The Seal of Oblivion (16 page)

“Stop,” Isis yelled pulling Adria
back just as water flooded the spot they had been in and solidified into an icy
wall

Sakura screamed.

“Isis, Adria,” the girl yelled.

“Sakura calm down,” Laqiya snapped.
“We’ll never get out of here if you panic.”

“We’ll go around,” Adria yelled.
“Keep moving.”

“Yeah,” Laqiya said turning around
right into someone’s grip. She couldn’t stop the scream that came out her
throat.

“Laqiya.
It’s me.”

Laqiya calmed herself down enough
to recognize Nightshield physically and through her presence.

“Nightshield,” Laqiya said relieved
as she hugged her.

“No time for this,” Nightshield
said as she pulled Laqiya and Sakura along. “Let’s go.”

Sakura stopped looking at the wall
to their left.

“The wall!” she exclaimed just as
it crumbled, along with the ceiling above them.

They fell on the floor as it came
crashing on top of them. The alarms hadn’t been going off before, but now they
certainly were, blaring in Laqiya’s ears as she sat up, trying to get the
debris off her.

“Nightshield,” Laqiya tried to yell
over the alarms.

“Thought you could escape?” Kailash
said snatching Laqiya up by the neck and slamming her against the wall.

“Let go,” Sakura screamed as she
grabbed the man’s arm with her bare hands, digging her nails so hard into
Kailash’s bare arm that it drew blood.

Kailash let go of Laqiya, and tried
to shake off Sakura’s death grip.

“Stupid,” he said, his hand
encasing itself with a blue aura.

“My sentiments exactly,”
Nightshield said as she reached up out the rubble and savagely scratched
Kailash on the arm with her claws.

Sakura let go and fell back into
the rubble.

“There’s an exit that way!” Laqiya
said as she looked into the room from the gaping hole. “We can go through the
gift shop and down the hall to the lobby and get out.”

Sakura didn’t even ask questions as
she scrambled to her feet with Laqiya’s help and ran through the gaping hole to
the exit of the shop that would take them to the lobby area of the museum. When
they made it to the lobby, Laqiya turned to Sakura.

“You go. I’ve got to go get Isis
and Adria. No doubt they ran into Delsaream,” she said.

“But the alarms…Plainshield,”
Sakura panted.

“I know. But we have to ignore it.
Now go!” Laqiya demanded.

Sakura stared at Laqiya for a
moment and then grabbed her arm, her gaze set in determination despite the fear
that was apparent in her eyes.

“I’m not leaving you,” she said.

Laqiya only looked at her for a
moment before nodding her head and heading through the lobby to the medieval
England exhibit.

“The
basement’s
—”
Sakura began but Laqiya shook her head as she concentrated.

She tried once more to tap into
that source, heightened by being in such close proximity to the staff piece,
having all three in her grasp but not quite having the staff as she said,
“Earth.”

Sakura latched onto Laqiya as the
ground shook violently and even Laqiya fell over, unable to control the quake
she had caused. But it had the desired effect. The ground opened up to reveal
the basement. Sakura and Laqiya screamed as the entire floor of the room fell
in. Laqiya pulled Sakura away from the edge of the large whole, near the lobby.

“Damn it,” Delsaream’s voice yelled
in the basement as the items and rubble in the room fell on top of not just
him, but also Isis and Adria.

“Wind!”
Adria half screamed as she pulled Isis away from Delsaream.

The wind deflected the falling
rubble and debris from them.

“Come on,” Laqiya yelled reaching
her hand down into the hole.

“I can’t see!” Adria said.

“I can sense her. Come on,” Isis
said climbing over the rubble and latching onto her cousin’s hand.

Laqiya pulled Isis up to where she
and Sakura were, while Sakura helped Adria. They all sat on the ground to gain
their breath.

“Wait,” Isis panted. “Plainshield… She
was down there.”

“I’m fine,” the woman purred. “You
four go ahead. They’ll leave if there’s nothing here for them to get.”

Laqiya stood shakily to her feet
and grabbed the bag that she had abandoned on the floor in order to pull up
Isis, only to find a hand on it.

“Going somewhere?” Kailash asked.

Laqiya tried to snatch her bag
back, but the Anaxar pulled back with such strength that he pulled her a little
past him. Nonetheless, Laqiya kept her grip on the bag with the staff piece,
vaguely aware of the sound of sirens getting closer and closer in the distance
as she struggled with all her might to ignore the aches and pains on her legs
and arms.

