by Rainy Kaye
Nearby, Sasmita’s silhouette shuffled toward me.
“There’s a door over there.” She pointed to a set of steps a few feet away. “Let’s see if we can get it open.”
I followed her over to it and up the steps, my footsteps clomping in the darkness. My body felt every moment of the last twenty-four hours, all at once, and I could barely lift my feet to get them up the stairs.
At the top, we tried shoving the door, but it didn’t budge.
“The hotel caved in on top of us,” she said.
I chewed my bottom lip, but then regretted it when I tasted mud. “The others got out.”
It wasn’t a question or a statement, but a simple, earnest prayer.
In reality, how could they have known what was coming? Besides, if the wards had still been up, there wouldn’t have been anywhere for them to go as the hotel came down.
I couldn’t think about it now, but I didn’t have many choices. Randall had been in there. I would have rather spent the rest of my life trapped in the hotel with him than leave without him.
My throat and chest tightened, and forcing breaths did nothing to help. I tried to swallow, but instead, tears welled up.
Sasmita put her hand on my shoulder. “We can follow the tubes the other direction and see where they end up. They must lead somewhere.”
I wanted to tell her that they were probably the whirlpools by the abandoned warehouse, but I couldn’t speak through my restricted throat. I nodded, not caring if she could make out my tears in the darkness, and started down the steps.
Scraping noises came from the other side of the door.
I turned, standing behind Sasmita, and stared at the door as the sounds grew louder.
Sasmita stepped forward and pounded on the door. “Lisa? Larry? We’re in here!”
Thumping continued, and then voices emerged, though I couldn’t make out the words. My heartbeat sped up, and I waited, muscles tense, as the cave in over our exit was tossed aside.
The door jiggled but didn’t open. Something heavy hit the lock, once, twice, and then the door flung open.
In the daylight stood Randall, covered in dirt and sweat. Behind him, Larry and Lisa appeared equally battered.
Sasmita and I scurried toward them.
“Winston is gone,” Lisa said.
Randall stepped around Sasmita and pulled me tight into his arms, pushing my head against his chest and not releasing.
“Never again,” he said, low enough so only I could hear him.
My heart skipped a beat, though I wasn’t ready to deal with all that just yet.
I wiggled to loosen his hold a little and tipped my head to stare up at him. “Are the wards down, then?”
He laughed, gesturing at the sea of rubble around us that had once been the hotel. Among the broken walls, shattered beds and bathtubs and televisions lay scattered in all directions.
“Yes, the wards are down,” he said. “The whole damn hotel is down.”
I grinned, relief flooding through me, but it was short lived. We had to keep moving.
Parting from Randall, I turned to Sasmita. “Since you know the ins and outs of the literal magic of New Orleans, do you happen to have any idea where someone might have taken a hostage? They took my friend from Green River and brought her here, but we have no idea where to find her. We had been using that espial map to give us some direction, but that ended…poorly.”
She worked her fingers through the ends of her hair, gently shaking out knots and dust. “Do you know about when they would have brought her here?”
“Just a few days ago, at most,” I said. “They took her when Eliza Brown was running wild.”
“There has been so much mayhem,” she said. She puckered her lips, eyes averted in thought, and then an idea sprung on her face. “I had my own espial map that I was using to try to track down the dark witches and mages. There were two new sources of magic around the same time, and I figured one must be the mage, but I had no idea what the other would be. Perhaps it’s the means they’re using to hold your friend captive.”
My lips parted in a silent gasp. Sasmita had been right about everything magic so far. Maybe she would keep up her winning streak just a bit longer.
“Did you check out either location yet?” I asked her.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I thought it made more sense to bring the mage to me, so I would have the upper hand. You see how that worked out.”
All eyes turned toward the rubble.
I shifted my attention back to the current dilemma. “Can you tell me where the two locations were so I can check them out?”
Randall touched my arm, as if on impulse. I rested my opposite hand over his and stroked the side of his wrist with my thumb.
Lisa swung her backpack off her shoulder as she crouched, lowering it to the ground.
“I have the map. One of them, anyway. When you two decided it was time to take on Winston, I packed a bag of essentials—and that seemed, well, essential.” She smiled despite the dirt streaking her face and clothes and the mass of tangled hair at the back of her neck, as she shuffled around inside the bag. “Here it is.”
She held up a rolled map, though I had no way of knowing if it was mine or Sasmita’s. Not that it mattered much.
“Good job,” Sasmita said.
Lisa stood, and as she unfurled the map, we all crowded around her. I tried to orientate myself on the map, but the lack of labeled streets or landmarks and the array of dots nearly made me cross eyed.
Sasmita tapped one of the non-blinking dots.
“This, right here. This is one of the two new points of magic. It hasn’t moved since it arrived. The second…” She slid her hand down and rested the tip of her finger on another dot, but it crawled from under her touch and glided across the page at a nearly imperceivable pace. “This is the other one, though it’s anyone’s guess if the mage is roaming around and we just haven’t seen him yet, or if he’s the stable dot, hidden in a lair somewhere.”
