by Meg Cowley
Our guards loitered outside with only the light of their phone screens to illuminate this dark part of the caves. Blue light cast sharp light and shadows on their faces for a few moments before they tucked away their phones with huffs of disgust at the lack of signal.
“Jamie, are you okay?” I crawled to him, feeling the outline of his shoulder and shaking it gently. He groaned and uncurled, coughing. “Jamie, sit up,” I hissed. “We don’t have much time.” I called my magic forth again and again, but it was as if I was completely cut off from the ley lines. How had Cleo done that? Or more importantly, how I could I undo it?
Jamie struggled into a sitting position. I inched closer until his shoulder touched mine. I placed a palm on his neck. His pulse was fine, even if his breath was a little shaky. He had taken a beating after all.
“I’m okay,” he mumbled. “Are you?”
“Yeah.”
We sat in silence for a minute, though my thoughts raged and I’m sure his did, too. We could have argued. I could have accused him of being careless, of rushing in like he always seemed to do. He probably would have blamed me for being captured instead of staying hidden. But what use was it? Arguing wouldn’t set us free. It wouldn’t get us Pandora’s Box. And it wouldn’t bring back Nick.
My breath caught as I saw him fall to the ground in slow motion — again and again — in my mind’s eye. I saw the life leave his eyes and felt my charms break with a snap as he died. Beside me, Jamie was a statue in the dark.
I reached out and covered his hand with my own, giving it a squeeze. I didn’t know what else to do. We were running out of time, but we had a few moments at least to process the shock of what had happened.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Jamie said. “I can’t believe it.”
I didn’t reply and let him speak.
“I should have tried harder to get him to leave. We had all the information we needed. He shouldn’t have returned. I should have insisted. Dragged him away if it came to it. He had no idea of the danger he was in; but I did.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said gently, answering the unsaid accusation he stabbed at himself.
“Jasmine. He’ll never be able to give her the life he wanted.” He cradled his head in his hands.
And she would never see her father again, all because he had walked with the wrong crowd. Poor kid. I didn’t know her, but it sounded like she did not have the best of lives. Nick, however misguided, had wanted better for his daughter, as any good father ought to.
“I’ll do it for her instead,” he said. I cocked my head, surprised. “She deserves better. It’s my fault he’s dead; I pushed him to join in the first place. I’m the reason he stayed when he should have escaped, like me. I didn’t get him out when I should have. I owe it to him to look after her.”
It was one of the first real signs of decency, compassion, and selflessness I had seen from him. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Our disagreements felt petty, now. Perhaps, there was hope for Jamie after all, more than I’d given him credit for. But we had a lot to do first.
“Be that as it may,” I murmured, careful to keep my voice down. “We have to get out of here alive, and retrieve Pandora’s Box.”
Already, I could hear noise — distant and growing — that signalled the start of the auction. We were being left here to rot for now, though I had no doubt Cleo would question us at her leisure later before handing out our inevitable fates. But by then, Pandora’s Box would be long gone.
“Can you access your magic?”
“A little, but not much. It’s wearing off I think,” he replied. I felt my own magic returning, a slow and steady trickle, as Cleo’s charm disintegrated piece by piece. On my chest, the necklace containing the seal glowed with warmth like a beacon of energy. I touched my fingertips to it, revelling in the energy that flooded into my body through my hand from the contact.
Perhaps, anything less would have failed, but we had poured so much of ourselves and our magic into creating the seal that it was like a well of power, and one which sparked my own magic back into life. It roared through my veins, stripping away Cleo’s spells, which had choked and constricted it.
“Hey, what are you doing?” cried one of the guards as my glowing hands reached out for Jamie’s chest, illuminating us both in the darkness. Magic seeped into him and his groan of relief told me I’d managed to break the bonds upon him, too.
I grabbed onto all the magical energy of the ley lines I could harness, pulling it inside me greedily until I hummed with the power of it and my skin shone with inner light. As I drank it in, I formed wards around the pair of us, and beside me, Jamie’s hands balled into flaming fists.
Chapter Eleven
As the guards ignited their own magic — they weren’t stupid enough to open the locked gate — Jamie blasted through the iron bars, melting them in one. They hissed and steamed and molten iron droplets rained into the guards, forcing them to stumble back as they were pelted with red hot bullets of metal.
Jamie leapt forwards with a burst of energy, leaping through the tight gap and dragging me through as I followed. I suppressed a cry as one of the hot bars caught me on the way out, leaving an angry, burnt welt upon my arm.
Then, the guards were rallying and upon us, forcing us back towards the bars with targeted shots of magic that seared as they went past, deliberately wide, herding us back.
“We won’t kill you, but we’ll make it hurt if you’re difficult. Get back in there,” one growled.
“Though we could always accidentally go too far,” said another with a dark smile — the man who had assaulted me. He advanced on me, a tall almost-silhouette framed in the darkness with shades of colours catching his features from the magic bouncing around the cave.
I attacked with everything I had, putting my jujitsu training and my magic into play. I flew at him in a precise dance of limbs and spells, dodging around him and sending blows into his abdomen, neck, and head.
