Legacy

by A D Starrling

  A familiar figure stepped in front of Ethan moments before he reached the giants. It was the dark-haired immortal from the abbey. Ethan now knew his name from his mental connection with Olivia.

  Scoleri grinned. ‘I was hoping I’d see you.’

  A grunt sounded behind Ethan. Reynolds sailed past him and struck the hood of a nearby Humvee with a sickening thud. The Ranger lay stunned for a moment before rolling onto his side and shaking his head dazedly.

  Ethan was halfway to the vehicle when he caught a flash of metal out the corner of his eyes. He leaned sharply back at the waist and saw Scoleri’s sword skim past his face. The weapon crumpled before it completed its deadly arc.

  Scoleri straightened and stared at his twisted blade. ‘I thought you might do something like that.’ His gaze met Ethan’s, his dark eyes glinting with a malevolent light. ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to do anything about him, though.’

  Ethan realized his mistake too late. He heard Reynolds utter a choked warning. A crushing force gripped his head and lifted him off his feet. Pain exploded behind his eyes.

  Sweat beaded Olivia’s forehead as she backed up against the wall and faced the super soldiers in the command center. She swayed slightly, her breathing heavy and fast as she continued her mental assault on the barriers protecting their psyches.

  Asgard and the soldiers with him fought desperately to stop the giants’ progress. They might as well have been trying to move the ocean’s tides.

  Olivia watched as the Rangers and Bastian Hunters who had come to Asgard and Ethan’s aid fell under the enemies’ powerful blows. Most rose repeatedly, their bloodied faces full of grim determination. She knew from reading her uncle’s thoughts that even more men were converging on their location in the Arizona desert, soldiers dispatched by the US president and the leaders of the immortal races.

  Desperation choked her throat. It’s too late! They won’t make it in time to stop Jonah Krondike.

  Asgard lifted Armistad to defend her once more, his arms trembling. A gasp left her lips when a super soldier knocked him clear across the room. The immortal struck the far wall with a loud thud and slid to the floor.

  Stand down!

  If Asgard heard her plea, he gave no indication of it. He crawled to his feet and leaned unsteadily on the hilt of his sword, blood dripping from a fresh wound on his head and eyes blazing with iron resolve.

  A sudden burst of pain shot across her mental link with Ethan, startling her. Olivia blinked.

  It was at that point that the super soldier called Mason Hofstadter finally reached her. A shadow fell across her face as he slowly raised a hand against the psychokinetic wave she projected.

  Olivia heard Asgard shout her name a second before the giant closed his fingers around her head. She registered the intent in the man’s expression and tasted blood as she bit her lip.

  No! It can’t end like this. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after all the pain and heartache Asgard and my parents have had to endure. Not after Ethan and Madeleine’s losses.

  Mother Edwards’s face swam before her vision. And not after her death and that of all the nuns at the abbey!

  As the super soldier started to squeeze her skull, Olivia closed her eyes and centered on the shimmering lay lines of her soul, despair echoing in every beat of her racing pulse.

  Please. Give me strength.

  The golden threads throbbed just as excruciating pain enveloped her head. They expanded and multiplied with her next heartbeat, enveloping the very core of her being with a blinding light. The hairs rose on her arms. Her skin tingled, struck by a thousand sparks. Olivia gasped as unearthly energy bloomed inside her chest and shot along her veins, filling her body with fire. Her birthmark blazed.

  She lifted her hands and placed them on the super soldier’s temples. He rocked back on his heels as she blasted through the walls of his mental resistance, pulverizing them to nothingness. And deep inside the vicious prison created by Jonah Krondike’s ruthless experiments, Olivia discovered the remains of the very human and tortured mind of Mason Hofstadter.

  Ethan leaned against an armored truck and wiped fresh blood from his mouth.

  The giant on the ground crawled to his knees before climbing to his feet.

  ‘You gotta be kidding me!’ Reynolds’s chest heaved with effort. ‘What the hell are these guys made of?’

  Despite his fractured ribs, the major had found a metal pipe from somewhere and was holding it in a white-knuckled grip. The makeshift weapon had already acquired several dents from contact with enemy soldiers.

  The immortal next to them winced and hopped on his unbroken leg. ‘Yeah. You would have thought being hit with a flying Humvee would have stopped anyone.’

  Ethan watched the giant grimly, his own breaths coming in short, sharp pants. The vehicle he’d used to free himself from the deadly attack lay on its roof some twenty feet away.

  Of the Rangers and immortals who had stormed the upper level, fewer than half remained on their feet. They stood with Ethan and Reynolds, their injured comrades in their midst.

  The other super soldiers were making their way across the floor toward them. Ethan focused on a row of Jeeps and dragged three of them across the floor into the figures.

  Metal screamed and crumpled. The giants slowed for a moment before pushing the vehicles aside.

