Esme shooed everyone out of the way and got to work opening the casing. Her eyes glowed golden and the bolts holding the casing closed spun in place and fell out, landing with soft pings that were lost beneath the screams coming from the speakers.
Sarah Jennifer rammed the headset on as Esme laid hands on the Etheric engine.
“Can either of you reach her?” Olaf fretted. “She spoke only once, and she wasn’t making much sense.”
Sarah Jennifer couldn’t hear Lilith even with the headset. Her friend was too far gone, her mind unreachable. She pulled the headset off and pinned Olaf with a hard stare. “What did she say? Tell me exactly.”
“That laughter was killing her,” Olaf replied with confusion. “Like I said, she wasn’t making any sense. She’s not laughing, she’s being tortured in there.”
Esme’s eyes flashed as she forced a connection to the Kurtherian’s psyche and was thrown back by the interloper, but not before she caught a mental glimpse of their enemy. She crashed into the wall, breaking her ribs. “Not laughter,” she gasped. “Laughter. Laughter-Brings-Meaning-To-Life.”
“What?” Sarah Jennifer almost dropped the headset when she heard the name of Lilith’s old rival. “The Kurtherian? How?”
“I don’t know how,” Esme grunted, pulling herself to a sitting position as she healed her injuries. “I just know she’s in there, hurting our Lilith, and I mean to force the bitch out before she kills her.”
Sarah Jennifer’s eyes flashed red, and her wolf threatened to take over as anger flooded her. “Does this have anything to do with the Etheric energy we felt as we came in?” Her words came out in a low growl. “What can I do? I can’t reach her!”
“You can go to the disturbance and stop Laughter there. She must have torn a rift between here and whatever hell-planet she’s on,” Esme answered, picking herself up off the floor. “I’ve got this. Take Olaf and get over there. Send the boy in. He’s dithering outside.”
“Olaf, let’s go.” Sarah Jennifer pelted from the cavern with Olaf hard on her heels.
They almost collided with Ezekiel’s group at the mouth of the tunnel.
Sarah Jennifer’s senses tingled when she scented the Were in the group. There was something different about him. She was drawn to every Were since it was part of her magic, but this was…something else.
Kain stepped forward, his head lowered in respect for the aura of power that surrounded her. “You’re the Alpha. I’m Kain.”
Sarah Jennifer realized what was different about him. “You’re a Pricolici.”
Kain was taken aback. “That’s right.”
Sarah Jennifer shook her head to clear the distraction his scent was causing her and turned to Ezekiel. “Ezekiel, you’re needed below.”
Ezekiel nodded. “Sarah Jennifer—”
She cut him off with a wave. “Not now, Ezekiel. Esme needs you down there.” She turned her attention to Caitlin and Kain. “You two, with me. Vamp-lady, you have a Pod-doc waiting for you.”
Mary-Anne opened her mouth to argue, but Sarah Jennifer pointed at the entrance, her face set in determined lines. “If you go Mad, my men will kill you, and we won’t have a vampire in the fight. Pod-doc now, or I’ll shoot you myself and have them drag you down there.”
The Weres standing guard at the entrance tensed, their hands moving to their rifles.
Caitlin and Mary-Anne looked at Ezekiel, who shrugged. “Meet the major. Come with me, Ma.”
“You don’t know me well enough to call me that,” Mary-Anne snapped. Then she sighed. “Fine. Lead the way, Zeke.”
Ezekiel narrowed his eyes at the vampire before turning to put his hand on Sarah Jennifer’s arm. “I’ll be here, waiting. It’s good to see you.”
Sarah Jennifer swallowed the lump in her throat as she returned the gesture. “You too, kiddo. Now, scram.”
Ezekiel took Mary-Anne’s arm and they darted into the tunnel, leaving Caitlin and Kain standing uncomfortably.
Jaxon sniffed Sarah Jennifer’s hand and licked it.
Sarah Jennifer petted the dog’s head. “You’re a good boy, huh?”
