Mortal (18 page)

"How do we get back to the cave?"
Jenny settled beside her. Her green eyes were dull, and Kara could
see the fear.

Kara cursed as she paced around the
thick wall of trees. Where was the stupid cave?

The branches suddenly parted, and a
tunnel appeared amongst the trees. And beyond the opening of
twisted branches and roots stood a cleft in the side of the
cliff—another entrance to the cave.

"Come on!" David ran through the
opening and down the path. Jenny held her stomach and took off
after him.

Kara started forward—a scream filled
the night air.

A cold chill rolled down Kara’s back.
It was Olga. Kara whirled around.

A tall man draped in a black cloak
stood in the middle of the clearing. Green circular symbols and
runes glowed on his cloak and moved and shifted like liquid. His
head was covered in a black hood—his face hidden in
shadow.

Olga dangled by the throat from his
glowing green fist—struggling and choking in his grasp. The warlock
lifted Olga into the air and slammed his right fist into her
abdomen.

Kara choked a scream as she watched
the old woman fall to the ground and explode into a cloud of yellow
dust. Kara stifled a sob.

The dark warlock turned his head
slowly towards the edge of the forest where Kara stood. His glowing
red eyes settled on her. She couldn’t see his face—she couldn’t
even tell if he was human.

He lifted his arm and pointed a long
gray finger at her—

Kara was thrown back with a powerful
force. She landed hard on the ground. Her legs and arms were pinned
together by a glowing green metal chain. Desperately, she rolled
over and lifted her head. The warlock was walking towards
her.

She screamed and fought against her
chains, but it was like trying to peel open a giant’s fist. It was
pointless.

A green mist rose from the metal. She
suddenly felt dizzy and very tired—she should rest. The ground was
nice and soft and smelled like dandelions, a little rest wouldn’t
hurt anyone...

Kara...Kara...wake
up!

Was that Olga’s voice? Was she
dreaming? Where was she?

She blinked away the spots from her
vision. She knew something wasn’t right. She strained to fight her
sleepiness and recover long enough to think.

She had to get the chains off. She
knew they were magical. Fight magic with magic—Olga had said her
elemental power was still within her.

She concentrated on the feeling she
had felt before. She searched deep inside herself for that light,
that energy she had used when she was an angel. She let her
emotions flow. Her anger about Olga’s death washed through her as
she concentrated.

The Warlock was only a few paces
away—if she didn’t do something now—she would be as good as
dead.

Her heart raced. Every breath of air
felt like vaporized acid. She choked through the green mist. She
wasn’t ready to die, not like this and especially not at the hands
of some schizo-warlock man.

A flicker came from deep inside her,
like a candle flame sputtering before it lights. The pendant burned
against her chest, its own power vibrated against her skin. She
looked down. The runes on the pendant glowed yellow like the
morning sun and intensified. She relaxed and closed her eyes. She
reached deep within herself, searching for that fountain of energy
that was the source of her elemental power. Her mind touched an
elemental black quiet, and a cool rush of energy gushed up through
her veins. It was different from the warm gush she had summoned
when she was an angel—it was cool and smelled like spring. And just
like that, she knew what to do.

The gust of power surged through her
like a cool wind, overwhelming her senses with the smell of the
earth. Like the feel of the wind on her face for the first time in
her life, it exploded all at once, and she surrendered to
it.

Silver sparks of energy danced on her
skin. The earth around her rippled. Small white roots sprouted from
the soil and snaked onto the poisonous green chains that held her
captive. With a pop, the chains melted away as if they had been
made of ice.

Kara jumped to her feet. The warlock
froze, clearly not expecting Kara to free herself so suddenly. She
didn’t have time to think about what had just happened. And not
waiting for him to try anything else, she turned and ran into the
cave.

T
he streets of New York City were just as Kara remembered.
Giant stone and glass buildings surrounded her on either side.
Masses of people milled in and out of shops as they went about
their daily routines. She had been here once before, in search of
the missing field agent, Catherine, when she had first joined the
CDD team. Only this time, she was alone.

She had left her friends at the foot
of the cliff and had watched them disappear into the icy ocean. She
hoped the Healing-Xpress would heal them. David had squeezed her
hand gently and tried to convince her that this wasn’t her fault.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should have gone into
the cave alone. If Peter’s soul didn’t recover, his true death
would be on her.

The only good thing was that she had
found her backpack in the middle of one of the passageways in the
cave, as if it had been waiting for her. Maybe Olga’s magic had
kept it safe for her.

As Kara stood on the corner of 59th
Street and Lexington Avenue, she wondered if Ariel and the legion
had known that the old witch couldn’t leave Shadow Cave? Had Ariel
known that Kara’s elemental powers might resurface in her mortal
body—enough to take on the warlock?

But first she needed to find the man
called Gideon. She figured the tunnels under the city had to be the
subway system. But once she got there, she had no clue what to do.
The New York subway system was gigantic...and time was running
out.

She had waited ten hours for a flight.
Today was December twenty first. Jetlagged and sore, Kara had only
a few hours to find Cleopatra’s Needle and destroy the dark
warlock—all before the winter solstice. No pressure. Piece of cake.
Just thinking about it made her feel sick. She clasped the pendant
in her hand. How was she going to do it?

Kara followed the line of people
milling down the 59th Street subway entrance. After studying the
subway map, she saw that the N train would take her to 42nd
street—but how would she find Gideon? Which tunnel would he be in?
She didn’t have time to ride the entire New York subway
system.

