The largest of the gargoyles leapt at me, knocking my wand from my hand with its massive paw. As I scrambled to pick it up, the creature grabbed me with its muscular arms, its talons digging into my skin. I was lifted into the air, kicking and cursing. I flailed at its underbelly, hoping to break free.
Shane lunged for me, but was caught by another beast. One by one, we were snatched up and carried into the clouds. I cried out, feeling the sting of the gargoyles claws, but the sound was drowned out by the steady drone of their heavy wingbeats. The height was dizzying, and I watched helplessly as The Star card flitted out of my pocket and drifted away. We bobbed briskly along, picking up speed as we were carted through the sky.
A tall stone tower appeared ahead, floating amid the clouds. Larinda’s castle? Suddenly the talons released me, and I was cast inside a high window like a thrown dice. The others landed around me, tumbling along the stone floor.
Once inside the musty turret, we collected ourselves and checked for injuries. We all had scratches and bruises, but were otherwise okay. I looked around at the gray stone, searching for evidence of Larinda. There was no door, no way of escape from our circular prison, except for the lone window. But going through the window without wings would mean plummeting to our deaths on the ground far below.
“Where are we?” I demanded.
“I don’t know, but this isn’t Eagle Mountain.”
“It’s my fault,” Eve said, standing on tiptoes to stare out the arched window. “Aunt Dora used to say that gargoyles stole children who wouldn’t stop crying. She had a book of fairy tales from the Old World. One day I secretly peeked at it, to see if she was telling the truth. The gargoyles made the children slaves and they never saw their families again. The story and pictures scared the hell out of me I think that was the day I stopped crying.”
“That’s horrible,” Merry said.
“So, this is all your creation?” I asked Eve. If she had read the book, she knew how it ended. “How were the children freed?”
“I never read that far,” Eve admitted.
“If it was one of Aunt Dora’s old books, they were probably never rescued. They were probably eaten,” Ruth Anne said. “The old fairy tales were written to scare children into behaving. They didn’t have the happy endings that kid’s stories have these days.”
Eve nodded, tugging on the ends of her hair. “All I remember is that every night for several months after reading the story, I waited for the gargoyles to come. And now, I’ve come to them. Is this what irony is?”
Merry paced the room. “What are we going to do now, Maggie?”
“Hell, Merry. How should I know? All I know is I seem to be getting further away from my son.” I stamped my foot, loosening dust from high blocks. I stamped again, harder, and the walls rippled. “If we can’t find a way out soon, I’ll tear this entire tower down.”
“Does anyone else smell… coffee?” Merry asked.
It was a strange question, but as soon as she’d asked it, the rich smell of brewing coffee filled the air. It was so bitter it burned my nostrils.
“Too much?” said a woman’s voice. “I just wanted you to feel at home.”
The coffee smell vanished, replaced with an even stronger scent of lavender. Before I could recognize the voice, my mind went numb and I dropped to the floor like a ragdoll.
As I drifted into unconsciousness, I heard a song:
The wheel of fortune spins and spins.
Around the world and back again.
Just when the lessons have been learned.
Another spinner takes his turn.
12
Justice
“Well, well, aren’t you all sweet little birdies?”
It was hot. The room was swaying. My head ached and my stomach turned.
I was several yards up in the air, sitting. It wasn’t the room that was swinging, it was the metal cage I was imprisoned in. I dangled above a bubbling cauldron, spewing steam up through the bars beneath me. There were other cages, one for each of us, and cauldrons to match, as well.
“Here, birdie, birdie.” A cloaked woman whistled from the floor below us, holding out her hand like a falcon’s perch. We were in a new room, one with many arched windows, and I expected to see a bird fly to her hand. But when the woman kept chirping, and no bird appeared, I realized she was mocking us.
“You okay, Maggie?” Shane called from the cage on my left. I nodded as my fingers gripped the metal bars. The cage floor warmed and I moved as far as I could to the other edge. Was this part of Aunt Dora’s storybook, too?
