Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 45

Hi

Thanks for all the comments after the last one! I could really feel your excitement, and it got me even more motivated in terms of writing. I really hope you like this one. Anna's going after the Raven, and she finally has to admit that there's more to her connection with Alexander than she believed. But, will she be able to save Alexander?

Lara

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Chapter 45

One last look at the clearing. A moment of indecision. Informing my boss (and whoever he would bring along as magical backup) about the whereabouts of Alexander and the Raven? I stared at the ring of trees behind us.

No, I was skipping that one. The Circle’s forces would never arrive in time. I wasn’t even sure I would. Besides, they would never approve of, less allow what I was about to do.

So it was only little ol’ Justin and me. I turned back to him, smiling.

“Where do you have it?” I said.

He blanched. “What?”

“The device you use for portaling. I need your port key, or things are going to get ugly.”

I heard the tone in my voice, the kind of texture that let him know I didn’t give a damn what happened to him. I was not going to feel bad for dragging Justin into the portal. In fact, I felt a warm sense of self-satisfaction. Why care if someone like him died? Besides, travelling via portal was the last thing I wanted to do. It equaled my idea of a low cost charter flight – nausea included; no compensation for travel expenses in case your soul went astray on the way.

He handed it over without a fight. It turned out that that Goth fanatic had his bigotry down to every single cotton-picking detail. The unholy brother actually used a spelled Inri Brotherhood necklace as a device to jump and open portals. A silver chain complete with rhombus and inserted cross pendant – the not so official trademark of the organization.

I stared at it. Yeah, looked like Medici really was the one to provide spelled devices for high ranking followers. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for what was to come; knowing I was seconds away from that moment before my whole being would be sucked into the netherworlds of teleporting. If I was right the thing would work just like the broken watch I gave Andy. And I knew how to use that.

I whispered the incantation in my head, imagining the place we were going to. Realms shifted and the world around us shivered, planes of existence opening up like a set of whizzing chopper blades in fast forward. The world retreated as darkness set in and we were sucked into the portal’s non-dimensional black.

You’d think I would get better at this. After all it was not my first time. I used, or was forced to use, this form of transport four times already. Turned out I wasn’t prepared, or getting anywhere. I was hugging my soul to myself like a bimbo her 5.000 Dollar mink fur coat, and my being still felt like it was going through a meat grinder.

Maybe it was due to the fact that I was the one dragging a rogue witch along, instead of the other way around. Maybe I simply sucked at this. I had said the incantation, I had named the place we would be teleporting to. Somehow my mind had made itself at home in the comfortable, yet false presumption that I would be the one in charge. No such luck.

I slipped and slid on the multi-layered planes of reality. I had no way of wrapping my mind around the functional principles in the least, less control my bumpy ride through those planes. All I could do was observe the tear through space and try to endure the soul-shredding claws of darkness around us.