creatures must have a weak spots, too.
Maybe they were like dragons whose underbellies were the
weakest.

"Kara, run!" screamed David, as he
dangled in the air, his face screwed up in pain. "Get out while you
still can."

"No. I’m not leaving you."

Kara set her jaw and planted herself
before the two giants. She was surrounded. Her heart thumped in her
ears like a machine gun—she could hardly hear herself think. She
searched the giants’ skin, but she couldn’t see any weak spots on
them. Their skin all looked the same...except for a beige
discoloration that marked both sides of their chests just below
their armpits—perhaps weakness in their crusty hide.

It was her only chance.

The largest of the creatures stepped
forward. With a wicked sneer he swung his battle-axe skillfully and
towered easily over her.

With her last ounce of courage, and
before the giant realized what she was planning, she leaped forward
and jammed the blade into the creature’s side.

The blade perforated the
skin.

The giant threw back his head and
howled. It thrashed its arms in the air and knocked Kara to the
ground. It yanked the blade out of its side. Dark blood gushed from
the wound. The giant staggered and fell on its knees.

If there was blood, then it could be
killed. Kara pushed herself back onto her feet. A wave of renewed
strength washed over her. She could save them all—but she needed
another weapon.

As she searched the ground for David’s
blade, something hard hit her head. Stars exploded behind her
eyes.

And then everything went
black.

K
ara dreamed she was hanging upside down like a piece of meat.
Everything hurt, especially her throbbing head. Usually in dreams,
you don’t feel pain. Why did she feel pain?

It wasn’t a dream.

She peeled open her crusted
lashes and looked around. Blood gushed to her head, and she fought
the urge to vomit. Pressure pushed at the back of her eyes, like
they were just about to pop out of her head. She
was
hanging upside down.
Her head hovered twelve inches off a moss-covered ground. As her
eyes adjusted to her surroundings, she could tell she was in a
clearing in a forest and not in the cave. A faint whisper of waves
reached her, the ocean wasn’t too far away.

The air smelled like a mixture of
manure and chicken noodle soup. A large cauldron sat above a
blazing fire in the middle of the clearing and right in front of
Kara. Yellow vapors coiled from the rim and disappeared into the
dark orange sky. A few skulls littered the ground around the
cauldron. Because she was upside down, Kara couldn’t tell if they
were animal or human.

She twisted her head around. Orange
light poured between the gaps in the trees. A great tree trunk was
rooted in the middle of the clearing. Its top was cut, and a
crooked wooden house sat above it, nestled between branches. The
house had a moss-covered roof, and red light glowed from four round
openings that Kara guessed were windows. It had a wraparound porch.
Ropes dangled from a wooden platform, which was connected to a
rectangular wood contraption with a door on the ground below. It
was the strangest house Kara had ever seen. A house in a tree—it
had to be Olga’s house. Only a witch could live in a tree...or
squirrels.

Looking around, she couldn’t see any
witch or any human form. Only crows nestled in the trees nearby,
their yellow eyes fixed on Kara.

She tried to swallow, but her throat
was raw. She was incredibly thirsty. As if on cue, her stomach
growled loudly. She was starving, and she felt like she was about
to become someone else’s meal. She turned her head around and
winced. Her right arm throbbed. It was pinned against her body
awkwardly, making the pain worse. Her heart pounded, and her ribs
ached. Sweat trickled down her back. She swallowed back her
tears.

Moving her head slowly to her left she
could make out three other hanging bodies, chained up like cocoons
just like her. From what she could see, their M-suits were still
intact—their angel souls were still alive. David’s head was turned
to the side, so she couldn’t tell if he was conscious. But still,
the situation was worse that she could have possibly imagined. This
was not how she planned on meeting the witch, hanging from her feet
like a bat. She felt the sickness rise in her throat again. She had
to get out of these chains...

She struggled against her restraints,
but it was useless. She couldn’t break through metal chains with a
broken arm. She was just a regular mortal.

"Kara..." whispered a voice. Kara
turned her head to the left. David’s blue eyes were staring right
at her.

"David!" she whispered back. "Thank
God, you’re okay."

"I wouldn’t call this okay, but
yeah—I’m still in one piece. But I can’t say the same about Peter.
He’s not looking good."

