Once again she called up the fae blade that was endowed with magic. Unlike ordinary blades, fae blades could sense the intentions of the ones who wielded them. If the one holding the blade wanted to inflict a cut that would never heal, the magic in the blade would cause such an outcome. Lorelle ran the edge of it across her palm pressing deep. Quickly the blood swelled up through the parted flesh and ran like tributaries off of a river, into the grooves of her hand and over the edge. She watched in odd fascination as the red drops fell to the ground slowly at first, but then she squeezed her hand into a fist and the pressure pushed the blood out quicker. The drops fell in rapid succession, as though each drop was chasing after the one before it.
Closing her eyes, she focused all of her energy to flow through her body and into the ground beneath her. She pictured the stone altars in her mind and fashioned a spell to conjure the images there around her, solid and real.
“Blood that is spilt by my own desire,
To pay the debt for earth’s sacrifice.
Stones, rock and grit begin to conspire,
Build me an altar not one but thrice.
Raise them up until they reach the surface,
Make them strong to hold their prey,
Let them last until they serve their purpose,
This I command and earth will obey.”
Lorelle’s eyes snapped open at the first tremor. She watched in silent satisfaction as her magic called and the earth answered. The ground rumbled and rolled as trees were uprooted and foliage destroyed. With every quake more and more rocks were pushed up through the soil. She realized when she saw steam rising from the rocks that her spell had gone deep into the earth. In order to fulfill her demands, her magic dug deeper and deeper until enough rocks had risen to form the three altars. One by one the rocks began to meld together until there were three separate large boulders. Then, as though a potter was shaping his clay, the three forms, seemingly maneuvered by invisible hands were smoothed and shaped until there before her sat three stone altars.
For a brief second Lorelle wondered where her applause was. Because frankly, she had just soaked the ground with her own blood, literally moved the earth by her own power, and fashioned three perfect altars where once only useless rocks had been piled. So where in that dark forest of hell was her freaking applause?
“No doubt it’s being given to my sister for making butterflies fly out of her butt,” she muttered to herself as she walked over to one of the altars. She ran her no longer bleeding hand across the smooth stone. The different colors of the rocks had given the surface a mottled appearance and it would have been beautiful but for the dark liquid that streamed through the tiny crevices. She couldn’t touch it, as though a clear sheet of glass separated the liquid from the surface. It moved like a snake, slithering around the stone, in between the different colors and when Lorelle looked closer she realized it was blood, her blood. Her very essence was flowing through her creations, but it wasn’t beautiful, or awe inspiring, it was dark. It was deadly and she could hear the altars groaning for more blood, but not hers.
They were crying out for the blood that the healers would spill and as she pressed her hand more firmly to the altar she understood why. Dark magic was not natural. It went against the order of the universe. These stones had not been formed into altars by a master craftsman who understood the process of the undertaking. They had been called, commanded, to form into something that would serve as a platform for death. By her own spell, she had created them only to last until their purpose was served. The stones cried out for their task to be fulfilled so they could return to the ground from which they were so violently ripped. They wanted to return to their true purpose where life could take shelter beneath them and history could be indented and preserved on them and the surface far above the molten center could be protected by them from the earth’s heat.
As Lorelle pulled her hand away and took a step back from the altar she knew she should feel something like remorse for what she’d just done. But she didn’t see the horror of it. All she could see was the power it took to perform such a spell, power that had come from her and her alone.
Chapter 20
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. Isn’t that what little ones are taught to say and believe? What happens when no amount of thinking you can changes what is? I can think ‘til the cows come home that I can fix my eyes, but that doesn’t make it so. At what point do we stop saying I think I can and just accept that we never will?” ~Heather
“Are you sure you’re feeling good enough to walk?” Jewel asked Kara for the fifth or maybe it was sixth time, she couldn’t remember.
“If you’re not up to it we can just do what the cowboys used to do. When their horses were injured they’d shoot’em and then use their bodies for cover,” Heather offered helpfully. “See Jewels, I know things too.”
