by Jasmine Walt
My insides iced over.
“Okay, I get it.” I sucked in a breath. “She’s bad. Real bad. But you’re a god. Why didn’t you fight her?”
“She was inside my mind, whispering promises of power, of greatness.” His shoulders sagged. “I’ve always been the messenger—back and forth from the immortal realm to the mortal—ridiculed amongst my peers, never taken seriously. There was anger inside me. Daughter of Chaos found it, tapped into it, and exploited it until she didn’t need me any longer. She found a stronger, more appealing host that allowed her to shape-shift.” His gaze slid away as if he was too ashamed to meet my eyes. “She locked me down here and has been parading as me ever since.”
“So why try to corrupt me? Why didn’t this Daughter of Chaos just kill me straight off?”
“She didn’t know she could, not until recently. You see, only another naga or Garuda can kill a naga. The first fact she discovered a few weeks back, so she had you attack a naga in the hopes that he would kill you. Garuda’s function she extracted from me a few days ago, along with the location of the artifact she needed to control him.” He exhaled through his nose. “I’m sorry, Malina. I was too weak to fight her any longer.”
If he was telling me the truth, none of this was his fault. It also meant we were dealing with something way beyond our comprehension.
Shit!
“Where is she?”
“Recharging. Controlling Garuda has taken a lot out of her. She’s still only a shadow of herself. You have an hour, maybe two at the most, before she rises. She’ll bring Garuda, and she will watch him kill you because pain and destruction are her fuel of choice.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry . . . so sorry.”
I clenched my jaw to stem the rising panic. I had two hours to live. I just hoped that was long enough for Eamon and the others to find me.
32
Not willing to sit around and wait to die, I started looking around for ways to escape. The exits to the platform were now hastily bricked-up archways. But maybe the tracks would offer a way out. I approached them, intending to climb down and explore.
“Wait!”
I paused. “What?”
“There are traps on the tracks. She put them there to prevent me from leaving.”
Bloody marvelous. Okay, so, no exit, but there had to be something I could do aside from twiddling my thumbs. Action kept the panic at bay, which in turn staved off the terror.
“I can’t believe she fooled the gods into thinking she was you,” I said.
Narada kept his gaze trained on the ground. “She has an immortal host and access to my thoughts and memories. It was easy to blend in.”
“Can she read your thoughts now?”
“Not while she is asleep.”
“Good. Listen. Eamon is going to find me. He’ll bring Indra.” I lifted the back of my shirt. “I have a tracking sigil.”
I wasn’t expecting a whoop-de-doo and a tap dance, but a little spark of light in those dull eyes would have sufficed. Instead, Narada sagged, folding in on himself as if he wished he could simply disappear.
“It won’t work. Not down here. The most powerful one has the place warded. No one is going to find us. There is no escape.”
The fist of fear punched a hole in my gut, and a yawning pit of hopelessness opened inside me.
I was trapped.
No, I couldn’t give in to despair. I needed to stay positive. I needed to think, so I ran over everything Narada had told me, shifting through the information for something I could use, racking my brain for something I’d forgotten to ask, but came up blank. And then another question slapped me in the face—totally unrelated to our present predicament but glaringly important.
“Narada. When you took me, you took my mother too, right?”
He nodded, his gaze still on the ground. “Diya trusted me, came with me willingly.”
“So . . . Where is she? Where is my mother?”
He didn’t raise his head. Didn’t respond, and a knot twisted in my belly as a horrific suspicion formed in my mind.
“Narada, what happened to my mother?”
He lifted his head slowly, as if the weight was a burden too large to bear, and met my eyes with watery ones of his own.
“I’m sorry, Malina. So sorry.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was sorry about, and a blast of air swept my hair back from my face. Debris floated across the abandoned platform, and I was forced to close my eyes to protect them from the dust that scratched at my face. The gust abated, and I opened my eyes to find the inky mass rising from the tracks. It slid onto the platform and accumulated in a thick pool before rising to form a humanoid shape.
I stepped back, unable to tear my eyes from the entity as it shifted and changed until a woman stood in its place. I’d seen those slanted brown eyes a handful of hours ago.
“Mother?”
33
The woman, the image of my mother, smiled slyly. “Your mother has been most accommodating.” She chuckled, glancing down at her body. “No, that’s a lie. She’s been a pain. Fighting, clawing, but in the end, I broke her. Now there is only me, and your mother’s flesh is mine.”
The powerful entity clicked her fingers, and Garuda materialized beside her. My body went into flight mode. I curled my toes and fisted my hands, desperately trying to tamp down the rising dread.
Garuda lifted his head to look at me, his jaw tense, his red-rimmed eyes dark as obsidian.
The entity in my mother’s skin flicked her hair over her shoulder. “It’s nothing personal, child. You just happen to be an obstacle I must remove at all costs. If I’d known I could, I would have killed you much sooner. I tried, you know, when you were just a child, when Narada brought you to me. But all I succeeded in doing was traumatizing you enough to cause your mind to block it all out. Your life, your abduction, my attack on your life.”
“You did this to me? You took my memories?”
