The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series

by Natalie Wright

  I felt my face wince at the sound. I wanted to cover my ears. The creature stopped its horrid wailing and gathered its lips into a terrible hyena smile.

  “You impressed in the arena,” the rider said. His voice was far louder and far older than the body from which it came.

  “Who are you?” Greta asked.

  “Who? Or do you mean what?”

  “Both,” Jake said.

  “I see both the nosy one and the curious one have spoken first,” the boy said as he indicated Greta and Jake. “And you,” he said as he approached me. “Don’t you want to know who and what I am?”

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “Your combat dazzled, but you disappoint generally. I must say I expected more from one of Brighid’s bitches. She’s slipping in her old age.”

  “Don’t speak ill of the Goddess,” I said while taking a step toward the boy.

  “I’ll speak however I want, of whomever I want, in my home,” the boy bellowed. His voice was as loud as thunder and filled the space around us as well as the space within. Then I felt cold – colder than I’d ever felt.

  Fanny’s yellow aura glowed around her, and Jake’s blue one created a bright bubble of light around him. Even Greta had a lovely pinkish aura that truth be told glowed even brighter than Jake’s. But this boy – he had no aura. It was like he was utterly devoid of light. Around him, a black smudge instead of the light surrounding us.

  “Your … your home?” I said between chattering teeth.

  “Yes, this is my home,” he said as he spread his arms wide. “Could it be that your esteemed Goddess neglected to teach you about me, Ciardha? Neglected to teach you about the Umbra Perdita?”

  “I had only beginning lessons,” I said. “And no, she did not mention this place or you, for that matter.”

  “My feelings are hurt,” he said. His lips formed a pout. “I see I will have to dispel this piece of your human ignorance then, though it is tedious beyond measure for me. My name is Ciardha, and you are in my world – one made just for me. You are in the Umbra Perdita. The place of shadows. The world of darkness.”

  “Are you the only one that lives here?” Greta asked.

  “I have my Dorcha, here,” he said as he once again patted the creature’s haunches. “My only distraction, my faithful companion.” The creature he called Dorcha rubbed her ugly snout against the boy’s shoulder.

  The black wisp buzzed before Ciardha’s eyes. It looked like it was trying to get his attention, but he just swatted it away.

  “Oh, there are others that have found their way into my world, from time to time. They all lose their minds after they’ve been here for a while. Alas, watching humanoids go insane is one of the few pleasures offered by my internment here.” He sighed.

  “Internment? You mean like a prison?” I asked.

  “You might call it that.”

  “So you’re not free to leave?” Fanny asked.

  “Of course I can’t leave, you insipid fool of a girl. If I could leave of my own accord, it wouldn’t be much of a prison now, would it?”

  The child was impudent – and frightening. His black eyes bore into me, so I tried not to look directly at them. And merely being in his presence made me freezing cold to my core. I didn’t know who – or what – had imprisoned Ciardha in the Umbra Perdita, but being in his presence for just minutes made me think they probably had a legitimate reason.

  “Who – or what – imprisoned you here? And why?” I asked.

  “This is not a deposition, and I am in charge here, not you!” he spat at me. “All that you need to know is that neither I nor any of you can leave. So welcome. Welcome to an unrestful eternity in my Umbra Perdita.”

  I could hear the intake of air from each of us and felt the collective collapse of our spirits. We had gotten through as much as we had because of the belief that we could somehow find our way out. In that moment, I felt so utterly defeated.

  Am I doomed to stay here forever? This demon child is bat shit crazy. Will I, too, go mad here? If I stay here much longer, I will.

  “You mean, we can never leave?” Fanny asked.

  “You have an aggravating tendency to restate the obvious. Are all humans as daft as this one?” Ciardha said as he stared at Fanny. Fanny’s aura wavered and became dotted with black spots as Ciardha stared at her. After a few seconds, he took his eyes from Fanny and looked straight at me.

