To Date A Disaster (Southern Sanctuary - book 6)

by Jane Cousins

  “Later.” Erik dismissed, looking around the immediate area and completely failing once more to find some sort of weapon. Okay, no weapon, but how about something to cut the plastic tie holding his wrists together. “We have a more immediate problem. Dipshit and dickwad will be back any moment and they’re going to shove a pile of sand down my throat this time to get you to do what they want.” Come on, come on, something to cut the fucking plastic, Goddess, he hated plastic. “But whatever happens, you have to promise you won’t agree to do what they want.”

  “But…”

  “No, no buts…” Hah, there, the rough edge of the stairs, he shuffled forward slowly watching the sand creature. But as he wasn’t getting to his feet it didn’t make any sudden moves to hurt Cara.

  “What are you doing?” Cara sat up as straight as she could, trying to see over the edge of the sarcophagus.

  “I might be able to cut this tie if I can just create enough… friction.” Erik sawed his wrists back and forward frantically, hoping the edge of the first step was sharp enough.

  Cara blew out a breath. “I don’t get it, knives bounce off you, you walk away without a scratch from a shower of dagger like glass but you can’t break free of a simple little strip of plastic?”

  Erik huffed out an amused laugh, sawing faster, knowing the shit-head twins would be back any moment. “That’s the curse of magic, Angel. For every strength there is a weakness.” Damn this worn step, it wasn’t cutting through. “So do you promise?”

  “Promise?” Cara echoed, curiosity finally winning out as she leaned down to get a look into the shadowy lower half of Apep’s final resting place.

  “Not to give in to their demands… no matter what they do to me?”

  “Erik… if they’re hurting you…”

  “Promise Cara… promise.” He huffed, not sure he was making any headway what so ever sawing through the plastic tie.

  “Okay, okay I promise… you know this is kind of strange…”

  “What is?” Erik didn’t dare look up or get distracted.

  “The lack of… for want of a better word… bling, in Apep’s sarcophagus. Where are the amulets, the scrolls, the bribes to ensure that his soul would reach his preferred destination? I’ve been reading up on a lot of ancient death rituals and this coffin should be stuffed with… well, stuff. Apep is always depicted as carrying a staff, and I don’t see any evidence of jewellery. For a legend and a God, he was renowned for wearing a lot gold and gemstones.”

  “Is this really the time…” Come one… cut you bastard. “…or the place, to be thinking about stuff like that?”

  Cara shifted, merda, this lid was uncomfortable to sit on with all the undulating carvings that pressed annoyingly into her flesh. “What do you suggest I should be doing instead?” Her tone was sharp as she ran her fingers over the carvings.

  “How about… calling up a little of that chaos magic of yours. A small whirlwind to blow the sand creature apart might be a good place to start.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.” Cara sniped.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” Cara caught herself, she had no idea what she was capable of, did she? And unfortunately there were no instruction book to tell her exactly how to go about creating an event. Event? Such a nice polite term. What Erik wanted was for her to create chaos, but surely using chaos to fight against chaos demi gods was futile.

  Unless it was an utter unmitigated disaster… like that flood the brothers created to kill off her many times Great-Grandmother.

  Okay, so she needed an event… but how exactly did one go about creating one? Sure Erik had teased her about being a walking disaster, but every time mayhem had ensued in the past she’d been out of control. She supposed there was probably no harm in trying to call one up… hold on, what the hell was she thinking? There was any number of reasons why she should be hesitating. The long list of relatives she’d read about who’d died as a result of a disaster for one. And it wasn’t just her life on the line here, what about Erik? He hadn’t explained to her how his magic worked but if a little bit of plastic could stump him, then he wasn’t invulnerable.

  Produce a disaster the man said. Merda, she prayed that she didn’t get both of them killed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Shit… they’re coming.” Erik whispered, hurriedly shuffling backwards on his knees. He tried to get a glimpse of the underside of his wrists, to see if he had made any dent in the plastic tie but the angle was too awkward.

