by Laura Hall
He softly kissed my cheek, then my forehead. “You recently wondered if the last seven months were akin to twenty years for me, and therefore more than enough time to move on. Not so. They were a hundred years, and also a hundred seconds. I missed you for eons and only for a day.” He sighed. “It is different for me, being so old.”
His fingers clasped the back of my neck, tender and calming. Some emotion I couldn’t name was in his eyes, like grief only more. Deeper.
It scared the bejeezus out of me.
“Connor—”
He shut my mouth with a kiss, then trailed lips to my ear, whispering, “You will always be the one to leave me, mo spréach. But I will never stop waiting for you. I’ll be in the car.”
I gasped as my feet lightly hit the floor. My arms fell to my sides, empty.
Beside the open hatch stood an owl-eyed attendant, her head swiveling back and forth as she tried to reconcile Connor’s sudden disappearance. Most vampires, when moving at full speed, were at least seen as a blur. Connor was just that fast.
Summoning my bravest smile, I said, “He does that a lot.” She bobbed her head uncomprehendingly.
Hugging his jacket around me, I exited the plane and hustled toward the open door of a shiny black limousine. When I was safely inside, Connor tapped knuckles on the window beside him. The driver, either a vampire or shifter by their extraordinary hearing, pulled away from the hangar.
After nearly five minutes of silence, during which I became increasingly twitchy, Connor said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” I said quickly. “Like you said, we can’t pick up where we left off.”
“Come here, Fiona.”
I finally looked at him, my tension melting away at the tender humor in his expression. I scooted across the seat and under his lifted arm. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“The Celestine Institute in downtown Denver, about a half hour away. Are you hungry?”
I shook my head. “I ate about ten bags of peanuts while you were on the phone.”
“Yes, I can smell them.”
I wrinkled my nose and he chuckled.
Forcing the conversation away from my bad breath, I asked, “What’s the deal with the Celestine Institute?”
“Primarily research and development, both for the private sector and the government. Most of their contracts are for concerns like sustainable farming, renewable energy, water purification, and the like. They’re backed by some pretty heavyweight federal funding. As far as I know, they’re aboveboard.” He shifted to face me on the seat. “Tell me about horses and Montana.”
And that was one of the many reasons I adored him—my mind was an open book, but he was always genuinely interested in what I said.
“I may be able to read your mind,” he said smoothly, “but I have no idea what will come out of your mouth.” Lips grazed my temple, sending a bolt of awareness to my core. He drew a deep, slow breath. “God, woman.”
“Montana was good,” I said weakly.
He smiled slowly, presenting the tips of fangs. The normally leafy eyes were dark, uncut emerald. “Mmm. Do continue. Before I act rashly.”
I started with my failed attempts at fly-fishing and spent the rest of the trip babbling to combat acute sexual frustration. Exacerbating my condition at every opportunity was Connor, whose not-so-subtle touches and smoldering smiles turned me slowly but surely into a stuttering dolt.
As the limo drew to a stop on a traffic clogged street lined with skyscrapers, Connor shifted and winced. At my triumphant smile, he laughed. “I can’t tell you the last time this happened to me. To see you so proud of yourself is my only balm.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re just used to instant gratification.”
His brows drew together. “Was that an insult, or are you merely acknowledging my irresistibility?” I punched his arm—not lightly—which only hurt my hand and elicited another laugh. He grabbed my fingers and kissed them. “Trust me, mo spréach, your influence is singularly . . . electric.”
I groaned through a bubbling laugh. “That was bad. Really bad.”
He dimpled, eyes sparkling. Warmth bloomed in my heart, spreading fast through my limbs. Every last doubt withered.
I loved him.
It was real. Pure and perfect. Overwhelming.
“Connor, I—”
His lips covered mine. “Not yet,” he said against my mouth. “I want to be inside you when you say it.”
A universe of sensation exploded in my body. “Gahgh—” I mumbled.
