We arrived at the bottom of the staircase and I pressed my forehead to the cool limestone. An ache throbbed through my brain to the fast beat of my pulse.
When we turned our flashlights on, every living face was shiny with sweat. Unconcerned with heat or cold, Taeko stared back at me, a faint smile on her face.
Ahead, molten rock lit a wide cavern. A river of fire slipped beneath a stone bridge.
“Geothermal energy is the way of the future,” Mr. Chang said. “I’d be a millionaire if I’d focused my energies on that industry instead of the Choir, accounting and hapkido.”
The skin beneath my cast itched and I felt dizzy and weak from the heat. Trick leaned against the limestone wall. Sweat beaded down his face and his breathing was as shallow as mine.
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” Trick said.
“Unless we exit through the gift shop maybe,” I said. “Mr. Chang? The air here is bad. How much farther?”
Chumele strode forward. She was a tiny black silhouette against the orange glow of the river’s molten furnace. She pointed. “Across the high stone bridge there are two tunnels to a hollow. We’ll get the weapon we need there.”
Lesson 146: When children demand answers and you don’t want to tell them the whole truth, tell them a long story instead. If the details are interesting enough, they probably won’t even notice you’ve told them everything but what they really need to know.
Chapter 34
Chumele led the way, singing to herself. Rasputin’s vase sat between two rocks on a podium at the center of a cavern. Several symbols were cut into the walls: crosses, ankhs and pyramids.
Mr. Chang followed my gaze and played his flashlight beam over several of the wall drawings. “Masonic symbols,” he said. “Much of these caverns are natural, but the stonecutters made this a suitable place to contain the power of the vase.
As I stepped closer, I thought I might faint from the heat. I tripped. Mr. Chang caught me before I fell.
I looked back to Mama to make sure she was okay. Sweat ran down her face, but she seemed fine. However, Trick leaned on her heavily.
The vase wasn’t what I expected. Maybe you could stick a bamboo tree or a sunflower in there, but it was way too tall for any bouquet I’d ever seen.
“Blood spatter,” I said. “It’s covered in droplets of blood.”
“Heliotrope is also called bloodstone,” Chumele said. “But its appearance is appropriate for its function, yes?”
“Get what’s in the pretty vase and let’s get out of here,” Trick said. His voice came out low and ragged.
“There is nothing in the vase but bones,” Mr. Chang said.
“Kevin?” Mama said. “What’s going on? I don’t understand.”
Taeko went to Chumele and stood beside her. The misty wistful stared into the little woman’s eyes. Chumele smiled and nodded.
The wiccan began to sing louder as she turned toward the vase. She knelt before it and bowed her head. Though I didn’t know the words, by her cadence, it felt like a chant to some ancient ritual.
“Kevin!” Mama said again. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“The lamp of Tighloon is an amplifier. The spell in Rasputin’s vase acts as a dampener.”
The Earth began to rumble beneath our feet. Malta and I drew our swords, ready for demons to come pounding down the tunnel behind us. None came.
Trick sat on the ground so he wouldn’t fall down. As the rumbling increased, he began to laugh. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh. He sounded like he was on the edge of hysterics.
“It’s a good thing he’s cute,” Malta said. “He sounds nuts.”
“Kevin!” Mama yelled.
“It’s okay!” Mr. Chang yelled above the roar. “This happened last time, too!”
“What last time?”
“When Peter killed my wife to seal Rasputin’s spell! We didn’t want the spell to end too quickly! Peter strengthened it, to save you, Ellen!”
“I told you all,” Chumele said, “Poison seals fate. Sacrifice opens it!”
Chumele stood and put one hand on Rasputin’s vase. With the other, she pulled a dagger from her belt. Its blade was curved. The rumbling of the Earth raised dust and brought dirt and small rocks down upon us.
“To be a member of the Choir Invisible is to leave a light on!” Chumele yelled. “I am on my way out, but I can leave the light shining for you, Iowa!”
