Knights shimmered into view, littering the clearing, swords at the ready.
“Nice to see you too, lover,” Caroline said to Jack’s body.
“Run!” Hugh screamed across the clearing.
And the last threads of Raine’s fragile control ripped apart.
Chapter Nineteen
The blade was in her hands though no words passed her lips.
Raine’s rage crystallized. The coiled power shot free. She brought the blade up as she sprang to her feet, carrying in a death arc fueled with inhuman strength and speed. Chaos, magic, it mixed into a lethal combination, as she beheaded Caroline, and carried the swing without stop cutting through a newly appeared knight. She spun rapidly, keeping the obelisk at her back.
“Stop her!” Kerr cried, rushing to the dead mystic, rucksacks in tow.
Three knights moved to engage Raine, but her speed and strength confounded them. They expected a novice, but they found a dervish. She battled them as more closed, one eye on Kerr, as she tried to calculate a way to reach him. Jack’s sudden death had snapped something inside of her. No longer did she fear her power. She understood it now, and Seth’s words. Right thing at the right time. Kill Kerr. Stop the madness. Avenge Jack.
Covenant troops emerged from the bushes and engaged the knights, but Kerr’s cadre was running on serious magic, and able to beat back the smaller numbers and hold the clearing as their ground.
Kerr moved, mindless of everyone. He soaked his hand in Caroline’s blood, removed the glowing scarab and painted it with a Druid sigil. The orange glow mellowed to the hue of freshly spilled blood. The immediate change in the surrounding energy was electric, hitting Raine and causing her to falter. She stumbled back into the obelisk, then rolled and narrowly avoided a death strike. Magic shook the obelisk. The air shimmered in the clearing. She backed away, felled another knight, and tried to locate the best place to continue the battle.
Kerr was chanting wildly and breaking canopic jars. Hers. Jacks. Picking out the scarabs that glowed, perverting them with his arcane arts, until he had four glowing dusky red. Thunder roared to life around them as the obelisk started to mutate and grow.
The knot of knights fell away, and Raine looked up to see Hugh, sword out, moving through them like a killing wave.
“Watch your back!” he screamed above the chaos.
Raine turned just in time to fend off another death blow from a knight she recognized from Hugh’s own contingent.
“Daniel, no! Don’t do this!” She sidestepped his second strike, then parried and cut through his defenses forcing him back.
“You can’t stop it now, you half-breed bitch. This is our time to rule the lands. No more magic!” He lunged, exposing himself to her blade. She took the shot, severed his head from his body, and moved onto the next opponent. To her back she sensed Hugh.
“Take their heads, Raine, it’s the only sure-kill shot. Anything else will put them down, but they’ll rise again.”
“How could you?” she yelled to him.
“You don’t understand!” The bodies piled higher around them as they moved. “I had no choice, Raine. I had to keep you safe. Make you strong. I wouldn’t always be around to protect you.”
The cry of a wolf cut through the thunder of the growing stone. Magic currents raged around her. Anguish gripped her soul. “You should have told me the truth!”
“The truth?” Hugh’s back hit hers, forcing her forward and around. Kerr passed out of sight.
A powerful engine blasted the air, then a black Dodge burst through the bushes and mowed down a cluster of recently reanimated knights. The car screeched to a halt, and another Templar climbed out and joined the battle.
Vargr?
Old soldiers.
Had Hugh pulled him into this madness?
She thought she saw more Covenant forces following in the wake of the car, coming through the battered bushes. Then the air behind the car fractured. Mirrored. She recognized magic at work. The reinforcements hit the alteration in time and space and were burned into ash. The hope that had kindled in her, died a little. She refocused back on her own battle.
“Yes! The truth!” She struck out, parried another blow. This knight was one she swore she’d killed earlier. “About me. My mother. You. I deserve it.”
