His lips turned down even more. I had to refrain from yelling when he ignored my question and turned to the servant who stood waiting, head bowed.
“Go,” Ammon said harshly. “I will return shortly.”
A whine made its way up my throat. “I want to go, now.”
Ammon looked down at me, his expression one of annoyance.
Gran’s voice ran through my head, ‘Phoebe, you will always have to work harder, but play smaller. Don’t make waves. You can’t afford to,’ and so on with such awful advice, but right now, I would do whatever it took to get him to agree.
And he knew it. “Only if you promise to return here, with me. Willingly.”
I started nodding even before he finished his sentence, ready to promise anything. “Yes, yes, whatever you want.”
The smile that crossed his lips almost sent my feet running in the other direction.
He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
In spite of that frighteningly triumphant look on his face, I put my hand in his and followed.
We’d only gone a short distance back into the main cave when he stopped us again. “There is one last thing I need you to see.”
Oh, my God! Everything was a tug of war with this guy, and I was the one constantly dragged through the mud.
“Fine,” I replied, barely being able to hide my frustration. The faster I was done with this new madness, the sooner I would be by Sara’s side. By now, I knew better than to try to convince him to keep going.
After several more twists and turns, each one taking me further from my destination, we finally entered to a dead end, facing nothing but more red cave.
“What now?” I was pissed and let it be known. To hell with my grandmother’s advice to be meek.
“Just wait.” He sounded excited, but I was done waiting.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
He chuckled as if I’d said something cute. “Patience, my dear. This will be worth it.”
“Nothing is worth more than making sure my only remaining family member is safe.”
Irritation flashed. “They’ve already said she is safe. Now come with me and you will understand why this is more important.”
As I marshaled my argument, he shocked me into silence by suddenly biting a slash into his hand. He actually drew blood.
“What the—”
My mouth snapped shut as he smeared the blood onto the wall and started making that weird hum again.
I knew what that meant and I really wish I didn’t. It is so unnerving to see and hear huge rocks move aside from just a sound. I backed up a little and he struck out his other hand faster than a cobra and grabbed my arm.
I ground my teeth as the force of moving earth and rock vibrated up my legs and throughout my body.
“Come,” he said when the noise stopped.
I opened my eye, which I’d closed at the start of his humming. Beyond the entry appeared to be a huge cavern, faintly lit. I tried to detect the light source, but couldn’t. It seemed as if it emanated from the crystals that sprang up everywhere.
There was a hushed atmosphere and something about it that made me feel as we’d entered a cathedral, albeit one of rock and natural crystal.
Further and further we went, the dim light couple with the bizarre formations set already frazzled nerves on edge even more. It was almost unbearably hot in this section, and humid. Combined with the shadows cast by the dim lighting and the jagged edges of the white crystals, I felt like I was walking into the maw of a dragon.
I said as much to Ammon.
He didn’t stop walking, but did glance down at me. “There aren’t any dragons here. They prefer to stay away from humans.”
I choked on a nervous laugh. At least he had a sense of humor. His delivery had been perfectly deadpan.
“Are you sure? For you are crunchy and good with ketchup.”
He did stop for a second then, looking at me as if I’d finally lost it. “I’m positive,” he said. “What’s ketchup?”
Good lord. He actually seemed serious. Was he messing with me?
“Never mind.”
He frowned slightly then started walking again, dragging me along with him.
I really, really needed to get Sara and get away from this place.
After several minutes, we reached an area, cooler than before and more open.
“Not long now,” he said, sounding and looking as if he were about to give me a treat. “You’ll need to stick close to me until we pass the naga. She’ll have to see me before you.”
Naga? As in…
A slithering noise nearby made me jump. I couldn’t breathe my heart was pounding so hard I could barely breathe.
Get a grip, Phoebe. There are no half-snake, half-human creatures here.
But what about a whole one? Either human or snake. Both could be dangerous.
Ammon came to an abrupt stop, shoving me behind him. “Stay close to me and close to me and look only at my back.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. If there was a giant snake nearby, I would be sitting on top of shoulders as we ran out of there.
The sound grew louder, coming from in front of us. I was torn between wanting to know what we were facing, and being too terrified to look. I chose run in the other direction.
At least, I tried to. Ammon must have felt me start to move because his arm jerked back to hold onto me. “Phoebe, if you value your life, do not move or speak.”
His voice brooked no arguments.
Oh, God. It must be a really huge snake.
“Why are you withholding my treat, my lord? Have I not guarded your treasure?”
What? That was a woman’s voice. I started to come around to look but Ammon’s grip on my arm went from firm to bone crushing.
I figured we weren’t out of the woods yet. Maybe she was a snake handler? I really wanted to see, but if whatever was in front of us had him freaked out then I knew I was probably better off staying put and praying we made it out alive.
“This one is not for payment, he said.
Loud hissing followed his announcement, sending a corresponding shiver up my spine.
“No payment?” The woman screeched, and the slithering, hissing noises grew louder. I couldn’t take much more. I needed to see what was happening, but feared that he and I were both in danger now.