I studied our new surroundings. It was a palatial room, though I was now certain we weren’t on Eagle Mountain. The shadowy chamber flickered from the many torches along the walls. Mounted in between were dozens of stone grotesques, each with its own hideous face. Long paintings of fantastical creatures hung beside the arched windows. Our cages were attached to ropes, looped through pulleys high overhead.
Something sparkled near the woman’s feet. I quickly patted myself down. My wand was gone, but thankfully I still had the half-eaten apple, ankh, amber bracelet and hourglass. The woman caught my troubled expression as I inventoried my belongings. She smiled, lowering her cloak. She had drab brown hair and a plain, pinched face.
“I tried to take your bracelet,” the woman said. “But I couldn’t get the darned thing off your wrist. But fortunately, you all were very careless with your wands.”
Leah!
My half-sister’s magick must be much greater here, I thought, as she was no match for any one of us back in Dark Root. “What do you want, Leah?” I demanded, my voice booming across the room. “I always pegged you for your mother’s lackey, but I’m sensing you have your own agenda.”
“Isn’t it obvious, sister?” Her words were venomous, despite her smile. She snapped her fingers and one of the many grotesques disentangled itself from the upper wall, turning from stone to flesh. The small gargoyle leapt down and nestled beside her feet, seeming to purr. “I’ve been waiting a long time for my revenge, and now I’ll have it. This is Mother’s world, and I’m much more practiced here than you. I. Want. My. Justice.”
My cage creaked and shifted, tossing me back and forth. I was being lowered! I screamed, startled, and held tight to the bars. The others pleaded with her to stop, my cage so close to the cauldron that steam wafted all around me. It was hard to breathe or even see. Leah laughed as I came to a lurching stop. The gargoyle at her feet turned again to stone, and she wrapped the rope to my enclosure around it several times, securing it.
“Leah, please. Let us go so I can get my son,” I begged. “You know what your mother will do if we don’t stop her.”
She spat into the nearest cauldron. It crackled and hissed. “You’re assuming my mother hasn’t already done what you fear,” Leah said. “And why should I care what happens to your brat? There are enough people in the Upper World. What’s one less going to matter? You shouldn’t be begging for my mercy, not after all you’ve done to me. You should be praying that whatever happens, happens quickly.”
There was a flash of lightning outside the windows, blinding us momentarily. Leah lowered my cage one rope wrap of the gargoyle. The bars grew hotter and steam licked at my bare ankles.
“You’ll be first, Maggie,” she said, her hand on the rope. “I want the others to watch this. I was going to save you for last, and make you watch them suffer, but I’m not giving you a chance to worm your way out. Not this time.”
I reached my hands out of the cage and yelled. “You will not touch us!” Through the sheer strength of my will, she was pushed back several steps. As she moved away, I saw a stash of our belongings piled at her feet – our wands, packs, and Ruth Anne’s camera.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Leah said, recovering her balance. “You have absolutely no respect for anyone or anything.” She discarded her robe, revealing her usual jeans and no-frills T-shirt. She was thinner than normal, and her skin had a gr
een cast.
“If you reach for that rope again, I’ll tear this entire place apart.” I pointed to a portrait, and it crashed to the ground. “It looks like you put quite a bit of work into this little world of yours. What do you want? Let’s make a deal.”
She pursed her lips together, eyeing the rope. “Okay,” she eventually said. “I’ll make you a deal. You give me what I want, and I’ll let you go. If you don’t, I’ll leave you here for that thing Mother unleashed to find you.”
That thing? Does she mean Gahabrien?
“Don’t listen to her, Maggie,” Shane said.
“What do you want,” I asked her.
“Your hair.”
She ran a hand through her stringy brown mane, now well past her shoulders. It was well-documented that a witch’s powers lay in the length of her hair. I had cut hers off nearly a year ago, effectively neutering her for a time. I should have guessed that would be her revenge, to take away the source of my magick too.
