The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3)

by Christina Garner

  “Oh, crap,” Kat said. I heard her swing down from her bunk.

  The light in my mind’s eye enveloped me, offering its peculiar mix of heightening, yet distancing all sensation.

  “I’m OK,” I said, “I’m OK now.”

  I was breathing deeply again and when I opened my eyes, the calm feeling remained.

  “Are you sure?” Taren said, his eyes searching mine.

  “Yeah, it’s... it’s gone now. I can block it out.”

  “What does this mean?” Kat asked.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “Is Gretchen...?”

  Taren spoke into this comm. “Night Runner, is Sparrow experiencing a disturbance? Is she...hearing anything?”

  A moment later he shook his head. “She’s sleeping, Dad says.”

  “That’s good,” I said, though I wasn’t quite noble enough to mean it. Why did I have to be the weak one now?

  “Do you want me to get Master Dogan?” Taren asked.

  “Yeah, I guess we should,” I said, hating to admit it. “Can I just...I need to pee.”

  “I’ll take you,” Kat said, still concerned.

  “I’ll go wake him,” Taren said, opening the door to our cabin.

  He went one way down the brightly lit hall and Kat and I went another.

  We reached the end of our car and Kat nodded at Giancarlo, who stood guard at the door that led to an adjoining car.

  I closed the door to the cramped restroom. I sat down on the toilet with the lid still closed. I didn’t really have to pee. I just needed a minute alone, and this was the only way I could get it.

  Why now? I thought. Why here? What did it mean? They were questions I would ask Master Dogan, of course, but I wasn’t so sure he’d have an answer, which was equally terrifying. I hugged myself tight, trying to soothe my frayed nerves. By this time tomorrow I will be in Rome, at their Gateway, and more importantly, their Sanctuary. Just hold it together for another day and everything will be fine.

  I took a few more deep breaths, then opened the door to find Kat talking softly with Giancarlo. At my emergence, he smiled broadly, and before I could force myself to smile back, he’d plunged a needle into Kat’s neck.

  She and I both opened our mouths to scream, hers coming out a moan, and mine stifled by Giancarlo’s massive hand. I kicked and clawed, to no avail. A second later he had duct taped my mouth shut, my nostrils flaring in terror and fury. He did the same to my wrists, binding them tightly together.

  Kat lay on the floor struggling to get up, her muscles uncooperative. Her eyes glazed over, then closed.

  “Mmph! Mmph!!” I screamed against the tape.

  Had he killed her? Was she dead? She could not be dead—

  Giancarlo, his back now to me, pressed me flat against the wall, his considerable bulk driving the air from my lungs. He brought my arms down around his neck, and grabbed my legs, wrapping them around himself and securing them there with more tape. I squirmed and fought as best as I could, but even my attempt to strangle him had no effect. He was a human bulldog—solid muscle, even at his neck.

  Seconds later we were through the door and into the next car. A steward looked up from his paper and alarmed, emerged from his small room only to be punched square in the face. The older man reeled backward, blood spraying from his busted nose. Giancarlo was running now, from one car to the next to the next, plowing through anyone who got in his way, until we’d reached the final car.

  With two kicks, the door flew open. Just outside, a pickup truck with a mattress in the back barreled along the tracks in reverse. My eyes bulged out of my head when I realized what was coming next. I redoubled my struggle, this time sinking my teeth into his ear. He might be a bulldog, but I could be a pit bull. He grabbed at my hair, yanking my neck painfully, but I wouldn’t let go of the small section of his earlobe I had between my teeth.

  “Take the damn ear, girl,” he said, and stopped struggling. “With the money I’m getting I can buy a new one.”

  He took three steps back, preparing for a running jump when we heard Taren.

  “Stop!” he yelled as he raced down the narrow hallway.

  I turned my head and saw him, a slim knife in each hand. When Giancarlo didn’t slow, one of Taren’s knives arced through the air and though I couldn’t twist enough to see where it had landed, Giancarlo’s leg buckled and he let out a snarl. Taren advanced, and as he raced toward me, I felt myself become airborne as Giancarlo leapt for the truck.

