by Justin Sloan
“Okay, there’re others. I don’t see how that helps us. Most necro—these people, they get their powers through the dark arts, right? So more likely than not, they’ll be on the side of Altemus and Anne.”
“But you won’t know until you try,” Beverly said.
“Typical sister thing to say,” Rohan said with an exhausted laugh. “Fine… we’ll put that on the list. If Altemus and Anne are a problem, we seek out other, er, people like us, and try to get them to help.”
A thought hit him, so he turned to his sister.
“Bev, were you able to hear his thoughts? Did either of you pick up anything related to their plan?”
Tess looked at the ground, holding one arm in the other, still too shaken to respond. But Beverly nodded.
“A bit,” she said. “But… it’s all so clowdy.”
“Anything,” Nora said, more gently than Rohan. “Can you try to go back, think about what they might have said or thought?”
Another moment, during which Beverly wrapped an arm around Tess for comfort. Then she said, “The Lich King. He said something about it… whatever that means.”
“They mean to go after him,” Rohan said, his voice low with amazement. “How…?”
“The king of the dead….” Nora bit her lip, then sighed heavily. “Bloody hell.”
Rohan furrowed his brow, fingers to his temples to massage the dull aching away. This was far from over, that was for sure.
A loud horn sounded, and they turned to see the train approaching. It was a cute, blue train with windows along the side and top for travelers to enjoy the scenery. But Rohan and his companions weren’t interested in anything other than sleeping for the short train ride it took to get back to Cusco. He needed to recover, and be ready for Altemus’s next move—how that involved the Lich King, he had no idea.
There, they found the next flights back home. Even if they had a few layovers, it didn’t matter, as long as all this was behind them. Whatever plan Altemus had, Rohan would deal with it another day. Correction: Rohan and Nora would deal with it another day.
After boarding the plane and getting situated, he leaned back in his seat and let his heavy eyes close. He was distantly aware of the flight attendants and their safety message, and then a rumbling of the planes engines, but before they took off, he was asleep.
In his dream he was back in the heavenly place where he’d said farewell to his fiancé, Senna. He stood there with Nora, arm in arm, and Senna smiled down at them with joy and waved before turning and vanishing into the clouds.
Moving on wouldn’t mean he lost any love for Senna, and he was at peace knowing this.
A rumbling shook him. Part of the dream? Again, and he opened his eyes to see Nora with her back to him, staring out of the plane window. Beverly and Tess were bending over to see through the window in the next isle up, and then someone screamed.
He jolted, the haze leaving his mind, and realized everyone was looking out the windows, some unbuckling themselves and standing, shouting about demons.
“We’re all going to die!” an elderly man shouted.
A child was crying.
Finally, and slowly, Rohan turned to look out the window. He knew what he’d see before he saw it…
Spirits were floating past, like silvery wisps of clouds, but among them large hands reached through the sky, the shapes of skulls formed in the clouds, and then, with a burst of red light—it was chaos. Black and red, flames, all around them.
The plane was jolting around worse than any turbulence Rohan had ever experienced. He knew this could very well be the end.
A flash of light as one of the red spirits entered the plane, and then became one with a man. The man spun, his eyes going straight for Rohan. Wit each step he took, his skin peeled back in patches to reveal a fiery glow like a lake of lava beneath his flesh.
“ROHAN!” the demon said. “We’ve come for Rohan!”
Screams filled the plane, and then more people become possessed and are standing, some ripping at their skin as horns sprout from them, others unleashing bursts of purple and black energy that eats all in its path.
But Nora and Rohan are up, pushing back with their powers. Rohan lashed out with his spiritual mind and snatched the demon from the first attacker. A flair of pain went through him as he did, but he powered through and flung the demon from the man.
A man stood, showing his gun and an Air Marshall badge.
“Stop this, or I’ll—” A burst of red light and he too was taken over. He fell on Rohan, strangling him with hands of fire.
Now it was Nora’s turn to grasp him with her spiritual link and toss the demon from his body. They continued the fight, standing before Beverly and Tess to ensure nothing got near them, but then everyone not buckled in fell. A glance at the window showed they were at an angle no plane should ever be, and soon
“Brace yourself!” Rohan shouted to Nora, and Beverly reached out to help him. With her help, he pulled himself back into his seat, managed to get Nora into hers, and they strapped in.
The demons were gone now, but that wouldn’t matter in a few minutes when—
CRASH!
They hit. It was chaos—water everywhere… People sinking, others succeeding in unbuckling themselves and succeeding in making it to the surface, where Rohan now found himself. Tess and Nora were nearby, but not Beverly.
“Bev!” he shouted looking around, and then he threw himself back under the water. She had escaped and was struggling to reach him.
The look in her eyes said it was helpless, and she reached out with her last ounze of energy, then started to sink back. He couldn’t let this happen. Already people were dead on that plane, right? If he could pull on their spirits, leverage that…. It worked!
He was pulling with all of his spiritual energy, and like the plane was flying again it was pushing up, and then carrying him with it and he caught Beverly by the hand and both them were sprawled over seats as the plane exited the water and then, his energy ran out and it fell back to the water’s surface with a crash. Only now it wasn’t sinking, and someone had unbuckled herself and managed to deploy a floating device.
“Bev,” Rohan said as he pulled her to him.
Nothing. He wanted to cry out, to scream at the world for doing this—for taking first his fiancé, and now his sister.
A small cough, then a larger one and her eyes shot open and water spewed from her mouth. She was alive!
He held her tight and then searched for Nora and Tess. He saw them, but his attention was drawn elsewhere—the city, not far off, as they seemed to have landed in a lake, was ablaze. Flames everywhere, buildings toppling, and the swirling black and reds wisps of light he knew to be evil spirits and demons.
Nora and Tess reached him and they all found spots on the flotation device, but no one said a word. They all simply stared at the chaos.
Finally, Nora put her arms around Rohan and said, “Looks like we’re going to have to find help.”
He just stared, and slowly nodded. They were going to need all the help they can get.
THE END
