CHAPTER Thirteen HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW?
Standing on the side of an icy mountain ledge with a sheer drop off, the snow-laden wind swirled around Deliverance and Sixt with such force she had to concentrate to remain standing.
Dressed in the jeans and jacket she’d chosen for a pleasant fall day in New York, Sixt wrapped her arms around her body that was shaking from the cold. She wasn’t sure which was worse. She was frozen from the indescribable cold in a literal way and she was frozen by her fear of heights in a figurative way.
“Since I’m not as cruel as you,” Deliverance shouted over the roar and whistle of the wind, “I’m going to give you a choice about where you’ll serve out your sentence, which will be the same length of time as the curse I endured.”
Sixt couldn’t speak even if she’d wanted to. Her mouth was too numb to form words. And the threat of falling had her too terrorized to take her eyes away from the view of what might have been a bottomless cavern for all she could tell.
She felt a small tug and tried to open her mouth to scream, but before she could draw breath she was shocked by the abrupt warmth and change of scenery in the passes. Then they were standing in mud on the banks of a narrow jungle river.
When a mosquito the size of a hummingbird flew up and hovered in front of her face, she gave a small yell and swatted at it.
“Because I’m magnanimous, I’m giving you one of four choices. This is number two.”
Thinking she felt something against her leg, Sixt looked down to find a boa constrictor slowly winding itself around her boot. She squeaked, jumped, and tried to fling it away by kicking. But it was huge, heavy, and, apparently, determined. When that didn’t work, she gathered some magical energy that encouraged the snake to uncoil itself and be on its way to some more agreeable prey.
She was acutely aware of the fact that every expenditure of magical energy would bring her closer to the moment when there was nothing in reserve. She didn’t know the extent of her ability to drain her store because she’d never been forced to deplete her well of resources. But she knew it wasn’t limitless.
She looked at Deliverance with big liquid eyes, but found nothing in his expression other than iron-fisted resolve. While she was trying to sort through her thoughts, she heard the river’s waters move and saw a spectacled caiman the size of a house rear its head out of the water. Just as she sucked in a shaky breath, she felt a tug and found herself back in the passes.
When they emerged the third time, they were on a desert hill with nothing but waves of sand dunes as far as the eye could see from any direction.
“Now that you’ve seen some of the highlights of this dimension, let’s move along to door number three,” Deliverance said in a cheerful tone that was cruelly deceptive. “You’d better use some magic to protect your skin or it will be burned to a crisp within,” he looked up at the sun, “well, let’s just say you’re already turning pink.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh. And when it gets dark, it gets cold. Really, really cold.”
Feeling the familiar tug, followed by a few minutes in the passes, Sixt braced herself for what might be behind door number four.
They stepped into a dimension that looked like one of the human versions of the Underworld. A blast of heat like a furnace hit Sixt so hard she stumbled back. Deliverance grabbed her roughly by the neck of her jacket and stood her upright.
It was night wherever they were. They stood on the side of a volcanic mound gushing an asphyxiating amount of smoke and ash. Just below was the reason why Sixt could see where she was. A river of lava flowed through the canyon they overlooked, fiery chunks throwing a dim light over the landscape, gases popping and spewing intermittently.
“One of my favs. What do you think?”
Sixt looked at Deliverance as if she was on the verge of refusing to believe that any creature would deliberately torture another in the ways he’d just outlined. Graphically.
“Ah. I see you think I’ll relent if you look pitiful.” Donning a sad face he shook his head, then burst out laughing. “On the contrary. The more pitiful you look, the more delicious is my revenge.”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the passes for a fifth time. When they came out they were on top of a Bavarian mountain in springtime. Blue sky. Sun shining. Wild flowers in full bloom. It looked like the opening of Sound of Music.
“I don’t want you to be distracted with discomfort while choosing your fate. So here you are. Warm.” He held up her free hand and the rest of her lunch that he’d stolen appeared there. “Fed. And taking a last look at what you’ll be missing for the next two hundred fifty years. By the time you’re released,” he lowered his chin, “if you survive and if I remember you, things will probably have changed a lot. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll catch up.”
He looked at her uneaten yumpling. “Eat up. I’m not going to wait all day. You have five minutes to decide which reality will be your home.”
He walked off a ways and bent to pick an edelweiss. “Look at this. Pretty, isn’t it?” He looked back over his shoulder to show Sixt. “Oh.” He made a dramatic show of pretending to be surprised. “I forgot two things that may factor into your decision. First, use magic at your own risk. The results could be… well, extremely unpredictable.” He chuckled. “Second,” he gave her a look that said he’d love to have a drum roll, “all four of the dimensions under consideration are deserted. Unless you count wild life, some of which you encountered, you’ll be completely alone. There’s no escape unless a wayward elemental should happen by, notice you, and take pity on you. Even in that very unlikely event, assuming they wanted to help you, and not use you, the chance of them knowing how to find Loti Dimension is…” he looked upward for a second, “essentially nil.”
