A Song of Redemption

by Lillian I Wolfe

  The mausoleum, once so shining with white marble, now looked like a battle zone. Almost black vines and twisted branches from a new line of trees strangled the building to the mid-way point, covering it from the ground to the top and inching toward the front. The marble now looked gray and dingy with streaks of dark mud lending an abandoned illusion to it.

  A gasp of shock and fear rushed out of my lungs as I realized how far into the cemetery the evil had spread. Worse than I had imagined, I realized the plants were seizing the building as if it was a prime target in their advance. Elsewhere, they hadn’t encroached as much, but the dark line still moved forward.

  In twos and threes, the rest of the team reached the crest and stopped beside or behind me to gape at the view.

  “Oh, my Lord,” Cara’s voice spoke, almost in my ear. “Is that what we’re going to try to fight?”

  “That’s only the barrier,” I answered, my voice flat. “It’s advancing, and the yiaiwa will be with it.”

  I turned to face the group, encouraging them closer to hear me. “Ahead of us is the barrier to the evil side. It is trying to claim the vault. It invaded to this point rapidly. This will be our first test. Let’s go down and learn what we, as a team, can do to stop that advance. Now is the time to find out what abilities you all have or if we have enough to push it back.”

  I heard murmurs, concerns about what lay ahead, but no objections to the advance. I steeled myself to use my energy blast, pulling my mind into attack mode and led the way down the less angled descent on the other side.

  After a few minutes, we were within fifty feet of the building where I halted the advance, turning back again. “A little demo to start off. This is what my talent can do.”

  I spun to face the nearest clump of vines and branches, took a deep breath, and flung my right hand, fingers spread wide, into a sheet of white power that zapped into the vegetation. The powerful charge charred them instantly and forced the untouched vines further back to retreat about five feet in shock.

  Without hesitation, I pulled my fingers into a point and aimed for one of the new trees, then shot the blast into it. Still young, the trunk was only about three inches thick, which was still amazing given it hadn’t been there two weeks earlier. When the energy hit, it tore the trunk to shreds and set a white blaze like lightning that raced up the tree, charring the branches and leaves as it went, before it fizzled out.

  I stepped back and turned to them. “Bob, let’s see how your fireball does against this.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied as he stepped forward to come next to me. I hoped his fireball proved to be more powerful here than it was on Earth, but even if it wasn’t, it was still a formidable weapon.

  He focused as I’d shown him, then hurled a tennis-ball-sized blaze of red-hot fire into a clump of vines a few feet further back from where they had retreated. For a moment, the ball seemed to disappear into the vines, then smoke appeared above them before they burst into a blaze of fire that quickly spread back along the side of the building and followed the plants up the walls.

  In defense, the vines further back broke free, retreating and making a firebreak in the blaze. The top ones also broke away from the rest of the stalks and wiggled away, their leaves waving and rustling like foliage-covered snakes.

  I whooped in elation, pumping my arm in the air. “Way to go, Bob!” We had a chance to defeat these things, or at least break through them to get to the portal on the other side.

  “Who’s next?” I asked.

  “I have to get closer to chase them down,” Elly said as she moved forward. “Do you want me to try to choke a few?”

  I shook my head. “No, I know what you can do. Let’s have someone else. Cowboy, what do you have?”

  He looked nervous and shrugged. “I have a lasso.”

  “A lasso?” I repeated stupidly, having forgotten he’d told me about it earlier.

  “Si. Look.” He opened his left hand, swirling it in a circle, and soon a silver thread appeared in a big loop that continued to thicken and twirl until it became a spinning rope of silver.

  Okay...maybe we’ll have a use for that. “You got anything else?”

  He shook his head.

  I pointed to Yoshi. He nodded and shuffled forward to get closer to the plants, then cast both hands out, palms up. Tendrils of mist rose from his fingers and rapidly expanded to create a thick fog that covered about twenty feet within a few seconds. The area we’d just attacked looked like a small cloud sat on it, practically invisible.

