Shadow on the Wall: Superhero | Magical Realism Novels (The SandStorm Chronicles | Magical Realism Books Book 1) (21 page)

Ali Kalkan sat at his desk, staring at a picture of his three daughters. Aysel had been his youngest, the sweetest of his girls. He had called her ‘Tatim' and held her on his lap when she was young, reading her stories about the Prophet's daughter Fatimah and the Israelite Asiyah. And now she was gone.

Aysel's death was as certain to Ali as was the fact that his office door was closed and that the street lights would come on at sunset. He had raised her to be honorable, to have pride in herself. Any woman of moral character would make the right decision after such disgrace. While mourning, he was also proud of her. That she may not have taken her own life never occurred to him.

The timing between her attack and his investigation into the missing funds was not lost on him. Nor was the veiled threat he'd received from the bank manager in Nigeria when he'd called. His inquiries into the identity of the account owner were not received well, and somehow the man had known his daughter's name.

He stared at the picture. Continuing his investigation into the money missing from the Osman accounts would put them all at risk, but what kind of man would he be if he didn't? There was no easy answer and his commitment to his family was stronger than his allegiance to the Osmans, no matter how much he owed them.

Ali sighed and opened a drawer on the left side of his desk. He took out the heavy weight monogrammed paper his wife had bought him when he'd been promoted to Head Accountant and wrote one name. The name that would lead Recai to his answers. The name that would haunt him as long as he had daughters living in Elih.

Dayar Yildirim

It was midmorning on the day
after
Darya's scheduled meeting with her uncle and she still had not heard from him. The confidence she'd felt when she'd walked out of her office the evening prior waned as she sat before her laptop at the small desk she used at home. Analyzing the numbers from last week's investments allowed her mind to focus on the task before her and avoid her emotions, which vacillated between outright terror at his silence to exuberance at the upcoming confrontation.

She stood and stretched, enjoying her tired muscles after the women-only yoga class she'd attended that morning. It was one of her rare public activities. Generally, Darya did not get along with women.
Because they are weak.

Grabbing her cooling cup of coffee, she opened the large doors leading out to the patio. The sand from the kum firtinasi had settled, burying those unfortunate enough to live at the bottom of the world. Here, in her penthouse, Darya could breathe and enjoy the sprawling city beneath her. In the distance, a single lightning bolt lit up the sky over the desert.

Residual electricity sparked in the air.

Change comes unexpectedly in times of high pressure.

Dehydration motivated Maryam. It was almost noon and they had been sitting watching the dunes for hours. No movement, other than the occasional bird-of-prey overhead. As they sat, Hasad aged and Maryam worried.

"Effendi, let's go. We can come back with supplies and search."

"No."

"Sitting here isn't going to help him or help us find him. We can't walk farther out into that," Maryam said gesturing toward the expansive desert.

A crack of thunder and single bolt of lightning burst from the sky, landing within feet of where they sat. Maryam jumped back with a scream, moving her hand to her heart.

With a steadying breath, Maryam tried to reassure herself.
Just another storm
. The flash of lightning had been close and the atmosphere tasted burnt in her mouth.

"An electrical storm?" she asked.

"No," Hasad stood and surveyed the sky. "There are no clouds."

He stepped toward where the air had sparked.

"Those don't happen often here, and never with only one thunderbolt. There should be more flashing in the sky. But now it's quiet again . . ." his voice trailed off as his eyes unfocused, taking in the vast emptiness.

Maryam's nerves were heightened. Her fear for Recai combined with the freak lightning and threatened to push her into a panic.

"Let's go," she said with a shaking voice.

"No."

"What if it happens again?"

Maryam's tone was nervous, pleading. She didn't like being out here in the open; the stillness of the air made her anxious.

Hasad took a step forward, and then another. He wandered out farther, not hearing Maryam's pleas for him to come back with her. He ventured out toward the gentle slope of a small dune. A song in the sizzling air called him forward, beckoning him to the place where the sand was singed from the lightning's contact.

"Hasad!" Maryam called, chasing after him clumsily on legs unaccustomed to walking on a moving landscape. "Where are you going? We have to go back!"

Wind gusted over them, chilling their skin as their sweat evaporated. Then the gust ended as suddenly as it had begun, but the sand it swept up still moved in the air around them. Each particle drifted sideways against gravity, circling the two unlikely allies. When Maryam reached Hasad he pulled her to him protectively.

The air quivered as the sand hung suspended.