Sixt took in a deep breath through her nostrils and tried to imagine whether or not she could survive a solitary existence for so long, whether or not she would want to survive.
“Two minutes,” he said. “If you don’t choose when I say time’s up, I’ll choose for you.”
Her mind raced through the various scenarios, each more horrifying than the last when her imagination began to engage the infinite number of disastrous outcomes.
When Deliverance turned to her and said, “Time’s up,” she raised her chin and said “Desert.” She decided that she’d meet her fate with dignity rather than whimpering. Besides, she was pretty clear on the fact that begging would do no good. The demon’s heart had gone cold as stone.
In less than a minute they were standing on the dune hill again. She immediately took off her jacket and put it over her head. That meant the only skin still exposed was on her hands. She decided she could ration just enough magic to protect her hands. She ‘wished’ for invisible gloves and the sting of burning immediately ceased.
She didn’t know why the demon was still there. He’d gotten what he wanted.
Deliverance watched as Sixt pulled her jacket over her head. She wasn’t making his revenge the fun he’d imagined. He’d expected lots of tears, begging, pledges to do anything he wanted. She wasn’t giving him any of that.
He respected her for her refusal to whine, but resented her bravery at the same time. When she turned his direction, he knew she was silently saying, “What are you waiting for?”
So he pressed his lips together and vanished.
There was no point in walking. She’d believed the demon when he’d said there was nowhere to walk to. So she decided she’d sit down and think her predicament through. There had to be a way to deal with her situation other than burning to ashes and blowing away with the sand.
When she tried to sit down she discovered that the sand was hot as a stove top. She could stand only because she’d been wearing boots with thick tire tread soles. That was the good news. The bad news was that she couldn’t sit down.
Well, that was part of the bad news. The rest of it was that there was no water, food, or way to lie down and sleep - the very foundation of the hierarchy of n
eeds.
Screaming curses into the wind, she vowed that, if by hook or crook she did ever manage to escape and return to what amounted to ‘the world’ as she knew it, she would bespell herself into forgetting that she’d ever seen the demon, Deliverance.
When Harm returned to the penthouse after spending hours gathering up everything he would need for his trip, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Everything was in its place.
“Hello!” he called out.
Neither Sixt nor the demon responded.
He autodialed Sixt and got voicemail. “Hey. It’s me. Where are you? We were going to dinner? Remember? You’re buying? I need to know where and when. I vote for something deep fried and covered in fat sauce.”
At eight o’clock Harm was still waiting for a return call. Or a text. He picked up his phone to call again even though he knew the eighteenth time wasn’t likely to produce a different result. With the phone to his ear he walked toward Sixt’s side of the apartment. He passed her study, thinking he’d check her bedroom. For what he didn’t know. The ring he heard in his ear was followed by a faint ring coming from Sixt’s rooms.
He hurried through the door and followed the ring to her bath. She’d left her phone on the counter.
Picking it up he saw that her assistant at WC6 had left as many calls and texts as he had. He’d learned enough about Sixt since they’d reconnected to know that she might ignore messages from him, but she would never ignore messages from Ainsley, her assistant.
He tapped the return call feature on one of the messages.
“Oh, thank heavens. There you are!” said Ainsley.
“No. It’s Harm.”
“Her brother?” There was a pause and he thought he heard Ainsley begin breathing faster, like she was afraid. He thought his sister didn’t have friends, but Ainsley sounded worried. “What’s wrong?”
“Honestly I don’t know. I can’t locate her. We were supposed to have dinner.”
“Why isn’t her phone with her?”
“I guess it’s unusual for her to go out and leave her phone?”
“Unusual? It means the world is coming to an end.”
“Not to be dramatic or anything.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make light of this. I’m just saying that, until recently, she was the sort of person who takes her phone to bed and would have it attached surgically if she could.”
Harm hadn’t met Ainsley, but he kind of liked her voice and the fact that she couldn’t help having a sense of humor, even when it might not be appropriate.
“Well, wait. That used to be the case. But she was gone for a few days and said she didn’t want to be contacted unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the world was coming to an end.”
“Do you have a problem? Like people who laugh at the wrong times. You joke at the wrong times?”
“No. I mean I get why you’d think that, but those were her words. I swear. It was a quote.”
“Have you heard from her since she’s been back?”
“She’s been back? For how long?”
“I guess that answers my question.”
“So she wouldn’t leave her phone behind. But she did.”
“What should I do?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I could call the hospitals?”
“Do you have the number for the car service?”
“Of course.”
“Call them. Then call me back.”
Harm hung up. While he waited to hear back from Ainsley, he looked around. Everything was in its place except the phone was left behind.
He asked himself why she would do that and remembered that she was getting a lesson on reading auras or something like that. Maybe she didn’t want to be disturbed. Maybe the demon told her to leave the phone.
The demon.
The blond hairs on Harm’s forearms stood up as a chill ran upward over his nipples to his scalp. He knew before the phone rang that the car service hadn’t heard from Sixt.
“Hello,” he said flatly.
“It’s Ainsley.”
“I know.”