“No, you don’t. The truth is ugly, Raine.” Another shove, and she was reoriented. A pile of bodies were heaped where Hugh had been fighting. His skill was unmatched, and helping keep them both alive. “I met your mother on a mission. I thought we were in love. I was going to leave the Covenant. I’d gone back, just after you were born. To tell Kerr. Then Edward alerted me. Suriana was trying to sell you to a black mage. Thaddius Archer.”
“You lie.” Renewed fury threatened to swarm her precision and concentration, but she used her newly awakened power to channel it and use it to her advantage.
“Why would she do that?” But she knew. She was no different from the children Jack had aided, half-breed batteries on sale to the highest bidders. Bidders who’d pay anything for a taste of innate power.
“She didn’t want you in the way. Figured the money would help us start a new life. She had expensive tastes.” Hugh lunged to her right. His blade flashed. Another knight fell. She spied the Templar she assumed was Vargr, tangling with three burly knights.
“I was in love with a monster,” Hugh shouted, pain in his every word. “The mage tried to kill Edward. She tried to kill you. I couldn’t trust that Kerr wouldn’t try to steal you, or use you against me. We knew he was bad when he framed Madden. But thr real trught of how bad began to emerge after I killed Archer. I couldn’t walk out on the Covenenat, and Edward couldn’t come back. We had no idea how terrible the conspiracy was, or who was involved. We had to go deep Raine, but I had an obligation to ensure you lived, thrived. Grew strong and stayed safe. I did the best I could. The Spaniard helped me hide the truth about your birth, but I couldn’t trust him enough to tell him what we suspected about Kerr. We had to let it play out to figure out the end game. I’m sorry. Please. Forgive me.”
The thunderous noise stopped. The clearing grew quiet except for the sounds of battle, and the noxious magical chanting.
Too much truth washed through her. Too much. Too late. It brought understanding and more grief.
“Edward!” Hugh cried above the din. “Stop the Druid! He’s opening the portal!”
Edward? Raine cut the guts out of a knight she’d killed twice already.
The other Templar, Vargr, her real uncle, howled and ripped off his helm. Before her eyes he activated the turn of the wolf, tapping the Were curse, and embracing the powerful altered state of half man-half beast. He burst into a barrage of wild moves and cut through the three terrified knights, moving closer to the obelisk, but when he was within two yards, he hit up against an invisible barrier.
“Too late!” he yelled, beating a fist furiously against the barrier. “I can’t get through!”
Raine shifted her vision a bit, stretched out her senses. Sure enough, the magical barrier became visible. Hugh was encapsulated with the obelisk. The scarabs dotted four positions on the monument, pulsing like a homing beacon. As Jack had taught her, she let her consciousness drift, allowing the chaos blade to take over directing her blows. The frightening truth of the artifacts became clear.
“The Needle is the compass,” she shouted to her father. “The scarabs are a beacon. Kerr’s not opening a portal, someone’s following the signal to us. The door’s going to open from the other side!”
As if her words heralded the coming doom, a strange calm settled around them. Then, an instant later, magic detonated like an atom bomb, and a wave of immeasurable power rolled across time and space. The dimension fractured. A fissure of light opened just behind Edward, growing long and wide. Purple sparks flew from it, cutting through the barrier that protected this dimension from mixing with any others.
“Kerr’s reanimating the dead now. They’re rising faster.” Hugh�
�s words were barely audible over the infernal noise. “Stay sharp.”
“Hold the line, Raine!” Edward joined the fray, cleaving a knight and taking up a position by her side. “Spencers never give up. No matter the odds, we fight it out until the end.”
The fissure grew wider.
Raine’s nerves were strung to the breaking point. The first signs of fatigue gripped her muscles. They were doomed. The three of them. Facing the opening of a door to another dimension. A mad man working evil magic, safe behind a protective barrier. If there was ever a time for out of the box thinking, it was now. She reached out her senses, seeking life in Jack.
Motion on the ground, just to the left of the opening portal, caught her eye.
Jack’s body twitched.
His sinewy arm moved. Reached for the dagger hilt sticking out below his right shoulder blade. Grasped the hilt. Pulled it free and threw it aside.
