A loud splash interrupted my thoughts.
“Aiseh,” Izzah said breathlessly. “It’s very wet.”
Her light spun rapidly as she looked around. I hastened down the final rungs and splashed into freezing, knee-high water. The cold shock stole my breath.
The tunnel stretched in both directions, the moldering brick walls coated in brown slime, the dripping ceiling only inches above my head, and the floor lost in sloshing black water. It was wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but no more.
“The original entrance is back there,” Izzah said, her throaty voice echoing off the walls. She carelessly waved toward the north end. “It caved in a long time ago. Let’s go.”
She splashed forward, her ponytail swinging jauntily. I flicked a nervous glance at the low, dripping ceiling, then followed.
We waded through the water for fifty feet, then discovered a heap of broken stone where part of the ceiling had fallen in. The barrier had collected rainwater runoff, and when we clambered over it, we found damp stone instead of a foot of murky liquid. Picking up our pace, we rushed onward, silent except for our quick breathing.
The emptiness of the tunnel pressed in, the hollow silence beneath the noise of our passage weighing on me. The air was rank, tainted with slime and mold and who knew what else. Neither of us spoke, our concentration on the slippery, crumbling floor scattered with debris.
Fifty feet farther on, the passageway sloped downward. Rivulets of water trickled along the bricks, racing us toward the tunnel’s lowest point. My nerves wound tighter as we ventured deeper and deeper. The ramp steepened.
Ahead of me, Izzah stopped. I paced to her side, and together we stared at our route: the brick passageway slanted down into the earth and was hidden beneath still black water. The deepest section of tunnel was completely submerged.
“The rain,” she muttered. “The runoff got into the tunnel …”
“Let’s get out of here,” I snapped, turning away. This was what happened when I relied on other people to get a job right. “We’ve wasted too much time already.”
She grabbed my arm, halting me. “No, it’s fine. We can get through.”
“It’s flooded! We’ve walked, what—a hundred and fifty feet? Two hundred? That leaves five hundred feet of tunnel. We can’t swim that.”
“I’m a hydromage, Kai,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Water is rarely an obstacle for me.”
“You can’t shift this much water.”
“I don’t need to. I only need to shift enough to keep a pocket of air around our heads. It’ll be a piece of cake.”
Dark, eerily still water, its surface disturbed only by the trickling runoff slowly engorging it, stretched from the slanted floor to the descending ceiling. Adrenaline pulsed in my throat. Go into that? Into the black depths of the submerged tunnel, reliant entirely on Izzah to keep me from drowning?
No. No way in hell.
“I’m going back,” I said flatly. It was 10:17 p.m. Not enough time to steal a boat, but I could stake out the shore and try to track Icarus when he left the island.
Turning, I stalked up the ramp.
“Kai.”
Her soft call halted me. Reluctantly, I looked over my shoulder.
She stood at the water’s edge, her hands twisted together. The glare of her headlamp blinded me to her face.
“I don’t want to go alone,” she said quietly. “Please come with me. I can get us through, I promise. Then we can catch Icarus together.”
I stood rooted to the spot. All my instincts screamed at me to get away from that icy black water. Izzah waited, silent and hopeful. If I left, she would go on without me. She’d either drown in the tunnel, or she’d reach the island, charge in like the same fool who’d walked right up to the heavily guarded collector’s mansion, and probably get herself killed.
Jaw tight, I strode back to her.
She grabbed my gloved hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
“You’re sure you can get both of us through the tunnel?”
“Yes, absolutely.” She pulled me by my hand toward the water. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
Somehow, I doubted that.
Chapter 5
The water was bitterly cold. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, the heavy press of frigid liquid leeching away my strength. I’d moved my light higher, clipping it onto my collar, but water splashed over it with each step.
Izzah was beside me, holding tight to my hand. A three-foot-wide pocket of air surrounded our heads, the water pushed aside by her magic. A frown of concentration tugged at her lips, but she showed no signs of tiring.