The door behind me opened and cool air hit my back, along with the pulse of a shifter aura. A mellow voice said, “Forgive me.”
Connor kissed me quickly and leaned back. “Not necessary, Jonathon. Is Valcourt waiting for us?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.” He nudged my hip. “After you.”
I stepped onto the curb outside a building with opaque glass doors. A brisk wind teased my hair and lifted goose bumps on my bare arms. Craning my neck, I took in the whole of the building, sleek and foreboding, its shell entirely glass. Lights from passing cars dazzled the surface, refracting and dancing in a disorienting kaleidoscope.
Dizziness struck an instant before a poker of pain pierced my temple. My vision flashed white and my knees buckled. Arms caught me before I met concrete. I barely felt them.
I couldn’t see. Couldn’t think.
But apparently I could talk.
“First moon meets the last, one night of a thousand. Blood beckons. Reckoning.”
What the hell?
My voice, flat and eerie, continued, “There was a child once, a granddaughter. She died and lived. Was buried and born.”
Goddammit, not again. Connor? Connor!
But I couldn’t reach him. I was a passenger in my own mind, a prisoner of Sight. And it wasn’t done with me.
Eighteen
“Blood moss grows veins. Veins bring life to branches of hope. Beware the water. Beware.”
My vision flickered, white then dark, and snapped back to reality. Traffic noises buzzed nearby, as did a swarm of curious bystanders and a worried chauffeur. Familiar arms, solid and real, were wrapped around me.
I dragged air into my lungs, again and again, as fast as I could.
“You’re hyperventilating, mo spréach. Slow down. You’re safe.”
The furious pounding of my heartbeat gradually eased, the black spots melting from my peripherals. Connor’s concerned face came into focus. I counted my breaths in and out, five seconds each, until the urge to vomit passed.
“Was I screaming, like last time?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “No. Can you stand? I’d carry you, but there are several cell phones filming us right now.”
I nodded, and with his help gained my feet. The glass doors of the Institute were open around two figures, a man and a woman. The woman spoke in a light British accent, “Welcome, Prime Thorne, Ms. Sullivan. Please, come inside.”
“Yes, yes, get off the street,” said the man, his chin jerking around nervously.
Jesper Valcourt, no doubt.
“Are you well, Ms. Sullivan?” asked the woman, frowning concernedly.
“Yes, thank you,” I said quickly. “Just clumsy.”
As soon as we were inside and the doors closed, the noise of the street was replaced by the rushing and gurgling of water. A huge, modernist fountain dominated the center of the lobby, its dark metal tiers, shelves, and spouts somehow calming despite their apparent disorder. The rest of the space was likewise monochromatic and sleek. Glass and metal guts in a glass and metal box. Consistent, if boring.
As Connor shook hands with our hosts, I stared at the fountain. Water was a natural disruptor of magic, and though I had a hard time admitting my Sight was a magical talent rather than a curse, I nevertheless felt my tattered mind regain equilibrium. And unlike my first experience with Sibyllic raving, this time I remembered everything I’d said.
Not that
I understood a word of it.
“Fiona, please meet Ms. Lamont and Dr. Valcourt.”
“Caroline, please,” said the woman, giving me a bright, false smile that wavered as we shook hands. Her blue aura marked her as a Sapphire Mage, but for some reason the longer I looked at her, the more intense the color became. Almost like she was purposefully enhancing the hue.
I chalked it up to vanity.
Connor’s voice filtered through my mind, Let go of her hand, Fiona.
“Sorry,” I said hastily, releasing Caroline’s fingers.
I turned to Valcourt, a diminutive Topaz Mage, whose milky blue eyes darted everywhere but directly at my face. His handshake was weak and damp, and he jerked away after a second to rub his palm over his balding head. He looked at Caroline beseechingly. “Can we go back down now?”
She nodded, smiling gently, and Jesper beelined for a bay of elevators. I shared a glance with Connor, whose expression remained stoic. Silently, he offered, Jesper has become increasingly agoraphobic in recent years and now rarely leaves his lab. I believe Caroline is his handler.