I drummed my fingertips against my cheeks, thinking, and then clasped my hands in front of my chest. “Can you tell where the dots are located?”
Sasmita tilted her head.
“The roaming dot is this way…” She pointed down the street. “Probably five or six miles. It doesn’t seem to travel far, but it’s definitely moving. The other one would be….”
She stretched to peer past us and survey the distance. I didn’t see anything of interest.
“It’s that way.” She indicated beyond where the hotel ruins lay. “Maybe ten miles.”
My shoulders slumped, and my legs ached in protest, as if a reminder of what they had been through in the last few days. “I was not looking forward to another hike around this city.”
“Here’s the point,” Sasmita said, not looking away from the map. “As it stands, one of these dots is the mage and the other is your friend. I could be wrong, but the map is showing every magical spot in the city, so I think we are safe to feel our assumptions are correct.”
Since she had been watching this map longer than I had even been in the city, I couldn’t argue her logic. Two steady dots had appeared at the same time, and I couldn’t imagine how many sources of nonstop magic resided in this city.
“It’s a fifty-fifty chance of which one is which. I have a car, at least if it wasn’t destroyed. We can check out the first dot together. If it’s the mage, you can make your escape while I get what I need. If it’s your friend…” She hesitated and then looked apologetic, but resolved, as she said, “If it’s your friend, I cannot help you. I will have to go after the mage.”
Trying to find Randall’s car seemed like a moot point right now. We would have to collect it before we left the city, after finding Fiona but we didn’t have the time to go backtrack to the warehouse right now. Teaming up with Sasmita, and her vehicle, was an unexpected win.
“Seems fair,” he said. “We wouldn’t expect you to spend time on Fiona. I mean, we’re not re
ally hanging around to help with the mage, either.”
“We got this covered,” Larry said, ramming his fist into the opposite hand.
Sasmita grimaced as she faced her companions. “After what happened at the hotel, I think this is much more dangerous for you two than I realized it would be. I thought I could keep you safe, but clearly, I’m in over my head. I can’t ask you to continue helping me.”
Lisa lowered the map, hard lines on her face. “No way we’re backing out. We promised to help, and we’re upholding that.”
“No,” Sasmita said. She eased the map from Lisa’s hold and passed it to me before taking her hands. “You both are my dearest friends, and I would never be able to forgive myself if something worse happened—and it probably will.”
Lisa started to protest, but Sasmita shook her head.
“There should be a new evacuation group leaving the city soon,” she said. “You need to go sign up. They’ll help you get out safely and find accommodations in another town. I will be in touch as soon as I’ve found all the dark witches and mages.”
Lisa huffed out a few tears, squeezing Sasmita’s hands. “I wish you could come with us.”
“I can’t,” she replied, voice soft. “Not yet.”
Larry took Sasmita by the shoulders and hunkered down to wrap her in a tight hug. He pecked her on the top of the head as he straightened, eyes red and glossy.
I shifted next to Randall. This was not our moment to be observing, but here we were.
Randall sucked in a deep breath, pulling me close to him as Sasmita finished saying goodbye to Larry and Lisa.
“Do you want a ride?” Sasmita asked, looking between them.
“It’s not that far,” Larry said. “You’ve lost enough time. Take care, Sasmita. We will see you at the end.”
She nodded, sadness softening her features, and stepped back from them.
Larry looked over Sasmita’s head to us. “Thanks for your help, guys. Good luck in finding your friend.”
Lisa nodded, shouldering her bag, and then blew us a kiss.
Together, they turned and, wrapping one arm around each other, headed down the street.
Sasmita watched them for a long moment. Then, she let out a heavy breath and turned toward us. “Which dot do you want to start with? The moving or the stationary one?”
“Not sure it matters,” I said with a shrug, and then added, “Maybe the stationary one. The other might be too active for me right now.”
Sasmita smiled, but she looked as tired as I felt. Randall wasn’t saying much, so I had to assume he was just this side of passing out, too.
“All right,” Sasmita said, clapping her hands together once. “Let’s see what those locations are all about.”
21
Sasmita led the way as we picked a path through the rubble of the hotel, weaving around overturned tables from the restaurant, the legs sticking up like a sparse forest. No one was in sight, but we were only a few streets from the mayhem the mage had created. At least this time when we had to face it again, we would be in a vehicle.
With the map still held at my side, I stepped down onto the road, debris crunching under my soles. When the hotel had fallen, it had dispersed as far as I could see, and I began to realize it had not so much as collapsed, but exploded.
Up ahead, Sasmita rounded a street corner and disappeared. Randall took my hand and we picked up our pace to a brisk walk until we joined her.
More remnants from the earthquakes littered the street, but the few cars parked on the curb stood relatively untouched.
Sasmita hurried over to a silver Honda Accord and began brushing white dust from the hood.
“Safiya, Randall,” she said, leaning over the hood. “Use the espial map to direct us if we get too off track from our destination, okay?”
“Got it.” I released Randall’s hand and jogged over to the passenger side back seat.
