The Cult of Kishpu

by J. J. Shetland

  * * *

  The boys stopped when the Princess of the Skies did on the dark gloomy steps. She was pointing to the wing-guards lying down.

  Pedro touched the red stuff on one of the guard’s chin and sniffed it. “Have they been eating ketchup sandwiches?”

  “That’s blood, not ketchup, Pedro,” said Louise.

  “All the same –”

  “They’re not even breathing, Pedro,” said Rustom. “So how can they eat ketchup sandwiches when they’re dead?”

  That got the little penguin. “Never thought of that.”

  “But if they were killed by mothmen,” said Lukeson, “and up to this floor, that would mean –” He looked up the massive stony ceiling and saw his fear of mothmen hovering above them were true. There was something else above the five monsters themselves. They were small and round like oranges but were brown instead. The mothmen finished putting their twentieth brown object onto the ceiling and fled out of the nearest window.

  Lukeson quickly realised why the mothmen flew out without even attacking him and his friends; those brown things were timer bombs and they set it to blow up the tower. There was no way he could work out how much time he and his friends had left.

  “Move!” he yelled to his comrades. “Get out of the tower!”

  They finally reached at the bottom step. They heard an explosion up above them.

  “Don’t stop! Keep moving!” Lukeson yelled. They ran as fast as they could, trying their hardest to ignore all the exploding, rumbling and roof caving in behind them.

  They finally made it to the door, but it was starting to cave in. Rustom fired his R.P.G. at the wall that hadn’t started to cave in yet. He successfully made a hole big enough for everyone to fly out to safety.

  Despite being out of the tower, Lukeson ordered everyone to keep running further to avoid getting hit by dust and falling stones.

  Approaching two fat palm trees nearby, Lukeson and Louise hid behind the right-hand side one, while the animals hid behind the left-hand side one. They closed their eyes and hugged the trees as the powerful tidal wave of mortar dust flew past them.

  After the wave was over, they peeked around the tree to see the tower was now nothing but a pile of loose bricks with crushed, bloodied mothmen arms and wings hanging out.

  “Everyone all right?” Lukeson asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Stu Pot and Pedro said together.

  Louise coughed. “I’m fine, Rhys.”

  “I don’t think they are.” Rustom pointed to the Sky Capital in flames.

  The Capital was worse than Lukeson and his friends thought it was. Because they were chained up in their cell, they couldn’t see through the window at all, let alone all the tall flames turning the tall trees into clouds of ash along with the deadly mothmen slaughtering innocent wingpeople and wing-soldiers.

  Lukeson looked further into the night time clouds and saw more mothmen still coming. He thought he could see something else in the sky, but it was still out of his reach.

  “Rustom, your T.M.D., quick!” ordered Lukeson. “And set it to its night vision setting if it has one!”

  Rustom took his T.M.D. off his arm, quickly meddled with it and threw it to the sergeant.

  Lukeson held it up to the skies and on the night vision screen he found a little circle in the middle of the clouds. His theory was proved right.

  “What is it, sir?” asked Pedro.

  “A portal,” replied Lukeson. “Similar to the ones above the Spitzkoppe when we fought Akins.”

  “But who created this portal?” asked Stu Pot.

  “Here is the answer,” said Louise, giving him something in his hands.

  “A hand mirror?” Stu Pot looked at it and bemusedly couldn’t see anything except his face. “Come on, I’m not that hideous.”

  Louise chuckled a little before pressing the top of the mirror. Then Stu Pot looked at the mirror and was amazed to watch a video of light blue skies and white fluffy clouds and a pair of female arms moving around. He noticed the middle finger of her right hand had an emerald stone on a golden ring. It was like the one Akins had.

  “Is that Sarah, Your Highness?” he asked. “How did you record her actions?”

  Louise told him that Sergeant Lukeson gave her a pair of earrings and the hand mirror for her birthday last year that had a secret camera in all of them. So in secret, she gave one earring to Sarah for her birthday three months later and kept the other one and the hand mirror to spy on her because she always knew her sister was one for trouble.

