Entranced

by Tamara Hart Heiner

  “Got it.”

  Beth leaned forward, gripping my headrest as she practically bounced out of her chair. “I can do this, Jayne. Tell me what I need to do.”

  “It’s three hours to Maryland,” Meredith said. “That’s . . .” Her voice faded away under my glare.

  “Plenty of time to tell me everything I need to know,” Beth said. “For the love of butter and bread, Jayne. Let me help. I want to do this with you.”

  I saw it then: a longing in her eyes. Not a longing for adventure or a craving for excitement, but a longing to connect with me. To be a part of something together.

  “Okay,” I said, exhaling. “But you follow my lead.”

  She nodded, all business. “What do I have to do?”

  What did she have to do? I looked toward Meredith for guidance.

  “What?” she said, daring to glance at me before turning back to the road. “I only got two texts from Laima. She didn’t say anything about this part.”

  I turned to Beth. “Karta’s the goddess of fate for adults. But she’s—”

  “Goddess of fate?” Beth interrupted. “Is that what I’ll be?”

  “Sit tight. It’s going to be a long story.”

  By the time I finished explaining to Beth all about Laima, as well as my role as Dekla and Meredith’s as Ragana, and then answered all her questions and re-explained everything I’d just said, we’d been driving for almost two hours. The sky had darkened nearly to nightfall, and the windshield wipers worked hard to repel the pounding rain.

  “So where are we going now?” Beth asked.

  “Karta’s house,” I said, glancing at Meredith for confirmation. “Right?”

  “I’m following the storm,” she replied.

  “What do you mean, following the storm?” I narrowed my eyes.

  She kept her gaze forward. “It’s calling to me. She’s at the center of it. I can feel it.”

  It bothered me that Meredith could feel Karta, as if they were somehow linked. An odd feeling scratched at my chest, but I shoved it aside.

  Meredith had to slow the car down the closer we got to Laurel, Maryland. The rain poured down in torrents. I picked up my phone and fiddled with it, then put it down again, fighting the urge to turn it on and call my mom.

  “Where are all the cars?” Beth murmured, looking outside. “It’s like dead out here.”

  I hadn’t noticed before, but now I did. A car passed us in the other lane, but otherwise, the road was empty.

  “Better that way,” Meredith muttered. I nodded, thinking of the crowd that had tried to harm us last time we were here.

  Suddenly, coming back didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  Meredith turned right down a side street. The signs of a business park lit up a parking garage in front of us.

  The car gave a shudder and halted. The lights on the dash flashed and then went out.

  “What the heck?” she said, turning the key in the ignition. It didn’t so much as click.

  I looked around us. It was night, but the street lamps cast a narrow light through the rain. Office buildings sprang up around the concrete sidewalks and parking lots. Thunder crashed near enough to shake the car, and I jumped. “Where are we?” My heart started a nervous rhythm of its own. This didn’t feel right.

  Meredith undid her seatbelt. “I don’t know. Let me just look around.”

  “No!” I grabbed her arm. Maybe it was just leftover phobia from being attacked by a serial killer, but all I wanted to do was lock the car doors and huddle up.

  “It’ll be okay,” she assured me. “I’ll see if any of these offices have a security guard. I’ll be right back.”

  I undid my seatbelt, a deep fear making my hands shake. “Then I’m coming too.”

  “Me too,” Beth said.

  I gave a sharp shake of my head. “You stay here.”

  “But—” she began.

  “No!”

  Beth settled back with a scowl. Meredith opened the car door. The outside wind howled and rocked the door. With a grunt, she pushed it open and stepped outside. The moment she did, the street lamps went out, plunging us into darkness, and Meredith yelped.

  “Meredith!” I batted at my door and cursed when I couldn’t immediately find the handle.

  Something fell into the driver’s seat. I turned toward the hissing sound. A bright light filled the cabin, and I winced, just registering the canister leaking gas next to me before I started gagging. Behind me, Beth coughed as well.

