by Mark Tufo
In seconds, the whirling rush of air ramped up a hundred fold into the force of a tornado. Not pushing out. Pulling in! The propellers were sucking the air – and anything else – out of the chamber. Tamsin was jerked off her feet as though the rug had been pulled out from under her. Her Prime reactions were blindingly fast and she grabbed the door handle to stop from being pulled into the spinning blades. As if sensing her resistance, the machines groaned into an even faster gear, doubling their speed The roar was deafening.
Reaching with one hand, she tried to swing herself over towards the next door. Bad move. She lost her hold and spun through the air towards the blades. Spreading her arms and legs wide, she caught onto the frame around one of the propeller vents, digging her claws into the metal and pushing against it with the souls of Angelique's motorcycle boots. The blades were only inches from slicing off her face. She watched helplessly as Angelique's long black hair caught in the blades until it had been pulled and chopped off to half its length. Muscles screaming in pain, Tamsin strained against the pull of the suction only realizing then that being chopped to bits wasn't her only problem. Soon all the air would be gone.
Abruptly the propellers slowed, squeaking and squealing to a stop. The metal panels slid out from the side and rumbled to a close. Tamsin let go and dropped to her feet. The machinery was still quietly humming; she could hear it. Tamsin tried to take a deep breath and discovered there was almost no air to be had.
Making for the vault door, Tamsin tried to call out a word to soundlight the way. The word caught in her throat as nothing but a strangled gasp. Jingling the keys instead, she found the door and desperately tried to turn the crank.
Locked tight.
'No air, no more air!' Her mind screamed.
There was no choice except to go forward. Stumbling back to the three doors, jingling the key ring to show her the way, she fumbled for the key to the second lock. Her hands were shaking so hard, the keys slipped out of her fingers and crashed to the floor, releasing a bright burst of soundlight.
Breathe, she had to breathe!
Any second now it would be over. She clawed at her throat, sinking to her knees, without even a voice to scream in fear. That's when she realized she was still holding her breath. Fighting the reflex to gulp the non-existent air, Tamsin pulled herself back to her feet. Okaaaay. Still holding it.
Angelique was an elemental and lack of air couldn't kill her. She might also be able to manipulate it. If there actually was any air to control, which there no longer seemed to be. What an idiot she was. Maybe she could have pulled it back. Fought against the machine. She felt light-headed and nauseous. Just because she wouldn't die, didn't mean she might not eventually collapse into the vampire version of suspended animation. There are many degrees of near death without actually falling off the precipice. Tamsin knew that better than anybody.
Passing out would be very bad.
'Hurry, hurry, hurry!' her nerves screamed.
The keys were right there, by the door. Pulling herself up by the handle, she clumsily pushed the second key towards the next lock, feeling for the hole with her fingertips. There. She pressed it in.
The vacuum's complete absence of sound was replaced by a rush of, what? It sounded like water. Air flowed back into the chamber, she could feel the touch of it on her cheeks. Enough for a breath at last.
Something whisper soft flowed around her feet. Her sense of panic ramped up to code red and she jumped. Water? If it was water, she would drown. When she landed, Tamsin realized it wasn't water at all. It was sand. Sand pouring in; moving as fast as any liquid. Changing from a trickle to a torrent, piles of it rushed and roiled and roared, moving along with the flow. There was something else in the sand. Odd shapes. The noise was loud enough to create beacons of soundlight. Narrowing her vision, she realized they were bodies. Or parts of bodies to be more precise. Most dried and thin, others still fleshy. The smell of old corpses, human and otherwise, was overpowering to the Prime's nose. They must be what was left of Theo's previous helpers; caught up in the machinery and chopped, suffocated, or crushed.
