The Star-Fire Prophecy (15 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Danica stopped and shrank back against the side of the hill. Had she been seen? The dark figure seemed to draw her forward and she fought against the compulsion, her fingers tight about the amulet. She took a step backward, another, going away from the stairs until she could no longer see Melantha. Then she scrambled up the short incline to the top of the hill, went down it on the other side far enough so her outline wouldn’t be seen against the sky, and headed for the corral. She’d have to take the long way around to the fire.

Maybe Melantha wasn’t watching for her. Melantha must think she was still locked in the meditation room. But why was she waiting at the head of the steps? For Amy? To make sure Amy didn’t come back from the ritual fire to release Danica, not aware it had already happened?

Danica shook her head. It was hard to think clearly. She tried to hurry, but her left ankle hurt with every step and the faster she moved the more painful it became. She’d fallen in the room, hadn’t she? Had she?

Threading her way between shrubs and rocks, she clenched her teeth against the pain. Get to the corral, then around and through the parking lot…

What was that looming to her left with fingers outstretched? No, tentacles, horrible, writhing tentacles, not a human thing… Danica choked back a scream and looked away from the terror.
It’s not real
, she told herself.
The hallucinogen’s still affecting you. Not real, not real
, she repeated, but her skin crawled as she limped past without looking. Something touched her cheek and she moaned, hobbling on as fast as she could.

A bush
, she told herself.
A branch touched you. Don’t overreact, don’t panic
. But the image of reaching, inhuman arms stayed in her mind as she went on. The glow of the fire lit the sky to her left and stars shone to her right. She walked ahead in the dark with the arrow a weight in her hand.

Why did Amy bring me the amulet when she released, me from the room
? Danica asked herself. But her fingers curled around it and found confidence in the familiarity. How many times had she handled this arrow in the twelve years since finding it in the desert? How often had she examined it, turning the meteorite over and over in her hands, speculating on its origin, wondering where in outer space this particular piece of metal came from?

“You were destined to find the arrow,” the old man had said.

But now she must think of what to do when she found Amy. They needed transportation. Danica stopped. There was no gas in the VW. A phone?

There was a phone at Galt’s. And Galt would be at the ritual fire. She could call the police. But she’d have to go back.

Danica climbed to the top of the hill and peered over. The path was empty. She slid down to it and retraced her steps back toward Galt’s house. Would Melantha still be waiting at the head of the stairs, next to Galt’s, so close she couldn’t help but see Danica go inside?

As she came closer, she heard voices, and paused, listening. Galt. Then Melantha’s husky tones. Had Melantha merely been waiting for Galt, not searching for Danica at all? She edged forward warily. There they were, Galt and Melantha, going down the steps.

Why did Galt let me stay at Star-Fire in the first place
? Danica wondered.
If he knew what Melantha was doing with Amy, then surely he must have realized I’d be a threat. He could have said, “Sorry,” and turned me away. Melantha wanted me out of Star-Fire. Why didn’t he
?

Is it possible he doesn’t know? Still doesn’t know? Could I go to him with Amy and explain? Would we be safe
? But Danica shook her head.
Can’t take the risk. He loves Melantha, they were lovers. Why would he believe me
?

Galt’s door was unlocked, and Danica crept into the house to the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall. She dialed the operator. While she waited, she noticed sets of keys hanging on a pegboard near the phone. House keys, with a number printed neatly above each key. SW #1, SW #2, with a key under each—what would those be—car keys? The station wagon keys?

“The sheriff’s office is what you want,” the operator said. “I’ll give you the number.”

A pencil, a pen… Danica froze, convinced she had heard someone in the house. The phone slipped from her hand and she turned to flee. Her eye caught the pegboard and she grabbed a set of car keys from the hook and fled, running for the stairs, flinging herself down them so fast she nearly fell headlong.

The ritual fire was before her. The flames were high and the chanting loud in her ears, seeming to settle in her bones, become a part of her. Tears came to her eyes for the Star-Fire that ought to be, if it weren’t for Melantha’s distortions. Evan’s, too, she reminded herself. Evan the two-sided, the cynical; but believing in Melantha, trusting in evil.

And Galt?

