by Logan Jacobs
“How is that even physically possible?” Kal gasped. “Ghosts can interact with the living? Is that how all those poltergeist movies happen? Is that what knocked over the Urn of Legends at the guild? The horror!”
“You knocked over the Urn of Legends, Kal,” Ariette reminded the dwarf. “Remember? You were bored and tried to ricochet your bouncy ball into its opening.”
Kal shook her head vigorously. “Shhhhh,” she whispered. “It was totally a poltergeist. We need to get Milton in there with his soul-destroying spell.”
“Don’t even whisper this spell unless you intend to use it,” the wizard shot back at the dwarf.
Verituck held out the piece of paper, and I wrapped my hand around it’s end. I nodded once in understanding as I looked at the nearly perfect piece of white paper and rolled it up delicately.
“Uh, guys, I think we need to go,” Maaren called out. She held Edora up by her back, but the Unseelie elf was clutching her ribcage in agony.
“She can’t heal here,” the minotaur rumbled. “It’s a place of death.”
“That is terrifyingly cool,” Kalista breathed out as she stared at the minotaur in awe. “Thanks, cow-man.”
“I’m not a--would could you please release me, Racmoth?” he scoffed. “I mean you no harm.”
I nodded and released my spell. The minotaur’s body slouched, and he looked like he was in pure bliss as he moved his arms on his one accord.
“Thank you,” I turned to Verituck and bowed my head.
The ghostly wizard returned the gesture. “Even the dead do not want Zolderon to rule the world of the living,” he replied darkly. “There is a balance to all things. Those who are meant to die will no longer die, and those who are meant to be in the world of the living will join our world. Even worse, if Zolderon has his way, those who have already passed on into our world could even return to the world of the living! We cannot have such a powerful imbalance of the natural order.”
I shoved the paper into my knapsack, and then Ariette and I both went over to help Maaren with Edora.
“I’ve got two broken ribs,” the Unseelie said through gritted teeth. “No big deal.”
“Yes, big deal,” Maaren admonished. “Help me get her flat, you guys, and then I can fly her out.”
Ariette and I helped Edora lie back as far as she could. She winced in pain but didn’t say a word as she shifted backward until she was mostly flat on the rocky ground. Then Maaren slowly and gently lifted her body into the air with her Hand.
“Nice fighting, my dude,” Kalista said to the minotaur and held her hand out for a fist bump. “Here’s hoping we never see you again. No offense.”
“None taken,” the minotaur chuckled as he returned her gesture. “If I ever see you again, it will be because you’ve passed into the world of the dead, and I certainly don’t want to see that happen.”
“Thank you,” I said to Verituck one last time as we got ready to follow Maaren and Edora back out of the Valley.
The aged wizard simply nodded before his body began to contort and shrink until he was once again nothing more than a ball of bright white light and a face. The orb turned in the air, and then he zoomed back through the rocks and mist until he was out of sight.
I turned to say something to the minotaur, but he was nowhere to be found.
“This is a strange place,” Danira breathed. “Let’s go.”
We hurried back to the giant cliff as quickly as we could, and Maaren flew Edora up to the ledge first before she came back for all of us. Once the entire team had returned to the top of the cliff safely, Maaren used her magic to lift Edora into the air. She held the Unseelie in her make-shift stretcher as we made our way out of the Valley of Light and back into the world of the living.
The bright sun seared its image onto my eyes as they adjusted to normal light once again. I took a deep breath, and I was eternally grateful for the warmth of the sunshine as it hit my skin and the rustle of the squirrels and forest animals that dashed through the trees. I hadn’t realized just how drained the Valley of Light had made me feel.
“Are you healing?” Danira grunted as she knelt down next to Edora and put a soft hand on her ribs.
“Yeah,” the Unseelie wheezed out. “I’ll be good to go in a few minutes.”
“And then it’s on to the nether realm,” I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
I turned to peek back into the dark depths of the cave we had just exited, but to my surprise, the rock was now a wall of solid rock.
