by Anna Durand
And rammed it into his chest.
"No!" I screamed.
Skeiron ripped the sword out. Blood drenched the blade, dripping off the tip onto Nevan's belly. Blood poured from the chest wound.
The drumbeat of my heart battered my eardrums. A fury like nothing I'd ever known exploded inside me, scorching and irresistible, fueling a sensation of mounting physical strength. I knew the feeling was false, but I didn't give a damn.
I closed one hand around the grip of Nevan's sword.
Skeiron was focused on Nevan, his glee enlivening his features with manic effect. He lifted the sword to his mouth and licked the blade, savoring the blood.
I pushed onto my knees and tightened my grip on Nevan's sword.
Skeiron sniggered. "Your essence tastes of weakness, guardian."
Nevan gurgled, flailing one arm. His eyes were flat, the bronze tint gone from his skin, driven out by a growing pallor. And his lips. Oh God, his lips were turning blue.
"Next," Skeiron said, "I shall taste the blood of your precious mortal wench."
I sprang to my feet, brandishing the sword.
Skeiron's gaze flicked to me, the sword, me. His eyes flew wide for an instant, but then a nasty grin split his lips.
I bolted toward him, howling with rage and terror. Before he could react, I jammed the sword into his side. I shoved with all my might until the blade sank in to the hilt and my fingernails scraped his flesh.
Hot liquid flowed over my skin.
I jerked my hand away. Blood soaked my fingers. Despite the tremors racking me, despite how the world tilted around me, I fell to my knees at Nevan's head, his crumpled body laid out before me, and thrust my arms under his. I struggled to lift him, but he was too heavy.
His hand sealed around the sword's hilt, he collapsed to his knees. "Brennus!"
The call roared on the wind that blustered over us all. A raven squawked overhead. Brennus touched down fifteen feet away, morphing into his humanoid form — but not quite as I'd seen him before. Talons curled from the tips of his fingers, sharp and glistening. When he bared his teeth, I glimpsed razor-like points.
An awareness tingled over me. Something had changed.
Nevan dragged in a breath crackling with wetness.
The world winked out.
It winked back an instant later, but we weren't in the woods anymore. Nevan had whisked us to the parking lot of the rock shop, landing us smack beside my car. The last tendrils of sunset reeled back into the horizon, casting us in sickly, ever-diminishing light. Even in the onrushing gloom, I saw the blood. The gaping wound.
"Oh God, Nevan." I clasped his face in both hands, gazing at him upside-down through a haze of tears. "What do I do? Can a doctor help you?"
"No." The wet crackle was there again and an invisible fist gripped my heart. "The barrier dropped… when you… injured him."
That was how he could transport us here. How long would Skeiron stay debilitated?
"I — " Nevan hacked, spraying bloody spittle. "Sorry I couldn't… take us further. Too weak."
Shaking my head, I stroked his cheeks. "It's okay. You did great."
He choked on a cough. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Oh Jesus, no. I had to stay calm because this was not over. Skeiron had unleashed Brennus on us and the raven would not stop until he hunted us down.
I tore off my T-shirt, leaving only my bra to cover me. I balled up the shirt and pressed it to Nevan's wound.
"No," he croaked. "Too late."
"Like hell."
In the woods, a raven screamed.
Car keys. I needed them now.
Fumbling in my pocket, I dug them out, scrabbled to my feet, unlocked the driver's door, and flipped the switch to unlock the others.
The flapping of wings drew ever closer.
I ripped the back door open and fell to my knees beside Nevan. The vehemence in my tone was not an act. "You are going to help me get you into the car. Understand me?"
His eye rolled shut.
I slapped him.
He cracked his lids. His lips quivered as he formed a faint smirk. "Still with the… questions. Eh, love?"
My heart swelled. If he could joke, then goddammit, he could help me move him.
I grabbed his hand and pulled. "Sit up, you arrogant sylph."