  Sandy and Jade approached together, but they said they didn’t seem to have anything either of them could actually do, but the pair believed they could enhance someone else’s ability by touching them. I assumed it would be similar to what Nygard did with me, so I asked them to show me.

  Nervously, they held hands, not quite touching each other, but close enough that their auras mingled. Then they extended their hands toward me, our energy fields combined. Sandy said, “Try your power again.”

  I picked a target and brought my hand around in an overhead blast with my flat palm directed to the end of the building. White light, tinged with dark green streaks, sped out, exceeding the target and blasted into the hedge wall behind it like it had been hit with dynamite. Dark leaves flew into the air; bricks that I hadn’t realized had been hidden under it shattered, and dust rose up blocking the view for a minute or two. When it settled, a gaping hole in the wall was visible.

  “Yes! Yes, yes, yes! There’s our way through. If we can do that at the gate, we are in.” I was jubilant. We just might win this battle. What would that kind of blast do to the yiaiwa?

  I turned to Lucca. “Do you have anything?”

  “Maybe, but I am not sure. Come at me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come.” He lifted his hands, flipping them in front of him as if inviting me to attack him.

  “You want me to assault you?”

  He nodded.

  Okay, this wasn’t going to work. I could attack, but my spirit body wouldn’t actually contact him, although I might be able to shove him with the power. With a jerk of my shoulders, I lunged toward him, both hands forward to crash into him.

  In a split second, my spirit form flew backward and tumbled heels over head onto the ground. He’d flipped me! How the hell did he do that? I got to my feet and gaped at him. “What was that?”

  Lucca arched his eyebrows in an almost apologetic look. “I can repel an attacker.”

  “What?! You mean no one can touch you?”

  Before he answered, I heard a shriek from Cara and turned to look. A yiaiwa hung a foot off the ground, not more than ten feet away.

  “You’re up, Cara. Let’s see what your talent does.”

  She leveled a terrified look at me as I nodded encouragement. “Go ahead. Give it a go. We’re here to back you up.”

  Face looking even paler, she managed to turn, pull in a deep breath then started singing in a high, shrill soprano. I cringed. No wonder the yiaiwas didn’t like it. She was off-key and annoying. I caught Lucca’s pained expression out of the corner of my eye and nearly laughed. But the important part was the black blob of evil shrieked and backed away from her.

  “Good enough,” I shouted over her singing. “Let’s take care of this intruder.” I raised my hand and sent a bolt speeding its way.

  But the yiaiwa wasn’t just waiting for it, and a thrust of its own freezing power flew out from its fingers.

  “Spread out and duck,” I yelled as I rolled to the ground and came up with another bolt ready to go. A fireball spun into the creature, and it sizzled in the flames before it disappeared.

  At almost the same time, I heard a scream and spun around in time to see another yiaiwa that had emerged behind us and grabbed Janna, somehow locking her in its grasp. She struggled against the hold, spurts of rainbow colors rising from her hands as she attempted to break free.

  I knew the bone-chilling cold that I felt when one had
blasted me, but I’d never been gripped by one. Did that icy sensation occur when a soul is grabbed? Was Janna experiencing it now?

  I readied for an energy blast, trying to get it narrow enough to strike the yiaiwa without harming Janna when two or three others shouted that the other one had returned. He was a diversion, I surmised, and found my target, flinging my blast at the yiaiwa, who shot skyward with Janna in its grasp. Her screams faded as it sailed over the barrier while streaks of multi-colored puffs that Janna still tossed out as she fought against the supernatural creature trailed after them.

  “No! Dammit, no!” My voice sounded ragged as I screamed in raw anguish.

  Chapter 27

  FURIOUS, I WHIRLED around and unleashed a broad blast at the yiaiwa who’d distracted the rest of my team.

  Only a few feet from us, the blast knocked it back, and as it started to pull itself up, a silver rope dropped around its body, pulling tight to secure its arm-like appendages to its body before it could react. The yiaiwa struggled against the binding as Cowboy, holding the end of his lasso, strolled closer and pulled it tighter.

