Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles)

by Michele Callahan

  Good place to hide, if she were an alien renegade, or a conspiracy-chasing woman who needed to live by the ocean. Her house was near here. How truly bizarre it would be if she and this Dark One were neighbors.

  The smell of the ocean was thick in her nose and the humidity made her skin shine. She could almost feel the waves rolling up on to shore, cresting, and running back to open sea. Almost. Like a flutter of sound in the back of her mind.

  She wondered where her friends were, her sharks. Did they swim this way as they wandered the world? Or were they still hunting, getting fat and sassy off the coasts of Bermuda?

  A tear rolled down her right cheek and she wiped it away. Sad state of affairs when you missed a great white shark.

  Jesus. What the hell was wrong with her?

  Nothing six foot six of Sleeping Beauty wouldn’t cure, she’d bet. Yeah, and don’t hold your breath for that one.

  Mari slammed on the brakes and turned into a drive. A white slatted gate blocked her path about thirty feet from the road and she crept up to it and parked her car. This was the place. She could feel the Dark One’s power, feel him like a ping-ping ball rebounding inside her skull. Damn it anyway, she needed to get this over with just so that clanging would go away.

  She slid the car key into her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder. She could have buzzed herself in, if she knew the secret code to his private gate, or called ahead to ask for entry. But somehow, that didn’t seem like the best plan. Call it a hunch, but if he was bouncing around in her head like this, he could probably already feel her, too. There’d be no surprising him. She’d just ring the doorbell and pray he was reasonable. Pray hard.

  The bizarre star womanseemed to think he would be. She’d have to place her faith in that.

  Swinging one leg over the short metal gate, then the other, Mari climbed the little fence like she used to do when she was a kid. Then she saw the dark shadows whisper past her in the trees, racing for the house.

  Triscani. Here. And she’d led them straight to him.

  “Teagh! Run!” Mari screamed her warning and leapt to the ground, already sprinting up the drive.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Run, run, run…

  “Damn trees.” Mari pumped her arms and legs like a human piston, willed herself to get there. Faster. Faster. She couldn’t see anything for the first few seconds but plants, and trees, and so much green she wanted to burn it down. Then she saw the house, and the rocky beach. The water called her like a siren of serenity. She could always go there, get away. Stop the din. The pain. She ignored it.

  Inside her skull a war raged, the annoying clang became a roar of noise so intense it nearly hobbled her. She pushed on, her vision blurry, to the front door. Of course it was closed, the Triscani didn’t need to bother with doors.

  She tried the handle, expected it to be locked. It opened in her hand and she pushed, swinging it open on silent hinges. It was gloomy inside the house, gloomy and sparsely furnished. Tile flooring smacked under her leather sandals as she hurried into the living area. Her hand blazed with light, answering her need before she completed the thought. The weapon was truly becoming part of her, which was a good thing, because when she peeked around the corner of the kitchen to the dining room she found Teagh was pinned to the wall by two Triscani soldiers while an oh-too-familiar visitor gloated.

  “Ahh, Teagh. Darkwalker Lord, Keeper of the Gate and general pain in my ass, we meet again.” The sinister man she’d met aboard Raiden’s ship stood a few feet in front of Teagh, inspecting the Dark One’s brown shorts and sandals. Teagh was bare from the waist up, heavily muscled with skin a delicious mocha brown. Droghan stepped up to Teagh and placed his nose close to Teagh’s neck to sniff him. “I search for you for seven hundred years, and when I find you, you smell like fish.”

  “What do you want, Droghan?” Teagh stood immobile, but Mari felt a leashed beast inside him. Would he have a chance against the Triscani? Who was he really, and what kind of power did he possess? If she could take one of them by surprise, could he defend himself long enough for her to finish the job?

  Maybe not with Droghan so close to him. Droghan, in his tailored black suit and red silk shirt looked more like a Miami drug lord than an alien sociopath. She needed to figure out a way to give Teagh more room, and buy herself some shooting time. She hoped for a clear shot at Droghan, but he always seemed to have one of the others on each side. Coincidence, or centuries of practice protecting his own hide?

