Mortal (20 page)

The pendant pulled her towards the
tunnel on the right. The tunnel stretched as she ran, like in those
dreams when you’re trying to escape, but you’re running in slow
motion.

Kara turned down yet another
tunnel—each time following the pendant’s intuition. The tunnels all
looked the exact same. Was this a trick? The air was stale, and it
stunk of oil. Her head started to spin. She collapsed against the
wall and tried to breath. She wiped her clammy palms on her jeans
then reached around and touched the back of her neck. When she
examined her fingers, they were stained with blood and some green
substance.

Forgetting her pain, she pushed
herself off and ran blindly up the tunnel. Every step was a blade
piercing into the flesh of her back. She thought she saw a light in
the distance, and her spirits lifted—but then the light shimmered
and vanished. Kara yelled out in frustration. She was running
through a labyrinth of underground tunnels that kept shifting and
reappearing. She would never get out. If she died down here, her
body would never be found.

She staggered forward, then her boot
lost solid ground. The next thing she knew, she was falling through
a gap in the floor.

She crashed hard on the ground below.
Her blade fell from her hand. The paralysis had deadened her legs
to the pain from the fall. She dragged herself to a sitting
position against the wall and looked around.

She was in another tunnel. Chunks of
concrete lay in piles across the tracks and the crumbling graffiti
covered walls trickled with water.

She didn’t recognize this tunnel. And
from the looks of it, it hadn’t been used in decades. Kara was
lost.

Her throat muscles were numb, and it
felt like it was shrinking. Soon it would close up, and she would
die of asphyxiation.

She heard a laugh coming from down the
tunnel. She didn’t even bother to look. She felt worn out. She had
failed. David and the others would have to do fight the warlock
without her.

She rolled her bracelet between her
fingers for comfort. It had brought David luck many times before,
but her situation seemed beyond luck or help.

If you can hear me
bracelet, I need all the luck you can give me,

Maybe the bracelet just worked for
David.

Tiny wind chimes sounded in the
distance, and Kara knew she was losing her mind. Her goose down
jacket wasn’t keeping her warm anymore. She knew the poison was
killing her. She stared at her boots and willed them to move.
Nothing—it was as though they had melted into the ground and
weren’t part of her anymore. Her lids fell. She nodded off to
sleep.

"What are ya doing up there?" said a
voice suddenly.

Kara opened her eyes with a start and
looked around. From what she could see, the tunnel was empty. She
was hallucinating—a side effect from the rat’s poison no
doubt.

"Great, I’m hearing voices." She spoke
into the darkness and closed her eyes again.

"Voices? You can hear me?" said the
voice excitedly.

"Thank the stars! It’s been
so long since I’ve had any visitors. The stars were right! Are ya
here to buy my latest supply of
Hog Troll
Brain ointment
? I brewed a nice batch just
yesterday. It goes on smooth—and it’s really great against
wrinkles. I’ve used it myself!"

Her lids lifted. The voice sounded so
close and somehow it sounded so real.

"Is someone there?" she managed to
say, in a scratchy voice.

"Of course there
is—there’s
you,
and then there’s
me
," said the voice. "And here we
are, just the two of us. Hmm—isn’t that a song? I swear I’ve heard
that before."

"...but I can’t see you." Kara thought
the warlock might be playing a trick on her, but she was too
exhausted to care. She just wanted to sleep.

"That’s because you’re up there—and
I’m down here," said the voice.

Kara looked around her. She sat
against the wall of one of the subway tunnels. Maybe there was
another tunnel on a level beneath her? Could the voice be coming
from there?

"But where? I still can’t see you? If
you are a figment of my imagination—you’d think I’d let myself see
my own delusions. I’m seriously losing it—"

"Look down," interrupted
the voice, a little irritated. It sounded like it was coming
from
above
her.
But how could that be?

She looked up, and her jaw
dropped.

An elderly man was hanging by his feet
from the top of the tunnel as though his boots were super-glued to
the roof. He wore a dilapidated straw-brown toga-style robe tied in
the middle by a leather belt. Tiny bells hung from his belt. His
skin was very white, like it hadn’t been exposed to the sun in a
very long time. He had dark circles under his eyes. His milky-white
skin was wrinkled and drooped down like it was melted. He looked
like a mixture between a two hundred year old Spiderman—without the
red and blue tights) and Albert Einstein. His hair was wiry white,
and it stuck out of either side of his head like a giant afro
cloud. His beard was braided with colored strings and drooped past
his belly. And strangely enough, his hair and clothes didn’t seem
to be affected by gravity—it was as though he was standing upright,
even though Kara was sitting on the ground underneath him? He stood
with his hands on his hips, and when he tapped his black wellington
rubber boots against the tunnel’s roof, his bells rang
softly.

"How are you doing that?" asked
Kara.

"Doing what?"

"Hanging upside down like
that?"

He frowned, and his large bushy
eyebrows nearly covered his brown eyes completely.

The man pointed to himself.
"
I’m
not hanging
upside down...
you
are."

Kara didn’t know how to answer that.
Was this hallucination all part of the rat’s poison? It had to be.
She focused on the hanging man and tried not to think about losing
her mind.

"I don’t know what you mean, but it
doesn’t matter anymore—I’m hallucinating. You’re not really here,
and I’m obviously dying. The rats got me—and now I’ve ruined
everything. I’ll never save my mom now."

"RATS!" The man sprinted down the
tunnel’s ceiling shaking his fist.

"Where are ya rats! Think ya can hide
from me! If you think you’re going to steal my double-decker club
sandwich again, you’ll be sorry! I’m going to boil your tails for
GLUE!"

