by S. E. Akers
Come Hell or high water, I’m going to find it, I affirmed while the potential backpedaler at the head of the table flashed me a dazzling smile. I returned the gesture, my lips puckering out an amused grin, but it was all I could do not to hurl my knife at him and cry, “Ooops!”
The three of us were making our way down to the dungeon before long. I instructed them on ahead right as we were passing my bedroom, claiming I needed to “powder my nose” before the show got on the road. And ironically, Silas was the only one suspicious of my motives. Then again, he did have that live-feed he loved dialing up on demand. He knew the last thing on my mind was a trip to the potty. I just hoped he kept his trap shut and let me tend to the last bit of “real” business I was actually taking care of.
I joined them outside of the chimera’s cell roughly five minutes later, smiling like an innocent fool who didn’t know they were about get a good screwing. The magic radiating from the wards placed over the door felt considerably stronger for some reason. Needing to confirm my suspicions, I tested their bounds by giving the door handle several elbow-wrenching tugs. It never budged the slightest inch…so that was pretty daggone conclusive.
“Shiloh, you’ve thoroughly impressed me . . .” Tanner began, no sooner than I’d turned to face him, “ . . . However, you won’t be stepping one foot in there without me. It’s far too risky, especially after the lengths it went during your last bout. I’m afraid you need a set of eyes on you . . . just to be on the safe-side.”
I roused my most astute stare. “So basically, you only accepted my bet because you thought I would lose?”
Tanner’s expression was unquestionably apologetic, though painfully direct. “No one accepts a bet they think they’ll lose.”
My mouth cracked open. “No one makes a bet they think they’ll lose either,” I countered, arching the bend of my brow as pointy as a blade. I wanted him fully aware of how much he’d just stepped in it.
“This has nothing to do with your skills or your determination,” he assured. “But it does have everything to do with keeping that heart of yours beating.” Tanner shook his head. “I’m sorry, Shiloh. I know how much this means to you, but I can’t consent to it, bet or no bet . . . Please try to understand.”
“Oh, I understand . . . and I figured as much,” I added and then extended my hand to show him my handy-dandy backup plan.
The speed at which my mentor’s jaw dropped sent his cool & collected frame straight into a gut-churning slump. Maybe if he’d skipped that “decent meal”, his comeuppance wouldn’t have hit him so hard.
Tanner straightened his stance as I slung his phantom crystal over my head, his eyes now focused and fiery. “Don’t do this!” he urged.
I wrapped my hand around the crystal, ignoring him completely. Though this was my first time actually using his lifeline, I quickly discovered how easy it was to draw out his soul’s essence. I’d barely whispered my pleas to the stone when I felt an unbreakable connection to his life-force sweep through me. And I had no idea it would feel so incredibly cool and tingly.
I pointed to a spot on the floor, which dropped his rear to the ground like a sack of wrenches lickety-split. Like taking candy from a baby, I grinned. Peppermint candy, at that.
“NOW. . .” I began, “You’re going to lower your wards and sit here in the hall while I go into that chamber and send this last monster packing.”
“Shiloh, I’m imploring you not to do this!” Tanner pleaded. “There’s no layria bark, and I can’t look out for you!”
“Precisely,” I agreed. My blasé attitude had him looking fit to be tied — even more than he presently was.
Tanner shook his head dismissively. “Silas will go in there!” he assured arrogantly, his eyes glaring with the hallowed trump of a Royal Flush.
I dropped down beside him, needing a more calculated angle. “How can your Djinn do that when I’m controlling the wishes of his master?”
Tanner’s face blanched on the spot. Then his head rocked towards Silas like the crack of a whip.
“I may have forgotten to mention her discovery,” the house steward winced, exuding only the tiniest hint of tension. “My humblest apologies, Professor.”
Tanner’s face had shot straight to crimson by the time his stare returned to me. “I didn’t give you that so it could be used against me!” he grumbled.
“Believe it or not, guilt isn’t going to work this time,” I vowed as I rose to my feet. “Seeing how you’ve left me no choice.”
