The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series

by Cole, LaDonna

  Silence.

  “Dagan!”

  “You are broken. I should stop talking to you until you are whole.”

  Panic seized Kate’s heart. She didn’t want to lose her only connection to the living. “But you won’t stop will you, Dagan? We are bonded, right?”

  “Right.”

  Kate let out a sigh of relief. She would do almost anything to see the sun again. If she told Dagan what he wanted to hear, maybe he would bring her out of the cave. Her only friend here, she couldn’t lose him. She needed him. Her heart swelled with gratitude and deep emotion for his presence during this horrible time.

  “Years! A decade! I’ve been trapped on this world for a lifetime, Dagan!”

  “Yes, Beauty, but I have given you everything. Aren’t you happy here with me?”

  “Oh!” She pressed her hand to his soft under belly and stroked. “Of course, my sweet darling. You are the one spot of light for me.”

  He purred in contentment and chomped into his dinner, bones cracking and flesh squishing.

  Kate’s lip curled in disgust. “Darling, you must learn to dine with more dignity.” She wiped a stream of blood off of her leg, stood and walked to the cliff edge. The Kiarnusk poked and prodded the slaves into service. With The Traptor complete, the time arrived to get into costume and play the simpering fool she had once been. Time to make him pay for breaking her. She turned and descended into the caves.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DONNIE DUDGEON

  Donnie’s mind reverberated with thousands of dragons trumpeting their confirmation. He stumbled. No! There had to be another way! His mind fastened onto a plan to rescue them. First, he’d find Kate and release her from the dragon’s control, so there would be no retaliation directed at her. He had decided the dragons had changed her. If he could break that connection she would turn back to their Kate. At least he hoped she would. Then together, they would release the Keepers from their cage. That had been his genius plan. No more time.

  Within 24 hours, every living being would be dead, or Corey would be dead. He couldn’t stand the thought of either scenario. He needed to find Kate and find her now!

  “No! Corey!” The scream ricocheted down the corridor.

  Is that Kate? Had she somehow been released from the dragon’s control? Her anguished screams indicated so. He ran toward the sound of her cries.

  He turned corner after corner, running forward, skidding to a stop, backtracking. This is taking too long! It seemed he had been running through this maze of a cavern forever. The sounds of her screaming ended long ago, leaving him in a frantic guessing game. He doubted if he ever knew the direction her screams came from. Sound echoed and bounced around the rock walls. He considered giving up and going back to the upper ridge when he passed a small fissure in the corridor that he had not seen before. He turned sideways and squeezed through to find himself in a large chamber. Panning his flashlight across the room, he found Kate chained to the far corner.

  “Kate!”

  “Corey. Corey,” she whispered between spasms of hiccoughs.

  “Kate! It’s me, Donnie.”

  She couldn’t hear him. He approached her cautiously. Is this broken girl the same person who commanded the Rhinodudes? It didn’t seem possible. He decided her mind had already receded into some haven to protect her from the worst of her grief.

  Chained to a spike in the wall, Kate trembled. Donnie took the locksmith kit out of his pack and began working on the lock at her wrist.

  “Kate, hon. It’s me. It’s Donnie. I’m here to save you.” He kept a stream of comforting words and sounds rushing to her as he examined her scored wrists.

  “Corey. Corey,” she chanted his name over and over. Stuck in a loop, agony found no release. Eyes wild with grief, she tried to wrench her wrist out of his hand.

  “Kate,” he crooned. This poor girl had endured enough. The loss of team mates, her whole family, it seemed death chased her at every turn. Jumping from one dangerous world into another all targeted to torture, maim, and end her, she struggled for survival and sanity. Now that her mind had been released from the dragon’s hold, she’d finally fractured. No one was that strong. “I’m here, sweetie. I’m here.”

  She stopped the whispered chant and slowly lifted her eyes to his. Recognition dawned with a shivering huff. He wrapped a jump jacket around her frail shoulders and held her.

