"Nergal protect us." Nepta squeezed Tatya's hand.
"Tatya!" Otakay's voice. "Wake up. Use your strength!"
Tatya jerked back to the present, and thrust Nepta behind her. Pulling on her powers, she raised her arms and a bolt of bright energy leapt from her fingers stabbing the nearest Dullahan. He crashed to the earth and disintegrated into a shadowy mist that floated in the air for a few seconds before dissipating.
"Well done."
"Otakay! You're here."
The Sioux warrior, his bronzed skin glowing and wearing his war bonnet, held his immense bow. Pulling an arrow from the full quiver on his back, he fitted, aimed and fired in a motion too fast to see. He shot more arrows, and more Dullahans fell from their horses, turning to dust. He grinned at her, his eyes bright. "My name means 'kills many'," he said as he continued to send a rain of arrows into the enemy.
An exultant joy rose in her heart, as she and Otakay stood side by side, with Nepta sheltering behind them, and fired arrows and bolts of white lightning at the Dullahans, destroying most and keeping the rest at a distance too great for their swords to be of any use. At last, the few remaining horsemen turned their steeds and fled.
"Thank you," Tatya sagged with relief at fighting off the attack, but Otakay was already fading.
"Changing Sky charged me with your protection," the vanishing guardian informed her, "hence as a warrior, you see me when you are most in danger."
Nepta suddenly shoved Tatya aside, screamed and fell to the to the ground, clutching a sword in her side.
While Tatya had fought those attacking from the front, one of the deadly horsemen, had sneaked around behind them, and flung his weapon at her. Nepta had saved Tatya by pushing her out of the way, but the blade had struck her instead.
The Dullanhan's insane laughter filled her ears as he backed toward his horse. She stood and let anger fill her, and within seconds neither horse nor rider remained alive.
"Oh, Nepta," she kneeled by the injured imp, "that was a dumb thing to do."
Nepta's eyelids fluttered, and she gave a small cry of pain as Tatya examined the injury.
The blade had caught Nepta as she turned, and remained embedded in her side. Blood leaked from the wound, and from her palms as she held it in place.
"I’ve got to pull this thing out of you, ’cause getting you to the portal like this is likely to kill you. Okay?"
"Are you giving me a choice?" Nepta shivered violently, and her skin had taken on a blue cast.
"No." As Tatya gripped the hilt of the sword, she drew on the golden pool of energy. Directing the bright power into her fingers, she eased the sword, inch by inch, out of Nepta's side. She grabbed a bunch of the red moss to staunch the bleeding, and sent more healing energy into the wound until the bleeding ceased, and the gash closed.
Nepta gazed up at her in awe. "Thank you! You saved my life."
"We're more than equal in the life saving department. You got this injury while saving mine—remember? Can you walk? It’s not too far, but we need to get to that portal before he sends more of his demons." She put her arm around Nepta's waist, and was helping the imp to her feet, when Angelus's roar battered her mind. She fell to her knees, releasing her hold on Nepta.
"You think you are clever. I own this world, and you want to escape me?" His words dripped with scorn. “And how clever of you to remember hide and seek is my favorite game.” He roared again, assaulting her barriers, and she cowered, covering her ears. "I have shown you mercy, and this is how you repay me? You know what they say in your world, Tatiana? You can run, but you can't hide."
Chapter Twenty-Four: Reunion
Forked Lightning and Vanse stood on a sand-colored, flat, featureless plain that stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see. The sky was translucent with no source of visible light.
"What is this place? There’s nothing here. How will we find Tatya?" Vanse regarded his companion, and his eyebrows rose and his mouth opened. "Oh!"
The shaman was wearing his tribal dress of fringed buckskin leggings, breech cloth, moccasins, and a sharp-edged tomahawk stuck through the belt at his waist. Two more knives, one short and one long hung in sheaths from his belt, and he held a short spear in his hand. He wore a beaded headband and his hair fell in a shining black curtain down his bronze muscled back.