“She’ll be fine, Professor,” Silas assured.
Tanner shot Silas a testy glare and threw his back against the wall with a grunt. “I’m only gone THREE DAYS and the inmates are now running the asylum!”
My mentor’s obvious annoyance was one thing, but the hurt I spied in his eyes was starting to plague me. Regardless of my wishes, I couldn’t let him sit out here feeling so helpless. Whether he was worrying in there or out here, both would inevitably hinder my concentration. So now I had to fess up about my other backup plan. I hadn’t planned on it, mainly because it was one of those “break-in-case-of-emergency” kinds…and because I knew it would send the water elemental into a swift burn.
“You don’t have to worry,” I sighed. “I’m taking a sapphire in with me.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the brilliant blue air stones I’d swiped from its locked case downstairs. “I’ll teleport out of there if things take a bad turn. I’m not crazy.”
Tanner’s eyes exploded. “Oh, I’d say ‘CRAZY’ hits the nail on the head!” he blasted and cleared this throat gruffly. “You know, I don’t remember spelling the lock on that case with your access.”
I dangled his stone lifeline back and forth. “Hello? Phantom crystal,” I said, my eyes sparkly. You would have thought I’d just whacked him with a paddle by how red-faced and spanked he looked.
“You know how rare that stone is!” Tanner blasted.
“I do,” I said.
“Then put it back,” he insisted.
“I won’t. You said that anything I desired would be at my disposal when I was ready, and I haven’t asked for one thing until now.” I took a solid step towards him. “And I’m choosing to use a sapphire — but only if I have to.”
Tanner shifted uncomfortably. “Shiloh, I don’t care about the stone. Don’t do this. Don’t restrict my actions. Not with the chimera. Not this way.”
I gave his phantom crystal a tight squeeze and pretended to lock my lips with an imaginary key, shutting him up completely. “I’m sorry, but I’m going in there and getting rid that thing on my own.” I truly hated doing this to him, but deep down I knew I would hate his need for control interfering with my objective even more. The chimera was going back today, end of story!
I was about to slip the sapphire back inside my pocket when my mentor’s image began wavering wildly. I remained still for a few seconds to figure out why in the heck his skin and clothes looked so shaky. No sooner than I’d focused my gaze, I started picking up flashes of bones — his skeleton, to be exact. Then the more my eyes relaxed, the more his flesh began to reappear — with the exception of his clothes. I whirled around in a flustered fit when I caught a glimpse of him totally bare. And I’d almost seen all of him.
“WHY ARE YOU NAKED!?!” I demanded, my cheeks stinging-red and rooted to the spot. Tanner never answered. I finally glanced back long enough to spy an awfully uneasy look shellacking his face.
“I’m afraid he can’t answer you, Miss Wallace,” Silas interjected. “Did you not command him to sit quietly?” The house steward then shored up his assertion by making the same key-locking gesture at his own lips.
I pulled Silas closer, my back still turned to Tanner. “How is it possible that I can SEE HIM?” I’d barely fired off my question when a mortifying thought barreled through my head like a runaway train. “Is it the phantom crystal?”
“Gracious no, Ms. Wallace,” Silas laughed. “That ability stems from the sapphire in your hand. D
idn’t Professor Grey explain the power it holds to lower visual limitations during your lessons?”
My insides rumbled with the force of an awakened volcano while the phrase “X-ray Vision” rolled like fiery globs of lava. That sure melted all the shame from my face real freaking-quick.
“NO! HE DIDN’T!” I barked, loud and clear enough for him to hear me with my back turned — even if he happened to be sitting smack in the center of Canada. “At no time did he work in that disclosure ANYWHERE throughout my lessons!” Hell, an ability as extraordinary as that deserved its own special stone shout-out! I paused for a second to count up a few past occasions that were currently searing the synapses paved to my long-term memory. I whipped towards Silas and kept my glare locked on his eyes. “NONE OF THE TIMES HE PULLED ONE OUT OF ITS CASE!”
The house steward threw Tanner several chastising shakes. “My, my.”
