by Scott Eder
Game time. Focus. Just like in practice.
On the bottom, Cassidy watched the outside wall of the house loom over the edge of the pool. It rocked toward her then away. Oh no. Hand over hand, she pulled herself up and broke the surface. Heavy fallout from the silent explosions fell around her, but she ignored it, too intent on the sway of the wall. It canted, towering directly over her head.
Fall the other way. Fall the other way. The wall toppled. She had just enough time to take a breath and dive before it locked her in.
Trapped, she floundered underwater in the pitch black. Stay calm. Control your heart beat. The words had the desired impact. She stilled her movements and the time between beats increased. Senses locked by the wet cocoon, the slow deep throb of her heart thumped loud in her temples and her chest.
There’s gotta be a gap or a hole. She searched the edge, but met only concrete below the water line. The wall not only covered the pool, it had sunk below the surface. No gaps. No holes. No air.
I’m going to die. She tried on the idea for size. Would it be so bad, giving herself over to the loving embrace of the water? After Amy died, she’d lost her faith and hadn’t looked back. But now, faced with the ultimate question, what did she believe?
Is this the end? When I drink in my last breath, will I just fade to black? No afterlife. No heaven. God, I hope not. I’m not ready for that. What about Amy? Is she waiting for me on the other side linked arm in arm with Mom and Dad? Seems too good to be true, but I’ll take that plan thank you very much.
Another sound, above and beyond the slow thump in her veins, made itself known. What? She thought she detected words on the edge of her hearing. No, not hearing, in her heart or brain or whatever made her Cassidy. She tried to decipher them, but they remained out of reach.
Her chest tightened. Her lungs burned. She pictured the little girl from St. Matthew’s, her own parents, Amy, Wren, Magnus, and lastly Dev.
She wanted to breathe, had to breathe, but to breathe meant to die. She clamped her lips shut and pinched them with her fingers. Almost home, my angel.
Spots swam all around her. Air. She needed air. That strange sound again. No, different this time. Light pierced the gloom.
She opened her mouth.
* * *
Alexander grinned as the wall crashed down over the pool, trapping Cassidy underwater. “Land.” He commanded the dragon. “We will fish her out so I can end this.”
If you leave my back, Alexander, my magic will no longer conceal you.
“Do it.”
Gothrodul banked his wings and glided down.
The neighbors are coming.
“Kill them.”
The dragon angled his descent to pass over the oblivious people and drew in a mighty breath. Before he unleashed his weapon, the whir of an approaching helicopter caught his attention and he veered off, turning away from the house and out to open water.
“Where are you going?” Alexander spun in his perch. “I need to get back there.”
Too much going on. We’ll be seen. You can’t afford that. Not yet.
“We cannot leave this unfinished.”
It is finished. She has been under the water long enough and is probably dead already. What more can you do? Now, let’s get out of here.
Frustrated, Alexander stared down at the covered pool. The helicopter’s spotlight criss-crossed over the wreckage, highlighting yet another disappointment. He wanted to take her life himself, drink in her fear and pain, watch the spark fade from those blue eyes.
“Fine. Take us home. No. Better yet, take us to Ybor.”
Chapter 27
CASSIDY’S GONE. WREN TOUCHED DOWN IN the Portal room and yanked on Magnus’s arm. “We have to go back.” Panic rushed her words.
The gateway winked out in a flash.
“Where’s Cassidy?” Magnus asked.
“Back there. I lost her. Something pulled her out of my hand.” Wren bashed her head against the Earth Knight’s chest. “We have to go back.”
“But Wren I…”
“Ah, so you have returned.”
“Cyndralla.” Wren spun to the lyrical feminine voice. “Send us back. Please. We need to get back. She’s in trouble.”
The Knight of Air, tall and austere, crossed the smoky quartz bridge at a sedate pace and stood upon the seal of the Order—four polished silver triangles contained within a golden ring, their tips connected at the center—engraved in the rock floor of the cavern.
“Calm down, child, and speak clearly.” Cyndralla tilted her head, her long white hair swishing gracefully around her waist.