“Watch it!” Edward cut a blade just before it hit her. “Stay sharp!”
She nodded towards Jack, hope rallying her strength. He’d pushed himself to his knees, then up to unsteady feet.
Edward followed her line of sight. “Hugh, do you remember Marrakesh?”
“Like it was yesterday,” he growled as he pushed hard against her back.
“Let’s bring the fight to them, brother.” Edward stepped in front of Raine to take the heat. The movement created a momentary break for her. “Go keep an eye on the sorcerer. I hear he’s a troublemaker.”
Jack’s vision cleared. His mind registered spectacular pain and a weird kind of distance, as if he were two pieces of something that weren’t quite joined the way they should be. He drew a labored breath and blinked, then looked around.
Memory rushed in at him.
He’d been dead. Stabbed in the back by a former lover. Kind of the way he’d always imagined he’d die. A bunch of dead bodies were spread around. Bad magic to the left, and the right of him. But he went down knowing he’d get up again. Someone had made him a fucking immortal. Thank the Gods.
Raine bumrushed him. A welcome sight at last. Except she had the soul blade raised. Oh shit. Was she still mad? It was so hard to focus. Something restless vibrated inside of him. Vaguely he recalled ingesting all the Carmot.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Raine’s voice rallied him.
“Good, you’re happy to see me. I was worried for a moment.” He reached inside himself, finding focus. Finding clarity. A kind of clarity that had been missing for the last fifty years. Except it was way more powerful than he’d ever remembered. Something about it was…different. “The sorcery. I think it’s back.”
“The world’s about to go in the shitter.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that.” But there were more important things on his mind. “Do you still hate me?”
“Jack,” she began, anger lacing her voice. “This is not the time.”
“We’re about to die. Maybe. No better time. I’m sorry. I should have told you everything from the beginning. I didn’t trust you. I was wrong. Forgive me, Raine.”
Raine swung around, and beheaded a would-be attacker. “We can talk about this later. We need to fix things.”
He rubbed his temples. His head was ready to explode. The magic running loose inside of him wanted out. The two Templars were moving the battle closer. Dead guys were rising around him to fight with alarming regularity. “It would be nice to say this is the first time I’ve dealt with anything like this, but it’s not. Who’s the other guy in the tabbard?”
“My Uncle Edward.”
Another dead guy running around alive. Seemed like the theme for the night. “Of course. Edward. He’s a Werewolf.”
“No shit! Jack, focus.” Raine reached out and grabbed his hand.
The clouds in his head vanished, fleeing the clarity she sent to him.
He snaked an arm around her waist and devoured her with a possessive kiss. Strength surged through his limbs. Magic wound up into top form. His dick shot up to attention. When he pulled back, she was breathless in his arms. “Time to save the world. I can hold the portal at bay. You need to figure out how to break through to Kerr.”
“Jack, I can’t. I don’t know magic.”
“You know. All you need. Stop thinking so much. Let it happen. We don’t have much time, Raine.”
He broke the embrace, wanting for all the world to do anything but. The portal opened further. The wind began to howl, signifying a breach. Waves of crosscurrent magic rolled out of it, wreaking who knew what havoc on the surrounding land. Even if they managed to close it, damage had no doubt occurred on the mortal plane. The Wardens would be real busy for a long while after this whole fiasco.
Jack faced off against the breach and let the magic inside of him loose, countering the magic spreading the portal and merging dimensions. The sparks turned from deep purple to cool, crystal blue, marking the signature of his power.
“I hate uninvited guests,” he snarled, letting loose the sorcery that had lain dormant in him for decades, merging that with the untold power of the Carmot he’d swallowed.
Raine tried what Jack suggested. She stopped trying to think. Let things happen. Hugh and Edward formed a protective barrier of swirling blades around her while she tried to tap the magic of Kerr’s barrier. She held the chaos blade angled down as she moved around the invisible wall, seeking any weakness or scrap of information that would help break through to the Druid. A few times the soul blade impacted the barrier, sending crackles of energy through the barrier and up into her arm.