  We landed with a thud and then rolled, his heft nearly crushing me. The wheels of the truck spun against dusty gravel as the driver slammed on the brakes. I could turn my head just enough to see Taren in the doorway, backlit and getting smaller and smaller as the train continued to speed along the tracks.

  A second later, the truck started forward, cleared the tracks, and barreled down the slope toward the highway.

  Giancarlo cursed as he yanked the blade from his calf, then used it to cut the tape from my ankles, finally tossing it into the dark. As soon as he lifted my arms from around him, I lurched to the side of the truck, preparing to launch myself over it—no matter how fast we were going—but Giancarlo grabbed me by the hair.

  “Don’t even think of it,” he said gruffly and yanked me down by his side. “As long as you are alive I get my money, but he didn’t say I had to leave you pretty.”

  He? Who was he? I knew better than to ask. Instead I said, “What did you inject Kat with?”

  I couldn’t allow myself to think it had been something fatal; my mind simply wouldn’t accept it.

  “Michael Jackson drug,’” he said, with a cruel smile.

  Propofol. Incapacitating, but not necessarily fatal. I told myself if he’d meant to kill her he could have—finishing the job with his knife just to be sure. It was the only hope I had for Kat’s safety and I clung to it.

  Giancarlo undid my wrists long enough to handcuff me to a thick steel bar, then probed the wound Taren had given him. We’d reached the highway and with the late hour, the truck easily crossed the two lanes and the median and we sped along in the opposite direction.

  I backed away from my captor as far as my confinement allowed and slumped against the side of the truck. Had I seriously thought that being under the thumb of the Institute was like being in prison? Wrists bound, in the custody of a violent traitor, on my way to God knew where on the orders of what had to be a Red—now I was a prisoner.

  16

  On any other night I would have appreciated the stars, but they only served to remind me how far away I was from anything, including rescue. I’d lost track of the turns we’d made: I’d no idea where I was, though the infrequent road signs indicated I was still in France.

  My wrists were on fire, made worse by the fact that my arms were heavy with fatigue, and every time I relaxed them the weight caused the cuffs to cut deeper into my skin. The physical pain was nothing compared with what was happening inside my head. What would a Red be prepared to do to me in order to make me open the Gateway? That had to be what this was about. Master Dogan suspected there were more Root Demons, maybe even one for each Gate, and if a Red were powerful enough to have arranged a kidnapping as elaborate as this, he had to have the power of a Root behind him.

  ...going to be alright...

  I jerked upright.

  Giancarlo, who had been reclining against the side of the truck watching the countryside whiz by, now sat upright and studied me. I forced myself to settle back against the wheel well and shut my eyes.

  Taren?

  It had been a male voice, of that I was sure. It hadn’t sounded like Taren’s, but the last time I heard his thoughts it didn’t sound much like him either. Master Dogan suspected it was due to our voices never sounding the same to us as it does to others.

  No. Now listen, you’re going to be fine as long as you do what I tell you...

  My pulse raced and I erected a barrier around my mind. Not Taren. Who else could it be? He and Gretchen were the only ones
capable... except a Root. Was I that close to Rome? Or was this Demon just that strong?

  Now my heart thundered. It was laying groundwork, wanting to make me think everything would be fine as long as I did Its bidding. Just like the other one had. But I killed It. You hear me? I destroyed It, just like I’m going to do to you.

  But It couldn’t hear me, not with my mind locked tight as a drum, and it wouldn’t have mattered if It had. Whatever power I’d used to kill that first Root Demon was lost to me now.

  No, I thought, not lost—dormant. I just had to wake it up. Struggling to stay focused, my blood running cold with terror at not only being kidnapped but a new mental interloper, I sought the light behind my eyes. No time for the delicacy I’d learned, I hurled myself into it as soon as it appeared. I felt its golden warmth envelope me, soothing even my stinging wrists.