My stare fell upon the sapphire in my hand. Now I really wanted to teleport out of here.
Silas tapped my shoulder. “I believe Professor Grey, would like to say something, Ms. Wallace. Well that, or he’s about to have a seizure.”
I started to turn around until Silas motioned for me to tuck the stone back inside my pocket first. I did, but part of me kind of didn’t want to…until I noticed Silas’ clothes starting to fade as well.
I dug my fist into my hip. “SPEAK,” I ordered curtly while my other hand clutched his phantom crystal like a springy stress-ball.
“I know what you’re thinking, and you couldn’t be more wrong,” Tanner asserted.
The painful amount of emphasis I’d detected sent my bottom lip plunging to the ground. I couldn’t have felt anymore belittled by what I’d just heard — on top of my humiliation.
Silas leaned into my ear. “Remember, Ms. Wallace . . . A sapphire can also detect lies. Its hue pales when it senses the slightest falsehood.”
The look Tanner sailed the house steward pierced the air like a pair of daggers. “REALLY?” he grumbled and then turned back to me. “Shiloh, I never looked.”
“Ugh!” I grunted and averted my glare. I was so embarrassed and pissed on so many levels right now, and I knew the only thing that would stifle their sting was a truthful admission. I couldn’t tell anything from the look on his face, and that damn artery of his hadn’t twitched from what little I’d seen of it. So all I had to go on were his words and my recent recollection of when I’d hit the swamp in that wetsuit. The keen track of his eyes down there could have left a cat chasing a laser-pointer in the dust.
I was about to reach inside my pocket when Tanner taunted, “Go ahead . . . I want you to pull out that sapphire and ask me again. But keep in mind that as soon as your hand emerges, I’ll want to know what you would’ve done if the situation were reversed. You’ve already proven that you’ll use my own stone against me, what’s seeing a little skin in the grand scheme of soul possession?”
My hand froze on the spot. I already knew how bleached-out that stone would be.
“Shut up,” I ordered flatly and looked away, my head shaking. Despite the heavy hover of humiliation smothering my frame, I secretly found myself delighted by the fact that as long as I had his phantom crystal he was inescapably my temporary bitch. And now, I was going to let him know it.
I strolled over to the chimera’s cell straightaway, my fingers wrapped tautly around his phantom crystal. “Lower ALL of your wards,” I commanded and then glanced back to shoot him a less than courteous, “PLEASE.”
The helpless and bound Amethyst Talisman had no other choice but to do as I’d asked, though he sat there snorting like a bull and his face looked redder than a daggone matador’s sash.
“Thank you,” I smirked and then turned to face the chimera’s cell. Though truthfully, right now it didn’t matter how deep his hands were in the cookie jar. If I didn’t succeed in getting rid of this creature, any of its mouths may as well chew me up and spit me out. His innocence in whether or not he’d actually “used” the sapphire was iffy at best, but I was straight up guilty as sin for playing puppet master with his stone.
I stopped shy of entering and lifted my head. I wasn’t about to look back in hopes of spying any “good luck” gleams flashing in his eyes. The walloping waves of his disapproval were smacking my backside just fine.
Please let this last one go off without a hitch…or I’ll be totally screwed!
With my final deep breath for the day fired, I pulled my hilt out of its holster and rushed into the cell. My eyes rigorously panned the chamber with every step I took. The entire space was quiet, too eerily quiet for my present comfort level. I gave my hilt a staunch whirl and brandished its gleaming blade in the air. Though the diamond’s light provided ample visibility, the creature wasn’t anywhere within its span, nor did I spy anything suspicious shifting within the outlying shadows.
A fierce roar whirled me around. I followed the beast’s growls to a spot several feet above the chamber door. Its claws were dug into the stone wall, and it was simply hovering there, almost like it was taunting me. Then the creature dropped down to the ground and turned towards the open doorway. The foulest of feelings settled in my gut like a sucker-punch. The chimera had sensed that the spell keeping it confined was now broken and knew the sweet smell of freedom lay merely a few feet away. Why bother picking me apart when it could have that?