While she checked the tires, I tried the door and found it unlocked so ducked inside. Randall strolled over and took the place in the passenger seat up front. A moment later, Sasmita yanked open the driver side door, and then turned to survey the street once more before sliding behind the steering wheel.
“The roads are so blocked off that we might have to take the long route to get there,” she said as she dug into her pocket. She produced a key and shoved it into the ignition. “Not that we can really go off-roading in this car.”
I smirked, flattening the map on my lap, and then homed in on our dot. “The car was still here, at least.”
She didn’t reply as she started the vehicle. I expected it not to turn over on the first try, but the engine purred like the car had been parked in a garage and not in the middle of a city-wide devastation.
She deftly pulled out from between the cars around it and headed for the intersection so we could turn toward our destination. The espial map wasn’t quite like GPS on my phone—there was no arrow to indicate where I was, no street names, and no traffic conditions report—but even without labels, I started to make some sense of the lines.
As she turned left, she said, “Looks like we can only make it to the next light, then there’s too much stuff in the road. We’ll have to turn. I think if we go right, we should be able to cut across some of the mayhem.”
“Sounds good,” I said, with no knowledge of the city’s layout and only a bare understanding of the map. “I’ll take your word for it.”
We inched along, the tires breaking larger boards in the road into smaller ones. Piles of former buildings scraped along one side of the car.
It wasn’t the fastest rescue ever, but we were better off in the vehicle than on foot. Hopefully Lisa and Larry had not overestimated their abilities to get to the evacuation group without running into problems.
We turned right, and the street opened to mask-wearing demons mulling about. The parade wasn’t in view, but they picked at the destruction for something to eat and scuffled among each other.
A few heads turned our ways, dark eyes barely visible behind the purple, green, and gold masks.
“Just keep going,” I whispered, like they might be able to hear me. “They don’t really bother anyone most of the time, it seems. Let’s just keep our heads down.”
I fixed my gaze on the map still in my lap, trying not to make eye contact with the demons. No use accidentally antagonizing them.
They parted as our car rolled through their midst, and I held my breath, forcing myself to stay calm until we were through them. Just a little more.
Something thumped against the trunk.
Snapping upright, I twisted around to stare out the back window. A demon scrambled up and over the back of the car. I screamed, jerking back, as it climbed to the roof. Demons moved in from all sides, surrounding us. Several climbed up on the hood.
A demon shot his fist through my window, sending glass across the seat and my legs. I leaned back, dropping the map to the floorboard, as the demon strained to grab at me.
The front side windows burst out as more than a dozen demons fought to claw at Randall and Sasmita. Randall beat at them with his fists. Sasmita shot little bursts of blue through them, but it barely did anything.
More demons leered over the front of the car, slamming their hands on the windshield, the lower half of their strange masked faces contorted into snarls.
The window at my back shattered and more claws shot through. I scrambled backwards between the front seats, wedged between Sasmita and Randall, as they continued to fend off intruders.
I attempted to find my magic, attempted to flick a few test embers, but nothing happened.
Goddammit, Jada.
Gritting my teeth, I started to yank the magic back to me, to demand it to return to me. My chest seized, my body tensing, and I released the magic before it had even started.
As demons tried to come through the windows into the backseat, I braced my hands on the dash and kicked, hard. I caught one in the face, and blood dribbled from its mou
th. That did nothing to improve how much it looked like a possessed evil clown.
It reared back and yanked open the door. Shoving back its cohorts, it grabbed at my legs. I kicked, twisting and shoving, but its claws sank into my calf. Randall pushed at the demon coming through his window with one hand and turned to try to help beat away the one on me. With a growl, it tugged harder. Randall caught me under the arm, and I clenched the back of his seat. Gritting my teeth, I kicked harder. The demon grabbed my other leg and with a grunt, yanked me from the car.
My back slammed into the asphalt, my lungs seizing. Demons pushed in around me, on top of me. I arched my back as they pinned me down, snapping my teeth as if I could do anything if I did manage to bite them. Flailing, I searched for Randall, for Sasmita, but all I could see from the ground were more and more demons overtaking me.
The one with the bloody mouth stood over me. He bent down, grasped my head between his claws, and wrenched my head from the ground. I stared up into its black, demonic eyes.
It rammed my head back, hard. My skull cracked against the asphalt, and a second later, everything went black.
22
I came to with stabbing pain through my shoulders, like I had been impaled horizontally through them. It took me a minute to realize my arms were bound behind my back and my feet weren’t even touching the ground. Ropes tied around my abdomen and arms were pulled taut somewhere far above my head. The get-up was putting pressure on strange points, like my shoulders.
I swayed gently in the breeze.
My eyes fluttered open, and then slammed shut at the onslaught of color and motion. My stomach churned. I tried to slowly breathe through my nose, but I only wound up sucking in the stench of sweat, decay, and what I hoped was not blood and viscera.
My chest heaved, and I leaned forward just in time as I vomited. After a few moments, the motion sickness settled.
I dared to open my eyes again.
On either side, crowds of onlookers stared up at me, their black eyes intelligent and beastly behind their colorful Mardi Gras masks.