  Floating in a golden sphere as I was, it was impossible to say how much time had passed when the truck began to slow. I opened my eyes and saw that we hadn’t arrived anywhere, we were simply pulling off the road, parking behind a dark sedan.

  From the passenger side emerged a woman with closely cropped raven hair. She was dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses. In the middle of the night.

  My heart beat wildly in my chest.

  Calm down, Ember, keep it together. You knew there would be Reds. They didn’t go to all this trouble just to kill you now.

  I forced my breath to slow, forced my fingers to unclench.

  The woman flowed more than walked toward the truck.

  “The key?” she said. Her accent was French, but more throaty and less musical than the Parisians I’d heard.

  Giancarlo produced the key to the handcuffs and tossed it to her.

  She snatched it out of the air and said, “You will give me no trouble.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I shook my head anyway.

  Not unless I suddenly get my powers back, and then all bets are off, bitch.

  She smiled which served to only make me more frightened, and undid my wrists. That she was a Red became certain when she easily lifted me from the cab of the truck and deposited me on the ground. Even Giancarlo’s eyes widened in surprise. Could he really have been so stupid as to now know what betraying the trust of the Institute would lead to? If they got what they wanted, he was signing his own death warrant as much as mine.

  Just as quickly as the cuffs had come off, they went back on, this time forcing my hands behind my back. The woman tossed Giancarlo a thick roll of Euros.

  “Spend it quick,” I said, surprised that my voice, while bitter, was calm. “You won’t be alive much longer.”

  He sneered and jumped over the side of the truck, wincing as he landed, which gave me a small measure of satisfaction. He climbed into the cab next to the driver and they drove off, leaving a cloud of dust.

  The woman deposited me in the back of the sedan and slid into the passenger seat. The driver was male, with graying hair and sunglasses.

  Before I could wonder whether asking a question would be considered giving her trouble, I blurted out, “What do you want from me?”

  “Do not speak,” the woman said, “unless you are asked a question.”

  “Or what?” I said, feeling brazen. “If you were going to kill me you would have just had Giancarlo do it hours ago.”

  My head rebounded off the headrest from the force of the woman’s backhand connecting with my cheekbone. I cried out in pain, the area immediately beginning to throb.

  It had been a stupid question anyway; I already knew the answer. The only thing I could do that a Red couldn’t, that a Root Demon couldn’t, no matter how much more powerful It was than I, was open the Gateway. And this Root seemed to have more minions than the one I’d destroyed two months earlier; further proof that It was more powerful than the other I’d faced.

  The she-Red produced a blindfold, and heedless of the injury she’d just inflicted, pulled it roughly down across my eyes. I bit my lip to keep from crying out—at the pain, at the unrelenting darkness I’d been plunged into—and braced myself for whatever was to come.

  After what seemed like hours of speeding down a highway, the car slowed and we began winding uphill. I’d managed to stay relatively calm during the trip by following Master Dogan’s technique of breathing in to a count of four and out to a count of six, but now that I was so close to coming face to face with whoever had orchestrated my kidnapping, no amount of counting could slow my breathing. It was all I could do to stave off hysteria when the car stopped and I heard the familiar scraping of metal on metal: a gate sliding open.

  The driver eased forward, and with the same lack of delicacy she’d used when putting it on, the she-Red yanked the blindfold from my eyes.

  Had I not been afraid for my life I might have been impressed by the beautiful villa that lay before me. It was cut into a hillside, and just below it was a beautifully landscaped garden complete with swimming pool. The Travertine marble gleamed in the moonlight, the lights of a valley glittering diamond-like below.

  It occurred to me as the Reds ushered me into the villa that they had barely spoken the entire trip, and still weren’t. It was as though they moved as one. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, that meant, but it caused my stomach to twist.

