“Come on, hurry,” Kyran said. I steeled myself, swallowed hard, and forced myself to sit on the ledge and drop my legs through the entrance before slipping the rest of my body through. I slid down for a couple of seconds before landing with a thud on hard ground below. It was pitch black here; the only thing I could make out was the steady drip of water somewhere.
“You alright?” Kyran called out.
“All good,” I replied, scrambling out of the way so that whoever came by next wouldn’t get to use my body as a landing pad. A moment later Ellie let out a squeal as she came down, landing with a thud.
“Ow, my butt,” she said as she landed, taking the hand I offered to help her get up. I cast a quick light-emitting spell with my wand just as Sara came down, landing on her feet, although she did come precariously close to losing her balance. A moment later, Kyran joined the rest of us, landing deftly on his feet like some kind of superhero. It was so unfair that elves were insanely graceful when I was the literal opposite of that.
“Alright, lead the way,” Kyran said, motioning down the tunnel. This definitely counted as being super creepy. Sara, Ellie, and I all had light emitting from our wands, which lit the walls of the lava tube. It was round, although not perfectly so, with uneven walls filled with tiny little pores. Moisture lined the walls here and there, and as we made our way deeper and deeper into the tunnels, heading downhill, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that we were currently underneath the Pacific Ocean. I knew this tube had to have been here for thousands if not millions of years already, but I still really, really hoped that after all that time it didn’t choose this precise moment to collapse in on itself.
“Well, this wins for the creepiest moment in my life so far,” Ellie said. Her voice echoed along the walls. “And I once got hit on by a vampire at a bar wearing a head-to-toe denim three-piece suit, including his tie.”
“Amy had better appreciate what we’re doing to save her,” Sara replied. “I’m much more comfortable in the air than underground, I have to say.”
“How long is this tunnel, anyway?” I asked Kyran.
“A couple of miles. I’m pretty sure Kilokilo would be visible from shore if it wasn’t for the magic used to disguise it. It’s not actually that far off Oahu.”
“Right now, a couple of miles feels like an eternity,” I muttered in reply.
“Don’t worry, I’ve taken this tunnel plenty of times in the past.”
“It only needs to decide to collapse one time,” Sara said, her eyes looking upward.
“Why don’t you try talking about things that don’t involve us dying horribly?” Kyran suggested. “You might find it takes your mind off the fact that we’re in a tunnel.”
I tried to skim through a list of potential conversation topics, but my brain kept coming back to the situation at hand instead of settling on something else to talk about. I figured I wasn’t the only one in this situation, because even Ellie didn’t seem to be able to come up with a topic of conversation, and we eventually lapsed into silence, the only sound our footfalls as they echoed through the tunnel.
After what felt like an eternity, but in reality was probably about an hour, Kyran stopped and held up a hand, motioning for us to do the same.
We had been walking slightly uphill for a while now, and I was ashamed to admit that I was happy to take a little bit of a breather. I tried to hide the fact that my lungs were working overtime to try and get oxygen while Kyran darted ahead of us, quick and nimble on his feet like it was nothing. He returned a moment later.
“The exit is clear. We can come out,” he said quietly. “Still, be careful. We’re now for all intents and purposes in Kilokilo, and we cannot risk being seen.”
“Should I cast an invisibility spell?” Ellie offered, waving her wand around.
“Not yet. Wait until we’ve left the lava tube safely.”
The three of us crept forward until a shaft of dull light appeared. I peeked through the hole and waited for my eyes to adjust; it appeared to come out in the middle of a thick, lush jungle. Perfect.
“I’ll go first,” I whispered to the others.
“As soon as you get out, head to the thicket of bushes to your right,” Kyran said. “Hide there until we can cast the invisibility spell.”
