Cursed

by Monica Wolfson

  Evan darted around the ogre, stabbing it frequently. The sword seemed to go in easily and came out covered in black blood. The fluid dripped on the ground and burnt holes like acid in the wood floors.

  The ogre growled each time he was stabbed and swung his club in Evan’s direction. He was slow moving and Evan was able to jump out of the way. Despite all the wounds, the Ogre didn’t slow or seem affected.

  Evan stabbed the ogre in the ribs, bent low and barely rolled out of the way as the Ogre raised the club, almost snagging Evan with a stud. He spun out of the way, seemed to twist his ankle and went down hard. Sasha heard his sword clang and hit the wall as it slid away.

  She had to help Evan. She wasn’t going to let him get hurt because of her. She leaped on the ogre’s back, clutched its ears and twisted. The ogre turned away from Evan and swung around hard as if it could get her to fly off its back with momentum. It roared in irritation. Sasha squeezed her knees, digging them into the ogre’s sides. She yanked the ear trying to tear it off. She’d probably be able to bite one off but that was so unappealing. She’d do it if she had no choice. She was hoping to create enough of a distraction to let Evan get his sword back and into a better position.

  She knew she was in trouble when the ogre swung his club over his head and Sasha felt a stud sink into her back.

  “Ahh,” she yelled out in pain. The ogre pulled his club free and made to swing it again when Evan stabbed it in the chest. It went in up to the hilt. Evan twisted it and angled it up then pulled it out.

  That stopped the ogre for a second. It paused as if it were adjusting for the pain or injury. Sasha shuddered and slid off its back. When she hit the floor she rolled toward a wall. The Ogre roared in irritation and swung its club with more quickness and force.

  It seemed to be getting stronger with each puncture. Was that possible? Where was its soft spot? As Evan parried with the ogre, Sasha watched the monstrous animal. It was laboring and yet seemed fueled by anger every time it suffered an injury. It never seemed to protect its torso. Was the head the key? The ogre’s neck was too thick. A beheading was out of the question.

  Sasha jumped back on the beast’s back and pounded on its head, aiming for an eye. It reared back in anger and slammed against a wall, crushing her. The pain was intense and for a minute she almost blacked out. When the ogre stepped away, she dropped from his back and thudded to the floor. She couldn’t move. Her limbs felt numb. She tried to turn her neck and groaned in agony.

  Evan took advantage of the animal’s distraction and aimed the sword for the softness of its upper jaw. The blade went in easily. It roared in pain and whipped its head from side to side to dislodge the sword. Toxic black blood spurted from the wound. Sasha scooted out of the way to avoid touching any of the acid like substance. Before the ogre could recover, Evan sent the sword through an eye. The beast stopped fighting and grappled for a hand on the sword. It couldn’t get one of its mammoth hands on the hilt easily. It gripped the blade, slicing open its hands and tugged the blade out. The sword clattered to the ground as the beast faltered and fell to its knees.

  Its moans were pitiful. It bent over and wretched, spewing more black blood on the floor. It ate away at the wood, making a series of holes.

  Sasha stayed where she was against a wall, fearing the animal was faking its death. Evan lunged, picked up the sword and jumped over the ogre to stand near Sasha. The beast slumped and panted lightly. It took a final shuddering breath and was still.

  Simultaneously, a panel on the wall that was covered by the ogre when it was a statue slid open. Evan went over to investigate.

  “There’s a decent here,” he said. “Can you make it?”

  Evan looped Sasha’s arm around his neck and hoisted her to her feet. She didn’t feel like anything was broken just crunched, punched and bruised.

  “I’ll live,” she said.

  She peered into the opening and saw a steep stone ramp disappear into darkness.

  “Does it ever get easier?” she said exasperated.

  “I can’t hear anything,” Evan said. “Did Deal say there were guards in the room?”

  She shook her head. Deal didn’t tell her much. She never would have been able to kill the ogre without Evan.

  “I’ll go first,” she said. “I owe you for the ogre. I’ve got to get you home in one piece.”

