She knew the others were looking at her.
"I don't have a spell or anything to say," she muttered, eyes still closed. "So I'm borrowing this one. I'll just say it in my head."
She heard Niamh giggle.
It was hotter than heck in this bloodred desert, and Lyse felt sweat pooling on her upper lip and in the crook of her lower back. She wanted a one-way ticket out of the dreamlands and straight into their own reality-so that was what she concentrated on as she thought . . . Light as a feather, stiff as a board . . . in her head. She repeated the mantra over and over again until she felt the top of her head burn with the heat of the dreamlands desert sun. She opened her eyes, expecting to see a glowing blue orb encircling them, but there was nothing. Only the same blazing dreamlands sun beating down on them. Like small red mirrors, the surface of the sand was reflecting the sun back at them, and Lyse felt the skin on her cheeks starting to burn.
"It's not working," she said, looking at the others. "I'm just sweating and repeating that stupid phrase in my head for nothing."
"Uh, I think maybe you need to repeat it again, faster."
Lyse frowned at Niamh, but the other girl wasn't looking at her. She was staring at something over Lyse's shoulder, eyes wide.
"What?" Lyse asked, turning to follow Niamh's gaze.
Her mouth dropped when she saw a pink dust storm-why it was that color, Lyse had no idea-heading directly for them.
"Can you make it change direction?" Evan asked Niamh.
"No, I just tried. It's not part of the dreamlands . . . it's something else . . . something older and much, much scarier."
Lyse tore her eyes away from the approaching darkness and began to mumble under her breath.
"What're you saying?" Arrabelle asked.
"I'm begging the Goddess or whatever is up there to get us the hell out of here-"
There was a cracking sound as a brilliant blue bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and struck the sand in front of Lyse's feet.
"What the-" Arrabelle shouted, but then she began to smile. "Look."
A pale blue orb had appeared in the middle of their circle, floating a few feet away from Lyse's face. It was small and almost translucent, but it was a start.
Get bigger, Lyse thought. WAY bigger.
She turned her head and heard the incessant hissing of the wind as it reached out from the edges of the storm, eager to draw the four of them into the heart of its darkness.
"Get us the hell out of here!" Lyse screamed at the orb as she dragged her gaze away from the monstrous cloud of evil moving swiftly toward them. "Please, little guy!"
The orb began to swirl in place, growing larger as it spun. Within seconds, it was so big that it had enveloped the four of them, each of their faces bathed in the orb's neon-blue light.
"Think Rome. Think Daniela. Think hospital room!" Lyse screamed at the others, though her words were mostly directed at Niamh.
There was a loud crunch as the dust storm hit them with all its force and they spun forward-but then the orb popped.
The Book of The Flood
. . . so the responsibility to act is thrust upon the chosen ones. For they are the light and the power of The Flood. Through them will come the final cleansing of mankind's sins, and their pains will bring about the beginning of a new epoch for humanity. And the witches that have toiled in their evil for so long will find themselves without succor and will be brought low to their knees and destroyed. So is the power of The Flood on this Earth and beyond . . .
-Pariah 2:12
The Book of The Flood
Niamh
She wasn't alone, and that made the thing Lyse asked of her much easier. Though she couldn't really tap into the power in any conscious way-other than to ask for their help-because Niamh was only the vessel. Inside her she carried the energy that had once comprised her twin sister, Laragh-and with her twin came the creature that The Flood had created.
Though she didn't understand the logistics of how any of it was possible, Niamh's hunch was that it had something to do with electricity. She'd been holding Laragh when her sister died, and in that breadth of time between life and death, Niamh had felt the electrical energy that was her sister being transferred into her own body. A wave of fire shot through her skin in an electrical burst that felt like she was sticking her finger in a light socket-but the pain had immediately subsided and she'd been left as she was before . . . only with the impression that she was somehow "fuller." Not physically, but spiritually. Like she was made up of more psychic mass than her frail human body was supposed to contain.