Chapter 19 – Celaeno #2
And then he yanks on the collar, and it snaps off in his hands.
My eyes widen and I touch my bare throat, suddenly feeling the weight lift off both my body and my heart. Does he actually trust me enough not to just take off?
“We’ll look for another way in and stay close. You be careful.”
I nod again, feeling the heat of his body along my back.
“Is this a good idea?” Journey asks.
My gaze shoots to him.
He blushes. “I mean, sending her in alone, not the collar.”
Grey shrugs. “I guess we just have to trust that she can do what she says.”
I feel a strange thrill at his faith in me. As I walk to the entrance of the cave, I look back at them. All of them seem worried, but none of them are moving to stop me.
Was I wrong about them?
Shifting, I feel my bones crack and my shape change. In seconds, I’m in my raven-form once more. Stretching my wings out, I internally sigh. It feels good to tap into this part of myself once more.
It’s strangely freeing.
Pumping my wings, I lift off of the rock and fly into the darkness. My heightened senses help me steer clear of sharp rocks and the twisting in the tunnel. Up ahead, I see the ghost’s light once more and fly faster.
When I explode out of the tunnel, I find myself in a big cavern. Natural light drifts in from far above. The ghost stands in the middle of the smooth dirt floor.
My heart races as I fly closer and stop on the ground.
A witch’s symbol has been made on the ground, written in blood. The coppery scent fills the air, and the sweeping lines of the symbol are more black than red now.
Candy’s body lies in the center of it. Laid almost peacefully. Her hands folded on her chest. If not for her slit throat, wrists, and ankles, and the blood that splatters her body, she could be a woman laid to rest by her loving family.
It all makes sense now. Candy hasn’t cursed this town. A witch sacrificed her to create this powerful spell. How many witches could there be in this town?
I shift back into my human-form, wincing and rolling my neck. I usually don’t shift back and forth so quickly. It makes me remember that I’m not young anymore.
Standing, I look from the ghost to the woman.
My heart squeezes, and I swallow around the lump at the back of my throat.
I can’t imagine what this human experienced.
She probably felt lost in these tunnels, away from the sunlight, afraid for her life.
The witch would have fed on that fear before she drained the girl’s life blood. No wonder Candy was angry.
“You were sacrificed?”
She nods.
“By your jealous ex?”
She shakes her head, and I feel her anger building.
“A man from the club?”
The sand from the ground begins to lift around me. Again, she shakes her head.
I know she’s growing impatient and frustrated. She wants me to solve her death. She wants me to lay her to rest. But what am I missing? Who would want to do this to her?
“An enemy?”
The cavern overhead shakes, and tiny rocks and debris fall.
I cover my head, my heart racing as I look above me and back to the ghost. If I keep making the wrong guesses, she might just bring the roof down on me. And the idea of being buried alive… now that’s a nightmare I wouldn’t want to experience. An immortality trapped beneath rocks.
I shiver. Stay focused.
“Not an enemy then…” Every muscle in my body tenses. “A friend?”
The shaking stops. The falling of the sand slows. And she crumbles to her knees, her face in her hands.
I watch, my heart aching, as this ghost cries over her dead body.
Unable to help myself, I move toward her and kneel at her side. Placing a hand softly above her translucent back, I whisper, “I understand.”
She looks up at me, and our eyes meet. Tears gather in the back of my throat.
There are few things sadder in this world than seeing a ghost cry. Their tears glisten down glowing cheeks. Their suffering fills every inch of them, keeping them bound to this world. Slaves to their worst moment.
They have no one to hold them, to tell them it’ll all be okay. They have no one to wipe away their tears or even to hear their story.
I know what that feels like.
My vision blurs with my own tears. “We’re going to solve this problem.”
She reaches out and touches the pocket of her body with fingers that pass through it.
“You have something you want me to see?”
She nods.
I don’t relish the idea of touching her dead body, but I take a deep breath and reach inside her pocket.
She has a tiny wallet with her phone attached.
And the picture in her little wallet? It’s of her with a little blonde haired girl.
They’re holding each other so tightly. Matching smiles on their faces.
I choke out my words. “You want to keep your daughter safe?”
She nods.
Setting her wallet carefully down, I look at the picture one more time. “We’ll keep her safe. I promise.”
I press the picture between her chest and her clenched hands. “So that she’s always with you,” I tell her.
The ghost reaches up and touches my face. All I feel is the slightest chill.
“So, your killer is a friend. And a witch? Can you lead me to her?”
Her hand drops, and she shakes her head and points at her body.