Had anyone seen her plunge down the long staircase? Danica had never felt so visible. She tried to hurry, but now her ankle hurt more than ever. She edged around the circle, looking for Amy. Why had Melantha released her control of Amy? Perhaps she couldn’t keep a permanent control yet, and Amy had escaped long enough to find the keys to the locked rooms. Or had Melantha deliberately allowed Amy to release Danica?

This last thought made her freeze. What would happen now if Melantha had engineered her escape?
Does she know I have the keys to a Star-Fire station wagon
? Visions of brakes being tampered with and a twisting death-fall off the narrow, hilly road came into Danica’s mind.

Was that Melantha in Galt’s house just now getting into my mind, making me take the car keys and not complete my phone call
? Danica shuddered. She looked at the circle of chanters around the ritual fire. The orange flames flicked out above the dark ring like living beings, inhuman fingers reaching for her. Danica began to sway with the rhythm of the chant, to become one with the fire worshippers.

I must go into the circle
, she thought,
join hands
. She took a step forward, then felt the weight in one hand and glanced down at the amulet. Awareness returned.

No. Find Amy. Get away
. She started around the circle, searching for Amy. But so many of the children were Amy’s size. Suddenly she saw Galt. With a shock of surprise, she saw his eyes were wide open, darting here and there across the circle. He clasped the hands of the children to either side of him, but he was not participating in the ceremony.

He’s watching for something
, she thought.
Someone? Me
? Then she saw Amy, and next to Amy, Melantha. Her heart sank. As quickly as she could, she limped away from the circle and hid in the shadow of the A-frame.
Amy
, she thought.
I can’t leave her and yet I must. I’ll take the car and go for help
…

But Danica found it hard to carry out her resolve, to turn her back and walk away from Amy. As she wavered, a shadow detached itself from the circle and came toward the Chanting Room. Galt?

I can’t move now
, Danica told herself.
Whoever this is will see me. Why didn’t I go around to the parking lot while I had a chance
? To her further distress, the dark figure moved past her and headed for the parking lot. She watched in dismay. It was as though her moves were being anticipated. She turned back to look at the circle about the fire and saw another person coming toward her and recognized Melantha’s cape. Terror struck her. She couldn’t go to the car, someone was waiting there, and she couldn’t go back up the stairs past the advancing Melantha.

Closer and closer came Melantha.
She knows I’m here
, Danica thought, and could no longer remain still. She darted to her right and through the open door of the Chanting Room, hoping Melantha wouldn’t see the movement, but fearing she had.

Danica had never been inside the building, except with Evan on that first day, and that had been through a side entrance. A locked entrance; Evan had used a key. As she recalled, there’d been a barrier of some kind between that entrance and the main room, a metal grillwork. Was there any other way out besides the main door? Was she trapped?

She turned to look behind her and saw the wings of Melantha’s cape coming in the door she’d just entered. Too late to go back out. Hide…

“I know you’re in here.” Melantha’s husky voice.

Danica froze.

Melantha moved from the doorway, and Danica could no longer see her. The room was dark, except for the fire glow slanting through the open door and a pinpoint of white light at the far end.

Danica’s mind began to fog over, and this time she knew it was Melantha’s doing. She tried to keep control of her thoughts. The sanctuary, she’d head for the sanctuary, hide behind the long purple drapes she remembered were there…

But no exit there, the metal grill. Still, Danica’s feet took her toward the sanctuary, despite her hazy conviction she was being driven there against her will. She neared the eternal flame with its transparent cover, and a part of her mind told her Melantha could see her now.

Danica tried desperately to turn and run the other way, past Melantha and then out the door, but she couldn’t. Up the three steps to the sanctuary she went, the purple draperies billowing as she passed, seeming to force her on. Now she could see the clear white flare as it burned perpetually under its cover. It drew her like a magnetic eye and she was up to the altar and there was no place else to go.

Sacrifice
. The word throbbed in her mind.

Danica backed against the altar as she turned to search for Melantha. Yes, coming, the dark cloak swirling about her. Dark flower.
Death’s black flower
.

“Look in front of you,” Melantha commanded.

