by Diana Duncan
She swallowed, battling the overwhelming urge to vomit.
“Delaney? Were you bitten?”
She shook her head.
He opened his arms. During the past few seconds, her sword had disappeared into the ether. She fell into Rowan’s embrace, let him swing her to the floor. “S-snakes. M-much better than a f-firewall.”
Big, corded arms wrapped around her shaking body. “It’s all right, luv. You’re safe.”
Delaney burrowed into his heat and strength. “D-did you j-just dehydrate a horde of rattlesnakes…” She shuddered. “With a word?”
He rubbed her back. “Too bad that Power’s not effective on demons. Would save me effort, wouldn’t it now?”
“Does it work on people?”
“It could. But I haven’t had to wield it on a human. So far.”
Props to him for control. She thought of her stepfather. Judge Zinter. The guards who’d hurt her brother. If she’d possessed Rowan’s weapons, she wouldn’t have managed the same self-restraint.
Those who were given prodigious Powers truly did bear heavy responsibility.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip. Right now, she wasn’t sure she qualified.
“Aye, lass, you are worthy,” he said, reading her thoughts. “Or you wouldn’t have been granted the Gift.”
“Hey!” She made herself straighten, step back from the security of his embrace. “Just because I went all girly on you there for a minute doesn’t mean you can hack into my thoughts without permission.”
His hands spanned her waist and sat her up on the desk. Planting his palms on either side of her, he leaned in to hold her gaze. “There’s no shame in having chinks in your armor, Delaney. Tames the ego, reminds us we’re not invincible.”
“You mean there’s no embarrassment for a rank newbie to have vulnerabilities.” She stared into those expressive quicksilver eyes and her trembling subsided. “But where’s your chink?”
Sorrow sharpened his features, dark with regret. Wanting something the Creator has not chosen to bestow. And the wanting cost me everything.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
His appalled expression revealed he hadn’t intended to bare his heart, but she understood his yearning. His pain. I get it, Rowan. I’ve always felt as if pieces of me were missing.
Aye. I know that ache. Rowan leaned closer. Closer still. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
His mouth a breath from hers, he checked. “Aren’t we a pair of hardened soldiers, then? Interrupting a recon mission for tea and sympathy.” He tugged a stray curl that had escaped her braid. “Did you finish downloading the files?”
“Almost.” She glanced apprehensively at the snakeskin-covered floor.
Before she could climb off the desk, he gripped her thighs. “Wait.”
The heat of his fingers branded her through the ribbed cotton. If he slid his thumbs just a few inches higher, his touch would become exquisitely intimate. The touch she longed for.
Despite the damning results.
He cocked a brow and a window flew open. One spoken command called a controlled blue-green wave that arched into the room, where it swirled over the marble floors. Another order from Rowan, and whirlpools gathered up the snake husks, then the wave streamed back out the window and tumbled down rocky cliffs, back into the ocean. He straightened, snapped his fingers. The window shut, then all the moisture in the room dried up. Everything returned to immaculate condition.
She’d seen him do a similar Power maneuver with the bath water, but… Delaney sucked in an astonished breath. “You’d come in handy during spring cleaning.”
But he probably wouldn’t still be here in the spring. She slowly exhaled air that suddenly felt too dense. And she would miss him.
“I’ll stay while you complete the downloads, then we’ll scope out the basement together. There’s nothing upstairs except bedrooms.” He grimaced. “You don’t even want to know the pervy shite I found up there.”
“Ew! Why am I not surprised?”
While she rushed through the final downloads and closed the system, Rowan chanted something he said would erase their energy signatures from inside the house.
Every instinct on edge, she accompanied him to the basement entrance beneath the staircase leading to the second floor.
He opened the door. Switched on the light. She bolstered her bravado as she followed him down a long flight of open steel stairs. “I wonder what treats are in store for us in the dungeon? Tarantulas the size of dinner plates? An army of pissed-off fire ants?”
He went statue-still in the center of the room. His wide shoulders stiffened. “That would be the good news.”
