16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Despite my words to Xander I'd still expected the explosion to roar up the tunnel, so it was rather anti-climactic when there was nothing more than a low rumble. There were no spewing flames and the earth beneath our feet didn't even shudder. In the distance, though, I heard a far louder rumble.

‘Let's go!' I said quickly, moving forward after the noise had died away.

Tarkers held a hand out to stop me. ‘Disposable people first, Your Maj.' He took point and I reluctantly followed with Ben and Xander bringing up the rear. I had toyed with trying to send Xander back to the car, but there was every chance he'd pretend to obey me then pop into the tunnel later and get hopelessly lost in the dragon's hoard. At least this way I could keep my eyes on him.

When we reached the site of our mini-explosion it didn't look so mini: there was a large hole in the wall. Tarkers peered into it then moved through the opening. We all braced, ready for him to drop dead, but nothing happened.

I grinned: no runes. Thank goodness our information about their absence had been correct or we'd have been scuppered before we even began. Still, what kind of idiot didn't use runes?

One who has other security measures, Esme warned.

She was right: we didn't know what we'd face inside the hoard. I licked my lips and followed Tarkers into the room and pulled my magic forward as I touched the wall. Nothing happened, no runes lit up, nada.

Geneve might be evil but she was also a fool, and sometimes that was the worst form of evil. Idiots didn't know enough for their behaviour to be tempered by sense; idiots with power were even worse because it was all too easy to make a bad situation terrible if you were so inclined, as Geneve clearly was. Her dethroning of Emory showed exactly where she stood; she'd taken a brilliant leader who'd cared about his people and removed him from power because of her own petty desires.

I pulled out my phone and sent a text message to Greg: No runes .

I'd expected the hoard to be like a scene from Aladdin – lots of jewels and piles of golden coins – so I was nonplussed when we peered around the tunnel and saw nothing but greenery. A lot of greenery.

‘She hoards plants,' Tarkers whispered.

Evidently she did. Emory hoarded companies, which was why he was a bazillionaire; Geneve collected plants, which was why the room we'd stepped into was hot, tropical and moist. That begged the question: if she hoarded plants, why the hell had she stolen the hammer and the orb? If magical objects weren't her thing, why had she taken them? Was she really so petty and insecure that she simply wanted to appear superior? Could it be that simple?

‘How the heck are we going to find an orb in all of this?' Tarkers said, half to himself. ‘It's a freaking jungle – and probably a poisonous one at that.'

I grimaced; I'd have bet good money he was right.

Pipe the plants, Esme suggested. When you piped the trees outside, they were annoyed at the metal's dissonance amongst their roots. We can find the hammer and the orb in the same way.

I didn't know why her brilliance still astounded me but it did. Nine times out of ten she was the one in the room.

Maybe five times out of ten, she disagreed. And the other five are because you are smartest one in the room. She purred and nuzzled me .

Aw, thank you. I gave her a hug back in my mind, then refocused; we could have a meeting of our mutual appreciation society another day when we weren't creeping around a deadly leafy hoard uninvited.

I pulled up my piping magic, reached out to the nearest plant and recoiled instantly as vile thoughts of death and putrefaction filled me. It was huge, vile and hungry, hungry like Nina had been but worse. Esme was right: Geneve didn't need runes because her hoard itself was deadly.

‘Don't touch that one!' I said, pointing to the tall purple plant to our left. ‘It's poisonous, really fucking poisonous.' As if to emphasise my words, the plants tentacles snapped out and hissed threateningly. Sheesh.

‘Are there degrees of poisonous?' Tarkers asked curiously. ‘Isn't poisonous just poisonous?'

Ben snorted. ‘There's "oh no, I have a tummy ache" poisonous, then there's "drop dead in ten seconds" poisonous. Poisonous just means it hurts us. It doesn't always mean death.'

‘It does if you get too close to that leafy leviathan,' I warned. ‘Stay away from it. It can move, too. Keep eyes on it.'

Ben studied the plant warily. ‘Technically, I think that one is venomous. It looks like it's ready to bite.'

‘I'll watch it,' Xander promised.