Danica obeyed, then shrank in on herself with a choked cry. A scorpion, the largest she had ever seen, a scorpion that grew as she watched in horror. She could see it clearly in the darkness, the tail arched up over its back, the poisoned stinger darting to and fro. Still the scorpion grew, until Danica could no longer see Melantha, only the deadly scorpion with death in its tail.

She tried to scream, but her throat was tight with terror. She backed along the altar and the scorpion moved too, coming closer. She raised her hands to protect her face, and only then did she become aware of the arrow amulet she still held.

The scorpion’s tail hovered in front of her, lashing out to sting, and she struck at it in fright. Again and again she lunged with the arrow, but always missed. She began to sob, harsh, dry sobs of hopelessness, and the hand holding the amulet fell back against the altar, striking the glass over the eternal fire.

Danica heard the smash of glass, but didn’t move until the pain of the fire burning her arm focused her mind so that she realized her sleeve was in flames. She yanked her arm away and smothered the smoldering cloth against her body, beating at the fire. She shrugged out of the jacket, and when she looked up and saw the drapes aflame she couldn’t move.

Fire
, she thought, bemused.
The eternal fire has escaped
. Then the fog was gone from her mind and she realized what had happened. The cover broken, the fire had flared up and caught her sleeve. She’d dragged the burning cloth across the altar and other cloth had begun to burn, the drapes…

Fire! Panic struck at her as she saw she was surrounded by flame. Someone was screaming, was it she? Sacrifice, Melantha had ordered.
The ashes of the funeral pyre
…

No, no, she wasn’t a phoenix, a firebird, she would die if she burned… But there was no way out, nothing to see, except fire.

Then a hooded figure lunged out of the flames and gathered her around the waist, pulling her into the fire. She struck against it to no avail.

“No!” she screamed, but the figure pushed her head against its chest so she couldn’t call out, couldn’t breathe, and she felt the bright, hot lick of the flames on her skin. Then the light faded and was gone, and there was only the dark and nothingness.

Chapter Twenty

Danica woke to smoke and flame. And pain. Her arm hurt, her ankle throbbed, and her lungs felt raw as she drew a deep breath and opened her eyes. Amy’s grey eyes were inches above her own, and Danica tried to struggle to a sitting position. What had happened? Then she remembered the hooded figure dragging her into the fire, and her face must have reflected her fright.

“You didn’t get burned up,” Amy said. “She did. Don’t be scared. She’s dead, I heard Galt say so.”

Danica realized they were outside. She was lying on the ground and now she did sit up. Amy pressed close to her and Danica put her unhurt arm around the girl.

“I knew you’d be all right because you had the arrow,” Amy said. “But the fire scared me, too.”

Danica began to tremble from pain and shock. The scene around her was like a nightmare. The ritual fire still burned, though low compared to the leaping flames consuming the A-frame that had been the Chanting Room. In the glare, people moved back and forth or stood in groups with children gathered near them, all facing the burning building, fascinated by the age-old enemy of fire out of control. The light of the flames changed everyone’s face so they seemed caricatures of the people she knew; even Amy’s face had demon-child shadows. Danica shivered and closed her eyes.

Melantha was dead.
Burned in the fire meant for me? Or meant for us both
?

“There’s Evan.” Amy spoke in a half whisper.

Danica opened her eyes and watched Evan’s blond head pass them by without a glance in her direction. He skirted behind the fire watchers and she lost sight of him, but thought he’d been heading for the parking lot.
Getting out
, she said to herself, and a moment’s vindictiveness coursed through her.
I’ll destroy him as surely as Melantha was destroyed
, she vowed. But then she let the thought go.
He’ll destroy himself soon enough. I needn’t bother
. With all a Gemini’s cleverness and intuition, he’d gone wrong, turned wrong beyond righting.

“I’d better take you up to the house. The forestry trucks are here now and the fire’s under control.” Galt’s voice made her start, and she looked up to see him standing above her, the play of firelight giving him a satanic face.

Cancer
, she thought.
Compassionate, kind. How could he have let Melantha mistreat Amy
? But did the light of the fire reveal his true nature?

Amy bounced up from beside Danica. “You better carry her like you did before,” Amy told Galt. “She doesn’t feel good.”