He grimaced and gasped as he levered his torso off the ground. I pulled with every iota of strength I had left, grinding my teeth against the pains webbing out through my shoulders and back. When he achieved a semi-erect sitting position, I waddled to his side and threw his arm around my shoulders, linking us with my arm around his waist.
He flailed a hand out to brace himself on the car and, with our combined strength, we hefted him to his feet. His wheezing had gotten worse. After much grunting and shuffling of feet, we got him to the back door. I pushed him inside and he flopped onto the seat on his back. His feet stuck out the door, so I shoved them inside, urging him to bend his knees.
He gazed at me with bloodshot, bleary eyes. "This is pointless. I'm… already d — "
"No. You are not dead yet, buster, so don't go giving up on me." I straightened, my hand on the door. "And that is a command."
I slammed the door.
Something whooshed overhead.
I glanced up to see a raven spiraling down toward me.
By the time I shut the driver's door and cranked the key in the ignition, Brennus had landed in the parking lot, morphing into humanoid form in a heartbeat. He positioned his gigantic bulk directly in front of the car.
I jammed the gear shift lever into reverse and floored the accelerator. The car rocketed backward. Gravel pelted the undercarriage. I jammed the car into drive and rammed my foot down, wrenching the wheel to the left as the car shot forward.
The front bumper nicked Brennus.
We blasted out of the parking lot onto the highway.
In the rearview mirror, I watched Brennus morph back into a bird and take off after us. How fast could a magical raven fly? I was about to find out.
The boundary. I only had to get us past the boundary.
Which would kill Nevan.
I pounded my fist on the wheel. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
For the first time, I prayed Skeiron was right. I prayed to be the Janusite.
A weight crashed onto the the car above my head, denting it inward. A talon punched through the roof.
The speedometer breezed past seventy, then eighty, as the car rocketed down the highway. The yellow lines blurred, the trees blurred, everything mutated into a surreal blankness. Less than a mile to go.
The raven hurtled into the driver's window. The glass fractured into a gummy screen.
Through the blur surrounding the car, I spotted a familiar yellow shape. The highway sign. The mile marker.
Brennus struck the glass one more time. His talons pierced the gummy mass, then retracted.
We barreled past the boundary.
20
I gripped the steering wheel in both hands, hanging on as I veered around a curve too fast. The car swerved over the center line, but I wrenched the wheel in the other direction, my muscles burning from the strain of it, and the car eased back into the right lane. I checked the rearview mirror.
Brennus, no longer a bird, hulked in the center of the road near the highway marker, just inside the mystical border. We'd passed the boundary — safe, for the moment.
I wrenched the wheel and jammed the brake pedal down to the floorboard. The car fishtailed and stopped amid a hail of gravel. I twisted around to peer into the backseat.
Nevan lay prone with his eyes shut and both knees bent, legs askew, one arm hanging off the seat. I snatched up his hand and felt for a pulse in his wrist. It thumped against my fingers, weak but there. What the hell
was I going to do now? I'd had no time to formulate a plan. Sheer panic had driven me to action.
A healing vortex. That's what I needed.
We'd resurrected Brad with the one at the shop, but I didn't dare go back inside the boundary. Not that particular boundary, anyway. One very ticked-off sylph lay in wait for me there. I should've shot him in the head, right between the eyes. It might not have killed him, but it could've bought me more time.
Nevan had told my parents there were other portals, near other water features. I knew of another waterfall a few miles from here. Christ. Miles. Did Nevan have that much time?
No choice.
I floored the accelerator and the car hurtled onto the asphalt. The force of our takeoff pinned me to my seat. The car weaved, the wheel jerking in my hands, until I got a firm grip and evened out the vehicle's trajectory. Scenery zipped past. The headlights punched through the darkness like twin swords annihilating the night, though at the periphery, shadows of every shape and size lurked. They seemed to writhe and jump from the car's dizzying speed. At first, I jumped at each faux surprise — until a strange numbness set in, affecting me down to my bones. I navigated on autopilot, my mind incapable of any thought except getting to the waterfall.