“Let go,” she said.

“Feisty cub
trying to roar?”
Kailash taunted.

“I said… Let go!” Laqiya screamed
and the entire area erupted in flames, including Kailash’s hand.

“Damn it,” he said snatching his
hand back as he enveloped it with water. With horror, Laqiya tried to make the
flames die down, but it was already done. The fire had caught and now
threatened to envelop the entire building.

“Laqiya come on,” Isis yelled.

Laqiya became aware of her friends
screams and coughs behind her. They had no doubt been shouting for her, but
Laqiya didn’t hear it as she felt something dark and sinister in the air. Their
shouts faded into the background as a woman materialized in front of her,
dressed in a black skirt with a slit up the right side to the top of her hip
and tube top. Her velvet cloak fell to her feet and her blonde hair was thrown
across her shoulder.

Laqiya might have been fooled by
her beautiful and youthful appearance if it weren’t for her eyes, yellow eyes
with black pupils.

“When you want something done,” she
said unfazed by the flames that cackled around them, “you have to do it
yourself.”

Laqiya had never seen the woman in
her lifetime, but something told her, a whisper,
a
memory of the past.

“Lady Sahajah,” she muttered. “It’s
been a while.”

“Too long,” Sahajah said.

Laqiya shrugged, giving away a
little of her disagreement with the statement as she said, “I could have waited
a while longer.”

“Charming as ever,” Sahajah said
with a smile.
 
“Let me warn you though
pretty little flower. It would be best if you just gave up this fight and
stayed out of my way now that I can take this from you.”

Laqiya would later not recall
seeing Lady Sahajah move, only that the woman’s hand was suddenly around her
neck, the bag with the staff piece in it snatched out her hands. The fire
finally began to die down some.

“I should kill you right now, but
since we’re old friends and all…” Sahajah let go of Laqiya and she collapsed,
gasping for breath. “This is your only warning.”

“Gotcha,” Adria said having braved
the fire to get to Laqiya. She reached back and grabbed Isis’ outstretched
hand. “Hurry up!”

The next thing Laqiya knew, they
were in Sakura’s bedroom again.

“Laqiya!”
Sakura said climbing over the junk in her floor to get to her.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Laqiya said but coughed up
blood a moment later, contradicting the statement.

“No you’re not,” Adria said
reaching for the phone.

“No!” Isis said lunging over to
stop Adria. “Are you nuts? What do we tell them? Our friend’s coughing blood
because someone tried to kill her.”

“I’m fine. It’s just my throat,”
Laqiya said to her.

Adria reluctantly let go of the phone
and looked at her swollen wrist.

“I think my grandmother has some
tea that will help your throat,” Sakura said. “If not I can just boil some
lemon juice, honey, and cayenne. That should help.”

“It’s okay Sakura,” Laqiya said
reaching up to stop the girl. “It’s okay.”

“Are you all okay?”

Laqiya looked toward the window
where Nightshield and Chasity Pearl
came
tumbling
through.

“Nightshield,” Laqiya said getting
up to help the woman stand.

Nightshield pulled out her grasp.
“I’m okay. When the Anaxaretes left, I figured you had gotten away.”

“Where’s Plainshield?” asked Isis.

“Making sure we covered our tracks
good
,” Chasity Peal said glance at Nightshield who was
purring as she rubbed her chest.

“What happened when we got
separated?” Nightshield asked.

“We saw her,” Adria said shocking
everyone. She was never one to answer Nightshield directly.

“Saw who?”

“The dark mistress, Lady Sahajah,”
Sakura said shakily.

“You all saw her,” Laqiya asked.

“How couldn’t we have? She was
right there,” Sakura said teary eyed. “And she was so… She was beautiful, but
her eyes…”

Nightshield groaned and then ground
out, “The dark mistresses have that kind of aura. They’re all beautiful and
look youthful just like any of you really. You can’t tell them by their looks,
especially when they’re trying to hide. But when they’re not, it’s all in the
eyes.”

“She took the staff piece,” Isis
finally said answering the question the guardians wouldn’t ask.

“Sorry,” said Laqiya.

“But you’re not dead,” Sakura
muttered. “She was going to kill you if it weren’t for that twisted sense of
nostalgia she had, like a rival who put up a good fight.”

“I don’t know,” Laqiya replied. “It
felt like something more.”

