Insidious Winds (30 page)

In what felt like a matter of seconds, they had a
cloth sack over my head, had cuffs on my wrists, and were half dragging me out
of the room. The wizard’s magic was fading, but my body was slow to get the
message, probably because of the hood.

I was thrown roughly to the ground and everything was
quiet. My strength had returned just enough for me to push myself up to my
knees, where my head encountered another forceful hand pushing it down.

“Bow to the Master!” the stranger said.

“That’s kind of hard to do when I can’t see him!” I
responded. I didn’t actually want to see Krechea’s hideous face; I just didn’t
want to face him blind. Then the bag was pulled off.

“Hello, Devon.”

I looked up in horror. “Astrid?”

*          *          *

My childhood friend, who I trusted and loved deeply,
stood before me in a red leather top that showed more skin than it covered,
including her midriff, and emphasized her very well-formed breasts. Her pants
were black leather, as were her spike-heeled boots. Her hair was in one long
braid over her left shoulder and her eyes were almost glowing green. She was no
longer too thin, and was instead more athletically built.

There was something about her aura that was downright
evil.

And extremely sexy.

She grinned at my shock and I glanced around, hoping
this was some kind of trick. We were in a throne room, judging by the elegant,
high-backed chair made of carved wood and red crushed velvet. To the left of
the chair was a cage about five feet tall and two feet deep. Heather Anne was
huddled on the floor of the cage with her knees to her chest and blood smeared
under her nose. She was too thin, too pale, and dirty; even her gold hair was
now dark with dirt and blood. If Langril saw her this way, the entire world
would burn. Considering how beautiful, sweet, and full of life she had been
when she was alive, I wanted to help Langril kill everyone who had done this to
her.

I should have been here to save her, not Astrid.

“Well? Aren’t you going to say something?” Astrid
asked, as if I should have been impressed.

I was pretty much just confused. “What happened? At
the cave… in that room… the chalice… was that all a trick?”

She crouched in front of me and flicked my hair back
from my eyes. “All that stuff with the poison and the chalice…” She clenched
her fingers in my hair and pulled my head back to look at her. “That was six
months ago!” She let me go, went to the throne, sat, and crossed her legs. “But
I’m not mad.”

Oh, fuck
.

“No, I’m not mad at all. The Shadow Master escaped
Dothra and five minutes later, I was in control. That was about an hour after I
drank from the chalice and returned here.”

“How could it have been six months? It hasn’t even
been two hours for me.”

“So I guess you didn’t miss me then. I missed you. I
thought about you quite a lot while I was restructuring my world. When I was
overseeing the construction of new weapons and cells to subdue and contain
wizards. Don’t worry; I rule wizards and vampires equally. I am, after all,
both.”

“How did you come to this? The Astrid I know wouldn’t
do this.”

She put her finger to her lips and hushed me. “You
don’t want to give out my name! Someone could kill me… oh, wait. They can’t.
Thanks to you, nobody can control me ever again. Thanks to you, I can never be
killed.”

“I don’t understand.”

She scoffed. “Of course you don’t, human. You never
listened to anyone. It was quite a shock the first time one of my servants
stabbed me in the chest. After that, it was more like a thrill. I gave all of
my enemies a chance to kill me and I just laughed when it dawned on them. I
cannot be killed by anything.”

“How?”

“That chalice, you idiot. Drinking from the chalice
made me immortal. Completely immortal. You can cut off my head and it would
instantly reform.”

“Did you know? Did you plan this?”

She grinned cruelly. “Now how would I do that? How
could I possibly have known that you would listen to me over Heather and get
the key yourself?”

I looked at the girl in the cage. “I guess I made the
wrong choice. I should have shot you in the head at Stephen’s coven.”

Obviously not happy with my response, one of the two
vampires hovering over me grabbed my left shoulder and squeezed, easily
breaking at least one bone and earning a pained grunt from me. Instead of being
pleased, Astrid glared at the vampire.

“Did I tell you that you could break my toys?” she
asked angrily. The vampire took a step away from me. “Do you know how long it
takes humans to heal? Break your hand.”