  “You took a one-way trip into the Umbra Perdita. And you have your friend here to blame for it.” He pointed at me as he spoke.

  I felt all their eyes on me then. I never thought I’d live to see the day when Fanny and Jake would hold such anger in their eyes toward me.

  “But I didn’t know that we’d come here. I thought we’d end up in the Netherworld. I’d never bring you to this hell on purpose.”

  “You didn’t listen to me,” Jake seethed. “I told you there was a danger, and you wouldn’t listen. So eager to please Owen. All you thought of was yourself and your quest to be Miss Popularity.”

  “I didn’t know, Jake,” I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “You can’t cry your way out of this one, Em,” he said. “I’m talking about trust. You had the choice – trust me, or go the other way just ’cause that Neanderthal wanted you to. You chose what Owen wanted you to do. Now we’re all – now it’s hopeless.”

  “Well, you didn’t have to come with me,” I snapped back. “None of you had to come. It could have been just Owen and I, but no – you had to tag along. I’m sorry that I got us into this, but Jake, you gotta take some responsibility for your own choice.”

  “You’re in no place to tell us what we’ve got to do,” Fanny said. Her look was full of venom. It was hard to believe that just a few minutes ago I had held her motionless body in my arms and coached her back to health. That we’d embraced and cried into each other’s arms. She looked at me as if I was the devil. And her yellow aura continued to waver, more small spots of dark interspersed in it.

  We all began arguing, each pointing the finger, blaming and yelling at each other. I began to feel the ground shift beneath us, and I screamed for everyone to stop.

  “We have to stop arguing before we shift into another nightmare! Can’t you see what’s happening? He’s trying to turn us against each other so we’ll get all negative and enter into our nightmares. Us entering into our nightmares – I bet that’s his entertainment.”

  “While you are a superb diversion for me, you provide more than mere entertainment,” he said.

  I turned to Ciardha. He stood placidly with a slight bemused smirk on his face.

  “You feed off of our nightmares, don’t you?”

  “Feed? You may call it that. Your nightmares – your fear – are delicious to me. As your terror grows, so do I. As your light drains, my darkness thrives. And your fear, Miss Adams, is the most delicious to me of all.”

  “Why?”

  “The stronger the light, the more powerful the transfer of energy. You, bearer of the torc, you bring me the residual energy of so many others. You will make me strong – tremendously powerful indeed!”

  “Well, you can’t feed off of us if we’re dead,” Fanny said. “When we’re dead, your meal ticket will be gone.”

  “Oh, I don’t want you dead. Not yet anyway. If I’d wanted to kill you, your pathetic toy dagger would have been no help. Why do you think it was so easy to survive my arena games?”

  “Easy? You call that easy?” Jake asked.

  “He let us survive,” I said. I had felt good about myself – about my abilities. I’d saved my friends (and Greta). Surviving Ciardha’s so-called ‘games’ in his arena had given me hope. Maybe I got them into this nightmare, but I could also get them out. But when Ciardha said he’d let us win, what vestige of hope that remained inside of me drained right out.

  “I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re not going to have meals from us for long. Unless you’ve got food and water here, we’re going to
starve to death. You can’t suck any energy out of a corpse,” Fanny said.

  Ciardha bellowed a thunderous laugh, and his companion, Dorcha, sniggered.

  “Yes, yes. What kind of host am I? I so infrequently have guests, I forget my manners. You want nourishment? Then you shall have it.”

  Before us appeared a large, black table, piled with trays and dishes of food. I saw a platter with a large, perfectly browned roasted turkey. The smell was as divine an odor as I’d ever experienced. Another plate held a leg of lamb. Then there was roast beef, and buttery rolls. Bowls of green beans and saucers of gravy. I saw a large bowl heaped with mashed potatoes and a plate of Irish soda bread like we’d eaten in Ireland. A pan of gooey pizza, a plate of French fries. Hamburgers, hotdogs and barbecued chicken. Even over the putrid stench of the Umbra Perdita, I could smell the succulent roasted meats.