The immense chamber was as big as the entire house above it. Black shades shrouded small windows high in blood red walls, and scrawny fingers of light from spidery-looking chandeliers didn’t illuminate the dark corners. Empty cages lined one wall—steel prisons way too tall for animals. Sooty sconces and wicked iron hooks hung beside two imposing altars.
Dread overwhelmed Delaney again, and she moved close to his side. The first altar was a black wavy mass formed from Mount St. Helen’s volcanic lava, and covered with melted black and red candles. The second was a roughly hewn chunk of gray Oregon Coast rock that looked unused. Both were laced with shackled chains.
She had a horrifying suspicion the coastal rock altar had been made recently, for a specific purpose. To restrain a water Mage.
Disturbed vibrations emanated from the dense silence surrounding Rowan as he walked across the room. He stood frozen in front of shelves stacked with glass jars of preserved organs. From here, they looked disconcertingly human.
Her scalp prickled, and she shivered beneath an arctic blast from behind her. She whirled.
And saw her stepfather looming over her.
All the breath was sucked from her lungs. She couldn’t make a sound. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even send a mental SOS to Rowan.
She could only wait, paralyzed with terror, for Graves to strike. Stanton’s hands reached for her throat.
Then Rowan’s arms wrapped around her. “Delaney.” He stepped back a few inches, shook her gently. “Snap out of it.”
Stanton leered at her over Rowan’s shoulder. She struggled to break loose, free Rowan to fight. “Behind y-you!”
“‘Tis only an illusion, luv. A spell that preys on your worst nightmares.” His graveled voice was as grim as his face. “This chamber was constructed for torture. Physical and mental.”
“You—you don’t see Graves?”
“I see…other things. But there’s no one here but us.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “This entire setup reeks of Ceard’s vile stench.”
“Ceard?” Delaney forced herself to look Graves in the eye. Her stepfather vanished. She pressed trembling lips together. “Balor’s High Priestess of Psycho?”
“Deception is her MO. I feel her particular brand of depravity at work here.”
“You think Judge Zinter teamed up with Ceard and Balor?”
“Aye. An unholy alliance, forged in Hell. Joint forces we’ll be hard-pressed to fight.”
“But we are going to fight them. For your family…and my brother.”
Rowan stared at the adamant woman in front of him. “For my Clan, I will see justice done.” He fisted his hands, resolve chilling his veins colder than the stone floor beneath his boots. “No matter the cost.”
Melodic murmurs whipped his attention toward a floor-length black curtain obscuring one entire wall. “The sea speaks to me.”
He strode over, thrusting aside the drapes to see a wide steel door mounted on a sliding track. A hand motion sent the door rumbling aside to reveal a tunnel beneath the cliffs, hewn large enough to stow the private yacht he’d blown sky high. He sniffed the salty tang floating through the passage. Didn’t scent another presence. “It leads to the ocean. We’ll take this way out.”
Eager to leave behind the oppressive altar room and its torturous visions, he ste
pped into the throbbing darkness.
Delaney stopped short inside the entrance, staring up through the gloom at ominous ranks of ugly, mammoth gargoyles carved into the rocks overhead. “Um…are we sure we want to go this way? It’s very…dark.”
“Do you fear the dark?”
“No. However, I’m not so crazy about the creepy-crawlies the dark might be hiding.”
He reached for her hand, so small and delicate within his as they walked toward the first bend in the tunnel. Was he dumping her in over her head by bringing her into his war? Guilt blasted him. Because of his decisions, too many had already died.
The possibility of Delaney being captured by Balor seared his guts.
“I’ll be protecting you from any creepy-crawlies.” And Balor. As well as he could. For as long as he could.
But time was running out. Ceard would strike on Samhain Eve, when the barrier between the living and the dead grew whisper thin, to perform a ritual to free Balor from the Abyss.
Eleven days to prepare his innocent lass for brutal battle.
Rowan slammed the cellar door shut with his Power, slamming shut his emotions with the same force of will. He had no time for weakness. Had no other choice.
