The Seal of Oblivion (3 page)

“I… I’m not sure. I don’t think about
it much.”

“It’s not good to run away for your
problems,” Nightshield advised.

“What does all this have to do with
me and how this is mine?” Laqiya asked still stunned.

“It’s simple and you already know.
You are the White Rose,” Nightshield said simply.

Chapter
Two

The
White Rose

In a movie, Nightshield’s
declaration would have explained so much to the main character, and there would
have been some divine inspiration or enlightenment. But Laqiya was left only feeling
confused. That was just a pseudo name she occasionally scribbled in almost
unintelligible writing in the corner of some of her more
fantastical
art works out of some desire to be unique and make a
distinct name for
herself
when she became a professional
artist someday (or that’s what her mother said in any case). And it wasn’t just
White Rose.
It was always
The White Rose.
The way she came up with
it was a hazy dream at most. A woman told her.

“I don’t get it,” she finally said.

“It’ll come to you,” Nightshield
said. “Why don’t you look around?”

“How’s that going to help?” Laqiya
asked stubbornly.

“Trust me. It’ll come back to you,”
Nightshield assured. “Just go…”

Laqiya sighed and began walking
toward the palace, every now and then stopping at the large clusters of rose
bushes scattered about the various pathways.

“It’s not working!”

“Trust me,” Nightshield said and
then muttered, “All you need is the right thing to act as a trigger.”

“What’s the trigger?” Isis asked.

Nightshield shrugged. “I don’t know.
I don’t even know if anything out here will trigger anything. We may have to go
inside the palace.”

Laqiya started to walk past another
cluster and through some tall flowers, but then stopped. She turned back to
look at the dark blue roses that she had first seen out the corner of her eyes.
Odd.
She had never seen a blue rose before, one that
grew out the ground or not watered with dye anyway. Was it really blue? Laqiya
reached out to touch it and then gasped as her breath was knocked out of her.

“You
can fight him…”

“You’re
the only one powerful enough.”

“Nature
is backing you for some reason. This has to be it.”

“Don’t
kill him…”

“They’re
calling you The White Rose now.”

“Traitor!”

“OBLIVION!”

Laqiya gasped as she shot straight
up, pushing Nightshield and Isis out the way.

“What did you see?” Nightshield
asked cautiously.

Laqiya closed her eyes, images
flashing in her head. She opened her eyes and shook her head replying, “I don’t
know… Images, feelings and not like a dream. It was a memory. What’s going on?”
she asked.

“Do want the long or short
version?” another feminine voice with a purr to it that sounded a like
Nightshield’s, but didn’t have the same monotone, asked.

There was a woman, and she looked
just like Nightshield except her hair was long and silvery white color styled
in low ponytail. Other than that, they looked just alike with the same outfit
and a tattoo of a cat on her shoulder except it was all white. She also had a
much less intimidating stance. While Nightshield always seemed on guard, this
woman appeared more relaxed in nature.

The woman looked at Laqiya and
noting the girl’s confused expression as she glanced between the two feline
women purred lightly, “I’m Plainshield, Nightshield’s sister,” she added
glancing over at Nightshield, who had raised an eyebrow at her sister’s random
appearance.

The two exchanged a silent greeting
and then turned away from each other.

 
“I’ve only met her once,” Isis said to Laqiya.
“But from what I’ve seen she thrives on technology.”

“So, which version?”
Plainshield asked.

“I’ve got time,” Laqiya said
tucking her legs under her having decided to remain on the ground.

“Where to start?”
Plainshield asked.

“How about seven-thousand years
ago?” Nightshield suggested.

“That’s a bit far… It would be nice
if we could find that diary. It would certainly help.” Plainshield said with a
sigh. “You can start Night,”

“Wait,” Laqiya interrupted. “Who
was he?
The Tyrant.
Why does he want me dead?”

“He was exactly what his name said.
He was a tyrant,” Plainshield replied and sat on the white crystal path Indian
style. “He usurped the monarchy with his dark powers.”

“Then why didn’t someone just come
and claim the throne?” Laqiya asked.

“Because people were scared of
him,” Nightshield answered simply “Not only could he manipulate people, he
could… how do I put this lightly? The Tyrant had people working with him, not
just normal people, but we’ll get to that later. Let’s just say he did things
that would make your life miserable if you opposed him and leave it at that.”

