Gaze of Fire

by Melissa Kellogg

  His thoughts went back to trying to figure out what they were hinting at. If it wasn’t an elemental or a human who murdered Horus and Ignita, then what kind of entity had done it? Whomever it was, was hidden in plain sight amongst them in their society.

  “That means whomever it is probably committed the other murders as well,” Asher said. If that entity had a long life span and was interested in starting the feud, then it would want to continue fueling the feud, and that meant that this entity might be behind the other elemental murders.

  Grandma added, “With help from others like them.”

  “We were fooled too into thinking it was the Waters and the Earths. I regret feeling such hatred towards them. I was short-sighted,” Grandpa said. For the first time during their talk, he looked sad.

  “As was I,” Grandma said. Her head bowed, and her grey hair fell around her regal face.

  “Being in the afterlife changes everything. You get to look back on your life and quite often, you wish that you had been more compassionate with yourself and others,” Grandpa said and turned to Grandma to tell her, “But we’ll get it right it one of these days when we reincarnate again.”

  Grandma nodded.

  “When will that be?” Asher asked.

  “Not for a while,” Grandma said.

  “We’re still waiting for your father to come by,” Grandpa laughed. It sounded as though he had some kind of grievance or joke to bestow upon him.

  Asher couldn’t wrap his mind around what they had hinted at. He was still entrenched in the belief that the Waters and Earths were responsible for the feud. They were the murderers. But yet, he believed his grandparents. The one who had killed Horus four centuries ago still lived, and had killed Ignita three decades ago. And that one entity wasn’t alone, there were others like it amongst them in Archelm City. But he couldn’t think past that. There was too much already that bothered him, most of it having to do with that wraith.

  “Look, a kitty!” Grandma said, and pointed upwards to the stone arcade that arched from pillar to pillar as it encircled the area around the portal.

  Asher looked. Horror seized him. It was the ugliest and deadliest looking feline that he had ever seen. Its neck was freakishly long and curved. Its yellow eyes hungrily stared at them. Energy rippled across its back. It yowled at them, but it sounded more like an empty threat. However, Asher didn’t want to find out if that was the case because it was the size of a panther.

  “Just don’t try to feed it, darling. We don’t want it hanging around,” Grandpa teased.

  Grandma said, “It doesn’t look very nice.”

  “What is it?” Asher asked.

  They shrugged, not at all concerned. The mutated cat’s tail lashed back and forth. It was mad, but from what, Asher didn’t know. It snarled, and began to pace on top of the connecting stone beams above the pillars. It was a coward though because it didn’t jump down. Or maybe Grandpa’s and Grandma’s presence made it rethink attacking.

  The panther-sized cat cocked its head, as though it was listening to something, and then made a mighty leap onto the portal stone. Asher bolted forward from where he rested against it. He didn’t want that thing anywhere near him. He scrambled away on all fours and turned around to see what it was up to.

  The large cat stuck its head into one of the portal’s cracks and began to do a strange phasing in and out with its body. The energy coating on its fur pulsated. Though it had a hard time doing so, it wiggled through the crack and succeeded in disappearing to the other side.

  “How did it do that?” Asher said.

  “It’s an interdimensional creature. It uses rifts and portals from various ruins like this one to go back and forth between dimensions and realms, including the material world that you live in,” Grandpa said.

  “How do you know that?” Grandma asked.

  Grandpa pointed to an empty space between two pillars by the edge of the ruins. “Because she told me,” he said.

  Grandma looked, smiled, and waved. Asher couldn’t see what they saw, but it didn’t matter to him.

  Asher asked, “Why can’t I do what it did?”

  “Your energy is set to a specific vibration, which is in tune with the material world you live in. If it wasn’t, you would feel out of place and ill all of the time. You can’t dial your energy to different frequencies like that creature can,” Grandpa said.

