by Sandy James
The complex was full of empty warehouses, most of which had several broken windows. Graffiti had been sprawled over the walls. The smell of oil and sulfur filled the air. The sunlight had gone, and the waning moon offered little assistance to their plight.
Rebecca shuddered, a chill running the length of her spine. Her intuition was working overtime, warning her of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She was about to voice her concern when she realized Artair was now staring at her, the doubt still plain on his face. Doubt about her.
Megan had pulled out her cell and was punching in more information to send to Johann. “He’s found some blueprints.”
Artair’s face hardened. He’d suggested that Sparks and Megan shift to hawks to scout the huge industrial complex, but Megan had turned to Johann to get the information, insisting technology would save them a power-draining transmogrification.
“She’s in there, I know it,” Sparks insisted, pointing to the largest building on Megan’s screen. “I know it.” Sparks turned to Artair. “Are you listening to me, Celt?”
“Aye. I hear you. We all hear you. We’ll nae leave her. I promise.”
Rebecca belted on a scabbard and slid her sword into the sheath. Then she grabbed a dagger and tucked it in her belt. Was the information Johann provided one of the reasons Artair was thinking of leaving Avalon? The Scot had to feel like a dinosaur. She wasn’t sure how old Artair really was, but Sparks had hinted he’d gone well past the century mark. Knowing people were ultimately nothing more than creatures of habit, she wondered if Artair would or even could embrace the modern world. How lost would he feel if he returned to mortality?
He came to stand by his Amazons. His eyes held the weight of the world. No wonder. Trishna was in trouble. Sparks was growing more frantic with each passing minute. Megan was too enthusiastic for her own good, ready to take on a dozen revenants. Rebecca was having a hard time reining in her fear.
And poor Artair had to lead the ragtag bunch.
Looking over Megan’s shoulder, he pointed to the tiny screen. “The entrances are here. Sparks, ye take this entrance. Megan, here. Becca will go with me, here.” After a short pause, he added, “I don’t like this. ’Tis nae but a big empty cavern. We get in, get Trishna, then get out. Do you all understand?”
“If there are revenants, can I—”
Artair cut Megan’s words short with a growl. “Ye won’t fight unless you must. This is a rescue mission, nae a battle.”
“We need Gina. Air can always sense revenants.” Sparks popped a cigarette in her mouth.
Megan quickly followed suit. Both women lit their nasty habits with a flick of their thumbs.
“Put those out,” Artair barked.
They begrudgingly dropped their cigarettes to the ground. He stomped the white sticks into the mud. “No chances, lasses. We all go in—we all come out. Understood?”
Three women nodded.
Rebecca swallowed the lump forming in her throat, choking off her air. Her heart beat so rapidly, she got lightheaded. Could they see her fear? Could her sisters feel her fear? She tried to paste a tough expression on her face.
* * *
Artair wanted to touch Rebecca, wanted to take her hand and give it a reassuring squeeze. Her fear rose from her like an aura, and he wasn’t sure if soothing would help or hurt the situation. She was an Amazon, damn it. He shouldn’t be concerned about her, but fear that he might lose her twisted his gut.
He tried to shake the feeling of doom. Everything about this mission bothered him. Sparks had been so unsure of Trishna’s whereabouts for so many weeks. It seemed odd that she suddenly knew where Trishna was. The whole nightmare reeked of a trap. They needed more time to figure out all contingencies. But Sparks would not be deterred, and if they didn’t go to find Trishna together, she would have ventured out on her own. She’d left him no choice.
Plus there was no chance for Trishna if he didn’t forge ahead. “Go,” he ordered. “Enter on my signal.”
Megan and Sparks moved away to seek their entrances to the foreboding warehouse.
Rebecca followed Artair to the door.
Pulling his sword, he nodded for her to do the same. She gave him one quick frown in response and drew her sword. Artair gave a slow mental count to fifty then put his fingers to his lips and whistled loud and long. With one swift kick, the door opened before him.
He cautiously led the way inside, trying to let his eyes adjust to the increased darkness. The place smelled dank and grimy. The scurry of rats along the ground forced a small, frightened squeak from Rebecca’s throat.