“I’m not sure whether I should be offended that you are comparing my worth to a horse, pissed that you want to shoot me, or creeped out that you would consider hiding behind my dead carcass in order to hide from the psycho fae,” Kara admitted gruffly.
“You should in no way be offended at your worth being compared to a horse, Kara,” Jewel said matter of fact like. “Horses have been held in high esteem throughout their existence. In the sixteenth century they were considered a symbol of power by the Europeans over the natives of North America. Some Native American’s believe that the man and horse’s spirit become one over time. And further back than that in the Iron and Bronze ages, horses were even worshiped in some cultures,” Jewel finished and smiled helpfully at Kara.
Kara let out a half growl half sigh. “Not helpful, Jewel.” Then she turned to look at Heather who was covering her mouth as her shoulders shook with the laughter that she was trying to contain. Kara had liked Heather right from the moment she said welcome back to the crazy train, unfortunately there are no stops, no returns, and no refunds, the minute she had regained consciences. From then on she and Jewel had been filling her in on what all had happened while she’d been out of it. For the most part she sensed they were being straight with her, but the little voice in the back of her head that was more often right than not, told her they were holding back something. There was something they weren’t sharing and based on how fragile they were treating her it was because they thought she couldn’t handle it. She pushed that worry aside when they started walking, only because she was then worried about poor, blind Heather hitting a tree or stumbling on a rock. Heather had quickly nipped that in the bud when she told her she could follow in Jewel’s footsteps with no problem because she was about as quiet as a newly weaned heifer―whatever that meant. And then the five foot nothing woman did just that. She walked a few feet behind Jewel and was nearly as good as a shadow following its bearer. After that Kara quit seeing her as helpless and realized that she was a force to be reckoned with. She was older than her by a few years, she had known that before Heather had told her and not because she looked that much older. There was just something in her voice, and a maturity that only came with age. Yes, she liked Heather, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t give as good as she got to her new friend.
“Okay so maybe what Jewel said is helpful because I’ve decided the correct response to your suggestion is to be creeped out by you wanting to use my carcass. I can totally understand wanting to shoot someone,” Kara said pointedly.
“I take that to mean that you are perfectly capable of walking your own blood drained body through this evil infested forest without Jewel asking you if you are alright every ten to fifteen seconds?” Heather asked.
“The only reason you two aren’t more concerned is because you don’t realize the possible consequences of all the blood Kara lost,” Jewel defended.
“Why do I have the feeling she’s about to tell us all those possible consequences?” Heather muttered under her breath to Kara.
“A healthy person can only safely lose ten to fifteen percent of their total blood v
olume without having serious side effects. Without sufficient blood volume dehydration can occur, and in the worst case scenario hypovolemic shock can occur, which means organs are dying because of lack of oxygen.” Jewel responded quickly.
“Because she is,” Kara answered the question Heather had asked before Jewel spewed knowledge that Kara was convinced was so congested in her head that she couldn’t help but blurt it out because of the pressure build up.
Heather took a step towards the sound of Jewel’s voice and reached out her hand. Jewel’s eyebrows drew together but she took the offered hand.
“I appreciate your knowledge, and undoubtedly it is going to prove very useful, but sometimes we have to use the eyes in our head to understand a situation instead of all the, more often than not, useless facts we know. Look at her, does Kara appear to be in any sort of duress, other than being tired?”
Jewel looked at Kara and then back at Heather. “No.”
“Good, problem solved, disaster averted,” Heather grinned and released Jewel’s hand.
“But,” Jewel started only to then snap her lips closed when Heather held her finger up in warning. Jewel started to turn to start walking again but then turned quickly. “What if,”
“Nope,” Heather cut her off, and then sighed. “Look, do you want me to sniff her and see if I can smell death on her?”
Jewel’s eyes widened. “Can you do that?” She asked as her voice rose in awe of the blind healer.