I nodded and pushed myself through the crack. No wonder Kyran wanted to wait for us all to get out before we left; this end was a much tighter squeeze than the other side. I got somewhat stuck halfway through the hole and had to breathe in so hard I felt like a Victorian era woman trying to get a corset on before I finally came out the other side. There was a small tear in my shirt, but it was nothing compared to my dignity.
“Great. If you had that much trouble, I’m never getting through,” Ellie muttered.
“It’ll be fine,” I whispered as I made my way over to the thicket of bushes Kyran mentioned. It was a small clump in a circle, and sure enough, by making my way into the middle of it, I was completely obstructed from view.
A minute or so later Ellie joined me, making a face as soon as she saw me.
“I think I’ve gained a bit of weight since starting my business,” she said. “If nothing else, that experience has inspired me to go on a diet.”
“Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure just being a normal adult witch is enough to get someone stuck in there,” I replied with the quietest giggle I could muster. Sara and Kyran joined us a moment later, Ellie cast an invisibility spell on us all, and we were ready. We were going to find Amy.
Chapter 10
“Is there anything in the letter that suggests where you have to go?” Ellie asked in a hushed whisper. “Or does it just say to go to Kilokilo?”
I shook my head before realizing there was no way for Ellie to see what I’d just done. “No,” I said quickly. “There’s nothing. It just said to come home. He had to have meant Kilokilo.”
“Alright,” Kyran said. “Tell us everything you know.”
I described my time in the middle of the lake and everything I could remember from where I saw Amy was being held.
My eyes widened as realization dawned on me. “I think she might have been held in a lava tube. Are there more of them around?” I remembered thinking that where Amy was being held had looked damp, and the texture on the walls had seemed strange, unlike anything I’d seen before. But I’d seen it just now. She was definitely being held inside a lava tube, and it had to be somewhere here, in Kilokilo.
Kyran nodded. “Yes. The island is full of them. Because Kilokilo was created magically, the witches and wizards who created it had to guide the lava out here. Next to the island of Hawaii—which most humans call the Big Island—Kilokilo is the youngest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s only about ten thousand years old.”
“Practically a baby,” I heard Sara mutter next to me.
“By geological standards, it certainly is,” Kyran replied.
“Alright,” I interrupted. “So Amy is here somewhere, in one of the tubes. How are we going to go about finding her?”
“We check each one individually?” Ellie suggested. “How many can there be?”
“There are hundreds,” Kyran replied. “There’s no way to cover all of them. But some of them are more accessible than others. You really don’t remember anything else that might give you a hint as to where Amy is?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, no.”
“Ok. So I don’t think we have a choice. The most well-known of the tubes isn’t far from here. I don’t think that’s the one he’ll use—he’ll want something less likely to be discovered—but at least we can narrow down the search more quickly if we start there. Follow me.”
“Um, Kyran?” I said, a smile flitting on my lips. “We don’t know where you are.”
“Right,” he replied. “Sorry. Unlike you, I’m not exactly used to this whole invisibility thing.”
The four of us made a chain, with me holding Kyran’s hand, and Ellie’s, and Ellie grabbing Sara. We made o
ur way through the thick jungle, occasionally having to stop and cast a cutting spell to get through particularly thick parts of brush. After about five minutes, Kyran led us toward a small cavern entrance hidden behind a large banyan tree.
“Here it is,” he whispered. “Shall we go in?”
“Wait,” I said, my voice hushed. “We need to check it for wards. If Amy is in here, he may have it booby trapped.”
“Good thinking,” Ellie replied, muttering the spell quickly. The cave’s entrance glowed green: we were safe.
We created our daisy chain of paranormals and crept into the lava tube. I took a deep breath stepping into it; I wasn’t claustrophobic at all, but after spending nearly an hour underneath the ocean in one of these tubes, and not knowing if Amy was trapped in another, I was definitely a little bit on edge. After all, I also didn’t know if Titan was sitting there, waiting for me to arrive at any minute.
Going by how tightly Ellie squeezed my hand at the slightest noise, I had a feeling she was feeling the same level of anxiety.
