by Zoe Chant
That was when a newcomer sauntered up, medium height and slender. He was dressed in black, with long platinum-blond hair blowing around a Greek face. At first glance he didn’t look like a threat, but Peke and Zedi stepped away, Zedi holding one hand up to her cracked collarbone as she muttered curses. Howard groaned, then lay still.
“Keraunos,” Long Cang said. “Is this woman one of those your gorgon is after?”
Long Cang forced Jen around to face Keraunos. Jen stared back as blue-white lightning flickered over his face, vanishing into that long, nearly-white hair. More lightning writhed slowly along his body, crackling over the metal belt buckle at his narrow waist.
She was already at maximum shock. I must have fallen on my head, she thought numbly. I must be in a coma. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Except are comas supposed to hurt?
“No,” Keraunos said. His accent was also heavy, but not Chinese. It was the same Greek accent that Nikos, Petra, and Cleo spoke in. “This one, I have never seen.”
“Well, you can have her as an appetizer as we wait for your target to show up with Mikhail—”
A voice shouted from the right, “We are here.”
Nikos appeared at the top of the broken-apart parking lot, Mikhail and Joey with him. “Let her go. You deal with me.”
“I’ve been trying to,” Long Cang said, his fingers like a vise on Jen’s arm. “But none of you have been cooperative.”
“Let her loose.”
Long Cang let go, lifting his hands. “I can be reasonable. Now it’s your turn.”
Jen began to stumble forward, then Cang yanked her back. “Not yet. His turn to be reasonable.”
Jen’s jaw clenched.
Long Cang said, “There is no need for any more trouble. Give me what I want, and we all go home.”
Nikos took a step toward Long Cang, who said, “Any heroics on your part, and she goes to the raiju. I believe you know him?”
Nikos said nothing. But he stopped, and Jen swore she could feel his agony.
And his anger.
Long Cang went on, “She means nothing to me either way. If you want her, then break that ward and give me the stone. You’re the only one here who can bring it out.”
“Don’t do it,” Jen cried out. “Whatever they want.”
“It’s just an artifact,” Joey Hu said soothingly. “Admittedly these people want to bypass proper procedure, but artifacts can always be recovered. Hang on a minute. We’ll send you on your way home shortly.”
His tone was odd, as if Jen were a stranger. Was he trying to pretend he didn’t know her? Sure enough, Nikos said, “I can’t do anything when you’re threatening an innocent bystander.”
“Not so innocent,” Long Cang retorted, pointing down at Howard, still groaning on the ground, and then hooking a thumb over his shoulder at Zedi, who’d stumbled over to the car and sank into the back seat as soon as Keraunos appeared. “But I’ve little interest in her either way. As long as you give me what I want.”
Again Jen saw writhing lightning flicker slowly up over Keraunos’s head, from his eyebrows down the length of his hair, as he stepped up to Long Cang’s side. She found that creepier even than the dragon coils. She was trying to tell herself it was all a hallucination.
Nikos sent her a quick, worried look, then walked alone toward the spot where the digging machine had been the day before. He knelt on a slab of broken cement, and put his hands down, tenting his fingers on the cement. The ring Jen had noticed on his hand—a very fine, very old fashioned cut of stone that glittered like a diamond, only crimson—glowed with inner light.
For an endless time, no one moved—except for Peke sniffing somewhere behind Jen.
Time seemed to stand still, but it was passing. Jen’s hands began to grow dangerously numb. Those damned zip-ties had cut off her circulation. She gritted her teeth and concentrated on martial arts breathing as she watched the sky.
The stars had begun to turn when Long Cang broke the spell. He took a threatening step toward Nikos. “Quit stalling.”
Nikos ignored him, and looked way. “Mikhail. I can’t get past the ward without actually getting myself down into that cavern.”
Mikhail looked over at Long Cang. “I have to have proximity. You were there. You saw.”
“Find a way,” Long Cang said. “Or you can watch her die right here. And those brats Demitros brought, the moment we find them. And we will.”