Our progress was painfully slow. We waded through the water with minimal purchase on the slippery stone floor. It stank worse than ever, and our lights reflected off the water’s rippling surface, blinding us to anything beyond the air pocket. My breath came fast and sharp, my thoughts consumed by the freezing cold and the darkness and the tiny pocket of fragile air that stank of toxins—
“I never told you about the Andromeda Spell,” Izzah said abruptly, her cheerful tone marred by her chattering teeth. How could she sound so carefree in this reeking black hell? “You don’t know what it does, right?”
“No.”
“According to the legends, it’s supposed to make you invincible.”
My gaze snapped to her in disbelief.
She smiled and twin dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Invincible, undefeatable. As powerful as a demigod.”
“A single artifact can do that?”
“No one knows for sure. It’s been so long since anyone successfully used the spell.” She tugged me along through the water. “Do you know the Greek myth about Andromeda?”
I grunted vaguely. I knew the gist of it, but I wanted her to keep talking.
“Andromeda was the princess of Aethiopia, an African kingdom. Her mother, the queen, liked to boast that Andromeda was even more beautiful than the Nereids, who were Poseidon’s companions. The queen’s arrogance deeply offended Poseidon, and in retribution, he sent the monster Cetus to ravage Aethiopia’s coasts until—”
Izzah lurched forward and her face hit the wall of water in front of us. The air bubble collapsed inward, and icy liquid rushed for my head. She jerked upright, her free hand rising as she pushed the water back again.
“Sorry, I tripped on some rubble.” She squeezed my hand and launched back into her story at top speed, as though she could out-talk my rising fear. “The only way to appease Poseidon was to sacrifice Andromeda to the monster, so her parents took her to the coast, stripped her naked, and chained her to a rock for Cetus to claim.”
“Good parents,” I muttered, concentrating on breathing.
“This is where Perseus enters the story. A demigod, son of Zeus. He was on his way back from slaying Medusa, and he carried four weapons gifted to him by the gods—an adamantine sword, a helm of darkness to make him invisible, the flying sandals of Hermes, and the polished shield he used to see Medusa without turning to stone.”
“Well-armed,” I commented distractedly, stumbling over rubble on the tunnel’s hidden floor. Water gurgled and sloshed as we waded through it, our lights flickering over its dark surface.
“Oh yes,” Izzah agreed, her teeth chattering. “And he was carrying Medusa’s head too. So Perseus is flying home when he sees a beautiful maiden chained to a rock, with a sea monster about to devour her. He swoops in, kills Cetus, and frees the damsel. Instantly taken by her beauty, he falls deeply in love and brings her home to marry.”
“That easy, huh?”
“Would you turn down a valiant demigod who saved you from imminent death?” she asked lightly. “Their marriage wasn’t quite that quick and easy—Perseus ended up killing her fiancé first—but they loved each other and went on to rule a kingdom together, have lots of babies, all that.”
“Romantic.”
“It was!” she protested. “Their tale is one of the great love stories of ancient myt
hology.”
“What does this have to do with the Andromeda Spell?” I would’ve tried harder to figure it out myself if I hadn’t been so occupied with the freezing water and risk of death.
“Perseus was all but invincible. Armed with his godly gifts and Medusa’s head, he never fell in battle and was considered undefeatable. That’s what the Andromeda Spell is said to do—make you invincible like Andromeda’s beloved. How, exactly, no one knows.”
“Why isn’t it called the Perseus Spell, then?”
“I think it’s actually—”
She broke off. I could see why, and the ragged edges of my panic sharpened.
A glistening barrier of tumbled rock had emerged from the darkness and was protruding into our air bubble. The ceiling must have caved in, and it had created an impassable blockade. Izzah stared for a moment, then reached into the water and groped blindly at the stone.
“A collapse,” she muttered breathlessly. “Can’t be. There must be a way through. We’re almost there.”