I considered the potential of a joke about an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic walking into a bar, but at Connor’s droll look I kept my mouth shut.
The elevator compartment was spacious, which helped offset the knowledge that we were going underground. When Caroline pushed the desired level, though, my skin started tingling.
“Sixteen levels down, huh?” I asked.
Caroline nodded, giving me another bland smile. “Our R&D laboratories are by necessity highly secure.”
Connor’s voice came as a whisper in my head: I do not know why, but I cannot read either of their minds.
Great, I thought snappily at him. You do realize we’re going to be stuck underground with a mad scientist and his creepy keeper?
Connor didn’t crack a smile, his eyes staying alert. Not quite worried, but definitely wary. I supposed after a thousand or so years hiding from the sun, going underground was a reminder of his former vulnerability. Or maybe he was claustrophobic, too.
Not claustrophobic, he said, simply considering the damage I’d cause if we needed to leave abruptly.
Super.
As we sped into the bowels of the earth, I grew increasingly agitated, while Valcourt had an opposite reaction. The little geologist stood straighter, breathed deeper, and his eyes stopped periodically rolling around.
“So, Dr. Valcourt,” I said, wincing as my voice emerged louder than intended. “About this Lodestone . . .”
“One moment, one moment,” he muttered, still not meeting my gaze.
The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened. Outside was a short cement hallway ending in a vault-like door, a keypad and retinal scanner mounted beside it. My paranoia must have rubbed off on Connor, because I felt him stiffen minutely.
He didn’t send me any thoughts, but I figured we were having the same one: Why the hell does a geologist need this type of security?
Caroline moved swiftly to the door to enter a code, then bent for her eye to be scanned. A beep sounded. The vault door slid open, revealing a room that looked like a stereotypical working lab. Mysterious equipment and samples cluttered long tables, and standing before one of them was a scientist in a white lab coat.
The scientist turned from his task with a smile. He had nondescript brown hair and rounded, pleasant features. Your basic Everyman.
Only I knew him, and he was really the Devil.
“Welcome, Fiona.”
Time slowed.
I wheezed, “Con—”
Valcourt grabbed me, yanking me into the lab. My charge erupted defensively. He cried out and jerked away, but not before stabbing me in the arm with a syringe. The tranquilizer’s effects were almost instantaneous. I tried to turn, stumbled, and fell to my knees.
Connor stood before the elevator doors while Caroline threw spell after spell at him, her figure wreathed in a glowing, Opaline aura. The manufactured sapphire color now made sense. She was on the Lodestone drug, and we’d walked into a trap.
Connor swiped away her spells like cobwebs, but they flew in a continuous stream. Punching him. Slicing him. Distracting him enough to keep him from reaching me.
There was a blinding flash as a massive spell erupted. Connor roared in fury and darkness exploded around him in the shape of massive wings. As his power expanded, desks and equipment crashed. Most of the fluorescents popped.
Caroline screamed. Kind of. It was more like a gurgle as her body melted into a gooey, boneless sack.
I threw up. Violently. I had a final glimpse of Connor’s savage face before the vault door thumped closed. Valcourt stood beside the keypad, panting, bloody tracks moving sluggishly from his eyes, nose, and ears.
I rolled onto my back, my limbs heavy. Lethargy stole through my mind, scrambling my thoughts.
Valcourt peered down at me, grinning even as he mopped blood from his face with burned hands. In moments he was joined by his companion in Evil, Thomas Newberry, M.D., former geneticist at Johns Hopkins. He was the Liberati psychopath and master alchemist who’d engineered an electric chair for me last year. And as a cipher, he’d been spared the impact of Connor’s power.
“You’re going to regret this,” I slurred.
Newberry’s smile widened. “I’m well aware my life will be forfeit. But it will take some time for the Prime to get in here, and all we need is a little.”
For what?
Darkness.