  Another wave of pain rolled through him. He collapsed onto the ground and withered. He cried out. It was too much. It felt like all of his bones were breaking at once. His grandparents tried to comfort him, but they were helpless. All they could do was give him their company. The pain didn’t go away, not after a minute, or even five minutes. He saw flashes of the hospital room where his body was, and of the wraith tearing at the last thread of the ethereal cord that connected him to his body and kept him safe from being devoured by it. He watched as the last of the silver coating on him vaporized. Soon, he would be a resident of the dark spiritual realm, just like Connor.

  He twisted on the ground. His vision continued to flicker back and forth until he could no longer see his grandparents, the portal, or the ruins around him. The rotten mouth of the wraith tore at the final thread of the link to his body. That remaining thread was what was giving him so much pain. If he gave in, it would break. He couldn’t last much longer. The pain was more intense than anything he had ever experienced.

  “Asher! Asher!” a voice called out. It was Karena’s voice.

  Through the inferno of agony inside of him, he latched onto her voice. He wanted to talk to her, to know if she was okay. Where was her voice coming from? He couldn’t tell and nor could he see through the haze that his vision had become. His brain was on fire as it tried to control the overwhelming signals of pain across his spiritual body.

  “Grab her hand!” his grandparents shouted at him. But because they were spirits from a higher realm, they couldn’t physically assist him.

  The pain blinded him. Where was the portal and her hand?

  “It’s me, Karena. It’s almost the end of the twenty-four hours that you have. There’s not much time, maybe a minute or less. I’m here. I have to pull you out now! Hurry,” Karena begged him.

  The urgency of her voice, the sweetness of it, the love in it made him crawl and worm across the ground. It felt as though his body was being put in a grinder. His limbs began to spasm. Asher couldn’t concentrate. In the hospital room, nurses rushed towards his bed and held his physical body down because it was convulsing. He felt their weight. Somehow, that sensation helped him regain a small amount of control over his limbs. He rested the side of his face against the cold stone of the portal.

  “Asher, take my hand. You have to be there; you just have to be. I made it. Somehow I did. It seemed impossible at first, but it became possible. Focus on my voice,” Karena pleaded.

  Through his blurry and chaotic vision, he caught a glimpse of her slender arm sticking out of the stone through one of the cracks. He extended his hand and tried to reach hers, but his fingertips came up short by inches. He felt someone put their arms under his, and slide him over. His grandparents weren’t assisting him because they were to his left, watching helplessly, unable to intervene. It had to be an angel that was helping him. Though invisible to his eyes, they were real, and they were present to give assistance in their own way.

  With the last of his strength, Asher grabbed Karena’s hand and held onto it. She pulled back while keeping her grip on him. His arm slid into the crack of the portal without hitting any kind of barrier. Her physical hand created the necessary connection between the material world and the dark spiritual realm. Though it seemed physically impossible given the size of the crack, he was pulled through.

  Inside of the portal was a golden vortex of light and energy. Images flew by him of different realms. If she let go, he could be lost in the portal, and might end up in a random realm or dimension. But he was glided through the vortex without incident.

 
He entered the cavern that he had seen before when he had looked through the portal. It was now lit, and he noticed the reliefs of faraway places that had been chiseled into the walls. All of his pain vanished. He laughed because it felt so good. He had escaped a gruesome fate. It shocked him. He was filled with gratitude and stood hovering above the ground as he tried to make sense of what had happened. He had been rescued; it was over. Now he would be able to return home.

  His gaze met Karena’s as she stood there watching him float above the ground. She was just as relieved to see him as he was to see her. He grinned. His heart swelled with joy. But he quickly noticed that she was muddy and cut up. She had dirty hair, slashed and stained clothes, and she looked exhausted.

  Asher tried to move closer towards her, but couldn’t. He said, “Karena! I love you. I won’t leave you until you make it safely out of wherever we are.”

  Karena held a hand to her ears and shook her head. She couldn’t hear him.

  “It’s okay, Asher. Go home. I’ll see you there,” she said, and made a shooing motion with her hand in case he wasn’t able to hear her. But he could hear her.

