Kara ran with all the strength she could muster. She could hear the rat’s claws tearing up the ground behind her. She could almost feel their foul breath on her neck. As the adrenaline kicked in, she felt a sudden burst of speed and wished she could have been in her M—suit—she knew she couldn’t sprint like this for much longer. Sooner rather than later, she would have to turn around and fight for her life.
The pendant hovered in the air before her. Kara felt like she was a dog on a leash going for a run, but she didn’t argue with the pendant—it was clear it knew where it was going.
White light appeared suddenly at the end of the tunnel and grew brighter. The walls of the tunnel vibrated. She knew it wasn’t the rats—a 400—ton subway train was roaring towards her at thirty—five miles per hour.
In less than seven seconds, it would hit.
But she couldn’t stop running. Her momentum pushed her forward. If she tried to stop now, she would fall, and the rats would tear her to pieces.
Six seconds.
She looked from side to side. There were no adjoining tunnels that she could see. There was only straight—or stop and die.
Five seconds.
Kara’s legs shook as the adrenaline rush began to fade. She blinked away the sweat that ran into her eyes. Only her fear kept her going now. David’s face flashed in her mind’s eye. Would he be all right with her gone?
Four seconds.
Her lungs were on fire. She had never run this hard for so long. The train’s headlamp turned the tunnel into daylight. The heat from its blinding light felt like it was melting her irises. She’d be blind if she survived.
Three seconds.
If she tripped, she would die.
Two seconds.
She heard her own flesh rip as the burning pain of a rat’s claws attacked and numbed her neck. She felt wetness drip down her back. She felt the rat’s breath on the back of her head.
One second—
Kara flattened herself against the tunnel wall. The side of the train grazed her cheek as it sped past her. She closed her eyes as a great gust of wind dragged debris and sand down the tracks behind it. She held her breath.
Over the clamor of the metal wheels on metal tracks, she heard the unmistakable crash of flesh against metal.
With a last shake from the powerful wind, the train disappeared into the shadow of the tunnel. Kara was still breathing. She stole a look to her right. Severed rat bodies lay on the tracks. She counted them—they were all there, and very dead.
Shaken but still alive, she felt sorry for the creatures—they had been used.
She glimpsed at her watch. 2:14pm.
She wiped the wind—blown dust from her eyes with her sleeve. Small incandescent lights lined the walls and gave Kara enough light to make out her surroundings. She had to get out of here before the warlock sent more rats after her. The numbness in her neck was making its way down her back. She felt feverish and tried to suppress her shaking. Could you die from a rat bite? As if on cue, she heard the distant tapping sound of four—legged creatures running her way. The pendant pulled her down the tunnel even more frantically. Obediently, Kara forced her legs into a jog. Her throat burned with every breath. She was dizzy from exertion, and her head felt like it was about to explode. She needed to rest.
“You cannot hide, elemental,” came a voice from the shadows. “Come out, come out, wherever you are...”
Kara didn’t stop. Her jog became a run, but she was running on empty—the thought of seeing David and the others was the only thing that kept her going.
The tunnel walls rippled suddenly as thought they were made of water. They shifted, and Kara found herself running towards a dead end. She was facing a stone wall that hadn’t been there a second ago. The walls rippled again, and two new tunnels opened on her left and right. What was happening? Was the rat’s poison affecting her?
The pendant pulled her towards the tunnel on the right. The tunnel stretched as she ran, like in those dreams when you’re trying to escape, but you’re running in slow motion.
Kara turned down yet another tunnel—each time following the pendant’s intuition. The tunnels all looked the exact same. Was this a trick? The air was stale, and it stunk of oil. Her head started to spin. She collapsed against the wall and tried to breath. She wiped her clammy palms on her jeans then reached around and touched the back of her neck. When she examined her fingers, they were stained with blood and some green substance.
Forgetting her pain, she pushed herself off and ran blindly up the tunnel. Every step was a blade piercing into the flesh of her back. She thought she saw a light in the distance, and her spirits lifted—but then the light shimmered and vanished. Kara yelled out in frustration. She was running through a labyrinth of underground tunnels that kept shifting and reappearing. She would never get out. If she died down here, her body would never be found.
She staggered forward, then her boot lost solid ground. The next thing she knew, she was falling through a gap in the floor.
She crashed hard on the ground below. Her blade fell from her hand. The paralysis had deadened her legs to the pain from the fall. She dragged herself to a sitting position against the wall and looked around.
She was in another tunnel. Chunks of concrete lay in piles across the tracks and the crumbling graffiti covered walls trickled with water.
She didn’t recognize this tunnel. And from the looks of it, it hadn’t been used in decades. Kara was lost.
