“Jack, there’s a woman. Standing at the doorway.” Raine’s voice had an ethereal quality, signifying temporal drift. She was lost in a mix of past, present and future, made worse by the fact that some were real and others, less real, but all potentials. This wasn’t the light retrieval information skimming they did, this was the full monty: seeing all futures, trying to guess which one was most real. “She looks familiar. Wait. Is that me? What’s going on?”
Jack grabbed the last ingredient, mead, straight from Odin’s cellar, and poured a healthy dose into the mortar, then chugged a few swallows himself. His hands left red prints on the bottle from the Carmot dust. He reached for the pestle and drove it down into the open embrace of the mortar, chanting the words of release that would open the spell components to their preferred magical properties. And something strange happened. Blue-white light arced out of his palm, channeled into the pestle and instantly pulverized, and mixed the ingredients.
He jumped back from the desk and stared at his hand. It had been a long time since that had happened to him. Fifty years, if he had to count. He flexed his fingers in amazement. When he ventured back to the desk and touched the pestle, though, nothing happened.
“Stress-driven,” he muttered to himself as he removed the pestle and poured the contents into a glass. Fear-based or not, it was promising. Sorcery had eluded him, no matter how he tried. With Raine’s supply, he could get the job done. But something had changed.
It could be her. It could be the blast. Or, that bizarre citrine scarab. Hell, it could be all three. Combinations of magic were sometimes harmonious, sometimes disastrous, and always came with an element of dangerous unpredictability. Whatever it was, a small channel had opened inside of him, and though it was narrow and uncertain, he could use it. Exploit it. Maybe open it wider, or, gain passage through other routes.
He helped Raine sit up. “Here, drink this. All of it. Right to the last drop.”
She still had the presence of mind to sniff. “Smells like that swill from your plane.”
He handed her the glass and she downed it in one swallow. Then she pulled a sour face. “Blech.”
“I agree.” He ran back to the desk, pulled out a fresh set of beads from the charging box, and latched them around her neck. “Still seeing ghosts in the mist?”
“No.” She shook her head like someone trying to clear out cobwebs and other unwelcome things. “What was happening to me?”
“Remember when I warned you about mixing energies? Magic’s not the tough one. It’s that mystical crap. If you get too deep into it, beyond trying to dig up minor links between pieces of information, you get yourself into trouble. You don’t see reality, you see multiple realities, all potentials, all tied to multiple potential acts, tied back to other acts. Without real training it’s a one way ticket to a rubber room and a jacket that ties up in the back.”
She digested the information. “All that from great sex?”
He barked out a relieved laugh. Raine was back. “All that. And who knows what else.”
“This is just like one of those slasher movies, you know?” She swung her legs off the table. “The prom queen and captain of the football team knock boots at the summer camp on Halloween and wind up skewered on the mad killer’s spear.”
“Well, I’m no sportsman, but the night’s young, and I have plenty of mad killers after me on any given day who like spears and other pointy things.”
“Thanks, Jack.” She smiled wanly. “Seriously. I thought for a moment I was going crazy, like all the way nutso, and it wasn’t a pleasant thing.”
No, he didn’t think it was. He’d had the same fear. “We need to hurry. Are you okay to get to your room alone or do you need me?”
“I’m okay alone.”
“You’ve got ten minutes to pack, then I’m coming for you. Wear the armor. So far we have no trouble, but we’re not out of it yet.”
* * *
The mystic surfed deep through the rolling tsunami of tangled energies, emerging on the clean shore of the other side.
Answers filtered easily into consciousness.
The only troubling thing, that blast. The thing that took down the walls and granted such easy entry. What had caused it?
Searching further yielded only the same visions as earlier. End of the dimension and all of that. The set-up vision, a picture superimposed on a far darker reality, designed to elude all but the most deft of mystics. The perfect decoy had been in circulation so long that it had gained a modicum of its own reality, allowing the mystic to pick it up just like all the other fools. Except the mystic had been the originator.
