The Stars Below, page 15
part #4 of Vega Jane Series
And they were revolting. It was like their bodies had been turned inside out and the foulness inside was now visible to all.
I said, “Okay, Maladon, explain the people in the glass. What are you doing to them? Why are they here?”
The bloke mumbled, “Bad ’un, they are. Punished.”
“But they’re already dead,” I said heatedly. “Isn’t that enough for you lot?!”
He shook his head, a demented grin spreading over his features. “We’re always learning, ain’t we?”
This response made me stiffen, and then I felt deeply intrigued. “How so?” I asked.
“How we survive. We always look for weaknesses. Then we take advantage.” He pointed to the glass.
I looked at the suffering behind there.
“What have you learned from them?”
“Things,” he said.
“What things? Tell me,” I ordered.
“They ain’t magical, for starters.”
“That, I know. What else?”
He was about to say something when he clutched his chest and fell forward. I knelt down and checked him. His eyes were wide open and unseeing.
I looked up at my mother and Archie in shock. “He’s dead.”
“But how? You did nothing to him,” said my mother.
I rose. It was true. I had done nothing to him.
I heard the footsteps.
I looked at the Wugs behind the glass. I had to free their spirits. But to do that, I needed to stay alive.
My heart was breaking, and tears welled up in my eyes as I drew near to Duf’s glass. “I will be back, Duf, I promise.”
“Vega, hurry,” implored Archie.
I broke off gazing at Duf. “Come on!” I said decisively to my team.
We rushed from the room. As soon as we turned one corner, we saw a group of Maladons coming toward us. They couldn’t see us, but they were spread out, filling the hall from wall to wall.
Well, two could play that game.
I lifted into the air, pulling Archie and my mother after me. We passed over the Maladons and continued on our way.
“Vega, what’s going on?” hissed Archie.
“They know someone is here,” I replied. “They must have placed some sort of curse on that Maladon back there. If he tried to divulge anything of importance, he would die. And he did.”
We turned another corner and there they were.
A garm on one side and a jabbit on the other. And two huge Maladons leading them on chains. The beasts were sniffing the air heavily.
“Odorous obstructo,” I said quietly, aiming my wand at their snouts.
This froze their scent capability, and we floated over them with no problem. We landed on the other side and rushed down the hall. We heard more footsteps coming, and I used my wand to look through the nearest door. What I saw inside made me gasp.
“This way,” I said, pulling them into the room.
I shut the door behind us and stared at the objects I’d seen with my spell.
“Blimey,” said Archie.
Blimey indeed, I thought. It was a pinstripe suit, white shirt and bowler hat hanging on hooks on the wall. Who did they belong to?
I drew closer and studied the hat and the clothes. They looked familiar.
I used my wand to flip over the hat so I could see the inside lining.
I gasped again.
Written out in silver handwriting along the inner rim’s band was a name.
Mr. Endemen.
I whirled around, half expecting to see the man coming at me. But there was no one there. I placed the hat back on the hook with a flick of my wand.
I looked around. This surely couldn’t be where Endemen lived. It was small, cramped and musty. More a closet than a room.
I had a sudden inspiration.
Using my modified wand wire, I contacted Victus.
When he answered, I said, “Victus, what has happened to Mr. Endemen?”
His answer nearly made me collapse to the floor.
“He has been imprisoned.”
“What? Why?”
“I told you, Vega, that Necro was upset with him. Well, that upset has turned to anger and the anger has now led Necro to strip Mr. Endemen of his powers and his freedom.”
“Where is he?”
“In the same tower I spoke to you about before.”
The tower where my grandfather had been imprisoned.
“Thanks, Victus. Um, do they know we’re here?”
“They know someone who should not be here is, Vega. Please take care.”
I led Archie and my mother from the room and down another corridor. Burned into my memory was the way to the tower where I had nearly been crushed to death.
We made our way swiftly toward it. Along the way I wondered what sort of guards would be stationed outside the tower room. If they were already looking for us, they would be on high alert. And if we fought our way into the tower room, we might never get out.
But when we arrived I saw no guards.
This made me extra wary.
I took out my wand and cast the spell to see inside the tower room.
I had to shake my head at what I was seeing, my wand twitching in my hand.
Endemen was in there. He was stripped down to his underwear.
And he was bound by thick black chains that were attached to the floor.
I approached the door and used my wand to open it. I was surprised that it yielded so willingly, which put me even more on my guard.
My mother whispered in my ear, “We need to take care, Vega. Something is not right.”
I nodded, and we slowly entered the room, our wands in defensive positions, our gazes revolving around the space.
Endemen had not looked up at the door opening. He was simply staring at the floor. He was in his disguised state, not his original Maladon form.
In a few words, I explained to Archie and my mother who and what Endemen was. Though we were invisible, Endemen turned his head toward us when I spoke.