  Sek and Mot strode into the Egyptian wing, their steps perfectly timed, as if they were marching on parade. Freaky-deaky smug smiling bastards. They walked up the steps to their father’s sarcophagus taking up a stance on either side of the open lid, both had their guns drawn. Sek made a soft clicking sound in the back of his throat and the sand creature flowed fast down the stairs to come to rest directly beside Erik.

  “And now the…”

  “…fun can begin.”

  “Do as we want…”

  “…or we find out how much sand it…”

  “…takes to fill a six foot man.”

  Cara bit her lip. Erik had made her promise. But could she really just sit here and do nothing whilst they tortured him? Anger had burned off any fear that might have lingered. Her heart raced, but it felt more adrenalin fuelled than the first stages of a panic attack. She was so completely furious all of a sudden, these two bozos intended to hurt Erik and it wasn’t right. Especially since he’d only gotten mixed up in all of this trouble because he’d been trying to help her… stupid jerk in shining armour.

  Come on, think Cara, maybe you can bring on an attack, your heart is racing, what else do you need to happen… she started to pant in short swift breaths. Perhaps she could trigger her powers if she faked all the symptoms of a panic attack.

  “You know this little plan of yours to wake your father makes no sense at all.” Erik clenched his fists and discreetly pulled, was that a little give in the plastic? “I don’t believe all this smoke you’re blowing that you want him to rule the world. Come on, fess up lads, it’s you two who want to rule the world, isn’t it? I’m guessing you’ve been planning it for a long… long time.”

  “What can you expect…”

  “…we are our father’s sons.”

  Erik chuffed a confident laugh. “I’m betting Daddy wasn’t surprised at all when you made your move on him. No doubt he suspected you had killed your sister… then what happened? He wouldn’t fall in with your plans? What went wrong exactly?”

  Sek and Mot blinked in unison.

  “We never thought…”

  “…that he would run.”

  “He knew what we had done…”

  “…what we intended to do.”

  “And you caught him, it all went horribly wrong and you ended up killing him?” Erik surmised.

  Sek and Mot shook their heads gravely.

  “Bastard…”

  “…beat us to it.”

  “Apep… Apep killed himself?” Cara’s eyes were wide, high colour in her cheeks, her breath coming hard and fast, her body language said she was scared but her gaze seemed too focused.

  “He ran to his priests…”

  “…when we found them…”

  “…we killed them all…”

  “…but it was too late.”

  Erik frowned, he thought he was keeping up with this whole ancient Egyptian soapie saga but a couple of things weren’t making sense. If Sek and Mot wanted their father dead, why weren’t they happy that he was? Why did they need him resurrected? If they intended to rule the world themselves then the only reason they would want Apep back is if he’d managed to escape into death with something dipshit and dickwad needed.

  “Enough with the stalling…”

  “…decide your lover’s future.”

  “What you really want to do is wake him up so you can consume his Chi, don’t you?” Cara’s back was ram rod straight as she rose to her knees so th
at she was eye level with her bat-shit bonkers relatives. “That’s why you need Apep made flesh, this mummy husk is barely eking out enough power to sustain the two of you, no matter how much descendants’ blood you’ve poured down its throat over the centuries…”

  The brothers flicked their head to the side simultaneously and the sand creature lowered a thick slab like hand made of sand down onto Erik’s left shoulder, squeezing hard. Erik bit back a cry of pain, his bones grinding together uncomfortably.

  Cara panted harder, watching in dismay, Erik was in genuine pain and it was all her fault.

  Overhead, one of the spotlights went dark.

  “Your answer…”

  “…now!”

  “Why? You’re only going to kill me if I invite Apep in?”

  “Maybe you’ll…”

  “…survive the experience.”

  They flicked their heads again, sand flowed around Erik’s neck, like a scarf, thick and too tight… much too tight. He fought to breathe, white lights flickering across his vision.

