Varick's Quest (Devya's Children Book 4)

by Gilbert,Julie C.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  The question was running rampant through my head too ’cause Nadia had not mentioned such a plan to me. When she finished describing the plan, I studied Dr. Devya for his reaction.

  He crossed his arms grumpily.

  “You’re going to do this regardless of what I say.”

  “I want your blessing and help,” Nadia stated, “but you are right. I am already on my way. Please, join me. I will not allow myself to be captured by Dr. Lanier. I promise you that, but I have no intention of throwing my life away either.”

  My emotions skipped from helplessness to anger to fear so intense my avatar trembled. Since the fear and helplessness would make me cry, I held on to the anger.

  “You said this was about rest and recovery. You lied to me.”

  Though hurt by my words, Nadia merely accepted them with a graceful nod.

  Her typical response made me madder.

  “It ain’t right!” Tears poked hot needles in my eyes. I wanted her to deny it so I could stay angry, but the love radiating from her avatar drained me of the emotion.

  “Are you sure you can carry out this plan?” Dr. Devya asked Nadia, ignoring me.

  “Jillian, this is the best way I know how to help you.” Nadia’s voice pleaded for understanding. “You were right about Dr. Carnasis’s sacrifice, and if the situation runs back to that course, I will accept the gift. Until I am out of options though, I must use everything in my power to save all of you. This is who I am and what I was designed to do.” She held my gaze until I acknowledged her words. Then, she turned to Dr. Devya and finally answered his question. “Yes, Father, I believe I can succeed.”

  Chapter 30:

  Immortal Warrior II: The Final Chapter

  ITEM 214: Jillian’s 106th post-kidnapping journal entry

  Item Source: Jillian Blairington

  Nadia strongly requested that I not tell Varick her plans until she had a chance to set ’em well in motion. I didn’t think we should keep the secret from him, but I agreed with her on the point that Varick and Dr. Devya shouldn’t meet unless absolutely necessary. To give her a head start, I kept Varick asleep by playing one of his video games. I probably ought to call it Nadia and Varick’s game ’cause she had written the final chapter and not told him the ending.

  My avatar appeared treading water in a little protected cove at the bottom of a cliff that rose straight up as far as I could see. A splash to my right made me twist my head in that direction. Varick landed and sank like a rock ’cause he wore a full suit of shiny armor. For a second, I stared dumbly at the spot where he had disappeared. Other levels had given me various companions, but this was a first.

  As a stream of bubbles rushed to the surface and popped, I imagined Varick’s suit of armor disappearing and being replaced by hot pink swimming trunks. The blue bar that gauges my mystic abilities shrank by half, but within a few seconds Varick surfaced, coughed up water, and glared at me.

  “Why are ya looking at me like that?” I wondered.

  “Where is my armor?”

  “It was drowning ya,” I explained.

  Varick’s narrowed eyes repeated his question.

  “I dunno,” I answered. “Top of the cliff, I think.” I quickly imagined Varick’s armor appearing at the top of the cliff. A faint crashing sound confirmed that the wish worked even though my quivering blue bar had already given me the message. “We’d better get out of the water before something bad happens.”

  “Blue swim trunks and climbing gloves,” Varick said, not budging an inch toward the cliff we needed to climb.

  “I ain’t your personal genie,” I grumbled. Despite my words, I checked my blue bar. His requests were small enough to not cost a lot, so I granted ’em. My clothes were kinda heavy, so I changed to gray shorts and a red tank top and pictured my hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.

  Mumbling thanks, Varick suggested I wear climbing gloves too. He maneuvered close to the cliff and reached for the first likely handhold.

  “Better keep alert. This cliff hardly looks friendly.” As he moved the rock, a grinding noise sounded and a thin metal platform popped out to Varick’s left, directly in front of me.

  I carefully climbed up onto the platform and found three possible rocks to pull on. When I yanked the leftmost one, my platform got sucked back into the cliff face, and I got dumped into the water.

  Laughing, Varick pulled on the rock by him again and out slide the fickle little platform.