The sound of footsteps in the chamber penetrated the psychic haze, drawing the mystic back to the real world. Words followed. “Do you have an answer?”
“Once the security spells were destroyed, I had a moment of opportunity. Surfing Raine Spencer’s waves are easy. Jack was close, though. I didn’t get everything, and had to plumb it on my own. I have the first location: England. Cardif. France is also coming through, but I’m not sure on the particulars. I’ll need more time to sift through all I picked up from the woman.”
“Upload the information you’re sure of to the system. I’ll ready the team.”
The mystic shook off the haze, slipping back into the most likely reality. When faced with so many outcomes, you chose the most likely one to reside in, and hoped for the best. To do otherwise, drift without an anchor, was nothing short of insanity.
“Caroline.”
“Yes?” The response came out irritable. Emotive. Disgraceful. Success was so near at hand it made her forget herself. “What? Is there something else you need?” She wanted her peace again. In the absence of others, she’d honed her skill, and that was her anchor.
“We’re close now. You’ll be well-rewarded for all you’ve lost.”
Rewarded? She almost laughed again. No mystic in this realm possessed her power. A limited death followed by a timely resurrection via an off-the-grid artifact decades ago had assured her place in this reality and many others. She was not held to this dimension like the others of her kind. She could catch the psychic drift, follow it out beyond the defined borders, move into the other dimensions, the way the Atlanteans once did. Her mind could cross that which was not crossable. Soon, her body would cross too. And she would be first among no others.
“I have all the reward I need,” she said to the now empty chamber.
Chapter Fourteen
Raine packed like a dervish, threw on the armor, and was out into the hall before her ten minutes were up. She didn’t need Jack to warn her bad shit was about to go down. Her sword arm was ablaze, the soul blade whispering to her for release. Above, the blades of the helicopters thundered as they cut the night air. Below, sirens wailed through the darkened city, keening like pack wolves calling every member to a gather.
It was bedlam, rising to a crescendo. And it was ten thousand times better than what had hit her after the artifact destructed. One minute she’d been watching Jack collect the broken pieces, the next minute, reality did several sidesteps. Visions passed in front of her very eyes, except they weren’t visions, they were lives and she was living them along with the people and events she saw. Permutations of the end war blinked in and out, Horus, Seth, armies wiping each other out. Dead littering the streets, choking the sewers with their blood. Horrors beyond horrors, and at the nexus, the jars. And when she thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Time and space rent in two, and from a gaping wound in the dimensional integrity stepped a dark and terrifying force, with an endless legion of shadow creatures hungering for blood. The lead creature was indefinable. Massive. Powerful. Like a God in true form. She stood in the darkness, staring up. And it looked back. Right at her. With soulless eyes older than time, and a hunger for destruction that could not be sated.
Then Jack had come to her rescue with some nasty tasting potion. She’d have drank dragon piss if he’d assured her it would fix her into this reality, and
block out all the others. She passed a window and the unnaturally cold breeze shocked her.
The words of summoning were out of her mouth, the blade in her hand, before her mind engaged. A tearing sound rose high over the din of sirens, and then she was facing a band of Clove demons. Like the Bible passages of old, or the tormented paintings of the Middle Ages, these creatures danced on cloven hooves, ran naked as jay birds and were the deep, dark red of human blood. Like vampires, they sustained themselves on that, along with the flesh of innocents. They fought with serrated blades, designed to lock, break, or wrest opponents’ weapons, and their body fluids were as caustic as the worst acid.
Raine backed down the hall as they advanced. The soul blade could kill them, but so could several kinds of hot load bullets as long as they had a silver casing.
“Give us the child,” hissed the biggest one, punctuating the statement with a sharp slice of its pointed tail. “Give us the child and we will leave you alone.”
“Bullshit.” She dropped her duffle, drew her hood, and raised her blade. “Back off or I’ll cut you where you stand.”