Jamie took advantage of my distraction to take down the other guard with a much less sophisticated, but no less effective single punch laced with magic.
As I stepped around my opponent, he caught me by surprise and stepped with me, catching me in the stomach with a glancing blow. His hand latched onto my arm, painfully tightly, and his touch burned red hot. I smelled my own burning flesh and gagged. I hissed and tugged, but I could not break his grip.
He wound me in, tighter and tighter until one arm was around my neck and the other pinned me to him. He was like a rock at my back, unyielding and cold. Stars danced across my vision as his grip tightened.
“Stop,” he commanded.
I stopped struggling at once, and Jamie let his fist full of magic fall to his side.
“If you don’t get back in there at once, I will kill her,” he said to Jamie in a quiet, even voice that left neither of us in any doubt he would do just that. His fingers twitched at my neck as if they longed to snap it.
I fought back memories of the last time this had happened; when I had been powerless with my life in someone else’s hands. Ben and the Cintamani Stone. I stretched my neck beneath his fingers, searching for some room, barely breathing.
Think, think, I urged myself with each flutter of breath. My arm stung fiercely from where he had burned me. I stilled completely. I had my answer. I had trained for this, so I would not have to endure it again. I was no longer powerless. I didn’t want anyone to kill to help me like Hayley had done, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be killed.
Unseen to my captor in the grim light, I winked at Jamie. His wide-eyed concern did not flicker, but he nodded, and slowly moved towards the hole in the iron bars, circling us and not taking his eyes off my captor and me. His back bumped against the railings and with one hand, he sought out the gap.
The man’s hands wound tighter around me, constricting my chest as well as my neck. I gasped like a fish out of water, struggling to get any air into my lungs, for I could barely breathe past h
is fingers and I could not move my chest. One breath was all I needed, though, for one moment of clarity of thought to compose myself.
I turned his own magic back on him with grim glee. In a second, my skin was the temperature of fire, and flaring into light so bright that the entire tunnel was illuminated clearly. It stunned Jamie for a second — I had half closed my eyes in anticipation — but my captor howled and dropped me like the hot coal I was, crying with the pain of it. His clothes were on fire, but every piece of skin that had been in contact with me was burnt even worse than I was from where he had grasped me.
I sent a battering his way of one of my favourite moves and finished it off with a final bout of fire. He was already crumpling into the wall, trying to shield his oversized body with his shovel-sized hands. Jamie finished him with a kick, and he slumped with a groan to the floor.
His companion was still out cold, and we edged past the two of them and into the relative freedom of the corridor.
“Are you alright?” he asked as we raced along the halls.
“Yes,” I spat out, trying to ignore the building pain in my arm and the crushing headache that bore down upon me.
“Wait, come here.” He slowed and I stopped for a moment. His hand filled with warm golden light and he brushed it gently across my burned skin. It felt like a cool, soothing gel. I sighed with relief. “Better?”
“Better, thank you.” I examined the skin in the light of the nearest bulb dangling from the wall. It wasn’t healed, but perhaps it wouldn’t distract me for a while. I squeezed out a smile, which might have accidentally been more of a grimace given our predicament, and we started again.
I nearly went flying as I stumbled over the soft object lying in the dark. My arms flailed and latched onto Jamie, who saved me.
“What the?” I exclaimed.
“What is it?” he said. “You alright?”
My hand glowed with light, illuminating the corridor. I stumbled back, crashing into Jamie, with a wordless exclamation of horror.
Nick’s discarded body lay before us, crumpled on the floor. He’d been tossed there like rubbish. I couldn’t see his face, thank goodness. I’d stumbled into his back.
Jamie swore. “I’m going to kill her for this.”
I shook my head. I didn’t have the words to reply. I tore my eyes away and tugged him on, edging past Nick. We had to end this, tonight. No more lives could be lost on account of that box, or Cleo.
The lights and the noise grew louder ahead. Laughter, and the tinkle of champagne flutes. Cleo had no respect for the dead and their peace, it would seem.
Once more, we drew forth magic to shield us from sight and sound, binding ourselves into the pooling shadows of the ossuary and lurked out of sight. Those barring our way were silently dispatched into a deep sleep with sleeping charms that would see them slumber for hours.
My heart rate rocketed as we approached the sphere of light in the Sacellum Crypt.
The backs of the rich and mostly criminally famous were turned to us as they stood in a semi-circle around the altar. I could not see the box, but I could feel it. I fingered the seal in the necklace on my neck. It shivered at my touch. We would need to apply that before we could take the box, to negate the risk of it being accidentally opened.
But how would we retrieve it? Between it and us stood a line of some of the most dangerous people in the world, and some of them were Magicai, though we could not sense who. They were well shielded, but their magic was strong and powerful.
On the other side, Cleo prowled. Now would not be the time for an ambush. We dithered in the darkness. I met Jamie’s eyes and saw them filled with the same uncertainty as mine. Time was running out. I didn’t see a solution.
Chapter Twelve
Bidding was underway and in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Before too long, it approached half a billion dollars and bidders were dropping out, shaking their heads and cursing in their native tongues.