  “Stop worrying about me,” Evan said. “I’m not the one with a death curse over my head.”

  Evan climbed into the opening.

  “See you at the bottom,” he said and pushed off as if it were a slide. While he disappeared into the dark, she could hear him descend. He whooped when he reached the bottom.

  “Not bad,” he yelled. “Not quite Six Flags, but it’ll do.”

  Sasha climbed into the opening and pushed off. The air was cool and she felt a rush as she flew downward into darkness. It was kind of creepy but happened too fast for her to get scared. The incline wasn’t too steep and leveled out when it opened up into a room. Evan struck a match, the flame flared in the darkness. He lit an oil lamp on the wall and the room came into view albeit dimly.

  The room wasn’t that big, maybe as large as a bedroom. One wall was taken up with an elaborately carved wooden wall. There were hundreds of tiny drawers with small knobs. Each drawer had a carving. Sasha guessed it was to indicate what was inside. Some had pictures, others letters. She searched for hers but was distracted by a noise. She couldn’t see into all the dark corners of the room but thought she saw movement.

  “Ev, there’s something over there,” she said pointing to one of the corners. She picked up his sword and went to investigate. He didn’t object and kept hunting for her box. The talisman was the priority.

  As she got closer she saw black boots with small heels. They were vaguely familiar and out of place for Tysseland. She edged closer and saw thin legs clad in jeans tied together with rope at the ankles. What the hell?

  She followed the legs until she saw a T-shirt that said Don’t Touch in silver sequins. There was only one person she knew in the world with that T-shirt.

  “Cady,” she screamed as she dived into the darkness. She could barely see Cady’s face. She wrapped her arms around her. Cady didn’t reciprocate. Her wrists were bound and there was a gag across her mouth. Sasha tugged at the bindings, they didn’t seem that tight. She started with the gag and it came away easily.

  “You’re alive,” she said undoing the knots around her wrists. “I thought you were dead.”

  Once her hands were free, Sasha worked on her ankles. Cady seemed stunned and didn’t speak. She appeared thinner than when Sasha last saw her. She was pale and her hair was grimy. Otherwise she seemed in good shape. Sasha couldn’t see any bruises or signs of abuse. How long had she been down here? What was she doing down here?

  Cady swallowed a few times licking her lips. “Do you have water?” she said in a raspy voice. Sasha shook her head. Cady rubbed her wrists where there were marks from the bindings.

  “Cady,” Sasha said pulling her to her feet. “What the hell?”

  Sasha grabbed her into a bear hug and they embraced. Sasha was so relieved that Cady was alright. She thought for sure Cady’s friendship had gotten her killed. The fact that she was in Tysseland did seem to indicate the queen’s henchmen kidnapped her making it Sasha’s fault.

  Cady put her hands on the sides of Sasha’s cheeks.

  “I am so glad you found me,” she purred. “If you hadn’t, I’m sure she would have killed me.”

  Cady slipped her arms around Sasha’s neck and hugged her tight. Sasha didn’t have to ask who she was. Sasha felt a slight tug of hair at the nape of her neck. Cady’s hands fell away and she stepped back.

  Cady was holding the necklace, the pendant dangling from the black leather cord. Instinctively Sasha’s hands went to her naked throat searching for the necklace. It was gone. Cady had taken it.

  “What are you doing?” Sasha said reaching out. “Give that to me.”

&
nbsp; Cady leaped out of reach. “I can’t.”

  She dropped the pendant and then crushed it beneath the heel of her shoe. The blue glass exploded into hundreds of shards like the shattering of Sasha’s life.

  “No,” Sasha screamed and dropped to her knees. “What have you done?”

  Cady moved toward a curtain covering on a wall. “I did what I had to.”

  Sasha picked up some of the glass and pieced it back together. There were some large pieces but others were slivers. It was ruined. Her spell protection was gone. She was going to die.

  She looked at Cady tears blurring her vision. “Why?”

  Cady seemed unaffected by her agony. Sasha had never told her about the pendant or its importance.

  “Look, it was nothing personal,” Cady said edging away. “We can still be friends.”