  “Kate,” Donnie whispered into her hair, gently swaying as he had with his own daughters countless times. “Shhh, now, I’m here.” Tears welled, and he blinked them away.

  He took jump pants out of his pack and dressed her. She stilled, rigid, but allowed him to clothe her. He wiped her face, then washed the cuts on her wrists as she twisted her palms together. With each tender gesture she emerged from her catatonia bit by bit. He lifted her to a standing position and held her shoulders until she could balance. Then he pressed her whip, he had found in one of the backpacks, into her hands.

  He kissed her on the forehead. “Kate, hon, are you with me?”

  “Donnie?” Her eyes met his and a flicker of reason registered.

  “Yes, sweetie. Let’s go rescue Corey. Are you with me?”

  “Corey?” She seemed to wake out of the grief stricken state. “Yeh, yeh.” She pushed her fists against either side of her head, then looked at the whip dangling from her hand. “Yes.” She fingered the leather and her expression morphed into determination. “YES!”

  They stood up and joined hands, and Donnie led her back through the corridor. They decided to climb to the upper ridge. As dawn broke, the slaves poured out of the cages for their daily tattooing and went to work finishing up the scaffolding.

  “The Traptor,” Kate whispered as she gazed across the ravine at the gruesome contraption.

  Donnie cocked his eyebrows in question.

  “That is what Dagan called it.” She looked down at her hands.

  Guilty. Kate felt guilt. Donnie felt suspicious.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): COREY CHASTAIN

  Now the slaves knew I intended to sacrifice myself, not only for them, but for the Mother. Fear that they would be left at the mercy of the dragons or worse, the Mother, trickled through the camp. With the rising of the sun, angry, surly stares dawned on me.

  “You cannot leave us to fend for ourselves, Cianti Todura!” one man whispered into my ear as we labored along, finishing the contraption that would be my doom. “We are counting on you to lead us to freedom!”

  A tall woman made an obscene gesture at me as I passed her at the water hole. Stunned, I stopped and dropped the bucket I carried.

  “You betrayed us!” she spat at my feet and stalked away with several others who glared in my direction.

  I retrieved the bucket, filled it, and started up the path again. Two men walked back down the trail toward me. I lowered my head to avoid their heated glares. They planted their shoulders into me and shoved me to the ground. Water soaked me and the dirt as my upturned bucket sloshed. They kicked dirt in my face and hurled insults.

  Baffled, I sat and watched them trundle down the hill. Dirk ran to help me up. He searched my face but had nothing to say. He picked up the bucket and pressed it into my hands, his face drawn into hopeless despair.

  The Kiarnusk came for me just after noon. They prodded me with their sticks and dragged me out to the center of the camp. Shoving me into a water hole in sight of everyone, they scoured my body of the dried mud, until my skin burned, scored and exposed. Three of them converged on me and completed their tattoo designs, covering every inch of my flesh in pictograms of horrible acts of perversion. Humiliated, disgusted, and broken, I submitted to their rough handling, holding on to the thought that this act saved Kate and the others.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DONNIE DUDGEON

  The Kiarnusk led Corey out onto a ledge leading into the Traptor.

  Donnie scanned the area. God! It is happening! There is nothing I can do about it. I need to get Kate out o
f here, now!

  “Kate!”

  “I’m staying!”

  “Kate, I don’t know how to stop this from here. Maybe if we can get over to the other side, I can get to him.”

  “Go! Do it! Save him.” She latched onto the boulder until her knuckles whitened, and peered through the crevice to see him.

  “You have to come with me.”

  “No. I have to stay here.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to see him, Donnie. I won’t take my eyes off of him until…” Her face fractured into pain so deep, Donnie knew she would never leave.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “I won’t be alone for long.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Remember, Mel and Tara will be here soon.”

  He did remember how they described the coming scene, gruesome. “Kate, you don’t want to be here for that.”

  “I have to.”