  Cara wanted to scream, instead she bit down hard on her lower lip. Another spotlight overhead fizzled out, neither Sek nor Mot appeared to notice.

  “Stop… just stop. Please. Even if I accept Apep in you won’t get his Chi… please stop hurting Erik.” There sounded a high pitched buzzing noise for a split second and another overhead light went out.

  Sek’s palm came up, the pressure around Erik’s throat lessened a tiny bit as the sand creature loosened its grip infinitesimally.

  “You can’t believe anything she says.” Mot spat out, sending a hard look at his brother standing across the sarcophagus from him.

  It was strange for Cara to see different expressions on their faces for a moment, even their blinking was out of sync.

  “What do you mean?” Sek ignored his brother, staring stony faced at Cara.

  “Don’t you know?” She wondered if it was a trap. If she’d gotten it wrong? She hesitated, Erik gasped as the sand noose tightened once more. “No… no, stop.” Waiting until she saw Erik relax slightly. “Your father’s priests, the ones who entombed him, Apep was their God, they couldn’t just kill him… not according to all the reading I’ve done. If his Chi remained behind, or was recovered and returned relatively quickly, then his body would have just… re-started, he would have woken under his own power sooner or later. I mean, hello, God, really hard to kill one.” She looked between the brothers, not liking the way their dark eyes had gone bottomless inky black-hole blank.

  “Where is our…”

  “…father’s Chi?”

  Um, they were asking her? “I should imagine his priests would have known, but you killed them all, didn’t you? Apep probably imbued an object, something personal or something he considered valuable. In most cases the object is included in the sarcophagus… that’s why I was so surprised that it…was… empty.”

  “Don’t look at me like that…” Mot spoke up, the faint burn on his neck looking red against his suddenly white skin.

  “It was your idea to sell everything.” Sek’s expression was murderous.

  “You agreed with me. We needed the money and it was just a bunch of sentimental crap, thankfully covered in gold and jewels.”

  “We’ll never recover it all. Some of those pieces have been out of our hands for over a thousand years.”

  Mot lifted his chin slightly higher. “Why are you believing anything the girl says anyway? Of course she doesn’t want us to think father’s Chi is still in his body.”

  “Because we both know he was a clever, manipulative bastard. He knew what we wanted, she’s right, he would have hidden it. He was the first trickster, remember.”

  “Fuck, all this wasted time, thousands of years, toting his ass around and for what?” Mot shook his head. “We’re back to needing a witch…”

  “…we have the ancestor’s blood.” Sek spoke with a rather sinister edge to his voice as the brothers once more in sync, turned to look at Cara.

  “Wait… no.” Cara had been so engrossed in their conversation she’d kind of forgotten about her own predicament, let alone poor Erik who still had a sand monster with a hand like appendage wrapped around his throat. “What are you talking about? If the Chi isn’t in him, then what’s the point of going forward with the descendant – witch ritual?”

  Both men grinned. “Because although that ritual drains a lot more of our power, it binds his body to our control. Once he’s awake…”

  “…he can track down his own misbegotten Chi.”

  “You’ll be dead…”

  “… but siphoning off some of our father’s Chi…”

  “… from his slave form…”

  “… is better than none at all.”

  Cara really… really, didn’t like the way the twosome were now looking at her. Even more perturbing when they heaved a united bored sigh and faced one another.

  “We kill him…”

  “…and imprison her.”

  “No…no.” Cara hated their plan.

  Sek and Mot continued to ignore her. “Pity we triggered her so early, she’s going to be a pain to keep on lockdown until we can find a witch.”

  Mot shrugged. “We’ll come up with something…”

  “I’m just saying, if we hadn’t prematurely killed her mother, then we wouldn’t be…”

  “You what?” All remaining ceiling spotlights abruptly popped, the room now only lit by the floor lights illuminating the archways and individual art pieces.