  “Are these the same earrings Aunt Paula created?” asked Pedro. “And is the hand mirror she modified, too? Sergeant, when did you give this to Louise?”

  “Hold on, Pedro,” interrupted Stu Pot. “We’re getting somewhere.”

  As Sarah’s arms moved away, the sky and the clouds grew darker and something approached out of them. It was a dark purple cloud. It spilt in the middle, opening with dark-red lightness and out flew the mothmen army. Stu Pot thought that was the mothmen’s portal. Then the video ended.

  The boys were very confused.

  “Is Sarah a sorceress?” Stu Pot asked.

  “How long have you known, Princess?” Rustom demanded.

  “She told me the moment she found out, Rustom,” Lukeson said. “But we still don’t know where she got that emerald ring from.”

  Screeching in the air made the five warriors look up. More mothmen were coming.

  “Back to the Sky Castle!” ordered Louise.

  “Where is the king when you need him?” moaned Rustom.

  “Aye,” agreed Stu Pot. “Not to complain, but your guards aren’t doing a very good job.”

  “Well, there are only eighty thousand wingpeople in the skies,” said Louise. “Probably less since the mothmen invasion. Either way, the wingpeople population have always been less than your ten billion humans on the land.”

  Stu Pot started to think there would be less than one billion humans left on the land after the world war started two days ago. And maybe even less than the wingpeople population.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Kathy and Larissa had been running for a couple of hours with a non-stop break. They were getting more out of breath, but keeping their running up was all they could do. They had been firing at a few wendigos, but they could only hit them in either of the leg or the chest because they couldn’t risk stopping and aiming for the head or the throat. They didn’t have time to hide from the enemies or take shelter to check their ammo; not to mention all the buildings were knocked down to the size of a tree stump and the road was full of so much rumble there were no holes or no drain grids for them to hide.

  Kathy noticed a terrifying wendigo charging for them. She fired her weapon at it, but nothing came out of it. She discovered she was completely out of bullets. She threw the gun away in frustration and saw where it landed. It was at the feet of a half torn-down skyscraper that was still standing. She picked up Larissa and they entered the building.

  * * *

  Inside the building was devastated and very unstable, but it was still the only place for Kathy and Larissa to hide. Everywhere else would have made them sitting ducks. Kathy had a strong feeling that they were going to die by falling off the unsteady stairs by missing a step rather than a wendigo jumping in front of them. She checked Larissa’s gun and saw it had very few bullets left.

  They had nowhere to hide, very few bullets and nowhere to run except to the top, which was likely to be a dead end. They couldn’t call for help and they couldn’t find anything else to defend themselves with. Not so much a simple kitchen knife.

  By the time they reached the top floor of the building’s current condition, Kathy stopped when she saw a wendigo landed in front of her. She grabbed Larissa’s gun and fired at the head of the wendigo, causing it to fall over. Kathy peered down and saw the wendigo was really dead.

  “So that’s how you kill the wendigos,” Larissa said.

  “A wendigo,” Kathy s
aid, as she looked down on the stairs. “Not the thousand approaching us.”

  As the zebra continued her running, Larissa facing backwards saw the whole army of wendigos marching towards them.

  They came to a dead end when they reached the end of the floor. Kathy turned around, aimed her gun at the wendigos and started very carefully firing at the wendigos one at a time. She had hoped that the wendigos would have learnt from her killings and would leave them alone, but, one by one, they were sacrificing themselves. Then, when she couldn’t fire any more bullets, she quickly learnt why. Now that she finally wasted her bullets on the self-sacrificing wendigos, the remaining wendigos could charge for them.

  Kathy and Larissa couldn’t go any higher or further because the top floors above them had fallen and blocked their way. She saw there was no way to go but back down to where their enemies were waiting for them. Then she saw a big hole in the wall big enough for her and Larissa to jump outside, but they couldn’t see anything that they could land on. Remembering Adofo’s experience with the cobra sphinxes in Egypt, Kathy checked for window frames to hang from, only to find none. Then she decided it was either risk life or death by jumping from a building or surrender and die by becoming a main course for the wendigos’ dinner.