Roaring around a curve, I spun the wheel to slalom my car around another vehicle. My body was slung one way, then the other. Back in my lane, I risked a quick glance into the backseat.
Nevan was sprawled as before. Eyes shut. Lifeless.
No, not lifeless. Unconscious. Remember that. You can't afford to freak out every time you look at him.
I concentrated on the road, both hands on the wheel, my knuckles white. Nobody was losing anybody tonight.
How far had I driven? The miles blurred the same as the road. I let up on the gas pedal and the speedometer eased downward. Seventy. Sixty.
The landscape was familiar. Not far now.
Nudging the accelerator, I pushed the car back up to eighty. The road curved left and right, forcing me to ease off the gas. My heart pounded. A cold sweat dribbled down my temples. Almost there.
The headlights flared across an asphalt driveway up ahead. A big, blue road sign announced "Rest Stop." This time I stood on the brake pedal, terrified to miss the turn and have to double back in the dark, on this narrow highway. I veered the car into the semicircular drive and parked it in front of the shed that housed the restrooms. The car was angled across three parking spaces, but nobody was here in the dead of night. By rote, I shifted the car into park, shut off the engine, and stuffed the keys in my pants pocket. The headlights stayed on, but outside their reach, full-on dark had swallowed the earth.
I retrieved a flashlight from the glove compartment, kicked the driver's door open, leaped out, and tore the passenger door open.
Nevan lay so still. His head lolled. One arm dangled off the seat with his fingertips grazing the floorboard. Blood still trickled from his wound, down his side and onto the floor.
When I shoved a finger into his neck at the pulse point, a weak beat pushed against my flesh. Relief nearly toppled me to the ground.
I needed to move him, but how? I hadn't been able to carry him by myself before, and even with his aid it had taken all my strength. A fatigue deeper than any I'd known before weakened my limbs, far worse than before. The adrenaline spike I'd experienced back in the clearing had drained away when I needed it the most.
"No!" I screamed it into the night, collapsing against the door, and glared up at the stars. "I could use some fucking help down here!"
As the echoes of my screams spiraled down into silence, I detected another sound.
The soft rumble of a waterfall.
I jerked upright. Of course, you moron, that's why you came here.
To heal Brad, we'd required a leprechaun's help. And elementals — fae, whatever — possessed far more strength than I did, not to mention nifty magical powers for zipping here and there. Locating a leprechaun meant traveling into the other realm on my own. Could I even open a portal without Nevan's help?
Well, I'd transported Nevan across the boundary and he was still alive. Maybe I was the Janusite, or maybe things weren't as black-and-white as these supernatural types believed. I had to try.
My gaze lanced down to Nevan. I'd have to leave him here, alone, while I hunted down a willing elemental.
A sharp pain stabbed at the back of my throat.
Bent over the seat with one knee on the floorboards, I brushed my fingers over Nevan's cheek. My hair fell around his head like a curtain. His customary heat was fading, with a chill seeping in behind it.
"I'll be back soon. Don't you go anywhere." Though his face was blank, I imagined his smirk and that sultry chuckle every time he'd teased me for saying dopey things. I touched my lips to his forehead. "I'll fix this, promise."
Without allowing myself to think anymore, I shut the door and clicked on the flashlight as I ran for the waterfall. No trail led down to it. Instead, a railing made of driftwood barred the way and a big wooden sign offered historical information on the site. I clambered over the barrier. My left boot caught on the uneven wood. I cursed, the noise bouncing off the trees, and shook my foot loose.
I bolted toward the falls. The water cascaded down from maybe ten feet above the ground, onto a flat landing of sorts that tapered into a small, shallow pool.
My boots slid on the slick rock as I sidled across the landing, my back flat against the cliff. In my left hand I clutched the flashlight, while with my right I clawed at the rock wall in search of support I didn't really need. At the falls, I stepped away from the cliff and squinted into the darkness. My flashlight penetrated the thin veil of water.