“No one ever dared to defy him
after a few
examples
were made. So
the people lived in fear, as well as our own
kind
,” Nightshield referred to herself and her sister. “We were
deformities to him and he wanted to purify the planet. A person was lucky if
they managed to get away from The Tyrant alive for misunderstanding him.”

“And that was if one of his seven
dark mistresses didn’t kill you first,” Plainshield added.

“So where do I come in here?”
Laqiya asked impatiently drumming her fingernails on a stone on the ground.

“They’re trying to get to that if
you would stop being so impatient Laqiya,” said Isis

“This is leading up to that
mistress
,” Nightshield said in an overly
patient tone. “Anyway, The Tyrant ruled for decades over most of the known
world at the time with his unknown powers and apparent invulnerability. He
enslaved his nation. Even those that were free served him, being that they
worshiped him. No one dared to defy him”

“Here’s where we get to you,”
Plainshield sighed. “When immediate and indefinite danger to humanity appears,
the forces of nature themselves get behind a person to save humanity.”

“You mean I’m not the first White
Rose?”

“In a way no.
In a way yes.
Who do you think the prophets were?”
Nightshield asked.

“They could control nature?”

“The danger wasn’t so prominent in
their times and the prophets came after you. You had sealed the most immediate
danger by then,” Nightshield said before continuing with her explanation.
“There was a resistance for a long time. We were part of it as well as others
with different forces of nature backing them.”

“Well what was so special about me?
What’s so special about The White Rose?” Laqiya asked.

“Because you
didn’t just have one force of nature backing you.
You had them all and
when you appeared, when we found you, we knew you were the one. You were the
one who could challenge him. When you appeared people rallied behind you and
you amassed and organized a large army to oppose the Tyrant’s.”

“An army?”
Laqiya asked.

Nightshield nodded. “You divided
everyone up into nine forces of nature with an executive head; earth, wind,
fire, water, mind, darkness, light, life, and death. Needless to say, with you
at the head of the resistance which was now a royal hierarchy in its own right,
the Tyrant was threatened by you. He sent spies to infiltrate the army, always
trying to get close to you, but you always evaded him. You were always a step
ahead of him and his Akanthas,” Nightshield said as though reminiscing.

“Akanthas?”

“Roughly translates into thorns,”
Plainshield explained. “They could control forces of nature too.”

“So what happened?” Laqiya asked
finally.

“Years later the war ended when The
Tyrant was sealed in oblivion… or so everyone hoped.”

Laqiya watched closely and raised an
eyebrow at how the feline woman’s tail began to swish. Nightshield looked
almost hesitant when she said this, like she wasn’t telling her something, but
she dismissed that when Nightshield spoke up again.

 
“The seal of oblivion is disintegrating, and
The Tyrant’s first mistress is out. Her name’s Sahajah and her job
is
to get rid of you before you learn how to use yours
powers. Unfortunately, we can’t hide you and help you develop your powers,
because she’s looking for the staff pieces. So you’ll just have to learn and
gain experience—”

“Hold on,” Laqiya said as she stood
up. “I don’t want to do this. I was just curious is
all.
I’m not looking for some staff. I’m not chasing danger.”

“It’s going to chase you either
way,” Plainshield said, “You can’t outrun this.”

“And what do you mean the seal of
oblivion? No one can escape oblivion. It’s nothingness. It’s hardly an
existence.”

“This world makes oblivion to be
this mythical place that people can’t escape, like a black hole or something.
But it’s real and it doesn’t work that way. People that have gotten out are the
ones who started the myth,” Nightshield replied.

“People can get out… It has a
seal?” Laqiya asked holding her head. Curiosity killed the cat. Why did she
have to wonder what they were talking about?

“How else are you supposed to keep
people in it?” Nightshield asked.

“Oblivion is a sentence worse than
death, but the problem is oblivion doesn’t always last forever. It takes person
with a strong will to get out or a very powerful person with vengeance on the
mind,” said Plainshield.

“Or someone from the outside can
shatter it,” Isis whispered to her.

“From the outside… You mean that
woman… that mistress. Then how did she get out?”

“The Seal of Oblivion is made in
layers. Therefore, outer layers have broken before, but never anything that
couldn’t be fixed. The Tyrant is powerful though, even with the seal of
oblivion as strong as it is, it can’t hold under that kind of pressure. It’s
like a suitcase that’s overstuffed. It will hold for a moment, but not for
long. With or without the help of his mistresses the seal of oblivion will
eventually shatter and the Tyrant will escape. You have to kill him,”
Nightshield said simply.

