Dark Curse 19 Read online

  Xavier stretched a thin arm toward her, his fingers like bones, the nails long and curled. He beckoned.

  Razvan shoved Lara away. «You will not touch her. You have your own supply.»

  Come close, Lara, now, while they bicker over you. Come close to the wall and aid us in breaking free.

  «I can no longer use them as you well know. They have become far too powerful to control. I need the book. We must find the book.» Xavier stumbled closer to Lara, his clawlike fingers reaching for her. «Once I have the book, they will not be able to defy me.»

  Razvan swept Lara farther behind him. «This one is mine and you will not touch her.»

  «Do not presume to give me orders.» The voice bellowed in the vast chambers. Xavier stood to his full height, Razvan shrinking before him. «I grow old, but I still have my abilities and you do not.»

  Lara inched closer to the wall, all the while gathering the energy in the room.

  «You cannot even control your own children. As sick as they are they still defy you! You forced me to bring you my own offspring, but you cannot have this one. You kill them with your greed.»

  «You will give her to me.» Xavier swung his stick up, the tip pointing at his grandson.

  Lara seized the moment, pulling every scrap of energy from the stick she could and directing it toward the ice wall. At the same time, the aunts connected their power with hers. The massive wall bubbled outward toward the chamber. Great shards fell off as the ice spiderwebbed, and then fragmented.

  «Stop them!» Xavier leapt away from the splintering ice as he yelled the warning.

  A bright red dragon burst through the ice, claws stretched toward Razvan as the blue dragon bent its wing to Lara.

  Nova! Now! Climb on fast. Aunt Tatijana called to her.

  Lara didn't hesitate. She jumped agilely onto the wing, scrambled up the sloping membrane and swung her leg over the dragons back. Immediately the dragon reared back on its leg, great wings flapping violently, creating a windstorm, blowing both men backward. Xavier lost his grip on the walking stick. Lara concentrated on it, funneling the wind straight at the thick wooden staff. It rolled to the far side of the ice chamber. The blue dragon took to the air.

  There is not much time. Go, Tatijana, flee while you can, Bronnie pleaded with her sister while she flung her body between Razvan, Xavier and Lara.

  Lara could see both dragons were weak. Already their skin color was fading. The effort to keep the two mages at bay was already taking its toll on them. Sitting on Tatijana she realized they were starved, had been starved for years. Xavier only allowed them the barest sustenance in order to keep them from being able to utilize their power. Of the two, Tatijana was the weakest. Bronnie tried to give her sister time to reach the surface and escape.

  Lara looked down to see Razvan creeping toward the red dragon.

  Bronnie flapped her wings to keep Xavier on the floor and away from the all-powerful staff.

  Look out. Lara tried to warn her aunt, but the warning was a heartbeat too late.

  Razvan plunged the ceremonial knife into the chest of the red dragon. Tatijana screamed. The red dragon sank to the floor.

  Get off. Run. I will hold them as long as I can. Tatijana extended her wing to allow Lara to crawl off onto a ledge far above the chamber.

  Go with her Tatijana, Bronnie entreated.

  Come with me, Lara begged.

  Tatijana shook her head. I will not leave my sister. Go, little one. Run and forget this place. Do not look back. Be free and find happiness .

  Lara clutched the ice wall. She still had to find her way out of the maze of tunnels to the surface. She looked below one last time at the only home she'd ever known. Xavier regained his feet and held up his hand. The staff hesitated and then flew across the room to him.

  «Be still or you will die,» he commanded. «You fool,» he hissed at Razvan.

  The red dragon continued to fight, spilling blood across the ice floor in bright red streaks.

  Xavier pointed the staff at the blue dragon. «Be still or I will kill your sister.»

  Bronnie ceased all movement and lay panting on the ice. The blue dragon settled next to her sister, nuzzling her with her long neck and tongue in an effort to save her.

  Lara held back a sob by pressing her hand tightly against her mouth.

  Go before her sacrifice is in vain, Tatijana ordered.

  Lara ran.

  Chapter 1

  «Lara, let's get out of here,» Terry Vale said. «It's getting dark and there's nothing here.» He shouldered

  his caving equipment, not surprised that they hadn't found an entrance to an ice cave. If no one had discovered the cave by this time in the Carpathian Mountains, he doubted if the place existed.

  Lara Calladine ignored him, continuing to scan the mountainside for the smallest crack, that might signal the presence of a cave. She wasn't wrong-not this time. Power had surged and crackled the moment she set foot on the upper slopes of the mountain. She took a deep breath and pressed a hand over her pounding heart. This wasit . This was the place she had spent her life searching for. She would recognize that flow of energy anywhere. She knew every weave, every spell, her body absorbing the gathering power so that veins sizzled and nerve endings burned with the electrical current building inside of her.

  «I've got to go with Terry on this,» Gerald French agreed, backing up the other member of their research caving team. «This place gives me the creeps. We've been on a lot of mountains, but this one doesn't like us.» He gave a nervous laugh. «It's getting dicey up here.»