“How long is this lava tube?” I whispered to Kyran when we had gone through about a hundred yards. We had turned a corner, so the entrance was no longer visible. I knew the distance was the same regardless, but I was always mentally more comfortable when I could physically see an escape route.
“Another fifty more yards. We should be able to see her soon if she’s here,” he replied. But we made our way to the end of the lava tube and saw no sign of Amy.
Disappointment wracked through me. I hadn’t expected much; Kyran had said this lava tube was too well-known to be the likely spot Titan was keeping her, but I had hoped we’d find her here all the same.
“Ok, you know what, there’s no one here. Let’s break this spell for a while. This place is creepy enough without me wondering which one of you is about to step on my toes,” Ellie said. I opened my mouth to suggest maybe that wasn’t the best idea, but it was too late. A second later the others all became visible in front of me.
“Well, that wasn’t a good idea,” Kyran said, and my eyes followed his. Sure enough, blocking the entrance to the cave was now a giant dragon. I barely had a chance to absorb what was going on when the giant inhaled sharply. I knew what was coming, and luckily, being a water witch, the spell I wanted came more naturally than most. As hot flame burst from the dragon’s mouth, my wand emitted a torrent of water, which met the flame halfway and hissed as fire turned to steam. I immediately began sweating, the already high humidity becoming almost unbearable.
I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to hold the dragon off, or whether my water would last longer than his flame. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about that, because Ellie immediately sprang into action.
She made her way as close to the flame as she dared, then ran toward the wall while casting a spell, shooting something at the dragon. The fire stopped and I broke my spell, curious to see what Ellie had done. He now lay on the ground, his eyes closed, a couple bits of errant smoke leaking from his nostrils as he snored.
I grinned. “Sleeping spell?”
“Easy peasy,” she replied. “I figured we didn’t need anything too complicated.”
“Can we put the invisibility spell back on?” Sara asked, shivering suddenly. “I’m not sure I liked what just happened.”
“There was likely a trigger set up. As soon as paranormals were seen, the dragon was sent in to kill us,” Kyran said. “We need to reset the invisibility spell, and this time, we can’t get rid of it.”
“Right,” Ellie said. “Sorry about that. But hey, at least now we know what we’re in for, right?”
I was fairly certain she cast the invisibility spell before getting the chance to see me glaring at her. We could have definitely done without the dragon.
“He’ll be ok here,” Kyran said. “We don’t want him waking up anytime soon and telling anyone we’re around. We still have the element of surprise on our side.”
The four of us checked another couple of lava tubes, this time making it in and out uneventfully. In a way, that was a good thing—nothing trying to kill us was usually a positive—but it also meant we didn’t find Amy, and I was starting to lose hope.
I refused to voice my negative thoughts, but they were definitely there. How long had it been since Amy left her exam? It had to have been over twelve hours by now. I’d completely lost track of time with all the time-zone hopping we’d been doing, but it had been too long. Was Amy still alive? I really wished I had any sort of indication. Or had Titan killed her as soon as he knew I’d come looking for her? I pushed that thought out of my head as bile rose in my throat at the thought. There was no way. Amy had to be fine. She just had to be. And we were going to get to her. We just had to keep checking the lava tunnels behind Kilokilo. That was the only way we were going to find her, and we were going to fine her. I refused to accept any other possibility.
“Where’s the next tunnel?” I asked Kyran.
“It’s closer to town,” he replied. “We’re going to have to be quiet. This one isn’t well-known—I lived here for six days once and wasn’t discovered—but the proximity to residents here makes it a more dangerous one to access. If anybody makes their way toward us, we need to stop. If they come close to touching you, do what you have to in order to get away. The number one priority here is to make sure we’re not noticed. The instant anyone from Kilokilo knows we’re here, the alarm will be raised. We all know they’re incredibly private as a coven.”