The Valley had served its purpose for us. We didn’t need to enter it anymore. Unless, of course, we somehow ended up in the world of the dead.
The Racmoth wasn’t going to let that happen.
Chapter Thirteen
Once Edora had healed back to normal, we traveled back to where we had parked the Van of Death.
“Next stop, the nether realm!” Kalista exclaimed as she leapt into the van’s driver’s seat. “Disclaimer, Kalista Travel Services is not responsible for any articles lost, stolen, or destroyed while traveling to another dimension.”
Edora was still a little bit slow, but her Fae powers had healed her almost completely by the time we got back to the van and clambered inside. Ariette threw herself down on the floor and chugged an entire bottle of water, while the rest of us sat down a bit more gracefully.
“This is your transportation?” Edora asked as she looked at the van’s interior. It was definitely a bit of a strange set up, with the mini kitchen, computer area, and armory full of weapons. The first time I’d seen it, I’d been a bit thrown off, too.
“Neat, huh?” Maaren asked. Her tone was goading as she waited for Edora to say something not so nice in return. But the Unseelie bit her tongue and just nodded.
“Hey, speaking of, how do we actually get to the nether realm?” Kalista called back to us as she started the vehicle. “It’s not exactly one of those places I like to frequent, you know?”
“We have to get past the Dracun Mountains,” Edora called out to her, “but you won’t be able to take this hunk of metal in there. We’ll have to go on foot.”
“Why do all of our adventures involve me leaving my baby in the dirt?” the dwarf sighed. “She has feelings too, ya know. Oh well. Everybody, grab hold of something.”
“Why do I need to--” Edora started.
Kal slammed on the gas pedal before Edora could finish her sentence, and the Unseelie was tossed back across the floor with a bang.
“Here we go,” Maaren breathed out as the van leapt forward. “We’re really doing this.”
“Ugh,” Edora grumbled as she sat back up and patted down her curls. “So much for healing my ribs.”
I heard a crack, and the vehicle jolted a bit as Kalista ran over some sort of tree or bush.
“Oops, sorry, didn’t see that,” the dwarf called out. “I swear, E-dog, I’m a good driver.”
“E-dog?” Edora hissed. “What’s an E-dog?”
“Just ignore her,” I laughed. “She’ll find a better nickname for you eventually.”
“If her driving doesn’t kill us before we get there,” Maaren wailed. “Slow down, Kal! It’ll be a lot easier to fight off the evil demon dude while we’re still living.”
“I don’t think he’s a demon,” Danira pointed out thoughtfully. “Is he? I figured he was more of an evil spirit.”
“Poltergeiissstttt … ” Kal cackled in a ghoulish voice.
“I don’t know,” Ariette answered as we swerved onto the road, and Edora gasped. “Demons come from hell, or something, right? Maaren would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Maaren?”
Maaren crossed her arms and pouted. “It was a figure of speech,” she shot back. “And I was sixteen. Sixteen year olds know nothing, it’s a proven fact.”
“Uh, hey, guys, does your dwarf know how to drive?” Edora asked in exasperation.
“Um, ‘this dwarf’ knows how to drive perfectly, thank you very little,” Kalista answered pr
oudly.
The van rocketed forward suddenly and the entire cabin lurched upward, sending us all flying an inch or two in the air.
“Pothole,” Kal chuckled awkwardly. “Be glad I’ve got good shocks on this thing.”
Danira shrugged nonchalantly. “Nobody’s died from her driving yet.”
“‘Yet’ being the operative word in that sentence,” Edora grumbled as her golden eyes started to close sleepily. She was slumped in a chair, and her chest started to rise and fall evenly as she drifted off to sleep and let her body recuperate.
“How long’s this drive, Kal?” I called up to the front seat.
“To the base of the mountains?” she answered. “Half a day, probably. I can make it in less, though.”
The engine revved up as the dwarf hit the gas even harder, and I saw her violet eyes look back at us in the rearview mirror. She was probably waiting on a chorus of “nooos,” but we all remained silent.
The faster we got to the mountains and destroyed the Phobos, the better.
