Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

to
     this mountain several times and nothing like this has ever happened before.”
    Ben sent her a strained smile. “Thanks for the cave, however you managed it. Melting
     in hot lava isn’t the way I want to go out.”
    She tried to find a smile and hoped she pulled it off. “Pyroclastic clouds aren’t
     exactly my idea of fun, either.”
    Jubal cleared his throat. “Are you certain whatever was locked in the volcano was
     able to get free?”
    Riley nodded reluctantly. “He’s free. I couldn’t hold him.” She tasted the bitter
     flavor of failure. “You know what he is, don’t you?” When neither Jubal nor Gary answered,
     she sighed. “Look, we’re in this together now. He’s out. I felt him. I know he’s real.
     You have to tell me what we’re dealing with.”
    “I’d like to know, too,” Ben agreed. “No matter what it is, it can’t be much crazier
     than what I’ve already witnessed.”
    Jubal rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes meeting Gary’s. He sighed. “No matter
     how we say this, you’re going to think we’re insane.”
    Ben shrugged. “I already think maybe I’m insane, so just come out with it. None of
     this seems real.”
    Still, both men hesitated. Riley didn’t like the way they looked at one another. She
     felt her pulse jump. She couldn’t get any more scared, could she? Fear of the unknown
     was worse than the knowing. At least then she could try to prepare.
    “I need to know what this evil thing is, Jubal. I heard it speak. Its voice was in
     my head for a minute, and it felt foul.” She shuddered. “I think it’s going to come
     after me.”
    “What did it say?” Gary asked.
    “He spoke in that same language the porter used just before he killed my mother.”
     She closed her eyes, drawing on the same phonographic memory that let her reproduce
     bird and animal calls perfectly and made her so adept at linguistics. “He said, ‘Arabejila. Emni hän ku köd alte. Tõdak a ho caóasz engemko, kutenken caóasz engemko
     a jälleen. Andak a irgalomet terád it.’”
    She didn’t know what the individual words were or what they meant, but she reproduced
     the sounds, inflection and pitch precisely and the sickening foulness of the tone
     made everyone flinch.
    “The only word I recognized was Arabejila. It’s a family name and it’s very unusual.
     My great-great-grandmother was named Arabejila and she was named after another great-grandmother.”
    Gary and Jubal exchanged another long look.
    Riley sighed. “Just tell me what it means. At this point, like Ben, I don’t think
     I’m going to be surprised by anything.”
    “He must have thought you were someone he knew,” Gary ventured. “If you have an ancestor
     who was called Arabejila, when he sensed your presence, you must have felt familiar
     to him, which means her genes and gifts are strong in you. He probably believes you
     are this Arabejila.”
    “No relative of mine with that name has been alive for . . .” She trailed off, glancing
     at Ben. Whatever had lived in the volcano had to be a very ancient evil. How long
     had the women in her family been coming to such a remote part of the Andes and performing
     the ritual?
    She pressed her lips together tightly and rubbed her cheek along her knees. If that
     ancient being had been sealed in the volcano by one of her ancestors, it stood to
     reason he might be a little angry and looking for revenge.
    “Never mind. Can you translate what he said?”
    “Repeat the phrase for me,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”
    She did so, speaking as slowly as she could without affecting the rhythm and inflection
     of the words.
    Gary rubbed his jaw, stared for a moment at his blackened hand, rubbed the ash onto
     his jeans and then shrugged when his hands remained dirty. “ Emni hän ku köd alte. I know that means ‘cursed woman.’”
    “I thought that phrase was familiar,” Riley said. “The porter chanted it over and
     over. He was calling my mother a cursed woman.”
    “And now you,” Jubal said.
    Riley instinctively buried her fingers in the soil, needing comfort. She already knew
     that evil entity was going to be coming after her. She didn’t need Gary to tell her
     that; she’d heard the hatred and rage in the thing’s voice. But she’d also heard fear.
     She wasn’t Arabejila, but if evil feared her, Riley was more than happy to claim kinship
     with the woman.
    “ Tõdak a ho caóasz engemko, kutenken caóasz engemko a