Her backstep halted. She was in a crossroad of halls. In the background gunfire launched, spitting out a staccato warning. This was it. The real deal. Like at Orpheus, but worse. She was alone. Against far more powerful creatures than a few hired goons turned thrall. All she had to do was make certain no one got to her side or her rear. If they did, she was dead.
“Human slime,” another spat. En masse, the team advanced. She counted ten.
Raine raised the blade, going defensive. White static erupted from her hands, arcing along the edge of the sword. She didn’t know what it was, but it seemed to spook the shit out of the demons, so she was all for it. They hesitated, uncertain.
“Give us the child,” one began again.
“Fuck off.” Raine leapt forward, pressing her advantage. The sword seemed to have a plan. She angled in a way she’d never practiced, then gutted the creature. “And die,” she finished, pulling back and stepping out of the fray.
The demon’s rank innards spilled onto Jack’s expensive oriental hall carpet, sizzling down to the floorboards.
Raine stepped back again, goading them to advance. “Okay, boys, who’s next?”
“I am,” a familiar drawl came from behind her.
Jack stepped up alongside of her and winked. He held a grenade, pin out. “You should call before you visit,” he said, rolling it down the hall. Then he pulled Raine down into the cross hall. The blast followed a second later, blowing demon down the passage, stealing away her breath.
“Short fuse,” she said. “Usually there’s at least three seconds.”
“I don’t like to follow the crowd,” he quipped as he rapidly scanned her. “Good, you’re in one piece. Let’s go.”
“Wait. My laptop. I need it.”
“No time.”
“It’s down the hall, in my duffle.”
“The demons have acid in their veins. And that grenade was a mix of mercury, phosphorus, and holy oil. Anything down there is soup or ash. Including your laptop.”
Shit. She should have tossed it in a room or something. “I need it.”
“You can use mine. Come on.”
He set a fast pace moving through the hall. Every once in a while gunfire would break out. Twice he discharged grenades at surprised demon strike teams. When they reached the stairs, Havers greeted them, handing him an automatic weapon. “First copter’s almost out.”
“Go ahead,” he ordered, “we’ll take up the rear.”
She nodded, and disappeared up the stairs.
“Duck,” Jack yelled, and discharged his weapon, firing at a target behind her. Several demons charged the room, falling dead all over each other. A few got through, though, and Raine launched into a flurry of attack moves. The sword spoke to her. Guiding her. Seeing the enemy move before the enemy knew to move. Recognizing opportunity. Executing moves she’d never known of before. Acid splashed the walls as she and the soul blade ripped into the demon horde. The battle lust came hard upon her, triggering a massive adrenaline dump. Jack kept firing and calling to her to fall back, but she couldn’t. She held them at the doorway, cutting creatures down as they came.
“Go,” she shouted. “Get the artifact and the kids clear of here.”
“Not without you!”
The screams, the blood, the acid, revved her up into a lucid rage that fired her muscles and propelled her into a fury of actions. She was interrupted only when a side wall blew clean in from a powerful blast. The force knocked her sideways into the opposite wall, and the shock took her off her stride. As she rallied, one of the demons recovered and sliced at her with vicious bone-tipped claws. They skittered off her hoodie, but raked through her pants, cutting deep into her thigh. Acid burned into her exposed flesh, searing her with a pain that made her mind go blank. She screamed, sensed her arms moving, directed by the blade. It lashed out, beheading the creature. More acid splashed out, drops falling into her exposed wound.
Above the chaos, Jack bellowed out a vial oath. Then red lightning erupted from the ceiling fixture, arcing out to strike the demons flooding the room. Flesh-singed, demons turned to ash beneath the hellish attack. Raine threw her arm across her face to shield her eyes, but not before she caught sight of Jack, arms akimbo, palms up, red light blazing from his splayed fingertips. Air disappeared as the carnage continued. Walls were blown down, red light racing through them like they were paper.
Raine’s blood tingled in response. She was surprised by the urge to reach for him. To join with him. This was true, bone-deep, blood-strong magic. This was sorcery. The very thing Jack was not supposed to have. But he did.