Kara made her way along the concrete
floors peppered with gum stains. She caught the appalling scent of
cigarette smoke and bleach. The only source of light came from the
long neon light fixtures that ran the length of the station. They
flicked and buzzed as she passed under them. Except for some
graffiti near the entrance, beige bricks covered the walls. She
followed the signs for Downtown and Brooklyn.

She glanced at her watch—12:35
pm.

Crowds of people poured in through the
other entrances.

And then she saw it—glowing green
runes covered most of their faces. Just like her mother’s and
Sabrina’s, their skin was a pasty grey color, and their eyes were
sad and lifeless. Like robots, they shuffled through the crowds,
not knowing that they had been marked by a dark warlock. They would
soon be very sick and die—they would lose their souls.

She tightened her fists and rushed
through the crowds. She was running out of time.

"Gideon, where are you?" she
whispered.

The pendant brushed against her skin.
She stopped and pulled it out. She traced her fingers over the
symbols. The stone felt warm in her hand, and she could feel a
rhythmic pulse almost like a vibration. The runes glowed yellow and
the pendant rose from her hand and floated in the air like a
tethered balloon. With the string taut, it pulled her westward,
steering her like a floating compass.

She caught it in her hand and pulled
it down, but the pendant rose again just like a bar of floating
soap in a tub.

"Do you know where Gideon is?" she
asked the pendant, feeling a little foolish. But she sensed it knew
where he was.

The string pulled her westwards again.
Kara let the pendant steer her. She hid it between her hands to
avoid the weird stares she was getting from the
passersby.

The pendant pulled her toward the sign
for the N train, to Downtown and Brooklyn.

Suddenly, one after the other, the
neon lights overhead began to explode. Kara and dozens more people
were showered in shards of glass. She ran and cowered against the
opposite wall, shaking tiny shards from her hair. People screamed
as they ran for cover.

And then all the lights went
out.

Kara and the others were left in
complete darkness. Was it her power or the pendant’s causing this?
Then just before people started to panic, the lights flicked back
on.

Kara prayed the lights would stay on.
With the pendant still steering her, she took a deep breath and
walked towards the ticket booth. The lights flickered above her,
but stayed on. She sidestepped and swerved in and around the
crowds, trying to avoid them as best she could as the pendant
pulled her along.

Kara reached the ticket booth just in
time to remember that she didn’t have any money.

She doubled back. People poured
through the turnstiles. She watched them for a moment and then
flung herself between a bald man in a large grey trench coat and a
heavy middle-aged woman with more bags than she could carry. She
slipped through the turnstile easily.

But just not fast enough.

"HEY, YOU," yelled the ticket master
through his glass cage. "You need to pay. I’m calling the
police."

He pounded his fists against the
glass. "Get back here!"

Kara tightened the straps on her
backpack and made a run for it. She rocketed down the stairs to the
first platform. She stole a look behind—no one was chasing her. She
relaxed a little and looked around. Besides the nasty garbage and
pee smell, the subway looked normal. It was huge, with three
concrete platforms separated by subway tracks.

Masses of people stood waiting for
their trains and more than half glowed with green warlock runes. No
one took any notice of her. She appeared to be the only person who
could see the warlock’s mark. It pained her to watch
them.

The pendant pulled her to the left of
the platform. Kara obeyed the amulet and followed its direction.
She reached the end of the platform, where the tunnel began, and
still the pendant pulled. It wanted her to go into the subway
tunnel. She remembered reading about people living under the subway
system, in old abandoned tunnels. Maybe Gideon was one of those
people? Kara held onto the sidewall and peeked into the depths of
the tunnel. It curved and then disappeared into shadow. Wind
brushed against her cheek. The platform vibrated slightly. Kara
turned and saw a small bright light at the opposite end of the
tunnel. It was getting larger by the second. She didn’t want to
slip and fall into the train’s path accidently. She didn’t have
time to jump down now and stepped back from the edge. The oncoming
train squealed as it rushed past her and then came to a halt. Her
clothes fluttered in the strong gust of wind.

"THERE SHE IS! GET HER!"

Kara whirled around. Three men in
uniform with walkie-talkies sprinted towards her pointing, their
faces contorted angrily.

She turned her back to them, whistling
causally and at the last movement jumped into the waiting train.
The doors slid shut. The train kicked into life. The men in
uniforms hit the glass with their fists, but they were too late.
Kara watched their angry faces disappear in a blur as the train
pulled away from the platform. Sighing loudly she threw herself
into an empty seat. Now what?

As if in response, her head started to
throb again, the pain was worsening by the hour. And to make
matters worse, she felt weaker, like the first signs of a cold.
Pressing her nose against the glass, she strained to see through
the dark tunnels. No sign of an old man anywhere. This was crazy.
She would have to get off at the next stop and slip onto the tracks
to look for him. It was the only way.

The train car was alive with people
young and old. The dark warlock’s glowing green runes were
everywhere. A sudden feeling of evil came at her again, only this
time it was stronger, as though the threat were closer. The pulsing
increased on the pendant. It hovered for a moment, and then it
dropped back down against her chest.

The lights went out.

The train stopped with a powerful
jerk, as if it had hit a brick wall. People and their belongings
went crashing to the ground. Kara grabbed the metal pole just as
the train finally lurched to a stop. People screamed. The emergency
lights flicked on, bathing everyone in a blood-red
color.

Kara’s vision adjusted to the
semi-darkness, and she could make out other tunnels winding away
into the darkness. They were somewhere buried deep in the
underground train system. The cars in front of them were twisted
and off the tracks in a big Z. Kara felt a gigantic bump beginning
to rise on the side of her head. Had they hit something?