“Have I ever withheld payment for your services,” he asked, his voice harsh and proud. “Remember whom you address, Naga!”
More hissing followed but I felt Ammon relax. “Go. I will send your payment later.”
Payment?
The implication of that made my knees buckle. I would have fallen if not for his grip on my arm. As it was, I leaned against his back, feeling his tense muscles.
The sound of something large slithering against the stone floor slowly retreated.
I don’t know how long we stood there but it felt an eternity before Ammon finally moved to put his arm around me.
“Come now. We go.”
I weakly allowed him to lead me through two large crystal columns that surrounded an archway leading to another area.
Incense tickled at my nose and I held back a sneeze, causing my eye to water and throat to burn.
It was a wasted effort of manners. Ammon was so intent on his destination I doubted he would have noticed if I’d sneezed all over him. I should have done it on principle.
The room we were in—and it was a room, created within the cave—was completely bare apart from alter toward the back where incense and candles burned. It reinforced my earlier impression of this area being a place of worship.
Above the altar, on an ornate gold platform, sat a crystal box, partially covered by some type of silky looking, white material. The box appeared to be illuminated from either within or underneath and I could clearly make out the outline of its contents.
Dread weighed my feet, causing me to slow then shuffle to a stop. I really, really didn’t want to see a dead person ri
ght now. Because there was a body in that box. In fact, the whole set up made me think of a sarcophagus. And while mummies might be fascinating for their history, they were still corpses.
I preferred to let the dead rest in peace.
Warning bells of intuition alarms rang madly in my brain. This was just wrong, wrong, wrong, and I knew it.
I don’t know how I knew, but I did. Or maybe it was just that my nerves were already at the breaking point, and I couldn’t handle this.
“Please, don’t do this,” I begged, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Phoebe, we must. You must.”
His eyes had taken on that wild glittering look known by many as ‘Crazy Eyes’.
When you see that look, you know it’s time to get out of the way, and fast. Run away, shut the door, and don’t look back. And for the love of Moses’ dusty sandals, don’t let them in once you’ve locked the door!
It was too late for me, though. I was trapped here with cute-but-crazy, and had no idea how to get back to safety even if could escape.
I took a deep breath and moved forward. He clearly wasn’t going to take me back to Sara until we made this detour, so the sooner I got it over with, the better.
Suddenly exhausted, I just followed his lead. He paused before the shrine and smiled down at me with the beatific expression of the truly devout. I closed my eye as he started to pull the cloth away from the transparent coffin.
“Look, my love.”
My love? My eye flew open and I screamed.
Sara’s lifeless body lay inside, her blank eyes staring straight up at me.
Eleven
I screamed until my throat was raw and still couldn’t stop. Previously, I thought this whole journey was a nightmare.
Now, it was Hell.
“Phoebe, please stop screaming.” Ammon had pulled me completely into his arms, holding me close to his body in spite of my hysterics.
“Everything is all right,” he said. “In fact, everything is perfect now.”
His voice sounded so filled with joy, I felt sick. I looked at his face and he was radiant. Disbelief robbed me of speech.
His smile softened. “You clearly don’t remember, but I promise once you do—”
“Remember? Remember what? I wouldn’t certainly forget that you killed the only person I truly love. The only one who loved me.”
He pulled back then, his expression pained. “You are confused… I didn’t kill him, and he certainly wasn’t the only who loved you, Izzara.”
What? I managed to shove away from him then. “What are you talking about now? What have you done with Sara?” My voice broke. Fresh tears falling to mingle with the mucous from my running nose. I was too upset to care.
Now he looked confused. “I told you, we are healing your cousin.”
“But the monitors…” I began. Had they done something to put her in a temporary coma? She looked dead, unmoving and staring ahead, no life in her open eyes.
I am so sorry Sara. So Sorry.
I gestured to the case containing her body. “Then what is this? Are you trying to tell me she’s just resting?”
He cocked his head at me then moved toward me slowly, the way someone would approach a wounded animal.
“Oh, my poor Phoebe. How confused you must be to see your former body so contained and preserved after all these years.”
What fresh hell was this?
With every step he advanced, I retreated, my head bobbling back and forth.
“It will be all right, I promise you,” he said then paused, as if considering. “Perhaps all your memories will return once your soul is reunited with your body.
“Oh, think of it, Izzara. You will be whole again.” The exaltation in his voice matched the shining fervor in his eyes. “Look, my love, I saved it for you,” he said wildly, moving down to remove something from beneath the base of the crystal tomb.
He pulled up a smaller casket and hot bile rose to my throat as he happily displayed it to me.
It was a woman’s severed hand, resting in a clear box the same as Sara.
My knees hit the cold stone floor with a crack. The bile that had risen spilled out from the shock and pain.
Ammon rushed to my side and I struck out blindly as he tried to help me, tried to pull my long wig out of the way as I vomited until nothing but dry heaves doubled me over.
