For a moment Sarah froze, her heart in her throat. The darkness all around seemed to deepen, and her breathing came faster, and seemed very loud in the stillness. Then she heard another shout, this one angry. It sounded like Eirene.
Without allowing time to second-guess her decision, Sarah slipped left, down the narrow cross-aisle that cut through the stacks, toward the sound. She walked lightly and moved slow through the silence that descended again upon the vault.
She passed four long rows of vault stacks with no sign of life, only rows upon rows of those small locked doors. She couldn't help but wonder if they were all filled with imprisoned souls.
As much as she tried to ignore it, the horrifying thought lingered in the shadows at the outer fringes of her thoughts. Whispers of fear raised goose bumps on her arms. What would happen to them if Eirene failed to stop the Soul Bleeder?
The answer was so clear it took all her willpower to keep from turning and rushing in blind panic for the exit. That was when she reached the fifth row of stacks and found Eirene.
The woman stood far down the row, and was just picking herself up off the floor. Her hair was in disarray, and she looked shaken.
Between the two of them, standing in a glowing circle and with her back to Sarah, stood Mai Luan. The circle spanned the entire corridor between the vault stacks, glowing with a harsh, yellow light. Inside the circle, inscribed right onto the light, were a series of black runes, similar to the ones carved into the lintels of the vault door. They formed an incomplete circle but Mai Luan began adding more runes as Sarah watched. She drew them with her finger the same way a child would draw in the mud.
Just outside of the glowing circle, two face coffins sat against the stacks, their lids open, soft rainbow light spilling from the interiors. Movement atop one of the stacks drew Sarah's gaze. A shadow slipped along the right-hand stack above where Mai Luan worked. Then the shadow leaped off the stacks and the light of the glowing circle illuminated a face.
Tomas.
As he dove for Mai Luan, Sarah gasped, her heart in her throat as she silently urged him on. Mai Luan wasn't looking. She'd never see him coming.
It didn't matter.
Several feet above Mai Luan's head, Tomas collided with an invisible barrier and bounced sideways like a basketball. He landed hard and rolled several times before coming to a stop beside Eirene.
Mai Luan glanced up as Eirene helped Tomas climb back to his feet. "I'm insulted. Even a basic warder would shield every direction. You don't even have the sense to run, as if that would help."
The casual confidence with which she spoke scared Sarah more than even the glowing circle in which she stood. Whatever Mai Luan was doing, she appeared convinced she could easily kill them all, no matter what they did.
With arm outstretched, Eirene approached Mai Luan, but struck the invisible barrier before she got within ten feet. The air crackled with amber sparks, and she jerked her fingers back.
When Mai Luan didn't even bother to look up from the complex runes she was drawing, Eirene growled, "You can't hope to escape."
The younger woman barked a laugh but didn't pause. She completed the rune, one that looked like an Egyptian image of the sun, surrounded by a series of Chinese characters. Shuffling left, she began the next rune, her face profile to Sarah. If she continued working all the way around the circle, she'd end up looking right at Sarah in minutes.
Tomas pounded on the invisible barrier. "Alterego will fold, the authorities will find the vault and confiscate all your souls."
"They will find nothing," Mai Luan said. She brushed her hair back and glanced up at Tomas. "Except perhaps bits of blackened bones. Haven't you started running yet?" When he only glared, she cocked her head to one side and added to Eirene. "You were supposed to be some great legend. I'm surprised you haven't already sacrificed your servant's soul to try to stop me."
"I don't work that way."
"Pity."
Sarah couldn't bear it any longer. Eirene and Tomas were clearly at a loss for how to penetrate whatever shielding Mai Luan had erected, and just as clearly time was about to run out. Whatever inscription Mai Luan was building upon that glowing circle would obviously prove fatal for the rest of them.
So Sarah threw the soul coffin.
Just like Tomas, it rebounded off the invisible barrier about ten feet from Mai Luan's back. Amber sparks flashed in the dimness, and for the first time, Sarah heard the barrier crackle.
Mai Luan glanced in her direction, startled by the light and the noise. Sarah wanted to cringe away into the shadows, but there was nowhere to hide from Mai Luan's black eyes.
"Sarah, you've just leaped into dangerous waters, without even a single soul's protection." Mai Luan smiled the way a butcher might smile at a hog about to be slaughtered.
Sarah shivered. "I just want out of here."
"Too late." Mai Luan turned back to her runes.
Eirene called from the far side of the slender Friki Zoi. "Sarah, only the doctor can help."
Mai Luan huffed, "Maerwynn can't pass the wards either. Even if you haven't killed her yet, she would never help you."
Sarah glanced down at the face coffin lying at her feet, and grasped at the hint she hoped Eirene was giving her. She unsnapped the lock, opened the box, and forced herself to pick up Dr. Maerwynn's glowing face.
"Thank you, my dear," Maerwynn's whisper-thin voice drifted to her ears as the thrumming rainbow mist of her soul caressed Sarah's hand and started flowing up her arm.
Before the dangerous light could reach her face, Sarah took a quick step forward and threw the face toward the rune circle.
Mai Luan, who had just shifted further to begin drawing the last rune needed to complete the circle, glanced up at the sound of her footstep. The mocking look fell off her lips and she gasped at the sight of the face tumbling toward her runes.
It passed through the invisible barrier with a flash of crimson light.
Mai Luan shouted with fear and lunged for the face in a dive that smeared two of the runes. She landed on a couple more, and caught Dr. Maerwynn's face just before it struck the circle.
She was still lying across the runes.
For half a heartbeat, nothing happened. Mai Luan looked up at Sarah and their eyes met. Sarah cringed back at the sight of pure terror in the woman's gaze.
Then the black runes blazed with crimson light, and the entire glowing circle exploded.
YOU ARE READING
Saving Face
FantasíaThere's no place like home. For Sarah, home is the body she grew up in, and she's gone far too often. In a near future where the renting of human bodies is possible, Sarah is a top model. She spends most of her time shuffling between temporary bod...