  Get out of the car. I groped for the handle again, but spots danced in front of my eyes. I gasped, my lungs crying for oxygen, my heart battering against my throat, pulse thumping in my ears. Then my body went limp, and I fell forward.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I opened my eyes to one of the worst headaches I’d ever had. Lights swayed before my eyes, and I closed them against the stabbing pain in my head. I could tell from the unpleasant tingling in my fingers and the way my wrists bumped each other that my hands were tied together. I lay on my side on cold, hard concrete, and a quick wiggle of my feet showed they were also bound.

  I heard voices murmuring. No, more than that. Chanting. I lifted my head, prying my eyes open for a better look around me. The light stabbed at my skull like little needles, and I groaned.

  “Oh, Jayne.” The female voice came from so close to me that I tried to roll over to see her. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

  Heels clacked across the cement and came to a stop under my nose. I focused on them.

  The woman squatted, and I recognized Karta. Samantha Miller. “Well, I’m awake,” I growled. “It’s over. Stop this power trip now. Laima might even let you keep your role if you do.”

  She gave one slow blink, long lashes closing over her dark brown eyes. And then she burst out laughing. Out of sight, other voices joined in. Male voices.

  “Did you hear that?” she said, tossing her jet-black hair over one shoulder. “Keep my role.” Her mouth formed an ugly sneer, and she leaned closer to me. “You have no idea, Jayne. I’m tired of being Laima’s puppet. I want so much more. You understand, don’t you?”

  “No.” I shook my head and winced. “I don’t.”

  “Here, let me help you.” She gripped both my shoulders and pulled me into a sitting position.

  My vision cleared a bit, and I realized I was in an empty parking garage. The overhead lights produced a mellow, dim light in the concrete box. A handful of people stood in the shadows around me, but my attention was drawn to the mass of people several yards away, kneeling in orderly rows, hands overhead as they chanted in unison like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. My chest tightened. Was Stephen there, in that mindless mob?

  Samantha propped me up against a wall, and I uttered a gasp as my brain rattled around in my head.

  “Jods, Jayne seems to be in pain,” she said. “Can you do something about that?”

  A man stepped out of the shadows, and I had to press my lips together to keep my jaw from dropping open. Tall and sculpted like a Norse god, his brown hair brushed his bare shoulders, and a cold confidence simmered in his dark eyes. His gaze swept over me, his mouth turning down in disdain, and I wilted. I caught my breath when he knelt in front of me. He studied me for a moment, something like curiosity sparking in his expression.

  “So you are Jayne,” he said, his voice rumbling like a dump truck over gravel. The words sounded foreign and awkward in his mouth.

  I could only nod.

  He reached over and gripped my head. I tensed, but immediately he let go. When he did, my pain evaporated.

  “How-how did you do that?” I gasped out.

  “My arsenal is well-equipped, Jayne,” Samantha said, still crouched in front of me.

  My hands ached where the ropes bit into them, and I shifted, trying to bring feeling back into my legs. “Where’s my sister? And Meredith?”

  “They’re fine.”

  That hardly answered my question. “Wher
e are they?”

  She kept her eyes trained on me. “We have much to talk about.”

  I snorted and wiggled my feet. “We already tried that, remember? I came all the way out here to talk to you.”

  “No, you came all the way out here to try and stop me. I wasn’t prepared for you before. Now I am.” She leaned closer. “You can’t ignore what Jods just did to your head. He healed you. He took your pain away. He can do that to anyone. Anyone he chooses. Isn’t that a great power?”

  “You have a great power, too,” I said, appealing to her pathos. “You get to change people’s destinies.”

  “But we don’t, Jayne. Not really. Haven’t you realized we’re just pawns? We don’t have any power. We see their deaths and we supplicate Laima, who in her own good time—today, tomorrow, a year from now, next decade—decides if their life is worth preserving. She doesn’t even tell us if she’s intervened. How great does that seem to you?”

  It bothered me that her words struck a chord. I’d thought of all this before. I wished I could I just change their fates, but I accepted that I didn’t know the whole plan. I didn’t know how one person’s life might intersect someone else’s.