Mikhail said nothing. He bent his head, brow furrowed, then sank down on the other side of the cement slab, facing Nikos. And again, everyone waited. The only difference now, besides the two men kneeling, was the sound of the snuffling behind Jen.
She looked behind her, and was startled to discovered that the snuffling, sniffing guy they called Peke was gone. In his place was a little Pekingese dog with huge pointy teeth and fur as black as midnight.
Oh, and glowing eyes. Really glowing, smoldering red like coals.
I have to be hallucinating, she thought, closing her eyes against the ache working its way up her arms.
After an agonizing, endless time she heard the crunch of gravel. She opened her eyes to see Joey Hu taking a step toward Nikos. Between Nikos and Mikhail, the broken ground had begun to glow faintly.
Long Cang’s breath hissed in, and went out on a hiss of triumph as he, too, stepped forward.
Then Mikhail said tightly, “Stay back. Nikos is holding it between dimensions. If anything breaks his concentration it will snap right back to its ward. If it doesn’t vanish altogether.”
Dimensions?
Jen tried to think past the pain in her arms. Whether she was hallucinating or not, she knew one thing for certain: Nikos wasn’t quite what he’d said he was. No, that wasn’t right. He’d never said what he did. But it was clear that he was somebody important, among these people who . . . Her mind skidded to a halt there, crashing against the memory of a huge red dragon coiled around her, ready to squish her to death.
She grasped at the facts that she could be sure of. Foremost: Nikos was being forced to do something he did not want to do. Between Nikos and Mikhail, the glow in the ground brightened. Whatever that artifact was, Nikos was trading it for her life.
She gritted her teeth against the scream of sheer rage that wanted to rip free. She absolutely hated being used against him, hated it as much as she loved him—yes, loved him—for the fact that he had not even hesitated, though they had only met a few days ago. And yet in some ways it felt like they’d always known one another . . .
She was beginning to haze out.
Pay attention. Nikos had sacrificed something for her. She didn’t know what it was, or who these assclowns were, but one thing she was sure of: she would not let Nikos down if she saw any opening for changing things up.
Yes!
As the glow in the ground brightened, Long Cang’s grip on Jen loosened. The man-dragon had stilled, watching intently, poised to act. Then another shock rang through Jen when a glowing pearly bubble the size of a baseball slowly emerged from the ground. It rose, inch by inch, as Nikos held his hands about a foot from either side of it.
Then his hands began to move very slowly toward the sphere.
“Take him out,” Long Cang whispered to Keraunos. “Don’t let him touch it.”
Yet another shock jolted through Jen as Keraunos blurred, his outline broadening out into the shape of an ice-blue wolf. Lightning flickered over his entire body as he readied himself to spring.
All the meaning in the world narrowed to one need: to protect Nikos.
Now, Jen thought. She tore herself from those slackened fingers, and leaped first.
She made it two steps, almost reaching Nikos before the world went white.
Then dark.
TWELVE
NIKOS
The moment he saw Keraunos, Nikos knew that Medusa was making a move. That was the bad news. The sort-of good news was her sending an assassin after Nikos. It had to mean that she herself was still prete
nding to be a friendly tourist back on the island.
The raiju, a blue-white wolf whose qi was bound to electricity, was infamous as an assassin. Young as he was, he was also a high level martial artist. His skills and his uncontrollable lightning were deadly to humans and most shifters. He wasn’t as deadly to mythic shifters, but as a fighter, plus the lightning, Keraunos was a serious threat.
The message was clear: Nikos needed to get home, or there would be collateral damage, because Keraunos didn’t seem to care what or who he went through to get to his target.
But first Nikos had to get Jen away from Long Cang. Pride burned in him when he saw the shifters Jen had already taken down, both clearly heavy hitters. But beneath that pride was a gnawing worry: she had no idea what she was up against.
A step at a time, his unicorn murmured within.
The trade was no contest, as far as Nikos was concerned—no artifact, no matter how powerful, was worth a life. Especially his mate’s.
