Beyond Your Touch (20 page)

CHAPTER 23

 

—Susan Woodford Freemont

 

 

W
hen we got to the gallery, the faces of the angel statues were darkened by early evening shadows. Only Hecate remained touched with faded brightness.

Chase led the way to the alcove, then Lotli took out her flute and began to play, notes rising and falling, whistling softly like a shepherdess tending her flock. Her music became more insistent, and I drew a deep breath, praying that nothing or no one would interrupt us now that we were so close.

Lotli swayed, her shadowy shape moving in time with her music. The air vibrated with the eerie sound, stronger and higher now, crawling on my skin.

BANG!
The purple eggs at Hecate's feet exploded, sulfur scent flooding the air.

BANG! POP!
More eggs, herbs, salt, and crystals blasted outward. The air went cold. I pressed in close to Chase, shielding my hooded face against his back as fragments pelted down all around us. The flute's music whistled higher, out of my ability to hear. Pressure sang in my ears, and I peeked up in time to see the air unzip, like a tent flap ripped open with electricity snapping all around it. Beyond its opening, a lime-green and violet haze fluxed.

Swallowing back my fear, I willed adrenaline into my veins and steadied my voice. “Ready?”

“Let's go,” Chase said.

I glanced at Lotli's faint shape, her flute still raised, the music louder than ever.

She nodded to say it was time. And we stepped forward, Chase first with me close behind, then Lotli. All around us electricity sizzled and popped, mixing with the flute's piercing wail. The air turned sultry and pushed against us like a relentless tide. Still, Chase pressed forward, his solid body a shield in front of my ethereal form. Just when I thought we might not ever get through, my ears popped, and the resistance vanished.

I stumbled forward, my muscles once again taking on solid weight.

The air was steamy hot, way more stifling than in the gallery. And the light . . . I blinked and blinked again, struggling to adjust my eyes to the multicolored haze shifting and radiating all around us. Definitely strange.

An itch built inside my nose. I rubbed away the urge to sneeze, then cautiously sniffed to see what had caused it. A pungent incense smell permeated the air. Smoky musk, leather, cinnamon, and a white-hot scent like Chase's. It clung to my nostrils and coated my tongue with an intoxicating cumin-like flavor.

Chase snagged my upper arm, pulling me aside as Lotli staggered out from a fading line of sparks. He let go of me and motioned for us to stay put. In stealth mode, he crept forward, slipping between the sheer curtains that hung across the entryway of the niche we'd come out into.

Lotli and I waited. One minute. Two. A mix of fear and curiosity stirred inside me. As we'd expected, it didn't sound like Chase had run into guards or visitors in the room beyond the curtains. That made sense. After all, it had been five years since the family last used this weak point in the veil to sneak into the djinn realm. Still, the silence and ease of our entry concerned me almost more than if we'd been attacked by a legion of genies.

Careful not to make any noise, I slunk to the curtains and looked out.

“Whoa,” I said, under my breath. The place was freaky, an
Arabian Nights
love child fathered by Bram Stoker.

I nudged my hood back just far enough that I could see better and I leaned out a little farther. The room was indeed at the top of a spire like Chase had told us, its tapered ceiling rising high and narrow. Clusters of black stalactites fingered down, touching the floor in some places. They glittered and dimmed under the unsettling ripples of light, and the steadier blaze of torches that were stationed along the room's walls.

Room
wasn't really the right word for the place. It was more of a glimmering crescent-shaped landing at the top of a dangerously steep stone staircase.

But neither the staircase nor the ceiling took me back as much as the creepy murals that decorated its walls. Jewel-toned and accented in gold, the paintings depicted tattooed hunters wielding bows, knives, and bloody scimitars, sleek ponytails pulled high and tight and auras glowing as they pursued all manner of wounded animals and cowering people. In one place, stallions with flaming manes mated with comets. Nearer to the staircase, blood-fanged leopards with giant alien-like eyes gnawed on rabbit corpses, hyenas devoured sheep, and whirlwinds wrestled with pitch-black herons. The only section of wall that wasn't painted was where a Persian-style carpet with a dark blue center hung.