I raced to catch the chimera before it could escape, but I was too late. The eager creature had already smashed through the doorway, clearing a wider path through the stones with the might of its wings. My eyes exploded in a panic amidst the swirling haze of debris. Tanner was sitting just outside, incapable of defending himself. Suddenly the selfish glory of my lucky day and my shaman’s stone decree smacked me with a harrowing reality that I’d never considered.
Oh no…
The next thing I knew, a blinding flash of red flames erupted out in the hall as I rushed towards the door, followed by the wails of a male voice that was unmistakably in pain.
Another menacing bellow pummeled my eardrums as I charged into the hall. My eyes peered through the muddled murkiness. The chimera was nowhere in sight, though neither were Tanner or Silas. Then suddenly two faint silhouettes gradually took shape within the haze. I spotted Tanner first, sitting upright and as motionless as I’d left him, while Silas’ form lay on top of him. The house steward rolled off Tanner’s frame as I hurried towards them. The faithful Djinn had shielded his master in some way, whatever way his powers could.
I bent down to check on him. “Silas!” I cried, panicked. I retracted my blade and holstered my hilt so I could pat out the last of the wicked-red flames. His human form was as black as soot and sorely pink where his clothes had burned away.
“I’m fine,” Silas winced. “Just a tad crisp, that’s all.” He was more than merely crisp. Third-degree burns would have been a less cringing sight. The sound of persistent smashes and enraged roars rocked our surroundings. “I think I would try to catch that beast before it pounds its way out of here,” Silas breathed out. “I can tend to my wounds myself.” He glanced down at the outside of his abdomen, which presently were featuring more of his insides. “I’m practically already on the mend,” he crowed.
I knew Tanner was lying through his teeth, despite what he would have me think, and the critical glare that was supplying all the steam shooting out of his ears just confirmed it. Though what he’d said about the chimera couldn’t be truer. I couldn’t let it escape.
I sprang to my feet and started down the hall. I hadn’t made it far when I wrapped my hand around Tanner’s phantom crystal and yelled back to him, “Well, COME ON!” Of course I kept the hold I had on his tongue firmly in place. Without a doubt, the swing of that thing would cut deeper than any sword, particularly right now.
We raced to the winding stone staircase and then paused to trail the rackety pounds beating the air. It was still on this floor, down the hall that branched off to our left. I peered around the corner. Sure enough, it was trying
its best to bust through one of the stone walls like a battering ram.
I turned to Tanner, fully prepared to relinquish my complete hold, only to be halted by a curious revelation. I darted into to the alcove to our right and rushed to its back wall. My hands ran along its bumpy surface while an idea of how to throw a little chaos into the creature’s plans spun my head like a top.
Let’s see how bad it wants out. Fully aware that I was now the sole wielder of all the household wards, I laid my hands back on the wall and kept my eyes locked on the stones in front of me.
“Open it,” I instructed Tanner. Without the slightest delay, the stones began peeling away from each other. Blinding rays were spilling into the alcove, setting the darkness ablaze with light.
Tanner grabbed my arms and pulled me away from the massive crystal window. His head rocked with a stream of resistant shakes, fully aware of what I was about to do.
I pushed him back towards one of the corners, needing him safe and well out of my way. “Stay there,” I ordered. “And don’t move unless the chimera is a threat to you.”
Again, the soulful weight of his eyes implored me to stop before I headed into the hall, but I refused. I simply couldn’t. This was my disaster and this time, I was going to be the only one pushing the broom.
I headed up the hall where the chimera was still banging its heads against the wall, literally. “HEY!” I shouted in-between its pounds.
The chimera turned my way, all three of its heads locking on me with a furious snap. The creature noticed the sunlight streaming behind me instantly. Even at this distance, I could tell its glowing yellow eyes were practically dancing at the thought of all that blue sky ahead. The chimera didn’t even take the time to wrap up its roars before it started its high-speed charge down the hall. I stepped back and turned invisible, only cloaking myself to the chimera.