Mortal (21 page)

Gideon had explained to her
that he was on another
magical
plane,
and that on that
plane he was right side up, and therefore Kara was, in fact, upside
down. She decided not to press the matter. He had made it clear to
her that she needed his help, and Olga had said the
same.

After running down the tunnel’s grime
and through strange wet puddles that Kara would rather not think
about, they reached Gideon’s house. And of course it was upside
down.

It was the weirdest house Kara had
ever seen. It was nestled on the ceiling of the tunnel. Its orange
walls appeared to be made of canned goods and metal plates, and it
had a row of round windows on the roof. It looked like a mix
between a space ship and a gigantic pumpkin.

Gideon disappeared behind the front
door. He reappeared moments later with a wooden staff that had
bells attached to it, and with a selection of leather pouches that
hung from the leather belt around his waist. He had also wrapped an
old fur cloak around his shoulders. The poor foxes’ heads leaned
across his shoulders, their glass eyes fixed on Kara. She cringed
but decided not to say anything about how wrong it was to wear fur
nowadays.

Gideon beamed at Kara. "Here we are.
I’m ready to rid the world of this dark business. I might be a
little rusty—but I’m sure it’ll all come back to me if the stars
want it to."

Gideon strolled towards her with a
spring in his step. His pouches bounced around his belt.

"Uh...Gideon, you think you
can come down on
my
plane for a while? I think I’ve twisted the muscles in my neck
from staring up all the time."

The witch doctor smiled. "Stars! But
of course! I can see how having us both on the same plane would
make matters simpler." He snapped his fingers and with a puff of
white smoke, he landed with a thud beside Kara. "Is that
better?"

"Yes, thank you," said Kara. He was a
head taller than she when he stood beside her.

"I’m supposed to rendezvous with my
team on the corner of Broadway and 42nd street at around 3:00 pm.
So, if you’re ready, we really should be going."

Gideon’s smile disappeared. "Oh yes,
the spirit walkers. Such unnatural creatures, you’re lucky Olga
didn’t vaporize them or cook them into her famous Spicy Spirit
Stew."

Kara frowned and wondered if that was
what Olga had been sautéing in her cauldron.

"They’re not
unnatural
. They’re my
friends—
and
guardian angels—
and
they’re trying to help us fight the dark warlock.
They’re on our side, you know. I care about them." Kara fought to
control her irritation.

"The dead should stay dead," said the
witch doctor matter-of-factly.

"So...how come the legion doesn’t know
about you?" said Kara, trying to change the subject. "You obviously
have magic."

"The legion? You mean that interfering
spirit-walker legion? Why would they? They’re nothing to me. I’m
just a witch doctor. I can do a few basic spells, like cast a veil,
but I mostly create remedies to protect others against dark magic.
I’m more of a potions master. That’s what witch doctors do—make
magical medicine. I’m not powerful enough to be considered a real
threat to anyone."

He frowned, and when he spoke again
his voice was full of contempt. "I don’t care for the dealings of
the spirit walkers—I’m sorry to say."

Kara decided to drop the topic. It was
no use arguing with a stubborn old man, who probably hadn’t had a
conversation with a real person in years. And she needed his help
to find the way out of the underground subway tunnels. She looked
down the tunnel. "So, how do we get to 42nd street from
here?"

Gideon’s smile returned. "Easy, I know
a shortcut. I know all the secret passageways down in the tunnels.
I’ve lived down here for over a hundred years. This
way."

He walked down the tunnel talking to
himself and counting the walls.

Kara laughed and ran to join him. They
walked side by side for a few minutes until they reached another
tunnel that crossed their path.

A sinister laugh echoed throughout the
tunnel.

Kara froze mid-step.

Suddenly, the walls of the tunnel
shifted and instead of an opening, they stood facing another
wall.

"Oh, ya want to try that again, do
ya?" Gideon reached into one of the pouches on his belt and then
threw a handful of red powder at the wall.

"To the stars!" he shouted. The stone
wall shifted and disappeared. The same tunnel stretched out before
them again.

"Come, come, before the tunnels change
again." Gideon raced down the tunnel like a wild man being chased
by a tiger.

Kara started to follow him but
halted.

Six creatures stepped from the shadows
at the edge of the tunnel. They had eight scaly legs and tails like
scorpions. They were the size of small ponies. Their sharp venomous
claws ripped the ground under their feet. They smashed their tails
against the walls and shattered the rock like it was made of soft
clay. Their glowing red eyes were focused on Kara. Glowing runes
covered their backs, and the smell that rolled off of them was a
mixture of sulfur and bile.

Gideon screamed and jumped back,
swishing his staff before him.

"Get back, you devils!"

He tripped on his own legs and went
down. Desperately, he pulled at one of the bags around his waist.
"Don’t come any closer, or I’ll turn ya into a bowl of spider
chowder!"

Kara pulled out her blade and ran
towards the old man. She reached down and pulled him up just in
time to avoid being skewered by one of the insects’ scorpion tails
as it pierced the ground a centimeter from her boot. They dashed
down the tunnel with the giant spiders scurrying after
them.

Kara stopped and turned around to face
their attackers. Her soul blade twinkled in the yellow light. Six
against two—it wasn’t fair, the odds weren’t good. She knew her
only chance was to act quickly. She didn’t have time to think of a
plan. Her instincts just kicked in.

One of the giant spiders charged at
Kara, its tail slashing side to side, aiming at her head. She
ducked and swung her blade towards the underbelly. As soon as the
blade touched the soft tissue, green ooze spluttered to the ground
and splattered in Kara’s face. The spider shimmered and shrunk back
to the size of Kara’s palm. The runes disappeared.

