by SGD Singh
“Shit,” they said in unison. Koko grumbled, “So, what? We wait outside and…”
Lexi turned to continue along the broken tracks. “Keep a look out.”
“For what?”
“For whatever!” Lexi hissed, waving her arms. “Do your job. Give the signal if you see anything.”
She heard one of them say something in Diné, that she was pretty certain was profanity, but she ignored it.
They had reached the entrance to the abandoned mine shaft.
“Ariella, you're with Kenda and Koko,” Lexi saw her friend's expression flash with indignation, but Lexi just tapped the device on her wrist that connected all of them. “Signal us at the first sign of movement out there.”
Ariella jerked her chin up at Lexi. “Copy that,” she said. “And Lex… you did the right thing making Nidhan stay back.”
Lexi nodded at the ground, but the look of betrayal on Nidhan's face flashed before her eyes again, as if on repeat. Focus, she told herself. There's fuck all you can do about that now, except stay alive.
Ariella threw herself at Lexi, crushing her into a tight embrace. “You watch your ass in there,” she said.
Lexi hugged Ariella back, some dark part of her mind was sure this would be the last time she saw her friend.
“Tick-tock,” Ursala said. “Witches being tortured into making gaseous tar, remember?”
Ariella kissed Ursala once, then shifted to take up her post beside Kenda and Koko on the crumbling structure's roof. Three birds of prey would be able to keep watch over miles of the frozen perimeter.
Lexi moved her hand through the air, and Kelakha and Ursala fell into step on either side of her.
Beyond the collapsing door, a narrow tunnel angled steeply down into the earth. As they began their descent along the first incline shaft, Lexi tried to ignore the roiling darkness clinging to the shaft's ceiling in ripples of pitch above her. The walls were covered in thick, jagged ice, that shone bright white in her night vision, like the inside of a giant malfunctioning freezer.
The tunnel got steeper, and the bent and rusted stairs became nearly vertical as they dropped into an even deeper, darker hole.
“Oh, this isn't creepy at all,” Ursala grumbled. “Fucking hell.”
A rusted winch and cable ran along the steep ladder-stairs, and Lexi said what she knew they were all thinking. “How the hell are we supposed to get a bunch of tortured Witches to climb all the way back up here?”
Kelakha tapped the left side of his jacket. “I've got twenty-five doses of Prabhnoor's special ‘Civilian Anti-hysteria’ shots.”
“I've got another twenty-five,” Ursala said.
Lexi stopped. “Why don't I have any?”
Neither answered, seeming intent on climbing deeper into the mine's shaft.
“Oh, please,” Lexi called after them. “I'm perfectly capable of giving someone an injection without killing them.”
Lexi looked back up the incline shaft, and hoped the Witches weren't being held much deeper inside the earth. As if in answer to her anxiety, the tunnel forked in three directions and Kelakha led them into the right-hand drift tunnel which opened up moments later at the mouth of a wide cavern.
Fucking hell is right.
It looked as if an explosion in the mine had created a giant room of black stone, and Lexi wondered how the Underworlders had created it without collapsing the entire hill on their heads.
And at the center of the cavern, Lexi counted thirteen Witches, barefoot and dressed only in rags, chained to the ceiling by their fingers. After a few seconds, she realized they were arranged in an elaborate star formation, with three at the center, then five spread out into points, and another five behind them.
Each Witch was engulfed in green fire, and, even creepier, black smoke poured from all of their eyes.
Lexi scanned the darkness beyond the formation and saw the bodies piled along the walls of the cavern like trash. There were dozens of dead Witches, discarded in a tangle of limbs, their hands blackened, their fingers burnt to stumps.
Lexi murmured to Ursala, “They're using them up and tossing them aside like…”
“Matches?”
“Whatever,” Lexi snapped.
Kelakha pointed. “They're stashing more Witches in that tunnel.”
“Give them injections and get them the hell out of here,” Lexi said aloud, knowing they all needed to hear the sound of voices in this dead place. “I'm gonna figure out how to set these free.”