“They haven’t received any communications from her. Should I call the police?”
“No. She wouldn’t want you to do that.” He sat on the side of his sister’s bed. “I think I may know what’s going on, but I need you to run interference. I’ll find her and take care of this, but you need to be her proxy until she comes back. I’m speaking for her now.”
“Proxy.” Somehow, even though they were not on video call, Harm knew she was shaking her head. “No. No. No. I’m an assistant. Not a, um, decision maker.”
“Sometimes life asks us to be more than we think we are. For the time being, you are a decision maker. Nobody knows better than you what Sixt would do in any situation. Tell people she’s taking a leave of absence and you’re in charge until she returns.”
“Harm…”
“Whenever a decision has to be made, just ask yourself what she’d do. You’ll be fine. She’ll appreciate this more than you know. I appreciate it more than you know. And there will be a pot-of-gold bonus in it for you.” She was quiet. Too quiet. “Ainsley, you’re still the assistant. Your job description was just expanded temporarily. Okay?”
He heard her take a deep breath. “Okay.”
“You are the best. She always says so.”
“She does?”
“Absolutely.”
That was a lie, but a kind lie. Harm briefly wondered if Sixt would be able to read his lies when he found her.
He continued to sit on the side of the bed for a couple of minutes, mind racing. That demon had done something. Harm knew it. He’d been worried that something might happen when she released Deliverance. And, by all appearances, something had gone wrong.
Finally he dialed Wolfram, one of the warlocks he’d planned to meet at the airport the next morning and then added others to the call after casting a redaction spell. Only those he invited to hear his words would be able to understand what was said.
After summarizing Sixt’s history with Deliverance he explained that he felt strongly the demon had done something.
They all agreed that the purpose of a coven was collective magic and, what would be a better use of that than recovery of a sister?
“I was more or less calling to beg off the trip. I really hadn’t expected to involve all of you, but I really appreciate the offer.”
“It’s not an offer. It’s happening,” Wolfram said.
“What are you suggesting we do?”
“We’re going to summon his ass and rescue your sister,” said Aodh.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Harm said.
There was general agreement that no one in the group did know how to do that as those sorts of magics had always been reserved for their female counterparts.
Aodh spoke up. “I don’t know how to do it, but I know where my sister keeps the family books.”
“Can you get the right one?” Wolfram asked.
“Yeah. Of course. She’ll never know it’s gone.”
“Okay. So we’re doing this,” Harm said.
On hearing everyone’s agreement, he said. “Aodh, when you find the right one, look at the spell and make sure you’ve got everything we need.”
“We’ll skip the downhill,” Wolfram said. “We can do extreme boarding anytime. We’ll go straight to Kathmandu and find a guide to take us to the cave. If the stories are true, it will amplify our power and we’ll pull that bastard to us like we’re magnets.”
They agreed on the plan and disconnected except for Wolfram.
“Don’t worry”, he told Harm. “We’ll get her back. Meanwhile, your sister will be okay. I met her. She struck me as… resourceful.”
Harm smiled and started to say something, but his voice caught. What if she isn’t okay? He struggled for control and finally managed to say, �
��Yeah. She is.”
After hours of standing in the burning sun, Sixt wasn’t just desperately thirsty. Tired didn’t just mean that she couldn’t stand up forever, which was true. It also meant that her store of magic was waning.
She’d been over it in her mind a thousand times while she stood there putting off the inevitable.
There was only one option.
Magic.
She’d replayed what he’d said again and again. Use magic at her own risk could mean anything. Hotels post signs at pools that say swim at your own risk when no lifeguard is present, but if the swimmer is strong and sober, there’s not much risk.
The second warning was even more vague. He said results could be unpredictable. Okay. So her spells might twist. Wasn’t that a risk every witch learned to watch out for by the time they were adolescents? Skilled witches, like herself, always had compensatory measures at the ready, just in case.
For that matter, how did the demon know whether witch magic would work or not? Did he ask around? Test it out using another witch? Probably not.
He might have been trying to paralyze her with fear so that she didn’t even try. Or manipulate her into delaying an experiment until her magic reserves were low and it was too late.
Any of those things, or combinations thereof, were possibilities. She wished she’d had her head about her to check his aura for lies when he was laying down his own set of ‘ground rules’. But she’d been caught up in the horror of the worst her imagination could project. So it was anybody’s guess.
She closed her eyes and envisioned a ball of light forming, then beginning to grow and brighten as it did. When it was so bright it was all she could see, she threw her arm out in front of her and yelled, “Shelter.”
She opened her eyes at the moment she released the spell from her consciousness and proclaimed it loudly to the vacant dunes.
What happened next caused her to gasp and take a step back.
“Good Hecate Day,” she said.
Standing in front of her was a winding rock path that followed a running stream through a garden shaded by tall palms to the door of a structure that looked very much like the Taj Mahal. She had no idea she was holding that in her mind, but perhaps that was what the desert landscape suggested to her unconscious.
Deliverance (Knights of Black Swan Book 12) Page 17