"Where are your clothes?" Vanse asked, bewildered. "Are those weapons real?"
"This,” Forked Lightning waved his arm around, “is the astral plane where you appear however you wish. This is how I wish to dress." He considered the vampire's navy blue designer suit, white shirt, tie and black dress shoes. "And it’s more suitable than what you’re wearing."
Vanse looked his clothes. “Point taken. Can you magic me a semi-automatic with silver bullets?"
Forked Lightning laughed, "Magic? You should know better than that. You have to create the weapon yourself, and though I'm sure your half-demon blood means your powers are intact here, we don’t have time for you to master that skill. When I come here with Tatya, I work on strengthening and adding more potency to these," he touched his tomahawk and knives, "and that's been going on for the last year.
"I will admit this is a new experience, and it’s not often I can say that, but tell me. I am a quick learner. "
“If you insist, though I think it’s a waste of time. First, totally clear your mind. Then make a crystal-clear image of the item you want. Visualize its color and shape, and feel its weight in your hand. That’s about it. If you have the psychic ability, the object will manifest.”
Vanse closed his eyes, held his hand, palm up, and frowned in concentration.
Forked Lightning snorted with laughter. “You call that a gun?”
Vanse opened his eyes. In his palm lay a tiny silver revolver, about two inches long. “Fabio has one of these.” A faint smile touched his lips as he remembered. “It’s a Swiss mini gun. I guess my subconscious thinks this will be suitable.”
“Well, keep practicing.” Forked Lightning turned a complete circle. "I think we should go that way." He pointed over to the left.
Vanse slipped the little gun into his pocket. “I hate to disagree but something is pulling me in that direction." He pointed right.
"Your first time here and you already know your way around the place?” Forked Lightning allowed Tatya to lead when she taught him, but no vampire, ancient master or not, was going to dictate to him. He was in control here.
Vanse drew himself up to his full height and gazed down at the younger stockier man. "No," he replied, his tone implying Forked Lightning was in charge only because he permitted it. "And my link to Tatya is faint, but it is there. Can you sense anything from her? Why don't we separate? You try one direction, and I'll try another, and we will meet up in a short while and see if either of us have found anything."
"That won't work," Forked Lightning replied, lifting his chin, his tone aggressive. "If we separate, our connection could weaken and might even break. If we lose each other, we lose the chance to find Tatya, and could wander here for eternity. Separating isn’t a choice. We have to stick together."
"But we do have two things in common," Vanse replied, his manner more conciliatory. "We both want Tatya safe and back home—and we both want Angelus dead."
By a set of circumstances over which he had no control, Forked Lightning found himself bound to an ancient enemy of his species in an unlikely alliance. He nodded, accepting the peace offering and swallowed his pride. "You're sure you sense something in that direction?"
Vanse closed his eyes. "Yes, positive."
The vampire and the shaman werewolf set off, running across the barren dusty landscape toward the horizon.
The heat was oven hot. Tatya wiped the dripping sweat from her forehead, though it did little to relieve her discomfort, as a few seconds later more sweat accumulated, and dripped into her eyes again. Her damp clothes clung to her clammy skin and wiping the sweat on her dried mud-encrusted pants didn’t help.
"No, it's real close." Tatya ignored the distant howls, and kept moving, one slow heavy footstep at a time. With her arm around Nepta's waist, she half carried and half dragged the imp toward the gleaming gateway beckoning her forward.
"Will we make it?"
"Hey, ye of little faith. Of course, we will." She chanced a glance over her shoulder. No sign of the Barghests yet, but the alarm bell of their baying bothered her. The sudden access to her power after not using it for a while, combined with her recent exertions against the Dullahans, meant she had expended a lot of energy—maybe more than necessary. Angelus must be aware of how near they were to escaping, and would be desperate to stop them.