He risked a single glance at her, and met a steady gaze. No accusation, which he’d dreaded seeing, though some might say he deserved it for waffling so long about telling her the truth about himself—he should have done that the day they met! No anger in her eyes, even. That is, not aimed at him. Her gaze met his and he knew she was right there beside him in spirit, despite the questions he hadn’t dared answer, despite the pain she was in.
The ferocity of his love burned through him. His mate! He was terrified that she would act the moment she saw what she thought might be a chance, because she was as gallant as she was brave. But she didn’t know how very dangerous it was—she, a human, stood between a red dragon and a raiju, the lightning-wolf of the Japanese islands.
Nikos would exert himself as long as he dared to preserve the oracle stone until he figured out a way to rescue his mate. He’d surrender the oracle stone if he had to. Mikhail understood that without any words between them. What happened if Cang got the oracle stone would be Mikhail’s and the celestial empress’s business.
His plan right now depended entirely on stalling for time, in the hope that Joey could get his team here before Cang tried to break the standoff. Joey had said they were trustworthy and determined, but the only fliers among them were not fighters. That meant the fighters had to cover the ground, slower than flight.
Nikos activated his ring and sent his consciousness down toward the oracle stone. The only way to extract it without digging down was extremely tricky. He had to ease the stone just far enough out of this dimension to bypass the rubble, and all from a distance, which meant holding it mentally. If it slipped beyond this unstable between-state, who knew how many dimensions it might skim through. And if it dropped into this one, it might lose itself in the rubble—without Mikhail’s protective ward, depending how it was bound.
He glanced to either side as he steadied himself. Impasse still. The two Jen had disabled were more than compensated by Keraunos. Behind Jen stood a snuffling hellhound. And of course there was Cang.
“I don’t see anything happening,” Cang drawled, and tightened his grip on Jen.
She tried to suppress a gasp of pain, but Nikos felt it like a slug to the gut. You’ll pay for that, he promised Cang.
And then he forced himself to shut out the world, and focus entirely on that ward down deep in the rubble.
Nikos found the ward. He waited, and sensed the ward easing for him—that was Mikhail’s effort.
He imagined a rootlet working through the jumble of stone and moss and bits of cement . . . ah.
There it was.
Easy, easy. His tendril branched, winding rootlets around the oracle stone, then weaving together into the mental construct of a sling. When he was fairly certain it was steady, he attempted a poke.
The stone moved.
Far away, he was aware of his body, and the gritty cement under his knees. The drip of sweat down his face. He shut those out, and firmed his focus. Then, a gentle nudge at a time, he began to bring the stone upward, slow and steady, as Mikhail held an opening in his protective ward.
Where was Joey’s crew? Coming, he heard a whisper on the mental plane—and he almost lost the oracle stone.
Concentrate!
Slowly it ascended. As it neared the surface, he braced himself inwardly. While the stone was halfway between dimensions, distance didn’t matter. Nikos was not going to send the stone to Mikhail, who was three feet away. Of course Cang would strike against Mikhail first. Instead, Nikos would send the stone to Joey, wherever he was, because Joey the nine-tail fox could dive between dimensions faster than anyone.
Nikos began to bring his hands close—was that the sound of footsteps on the breeze—
Then Cang said something, and everything happened at once.
First was Joey, on the mythic plane, I’m here!
Nikos braced himself and slung the oracle stone toward Joey.
At that same moment, Cang shifted to attack, and Jen launched herself protectively toward Nikos. Keraunos shifted and lunged after her.
The stone was far too fast to track by the naked eye, but Nikos was still tethered to it. To his horror, he followed helplessly as it struck Jen. But because it was still only partly in this dimension, it went right through her a heartbeat before Keraunos’s jaws closed on her wrist. Jen’s head arched back as lightning played bluish-white over her body, then she flopped lifelessly to the ground.
Joey leaped over her and attacked Keraunos, using his dimension-shifting ability to blur. The blue wolf twisted in mid-air to avoid him, snarling, and ran, Joey in hot pursuit.
