The Hidden Prophecy Trilogy

3. Lunatics and Madmen-1

Zaid threw the body over his shoulder with ease and took off running down the street, muttering a string of curses.

This was not how this week should have gone.

not He would be having a long discussion with Tahir when he got home. He had been stabbed, compelled, deceived, beaten, and outrun by ubir before, but they were all nearly identical situations. The same manic, unfocused restlessness behind their eyes, behavior barely checked. They couldn’t go long without shedding blood; otherwise, their abilities would start to fade, and the healing would slow.

Never had he seen an ubir so calm and human before. He had come to the conclusion she had recently defected. There wasn’t any other explanation.

human . The oddities just kept piling up. Was she also able to so completely compel the humans around her that they would defend her with a frying pan? The spot of his shoulder still ached where the old lady had whacked him. He was pretty sure it had been cast-iron. She also had a Deathstone. The searing pain in his head was unmistakable and nearly had him on his knees by the time the pan came swinging. Even after he smashed it, the after-effect had him vomiting in the yard and joints stiffening in pain.

Zaid had found no traces of any Auras in the house. No ubir, no Anunnaki, nothing. He had let himself in through the kitchen window, silently moving throughout the house, and entered the girl’s room. She had been tossing and turning, sweat soaking the sheets. Now, this was more like a ubir. The sight had calmed him a little, ensuring everything wasn’t as odd as it seemed. But the moment he had reached out to grab her, a force of radiant white light exploded from the bed, sending him crashing through the walls.

this By the time he had steadied himself, she had gone. It had taken him almost ten minutes to subdue the old woman, avoid the neighbors, and catch back up to the girl. The old woman had moved faster than he would have expected, pulling the damn pan out from beneath her bed and wielding the Deathstone in the other. Even now, he still had spots flickering in his vision from the stone. He had put her in a hold, applied pressure on her neck at the right angles, and within moments her head had drooped.

As he moved through the streets with his mark over his shoulder, he headed back to the warehouse. It was only a few miles away, a little closer to downtown, but in a shadier neighborhood. When he first arrived, there had been a few people curled up in the corners, baring sparse yellow teeth at him, needles scattered around the floor. It only took him an hour to scare them away. He knew that they watched him from down the block and inside nearby houses used for the same purpose, waiting to see if he would leave again. He would soon.

The building itself was nondescript, two stories, but all the windows had fallen out with parts of the roof caving in. It looked as if it had been under construction at one point, but money had run out midway through. He pushed past the torn plastic hanging from the doorway and jogged up the stairs. He only had a small bag of things with him, not needing much. Dropping her in the corner of the room, he quickly bound her hands and feet with a few zip ties. Not that she could take him, but he also didn’t know what her abilities were. If that white light was any indicator, he didn’t want to find out.

As he sat down with his back to the wall, he finally got to see her up close and realized how young she looked, probably no more the seventeen or eighteen. He guessed she had been lured by older ubir with promises of power and the freedom to see the world instead of being cooped up in Rhapta. The younger ones were always easy to sway. He knew that better than anyone.

He looked over her prone form, noting the thick, black hair that fanned around her head. A few strands had fallen over her face. The delicate bridge of her nose between her eyes curved down to flare wider near the tip, which sat above full lips currently relaxed in sleep. Zaid admired her with the same blatant disregard he gave to most things.

When she didn’t immediately stir, he leaned his head back against the wall, hoping to catch a bit of rest, not that he needed much.

It would be a long journey back to Rhapta.

* * *

Kinza woke to one particular beam of sunlight burning on the back of her eyelids, making her pounding headache way worse than it needed to be. She always closed her blinds before bed, so why was the sun coming through? Did she miss her alarm?

She peeled one eye open and struggled to reconcile the sight of the dilapidated concrete walls and dusty floor she was lying on.

“There’s a bottle of water,” came a deep voice with a rolling accent from across the room.

Kinza’s eyes flew open at the memory of the night before, and she immediately bolted upright, the pain in her head throbbing harder. Across the room sat a man in black pants, a black hoodie, and black combat boots with his back to a wall. It was the man who blew up her house! Even from where she was, she could tell he would tower over her, one long leg stretched out before him. Muscled forearms fiddled with something in his lap. She had no idea how she ever thought she could outrun that. She had to get away. Why hadn’t he killed her yet?

that. Kinza scrambled back, colliding with the wall behind her in a huff. “Who the hell are you?” she choked out, throat raw. “Screw that, HELP!” she screamed as best she could. “HELP! HEEEEEELPP!” she wailed toward the windows, keeping one eye on the man.