Nineteen
I recognized the startlingly fresh air even before I opened my eyes on the valley of my dream. Gone were the thousands of flowers. The field was barren and brown. The land looked parched, leeched of color. I could barely hear the river. Only the forest seemed the same, a lush and shadowed sentinel in the east.
“I won’t allow it,” spoke an angry voice.
I turned, seeing the hazy shape of a man several feet away. His face was blurred in a surreal way, tall figure likewise lacking solidity, wavering in and out of sight.
“It’s not your choice,” I said stoically, even as a fresh wave of tears cascaded down my cheeks.
“It’s my child!” he cried.
“And her legacy. I shouldn’t have come here, Constantin. I’m sorry, but neither of us has a choice.”
I felt hands, ghostlike, on my shoulders. “We always have a choice,” he said softly. “Please reconsider. We can leave now and travel south. There are rumors of new islands being discovered in the Great Sea. We can build a life together. We can raise her far from here. Far from everything.”
My arms curved protectively over my rounded stomach. “You don’t know what she’s capable of,” I whispered. “She’ll never let us go.”
From a distance came a strange, mechanical buzzing. The sky bled into the mountains, collapsing them with waves of blue and white. Fear seized me and I reached desperately for Constantin, but my hands closed on air.
Buzz.
Buzzzzzz.
My eyelids didn’t want to open. My mouth tasted like vomit. Pressure from thick straps pressed against my thighs, forearms, and chest.
Recall came in a rush.
“Wake up, Fiona,” said the Liberati asshat.
I summoned plasma but nothing came. Not even a fizzle. Just like the first time Newberry had had me in his clutches, he’d dosed me with a power-blocker.
Oh, alchemy, how I hated its guts.
“Fuck you,” I croaked.
Newberry sighed. “Is it ready, Jesper?”
“Yes,” said the slimy little weasel. “It’s perfect. She just needs to swallow the pill.”
I immediately clenched my teeth, but it was pointless. The men pried my jaw open. A capsule hit my tongue. I tried to spit it out—was initially successful—but fingers only rammed the pill to the back of my throat. My jaw was wrenched shut and a hand massaged my throat.
Gagging, I swallowed.
“There,” said Newberry pleasantly. “That wasn’t so bad.”
>
I thrashed my arms and legs, but the bindings held fast. And while having operational limbs was a plus, I had much bigger issues. Like the pill I’d just swallowed.
I had a pretty good idea what was in it.
I tracked Newberry across the room, staring bullets into the back of his head. “You gave me Lodestone, didn’t you?” I asked.
Newberry didn’t show any signs of having heard me, but Valcourt, lingering like an insect near my head, said, “A really big dose.”
Fear inched down my spine. My voice failed the first time; I coughed and tried again, “We’re underground. We’re all going to die.”
“Perhaps,” said Newberry, turning around. “But your death, Fiona, will be spectacular.”
In his hands was a metal helmet, an assortment of cone-shaped valves spouting from it. I knew what it was. How could I not? He’d clearly perfected his apparatus for extracting my ether. No chair necessary. Drawing my charge to my head, though? That was pure viciousness.
At least I wouldn’t have to worry about the White Queen’s tampering. Or anything, for that matter. My brains would be too fried. But Newberry was mistaken if he thought he was getting out of the building alive. He had no idea what happened when my charge was released underground.
I only hoped Connor escaped before the building came down.
“So, since I’m dead anyway,” I said breathlessly, “tell me—why bother giving me Lodestone? Aren’t I powerful enough as it is?”
Newberry scowled. “When you destroyed the warehouse laboratory, you wiped out years of work. Some of my most brilliant spells were lost, including the formula and all remains of the compound to trigger your lightning. The Lodestone, however, is a wondrous substitute.”
“Fabulous,” I said, and Newberry laughed. A normal-sounding laugh, which made it all the more disturbing.
I breathed slowly, purposefully, until reason nudged panic from my mind. Connor would save me. He would. I just had to survive long enough.