As we dived cautiously into the foliage, he kept his eyes trained on the purple monstrosity. I extended my senses again, carefully navigating through the mix of rare and poisonous plants. Frustrated, I dug deeper and found a network of roots that belonged to one tree, though many different bushes sprouted from it – not just in this room, but all through the castle.

Show me what doesn't belong here, I said to it, thinking of a hammer and the orb.

It showed me the orb nestled deep within the deadly purple plant we'd passed, the hissy one that reeked of death. Fuckity-fuck-fuck. Then it showed me a dagger, a mirror, a gemstone and a hammer. Finally, it showed me Daniella.

What. The. Fuck?

She had been taken by Geneve's brethren, but why? It made no sense. ‘Daniella's here,' I breathed. ‘Somewhere in a room off this one.'

Tarkers looked at me weirdly; he had no idea how I knew that, but now wasn't the time to confess that I had the weird skill of communing with plants. I continued, ‘And the orb is in the purple plant.'

Tarkers grimaced. ‘The deadly one?'

‘Yup. '

He sighed. ‘Of course it is.'

I turned to Ben. ‘Any top tips?'

‘Hum or sing,' he advised me.

Tarkers eyebrows rose. ‘In the mood for some tunes, mate?'

We both ignored him. ‘Let's go back to the purple thing, then we can come up with a plan of attack,' I suggested.

So far there'd been no shouts of alarm from the brethren and I hadn't spied any CCTV cameras. A lot of the dragons eschewed modern technology – Emory said they were still getting used to the idea of electricity and phones – and it looked like Geneve fell into the luddite camp. She didn't even have electric lighting down here; the hoard was lit by dozens of flaming torches fixed to the wall and a central well of magical light that seemed to be acting as a light source for the plants. God knows, there was no sun down here.

We crept carefully through the plants back to the deadly one that had the orb somewhere inside it. The air was thick with the pungent scent of damp earth and something far more sinister: a foul miasma of rot and death.

I crouched behind a row of withered roses, my heart pounding as I eyed the purple monstrosity in front of us and took the time to examine it properly. It had vines that quivered and moved. I suddenly spotted a round globe of glass in its purple heart, resting on a coil of tendrils. It wasn't glowing but it had to be the orb of Lochlan.

‘That plant is enormous.' Xander's voice was shaky. ‘How are we supposed to get past it?'

‘Very carefully,' Ben replied. ‘It's more than just a plant, it senses intent. If we rush it, we're dead.'

Tarkers grinned. ‘Well, I've always liked a challenge.'

I reached out to pipe the plant again and try to dig for information. Its vile consciousness was so warped that it was hard to commune with it for long and I quickly retreated, shuddering and wishing I could scrub its touch from my mind. ‘This plant isn't just poisonous,' I warned. ‘It can spit venom.'

‘Venom, schmemon.' Tarkers shrugged. ‘We can shift and heal so we'll be fine. And I've faced worse – my mum's cooking is far more deadly.' He started to edge closer but I grabbed his arm and hauled him back just as a thick vine lashed out and snapped at him.

‘Not that close,' I hissed. ‘We have to do this right.'

‘What about burning it?' Xander suggested.

Ben shook his head. ‘Not with the orb inside it. We could destroy it by accident.'

That didn't bear thinking about. I took a deep breath and tried to calm the nerves twisting in my gut. Maybe it was time to tell Tarkers that I could commune with plants.

‘I'm a piper,' I said quickly. ‘I can communicate with the plant but only to a certain degree, and for some reason this one is harder than most. Like Ben said, humming helps a little and touching helps my powers even more, so if I can I'll creep close and hum. I'll tell it not to hurt us then I'll hold it still while you retrieve the orb. I'll need you guys to distract it while I edge closer. If it realises what I'm doing, we're screwed.'

‘Right then. One distraction coming up.' I appreciated Tarkers' matter-of-fact attitude; there were no probing questions, just a calm acceptance of my strange skills.

He eyed our gangly young teenager. ‘Xander, can you climb?'

‘Yeah, sure.' Xander gave a thumbs-up.

‘When the plant is immobile, you're the man to run and grab the orb,' Tarkers told him.

‘Woah,' I objected. ‘Let's keep Xander out of this.'

‘It's fine, Alpha,' the boy said firmly.