  “Son of a gun,” I muttered and started to join him. Astrid fell in beside me.

  “I think I have a spell that can hold it,” she said.

  A moment later, little Parnika ran up, puffing out, “I have some magic. I can help.”

  I motioned them on. Parnika and Astrid conferred for a few moments, then Astrid started a chant in a monosyllabic language that I couldn’t understand at all while Parnika made motions and patterns with her hands. Whatever they were doing seemed to work as the yiaiwa went limp.

  I stood next to the unmoving Hellspawn, fighting the urge to kick it, beat it, and destroy it. Dammit, they had Janna. In the distance, I could still see faint puffs of colors as she continued to struggle with her captor.

  I told myself I needed to breathe and think clearly. We could take down that barrier enough to get through and go after her. I knew we could do it. But I had a captive in hand, the yiaiwa Orielle needed. All I had to do was get it back to the house and her trap. I could do that and come back for Janna. My emotions warred within me—the desire to go after her now versus the bigger picture of getting needed information from the captive.

  Biting my lip, I turned to Cowboy. “We need to take him to my house. Can we move him with that lasso?”

  He gave a tug on it, pulling the limp thing a foot or so. “I think we can.”

  “Let’s try this. Focus on me. I’m going to guide us to the house.” I slid my hand over the end of the lasso and willed us to the kitchen.

  Much to my amazement, we arrived exactly where I’d wanted, not more than three feet from the kitchen table where Orielle’s trap sat, ready and waiting. I yelled for Orielle, hoping she was nearby. The yiaiwa remained a limp blob secured by the silver lasso while Cowboy held the other end, chest puffed out with his pride at helping to capture the ghoulish thing.

  While I waited, I studied the trap, trying to figure out how it worked. I couldn’t see either how we would get the creature into it or how to secure it. Orielle hurried into the room, her footsteps slowing as she saw Cowboy and me along with our captive.

  “You’ve got one! This is wonderful.” She rushed to the trap and positioned it more to the edge of the table.

  “How does this thing work?” I asked. My anxiety showed as I felt the urgency to return to the cemetery and go after Janna before it was too late. “How will you get this big thing into it?” The yiaiwa was easily three times larger than the trap, even when it was folded and deflated-looking as it was now.

  “That would be magic,” she answered, then turned to Cowboy. “Can you lift it up with that magical rope?”

  Puzzlement showed on his face for a few seconds, then he began wrapping the lasso back around in a loop in his hands. As he did, the yiaiwa was pulled up. Orielle applied a lotion of some sort to her hands and rubbed them together. Next, she concentrated, her eyes narrowing to slits, and began saying some nonsense words—the same kind Gavin used. I figured it was a spell, but I hadn’t realized she had a spell-casting talent.

  The yiaiwa began to shrink in size, compressing into a blob about one-fourth the size it had been. Pulling on a pair of plastic gloves, Orielle guided the still unresponsive blob into the trap and locked it down with a single word. She removed the gloves, passed her hands over the top, and a green glow of light encircled the container.

  “It is secure now. When it recovers, we can attempt to interrogate it.”

  “Great. Now I need to get back. One of the yiaiwa took Janna; I’m going to go get her.”

  “What? No, wait. You cannot just rush into a rescue without some preparation—”

  “Well, the team is waiting for me, so I’m going,” I interrupted. “I can’t let them destroy her.”

  “Then I will come with you.”

  She handed me her necklace, an artifact she’d found when she was a girl and had worn for luck.

  “It should be halved. Take the chain or the artifact, and I’ll take the rest.”

  “No, I can follow you and the necklace. Lead the way.”

  I stared at her a moment. What else hadn’t she told me? I shifted my gaze to Cowboy. “Are you ready?”

  At his nod, I started to focus, humming a tune under my breath, and then I felt the shift to go...

  Cowboy and I returned to almost the same place we’d left, but the team wasn’t all there. I panicked. Had something happened to some of them? I saw Astrid and Elly standing a few dozen yards from the vault and called out as I walked toward them.