“M-master?” the vampire stuttered. “I just w-wanted
him to---”

She held out her hand like she was about to snap her
fingers and blinding white light formed in her palm. “I’m not going to tell you
twice,” she snarled.

I heard a painful moan and the cracking of bones, but
I didn’t look. I had my own damn problems. The light faded from her fingers. “I
see you figured out how to use your magic,” I said.

“Actually, that’s thanks to you as well. Every day
you didn’t come to find me, I got better at surviving. Ironic, I know. I was
always the one to take care of you when we were kids. I guess in a way, you
made me weak by making me love you. It felt like a knife in my heart every day
that you wouldn’t save me.”

“It’s only been two hours!”

“It’s been twenty years!” she yelled back. “Twenty
years ago, I would have done anything for you, and you shot me! You tried to
kill me! I wanted to be with you, to take care of you and love you! I stopped
you from shooting yourself in the head!”

This wasn’t like it happened in my vision, but I
wished for the first time in my life that I could go backwards in time. I
wished I hadn’t gotten the key. I did lose what was most important to me; this
wasn’t Astrid. My Astrid was gentle but protective, brave but cautious, and
loving but a little bit nuts.

“Master…” the second vampire asked hesitantly.

“What?” she snapped. Apparently, he had pointed to
the cage because she turned and rolled her eyes. Heather was gone. “Well, don’t
just stand there you idiots. Go catch her and put her back in her cage. You
know I don’t like my pets running around!”

The two vampires and the wizard took off like their
asses were on fire. I let my head drop down. I knew I couldn’t even try to
escape without Heather, and didn’t that just suck? It was probably a good thing
my gargoyle had cured my heart, because this would have killed me otherwise.

Or maybe that would have been easier.

I felt Astrid move to crouch in front of me again,
but I didn’t bother to look up until she ran her hand through my hair gently.
Tears were running down her cheeks and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t
do this anymore.”

I sat up and she took it as an invitation to hug me,
which she did. I grunted with pain in my shoulder and she let me go.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, whispering. “I tried to
make it easy for you.”

“How is this easy for me in any way?”

“Do you trust me?”

I wanted to ask her how she expected me to answer
that. I wanted to tell her I used to. I couldn’t get the words out. “Yes,” I
said. “I love you.”

She leaned forward and kissed me. There was still a
strong scent of strawberries behind the smell of leather and blood. She pulled
back just a couple of inches. “That’s all I ever wanted in my entire life. We
don’t have much time before they come back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Heather has made a potion that will basically
replicate the power of the fire elementals. Krechea escaped with many of his
most powerful and trusted followers. They can possess people now. The potion
Heather made can expel any of the shadow walkers from a person. They can drink
the potion or you can stab them with something dipped in it. Once it wears off,
in about an hour, it will not work on them again. Heather has some other
theories. If she can get to Langril, she’ll come up with a way to protect your
mind and body permanently.”

This was all a ploy
? I pushed her away.
“What’s with the psycho spiel a minute ago? Did you just think it would be
funny to try to crush me?”

She shook her head. “You have no idea how much it
hurt me to say that.”

“Not as much as it did to hear it.”

Her eyes widened. “You think seeing hate in your eyes
is easy? You are the only person in my entire life who has ever mattered to me
or trusted me!”

“Then why?!”

“Because I need you to hate me!” she yelled. More
tears spilled down her cheeks.

“What kind of fucked up logic is---” I stopped myself
when I realized what she was saying. “You want me to leave you here,” I said
quietly.

“I thought if you hated me, it would be easier for
you. I thought you wouldn’t feel guilty and you could finally move on with your
life.”

I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my right arm
around her. No matter what she said, I couldn’t stand to see her crying. “So
you aren’t taking over Krechea’s work?”

“I am, sort of, but I’m fixing things. They pretty
much call me ‘Master’ or ‘Wizard Master’ whereas Krechea was ‘Shadow Master.’
There have been a lot fewer massacres since I took over. He was using poisons
to control the population, which I’m trying to stop.”

