Chapter 3 #2
Retrieving Grandma Cleo’s pendant from my back pocket, I held the delicate, golden chain between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand while my right was still wrapped around the Rainbow Moonstone and pressed against my chest, and whispered, “Show me the way.”
Slowly at first, then quicker with every passing second, the 25-carat, princess-cut emerald set in a spectacular antique pendant swung in counterclockwise circles.
In the blink of an eye, it stopped, held perfectly still for a split-second, then shot straight out in front of me and pointed due East.
Pulling me as if it were a leash, the pendant started to glow as its Enchantment grew stronger. Running, something I never did, just to keep up with the speed at which the pendant was jerking me forward, I tripped and skipped and did everything to keep from falling flat on my face in the sand.
Keeping a frantic pace had never been my thing, and I was seriously regretting the second bowl of pasta salad I’d had for dinner as I scurried through the moonlit darkness.
Thinking of all the gym memberships I’d paid for and never used, I was scolding myself for my lack of physical fitness when the feeling of being watched hit me from every direction.
More eyes than I cared to think about caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.
Then I got goosebumps all over my body. Next came the cold chills.
Finally, I was sure I would have to stop or go literally and clinically insane from the sensation of millions of fire ants crawling all over me.
It felt as if they were biting every inch of skin they could get to–even though I knew there was no way they would’ve been able to keep up with me.
Digging my heels into the sand, trying with every ounce of gumption I had to stop my forward motion just so I could give my curvy behind a good scratch, I truly thought I was getting somewhere when that damn pendant took a sudden and sharp left that I couldn’t have seen coming if I were Nostradamus.
In the next tick, it did the same thing to the right.
Just when I was sure I was going to get to take a breath, it swung back to the left and poured on the speed.
Panting and sweating and praying for the nerve to let go and fall to my knees, I saw my life flash before my eyes when the shiny little asshole wove in and out a line of tall, thick-trunked Texas Ebony trees I hadn’t seen coming and couldn’t have identified if they were in a police lineup.
Whapped, slapped, and smacked in the face by every single low-hanging branch, and a few, I am sure, came back for a second swing, I really knew what it was to feel defeated.
I couldn’t catch my breath, and tears were streaming down my face.
My cheeks were on fire with what I was sure were at least one-hundred-and-ninety-two tiny scratches, and all I wanted to do was go back home.
Admitting temporary defeat, proverbially licking my wounds, and coming up with another way to speak to my mother didn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore.
Resigned to the fact that my mission was over before it began, I was half a heartbeat from letting go when the pendant jerked straight up into the air.
Just before the delicate, golden links of the necklace broke apart and fell to the ground, the emerald slowly rotated until it floated in the air, lying flat, parallel to the ground.
Spitting and spatting out pieces of leaves and bark from the Texas Ebony branches that had tried to take me out, I let go of the chain. I have no clue how I knew, but I just knew that it would stay hanging right where it was until I made a move.
Pulling out the bandana I’d stuffed into my back pocket thinking I might need it to hold back any stray hairs that fell out of the messy bun atop my head, I wiped the tears, dirt, blood, and who knew what else from my face.
Inhaling and exhaling, trying my damnedest to slow my heart rate, I suddenly realized it no longer felt like I was being watched.
“Well, shit,” I huffed under my breath. “I guess the ‘Monsters’ in Arrhythmia aren’t so scary after all.”
“That you know of,” Lydia grumbled from inside my brain. “Do you really think it’s smart to put that shit out in the universe? Have you even looked around? What if they’re better at camouflage than you are at spotting them?”
“Fuck, Lydia! Seriously!” Eyes sliding left and right, I hissed, “Will there ever be a time that you’re helpful?”
“Don’t even get me started.”
“Like I could stop you.”
Moving my eyes in every direction without moving my head, I opened the enhanced eyesight afforded me by my Magic and prayed to every deity I could think of, and I few I am sure I made up, that I saw nothing and no one anywhere near me. Long seconds ticked by– time I truly didn’t have to spare, but…
Then again…
“You’ll never accomplish what you came here for if something big and furry eats your ass.”
“Lydia! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong with me?” She was yelling. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why the hell are you doing this without any backup? Better yet, why are you doing this at all? You know as well as I do that all you had to do was tell your Aunt Virginia that you…”
“You know I can’t do that!
“No, I really don’t. Your reasoning is…”
“My reasoning is sound,” I hissed both aloud and mentally, a sure sign I was about to lose my mind and most assuredly whatever religion I had left. “Aunt Ginnie sits on the Royal Necromancy Council, which is part of the true Council, and…”
“Yeah, I know. Duh.”
Refusing to acknowledge that she’d spoken, I powered on, “…if I told her what I knew, she would have to launch a formal investigation. Then Fogarty would…”
“…find out from one of his many spies, rally the Supernatural Stewards, and find a way to cover everything up,” Lydia repeated. “So you’ve said.”
“Right,” I huffed. “Since we’ve had this conversation twenty-seven times, why are we doing it…?”
“Because it’s not too late to turn around and go home.”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” I was whisper-yelling, in the dark, with a whole town of Supernaturals who were said to be Monsters, who therefore, were most likely hearing everything I said– and in that moment, I didn’t care.