  I hadn’t been aware of my hunger before that. I’d been too busy surviving to notice the emptiness in the pit of my stomach. But the smell of food made my gut practically turn back on itself with hunger. I was thirsty beyond measure. I wanted to grab one of the pitchers filled with water and chug the whole thing down.

  We ran to the table. Fanny grabbed the entire plate of rack of lamb and a small bowl of mint jelly. Greta went feral on the turkey, yanking off a whole leg. Jake and I both reached for the bowl of mashed potatoes, ultimate comfort food.

  “Share?” I asked.

  I grabbed two spoons off the table.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  We jammed the spoons into the mound of creamy goodness. I stuffed a heaping spoonful into my mouth. I tasted the buttered potato, creamy and smooth. For the first time since we landed in the Umbra Perdita, I didn’t taste the awful metallic flavor of the place in my mouth.

  As I rolled the potatoes around, the texture began to change. All at once, it felt like glue in my mouth. And the pleasant, butter taste was gone. Instead, it tasted like rancid milk.

  I looked at Jake. His face wore an expression that looked like he wanted to spit out what was in his mouth.

  “God dang, what the heck is this foul crap?” Fanny yelled.

  I heard Greta retching.

  Jake and I both looked down at our bowl of heavenly mashed potatoes and immediately dropped it.

  The bowl that once held creamy deliciousness was now writhing with maggots. I looked over at the table that had only minutes before been piled with glorious eats. It was filled with slithering worms, skittering cockroaches, enormous beetles and other vermin.

  The Umbra Perdita was filled with the sound of four teenagers throwing up all at once. Over the sound of us puking, you could hear Ciardha’s thunderous laughter, and Dorcha’s earsplitting screeching.

  “It’s not funny, Ciardha,” Jake finally gagged out. “You haven’t solved this problem. We’re not going to eat this.”

  “Why? You requested nourishment.” He strode to the table, Dorcha following close behind. He plucked an enormous rat from a platter and fed it to Dorcha whole, its tail waggling as she slurped it in. She swallowed it whole and gave a loud braying whinny. Ciardha then grabbed a cockroach that had to be at least four inches long and promptly devoured it. “These offerings are highly nutritious. Are they not up to your standards?”

  “You know they’re not,” Jake replied. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  “Tease you with the thought of the things you desire, then take it away? Why? Because it’s fun.” Ciardha laughed. He then clapped his hands together like a child – which he was.

  “But we’re going to die if we don’t eat,” Fanny continued the protest.

  “Oh, don’t fear your death. It won’t come nearly fast enough for your taste.”

  “Are you saying we can’t die here?” I asked.

  “Die? If you mean the expiration of your body, then yes, you can die. But it won’t come from starvation, no need to worry yourselves about that. Really, Brighid’s chosen one, I would have thought you’d have figured this out by now.”

  “Figured what out, Ciardha?”

  “Like your Brighid’s Netherworld, this is a place unlike your own, with different rules, so to speak. Here, your physical bodies will not die from thirst, or starvation, or lack of air.”

  “Why not?” Jake asked.

  “Because I don’t want them to.” Ciardha laughed then, and his beast companion joined in with a hideous screechy braying. “This is my world, my rules.”

  “But we can die?” Greta asked.

  “If you bleed, you will die. But please, let’s play more now. I don’t want you to leave so soon. I’ve grown so large and strong since you’ve been here. Your dark thoughts have fed me well. That’s why I lured you here, you know.”

  “Lured? So it wasn’t my fault that we’re here but yours!”

  “I did not open the portal. You did that. I just knew that you would. And it has been such a fun game! I may have provided the bait, but you, Miss Adams, were the one that took it.”

  “And what did you use as bait?” Jake asked.

  “I used what I knew Miss Adams could not resist.”

  “Owen,” I whispered.

  Ciardha only smiled.

  We had been so preoccupied with Ciardha and his sneering companion, we’d forgotten about Owen. Dread seized me.

