Asylum (Causal Enchantment #2)(31)
Author: K.A. Tucker

The chief stood and marched over to the platform. He thumped on it with his spear, then looked over his shoulder at me. “Get on.”

Wait a minute . . . Alarm bells sounded. I looked at the platform and at the posts, reaching at least fifteen feet into the air over the blazing fire, and then back at him, putting two and two together. He expected me up on that platform, hanging over the raging fire. “Umm . . . ” I faltered, images of me tumbling into the flames suddenly coming to mind. “Are you sure I should be the one going up there?”

“To free your soul. Yes.”

Was it freedom through death? “I won’t . . . burn, will I?”

“No.” So confident, so firm. “Get on wood now. You will be free.”

Free . . . Slowly rising from my stump, I took one step, then another, and another—sure that someone else’s legs were moving my body there, because I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down. I finally reached the platform. It was about two feet by three feet in size—not a tightrope, but not exactly huge. Gritting my teeth and giving the hut and the woods a quick look—I knew Max and Julian would never approve of this—I stepped onto the platform.

The entire tribe closed in. Even the tigers seemed to perk up. Everyone wanted to see the god of fire free me. Or burn me alive.

My stomach knotted. “I don’t know if this is a good—”

“Kneel!” the chief ordered, the blunt end of his spear pushing down hard on my shoulder.

My legs buckled and I went down. Get out of here, Evangeline! Get off this board, now! my subconscious screamed inside my head, and yet it was somehow drowned out by a soft, subtle cooing: Free . . . free . . .

The woman who had worked on Julian the night before appeared with a large jug. She lifted the spout to my shoulder and tipped it. Clear, hot liquid streaked down my body, covering my arms and torso, running over my back and thighs until it coated my entire body, pooling behind my knees. When her jug was empty, she stepped away.

The chief nodded. The drummer began pounding his instrument in a steady, slow beat. Two groups of men flocked in with another set of long posts, these ones much thinner than the ones around the fire and with two-pronged ends. I watched as they each hooked the ends into the little divots on either side of the platform. “Do not move or you will fall,” the chief warned, his words instantly stiffening my body until it felt as hard as the board on which I knelt. Moving in unison, the men lifted me.

I crouched, paralyzed by terror as I rose steadily toward the top of the four posts above the fire. At one point I squeezed my eyes shut, sure I was about to pass out. I kept them closed until a jostle indicated the men were placing the platform onto its four supports. Cracking one lid and then the other, I peeked out from this new vantage. The top of this contraption was even higher than I had anticipated, I realized as I looked down upon the roofs of the little huts and the leaping flames below. The rising heat just barely warmed my body, I was that high above it.

The heads of the Death Tribe swayed back and forth as they circled the huge, blazing fire. There was no escape.

11. The Race

“Dear God,” I whispered, looking down at the fiery carnage on the waves below. Pieces of what looked like a large cargo plane lay scattered on the ocean’s surface, the water extinguishing the flames as each piece sank. We were about ten miles from the eastern shore of the island.

“What are the odds?” Caden murmured as we flew over the mess in our tiny Cessna, heading for the west side of the island where a long, sandy beach would serve as landing strip. Everywhere else was too densely forested.

“Those aren’t odds,” I growled. “That’s Viggo. He must have hijacked a Fed Ex plane. It would have had enough fuel to get all the way here.” I shoved my hair off my forehead. “Bloody idiot! Like that won’t attract attention.”

“Do you think he’s made it to her yet?” Mage asked quietly.

The very suggestion set Caden off. “Land this plane now—into the trees, if you have to. I don’t care,” he ordered the pilot.

“No,” I countered, though I was ready to open the door and drop out of the night sky, just to get to her. But we couldn’t crash. “We’ll need this plane to get Evangeline out of here. They can’t be far ahead of us. They won’t just walk in there, it’s too risky. They’ll approach with extreme caution. That should buy us a bit of time.” We’re coming, Evangeline.

12. Visions

The man in the tiger head pounded his drum with zeal, and my heart pounded along with him, amplifying the deafening beat. Hungry flames danced below me, taunting me, licking the posts that held the platform up but somehow not setting fire to them. At fifteen feet in the air, my wood platform was high enough that it would not catch fire, but close enough that the scorching heat rising up from the growing fire was now borderline unbearable. Sweat poured down my face and body, mingling with the clear, unidentifiable liquid to leave a sticky film on me. I wasn’t too concerned about that. I was more terrified that any shift I made would rock this contraption and send me plummeting to my death.

The tribe’s chanting grew louder and angrier, culminating in a chorus of hair-raising screeches. From my precarious vantage point, I watched the chief walk up to the flames carrying a basket. One of his hands was gloved with that snakeskin material. My curiosity piqued, I very slowly, very carefully, leaned over, just enough that I could see him pull out a dagger and swipe it across his palm. Blood gushed out of the gash. I squinted. That can’t be right . . . The liquid coming out was . . . blue! He had blue blood?

He held the dagger up against his mouth. His lips moved in a chant. Then he tossed the blade into the flames. His lips still moving, the chief leaned over and stuck his gloved hand into the basket. When it emerged, it was with a jet-black snake coiled around it. With a forceful swing, he threw the live snake into the fire. It writhed in the flames for a few seconds before growing still, succumbing to the fire.

The tribe’s shrieking continued, some of the screeches so high that they rang in my ears, making me cringe. Then the cats joined in, their low roars balancing out the cacophony. I peered beyond the glare of the fire to see the beasts pacing back and forth along the perimeter of the clearing, their tails twitching angrily. But wait—their attention was directed outward, into the darkness, as if something was in the jungle beyond. They watched, waited. Please don’t be Max, I prayed. If it was, he’d be looking for the right moment to do some sort of impossible canine leap up here to pull me down, likely burning himself alive in the effort.