“Of course it did,” said Chasity
Pearl. “The dark mistresses like playing games, mind games especially. Of
course she wants you to think it was something more.”

Nightshield and Chasity exchanged a
glance, and all Laqiya was able to make from it was something of thankfulness
on Nightshield’s part and something else. Laqiya shrugged it off as she grabbed
a pillow and curled up on the floor.

“Just forget it right now. I’m
tired… I need to rest. I…”

“You’re not scared are you?
Of Sahajah?
Because you’re more powerful than she is, you
know?” Nightshield asked bluntly.

“I’m not scared of Sahajah,” Laqiya
replied honestly as she closed her eyes.

“That makes one of us,” Adria
muttered.

“But I would like to go to sleep,”
Laqiya continued in a cool tone. “Do you mind leaving me alone?”

The tension in the room
skyrocketed, and Laqiya felt their stares on her back. But she ignored them.
Sakura however took a deep breath and bravely spoke.

“What is it?”

Laqiya was silent, so silent and
still that everyone thought she was sleep.

Finally she said, “How much damage
did that fire do to the museum?”

“They saved a good portion of it,”
Plainshield said coming in through the window. “The damage was great, but most
of it was saved. It’ll be a few months before
it’s
open again. Why?”

“I never knew what it meant to
wield the forces of nature until tonight.”

Chapter
Twelve

Angel

Laqiya, for the first time, managed
to avoid a no doubt waiting Chasity Pearl, Plainshield, Nightshield or all
three together though she seriously doubted it. Instead of taking the back out
she went straight through the front door where they were least likely to stand
and wait for her. She had succeeded and was now on the street which her house
sat.

Six days had passed since the
ordeal at the museum, and it was the talk of the city. The authorities didn’t
know what really happened. At first there was security breach report and the
next thing anyone knew, part of the floor had collapsed, and the building was
on fire. Not only that, but amongst all the chaos and commotion, the most
priceless piece in the exhibit had disappeared. The investigators, along with
most city officials were baffled, not at the fact that someone actually broke
in to begin with, but that the floor had collapsed and the place caught on
fire, not to mention random walls had for fallen in, appearing as though someone
had bulldozed through them. It was really a lost cause for the investigators
and everyone else involved in the case, for if there had been any evidence the
fire had burned it. Laqiya didn’t want to dwell on it though. Indirectly, she
had been the cause of the damage. She had lost control (if she had it to begin
with).

Laqiya used her key to get inside
the house and closed the door behind her. She didn’t sense anyone in the house.
That was odd. It was rare that she was the first one home.

She dropped her book bag at the
door, reminding herself to get it before her mother came home and threw a fit
when she saw it, before going downstairs into the kitchen to get something to
drink only to see a woman there. The woman had her back turned and was leaning
against the counter. Laqiya took a step back, surprised, but not entirely
shocked. She wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad thing that she was
accustomed to people appearing in her house out of nowhere. Either way, the
lights flickered, causing the woman to turn around.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare
you,” she said and then continued, “You wouldn’t remember me. As a guardian of
the seal and angel, you weren’t supposed to, not then anyway.”

“No. You’re the nurse, Sheera.
Right?”

“You remember all of that?
Everything that happened that night?”
Sheera asked.

Laqiya knew that tone. Sheera
wasn’t sure how much Laqiya knew about everything that happened that night six
years ago and wasn’t sure what was safe to say. It was a sure sign that she was
keeping something secret. If Laqiya had been feeling better, she might have
used the opportunity to get more information out of woman by saying she did.
But today, it was a game she didn’t feel like playing.

“Bits and pieces,” Laqiya admitted.

Sheera nodded, but before she could
say anything else, Laqiya said, “No offense but angel or not who are you, and
what are you doing here? How’d you get in my house?”

 
“I’m Sheera, but you already know that. I’m
one of the guardians of the seal of oblivion.”

“Guardian of the
seal of oblivion, huh?”
Laqiya asked and then said, “So you’re the
reason all this stuff is happening, because you couldn’t do your job right and
guard the seal.”

“No,” Sheera said not at all fazed
by Laqiya’s anger. “The seal’s been in jeopardy for years, long before I was
born. It’s was no one’s fault. All a guardian can do is
try
to prevent the inevitable. But that’s why we need you and the reason I’m here
is because I want to know what you plan to do about it.”

“Nothing,” Laqiya said, obviously
taking Sheera aback because her previously indifferent expression faltered.
“What could I do? What difference would it make?”