Before Danica could protest, Galt bent down and gathered her up. Her arm went around his neck, and close to him she felt her mistrust waver.

“At least you’re not fighting me now,” he said.

“Fighting you?”

He jerked his head toward the fire. “Inside there. I thought for a while I wasn’t going to get you out.”

Galt? Galt had been the hooded figure?

“I grabbed one of the drapes that wasn’t burning yet and got through to you after Amy told me you were in the sanctuary. But you were too scared to know what was going on.”

“I—I thought you were…” her voice trailed off, she began again. “I didn’t know it was you.”

Not Melantha dragging her into the fire to die, but Galt bringing her through the flames to life.

He began to climb the steps.

“I can walk if you help me,” she protested. “You’ll never get me up those stairs.”

“You underestimate my tenacity,” he said. “You have all along.”

Though Galt was breathing hard by the time they got to the house, he carried her into his bedroom, Amy running ahead to open doors. With a sigh, he placed her on the bed, then sat on it himself. Amy sat beside him.

“I told Galt,” Amy said. “That’s how he knew. I told him all about her and how she and Evan were bad. But I couldn’t tell before I let you out of the room because I was scared she’d do something awful to you.”

Amy knew Galt wouldn’t permit Melantha’s behavior
, Danica thought.
She trusted Galt more than I did
.

“I went down to the ritual fire tonight,” Galt said, “determined to keep an eye on Melantha. I’d suspected her, knew something was wrong between her and Amy. These tapes…” he gestured to a table beside the bed. “I’d brought Amy’s interview tapes in here to listen to again. Your views on Amy were so different from Melantha’s that I began to doubt Melantha’s reliability as far as Amy was concerned.”

Tapes? Danica thought of the voices she’d heard coming through the closed door of this bedroom. Melantha’s and Galt’s. On tape. And she had thought…

“But then I saw you by the Chanting Room,” Galt went on. “And so I left the circle and went after you. I supposed you were heading for your car. We’d pushed it back into the parking lot and put gas in it. But when I got to the parking lot the VW was still there. I waited; you didn’t come. I wanted to urge you to stay, to tell you…” His voice trailed off and he glanced at Amy.

She gazed back at him with interest. “You wanted to tell Danica you love her, didn’t you?” Amy said. “I love Danica, too. I always knew she’d come to find me. Even if I did have to wait a long time.”

“I’ve waited a long time, too,” Galt said, and Danica saw the glow in his dark eyes.

“Melantha?” Danica asked with an effort. She didn’t want to say the name again, to have the image of the deadly flower in her mind.

“She was trapped in the fire. I didn’t know she was in the sanctuary with you until too late. When I got her out, she was dead.” Galt’s voice was grim. “Even Melantha didn’t deserve a fate like that.”

There was no other choice
, Danica thought.
Only one of us could survive. The prophecy said only the firebird could come through the flame. But why? Why was I chosen to destroy Melantha
?

Danica looked at Amy, and saw the wide grey eyes fixed on her and then she knew.

Amy is something different, with still untested powers
. Amy had to be saved. For good, not evil. A shudder ran through Danica as she remembered the old man, Path Marker, and his implication that her destiny was planned before her birth.

“You’re cold,” Galt said. “And I know your arm is burned. We’ll get you to a doctor…”

“Not yet,” Danica said. “I’m all right.”

“Amy,” Galt said, “get the afghan off the couch in the living room.”

As soon as Amy was out the door, Galt leaned over and kissed Danica gently. “I love you,” he said. “I have from the first.”

“Oh, Galt,” Danica said, and reached out her hand to take his. “My fate is the numbers nine on nine,” she said. “I have no choice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll explain sometime.” Her smile faded. “We have to take care of Amy,” she said. “The two of us.”

He looked surprised. “Naturally,” he said. Amy came into the bedroom dragging the afghan, and Galt carefully placed it over Danica.

Amy climbed back on the bed. “Are you going to love me, too?” she asked Galt.

He grinned at her. “Two Sagittarians?” he said, and gave a mock groan. “I’ll be hopelessly outnumbered.”

Amy tipped her head on one side and regarded him. “Yes,” she said finally, “but we’ll love you back a whole lot and you won’t mind so much.”