Caitlin looked at Kain and shrugged. “If Jax likes her…”
“People, we do not have time for waffling,” Sarah Jennifer told them sternly. “Get your behinds in gear. We have a situation here. Olaf, lead the way.”
Olaf was in the process of stripping. He shuffled out of his pants and bundled his clothing before shifting.
“Whoa…” Caitlin’s eyes widened as the werebear rose to his full height before leaping off the side of the road into the snow-covered undergrowth.
Sarah Jennifer paused only to relieve one of the Weres standing guard at the tunnel entrance of his rifle and ammunition belt before following Olaf without so much as a glance back at Kain and Caitlin.
Jaxon plowed after them, barking spiritedly.
“What has the kid dragged us into?” Kain asked. Internally, his wolf growled at him, unhappy Sarah Jennifer was out of his sight. He’d never had this reaction to another Alpha. Maybe she was just that powerful.
He wondered what her wolf looked like and if she was a Pricolici like him.
Caitlin nudged Kain, dispelling his daydream. “Only one way to find out,” she told him as she hopped down from the road.
Kain was slow to respond.
“You coming?” Caitlin asked, looking up at him from the ditch.
Kain caught himself and laughed. “Sure thing, Kitty-Cat.”
Ezekiel and Mary-Anne ran toward Lilith’s cavern with the Kurtherian’s screams rebounding off the walls around him.
Esme looked the worse for wear when he entered the main cavern.
Bruised and bleeding from her nose, the witch turned from the Etheric engine as Pietro reacted to his presence. “It’s okay,” she told the Were. “This is Ezekiel. Laddie, am I glad to see you! Help me, here.”
Ezekiel knelt by Esme. “What’s happening?”
“She’s being attacked by another Kurtherian,” Esme explained. “We have to force the enemy out of her mind, or she’s going to die.”
All the pain Ezekiel had been holding in since Helena’s death surfaced in a torrent. His eyes blazed red as his tenuous grip on his magic was lost.
Mary-Anne yelped in surprise as the energy surged out of him.
Esme noticed the vampire for the first time. “You’re the Mad one. Go.” She pointed at another exit. “Third exit off that tunnel. You’ll see a room with a silver box inside. That’s the Pod-doc. It’s ready for you.”
Mary-Anne nodded. “I know what a Pod-doc is.” She edged around Ezekiel, suddenly wary of the power she hadn’t understood he wielded. “Good luck saving the Kurtherian.”
Ezekiel heard none of the exchange. His mind was focused on Lilith, on his determination that he would not lose another person he loved. Not on his watch.
His entire world shrank down to his effort to connect to Lilith. There was another entity blocking him, a cold, evil presence preventing him from reaching her.
Pain bloomed in his head as the entity split her—he sensed she was female—consciousness between him and Lilith.
He felt Esme’s hands on his shoulders, her mind wrapping around his to insulate him from the attack.
Get her, she murmured into his mind. Get her good.
Ezekiel found himself in a battle for his life. He didn’t care. His need, his desire, his entire focus was centered on freeing Lilith from the spiderweb of Etheric energy permeating the circuits of her life support system.
You’ll never defeat me, a cackling alien voice declared. You are weak. Insignificant. I am Kurtherian. You are nothing compared to me. I am superior to you in every way.
You are going to die. Ezekiel ground his teeth and redoubled his will to sever the mental chains the alien entity had flung around Lilith’s psyche. He had anger on his side. More, he had faith. Everything Esme had taught him about strength of will had been in preparation for this moment.
The
laughter faded. The alien’s voice cut into his mind. Give up. You will fail, and I will kill you along with the heretic. Earth will be mine, and it will burn at my command.
You can fucking try it, Ezekiel snarled, feeling Lilith still fighting to break free despite her pain. You are losing against one human. What do you think you’re going to do against a planet full of us?
Surrender, the Kurtherian told him, her voice seductive. Surrender, and live. You are powerful. I will grant you a place by my side, and you may rule Earth as my vassal. This is your alternative.
