by Steve McHugh
“The first time you accept the spirits in the scroll is always like this.” The female voice was all around Layla, and she couldn’t figure out who’d spoken. She could see no one other than her own body, which appeared to be moving of its own accord.
Layla’s body and the scroll room vanished, and she found herself in an old-fashioned carriage, like something out of a period movie. Blinds covered the windows and the seats were comfortable and soft. The sound of a horse galloping could be heard outside.
“Surreal, isn’t it?” a young woman asked. She was dressed in dark gray trousers, a green blouse, sturdy boots, and a long dark green coat.
“Who are you?” Layla asked. “And where am I?”
“You’re in your mind. Well, my memories, which are in your mind. It’s a bit strange.”
“Where am I?”
The woman smiled. She had long, dark, braided hair. A scar ran from one eye and across her nose, stopping just above her lip. Her skin was pale, and she wore little or no makeup. An emerald pendant sat around her slender neck, the chain made of silver. Rings adorned several of her fingers, except the wedding finger, and her fingernails were painted black.
“A knife,” she said with another smile, touching the scar. She had a nice smile; it was disarming, but it was at odds with the feeling of danger that emanated from her. “The woman who did it is no longer with us.”
“Please don’t make me ask a third time.” Layla was getting impatient, and her tone suggested that she did not appreciate what was happening. She wanted to lash out, but fought to remain calm.
“Well, right now, one of the other spirits is in control of your body. A woman. There are three of us in total, but it was decided that I was better suited to talking to you. I’m sure you’ll meet the other two later. The spirit in charge of your body at the moment is called Gyda. She’s going to get you out of the situation you’re in, and when you’re safe, put you back in your body. It’s all part of the service we provide. At least it is the first time; after that, none of us can take control. As for where we are, we’re in my time, 1873, London. My name is Rosalie Kendall. You may call me Rosa.”
“I’m Layla Cassidy. And I don’t understand any of this.”
“You will. You’ll come to understand a lot about your world and your life. A world you never knew existed, but has existed since the dawn of civilization, maybe even longer. But for now, you’re safe. Gyda won’t allow your body to be hurt. We are capable of using your new powers right now. Eventually, you too will be able to access them, but it will take time. Time we don’t have.”
Layla shook her head. “Scrolls, spirits, power. What power?”
“You bled on a spirit scroll, a scroll that contains the spirits of those who wielded it before you. Bleeding on it is the start of a binding contract between you and the inhabitants of the scrolls. In this case, us. You then accepted the offer of our gifts.”
“The power, is that what they did with the metal?”
Rosa nodded. “The spirits in the scroll grant a unique ability to whoever accepts our offering. We have no way of knowing what the ability will be until it’s bestowed. In your case, it appears that you have the power to manipulate metal.”
Layla’s first thought was that everything she was being told was insane. There was no way it could be anything else. It was quickly replaced by the realization that Rosa was telling the truth. “I could use my power to break free. I could use it to escape.” She felt elated that she finally had a means with which to fight back, and a means with which to stop more innocents from dying because of her.
Rosa shook her head. “As I mentioned before, you don’t have control over your powers yet. You’d get yourself killed.”
Layla rubbed her eyes as frustration began to set in. “But I can fight.”
“I know. But right now, you can’t fight these enemies. Your time will come, but you need to have patience. I promise you, you’ll get your turn to deliver any and all the retribution you can muster.”
Layla knew that Rosa was making sense, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it. After several seconds of silence, she decided to change the subject. “So, what was yours? Your power, I mean.”
“We’ll get to that. You’ll have more time to meet us all, to see how we lived and what we bring to the table. And then you have to pick one of us.”
“Why?”
“Because one of us will become your teacher. Someone has to train you how to use your new abilities. We can’t have you running around without knowledge.”
Layla reached for the curtain on the nearest window, and Rosa leaned over to stop her. “Don’t. The barrier between my memories and . . . the . . . demon is weak. You don’t want to look out there right now.”
Layla removed her hand. “Demon?”
Rosa sighed. “This is all information for much later. For now, just sit back and enjoy the show.” The carriage roof vanished, replaced with a picture of what Layla’s body was doing, as if she were watching it on a giant drive-in movie screen. “These people kept you prisoner. Some turnabout is fair play.”
“You killed that blood elf.”
Rosa nodded. “This isn’t your old world. This isn’t a world where you get to leave your enemies alive. And it wasn’t human.”
“I’m not sure that matters. You used my body to murder someone. I’m not that person. I’m not like my father.” The anger that she felt at having her body used to commit murder was all-consuming. She couldn’t believe that the one thing she’d fought against for so long had happened without her even being in control.
“Your morals will have to wait until you’re in a more secure place.”
“Stop the carriage,” Layla snapped, her voice hard and cold.
Rosa shook her head.
Layla darted forward, grabbed hold of the curtain across one window, and shoved it aside just enough to see what was outside. She clamped one hand over her mouth and moved back to the far side of the carriage, still holding the curtain, pulling it free.
The carriage was in the middle of some woods, circling around a glade. In the center of the glade was a large cage, shrouded in darkness except for two eyes that burned red inside it. The occupant grabbed hold of the bars and screamed, as terrifying power tore across the clearing.