No cave. A solid wall of rock backed the falls.
My head spun, and for more seconds than my wits could stand, I waited out the vertigo. I still felt lightheaded, but at least I wouldn't trip and crack my skull on the rock landing.
You should exercise more care, darlin', or you'll crack that lovely head of yours.
Nevan's words to me the first time I'd seen him replayed in my brain. A sharp sob burst out of me. The flashlight clattered to the ground. I slapped both palms on the cliff face, through the water, oblivious to the cold liquid that sprayed up in my face and inundated my hands, my arms, my ankles, my boots.
Water is the doorway. Nevan had said that too.
Not the waterfall is the door, but water itself. Had that been what he meant?
I pushed away from the wall. Snagged the flashlight. Clamped my hand around it. Turned away from the falls.
The pool appeared shallow, probably similar to the deep end of a swimming pool. I really could crack my skull, if I was wrong about this. Time for a genuine leap of faith.
Drawing in a long breath, I held it. Now or never.
I leaped into the water.
My feet punched through the surface. Water erupted around me. I plunged into the pool, sinking deeper and deeper, flailing my arms, struggling against the overpowering urge to suck in a breath.
Up, down, left, right — my mind fought to sort out the directions but failed. I twirled round and round, starved for air, chest aching from my thunderous heartbeat and the urgency to breathe. Oh God, I would die here, in this pool, alone.
Images flashed in my mind, bright and fast. My parents. My baby brother. The rock shop. Travis. Nevan.
He would die because of me. Because I failed.
My lungs screamed for oxygen. I released the breath I'd held, shooting out a cloud of bubbles. Pressure built inside me until I feared my lungs might explode. One final, anguished plea echoed in my mind. I don't want to die.
A vision of Nevan's face hovered in front of me, glowing with ethereal light. The soothing energy of his presence streamed into me.
The beam of my flashlight, still gripped in my hand, speared down to the pool's bottom.
I
fought the impulse to inhale, but it grew stronger every second.
Open up, you stupid portal.
As my body dived toward the bottom, the ground crumbled away below me. An oily blackness churned like a whirlpool, its spiraling eddies interwoven with iridescent green and purple. The pull of the portal dragged me down faster, faster, as my limbs stretched taut and pain coruscated through me. Just as I lost the battle to not breathe, I launched through the surface into the open air, bobbing like an empty bottle. I gulped in mouthfuls of air. Nothing had ever tasted so delicious or felt so wonderful. Water streamed off my hair, rolling down my face in rivulets. I blinked to clear my eyes.
Night enveloped me, but a faint, milky glow sifted through it.
Head bent back, I panted and stared at the double moons — one large, one small — smiling down at me from a sky speckled with more stars than I'd ever seen from the mortal realm.
I swam to shore. My flashlight lanced across the alien landscape and straight up into the sky. A new burst of energy shored up my body, fueling my muscles as I hauled myself out of the water and onto my feet.
Now to find a damn leprechaun.
My jaw hurt, which made me realize I was gritting my teeth. I chewed my lip instead, drilling my brain for answers. I knew of one leprechaun, but we'd found Tris by going through the other waterfall. Everything looked different here.
When I'd screamed for Nevan, he'd heard me and come to my rescue. Might the same tactic work with a different elemental?
I threw my head back and yelled, "Tris, you obnoxious little twerp, get your ass out here this instant."
Seconds that dragged like minutes ticked by on my mental clock. Ten. Fifteen. Nothing happened.
Nevan was dying, all alone on the other side. I'd gotten him past the boundary, halting Brennus's pursuit.
The boundary.
Everything inside me froze. Since I'd brought him to another waterfall, that meant we'd traveled inside another boundary. Brennus and Skeiron might've found him already.
No. They couldn't have guessed which waterfall I'd taken Nevan to, or that I took him to any kind of portal. I needed to cling to the positive thought, because otherwise I'd fall apart.