  Sasha couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Friends? She’s killed her.

  “I’m going to die,” Sasha said. “You talking the afterlife?”

  “The queen kidnapped me Sasha and brought me to this place. I don’t know what you’re mixed up in but I want nothing to do with it. I did what she told me to do and now I’m done. I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

  “Sorry? Sorry?” She felt her chest tighten. She coughed as it became difficult to breath. She wasn’t sure if it was the curse working its magic or Cady’s betrayal slowly killing her.

  “Help me Cady,” she sobbed as she collapsed to the ground. “Help me.”

  Cady stared at her with pity but didn’t move toward her. She walked to a curtain Sasha hadn’t seen before and pulled it to the side. “I love you Sash. I never wanted this to happen.”

  And then she was gone. The curtain swished after her, rocking side to side.

  Sasha lay on the cold stone floor her head spinning. She felt the life seep out of her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. This was the end. She felt a stab in her heart and knew the pain wasn’t physical. She closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. She just needed a second and then she passed out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  One wall of the small room was lined with a dark mahogany wood shelving unit filled with drawers of various sizes. It resembled an old pharmacist apothecary organizational unit. Evan sucked in a breath realizing the magnitude of the task of finding an unknown talisman that was a mystery to him. His mind raced with terror as he scanned the shelves and felt overwhelmed by his options. There had to be hundreds of small wooden boxes, none of them were labeled with a name. The surface of the drawers was smooth with a small symbol was carved on the outside, a symbol that meant nothing to Evan. He didn’t know where to start or what to do.

  He felt pressure in the base of his throat and couldn’t swallow easily. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself but it didn’t work. It was the start of a panic attack. He recognized the signs because he’d had one before and felt alarm at the thought of losing control. He had to focus and find the talisman; it was his only option, he drilled the command into his brain. Sasha was depending on him.

  Repeating the mantra was helpful and he focused on the boxes and how to organize his search. There were ten rows and twenty columns, around two hundred boxes. He could do this; he told himself and felt the suppression of his fear as he formulated a strategy. He would not let Sasha down. This was his only job. Do it. Do it.

  Evan opened the first box and frowned when he saw dirty fingernails. The clippings weren’t dainty and Evan had held Sasha’s hands, the skin smooth and unblemished. These were not hers. The curse had been active for at least a few months and he was certain she’d never let her personal hygiene get this bad.

  The next box had a locket of blond hair, clearly not Sasha’s. For a minute Evan hesitated when he wondered if Sasha had blond hair as a baby. It seemed possible as he’d had blond hair and now his locks were more light brown than blond.

  Evan shook away the panic that started to build again in the base of his throat. He couldn’t second guess himself. Do it. He put the blond hair to the side to deal with later.

  Gus said the talisman had to be biological, hair, an organ. Evan didn’t want to think how the queen would get her hands on an organ and since Sasha had never had an operation, he was sure that wouldn’t be her talisman.

  Evan pulled open another box and found an orange cluster of hair. He paused and analyzed the symbol on the front of the box. It had a circle with an arrow much like the universal sign for a male except there was a second arrow piercing the center of the circle. What did it mean? Evan threw the box and the hair to the ground in frustration. The box bounced twice and splintered into dozens of wood fragments.

  Evan sighed deeply and pulled open another box. He gasped and dropped the box when he realized it held a sausage-like severed finger. The digit was hairy and brutal and since Sasha wasn’t missing any of her digits so he knew it wasn’t hers.

  Pressure was building in his head and he pressed his hands against his temple trying to force down his anxiety that threatened to take over and make him useless. He closed his eyes and willed the next box to be the one the needed. He pulled it slowly out of its fitting and pried open his eyes to look inside. It contained a locket of light brown hair delicately wrapped with a pink ribbon with a charm of a crown hanging from the silky material. It looked regal as if it was especially preserved and not a discarded piece of biological material like some of the other items he’d found.