  “Where is everyone?”

  Astrid turned, a concerned look on her face. “I sent them home, Gillian.”

  “What? No. We need to go after Janna.” I started to reach into my pocket for the tokens, hoping I could catch them.

  Astrid crossed her arms, taking a firm stance. “Stop. You can’t run storming through that barrier with a bunch of folks who’ve never done this before. They were frightened by what happened and what they saw. You need to give them time to process this.”

  “Bull! Janna can’t wait. I need to go after her now.” I started to walk past her, Cowboy lagging behind me some.

  Grabbing my arm, she swung me around to face her. “Listen to me. I don’t think the yiaiwa took her to harm her—at least not now. I think they took her to lure you into their territory. They came specifically for her, and they waited until you were here and watching. They want you to attack.”

  I yanked my arm away. “Great, then I’m ready.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not thinking this through.”

  About that time, Orielle arrived only a few feet away. She hurried closer, just catching the end of Astrid’s objections.

  “She may be right, Gillian. Do not rush into this,” she said in support of a half-heard remark.

  “And she may be wrong. That is Janna’s soul that’s at risk. I’m going. Who’s going with me?”

  No one spoke.

  I turned to look at Cowboy and saw the fear in his eyes although he seemed to want to help me. But he didn’t commit, and he looked away.

  Elly scuffed her feet in the grass, likely doing that where her body was in New Zealand. “Honestly, Gillian, I’m with Astrid on this. The rest of them were scared and uneasy. Afraid to stay here after you zapped out. That’s when Astrid told them to return to their bodies, and we’d be in touch later. The Hungarian guy said he didn’t want to do this. He was completely freaked and left before you did, but I don’t think you noticed.”

  My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t seen him vanish? Shit! I’d been so caught up in capturing that yiaiwa and getting him back to Orielle that I’d lost track of one of my team. I shook my head and tried to come to terms with the possibility my actions had done more damage to the group than any of the positives. “No, I’m sorry. I should have waited or something.”

  Astrid spoke again, her voice kinder, “I think we should all go back now and regroup. Gillian,
you need to reassure everyone on the team. Then we need to come up with a battle plan for entering that side. Trust me, please. Janna’s soul won’t be destroyed until they have you.”

  “I believe she is correct,” Orielle offered, her eyes showing sympathy for the situation.

  I turned away. My need to take action drove me to want to go now while the more sensible advice took hold in my brain. I compromised. Swallowing my disappointment, I said, “Fine. Everyone go back to your base. I’m still going to try to go through and if anyone wants to help, come along.”

  I began marching toward the gate in the hedge, drawing my anger and hatred for the yiaiwa and Belphegor to the fore. I could sure use Bob for this attack, but I would try to do it on my own. Orielle came with me although I didn’t think she had anything to contribute.

  Following her, both Elly and Cowboy progressed slower, their footsteps more reluctant. Elly’s stinging vines would help. Cowboy’s lasso, not so much.

  Halting in front of the twisted vines and limbs that covered the gate entry, I motioned everyone back. Astrid arrived last when I hadn’t expected her to follow. She started murmuring a protection spell then Orielle joined in.

  With a nod of appreciation, I turned back to the gate, summoned my anger, and threw all my power into an open-handed cast that flared into the vegetation, burning it. Leaves crackled and sizzled as they disintegrated in the laser-like light. Branches crunched and snapped, catching fire and adding to the flame. The odor of foul things burning drifted back to us on the heat wave from the destruction.

  As new little shoots of vegetation attempted to start, Elly bent to the ground and sent small vines of stinging nettles to combat them. Peripherally, I watched the tiny green strings choke out the new growth as soon as it started.

  I prepared a second attack and unleashed it to clear the area directly in front of the gate so it would give me an open path through it. As it hit, the process repeated as the vines there died and crumbled leaving the way in front open. I moved forward, trusting Elly to keep any new growth from stopping me.