Visions of destruction raced through Ezekiel’s mind, placed there by the Kurtherian. New Romanov on fire. People dying by the millions. He saw himself on a throne, his eyes dulled by cruelty and the people of the world bowing at his feet while the Madness raged unchecked.
Ezekiel ignored the sickening visions. I am human, he ground out. I don’t give up. I don’t give in. I might fall, I might fail, but I will never, ever surrender!
Fool! the Kurtherian crowed. Then die with the rest of your pathetic species!
Ezekiel heard the note of fear in her voice. He saw that her weakness was arrogance and that in her arrogance, she had not bothered to protect herself against having her attack turned back on her.
He followed the psychic attack to the source. Suddenly, he saw the enemy in his mind. He’d often wondered what Lilith had looked like before her body had been stolen from her. This Kurtherian was frail-looking, with gray skin stretched tight over a bony frame. Her face was round, with a pair of mandibles protruding in place of an upper lip.
What are you doing? Laughter screeched.
Ezekiel rebuffed her attempt to remove him from her mind and extended his reach to get a look at her surroundings through her eyes.
The Kurtherian cried out as he took control. She was inside something like a Pod-doc. The design was different from any he’d seen, but he knew the technology when he saw it.
Seizing his opportunity, he sent a pulse of Etheric energy through the connection. The shockwave sizzled along the bonds she’d put around Lilith, burning them away.
The laughing Kurtherian screamed.
I’m free! Lilith exulted. It’s not over, Ezekiel. Don’t let Laughter escape!
Too late, Laughter flung open the Pod-doc, severing the connection.
Ezekiel collapsed to the floor, drained. “Lilith, are you okay?” he mumbled, his head spinning.
Esme yelled with relief when the Kurtherian spoke.
Lilith’s voice was weak but steady. “I will be fine, but Laughter-Brings-Meaning-To-Life is not done with us yet. She has opened a rift in the Etheric and means to send her soldiers through. I saw her plans. She has genetically modified aliens—huge, wild beasts—under her control. If they get through to our side, all will be lost.”
Esme and Ezekiel looked at each other in dismay.
“Sarah Jennifer is out there with your friends.” Esme pulled Ezekiel to his feet, pushing a wave of healing energy into his body. “Suck it up, my boy. We’re not done fighting.”
“Who will protect Lilith?” Ezekiel asked.
“Laughter will not catch me unaware a second time,” Lilith vowed. “My only concern is for the nanocytes we have stored below.”
“You can count on us to protect this mountain with our lives if necessary,” Pietro swore. “Send the soldiers down from above. We’ll protect Lilith and the nanocyte stores with our lives.”
Esme nodded. “The vampire will be done with her Pod-doc treatment within the hour. She will be weak on completion, but a weak vampire is still twenty times deadlier than even the strongest Were. We need to get to the rift, Ezekiel. The mountain will be safe.”
The radio crackled as they prepared to leave the cavern.
“Dammit, what now?” Esme swore loudly but answered, “Go ahead.”
“Esme?” Theor sounded stressed. “We have contact with the Mad along the east boundary.”
“You’re going to have to deal with them without us,” Esme responded. “We have an alien invasion to take care of.”
Theor cursed. “Has this got anything to do with the split in the sky on the western line?” he asked.
“Smart man,” Esme told him. “You’ve seen the rift?”
“Right before I was called here to deal with the Mad.”
Esme closed her eyes and reached out to check the positions of the magic users along the line of defense. “Call Amelie. She has twelve mages with her and should be on the Enora any minute now. Block the Mad; do whatever you need to do to hold them back. I have to get out to the rift. Sarah Jennifer and Olaf are there without any magical support.”
Esme’s assessment of Sarah Jennifer’s position was not strictly true.
Sarah Jennifer’s grasp of magic had never been the strongest.
Until now.
She, Olaf, and the newcomers had arrived just as the rift birthed its first monster. Bright red, ten feet tall, and angry as hell, it had emerged horns-first and charged them. Almost simultaneously, the Mad had erupted from the forest in their hundreds.
Caitlin and the Urai warriors had formed a circle, while Kain had shifted into his Pricolici form and joined Olaf in defending the humans from the worst of it.
