A scream tore from her throat.
The creature’s face was mutated beyond recognition, burnt shreds of skin hung from its charcoal body, and fiery red flames ran through the crevasses in its charcoal skin. Two huge black orbs stared down at her, and a thick snake-like tongue licked its razor sharp teeth as a revolting black liquid dripped from its mouth. The sickening smell of burnt flesh surrounded her and bile rose in her throat as she stared up at the monster.
‘Laura!’ Caspian shouted and she sprang to life, scrambling backwards as Caspian dove in front of her, driving his dagger into the creatures arm. It staggered backwards, and growled, angered now. It slashed at Drew with one of its silver clawed stumps but Drew was too quick, and sprung backwards, whirling around it, distracting it for a moment and giving Caspian the opening he needed. He sunk the dagger into its back, twisting and dragging it down its spine before ripping it from the creatures flesh. It howled in pain and turned to Caspian, advancing on him, this time giving Drew the opportunity to drive his blade into the heart of the hideous monster.
Black liquid spurted from the wound as Drew wrenched his blade free. For a moment, the creature was stunned.
Then, in one clean slice, Caspian decapitated it with his dagger. Both boys turned from the monster and dove to the ground, covering their faces. The body dropped to the earth and burst into flames. Laura scrambled back with a squeal as the flames died down quickly, leaving a pile of ash behind.
‘Hey, are you alright?’ Caspian asked, rushing to Laura’s side and helping her up from the ground.
She allowed him to lift her, leaning on him heavily as she stared at the measly remains of the monster. A gust of wind blew past her, scattering the ash across the grass.
‘What the hell was that?’ She asked as she steadied herself and looked from Caspian to Drew, who was cleaning his blade on the lawn.
‘That was a Goblin.’ Caspian answered
Laura was speechless.
Finally she managed to ask why it had burst into flames.
‘The fire begins to consume them, first entering their veins and running through them, burning them from the inside out. That is why they smell and look like charcoal and burnt skin. When you kill a Goblin the flame inside them bursts, finishing them off.’
Suddenly Stella and Leo tumbled through the back door of the cottage, rushing to their side, ‘is everyone all right?’ Stella gasped and her eyes came to rest on what was left of the pile of ash.
‘We’re fine,’ Caspian answered as Drew stood, fastening his blade under his pant leg.
‘We found Goblin remains in the bathtub. It must have been trying to dull the fire with water,’ Leo said peering from Caspian to Drew, ‘we heard the howls but when we came to the door it was jarred shut. Took a few hard hits before we got it open.’
‘What about the other door?’ Drew questioned, looking at the flustered adults.
‘That was the weird thing, it was like when we left the bathroom the whole cottage had been flipped around. The door we entered was suddenly on this side, and the kitchen was at the other side of the house.’
‘Dark Magic?’ Caspian asked.
‘Possibly.’
‘We should head around the front and meet the others,’ Stella said, and she and Leo turned, studying the yard around them carefully to ensure there would be no more surprise attacks, before jogging back around the side of the house.
Caspian turned to Laura, ‘you all right now?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ she smiled appreciatively.
‘Come on, we better follow Stell,’ he said as he secured his dagger in his belt before hurrying off after Stella and Leo.
Laura hesitated, glancing over at Drew. She was shocked to find him watching her, his green eyes ablaze.
‘That was quite a save,’ he said, although, for the first time since she had met him, he was not trying to be funny, nor was he smiling.
She didn’t know what to say.
His stare hardened, ‘you could have been hurt.’
‘So could have you.’
‘But I had a weapon to defend myself with. If it had gotten a hold of you it would have ripped you to shreds or burnt you to death.’
She glared at him, ‘It was a split second reaction. I’m sorry. Next time I won’t bother,’ she snapped, storming past him and after Caspian.
As she rounded the corner, a spine-chilling scream rip through the still air. And she was suddenly sprinting for the sheds.