Kelakha shifted, disappearing into the tunnel as Ursala made his way around the edges of the room to follow him.
Lexi waited.
The cavern was eerily silent, and Lexi felt her adrenaline spike as she tensed, waiting for the jaws of the trap to snap shut. The mission felt too easy. Had the Underworlders left the Witches alone because they didn't think they could be found? Or because they were coming right back?
The chained Witches were like wax statues, made into some sort of gruesome light fixture rather than human beings, and Lexi shivered as the silence thickened.
Ursala began to lead the first of the Witches out, who stumbled, dazed, and Kelakha followed behind, leading the rest. Lexi turned her attention to signaling Ariella.
All clear. Stand by.
She was glad to see that at least these Witches were dressed more for the weather. At least, she thought they were. It was hard to tell what they wore under the layers of filth and soot.
She saw them notice the bodies of their fallen sisters, and watched their grime-covered faces harden with rage. When the Witches saw their sisters in the macabre formation around the green flames, they moved toward them with a united shriek, and Lexi felt a sudden kinship with them, surprising herself. These girls, almost dead themselves, wanted to fight.
She shifted, swooping to land between the Witches and the green fire, her revolvers pointed at them, and the Witches halted.
This close, Lexi realized they were young girls. Too young.
“Once I break this spell,” Lexi told them, waving at the green fire, we'll have company. So unless you're well enough to fight, or to carry one of your sisters up a shitload of very crappy stairs, go. Now.”
Lexi wasn't sure if any of the Witches spoke English. At least five of them looked blank, as if they hadn't understood a word she'd said. But the other ten stepped forward.
The smallest Witch hissed something at the others in a language that made Lexi's skin crawl with the memory of the Underworld, then she turned to Lexi. “We will stay to help our sisters,” she said. “We are not as helpless as you think. You will do well to remember this.”
“Says the girl who was trapped behind less than a foot of cursed rubble five seconds ago,” said Ursala, and a few Witches glanced at him with cold indifference. He flipped his ax and caught it with a flick of his blond-streaked hair, winking at the nearest Witch.
Lexi shook her head. Ursala would flirt with traumatized Witches barely old enough for grade school. Jesus.
“Okay,” Lexi told them, drawing their attention back to herself. “But if you want to help, you'll have to get an injection.”
The Witches who understood English spun to glare at Ursala, who took the opportunity to wiggle his eyebrows, and Kelakha stepped forward before someone got hurt.
He held a few of the shots he'd been carrying. “It will help you have the strength for—whatever you need to do,” he told them. “It will wear off within a couple of hours, I promise.”
They stepped away from Kelakha with obvious distrust.
“Either that, or you can all leave right now,” Lexi snapped. “We promised Ranya we'd get you out of here alive, and I don't plan on fucking that up any more than it already is.” She jerked her head toward the pile of corpses against the wall.
The smallest Witch glowered at Lexi while the others waited.
After hissing something in creepy Witch-language, she said, “Ranya? Where is she?”
Lexi glanced at Kelakha and Urs
ala, but they had both looked at the blackened ground.
“She didn't make it,” Lexi told the Witch. “She sacrificed herself.” When they all started in disbelief, she added, “I'm sorry.”
The smallest Witch took a step forward and pointed a scarred finger at Lexi. “We will take the medicine you have brought,” she said. “But you will keep your filthy Guard hands off us. Understood?”
“Whatever you say.” Lexi raised her hands and stepped back. “Just move fast, ladies. I'm guessing we already tripped some of your friendly captor's alarms.”
The Witch nodded once, and Kelakha and Ursala held the syringes out to them. They each took one, careful not to touch the gloved hands of a Guard, while Lexi tried not to roll her eyes.
“Are there clothes for them?” Lexi said, jerking a thumb at the Witches around the fire. “The conditions outside aren't exactly human-friendly.”
A few girls hurried back to the hole in the wall, then returned carrying rags Lexi assumed were some kind of coats. It was better than nothing.
Lexi turned her attention back to the strange green fire. “Asura did this?”