She had her own skin to worry about. Within moments, the sand reached her knees. It was coming in too fast, there was no time to explore Angelique's abilities with earth, whatever they might be. Besides, she was in a locked, steel-plated and obviously air-tight room. There was no place for the sand to go. Gripping the last key, Tamsin waded through, trying to reach the lock. Only Angelique's vast strength allowed her to press against the massive weight. The grains were so fine she couldn't get on top of the pile, sinking in every time she tried to climb out. The sand was now up to her shoulders and still coming. She shoved her hand through, trying to find the keyhole. Her prime-style echolocation no help against this nearly sold wall.
Not there.
Damn.
Not there either.
Oh God, she couldn't find it. No. Wait. Against her thumb, a raised button, not inverted like the last two.
Desperately, she squirmed, digging the medallion this way and that to get it to fit. The sand swiftly topped her head and Tamsin thought the terror alone would stop the Prime's heart. She would be immobilized. If Theo didn't or couldn't open the door, she would be trapped here, unable to die and unable to escape.
With strength born of true panic, she tried to call on whatever elemental power might be hiding beneath the surface of Angelique's muscle memories. A shivering, shuddering energy flowed through her arm into her fingertips grasping the last key. A sonic burst sent out a shock wave that pressed just enough of the massed grains back for her to push the key onto the button and into place.
The sound of rumbling engines abruptly screeched to a stop, leaving only the sound of sand grains skittering here and there. Tamsin tried to claw her way up and out. Perhaps it didn't fill the room all the way to the top. She had made maybe one frustrating inch of progress when the rumbling and grumbling started up again. The sand began to drain away nearly as quickly as it poured in. As the back wall cleared, the propellers started up again sucking the room clean, taking the mangled body parts with it. The crushing weight began to release its grip.
Tamsin hung grimly onto the door handle, feet dangling in the air, retching and heaving as her lungs tried to clear themselves. The pull did not have quite the same terrifying strength as before or Tamsin might not have been quite so lucky. In minutes the propellers ground to a halt and the doors slid noisily home. Tamsin sank to her knees, feeling a sprinkling of grit on the floor. That explained where the sand came from.
The two traps must have been what killed all the others. Lack of oxygen first and then, even if they brought breathing apparatus, the terrible pull of the propellers and then the crushing sand.
That had been a close call. Immortal she might be, invulnerable she was not. It was a few minutes before she could calm herself enough to follow Theo's instructions and only turn the handle of the door on the left. She entered, or more accurately, fell through into the other chamber.
The engines hummed back into life and Tamsin scrambled like a crab back up against the wall wondering, 'what now?' Overhead, several banks of fluorescent lights flickered to life, blinking sporadically. They must be on an automatic trigger for the door.
Lights. That's all, just lights.
Directly in front of her stood a towering wooden sarcophagus roughly shaped like a human, arms crossed. Similar in some ways to those of ancient Egypt, though it must predate those by many centuries if her memory served her right. The Assyrian empire was one of the first true civilizations that pulled itself together in Mesopotamia.
Almost the entire surface of the object was covered in wide, painted blue eyes outlined in black. The flickering lights almost made them look like they were blinking.
Tamsin stared.
Oh spit, they were blinking.
Cautiously, she approached the thing. A few blinking eyes swiveled to look directly at her. More followed until they were all staring. The ceiling lights cont
inued their electric light show, flashing on and off and fueling the creepiness factor exponentially.
There were no chains or ropes around the sarcophagus. Just a thick clay amulet nearly a foot across plastered near the top where the face should be. She had to stand on tiptoe to see that it was covered in the same chicken-scratch style writing as on the walls. Assyrian, presumably, given Puzuzu's origins.
Theo told her to break the seal on the casket. A casket was a coffin and a coffin by any other name was a sarcophagus. There were a great many boxes and crates scattered around the large room. Some painted, though none with the roving eyes of the larger one that she could see. This seemed to be the only truly casket-like object.
She heard the vault door swing open in the other room and a “whoop!” That must be Theo.
Now to break the amulet. She didn't need a weapon; she was a Prime.
“Oh my garter snakes!” Theo shouted from the doorway. “I've never gotten this far. Never, ever, ever. This is so awesome...so...ohmmeter stop!”