“I didn’t take them. Your mind simply hid them from you. I suggest you look harder. Your memory loss did work in my favor, though. It allowed me to put a new plan into place until events outside my control alerted you to the plan. Luckily for me, I broke your mother in time to discover the delicious secret—that a naga can kill another naga. I put you in the path of a powerful one. I sent you to kill him, hoping he would end you. But you”—she wagged her finger at me—“you’re a little survivor. Once again, you thwarted my plan. So, I sent a fraction of my essence to attack you at the pathetic club. Abduction was on the agenda. I hoped to finish the markings on your arm, but again, you surprised me with your resourcefulness. You’d actually found a way to get rid of them. And then, horror of horrors, you fought back, giving me no time to take a swim in your head. You know, I’ve had a lot of time to study this world, the people, and society. Most of them don’t deserve to live, but you, you’re special. I almost admire you. It’s a damn shame you have to die.”
Shit. She was done talking, which meant my time was up.
Garuda stepped forward, his feet dragging as he shuffled toward me.
“Stop fighting me,” the entity hissed.
Garuda jerked to a standstill, his eyes flashing red.
Up until now, I’d only ever experienced panic, apprehension, and anxiety when in his presence, but they all paled in comparison to what assaulted me next. A wave of bone-numbing terror rushed through my veins, seizing my lungs, weakening my muscles, and kick-starting a tremor throughout my body.
“Run,” Narada screamed.
But I was rooted to the spot, unable to blink, to draw breath, as death stalked toward me. I saw the predator in his eyes, in the lethally graceful movement of his body.
My beautiful killer.
“Dammit, child, move!”
“Malina . . .” Garuda hissed through clenched teeth.
His voice broke my paralysis, and I turned to run, but there was nowhere to go.
“Kill her!” the entity shrieked.
&nbs
p; Garuda moved so fast he was a blur. He grabbed me by the throat and slammed me up against a tile wall. My ears rang and the world dimmed, but I could still breathe. He had me pinned, but he wasn’t squeezing.
Not yet.
I locked eyes with him, battling my terror and pushing the words past the constriction in my throat. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not. Fight it, please. You have to fight.”
The darkness bled out of his eyes a fraction, his nostrils flaring with the effort of disobeying his master. He was strong-willed, powerful. He’d been free for centuries. He could do this. He had to. He just needed a little help, proof I wasn’t his prey. That I wasn’t afraid. He needed a connection that was real, not forced.
“Malina . . .” My name was a plea.
His fingers flexed, preparing to squeeze.
I reached up, grabbed the back of his neck, and brought his lips down to meet mine. I kissed him. At first, he was unresponsive, tense, and unyielding. I pulled back slightly, running my tongue over his lips.
“Focus on this,” I pleaded, my voice trembling. “Focus on me.”
I kissed him again. This time, his lips parted and he kissed me back. My limbs grew light, warmth crawling up my neck as his hand slipped from my throat to cup my face and deepen the kiss. For a moment, I forgot about the entity. I forgot about Narada and the fact that Garuda was supposed to be killing me. There was nothing but his hard body pressed against mine, his desperate claiming of my lips, and his heady scent in my nostrils.
“No!” The word sliced through the air like a dagger.
Garuda released me and stumbled back. His eyes were cerulean now. He was back, and he was seeing me. I reached for him, but the entity began to chant. Words I couldn’t understand, couldn’t grasp, filtered through my mind. Garuda fell to his knees, head bowed and shoulders heaving. She continued to recite. What now? How did I fight this?
I turned to Narada for guidance. “Help me.”
“I can’t help you,” he said. “Only you can fight him. You aren’t helpless. There is power inside you. I can sense it, and so can she. Fight.”
The entity waved an arm and Narada went flying. He crashed against the bricked-up arch and slumped to the ground.
Garuda began to rise. His body was expanding before my eyes, his wings unfurling from his back as his face morphed into something frightening, something avian and predatory. Waves of deathly menace slammed into me, pressing me against the wall. The air whooshed out of my lungs as his eyes shifted from cerulean to gold and his pupils tightened to slits—alien and dispassionate.
The eyes of a stone-cold predator.
“Malina . . . fight.”
But I couldn’t. I had no poisons, no paralytics, and no Vindra. In hand-to-hand against this beast, I would lose. I was powerless. Hot tears pricked my eyes, and this time I let them fall. My body was trembling, shaking uncontrollably. He strode toward me again, grabbed my throat, lifted me off my feet, and began to squeeze.
My airway closed. I couldn’t breathe.
I was going to die.
Adrenaline exploded in my veins. I clawed at his hand, thrashing, kicking, and raking at his skin. Black spots danced before my eyes. I was going to pass out. No. No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t let this happen.
He reared back, his lethal beak gleaming. He didn’t intend to strangle me to death. He intended to tear me to shreds with that razor-sharp beak.
No. It’s not your time.
Not if we can be of assistance.
Take it. Take it now.
I was going mad, hearing voices. The ones from the dream. How could I have forgotten?
A blanket of calm fell over me as something deep inside clicked into place and lava filled my veins.
I would not die today.
Fire exploded out of me in a wave of orange and blue, smashing into Garuda, tearing him from me and propelling him across the tracks into the pillar beyond.