“No,” Heather snapped. “Now turn around and lead us the hell out of here, or I’m going to start leading. And let me tell you girls, you know things are bad when everyone has to follow the blind chick.”
Kara smiled at Jewel and shrugged when she continued to frown. “Just think how boring things would be without her.”
Jewel thought about it a minute as she turned to once again lead them through forest, then hollered over her shoulder, “True and if she gets too annoying I know like a thousand different pressure points on the human body to knock someone out.”
“Good to know, Jewels,” Heather chuckled good-naturedly.
They walked on in relative silence from that point for several hours, only stopping long enough to give their feet a break and catch their breaths. At one point during one of their breaks they felt the ground beneath them begin to shake. Kara, being familiar with earthquakes from her home in sunny Californ-i-a, immediately sunk close to the ground to keep from falling over in case the shaking worsened. After several minutes of tremors that made their teeth vibrate but never got any worse than that, it suddenly stopped.
“Was that an earthquake?” Jewel asked.
Kara shrugged. “It felt similar to the few I’ve experienced but, it was much milder.”
“Seems like an odd place for there to be an earthquake,” Heather pointed out.
That was the most that was said about it. It wasn’t something they could do anything about and it didn’t really affect them at that moment so they just continued on.
A short time later, Heather had to put her foot down again with Jewel when the gypsy genius started talking about drinking their urine to stay hydrated. That was where Kara and Heather drew the line.
“I’m just saying,” Jewel started up again an hour after their last stop. “It’s sterile; it’s almost like drinking water.”
“You know what they say about almost?” Heather asked.
“That it only counts with hand grenades?”
“No! That it never drinks its own flippin’ pee!” Heather said fiercely as Kara, pulling up the rear, snorted and snickered at their ridiculous argument, one she was sure they never expected to have in their lives. She didn’t notice that Jewel had stopped walking and in turn so had Heather. She ran right into Heathers back pushing the smaller girl forward with a loud, “Umph.”
“What’s the holdup, shorty?” Kara asked.
“Did you seriously just ask the seeing impaired member of our posse what the holdup was? And I will not take time to point out that based on where your breath hits the back of my head you must only be a few inches taller than me,” Heather whispered, hurriedly tilting her head back just a tad so Kara would hear her.
“To answer your question Kara,” Jewel spoke up, “The holdup is a deranged looking fairy in the middle of the trail.”
Kara tensed upon hearing mention of the fae. Lorelle was back and it made her blood run cold. Not with fear, fear was for someone who hadn’t been living in the system their whole life. No, her blood ran cold with rage. She had been a victim at one time, and she vowed never to be one again. Lorelle, forcing her still on that table, cutting her arms and face up reminded her of what it was like to be the helpless little rabbit. Kara smiled wickedly as she thought, Lorelle’s going to learn very soon that this little rabbit has fangs.
“It’s refreshing to see females like you three walking through the forest, pushing on and keeping hope alive, pointless, but none the less refreshing,” Lorelle said with a grin that would make Cruella Deville look downright friendly.
“What do you expect us to do?” Heather scoffed. “Curl up in a ball, crying while we wait to see what sadistic plan you have up your dirty sleeve?”
Lorelle looked at her fingernails as if suddenly bored by the conversation. “You healers aren’t like the ones I remember. I always thought healers should have more spunk especially being mated to such dominant males. But then, I’m just a high fae, what do I know?”
Kara’s brow drew together. “Just so you know you are seriously dating yourself when you use words like mated, and males. Marriage and men suffice for it this day and age. I mean, when you use a word like mate, the first place my mind goes is to like animals doing their thing to continue on their species, right?” She looked to the other girls for agreement.
“Totally,” Heather nodded.
“Well actually the word mate can imply many things, it just depends how it is being used in a sentence. It can be used as a verb or a noun and if you add the word less to it making it a compound word, it becomes an adjective.” Jewel’s words began to speed up as she started explaining. “And not only that but it’s used differently in different cultures.”