They were separated from Sparks and Megan—they’d all expected to appear in the same large room. Now a wall of wooden crates hindered their path, and the other Amazons might have the same obstacle. Urgency hit him like a blow to the chest. They needed to get out. Quickly.
He grabbed Rebecca’s wrist and dragged her toward the break in the crates. They hurried through the narrow passage.
Sparks knelt in front of where Trishna was tied to a wooden chair in the middle of the enormous room. Her fingers worked on the ropes binding Trishna’s ankles.
Megan stood, sword ready to battle any comers.
Artair and Rebecca hurried to join them.
“We must hurry, Sparks,” he said. “I don’t like this. Smells like a trap.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Good to see you, Trish. Ye look fit,” he said to the Amazon. Her green eyes narrowed, so she was well. As soon as he pulled the tape from her mouth, she’d sharpen her tongue and skewer him with it. At least the lass was unharmed. He gently eased the tape off. “Are you well?”
“How do you think I am, Artair?” she replied. “I’m tied to a flippin’ chair!”
Rebecca put her sword down and knelt behind the chair, working her shaking fingers through the thick tangle of knots that held Trishna’s waist to the chair. Trishna’s long brunette braid kept getting in the way, so Rebecca draped it over her shoulder.
“I don’t have my powers.” Trishna’s words were flavored with a Southern drawl. “Some damn shaman came in, sprinkled some stinky powder on me, waved his arms around and said some words in one of the languages I don’t speak. Suddenly, I’m powerless.”
“Shit,” Sparks said. “I thought Ganga was exaggerating. How did that happen?” She pulled her knife from its sheath and tried to saw through the fat yellow nylon ropes. “I’d blast you outta this, but I’m afraid I’d burn you.”
“Thanks for the restraint,” Trishna replied with a lopsided grin. “Third-degree burns aren’t my idea of a good time. Come on, rookie,” she called over her shoulder. “Get me out of this mess. We need to get out of here.”
“I’m trying,” Rebecca replied, her fingers still working on the ropes.
Artair kept his sword at ready, watching the progress of the women and fervently wishing they’d hurry. As if he didn’t have too much to worry about, now Trishna had been stripped of her protective powers. He should have taken Ganga at her word, but he’d held out hope she was mistaken. Amazons never lost their powers—it wasn’t even supposed to be possible. Only an Amazon’s goddess could take away her gifts.
Megan paced a short measure beside the other three Amazons, glancing back at him from time to time. Her eyes were wide, her breath quick and shallow. She was ready to pop. Literally.
Sparks was the first to react to the sudden stench, a flame shooting from her hair as she jumped to her feet. “Revenants!”
The filthy creatures poured in from the two doors, as more came from the entrance he and Rebecca had used to get through the crates. “’Tis a fight they’re wanting, then we shall give it to them.”
* * *
Rebecca swallowed the bile rising in the back of her throat. The fetid smell made it hard to breathe. Her jackhammer heart didn’t help matters much, either. At Sparks’s shout, Rebecca had first reached for her sword before realizing if she didn’t free T
rishna, the woman was defenseless. Her sword fell to the ground with a clatter, and she returned to working at the ropes with her hands and her teeth as bursts of flames were lighting up her peripheral vision from the direction Sparks had run.
“Becca!” Artair shouted, swinging a sword and decapitating a revenant that she hadn’t realized was bending over her, ready to attack. She kept at her task, ignoring the fear that poured through her veins and threatened to still her movements.
She worked knot by knot to free Trishna. The shouts of battle surrounded her, but she drowned them out. This was her job, her task. She just knew it. She couldn’t look up, couldn’t let the fear she had for Artair, Sparks and Megan stop her.
“Go,” Trishna urged. “Leave me!”
“No,” Rebecca whispered.
“Go, you stupid kid!”
“I won’t leave you.”
A revenant came from the front, heading right for them. Rebecca had no choice. She grabbed her sword, ran to put herself between Trishna and the zombie and attacked.
