Now he felt the echo of that guilt in his own heart, the horror of stealing another intelligent being’s most precious gift.
Life.
Stupid. Stupid to hesitate, when the Sela he fought could turn and kill him. And part of him wanted to kill. Hell, the craving for blood whispered in the depths of his mind like the devil tempting a sinner.
Killing the Sela would be so easy. So smart. And it would feel so good.
“Do it,” the alien gasped, its voice thrumming in his bones. “Prove you are the fit heir to our blood after all.”
“But maybe I don’t want to be.” He didn’t have to kill. Not with the abilities he had. He could protect himself and Riane without killing the Sela, even if the alien attacked him again.
He certainly shouldn’t kill simply to feed that dark vampire craving in the hidden depths of his soul.
Nick released the Sela’s throat and leaped away, not taking his eyes away from his foe. “Go. We’ve spilled enough blood.”
The alien staggered to its feet, favoring the injured leg. Its outlines began to blur and shift. It shrank, its body taking on another shape, hard muscles softening, claws shrinking, tufted ears growing rounder, eyes larger. Wiser.
Kinder.
“You learn quickly,” the Sela told him. “And your heart is open, despite the temptation of bloodlust. But you are not stupid. A good thing, in a Guardian. You are worthy of the T’Lir.” It started to turn away toward the tunnel at the rear of the cavern.
“What the hell was this?” Riane exploded, jolting forward as if suddenly freed. “Another one of those damned tests you people are so fond of?”
But the Sela only kept going. Even as it padded away, it turned to mist and disappeared. Just as his mother had.
“What the Seven Hells was that all about?” Riane snarled in frustration.
“Educating me,” Nick said, knowing it was true. All his life, he’d struggled with his darkness. This was the first time he’d ever felt that he’d really won. “Teaching me how to fight with the T’Lir. And when to stop fighting.”
• 26 •
“His wounds,” Gyor said, staring down at the unconscious Demon in shock. “They heal!”
Green sparks danced across the sets of gashes that marred the Demon’s body. The wounds closed with breathtaking speed.
The sparks flew faster, brighter. Flared suddenly with a searing intensity. The Xerans cursed, blinded by the glare.
With the light vanished, the Victor swore in a rolling growl of rage that made His priests drop to their bellies in obeisance.
The Demon and his Vardonese whore were gone.
The wolf trailed the thief who’d stolen his child, following the traitor’s scent into a familiar room full of tables and people and the rich smell of food.
His enemy sat at a table with the wolf’s friends. The child thief had fooled them all, and that made the wolf’s simmering rage leap even higher.
He moved across the room in a low, rapid slink, his eyes fixed on the child thief’s smug face. The wolf could almost taste the traitor’s blood.
He heard one of his friends call his name, but he had no way to answer. And didn’t care. All that mattered was killing the child thief.
The wolf did not bother walking around the table. He simply leaped across it, his powerful muscles clearing its width in one easy bound. He slammed into the child thief’s chest with his full weight. The thief screamed like a rabbit as his chair went over, dumping him on the floor as the wolf went for his throat.
The thief’s arm blocked the way, and the wolf bit. Bone snapped, and the taste of hated blood filled his mouth. Another rabbit scream. People shouted, bellowed the wolf’s name. He ignored them and lunged for the child thief’s throat again.
Just before his teeth closed, strong hands closed in his ruff and lifted him like a puppy. Threw him halfway across the room. He landed, kept his feet, skidded on the slick floor, then found traction and charged forward again.
Tattooed not-Baran man blocked his way, shouted his name. Must have been the one who’d thrown him. Must have denied him the child thief’s life. The wolf lowered his head and snarled a warning.
And leaped for tattooed man.
A hundred kilos of pissed-off wolf slammed into Alerio’s chest. The Warlord fought not to go down, instead burying his hands in the big beast’s ruff. He barely managed to keep those snapping teeth from his throat. “Frieka, back off, dammit! Stop!”
The wolf’s only answer was a ripping snarl, another lunge, and the castanet snap of teeth. Alerio barely forced the wolf’s jaws away from his throat.
Galar and three other Enforcers tackled Frieka and helped Alerio wrestle him to the floor. The huge animal twisted, snapping, claws ripping through the thin fabric of their uniforms as he scrabbled to escape them.
“Fuck, Chief!” Galar bellowed, slinging a leg across the wolf’s back so he could sit on him. “Frieka’s vocalizer is off!”
“I noticed!” And according to Alerio’s sensors, so was the wolf’s computer. Which meant all that was left was instinct, rage, and a whole lot of teeth and claws with no interest in listening to reason.
Alerio, who’d gone to riaat, managed to get both hands around the wolf’s muzzle and force the snapping jaws closed. “Chogan!” he shouted over his com unit. “Bring a regenerator tube to the mess—and enough tranq to take Frieka down. He just tried to kill Corydon. And he’s not very happy with the rest of us either.”
Chogan cursed. “On my way!”
“How’s Corydon?” Alerio yelled, straddling Frieka’s neck as he struggled to control the wolf’s head.
“Broken arm!” Jessica Arvid yelled back. “Okay otherwise.”