  “Find another foothold before testing the next one. It may be inconvenient now, but the drops are going to get a lot longer.”

  Cautiously, Varick and I scaled the cliff. At one point, I tried to imagine a jet pack to fly to the top, but nothing happened. Curious, I did an era check ’cause most of the levels in The Immortal Warrior games confined a player to a specific time period. This time, when nothing happened, I asked Varick about it. His answer was hardly comforting.

  “This is the end game. It’s in a time warp. Anything goes.”

  Before I could respond, a fuzzy brown spider the size of my fist descended on a silky strand, headed for my right shoulder. Yelping, I moved to smack the spider, but Varick caught my hand.

  “Listen,” he ordered.

  Following the instruction, I forced myself to be still and inclined my head toward the spider.

  “Flee! Flee! Flee!” Flinging that happy thought at us, the spider sailed past my shoulder and continued down the cliff.

  Tossing Varick a dread-filled glance, I reluctantly gazed up the remaining section of the cliff. The rocks writhed with movement as spiders descended by the hundreds and thousands. Thinking fast, I hopped onto the tiny platform Varick occupied and conjured a silver shield for him. He raised it above our heads as the first of the spider avalanche landed. Tiny thuds announced the impact of spider bodies off the shield.

  The fast music, which I hadn’t been listening to, suddenly stopped. Terrifying silence lasted two long seconds before a deep throaty roar shook the whole rock wall, nearly pitching me into the water.

  Recovering his balance, Varick pressed us both against the cliff.

  “Ah, a dragon, my favorite.”

  As the awful shrieks continued, Varick and I scrambled up the rest of the cliff. My yellow stamina bar blinked red and my limbs quivered, but we didn’t have time to rest.

  A cobalt colored dragon blasted us with fire. Luckily, Varick still had the large shield I’d given him to fend off the spiders. I imagined him fully armed in his shiny suit of armor and gave him a sword capable of shooting lightning. I would have joined the fight, but now both my blue and yellow bars blinked strict warnings. The best I could do was flop onto my back so I could watch.

  As usual, Varick fought very well. He’d been conserving his stamina bar, so he had plenty left to unleash special moves against the dragon. Being able to fly gave the dragon a huge advantage, but the lightning bolts evened the contest. Varick was kind enough to move away from me so I didn’t accidentally get toasted by the dragon. I noticed the music was back, stronger than ever.

  Once, Varick must have gotten too close ’cause the dragon stopped breathing fire at him and tried to bite his head off. My brother dropped to the ground and rolled, sounding like a rusty tin can somebody had given a good kick. The move saved him, but he’d dropped his sword. I imagined it back into his hand, and he saluted quick thanks. The new vantage point gave Varick clear access to the dragon’s vulnerable belly. He blasted it with lightning, and while the pain distracted the dragon, I hauled myself to a sitting position, held out both hands like a zombie rising from a grave, and pictured the dragon as a harmless cat.

  My thought won with some rather strange results. The dragon looked like a white kitten dipped in blue raspberry snow cone syrup and given little angel wings. Hissing at me, the creature flew off on unsteady wings.

  The effort knocked me flat again. I woke up a moment later staring into Varick’s concerned green eyes.
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  “What made you think ‘winged cat’?” he wondered.

  “What makes one think of anything? Mostly, I go with whatever helps me not die.”

  “It was a nice touch,” Varick complimented. His eyes shifted back to blue as he offered his right hand palm up. “Think you can stand? We have a fair ways to go.”

  I let Varick help me stand. My blue magic bar had recovered to about an eighth of its normal length. As we started limping toward the long path that would lead to the castle, three angry shrieks split the air and shook the ground around us.

  Varick tightened his grip on me and eyed his sword and shield, which lay on the ground where he’d left ’em. I tried to imagine Varick had a rocket launcher, but again, nothing happened. I settled for giving him his sword and shield back. He had to quit holding me upright to accept the items.

  Three dragons flew over us in a circle, close enough to let us feel the wind from their wings but not quite close enough for Varick to harm with his lightning. One dragon was purple with icy blue wings. Another featured green and gold scales, and the last wore scales like flickering flames.