The portal was a couple of hundred yards away, and the magic pouring off the shimmering archway bathed the surrounding area in rainbow colors. Even as she labored onward, she had to admire his work; he'd created a thing of beauty. She glanced behind her again, this time her heart somersaulted. The huge monstrous dogs were in sight, accompanied by a band of ferocious-looking demons. Enslaved by Angelus's will, they would eat up the miles in no time. Driven by desperation and with escape close, she heaved Nepta onto her shoulder.
The imp cried with distress, and her head bobbed up and down as Tatya dashed all-out for their goal.
As they sighted their quarry, the dogs' barking and the frenzied shrieks grew louder.
Tatya’s heart boomed in her chest, her ribs were bellows, and her calves and thighs pumped like pistons. She kept her gaze glued to the portal, refused to look at her pursuers, and kept moving. They were near to the iridescent rainbow—they would make it, but only just.
The clamor intensified, as their pursuers panicked at the possibility of losing their prey.
Tatya took a breath, and gathered her nerve to step through at the same time as two figures appeared on the other side of the shining curtain. She squinted, and could just make out the vague shapes of their bodies, and a hint of their facial features. She stared in disbelief.
One spoke. "Tatya? Is that you?"
The voice was muffled, barely audible, but she recognized it, and nothing else mattered. Vanse was here! He would save her. But was this the real Vanse, or an illusion created by her desires? Or even worse, created by Angelus. Maybe the gateway was a trick? She'd step through and find herself back in the dungeon. The demon was nothing if not inventive in his tortures. She wavered.
Nepta groaned, and the din of the dogs and demons crashed in on her thoughts as they drew nearer.
Both figures gesticulated wildly. The shorter of the two figures pointed frantically behind her, and the other taller one, Vanse—if it was him—urgently beckoned her toward him.
She turned, sucked in a great waft of stinking dog breath, and staggered backward as the lead Barghest bounded closer. She looked again at the shimmering opening—her escape to freedom. One figure stuck a hand through. The shape and color of those fingers was familiar. She gasped. Could it really be him? Using one hand to keep Nepta balanced on her shoulder, she reached out and grabbed the hand with her other. The link blazed into life. Yes! It was Vanse!
Nepta shifted, and before Tatya could catch her, the imp slid and fell, landing on the ground with a thud, and groaned in pain.
Tatya let go of Vanse, and turned to pick up her friend, but it was too late.
The hellhounds were upon them. The leading beast darted forward and sank his teeth deep into the imp’s leg. Nepta screamed, a high-pitched wail as the beast dragged her along the ground away from the portal.
"Stop!" Tatya cried raising her hands.
A demon darted forward, smacked the hound on its muzzle with the flat of his spear, and hauled Nepta out of its maw. Turning on his heel, he loped off at great speed with Nepta shrieking as he held her tightly under his arm.
Tatya flung a bolt of bright energy at the demon, and the ground scorched, smoke rising where her strike landed, but he was moving too fast and her shot flew wide of the mark. Two of the hellhounds stepped nearer, blocking her view of the fleeing demon. Their eyes tracked her movements, ready to dodge any assault. They stood as tall as her chin, and she swallowed, pushing down the bile that rose in her throat from the rancid foulness of their breath. She lifted her arms again, but as she drew on her power, a sizzling sensation shivered over her back, and suddenly Vanse was on her left, and Forked Lightning on her right.
Vanse aimed an antique handgun, decorated with an ornate gold handle, and shot everything in front of him that moved.
Forked Lightning instantly killed three of the creatures, his arrows flying from his bow, one after another in smooth succession.
Tatya aimed her bolts of dazzling light at the hellhounds. At this distance, every blow hit with deadly accuracy.
Faced with three opponents instead of one, the Barghest and their accompanying demons turned and bolted.
“We’ve got to go after them. They’ve got Nepta.” Tatya was frantic. “You don't understand what they’ll do to her. Without her, I would never have escaped Angelus’s dungeon.”
“Tatya.” Vanse enfolded her in his arms, and at once, the tension drained from her body.