  He nodded, but had no intention of doing so.

  Karena continued, “There’s vampires amongst us in Archelm City. They’re the ones who started the feud. You have to wake up and warn the others. Vampiric nargoths attacked us on our way to the Cattail keep. There’s human skeletons with the Archelm seal on their clothes here in the swamps. They were dumped out of their coffins so that the vampires could house their own kind in them. The signs of their presence are everywhere and we missed them because we’ve been so preoccupied with the feud for the past four hundred years.”

  The truth frightened him so much that he shuddered. They were the entities that his grandparents had hinted at as being behind the murders of Horus and Ignita. He caught a glimmer of movement behind Karena. Like a bug posed vertically on a wall, the mutated panther was on the cavern wall behind her. Its eyes were for Karena only. Its shoulders tensed, signaling that it was about to pounce.

  Asher jabbed his finger at the creature in an effort to warn her. Before he could see what happened, everything went black. He felt a rushing sensation, as though wind was rushing by him or else carrying him away. He didn’t know what was happening.

  “KARENA!!” he shouted.

  He clawed at the air, but he didn’t slow down. Karena was in danger. He continued to shout for her and try to swim against the air current.

  A dense heaviness overtook him. The rushing of wind stopped, and now all he heard was people talking. Where was he? He opened his eyes and saw a white ceiling above him. He was back in his body. There was no time to waste; he had to warn everyone. He sat upright. Nurses screamed from the suddenness and bolted out of the room in fear. In the corner, his father jumped from sitting in his chair to standing on his feet.

  “There’s vampires amongst us,” Asher said. His mouth soured from those words.

  “You’re conscious and well again. Thank goodness,” his father said, disregarding his statement. His father came over to him.

  Asher threw the blankets off of him and stood up.

  “Where are you going? You just woke up. You need to rest and eat,” his father said, and grabbed the blankets and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Like I said, there’s vampires amongst us. I have to warn everyone.”

  His father said, “Nonsense. You were dreaming.” He hugged Asher in a tight embrace.

  Asher froze. Displays of affection from his father were rare. His father withdrew and gently patted him on the back. His father’s eyes reddened, and he wiped at his eyes and sniffed.

  “Karena saved me. I saw her,” Asher said.

  His father’s face darkened, but he nodded, as though he understood. He said, “Evelyn took off with Karena and Karena’s best friend, Hadrian.”

  “I have to find Captain Valmar, Captain Dreadmore, and the chief of police.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  “So you believe me about the vampires?”

  “No. I just want to come with you. I thought you were gone forever. If you want to look like a lunatic, then go for it. As long as I can spend some time with you again, I won’t stop you.”

  “Grandma and Grandpa said hi.”

  “Are they okay?”

  “Oh yes, happy and together as always.”

  “Good, good,” his father said, and walked with him out of the hospital room.

  Karena had saved him. Asher almost couldn’t believe that he had avoided the cruel punishment that Tristan had schemed and tried to enact. As he walked next to his father, he looked around at the hospital staff and the interior of the building with a deep sense of thankfulness and humility.

  Though he was elated that he had come back from the dark spiritual realm, he had been unable to save Karena. She had told him to warn everyone, and that’s what he was going to do. Asher hoped that she would be alright. He fretted, but put it aside for later. For the moment, there wasn’t anything he could do to help her. When he finished warning everyone, he would find a way to ensure her return from the swamplands.

  Chapter 24

  Karena’s heart sang from seeing Asher. She had done it. Due to the incredulous expression on his face, she knew that there had been mere seconds to spare before the unthinkable happened. For the first time that day, she smiled. A wave of relief washed over her. Everything would be alright now.

  As Asher floated above the portal, he beheld her with joy, as though she was all that existed. Asher’s eyes slid past her. His expression shifted to that of alarm. He pointed, jabbing his finger in urgency at her, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at something behind her. Something crunched on stone. It had come from the narrow cavern wall behind her. His look of fear said it all. Her instincts kicked in.

