Twilight

Chapter Fourteen

Rachel and Helen performed a little invisibility trick that made sure that I could sneak out of the hotel without being seen my anyone; human or non-human. They too turned invisible again. Outside, we  took a cab, into Phoenix town, to the address of Mimi's, the old ballet school.

Keep your nerve, Bella, Rachel's voice said clearly in my head. We will get Rigan back. There is no doubt about it.

I never gave much thought to how I would die, I answered. But dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go.

Hey, I am getting seriously bad karma from you right now, mon cherie, Helen's playfully stern voice said. Get rid of it right now before you return to the world as a worm or something.

Helen!

What?! At least it proves I paid attention in RE!

Sure, sis, Rachel answered sarcastically, because you know that bad karma can cause someone to a be a worm in another life! Do you even know what religion believes that?

Erm . . . .Sikhs?

URGGG!

Half an hour later, the taxi stopped outside Mimi's and I paid the taxi driver his fare. In the dark, the place seemed eerie and sinister, but even more so now that there was a bloodthirsty vampire in there holding my sister hostage.

As soon as the taxi was gone, Rachel remained invisible yet said out loud in a whisper, "None of this is your fault, you know," she said.

"You told me to keep an eye on her!" I snapped quietly. "I failed."

"You shouldn't always listen to me," Rachel said.

"I don't," Helen reassured.

"Shut up!" Rachel snarled.

"Girls," I snapped. "Let's go."

Seemingly alone, I marched into Mimi's, through the front entrance and then up the cedar and oak grand staircase up to the first floor where my classroom had been, on the right hand side. As I ascended the stairs with two invisible Mordain animi, I calmed my breathing and focused on Rigan. Her pissed off-aura told me she was definitely in the building and on the first floor.

I slipped into the room that I dreaded as a kid, now feared. With no lights on and filled with the light of the moon, the ballet studio looked like a room Dracula would happily have occupied.

There, at the end of the room was Rigan, her face bruised and with one black eye. She had bronze-gold chains around her ankles, wrists and neck. At first, I didn't recognise her; she was so extraordinarily thin that she looked more like a living skeleton than anything else. Her hair color had grey streaks within it and her eyes had lost their spark.

The chains are responsible, Rachel's voice said in my head. They're made from Stygian bronze and Olympic gold; the alloy intercepts any power and they cannot be broken by vampiric strength. They were used to chain Prometheus to the cliff when he stole the fire from the gods.

At this point, Rigan looked up. "Bella? No, you idiot! It's a trap!"

I ran towards her and tried to melt the chains with a few bolts and strikes from fire but the chains remained unscathed.

Rigan, turn! Helen said sharply.

I didn't need to be told twice. Standing twenty-five feet away from where I was kneeling next to Rigan, was James, smiling creepily and sadsitically at me.