Fear for Nepta warred with exhilaration at his arrival as she leaned against him, letting him take her weight. For the moment elation won as she breathed in the musky sandalwood scent of his skin. “You came.”
“I came as soon as I could. But without Forked Lightning, that knife would have remained in my chest. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to follow you here.”
Tatya stepped out of Vanse’s embrace and hugged Forked Lightning. “I can’t tell you how amazing, how wonderful,” she blinked furiously to stop the tears, “it is to see the pair of you here. But we have to leave now. Our only chance of rescuing Nepta is to follow their trail.” Her voice wobbled, and she stared anxiously at the disappearing hellhounds.
“We may be too late to do anything for her.” Vanse frowned, and his hands twitched. "This is Angelus’s territory, and we don’t know the full extent of his capabilities. Let’s just go back through the gate. We’re safer on the other side, and then we can discuss what we’ll do next.”
They turned around, and stared in confusion at the flat reddish bog, and the distant mass of ominous dark purple clouds hovering over an empty landscape. The portal was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Twenty-Five: In Search of Nepta
It was a stand-off.
"I'm not leaving without at least trying to save Nepta." Conflicted by her joy at seeing her love and her best friend, and torn by the thought of what Angelus would do to Nepta, Tatya stood, her hands on her hips, and glared at her companions.
"We need to find the gate and return home." Vanse folded his arms across his chest, his face impassive, and stared back at her.
"Then I guess I'll go by myself."
"No, you won't. I'll drag you through the portal, and that will be that."
"First you have to find it, and I don’t see any sign of its presence."
"Tatya! Be reasonable. You really want to go back to a place you’ve been desperate to escape from? And what do you think our chances are of finding her alive?"
"Neither of you gave up on me, and I'm not giving up on her. If it wasn't for Nepta, you wouldn’t have found me. I would be in a dungeon cell, not knowing who I was, and at Angelus's mercy. We all know how generous he is in that area."
“Both of you calm down!" Forked Lightning’s roles as tribal shaman and alpha of a werewolf pack had given him some experience in mediation. "We have to rescue Nepta and find another gate. Right?"
Vanse and Tatya nodded in agreement.
"So, we do both at the same time. We can't wander around just hoping it’ll appear, and the possibility of finding a gate closer to where Angelus lives is greater. Right?"
“Maybe.” Vanse’s tone indicated ne
ither agreement nor disagreement. “Maybe he’s just cloaked this one.”
Tatya didn’t hold out much hope of uncloaking the hidden portal or finding another gate closer to the palace. If one existed she and Nepta would have used it, but she jumped at the chance to search for her friend. "So, it's settled. We search for a second gate and Nepta."
Vanse’s mouth thinned at Tatya’s words, but he made no objection.
Before they'd gotten far from the portal, Tatya halted at the first pool of muddy slime, and insisted they smear every exposed skin surface, hands, arms, face, neck, and ankles, with the smelly substance. The two men complied, and she ignored the 'yuk' and 'disgusting' comments they made while slathering themselves as she instructed. "You'll appreciate it soon enough when the bugs come," she told them, renewing her own layers of dried mud. Sure enough, within half an hour an indistinct distant buzzing caught their attention, and they watched a dark cloud moving at speed toward them.
"A swarm's approaching. We’d better get down on the ground. They don’t seem to notice us that way." She dropped to the ground, and lay on her stomach.
Vanse followed her example.
Forked Lightning stood with his mouth open, staring at fast-closing vicious looking insects.
"Get down!" urged Tatya, tugging insistently on the buckskin fringes on his leggings.
At the last second, he threw himself flat as the buzzing horde passed over without even sparing a glance for the three figures below them. "Are they for real or just an illusion?"
“I don’t know whether they’re controlled by Angelus or not,” Tatya replied.
"I fear they are as real as you or I in this realm," said Vanse. "And they'll tear apart any living thing they find within seconds."
The Kala Trilogy: An Urban Fantasy Box Set Page 61