I am not a child.
“Cyndy,” Magnus said, “We need to go back to Cassidy Sinclair’s house immediately. Gray attacked and the doorway containing the gateway we just came through collapsed before Ms. Sinclair could make it through. I have not captured the image to make a card, else I would take us back myself.”
“There. Was that so difficult?” The Knight of Air smirked at Wren. “Now I understand the situation. Thank you, Magnus.”
Grrrr…Wren’s hands balled into fists.
Cyndralla calmly walked to the brick archway built into the wall behind Magnus and laid her palm flat against the smooth stone. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.
“Yes. Destruction. I can see it through the residual trail of the last gateway. There are no longer any viable doorways upon which to tether a new one.”
“There has to be something.” Wren grabbed his shirt, eyes desperate. “What about the car?”
“Cyndy, do you see a car?” Desperation tinged Magnus’s voice. “Can you anchor the gateway to that?”
“Hmmm…” Cyndralla squinted as she focused her concentration. “I believe…there. Yes.” The stone shimmered beneath the Knight of Air’s touch, spiraling into a gateway that looked out from the open car window on the devastation that used to be Cassidy’s house.
Wren dove through, Magnus right behind. The smell of smoke hit them like a physical presence as soon as they emerged onto Cassidy’s driveway. Though the attack seemed to be over, Wren scanned the grounds for Gray.
Sirens cried in the distance. Afraid to get too close, Cassidy’s neighbors stood at the end of the driveway and watched the flames claim the structure. A helicopter circled overhead, shining its spotlight over the grounds.
“Ignore them,” Magnus indicated the neighbors. “We don’t have much time.” Magnus picked his way through the rubble of the house. “I sense her.”
Wren heard his words. “Hey, the weird silence is gone. What about the chopper?”
“Take out the light, I’ll see what I can find.” Following a trail only he could see, the big man stepped over fallen, splintered A-beams, shattered glass, and segments of furniture with jagged gashes in the fabric, impervious to the skin-damaging material beneath his bare feet. Tendrils of smoke lazily drifted up from smoldering sections of carpet.
Wren raced around back, took aim with one of her knives at the low flyer’s beacon and threw. The glass shattered and the spotlight went out. Mission accomplished, she reconnected with Magnus.
The big man came to a halt at the front edge of the patio and moved his head from side to side, searching. With a fallen expression, eyes round and moist, he shrugged.
“I lost the trail. I sense her in the house.” He walked to the rim of the wreckage and pointed to a spot where her kitchen used to be then walked to the pool’s edge. “Another hint of her is over here. But then the trail just…vanishes. It’s like something picked her up and flew away with her. There is no trace of her upon my element.”
“Do you think Gray took her?” Wren asked, stepping out onto the patio. “She can’t be gone.” She tripped up onto the slab of wall covering the pool.
We just left her a few minutes ago.
“She’s gone.” Magnus moved alongside her and rested one bare foot on the downed wall. “Wait.” He dropped to his knees and placed his palms upon the slab. “I sense…”
>
She’s in the pool.
“Check the pool.” Wren’s voice sounded loud and strident.
“If she were in the water, she would have drowned by now.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Wren…”
“Please, Magnus.”
“What about those around us? We are exposing ourselves. “
“Who who cares! Just pick up the wall.”
“Okay, Wren, okay. Stand back.” Magnus jabbed massive fingers under the slab, leaned back and lifted. Shoulders, thighs and back bulged, straining the simple fibers holding his shirt together, but the slab remained firmly in place. With a growl, he pulled more from the earth, added to his mass and strength. Big before, now he topped eight feet and his skin darkened to the color of freshly turned soil. His clothes ripped along the seams.
Another massive effort and the slab shifted, inched upward.
“You’re doing it.” Wren watched his face lose distinction, features flattening as he absorbed more of his element until his face resembled a vaguely human grouping of crags and outcroppings upon a rocky summit. No longer that of a human man.
