And then a dagger whirled past her, sinking into Marco’s bicep.
He let her go and she didn’t hesitate. She ripped her dagger from her belt and rammed it into his chest, shoving him with every ounce of strength she could muster into the trough of fire, pulling back her dagger as he fell.
Marco’s screams filled the room as the fire and fuel burnt into his skin. His hands were searching for something, anything, to grab a hold of so he could drag himself out.
Laura knew she would never forget his pleas for help. She felt sick, and turned away from the gruesome sight, the smell of burning flesh filling the air. She looked around at the bodies of Wicked strewn across the earth. What did I just do?
Her hair hung loose around her face and she gasped for breath. She was so completely and utterly revolted by what she had done that she couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe.
Drew appeared at her side, immediately pulling her into him.
‘Calm down. You need to hold it together until we get out of here. Remember your mum. Remember we need to find her. Okay? Now breathe, in, then out. In, then out.’
She took in a few shaky breaths, calming herself.
‘Thanks,’ she said, knowing it had been his dagger that saved her.
‘Any time.’
The trembling of the cave became more apparent as the ground rumbled and shook beneath them. Laura pulled away from Drew’s arms, frantically searching for the soul, knowing it was her only hope of saving her mum. It was gone, leaving behind only a dent in the dirt where it had fallen.
Thicker clumps of dirt rained down over them and Stella shouted at them to get out as she shoved Grace and Gemma through the exit.
The cave began to crumble away. Leo was pulling Logan along behind him, leaving the darkness of battle behind.
‘Let’s get out of here!’ Drew cried, grabbing Laura by the wrist and dragging her after him towards the exit.
She sheathed her sword and they raced through the tunnel and emerged into the room.
The temple, too, shook and trembled as they blundered up the steps. Concrete slabs fell from the roof around them, smashing into thousands of pieces against the floor.
They dove through the doors and could see the others well ahead of them, almost out of the disintegrating structure. As they sprinted after them the temple groaned and the walls began to crumbling apart around them.
Laura raised her eyes to see Leo kicking the door open and ushering everyone through as Stella screamed for them to hurry up.
They were just sprinting up the steps when Laura heard a screech. Tilting her head back, she watched as one of the stone pillars split apart, and she knew that they wouldn’t make it in time.
Drew jerked back, pulling Laura with him, and they tumbled down the steps, slid along the floor and thudded against the statue.
Drew grasped Laura’s wrist, pulling her behind the stone chair, shielding her with his body as the pillar collapsed. Laura silently prayed that Stella had made it out before the pillar crashed into the ground, smashing into pieces and blocking their escape.
The second the earth stopped rumbling beneath them, Drew pulled Laura to her feet and the two of them sprinted up the steps to the only doorway that wasn’t blocked off by stone.
Laura choked on dirt and debris as she charged through the door behind Drew, discovering that the back wall had crumbled away, forming an escape.
Thanking the Gods, they climbed up over the concrete slabs, Laura breathing heavily as they finally reached fresh air. They jumped down from the last wedge of concrete just as the deafening sound of another crash echoed across the land, spurring them on.
They took off, moving towards the forest, and dove into the safety of the trees, rolling to a stop in the bushes.
Laura peered up in time to catch the sight of cracks running up the walls of the temple, and then, they split. The temple’s walls fell in on themselves, smashing to the ground. The roof seemed to hang in the air for a second, and then it, too, came down, shattering into pieces as it struck the earth. A final pillar fell, spraying dirt into the air as it came crashing down. Debris and concrete powder rained down over the ruins, settling in the grass. Laura let out her breath as she sat up, gawking at the wreckage.
All was quiet.
Drew stood, extending a hand to her, and she took it gratefully, allowing him to pull her to her feet. ‘Are you okay?’ He asked.
Blood was trickling down the side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow and his hair was white with dust.
She realised just how much pain her left arm was in. She could move it, which was a good sign. ‘I’m probably going to ache for a while, but I don’t think anything is broken.’
She noticed that Drew’s knuckles were scraped raw.
‘What happened to you? Are you okay?’
‘It’s nothing, ill fix them back at the hotel.’ He reached up, wiping the blood from his cheek, smearing it across his face. ‘Let’s go find the others.’
They hadn’t walked far when Laura finally spotted her friends, and she was about to run to them when she was suddenly jerked back into the trees.
‘Look,’ Drew whispered, and she trained her eyes not on her companions, but on Mr Stark and his troops.
‘I think you know what crime’s you have committed. Withholding information. Putting your students in incredible danger. Lying about leaving the country. Looks like you have a lot of explaining to do,’ Mr Stark shouted.
Stella was clearly frustrated, ‘we can explain it all, but Cara is in terrible danger and so is Laura. We have to get moving now! Those deaths of women and their unborn babies were an attempt to create someone like her-‘
‘Those deaths were normal occurrences, exactly as I told you in the emails. There are always people of the Enchanted willing to fraternise with the Humans.’
‘No, you don’t understa-‘
‘I do understand. I understand that you will be spending the night in jail before facing the Grand Courts tomorrow and being stripped of your Identity Mark.’ Mr Stark gave a signal to his troops and they rounded everyone up, handcuffing them and taking their weapons.