  «No one says 'dicey,'» Lara murmured, running her hand along the face of the rock about an inch from it, looking for threads of power. The two men were not only her climbing partners, but her closest friends. At that moment she wished she'd left them behind, because she knew she was right. The cave was here, she just had to find the entrance.

  «Whatever,» Gerald snapped. «It's getting dark and there's nothing here but mist. The fog is creepy, Lara. We've got to get out of here.»

  Lara spared the two men an impatient glance and then surveyed the countryside around them. Ice and snow glittered, coating the surrounding mountains with what appeared to be sparkling gems. Far below, despite the gathering dusk, she could see castles, farms, and churches in the valley. Sheep dotted the meadows and in the distance she could see the river running, filled to capacity. Overhead birds cried, filling the sky and dive-bombing toward her only to break off abruptly and circle again. The wind shifted continuously, biting at her face and every bit of exposed skin, tugging at her long, thick braid all the while moaning and wailing. Occasionally, a rock fell down the slope and bounced off the ledge to the hillside below. A trickle of snow and dirt slid near her feet.

  Her gaze swept the wild countryside below. Gorges and ravines cut through the snow-capped mountains, plants clung to the sides of the rocks and shivered naked along the plateaus. She could see the entrances to several caves and felt the strong pull toward them as if they were tempting her to leave her current position. Water filled the deeper depressions below, forming a dark peat bog and beds of moss were a vivid green in stark contrast to the browns surrounding them. But she needed to be here-in this spot-this place. She had studied the geography carefully and knew, deep within the earth, a massive series of ice caves had formed.

  The higher she climbed, the smaller everything below her looked and the thicker the white mist surrounding her became. With each step, the ground shifted subtly and the birds overhead shrieked a little louder. Ordinary things, yes, but the subtle sense of uneasiness, the continual voice whispering to leave before it was too late told her this was a place of power protecting itself. Although the wind continued to wail and blow, the mist remained a thick veil shrouding the upper slope.

  «Come on, Lara,» Terry tried again. «It took us forever to get the permits, we can't waste time on the wrong area. You can see nothing's here.»

  It had taken considerable effort this time, to g
et the permits for her study, but she had managed the usual way-using her gifts to persuade those who disagreed with her that due to global warming concerns, the ice caves needed immediate study. Unique microorganisms called extremophiles thrived in the harsh

  environment of the caves, far away from sunlight or traditional nutrients. Scientists hoped those microbes could aid in the fight against cancer or even produce an antibiotic capable of wiping out the newest emerging superbugs.

  Her research project was fully funded and, although she was considered young at the age of twenty-seven, she was acknowledged as the leading expert in the field of ice-cave study and preservation. She'd logged more hours exploring, mapping and studying the ice caves around the world than most other researchers twice her age. She'd also discovered more superbugs than any other caver.

  «Didn't it strike you as odd that no one wanted us in this particular region? They were fine giving us permits to look virtually anywhere else,» she pointed out. Part of the reason she'd persisted when no caves had been mapped in the area was because the department head had been so strange-strange and rather vague when they went over the map. The natural geographical deduction after studying the area was that a vast network of ice caves lay beneath the mountain, yet the entire region seemed to have been overlooked.

  Terry and Gerald had exhibited exactly the same behavior, as if they didn't notice the structure of the mountain, but both men were superb at finding ice caves from the geographical surface. Persuasion had been difficult, but all of that work was for this moment-this cave-this find.

  «It's here,» she said with absolute confidence.

  Her heart continued to pound-not at the excitement of the find-but because walking had become such a chore, her body not wanting to continue forward. She breathed away the compulsion to leave and pressed through the safeguards, following the trail of power, judging how close she was to the entrance by how strong her need to run away was.

  Voices rose in the wind, swirled in the mists, telling her to go back, to leave while she could. Strangely, she heard the voices in several languages, the warning much stronger and more insistent as she made her way along the slope searching for anything at all that might signal an entrance to the caves she knew were there. All the while she kept all senses alert to the possibility that monsters might lurk beneath the earth, but she had to enter-to find the place of her nightmares, the place of her childhood. She had to find the two dragons she dreamed of nightly.

  «Lara!» This time, Terry's voice was sharp with protest. «We have to get out of here.»

  Barely sparing him a second glance, Lara stood for a long moment studying the outcropping that jutted out from smoother rock. Thick snow covered most of it, but there was an oddity about the formation that kept drawing her gaze back to the rock. She approached cautiously. Several small rocks lay at the foot of the larger boulders, and strangely, not a single snowflake stuck to them. She didn't touch them, but studied them from every angle, observing carefully the way they were arranged in a pattern at the foot of the outcropping.

  «Something out of place,» she murmured aloud.

  Instantly the wind wailed, the sound rising to a shriek as it rushed toward her, blowing debris into the air so that it shot at her like small missiles.

  «It's the rocks. See, they should be arranged differently.» Lara leaned down and pushed the small pile of rocks into a different pattern.