The wall lifted clear and, with a last intense heave, he shoved it out of the way. Cassidy stared unblinking into the night sky, lips curved in a restful smile. Wren dove in, lifted Cassidy’s face out of the water and swam over to the side.
Magnus, heavily under the influence of his element, stood still as a mountain.
“Help me.” Wren gasped, struggling to keep herself and Cassidy afloat.
He lifted Cassidy out with one hand and yanked Wren out with the other like she was a sodden rag doll.
Taking Cassidy in her arms, she laid her flat and felt for a pulse. Nothing. “We need to do CPR.” Wren mimicked what she saw Cassidy do to that little girl earlier, found the spot on her chest and pumped thirty times then breathed twice. “Do something, Magnus,” she screamed. “Don’t just watch me.” Come on, Cassidy, breathe.
“She was under too long.” His words came out slow and ponderous.
Thirty pumps. “No, Magnus, she was a swimmer.” Two breaths and pump. “She held some kind of record for holding her breath. We can bring her back.” Two breaths. “Now get your big ass down here and pump.”
Come on.
Patio tiles cracked under his weight as he slowly knelt next to Cassidy. Placing his giant hands across her chest, he prepared to push.
“Not there. You’ll break her. Lower.” Wren puffed two breaths into Cassidy’s mouth then pointed to the right spot. “There. Go. Pump.”
Magnus pumped harder than Wren, and slower, affecting Cassidy’s entire body with each mighty push.
Wren puffed again and received a mouthful of water. Cassidy sputtered, coughed and rolled on her side.
“Odin be praised.” The Earth Knight’s features regained their more human definition. “Good job, kid.”
Wren rubbed Cassidy’s back while she expelled what seemed like a third of the pool water. A more natural color returned to the Earth Knight’s cheeks.
Police cars pulled into the driveway. Their flashing lights bathed the wreckage in alternating flashes of blue and red.
“We’re outta time,” Wren whispered. “Need a gateway, like, now.”
Magnus searched for a suitable spot. “We can use the pool.”
“What? That’s not a doorway.”
Beams from the officers’ flashlights cut across the yard and the chatter from their radios burst through the night.
“It’ll do. It’s a transition point between elements.” He snaked his arms under Cassidy and lifted .
“Hey.” One of the officers spotted them. “You in the yard. Stop.”
“I’ll buy you a minute.” Wren stood and raised her arms in surrender. “Hello, officers. We are unarmed.”
“Get down on the ground.” Weapons drawn, the police officers scrambled through the remains of the house.
“Hurry up,” Wren whispered. “They’re coming.”
“Downdowndown. Now.” An officer commanded.
Magnus fumbled then drew a glowing gateway card out of his back pocket and flicked it onto the surface of the water. Gold tinted ripples radiated outward and formed the edge of the gateway. As soon as the seal of the Order came into view, Wren dove through. Magnus followed right behind.
Chapter 28
FACES SWAM IN THE LIGHT. FAMILIAR faces locked in expressions of desperate concern looked down upon Cassidy. Wren. Magnus. Rhythmic pressure on her chest. Warmth on her lips. Wind in her mouth.
A voice in the distance. “She’s gone.”
The pounding on her chest ceased; but a different beat, this one generated from within, picked up the pace. Her skin felt tight and heavy.
A pressure began in her lungs. It spread to her stomach and leaped into her throat. Water gushed from her mouth and nose. She coughed and gasped as the taste of sweet air reached her starved lungs.
More. She needed more. As the water fled her system, she replaced its absence with the invisible life all around her, breathing in the scents she’d grown up with—grass, salt water, sand. Her insides tingled, tiny pinpricks of pain-laced pleasure brought her back to the moment.
I’m alive. Someone, it must have been Magnus, picked her up and cradled her against his soft, grainy skin. He smelled like her grandfather’s cornfield after a summer rain, rich and fertile. Cassidy buried her face against his chest and drank in his scent.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured in her ear and pressed her close.
