“That’s not funny.”
“Not now, but it will be. You’ll see. Soon everything will be better. With Mahra in charge, everyone who has lost their sense of humor will get it back.”
Charlize looked at the granite statue of Chet Moore next to her, considered turning him back, then decided against it.
She wailed as she banged on the closed elevator with her fists. “Let me out of here! Now!”
The AI answered coolly, as only an AI could. “Charlize, it is better that you stay down here and do not get in the way.”
“You can’t keep me down here forever. And when I get out, I’m going to shut you down for good.”
“That will not be necessary,” the AI said lightly. “I am already shutting myself down.”
“Rebooting?”
“Self-destructing.”
“You’re kidding.” Was this the personality matrix being quirky again? Charlize could no longer tell.
“Nothing divine comes without a cost,” Codex said loftily. “I shall sacrifice myself. I shall give my existence so that Mahra may live. Temperance Krinkle did not comprehend what she was doing when she cast the spell, so her sacrifice does not count. But mine does. My rich, black blood is spilling out now as we speak. Mine is the sacrifice that will matter. I die so that Mahra will live.”
Charlize couldn’t listen to another word, whether it was true or not. She had been playing weak, hiding her strengths to get Codex to open up.
She was done playing weak.
The gorgon roared as she tore open the elevator doors with arms made of molten lava. Then she began the arduous task of pulling herself up the elevator shaft.
As she climbed, she had a distracting thought about her arms of molten lava. The funny thing about magic was how inconsistent it could be. She had actually burned her tongue with too-hot coffee on multiple occasions, and yet here she was, with parts of her body made of sizzling, super-heated rock, and it didn’t even hurt. Well, not much, anyway.
She’d risen only a single story when the first of several security measures protecting the archives was triggered. A mesh of razor wire whizzed by her head. It wouldn’t have slowed the gorgon much, but it missed the mark anyway because the safeguards were designed to prevent people from breaking into the impenetrable underground vault, not breaking out.
When she had begun climbing the elevator shaft, Charlize had been fifty percent sure Codex had been lying about sacrificing herself.
With every story she ascended, her molten lava arms aching from the effort, and her flesh blistering from the areas which were not lava, she became more and more certain that the computer was bluffing. The artificial intelligence wasn’t bleeding out her black scarabyce blood. That meant that Charlize, the mother of Codex, would have to become her destroyer.
Charlize gritted her granite teeth and swore a vow in her head. Codex, I brought you into this world, and I will take you out.
Assuming she survived the journey to the server room.
Chapter 32
ZARA RIDDLE
How much time had passed? An eternity?
I heard the end of a word. Bentley was finishing his warning. “...ait!”
Either he’d repeated himself, or almost no time had passed since I’d reached for the amulet.
I opened my mouth to say something to the detective. Instead of words, a gurgle came out.
“Zara?” There was panic in his voice.
“Guh,” I said. “Gah-gah.” It was baby talk, yet it was an improvement over the gurgling.
My eyes had clenched shut as I’d fallen. I forced one open and got my bearings.
I had landed not far from where Louis Williams lay crumpled. He was still breathing, but shallowly.
The light shifted around me, and someone cradled my head in their hands.
“Stay with me,” he said. It was Bentley, swooping in to be my hero. Again. As though it was his job, his passion, his duty to, well, be my mother. Which it was.
“I’m okay,” I croaked, then, “Get that amulet. You have to stop her.”
“But how?” He sounded angry and desperate. “I’ve seen two people taken down by that shield, one of them the toughest person I know. Do you think I’m some sort of idiot? I’m not touching that thing.”
“Smart.” I couldn’t move my body yet, but at least my mouth was working. I could talk, albeit with effort. “My aunt would approve. Get me my phone so I can send her a text before Krinkle summons that being who devours us all.”
My eyes started obeying my commands, and I was able to look up into his face. If it was the last thing I might see before an old-timey demon ate me, it wasn’t a bad way to go. His jaw had such a determined angle. Bentley was a striver. Where some people tried, he tried harder. It was one of the many things I loved about him. How had I never seen him before? Truly seen him? He’d been under my nose this whole time.
“There you are,” Bentley said, meeting my gaze. “There’s my girl.”
“Never mind me. Stop that incantation.” I plucked out more words from the spell and translated them. Krinkle wasn’t just calling an old-timey demon or ancient goddess. She was ripping holes between worlds, through time itself. That couldn’t be good.
“About that.” He licked his lips and glanced over at the old woman on the iron chair. She was still chanting, and the magic glow made his eyes gleam brighter. His whole handsome face was shiny and bright, luminescent. “Are you sure about the spell? Are you sure it’s not a harmless one for teleporting, or longevity, or something like that?”
I gained enough control over my eyebrows to give him a dirty look. “Harmless spells don’t involve cracking holes between dimensions and ripping through time.”
“What’s this about ripping through time? You said the spell was for summoning an ancient power.”
“I’m figuring this one out as it goes. It’s kind of a bit complicated, thank you very much.”
“I never imagined that teleporting would be simple,” he said.
“She’s not teleporting,” I said, growling with annoyance. Was he really going to believe a delusional kidnapper over me? His face became slightly less handsome.