Nor did Delaney. She’d been Chosen. Been Gifted. Not to mention that she’d already put herself on Balor’s radar. Training her to fight, teaching her to use her abilities, was the only way to keep her alive.
The Creator willing, they’d both survive to fight another day.
She edged nearer. "I wish I’d brought a flashlight along with a flash drive.”
“I have excellent night vision.” Though he could just barely make out shapes in this peculiar inky blackness. “The intel on the flash drive may be invaluable. Guard it well.”
From somewhere in the dark depths of the twisting passage ahead, a low, menacing growl rumbled.
Delaney lurched to a dead halt. “Rowan?” she whispered. “Please tell me that was your stomach.”
He sniffed the air. Reached out with his Power. If there were any living creature in this tunnel, he should be able to smell it. Sense it. “Eh, another aversion spell.”
A second growl echoed closer to them, raising the hair on the back of his neck. One heavy footstep vibrated the rocks beneath their feet, then another.
Delaney’s gulp was audible. “That’s no illusion!”
“Shite!” He yanked her around in front of him and shoved her back toward the cellar. “Run!”
Chapter 13
Rowan pushed Delaney ahead of him as the thundering footsteps sped up and dirt rained from the cave’s roof. “Faster!”
He flung open the massive steel panel with his Power, raced through behind her, then slammed it, metaphysically jamming it. He towed Delaney up the stairs into the kitchen, also barring that door behind them.
They’d reached the rear kitchen exit when the steel panel in the basement below exploded off its hinges and crashed inward, shaking the entire house.
“What’s after us?” she panted.
Something far too big. Too powerful. “Not bloody well sticking around to find out.” Grabbing her hand again, he pulled her outside and sprinted through the rift in the wards.
He javelined paralyzing spells and Power bolts behind them while zigzagging through the woods. Their pursuer didn’t even slow. Rowan’s expectation the thick forest would provide cover died as the earth trembled, and centuries-old evergreens cracked like matchsticks in their pursuer’s wake. He could only hope his and Archer’s wards would block it.
If they could reach the perimeter.
They were both using every molecule of combined Power to flee at top speed. Yet whatever was chasing them kept gaining.
Delaney’s breath wheezed. “Can’t. Outrun it. Go. Without me.”
“Know the saying, you don’t have to outrun it…you just have to outrun me?”
She gasped. “Don’t even—”
“You think I would sacrifice you, then?” He yanked her along. “Shut it. And move.”
Finally, the cabin’s boundary wards glowed through the trees, Archer’s white-hot spikes crisscrossed by Rowan’s silver and green razors.
They stumbled across, with him nearly dragging Delaney.
Holding her sides, she dropped to her knees. “Are. We. Safe?”
He whipped out his sword. Spun to face whatever was about to erupt through the underbrush. “If an Enforcer’s wards interlaced with a Guardian’s can’t stop it…nothing will.”
“You. Never…” She staggered to her feet and drew her sword, took a defensive stance at his side. “Answer. A damned question. Straight.”
Admiration edged the adrenaline zinging through him. He prayed he’d taught the lass to fight with as much skill as she had courage.
The trees ripped apart…and a snarling monster charged out.
Muddy yellow-brown with a sinewy, hairless body thrice the size of a lion, a wolf-like head, and leathery wings. Hooked talons chewed up the dirt as the creature rushed the wards, long, lethal fangs bared.
It hit the barrier hard. The wards vibrated and lightning sizzled through the huge body, knocking it back. It slithered to its feet and paced, staring at them from furious orange eyes.
“Wh-what is that?” Delaney quavered. But she stood stalwart and ready beside him.
Rowan raised his blade again as the monster gathered for another charge. The jolt should’ve killed it. And why couldn’t he sense anything? “I haven’t a sodding clue. It looks like some sort of mutated gryphon.”
“Marvelous.” She winced when the wards trembled beneath the beast’s second assault. “It’s normal for the wards to rattle like that, right?”
“Nay.”
“Way to be reassuring, Enforcer. What now?”
