IntoThe Dark

Chapter Eleven

As soon as he rode away, I groaned. I still had work to do… like killing Laura-the-vampire. I shuddered at the thought. Did I think it was not at all a Herculean task yesterday? I was being so stupid the previous day.

As I stood there, frozen at the place where Krish had left me, thinking hard, something black gripped my mouth tightly from behind me. I was preparing myself for a surprise—I knew this had to be Ryan; or could it be Jeff? I stiffened at the thought. Then, as I was being spun around, I saw two figures covered in black cloaks. They were fully hooded, wearing a veil over their face only with their eyes exposed. Were there robber-wizards, too?

But the eyes held an ominous look. It felt very wrong.

“Walk,” I heard the figure holding me order in a harsh tone, towing me forward. I obeyed, out of fright. The grip on my arm was so strong that it hurt. They walked me, speeding up our stride, for what seemed like a few miles.

Then, we got to a deserted place, where there was nothing but plain ground. There were no trees, no roads, no houses, nothing. It was just plain ground around us and we were standing in the middle of the barren ground. One of them was standing on a black mark on the ground. What did they want of me? Finally they should be able to pull out their facade.

They didn’t. Instead, I saw them move away from the centre, dragging me by my arm, along with them; like they were making space for something huge.

The earth beneath us was shaking violently—it was an earthquake. “Run!” I wanted to yell, but one of the hands still clutched my mouth tightly. None of the two forms seemed to panic. They were standing calmly, staring at the ground. Were they insane?

Just then, I saw a crack appearing on the ground where we stood previously. I gaped at the crack and stretched my hand to protest, but saw that they didn’t move an inch. They were still looking at the crack, which was getting wider and wider.

The earth was splitting and was going to swallow us alive.

Then, it came to a stop. The crack was not getting anymore wider. I sighed in relief, but the sigh was stifled by the large hands covering my mouth.

Wait a minute! Was this supposed to be dark magic?

The ground beneath us stopped vibrating and I was even more relieved. I began to feel extremely positive that this must be dark magic. I shuddered when I realized that I was being held by the dark ones—two of them.

The hand clutching me slowly released, and I began panicking.

Then I tried to remember what I’d read in that huge book. They had power. They could do everything of this sort, can’t they? Just then, as I scanned the whole place once, I found something white that was plopped on the barren land; as I scrutinized the white thing, I gasped. The two dark figures—the dark ones were going towards the crack, like they were planning to jump in. One of them glanced to look back at me as I gasped, and I pretended I was gasping on seeing them advance to the crack; I really was close to getting caught.

Then one of them came back to me, and towed me towards the crack—I understood everything at once. The dark ones wanted to kill me for some reason that I didn’t know—or probably because they thought I was the princess who had a right to the throne of Scinta—first Cruz thought of killing me, but then I escaped with Ryan, killing four people and turning one into a vampire.

This time, they weren’t going to fail—I was going to be dumped into that crack and there was no way out—the hardest part was that I was taking Brooke with me this time. He would surely to follow me and jump into the crack to save me… and I couldn’t stand it. I loved my unicorn way too much. I saw him approaching me swiftly without making any noise with his hooves as I glanced behind me. The dark ones didn’t seem to notice Brooke as they never looked back.