I gasped again, because his face was blank. I had identified him as Endemen by his hair and the line of his jaw and the rest of his profile.
But his face, the slash of his mouth, his dangerous eyes, were no more. He was like all the other slaves I had encountered, faceless, their magic taken from them. I wondered if they had encased Endemen behind glass and collected his powers in one of those awful bottles.
I kept my wand pointed directly at him, because face or not, he could be deadly, as I well knew.
Yet there was something so pitiable about him that I could no longer stand it. The last person I wanted to feel sorry for was this bloke.
I readied my wand and said, “Origante.”
It was as though a lightning spear had entered my wand and the bolt of energy had hit me directly in the chest.
Endemen had not turned into a grotesque creature, as was the case with the other Maladons.
I nearly dropped my wand.
Jason, Necro’s son and Uma’s love, stared back at me.
VEGA. VEGA!”
I came around and stared stupidly at Archie.
“What?”
“Does it feel funny in here to you?”
I looked back at Endemen. Or Jason. At first, I thought it must be some sort of trick. There was no way the gentle, handsome Jason could be the wicked, grotesque killer that I knew Endemen to be.
Yet as I looked into that face, I saw something strangely real.
Pain.
True pain. The kind of desperate, hollow void that forms an abyss that you think you can never claw your way out of. I know. I’ve been in one myself.
“Vega!” said Archie more urgently.
I refocused on him, pushing the tortured features of Jason from my mind.
“What?”
My mother answered, “Vega, the air. It’s getting hard to breathe.”
I drew in a breath, gasped and instantly knew she was right.
Necro.
I looked frantically around. There were no longer any windows in the tower room. We heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
This had been a trap. Or else we had triggered some warning spell that the Maladons had cast around the room.
Thinking quickly, I spun my ring around, rendering us visible once more.
I ran over to Jason and looked down at him.
“Why … why are you here?” he gasped.
“You’re supposed to be dead. Uma saw you dead. Then she killed herself.”
Jason groaned, and if it was possible, his pain deepened.
“Uma killed herself?”
“Yes, didn’t you know?”
Jason shook his head, the agony of my revelation clear on his features.
“What happened to you?” I asked. “How did you come to be here?”
Jason shook his head as tears rolled down his face.
Archie edged up to me. He gasped, “Uh, Vega, it’s really getting bloody hard to breathe in here. And the sounds are getting closer.”
I ignored him as my mother peered over my other shoulder.
“Your father turned you into Mr. Endemen, didn’t he, Jason?” I said.
He slowly nodded.
“Why?”
“To make war. And then to silence me. He took … he took my mind.”
I thought back to the town of True and the room under the train station where the Maladons led groups of people to have their minds stolen.
My mother said, “Have you seen my son? Is John Jane here?” she added in an urgent whisper.
Jason only shook his head. “I … I don’t know.”
“Please, you must think.” My mother put a hand out to grip his shoulder, perhaps shake him into remembering.
But I grabbed her arm and held her back.
My mother shot me an angry look.
I met that look with one of my own.
“I’m the leader here, Mum, not you.”
“We’re here to find John,” she said forcefully.
“And we will find him. But we need to do it in the right way. And we need information.”
I looked back at Jason and said, “But didn’t you serve Necro faithfully? As Endemen, you and I have fought on many occasions. Why are you chained?”
“I … Uma.”
“What about her?”
“Um, Vega, they’re right outside the door,” Archie warned.
I was totally focused on Jason.
“What about Uma?”
“She … she …”
“I have seen her,” I said, hoping to prompt him.
He stared up at me, his eyes full of hope one moment and hurt the next.
“You have seen Uma?”
“Her spirit. She calls it regret. She loved you more than anything. With you gone she had nothing to live for.”
“Can you tell her … can you tell her that I loved her just as much as she loved me? Perhaps more.”
“I will, if we get out of here alive.”
“Then I will do all in my power to ensure that you will be able to do so,” he said, his voice for an instant growing firm and strong.
The door flew open.
I whirled around to see Necro standing there.
Our gazes locked, since I was not invisible.
I saw triumph on his features. But not necessarily immediate recognition. But then again, the last time I had seen him had been eight hundred or so years ago.
He slipped off his hood. “You must be Vega,” he said. “I have heard much about you from various sources.” He looked at me more closely. “And I believe that we might have met at some point.”
Words coming out of that terrible visage were nearly unbearable.
“Where is my son?!” screamed my mother.
Necro’s gaze pivoted to her. “Madame, you have the advantage of me. I would be delighted to reunite you with your son. Tell me who he is. I might have him under glass in the castle.”
“Like your son?” I said.
Necro glanced at his son, and froze.
He bared his teeth like a dog about to attack.
I whipped my ring around, and we disappeared from view. But it was a small space and Necro knew we were here.
He raised his wand, and the air around us began to grow even heavier. I felt my lungs heave. Next to me, Archie and my mother gasped.