“Good. I’ve got some questions for the son of a bitch.”
“How . . . dare you!” Corydon gasped, his voice high with pain.
“Easily!” Alerio gritted back, struggling with the wolf. He was seriously tempted to let go and watch Frieka take another chunk out of the investigator.
Two endless minutes later, Chogan raced in, a medtech team at her heels towing the regenerator. They headed for Corydon.
“Come tranq Frieka!” Alerio barked. “I want to talk to Corydon before he goes in the tube.”
“You’re the boss.” Chogan snaked an arm in past Alerio’s hand and shoved a pressure injector against a throbbing vein in the wolf’s neck. Five seconds later, the big animal went limp.
With a chorus of relieved groans, the Enforcers crawled off him.
“Fuck,” Galar said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so pissed.”
Alerio aimed a narrow stare at Corydon. “I wonder why.”
Chogan caught his forearm before he could start toward the moaning human. “You need that regenerator worse than Corydon,” the doctor told him. “How many times did Frieka bite you anyway?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t feel it.” Alerio stalked toward the Senior Investigator, who lurched to his feet, his expression panicky.
“Tell me when he lies,” the Chief told his comp. Aloud he asked Corydon, “Why did Frieka go after you, Corydon?”
“The same reason he attacked you,” the human retorted, cradling his broken arm. “Obviously he went mad.”
“Obviously.” Alerio gave him a slow and silky smile. “Are you a Xeran agent, Corydon?”
The man’s eyes widened and flickered in panic. “Of course not! I’m a Senior Investigator with Counterintelligence. How could you even make such an accusation?”
“Is he lying?”
“Negative.”
“Wrong. He’s lying like a rug. I can see it on his face.” Aloud the Chief said, “Outpost power system, code omega sixty-eight fifty-four, Alerio authorization.”
“Confirm code omega sixty-eight fifty-four?”
“Confirm code omega sixty-eight fifty-four.”
Indicator lights began going dark around the room as the Outpost mainframe started shutting itself down.
“Deactivate
your comps now, people,” Alerio said.
Galar frowned, worry in his eyes. “You think the mainframe has been compromised?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Galar sighed. “Considering that son of a bitch was lying like a rug and my comp said he wasn’t—yeah, it’s obvious.”
“I most certainly am not lying! You are all leaping to conclusions.” Corydon backed away as Alerio turned toward him. Sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he supported his broken arm with the other hand. “Doctor, give me something for pain, and I can clear this up.”
Chogan gave him a toothy smile and twisted something on the tube of her injector. “I’d be happy to—except I’ve had to deactivate my injector’s pharmcom. I don’t dare inject drugs when the whole system’s been infected with a virus.”
The investigator’s jaw dropped as he stared at her in horror. “This . . . You can’t! This is a violation of my rights!”
Alerio gave him a vicious grin as Enforcers began surrounding the human like wolves. “Oh, I haven’t even gotten started yet.”
One minute Nick and Riane were standing in the cave. The next, a swirling green mist flooded in around them.
When it vanished, they found themselves surrounded by towering trees.
“Where the hell are we now?” Nick demanded.
“My comp says Earth. Twenty-first century.” Riane looked around them, frowning. “More or less exactly when we left, except we’re about two hundred miles to the north and west of our motel. Huh.”
He rolled his shoulders at the nagging sensation he had somewhere to be. “What?”
“This is close to the area where the Outpost was.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, the Outpost was located in these mountains in the fifteenth century. Not here now, though. Population density probably got too high.”
“But you’re from the future.”
“Yeah, but the Outpost is located in the past. It’s a central point. Easier to Jump through time from there.”
“If you say so.” Nick shook his head. “This time-travel stuff confuses the hell out of me.”
“Join the club.”
The Stone picked that moment to hit him with an unpleasant jolt of heat. Prodded, Nick started in the direction of the psychic tug. “Come on. We’ve got somewhere to be.”
“Great,” Riane grumbled, trailing him. “Now what?”
“Got no idea. But it’s important.”
“Somebody in danger?”
“Yeah. And I think it’s us.”
Riane and Nick moved quickly through the woods, leaves crackling and rustling underfoot. “At least your wounds healed,” she observed.
He grunted, lengthening his stride. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he was running, spurred on by the sense of urgency clawing at the back of his brain.
Riane ran easily alongside of him. “People up ahead.” She hesitated. “Or something.”
She was right. He could hear the sound of a steady chopping in the distance, then a ringing bang, as of a hammer striking something metallic.
His imagination began to spin scenarios, each more grim than the last. An axe murderer attacking a Boy Scout camp? What the hell could be going on out here in the middle of nowhere?
Riane slid to a stop, yelling something, he didn’t quite hear what, just as the ground dropped out from under his feet. Nick plunged twenty feet straight down.
He landed in a crouch, the Stone snapping sparks as it absorbed the force of his fall.
“I said,” Riane called from somewhere above him, “look out for the drop!”
“Thanks,” he growled.
Nick glanced around warily. He seemed to have landed squarely in the middle of an RV park, though what it was doing out here miles from any visible road was a very good question. About thirty of the vehicles were parked under the trees, ranging from camper trailers to things the approximate length of yachts. Campfires crackled merrily between them, surrounded by various people of assorted ages.
