Palatinii Cycle

by G'vonni Avner

  Katie then saw another bolt of electricity fly from her father’s hand, though this one glowed a dangerous red. The voltage shot through the air and hit one of the other guards. The guard was blasted into the air and burst into flames before crashing into the floor ten feet away. The fire quickly died, leaving the guard with a last look of pain in his eyes before the life left his body.

  It surprised Katie to see how much power her father had, and how much anger he showed as if for the last seventeen years he had been hanging onto it, suppressing it deep in his emotions.

  Sabrina made a swirling motion and snapped her fingers. Briefly, Katie noticed that her nails had already grown back. One of them flew over Natasha’s head but before she could react Katie could feel the pain spread through her body like vines as the sword-like nail sliced open the back of her head.

  Natasha fell to her knees.

  John Dimes shot another strike of electrical power, this one aimed at Sabrina. The current was pure white, almost transparent and was so fast it was near impossible to see. Katie watched through Natasha’s tear-blurred vision as everything seems to slow down for fractions of a second. Sabrina’s eyes filled with fear and she bent backward, limbo style, barely dodging the crackling bolt.

  The full blast of it hit an unlucky guard across the room. That was when Katie understood how fast and how powerful John’s attack was, and why Sabrina was so scared of it. Though the guard didn’t scream, Katie could hear the fearful look and agonizing pain that went through the guard as his body turned black and shattered to ash when he hit the floor.

  John looked genuinely surprised that Sabrina had avoided his attack. Natasha looked at him and Katie could see that John’s last move had greatly weakened him, far more than the parasite shot into his arm had done. The two remaining guards shot John with smaller guns, and when the bullets hit, John froze and fell to the floor.

  “John!” Katie felt Natasha scream. The guards hurriedly grabbed John and carried him away. Natasha ran towards them, out of the kitchen but they had already gone.

  Katie felt a nail pierce the side of her neck. She turned around and saw Sabrina coming after her. Katie ran up the stairs towards her bedroom. Before she was halfway up a long nail pierced through her stomach. Katie felt Natasha’s eyes widen and the air leave her body while she crumpled against the wall, the shock and intensity of the pain leaving her immobile. But she wasn’t dead just yet. She still felt life inside her.

  Natasha couldn’t breathe, though she did not give up. Katie forced herself to stand and dragged herself up a few steps. Pools of blood stained the walls and dark wooden stairs. Sabrina sent another sword-like nail towards her, but Natasha gave in and collapsed back onto the stairs, leaving the nail flying over her head and out of sight.

  She tried to inhale a deep breath but only succeeded in coughing up blood. Her body was quickly giving up entirely. But necessity kept her alive. Katie could feel her mother’s power keeping her alive.

  “Get up,” said Sabrina. Two swords penetrated her wrists, and she was pulled upwards, suspended in the air, almost as if she were being crucified. Her head hung low.

  Natasha lifted her head slightly, only enough to see Sabrina’s feet. Natasha screamed as loud as she could. Naturally, no sound came out, though that wasn’t what she was intending to do. Black smoke whipped around her and engulfed Sabrina. The nails disintegrated into dust and Katie fell to the floor.

  She could hear Sabrina choking, unable to breathe with the lack of oxygen affecting her lungs. Natasha smiled; Katie could feel the blood run down her teeth and could taste it in her mouth.

  “Bitch!” shouted Sabrina and lashed out several sharp nails, though none were more than half an inch long. A few hit Natasha, but Katie could barely feel the pain from them. The cloud of black smoke faded away. Sabrina’s face was pale, with the faintest tint of blue.

  “I’m done here,” Sabrina said through her teeth. She pulled out two feet long nails from her fingers and flung them towards Natasha. They stuck through her armpits and carried Katie up the stairs.

  “I bet that hurts,” said Sabrina with relish. “Now it’s time for you to die.” Katie could feel that her mother was as good as dead. She was unable to move, unable to feel the pain of the swords that still pierced through her body. For a moment she was still, suspended in front of the doorway to her parent’s room.

  Katie could barely see the rapier-like nail shoot at her and stab through her chest. She couldn’t feel the sensation of flying in the air and landing on the bed. Natasha Dimes was already dead.

  Katie felt as though she were thrown out of the body and was watching the scene below from an exterior view, like she was now watching the movie, instead of being part of it. She looked at her mother, her eyes unmoving without a trace of life.

  Sabrina walked in and stared down at her. She smirked. Blood and sweat matted her hair upon her face. She pulled the long nail from Natasha’s chest and walked out of the room.