Chumele plunged the dagger into her heart.
We all gasped in fright and horror.
Chumele fell against the vase. The rumbling ceased as she hit the ground.
We froze, horrified. Mama ran forward to try to help Chumele, but Mr. Chang held her back. Blood pooled around her body and the dirt at the base of Rasputin’s vase drank.
“She knew what she was doing. Chumele knew what had to be done to unleash the weapon,” Mr Chang said.
I looked at him in a new way. He was an accountant when he wasn’t my hapkido master. I understood now that he saw everything from life to death as numbers entered in a ledger. I had always respected him, but he was too cold about what counted as a liability and what was an asset. Anger surged through me.
There are several levels of anger. There’s the kind where someone takes something from you without permission. There’s the kind where you want to kill your father for killing your first love. At that particular moment, I discovered fury can be incandescent.
My headache was gone. The skin beneath my cast didn’t itch. And I wanted to kill Mr. Chang for using Chumele so casually. “We’re supposed to be here to protect people like Chumele…sir.”
“No. We’re here to activate the Choir’s secret weapon. She has done that, have you not, Chumele?”
I looked to the vase. Her body lay still. However, Chumele’s ghost stood beside Taeko Chang. The dead wiccan bent to study her own corpse. Rather than distraught, she appeared curious about her out of body experience.
Mr. Chang went to them and bowed low to each misty wistful. He then stooped to pick up Chumele’s body. “Boy!”
Trick got to his feet and rushed forward to help Mr. Chang. Together they put Chumele’s body in Rasputin’s vase. When they turned, they were covered in her blood.
Chumele watched with a detached interest I found confusing. Perhaps out of body experiences are so disorienting, the merely bizarre seems relatively normal in the moment.
“You knew what she planned?” Mama said.
“Of course,” Mr. Chang said.
“I hope this secret weapon of yours is worth the sacrifice,” Mama wiped her eyes and searched for her next words. “This…if you win, what have you become? This…disgusts me.”
I leapt forward. In an angry, thoughtless, clumsy move Mr. Chang should have been able to dodge, I backhanded my teacher across the face. Mr. Chang fell to the ground dazed.
Malta screamed and ran at me. She was trying to protect her father just as I wanted to protect my mother. If I’d given the problem some thought, I might have shown more mercy. Instead I twisted away from Malta’s first cut and I didn’t give her a chance to make a second.
I knew from Mr. Chang she had two black belts to my one. I knew she was dangerous. All of that didn’t matter. What mattered was I had to lay her out.
She was still shooting a death stare at the place I had just stood as I bashed her across the temple with my cast. Malta fell atop her father as he struggled to rise.
“Tamara Marie Osmond Smythe!” Mama cried. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I could hear Mama’s heart beating fast. I could smell the iron of Chumele’s blood and it made me hungry. I felt new strength surge through my body. I gripped my sword with both hands, seething. “I’m…being…me.”
“And who is that, Tamara?”
Through gritted teeth I said, “I am the weapon, Mama. The secret weapon.”
“Slow down, Tamara!” Trick said. “You aren’t the secret weapon. You’re a secret weapon. Let me be me,
too.” With one cut of a broadsword, he broke the blade of my sword just above the hilt. Trick gave a wide grin. “We have to talk…Sis.”
Lesson 147: Everything is obvious in retrospect.
Trick is still a cool nickname for a guy named Patrick. However, the guy’s name was Trick. No matter how cute the wrapping, we all should have guessed there was a demon in that package.
But, yeah, I don’t blame you if the “Sis,” thing threw you. Me, too. Also, let’s get this out of the way now: ew!
Chapter 35
“Are you really saying you’re my brother? You can’t be my brother. You kissed me.”
“You kissed me back. Quite a few times.” Trick swung his blade at me. I rolled out of the way and up to my feet. He lunged again and I flipped backward. I hadn’t done that since gymnastics class when I was eight.