  “Lay down thine armaments and surrender or we shall drop the lad,” a deep voice called down at us from the purple dragon.

  We craned our necks to see where the speaker was pointing. Only two of the dragons, the purple one and the green one, kept circling. The red and yellow dragon now hovered with his head bowed, offering a clear view of a black-clad rider holding a bundle.

  “At least we won’t have to walk,” Varick offered, carefully placing his sword and shield on the ground and raising his hands.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Varick didn’t have to answer. The rider from the green dragon had tossed down two silver coins. As they struck the ground, they sprang open and formed a circle the size of a hula hoop with a milky white surface.

  “Step into the portals, fiends,” instructed the speaker from the purple dragon. “The Master summons thee.”

  With a final look at Varick, I stepped into the left portal and appeared an instant later in a dimly lit, evil looking throne room. There weren’t skulls hanging off the walls or nothing, but twisted metal wrapped around stone columns and torches cast everything in tricky lighting.

  My neck felt weighed down by the heavy red stone that hung over my heart. In front of me, rose a stone throne that would be all kinds of uncomfortable to sit on. The feet had been carved to look like bears claws, and a dragon had been etched into the backrest. On my left, a lady in a gray dress stood with her outstretched arms attached by thick chains to two stone pillars. I couldn’t see her face ’cause she wore a black hood.

  A chilling chuckle rang out behind me.

  “Welcome, young warrior. I’m sorry you must fail at your task.”

  As I slowly turned, I noticed my yellow stamina bar and red health bar stretched in their full glory, but my blue bar had been grayed out. The alarm that shot through me musta shown in my expression ’cause it prompted another dark chuckle from the figure that screamed bad guy. He wore dark robes as expected, but his face was that of Dr. Lanier, which was not expected.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. When my hand failed to move at my order, I checked and saw my wrists were caught in heavy shackles fixed with a chain to matching ones wrapped around my ankles.

  “I am the Master, and I am here to end your quest,” said the bad guy. “Have you not fought level by level to save the heirs? When I kill this one, all the power in the kingdom will return to me and my bloodline.”

  “Pretty sure it doesn’t work like that,” I argued, still concentrating on getting out of the chains.

  “The amulet you wear will contain you. Your powers do not work here, young warrior,” mocked the Master.

  “But mine do,” said a calm female voice.

  Suddenly, the chains vanished, and the amulet appeared in my right hand. Instinctively, I ducked and held the amulet above my head. Bright white light flowed through a necklace the lady in the gray dress wore. The light changed color as it flowed through the red stone. The stone disappeared as the energy moved to the dark man.

  Varick burst into the throne room and flung his sword like a spear. The Master screamed in rage and pain and disappeared as Varick’s sword caught his robe and carried it clear to the throne.

  Stunned, I stood a moment watching the sword sticking out of the stone.

  “Is he dead?” I asked.

  “He is vanquished for now,” answered the lady in the gray dress. “He will rise again in time.”

  With the amulet destroyed, my powers returned, and I freed the lady from her chains.

  Varick approached her carefully and reached for the hood.

  “Let us see the face of this last heir.”

  She bowed her head as if offering the black hood to Varick. He pulled it free with a flourish, revealing Cora.

  Chapter 31:

  Dr. C. Explains the Score

  ITEM 215: Danielle’s sixty-second letter

  Item Source: Danielle Matheson

  Dear Dr. S.,

  There’s nothing like passing time in a cheap motel shared with fellow kidnapping victims to put you on a first name basis. Much as my opinion of Cora has recently undergone some significant modifications, so I must revisit previous conclusions about Dr. Evelyn Carnasis. She tried to get me to call her Evelyn, but since that still hits all my mental resistance buttons, I’ll see how we do with a compromise. It’s not like she’s spent the last three hours spilling her life’s story to me or anything, but that Grandma-ism about actions speaking volumes holds true.