  Katie felt tears in her eyes.

  “Listen,” her mother said. Katie gasped and looked to her right. Her mother was standing there, though she looked blurry and faded.

  “I’m listening,” Katie said.

  “I don’t have much time before Pluton takes me,” Natasha said.

  “What do you mean?” Katie asked but only got a quick, pleading response for her to be quiet.

  “Listen carefully,” Natasha said when Katie was silent. “Nayara is planning to use and ancient, dark magic during the day called ‘The Duo’. She will use my power and energy, along with your father’s, to destroy this world and build it anew from its ashes.”

  Katie stared at her mom.

  “She mustn’t be allowed to do that. There is so much more at stake than just the lives we live now if she were to succeed. You must stop her.”

  “How?” Katie asked. She looked at her mother, eyes wide. Part of her didn’t want her mother to go. Somehow Katie knew that this would be the last time she saw her mom.

  “First thing’s first; stop her from awakening Oscurilina. But if that fails you have to stop her from rebirthing the power.”

  “The power?” Katie asked, confused.

  “Oscurilina’s,” Natasha answered. “Because when the Duo begins, she will be unstoppable.”

  “What’s the Duo?”

  “When all three moons of Narque can be seen, as well as the comet Koran,” Natasha answered. “The power comes from the third moon and the comet.”

  “When does that happen?” Katie asked.

  “I do not know,” Natasha answered. She looked worried, and as if she were rushing. “Also know that Nayara can’t do anything if she doesn’t possess one of our necklaces.”

  “So I should keep yours safe,” Katie said.

  “Don’t worry about mine,” her mother said. “It will disappear along with me. But they have your father’s, and that’s why she’s keeping him alive. Retrieve it.”

  Katie nodded. Her mother was fading quickly. She tried holding her hand but her own just went through it, as if it were smoke.

  “Katie,” Natasha said, her voice weak and barely audible. “You are on a ship called the Pillars of Dusk. Trust no one. And get off it as fast as possible.”

  Katie nodded, tears running down her face. She closed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them, Natasha was gone.

  She found herself lying on the cold, hard wood. She raised her head and looked around as if she had just woken up. Her face was covered in dried tears. Remembering what her mother had said, Katie checked her shoe to feel if the necklace was still there. It wasn’t.

  “Tyson! Cyrus!” she called out. There was no answer. She shouted their names again but still no answer.

  She heard footsteps quickly approaching. Katie stopped shouting. She held her breath so as not to make any noise. A man with a long, patchy beard, opened her cell door and said, “You’re coming with me.”

  12

  The Pillars of Dusk
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br />   Katie was roughly pulled to her feet as the man grabbed one of her arms and yanked her up. She hastily found her balance before being walked out of the cell with the man. He had a firm grip on her arm as he dragged her along.

  “I won’t try to escape, you know,” she lied. The man tightened his grip on her arm in response. They walked down the narrow hall and climbed up some stairs. If Katie previously had any doubt whether or not she was on a ship, it disappeared now. Everything was wooden, the floor, the stairs, the walls. She could smell the strong stinging scent of saltwater as they ascended the stairs. Katie thought the ship must be fairly large as they climbed up four flights of stairs before stepping outside.

  Sunlight blinded her as they stepped out onto the deck. The sun was just above the horizon, which Katie took to mean that it was late afternoon.

  “You’ll be with your people soon,” the man said gruffly. Katie didn’t respond to him. When her eyes adjusted, the scene in front of her gave her a shock.

  The first thing she noticed was that they were out at sea, way out at sea. She looked around. Only blue water could be seen from all sides. The only other thing she could see outside the ship was the sky, which in the distance was hard to tell there even was one.

  There were about twelve men on deck, all who belonged on the ship, each wearing what Katie could only make out to be a uniform, though each was different, and their only similarities were the holes and stains on them. There were three other people on deck, though they were wearing newer clothing, though also stained dirty.

  One was Tyson, another was Cyrus, but the third was someone she didn’t recognize. He had wavy, bleach blond hair and was largely built. The three of them were scrubbing the wooden planks that made up the deck. She noticed that Tyson’s arms had been bruised.

  He threw Katie to the floor, the shock of it temporarily masking the pain. Her head felt like it was about to explode.

  “Get up!” someone yelled at her. She looked up and saw another man staring down at her. At first, his appearance was blurred, and it seemed as if there were three men until the pain subsided and her eyes properly showed her that there was just one man. He had a scruffy beard and dark hair that was tied back in a ponytail. His eyes were darker than his head. “Get up!” He kicked her in the leg. Either it didn’t hurt too much, or Katie was still in too much pain to notice. The man had yellow teeth.