Those who have never seen real war are often misled into romanticizing it. There was nothing romantic about the ensuing chaos. The open space was filled with the screams of the dying. The Mad had no sense of self-preservation, and the living were attacked on both fronts. The dual stenches of blood and shit soon overcame everything else. Death abounded on all sides as the alien monster tore into the melee, uncaring whether those it killed were infected or not.
Sarah Jennifer emptied her rifle twice before realizing the monster was impervious to her bullets. She tossed the rifle aside and opened herself to the Etheric, necessity and her pragmatic nature taking over.
She had to believe.
And she found she did.
Unlike her failures in training, this moment, when all that mattered was her continued ability to protect the unenhanced and with the cold heat of battle upon her, the magic flowed.
Sarah Jennifer leapt over the rising rocks, drawing the monster out of the way of the warriors. Her eyes blazed red as she threw everything Esme had endeavored to teach her over the years at it.
The monster turned to her as if sensing the Etheric energy she was pulling.
“Come and get me, you big red bastard!” she screamed, pouring her energy into the command.
The monster roared and took a lumbering step toward her, unable to resist the compulsion. It lowered its head and splayed its jaws, emitting a bloodcurdling shriek that shook the ground.
Then it charged.
It was almost effortless. She taunted the monster with continued attacks as she backed up the slope, drawing it away from the battlefield. She shifted the rock beneath the alien’s feet, pelted it with icicles the size of spears, and unleashed torrents of fire that sent the Mad around its feet running for cover.
The more energy she pulled from the Etheric, the more it offered her. She didn’t have the finesse of Esme or Ezekiel, but she was never one to insist on a scalpel when a hammer would do the job just as well.
This monster—this alien—had no right to be on her planet. She had no compunction whatsoever about ending its existence.
The monster was bleeding from her sustained attacks; thick, dark blood streamed from its torso and limbs, staining its red skin black. Still, on it came, the claws on its feet scoring the earth as it advanced on her, ignoring everyone else.
Sarah Jennifer wished Esme were here to see that she had finally freed herself from the restrictions she’d placed upon herself in the name of a fair fight. She laughed bitterly as she realized the only thing that had prevented her from wielding magic on this scale before had been her reticence to take the lives of her fellow human beings.
The monster lowered its horns and charged again, its sudden burst of speed cutting her reverie short.
The monster gained speed, crashing through the ancient trees like they were matchsticks.
Sarah Jennifer reached her goal, where the sharp incline culminated in a sheer drop-off. The ravine beyond stretched almost a mile wide, cleaving the mountains. There was no way of knowing how deep it went.
The land on the other side rose sharply, the mountainside covered in loose scree and jagged boulders. She called to the rock, shaping it to her will as she ran to the edge of the cliff. The rock responded to her command, extending from the cliff edges on both sides to meet in the middle.
Sarah Jennifer ran across at full speed, knowing the bridge was strong enough to take her weight but not the monster’s. She reached the other side and prepared to drop the bridge she’d created the moment her quarry had taken the bait.
“Just a little farther,” she murmured as the monster charged without awareness of the danger. She pelted it with more fire, enraging it.
The monster didn’t slow. It made it three steps onto the bridge.
Three steps and no more.
The bridge gave way at her command, and the monster screamed its rage as it plummeted, tearing great chunks out of the ravine walls with its claws in an attempt to arrest its fall.
Sarah Jennifer raised her arms and commanded every loose stone above her to fall. The mountain responded by shedding its load.
The noise was incredible, the rushing, roaring landslide overwhelming Sarah Jennifer’s hearing. Her eardrums burst and healed, then burst again, but still, she held fast as rocks poured down on either side of her, crushing the monster beneath their massive weight.
Her hearing returned as the landslide tapered off. The monster’s death cries echoed up from below, shaking more scree loose.
Sarah Jennifer responded by tearing free the deep-rooted rocks that hadn’t fallen in the first landslide and sending them hurtling down into the ravine to ensure she’d done the job right.
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