I lifted off the ground and took aim at Necro.
Then he simply vanished. Behind him were a dozen Maladons, all Bowler Hats. They streamed into the room, took aim and started firing spells all around.
Archie and my mother screamed as I dove, ducked, flipped, turned and hurtled us around the room, trying to avoid their curses.
The problem was the air was growing so heavy that I was having a difficult time staying up.
I looked at Archie.
“Vega, what can we do?” he gasped.
“Take out as many of the Maladons as you can. Fire left, Mum. Archie, you go right.”
They nodded, pointed their wands and began firing away. I knew that each spell cast would reveal our position, but we kept moving. And if we didn’t fight back we would be slaughtered regardless.
I added my wand to the fight and Maladon after Maladon fell, their wands rolling away across the floor.
But more crowded in to take their place.
We kept firing and taking fire. I cast a shield spell, but it only partially held against all the incoming curses.
“I can … barely breathe, Vega,” Archie gasped.
I too was starting to flutter in and out of consciousness. For some reason, this did not appear to be affecting the Maladons.
And that was the moment he returned.
Necro stood in the doorway. He looked around at all his fallen followers and showed no concern at all for them. Indeed, a smile played over his lips. He raised his wand slowly into the air.
This would be it, I supposed. We were like birds trapped in a cage. Helplessly flying with no way out.
I didn’t know what spell he would use, but I imagined it would finish us off.
I had escaped such a situation before, using my Elemental as a spear to blast my way through the high dome of the castle.
Now I tried to line up my wand to take aim at him. To finish him off before he did the same to us.
But I had made a critical error: I was about out of air. And I could no longer see or think clearly, and my wand wobbled in my hand.
“V-Vega,” mumbled Archie, his eyes closing as he grew limp against the magical tether keeping him both invisible and in the air.
I refocused on Necro with my wand.
Come on, Vega, you can do it. Finish the bloke. Rigamorte and it’s over. Do it.
Necro said, “Vega, your spirit is admirable. Come and join me in my crusade to bring us to our true destiny.”
I couldn’t believe it. This murderous fiend wanted me to join him!
I answered his call with a blast from my wand, which he easily blocked.
Rigamorte, he can’t block that. Do it.
But the death spell required a concentration that I could simply not give at the moment. I was barely conscious. There was not enough wind left in my lungs for another breath.
Next to me, Archie slumped unconscious. His deadweight sagged against the tethers, stretching them to their limits. On the other side, my mother was still casting spells, but I could see that she was about to faint.
They pulled me down like lead, even as I felt my eyes fluttering and my chest struggling to rise once more.
“A pity, Vega. You would have been useful.”
I looked down to see Necro aiming his wand toward us. He apparently could sense exactly where we were even though he couldn’t see us.
“No!”
I saw a blur of movement to my left.
It was Jason. Despite his chains, he had managed to reach one of the wands dropped by a Maladon. He pointed it at his father.
There were bursts of light from his wand and that of Necro, who was momentarily distracted from killing us.
I took this opportunity to marshal my focus and transformed the Elemental into a lance. We hurtled upward, bursting through the ceiling of the tower room and out into the fresh air.
I didn’t waste a moment. I reduced the Elemental back to a wand, tapped my leg and uttered the incantation with one image firmly in my mind.
The next thing, we were standing on the steps of Empyrean.
“Bloody Hel,” exclaimed Archie.
“Yes, bloody Hel,” gasped my mother.
I twisted the ring around, we became visible once more and we stumbled inside, collapsing onto the floor. None of us moved for a few long moments.
Pillsbury rushed into the room, gasped and hurried over to me.
“Mistress Vega, are you all right?”
I sat up and nodded. “Just a bit out of wind, Pillsbury. I’ll be fine.” I slowly rose and gave a hand to my mother, helping her up, while Pillsbury did the same for Archie.
Archie looked at me in a sort of awe.
“I don’t know how you got us out of that place,” he said. “But I’m very glad you did.”
My mother put a hand on my shoulder. When I turned to look at her, there were tears clustered in her eyes.
“I know, Mum. I’m sorry we didn’t find John.”
“It’s not that, Vega. You … you were wonderful back there.”
I felt myself actually blush. “Th-thanks.”
“I didn’t know what it would feel like, having my little girl lead us,” she admitted.
“I can understand that. I certainly was no warrior or sorceress back in Wormwood.”
“Perhaps not outwardly, but clearly you had what it takes inside of you, Vega.”
I didn’t know what to say to this, and apparently my mother didn’t want to add anything to it. She merely hugged me.
Archie appeared over her shoulder. “Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to go have a lie-down. This almost dying stuff has me knackered.”
He staggered off.
My mum said, “I need to go check on your father.”
She hurried off, leaving me alone with Pillsbury.
“Are you quite sure you’re all right, Mistress Vega?”
“I’m a lot better than I would have been a few minutes ago, Pillsbury.”