Kyran was met with silence, which he must have taken as agreement, as we moved onward. Sure enough, Kyran actually led us at one point along a small residential street with weathered wooden bungalows with as many surfboards as brooms propped up against the side walls. Sand swept in from the beach by the wind littered the street, and the palm fronds above us rustled in the wind. We passed one woman using her wand to idly wax her surfboard, and I was so intent on not making a sound that I completely stopped breathing as we moved past her. My eyes were so focused on her I could have sworn she’d have felt them boring into her, but the witch, with her jet-black, towel-dried hair, didn’t so much as look up as we passed.
A wizard with a dark tan and brown hair that he kept blowing out of his eyes walked past us a moment later and we all paused. He stopped and looked around for a second, like he had heard one of us, and the only thing that stopped me from passing out right there on the spot was the knowledge that doing so would create more noise. But after a couple of seconds that felt more like hours, he shrugged and kept walking, probably telling himself he’d imagined the whole thing.
“Well, that was closer than I was comfortable with,” Sara whispered when we got to the end of the street and passed back into the forest.
“I’m glad I didn’t wear my good underwear today. I think I wet myself,” Ellie replied, and I scrunched up my nose.
“That is way too much information.”
Kyran kept going, ignoring Ellie’s admission. That was probably for the best. After a couple of minutes we reached yet another of the lava tubes.
“I think this has a good chance of being it,” Kyran whispered. “Be careful.”
“You too,” I said. “What do we do if we all get separated?”
“Get out,” Kyran said. “We can always come back and regroup, but we can’t do that if we’re trapped, or worse.”
I swallowed hard. I knew what he meant, but I took a deep breath and steeled myself. There was absolutely no way I was going to let that happen. I was going in, and I was going to rescue Amy. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that.
Hold on, Amy. We’re almost there.
Chapter 11
As soon as we entered this lava tube, I knew we were in the right place. It just felt right. Maybe it was the fact that the temperature seemed to drop by fifteen degrees as soon as we crossed the threshold to enter, but something about it felt creepy and weird, like it had recently been inhabited by the worst wizard to ever walk the face of the earth.
“This lava tube has a few offshoots,” Kyran explained quietly. “And it’s long. It’s one of the reasons I think he might keep Amy here. There are plenty of places to hide, and to confuse anyone who enters. Keep your heads on straight and take care of where you’re going in case we need to leave quickly.”
I squeezed his hand to tell Kyran I understood as we made our way deeper into the tube. This one was windier than the others, and I immediately understood why Kyran thought it might be a good pick by Titan. Sure enough, we passed a few offshoots. We checked the first three, but there was nothing.
Our movement was slow, but there was no other choice. We didn’t dare to use our wands to create light, so we moved mostly by feel. Kyran, being an elf, had better night vision than us witches, and he led the way, but he had to move slowly with three witches who were practically blind behind him.
“This is stupid,” Ellie muttered. “We should go visible and just take on whatever comes after us.”
“No!” the three of us hissed at her almost immediately.
“Alright, alright, it was just a suggestion.”
“We’re much safer staying invisible,” Kyran said. “We need the element of surprise.”
We continued along, and a few minutes later, when we were far deeper into the lava tube than I was comfortable with, I gasped. Coming from one of the offshoots was a small sliver of light. Kyran headed toward it, and about thirty feet later we turned the corner to see Amy.
I had to cover my mouth with my hand to stop from crying out. She still looked exactly like she had when I had the vision of her in the lake. She was obviously paralyzed, but her eyes were open. I felt Ellie pull against me, trying to get closer to her, but I squeezed her hand to stop her. As much as I wanted to do exactly the same thing, I knew this was a trap. Titan had done this to get me to come here, and I knew he would be somewhere close, ready to pounce as soon as he spotted me.
The wizard wanted me dead. We had to be careful if we were going to protect Amy.
Behind the Eight Spell Page 6