At one point Hugh stared down at her. “Do that again,” he commanded. “Hit the barrier with your blade.”
She did as asked, bracing herself for the impact.
“Which God gave you that?”
“Seth.”
Hugh whacked away a blade driving for his head like it was an annoying gnat. The knights, though well-trained, were no match for him, or his brother.
“Chaos, right?”
She nodded, moving further around the barrier. There had to be a weak point. A back door. The simplest of magic had the most powerful impact. That’s what Jack had said. She found herself back at the start point.
“How are you doing?” she called out to Jack.
“Finding a breach sooner than later would be good,” he ground out. “I’m about spent.”
“Edward,” Hugh shouted. “Osirus is order-based, correct?”
“Our Osirus, yes. This guy? Who knows. He’s from another dimension.” Edward jostled her as he moved. “Kerr’s obsessed with order, though, so it’s a safe bet. What are you thinking, Hugh?”
“Give me your blade, Raine.” Hugh stepped in closer, and held out a hand. “I need to test something.”
Her gut tightened. She was instantly wary, but she gave him the blade as asked. In return, he did something completely shocking. He handed her his own soul blade. She grasped the pommel, expecting weight, but found it featherlight. The handgrip was sized for Hugh, but in her hand, the metal and leather shifted, slimming to fit her grip. The internal chaos that she’d struggled with, fell prey to, brought to heel, dimmed then vanished. Serenity settled upon her. Suddenly, she understood where her father was heading. She struck the barrier with the blade, and the magical signature flowed through the contact, appearing in her mind as clear as day. She didn’t understand the sigils, but she did understand the scope. Using the blade seeped in order and truth, she plumbed similar energy, and recognized that the barrier was only on this physical plane. It did not extend into the shiftier parts of the time and space spectrum that were part of this reality.
“I know how to get inside.” She pulled the blade free. Seth’s words rang out in her head. Do the right thing at the right time. Giving up the blade had been the right action. “I know how to breach the barrier.”
Beside her, Hugh stilled. “And I know how to close the portal.”
Edward glanced at his brother. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Me ei
ther,” said Raine, alarms firing off inside.
“We need to swap blades, Raine.” Hugh’s deep voice was full of conflict and raw with emotion. “Portals are chaos, so is the blade. Chaos meeting chaos restores order. Chaos is the only thing that can slay the other Osirus.”
“No!” she cried. “You just said chaos destroys chaos.”
“Chaos is the only thing that can close the portal.” His jaw was set firm with grim determination. “I know the secrets of the soul blades, Raine, I’ve worked centuries with them in all forms. You saw yourself, how order craves order. The sword passing through the portal will close it off to this dimension, allowing me to then slay Osirus to prevent another attempted breech.”
Fear gripped her. “How will you get back?”
“He won’t.” Edward’s deep voice was as stark as Hugh’s. “But he’s right. It’s the only way.”
“No. I can find another way. We can stop Kerr, then I can use the magic.” But even saying these words, she realized there wasn’t enough time. And on some subliminal level, where energy lurked in unshaped form, she recognized the truth of Hugh’s plan. “You can’t. I just found you. You can’t abandon me again.”
He faced her. Touched her cheek with a mailed hand. “You’re a Spencer. You’ve the spirit of the true warrior knight in your blood. Hold the line, Raine. Fight the good fight.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. “Please.”
“I’m sorry.” He swung the blade and cut down a knight, giving him clear access to move. “Don’t be afraid of your legacy. Own your power, child. Don’t let it own you.”
She watched as he moved beyond her grasp. The animated dead outnumbered the living and the few that charged him he cut down without effort.
He touched Jack on the shoulder, bent down and spoke into his ear. They exchanged words.
“Let me go to him.” Raine started to head for the portal.
Her uncle grabbed her arm with his free hand, holding her in place. “He’s trained for ages. He knew this could happen. We all do when we take the oath. It’s part of the territory.”
ImmortalIllusions: The Eternity Covenant Book2 Page 29