The tunnel shuddered with the impact, but Garuda wasn’t done. He shook himself, his wings flapping until the flames died, and then he attacked.
I wanted to run, to back up, but my body rebelled, keeping me rooted to the spot. My arms came up, palms facing out. Twin blasts of white heat erupted from them, slamming into Garuda and sending him tumbling back onto the tracks.
“Get up. Get up, you pathetic beast. Kill her!”
I blasted him again, sent him whirling into the darkness, and turned toward the entity.
She was my true target.
The real enemy.
I raised my arms again, palms outward.
“Garuda!” The entity scrambled backward.
My heat slammed into her just as she morphed into her inky form. She slid back, falling onto the tracks to evade my fire. No, she couldn’t get away. I wouldn’t let her, but she was fast. A versatile black mass. How to keep up? My body answered for me, taking over, shifting and elongating until I wasn’t sure what I was, or what I was seeing. I was no longer in control . . . a passenger in my own body. I glided toward the tracks, ready to slide down and follow my enemy.
The arch to my right exploded, throwing Narada forward in a spray of blood. I reared up, my head whipping around to take in the newcomers. Were they friend or foe? I flicked out my tongue, tasting the air for clues.
“Malina? Oh, God.”
A familiar scent. A familiar voice.
“It’s all right, Malina. You’re safe now. Come back to me, sweetheart.”
“Malina . . .”
I swung toward the voice to face the new threat . . . No, not a threat . . . Home.
He smelled like home.
He took a step closer, his face a patchwork of reds and oranges.
“You’re safe now.”
My vision blurred as I slipped into the driver’s seat. I blinked the world back into focus.
“Malina, thank God.”
Eamon rushed toward me, ripping off his coat and wrapping it around me. The inside of the garment was warm and silky against my bare skin.
Ajitah swung me into his arms, and I closed my eyes, suddenly too weary to keep them open.
There was so much . . . so much I needed to tell them . . .
34
I awoke in the final scene from the classic Judy Garland movie The Wizard of Oz. Eamon sat by my right hip, clutching my hand, and Toto was pressed against my left thigh. Ajitah stood at the end of the bed looking down on me. Carmella and Aaron were sharing the dresser seat, and Drake hovered by the door.
“Aunty Em?” My voice was a dry croak.
Eamon frowned, but Carmella let out a tiny snort.
Everyone turned to look at her. She held up her hands. “Sorry, but it was funny. Plus, it proves my girl is okay.”
I smiled. “How did you find me? Narada said the place was warded.”
“We tracked you and managed to get close enough to take an educated guess,” Eamon said.
The events of the past few hours flitted through my mind. “Garuda? Is he all right? Did I hurt him?”
“Did you hurt him?” Ajitah exhaled sharply. “He almost killed you.”
“He wasn’t in control of himself. He was the entity’s puppet. The one that attacked me at the club.”
“Narada filled us in,” Eamon said. “Although I have a feeling he’ll be telling his story a few hundred times before Indra and Varuna believe him.”
“I believe him. His advice saved my life.”
Eamon squeezed my hand. “You were . . . formidable.”
I’d been . . . something else. Something I didn’t quite understand. “When I thought I was going to die, another part of me took over.” And there was something else. Important. But it slipped from my mind like water through a sieve.
Eamon nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You were on fire, literally. And you shape-shifted into naga form.”
“Like a huge naga made of flames,” Drake said. “It was awesome.”
Ajitah shot him a frown, and he offered him a sheepish
grin.
“It seems your hybrid nature has given you a unique ability.” Eamon reached up to smooth the hair away from my face.
“But how? Okay, the fiery naga thing could be from the maternal side of the family, but I shot fire from my palms. Drake said that was a gatekeeper ability, and I’m not the gatekeeper. Not yet.”
Eamon squeezed my hand. “I don’t know, Malina. I don’t understand it either. You are unique, so maybe the rules are different for you.”
“Or maybe the seal gave you a one-time access?” Drake suggested.
Access? I’d taken it. An answer to the mystery was there, just out of reach. Gah!
“Why doesn’t matter,” Eamon said. “I’m just glad it saved your life.”
“She got away, though.”
“Yes, but we will find her, and we will stop her. The good thing is . . . you destroyed the scroll, which was her only leverage over Garuda. She can no longer use him against you. She failed at corrupting you. She failed at killing you. There is nothing more she can do. Her plan to open the gates has failed.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion she won’t be giving up that easily,” I said.
“Don’t worry. We have your back,” Aaron said.
Ajitah pointed at my arm. “Look at it.”
I turned it over to check out my marks and gasped. Four more marks were gone. “How?”
Eamon shrugged. “All I can surmise is that you were somehow credited for saving Narada’s life. A god’s life must be worth more than a mortal one.”
“But he’s a god. An immortal.”
Eamon’s eyes darkened. “And the ancient entity who had him in her thrall predates the gods. Indra didn’t give me all the details, but from what he did say, I gathered the entity had somehow been leeching off Narada’s divinity. If he’d remained in her clutches for much longer, he may have been stripped of it altogether. He would have become mortal.”