A/N: Proofreading is for the faint of heart! By which I mean, this sucks, and I know it. It turned out nice and creepy, though :P

Duty
By Ranwen

The horrible, crushing brightness suddenly lifted, replaced by the sharp sting of icy rain on my upturned face. My head throbbed as blood, released from the confinement of some immense pressure, flooded back into my tingling limbs. I became aware of a dull ache in my ribs, which felt as if I had been rung out like dirty laundry. I lay panting and quivering in the sodden tall grass, grasping weakly in the black mud beneath me. The sensation of solid ground brought on a bout of coughing, hysterical sobs as relief and confusion simultaneously swept over me…

In the semi-dark of the archeology field station’s basement, a point of yellow light appeared on the thermographic scanner. “Brad, I’ve got something.” Nadine said, using every ounce of her restraint to keep a triumphant note out of the statement.

“You’d better be sure,” her companion muttered from the cot across the room, “I’m not going out in that downpour for a prairie dog again.”

“I fixed that, remember? It won’t pick up anything colder than an antelope, now.” Nadine replied quickly, already scribbling down the coordinates displayed alongside the small, bright speck. “Besides, this is what you’re paid for.”

“Don’t we have the same job, Nadine?” Brad yawned.

“Yeah, but I have seniority. Plus, I made dinner. You owe me.”

“Bullshit. You’ve only got me beat by three weeks, plus, this is our first day posted out here!” He growled, pulling the thin sheets over his head.

“I’m going with you, anyway,” Nadine chided, whipping on a bright yellow poncho, “Safety first, and all that.”

“I think you’re just desperate for a find after all these weeks.”

“Get up, Brad.”

“It’s wistful thinking”

“Up!” Nadine shouted, tossing a flashlight and poncho onto Brad’s stomach and opening the door to the thunderstorm outside.

I moaned, and thunder crashed above me, sending heavy vibrations through my tender muscles and raw, burned skin. The elders had not spoken of life after the journey here, assuming that I was in the right place, of course. Had the gods spared me? Blinking in the intermittent dark, I wondered if this was, perhaps, a punishment.

My charge was still tightly bound to my chest, its solid mass had likely added to the bruising I felt under my drenched tunic. I ran my shaking fingers over its still unfamiliar contours, sensing, even through the thick wrappings, the hot smoothness of its surface. I shuddered at the memory of its rage, sealed away at such great cost to my people…

Nadine plowed through the tall, clinging grass, sweeping her path with her flashlight. Brad followed more carefully, picking his way over the stones and ditches littering the prairie floor. ‘What a way to spend a Friday night,’ he thought, glaring at the back of Nadine’s hooded head, under which he knew her black curls were eagerly absorbing the humid storm air. ‘I could have spent the summer anywhere. That dig in Alberta with Professor Yu, the ruins of Keulap in Peru with Doctor Grant, hell, if I put off meeting my research requirements for a semester, I could be on one of those “clothes are optional” beaches in Europe…’

“Brad? I think we’re pretty close, help me out!” Nadine called back to him, her voice distorted in the wind. Sighing, he followed, imagining with distaste spending the night across the room from a sulking Nadine. They’d better find something.

Unfamiliar sounds whipped by me, carried by the wind. Voices, perhaps? Here, in the realm of the gods, or maybe the dead, that possibility frightened me. I struggled to crawl, but my arms and legs still shook uncontrollably with fatigue and an energy that was not my own. Another flash of lightning sent a shiver through my body, as if my bones remembered where that strange power had come from, and how it had sent me into that terrifying, brilliant, burning tunnel of light at the altar.

And before I could recover even a fraction of my control, the voices were overhead.

“What the hell?” Nadine exclaimed, almost irately, squinting down at the muddy figure illuminated by her flashlight beam and huddled in a circle of scorched grass.

The young girl raised her head, slowly, shakily, tuning to face Brad and Nadine with wide, black eyes though a curtain of wet, dark hair and then abruptly dropped to her stomach, sobbing quietly.

Startled into action, Brad dropped to her side, cautiously laying a hand on her shoulder. He withdrew it suddenly, hissing in pain and surprise. “Nadine, either I just got the biggest static shock of my life, or this girl is radiating electricity!”

“Maybe she got hit by lightining?” Nadine suggested weakly, staring with shameless awe at the crying girl as Brad attempted to examine her, without touching her, through the haze of rain.

“Whatever, she’s obviously pretty shaken up, we should get her back to the station-“ He began, only to be cut of by Nadine’s excited whisper: “Brad, I think she has our artifact.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there, that lump tied to her chest!”

Brad reached, hesitantly towards the hidden shape, causing the girl to cringe and renew her wailing with more enthusiasm. Wincing at the sound, Brad turned back to Nadine. “Give me your gloves.” Nadine tossed him a pair of thick, elbow length yellow gloves, which he slipped on. Before she could shy away again, he scooped up the girl. Holding her at arms length, he began the slog back to the station, with Nadine trailing curiously behind.

I strained to keep my eyes open, to take in the strange, pale face of the being who carried me. A ghost, or maybe even a servant of the gods…he would have to return the prisoner to the Lords of the sky. I could feel my heart and mind weakening as my fear gave way to exhaustion and indifference, and I knew that my time as a priestess was short. They continued to speak in their strange, choppy language as we entered a dimly lit building and the pale man-spirit lay me down on a raised, padded platform. Before his strange, yellow hands had completely released me, I grasped one, drawing it toward the bundle. His alien, pale eyes met mine with an expression of confusion, but he began carefully untying the slightly scorched cloth…

“Nadine…you were right,” Brad said quietly, lightly fingering the polished copper figurine that nestled in the unbound, rough fabric. It was roughly human-shaped, with squared-off, stylistic wings, clawed hands and cold, shining eyes of inlaid onyx, the same shining black as the girl’s.

“She can’t be more than twelve years old, Brad. What the hell was she doing out here, in the middle of nowhere, during a storm like this? I mean, the Professor chose this place specifically because of the high frequency of lightning strikes, to find the metal, how the-“

“Nadine,” Brad interrupted quietly, devoting all attention to meeting the girl’s otherworldly, bottomless gaze.

My sight was growing dimmer, but he had the creature in hand. I was almost free, free from my life of obedience and pain, this was my final sacrifice. I stared him directly in the eyes, my fear of offending the Gods reduced to a flickering afterthought, and closed his hands around the offering, our desperate plea for divine assistance form the other side of whatever chasm of time or space I had crossed with the lightning, and whispered the incantation I had dutifully learned for this moment.

“Nadine!” Brad gasped. The girl smiled crookedly as her eyes fluttered shut. As her body went still, the metal figure began quaking in his hands, glowing with heat and radiating malice.