The Mirrors of Fate (33 page)

The pounds became louder; the door started breaking at the hinges. Maria backed away from the quaking door—but could not step away in time before the Black Harbinger’s ghastly hand broke through. Bits and splinters of wood flew about as the demon’s long, cold fingers wrapped around her neck twice.

Maria tried to scream but her air cut off from her lungs. She struggled to free herself from the cement grip. Her watery eyes started clouding her vision.

This had to be a dream. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling, beseeching for the Lord’s intervention. Was this the way He intended for her to die? No. Please not like this. If He could just help her now, she could avoid having her life taken by the same dark being who took Emma’s.

She thought she would black out, but her cloudy eyes cleared suddenly. She had barely heard or seen David intervene when he smashed a wooden chair across the creature’s arm. The thing retracted its hand but quickly began smashing its way through the rest of the door.

“
This is it!” David shouted above the wind. He clutched Maria’s hand, dragging her away from the door.

The Black Harbinger entered finally. Maria looked up at David in hopes of finding more reassurance, but his stoicism provided no comfort. The creature approached; the ferocious wind blew. As before, the demon reached for David. But instead of holding onto him, squeezing him or beating the life from his body, it merely tossed him away into a wall. He fell into the lamp, knocking it over and plunging the room into near complete darkness.

Slow, wispy, menacing breaths poisoned her eardrums and chilled her face, and Maria knew she had the creature’s attention. A bolt of lightning illuminated the night. Her breath caught in her chest as she saw the cloaked, faceless void before her. Its smaller hand, more humanlike and delicate, reached for her face. Its cold, clammy fingers clasped her chin and she flinched.

But what she had been expecting to happen did not. The Black Harbinger merely stood there. It tilted her head slightly to both sides, then its cold fingers touched her cheek and jaw in a gentle assessing fashion, as if trying to study her.

As close as she was to it, feeling its cold body temperature icing her skin, for some reason, one she could not identify, this thing became...unthreatening to her. Inexplicably, at that precise moment the fear that had been coating her insides suddenly dissipated into nothingness. She became more scared of the creature attacking David than herself.

“
Don’t touch her, you piece of shit!”

It looked at David, now standing on his barely good leg. The Aligner device in his hand glowed a luminous yellow.

“
Looks like you failed again. Maria, cover your ears!”

She did so seconds before her ceiling exploded from the mighty fury of four lightning bolts crashing in. Rainwater, contaminated with wooden splinters and grime from the roof, spilled inside. The four bolts struck the floor but instead of disappearing, the powerful electrical charges traveled along Maria’s carpet as if being drawn by an invisible magnet underneath the floor. The four bolts came together, connected, and exploded in a ball of blinding light.

A hole ripped in the atmosphere upon impact. A large gaping ring of energy manifested, roaring with a vacuuming intensity that threatened to suck any and everything near it inside. Maria stared at the singularity in awe. The hole’s recesses were vast and pure white, while supernatural, electrical blue flames danced around its border. It hung in mid-air in a rotating fashion, doubled in size, then stopped its growth automatically as if programmed to do so.

The demon backed away from the rift. David threw the Aligner inside, smirking arrogantly, the wind from the ball of hovering energy throwing his hair about his face in a most heroic fashion.

“
Let’s see how long you’re going to stand there,” he taunted. “Come on, I dare you to come near it!”

Maria watched the Black Harbinger foolishly try. Within a foot of David, the hole’s energy repelled the creature and this time the demon was the one who went flying across the room. David cackled mockingly when it collided with the wall. “That’s right! That’s right! Come again! Come on!”

The demon rose again, but having learned, it did not advance a second time. Instead it turned itself toward Maria on the floor. It stood chillingly still until its long finger pointed ominously at Maria’s face.

Chills ran up her spine.

The demon finally retreated and disappeared, molding its form into a ball and dissipating through the roof in a thick black odorous mist. The poisonous ominous air left with it. When she could recover from her shock, Maria looked at David who still stood by the amazing ring of energy.

“
Don’t worry,” he said above the mighty winds blowing. “When you don’t see me again, you won’t see the Harbinger again. As the last one of my family, I am really the only one left for the curse to get. Once I go through here it will eventually follow me in its own way.”

She knew he meant his words to comfort, but her eyes that were filled to bursting from a need for explanation stared at him pleadingly.

“
Don’t worry,” he said. “Your family will get back to normal soon enough. If you’re smart, you will forget about all you have seen here tonight. But I want you to forget all except two things.”

She wanted to reach out to him.

“
Never
forget what you have done to Emma,” he said, his eyes like black flames. “That is the thing that took her life because of you. Remember that.”

But that was all he said before turning toward the portal.

From the floor Maria reached out an unseen hand.

David stepped toward the hole. Her ear caught his muttered words,
“And never forget me as well.”

He disappeared. The light grew.

And without thought of anything or anyone else, Maria got up and blindly advanced forward.

•

Sometime thereafter, no one could have really known how long, the storm fully disappeared. Nearby neighbors left their houses and gathered outside the Jaghai house, staring up in horror at its dismantled state. They had all been awakened when the Jaghai house on Fifteen Tremor Lane had been struck by lightning and their house illuminated with a bright light.

Eventually they went into the house to find a family of frozen figures. A family missing a girl named Maria Jaghai.

Be sure to look out for the next instalment in
The Mirrors of Fate
3-part series