Tarkers looked at me. ‘He's fast, Alpha, faster than me or Ben. We will keep the plant focused on us. Xander can whip in and get the orb – but only when you say so, when you know the plant definitely can't move. If you think about it, he will have the safest job.'

I grimaced but nodded reluctantly. ‘Okay.'

Xander squared his shoulders. ‘ You can count on me.'

Tarkers patted his arm. ‘I know I can, kiddo. Ben, let's go. Time to distract a plant.' He paused. ‘That's a sentence I never thought I'd say,' he muttered to himself.

Xander crouched down and I could see the nervous energy buzzing under his skin. Tarkers darted to the left and Ben followed, both of them moving with the liquid grace of wolves on the hunt. The plant hissed as they got closer and its vines snapped towards them, but they hastily pivoted, dodging and weaving around the slithering tendrils.

The purple pods reared back and spat something at them. They dodged in time but the acidic liquid landed on the path and the corrosive spit started to eat into the stone. I swallowed hard; I did not want that shit hitting any of us.

As Ben and Tarkers moved around the plant, I hummed my go-to melody of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I reached out to the vile plant with my magic and inched closer to it.

Be calm, I commanded it, but my hold on it wasn't complete. There was a sort of sliminess, which meant my magic struggled to keep it in thrall. Every time I thought I had it under my control, it slithered out from my grasp; it was like trying to hold onto a slicked-up eel.

The plant's movements slowed as I took a firmer hold and its vines swayed as if it were caught in a trance. Xander took the opportunity to vault over a twisted root and made a run for the orb.

I couldn't stop humming to shout a warning to him that I didn't have a proper hold on the plant. Dammit, he was supposed to wait until my say so! I hummed louder and redoubled my efforts as he leapt up the stem of the plant. The plant was fighting me with everything it had, its foul wrongness seeping into my mind. The heavy alien touch in my head was sending waves of revulsion through me and my humming faltered.

Xander was right next to the orb. He reached down and tried to take it, but a vine snapped out and wrapped around his wrist.

‘Hey, let go of him!' Tarkers shouted at the plant, his voice strained. ‘Not cool!'

Shit, shit, shit! I pushed the confusion from my mind and hummed even more loudly, moving quickly to close the distance between me and the plant. I reached out and touched the nearest part of it. Let him go, I hissed into its dark mind. Then I started singing Twinkle, Twinkle at the top of my voice.

‘Keep going!' Ben urged me. ‘It's working!'

I poured more of my magic into the tune and the plant hesitated and slowed. Its grip on Xander loosened just enough for Tarkers to shift and dive in, claws out, to slice through the vine.

Xander stumbled back, cradling his injured arm; the skin was red-raw where the plant had touched him. ‘I'm okay,' he called but his voice warbled and I knew he was lying. Still, he was free from the plant and that was a blessing.

Now that I didn't have to worry about Xander, I hit the plant with everything that I had and then some. I was sweating, but whether it was the absurd heat in the room or the exertion, I couldn't tell.

Somehow Esme reached out with me, adding her strength to mine in a way she had never done before. Stay STILL, we roared at the plant.

All movement ceased.

Since Xander was injured, Tarkers decided he'd play fetch – literally. Still in wolf form, he leapt up the coiled vines until he reached the glass orb and grabbed the ancient magical artefact with his mouth. Nice.

The plant let out a guttural roar that shook the entire room, and other plants thrashed wildly in response to its bellow. The strain of controlling the plant was taking its toll on me and the song was wavering on my lips. ‘I can't hold it much longer! Get down! '

Tarkers wasted no time in leaping down, the orb still in his mouth.

‘Get ready to run!' Ben shouted.

I stopped singing and bolted further into the greenery, away from the big purple beast. Cradling his arm, Xander was right on my heels with Tarkers following. Ben was bringing up the rear.

Like a good canine, Tarkers dropped the magical orb carefully at my feet. I picked it up and slipped it into my bag then patted his head. He wagged his tail happily.

‘Everyone okay?' I asked. Everyone nodded, though Xander's expression was pained. ‘We'll get you to a healer asap,' I promised. ‘I know a great healing witch. You'll be fine.'

He flashed me a weak smile. ‘I am fine, my Queen. Let's find the hammer.'

One orb down, two more things to find: the hammer and Daniella. I wasn't leaving without them.