She had the impression of walls closing about her and, for a split second, every inch of her skin itched like an army of centipedes marched across her body. Her surroundings changed, the familiarity of a moonlit night in her own backyard replaced by a black field of glimmering orange stars. Alarmed, she raised her head, but Magnus pushed it back into place.
“Shshshhhh,” he whispered, dropping his chin to the top of her head, offering some measure of comfort. “It will be over before—”
Another eye blink, another setting change.
Cassidy stared up at a rough stone ceiling adorned with the mismatched peaks of stalactites aglow in a pale white light.
“Can you stand?” Magnus asked.
Cassidy nodded and he set her down, but held her close for support. The warm stone floor soothed her bare feet. They’d brought her to some sort of underground chamber that reminded her of her trip to Carlsbad when she was fourteen. The caverns there were beautiful, but this one put those dank holes to shame.
Three strangers, dressed in odd outfits like a cast from a diverse time-travel movie, stood atop a silver insignia carved into the stone floor. They held back, giving her time to find a measure of comfort in her new surroundings.
The chamber stretched out before her. Midway through, a stream burbled across the floor. It flowed from under the wall on her left to disappear beneath the stone on her right. Spanning that stream was a magnificent bridge made of a black crystalline material that reflected the light from the glowing crystals mounted evenly along the chamber walls. On the far side of the bridge, an opening led further into the rock.
Where is the door I came through? She turned. Against the wall, outlined in glittering gold, shimmered a gateway to…chaos. The setting looked like her backyard, but the wreckage…and her house?
Gone.
Two policemen popped their heads into view.
Her strength fled. She would have fainted, but for the Earth Knight’s support. As she watched, the gateway collapsed, shrinking in on itself until, with a final twinkle, it closed on her past.
This is a mistake. It has to be. How can it all just be gone? Cassidy stared at the blank stone wall, lip quivering, and willed the gateway to open, to show her house and yard and pool and life whole and back to normal.
“I am sorry, Ms. Sinclair.” A deep, sincere male voice broke the silence.
So am I.
Cassidy didn’t want to move, didn’t want to turn from this spot, di
dn’t want to acknowledge another abrupt change in the course of her life. Hadn’t she been through enough already?
Apparently not. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and slowly spun to face the others in the room. Wet clothes peeled off her skin. She shivered and clasped her arms around her still soaked body.
“Oh, for the sake of…Magnus, could you not get the girl some dry clothes?” A tall, whip-thin woman with waist-length white hair streaked with faint lavender highlights, left the confines of the symbol on the floor. She crossed the distance in a hurry, stripped off her long white cape and draped it across Cassidy’s shoulders. “That will do for now. My name is Cyndralla.” She smiled in welcome, showing long white teeth.
Those eyes…Timeless. Critical. And a sparkling shade of violet.
Cassidy couldn’t help but stare. While the woman was attractive, there was something about her that seemed…off. Maybe it was her face—high cheekbones flared wide then tapered into a thin round chin. Or, it could be her teeth. When she smiled, there seemed to be far too many to fit comfortably in such a narrow mouth. And her voice… The strange lilt and cadence to her speech was musical. She’d never heard anything quite like it. The way Cyndralla extended each syllable, as if savoring the feel of the words on her tongue before releasing them, struck Cassidy as beautiful.
“It’s not polite to stare, dear,” Cyndralla said.
“Oh, sorry.” Cassidy shook her head to erase her lapse in etiquette. “Sorry. And, um, thank you for the cloak. I’ll return it soon.” She pulled it tighter about her. The heavy, sumptuous fabric engulfed her body in its warm embrace.
Beyond Cyndralla, the others waited their turn to greet the newcomer. A swarthy man dressed in baggy trousers and a loose fitting, blue button-down glided forward.
“Dronor, at your service.” The man bowed, clasped Cassidy’s fingers and kissed the back of her hand. “Welcome.” He raised one eyebrow and stroked his moustache down to the tip of his manicured goatee.
Cassidy didn’t like the way he eyed her, and the lecherous echo of his touch made her shiver. She wanted to pull back, but figured it would be impolite and didn’t want to offend. Instead, she offered a polite nod.