This was no three, not even a two like she’d faced at Helen’s apartment. No, this revenant was a dusky gray, but she had two eyes, all her fingers and quick movement for somebody who was dead. The snarl falling from the decaying lips raised gooseflesh. Rebecca swung her weapon, hoping to catch the revenant’s outstretched arms. The creature snarled again and grabbed the sharp end of the sword as if to stop its arch. Severed fingers flew through the air. The creature screamed.
Rebecca pulled her arms back and took another swing, aiming higher and hoping to channel her anger and fear as Artair had taught her. Her heavy sword went halfway through the revenant’s neck, remaining buried in the thick tissue. The revenant crumpled to her knees. Before she could pull her weapon free, another zombie caught her from behind, wrapping its arms around her chest and dragging her to the ground. She released her hold on the embedded sword and fumbled through her clothing for her dirk.
“No!” Artair’s shout echoed through the room.
She ignored it and stabbed her dagger deep into the zombie’s belly.
She hefted the revenant off her back, put her foot against the first revenant’s shoulder and jerked her sword free. First she beheaded the revenant who’d tried to tackle her, then she turned back to Trishna, walked behind the chair with a new air of confidence and severed the ropes with one quick, angry slash.
Artair tugged off the now loose ropes and helped Trishna to her feet. After handing her a dirk, he started to cut a path through the revenants toward the closest exit.
Rebecca turned her attention to her sister, trying to calm the storm of adrenaline flowing through her. Megan swung her sword with fury, too busy trying to behead the revenants to put down her weapon and throw fire at them. Her back was unprotected. Rebecca hurried to her and beheaded a revenant a moment before he would have taken a chunk out of Megan’s shoulder.
Turning to keep her back to Megan’s, she met a wall of revenants, realizing too late she hadn’t protected her own back. Swinging the weighty sword, she took one attacker down, but two managed to push closer. The sword was knocked from her hand.
She reached for her dirk before remembering she’d left it planted deep in another zombie’s belly. A revenant grabbed her by the neck and settled its mouth on her, biting her shoulder. She was so focused on the intense pain, she didn’t even hear her own scream.
The revenant pulled away, snarled with dark blood dripping from its sharpened teeth and prepared to take another bite.
She struggled against his hold—kicking, scratching and twisting. She closed her eyes, bracing for another slice of agony to rip through her. But it never came. As the hand fell away from her throat, she cautiously opened her eyes to see Artair standing before her as a now headless revenant dropped to the floor next to two more headless bodies.
“Becca?”
“I’m fine.” She pushed his hand away when he touched her wounded shoulder. Reaching down to pick up her sword, she glanced to Sparks. Fire fought her way through six revenants to get to Trishna, who was cornered by a bulky zombie who could have played for the NFL. “Get to Trishna!”
Rebecca would always remember the scene in slow motion. The zombies she beheaded. Artair struggling, trying to get through three revenants blocking his path. Megan and Sparks swinging their weapons and blasting anything in their way. They were all calling to Trishna, trying to reach her side.
And Rebecca would always remember Trishna burying a dirk deep in the chest of the revenant as he killed her.
Chapter Fourteen
Rebecca held the hastily made compress to her shoulder. The injury throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat, but she pushed aside the pain.
Sparks cradled Trishna’s bloody head in her lap, rocking as if the dead Amazon could still receive comfort for her injuries. Sparks’s grief landed on Rebecca like a crippling weight, and Megan bore it as well.
The world had turned bleak. They’d walked into the trap Artair had feared. Amazed they’d only lost one Amazon, she glanced to where he sat silently in the back of the van, his face unreadable. He wouldn’t look at her, staring instead at Sparks and Trishna.
The guilt draped over him like a cloak. He obviously blamed himself. Rebecca understood because she blamed herself every bit as much.
Had she been able to handle herself, Artair never would have charged to her rescue. She’d tried. She hadn’t frozen as she had in that first fight at Condemned. When Trishna needed her, Rebecca had been able to protect her sister, and she’d freed her.