  “Larissa, it’s been a real pleasure,” Kathy said, as she closed her eyes and wrapped the little penguin in her arms. If anyone was to die, she hoped she would be the one and Larissa would be alive if her arms worked like a shield.

  “What are you doing, Kathy?” Larissa got her answer as she saw they were running to the edge. “No, Kathy! No! NO!”

  But they had already jumped off. Larissa closed her eyes. Then she was bouncing up and down yet she was still in the air. She opened her eyes to find herself and Kathy bouncing in a net hanging out of an Orlando Police helicopter. They were being pulled up. “Oh, who wants us now?” she moaned.

  “We do.”

  They turned to see it was Petunia who was pulling them into the helicopter. Then she freed them by cutting the net open with her knife. They saw that Rachael was in the pilot’s seat.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Petunia said. “We just found a helicopter that survived through those terrible bombings. We tried to shut those shuttles down, but it was beyond our control.”

  “Well, I’m just glad we’re all in one piece,” Kathy said.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Larissa said, wondering if Petunia was still playing with them.

  “You scared us to death, Kathy,” Petunia said. “What were you thinking, committing suicide and taking a young penguin with you?”

  “I was hoping Larissa would survive in my arms if I died,” Kathy said. “I knew those wendigos wouldn’t spare us so –” She sighed. She just realised that she wasn’t the best at making snap decisions under a lot of pressure and what it nearly did to her and Larissa. “I’m so sorry, Larissa. I hope you can forgive me.”

  “I do,” the little penguin said. “I would’ve done the same if I were in your boots. I couldn’t think of a better solution.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re safe, Larissa,” Petunia said.

  “I am. In fact, I’m feeling much better especially after seeing your beautiful emerald earrings.”

  Petunia nervously chuckled, as she held them. “Why, thank you. They cost a fortune.”

  “I also saw some emerald on the bomb cases in the shuttle and the wendigos’ belt buckles. How much do you think they cost, Petunia?”

  Petunia looked like she was lost for words. “A lot, I bet. Now, let’s get a move on.”

  “Where to? Your emerald prison?”

  While worrying if Larissa was going too far with this whole emerald business, Kathy noticed that Rachael hadn’t said much since they arrived onboard. She hadn’t put the helicopter on auto-pilot and checked on them for weapons or greeted them, let alone gave her a big hug like she usually did. Then Kathy noticed a new necklace around the croc’s neck. It was all emerald.

  Kathy thought that maybe Larissa was right about Petunia and her emeralds. She thought the sooner they escaped Petunia and Rachael, the better. She looked through the window. “I think I’ve spotted something down there by the destroyed Florida Mall. I think it’s an important lead.” She grabbed Larissa and tried to open the door, but she couldn’t.

  “You’re not going to escape, Kathy,” Petunia said. “I’m afraid I can’t let you.”

  Those words made Kathy felt uneasy to be around Petunia or Rachael for the first time in her life. Knowing that she wouldn’t get anywhere with questioning, she decided to pick up Larissa and kicked the nearest plastic window, breaking it into pieces. They tried to squeeze through it, but she felt like she was frozen solid without the touch of ice. Then she was being turn around. Nothing was touching her to make her do so, but as she saw Petunia who was pointing her right finger at her and Larissa, she quickly guessed.

  “You’re a witch?” Kathy couldn’t believe it. She didn’t know if she was thinking straight from the shuttle crash she woke up from this morning.

  “The word ‘witch’ makes me out to be a bad person,” Petunia said. “I prefer the term ‘Sorceress’.” She snapped her left-hand fingers and her casual clothing was taken over by an emerald dress and emerald boats all covered up by an emerald robe that represented a queen’s type rather than a witch’s type. A crown made out of gold with emerald stones appeared on her white hair.