  Swift is the winter storm across the mountaintops. Lethal chill none can fight against her blood chanted.

  Karena focused all of her concentration on her back and left side, and then spun around. As she whirled around to face this threat, she flung a wide arc of razor-sharp, ice shrapnel outwards. It flew in every direction. When her feet completed its half-circle rotation, she came face to face with the mimecat. It stared at her with its yellowed eyes, which were mere inches from hers. Having been taken by surprise, it had sustained multiple cuts and bled profusely. It phased into translucency so that she couldn’t attack it again, but it also made it impossible for the mimecat to attack her too. It bared its teeth, and the irises of its eyes narrowed and widened as it thought about what to do next.

  Karena didn’t wait to find out. She dashed away from the portal and back through the gold-decorated tunnel of the ruins. Behind her, she heard it give chase. She armored her body with ice in order to protect herself.

  Seconds later, the mimecat caught up to her and pounced. She fell face first to the ground. Insects scurried away with their antennas waving in alarm. The mimecat’s weight on her back pinned her to the ground. The mimecat bit down on her neck and cracked the ice around it. Before it could puncture her skin, she drove an ice spike through its mouth from her elbow. It yowled. Its cries echoed in the tunnel.

  Loud screeching responded and drowned out the mimecat. Her head was thrown back into a throbbing pain. The nargoths had heard the mimecat. She didn’t get up, and instead stayed on the ground. The mimecat tore into her ice suit. She layered it over and over again as the sonic soundwaves destroyed it with its ice and glass-shattering frequencies. The mimecat screamed in agony. The sounds were even more harsh on its delicate hearing than hers.

  The nargoths flew in. Their wings bended and broke as they forced themselves through the tunnel. They didn’t care; they wanted to make a kill. They beelined for the mimecat. Because the mimecat was on top of her and she was lying flat on the ground in the torch-lit tunnel, they were unable to detect her and hurdled straight for the mimecat. From instinctively knowing that it was the two nargoths’ target, the mimecat fled back towar
ds the portal. The nargoths followed.

  Karena waited, and then lunged to her feet and into a sprint. She pounded through the tunnel. The noise of fighting faded behind her. She ran up the steps into the room of statues and old portraits. She went to the empty bookcase and froze its backside. By using her powers, she wrenched its grand form from the stone wall, and threw it onto the metal grate. It crashed onto it, and blocked the hole with its immense size. The nargoths and mimecat would have a difficult time getting through that. They might not at all.

  Feeling exhausted, Karena stumbled through the first floor.

  “Hadrian!” she shouted.

  Leaves had been strewn about on the floor. They formed a loose trail. She tracked them and the occasional feather up a flight of stairs and onto the roof of the keep. Battlements curtained the top of the keep. The space between their alternating blocks would’ve allowed the keep’s defenders to attack through them. Metal frames of what had been huge crossbows rusted across the rooftop. Arrow tips littered the floor, while potbellied buckets of solidified tar crouched like gnomes in the shadowed areas.

  There were two stone sheds up there. The roof of one of the sheds had collapsed, so she went up to the door of the one that looked intact.

  “Hadrian?” she asked.

  “Karena?” his voice said from behind the door.

  “It’s me.”

  “Prove that it’s you and not that mimecat.”

  “Uhhh, when you were a kid, you thought it would be funny to grow Venus flytraps in people’s tomato vines, so that when they went to pick them, the flytraps would latch onto their fingers and give them a scare.”

  “Come in.”

  Karena turned the handle and inched open the door. Silver moonlight crept across the floor of the shed like a tidal wave coming in. It washed upon Hadrian, who was sitting down on the floor. Evelyn had her head on his chest, just below his chin. Her eyes were half opened, and when they saw Karena, they shut to continue resting. She seemed remarkably relaxed and comfortable in his arms. Her wings were splayed out like a blanket across her and Hadrian.