In the corner of her eye she saw
Gideon throw a red vial at one of the creatures. It exploded in a
ball of liquid red fire on contact. The spider wailed and flung its
charred body against the wall of the tunnel, convulsing. It slumped
to the side, and then it keeled over and shrunk back to its normal
size. The witch doctor rushed over and stomped the spider
repeatedly with his rubber boots.

Gideon prepared a new tonic as another
oversized spider advanced in his direction. Two more spiders
launched their attack on Kara. She stepped back, rolled to the side
and swung her blade into the first creature’s head with a
satisfying crack. She tried to retrieve her blade in time to fight
the second—but not fast enough. With a powerful whack from one of
its legs, it caught Kara in the chest, and she went crashing into
the wall with a horrible crunch. The force squeezed the breath out
of her.

She scrambled to her feet, her vision
blurred from knocking her head on the wall. She stood there
breathing hard. She couldn’t tell whether two spiders were coming
at her or one. She blinked. The spider’s eight glowing red eyes
burned with hatred. It opened its mandibles and a glowing green web
shot from its maw. Kara leaped to the side, but too late. It caught
her in mid-stride and flung her around. She crashed on the ground.
Her arms and legs were pinned awkwardly to her sides by the sticky
web. Green vapors rose from it, and the smell of sulfur burned her
nose. She couldn’t move. She could hear Gideon yell as he fought
the other spider.

A hairy-scaled leg rolled her over, so
that the giant spider’s ugly face was a few inches from her
own.

"Ah...a little help here, Gideon," she
called, her pulse racing. No answer.

The spider opened its maw to bite off
her head. Her fear quickly turned to anger. Her instincts kicked
it, and a cool energy surged through her, wanting to be released.
She was buzzing inside. Her hair lifted on end. The ground groaned
beneath her. And then the air around her was alive with
electricity.

The spider lowered its
head.

Crack!

An electric silver bolt shot out of
Kara and blinded her for a second. The creature wailed—then quiet,
nothing but the smell of burnt hair. A blob of green ooze sizzled
and popped on the ground. A single tiny leg was all that remained
of the giant spider.

She moved her arms and legs. She
checked herself. The web had melted away; only a few sticky green
fragments remained as stains on her jacket. She stood up. The
electricity was still vigorous inside her, and the pendant
pulsed.

"Now that is power." Gideon smiled as
he adjusted one of the pouches around his belt. Kara spotted the
last spider, squished like a rotten tomato behind him.

"Never saw anything like it before,
and I’ve seen a many great things in my time, so the stars can tell
ya. Your magic is quite extraordinary—powers from mother earth
materialize as silver electricity from your fingers—beautiful and
deadly. And that’s what it’s going to take to bring down the dark
warlock."

Kara didn’t feel very powerful at the
moment. She knew they were wasting precious time. The dark warlock
kept throwing obstacles in her way. He was hoping to keep them down
here for a while, even if he couldn’t kill them. She knew what he
was planning.

She searched the ground with her boots
and bent down to retrieve her blade. It was covered in green slime.
It was disgusting—but it was the only weapon she had, so she wiped
the blade on her jeans and put it in her belt again.

She looked up. "Let’s get out of here
before more giant insects decide to make us lunch."

Gideon nodded, his white hair bounced
on the top of his head. "Agreed. This way."

They ran down the tunnel and up a
slope. Kara could hear and feel the vibrations of subway trains.
Gideon led her down two more tunnels, turned right, waited for a
train to pass, then ran up to the platform. Kara kept up with him,
but her rapid breaths were like razor blades in her throat. They
climbed up the platform and hoped no one had spotted them. This was
New York after all. There were more bizarre things in this gigantic
city than a scrawny teenaged girl covered in dirt and blood
climbing out of a subway tunnel. She figured she would blend in
just fine.

Her jeans were stained with her own
blood, and she did her best to cover herself with her jacket. As
they made their way across to the exits, Kara couldn’t help but
notice the strange looks she and Gideon were getting—mostly the
witch doctor. His big hair and strange attire called for attention.
Kara hoped they wouldn’t attract the wrong attention—getting
stopped by the cops now would stop the mission. They couldn’t
afford hiccups of any kind.

The sign above the two tall
glass exit doors read
42nd street.
Kara pushed open the doors and stepped onto the
sidewalk.

42nd Street towered over them.
Billboards with screens the size of small shops lined the streets
that thronged with locals and tourists. She smelled roasted peanuts
and asphalt.

But there was something very different
this time.

A green glowing mist on the ground
slipped through the crowds. It snaked around cars and avoided
buildings. Stealthy, it crept along the street. Searching tendrils
rose from the mist and coiled around a young man. It enveloped him
like a cocoon and strands of it disappeared into the man’s mouth.
The next moment, the mist reappeared with a brilliant white sphere.
His soul, Kara realized in horror. Hundreds of these brilliant
spheres floated in the mist and disappeared out of sight like
runway lights in a fog. The young man’s skin started to glow with
green runes, but he kept walking—oblivious to the fact that his
soul had just been stolen.

The mist crept back onto the ground
and launched itself at its next victim.

"Oh dear! May the stars help us," said
Gideon.

Kara could hardly breathe. "What is
that mist? It’s taking their souls."

Gideon lowered his head. "That, my
dear, is shadow mist—dark warlock mist. It is dark magic of the
worse kind. Only a powerful warlock, rotten to the core, can
conjure it. He uses it to steal souls. We’re dealing with a
madman."

"It’s everywhere. We have to stop it!"
Kara started forward, but Gideon held her back.

"There’s nothing ya can do to stop it
now. If the mist touched ya, you’d lose your soul, too."

"So what can we do?"

"We must stop the connection—kill the
warlock, and the mist will disappear."