Laqiya shook her head muttering, “I
have to… I can’t… No,” she suddenly declared and stood up from where she was
sitting.

“I hate my powers. I can’t even
control them. I’m surprised the sky isn’t cloudy and gray right now. I can’t do
this. I won’t,” she said heading toward the exit of the realm or dimension or
whatever it was.

“Yes you will,” Nightshield and
Plainshield said together.

“No I can’t, I won’t, and you can’t
force me to,” Laqiya snapped.

“We won’t have to. Believe that,”
Nightshield said quietly, but it and the grim tone carried across the field to
where Laqiya was.

Laqiya stopped in her tracks,
unable to help the ominous feeling she had.

“What do you mean by that?” she
asked not turning to look at the two feline women and her cousin.

Neither of them replied, but
Nightshield brushed past Laqiya to leave, glancing at her out the corner of her
eyes.

Chapter
Three

All
Hallows Eve

Laqiya looked at the calendar on
the wall and raised her eyebrows. The holiday season was here, she mused. It
started with Halloween and ended with the New Year. It wasn’t something she
particularly looked forward to as her mother had never been into buying
presents and candy at the end of the year when she had the money to do it
whenever. However, Halloween was always interesting, even if she wasn’t too
fond of it for what Laqiya thought were obvious reasons. She could be a
Halloween freak show all year round.

Laqiya sighed as she went
downstairs to the basement floor into the second kitchen that their mother had
added onto the house for her children’s use.

“Halloween,” she said. “Perfect.”

“Awesome,” Makicia said in
excitement and turned to her twin. “Have you checked the TV guide? What scary
movies are on that we have to wait all year to see?
Any of
the classics?”

Malicia shrugged. “I haven’t
checked yet. Have you guys seen Isis?”

“She was up early this morning with
that dumb cat. She takes that cat with her like it’s her best friend or
something,” Makicia muttered.

“You’d be surprised…” Laqiya said
more to herself as she put on a cup of coffee.

“I bet that cat is a familiar, and
Isis is a witch in training sent here to hypnotize us into doing her dirty
deeds,” Malicia suggested dramatically.

Makicia laughed, and Laqiya shook
her head. If only they knew.

“Want one Lili?” Makicia asked her
sister as she held up the turkey. A look of disgust crossed Malicia’s face.

“How could you eat something that
used to breathe, think, have a heartbeat, and a face?” Malicia asked in
disgust. “It’s disgusting.”

Makicia rolled her eyes. “I was
just joking. We know you’re a vegetarian. You don’t have to fuss. I just asked
a simple question. All you had to do was say yes or no.”

“Look who’s talking. You told off
that boy at school just for touching your shoulder,” Malicia said through a
mouthful of cereal.

“That was after I told him to leave
me alone and he wouldn’t piss off,” said Makicia.

“Since when have you been a
vegetarian?” Laqiya asked stopping the bickering between her sisters.

“Where have you been?” Makicia
asked. “She hasn’t touched meat in months.”

“And there’s Nightshield,” Malicia
announced.

Nightshield slipped through the
door and seated herself in a chair.

“That cat’s too smart for her own
good…” Makicia muttered as she glanced at Nightshield and then looked away at
Isis as she entered the room.

 
“Where have you been all morning? Working on
your spell for eternal youth that only works on the evening of Halloween?” she
teased.

“Yes, and I was also making deal
with vengeful sprits who agreed to bring me the necessary souls as long as I
give them a human skin as a disguise for tonight,” Isis said sarcastically.

“I was just teasing.”

“Leave Isis alone,” Laqiya said
sighing.

“Oh yeah,” Makicia said rolling her
eyes. “That’s right. You’re a witch too.”

Laqiya only grabbed the sprayer
from where she was rinsing out a cup and aimed at Makicia who ducked out the
way.

“Hey,” she said.
“Just
saying.
Weird stuff always does happen around you! Animals never run
from you. Aren’t they supposed to be more afraid of us than we are of them?”

After a long discussion about
whether or not Laqiya was a witch, including all the weird things that seemed
to happen around her as proof (the mountain lion incident on a camping trip
mainly), the four girls headed upstairs, deciding to take advantage of the time
they had before all the Halloween festivities began. They almost managed to get
out the house before their mother caught them from where she was in the dining
room.

“Where are you going?” Miss Robins
asked.

