Magical Legacy

by Pamela M. Richter

  “Kauai is called the Garden Island,” Guy said. “It’s the most ancient of all the islands in the chain, formed by one large volcano. It’s the wettest place on earth, with an average of four hundred inches of rain in a normal year.”

  There were six adults in the Beechcraft G36 Bonanza, a fast passenger plane that Guy used for taking small tours to the outer islands. On board were Rod and Michelle, Heather and Mike, and the professor, Vincent. Leilanie and Petal had stayed behind in Waikiki.

  Their pilot went on, “Kauai had the first sugar cane plantation, with land rented from King Kamehameha. Captain James Cook landed on the island in 1778.”

  Michelle tuned out the pilot’s rap about Waimea Canyon, which was three thousand feet deep, gazing out the window as the plane lowered.

  Kauai was such a gorgeous place, green from all the rain, with stunning mountains. The sea below shimmered in the waning light with the promise of a beautiful sunset. She could see several rainbows as they lowered to a smooth landing.

  Kauai had the most rainbows of all the islands because it has so much rainfall. She saw three. An omen of good luck, Michelle thought.

  Instead of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow guarded by tiny dancing leprechauns, there was something much more valuable. Two sweet little girls under the power of an evil Necromancer.

  Once on the ground, the plane scooted down a short runway. The airport was so tiny it had only an old fashioned windsock to gage wind strength and direction. There was a one-story wooden shack, which wasn’t manned. But the Jeep they ordered was parked in front of the building.

  They got their baggage out of the plane and stored it all in the back of the Jeep. Since they would be going into unpopulated and mostly isolated terrain, they brought food and water, and black rain slickers to wear in case it rained. Also, the black colored ponchos might hide them in the dark. They didn’t have any weapons, but Rod had gone to a sports store before they left and bought a small canister of pepper spray for each of them. A puny weapon against Omar, but it might immobilize anyone guarding his home. For a while, anyway.

  Earlier, as Michelle and Rod had gathered all the things they would need for the trip, Lucifer began yowling, annoyingly and continuously. He was able to make enough noise to disturb the whole building. That cat was loud. He was smart and probably figured something was up when Michelle put out enough food for him to last for a couple of days. He jumped into the duffle bag they packed and wouldn’t budge. His little claws were embedded and Michelle couldn’t get him out.

  “We’ll have to take Lucifer along,” Michelle told Rod.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Might be a good thing. That cat found you at the hospital in Mexico. He does have some unusual abilities.”

  So Lucifer was now ensconced in Michelle’s purse.

  Michelle knew they were lucky the pilot, Guy Thorner, was with them. He could navigate the roads of Kauai, he knew the island so well, and would be accompanying them in the search for the girls.

  First, they had to find the beach where Omar and Michelle had their confrontation several years ago. From there, they would see if they could find Omar’s alleged home.

  They would be taking the same route along the coast that Rod and Heather had taken with Guy several years ago, when the two had been searching for Michelle, looking for the same small beach where she and the professor swam to shore after they were dumped in the sea from Omar’s helicopter.

  Rod was the designated Jeep driver. Even with only one arm, he was deemed the best driver. Michelle and Guy were in the front seat with him. Mike, Heather, and the professor were in the back seat. Everyone was uncomfortably squashed.

  Michelle’s phone buzzed as they were all trying to fit into the Jeep. It was a text from Leilanie saying that Petal was still trying to find out information from her sisters about where Omar had taken them, but she couldn’t get any psychic messages. The girls had been fast asleep all day.

  From the tone of the text, Leilanie was distraught, and Michelle understood why when she heard what happened. Evidently Omar was irritated that Shelly and Ivory were crying and screaming all morning long, so he put them to sleep—with a spell.

  It was a creepy horrible thing to do to normally happy, energetic four year old children, Michelle thought as the Jeep lurched into motion. Omar was a ghastly, disgusting father. She just had to get them back, both for herself and Leilanie. The thought of never seeing them again was too painful.