  “What do I want? That’s not the correct question, my young friend.” Droghan stepped back and paced a couple of feet in front of Teagh, who watched him with slanted eyes and a scowl on his face, but no fear. Fascinating. Mari was terrified. Droghan shook his head. “No, the question should be, what do you want? I am irrelevant. You hold the keys to the kingdom, and yet you live like a convict, always hunted, hiding. An outcast.”

  “I live in peace, old one. That is all.”

  Mari pressed herself flat against the wall around the corner, slid to one knee, and moved her head over just enough that she could watch them all with one eye. Teagh’s eyes darted her direction when Droghan’s back was to him. He knew she was here. So he could sense her presence, feel her near. Was he waiting for her to make a move? Should she do it now or wait, hoping to learn more?

  She needed to know more. If things went critical, she’d come out palm blazing.

  “The new Queen. Who is she? Where is she? She’s hiding and you can help me find her.” Droghan stopped, arms crossed over his chest. “She’s going to die in a few weeks, anyway. We both know how this will end. With Ajax gone, there is no one left that can balance her power, no male strong enough to survive her Mark.”

  “I can. Bran can. There are a few of us left.”

  Droghan laughed, and it was the cruelest sound Mari had ever heard. “Empty dreams, Teagh. You and I both know the truth. Only Ajax’s insanity could contain her power, and he’s not…coming…back.”

  “Love isn’t insanity.”

  “So you say. Nevertheless, Ajax is lost to you and this is a new Queen, not that weak child that Marked him the first time.” Droghan flicked a nonexistent speck of dirt from his suit lapel. “Ajax is gone. Angeline is gone. The battle draws near and we both already know how it ends.”

  “What do you know of Ajax?” Teagh finally lost his cool, yanking and kicking at the Triscani that held him. They didn’t budge, and Droghan only laughed more.

  “Ride the night. Find the new Queen, this Timewalker. I want her. Bring her to me, and I’ll tell you what happened to your precious king.”

  “He’d rather die than trade her to you.”

  “Oh, yes. I am well aware of his proclivities.” Droghan pulled an obsidian blade from some hidden pocket of his suit jacket. Mari shuddered, remembering all too well the slicing ice and agony of that type of blade piercing her own heart. “And since you won’t do as I’ve asked, which is not wholly surprising, I wonder what will happen to the Gate without you alive to anchor it?”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Teagh’s nostrils flared and he tensed. Mari tensed as well, and clenched her fist over the heat in her palm. She could almost hear Teagh in her mind, warning her to be ready. She didn’t really know who he was, but if he was going to take on the Triscani, she was going to help him. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

  Make that hot hand. Ready.

  Droghan stepped forward with the black crystalline blade.

  Now!

  Teagh’s order was a thunderclap in her mind. The sound of his voice sent fire through her Mark and jolted her into action. She stepped out from behind the wall and fired at the Triscani holding Teagh’s right arm. He disintegrated into ashes and Teagh struck at the other one with his newly freed arm while Droghan looked right at her. Too calm. Not at all surprised, but then, she was the one who had led the bastard here in the first place…

  So stupid.

  “Decided to join the party, after all, little Marina?�
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  Mari ignored him and blasted a second Triscani. Teagh was on the ground beneath two more who had just stepped out a portal. She tried to get a clear shot, but just like with Raiden, there was none to be had.

  Great. Here we go again.

  She lifted her gaze back to Droghan too late.

  “I was expecting you this time, my dear. Such a shame to waste such talent.” He held a good old-fashioned, and very human, .45 in his hand, and it was pointed straight at her.

  <><><>

  Raiden knew something was horribly wrong. He’d lost the link to her, that minuscule tug on his heart and mind that had led him from the airport to this two-lane road in the middle of nowhere.

  He’d been following her, racing after her, since the moment after landing in Miami. The pilot, one of Sarah’s relatives, had handed him a large book with the words Road Atlas on the cover and shown him where he was before handing him the keys to a vehicle. He said Tim had “fried the GPS”, whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Irrelevant. The map he’d tossed over the seat almost as soon as he got on the open road. It distracted him. He didn’t need a primitive piece of paper to find her, he only needed one thing. One. Thing.