Gemma’s eyes locked on the monster of her nightmares and before she could think, she let out a blood curdling scream. Grace shoved Gemma out of the doorway and glanced sideways at Logan with his blades in hand, ready to fight. She dropped the flashlight, spinning fast on her heal and coming face to face with a Goblin, fire coursing through its veins and black blood dripping from its mouth. One touch would burn her skin.
It sprung at her.
She screamed and recoiled, bumping Gemma further out of the way. She instinctively threw her hands up to protect her face as it slashed at her arm. A pain like nothing she had ever felt before shot through her entire body and she gritted her teeth, forcing herself to hold back a cry. It raised its stump to slash at her again and suddenly Logan was in front of her with his sword at the ready. He propelled her backwards with one hand as he swung his blade at the Goblin with his other, slicing the clawed hand clean off.
A horrific screech filled the air as the Goblin staggered backwards, giving Logan enough room to soar through the doorway past the beast and dart up behind it, sinking his sword into its black and dragging it through its flesh. It’s howls echoed throughout the sheds as it turned to Logan, swinging its remaining stump at him.
He was fast in his movements and light on his feet as he managed to dodge his enemy’s attack. The Goblin was quick though, spinning in the opposite direction and snatching at Logan’s sword. There was a sudden shriek as it lurched sideways, rotating clumsily towards the shed door. Grace stood, legs apart, fiercely staring down the creature.
Logan’s eyes flickered to the Goblins back, catching sight of Grace’s dagger sticking from its flesh. The Goblin snarled as Logan danced around it, and with one harsh blow, he drove the blade into its chest. He pulled back, retreating as the monster blew up in flames. The screeches coming from its mouth split the air and in a matter of moments the flames had disappeared, leaving a pile of ash behind.
Logan didn’t give the remains a second glance as he flew up the ramp to Gemma and Grace. Grace and Logan lifted a crying Gemma up off the ground and, both with an arm around her shoulders, helped her back through the shed, Grace whispering reassuring words to her. Stella, Leo, Laura, Caspian and Drew were all sprinting down the road as they reached the gravel.
‘What happened?’ Stella puffed, seeing Gemma in a crumpled mess between the two teens.
‘Goblin attack. She’s in shock. She hasn’t been faced with one since that night,’ Grace answered and Stella immediately wrapped her arms around Gemma, allowing her to cry into her shoulder.
She ran her fingers through her hair, soothing her with words of encouragement.
Laura had never seen Gemma in such a state, and she felt awful for her. Whatever it was that she had been through had definitely left a mark in her life, and not a good one. Someone suddenly shouldered past her. It was Drew.
‘My god Grace are you okay?’ He asked, pulling her in to a hug of his own, ‘I thought that was you screaming.’
‘It’s okay, I’m okay,’ Grace said, hugging her twin tightly.
‘Two attacks in one place,’ Caspian said, ‘that’s rare. Goblins don’t usually travel together.’
‘You were attacked too?’ Logan asked.
‘Yeah, just outside of the cottage,’ he answered.
‘The only time Goblins work together are when they are following a leader, evidently promising to reward them with their old body should they do as they’re asked,’ Leo thought aloud.
‘So you think someone aske
d them to guard the riddle to the map?’ asked Drew, pulling away from his sister but keeping a firm arm around her shoulders.
‘Tom would have told us if he had trouble with Goblins,’ said Stella.
Gemma’s sobs had turned into quiet sniffles as she listened to what was being said.
‘So they must have been planted here recently,’ Caspian spoke slowly as he thought it through.
‘But why?’ Concern filled Grace’s face.
Gemma raised her head, wiping her eyes as Stella looked out at the others, ‘It seems far from coincidental that as soon as we start searching for the maps, the place is suddenly guarded by Goblins. I’ll bet the other riddle locations across the globe are guarded as well, to keep us away. Whoever took Cara really doesn’t want to be found.’
‘Or interfered with,’ Laura added.