Mama raised her shotgun as Trick whirled on her. Mama’s shot roared through the cavern, echoing and reverberating off the stone walls. She missed.
Trick didn’t give her a second chance to shoot. He twisted the weapon out of her grasp. The gun went off and the holy .00 buckshot went into the base of Rasputin’s vase. The vase did not shatter, but a large chunk broke away and, in the orange lava glow, I could see Chumele’s calfskin boot covered in blood.
Trick tossed the shotgun into the darkness and placed the tip of his sword under Mama’s chin. “Dad says you should live, if possible.” He slapped Mama across the face, rocking her. Then he slid his hand over her cheeks and wiped her tears away. He brought his fingertips to his lips. “Salty!”
He shoved Mama into the darkness. Her body crashed into the dirt behind the vase.
He turned back to me with a smile. “Just because I kissed you doesn’t mean I’m not your brother, Iowa. It means I should not have kissed you.” Trick was still laughing as I threw the blade from my right boot at his face.
Trick knocked the knife from the air with his sword.
“You’re much better with a sword than I thought,” I said. “Is that Rasputin’s spell?”
He shook his head. “Girls don’t like show offs so I didn’t show off. You would have felt threatened if I demonstrated that I’m great at something you think you’re good at.”
I threw the throwing stars concealed in my belt buckle. The first star missed. He ducked the second. The third caught him above his right eye, digging into flesh and bone.Trick winced as he tore it from his head.
Lesson 148: Always throw more than one star for maximum effect. Aim for the throat and eyes. Unfortunately, my “maximum effect” seemed to merely annoy him.
“I was completely sold on you,” I admitted. “You looked so lost and pathetic with a sword in your hand. Quite the performance.”
Trick licked his blood from the steel before throwing it back at me. It grazed my right earlobe.
“You were so easy to fool, Iowa. Every time you knocked the blade from my hand in practice, I saw you get a little taller and more cocky. You know how I did it?”
“Go ahead. You’re dying to tell me. Soon, you’ll just be dying.”
“Still cocky. Nice.” Trick ran at me.
I rolled under his cut, slashing at his legs with a blade from my forearm sheath. He danced away. I came close to cutting him but failed. He parried my next cuts and the steel of my little blade rang against his long sword. Trick backed me into the vase.
I would have been dead then, but I blocked the flat of his blade with my cast. He pushed back. We were at a stalemate.
“I’m impressed,” Trick said. “I thought sword fights only lasted this long in movies.”
“Make it last a little longer. You were going to tell me how you fooled me.”
“I fought right-handed before. I’m a lefty.”
“That’s very Dread Pirate Roberts of you.”
“Who?”
“Oh, c’mon! The Princess Bride?”
“Never saw it.”
“Now you’re making me mad,” I said. I pushed again, but he had me pinned.
Fortunately, I had allies. Chumele and Taeko appeared on either side of Trick and covered his eyes. Anyone can see through a misty wistful’s hands. However, when channeling ghosts, the flood of images from their lives can’t be ignored. The flashes of thoughts and feeling and memory are incredibly disorienting. The first time it happened to me, I threw up in a funeral casket.
Trick wheeled back and swung wildly. He would have decapitated me but I dove to the ground. Trick’s blessed blade cut through the misty wistfuls instead.
In a blink, Chumele and Taeko went Elsewhere to find out what’s next. I hope they met Whoever’s in Charge and gave WIC a solid haranguing about the crappy state of the world.
As Trick turned to face me, I saw his fangs for the first time. He was changing before my eyes. “How did you get past the Keep’s seers?” I asked.
“I wasn’t a full demon then. Neither were you. No wonder the poor things were confused.”
“Were you the one who trapped Rory?”
“Of course. There are many advantages to letting your demon side hang out. And since I’m still half human, I’ll be able to go into any church I like and mow down the congregation without so much as a rash. I’m looking forward to waltzing back into the Keep and killing Victor myself. Blessed stones and bullets won’t bother me anymore. According to the legend, I’m only going to get stronger. I have Rasputin to thank, and, of course, our dear old dad.”