In terror, Nikos lost his grip on the oracle stone entirely. As he moved toward Jen, the oracle stone appeared in this dimension, gleaming like a pearl with luminous inner light. Nikos launched himself toward Jen, his heightened senses aware of the oracle stone hovering in the air ten feet away, vibrating. Cang shifted his attack and lunged to capture it, but it dropped toward the ground an instant before his dragon jaw snapped the air where it had been. The ground glowed red, then dimmed as the oracle stone snapped back down to its ward underground.
Nikos reached Jen as Joey’s shifters attacked Cang’s gang around him. Nikos laid his head on Jen’s chest, trying frantically to find a heartbeat, as Keraunos came around for another try, this time at him. But Joey was right there, all nine of his tails glistening eerily. That shimmer gave the assassin pause—he knew that Joey could drag him into another dimension and leave him. He twisted mid-air, landed, and backed up, snarling.
Cang turned toward Nikos.
Then a small shape arrowed out of the sky and scored a hit across Cang’s face. He spun around, swatting with a dragon claw, but Professor Ann’s swift was too fast, and six or seven other shifters all ringed Nikos, ready to defend him. Cang shot skyward as Mikhail dove on the attack. Nikos was vaguely aware of them all as he tried to find Jen’s heartbeat.
There was none.
He shifted to his unicorn. Nikos the man was pulled in so many directions: love, duty, promises, plans. His unicorn had a single purpose: healing.
He bowed his head and touched his horn gently to Jen’s forehead.
Sorrow vanished in a tidal wave of wordless joy—hope. What he sensed surprised him.
Now he understood why that hellhound with the super-sensitive nose kept sniffing at Jen: She was not a shifter, but she wasn’t completely human. Deep down in her ancestral DNA he sensed a family trait for shifters. And not any ordinary animal shifter. With a rush of joy and wonder, he identified that glimmering image: a sunbird, better known as the golden phoenix. , They lived long lives, as did many mythic shifters. And when badly hurt, sunbirds had an innate power to regenerate themselves.
But that trait had been dormant for generations.
How can I reach her? Nikos’s human self demanded.
The unicorn responded in image, not words: she was very badly hurt, her strength at nil. They could not even begin without first giving her half their own shifter strength.
Without
an instant of hesitation, man and unicorn fused and focused.
The fight raged around them. Nikos shut it out and kept his horn lightly pressed to the center of Jen’s forehead. The unicorn’s healing power radiated through Jen’s still, shocked body, as Nikos poured his own strength into her. The dull, grayed lifelines that mapped through her being pulsed, at first dimly. Tentatively. Then slowly, slowly, they began to glow with life.
Suddenly she gave a gasp, her back arching, her eyes briefly opening as she gazed at the sky and beyond. Then she collapsed again, but this time she was breathing. Her mind lay far below the surface of consciousness as her body struggled to unite heartbeat and breath again.
Time wore on as his healing energy sought the deadened nerves that had been electrocuted by Keraunos’s lethal power. Her heart labored, and she bled sluggishly from the bites on her wrist. Her hands were swollen and whitish from cut-off circulation, though he noted briefly that someone had come up and cut those ties.
Nikos was aware of every point of pain Jen struggled against, but he dared not shift back to his human form.
Wait, hummed the unicorn. Wait—
On the mythic plane, the lifelines through her body—what in Eastern medicine were termed the meridians—shone with increasing vigor. Presently her entire body blazed like a small sun . . . and Jen shifted.
There before Nikos lay a golden phoenix, as rare as she was magnificent.
Nikos shifted to his human self. He tenderly, carefully lifted her head with trembling hands, and laid it gently on his knee. She was still deeply unconscious.
He raised his aching head and gave a quick scan of the environment. The battle had ended without him being aware. The only noise he heard was the cry of distant seabirds, and the hiss and crash of the sea below the cliffs.
His gaze caught on Joey Hu sitting cross-legged nearby, hands on his knees, eyes shut.
Nikos forced one word out: “Cang?”