Birdcage

Chapter 3: Powerless

The stalls that filled the bazaars of Alenza flashed past Vix. Customers and merchants, glittering jewelry and billowing satin, all seemed to run together in a meaningless blur of colors and shapes.

Vix was still reeling from what had just happened. That woman, Eva Cassidy, had caused the bird cages to suddenly open, all at once. Vix was certain of it.

But how? Cassidy had remained perfectly still all the while, eyes locked on Vix as chaos had unfolded around her. There was no reasonable explanation.

So only the unreasonable ones remained. 'Magic?' Vix thought. 'Could she have used magic?'

Caine would have laughed to hear her suggest it. Vix forced her burning legs to move faster. 'Oh, please, be safe!'

Vix skidded to a halt in the center of a close-knit group of stalls. She spun in place, half-tripping over her own feet.

“Caine!" she called desperately. “Caine!"

Strangers' faces loomed out at her from all directions, laughing and talking all at once. The noise pounded onto Vix from everywhere like a landslide.

Caine was nowhere among the stalls. Vix turned and prepared to run onward. But before she could take a single step, she found her path blocked.

Eva Cassidy looked up from examining her fingernails and smiled lazily. “I was not done speaking with you yet, Vix," she said. The wind caught her raven black hair. It danced around her face like a veil, almost seeming to move of its own accord, as though disturbed by some invisible, fiery vapor.

Vix's stomach dropped. “What have you done with him?" she demanded, taking a step toward the woman. “Where's Caine?"

Cassidy just laughed.

Vix bared her teeth. “Answer me, you horse-faced witch!"

A tiny flicker of annoyance crossed the beautiful woman's features. “Name-calling, is it? The last defense of children and idiots. We'll have to break you of those bad manners, Vix, my dear."

Vix had enough. As quick as a flash, she shot forward, toward Cassidy, plunging a hand into her pocket as she did. Just as she reached the willowy woman, she whipped out her knife and slashed Cassidy's belly with it.

She heard the woman gasp and felt the metal connect with flesh. But the blade would not sink in. Instead, it slipped off of Cassidy's shirt as though it were made of soap, leaving both clothes and skin unmarred.

Vix stared at the spot where she had struck Cassidy. 'What?' she thought blankly. Her mind felt like it was being squeezed into a ball by a pair of huge hands.

Cassidy brushed off the front of her shirt, her breath slightly ragged as she stared at Vix with narrowed eyes. “You tried to kill me," she said, her voice thick with disbelief.

“I was trying to," Vix growled. She struck again at the woman, this time driving all her weight behind the thrust of her knife. But the instant the blade touched Cassidy's side, Vix was stopped in her tracks. It was like trying to drive a butter knife through an iron wall.

“You, kill me!?" Cassidy's voice rose, colored with hysteria. “A slum rat like you! How dare you!?" In her fury, she seemed totally oblivious to Vix's renewed attempts to drive the knife into her side. Or perhaps she did not think she needed to concern herself with them at all.

Vix could see her efforts were useless. Desperately, she dropped her knife nimbly into her other hand and slashed at Cassidy's face. The beautiful woman did not so much as flinch as the glittering metal arced at her.

Vix's arm was brought to a jarring halt the moment the blade came into contact with Cassidy's temple. She staggered backward, breathing hard, totally stunned.

Just as before, Cassidy seemed to pay no attention to the attack. She adjusted the sleeves of her shirt roughly. “Ridiculous," she muttered. When she turned her attention back to Vix, she seemed to have calmed somewhat, though her eyes were still smoldering with fury.

“If you had any idea of what you just tried to do," she said, “I would make you scream for death before I obliged you. Ignorance is your saving grace, Vix. That, and..."

She grimaced and stopped talking abruptly. “Enough of this. Put that silly toy away before I break your hands."

Vix tightened her hold on her knife. She could not see what good it would do her, as Cassidy's skin seemed to somehow be as hard as stone, but she refused to do anything the woman told her to do.

A vein twitched in Cassidy's neck. She extended her hand. “I told you to drop that knife, Vix," she said slowly.

Suddenly, the knife in Vix's hand flew forward. Vix was only barely able to catch it in the crooks of her fingers before it sailed out of her hand. She let out a cry of fear and pain, her arm stretched out in front of her, fingers shaking in exertion. It was as though a team of horses was pulling her forward.

Cassidy smiled. “Stupid girl." She made a small, beckoning gesture with one finger.

The pull on the knife swelled suddenly. There was a small cracking sound, like a dry branch that had been stepped on. Vix screamed as pain flared from her hand. The knife went flying out of her grasp, spinning end over end through the air. Cassidy caught it deftly.

“Now, was that so hard?" she asked Vix sweetly.

Competing waves of pain smashed through Vix. Eyes watering, she spared a trembling look at her hand. Her stomach convulsed and her vision blurred. Her index finger was bent to one side at a grotesque angle. She fastened the fingers of her other hand over her maimed one, willing herself not to pass out.

“Where's Caine?" she asked through gritted teeth.

“Gods, girl, are you still babbling about him?" Cassidy asked, a taunting smile lifting the corners of her blood-red mouth. “I told you, he's no concern of mine. I'm here for you. You, alone."

A thrill of shock went through Vix. “Why?" she breathed.

Cassidy tapped the side of her nose with one finger. “Ah, ah! Why spoil the surprise? You'll know soon enough, my dear."

She looked up, took stock of the position of the sun, and sighed. “We're late enough as it is. Now, be a good girl and come with me. Everything will be explained to you after we've arrived."

“I'm not going anywhere with you!" Vix snarled.

Cassidy smiled wider, showing white teeth with pointed incisors. “Oh, how I was hoping you were going to say that."

She flung her hands out in front of her and made a bizarre twisting motion with her wrists. Immediately, an inky black bubble blossomed around Vix, cutting off all light and sound. She suddenly found that she could not breathe.

Vix struggled frantically, thrashing out with her arms and legs. But they passed right through the bubble suffocating her. It was like trying to fight off darkness.

Her head swam. A long, unending scream of terror echoed out around her. It could not have been her who was making it; she could not even force a croak out of her constricted throat. The darkness seeped into her, filling her eyes, her nose, her ears, and her mind.

Spinning through a world of shadows, the voiceless scream filling her ears, Vix fell into nothingness.