Leah snapped her fingers and another small gargoyle leapt from the wall. She reached into her dress and handed the creature a silver objected that glinted in the firelight. The beast sprang into the air on its heavy stone wings, landing against the side of my cage. It regarded me briefly through the bars, then spit out a pair of scissors. Then, it flew out through one of the windows, disappearing into the lightning storm.
Leah’s eyes lingered on the window. The sound of thunder reverberated through the stone walls, vibrating our cages and rattling a few loose stone bricks. Gahabrien is coming for me.
My hands trembled as I reached for the scissors and opened the blades. I stretched out a strand of my hair, wondering if she would keep her end of the bargain.
“No deal, Leah!” Shane yelled. “Let us go now or you’ll pay!”
“Tick-tock,” Leah said to me, ignoring Shane. “You know what’s coming for you.”
“Okay, okay.” The entire building shook under Gahabrien’s approach. I watched the windows nervously as I held the scissors to my hair.
So many questions raced through my head as I snipped the first lock. Would I lose all my powers, or would they just be diminished? What if my ankh no longer worked? And how would I get Montana back from Larinda, if my magick was muted? There were so many what-ifs, but I would have to deal with them later.
I made the first cut just below my ears. A long rope of cherry-red hair fell, slipping into the cauldron below.
I looked at Leah. “All of it,” she said, her ferret eyes darting to the door. The walls were all shaking now, and lightning blazed across every window. “Quickly, or I leave!”
I sawed off the rest of my hair, up to my chin. I held the tresses out, dangling the long red ribbons for her to see. I felt naked, and looked at my feet rather than the crestfallen eyes of my companions around me.
“There!” I said. “Now let us go!”
Gahabrien was almost upon us. The pictures rattled, smashing to the ground, one after the other. The cauldrons sloshed beneath our feet. There wasn’t much time left.
Leah paused, appearing to weigh her options. She snapped her fingers and a large silver key appeared in her hand. As she was summoning another gargoyle to deliver it, the building lurched and several high blocks toppled out of the wall. Startled, Leah dropped the key and backed towards the door.
“You can’t leave us here!” I said. “Leah!”
She looked over her shoulder as she left, pulling the hood of her cloak across her face. “I’m sorry,” she said, disappearing.
I looked to Shane, feeling both ashamed and exposed, wondering if he still found me desirable without my hair. But then I wondered why it even mattered.
Because in another few moments, hair or no hair, we would all be victims of Gahabrien’s wrath.
13
The Hanged Man
The shadow entered through the windows. It wound its way down the walls in long fingers, then swept across the stone floor. We held still in our cages, afraid of drawing its attention. But the entire shadow was angling towards me. Gahabrien had found me.
The bars of my prison were almost untouchable now, heated by the brewing cauldron. My clothes were damp, and I alternated lifting my feet to give them a reprieve from the pain.
Gahabrien’s scavenging minions appeared, crawling out of cracks and dark corners. They rubbed their hands and flicked their tongues, as if anticipating a tasty meal. They were barely more than shadows, but their malevolent energy rippled through the chamber, growing stronger as more joined in.
What can I do!? We were without our wands and my magick was gone. A limp strand of my hair still lay on the cage floor, wet with steam.
I looked to the others. Merry stood with her eyes closed, silently reciting some unheard verse, while Eve stared into the cauldron below her. Paul and Ruth Anne were scrutinizing our surroundings, searching for anything that might set us free. Michael and Shane pulled at their bars, trying to physically force their way out.
I touched my roughly cropped hair, knowing I shouldn’t have trusted Leah. She was the seed of her evil mother, after all. Perhaps a part of me wanted to believe she wasn’t destined for a specific life path simply because of who her parents were.
The room filled with the wheeze of labored breathing, and at first I thought it was the wind. It was peppered by raspy moans. The whole world quaked, as if we were golden geese, awaiting the giant’s return.
“Maggie! Please do something!” Eve called.