  Donnie ran through the facts he remembered of Mel’s and Tara’s Scriptorium experience. The Kate in the Scriptorium, covered in tattoos, had weird Mohawk hair. Like the Mother had when she went out to Corey and Trip when they were first captured. Something had changed. Kate looked nothing like that, now. The events playing out in front of him were very different. Maybe he could rescue Corey, but he had to hurry.

  He squeezed Kate’s shoulder and ran back to the cave entrance. He whispered a prayer for Corey, for the Keepers, and for Kate.

  He couldn’t imagine Kate could stand the sight of Corey’s gruesome death and have any sanity left in her. If she stayed on that ledge, she would have an unobstructed view.

  The view would change her life forever.

  Unless she was already changed.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): COREY CHASTAIN

  With the tattoos and mortification complete, they took me into a tunnel that wove behind the scaffolding. We emerged on a ledge overlooking the ravine where the cages and slaves were. The guards pinned me to the wall, locking my head into a spiked cage and ramming my armpits into hooks that pierced my flesh and bore my weight. Warm blood seeped down my sides and between my toes as excruciating pain bit into my shoulder joints.

  The slaves all dropped their loads, faces upturned. The wailing began.

  First Father Whistleu broke into a moan that rose in intensity. His sons and daughters ran to his side and glared at me. The other Darchori fell to their knees crying out in anger and despair.

  “Why? Cianti Todura? Why do you betray us?”

  The other slaves that had begun to hope because of the faith of the Darchori, hurled rocks and insults at me.

  “False Lord!” they screamed and spat, pulling at their hair and flesh. Such despair, disappointment, and anger I had never seen.

  The Keepers scowled as they watched from below. Tara’s anger blistered as her eyes darted around desperately seeking a way to save me from myself. Trip and Dirk held onto her from both sides. They did not approve of my decision, either, but the time for action had passed. They didn’t want Tara to endanger herself in her grief. Eunavae doubled over in anguish and fell to her knees, weeping and rocking back and forth. My heart broke to see my family so torn apart.

  This is for you. This is for Kate. This is for your freedom. I let the words wash through my mind fueling my resolve.

  The angry mob raged, no longer amicable toward me. They seemed to want my death hastened.

  The Kiarnusk locked the mask cage into place, clamping it over my head. It bore sharp spikes that dug into my scalp. One deep breath or wrong move and the spikes would be driven into my brain. Blood continued to spill from my armpits and limbs.

  I brought the memory of my Kate to the front of my mind. I watched her drink deeply from the stream. I traced her profile and watched the reflection of thousands of fireflies in her eyes. As my life flowed down my sides and into the sand far below, I conjured up the memory of our bodies intertwined on our wedding day. I thought of her perfect brow creased in concentration as we spent endless hours studying together. I recalled our thousand years of flight and pure love and learning that the beauty of her face and body couldn’t touch the beauty of her soul. I remembered our mornings in bliss so full of worship. My last kiss to Kate, an act of sacrifice, this moment would buy her freedom and she could spend the rest of her life enjoying the inheritance that I left her. I began to softly sing The Immortal Song and the crowd below ceased their angry jeers and stopped to listen. They dropped their rocks and insults, shoulders and heads and listened to the song of the Thousand Year love as it trickled from my lips while my blood trickled down the face of the cliff.

  Then the horror began.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): DIRK JOHNSON

  This can’t be happening. A dozen scenarios flashed through his mind, none of them led to an outcome he could accept. He watched helplessly as the hideous Rhinoguards skewered his friend into the contraption they had all built. He couldn’t stop them. That would ensure the death of everyone under his care, even the locals.

  Tara growled and rushed forward. It took both Trip and him to hold her back. Eunavae collapsed to the ground beside them and wailed the most forlorn sound he had ever heard. It ripped into him, the sound of his frustration and anguish made manifest. It drained the life out of Tara, too, and she stopped struggling. She took a step back, gutted as Corey’s blood trailed down the face of the cliff.

  When the song began, he strained to listen. The same song Kate sang in the jackal cave, the song of their love. A song every Darchori whispered in their tender moments. It brushed gently over them, and they fell to their knees and wept bitterly. The sudden change gave every slave a moment of pause and sapped their anger. They dropped their stones, abandoned their insults, and just watched his friend fade from this life.