  Katie still stayed on the ground. “I told you to get up!” He kicked her again, only in the stomach this time. Katie let out a yelp of pain and doubled over. Her leg now hurt too.

  “Stop!” she heard someone shout. Katie glanced up again, slowly, scared that she would be kicked again. The large blond guy walked up to Katie’s attacker.

  “What did you just say?” the man said, putting his face close to the blond-haired man’s. Katie could practically feel the pain of the larger man as he smelled the reek that must have come from the pirate’s mouth.

  With no change in expression, the blond man stared right back at the pirate and said, “I told you to stop.”

  For another second, the two stared at each other, then the pirate whipped out a wooden staff that Katie hadn’t previously seen and hit the man across the head.

  Katie watched as the man fell to the floor unconscious. Blood seeped through his blond hair and spilled onto the wooden deck.

  “Take him to his cell,” the pirate commanded. As if they were there all along, three other pirates ran up to the blonde man, picked him up and dragged him down the stairs. Katie thought this man must be the Captain. “Leave him there until he wakes and when he does, call me. If he hasn’t in two days, throw him overboard. I don’t care if he’s still breathing.”

  The pirates nodded, and they disappeared out of sight. Katie looked up again. The Captain was staring down at her. “You can clean this blood off my deck,” he spat at her. “And next time, I don’t care how pretty you may be, you’ll meet the same fate. As long as you’re freeloading on my ship, you work for me, under my conditions and at my disposal.”

  “I didn’t ask to be on your ship,” Katie replied with as much spite as she could muster, though her breath was short and faint, and she was unable to keep her glaring gaze.

  “Don’t lie to me,” the Captain seethed. “I know you were looking for treasure on the sunken ship. And as we didn’t find anything, I have reason to believe one of you three have it. Or had it, since we didn’t find anything of value in your possession.”

  “You’re so stupid,” Katie said, coughing slightly. She wasn’t sure why she said that, but that was all she could think of saying.

  The Captain tossed a scrubbing brush that hit her in the face, “Who’s stupid now?”

  With one eye struggling to stay open, due to the pain in her head, the glare of the sun, and the stench of the Captain’s odor, Katie replied, “No, I think it’s still you.”

  The Captain slapped her across the face. As Katie was nearly on the ground already, she didn’t fall far, though she did fall face first. The Captain then lifted her off her feet and held her close to his face.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” said Katie, stronger willed, as if the pain had given her energy.

  “My treasure,” the Captain answered. “I didn’t take that ship down for nothing. I know there were valuables.”

  Katie paused before answering. She nearly managed a cocky smile and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The Captain slapped her on the cheek again, and again Katie slammed onto the deck. “You’re lying to me,” the Captain said.

  “Katie!” yelled Tyson, who had been watching the whole time, along with Cyrus, but both hadn’t said a word. But Tyson wasn’t able to see much more of it.

  The Captain turned around and glared at Tyson. Tyson’s eyes widened with fear, but he set a look of determination on his face, though his legs were shaking, ever so slightly.

  “Put them all in their cells,” the Captain ordered to no one, but once again, as if they were always ready, five more of the Captain’s henchmen arrived on deck to execute his orders. “Tomorrow I’ll get the girl working properly. I have a special job she will do for me.” He then knelt and whispered to Katie, “If you know what I mean.” The Captain winked and stood up.

  “Until then, let them all go hungry.”

  Katie, Tyson, and Cyrus were escorted down below and thrown into their gloomy cells of damp wood and rotting smells. On her way, she caught a glimpse of the blond man who had tried standing up for her. Still, he was unconscious, and a new trail of blood seeped from his head.

  The floor felt cold and wet as Katie dropped down inside her cell. She didn’t feel like talking at the moment. Apparently, no one else did either as they all sat in silence and Katie allowed her mind to succumb to her thoughts.

  She wondered if the pirate knew about the necklace, or if they just knew that there was treasure on the other ship. But if they did know about the necklace, did they work for Nayara? Or perhaps she tipped them off? Ordered them to retrieve it, in exchange for gold, or something.

  Then she thought of the special job the Captain had for her, which most likely involved him leering at her, or worse…

  She forced herself to stop thinking.

  Katie soon fell asleep and was greeted with dreams of her mother, both with delightful memories and painfully vivid scenes of her death. Along with that, Sabrina’s face haunted each of her dreams. Katie wanted to punch it, strangle her, but like a cat chasing a laser, she couldn’t touch her.