Her throat muscles were numb, and it felt like it was shrinking. Soon it would close up, and she would die of asphyxiation.
She heard a laugh coming from down the tunnel. She didn’t even bother to look. She felt worn out. She had failed. David and the others would have to do fight the warlock without her.
She rolled her bracelet between her fingers for comfort. It had brought David luck many times before, but her situation seemed beyond luck or help.
If you can hear me bracelet, I need all the luck you can give me,
Maybe the bracelet just worked for David.
Tiny wind chimes sounded in the distance, and Kara knew she was losing her mind. Her goose down jacket wasn’t keeping her warm anymore. She knew the poison was killing her. She stared at her boots and willed them to move. Nothing—it was as though they had melted into the ground and weren’t part of her anymore. Her lids fell. She nodded off to sleep.
“What are ya doing up there?” said a voice suddenly.
Kara opened her eyes with a start and looked around. From what she could see, the tunnel was empty. She was hallucinating—a side effect from the rat’s poison no doubt.
“Great, I’m hearing voices.” She spoke into the darkness and closed her eyes again.
“Voices? You can hear me?” said the voice excitedly.
“Thank the stars! It’s been so long since I’ve had any visitors. The stars were right! Are ya here to buy my latest supply of Hog Troll Brain ointment? I brewed a nice batch just yesterday. It goes on smooth—and it’s really great against wrinkles. I’ve used it myself!”
Her lids lifted. The voice sounded so close and somehow it sounded so real.
“Is someone there?” she managed to say, in a scratchy voice.
“Of course there is—there’s you, and then there’s me,” said the voice. “And here we are, just the two of us. Hmm—isn’t that a song? I swear I’ve heard that before.”
“...but I can’t see you.” Kara thought the warlock might be playing a trick on her, but she was too exhausted to care. She just wanted to sleep.
“That’s because you’re up there—and I’m down here,” said the voice.
Kara looked around her. She sat against the wall of one of the subway tunnels. Maybe there was another tunnel on a level beneath her? Could the voice be coming from there?
“But where? I still can’t see you? If you are a figment of my imagination—you’d think I’d let myself see my own delusions. I’m seriously losing it—”
“Look down,” interrupted the voice, a little irritated. It sounded like it was coming from above her. But how could that be?
She looked up, and her jaw dropped.
An elderly man was hanging by his feet from the top of the tunnel as though his boots were super—glued to the roof. He wore a dilapidated straw—brown toga—style robe tied in the middle by a leather belt. Tiny bells hung from his belt. His skin was very white, like it hadn’t been exposed to the sun in a very long time. He had dark circles under his eyes. His milky—white skin was wrinkled and drooped down like it was melted. He looked like a mixture between a two hundred year old Spiderman —without the red and blue tights) and Albert Einstein. His hair was wiry white, and it stuck out of either side of his head like a giant afro cloud. His beard was braided with colored strings and drooped past his belly. And strangely enough, his hair and clothes didn’t seem to be affected by gravity—it was as though he was standing upright, even though Kara was sitting on the ground underneath him? He stood with his hands on his hips, and when he tapped his black wellington rubber boots against the tunnel’s roof, his bells rang softly.
“How are you doing that?” asked Kara.
“Doing what?”
“Hanging upside down like that?”
He frowned, and his large bushy eyebrows nearly covered his brown eyes completely.
The man pointed to himself. “I’m not hanging upside down...you are.”
Kara didn’t know how to answer that. Was this hallucination all part of the rat’s poison? It had to be. She focused on the hanging man and tried not to think about losing her mind.
“I don’t know what you mean, but it doesn’t matter anymore—I’m hallucinating. You’re not really here, and I’m obviously dying. The rats got me—and now I’ve ruined everything. I’ll never save my mom now.”
“RATS!” The man sprinted down the tunnel’s ceiling shaking his fist.
“Where are ya rats! Think ya can hide from me! If you think you’re going to steal my double—decker club sandwich again, you’ll be sorry! I’m going to boil your tails for GLUE!”
The ringing of his tiny bells faded as he disappeared down the tunnel. He ran surprisingly fast for someone so old. Then Kara could hear the bells reverberating and the tapping of footsteps, and the old man reappeared on the ceiling above her.
“Well, I think I’ve scared them off. They won’t be bothering us anymore—rat stew is back on the menu.”
The old man examined Kara. “So—which potions are you interested in? I have a fine Grow—back—your—toenails tonic, or Broth of Baboon liver elixir, or maybe you’d prefer Blood of a Hag jelly? I know! You’ve come to see my house, haven’t ya? I’ve done a lot of updates. I have running water! Can you imagine that?” He clasped his beard excitedly.