  I’m not sure how long we traveled because I spent most of the time dozing and the rest worrying about Jillian. By the time we pulled into the parking lot of a rundown motel, my head hurt, my stomach ached, and I wanted out of that stuffy van like you wouldn’t believe.

  Lanier went into the office and booked three adjacent rooms. I only know that because he said so when he handed Tyra and Mr. Jones metal keys attached to ugly plastic key chains declaring Barry’s Motel. It could have said Bates Motel, and I would have still wanted to crawl over Mr. Clark’s shoulder to get out of that van.

  To my knowledge, Tyra hadn’t spoken a word to anybody since being ordered into the van hours earlier, and she didn’t start now. She simply accepted the key, disembarked, disappeared into one of the rooms, and slammed the bland beige door in a manner that told me she wouldn’t be volunteering to share her room.

  My mind idly crunched the group numbers: three rooms, seven people. If Tyra had a lock on one room, then we were down to two rooms, six people, divided evenly into three men and three women. That could work except I had the feeling Lanier wasn’t likely to share a room either, and there was that awkward bit about half of us being there involuntarily. As I concluded, one room, five people, not good, Mr. Jones and Mr. Clark both opened their doors and ordered us out.

  Dr. C. barely stirred, and Jillian certainly wasn’t going to be leaping to obey. Wrestling the seat belt and the blanket wrapped around Jillian’s legs took a few seconds, and I created enough of a disturbance to rouse Dr. C. to a state of semi-consciousness. I thought about trying to lift Jillian’s dead weight off of Dr. C., but my lightheaded state informed me getting out successfully would be worth celebrating.

  As my feet hit solid ground, Mr. Clark unlocked the door next to Tyra’s room and waved me in. My feet carried me with only a slight stagger into a roomier manifestation of prison. Relief flooded me when I realized the room boasted two big double beds. Sinking onto the nearest flower quilt, I took stock of the rest of the room. A wooden bureau doubling as a television stand stood facing the two beds. A skinny nightstand with a small lamp separated the beds. A worn red armchair was squeezed in between the bed where I sat and the front window which stood next to the door. Beyond the far bed lay the welcoming portal to the porcelain throne and a tiny closet.

  Thinking like a bad guy, I mentally assigned us the inner bed and ey
ed the red armchair to see if it would provide an adequate door obstruction. Mr. Clark’s grand entrance with Dr. C. interrupted my calculations. They had unbound her hands, but she leaned heavily upon Mr. Clark and walked with slow, shaky steps. Mr. Clark patiently escorted her all the way to the restroom and left her leaning upon the sink. Closing the door, he fled to help Mr. Jones with Jillian. The moving excitement temporarily drove off thoughts of hunger, but my stomach voiced a noisy complaint about the time the lackeys deposited the blanket holding Jillian onto the room’s inner bed.

  “Stay here,” Mr. Jones mumbled, heading for the room’s only exit.

  “Wait! What about food?”

  My blurted question hardly caused Mr. Jones to pause as he swung the door open.

  “Later.”

  I shot to my feet and snagged Mr. Clark’s arm before he too could escape.

  “What’s he mean by ‘later’? And what about Jillian? You need to wake her.”

  “Sorry, boss’s orders,” said Mr. Clark. He brushed off my hold like a piece of lint. “The girl stays out of commission as long as possible.”

  “You can’t treat people like this!” I protested. My cynical mind laughed at me.

  Now you’re offended? Kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment, and drugging a minor don’t register on the evil scale? Despite the thoughts, even the non-cynical side of me had to admit withholding food was a new level of low.

  “I want a word with Dr. Lanier about Jillian’s care.” Dr. C. kept her voice steady, but the restroom doorframe bore the brunt of her weight.

  I thought Mr. Clark would utter that awful word later, but he nodded curtly and left. As I stumbled toward the door and reached for the handle, Dr. C.’s words stopped me.

  “They will return shortly.”

  “How do you know?”

  Dr. C. crossed to the bed and sat by Jillian’s feet before answering.

  “They haven’t laid down the ground rules yet, and they will honor the request to speak with Dr. Lanier.”