  “Where’s Owen?” I said, panicked. “What have you done with him?”

  “You still care for him, even though he cares nothing for you? Even though he was simply doing what I asked of him? Even though his kisses were merely a pretense to get you to come here so that I could imprison you with me?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Then ask him yourself,” Ciardha said.

  The ground beneath us shook, and the air around us got tighter, more restricting than ever on our bodies. There was a great CRACK! A dark hole opened above our heads, a parting of the ever-present red mist. Owen tumbled out of the sky and crash-landed on the shifting Umbra Perdita ground.

  Owen quickly stood but remained motionless. His clothes were caked with red dust, and his hair was matted to his forehead with sweat. His eyes had dark circles under them. Though we’d been in the Umbra Perdita for the same length of time, and he’d only been apart from us a fairly short while, Owen looked like he’d lost weight – and strength. His clothes hung on him.

  “Like your Brighid’s Netherworld, this is a place unlike your own, with different rules, so to speak,” Ciardha had said.

  Maybe wherever Owen had been, it was as if he’d been there a long time. It pained me to see him look so terrible, as if he’d been starved and tortured in some way.

  He glanced around and regarded each of us in turn. It looked as if he was trying to get his bearings. His eyes rested on me. He showed no recognition of me – and no passion for me either.

  “Owen,” I said.

  “Who are you?” he asked. His voice was raspy and came out little more than a whisper.

  “Owen. I’m Emily. Don’t you remember me? Do you remember any of us?”

  “I don’t know you,” he said, shaking his head. He scanned our faces and rested his eyes on Greta. “You. I know you. You’re Greta Hoffman. You’re a cheerleader.”

  Greta smiled wide, and I swear she batted her eyelashes at him. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m your friend – a good friend,” she added.

  “But, Owen, don’t you remember? You asked me to go to Austin’s party with you? And we went to the party together, and Fanny here came too. And in the garden, at Austin’s house?”

  His eyes still registered no recognition. He looked at me as if he had never seen me before in his life.

  “Look, no offense. You’re a pretty good-looking girl and all. But I only date the hot girls in school. I don’t know anything about you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not my type. And I don’t remember being in a garden with you.”

  Plump tears poured from my eyes. Owen had played me. It may have been against his will because it looked
like he didn’t even know what he was doing. But he’d played me just the same. And not only had I fallen for the trap, but I’d brought my two best friends and two other innocent people along for the ride to Purgatory. Just because I wanted to prove … what? That I wasn’t just a freak? I may have been under some sort of spell too, but pride had made me do it. Pride had opened the portal, and I’d as good as murdered them all.

  “How Ciardha? How did you do it? I thought you were trapped in this world,” I said.

  Ciardha and Dorcha both laughed at me. His laugh was loud and thunderous, Dorcha’s a high-pitched keening wail.

  “You are correct. The present state of affairs has me trapped here. A state I hope to change. Alas, my Dark Energy influence on your world is limited. But I found one that could help. I gained assistance from someone you know – know of, anyway. Quite a duplicitous creature. Can you guess who?”

  “We’re not playing games with you, Ciardha,” Jake said.

  “Oh, you’ll play my games as long as I want you to.”

  Suddenly Jake was convulsing wildly and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Ciardha held out his hand, and a visible, black electric current shot from his hands toward Jake. It was as if current from a Tesla coil sprang from Ciardha’s fingertips.

  “Stop it!” I screamed.

  “I shall stop when you play my game.”

  “Fine, we’ll make guesses for your stupid game. Just stop it,” Fanny pleaded.

  Ciardha didn’t immediately respond, but after a few seconds, he released Jake.

  “I suppose I must pace myself. If you die too quickly, it will spoil my fun. Now, one of you humans guess for me.”

  We were silent. Jake got himself up off the ground, shaken but okay.

  “Guess now, or I’ll zap him again,” Ciardha bellowed.

  “We’re thinking, okay?”

  “He said it was someone you know,” Fanny said to me.