  QUANTUM PERSPECTIVE SOURCE (QPS): TRIP CARSON

  “Tara, the Rhinoguards aren’t even minding us anymore,” Trip whispered as they stood at the bottom of the scaffolding shielding their eyes from the sun, watching Corey’s life ebb away.

  “Why should they? If Corey does this we are free. If he doesn’t we are dead.” Tara already sounded dead. Her eyes, glazed and red, stared at the stripes of blood seeping into stones of the cliff wall. Her chest rose and fell as she panted for reason as much as air. Trip understood that she just could not fathom Corey’s decision to give his life for Kate, the betrayer.

  “Tara, when you watched this from your Scriptorium, where were you?”

  She turned a flat expression onto Trip. “Don’t you mean where was she?”

  He couldn’t confirm her suspicions. It would just make her angry to think that he still held out hope of Kate being controlled by that friggin’ dragon.

  “Twenty paces from the exit to the upper corridor.”

  “Show me.”

  She swiveled and gazed up at Corey one last time, turned to Trip and nodded.

  “Come on,” Trip whispered to Dirk and helped Eunavae up from her knees. As they made their way out of the pit, Trip noticed the crowd of slaves stood still or sat weeping. They had counted on the Cianti Todura to lead them out of bondage. They didn’t expect him to give his life for their oppressor.

  Trip did.

  He knew Corey would sacrifice himself. From the moment Corey realized Dagan and the Mother had targeted him, Corey hatched this plan. They slipped into the corridor unseen, rounded a corner and ran into Donnie.

  “Donnie!” Eunavae’s forlorn face cracked, and she threw herself into his arms.

  “I don’t suppose you mud covered, painted blue monkeys would be interested in your jumpsuits would you?” He set Eunavae down and held open his backpack. It bulged with extra jumpsuits.

  “How did you get these?”

  “Back at camp. They left all of our stuff there. I only took a few things from each pack. I didn’t want to alert them to my presence.”

  “Smart.” Dirk wriggled into his pants.

  Trip had completely forgotten a
bout being naked, modesty had been beaten out of him in the arena. Now that everyone else had clothes on, it felt weird to be standing in the nude. He grabbed one of the remaining jumpsuits.

  “So you know about Corey?”

  Donnie nodded. “Where are you headed? I thought you would be looking for a way to rescue him.”

  “We can’t rescue him until we know if Kate is a traitor or if she is captured. If we rescue him and she dies, well I don’t want to be the one to tell him that.”

  “Kate is on the upper ledge.”

  “Yeah, we figured, since Tara saw her up there in the Scriptorium.”

  “No, I left her up there. She didn’t seem like a traitor. I found her chained to a wall, sobbing over Corey. She’s not painted up like Tara and Mel described.”

  “Yet,” Tara spat. “I bet she insisted you come down here, alone, didn’t she?”

  Donnie’s face turned red. “Well, yeah, but—”

  “She is the Mother! When are you people going to see reason! All of you.” Tara’s fiery countenance radiated the heat of her argument.

  “When we see it for ourselves,” Trip said flatly. “Not a minute before.”

  “Fine! Then let’s get up there and you can witness her betrayal with your own eyes.”

  “Don’t you want to rescue Corey?” Donnie pointed in the opposite direction.

  “Yes!” Eunavae agreed. “I don’t care if Kate betrayed him or not. I just want him out of that—”

  “Kate called it the Traptor.”

  They all turned and stared at Donnie. How did Kate know its name? They built it and didn’t even know it had a name.

  “Really? Kate called it that.” Tara crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t suppose she told you how she knows that.”

  “She said Dagan told her.”

  “Really, Dagan told her.” She cocked her head to the side and pierced Trip with a sarcastic stare. “Dagan, the dragon who collaborated with the Mother in my Scriptorium. The Mother who looked just like Kate.”