“How can someone die of a poison if they’re already
dead?”

“They’re not dead. Only those who made a deal with a
wizard of Dothra and those with Dothra blood who died somewhere else are dead
here. Many of the vampires and humans who believe this is death were summoned
here the same way Dothra wizards can be summoned. When Heather was killed, her
body was destroyed, but as you can see, she isn’t a ghost. When she returns to
Earth, she’ll still have a physical body. If she’s killed again or if she were
killed here originally, there would be nothing left of her.”

“How does that even remotely make sense?”

“It’s Dothra; it doesn’t have to make sense. Earth
magic is elemental. Dothra magic is… soul. When they say all magic comes at a
price, I think they were talking about Dothra. Earth’s balance can be
maintained using the elements and goodness, whereas sacrifices must be made to
maintain Dothra’s balance.”

“Why do you want to stay here?”

“I don’t want to. I’m the only one who can… who can
stop Krechea from returning here,” she said. I pulled away, but tried not to
say anything until she explained. “This world was always dark and sinister, but
I have done a lot of good in the last six months. If Krechea returns, he’ll
destroy everything I’m working towards and use the power of this world to take
over every world. This is the world he needs; not Earth, and he’ll try to
return once he gains enough ground on Earth. That’s why, as soon as you’re
gone, I’m going to destroy the tower.”

“You need all four keys to destroy the tower.”

“Only Earth’s tower requires the use of the keys to
destroy it. Dothra’s tower can be demolished, but the backlash would kill any
mortal. That’s why it has to be me. These are people. A lot of them have
nothing good in them, yet a lot of them are innocent. I can help them, but only
after I destroy the tower.”

“Then… I would never see you again.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“I could stay---”

“No, you can’t. Earth needs you to stop Krechea, and
I know how you can do it. The key to Dothra will still exist. After I destroy
the tower here, you can make Langril open the door again and force Krechea into
it. He’ll be trapped for eternity. You wouldn’t even have to destroy the
tower.”

“But I would never see you again.”

She nodded again. “I know.” She put her hand on my
face as if she couldn’t go another second without touching me. “That’s why I
tried to make it easier on you… because it can’t kill me. It’s going to hurt
every day for the rest of eternity and there is nothing I can do about it.” She
pressed her face in the crook of my neck and cried. “I didn’t want you to feel
that, but I couldn’t keep it up.”

“I’m glad.”

“Heather has a release trigger in her cage so she can
‘escape’ whenever I need the guards out of the room. If they saw me crying, I
would be powerless.”

“Let me stay here and destroy the tower from this
side. You would be better equipped at defeating Krechea.”

“You wouldn’t survive destroying the tower.”

I was pretty sure she was right, but that didn’t mean
I was ready to give up.

“You can trust Heather. She believes her father is a
good man and she’ll lie to you if she thinks she has to, but she won’t try to
hurt you. Just promise me one thing.” She sat back. “Don’t fall in love with
Clara. She’s an absolute slut and she’ll bite you.”

“What if she dyes her hair blue again?” I asked. She
scowled at me. “You know I like blue.”

“
I
will bite you.” Her eyes filled with worry.
“They’re coming back. Heather will be waiting for you by the tower. You must
hurry. When you get home, give me a few days to destroy the tower. I will send
you a message right before. It’ll be our last message. Then, force Krechea into
the tower through the door to Dothra. It must be Dothra’s door.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go either.”

“You don’t have to,” Heather said, entering the room
and closing the door behind her. She looked stronger than she had in the cage,
like a princess who saw true horror and had to get tough to survive.

“Stay out of this,” Astrid warned her.

“I know I’m not supposed to make offers, but it
doesn’t matter now. Devon, make a deal with me to make you immortal like
Astrid. I can do pretty much anything under a contract. Once I do, give me the
key. You will lose your magic, but you would still be immortal. Then I will
return to Earth and with my father’s help and the key, I will have the power to
defeat Krechea. You two can be together forever and Krechea will be taken care
of.”