I tightened my grip on her hand as she leaned down. The air bubble moved with her, and I crouched to keep my head in it.
“Here! I can feel a gap. It seems to go through.”
“A gap?” My voice cracked embarrassingly, but I didn’t care. “How big of a gap?”
“It’s a bit tight, but …” She straightened. “I’ll check if it goes through. You—you can wait here, okay?”
“Wait? But—”
Her wide eyes pleaded with me to stay calm. She grasped both my hands. “Thirty seconds, tops, I promise. You can hold your breath for thirty seconds, right?”
I stared at her, my heart pounding in my throat. The frigid water hugged our bodies tight, dragging at our clothes with each small movement. I was so chilled I couldn’t stop shaking, and she was shuddering too. If we stayed in the water much longer, hypothermia would set in. Beyond the glow of our lights, all was dark, unrelenting water.
She couldn’t check the passage and maintain an air bubble for me. The water would swamp me and I’d be submerged hundreds of feet from an air source. If she took too long—
“I promise, Kai. Thirty seconds.”
I nodded jerkily.
She smiled but it was too anxious to comfort me. For the first time since we’d entered the water, she released my hand. “Okay, take a deep breath. Ready? Now!”
I sucked in the deepest breath I could. Izzah dove for the gap in the rubble, taking the air pocket with her, and icy water surged over my head. I braced my hands against the ceiling, eyes squeezed shut, and counted.
One, two, three …
My body had numbed to the cold, but the water seared my face like knives. My limbs shuddered and my teeth chattered, lips squeezed together.
… ten, eleven, twelve …
My lungs ached. I hadn’t taken a deep enough breath. My heart was racing, burning through the oxygen in my blood.
… nineteen, twenty, twenty-one …
Panic crawled through my head. The need for air dragged at my chest. My throat spasmed, muscles fighting the conflicting commands of conscious mind and instinct.
… twenty-eight, twenty-nine—
Light blazed through my eyelids, and chilly air swept over my head, shoving the water away. My eyes flew open. Izzah’s face, her brow wrinkled with worry, swam in my vision as I sucked in air.
“I’m good,” I panted.
She nodded. “It’s about five feet through a tight tunnel, then the surface of the water is twenty feet beyond. We’re almost there.”
Twenty-five feet. Then it would be over.
Catching my breath, I said, “Let me go first. I’ll swim it, then you follow.”
“All right.”
Steeling myself, I shifted to face the spot where she’d found the gap. I filled my lungs with air and dove into the water. Cold slammed over my face again as I felt blindly for the opening. I squeezed through, kicking my feet, my shoulders scraping against disintegrating brick.
The claustrophobic gap widened. I shot forward, swimming hard. My light glimmered on the water’s surface. My head burst free and I breathed deep. Scrambling onto the ramp, I stood dripping and shivering on solid ground.
Light flickered beneath the water, then Izzah broke through the rippling surface. She splashed onto the ramp and stopped beside me, beaming delightedly with her dimples on full display.
“We did it!” Her voice echoed loudly through the tunnel. She swiped her hands down her front and a cloud of mist erupted from her clothes as she used her hydro magic to dry off. “Here, let me.”
She pressed her palms to my vest. Foggy moisture burst from my clothes, leaving them unpleasantly damp instead of dripping. The mist hung around us in the still air.
“Best I can do quickly. Now let’s go tag a thief!”
I glanced automatically at the glowing face of my watch. 10:31 p.m.
“Five minutes left?” Izzah squawked in disbelief, reading the time upside-down. “That took fifteen minutes?”
How nice that the time had flown by for her. It’d felt like an hour to me.
We shared a terse look, then without a word, we sprinted up the tunnel.
Chapter 6
The tunnel ended in a heap of broken, muddy earth, with a rusting ladder ascending into a chute. Izzah shot up the ladder, and I climbed right behind her, desperate to get out of the dark, damp tunnel. I was trying hard not to think about the trip back.
