Kingdom Keepers VII Read Online Free Page B
more strongly than she felt from the top of the temple.
The four men rush toward her worker, hollering. The ground shakes so violently that one of the men loses his balance and falls, comically. It feels to Tia Dalma like the earth itself is sliding. Shifting.
She works the doll’s feet and arms in a flurry of inhuman gestures that knock the other three men aside. They go down like bowling pins, and then jump to their feet as the supervisor recovers and stands.
Her priorities set, Tia Dalma turns her worker, holding him upright as the three men attack him from behind. She hears the cracking of her worker’s bones, but keeps the doll steady; it will not yield. The worker swings at the supervisor. The wiry man soars through the air, crashing hard into a rusted pickup truck.
The sight stops the other three men. In an instant, they understand that they are dealing with something cursed, something from another realm. They back up as Tia Dalma turns her worker and marches him forward. Two of the three men hesitate. The other runs, screaming.
Her worker’s legs are broken in several places, the bones showing through the skin—and yet he walks on, undeterred.
The vibration in the earth gives way to shaking, and the shaking to quaking. Tia Dalma steadies herself, reaching out for a palm tree. Behind her, other trees begin to fall, their roots torn from the loosening soil.
From a bird’s-eye view, a ring of destruction emanates outward from the drilling rig, with ever-expanding concentric circles formed by rippling shock waves. The jungle growth inside this ring falls silently, as though a wind has toppled everything taller than a few inches. Birds, snakes, and other creatures scatter. On and on the ring spreads, like ripples in a pond in the wake of a stone’s splash.
As the leading edge of the ring reaches the temple compound, dust rises. The earth collapses, folding inward, swallowing the surface whole.
Against the backdrop of a low rumble, so terrifying that the very birds take flight, can be heard the cackle of a witch doctor’s cruel laugh.
There, in the midst of the mud and grime, as the drill tower teeters and collapses, Tia Dalma has her dull-eyed, broken-boned worker dancing an Irish jig in celebration.
T IA DALMA OBSERVES HER WORK BY NIGHT , an artist in the privacy of her studio.
She studies the destruction she has caused. The gray stones of the temple lie on the ground, wearing a crust of dirt and debris. The grass and plants that once surrounded the temple look as if they belong on an ancient gravestone. 1 The temple, at one time tall, and proud as the forces of nature it was modeled after, now is little more than a child’s broken tower of building blocks. Water trickles through the blocks and pieces of the once majestic pyramid, the very stream that defeated the Beast, Chernabog, years before. A miasma of evil fills the dusty air. This was a place of sacred ritual, untouched by the commoners, now desecrated by outsiders—worse, foreigners—who have no right to be here. The tears in the earth scream like wounds, spitting hate. Who knows what ancient powers have been released? 2
A snorting, heavy-breathing sound summons Tia Dalma closer—the sound made by a ferocious bull trapped in a branding chute. Despite all the magnificent horrors her eyes have seen, many of her own making, she approaches with trepidation and unusual reserve. But this is hardly a usual situation. Only as she nears the grating noise does it dawn on her that these catacombs have been dormant for thousands of years; that high priests perhaps more powerful than she (a terrifying thought in itself) utilized them as a place of banishment for thieves, those unwanted outcasts deemed a danger to the greater community.
Danger. Desire. Death. Evil spirits would have been expelled to this labyrinth, led into its tangled tunnels with no hope of finding their way out.
Until now.
In all her impatience, Tia Dalma thinks, she may have
The four men rush toward her worker, hollering. The ground shakes so violently that one of the men loses his balance and falls, comically. It feels to Tia Dalma like the earth itself is sliding. Shifting.
She works the doll’s feet and arms in a flurry of inhuman gestures that knock the other three men aside. They go down like bowling pins, and then jump to their feet as the supervisor recovers and stands.
Her priorities set, Tia Dalma turns her worker, holding him upright as the three men attack him from behind. She hears the cracking of her worker’s bones, but keeps the doll steady; it will not yield. The worker swings at the supervisor. The wiry man soars through the air, crashing hard into a rusted pickup truck.
The sight stops the other three men. In an instant, they understand that they are dealing with something cursed, something from another realm. They back up as Tia Dalma turns her worker and marches him forward. Two of the three men hesitate. The other runs, screaming.
Her worker’s legs are broken in several places, the bones showing through the skin—and yet he walks on, undeterred.
The vibration in the earth gives way to shaking, and the shaking to quaking. Tia Dalma steadies herself, reaching out for a palm tree. Behind her, other trees begin to fall, their roots torn from the loosening soil.
From a bird’s-eye view, a ring of destruction emanates outward from the drilling rig, with ever-expanding concentric circles formed by rippling shock waves. The jungle growth inside this ring falls silently, as though a wind has toppled everything taller than a few inches. Birds, snakes, and other creatures scatter. On and on the ring spreads, like ripples in a pond in the wake of a stone’s splash.
As the leading edge of the ring reaches the temple compound, dust rises. The earth collapses, folding inward, swallowing the surface whole.
Against the backdrop of a low rumble, so terrifying that the very birds take flight, can be heard the cackle of a witch doctor’s cruel laugh.
There, in the midst of the mud and grime, as the drill tower teeters and collapses, Tia Dalma has her dull-eyed, broken-boned worker dancing an Irish jig in celebration.
T IA DALMA OBSERVES HER WORK BY NIGHT , an artist in the privacy of her studio.
She studies the destruction she has caused. The gray stones of the temple lie on the ground, wearing a crust of dirt and debris. The grass and plants that once surrounded the temple look as if they belong on an ancient gravestone. 1 The temple, at one time tall, and proud as the forces of nature it was modeled after, now is little more than a child’s broken tower of building blocks. Water trickles through the blocks and pieces of the once majestic pyramid, the very stream that defeated the Beast, Chernabog, years before. A miasma of evil fills the dusty air. This was a place of sacred ritual, untouched by the commoners, now desecrated by outsiders—worse, foreigners—who have no right to be here. The tears in the earth scream like wounds, spitting hate. Who knows what ancient powers have been released? 2
A snorting, heavy-breathing sound summons Tia Dalma closer—the sound made by a ferocious bull trapped in a branding chute. Despite all the magnificent horrors her eyes have seen, many of her own making, she approaches with trepidation and unusual reserve. But this is hardly a usual situation. Only as she nears the grating noise does it dawn on her that these catacombs have been dormant for thousands of years; that high priests perhaps more powerful than she (a terrifying thought in itself) utilized them as a place of banishment for thieves, those unwanted outcasts deemed a danger to the greater community.
Danger. Desire. Death. Evil spirits would have been expelled to this labyrinth, led into its tangled tunnels with no hope of finding their way out.
Until now.
In all her impatience, Tia Dalma thinks, she may have
Readers choose
Kim Newman
Roberta Latow
Hampton Stone
Nikki Duvall
Stephen King
Lissa Matthews
Julie Prestsater