They all looked at her.
‘Well, they obviously have a plan that must be pretty serious if they are going to this extent. The only thing that confuses me is that if they took my mother to lure me to them as we supposedly thought, then why would they make it so hard for me to get to them? I don’t think they want me. Well, not yet anyway. So they’re trying to slow us down, but not stop us. And my mother is the bait to keep us coming.’
‘But surely if they didn’t need you yet they would have just waited until the time was right.’ Leo mumbled.
The memory of Laura’s mother hurrying down the alleyway with the man she now realised was most likely her father appeared in her mind.
‘I think they’re searching for something. And I think she has the ability to help find it, all the while still leading me to them,’ Laura said suddenly.
‘Like what?’ Caspian questioned, frowning, and then realisation dawned on him. ‘Your dream?’
She nodded.
‘What dream?’ Leo asked furrowing his brow.
‘I had another dream. One about my mother going to a man named Kane’s house in this dark alleyway. She was asking him for a Charm to protect me with and he said there was nothing he could find to help me. He then told her she could sacrifice herself to the Gods for me and then I ran but she heard me and chased after me. She used the Memory Charm to hide that night’s events from my mind.’
Stella sucked in a breath and looked across at Leo, ‘she’s been dealing in the Black Market?’
Leo closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with frustration, ‘what has Cara gotten herself into.’
Laura remembered a vital piece of information that she had completely disregarded beforehand, ‘she had a black ‘W’ on her wrist.’
Stella shook her head in disbelief.
‘So maybe she has Charm that they need?’ Grace suggested.
Logan frowned, ‘why not get the charm themselves?’
‘Too much time trying to find something to trade with. They probably thought it was easier to kidnap someone with access to the Charm, and since Cara is Laura’s mother anyway, they assumed that they could kill two birds with one stone,’ Caspian rationalized.
‘Look, I think right now we need to go get the riddle, find the map, and then decide what to do based on what the map tells us. If we can find Cara, maybe we can get her back and put an end to their plans before they realise we’ve caught up with them already.’ Stella said then added sternly. ‘Let’s get moving. I don’t want us to wait around here longer then we need to. They could be sending reinforcements.’
They agreed and made their way back to the cottage.
Logan slowed Grace down so that they were out of earshot.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? That Goblin was really close to you.’
Grace nodded, ‘Thank you for jumping in front of me like that.’
Logan itched to reach out and draw her into a hug. His heart was still racing with adrenalin and fright. ‘Any time,’ he smiled weakly.
‘Why are we here?’ Caspian asked as they clambered through the front door to find they were now in the bedroom.
‘This is very confusing,’ Stella said looking around.
Leo rubbed his chin, ‘definitely a Charm of some sort.’
‘A Changing Charm, I’m guessing.’ Logan said.
They left the bedroom, fanning out in the passageway, Gemma trailing at the back, Grace holding her hand to keep her calm. Stella turned the handle of another door, peeking inside.
‘Well, I found the Library,’ she said, her eyes sweeping across the small wooden room filled with empty shelves.
‘I thought Tom said it was carved in stone?’ Caspian questioned peering around Stella.
‘It must be the Changing Charm. We’ll have to look over the walls and see if it’s visible,’ Leo said and began inspecting them innocently.
Everyone spread out, feeling the walls for words that may have been carved into them. As silly as it must have appeared, it proved to be affective. Not long after starting, Caspian called from the right corner to say he had found four lines of words carved into the wood.
Once they had all assembled around him a series of sighs and groans rippled through the group. The words were carved that roughly that they were barely readable.
‘Well…’ Logan huffed as they watched Leo kneel and run his hands over the lettering.
‘I can’t understand it even a bit,’ he finally alleged.
Laura crouched and raised her hand to the letters, hoping she may have some luck. She agreed with Leo. They were past readable.
‘That one looks a bit like an ‘N’ doesn’t it?’ Grace asked, pointing to one of the letters.