  Exhausted yet wired, I did my best to take note of anything important about the house—possible escape routes, even a miniature Degas replica that might be used as a weapon—but mostly I just stumbled, with the she-Red righting me with annoyed jerks to my arm. She led me to a staircase, and once at the top, stopped in front of the second doorway.

  “You will be seen in the morning,” she said, undoing my handcuffs. “It would be unwise for you to attempt escape.”

  She gave me a shove and I went sprawling into the lavish bedroom. Before I could even regain my footing, I heard the sound of multiple locks clicking on the outside.

  I wasted no time racing to the window seat and trying the lock. It slid open easily, as did the window itself. I peered at the two story drop. In the darkness I could just make out the grass below. If I jumped, I’d surely break one or both of my legs, but if I could climb... There, off to the side was a trellis, a lush vine creeping the length of it.

  I reached a tentative hand for the trellis, inching farther and farther until I could just grasp it. Stretched as I was, I could only test its sturdiness with the lightest of tugs. It held fast, seemingly well bolted to the brick. With my left hand, I gripped the inside of the window and pulled myself up so that I was standing on the ledge. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, before I could look down or think twice, I swung my leg out, struggling to find a foothold. I felt my grip on the window sill loosen as my weight shifted farther and farther toward the half of my body dangling out the window. My foot struggled to find purchase and then, just as I was about to plunge to either my death or paralyzation, the toe of my shoe found an opening to slip into.

  I exhaled sharply, but didn’t dare pause; I could feel my muscles already turning to jelly. I used my left foot and hand to push off from the window, the momentum swinging me toward the trellis. I banged against it, my hand gripping the side, my foot twisting this way and that until I found another toehold. My heart pounded in my chest and I paused just long enough to take another breath before I started down. I’d made it. All I had to do was climb down—

  Craaack...

  I looked up in panic at the source of the sound. The part of the trellis I gripped with my right hand had splintered; a second later it broke completely. I struggled to shake my hand free of it and grab another piece of the trellis, but I was too slow, and the wood split beneath my left hand as well. And then I was careening backward, my thoughts moving so quickly as to make it seem as though I were falling in slow motion.

  Please don’t let me be paralyzed, please don’t let me be—

  And I wasn’t, because I landed not on the ground, but in the arms of a broad shouldered man. I was so glad not to be brok
en in two that for a moment all I felt was grateful. But then I looked up, into eyes that glowed red.

  I wriggled frantically, trying to free myself from his firm grip. He just smiled, which made my heart beat even faster. Knowing he was a Red and being forced to look into the pure evil of his eyes were two separate things.

  After amusing himself with my struggles for a moment longer, he released me to the ground, clamping a vise-like grip on my shoulder. He walked behind me, pushing me in the direction of the room I’d just fallen from.

  He spoke not a word, just gave me a small shove when he opened the door, and locked it behind him when he left. The open window mocked me, and I couldn’t stop myself from going to it.

  The broken pieces dangled from the trellis at awkward angles. I stared glumly at the drop below until the Red reappeared, taking up residence right below my window and staring up at me with his menacing eyes.

  17

  Resigned that I wouldn’t be escaping via the window, I began frantically searching the room. Unsure what I was even looking for, I opened doors (one a bathroom, one a closet), looked under the bed, and behind pictures. If there was anything suspicious about the room or its fixtures, I was unable to find it.

  I collapsed into the chaise lounge at the foot of the four-poster bed that dominated the room. If I couldn’t escape, I had to think. By the light in the sky, I could tell dawn wasn’t all that far off. I’d be seen in the morning, the she-Red had said. That didn’t leave me much time to come up with a plan.

  The Root that was pulling the strings might be stronger than the one I’d defeated in Los Angeles, but I wasn’t dealing with the Root. Not yet. It was still locked up in the demon dimension, only able to hurt me if I allowed it in, which so far, I’d been mostly successful at avoiding.

  So for now, I thought, I just have to defeat some Reds. Yes, they’re physically stronger, but I’ve defeated something much stronger than all of them combined.