  Kathy still couldn’t believe what she saw. She couldn’t only believe that her worst fears finally came true, but, to top it all, Petunia was a witch. She and Larissa still failed to break free from Petunia’s pointing finger. All they could do was watch her and Rachael, finally emerging from the pilot’s seat, grin evilly as they approached them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Louise and the G.C.A. soldiers finally made it to the wooden bridge below the Sky Castle. They were glad they were only two minutes away from the castle gate, but very loud screeching from above immediately stopped them. Hovering in front of them was mothmen, waving their swords.

  “Take cover!” Lukeson yelled. He and Louise hid by one of the bridge legs.

  Stu Pot and Pedro hid by another leg and Rustom had his own leg to himself.

  Stu Pot fired his sniper gun. One of the mothmen was hit in the eye. It was hurt, but it didn’t so much cry out in pain.

  “Potter, aim for the necks!” ordered Lukeson.

  “I can’t aim very quickly,” panted a nervous Stu Pot.

  Lukeson fired his sniper at a mothman’s neck. “Private, remember my training. Stay relaxed and focused.”

  Taking a deep breath to help him feel calmer, Stu Pot aimed at the neck of a mothman charging for him and fired. Feeling pleased with himself being able to relax more to help him focus better, he quickly found another mothman above his head and successfully killed it.

  As the soldiers kept on firing their weapons at the mothmen, Lukeson turned to Louise. “Where would Sarah be?” he asked, as he shot down one more mothmen.

  “The throne room is my best guess,” replied Louise. She shot down three mothmen.

  Lukeson thought that was strange, but he knew now was not the time to ask silly questions like, ‘Why would she think that?’ So he just asked, “Where is the throne room?”

  “Getting in the room is a piece of cake,” said Louise. “So is finding Sarah. But getting her to stop the mothmen from that portal will be the hard bit and the bit that no one knows how to do. But here are the directions.” She whispered them into his ear.

  Lukeson managed to hear her very clearly, despite the battle noises around them.

  “Okay, listen up, boys!” he called. “Rustom, Pedro, stay with Louise to help her provide support for Potter and me! Potter, to the castle with me, now!”

  Pedro and Louise focused on the mothmen flying above Lukeson and Stu Pot to make sure they got into the castle with ease, while Rustom focused on the mothmen flying behind them.

  * * *

  Lukeson and Stu Pot ma
naged to reach the small throne room. They were disappointed when they couldn’t find Sarah or any magic objects as they searched the big golden throne chairs and behind the paintings of the previous twenty thousand monarchs of the Sky Capital. They checked for hidden doors or traps on the red velvet decorated room with flaming torches. Nothing.

  Lukeson knew they had to find something soon, but the lack of clues and the thinking of Rustom, Pedro and Louise still outside fighting the mothmen were stressing him out and making him focus less and less as time went on.

  Then Stu Pot remembered how he, Rustom and Pedro found Lukeson in the dungeon under the prison. “What if Sarah is in a different room under the castle, sir?” he suggested.

  Lukeson thought that was very odd, but very likely because he couldn’t imagine Sarah doing something she would like to keep a big secret in a place where anyone could see her as they passed by. “Come on, then.”

  Stu Pot followed his commanding officer downstairs under the castle. When they reached the bottom, they saw nothing through the corridor but a hundred flaming torches on the rocky wall and double large oak wooden doors the size of giant redwoods at the far end.

  When they reached the doors, Stu Pot was about to open it, but Lukeson ordered him to stop. “I hear a noise, Potter,” he told him.

  The sergeant saw a little hole on the left-hand door and looked through it as if it was a keyhole. From what he could make out from what he saw from the small hole, the room was very small and had wooden walls tall enough to trap it in darkness. But he was pleased when he finally discovered that Sarah was in the room. She was sitting next to a crystal ball on the small wooden table.

  “Yes, Mistress Petunia,” said Sarah.

  Petunia? The mentor of Kathy and Rachael before I took them into G.C.A.? Lukeson thought she had been dead for three years.

  “Everything is going according to plan,” Sarah went on. “I tricked my father and his army to fly down to Earth to wipe the humans down below out. And the mothmen have now invaded the skies. We will soon wipe the wingpeople out for good and I will be the new Queen of the Skies. Then we will finally be able to change the planet for good.”