I didn’t know which was worse: that this small number of people held most of the world’s wealth in their bank accounts, or that they played with it on an object like this. I could see the tightly controlled smirk of satisfaction on Cleo’s face widen millimetre by millimetre as the figure crept up. At last, one bidder remained.
“Seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Do we have any advance on seven hundred and fifty million dollars?” Cleo called, scanning the room. “Going once. Going twice. Sold for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Davenport, congratulations.” She stepped forward lithely to shake his hand. He bowed and kissed it instead.
Davenport.
I knew that name. Where did I know it from? I didn’t have time to dwell on it. They were already moving. We fell back into deeper shadows.
“Thank you, yes, I know, very disappointing for many of you, but this is the price of capitalism!” Cleo’s laughter tinkled. She earned few smiles. “If you will follow my associate and I this way, we will show you out.” And no doubt perform memory altering charms on them so they would not remember any trace of her or the box. She would not dare kill these people. “Mr. Davenport, I leave you here for a moment to make the necessary arrangements with your financier.”
“I shall have to visit the surface for a moment, I’m afraid,” he replied and held up his phone. “Rather useless down here.”
“Ah, of course. Follow me.” Cleo beckoned and swept out with Mr. Davenport in tow. I didn’t recognise him, but I knew his name from somewhere. It niggled at me.
The Sacellum Crypt was empty. Jamie twitched, about to burst forward to grab the box when I grabbed hold of him and yanked him back.
“Don’t be so stupid!” I hissed at him. “That’s how she got us last time. It’s not going to be that easy.”
As if to mark my words, two of her security detail filed in to flank the box at a distance, no doubt instructed by Cleo so as to avoid her own protective wards. I huffed. In a moment, they had joined their comrades in the corridors behind us, sinking to the floor deep in sleep at my command.
“See? And I bet that’s not all she’s got waiting.” I sent out feelers, testing the air, each patch of ground, even the ceiling of stone above us for any wards or traps she might have laid. They were there, alright, concentrated around the altar. I murmured as much to Jamie. “Help me dismantle them.”
It took minutes of focusing in short, intense bursts to take apart the spells piece by piece. Sweat beaded upon my forehead with the effort of it. These were powerful spells I circumvented. I was sure they would destroy me if I made even one mistake.
When I’d at last separated the magic into constituent parts that were incoherent and isolated, wisps of power that would harm but not kill, Jamie swept them all away with a blast of raw power.
Every sense was on high alert as we stepped from the shadows into the light. We could still hear Cleo and her guests ahead. How many minutes had it taken for us to dismantle the spells? Time was lost down here in the dark.
As we stepped forward, Jamie scanned every nook and cranny around us while I coaxed the seal from the necklace until it fell, a glowing net, into my hand. Its touch fizzed and buzzed against my skin; raw power crackling there. I hoped this would work. I stepped forward, one slow pace at a time, testing and double testing the floor and air around me for any wards we had not seen.
And then I stood before it. Bile rose in my throat. This close to Pandora’s Box, I felt light headed and nauseous. Every inch of my skin crawled. My body twitched, wanting to run instinctively from this dark object. Instead, I leaned closer, holding the seal above the worn wood, and tipping my cupped palm. Down the seal floated, like dandelion seeds on the wind, onto the box.
The golden net enveloped Pandora’s Box, which shuddered and sent out a rumble that vibrated through us. Lights flickered. The box was not pleased. It resisted, as if it had some sentience, but the net tightened and tightened, constricting the box and flowing around it until the worn wood was hard to see inside the crisscros
sing bands of golden light.
As the box sealed inside the net, its malevolent influence diminished until it was no more annoying than a fly buzzing in a distant corner. The waves of nausea subsided and my pounding head lightened. My skin was cold and clammy to the touch. I shivered, forcing my breathing to steady.
I held out my hand, hesitantly at first, and swallowed. It was now or never. I picked the box up.
Chapter Thirteen
It was warm and smooth under my fingers. Not like the last time I had held it. An overwhelming vortex of darkness and corruption that had threatened to tear apart my very being. I couldn’t feel anything of it, almost like it had disappeared from the world. I released my breath in a shudder.
Our seal had held.
“We’re good. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I tucked it into my jacket. Jamie followed me the opposite way to Cleo and her guests. We’d chance leaving by the front entrance. It was a long way. Before we had taken two steps, a blast above our heads shook through us and we dived for cover.
Cleo advanced from the other side of the crypt, her face white and lined with rage. “Which of you has it?” Her words sliced through the air, precise and cold.
“Go! I’ll hold her off,” Jamie hissed at me. He scrambled from our hiding place and charged towards her, glowing with light and crackling with electric-like magic that lashed and snapped at Cleo, pushing her back, but only slightly. He threw bolt after bolt at her, dodging her repostes, but never seeming to land a true blow.
He was being sloppy on purpose, I realised, to turn Cleo’s back towards me. She could counter him or me, but barely the pair of us. A snarl marred her face as she realised what we were doing. She whirled on me with her arms raised, cradling a ball of darkness before her.
I hurled a wall of flame at her as I broke cover and Jamie smashed into her back with another blast. She fell to her knees and her head and spine arched back from the impact of the magic slamming into her back. Her screech shattered right through me.