“You said we could go to a
Halloween party tonight and sleep over,” Malicia said gesturing to the bag she
was holding in her hand.

Miss Robins nodded and looked at
the two older girls.

“Out,” Isis and Laqiya said.

“Make sure you’re back by six. I
don’t want you out late on Halloween,” Miss Robins said absently as she looked
over a design she was sketching. “But if you are out late, at least make sure
you at a friend’s house, like that Sakura girl or Adria.”

“Why so careful?” Makicia asked.
“It’s just Halloween.”

Laqiya replied before her mother
could.

“All the sickos and weirdoes come out
on Halloween. Nephthys used to carry pepper spray,” she said shrugging.

Miss Robins paused what she was
doing to ask, “Where did Nephthys get pepper spray from?”

“You’d be surprised how much stuff
my sister can get her hands on,” Isis said.

“Yeah.
She
got that whip and then taught herself to use it. Remember?” asked Laqiya as she
opened the door. “See you later Ma,”

The four girls left the house and
went their separate ways. Once out of view of the twins Nightshield turned to
her human form.

“So what are you two doing
tonight?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to get
out before I have to stay inside for the rest of the evening watching scary
movies,” Laqiya replied as she started to walk backwards.

“No trick or treating?” Nightshield
asked

Laqiya shrugged.

“My mother never liked Halloween,
but she lets the twins go with friends. They might be going tonight as part of
that party. Personally I don’t really like Halloween,” Laqiya muttered. When a
person could control nature and got called a witch from time to time, who could
blame her?

 
Laqiya bumped into someone standing on the
corner.

“Oh really?
I always thought of it as a time for supernatural people to show their true
self without fear of being exposed. I mean someone would think of it as a costume
wouldn’t they?” the person said obviously joining in their conversation

Laqiya turned around. There was a
woman with long white hair and a barrette made of feathers that held her hair
out of her face. Although there were a few loose strands hanging around here
and there, it was neat and well groomed. Her skin was creamy pale white and her
eyes were shiny black. She had on straight white jeans and a white blouse that
flared out at the hems. Her sleeves hung over her hands, only the fingertips
being visible. On her feet were white flip-flops and orange fingernail polish
on her toes that contrasted vividly against her white outfit. Holes in the
shoulders of her sleeve on either side showed off tattoos of a white dove.
Laqiya’s eyebrows shot up. She had only seen a tattoo like that on two people
before, and so she opened her mouth to ask about it, but Isis started first.

“You believe in ghost?” she asked

“I never said that,” the woman said
in a voice a bit like Nightshield’s but drier.

“Yes you did” Isis insisted.

“I said supernatural people,” the
woman corrected sticking her thumbs in her pockets with a smirk.

“Same thing
right?”
Laqiya asked.

“You tell me, Laqiya,” the woman
said in a dry, raspy tone which Laqiya was beginning to suspect was just the
way she talked.

“How did you know her name?”
Nightshield asked grabbing Laqiya’s shoulders about to steer her around the
woman in front of them.

“I know your friend Adria,” the
woman said nodding her head to the house that they had just passed a few
minutes ago. “And she mentioned you once or twice. You live next door right?”

“Who are you?” Laqiya asked raising
an eyebrow.

“You can call me Chasity,” she said
with a certain spark in her black eyes as she met Nightshield’s eyes and then
looked back at Laqiya.

“That’s Isis and Katherine,” Laqiya
said still eyeing the tattoo on her arms as she pointed behind her.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Chasity
said, but her tone contradicted it. She didn’t sound like it had been nice. “I
won’t keep you. I’m sure you have things you want to do before you go back in.”
She walked around the corner, and when Laqiya thought to call her back, Chasity
was already gone.

“She was definitely interesting,”
said Isis when Laqiya said that Chasity had disappeared.

Nightshield was staring, head cocked
to her left, with a curious gaze at where Chasity had been.

“I know I’ve seen her before. I
know her from somewhere,” Nightshield said frowning and shaking her head. “I
just can’t place it…”

“We’ll figure it out later,” Laqiya
said shrugging off the familiarity she felt with the previous woman. “Whatever
we want to do we better do it now. The evening is going to creep up on us if we
don’t.”

“So where are we going?”
Nightshield asked.

“I was thinking we’d just go to
Sakura’s house for a while. We should go get Adria too,” Laqiya added

Isis went back to the house they
had just passed, coming back to relay that Adria was at the park before leading
the way there. Laqiya had an odd feeling about something as a light breeze
blew. She couldn’t distinguish it like she usually was able to but it felt like
a warning… The wind was apologizing to her?