A few of the Witches snorted, baring their teeth in snarls, and the little one said, “Hardly. Ranya taught us better than that.” A few of the Witches grinned, and one of them giggled.
Lexi felt her skin crawl.
“We call them Yama's wives,” said the little one, her tone almost sing-song. “Your Satya legends know them better as Sekhmet, Helheim, and The Morrigan.”
“Wait.” Lexi tried to remember anything in the Guard books. “You're being held captive by an Egyptian goddess of war and destruction, a Viking half-Zombie Ruler of The Underworld, and an Irish Phantom Crow Queen of The Battlefield? Do you guys seriously think this is the time to fuck with us?”
The English-speaking Witches were pretty much all giggling now, but they didn't look happy. They looked depraved. “The Asura have gods too,” the little Witch said, her smile chilling in Lexi's night vision. “And those gods have arrived to help them.” She wiggled scarred fingers. “Well, after a few spells, anyway.”
Everyone stopped laughing abruptly, and Lexi shivered. Apparently, there was no such thing as a make-believe monster.
“And their husband?” Lexi asked the Witches. “Don't tell me there's an actual God of Fucking Death stuck in our realm.”
A slightly older Witch with a slash across one cheek giggled hysterically. “The Asura call him what can sort of be translated as The God of Death, so we starting calling him Yama, as a joke.”
The little Witch grinned up at Lexi, who almost stepped back from the insanity in her gaze. “For fun like,” she whispered, then added in an ordinary voice, “We've never seen him.”
Somehow, that did not reassure her.
Ursala slapped one hand against his leg. “Awesome chat! I would love to get the hell out of here now, if you don't mind.”
Lexi moved into place. She pointed her revolver at the fire-covered metal holding the Witch's hands, moving her thumb to engage a holy water round, and Kelakha and Ursala did the same, beginning with the three Witches at the center of the star.
“Take up positions behind them,” Lexi called to the other Witches. “If I'm right, they won't be able to stand on their own, so you'll have to help them if you don't want our contaminated hands to touch them.”
Three Witches moved into place, and Lexi said, “Ready? Now!”
The holy water disturbed the spell, and the green fire flared bright with the shock, sending a loud crack reverberating throughout the cavern. Lexi, Kelakha, and Ursala moved quickly to free the rest of the Witches, dousing each of their restraints with holy water and releasing them into the arms of a waiting Witch.
Within thirty seconds the entire group began their ascent out of the mine. Kelakha took the lead, followed by Lexi, her weapons at the ready, tag-teaming Kelakha around every twisting corner of the tunnel, and Ursala took the rear guard, behind the Witches.
The Witches kept up without a complaint, despite their terrible injuries. Lexi knew they were probably also suffering from dehydration and shock, not to mention the frostbite that would set in any second. Their determination was a beautiful thing, and Lexi felt another twinge of admiration.
The black smoke began to evaporate into the ice that caked the jagged ceiling, leaving a ghostly white path to freedom.
“Just a little farther,” Lexi called over her shoulder. She tried to move slowly, but the closest Witches simply glared up at her, struggling in silence under the weight of their sisters.
Finally, Lexi caught sight of the mine's open door, cutting off the ice-covered walls, and the blank, solid darkness. The sky hadn't cleared yet.
Lexi pressed a button on her wrist, signaling to the others that they were coming out, and Ariella, Koko, and Kenda appeared at the mine's entrance, eager to help.
“We aren't to touch them,” Lexi warned them, then signaled for them to be on alert for a Patala attack.
At the sign for the lowest Underworld, they looked alarmed.
“It's all clear,” Koko told Lexi. “Except the black smoke stopped pouring into the sky about two minutes ago.”
Ursala motioned the Witches east, where the airplane waited on the other side of a hill, and they continued to march on across the frozen rocks, Witches more like dazed Zombies. “It's just one more short hike, ladies, you're almost there,” he called to them. He turned to Ariella, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. “Apparently there are three goddesses of the psychotic killer variety helping the Asura.”
