Invisible skeletal fingers gripped my braid again, as well as my duster. They tried to tug me toward the box. Something wrapped around my ankle, jerking my leg several inches off the ground.
“No, you don’t.” I whirled, slicing through the invisible fingers.
As before, Chopper met resistance as it passed through the air. In the morning, someone would find more finger bones on the ground out here.
Branches snapped in the direction of Freysha’s trap, and Sindari snarled as someone shouted in surprise—and pain? The sound of a woman swearing in a language I didn’t understand followed.
I’ve got her! Sindari said.
Good! I slashed my way free of the grasping fingers and rushed toward him.
The thief was still invisible, but Sindari had clearly pinned her under his legs.
Through the trees, the lights of the house were visible, as were Mom, Rocket, and a giant wolf three times Rocket’s size. Rocket barked as the wolf—Liam—lunged and snapped at invisible enemies.
Worry for Mom charged through me. I had to get that lid closed and the box shut off, so the wraiths would leave them alone.
“Hold her, Sindari!” I shouted and veered back toward the box.
More fingers grasped at me, but I didn’t slow down, only slashing at them as I ran. Twenty feet ahead of me, Chopper’s scabbard, still floating through the air, tilted downward and was sucked into the box.
The pull grew stronger as I ran toward it, and fear made me want to turn the other way. But there was a tree next to it, and the magic wasn’t doing anything to pull its branches into the box. If I could grab it and brace myself, then I could close the lid.
By the time I was five feet away, it felt like a black hole sucking me in. I angled my path, hooking one arm around the tree and anchoring myself to avoid being pulled in after my scabbard. My braid floated over my shoulder toward it.
I leaned out, reaching toward the lid with Chopper. The tip touched it, and I nudged it upward. Since I could barely reach it, I couldn’t quite get the leverage to lift it.
“Just a little closer,” I whispered, letting my grip on the tree slip slightly.
A skeletal hand grasped my shoulder. It yanked back harder than I expected, and Chopper slipped free of the lid.
Snarling, I twisted and slashed through the invisible grip with the blade. Something thunked to the ground.
I whirled back and levered Chopper under the lid. It rose slowly, my sword’s blue glow mingling with the purple.
A boom and a white flash came from the trap.
Watch out, Val, Sindari warned. She got away.
I flicked the lid shut, and the purple light disappeared.
Movement off to my side made me jerk back. Something hurtled through the air toward me. A grenade.
I shoved myself away from the tree, but my foot caught on a root. I tottered backward, then twisted and threw myself into a roll away from the box—and the grenade. At the last second, I flung my arms over my head, almost lopping off my braid with my sword.
The grenade blew up with a boom and a flash that rattled my teeth, and the shockwave tossed me farther away. A tree snapped and went down. Branches slammed to the ground all around me, one cracking me on the back of the head hard enough to stun.
I struggled to recover, to push myself to my feet and brace for an attack.
Something thudded to the ground beside me. Another branch, I assumed, but then the purple glow of the box returned. It was open again and on its side only three feet away. Its power pulled me stumbling toward the swirling blackness inside, the purple light flaring even brighter around it, as if it was excited to swallow me whole.
I tried to plant my feet, but the pull was too strong. I flailed at the air, trying to find something else to grab. There was nothing. I lifted Chopper to swing at the box, but a blurry figure lunged out of the shadows and grabbed my sword arm. The thief?
Instinctively, I kicked at her. But with only one foot on the ground, that made it easier for the box to vacuum me up like a piece of lint.
I had the satisfaction of connecting with the thief’s stomach, but it didn’t matter. The power of the artifact swept us both into the box, and darkness enveloped me.
20
I landed hard on my back, the gray daylight sky and sulfur-laden air telling me that I wasn’t on Earth anymore. I rolled to my knees, relieved Chopper was still in my hand, and got one foot under me before I saw her.
She’d also rolled into a crouch, a black helmet half-falling off her head, her dark hair slumping out of a ponytail and framing her dirty, bloody face as she glared at me. Since I’d seen Willard’s photographs, I recognized her, though she looked to have had as bad a night as I had. One of her dark eyes was swollen halfway shut, her shirt was torn—slashed by tiger claws—in several spots, and her lip was cut open, blood dribbling down her chin.
“I can see you,” I pointed out, keeping an eye on her but also surveying our surroundings.
Were we back on the dwarven world? The air smelled right. But maybe this was that haunted world. We were crouching on a rocky ledge near a cliff, a hint of greenery visible far below. The idea of having a battle up here wasn’t appealing, but she gripped a magical dagger and what looked like a miniature crossbow. She hadn’t aimed them at me—yet—but she squinted at me, as if she was considering it.
Fezzik’s weight was reassuring in my thigh holster, and Chopper had deflected projectiles before, so hopefully, I could handle her now that she wasn’t camouflaged. Why wasn’t she camouflaged?
She reached toward her throat. I thought it was to check one of her injuries, but she stopped short of her bloody lip and instead tapped at her collarbones. Looking for something?
She scowled at me as if whatever she was missing was my fault. Maybe it was. If she had something similar to my charm thong, Sindari might have ripped it off. Wherever he was. He hadn’t come through the box with us, the box that had apparently been left back in the woods by Mom’s cabin. There was no equivalent of it on this side. Which meant I might not have a way back.
“You’ve got my sword,” she said in accented English.
“It’s my sword, thanks. I don’t appreciate your attempts to steal it.” I spotted Chopper’s scabbard lying on the ground a few feet away and snatched it up.
“You are not the rightful owner. You originally stole it.”
“No, I slew an enemy who had it and claimed it as mine.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then your enemy stole it. That is a dwarven dragon blade made by the master enchanter Dondethor Orehammer thousands of years ago here on Dun Kroth.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that. It’s mine now.” I smiled cheerfully as I studied her clothing, hoping that portal generator was the size of a TV remote and tucked into one of her pockets.
I wanted to go back and check on Mom. With luck, all the invisible wraiths had disappeared when we’d gone through that box, but I had no way to know that. Maybe it was still open and even now trying to suck her and her werewolf acquaintance through it. And what about Sindari? Based on my previous experiences with his charm, he should have poofed back to his realm as soon as I was out of range, but I’d never been sucked through a strange demonic portal while working with him.
Unfortunately, the photograph I’d seen of her portal generator had shown it as significantly larger than pocket-sized. She was wearing a backpack, one strap dangling off her shoulder as it slumped to one side, a compact crossbow attached to it, but it didn’t look large enough to hold the generator. I could sense more magical items inside of her pack, but who knew what?