Standing together, surrounded by the impossible reality of magic, the two held one another tightly. The young woman allowed herself to be sheltered from the djinn dance around them, fearing that this may be the moment she submitted to death.

Above them the sky cracked open with a deafening boom. The reverberation of the sound hit them like a wave, taking the dancing sand with it as it spread over the desert. Lightning flashed again, blinding them with its light. Their skin sizzled with the heat.

Maryam screamed and pulled away from Hasad's embrace. Instinct told her to flee the danger around her.

Lightning struck the ground nearby, corralling her and forcing her back into Hasad's arms.

Another loud drum beat sounded in the air, vibrating through their bodies and shaking the earth. Another repetition. The sound took on a steady pace, broken up by staccato flashes of lightning that encircled them, singeing the sand until they were standing within a circle of molten silicate. It bubbled and hissed as the temperature soared. Standing in the center, Maryam and Hasad clung tighter still to each other. He wrapped his arms around her as if to protect her from the heat with his body. Maryam panted, trying to catch her breath as the fire around them burned.

"Hasad!" she yelled against the din, but she received no response.

His hands were clammy against her arms and she felt faint as the temperature continued to rise. The sound continued, and as the noise increased in volume, the lightning cracks came closer together.

"Hasad!" Maryam screamed, terrified.

He held her tight to him, strength returning to his limbs as the desperation of the situation sank in.

I will not lose another! Rebekah! Recai! I will not lose Maryam too!

The ground shook beneath them and the ring of molten sand surrounding them boiled and spat as it sank into the sand, melting its way deep into the ground. Above, the sky sparked and a fire burst just as the ground gave out beneath them.

Maryam screamed as they slid beneath the surface. Sand filled in behind them, closing over them rapidly as they slid into the belly of the earth. Blackness swallowed them and directed them along a sliding path. Hasad clenched his eyes shut and held the screaming woman with determination.

The reverberating booming which had preceded their descent pulsed until it bled together into one continuous resonance. The sand thrust them downward into the darkness. Hasad no longer knew in what direction they slid. Maryam's screams stopped when the sand began filling her mouth. She buried her head in Hasad's neck.

The sand slowed and for a while their bodies slid along with the sand until they were falling again. With a painful thud they landed on a stone floor. Hasad stood in the darkness, keeping a hand on Maryam so as not to lose her in the blackness.

"Saqar!" Maryam coughed out.

She trembled in the black cavern, cold slick stone beneath her as she prostrated before Allah. The direction of Mecca was hidden here in this void of hell, but she would repent.

Allaahu Akbar

Allaahu Akbar

"Get up!" Hasad commended, grabbing the terrified girl by the arm. "Pray in your head; your God doesn't want you to die down here. We have to find a way out."

"We've been sent here in punishment!" Maryam sobbed, her faith rocked. She believed she'd been following the laws of Islam, but if she was trapped underground at the gates of hell, perhaps she'd been wrong all along.

"This isn't punishment. There's no hell that smells like mold and chills you with wet air."

Maryam sniffed as she stood in the dark, feeling the warmth of Hasad's steady hand on her arm.

"No, hell is fire and we are the fuel…" Blinking with the hope that her eyes would adjust, Maryam sighed with a shaky breath. "Then where are we?"

"I don't know."

The dank air surrounded them, creeping into every space, saturating them with its presence. With a hand in front of him and the other tightly gripping Maryam's, Hasad stepped into the thick air, blindly searching for a wall. Slick rock met his hand, the humidity in the air leaving a moist residue on everything. He pulled Maryam along so she stayed tight against the wall behind him as he followed it forward. At least now he had a point of reference in the abyss.

Each step spiked his anxiety. There could be a break in the ground, a well to fall into or a rise he might slam a shin against. Getting injured in the unknown void would mean death, and he had Maryam to think about. His usual confidence was tempered by caution as he probed the darkness.

The two walked for hours. Time suspended in the underground labyrinth. Hasad convinced himself more than once that he had been walking in a circle the entire time, leading them nowhere. Maryam was quiet as she recited verses of the Qu'ran in her mind to steady her nerves and fight the mounting terror of blindness.

"Stop," Hasad whispered. His voice did not travel far; the oppressive moisture absorbed the sound.

"Do you see something?"

Maryam gripped his shoulder from behind, straining to see over him.

"There's a turn, come on."

He moved again, leading them sharply to the left along a wall that turned with a precision indicating it was made by man, not nature. Just ahead, the faint dripping sound of water and a flicker of soft light appeared.