  And it had just vanished, the cold creeping from his shoulder to his heart like an infection. Something was wrong.

  No! No! No! He slammed his hand against the steering wheel and hit the gas pedal. Mari!

  A chill ran down his spine, ice water and cold jelly crawling over his skin as a white car came into view, parked and abandoned just off the road. Every alarm bell he had went full tilt when he noticed a black backpack, exactly like the one sitting on the seat next to him, lay askew just on the other side of the gate.

  He pulled in behind the car and parked. He’d cleared the gate in seconds and reached the house in time to hear a gunshot reverberate through the thick forest surrounding them.

  “Mari!” He shouted her name and raced to the porch. The front door was gaping open, forgotten, and Mari knelt on the floor twenty paces ahead of him. Eyes glazed with pain when they lifted to his face. Her hand wrapped around her shoulder, and her blood dripped between her long, slender fingers to fall to the tile floor.

  And still, no fire in the place that should have burned with her Mark. No heat at all.

  He didn’t remember covering the distance. He raced forward, uncaring what he would find. Mari was in danger. Nothing else mattered. He spotted the bastard he’d first encountered on his ship holding the weapon and headed straight for him. Raiden felt it again, the pull of his mother’s people. So this was a true Immortal. This Immortal was the one who had hurt her.

  He would die the only way Raiden cold kill him, sucked dry by one of their own kind.

  Raiden loosed the beast, the power, the hunger filled him up, an explosion of need so raw and angry it would never be satisfied. He’d drain them all, this Immortal traitor, the Triscani that grappled on the ground with a male he assumed was the Darkwalker Lord. He’d devour them it.

  Mari would be safe.

  “Raiden, no!” Mari’s plea registered in his mind but didn’t effect his movement or his intent. His soul was clear now, thanks to Mari. He could hold three of the bastards. He’d done it before. The pain would be a small price to pay to keep her safe.

  The Immortal must have known, must have seen his end in Raiden’s eyes, because he stepped backward through a portal and disappeared , leaving the Triscani grappling with Teagh behind to die.

  Enraged, thirsting for vengeance, for power to fill the void he’d opened in his own soul, Raiden wasted no time with finesse. He ripped the Triscani’s soul from him like yanking entrails from rotted fish.

  And beneath the Hunter, a grim expression on his face, was Teagh. The Dark One. Bleeding, but alive. A Timewalker’s Mark lightly branded on his left shoulder in the exact place his had been hours ago.

  Mari’s Mark? On another male.

  Gods be damned. If that was Mari’s Mark, then Raiden surely was. Perhaps Teagh already belonged to another Timewalker, a female who happened to have her Mark in the exact same place Mari had hers. That was too big of a stretch, no matter how desperate he was to keep her. Mari had found Teagh all right, and Marked him. Claimed him.

  Fuck.

  “Did you hurt her?” Raiden kept himself in check, barely. It was the only question that mattered. Wrong answer and he’d rip Teagh’s head from his body like twisting the lid off a tube of toothpaste. Then Mari would have to give him back what was his.

  “I would never hurt a Timewalker, or a woman. Droghan shot her with a .45.”

  He had no more thought for Teagh. He’d promised Tim he’d listen first, kill second. The immediate danger was gone, now only one thing mattered. His woman and getting her back.

  “Raiden, watch out!” Mari screamed a warning. Raiden and Teagh both spun to see a flash of light off to the side and Mari running toward him. Angel’s Fire leapt from her hand toward the portal that had opened. Droghan stood on the other side with his pistol. He aimed at Raiden’s heart and fired.

  Mari leapt between them and slammed back in midair as the bullet struck her small frame.

  “No!”

  Mari crashed to the floor. Silent. A smiling Droghan saluted the men, then vanished.

  “Mari.” He pulled her into his lap. Blood soaked his knees and chest. In his hand, hers lay limp and trembling. She had a hole in her chest. The bullet had missed her heart, but he could hear her lungs filling up with blood, her breath a death rattle. He’d heard it too many times before. Had held too many friends, too many of his crew in this same position. Watched them all die. Had never wanted to be here again.