  Cara was beyond terror, beyond anger… a heavy tidal wave of seething uncontrollable rage crashing through her, surging across her nerve endings, racing through her body to pinpoint on one single target, the pulsing ball of chaos centred low in her body. Instantly the ball exploded outwards, an invisible shockwave… building… building… she was so angry… they had killed her mother… they had to die… they had to die now.

  A cable holding one of the large giant decorative archways snapped suddenly with a loud twang, followed almost immediately by another and another… the archway now untethered seemed to sway in place for a second or two before listing to the side, hitting several stone columns, sending them crashing to the ground, dust and debris rising up in a hazy cloud.

  “Shit, she’s going…”

  “…nuclear. Grab her!”

  Sek and Mot, on either side of her, each shot out a hand to grip Cara by the upper arm, their fingers digging in hard enough to leave individual finger shaped bruises on her skin.

  Cara didn’t notice, too busy watching the next archway topple… it was like a giant had set up a series of dominos in the room and sent the first piece toppling. Columns, archways, friezes they were hitting the ground hard, one after the other, the floor beneath them shaking as a result.

  Somewhere over the noise an alarm started to blare.

  Let it blare, Cara thought, what did it matter, this room was coming down, she was only just getting started. A small smile playing on her lips as the next archway to crumble hit the scaled down pyramid that had previously been hidden from her view, breaking it apart, the large stone bricks used to construct it tumbling across the room like giant Lego blocks.

  Erik would have jumped for joy and pumped a fist in the air at the distraction that Cara had initiated… well, if he didn’t have a sand monster with its huge slab like hand still wrapped uncomfortably tight around his throat.

  With dickwad and dipshit’s attention focused entirely on Cara, he positioned his elbows at right angles and pulled with everything he had, straining against the plastic tie. His arms suddenly flung wide as the plastic ripped apart. He was free… err, strike that, his hands were free, he still had Sandy to deal with.

  Okay, he tried to recall any lessons his father might have imparted during all those years of training… funny, fighting a sand monster had never come up. Shit, he could do this. He bought his hands up to try and leverage the monster’s grip from his throat. Except his hands passed right through the creatur
e’s arm as if it were… well… sand. Goddess, a little help here please.

  He punched out, his fists plunging into the creature’s upper body, making absolutely no impact. Shit, if he kept this up he’d only end up exhausting himself. So how did you fight an indestructible creature that you couldn’t get a grip on or hurt?

  His father’s words came back to him, everything, no matter how big, how many sharp teeth it had in its mouth, had a weakness. Sometimes, being a warrior didn’t just mean hammering away until the enemy was a bloody pulp, sometimes you needed to hang back, observe, watch and listen.

  Erik stropped struggling and as soon as he did, he noticed the rather frightening number of objects that were crashing to the floor around him, sending up clouds of stone and marble dust, the few spotlights still operating made the room appear through a red hazed filter. Hmm, dust and dirt… he glanced down at the drifts gathering around his knees.

  He had nothing to lose, the creature only had instructions to throttle him if he rose from his knees, it didn’t seem to care if he got closer to the ground. Bending down awkwardly, Erik scooped up a handful of pebbles, dirt and debris and flung it at the monster.

  No reaction. Undeterred, he grabbed another handful, then another, pelting the sand creature with the biggest rocks and pebbles he could find.

  This close to it, he could see his actions were beginning to affect it. The sand that constantly flowed, allowing it to hold itself in a rough humanoid shape, didn’t seem to know what to do with the extra matter. Lumps and bumps were appearing and disappearing, boiling out of the sand creature’s frame.

  Erik doubled his efforts, he was getting worried about Cara, the ground beneath him sending shockwaves up his legs letting him know that the damage occurring in the room wasn’t slowing down. What if she couldn’t stop? Could she bring the ceiling down on them?

  Shit, come on you sandy bastard, why aren’t you falling apart… or slowing down or something… anything? Abruptly Erik found he could take a deep breath as he scrambled away from what was now only a big pile of sand. The bloody thing had just collapsed, shit, no time for a victory dance, he had to get Cara away from those twin assholes.