He watched the thing outside scratch and bite at the barricade, undeterred by the lethal supernatural electricity. “I warned there’d come a time when you must obey me without question.”
She flashed him a wary look. “I’m going to hate this, aren’t I?”
Rowan lowered his voice, on the off chance the creature was sentient. “Your car is parked within the warded perimeter. Get in and floor it. Head for the city. Supernatural creatures usually won’t attack around mortals—even they fear Discord. Don’t look back, and no matter what happens, don’t stop.”
“I’m supposed to run away? While you’ll be…doing what?”
“Buying you a head start. Then I’ll materialize inside the car.”
Her blue eyes flared. “Hell to the no. I’m not abandoning you to face Godzilla alone. Both of us together are—”
“The longer we stand here nattering, the less both our chances of survival.”
Growling, the beast leapt again, violently shaking the wards. Rowan speared a hard thrust of Power into his command. “Go.”
The force sent Delaney reeling backward before she regained her balance. She skewered him with fury. “I owe you one for that.”
“Put it on my tab. Now book your sweet arse outta here!”
She reluctantly sprinted into the cabin. While he waited for her to grab her keys and hit the road, he assessed his foe. Observing how it moved, he watched for weaknesses. Saw none.
The GTO rumbled to life in the driveway behind the cabin. The beast’s head swung to follow the sound. It took a step in that direction. Another.
Rowan burst through the wards, shouting his war cry. He slashed the thing’s foreleg with his sword, drew a gush of orange blood. The snarling monster rounded on him…the wound instantly starting to heal.
No way in Hades. An Enforcer’s weapon was designed to damage all evil.
Rowan deflected a talon inches from his face and pivoted, flanking his opponent. He severed the Achilles tendon on the back right leg, drawing more blood, and a shriek. That wound healed, too.
Feck, wasn’t this gonna be fun?
He might have to settle for distracting his foe until Delaney escaped, then follow. He didn’t retreat easily o
r often, but he had bigger enemies to vanquish.
Rowan dematerialized into mist. Re-forming on the opposite side, he rammed his blade between the creature’s ribs, aiming for a heart-blow. It howled and knocked him flat with a wing-sweep. Talons speared his sword arm, scalding his flesh with acidic venom. His bicep convulsed and his weapon dropped to the ground.
Fangs snapped so close to his jugular he smelled fetid breath as he rolled, snatching up his sword with his left hand. Iced blade swinging, he clambered to his feet, cutting off a pointed ear along with a chunk of wolfish snout. “Heal that, wanker.”
The thing threw its head back in an outraged roar. Rowan dodged between the massive front feet, swung at its exposed neck. Orange blood sprayed. It leapt back, burning claws raking his thigh.
A blitz of pain dropped him to his knees. The thing charged, and he dematerialized just in time. But the poison weakened his Powers, and Rowan couldn’t hold his cloaked form. He couldn’t stop himself from solidifying…directly in front of the creature.
His sword arced in a strike, a millisecond too slow. Razored talons ripped open his entire left side from shoulder to hip.
Agony exploded through him as he crumpled. Black spots floated in his vision. He bore down. A dirt nap now would be permanent. He managed to roll away from the gnashing teeth. Barely.
Strength leached out of him along with his blood soaking the ground. The metallic tang of it filled his mouth, choking him. He couldn’t dematerialize.
A gigantic paw batted, toyed with him. He rolled a second time. A third. Hoisted himself to his hands and knees. Struggled to his feet.
He’d be bloody well damned if he’d die on his back in the mud.
Panting, lurching with pain, Rowan faced the monster. It snorted, triumph gleaming in its orange orbs. “Aye,” Rowan said. “Come on then, you sodding bastard. We’ll go together.”
He lifted his sword, held the blade steady in spite of the torment whipping his body. Never forsake.
The creature charged.
Roaring filled his ears. Hot wind slapped his face. Then Delaney’s GTO zoomed inches in front of him and smashed into the beast, sent it flying. The car accelerated and bulldozed the mammoth body, the bumper repeatedly punching it toward the cliff’s edge. Then over.