“It is way past too late. The time to do all this was the day my mother went missing, but I, we, didn’t know about it.
The bastard hid it. He made sure the trail was cold and all evidence was wiped away.
” I was seething. “He is so pompous, arrogant, and narcissistic that he believed he was smarter and more powerful than anyone and everyone, especially me. But that shit comes to an end right here and right now.”
Ignoring Lydia’s objections, I reached up, grabbed hold of the golden chain with both hands, and whispered, “Show me.”
A blur of glowing gold and green dropped from overhead. Stopping when it was level with the Rainbow Moonstone I tucked inside my bralette over my heart, it flashed and moved back and forth in time with my heartbeat.
To say I was confused was an understatement. Where was this restraint when I was being bashed and beaten by every Texas Ebony tree in Arrhythmia? Was I being punked? Wouldn’t that just figure, I make my grand stand with my inner Necromancer and…
“Look closer, Bernie,” Lydia ordered. “It’s literally…”
“…pointing to the Nexus of the Ley Lines,” I breathed. “Holy schnickeys! It’s the Gateway to the Hellmouth.” Switching to telepathy, I whispered, “It’s real.” Hands still gripping the golden chain, I took a step forward. “It’s really real.”
And it was really real.
A glowing white light, like a laser pointer, blasted from Great-Grandma Cleo’s pendant.
Directing me to a fluorescent, orangey-yellow circle that grew larger and brighter, it pulsed, and the chain in my hands vibrated.
Every step I took increased the intensity of the Magic, the light, the… everything.
“Maybe you should…”
But that was as far as I let Lydia get before I threw caution to the wind and took two giant steps forward.
It was as if the pendant and the circle in the sand knew what I was going to do before I did it.
Were we really connected? I knew Great-Grandma Cleo had left the pendant to me in her will, and the note that came with it said, It chose you. Love, Memaw, but did that mean…
Plummeting from its place in front of me, the emerald swung backward and bounced off my stomach. No longer glowing, no longer vibrating, no longer doing anything, it just hung there.
“What the hell do I… Whoa! No! Heeeeeyyyyyy!”
Dropping to the ground of their own volition, my knees hit the sand with a resounding thud. A blast of light– like a kaleidoscope without its case- burst from my chest as the Moonstone I’d tucked into my bralette shimmied and shook and started to heat up.
Getting the gem away from my skin as quickly as I could, I just barely got my open all the way before hundreds of beams of beautiful iridescent light radiated in every direction from my Moonstone.
Some moved in circles, others went back and forth, but the one in the middle, the first one, went from pointing toward the center of the bright full moon overhead to moving downward in a slow, determined arc.
“Do you have any clue what in all that’s holy is…?”
And just like the massive beam of light nosedived toward the center of the humongous pool of orangey-yellow light.
For five long, very tense seconds, nothing happened.
I wasn’t moving, and I damned sure wasn’t breathing.
I was so focused on what wasn’t happening in front of me that I squealed, “What the fuuuuuu….?” When Lydia telepathically whispered, “Do you…?”
Sadly, neither one of us got to finish our question, let alone get answers, because in the next beat of heart, the cool, night desert was gone.
Not heated– erased.
The air thickened. It grew fingers that reached into my chest and pressed on my lungs.
The Magic running through my veins was instantly viscous.
The desert and everything around it had suddenly grown heavier.
The sand froze mid-shift. The grains hovered, trembling, caught between falling and rising.
Something pulled.
Not downward. Inward.
The bright rays of the full moon dimmed.
The color of the huge crater before me drained to a bruised gold as a thrumming vibration rolled through the ground.
It was too deep for even my Supernatural hearing.
Instead, I felt it in the marrow of my bones and every drop of my blood.
My Magic screamed, warning me that something was coming.
The instincts honed over all my years shrieked, but I couldn’t tell if it was celebratory or cautionary.
“This is it!” Lydia yelled.
The crater breathed, but the desert fought back.
There was little more than a blip of light, then the land split. Not a crack or a crevice, but a parting of the sand and everything below it.
Forced to breathe before I passed out, I gulped at the stagnant air. There wasn’t enough, but I had to try.
I could barely breathe. I barely existed. I could only watch.
There was no explosion at first, only the soundless tearing, like fabric ripped by invisible hands somewhere deep in that fissure. Lines of molten light carved a macabre mosaic across the desert floor as the Earth peeled open.
In the blink of an eye, a fiery red mushroom cloud erupted from the crater, heat blasting outward in every direction. It climbed higher, grew wider– angrier– shifting from bright red to ruby, then darkening to the thick, rich hue of blood.
There was no fire, only fury– ancient and alive.
Thrown backward as the fissure widened in a violent jerk, my ass hit the ground.
I dug the heels of my boots in as hard and deep as I could.
There was no way I was going down without a fight.
Gasping and scrambling backward, I couldn’t even scream as sand and stone were dragged inward as if Mother Nature had turned on a giant Shop Vac.
A bolt of lightning shot from the sky, a jagged scar ripping through the Ether from the Heavens above.
The earth gave one final push, but it was of no use.
The hellmouth tore itself open with a mighty roar.