Kara looked past David and saw Jenny.
Her wide green eyes looked her way, but Peter’s eyes were closed.
His skin was a transparent color, and he wasn’t moving. Where his
legs should have been, she could see short stumps with ends that
emitted dim light. She had to get Peter back to Horizon before his
soul died.

"We have to get him out of here." Kara
bucked and kicked as hard as she could.

In her anger, she forgot her pain and
cursed herself for being so foolish. How could she fight against
giant rock men or metal chains? Had Ariel known about this? Had she
sent Kara and her friends to their deaths?

Kara felt it was all her fault, and if
they died she would never forgive herself.

She could not let her friends die. She
closed her eyes and focused all her energy deep inside herself, in
her soul, where her elemental power once belonged.

She felt something rise deep
inside—there was something there—she could feel it. She focused all
her strength on it. She called to it. It answered with a spark,
then a warm ripple. It came to her—

"I’d stop doing that if you know
what’s good for you," said a voice.

The connection died, and Kara opened
her eyes.

A short and skeletal woman stood
before her. If Kara had not known better, she would have thought
her a ghost. Her long yellow toenails peeked from under a layer of
shredded lace. A dilapidated gray wedding gown encrusted with dirt
and grime hung loosely on her skinny frame. Wisps of white hair
peppered her nearly bald head and made her unnaturally large ears
stick out even more. Her olive colored skin hung loosely around her
face in many layers. She looked ancient—her back was hunched over,
and she leaned on a walking stick that looked like an old tree
branch. She wore a small leather pouch tied to a belt around her
waist. One glowing yellow eye focused on Kara. Where the other
should have been, there was only a blackened hollow
hole.

But her one glowing yellow eye was
alert and full of vigor.

Kara averted her eyes from the hollow
eye socket. "I wasn’t doing anything—"

"Oh, yes you were, girlie," rasped the
woman, in a voice that sounded like Fay sisters’ voices. The old
woman wobbled closer to Kara. Her bony knees cracked as she came
forward.

Kara opened her mouth to
say,
no I wasn’t,
but decided to drop it.

"Are you...are you Olga?" she asked
instead, in the most polite voice she could muster hanging upside
down.

The woman ignored Kara as she
inspected her closer. Kara could smell her sour breath. The dirty
lace dress tickled her face.

The woman stepped back
after a moment. Then she reached up to her face with a
pop
—pulled out her yellow
glowing eye.

"What the—" said David, as he stifled
a laugh.

The old woman bent over Kara with her
eye in her hand and moved it along her body like a magnifying
glass, stopping every now and then. "Hmm...oh, yes, yes, yes," she
mumbled while dragging her yellow eye over Kara.

"I told you she had it, Henry. It’s as
plain as rain. I see it—it’s all over her."

Kara blinked. The yellow eye stared at
her. The black pupil moved around inside the glowing yellow ball.
Kara opened her mouth to scream, but the woman moved her eye away
and was now inspecting Kara’s feet.

Kara shared a look with David. Despite
the fact that they were hanging upside down, he was smiling. Jenny
looked disgusted.

Finally, after a few minutes
inspecting Kara with her eye, the old woman popped her eye back in
its socket and twisted it back into place as if it were a
bolt.

The old woman leaned on her stick with
both hands.

"See Henry? I told you she had it.
Haven’t seen one with so much of it for a very long time, I must
say. How very interesting."

Kara turned her head, but she couldn’t
see the one she called Henry anywhere. Maybe the old woman was
senile.

"Uh...excuse me, but are you
Olga?"

The old woman didn’t answer so Kara
continued. "My friends and I are looking for her. We were told we’d
find her somewhere near the cave. It’s very important that I speak
with her."

"These
spirit walkers
," the old woman spat,
"are not your friends, girlie. You should stay away from them.
Spirits should stay dead—away from the world of the living. It is
against the laws of nature."

She hit her stick against the earth,
and the ground trembled at its touch like a mini
earthquake.

"Listen, lady." said David. "It’s not
like we wanted to come here and ruin your tea party, but we didn’t
have a choice. Could you just answer her so we can get out of
here—"

"Silence! Do not speak to me, spirit
walker!" The old woman’s dress billowed around her in a gust of
wind. "Dare speak to me again, and I will destroy you like I
destroyed the others of your kind—"