I immediately understand. “You can’t go far from it.”
She nods again, then points to the wallet again and fades from my sight.
For a while I remain kneeling there, head bowed, reciting an old prayer for her peace.
When I rise, her wallet and phone clenched in one hand, I realize I’m not alone.
Several feet from me, a dark, shadowy figure looms over the bloody scene.
Evil comes off it in waves, filling the air with the scent of death, rotting bodies, and blood.
A guardian of the witch’s sacrifice. So no one can weaken her curse.
Heart racing, I inch slowly back from it, knowing it’s here for me.
Reaching down, I scoop Candy’s body into my arms, trying not to wince at how stiff she is.
I stand with careful movements and take a step back toward the direction I came from.
I have no idea how I’m going to escape and take Candy’s body to put it to rest, but I have to try.
The skeletal arm of the creature rises and points upwards. The top of the cavern begins to shake, harder and harder with every passing second. My throat closes and dust fills the air as I head for the exit. I would run, but I’m carrying what’s left of Candy.
My feet slip in the dirt, but I keep moving. Seconds before I reach the exit, rocks crumble down, sealing me inside. I step back, coughing and choking on the cloud of dust the collapsed tunnel creates. Panic claws at my spine.
Now which way do I go?
The shadowy figure remains, its hand still raised. Power rolls from it in waves.
Squinting through the dust, I look for another exit, anywhere I can escape from. But I see nothing. I know there are exits high above me, but I refuse to leave this woman’s body down here. I tighten my hold around her. I won’t do it.
Moving back toward the shadowy figure, I gently set Candy down. Taking a deep breath, I charge at the creature. It vanishes, and for a moment the cavern goes still. Then the creature reappears across the room and the shaking begins again.
Gritting my teeth, I hate how helpless I feel. I could destroy it by calling my birds to me, but I refuse to bring them into danger. So I attack it over and over again, kicking, punching, anything I can think of. I only manage to slow it down.
I’m sticky, covered in sweat and grime, and my knees are shaking.
Every time more rocks and dust crumble onto me, I replay the image of myself buried here forever, but I can’t bring myself to abandon this woman’s body.
If I leave now, I have no doubt this thing will bury all evidence of her death from sight.
There’s a loud crack above me and I look up to see large rocks falling. I have to roll to avoid being crushed. A second later, Journey is there, between me and the creature. His wings beat back the dust, and he floats there for a moment like the gargoyle of legend, strangely beautiful and powerful.
Then, he spots me in the corner. “Come to me!” he shouts.
I point at Candy’s body. “We need to take her too.”
His brows rise, but he grasps her body and reaches out for me.
I fling my arms around his neck, and he lifts us into the air and out the larger hole he’s created above us.
We shoot out into the light of day, and the other two gargoyles are there in an instant.
Grey snatches me from his brother’s arms, and we fly higher.
Down below, the entire side of the cliff crumbles into itself, leaving behind a mess of boulders and debris.
They take us to the other side of the lake. Journey lays Candy’s body down, and suddenly all three gargoyles are around me.
“Are you okay?” Journey asks.
“Were you hurt?” Ender says, his hands running over my arms.
I’m sure I look horrible. I feel exhausted, and I’m shaking. But I’m okay. “I’m fine.”
Grey says nothing, he just holds me for a while. Somehow, that’s nicer than anything I would’ve expected from him.
“So you found her?” Ender looks between her body and me, his expression unreadable.
I nod. “A witch performed a ritual using her body… which is why this curse is so powerful.”
“Fuck,” Ender mutters shaking his head. “So what do we do?”
I close my eyes, thinking. “We leave her body at the bottom of the cliffs to be discovered by the locals. And then we find who did this to her.”
“And we get you cleaned up and checked over,” Grey adds, a little too gruffly.
Ender arranges Candy’s body at the bottom of the cliffs.
The gargoyles say their own little prayer, and then we’re off.
By the time we reach the little motel, evening has settled in.
Journey goes into the office in his human-form, gets a little room, and we all go in.
They give me the shower first, promising to return with food and clean clothes.
I’m bone-tired. The events of the day have eaten at me like termites.
And now, it takes everything in me to run the cheap motel shampoo and conditioner through my hair, and to scrub the layers of dirt off my body.
I don’t even care when I leave the bathroom to find the room empty. I dry off and slip under the sheets.
I toy with the idea of leaving, escaping the three gargoyles, but I sense something has changed with them. I’ll help this town and then see where we are. At that point, I’ll be able to slip away.
If I have to leave them, I think, with a foolish smile.