Lotli tiptoed up close to me. “Where is Chase?”

I tilted my head toward where he stood, surveying what lay beyond an open archway, bathed even more strongly in the fluxing light than we were. He swiveled and waved for us to join him.

Without a word to Lotli, I sprinted to him, fear pounding in my chest. I'd intended to ask him what was causing the light, but the intense look in his eyes and the forbidding foreignness of his scarf-wrapped face made me decide to hold off.

I tucked my shaking hands in my pockets and started to follow him under the archway. But I paused and turned to see how Lotli was doing—

She wasn't in back of me.

“Wait a minute,” I said, snatching Chase's wrist. I scoured the inside of the spire to see where she'd gotten off to.

She still stood by the curtains, staring at the murals as if transfixed. Her lips parted, her fingers stroked the length of her flute.

“Psst,” I said to get her attention.

She jumped as if startled, took one more glance at the murals, and then hurried to us. Eyes glinting, she bit down on a smile and whispered, “Terrifying paintings, aren't they?”

I nodded. But I recognized that look. I'd seen it before at auctions on the faces of collectors who'd spotted a rare piece. A mixture of titillation, reverence, and greed. I guess I could understand how she felt. I was an antiques dealer and an art lover. Still, Lotli looked a bit overly excited. The murals were spectacular, but they were bloody and creepy. Definitely not worth the lusty look in her eyes.

Shaking off my uneasiness, I grabbed her arm and went out onto the balcony. Instantly, the mystery of the eerie light was solved. A blazing aurora writhed across the night sky, its bands quavering from yellow to green, indigo to violet, washing everything in a macabre imitation of sunlight.

Lotli rushed across the balcony. Resting her hands on the balustrade, she stared and gasped. “We cannot see the stars.”

I jogged over to her, but my gaze was drawn downward instead of up. Way below us, other spires, annexes, and shingled rooftops shimmered. Even farther down, smaller buildings and canopied vendor stalls clustered along alleyways. Beyond them, the fortress's outer walls held back a vast expanse of flat, glowing, red nothingness.

I clutched the balustrade and gulped a breath, struggling against a wave of vertigo. “It's”—
overwhelming
was what I wanted to say. I turned toward Chase—“ just like you described.”

“Exactly the same,” he said as if disgusted by the sight. But a glisten in his eyes revealed that another emotion hovered beneath the first. Excitement, longing, I couldn't tell what it was for sure, but it sent goose bumps running up my arms. He started back toward the archway. “While you two get your bearings, I'm going to sneak down a few floors and see where the guards are posted. If you hear anything, get out of sight.”

While Lotli gawked at the aurora and starless sky, I ventured past a bench and a life-size statue of a rearing horse to get to the other end of the balcony. From there, I had a view of the backside of the fortress: more rooftops, parapets, courtyards, a colonnade, and an enormous horseshoe-shaped terrace that jutted out over the ocean. On the horizon, a full moon was rising. Its light streaked the dark waves. It also reflected off three disk-shaped objects on the terrace, maybe flat roofs or platforms. I craned my neck, trying to get a better view. I wasn't sure about the disks, but the shape of the terrace reminded me of the ancient open-air theater Dad and I had seen at the acropolis in Athens, only this one was tiny in comparison.

My mind went back to the basic map Chase had drawn of the fortress and a sick feeling knotted in my throat.

“Lotli,” I called in a hushed voice.

Her veils flared out around her as she whisked over. “What?”

“Do you think that's the arena?”

Leaning out over the balustrade, she ran her fingers down her throat and sighed. “Oh, yes. The muscles, the adrenaline, the blood and sweat—we would love to see that.”

I couldn't help but scowl at her. “What's going on? First you're turned on by the creepy murals and now it sounds like you'd love to watch a bunch of warriors hack each other to death.” I tried to keep my voice low, but it rose more than was wise.