Layla opened her mouth to speak, but Rosa tapped her on her forehead and she fell into a deep sleep.
She will be mine, the creature in the cage said.
“No, she won’t,” Rosa told him without taking her eyes off Layla. “I’m sorry for this, but things will be easier when your emotions aren’t so high.”
She will never accept me. Never accept the darkness in her heart. I’ll take her, just like I took Gyda. Poor Gyda. She lost so much. Maybe she can sit around and cry about it with Layla once I’m finished with her.
Rosa shook her head. “Be gone, demon. Your power is limited here, your reach small.”
It won’t stay that way.
“No, eventually you’ll vanish into nothing, only coming when summoned to obey her commands for your power. You’ll become a small memory that will plague no one.”
The creature laughed, causing the carriage to reverberate as its power swept out across the glade. Rosa stared down at the sleeping Layla. “Please make me right. I would hate for you to become the monster we all have to fight against.”
Gyda had never taken control of a host before, but the link between spirits and host was weak when first established, and better her taking control than Layla getting killed. Or the demon freeing itself and slaughtering all before it. That would be much, much worse.
The blood elf that died in the scroll room was quickly forgotten. Gyda had been told about the blood elves’ destruction of her ancestral home. Even though it had happened hundreds of years after she’d died, she still felt a rage at being unable to protect her people’s way of life. She’d hated the blood elves for their part in that. Hated them then, and hated them now. Killing them was
never going to be an issue for her.
She ignored the remnants of her past and left the scroll room, moving into the corridor outside. She found the next blood elf several minutes later. It was leaning against a wall, its back toward her. She used the metal on her arm to create a spear and threw it toward the blood elf. The spear impaled the elf through the heart, pinning it to the concrete wall beside it. She tapped the metal spear as she walked past, and the metal became liquid once more, returning to her forearm. She watched the creature crumple to the ground, and felt nothing but happiness that there was one less of them alive.
Gyda continued on through the tunnel system, but found no more blood elves to fight. By the time she’d reached the lift and pressed the button to bring it down, she’d seen no one else. She was beginning to feel like she’d gotten away with her escape. The noise of the lift as it slowly moved down the shaft echoed around the large tunnel.
The lift had just finished its journey when Gyda spotted a young man walking toward her. She searched Layla’s memories and found that his name was Shane.
“Now what do we have here?” he asked with a large smile.
“I’m leaving,” Gyda told him.
“Not on my watch you’re not. Reyes and the rest of those elves will be up here soon enough, so you should just give in, come back to your cell, and keep quiet. Just like a lady such as yourself is supposed to.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The smile faltered, just a little bit, but Gyda saw the darkness in Shane’s eyes. She knew the type of man he was. She’d seen more than enough of them during her lifetime—killed more than enough of them too. One more wasn’t going to make much of a difference.
He darted forward faster than Gyda had been expecting and grabbed hold of her arm, his grin widening. “I think you’ll be a lot calmer now.”
Gyda looked down at his hand, and then back up at his face. She smiled. “You’re expecting something to happen, aren’t you?”
She could see the crushing realization that something was terribly wrong as it hit Shane, but he didn’t move fast enough to get away. Gyda drove her elbow into his jaw. Shane staggered back and Gyda kicked him in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground.
“That should have worked,” Shane said, his nose and lip both bloody.
Gyda didn’t reply as she went on the offensive, kicking out Shane’s knee as he got back to his feet. He staggered slightly, but Gyda was faster and more aggressive, driving her knee into his chest. She grabbed the back of his head and brought it down onto her knee, before kicking him in the stomach, sending him up against the far wall.
Shane spat blood onto the ground and blocked a left-hand punch, ducking under it and striking Gyda in the stomach. Gyda moved back, showing no outward indication that she was injured. She hadn’t felt pain for a long time and the physical sensation after so many centuries was almost too much for her senses to take, but she fought to ignore it. As she wasn’t the host of the body, it would be a while before the pain wracking Layla’s body would have any effect on Gyda’s ability to use it. And, hopefully, by the time the body got used to her presence, she’d be able to let Layla back in control. She kept a distance from Shane as he drew a dagger from behind his back. It was seven inches long and slightly serrated on one side, with a wooden handle.
“I’ve used this a lot over the years,” Shane told her, holding the knife down by his leg.
The metal covering Layla’s hand and forearm began to shimmer, but Gyda didn’t want to give away what she could do.
“Want to come back now?” Shane asked. “I really will get into trouble if I cut you, but I’m thinking a little off the ears won’t cause too many problems for me. Maybe a finger. Something you can live without.”
“How many have you killed?” Gyda asked.
Shane smirked. “Humans? Fourteen back in Texas, before these fine people found me and gave me a better purpose. That was ten years ago. Another dozen since then. Nonhumans? I stopped counting some time ago.”
“People like you never stop counting.” Gyda ran forward, dodging the swipe of the dagger, and drove her fist into Shane’s stomach, igniting the power inside her at the same time. The metal around her hand and forearm tore into Shane as if he were made of paper, cutting through his body as a dozen thin blades punctured his stomach.