The ringing of his tiny bells faded as
he disappeared down the tunnel. He ran surprisingly fast for
someone so old. Then Kara could hear the bells reverberating and
the tapping of footsteps, and the old man reappeared on the ceiling
above her.

"Well, I think I’ve scared them off.
They won’t be bothering us anymore—rat stew is back on the
menu."

The old man examined Kara.
"So—which potions are you interested in? I have a fine
Grow-back-your-toenails tonic
, or
Broth of Baboon liver
elixir
, or maybe you’d prefer
Blood of a Hag jelly
? I
know! You’ve come to see my house, haven’t ya? I’ve done a lot of
updates. I have running water! Can you imagine that?" He clasped
his beard excitedly.

Kara stifled a
laugh.
I guess this is how crazy people
imagine things, since I’ve seriously lost my mind.

She looked up at the old man, "Even if
I wanted to, I can’t walk."

The old man studied her for a moment.
"So, if you’re not here for my potions, then why are you here? And
how is that you can see and hear me, eh? Can ya answer me
that?"

Kara let out a painful breath. "I can
see you because I’m hallucinating. The thing is—I’m lost, and I’ve
failed the mission. I’ll never see my friends again."

It was stupid, but Kara had thought
that once the warlock had been defeated, she might finally have a
normal life with David. But things didn’t always turn out for the
best. She reached down and clasped the pendant in her hands. The
runes still glowed a soft yellow, as though a fire burned on the
inside of the stone.

"Where did ya get that?" The old man’s
eyes widened. "That’s a witch’s rune pendant—and a very particular
one at that."

"Why? Does it matter?" said Kara. She
let go of the pendant. She didn’t want to talk about where she got
it, because she would have to talk about David and the others, and
she didn’t feel like it right now.

"Why are you staring at me like
that?"

"Well, that explains why ya can see
and hear me."

"Huh?"

"Regular folks can’t see or hear me.
I’ve cast a magic veil about, I should be invisible to ya—but ya
see me. Only those with supernatural abilities can see through the
veil—and I can see that you, my dear, have the supernatural about
ya."

Kara’s neck started to ache from
looking up. "So, I’m not hallucinating? You’re really up there
hanging by your feet."

"The stars have brought ya to me for a
reason. It is no coincidence ya ended up in my tunnels. That
pendant brought ya here. Tell me—what mission are ya talking
about?"

Kara thought she was still
hallucinating, but decided to tell the old man anyway. She leaned
the back of her head against the wall. She could hardly keep it up
anymore. Her eyelids were so heavy.

"Oh, stars! I knew the great ones
would need my help! I’ve been waiting a hundred and fifty years for
this!" The old man jumped up and down, and Kara thought he must
have been using superglue to stay up like that.

The old man was silent for a moment.
"A dark warlock, ya say..." He stroked his beard. "I thought I
sensed dark magic. It explains why the tunnels were shifting
earlier. I came out to explore, ya see, and there ya were, right
here—and ya can see me. It takes a very powerful warlock to channel
his power all the way down here—especially into my tunnels.
...curious, I thought they were all dead."

His white puffy hair swayed to the
side as he began to scratch the top of his head.

Kara felt that her brain about to
explode through her eye sockets. It took all of her energy to keep
conversing with the old man. But something nagged at
her.

"How...how did you know about dark
magic?" Kara suspected that she might not be hallucinating after
all.

"What’s your name girl?" asked the old
man.

"Kara...Kara Nightingale."

"Well, then Kara Nightingale, ya best
follow me." The old man turned on his heel and started to walk away
in the opposite direction on the tunnel’s roof.

Kara shook her head. "Wait, I can’t
walk. I can’t feel my legs. His rats got me—I think their claws had
some sort of poison."

She reached down and rubbed her legs,
maybe it would help the circulation. "I can’t feel anything
anymore, I think it’s killing me—"

"Wait here! I’ve just the thing." The
old man rocketed down the tunnel, his bells resonating behind him.
He reappeared a minute later with a vial in his hand. "Here, drink
this—all of it."

Kara examined the vial of bright
orange liquid. She popped the corked top off with her thumb and
drank it down. It was thick, hard to swallow, and tasted like
tar.

"Yuck!" she coughed. "Tastes like
sewer gunk. What is that?"

"One of my better potions," said the
old man happily. "It’s an antidote against dark magic—a tonic
against dark venom in particular. Not to worry—you’ll feel better
in a jiffy."

All at once Kara felt the effects of
the potion. It was warm and moved down her throat slowly, like
thick pea soup. Warmth gushed from her neck all the way down to her
toes. Her skin prickled, and she felt her muscles come back to
life, like frozen meat starting to thaw. She took a deep breath and
wiggled her legs. Soon, all the pain had disappeared. She felt
renewed. She felt strong again. She felt like she’d just woken up
from a long sleep.

Kara stood up and steadied herself.
"Thank you, I feel better already." She rubbed her head. "And my
headache’s gone too."

After a quick search of the grounds,
she found her soul blade and sheathed it back inside her jacket.
She looked up and saw that the old man was smiling down at
her.

"Who are you?" But as soon as she
asked the question, she already knew the answer.

The old man grinned. "I’m Gideon
Magius, the witch doctor. The stars have spoken, Kara, and I’m
going to help ya defeat the dark warlock."

K
ara sprinted down the tunnel to keep up with Gideon. It was
the weirdest thing—chasing an old man with a white afro who ran
upside down along the dark ceiling of an abandoned New York subway
tunnel. Gravity had new meaning for Kara. Only a witch doctor could
run upside down. She had no idea what a witch doctor was, or what
they did, but she was very grateful his disgusting orange tonic had
cured her.