“Speak of the devil,” Lexi breathed, and they all turned to follow her gaze.
Green light swirled around three figures as they approached the mine's entrance, gliding as if on air. Each of them was more striking than the last, and Lexi's wonder almost outweighed the thrill of approaching combat.
It was clear that the Underworlders hadn't seen them. The green light surrounding them seemed to block off their vision in the thick darkness.
But one thing was certain. They couldn't be left, free to wreak havoc on Satya. Lexi knew with certainty that the Underworlders were powerful, more than likely too powerful, but someone would have to keep an eye on them until backup arrived.
Lexi signaled to Ursala and Ariella to hurry the Witches to the plane and take off without them.
Ursala started, motioning Lexi to reconsider the leaving part, but she refused, slashing the air in a rude gesture and turning away from him.
The four remaining Jodha shifted and flew to the roof of the mine's entrance, watching in silence as the three Underworlders grew closer.
They were exquisite, in an absolutely terrifying way, and Lexi knew immediately why the Witches had compared them to the legendary Helheim, Sekhmet, and The Morrigan. Helheim wore armor made from what looked like skeletons, with human skulls gracing her shoulders, and the ribs of something definitely not human across her chest. As she grew closer, Lexi saw that half of the creature really was decayed, just like the legends claimed.
To Helheim's right was Sekhmet. She wore only a skirt, leaving her enormous breasts bare in the green light. Lexi could almost hear Ursala say, “Monster tits don't freeze. Good to know!” She had a lion's head, and the fur ran along her shoulders, back, and arms ending in hands with the most brutal claws Lexi had ever seen. They dripped with red blood that decorated her skirt and legs. She halted, sniffing the air, then grimaced, revealing rows of lacerated teeth that were nothing like a lion's.
The Morrigan was the most striking of the three. She seemed neither human nor bird, but rather a fusion of both. She held a spear that looked as if it was made from the bones of dead crows, with a crow skull at the top. She wore a crown of beaks that framed a gorgeous, hollow-eyed face. Black feathers and bird feet of every shape and size decorated her form from neck to frozen ground, the feathers shining like velvet in the green light, hundreds of talons tapping cheerfully as she moved.
Lexi could fully imagine her tur
ning into a flock of black crows to soar over the slaughtered remains of a battlefield.
The three Underworlders disappeared into the mouth of the mine a moment later, and Lexi lifted off the structure with a beat of her wings, swooping to land on her human feet at the top of the hill behind the mine. Kelakha, Koko, and Kenda followed.
The four of them looked at each other.
Then Koko said what they were all thinking.
“Shit.”
Chapter 30
“What?” Aquila jerked awake, shrugging the hand off his shoulder more roughly than he intended.
“I said, you should eat something,” Jax said, taking a step back from him and then getting that pissed-off look she always got when she'd been startled.
“I'm not hungry,” he said, then leaned his forehead back against Asha's bed and closed his eyes.
“You should eat anyway,” Jax snapped, relentless.
Aquila groaned. “Go away, Jax.”
A girl can't pass out without her husband bullying civilians, is that it?
Asha!
Aquila leapt to his feet, taking Asha in his arms and kissing her, forgetting Jax was even in the room until the civilian coughed and said, “He hasn't eaten all day.”
Asha's lips didn't leave his.
Eat. Where else will you get your strength? He could hear her smiling and feel her joy as he finally pulled away.
“Silas,” he heard Jax breathe, and she rushed across the room to where the other Seer also sat up in his bed.
BapuJi entered the room, shoving Aquila aside without a word. He checked Asha's eyes and forced a green drink into his granddaughter's hands.
“See?” he said to Aquila without looking at him. “I told you she was fine. Now eat something.”
Aquila saw the plate of food Jax brought and realized he was hungry after all. He sank into the chair to eat as BapuJi went to Silas and handed him another green drink.
Silas looked around. “Where is Nidhan?”
“He's here,” Jax said. “Probably in the forgery.”
“Or standing right behind you,” Nidhan said, making Jax jump and curse.