Laughter and conversation died as they turned to stare at him. They were a thoroughly ordinary crowd, garbed in T-shirts and jeans or shorts on this pleasant spring day. They all seemed to be involved in some kind of arts or crafts. One man used a hammer and chisel on a half-completed wooden sculpture. A woman looked up from massaging a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. Several others worked at easels or looms, while a metalworker hovered over the anvil on which she’d been hammering something.
Yet each and every one of them stopped what he or she was doing to start toward Nick, expressions of fascination on their faces. A rising murmur ran over the group, something in a language he didn’t understand. It sounded a lot like astonished delight.
“Nick,” Riane said suddenly, her voice urgent as she scrambled down the cliff to join him. “I don’t think they’re what they appear to be.”
Right on cue, his vision wavered, misted, as if from a fading dream. Nick blinked hard, then took a startled step back.
Instead of a group of humans, the clearing was filled with Sela.
• 27 •
For a moment Nick tensed, until he realized these Sela were the soft, furry pacifistic variety, not the psychopathic six-legged tiger kind.
Thank you, Jesus.
They gathered around him in a fluffy herd, their eyes wide as they gazed up at him, their round mouths a little open, in a way that gave the impression of stunned wonder. Small, oddly jointed hands began touching him, brushing his arms, his chest, his blue-jeaned legs. Nick tensed again, and they instantly stopped. One of them made an inquiring sound.
“Riane, what’s going on?” His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.
“Not sure.” Riane swept a cautious gaze over the crowd. “I don’t think they’re hostile, though.”
“Of course not,” a female voice said tartly. “They’re Sela. They couldn’t be hostile if they tried.”
A woman about his own age strode into the group of Sela, who parted for her, murmuring soft comments in that fluting alien language of theirs.
Nick recognized her instantly. Every molecule of air rushed out of his lungs, and he choked.
It was his mother.
But this time she was definitely no ghost. Dressed in cropped jeans and a loose jean jacket over a T-shirt, she wore her hair in a loose, attractive style around her face. A face that was much, much younger than he remembered. No, this woman wasn’t his mother.
Not yet anyway.
Warrior Priest Gyor ge Tityus knelt beside the priests of his cohort, eyes lowered before the Victor’s rage. He knew he’d be most fortunate if his god did not slay them all for their failure in letting the Demon and his whore escape.
“I had them!” The Victor paced, the cheap carpeting of the motel room scorching under His feet. “Who dared snatch My prey from Me? Now they go leaping through time, and it will take Me days to track them . . .” His thunderous voice trailed off.
Gyor dared a quick glance upward, tensing at his own daring.
To his vast relief, a slow smile spread across the god’s golden face. “No,” the Victor breathed. “I still sense the signal from the nanobot bead. They have remained in this time after all! Ha!” His black eyes widened, incredulous. “And there are Sela with them!”
He wheeled toward the cohort, glowing incandescent in His ferocious triumph. “My plan succeeded after all. The Demon has led Us to Our prize!”
“Just as You predicted,” Gyor said carefully. “Their destruction is inevitable.”
“Oh, indeed.” The Victor was all but dancing in His joy. “Let Us return to the Fortress and gather Our forces. This night we kill them all!”
“Riane,” Charlotte said, giving her a civil nod, before turning to look Nick over as if he was a complete stranger. Which to her, he was. “Our friends say you’re the Guardian,” she told him, “though nobody can figure out how the hell you came to be human.”
Nick shot a quick look at Riane, completely at a loss
. She shrugged, apparently having no more idea of how to deal with the situation than he did.
I’ve just met my own mother before I was born. Can my life possibly get any weirder?
Charlotte studied Nick with a detached interest he found a little disturbing coming from his own mother. “We sensed you were in the area, but when you made no effort to contact us, we figured you must have your reasons.”
“Yeah, as in I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Nick told her carefully. “And I’m still not sure. What do you mean by ‘Guardian’? ”
“You do not remember anything,” one of the Sela said in a soft, musical voice, its enormous eyes studying his face. “You have not recovered any of your memories of your life before’?”
“So I am a reincarnated Sela?” Instinctively, he turned toward his mother.
“Reincarnated?” Charlotte frowned thoughtfully. “Not in the human sense. You have inherited that part of the Guardian spirit that passed on.”
“We have no clue what you’re talking about,” Riane told her. “What’s this Guardian you’re talking about?”
“The colony’s protective spirit. He’s the only Sela among this particular group who retained the ability to fight without going mad.” Charlotte frowned and rocked back on her heels, propping her hands on her hips. “That probably doesn’t make sense to you, if you don’t know anything about us. Billions of years ago—”
“We’ve already heard that part,” Nick interrupted. “About this Guardian—I think I met him.”
“Met him?” the English-speaking Sela asked.
“Yeah,” Riane told it drily. “He tried to kill us.”
“That must have been a vision.” Charlotte nibbled thoughtfully on one long red nail. She’d never had long nails when he’d known her . . . Of course not. They wouldn’t have survived her first fight.
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