Lotli's shoulders sank. She dipped her chin. “We are sorry. We know it's not right. Opening the veil, using the magic, sometimes it can . . . It's embarrassing. The power makes us excitable, turned on, inappropriately.” She fidgeted with her veils and peeked up. “The feeling will pass, after a moment or two. Please, don't tell Chase.”

The mortified look on her face told me she wasn't lying. I cringed. “I didn't realize magic came with aftereffects.” I lightened my tone to ease the tension and once again hushed my voice. “I bet that makes for some awkward moments, like facing the family after you've helped their loved one cross over into someplace other than heaven.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Yes. Very embarrassing. We usually go to the restroom for a few moments.” She smiled. “We are okay now. Really. It's already subsiding.”

The clunk of fast footsteps echoed out from somewhere inside the spire. Too loud to be one person. Not Chase. I mentally calculated how many genies it could be. Three. Four. Headed this way. Oh God. They'd heard us talking.

I grabbed Lotli's arm, yanking her down into a shadowy spot at the base of the horse statue. I hunched over her, my brown robe covering her lighter-colored veils, my gloved hand clenching my dagger. Where was Chase? My breath pushed heavily out of my chest. If they'd caught him, we were all screwed. Especially him.

The measured footsteps marched onto the balcony, heavy and self-assured. I lifted my face and peered out from between the horse's legs.

Two burly men in matching midnight-black leather tunics with ornate silver bracers on their forearms swaggered across the balcony to the balustrade. Their scarves were looped around their necks instead of over their faces. Clearly, they weren't worried about being affected by the salt air. In other words, they weren't expecting to need to fight, like airport security on a zero alert day.

Both of them appeared to be about Chase's age. One guard had a shaven head, a narrow strip of dark beard, and the hulking muscles of a professional wrestler. The other was taller and wiry, with tons of scars and gold piercings. His black hair was pulled up high into a sleek ponytail. Tattoos decorated both of their arms. “
One permanent one to commemorate each fight is allowed, but only after a warrior reaches maturity. Before that, temporary marks are applied and only for fights,
” that's what Chase had told me. That also meant that—unlike Chase—these guys were mature and used to fighting.

The ponytail guy fiddled with the front of his billowy trousers, like he was readying to take a piss. “You bet on Samiel? Ouzel is ifrit, he'll beat the snot out of him,” he said, as the smell of urine drifted my way.

The hulking guy snorted. “Satan's balls, are you a complete imbecile? Samiel's half lealaps. He'll bite Ouzel's throat out before he can draw his sword.”

I recalled right away that Malphic was an ifrit, one of the most powerful kinds of genies. At the bonfire, Chase had said lealaps were the genie version of a werewolf. If nothing else, it sounded like it was going to be one bloody fight.

“I'll bet my hunting knife that you're wrong.” Ponytail let out a satisfied grunt and started to readjust his clothes, but froze. “Do you smell something?”

I gulped. Beneath the tent of my body, Lotli went rigid. Chase had the senses of a bloodhound. No doubt these guys did too. But it couldn't be the Methuselah oil he'd smelled, not after all the work Kate had put into removing its scent.

He turned toward Lotli and me, nostrils widening.

I ducked my head deep into my hood, no longer able to see them, only able to wait. My deodorant, was he smelling that? Lotli's shampoo? Even I could smell its peppermint scent.

I curled my fingers around the dagger's handle, every muscle in my body tightening, ready to spring.

The Hulk scoffed. “The only thing I smell is your piss—and the roasting pits. It rots, being stuck up here. Missing the roast lambs—and the wine.”

The scuff of their boots moved toward the archway, and Ponytail added, “How many more guests are arriving anyway?”

“I'm not sure—maybe two or three.”

“If you cover for me, I'll go steal us a couple racks of sheep ribs and a bottle.”

“Make it two bottles and you've got a deal.”

Their voices faded back inside and down the stairs, and I let out my breath.

“That was close,” I whispered, standing back up.

Lotli hugged herself. “Shouldn't we get going? If they are not expecting many more guests, doesn't that mean all the performers will be at the arena? It will look strange for us to be wandering around here.”