Raising her fists, she brought them down on the thick clay, shattering it into dust.
The sarcophagus swung open revealing its hellish occupant: A man-size clay statue of the winged, lion-faced demon, Puzuzu. Opening its eyes, the same piercing blue as those painted on the sarcophagus, the demon gave a mighty shudder, shattering the thick covering of clay. The shards fell away revealing flesh, feathers, claws and teeth.
Big teeth.
The monster leapt at her.
“Why did you do that?” screamed Theo.
“Ugh!” shouted Tamsin running up and over the wall as the demon lunged for her throat, claws outstretched. “Why didn't you tell me what was in there!”
“No one has ever been stupid enough to open the sarcophagus before! I said casket. Casket! Look out!”
Beating its double, insect-like wings, the monster rushed at her with blinding speed. Tamsin kicked up and out with both feet, landing a hit squarely in its face, knocking it off balance. Slipstreaming she jumped to the opposite side of the room looking desperately for some sort of weapon, the lights sputtering and sparking. A flash caught her eye. A crowbar. Reaching for the tool, she almost had it in her grip when a wrenching pull to her long hair jerked her backwards right into the embrace of the demon.
Puzuzu's talons dug into her arms, tearing through the sleeves of Drake's coat and ripping into her skin. Tamsin head-butted him hard. Baring her fangs and claws, she sliced into the demon's flesh. The taste of its blood was vile to Angelique's body, making her gag. The demon roared in pain and let go.
“The casket!” Theo shouted. “Break the seal on the casket so I can come in!”
“What casket?” she shouted back, narrowly evading the demon's claws as she ran almost perpendicular to the floor along one wall.
The tears she had made in its skin were rapidly healing over, she saw. Damn.
Theo jumped up and down in frustration, beating against the invisible barrier. “About two feet long, clay seal on top, oh, watch the teeth! Watch the teeth!”
Catching her by the back of Drake's coat with its fangs, the demon jerked Tamsin off the floor and she flew through the air, right by Theo in the doorway and Drake.
Wait.
What?
She sailed by his astonished face .
“Tamsin! What the hell?”
◦ Chapter 10
Drake had been angry. Really, unaccountably, unreasonably angry to come out of the shower and find the lost soul gone. No note. Nothing except a grilled cheese sandwich rapidly cooling on a plate.
Throwing on some clothes, he stepped outside in case she just went to grab some air or coffee or something. He cast for Angelique's scent, one he knew well. It was already cold. She had been this way, though, her footsteps in the snow leading out into the street.
Stalking back into the hideaway, he slammed the heavy steel door, swearing under his breath, his mind racing. He'd wanted Angelique gone and now she was, in a sense. So what did it matter if the little soul-lost spirit had slipped away as well? She'd made him a sandwich which was more than most of his other liaisons had ever left him with.
He picked up the sandwich and swallowed it in a few bites. Damn the girl. Woman. Spirit. Whatever she was. Damn her and her bouncy breasts and laughing mouth. Damn those blue eyes and hungry kisses. Damn her soft skin and sense of humor and strength to face almost insurmountable supernatural odds. Damn her body and her lovemaking and the way her scent lingered in this dark apartment. Damn her Swiss safety deposit box full of souls bits and her smile when she sipped her coffee. Damn her.
He kept on damning her as he rummaged though the closet for another coat, finished dressing and set off down the street to track her with his iPad and his damn good hunting skills.
Now, several hours later, he damned her again as he saw the lion-faced creature with feathered insect wings attempting to dash her brains out.
A slim boy with unruly hair stood hovering in the doorway of a very sandy steel vault intently watching the mayhem. Sensing Drake, the boy turned and sketched him a jaunty salute, “Hello there. You smell like her. Or she smells like you. Are you after the demon as well?”
Drake grabbed him around the throat and started to shake.