“Our?”
“Our father who art not in heaven,” Trick said. “That’s right, Sis! You and me! Demon spawn!”
“Who was your mother?”
Trick’s expression changed. He frowned and I saw doubt in his eyes. Then I smelled his fear. He looked down to find Mama on her back between his legs. She’d found her shotgun. The muzzle dug into Trick’s crotch.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I am definitely not your mama.” She pulled the trigger. Trick fell to his knees screaming.
Demon or not, holy ammo or not, physics still applies to shotguns and tender parts. His sword fell from his grasp. Apparently castrating demons is a trait that runs strong among the women in my family.
Lesson 149: Don’t get between a mama bear and her cub.
I let Trick live a few minutes. I drank in his agony. I took the time to gloat before I cut off my half-brother’s head with his own blade.
Lesson 150: Actions that fall under the categories of weird, gruesome or insane don’t get less so with repetition.
My life is fresh crazy all the time.
Chapter 36
I didn’t have long to enjoy victory. Malta had recovered and, armored and helmed, came at me. She cut the air between us in a continuous figure eight.
I backpedaled out of the cavern to the stone bridge. As I watched her attack, I felt I had more time to evaluate the swallowtail flights of her blades. She used the same pattern, never deviating. It was a fierce attack, beautiful in its symmetry. However, she was human and I was less than human.
No.
More than human.
The first time I felt this way, I was seven years old. Mama let me play in Medicament’s recreational soccer league for kids. The practices were all co-ed and mostly it was clutches of little kids kicking each other’s shin pads in a moving scrum. We didn’t know what we were doing, but it was harmless fun.
I played defense. When the action went to the opposite end of the soccer field, I got bored and occupied myself with picking bouquets of dandelions for Mama. I’d get interested in the game again if and when the ball came back my way.
At the end of summer, we attended a tournament with soccer teams from nearby towns. Our coach was a young man given to outbursts. He wasn’t mean. Most of the time his outbursts came out of joy at a goal. We lost our last game of the year and, perhaps in frustration, this twenty-three-year-old man kicked the soccer ball.
He told Mama later that he meant to kick it high, to the center of the field. Instead, that ball came flying at my hea
d.
I was standing just a few feet away. The crowd and the green grass of the field melded into a static, washed out background. I could have counted the seams and diamonds on that twirling ball rocketing my way. Time slowed and I didn’t need an annoying pair of vegans to watch it happen. The details of that soccer ball are still burned into my memory.
Then the ball sped up again and hit me square in the forehead.
Malta was coming for my head, too. This time, I saw the hole in her offense. I mounted my defense. With a single savage strike with the flat of my blade to the top of her helmet, she fell to her knees.
“Malta! No!” Mr. Chang said. “You must help Iowa!”
“You’re a little late,” I said, “but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.”
Malta raised her helmet’s mask and glared at me. “You kissed your brother.”
“Half-brother.”
“You kissed a demon.”
“Half-demon.”
“You are a half-demon,” Malta said.
“Touche,” I said. “That’s a fencing term, by the way, so you probably don’t know it.”
“You — ”
Another shotgun blast ripped through the underground cavern, echoing off the walls and vibrating through our armor. Mama stalked to the middle of the stone bridge, teeth gritted. The way she looked at Mr. Chang, I was scared for him.
“Tammy? Are you the secret weapon?”
Mr. Chang and I answered at the same time. “Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I dunno.”
“Well…don’t you think you should go do whatever you’re supposed to do upstairs? Rescue the town? Save the day? Like that?”
“According to Chumele, all will become clear in the climax of battle,” Mr. Chang said.
“She was suicidal,” I said.
“That doesn’t mean she was wrong.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better, Mr. Chang.” I was liking Kevin Chang less and less as this day progressed.
The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2) Page 16