“So, what’s the plan?” Maaren asked me earnestly. She, Ariette, and Danira all looked to me as they waited to hear what we should do.
Truthfully, I didn’t have a plan at that moment. I’d been running on adrenaline for the last week. My mind had focused on the next step, and the next step only, with one goal in mind: stop the Phobos, and stop the Phobos leader. How that would happen, I wasn’t quite sure. Now that I had the spell in hand, I knew how I could take out the dark spirit, but that would still leave the entire Phobos army to contend with.
Then it hit me. There was one person who might know what to do. “We call Hasen,” I said firmly after a long moment of silence. “Ask him to send troops to take on this army. As soon as I find the leader, I’ll use the spell, and then we only have the mortal beings left to contend with.”
“As you wish.” Danira smiled at me as she thought over my extremely loose battle plan. “I’m proud of you, Milton. That sounds like something I’d come up with.”
I shrugged. This seemed to be the best course of action. Without some crazy dark spirit from beyond the grave to lead them, the Phobos were just a group of psychotic Unseelie. More importantly, they could die like any man. But I knew step number one would have to be completely up to me. I needed to find and destroy Zolderon.
“Hasen, come in,” Danira grunted into the small glass orb the guild master had given us when we left. “We have urgent matters to talk about.”
The guild master’s face appeared inside the ball almost instantaneously. Even from my far away position, I could see his crow’s feet were just a little bit deeper, and there were dark purple circles under his eyes.
“You’ve got good news, I hope,” he said tiredly. “The kidnappings are getting worse. No one knows where they’re being taken, and no one knows how to stop it, or even why it’s happening.”
“We still don’t know their reasons for that, sir,” Ariette admitted as she crouched next to Danira, “but we’re headed to the nether realm now. We encountered a few Unseelie who said the Phobos have an army now. It’s not just a small radical group anymore, sir. This is serious. We’re going to need all hands on deck.”
“It’ll take us some time to send out the order,” he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s all sorts of red tape and debate and all that bullshit. Even once the order is given, it’s going to take a while to get us out there. Can you wait that long?”
Ariette’s bright blue eyes met mine questioningly as I considered the question. I didn’t know if we could wait that long, in reality, but late backup was better than no backup. I nodded slowly.
“We’re going to give it a shot,” the elf replied diplomatically. “Send them as fast as you can.”
“You have my word,” the guild master replied. “Thank you all.”
Danira and Ariette nodded solemnly as the glass ball went blank again.
“What do you think he’s going to say when he sees her?” Maaren asked and motioned lazily at Edora. “Even Hasen has to realize the treaty doesn’t hold up in a time like this.”
“Let’s just cross that bridge when we come to it, okay?” Danira replied worriedly.
Maaren had a very good point. The Unseelie were on our side, and they had definitely proven that. The king told us about Zolderon, and Edora had literally risked her life to help us get the spell. And besides, they’d been forced out of the nether realm. It wasn’t like they’d broken the treaty by choice. Hasen had to see that.
And hopefully the Seelie king and High Court would see it as well.
The van fell into a comfortable silence, and I grabbed an apple from the kitchen counter as I leaned back against one of the wood cabinets. I crunched into the tangy crispness and pulled the rolled up paper from my knapsack. Carefully, I undid the perfect red ribbon and unfurled the page.
The paper was almost completely blank, except for its very center. There, written in thick black ink with curvy, beautiful lettering, were two words: Acwellan Gaest.
I had absolutely no idea what the words meant, or even what the spell would do, exactly. But I remembered Verituck’s warning, and I made sure I didn’t so much as move my lips as I read over those two words. Even if I hadn’t known how serious this spell was, the words themselves felt dark and dangerous in my mind. I was almost afraid that the mere thought of the spell was enough to cause irreparable damage.
Quickly, I rolled the paper back up and tucked it safely into my knapsack. I leaned back and dozed off with my hand on the little red ribbon, paranoid that it would disappear from my sight and somehow fall into the wrong hands.
I let out a deep sigh, and then I drifted off to sleep.