Still gripping the coat, the demon flung Tamsin around in circles like a track and field athlete in the hammer throw. This time round she saw Drake seemed to be throttling Theo who shouted “Help!” as she whipped past. Flashing her claws, she ripped at the sleeves of the big coat, tearing them easily and out she sailed through the air to land hard in the doorway, practically at the dark Fae's feet.
He dropped Theo, “What have you done to my coat?”
Stepping through the doorway, obviously the magic border did not affect him either, he pushed her to the side, pulling out a wide, curved blade and barreled towards the demon.
Flapping its wings furiously, the demon fluttered backwards away from them both. Raising its arms, the demon screamed out a spell that made Tamsin's hair stand on end. Tamsin felt the same tug of wind as in the vault, throwing her hair into the air. In a heartbeat, the tug turned to a pull and the pull to something far more deadly.
She flung her eyes up to meet Theo's.
“God of the East Wind,” he choked out in answer to her unspoken question, rubbing his throat. “Well, one of his avatars.”
“You have got to be kidding.” Was all she had time to say before the wind howled and spun creating a maelstrom of chaos that had her hanging on by Angelique's long fingernails to the door frame. Drake was trading blows with the demon who had picked up the crowbar. The demon was roaring and Drake roared right back. They seemed unaffected by the winds. Standing in the eye of the storm.
Tamsin held tight as smaller objects flew by or bounced, painfully, off her, caught up by the storm. She cursed Theo with every epithet she knew.
Theo pointed at a box tumbling through the air. “That's it, that's it! The casket with the statuette, grab it!”
Zeroing in on the box with vampire vision, she realized she'd have to let go to do as he said. The wind caught her immediately. She was pulled into the windstorm, tossed and tumbling, turning up and over.
Air was one of Angelique's elements. Tamsin had almost forgotten that in the vacuum of the vault. Now she would use this demon's wind power to her advantage. She let her fangs and claws extend, willing herself to vamp out. The thrill of the Prime's true power spread out into every nerve. Around her the air took on a visible quality, the energy painted with bright, glowing colors that took on form and substance. She felt the ephemeral threads of air thicken in her hands. Grasping the strands, Tamsin pulled herself slowly towards the little wooden casket. The wind's grip tried again and again to push her back. Once summoned, Angelique's power could not be brushed aside so easily.
Flicking her eyes towards Drake, she saw he had cut the demon deeply again and again. Each time the wounds healed over immediately.
Their eyes met briefly and s
he heard him shout, “What the fu...” before the wind snatched his words away
The casket was almost in reach. She had to tear through several painted – and probably priceless – scrolls that were rapidly unraveling, to finally grasp it.
“Break the seal!”Theo shouted, his voice cracking.
And she did. Shattering it as she had the one on the sarcophagus.
A seismic ripple of energy shot out in waves from the casket bringing the storm to a sudden, complete halt. The wind subsided and Tamsin, along with everything else suspended in the maelstrom, fell heavily to the floor.
With a cry of triumph, Theo sprang through the doorway, grabbing the casket out of Tamsin's hands. Flinging away the top, he pulled out a clay statue identical to the monster she and Drake were battling, though no more than a foot tall. Roaring, the demon pushed by Drake and threw himself at the boy. Theo jumped nimbly out of the demon's reach, raising the statuette over his head.
“No,” screamed Tamsin, springing to her feet as she realized his intent.
Even slipstreaming she was too late; Theo just that much faster. He smashed the clay demon to pieces against the metal frame of the vault.
Puzuzu's avatar froze in mid-stride, claws open and grasping. Opening its mouth, the demon began to scream. A horrifying scream that rose up the scale to an unbearable level. Drake grabbed the crowbar out of its claws and smashed the iron bar into the monster's chest. The avatar shattered into jagged pieces exactly like the statue, crumbling to dust before their eyes.
She rushed to Theo, gripping him in a hammer lock, one arm around his throat. “I needed that statue,” she growled in his ear. “I needed it very much.”
“Awk,” Theo choked out. “Awk, awl.” He waved one hand in front of her face.