Laura gasped, disgusted, ‘he can’t do that! They were only helping me!’
‘He can do that, because he is that much of a jerk,’ Drew growled.
The group held their heads high as the troops lead them down the mountain. Laura wasn’t sure what to do. She watched them disappear over the ridge, and as they did so, she realised something.
‘Drew!’ she cried, grasping his arm, ’Drew where’s Caspian?’
Drew’s eyes widened, realisation dawning on him.
Panicked, they turned their attention to where the temple once stood.
Then, they were sprinting for the ruins.
Part Three:
The Lost City
Courage comes from love.
And with love comes sacrifice.
Chapter Twenty
Jail Brake
‘Drew!’ Laura called, ‘Drew you can’t go in there!’
But it was too late, he was already climbing over the ruins, shouting Caspian’s name like a cassette on an endless loop.
Laura heard a yell echo out behind them and was reminded that Mr Stark and his troopers were still close by.
‘Drew get down!’ she hissed as she reached the ruins and dove behind one of the stone slabs.
‘Laura was too upset to come with us, and Drew offered to stay with her and take her back home,’ she could hear Stella telling them, ‘Caspian is looking after the manor, we are the only ones who came to Alast.’
‘Caspian was nowhere to be seen at the manor when we stopped by,’ Mr Stark bellowed. He was no longer the chirpy, humours Wizard Laura met only days ago.
They heard troopers approaching the shattered temple, kicking rubble about and scanning for movement. Laura’s limbs ached and she prayed that they wouldn’t be found. It was only a matter of minutes before she heard Mr Stark call the troopers off th
e search.
‘No one could survive that,’ he muttered.
Laura waited a while before she peered around the corner of the concrete slap. All clear. She crawled out of hiding and began climbing through the rubble, searching for Drew.
It didn’t take long for her to find him sitting behind what was left of a stone pillar.
‘Mr Stark’s right. No one could survive this,’ Laura whispered, and her heart clenched at the thought.
Drew stood, and suddenly the wreckage began to quiver and groan. They couched down, gripping the pillar, waiting for the shaking to subside. Eventually it did.
‘Come on,’ Laura pleaded, rising to her feet, ‘I don’t remember him fighting the Wicked, in fact, I think he may have went after James.’ She was trying to convince herself as much as she was him.
Worry turned her insides to liquid as nerves pierced her stomach.
Drew agreed and they left the ruins, descending the mountain.
‘What do we do now?’ She asked.
‘Now?’ He hesitated for a moment, collecting his thoughts, ‘now, we break the others out of Jail, and we go after James. We find Caspian and your mother, and we end their plans.’
The fierceness in his voice surprised Laura. Drew had certainly never been all that gentlemanly, however he had never exactly came across as aggressive, either.
Laura followed Drew through side streets and alleyways as they slowly made their way back into their hotel.
Laura dropped down onto the bed with a sigh, but her relief was short lived, for they would be leaving again soon.
She watched Drew clean and dress his wounds.
‘Here, let me fix you up too,’ he said, and she felt the bed shift as he sat down beside her.
She frowned, ‘what?’
‘You have a cut down your cheek.’
‘I do?’ She couldn’t remember it happening.
‘You’re lucky it wasn’t deep. It’ll heal quickly, with Stella’s salve.’
Laura watched his face as he dabbed gently at the cut, his eyes focused. For a second they flickered to hers, and then they returned to the task at hand.
When Drew had finished, he took up his sword, cleaning it with a towel.
‘So what’s the plan?’ She asked.
‘It’s going to be difficult, Jail bars are bathed in the waters of hell, burning us at a single touch, as Goblins do. We’ll need to get them open somehow.’
‘So we steal the key?’
‘It’s not as easy as that. The only thing that can counteract the hell bars is holy water. The guards usually bathe their hands in it before touching the jail cells.’
‘Doesn’t Stella have heavens water?’
Drew nodded, ‘Yes, with it we might be able to break them out, but it’s a matter of actually getting in to the building and eliminating the guards.’
‘What if we create a diversion? Something that could lure most of them out of the building and away from the jail cells, and then we can knock out the rest.’
Drew was nodding, ‘what with?’
‘Maybe sleeping gas? Can it still affect them if they can’t breathe?’
‘Yes it will, it seeps into their mouth and nose regardless of whether they actually inhale it.’
‘Okay so there’s that solved.’
‘Good, good, but what sort of diversion will we use?’
An idea struck her.
She grinned mischievously, ‘you don’t happen to know where we could get our hands on some dynamite do you?’
‘You really are psycho, you know that right?’ Drew said. They were darting through the back streets of the city, Drew leading Laura to the weapons building.
‘Yeah this guy told me so once. Bit of a jerk really,’ Laura said.
‘Would you still call him that?’ He inquired, turning down another alleyway.
She shrugged as they flattened themselves against the wall and Drew snuck a peek around the corner.
‘He’s all right, I guess.’