  At once the ground shifted beneath them. The mountain creaked in protest. Bats took to the air, pouring out of some unseen hole a short distance from them, filling the sky until it was nearly black. The dark crack along the outcropping split wider. The mountain shuddered and shook and groaned as if alive, as if it was coming awake.

  «We shouldn't be here,» Terry nearly sobbed.

  Lara took a deep breath and held her palm toward the narrow slit in the mountainside, the only entrance to this particular cave. Power blasted out at her, and all around she could feel the safeguards, thick and ominous, protecting the entrance.

  «You're right, Terry,» she agreed. «We shouldn't.» She backed away from the outcropping and gestured toward the trail. «Let's go. And hurry.» For the first time she was really aware of the time, the way the gathering darkness spread like a stain across the sky.

  She would be coming back early morning-without her two companions. She had no idea what was left in the elaborate ice caverns below, but she wasn't about to expose two of her closest friends to danger. The safeguards in place would confuse them, so they wouldn't remember the location of the cave, but she knew each weave, each spell, and how to reverse it so that the guards wouldn't affect her.

  Ice caves as a whole were dangerous at all times. The continual pressure from overlying ice caps often sent great frozen chunks of ice blasting out of the walls, fired like rockets, capable of killing anything they struck. But this particular cave harbored dangers far outweighing natural ones and she didn't want her companions anywhere near it.

  The ground shifted again, throwing all of them off balance. Gerald grabbed her to keep her from falling and Terry caught at the outcropping, fingers digging into the widening crack. Beneath their feet, something under the ground moved, raising the surface several inches as the creature raced toward the base of the rocks Lara had realigned.

  «What is that?» Gerald shouted, backpedaling. He thrust Lara behind him in an effort to protect her as the dirt and snow spouted into a geyser almost at his feet.

  Terry screamed, his voice high-pitched and frightened as he tipped over backward and the unseen creature raced toward him beneath the earth.

  «Get up! Move!» Lara called, trying to get around Gerald's sold bulk, to throw a holding spell. As he swung around, Gerald's backpack knocked her off her feet and sent her rolling down the steeper slope. Her birthmark, the strangely shaped dragon positioned just over her left ovary suddenly flared into life, burning through her skin and glowing red-hot.

  Two dark green tentacles burst from the snow-covered ground, slick with blood, the color so dark it nearly was black, emerging on either side of Terry's left ankle. The sound of bubbling mud rose along with a noxious, putrid stink of rotten eggs and sulfur, so overpowering the three of them gagged. The bulbous tops of the tentacles reared back, revealing coiling snake heads that struck with brutal speed. Two curved, venomous fangs clamped from either side through Terry's skin nearly to the bone. Terry screamed and flailed in terror as his blood dripped into the pristine snow. The small gap in the ground began to widen into a larger hole a few feet from Terry. At once, the tentacles retreated toward the hole, slithering across the surface, dragging Terry by his ankle. His screams of fear and pain grew louder, shrill and panicked.

  Gerald flung himself forward, gripping Terry under his arms and throwing his weight in the opposite direction. «Hurry, Lara!»

  Lara scrambled to the top of the slope. The mist whirled and thickened around her, making it difficult to see. She spread her arms as she ran, gathering energy from the darkening sky, uncaring that her companions might see, knowing she was Terry's only chance for survival. Never once since leaving the ice caves had she used the knowledge inside of her, the wealth of information her aunts had shared with her, embedding memory after memory in her mind-indeed, she hadn't been certain it was real. Until that moment. Power flooded her. Her mind opened. Expanded. Reached into the well of knowledge and found the exact words she needed.

  «It's too strong.» Gerald dug his heels into the earth and held on to Terry with every ounce of strength he possessed. «Stop wasting your energy and help me, damn it. Come on, Terry, fight.»

  Terry ceased screaming abruptly and began to fight in earnest, kicking with his free leg in an attempt to dislodge the two snake heads.

  The vine threw more tentacles out, the greenish-black stems writhing hideously, looking for a target. The teeth sank deeper into Terry's ankle, sawing at flesh and bone in an effort to keep their prey.

  Lara flung herself forward, lifting her face to the sky
as she muttered the words she found in her mind.

  I call forth the power of the sky. Bring down lightning to my mind's eye. Shaping, shifting, bend to my will. Forging a scythe to sharpened steel. Hot and bright the fire be, guide my hand with accuracy.

  Lightning zigzagged across the sky, lighting the edges of the clouds. The air around them charged so that the hair on their bodies and heads stood out. Lara felt electricity snapping and sizzling in her fingertips and focused on the thinner space between the long, thick bodies and the bulbous heads of the snake vines.

  White light streaked across the short distance and pierced the necks of the creatures. The smell of rotting flesh burst from the vine. Both severed tentacles dropped limply to the ground leaving the teeth, with the heads attached, still sunk deep into Terry's ankle. The rest of the tentacles reared back in shock and then burrowed beneath the dirt and snow.