Izzah stopped, and I halted a rung below her boots. Leaning back, I watched her place a hand on the flat stone above her head, a faint rune carved into its surface.
“Ori aperias,” she declared.
Dim light flashed over the rune and the hatch groaned. She pushed against it. When nothing happened, she climbed another rung to press her forearm against the stone.
“It’s not moving. Kai, it’s not moving!” Her throaty tones had sharpened with alarm. Clinging precariously to the ladder, she rammed her arm against the hatch. “We’re stuck! No, we need out—we need to—we’ll have to go back through that horrible tunnel and—”
“Izzah,” I cut in. “Calm down.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “Right. Right, calm. But—but the hatch is stuck and we can’t—”
I grabbed the next rung. Izzah flattened herself against the ladder as I climbed up behind her, my feet braced on either side of hers and my chest pressed to her back. Reaching over her head, I pushed hard on the stone hatch. It shifted under the pressure.
“It moved,” I told her. “It’s heavy, but I think I can get it off.”
“Oh,” she said breathlessly, turning her head to peek at me. “That’s good.”
Jammed onto the ladder together with my back against the chute wall, our faces were inches apart. I could see flecks of gold in her irises, illuminated by the light clipped to my collar.
I pushed on the hatch again, but I couldn’t get enough leverage with one arm. Ascending another rung, I put my shoulder into the stone and shoved upward with my legs. The ladder creaked and dirt spilled into the chute as I threw the hatch open. Fresh air swept inside.
Leaning back into the wall, I said, “You first.”
She scrambled up the ladder, and I hauled myself out after her. The hatch was set in a misshapen rock in a small clearing surrounded by dark trees. I turned down the brightness on my light, and Izzah switched off her headlamp and stuffed it in a pocket. We didn’t need to announce our presence.
“Do you know where the nexus is?” I asked.
“Southeast corner of the island, facing the Fraser River.” She squinted up at the sky to get her bearings. “This way. Let’s hurry.”
She set out in a fast walk, shoving through the underbrush. The trees ended in a wide clearing that spanned the island’s interior—but a dozen yards in, we discovered it wasn’t open ground but a muddy marsh. We cut back toward the tree line and jogged along the relatively dry ground.
A few hundred yards ahead, light flickered through t
he trees. Icarus must be at the nexus.
The exertion returned warmth and strength to my muscles, and I pulled ahead of Izzah. There was no time to scout the area or plan our approach. I was relying on the element of surprise and the dangerous assumption that I was the more powerful mythic. As I ran, I drew power into my body from the surrounding air. It built inside me, hot and crackling and eager to escape.
Light danced through the trees, silvery blue and ethereal. Magic different from mine sparked through my heels with each step. The radiance grew brighter and brighter as I closed in.
I burst through the final layer of underbrush, Izzah at my back. Ahead, grass swept down to the shore where the wide expanse of the Fraser River met the island. Glowing spots of yellow marked the scattered homes on the far shore.
In the center of the flat space, three tall stones formed a triangle—and between them was the dark shape of a man.
He spun at our appearance, his long cloak swirling around him. Something small and metallic glinted in his grasp, illuminated by the fading shimmers of light over the stone formation. A deep hood hid his face.
The bizarre sight of a medieval cloak didn’t slow me, my hands already diving for the sheaths in my vest. The man touched the nearest stone of the nexus—and light flashed across it, blinding me.
I hurled my knives anyway.
A stifled cry of pain, then the knives clattered against rock. I’d hit him, but the blades hadn’t stuck in his body. No good. Spots flashed across my vision, and as they cleared, I saw a dark blur shoot upward.
For a moment, I thought my vision was still recovering from the blinding flare, but the man hurtled into the sky, immune to gravity. Shock caused only the slightest stutter of my arm before I flung a third knife. It flickered end over end, then struck the man in the shoulder. His impossible ascent didn’t slow, the ground fifty feet below him.
Love Potion: A Valentine's Day Charity Anthology Page 36