  There were two roads leading out of the small airport, one going across the island toward Princeville, the main town on the north shore and the road they were taking along the coast. It was paved, but as they went along toward the ocean, thick vegetation encroached on both sides of the road. Michelle thought with all the wet green vegetation it was like going through a tropical rain forest, with giant curling fern fronds that brushed the sides of the Jeep.

  Tall trees almost cut out the sunshine and made a dark green trellis above them. Michelle could imagine a creepy crocodile stalking across the road in front of them, and envisioned colorful parrots in the trees above.

  From the back seat, Heather said, “I remember this road from the first time we came here. I had the spooky feeling a huge black panther would leap down from the trees onto the Jeep. Or maybe a giant man-eating snake would slither inside.”

  “Wrong hemisphere for panthers. And there are no snakes in Hawaii,” Guy said. “We do have hordes of wild, feral, chickens.”

  “Chickens? You’re kidding me!” Heather said, starting to laugh, lightening the mood for everyone.

  “Nope. The chickens are all over the island. They were probably raised for food a long time ago. Kauai has lots of really spectacular birds, some goats, and feral dogs and cats. Also, lizards and bugs. Lots of big bugs.”

  “So we’re not likely to be killed by the indigenous wildlife,” Mike said. “We just have to watch out for witches, a Necromancer, and eerie magical spells.”

  Michelle was psyching herself up for the dreaded confrontation with Omar as they moved up the road. She didn’t believe they would get the children without a fight.

  Omar had the power to trick your mind so you didn’t want to harm or injure him. She knew that from their last battle. So she reminded herself that several years ago she had been happily living in San Francisco, her birthplace and a city she loved, near her parents and brother. Every day she went to a job she enjoyed; she was a confident, contented person. She had several men she happily dated. And a great sex life; serial monogamously, of course.

  Then, on a business trip to Las Vegas, she had been raped by Samson, Omar’s henchman.

  Samson used a knife to subdue her in the attack. Now Michelle had a long scar that started just below her clavicle bones and traveled down to her pubic bone. She had spent weeks in the hospital recuperating. Samson’s attack rendered her virtually infertile.

  But it was the psychic trauma that hurt her most.

  Omar was sneakily trying to weaken her, to eventually gain control over her. It worked; she had what amounted to PTSD for years and couldn’t let a man touch her, until Rod.

  She was so frightened she moved to Hawaii, terrified the unknown attacker would find her and strike again. She believed this time he would finish the job, and kill her.

  She met Omar in Hawaii when he moved into the penthouse suite in her condo. She had no knowledge that he had been stalking her and was the one who ordered her rape. He acted like a normal person, and at one point she almost had an affair with him.

  When that didn’t work, Omar dumped her in the sea with Vincent, just to see if she could make it to shore, not caring if she lived or died in the attempt, only to ascertain if she would be a good candidate to be the mother of his child. He was thinking small then and decided later to take all her eggs and have numerous progeny with supernatural talents.

  With that in mind, Omar abducted her to Mexico where an operation to obtain her eggs was conducted without her consent, so Omar could have proge
ny with prodigious supernatural abilities.

  Now he had abducted her little girls, planning to take them away forever, so she would never see them again. There was no doubt in her mind he would harm them irreparably.

  Michelle thought she could kill Omar. She had good cause. Psyching herself up to commit murder was not a normal pastime for anyone, but understandable under the circumstances. He would never quit his atrocious acts against her or the girls. And he might harm or kill Leilanie out of spite. They would never be safe unless Omar was annihilated.

  And she knew she would have to do it herself. She didn’t want any of her friends to have to live with that horrible burden.

  Although Alice Holcum, Michelle’s teacher in the paranormal, had advised all her students never to study the dark side of magic, Michelle had in fact done just that. She studied the rituals and rites that would cause deadly harm.