  “Micromanaged,” Samantha said. “That’s what we are. Well, no more. I want to yield power. I want to make a difference. To help people. Don’t you?”

  I’d never asked to become a Latvian goddess and dig my nose into other people’s personal affairs. But of course I wanted to help people. “How do you intend to do that?”

  “Easy.” She gestured in the direction of the chanting, which hadn’t stopped. “If everyone follows my plan, we have peace. Thanks to Jods, we have one world leader who will never die, and we will never face discord again.”

  “And those that don’t follow?”

  “We don’t even have to do anything. They dispose of themselves.”

  The suicides. I shuddered. Nothing in this plan sounded remotely tempting, though I could see how Samantha might be seduced by the logic. “Karta,” I said, speaking softly in what I hoped was my most convincing voice, “people are dying. Innocent people. We were chosen to help save them. We can’t save all of them, true, but we can save some. And that’s something.”

  “No,” she said, utterly unmoved by my speech, “it’s not. If I’m going to save people, I’m going to choose who it will be. And I’ll start with me. And you.”

  She slid a knife from her sleeve, and I reared back, startled. Hiding blades on my person hadn’t been part of my training. The gleaming metal flashed, slicing the ropes tying my feet together. I gasped, more from surprise than anything.

  She smiled. “See? We’re on the same team—Dekla. You’re my sister.” She reached behind me and cut the ropes around my wrists. “I need you. Without you, I can’t achieve my true goal.”

  “Which is what?” I asked, rubbing my wrists and still eyeing her warily. “World domination?”

  She laughed lightly. “How you underestimate me. I want immortality.”

  “Oh,” I said dryly. “Is that all?”

  “Don’t be so quick to dismiss me. I want to be Karta. Not just a stand-in. You and I will never accomplish anything unless we become our namesakes.”

  “And these people?” I nodded toward the chanters on the other side of the garage. “Who are they?”

  “See, there’s one problem.” Her eyes dropped to the knife in her hands. “Deivs doesn’t think there’s room for more immortals. Heaven’s full.” She smirked. “But all the other deities—like Jods here—” she nodded toward Mr. Ripped—“believe otherwise. So we must overthrow Deivs to make room for the new age.”

  “Ah.” I nodded like it all made sense, but inside, my heart was going triple time. I wasn’t prepared for this. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re brainwashing them.”

  “Soul power.”

  I stared at her, waiting for the words to make sense.

  “If they give me their souls, I harness the power of all their mortal lives. In a way, that gives me immortality. Not forever, though. It’s you who makes me different. With their souls and our combined magic, we will be a threat to Deivs himself. Then he will listen to our petition.”

  “With my power,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” She smiled again, though this time it seemed more sadistic. “I need you. Willingly, if possible. If not.” She shrugged. “I can work with that.”

  “How?” I whispered, my skin prickling with premonition. I wouldn’t be all that hard to convince, depending on the leverage.

  She snapped her fingers. Big Guy went around a concrete pillar and returned with Beth. She was gagged and tears stained her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen. Other than that, she didn’t look harmed.

  “This one’s your sister, yes? She looks just like you.”

  I swallowed as Samantha pulled out that knife again and traced the edges with her fingers.

  “I don’t really need her. She’s nothing to me. Just a soul whose power I can harness. If you go along with me, I don’t have to use her.”

  I sucked in a breath. “What do you need me to do?”

  Her white teeth flashed as she smiled. She sheathed the knife and extended a hand. “Take my hand, sister.”

  I didn’t move. “What do I have to do?”

  She grimaced with impatience but quickly hid the emotion. “When we join hands, Jods will perform the soul rite. All of these people—they gave up their souls willingly, that’s a must—will become ours. You’ll feel it. And then together, we will have the strength to wage war against Deivs.”

  “So we won’t be gods yet.”

  She shook her head. “No. Only Deivs can do that. Mind you, I can do this without you. But it’s easier with you. And it will cost fewer souls.”