While I watched the tigers and worried about Max, a blue glimmer filled the sky around me and an icy cold sensation kissed my chest. I looked down to find the heart radiating with the same brilliant blue light as it had when I plugged it into the portal. Whatever the chief was doing was working.

Beneath me, the flames rose, leaping closer and closer, tendrils reaching up to caress the edges of the platform. The scorching heat I expected didn’t come, but I cowered all the same, my arms hugging my body as if to protect it. And then the flames reached me. Just as Julian had been engulfed the night before, now the flames crawled up my skin, wrapping my limbs and torso in a fiery cocoon. Surprise dampened my terrified paralysis—I felt no pain. The flames danced over my body without singeing a single hair or a single thread of my clothing.

Allo? a woman’s voice suddenly called in my ear, distracting me from my fiery coat. My head darted side to side as I looked for the source.

“Hello?” I answered tentatively.

Allo? Est-is temps? the woman said. I recognized it as French and I could tell she was asking a question based on the inflection in her voice. “Oui! Enfin!” she cried out.

My eyesight blurred as swirls of bright lights replaced the jungle and the tribe. I blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the world beyond. Finally the light spots disappeared and my eyes focused. Only it was as if I were underwater, my vision wavy, my hearing muffled. I found myself in the atrium—a horribly mangled version of it; the balconies now heaps of brick and stone, the gardens burned to the ground. Dozens of little fires smoldered all over the heaved cobblestones. And the air! I didn’t know if it was the heavy black smoke that hung overhead, blocking the view of the glass dome, or something else, but a foul stench curled my nostrils.

A group of women stared at me. I didn’t recognize any of them and by the shocked, unfriendly looks on their faces, they had no idea who I was, but they weren’t particularly happy to see me. Discomfort washed over me under their gaze. Fumbling nervously at my side, my fingers grasped folds of soft material; I looked down at a gauzy white dress covering my body. Chunks of white marble lay around my feet—the crumbled remains of the statue.

“Who are you?” a commanding voice shouted. I glanced back up to see a middle-aged woman in black leather staring at me, flames dancing on each of her fingers. A witch.

Veronique, the voice said and I realized that it had come from my mouth. But it wasn’t me; I wasn’t Veronique, I was Evangeline. Where is Sofie? the voice—Veronique—asked tentatively, unsure of her English.

Cold sweat broke out over my body. My confusion grew—what had devastated the atrium, and how was this voice that wasn’t my voice speaking? One of the smoldering heaps on the ground caught my attention. A hand. The heaps were bodies. Oh God . . . My wide eyes drifted over all the little flaming piles, too numerous to count, until one caught my attention. It hadn’t fully burned, and the face was angled toward me, dead violet eyes staring in my direction. Fiona.

I screamed.

13. Lying in Wait

The jungle seemed more dense than I remembered from my last trip here four years earlier, to negotiate the deal with the tribe. It hadn’t been a pleasant exchange—not surprising. They were deceptive, repulsive creatures, programmed by the Fates to hate my kind, both witches and vampires. Even with some level of affinity to me for creating them, it didn’t take long for the chief to threaten to touch me because he didn’t like my “vampire smell.” I was alone then. Now I was bringing four vampires with me.

As we ran through the jungle at breakneck speed, ferns and other foliage whipping our faces, I felt the telltale signs of the tribe’s proximity. The magical purple helixes floating within my body began breaking apart and fizzling out. Soon there was not one thread I could grasp. I felt naked without my magic. I hated it.

“We’re close?” Mage asked, discomfort tingeing her voice. Whatever sorceress’s magic she had must have vanished as well.

“Fire. That way,” Caden called, nodding to the north, just as a whiff of burning deadwood hit me. I instantly veered in that direction to lead the way, but Mage grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “I’ll go first. I’m faster than you.” She was gone before I could respond, Caden on her heels. Bishop, Amelie, and I took off in pursuit, tearing soundlessly through the jungle.

In minutes we cleared the jungle undergrowth at the edge of the tribe’s village—a collection of simple huts. They were guarded by a dozen tigers, already aware of our presence. Beyond them, the tribe circled a giant pyre, hands linked, chanting in that shrill, nails-on-chalkboard screech. The sound of it, of their mysterious black magic, sent shivers down my spine.

My eyes immediately zeroed in on the fire—on the structure above it. On the platform where a blonde girl knelt, her body engulfed in flames, surrounded by a brilliant blue light. I heard her screams.

Mage grabbed my arm a split second before I would have plowed through the line of tigers and lethal bodies to rescue Evangeline. Her vise-like grip stalled me. “Think, Sofie,” she warned. “You’ll certainly die if you go in there, and we don’t know what they’re doing yet. She’s not burning.”

But it was too late. I’d lost all ability to think when I spotted Evangeline up there, screaming in terror, her slender, frail body enveloped in flames. If I needed to breathe, I don’t think I was capable, anxiety so tightened my chest. She wasn’t burning, as Mage said. But what were they doing to her? What would their magic do to her? My blood ran cold with the fear of that unknown, my brain concocting all kinds of horrible scenarios. Would she turn into one of them?

“Let’s not run haphazardly into this,” Mage counseled. “Viggo and Mortimer don’t have her yet.”

I nodded slowly, peering over to see Bishop and Amelie with their hands on Caden’s shoulders, restraining him. Thank God Bishop had buried his grief long enough to be of some use to us. I felt Mage’s grip on my arm loosen slightly, but not completely.

Mercifully, Evangeline had stopped screaming. I looked back out at the horrific scene before us—and noticed the horde of tigers concentrating on another side of the jungle, guarding the spot as if someone lay hidden within. I’m sure someone did. Two someones.

Viggo and Mortimer were here.