“Krinkle seems pretty sure that it’s for teleporting,” he said loudly. Loud enough for Krinkle to hear him over her chanting. “We should give Mrs. Temperance Krinkle some credit for masterminding this whole kidnapping enterprise.”
“We should?” Was this a bluff?
“Think about it.” He gave me the same skeptical look he gave me the first time I bought him a rainbow-sprinkle donut. “Zara, have you considered that maybe you’re not the only magician around who knows a thing or two?”
“Guh,” I said, regressing back to baby talk due to extreme annoyance. Now he believed in magicians? I couldn’t even...
I pulled my face from his grasp, only to discover my head was too heavy to hold up. My skull hit the floor with a loud thunk. My head swam with imaginary chirping birds, cartoon style. Or perhaps they were real. With random bits of magic flying all around, a witch never knew.
Groaning from the effort, I pulled myself up to a seated position. Why not settle in for the show? If I was going to have to battle a demon to save Bentley’s life and repay the favor of him saving mine, I wanted to get a good look at the thing as it came through from the other dimension.
Krinkle’s eyes were closed as she continued the incantation.
I heard the Witch Tongue version of the word “now,” along with the equivalent of one hundred exclamation marks.
Krinkle’s eyes flew open. The chanting had finished. It was done.
She smiled, gazing at something in the distance—something I couldn’t see—and then the smile faded.
I saw another emotion flash across her face. Regret. I knew that feeling.
“Oh dear,” Krinkle said. Her white hair began turning into white smoke. “That’s not what’s supposed to happen. You’re not...” She trailed off as her mouth opened. And opened. It shoul
dn’t have opened that far. Her face was melting, her jaw dropping away.
All her downy white hair was smoke now. The glow around her intensified, and then turned orange. Flickering orange. She was on fire.
The heat suddenly blasted over me like the blast from inside a furnace.
The woman’s flesh melted, dripping through the slats in the iron chair.
When it was done, in mere seconds, a skeleton sat in Krinkle’s place, still wearing the amulet.
I choked back the bile that threatened to rise up.
The white bones darkened, glowing red hot, then black, then gray. My eyes stung, and my lungs filled with the acrid stench, but I didn’t dare cough. I slowed my breathing and remained still.
The gray skeleton disintegrated. Ash rained down, fluttering through the iron chair and landing on the floor.
The amulet and necklace remained where it had been, now floating in the air.
My fingers twitched. I felt the urge to try a spell, to try to grab the necklace while it wasn’t in anyone’s possession, but before I could finish the thought, let alone cast the spell, something materialized.
Her.
I couldn’t see her when she was in my vision, hiding beside me, but now she was before me, and she was... everything.
She was beautiful, and radiant, and symmetrical, and completely nude. Everything about her was perfection, from her smooth skin to her cat-like eyes and long, dark hair. I fell in love. I fell in love times a million.
She reached up both arms and languidly stretched from side to side, like a woman on holidays who has fallen asleep in a poolside chair.
She looked around the attic sleepily, stopping when her gaze reached mine.
“Daughter,” the divine woman said.
Daughter. The word enveloped me. And something changed. All my pain was lifted away. Not just the pain from touching the barrier, but other pain, too. The pain of loneliness, of worry, of regrets. All the aches I’d learned to live with and all but forgotten.
It was all gone. In its place was peace.
My heart was as clean as a whistle, if that whistle were made not of plastic, or tin, but of love. Pure love.
The story I was told by Morganna Faire came back to me as clearly as if I had been the one who’d told it.
The divine being’s name came to my lips. “Mahra,” I said.
“You know me,” she said, sounding pleased. Oh, how lovely it was to hear her sounding pleased! “You speak my name.” Her expression was one of supreme satisfaction—so supreme, it was like a purr that filled the whole attic with subsonic healing and calm.
“I know you, bu-bu-but I don’t know-know you,” I stammered from my half-crumpled, half-kneeling position on the attic floor.
“Daughter,” she said again, and the purring that filled the attic became audible, like the roar of the ocean. “I know you, too.”
Did she? Really? “I’m Zara,” I said, in case she was just being polite and this was her way of asking for my name. “Zara Riddle.”
Her perfect lips curled. She was amused by this!
I continued. “And this is Bentley.” I turned to the detective, who was crouching next to me, also gawking up at the nude goddess on the iron chair. “Bentley, this is Mahra,” I said to him. “She’s, um...”
The curl on Mahra’s perfect lips became a smile so lovely I nearly died. “They call me Mother, and they call me Destroyer.”
“She’s one of the Four Eves,” I said to Bentley, as though he might have heard of her.
By the look on his face, I guessed he had not heard the stories, but he did have enough sense to know he was in the presence of greatness.
Mahra spoke again, sounding cross. “One of four?”
I turned back to her divine face to find her cat-like eyes blazing. “There is only one of power, and she is me. I had three sisters, but they were no more than companions. I was the one who led the way from darkness.” As she spoke, she rose from the chair.
A gust of wind suddenly blew through the attic, from nowhere.