Laqiya soon forgot the feeling
though because as soon as they entered the park, the wind picked up blowing
Isis and Nightshield’s dark hair in their face and making Laqiya almost loose
her tam.

“Why is it so windy all of a
sudden?” Laqiya yelled over the wind and her companions, who were busy trying
to get their hair out of their faces, merely shrugged.

They took a random path in search
of Adria. They found her standing under a tree, seemingly unfazed by the harsh
howling wind, her black hair whipping in her face. She appeared to have
something heavy on her mind. The wind began to die down as they approached her,
Adria’s hair settling messily in place. Seeing that the girl didn’t notice
their approach though, Nightshield stealthily curved around to stand behind the
tree Adria was leaning on. Isis opened her mouth to warn Adria, but Laqiya hit
her arm to hush her.

Nightshield then leaned over to Adria’s
left side and said, “Boo!”

Adria let out a shriek and whipped
around, hand covering her mouth. Nightshield barely got out of the way in time,
all the while laughing at the girl’s reaction.

Laqiya snickered, and Isis bit her
lip to hide the smile that tugged away at her lips.

“Katherine!” Adria exclaimed
glaring. “You scared me to death!”

“That was my objective,”
Nightshield said smirking.

Adria huffed, turning away from
Nightshield to wave at Laqiya and Isis.

 
“What’s up with the wind?” Nightshield asked
rhetorically as the wind picked back up.

“Not sure,” Adria said frowning
herself. “I guess today’s just a weird day. It is Halloween after all.”

Isis rolled her eyes.

“Why does anything weird happening
on October 31
^st
be related to Halloween? Everyone acts like an evil
spirit is going to come and take the souls of every child in the city,” Isis
began. “For goodness sake can’t the wind just be blowing because it can or is
supposed to?”

“Not always,” Nightshield said
glancing at Adria, seeming to catch something that the other girls hadn’t and
then said, “I’ll see you guys later. I have something to do.”

“Where?
What do you have to do?” Laqiya asked, Nightshield’s abruptness intriguing her.

“It’s Halloween. Doesn’t
everybody?” Nightshield asked and with that made her way out the park.

Isis only shook her head,
dismissing Nightshield’s behavior for the whole group and turned back to Adria
saying, “Come on. We thought we could go to Sakura’s house before tonight.”

“Why don’t we bring her to your
house?” Adria suggested.

“Why?” Laqiya asked.

“Her parents like to have parties,
very adult and boring parties to Sakura, and I’m sure she’d like an excuse to
get away,” Adria replied running a hand through her braids.

A quick phone call had Sakura
thanking them profusely and at Laqiya’s house in the next ten minutes. They all
thumped up the stairs to Laqiya’s room, and Sakura curiously looked at the
various electronics and items in the room.

“You’ve got everything in here
except a television Laqiya,” said Sakura. “I don’t even have that.”

“There’s one in the other kitchen
if you rather go down there,” Laqiya said.

Adria and Sakura looked surprised.
“Other kitchen?” they asked

“Yeah, that one in the basement,”
Laqiya said.
 
“The main one is the one where
we cook dinner. We mostly do baking or just longue in the other one. That’s one
of the reasons my mom gave it to us, for when she has dinner parties and we
couldn’t be in the room.

“I don’t even have that and my
house is massive,” Sakura said in amazement.

Laqiya and Isis lead them down to
the ground floor and into the kitchen where Nightshield was sitting on a chair
at the table watching the news on television.

“Flat screen TV. Nice,” Adria said
nodding her head at the TV that was in the wall next to the large glass screen
doors that led to the pool. She was careful to avoid Nightshield, the
scratching incident fresh in her mind.

“Is Nightshield watching that?”
Sakura asked.

Laqiya shrugged. It was easier to
just let Sakura and Adria think what they wanted to think rather than come up
with an excuse.

“Want some root beer?” Laqiya asked
taking the soda out for herself.

“I do,” Sakura said. “Where are the
glasses?”

“In the cabinet,” Laqiya said
closing the refrigerator and turning around to put the root beers on the table
one at a time. She happened to look up at Sakura and dropped the last root beer
in surprise. Sakura, seeming to notice that Laqiya was watching her, dropped
one of the glasses that were in her hands… or had it been in her hand at all, Laqiya
wondered.