Chapter 88
Eugene
The bars of this cage press tightly on my feathers.
It’s a battery cage for hens, and I’m jostled about as we’re carried through big hallways and rooms. In the final room, an office, a tall skinny male writes at a desk.
His back is rod straight, the corners of his mouth turned down like an aristocrat.
I recognise him immediately as the cobra king.
“This is the one, Your Majesty,” the serpent holding me says. “An unusually strong crow. He’s vaccinated and has passed all blood tests. I have his contract of employment here.”
“Very good,” the serpent king says. “Set him up here so I can take a good look at him. What is his name?”
“Eugene, Your Majesty.”
I fluff up my wings. I do have the strongest crow around. But where are my mates? I want to ask where they’ve gone because they definitely aren’t here with me as they should be. I don’t get to ask any questions because I cannot shift inside this cage.
The serpent king nods at me, scanning the working contract I signed.
“Alright, Eugene. Here is our agreement.” I feel like his eyes are seeing through my feathers right into my blood, and I want to shrink away from him.
“If you complete this little job for me, I will help your little mate with the cancer she has. There are some new treatments my scientists can try. All you have to do is crow when you are given the command. Very simple. Can you do that?”
I crow in agreement. There is a chance this basilisk will kill me, but for my precious girl, I would do anything.
Later that night, as I’m sleeping in my cage in Mace Naga’s office, with Mace Naga himself working late on his computer, there is a knock at the door. “Come in,” Mace drones.
The door opens to reveal a big scary man with white face paint in the pattern of a skull.
He’s the biggest beast I’ve ever seen, and even the room seems to shrink in fear around him.
Instantly, I know what he is, my senses going on high alert.
I snap my attention to the king to wait for my signal to crow.
“Ah, are you finally going to kill me, Your Majesty?” The basilisk chuckles, gesturing at me with a black-gloved hand. He has a deep, commanding voice, and I look between the two males, wondering why this massive beast submits to the thinner one.
The king of serpents doesn’t smile. “Have you completed your collections for today?”
“I did, and I think there’s enough for you to control every politician in the state by now.”
The serpent king nods and gestures to the couches on the other side of the office. “I want you to take a look at those old texts over there, General. I take it you remember Sanskrit from your studies?”
The basilisk winks at me before striding to the couches and sitting down, long legs stretching out.
He holds up an old, yellowed book with leather wrappings.
I can see the writing is in a language I don’t understand, and the pictures are so dark I can’t make wing from tail.
The room is silent as the basilisk studies the pages.
I watch him carefully. These two beasts might be allies, but there seems to be a tension between them.
“Are you capable?” The way the serpent king asks this makes me look at him. It sounds like a taunt. A challenge. He must be very brave to be talking to the basilisk like that.
The basilisk general sits back on the couch as if he’s not bothered by this, casually drumming his fingers along the top of the old book. “Theoretically. It’s quite large, isn’t it? Big as a house. Enough to talk to hundreds of people and maybe more.”
“You doubt your power?” the king challenges again. My head snaps between the two of them like I’m at a tennis match.
“Never,” the basilisk replies simply. “Only technique. If I can do it on a small scale, a large scale shouldn’t be too much harder, surely.”
Mace nods slowly. “Is there a possibility someone will sense it?”
“Only basilisks and the newly dead play in the shadow realm, and dead beasts can’t tattle.”
“So you’ve told me. How much time do you need to prepare?”
The basilisk scratches his neck. “Tomorrow morning will do. Is this why the rooster has made an appearance?”
“We cannot be too sure.”
The basilisk smirks as if this pleases him.
When night falls the next day, we drive in a truck an hour away from the main house.
Then I’m carried by the basilisk lord himself to a big, empty warehouse.
I happily breathe in the air after being cooped up for days inside.
My legs ache from this constant sitting position, but they won’t let me out except to use the toilet.
I’m set on the floor, a little way from the basilisk and the serpent king, who stand far apart on the concrete floor.
It’s the three of us, everyone else has been told to stay outside.
The basilisk plants his heavy boots and looks around. “Ready?” he asks the serpent king.
Mace Naga nods, his eyes lit up with excitement. There is silence. Then—
I feel it before we see it—a great, dark power and a feeling of dread. Such great dread that it takes me by the throat so I can only blink in terror at the sight in front of me.
A wind picks up, ruffling my feathers. A scary sound, like an ancient groan, travels through the air.
It picks up, now like a jet engine. I squint through it, cringing against the roar in my cage.
I cannot meet my death here! I have mates to look after!
What will they do without me? Before I can crow, something changes.
A dark power, black as night and shifting like a shadow, comes directly from the basilisk, spiralling upwards from his body like a tornado. It reaches the ceiling of the warehouse, where it expands like a disc of pulsing black cloud. Like it’s a living, breathing thing of pure evil.
I want to crow, but the serpent king isn’t giving me the signal.
He’s simply looking up into the black swirling power like he’s seen the Wild Mother herself.
His black duster whips violently in the wind, but it doesn’t bother him.
He is focused. I think this dark hurricane is where we go to meet our maker.
It grows bigger, to the size of a car, spreading the feeling of dread inside of me.
“Told you!” the basilisk lord shouts above the roar of the wind. “It just needs to be bigger to take in the non-serpent animalia population in the state.”
My mind is seized with fear. The end of the world is coming, and Mace Naga is bringing it! He wishes to kill us all!
“It’ll just take me more—” The basilisk chokes, clutching his chest.
“Ghoul?” Mace shouts.
“Oh,” the basilisk says. He holds up a finger as if to explain, but his power sucks down into his body like a funnel.
“Eugene!” the serpent king roars.
I breathe in a mighty breath and crow as loudly as I can. The shadows tremble and vibrate, but they don’t stop their funnel down, down, down into Ghoul’s now rigid body. I crow as loudly as I can and the shadows travel down his back in a spiral. I think I’m helping but I can’t be sure.
The basilisk falls flat on his back like a dead weight and before his eyes close, they turn to me, and a voice like midnight whispers in my mind. “Find Aurelia Boneweaver, Eugene. Find the Boneweaver. Save the world.”
He does not move again. The wind is gone. There is only silence in the air, broken by Mace Naga as he shouts for help.