  She needed a totally black obsidian knife that she would imbue with power using a magical spell. The spell didn’t look too hard, but searching all the black magic sites on the internet, she could not find the exact type of knife she needed. Finally she went on Amazon; Amazon has everything. There it was! She ordered it with the fastest delivery.

  After she got the black, wicked looking knife, she hefted it in her hand. It was smaller than it had appeared in the picture, and called a Karambit, originally from Sumatra. Folklore said it was inspired by the claws of a tiger because it was curved. Obsidian was even sharper than steel. Luckily there was a sheath to go with it so she wouldn’t cut herself and could attach it to her belt.

  Michelle couldn’t test it on a live animal; she couldn’t think of one species she didn’t love. During her childhood she had a natural knack for healing animals and the very thought of hurting a living creature was abhorrent.

  Michelle decided to try the spell on a beautiful miniature Bonsai tree she had in her office at work. She waited until it was late and everyone had left for the night. She really didn’t expect much to happen when she chanted the spell and lightly waved over the plant with the tip of the knife.

  She watched as within minutes her beautiful, healthy Bonsai tree withered, tiny leaves showering down, limbs sagging and turning black. It was horrifying and fascinating. She almost cried when she saw the irreparable damage to her beautiful plant. There wasn’t a witchy spell that could bring it back to life.

  What scared Michelle even more, though, was how easy it was to use this so called black magic. Easier than lighting a candle from across the room, easier than moving an object on her desk. Those spells took lots of energy and concentration. But using the dark magic didn’t.

  Finding the information for deadly black magic had been arduous, and she had spent many hours researching the subject, just in case she’d need it. Specifically, if Omar threatened her or one of her loved ones again. But she’d found that actually conjuring what could only be considered evil sorcery was terrible and easy.

  It made her wonder if what the professor, Vincent Middleton, said was true. He had called her a white witch, one of the good ones. But she seemed to have a horrible aptitude for invoking black magic.

  Just because it worked on a living entity, her Bonsai tree, there was no confirming that it would work on a live human being. On the other hand, she was convinced it would cause at least some damage to a person, considering how fast it had worked on her little tree.

  She wondered if she would land in hell for using black magic, or perhaps she would have some disastrous retribution in the future, but the thought did not deter her.

  Of course she had to tell Rod about the knife, and that she planned to use it for the eventual destruction of her nemesis, Omar. Rod’s response was mixed, both negative and positive. He thought it a mistake to use dark supernatural magic, but on the encouraging side, he considered anything she did to keep herself safe was a good thing. If she needed protection, and the knife helped, she had his blessing.

  As Michelle seriously considered using dark sorcery on Omar, the Jeep was gradually going upward into the mountains, and finally along a torturous snaking road high up along the coast. There was a drop of about two thousand feet down to the sea. It was dizzying, being so high up in the cliffs on a road with a tiny guardrail to keep cars from crashing down into the ocean far below. Michelle was glad she was between Rod and Guy. She didn’t look out of the window after her first glance, which made her dizzy, her stomach clenching, seeming to turn over.

  To make things more dangerous, there was a sudden, violent, downpour. Fierce torrents of rain happened all the time on Kauai, but it made the road slick and treacherous.

  Michelle looked at Rod. He was gripping the wheel one handed, hunched forward, concentrating hard. The wipers were barely keeping up with the rain crashing down on the windshield. She put her arm around his shoulders for comfort and was rewarded with a quick wink.

  “Forget about Omar’s magic stuff killing us,” Mike commented from the back seat as they passed a battered sign that said, ‘Watch for Falling Rocks.’ “This road could do the job very neatly. Does anyone ever use it?”

  “Not often,” Guy said. “But I think the turnoff is coming up pretty soon.”

  He was right. A small fork down and to the right had them heading down the side of the cliff. It was lucky they had four-wheel drive because a normal car never would have made the steep, almost vertical, decline.

  Rod stopped the car after a few hundred yards. “Here’s where we had to stop and walk down the cliffs to get to the beach.”