  Evan gripped the drawer until his knuckles turned white with the realization in his gut that this was Sasha’s hair from when she was an infant. It had to be. Unlike the other boxes, the interior of this one was lined with dark purple velvet fabric and the symbol on the front was a crown and circle and cross, the universal sign for a female.

  He wanted confirmation from Sasha if this could be her hair but when he glanced over his shoulder he saw she talking to Cady. He didn’t want to disturb them knowing how upset Sasha had been at Cady’s disappearance. It had crushed her and he didn’t want to interrupt the reunion.

  He was surprised to see Sasha’s friend here but was too busy to ask questions and find out how she’d gotten into the tomb. He was surprised, although not really surprised if that made sense. Her disappearance seemed connected to the attacks on Sasha especially after the video showed the same men who came into the café were the ones who snatched Cady. Why they took Cady was a mystery although he suspected it was another way to unnerve Sasha and set her off balance.

  Evan took the oil lantern off the wall and held the bunch of hair over the flames. It ignited like it was dry kindling and a strange purple smoke rose from the burning bundle. Evan dropped the talisman when it burnt the tips of his fingers and watched the mysterious purple smoke rise into the air and vanish when it reached the ceiling.

  He blew on his fingers and returned his attention to talisman as it incinerated. The flames got smaller and smaller until there were just embers. Evan wanted to grind out the ashes but waited until they turned black and had lost all of their warmth. He was confident the curse was shattered when the purple smoke rose into the air. He felt the color of the smoke was somehow significant and connected to the color of the velvet lining in the small wood drawer. There was no air writing of Sasha’s name or some screechy voice declaring the curse against Sasha broken, but he felt in his muscles a certainty that the curse was annihilated.

  Evan felt a touch of disappointment that something so profound was destroyed so easily and with so little fanfare. Where were the trumpets, the screams of protests, the alarms alerting the queen to the curse being broken? Was that it?

  Not wanting to be too overconfident, Evan decided to hedge his bets and destroy everything in the room just in case he miscalculated. If all the talismans were destroyed, then theoretically he was breaking all the curses the queen had set on the people trapped in these boxes.

  Evan pulled a drawer from the unit and was aghast to see a bloody cloth covering something organic that stank of rot. He dumped it on the grou
nd next to the other clumps of hair, some with white bits of scalp still attached to the roots, the fingernails and digits he’d located. It was as if the queen had cursed people after torturing them and took body parts as mementos. She was one sick monarchy.

  He methodically pulled out all two hundred boxes and dumped the contents in a pile on the ground, tossing the empty boxes in a corner. Most of the contents were hair, fingers, toes or ears. He would occasionally find a bloody lump wrapped in rags and didn’t get closer to inspect the contents. He had no curiosity as to what lay under the wrappings and just wished everything was gone, especially the body parts that reeked.

  The pile wasn’t that big because most of the items were small. With dread he realized the queen could do a lot of evil with the most insignificant item. While making the mound of horrors, Evan realized his mistake in throwing the drawers away. He didn’t want the queen to know the curse had been broken so he scrambled to pick up the discarded boxes and put them back in any slot that fit. It was best for Sasha’s safety that the queen remained ignorant of the spell damage he’d caused.

  Once he’d emptied the boxes, he picked up the oil lantern. He blew out the light and poured the hot oil over the talismans. He took a pack of matches from his pocket and struck a match. It flared bright in the dark room. He lit the oil lamp wick and then dropped the match on the pile of talismans.

  There was a small glow and then the whoosh of a fireball as all the talismans went up in flames. Each talisman leaked a colorful puff of smoke although none were purple like Sasha’s. There was white, grey, green, yellow and blue. The smoke mixed together but the colors didn’t change like they would have if they were paint. The yellow twirled around the grey but stayed yellow. The blue and green mingled together as they floated to the ceiling but remained the solid colors originally emitted.

  Mesmerized Evan lost himself in the smoke, some of it swirling around his head. He felt like he was in a cloud and waved the air to get it out of his face. He was proud of his clever plan to sabotage the queen. It wasn’t what he’d intended to do but now a lot of curses would fail, not just Sasha’s.