  But he’d stay here on his knees for eternity, for her. Only for her.

  “I’m sorry, Raiden. Don’t kill Teagh. You wouldn’t listen.” Her honesty cut him like a hundred blades, but she looked him right in the eye and he forced himself to meet her open gaze. She’d always been the open one, the one willing to give everything. To trust. To love him. To give him her body and soul, even when he knew he hadn’t earned it and damn well didn’t deserve it. Even when he’d refused to accept it.

  Now it was gone, and he wanted it back. Needed her back.

  “I know. Mari, I…” Raiden groaned, doubling over in pain, wrapping himself around her, over her, protecting her the best he could. The evil stench of the two Triscani he’d drawn into himself circulated in his bloodstream like acid, pulsing through each ounce of flesh, polluting him. Rotting him from the inside out. But this time, there was no Mark, no Shen, no link to the beautiful woman in his arms that could save him. He was alone again, baring the burden he’d chosen, fighting the evil that twisted him from the inside out. “I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t deserve her. Tim’s words haunted him… How many times does she have to die for you?

  There was only one option. If she’d truly chosen another male, a worthy male, he would let her go. He looked up to find a curious expression on Teagh’s face. “Can you heal her? Protect her?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded before leaning over and kissed her, softly. So very softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes as silent tears streamed from their corners and slid down, past her temples, to disappear into her silky black hair. “Kiss me for real.”

  Raiden did, with every ounce of love he could pull from his battered, broken heart. He lost himself in the kiss for a moment in time, and then he felt it. A tug. A bit more. Warmth spread through him followed quickly by a flood of hot relief and guilt.

  She was pulling the foul stench of the Triscani from his body, from his spirit. And she was connecting them once more. Heaven for him. Hell for her. “Stop.”

  “Shhh.” She held his head, fingers like steel beams locked in his hair, her lips pressed to his as she pulled the ugly remnants of the evil power from his body. Her skin, pale from blood loss, turned greenish, then gray, and still she did not release her hold. She kissed him.
Held him like he was the only thing in the world that mattered to her.

  He waited, poised to strike, to send his energy coiling through the new link she had created between them, thin as a thread and just as fragile. Linked, he could heal her.

  He didn’t get the chance. Physically, he was healed. Perfect. Ready to do battle.

  She lay in his arms, feeble, lethargic. “Give me the soul stone. It’s in my pocket.” The order was directed at Teagh, who knelt beside them and pulled the inert stone from her pocket. He placed the black stone in her blood-covered hand.

  “You don’t need to do this now, my lady.” Teagh’s tone was deep, and filled with respect. He curled her fingers around the soul stone and held her small fist safely within his own.

  “Now or never.” Mari closed her eyes. Lights welled up from within her, circled under her skin. They traveled in a swirling train of energy, flowed from her body to her hand. Lights danced from her skin to Teagh’s. Her fist glowed, the light a bright reddish orange that shone through the flesh of Teagh’s gentle hold.

  It was over in seconds. Mari’s skin once more cold and gray. Mari opened her eyes and presented Teagh with her blood-covered gift. The stone with a piece of a powerful Immortal’s soul safely tucked inside.

  She’d been the one to activate the stone on his ship because she’d created it in the first place, over a hundred years in Raiden’s past. “Raiden believed the stone hidden on his ship contained a piece of your Lost King’s soul. Droghan believed the same. The Seer, Celestina, told Gerrick this stone belonged to the Lost King, and it may, but it does not hold a piece of his soul.”

  Teagh looked to Raiden for an explanation, but Raiden shook his head. Teagh looked back at Mari. “Then whose soul does it contain?”

  “I don’t know. But that is the soul of a woman, and even that small piece of her is very powerful.”

  “His Queen.” Teagh stared at the stone, clearly shocked. “It must belong to his Queen. He can use it to find her before Droghan.”

  Raiden listened with half an ear. Mari was bleeding to death in his arms and they were talking in circles. There was no way to know who the mystery woman in the stone was. Mari had carried the Remnant soul. If she didn’t know who it belonged to, no one did. “Mari. Focus. Heal yourself now. We can figure out the stone later.”