Lorelle pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered, “The world can’t possibly be a better place with these three nut jobs in it.” She grabbed the still talking Jewel by the wrist, and then snatched Heather’s wrist and pressed it against Kara’s so she could hold them both and then flashed.
Lorelle dropped them unceremoniously on the ground as they reappeared in a small clearing. The girls righted themselves, dusted what little dirt wasn’t permanently attached to their clothes and looked at their surroundings.
“What’s the lay of land ladies,” Heather asked as she stood listening for anything new or different from where they had just come. She took in a deep breath and caught the deep smell of fresh dirt, not top soil, but the dirt beneath the uppermost layer that stays moist from the lack of sunlight. It was as if a large pile was sitting directly beside her.
“Circular clearing,” Jewel began in a technical, no-nonsense tone. “We are roughly in the center, the surrounding forest is about thirty feet away in all directions. From the direction you face now, at 3:00 clock stands three stone, what I would say look like altars.”
“Why does it smell like fresh soil?”
Kara looked down at the ground. “It looks as though the ground has been plowed or something. It’s all rough and the grass and plants are mixed in with dirt that was obviously not on the top to begin with.”
“My, my,” Lorelle cooed. “Aren’t you three quite the trio? Now that you’ve so aptly described to the poor blind girl where she is, can you deduce who the lovely altars are for and what their purpose will serve?”
“We wouldn’t deprive you of your moment to share with us the way in which you plan to kill us,” Kara said as she took several steps closer to Heather while she spoke so the healer would know where she was. If they were going to survive this, and Kara was
determined they would, then they’d have to work together and that meant keeping Heather aware of her surroundings in a place she was unfamiliar with.
Lorelle’s face tightened and her lips grew thin across her severe face as she glared at Kara. She reached out her hand muttering a spell under her breath to force the three healers under her will. Suddenly all three girls were moving forward without choosing to do so. Each of them tried in vain to stop, but their limbs were not their own, not anymore. “If you want to be rude, then I will reciprocate in kind. But you should know that unless you’re willing to fight dirty, I will win,” she sneered at Kara.
Jewel was the only one of the three able to give Lorelle a shred of difficulty. She was aware of the magic that was a part of her very being, unlike Kara and Heather. She wasn’t entirely sure how to use it, but as her legs propelled her forward she closed her eyes and reached for the light that was a constant, warm glow in her mind. Just as she had pushed her power into Kara when she healed her, she now attempted to push it to the part of her brain that controlled her willpower. She had no idea how she knew where that was, but it was not the time to question this sudden knowledge. Her feet stalled a foot from the altar. She turned her head and saw that Kara and Heather were climbing up onto the altars. It was apparent that they were not in control of their movements because they were jerky and stiff. Jewel felt power roll over her and then against her will she took a step and then another. It felt as though dirty grease, thick and foul had been poured over her head and rushed down her body coating every inch of her. She ground her teeth together as her hands pressed down on the cold stone forcing her to climb up on to it. And just as her two comrades had done, she laid down on her back with her arms by her sides.
If ever Jewel had wanted to seriously injure someone it was in that moment, stripped of her will, unable to help her friends, watching the possibilities of a new future in a new world slip away. She stared up at the sky that they had been unable to see within the cover of the thick, dark trees of the forest and saw that night was coming. Slowly the blue faded to purple and finally to black. There were no stars, only a full moon staring back at her. This can’t be how it ends, she thought to herself. Everything is just beginning, the books I’ve read unfolding before me as people I didn’t think could exist come to life. She tried to bite back the tears that seeped from her eyes, tried to focus on all the knowledge she had, searching for anything that would help get them out of there. But there was nothing. For all of her supposed gypsy magic, as she lay there waiting for Lorelle and her evil master to do their worst, Jewel realized she was still just a human. Gypsy healer heritage or not, she was no more than a mere mortal.