Please do something. They were all looking to me.
“Screw this,” I said to myself. I was a wilder. The Sworn One. To hell with hair or wands. I was never good with rules anyway, magick or otherwise.
I focused on a wall torch, the one nearest the rope holding my cage suspended. Concentration was difficult, with the demon looming and the hot metal scorching my feet, but I refused to let it break my attention. “Grow!” I willed the flame.
It did. It flared into a raging bonfire as I spread my fingers apart. Soon, my rope was ablaze.
“Maggie, be careful! You’re almost in the cauldron” Shane shouted as my cage rocked down a hard notch.
I was close enough to the cauldron to smell its fetid contents. Whatever magick Leah was playing with was not natural, which probably added to her newfound abilities. She had given a bit of her own soul for power in the Netherworld, just like her father.
The only way to combat dark magick, of course, was with light magick. I clapped my hands together and my crystal bracelet sparked excitedly. I commanded the cauldron flames to douse. They hissed and steamed and sputtered out, like dying dragons.
Thrusting my hand through the bars, I snapped the silver key off the ground and through the air, straight into my palm. There was nothing I couldn’t do here, I realized. I had the power - hair or no hair.
I quickly unlocked the cage door and leapt out, just as the fire burned through the rope and my cage clattered onto the top of the enormous kettle. I spread my arms wide, unlocking all the cages simultaneously. My bracelet vibrated and I felt all the active energies of the room flow through me.
“Jump!” I called.
“You sure, Mags?” Merry called nervously.
“Yes! Now!”
One by one, they did. I pressed my palms to the floor, counteracting their falls with whatever remaining upward energy I could muster. Once on the ground, we scrambled for our belongings.
“Let’s get out of here!” Shane said, nodding to the door.
“But the demon’s out there!” Eve objected.
The turret was crumbling all around us, and even the shadow minions were scurrying to get away. “Yes. But at least out there we aren’t sitting ducks,’’ Shane said.
The stone floor around the door split wide open, siphoning nearby debris into its growing maw. Even the shadows were pulled inside. The air smelled of sulfur, yet somehow the door itself stood, trembling, as if afraid of revealing what waited on the other side.
The only way through the do
or was over the crevice. And then we’d still have to get past Gahabrien.
“Everyone, look!” Shane called.
As the walls continued their collapse, the remaining stone grotesques began opening their sleepy eyes, yawning as they stretched out their taloned paws. Realizing their plight, they leapt into the air. The smaller ones flew away through the windows, but the larger ones were forced to leave through the door. They massed before it, not able to all crowd through the opening at the same time.
They’re our ticket out of here.
“Let’s go,” I shouted, running full speed and leaping across the crevice. I landed on the back of the closest gargoyle, then reached down for Eve’s hand, pulling her up behind me. I covered my head as a painting crashed down on us.
Looking around, I saw Shane and Ruth Anne following my lead. Managing to get onto gargoyles of their own, they helped the others aboard. We held tight to their thick necks, and each other, as the creatures jostled through the door and sailed away from the crumbling tower.
Our mounts descended through the sky in a wide spiral, and I caught my first sight of the Netherworld’s Gahabrien - a massive dark funnel of anger and rage. A tendril whipped out to snatch me from the air, but the gargoyle instinctively evaded it and kept flying.
“Where are we heading?” Eve asked, her hair whipping behind her like a raven’s wings.
“This was your creation,” I said.
“Only the gargoyles.”
“There’s another portal,” Shane said. He pointed to a hilly region below. “If these things fly low enough, jump.”
The gate appeared in the distance, shimmering amidst the chaos of the demon storm.
We’re still too high.
“Tuck your heads and roll when you land,” Shane directed.
“Wait!” Merry drew a circle in the air with her wand, finishing it with a cross inside. “That should help.”
I called to Shane before slipping from the gargoyle’s back. “I love you,” I said. Just in case.
The Shadows of Dark Root (Daughters of Dark Root Book 5) Page 22