She’d feared it would be weakness that would cripple her in a battle, but she hadn’t been weak. She’d been impulsive.
And Trishna died.
Rebecca caught herself against the wall as Megan took a sharp corner. She had a passing thought that Fires should never be allowed to drive. Neither of the two she knew had any great skill at it. Then she remembered the van was enchanted. All Megan was doing was sitting in the front and helplessly watching the road slip by.
Lifting the compress from her shoulder, Rebecca winced at the jagged and torn flesh. A shudder ripped through her at the thought of that disgusting dead thing taking a bite out of her. The bleeding had finally slowed as the injury rapidly knit closed. She looked back at Sparks.
Blood had been dripping from her torn ear, but the flow had stopped. The wound still appeared to need stitches. Her right earlobe was shredded as if someone had grabbed a pierced earring and viciously yanked it out. If there were more injuries, she couldn’t tell. Sparks was covered in blood, but it was hard to know which was hers and which was Trishna’s. Beagan and Dolan would sort out the Amazons’ injuries when they all returned to Avalon.
“We’re here,” Megan said in a voice much softer than Rebecca had ever heard from the brash woman. “Artair, can you let us in?”
He didn’t reply, simply opened the back door, stepped out and slammed it behind him. A few moments later, the side door slid open. Artair reached for Trishna, trying to take her from Sparks’s arms.
“No!” Sparks leaned forward to cover Trishna’s body with her own. “You can’t have her!”
Artair backed up a step, but Rebecca could read the tension in him. “We must give her to the changelings to prepare for burial,” he softly replied.
“No.” Sparks emphatically shook her head. “You can’t. I won’t let you put her in the ground.”
Rebecca needed to step in. Emotions were running too high and too hot, she had to help them all find some calm. She moved next to Sparks who had relaxed to sit back up. Rebecca put her hand over her mentor’s. “We need to take her into Avalon now.”
Sparks shook her head again, but no tears fell. The scent of a campfire drowned in water floated around her, mixing with the sickening smell of blood.
“We’ll take care of her,” Rebecca consoled. “Beagan and Dolan will care for her.”
Sparks sniffed and released a shuddering sigh. “They can’t care for her, can they? She’s gone. Dead
.”
“I know. But we owe her a heroine’s burial, don’t we?” She still held her hand over her friend’s. “She’s our sister. We’ll take good care of her.”
Sparks turned to look at her. The anguish in her eyes was so clear, it flowed into her like an electric shock. “You will?”
Rebecca nodded, and Sparks finally consented to let Artair lift Trishna from the floor of the van and carry her through the gates. He disappeared into the trees, heading for the compound.
Megan came around to help Rebecca and Sparks from the van.
Giving her sister a quick appraisal, Rebecca was relieved Megan didn’t seem injured.
“I’ll kill him, you know,” Sparks said as she stared after Artair, her deep voice husky with emotion.
Rebecca feared that Sparks meant Artair, that she blamed him for losing Trishna. “Who?”
“When I find the damned bastard who put Jin up to this, I’ll kill him myself. He’ll be ash. So will Jin. Nothing but a couple of piles of smoldering ash.”
“I know.” Rebecca wrapped her arm around Sparks’s waist and led her through the gate as Megan trailed behind.
* * *
Rhiannon was waiting when they reached the compound, and Rebecca gave a weary sigh, knowing the goddess would be the final act of an already trying day.
Had it only been hours ago that she’d been in Artair’s arms, practicing with her bow? It had to be close to dawn, and she turned to the east to see the first pink rays breaking on the horizon. Another damn sunrise she was paying witness to. This one held no beauty.
A second goddess appeared with a shimmer of silver light. Ganga. The Water goddess had come to pay respects to her dead warrior.
Artair still held Trishna in his arms, and she wondered if she would have to help him let her go the way she had Sparks.
Ganga stood before him, closed her eyes and gently put her hand on Trishna’s forehead. “May you know rest, my child. You will go to your reward. You fought long and bravely, and we thank you for your service. You have saved mankind more than once, and you will not be forgotten. Your rewards in the next life will be plentiful.”