Shane gasped and dropped the dagger, before falling to one knee. “I always thought you were a sweet girl, Layla.”
“Sorry, Layla is sleeping.”
Shane’s eyes widened in recognition and surprise. “She found a spirit scroll.” It wasn’t a question.
Gyda retracted the metal and wrapped it around her hand. She walked behind the kneeling Shane and placed her hand on the top of his head. “Final words?”
“They’re going to . . .”
Shane never got to finish his sentence, as a scream from behind her caused Gyda to knock him out with a punch to the back of the head. She spun around to face the blood elf that had charged her, its wicked sword drawn. She transformed the metal into a sword and parried the blade the elf swung toward her. It didn’t care how she died, it just wanted to kill.
It swung the sword with power rather than accuracy, and Gyda easily dashed back out of the blade’s reach. She waited until the sword had moved far enough through another swing that it was no longer a threat and sprinted forward, driving her own blade up into the face of the blood elf, cracking through the skull, and killing the creature instantly.
She left the metal sticking out of the blood elf’s skull, and went back to Shane, searching his pockets. She found a set of car keys and pocketed them. After using Layla’s power to tear all the metal out of the controls so that no one could bring the lift back down, Gyda boarded and pressed the green button to take her to the outside.
It was a long journey, and she spotted Shane’s allies arrive a minute after it had started. They screamed at her, but Gyda ignored them, the words all mixing into a torrent of abuse she barely gave any thought to. It wasn’t until she heard the sound of a gun firing and felt a gut-wrenching pain tear through her arm that she used Layla’s power to move most of the nonessential metal beneath the lift to create a shield against more shots. Blood ran freely from the bullet hole in her shoulder and every movement was an agony she’d forgotten could even exist, but she wasn’t about to let it stop her escape.
As soon as she was outside in the darkness of the night, she spent a few seconds getting her bearings. The exit to the underground complex had taken Gyda up into a large wooded area. A hill sat behind her, and a dirt road ran just in front. She couldn’t see much, except what moonlight managed to break through the leaves, but it did illuminate a white Range Rover parked just in front of a large tree. She removed the keys from her pocket and pressed the button to unlock the car, which it did with a click and flash of the head- and brake lights, illuminating the otherwise dark woods.
Gyda had no idea where she was, or how to get to safety, but after searching Layla’s memories, she knew that she was several miles from a town. She hoped Layla’s memories of driving would be enough, and took the vehicle out of the woods at a slow but steady pace. It was faster than running. Eventually she came to a main road and stopped, using the built-in sat nav to find the nearest hospital.
Gyda parked the car around the corner from the hospital and walked toward the entrance of their Accident and Emergency department. The automatic doors opened and Gyda allowed Layla to take back control of her body. Layla crumpled to the floor, the pain that crashed down on her almost too much for her to bear, as doctors and nurses rushed over to her.
11
Layla woke up early in the morning, the sun streaming through the window of the private room she’d been placed in. The heart monitor beside her bed beeped, and she sat up, her body aching. She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d dreamed the previous day: being kidnapped, talking to a spirit, and the murder of the people she worked with. People she liked. She found a remot
e on a small table beside her, and used it to switch on the TV that was attached to the wall facing her bed. She was horrified to learn that everything had been real. The news was covering the attack, and she turned it up to be able to hear the reporter standing in a car park across the road from the depot. The electric gates that had opened for Layla only a short time ago could be seen behind her.
“Thirty-nine people died here last night in what police are calling ‘an act of unparalleled brutality.’ Details are few and far between, but what we do know is that those working in the depot were attacked by an unknown number of assailants; at the moment we know of thirty-nine victims of this attack. It happened not long after midnight, and police are urging anyone who heard or saw anything to come forward.”
The remote fell from Layla’s hand onto the bed, as the sound of the reporter’s voice became a distant memory. Thirty-nine people were murdered because of her. Because Elias needed to get to her. Layla felt sick. She couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing, why anyone would think that was their best option. She remembered Elias and those he worked with, and realized that they simply didn’t care about anything but their insane goal. They would kill and maim and destroy with impunity until they were stopped.
She rubbed her eyes and switched off the TV, placing the remote on the table beside her. The door opened and Chloe stepped inside. She carried a blue carrier bag, which she dropped into a nearby chair once she’d seen that Layla was awake, then ran over and embraced her friend.
“Are you okay?” she asked, finally releasing Layla and taking her hand.
Layla tried to find the words to tell her what had happened, but instead rested her head against Chloe, while her friend wrapped her arms around her once again.
They stayed that way for several seconds, neither of them speaking. Layla was so glad to see her friend, a friend Elias had threatened to kill. Layla’s escape had put people she cared about in danger; maybe she should have just stayed and contacted her father, told him to do whatever they wanted. At least that way, Chloe, Harry, and those she loved would be safe. She thought about survivors at the train depot. Was Elias telling the truth? Had he really spared people just to use them against her? After what Elias’s people had done at the train depot, no one was safe. It wouldn’t have mattered whether Layla had helped or not, if they’d wanted to go after her friends, there would have been nothing she could have done to stop it.