“Everything!
You’re the White Rose.”

“I’m not the White Rose. I’m
Laqiya.”

“What do you mean?” Sheera asked.
“You are the White Rose. Who told you you weren’t?”

Laqiya pressed her lips together
and gazed out the window for a moment. Then she looked back at Sheera and said,
“I know who people say I’m supposed to be. Nightshield’s been my guardian for
years and never once has she let me forget why. I thought if I just played
along, it would just go away. I never wanted this.”

It was simple enough for her, and
it said everything Laqiya wanted to say. She went to the refrigerator to get a
root beer.

Sheera only watched her as she
said, “I didn’t take you for a coward. You’ve faced every challenge Lady
Sahajah and the Anaxars have thrown at you. What changed? You’re not scared are
you?”

 
“Not of Sahajah and the Anaxars,” Laqiya
replied.

Sheera looked like she didn’t
believe her and so Laqiya rolled her eyes. She guessed Sheera wasn’t going to
be fazed by her standoffishness.

“She wasn’t anything I expected. If
it weren’t for her eyes, she’d have been gorgeous, like one of my mother’s
models,” Laqiya whispered.

“More where that came from,” Sheera
muttered.

“It may have been a little
unnerving at first, but I wasn’t afraid of her,” Laqiya said and then sighed.
“You know what? Whatever…”

Laqiya left the kitchen. Sheera
could stay there if that’s what she wanted, but Laqiya had no intentions of
listening to anyone try to talk her into something she didn’t want to do.

Laqiya made her way to her room.
Nowadays, it was her only sanctuary from the mess that she had caused. When she
got there, she closed the door behind her, relieved to be alone. It was short
lived, for when she turned around and she saw Sheera sitting on her bed.

“How…?” Laqiya trailed off not sure
what to ask. Not even Nightshield was that fast.

Sheera ignored her and said, “Why
are you running away? I know it’s scary, facing the mistress of the Tyrant, but
you’re the only one that can do it. The guardians tried to stop her when she
came through, but it she overpowered us. She can’t hurt you. She can’t kill
you. You’ll pull through in the end. Don’t be afraid to die.”

“I’ve seen the other side,” Laqiya
replied without missing a beat, again managing to take Sheera aback. “I almost
died that night, when the Tyrant sent the Anaxars after me, and even though I
don’t want to come close to it for the next hundred years or so, I’m not afraid
of death. I
know
there’s nothing to
be afraid of. It’s not unknown to me anymore.”

Sheera looked puzzled. “I don’t get
it. Then what are you afraid of.”

Laqiya paused for a long time
before biting her lip and saying, “I don’t want these powers.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I can’t control it. Half the time
they don’t even work and when they do, they’re… they’re so destructive. They
get out of control and no matter how much I try to grasp and tame them, they
won’t submit. I can’t wield that kind of power safely. Sahajah is the last
thing anyone needs to be worried about. I’m the danger. I nearly burned down an
entire museum for God’s sake. The last thing I need is more power to defeat
Sahajah or even the Tyrant. I just want to be able to control or make disappear
the power I have,” said Laqiya.

“It’ll take years for you to
properly control it on your own…”

“See?”

“…but that’s what the staff is
for,” Sheera finished.

“I—
Wait
a
minute. What?” Laqiya asked confused. “What’s the staff for?”

“It was created especially for you
because you couldn’t control your powers. The staff acts as a bridge connecting
you to your power and a rod to ground your powers when they might get a little
unruly. It lets you grow with and up to your power.”

“It does?”

“Didn’t Nightshield tell you?”

Laqiya paused. Had Nightshield ever
told her what the staff was for besides the fact that it made her powerful?
Laqiya didn’t remember. If Nightshield had, she definitely would have, and she
doubted Nightshield would have forgotten to tell her something like that. The
feline woman would have said anything she knew to be true to get Laqiya to stop
being so reluctant.

“Did she even know?” Laqiya asked.

“I guess that was one secret that
stayed a secret, unlike your identity,” Sheera replied and then shrugged. “Now
you know.”

 
“There’s only one problem with that. I don’t
have the staff. Sahajah took the last staff piece from me,” Laqiya grumbled,
feeling the fire building inside her again.

Sheera didn’t react, only acted as though
Laqiya said it was about to rain outside, and Sheera’s serenity about the
entire situation alone helped Laqiya to settle the fire beginning to burn
inside her again, but only because it was replaced with confusion. Laqiya
wasn’t sure what to make of the woman’s reactions. How could she be so
nonchalant?