  Heather was nodding, craning to see through the rain. “I remember. But it looks like the road goes on further. Maybe that’s where Omar’s home is.”

  Rod started the Jeep again and they moved further along the bumpy road. To their surprise, the road leveled out and became smoothly paved as they went along. It was still dangerous and curvy, but driving along the side of the cliff was practically effortless. As long as you didn’t look down.

  “Look to the left, up the mountain, for signs of a driveway,” Guy said. “I think we’re in the right area if Omar has a place around here.”

  The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Everyone was looking left, out of the windows when Michelle saw a glint of brightness through clouds clinging to the cliffs.

  “Stop,” Michelle said, still gazing up at the clouds partially covering the side of the mountain. She kept staring and saw that the bright silver streak was actually the sun shining on the blade of a helicopter.

  Rod had abruptly stopped the Jeep and moved as far as he could off the road, into thick vegetation. Then they all saw a magnificent structure that was almost hidden in the clouds and thick greenery. Omar’s helicopter was parked beside it.

  It was in a large natural indentation, or cleft in the mountain. The longer they looked the more visible it became.

  “Omar hid it, probably with a spell, but I can see it perfectly, now,” Michelle said.

  “Me too,” Heather said. “Looks fearsome, like it could swallow us up whole.”

  It was a huge place, with several oval floor to ceiling windows in the front. It had been made out of stones and material that almost matched the colors of the cliffs, a dark leaden grey. Green moss clung to the sides and roof of the structure which helped to conceal it. But it also seemed sinister. Like some weird flora was taking over, slithering slowly to envelope the place.

  “Whoa, it’s creepy,” Heather said. “How do we get inside and steal the girls?”

  Michelle glanced toward the back seat. Heather and Mike were holding hands, newly married, their lives together just starting. They were helping her on a mission which might prove to be exceptionally dangerous. They could be risking their lives. She had to keep them safe.

  “I’ll go knock on the front door.” She was almost kidding, but Omar’s place appeared impenetrable.

  There was a chorus, of “no you won’t,” and “no way,” from Heather and Mike.

  “I’m alerting the police in Princeville,” Vi
ncent said, texting on his cell phone, giving the details of where they found the helicopter and Omar’s gigantic fortress. “There’s an all-out-alert bulletin to find Omar on each of the islands. But they won’t be able to get here any time soon, I’m afraid.”

  “You can’t just knock on the door,” Rod whispered, shaking his head as he looked at Michelle. “It’s too dangerous. And in your condition…”

  “Good thing we stopped when we did,” Mike interrupted. “If we’d gone past the front of the place they might have seen us.”

  The day’s brightness was waning, moving into a hushed twilight.

  “Maybe we should do reconnaissance when it gets a little darker,” Mike suggested. “It looks like there’s a walkway in all that foliage that might go all the way around the place.”

  “Yeah, we might need some energy before we face Omar. Let’s eat before we make the attempt,” Rod said.

  Michelle opened the side door so Lucifer could do his business in the bushes. She knew he didn’t like being watched when he performed his personal stuff.

  They took sandwiches and drinks out of the Styrofoam cold box and sat, munching and drinking, looking at the house.

  Michelle had small binoculars in her purse and trained it on the front door. It was wooden, with a giant metal clapper shaped like a lion’s head.

  It did look like a fortress, Michelle thought, and was suddenly overcome with a critical urge to pee. Of course it could be the pregnancy. That had her running to the bathroom every hour or so. It was amazing she’d lasted this long. But she suspected a bit of real fear intensified the sensation.

  “I need some time in the bushes,” Michelle said. “Heather, would you come with me?”

  “I gotta go too,” Heather said, climbing over Mike and opening the back door.

  As the women slipped out of the Jeep, into the bushes to squat, the guys were speculating about how to disable the helicopter and any other means of transportation Omar might have on the premises. That would prevent him from escaping with the children before the police could arrive.