When I finally woke up, the van still prattled along the road. Kalista sat high in the driver’s seat and swayed back and forth to a soft tune she hummed, completely content and amused with herself. Edora was still fast asleep in her chair, as was Danira.
Meanwhile, Maaren and Ariette sat on the ground sharpening their weapons. Maaren’s double headed axe glimmered in the light as she drew a stone along the blade and created an oddly soothing, metallic sound. Ariette was not quite as graceful. She seemed to be working out her anxiety on her blade as she ran her own stone furiously over the edges in rapid succession.
“Are you planning to finely chop our enemies?” I asked the elf as I slid along the van’s floor to join the women. “Those things look like they could take my head off if I looked at them wrong.”
“Mmm, I was thinking more of flaying our enemies, actually,” Ariette replied coolly. “Maybe a nice, thin deli slice.”
“Gross, don’t compare the Phobos and delicious meats.” Maaren wrinkled her nose. “I’ll never want to eat salami again.”
“I’ll eat enough for both of us, don’t you worry,” Ariette chuckled lightly.
She sighed and put down the stone as she admired her handiwork. The blade didn’t look any different to me than it had five hours ago, but the elf gave her sword a satisfied nod before she slid it back into its holster.
Just then, there was a loud clanging noise, and the tires of the van screeched as we swung around in a hard circle.
“Uh, what was that?” Maaren asked as she turned to Kal.
Edora and Danira both cracked their eyes open lazily before a second clang sounded, and they both sprang to their feet on high alert. The dwarf sat up straight in her seat and pumped the gas harder
“We’ve got a problem,” Kal said obviously as a third clang sounded.
This time, it sounded as if the roof of the van was being ripped apart. A tiny pinhole of light shone down onto the floor of the van, and I realized this was exactly what was happening.
There was another bang as a huge, black talon speared through the roof and made a hole. I couldn’t see much else of the beast it belonged to, but the talon was deadly sharp and curved like an eagle’s. The cabin of the vehicle was filled with the sound of nails on a chalkboard as the talon began to pull itself along
the roof. Curls of metal rained down from the ceiling as the creature tried to open up the vehicle like a can of sardines.
“That is a huge problem,” I sighed. “What the hell are those things?”
The five of us in the back of the van all grabbed for our weapons and raised them toward the roof.
“It’s harpies,” Kal said with a sorrowful voice. “Tons of ‘em.”
“Can you outrun them?” Edora demanded. “They surely can’t move that quickly.”
“Kind of what I’m trying to do here, you know,” Kal grunted back in annoyance.
Suddenly, multiple talons poked through the van’s roof all at once, and I ducked involuntarily to avoid being speared by those sharp black claws. And then, in unison, the talons curled inward, and a huge, unbearably loud metal screech assaulted our eardrums as the roof of the van was ripped off. The metal ceiling was tossed to the side, and the roar of the outside air rushed through the cabin.
There, right above us, was a huge flock of harpies that were keeping pace with the van. Each one was a grotesque creature with the head and torso of a very unattractive human woman, complete with warts and wrinkles. Their lower body looked similar to a bird of prey, with its hawk-like legs and massive, shiny talons. At their shoulders, where arms normally would be on a human, there were the beginnings of two huge wings. Each massive appendage had their own razor sharp talons at its end. The monsters smiled down on us with their hideous grins.
Just off in the distance loomed a row of giant, bright purple mountains, shrouded at the top in a thin layer of gray mist.
“The Dracun Mountains!” Edora breathed as she looked past the harpies. “We’re almost there!”
“How much do you want to bet these harpies are with the Phobos?” Ariette asked us.
“Nothing at all,” Danira responded, “because they are.”
The commander and I both drew our pistols and fired off a few rounds at the harpies. Our first few shots missed, but they caused the flock to scatter. I cocked my weapon and took aim at one of the few that remained, an ugly creature with frizzy blonde hair and missing front teeth. I squeezed the trigger, and the bullet hit her square in the chest. She dropped out of the sky abruptly, but not before every harpy around her let off an ear-splitting, inhuman screech.