  There had to be a way to stop her. I balled my hands up, steeling myself for what I was about to do. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to help.” I jumped up and swung my fist into her face.

  She shrieked, and so did I. I’d never punched anyone before, and I wasn’t prepared for the pain that lanced through my hand and up my arm. Before I could even react, Jods gripped me by the back of the head.

  “Should I dispatch with her?” his gravelly voice growled out.

  I froze, the pain in my hand forgotten. He could. One yank, and he could snap my neck.

  “No!”

  A male voice interrupted us, echoing through the concrete parking garage. I turned toward the sound, but I didn’t need to. I’d know the timbre of Aaron’s voice anywhere.

  Blood wept from a gash on his forehead and he was soaking wet. He stepped toward us, favoring his right leg slightly, chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath. He’d either been in a car accident or had a tussle with the rain. He came to a stop several feet in front of us.

  “Aaron,” I croaked, my mouth dry. My heart pounded harder than before, and all I could think was how I did not want him here. “Why are you here?”

  He met my eyes. “I couldn’t let you come alone. So I followed you. I tried to call you.” He grimaced.

  He’d followed me. I swallowed hard, moved that he cared so much, even after everything I’d put him through.

  Samantha immediately looked interested. “Who is this?”

  “I’m her boyfriend,” he said. “And you need to take your hands off her.”

  Surprisingly, Jods let me go. “He has reign over her. She belongs to him,” he rumbled.

  “I see.” Samantha tapped the knife in her hand. “So the almighty Dekla has submitted herself to a man. This could be interesting.”

  My face burned with what her words insinuated. I opened my mouth to argue, to say I hadn’t submitted myself to anyone, but Aaron shot me a look. I closed my mouth. Whatever they believed was keeping us alive right now.

  Jods stepped up to Samantha, and they conferred together. I moved closer to Aaron.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed.

  He gripped my shoulders and spun me to face him, his eyes raking over m
y face and body. “I’m officially breaking up with you, Jayne.” His hands tightened on my shoulders.

  “What?” The comment was so out of left field that it caught me off guard. “Is this the best place for this conversation? You followed me to Maryland just to say that?”

  “It’s important,” he whispered. “You need to know—you need to know I’m doing this for you.”

  “All right,” Samantha said, breaking into our conversation.

  I spun away from Aaron, hurt and anger and bewilderment lashing at my mind.

  “We’ve decided to propose a trade. Jayne, we’ll let you and baby sister go—in exchange for your boyfriend’s soul.”

  “No way!” I exclaimed. I could already imagine Aaron all zombie-like, standing with the other chanters. In spite of how he’d hurt me, my heart broke at the thought.

  “You can’t have it all, sister,” Samantha said softly. “Sacrifices must be made.”

  “No. There—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Aaron’s voice silenced me. Samantha and Jods looked at him and smiled.

  “No, Aaron!” I exclaimed, my voice cracking. “You don’t know what you’re agreeing to!”

  He held my gaze. “Actually, I do.”

  Jods grabbed Aaron and started to pull him away.

  “Wait,” Aaron said, digging his heels in. He broke out of Jods’ grasp and stepped back to me. “I love you. Whatever happens, remember that.”

  I love you.

  The words burned in my ears, the ones that had been on the tip of my tongue for months, the ones I’d so desperately wanted to hear. Emotions stirred in my chest, soft and warm and panicked because this couldn’t be happening, he couldn't profess his love right before he entered a brainwashed zombie cult. My mind whirled in mind-blowing, ecstatic, agonizing confusion. Why would he choose now—unless he thought he wouldn’t get another chance?

  “Aaron,” I gasped out. “I—”

  “I know,” he interrupted. His fingers fumbled for mine, and I gripped them for a brief second before Jods secured him again and dragged him away.

  “Aaron!” I screamed, lurching after him. Strong arms latched onto me from behind, holding me in place. I struggled against my captor, but the arms held tight. A familiar scent reached my nostrils, giving me pause.