Laura examined it closely, ‘it looks almost back to front.’ She mumbled, and then she gasped, ‘back to front! The message is written back to front, like if it were on a window so you could read it on the other side!’
‘Why the hell would they do that?’ Drew exclaimed, ‘these walls aren’t see through, we can’t just go around the other side and read it.’
He was still mad, Laura could tell. Mad about her saving him, and probably mad about the danger his sister had been in. But as Laura watched for a moment longer than she should have, she could see the worry and fright in his emerald eyes. He raised them, catching her stare.
She quickly broke it off, ‘uh, I think it is the Charm. It’s changing everything.’
‘Should we leave and come back to allow it to change?’ Logan offered.
‘No, we can’t risk losing the riddle now that we have finally found it,’ Stella answered firmly.
‘Then how do we read it?’ Grace inquired.
Laura had always been good at thinking outside the box, finding the answers to problems that others were too busy thinking through the obvious possibilities to. And thanks to this ability, an idea came to mind.
‘Does anyone have a piece of paper?’ she asked.
Logan pulled a blank sheet from his bag. Taking it, she held it up over the riddle, and, using a firm press with her fingers, pushed the paper into the marks, making sure to cover every word, every line carved, every little dot. When she was finished, Logan passed her a pencil as she turned the sheet over. She lightly shaded over the words, the indentations in the page becoming visible.
Laura grinned as she slowly made her way down the page. It had worked. She finished the last letter and passed the pencil back to Logan. Leo reached for the paper, looking it over.
‘Well, now we just have to work out what it means.’ Caspian said, analysing it over Leo’s shoulder.
Leo opened his mouth and read aloud:
I am hidden from the eyes of those who can’t see,
Yet I am in plain sight to those who can,
Hanging among the history of our Nation,
Where do you think I am?
‘It must be somewhere obvious, a place where both Humans and Enchanted have access to it, yet only we see what it really is.’ Grace said
‘Hanging among the history of our Nation?’ Caspian wondered aloud.
‘So where is a place that has the history of this Nation?’ Grace a
sked looking around, ‘A history centre?’
Logan shook his head, ‘no Tom said it’s not as obvious as it first seems. He must have tried the history centres and not found anything.’
‘Remember, the riddle has been changed since then thought.’ Stella reminded them.
‘So it could be a history centre?’ Asked Laura.
Leo shook his head, ‘no it still seems too obvious.’
‘It’s hanging up somewhere,’ Caspian mumbled still thinking to himself.
‘A Museum?’ Drew offered.
‘There are so many Museums, how could we possibly check them all out,’ Stella huffed.
It was then that a creek and whoosh echoed through the house. Laura’s body whipped around but she saw nothing through the open doorway.
‘I think we should get out of here. We can go to a cafe and discuss it there over lunch. It is nearly 12,’ Stella suggested as her eyes settled cautiously on the doorway.
Laura rose slowly from the crouching position, in complete agreement with Stella’s proposal. The rest of the group straightened up and waited for someone to take the lead.
‘Oh, I’ll do it,’ Gemma scoffed. Her tears had dried and the familiar hard exterior had mended itself. She pulled her dagger from her belt and held it firm in her right hand as she approached the doorway. Quietly edging around the corner of the doorframe, she looked both ways, ‘all clear. Let’s find the exit.’
They followed her out into the hall, made their way down passageway and into the kitchen. The door to the exit wasn’t there. Entering the lounge room, they found that the doorway wasn’t there either. But as they turned to re-enter the kitchen, they found themselves in the bathroom.
They glanced at one another, fear visible in their faces. And then they heard a growl.
`Chapter Thirteen
Riddle Me This
‘What was that?’ Gemma whispered, her eyes wandering across the room, her body tense.
Leo rested a hand on the tiled wall, ‘it sounded like it came from the walls.’
‘It’s like a maze,’ Grace whispered.
The Enchantress (Wicked Book 1) Page 13