“Stop that,” the man said, rolling his head in her direction. “There’s no one around, so you’re wasting your breath. Drink that,” he said and jerked his chin at the water bottle before her. She realized he looked much younger than she had originally thought, maybe early twenties at best. Dark brown skin glowed in the strips of sunlight, and she could see a faint tattoo peeking out from his collar. He had a subtle scruff around his jaw as well, giving an I-haven’t-shaved-in-a-few-days-but-I’m-too-unbothered type of vibe. In the back of her mind, she knew that if Mitra were here, she would have been making googly eyes at him. Something about him seemed oddly familiar to Kinza, though.

Stop His lack of concern at k********g someone was starting to piss her off. She had fully expected to be dead last night, but now, here she was tied up and he was just sitting there like they had just woken from a slumber party.

sitting Not caring if it was poisoned, Kinza angrily grabbed the water bottle through her zip-tied hands and chugged it. It felt like sweet relief to her parched throat. She raised her arms over her head and hurtled the empty bottle at the man’s head. He threw his arm up so fast it was a blur. She remembered the way he had moved the night before. “I said, who the hell are you?!” she shouted, much clearer now. She slammed her feet on the ground, trying to break the zip ties.

said, the hell In the most nonchalant tone, he replied as if reciting, “My name is Zaid. I’m a venari, a bounty hunter from the Anunnaki tribe charged with capturing ubir like yourself. As my mark, I will take you back to Rhapta to face a trial for your crimes.”

venari, Kinza stopped. Was this man mentally ill? He must have been to attack an old lady and kidnap a young girl.

Was this man mentally ill? Grams! Tears pooled in her eyes as she gritted her teeth. “What did you do to my grandma? What did you do?” She almost didn’t want to know the response. She couldn’t bear it.

Zaid gave a disgusted expression and snorted. “Drop the act. You’re the one who compelled her to attack me with a frying pan. Either way, I put her to sleep and left her at that house,” he said, waving a hand in a vague direction, eyes closed. And then, as an afterthought, “I don’t kill humans.”

His response bewildered Kinza. What was he talking about? He seriously must be some sort of psychopath, and the thought of being around such an unhinged lunatic brought a twisting sense of fear back to her chest. “You listen to me right now,” she said in a voice as deadly as sin. It was the same voice her mother had used when Kinza had crossed a line during backtalk. “You are going to cut these stupid ties, and then you are going to let me walk out of here, and you are never going to come around my family and me again. Do. You. Understand. Me?”

never Zaid just snorted again and fiddled with the thing in his lap. She could finally see what it was, a wicked-looking obsidian dagger. The hilt looked like it was made of gold and wrapped in leather.

Obsidian!

The memory of the warriors in her nightmare came hurtling back. The man before her looked just like them, albeit in normal clothes and sans warpaint. “Look,” he said, opening his eyes. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but if you could be silent the rest of the way there, I would highly appreciate that.”

“Rest of the way there? Where are you taking me?” So this maniac wasn’t going to immediately kill her? Kinza’s mind started spiraling down into a dark place.

“As I just told you,” he said as if to a child. “We are going back to Rhapta, where you are going to stand trial for your crimes, as all ubir do.” He pointed the blade at her during the last remark.

just “Ubir what? Where the hell is Rhapta? Mexico?” She struggled against the zip ties again, but the man was clearly unconcerned over her efforts, not even looking up. She let out another shriek of frustration.

He rolled his eyes, getting up. “We leave in a few hours. Feel free to rest until then.” He turned and walked to a duffel bag on the opposite side of the room, grabbed something out of it, and headed down a decaying staircase in the center of the floor.

Kinza tried rolling to her feet, eyeing the duffel bag. Maybe there was something sharp inside she could use to cut herself free. Regardless, based on the view from the window, she was on the second floor and didn’t think she could jump out the window without twisting her ankle or breaking her back.

“Don’t bother,” Zaid’s voice came from downstairs. “I’ll know the moment you move.”

Kinza flopped back to the floor, reality setting in. This man was seriously crazy and intended to bring her to wherever the heck Rhapta was. She had no idea what he was talking about. He made literally no sense.

Tears welled in her eyes again, and she didn’t bother stopping them this time. There were always those crime shows on tv, with the evil murderers in ski masks and the innocents they kidn*pped. By the time each episode started, the victim was already dead, and yeah, it was sad. But no one ever talked about the time in between, while the victim was waiting to die, helpless and not knowing if that day was their last. She couldn’t handle the suspense of not knowing what would happen next.