Kara stifled a laugh. I guess this is how crazy people imagine things, since I’ve seriously lost my mind.
She looked up at the old man, “Even if I wanted to, I can’t walk.”
The old man studied her for a moment. “So, if you’re not here for my potions, then why are you here? And how is that you can see and hear me, eh? Can ya answer me that?”
Kara let out a painful breath. “I can see you because I’m hallucinating. The thing is—I’m lost, and I’ve failed the mission. I’ll never see my friends again.”
It was stupid, but Kara had thought that once the warlock had been defeated, she might finally have a normal life with David. But things didn’t always turn out for the best. She reached down and clasped the pendant in her hands. The runes still glowed a soft yellow, as though a fire burned on the inside of the stone.
“Where did ya get that?” The old man’s eyes widened. “That’s a witch’s rune pendant—and a very particular one at that.”
“Why? Does it matter?” said Kara. She let go of the pendant. She didn’t want to talk about where she got it, because she would have to talk about David and the others, and she didn’t feel like it right now.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Well, that explains why ya can see and hear me.”
“Huh?”
“Regular folks can’t see or hear me. I’ve cast a magic veil about, I should be invisible to ya—but ya see me. Only those with supernatural abilities can see through the veil—and I can see that you, my dear, have the supernatural about ya.”
Kara’s neck started to ache from looking up. “So, I’m not hallucinating? You’re really up there hanging by your feet.”
“The stars have brought ya to me for a reason. It is no coincidence ya ended up in my tunnels. That pendant brought ya here. Tell me—what mission are ya talking about?”
Kara thought she was still hallucinating, but decided to tell the old man anyway. She leaned the back of her head against the wall. She could hardly keep it up anymore. Her eyelids were so heavy.
“Oh, stars! I knew the great ones would need my help! I’ve been waiting a hundred and fifty years for this!” The old man jumped up and down, and Kara thought he must have been using superglue to stay up like that.
The old man was silent for a moment. “A dark warlock, ya say...” He stroked his beard. “I thought I sensed dark magic. It explains why the tunnels were shifting earlier. I came out to explore, ya see, and there ya were, right here—and ya can see me. It takes a very powerful warlock to channel his power all the way down here—especially into my tunnels. ...curious, I thought they were all dead.”
His white puffy hair swayed to the side as he began to scratch the top of his head.
Kara felt that her brain about to explode through her eye sockets. It took all of her energy to keep conversing with the old man. But something nagged at her.
“How...how did you know about dark magic?” Kara suspected that she might not be hallucinating after all.
“What’s your name girl?” asked the old man.
“Kara...Kara Nightingale.”
“Well, then Kara Nightingale, ya best follow me.” The old man turned on his heel and started to walk away in the opposite direction on the tunnel’s roof.
Kara shook her head. “Wait, I can’t walk. I can’t feel my legs. His rats got me—I think their claws had some sort of poison.”
She reached down and rubbed her legs, maybe it would help the circulation. “I can’t feel anything anymore, I think it’s killing me—”
“Wait here! I’ve just the thing.” The old man rocketed down the tunnel, his bells resonating behind him. He reappeared a minute later with a vial in his hand. “Here, drink this—all of it.”
Kara examined the vial of bright orange liquid. She popped the corked top off with her thumb and drank it down. It was thick, hard to swallow, and tasted like tar.
“Yuck!” she coughed. “Tastes like sewer gunk. What is that?”
“One of my better potions,” said the old man happily. “It’s an antidote against dark magic—a tonic against dark venom in particular. Not to worry—you’ll feel better in a jiffy.”
All at once Kara felt the effects of the potion. It was warm and moved down her throat slowly, like thick pea soup. Warmth gushed from her neck all the way down to her toes. Her skin prickled, and she felt her muscles come back to life, like frozen meat starting to thaw. She took a deep breath and wiggled her legs. Soon, all the pain had disappeared. She felt renewed. She felt strong again. She felt like she’d just woken up from a long sleep.
Kara stood up and steadied herself. “Thank you, I feel better already.” She rubbed her head. “And my headache’s gone too.”
After a quick search of the grounds, she found her soul blade and sheathed it back inside her jacket. She looked up and saw that the old man was smiling down at her.
“Who are you?” But as soon as she asked the question, she already knew the answer.
The old man grinned. “I’m Gideon Magius, the witch doctor. The stars have spoken, Kara, and I’m going to help ya defeat the dark warlock.”
Chapter 16
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A magical alliance
Marked, Soul Guardians Book 1 Page 124