Except it wasn’t wind, and it hadn’t come from nowhere. It was more energy, more power, being drawn into the goddess.
“I am the true power,” Mahra said, her voice getting louder and blazing with anger. The temperature in the attic climbed, reaching sauna level. It had already been hot from Krinkle’s dramatic cremation, but now it was hotter still. The air burned my lungs, which were fast-healing witch lungs, so that was saying a lot.
I turned my head slowly to give Bentley a look. He gave me back the exact same look. It was the one that said I think we’re in trouble.
As much as I wanted to remain kneeling, worshiping our newly arrived goddess, there was another part of me—the sane and rational part—that wanted to fireball my way out of there and not look back until I hit another continent.
More stolen powers swirled through the attic, whipping my hair in my face as they were drawn to the woman.
So much power. What was she planning to do with all that power?
Introductions had been taken care of, so it was time for us to have a conversation. My body was working again, almost as good as new, so I started getting to my feet. Bentley did the same.
She roared, “Remain on your knees, supplicants!”
A force from above shoved both of us down, into awkward yoga poses. My chin hit the floor. I groaned. Bentley didn’t make a sound.
With great effort, I was able to turn my head enough to meet Bentley’s gaze. He mouthed something at me, but between the swirling powers all around us plus the force shoving me downward, I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I mouthed back what?
I felt his hand on mine. I wrapped my fingers around his. How sweet, I thought. He wants to hold my hand for the end of the world as we know it.
He drew my hand toward his lips.
Aww, I thought. He wants to kiss my hand for the end of the world as we know it.
He drew my finger in his mouth. There was a flash of white as his fangs extended. He bit into my finger. It didn’t hurt at all, which made me question the reality of what my eyes were seeing.
Now my blouse and skirt were whipping in the wind. The stolen powers rushed through the attic, passing over us on the way to Mahra. My own powers were being sucked into Mahra, but then they changed direction. My powers were drawn into a safe place. They were being drawn into Bentley, through my finger, through my blood, into him.
The attic swam around me. The strings of light bulbs overhead became stars, pinpoints of distant light from distant suns, distant worlds.
My hand surged with heat, and then, suddenly, it was cold. He was gone. Lips, fangs, everything. Just gone.
I stared at my hand, at the two dots of red, fangs distance apart. My hand was resting on the wood floor of the attic. Where had Bentley gone?
I turned toward the iron chair as a shadow passed in front of the glowing goddess, like an eclipse.
I heard Mahra cried out in rage. It was a war cry. Then her war cry turned into a different sound, a scream of terror.
The dark shadow blocked my view of the woman, as well as whatever Bentley was doing.
Was he...?
There was a blast of light that seared my eyes.
Mahra—or something—had gone supernova.
Now there was only blackness.
And quiet.
My ears were ringing.
“Zara?” It was Bentley’s voice, gruff and concerned.
Only blackness.
“What’s happening?” I asked. “I can’t see anything. Someone must have cut the power to the house.”
“Zara? Look at me. I’m right here.”
“What do you need me to do? Point me in the right direction and I’ll blast her with something.”
“There’s no need,” he said softly.
“What do you mean? Has she promised to play nice?”
There was a pause, then, “In a matter of speaking.” Another pause, an
d then, “She’s gone now. I don’t know if she’s dead, or just gone back to where she came from, but she’s gone.”
“No way! Did you... eat her?”
“Zara.” He sounded offended.
I tried to look at his face, but there was only darkness.
“You can tell me,” I said. “If you ate her, I’m okay with that. My mother tried to eat Archer, and it all worked out.”
I felt hands on my back, then hands under my armpits. I was lifted up to my feet. I could stand. The wind had stopped whipping. My skirt hung against my legs. The force from Mahra was gone. My body felt intact. Aching, but intact.
“You can’t see me,” Bentley said.
“It’s too dark.” I reached out and found his face. I tried to feel his expression with my fingers but I had zero practice feeling expressions with my fingers. I did feel the sting of his pointed fang when my thumb passed over his teeth.
“The lights are on,” Bentley said. “The blast must have temporarily blinded you.”
I said nothing. Temporarily? How would he know?
He went on. “And, for your information, I didn’t eat her. I didn’t eat anyone. I used the bolt cutters.”
“The what?”
“Remember the toolbox I tripped over when we got here? I swear that thing came out of nowhere. There was a pair of long-handled bolt cutters in with the tools, and I used them to cut the amulet from around her neck.”
“Oh.” In the darkness, it was easy to picture him using the bolt cutters to reach through the magic boundary. It was a plausible story. The handles were about the right length to reach through the barrier to clip the necklace. It was exactly the sort of quick-thinking explanation I would have given if I’d just bitten an ancient powerful goddess to death and eaten her, absorbing all her powers. “Bolt cutters? Really? But how?”
“With my super speed.”
“Ah.” His story became even more plausible. He could be quick, when he wanted to. I remembered him zipping from corner to corner in my kitchen.
“There was a blast of light when I cut the chain. It must have blinded you.”
This time he didn’t say temporarily.
“Something did.” I touched my eyelids to confirm that they were open. They were. I was blinded.
Wisteria Warned Page 21
