“The wind is messing with your ears.”
Mini, who had always been more agile than Brynne and Aru combined, moved past her.
“I thought you were scared of heights,” said Aru.
“I am!” said Mini. “I’m scared of lots of stuff…but exposure therapy is helping. Maybe for my eighteenth birthday we’ll all go skydiving.”
“We?”
“Look, Aru! First closed booth!”
About fifteen feet away, across a slender metallic bridge, was a glass-encased compartment big enough to hold two people. Its red door was shut tight, and the inside was dark. Aru flicked her wrist, and Vajra turned from a bracelet into a spear. Her lightning weapon sent a shiver of electricity up her arm.
Don’t fry the mission, Aru muttered to herself.
The entire fate of the Otherworld was depending on them. Aru aimed at the door, then let her bolt loose….
Bang!
The lightning hit the door’s hinges. The door swung open with a screech, to reveal…nothing. The booth looked totally empty. Mini held up Dee Dee in its compact-mirror form. Its reflection could show the truth behind enchantments.
“No one’s hiding in this one,” said Mini.
Aru opened her hand and Vajra rushed back to her grip. “Onward,” she said.
They slowly picked their way back across the bridge to the wheel’s hub, then hauled themselves up to the arm above. As they navigated the spoke to the next booth, Aru winced at the sound of her shoe suckers squelching on the damp metal. She zapped the enclosure open, and Mini scanned it with Dee Dee.
“Empty,” she said with a frown.
The third was the same: empty. In the fourth, Aru nearly leaped back as a pair of sneakers, tied to a seat belt, dropped out and dangled in her face….
But it was just a prank left over from whoever had been in there last.
The booth’s door swung shut with a heavy thud.
Aru looked above them. There was only one more booth to check. Her pulse ratcheted up. She closed her eyes, imagining she could hear the hum of unspoken prophecies echoing through the night. The air felt colder, weighted down somehow.
“Last one,” whispered Aru.
She rose on her tiptoes to see better, her shoe suckers letting go of the slick metal bridge. As she adjusted her grip on the lightning bolt, the Ferris wheel lurched violently, pitching her to the right. Weightlessness gripped her belly as she swung out, her hand just barely catching a metal bar while her legs dangled over a steep drop.
Mini screamed and held on for dear life.
Demons have found us! said Brynne’s panicked mind message. Be careful!
Aru’s legs dangled uselessly as she kicked for purchase. The Ferris wheel gave another jolt, just enough to allow her to swing her legs upward and hook a bar with the insides of her knees. She twisted herself until she was crouching on top of the spoke before she shakily rose to her feet, her shoes reattaching to the metal with a slurp!
Aru risked one glance below…and quickly wished she hadn’t.
Now the demons’ attention wasn’t on Aiden and Brynne—it was on her and Mini.
“You still with me?” Aru called to Mini. “We’re running out of time!”
Mini’s eyes went even rounder with fear, but she bit her lip and nodded. Aru stepped carefully down the spoke that led to the last booth, not ten feet away. It looked empty, like all the others, but the air around it seemed strangely warped. Mini snapped her compact shut.
Someone’s definitely inside, said Mini’s mind message. It has to be the targets. Do we warn them we’re gonna bust down the door?
Aru shook her head. Their abductor might be with them.
On the count of three?
Aru nodded.
One…two…three!
Aru threw Vajra, and the lightning bolt sliced through the hinges before returning to her hand. The metal groaned as it burst open, revealing a mass of black vines that writhed like snakes.
“Release the clairvoyant!” shouted Mini. “Oh, and the other person! And don’t try anything, because we’re armed!”
Aru brandished Vajra, on the verge of declaring And dangerous! But the Ferris wheel teetered and she ended up yelling, “And danger-ahh!”
The writhing mass of vines went suddenly still. A green light broke through the middle of the tangle, like a hairy monster blinking open one eye.
“‘Danger-ahhh’? Is that even a word?” demanded a haughty feminine voice.
“Are you the clairvoyant?” called Mini over the howling wind.
There was a beat of silence.
“Maybe.”
Aru swayed, even as her shoe suckers gripped the bridge. She held out her arms for balance, and Vajra wrapped around her wrist in bracelet form. “Then come with us…if you want to live.”
Another pause.
“We’re fine here,” said the haughty voice. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Seriously?” said Aru. “We’re here to save you! You should be way more grateful! How’d you even end up in a Ferris wheel?”
From deep within the vines came the sound of whispers.
“We were hiding,” said a different, softer voice. “Are you Aru Shah?”
Aru paused. “Yes?”
The vines parted, revealing a pair of identical dark-skinned girls who looked about ten years old. One of them was wearing a flower-print dress with a shiny blazer over it. A small tiara nestled in her dozens of tiny braids. The other wore a striped T-shirt and dark jeans, and her braids fell straight to her shoulders. Instantly, Aru knew them. She’d seen them in a dream.
“You…” Mini breathed, before Aru had the chance to open her mouth. “I’ve seen you in my dreams!”
Aru whipped her head around. “Wait, what? You’ve seen them, too?”
The girl with the tiara huffed impatiently. “We paid a visit to all the Pandavas.”
“We’ll discuss this later,” said Aru, holding out her hand. “For now, you’ve got to come with us.”
Tiara Girl narrowed her ice-blue eyes at Aru and Mini.
“First you have to save us. That’s what you saw in your vision, right, Sheela?”
“Uh-huh,” said Sheela distractedly as she counted down on her fingers—three, two, one.
“Save you from—” started Mini, but before she could finish, a sound like a wet slap echoed on the metal rung right above their heads.
Aru reeled back. A rakshasa with the body of a man and the head of a bull swung upside down and let out a terrible roar. Tiara Girl coughed lightly, crossed her arms, and pointed at the demon.
“From that.”
That Time Brynne’s Shoes Got Ruined
The bull-headed rakshasa advanced on them.
“That prophecy belongs to the glorious vision of the Sleeper,” he growled. “Deliver the clairvoyant to me, and I might spare your young lives.”
“Might?” repeated Aru. “Not exactly a bargain.”
The rakshasa laughed. “Little girl, your luck has run out. Give her to me.”
Aru’s gaze darted to the lightning bolt, now in the form of a sparkling bracelet. If she could just get the demon into the right position…
Aru was distracted by a moan from Sheela, who was clutching her stomach. Her ice-blue eyes began to glow. “Nikita! It’s coming soon!”