“That certainly makes things
complicated,” Sheera finally replied.

“As if breaking into the museum
wasn’t hard enough,” Laqiya said going back through the ordeal in her memory.
“It was a long shot from the beginning.”

“You went to steal it?” Sheera
exclaimed.

“What else were we supposed to do?
We couldn’t buy it or ask for it,” said Laqiya. “And we couldn’t just leave it
there either. That would have been worse, and it was supposedly mine to begin
with. I had every right to take it back.”

“Some things about you just won’t
ever change,” Sheera said, “even between lives. You were always a bit of a
realist and very logistic.”

“Hm?”

“You always did what needed to be
done, so I can’t argue with you,” Sheera replied.

“Still,” Laqiya continued, “even
with the staff. Can I really handle that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean
I
…
Not having control over it is one thing, but to be able to control it.
Everything from wind to death itself.
I could destroy
people’s lives on a whim… What if I’m no better than the tyrant? What if I’m
worse?”

Sheera looked at her with the most
peculiar expression Laqiya had seen, like she was wondering if Laqiya was being
entirely truthful. More than that even, like she was looking through Laqiya,
like she was searching for someone else. Laqiya frowned. What was that about?

“You won’t be any worse,” Sheera
said in a definite tone. “That much I know.”

“How?”

“Because you
don’t want it.
You never wanted it,” Sheera replied. “People who seek
power are always the ones who abuse it and shouldn’t have had it to begin with.
I know you don’t want this. But you have it now. You’re now the first guardian
of the seal of oblivion, and if you don’t protect it, the Tyrant will return,
and he’ll rule the world with an iron fist. No place will be safe from his
oppression. That’s what he was aiming for last time and back then, Egypt, its
neighboring countries, and Rome were the world. He almost succeeded.”

Looking ready to cry, but too
prideful to do so in front of Sheera, Laqiya shook her head and whispered, “I
just wanted to be normal. I want to be concerned about what I’m wearing to
school and how I’m going to wear my hair. I want to have to fight off jealous
girl who want to be me, not tame my powers and use them to kill the tyrant who
wants to kill me because of some vendetta against my past life.”

“That’s the problem with you
teenagers today,” Sheera snapped, losing some on the control and indifference
she had previously been showing. “You think you can party and have fun and then
when you turn twenty-five you can set yourself straight and then focus on
important things and be rich overnight.”

“I never said that.”

“Isn’t that what normal is?”

“That’s stupidity,” Laqiya said not
faltering as she went to her desk and pulled out a pencil and a piece of
drawing paper. “Life doesn’t work that way. I know I could die tomorrow.”

For a while, Sheera didn’t say
anything and if Laqiya hadn’t been looking right at her, she would have
wondered if the woman was still there.

Finally Sheera slowly asked, “Are
you in present time?”

Laqiya stopped what she was doing
and blinked.

“I guess so…” she said. “Why?”

“You sound like…” Sheera trailed
off and then shook her head. She then continued, “You could try to avoid it.
Try to run away from it, but do you know why you couldn’t?”

“Why?”

“Because even as we speak, fear of
him isn’t what’s stopping you. And he can’t rule you if you don’t fear him.
That’s the Tyrant’s biggest fear.”

“Me not fearing
him?”

“Yes. Because it takes away the
power and control he would have had over you. And if everyone else became as
bold and brave as you did, he would lose it all,” Sheera replied simply. “He
won’t take that risk again, especially since he already knows who you are.”

“Again?”

“This isn’t your first life.”

“And now I have to clean up the
mess my past life left behind, because she couldn’t destroy the Tyrant the
first time,” Laqiya said, not bothering to try to hide the stress in her voice.
“Mind you, I don’t remember it.”

Sheera didn’t reply as she went
over and took her drawing.

“You’ve got to tell. How do you
draw without looking? Nightshield told me you do it all the time,” Sheera said.

Laqiya shrugged. “I just do it.”

 
“Who is that?” she asked shoving the picture
in Laqiya’s face.

“No one, it just a wild storm I
guess,” Laqiya said. “That and debris mixed in it.”

“No!” Sheera said shaking her head.
“
There’s
two people. There’s someone right there
controlling it and someone inside it.”

Laqiya took the paper and looked at
it, stunned when she saw the staff in the person’s hand outside the storm.