Quiet intruded suddenly, and Raine lowered her arm. The magic in her blood abated. Then the pain set in, banishing all thoughts from her head.
“Fuck me, this hurts!”
Jack rushed to her side and inspected the wound. “I can give you something for the pain. You look to be healing. I think Seth gave you that in addition to your awakening. But it’s slower than it should be. You’ll need more practice.”
“Save the dissertation,” she growled.
“Right.” He produced a small vial from his frock coat, popped the cork stopper with his thumb and poured it into the wound. Instantly the pain was replaced with numbness.
Raine sucked in a deep breath and shut her eyes. “They wanted the stone-shifter child.”
“They did,” said an unfamiliar, gravely voice.
Raine’s eyes flew open. In the wreckage of Jack’s home stood a massive, grey man, with black eyes and stone wings unfurled. Raine gripped her sword tighter and wondered what defense she could mount from this position.
Jack visibly relaxed. “What took you so long?”
“We were detained, fighting another contingent below. They had anti-aircraft devices, for us, of course. But they could have hampered your flight as well.”
The wings on the big man-creature twitched. “Where is my nephew?”
“Up in the first chopper with Rafe.”
A strange expression lit his eyes. Sadness. Happiness. Both. “I am in your debt again, Jack Madden.”
“I’ll run a tab. Any chance Palo is with you?”
“He is.” The creature shifted, looking over Jack to Raine. “Your woman is hurt. She’s a valiant soldier.”
“She can hear you,” Raine said irritably. Even though the wound didn’t hurt, she wasn’t sure she could stand on her own.
“I am Roman,” the gargoyle said with great formality. “Chieftain of Clan Zerus.”
Before Raine could respond, Roman released a subtle, keening sound. He cocked his head at a response only he could hear. “He’ll meet us up top.”
“Good.” Jack scooped Raine up without asking. She still held her blade. It was ridiculous. And fearsome. All of this had started because they’d unwittingly released a spell. Pain seeped through the numbness and she cringed. Raine said the words of release, s
ending the sword to an inert state. She didn’t want to think it was to hold on to Jack a little tighter, to help fight off the vision lurking at the edge of her sanity. But hold him she did, and the vision disappeared into the murk, much the same way the demons had turned to dust beneath his sorcery.
Outside on the once-elegant rooftop garden, they were met by another male gargoyle. He had a patrician profile, and was far smaller than their leader, Roman.
He smiled at Raine, but made no other sound as he laid a cold, rough hand across her leg. As fast as they’d been cut, the wounds closed. Skin pinked up, scarred, then cleared to a normal, unbroken state. He winked, stepped back and made a strange combination of sounds.
“Yeah, I know,” said Jack, “now we’re square. Next time we meet you’ll kill me. You and every other second guy walking around.”
Fatigue spread through her limbs, making her suddenly tired.
Jack nodded to Roman. “Take care of your nephew this time. I don’t want to have to fish him out of the blue again. That shit’s not easy for me anymore.”
So Rafe was right. Jack was up to his eyeballs in rescuing the children. And that wasn’t all he was up to, she thought, as he carried her towards a waiting helicopter.
When they were out of earshot she couldn’t hold back anymore. “Didn’t the Council bind you, Jack?”
“So the story goes.”
“So what was all that red electricity flying out of you, smiting the demon horde?”
“Sorcery.”
“But you can’t do that anymore.”
“You bring it out in me.” He settled her into a seat and climbed in beside her. “Palo healed you rapidly. You’ll need to sleep it off for a few hours.”
She nodded as they lifted off. The armor had protected her against the worst. Seeing what damage could be wrought, and realizing the internal effort it would take to learn to advance her healing and counter that, gave her insight into what the knights really faced. Fatigue gripped her as Manhattan became a distant memory. And when she finally fell asleep, it was with the memory of Jack working what he shouldn’t be able to work. Sorcery.
ImmortalIllusions: The Eternity Covenant Book2 Page 23