He shook his head and they crossed the cobblestone road. They hid in a clump of trees, watching as an armed guard surveyed the perimeter of the weapons building. An enormous wired fence enclosed the warehouse.
‘This place supplies the guards and troops with all their equipment. There is no other place I can think of that has explosives.’
Laura frowned. ‘Right, so how do we get in without being seen?’
Drew watched the guard march around the corner and out of sight, then turned his eyes to his watch.
‘4 minutes it takes him,’ he said upon the guards return. ‘Did you bring your Pocket Knife?’
It was still tucked safely in Laura’s boot, and she tugged it free, handing it to Drew, and watched as he flipped through and found the pliers. He was seconds away from cutting the wire when Laura reached out a hand and stopped him.
‘What?’ he asked, frustrated.
‘This fence isn’t electric is it?’
‘Damn,’ he hissed to himself, hearing the humming for the first time, ‘okay so we need to find the circuit and shut it off.’
‘What if the system is set up from inside the building?’
He shook his head, ‘nope, I can see it right there.’
Sure enough, situated on the other side of the fence and only meters to their right, was the power box.
‘What now?’ Laura asked.
He paused in concentration, running his hands through his hair, ‘okay. Okay. Um, so we need to reach through the fence and shut it off.’
Laura knew that her hands were much smaller then Drew’s. Glancing at the fence, she was sure her wrist was skinny enough to fit through the holes of the wire.
‘I guess I’ll have to reach through.’
‘No. You’ll be electrocuted,’ he said firmly, ‘we’ll just have to find something to reach through it.’
‘Drew we haven’t got time for that. My hand is small enough, I can do this.’
Drew’s face was unreadable. Finally he gave in, ‘as soon as the guard passes, head out there, and reach through slowly.’
With a nod, she waited for his word.
‘Now.’
She ducked through the bush and out to where the box stood. Raising herself to her tippy toes, she took a deep breath and, holding her arm steady, she reached through the wire. She rested her hand on the box’s handle and carefully flicked it open. Inside were three wires, but no switches.
‘Damn it!’ she uttered.
‘What?’ She heard Drew’s voice sail out from the shrubs.
Pulling her hand back, she looked to the trees, ‘the switch must be in the building; only the wires are here. There are three wires, all white and I don’t know which one to cut.’
He tossed her the Pocket Knife, ‘can you see where they lead?’
She retrieved the knife, ‘no, they go back behind the baseboard.’
Drew cursed.
Laura turned back to the wires. Which one should she cut? She reached through, pliers open, and scooped up the second wire. Squeezing tight, she was about to cut through it, when a thought struck her. What if it was all three? They could all be connected to the circuit?
‘The guard will be back soon!’ Drew whispered.
Releasing the grip on the wire she gathered up the other two, and then pressed the pliers tight, glancing away as she cut through all three. She squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the clip of the wires, and waited.
No alarms sounded. No explosion. No shouts or running guards.
She opened her eyes and pulled her hand back through the hole. She listened. No humming sound.
Cautiously, she reached out and touched the fence. Nothing. She sighed with relief as she reached back through the hole to shut the box.
She froze.
The guard came around the side of the building.
‘Laura!’ Drew hissed.
The guard hadn’t seen her. Slowly, she edged her way towards the trees, her eyes never leaving the guard.
He’s going to look. Any second, he will see me.
Luck was on her side. She made it to the tree line and dove into the shrubs just as his gaze lifted to outside the fence.
Clenching her teeth, she waited. Only a matter of seconds had passed before Drew appeared by her side, informing her he was gone.
‘It’s done,’ she puffed, passing him the knife.
Drew cut a hole in the wire big enough for the two of them to squeeze through. Hastily, he placed the wire back into place as the guard passed again.
The second he was gone, the two of them scrambled through the opening, Drew risking a few precious seconds to once again replace the wire over the hole.
They were both fast and cautious as they crossed the yard, scaling the wall until they reached the door.
It occurred to Laura then just how many holes were in their plan. They could have misjudged the timing, there could be hidden cameras, and someone could be watching them right this second, or the door could be locked, and that would be the end of their noble crusade. There was nothing they could do now but hope that luck was still on their side.
Drew tugged at the door and, to both of their relief and somewhat disbelief, the door opened.
They hurried inside, and were faced with rows upon rows of wooden crates. The storage unit.
‘This way,’ Drew said, checking his watch.
They weaved through the isles until they came to a row of wooden crates with ‘explosives’ and ‘dangerous’ printed along the sides. Drew checked his watch again.
‘How many should we grab?’ she asked as he lifted the lid.
‘As many as you can carry. We need a big enough distraction.’
So they each filled their pockets with as many thick plastic discs they could fit. Drew found a fuse and lighter and Laura followed him as they rushed down another isle.
‘Grab that grenade looking thing, its sleeping gas.’ Drew said, and after she shoved two in her pocket for good measure, they took off for the exit.
‘It’s been 6 minutes. He should be passing soon. When I give the signal, open the door and run.’ Drew whispered to Laura, receiving a nod of recognition in return.
The Enchantress (Wicked Book 1) Page 19