“Izzara—”
“Don’t call me that,” I shouted weakly and scrambled back as best I could.
His head and shoulders twitched back. “All right. All right, Phoebe,” he whispered. “I know this must be a shock, but I promise—”
“I’m sick of your false promises. You promised to help Sara. You promised to take me to her, and all you’ve done is lie and kill her.” I knew that as insane as he was, he’d probably do the same to me now, but I didn’t care. I was going to die here in this cave with her, just as our parents had. And if the stories were to be believed, so had many of our ancestors.
“Phoebe, I don’t know why you think your Sara isn’t well. You heard the attendant. He said she is resting.”
I looked up at the box again. Ammon might be completely out of his mind, but there was no doubt that their technology was beyond anything I’d seen. Even more impressive considering it was deep underground.
I moved closer and steeled myself to take a good look. I deliberately put Ammon on the left side of me so that I wouldn’t have to see the preserved hand he still held in my periphery.
I forced myself to really look at her. She was laid out in a simple white gown, covered from the elbows down with a fur blanket. The more I looked, the more I noticed that there were a number of subtle differences between the woman resting here and my cousin. The hair was a shade lighter, longer and done in a different style. Sara had that small scar on her face that she got defending me, but this person’s skin was flawless. Also, the lifeless, glassy eyes that gave me the heebie-jeebies weren’t quite as large as Sara’s.
“Who is she?” I demanded, turning to look him in the face.
A small, sad smile crossed his lips. “You still don’t know?”
“How would I know?”
He took my hand but let go when I pulled back.
His looked down at the woman and his eyes softened, unfocused as if here were seeing other places, other times. He began his story in a low voice.
“I was a different man when I first met her. My life had been well planned out. Things like honor, progress, and loyalty were everything to me but, because of Izzara, I learned there was still more to life. She showed me what it was to love.”
He paused, a small crease between his brows. “My misfortune was that she belonged to another man and was happy. I had to admire her, love her from afar.
“Alas,” he continued, “I wasn’t the only one who desired her, and one even less noble tried to take advantage of her.” He closed his eyes for a brief second and when he opened them tears fell down his cheeks.
“I couldn’t save her,” he cried, “But I managed to save her sons, twins. Fine boys whom she loved more than her own life. I put them on a ship and sent them far away, where they would be safe.”
My already fragile stomach took another blow. This story was too familiar.
And Ammon looked so sincere, so pained, as if he were truly remembering his past that a short burst of sympathy hit me in spite of it all. Even if he was making this up, had somehow known about what we’d inherited—and he must have done, I suddenly realized, remembering the gong. And yet…it seemed he truly did believe what he was saying. He was clearly either a consummate actor, or a mentally ill, tortured soul.
Or both.
But how, how could he know? According to the attorney and gran, those stories and items had been secretly handed through our family for generations. It was possible that someone had found out about them… but why him? Here? Now?
It didn’t make sense. What secrets did he and this cave hold?
I was determine
d to find out, in spite of my fear. I’d lived too long under gran’s thumb, and in Sara’s shadow. It was time I grew some cajones myself.
“Ammon,” I said softly, now approaching him as if he were the wounded, dangerous animal. Which he was.
He back at me then, pulled out of his memories—or fantasies.
His beautiful eyes still shone with tears, his tan face now streaked with the paths of the ones he’d shed.
It took a moment to get the words out from my raw throat. “Why… why did you say this was my former body?”
That radiant smile returned. “Because the Oracle promised me Izzara would return.”
I blinked. Okay….
“But she’s still here…” I wasn’t sure how to continue. His mental state was clearly so fragile, I didn’t want to upset him.
“That’s why I’ve kept the body preserved for so long. He gestured toward the hand and I tried not to look. “I wasn’t able to get this in the chamber at the time because of all that happened, so it had to be preserved apart.” He looked sad again.
I breathed in deep, the stale, cool cavern air and incense messing with my sinuses. “Please tell me everything.”
And heaven help me, he did.
He told me everything that I’d already read about in our inheritance, but added a few new items. He spoke at length how he’d loved her. How his master had coveted her, killed her husband, and tried to kill her sons. The only things that were new to me in this story, were the depths of Ammon’s emotions, and the fact that when the king smote Izzara, she had raised her arm in defense and he cut off her hand. She bled to death before she could be saved. Hence, his morbid little treasure box.
He related how the king, in his remorse, had tried to hurry her to the Pillar of Life, but he was too late. Ammon discovered her hand when he’d gone back to look for her, after secreting her children to safety. It had been left behind in the king’s hurry to save her.
I couldn’t help interrupting once or twice. “But what happened to him? And why is she in this box, so well preserved?”
A fierce look came over his face, so frightening that I hoped it would never be turned on me.
“He had her preserved. The Oracle promised she would return one day. That her body and soul would be reunited. So he placed into a Sleeper Chamber, so when it came time for the Gods to be Awakened, she would still be here for him.”
Reluctant Gods (The Awakening Book 2) Page 11