  A loud rumble tore through the air. Ethan looked to the right.

  A gap appeared in the lower south face of the cave. It grew as two sets of thick concrete walls parted to reveal a shallow, rocky incline. Beyond it lay sunlit desert.

  ‘Did we see that on the satellite pictures?’ said Reynolds quietly.

  Ethan shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It would have looked like part of the wall anyway.’

  Reynolds scowled. ‘They’re going to get away!’

  Engines rumbled into life around them as the men who had survived the assault on their base started filing inside the army vehicles.

  Blood pounded in Ethan’s ears. With the current training exercises taking place in the proving ground, it would be impossible to find the enemy soldiers if they reached the other troops deployed on the site.

  A Jeep squealed to a stop next to Scoleri. He opened the door, placed a foot inside, and turned to Ethan.

  ‘Once these men are done with you, they’re going to bring us your girlfriend. And Storm?’ The immortal’s grin turned malicious. ‘She tasted nice. I’m going to enjoy making her scream under me once Jonah’s finished with her.’

  Rage dropped a red mist across Ethan’s vision. He moved toward Scoleri.

  Jonah reloaded his automatic weapon and aimed at the figures on the other side of the cave. Shots echoed around him as the men Scoleri had sent to ensure his safe escape exchanged gunfire with their enemy. Bullets glanced off the two Sikorsky helicopters parked fifty feet away and the Black Hawks that had brought the Rangers and the Bastian Hunters to the heliport.

  Fury thrummed through the Crovir noble. He had not expected Asgard Godard and Victor Dvorsky to move so fast, nor for the US government to have agreed to come to their aid so decisively.

  I have to get out of here. There’s too much at stake.

  He turned to one of the immortals next to him. ‘Get Scoleri to send backup!’

  The man nodded and spoke into the microphone pinned to his collar.

  A fist the size of a football slammed into Ethan’s flank. His ribs cracked. Air left his lungs in a shocked wheeze. He sailed across the room and slammed into a crate, blood spraying from his lips. As he fell to his knees and tried to draw a breath past the spasm of shock locking his throat, Ethan saw a shadow swoop across the floor toward him.

  The super soldier’s foot connected with his arm with the force of a hammer. Numbness bloomed down the limb as the bone shattered. Black spots swam across his vision.

  The floor around him was littered with the bodies of fallen Rangers and Bastian Hunters. Reynolds and the last immortals wh
o had fought the super soldiers lay a few feet away, injured and unconscious. Scoleri’s vehicle had disappeared in the yellow wilderness beyond the concrete doors. The trucks and Jeeps carrying the rest of his men were shrinking shapes on the desert plain.

  A warning shout reached him dimly. Ethan recognized Asgard’s voice. Hope rose inside him, bringing with it a fresh surge of strength. He raised his left hand and blocked the super soldier’s blow with a burst of elemental energy.

  The giant’s fist stopped in mid air, inches from his head. The figure grunted and took a step forward, his face impassive. Two more super soldiers joined him.

  It was at that point that Ethan felt Olivia’s rage flood his mind.

  ‘YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM!’ she roared.

  Chaos erupted around him.

  Incandescent fury filled Olivia when she saw the super soldiers standing above her soulmate.

  Psychokinetic energy surged from her and washed across the cave, crushing everything in its path. The floor shook beneath her feet. Explosions went off as the fuel tanks of vehicles and crates of ammunition detonated.

  The super soldiers stumbled, pushed by the invisible wave that surged toward them. They fell and rolled across the ground before coming to a stop near the concrete doors. Some gripped the edges to prevent themselves from being propelled outside.

  Olivia headed toward where they lay, her body trembling with uncontrolled anger. Debris shifted before her, forced aside by pulses of sheer mental pressure.

  She stopped in front of the giants and reached inside their heads, tearing the obstacles she found until she located the surviving threads of their human minds. She flexed her fingers and snuffed out their consciousness as she had all the other humans who had crossed her path.

  The super soldiers collapsed.

  Olivia walked past their still bodies and stepped out into the sunlight. Her gaze locked onto the vehicles racing across the desert toward distant hills. She sensed streams of consciousness belonging to the enemy and some of the Rangers and immortals who had attempted to stop them in a large space beneath the mass of rock.

  It was the heliport she had seen in the scientist’s mind when she’d awoken in the lab.

  A fresh tide of rage rose through her when she came across Scoleri’s thoughts. Next to his where those of the man she had been searching for.

  Outrage clashed with apprehension inside Jonah Krondike’s mind.

  Olivia reached inside her soulmate where he lay on the concrete floor of the cave and focused on the elemental powers pulsing in the golden lines around his heart.

  ‘Burn!’ she growled.

  Heat seared Ethan’s chest. He stiffened, his eyes flaring blindly in shock. Power swamped his body, stronger than anything he had ever experienced.

  He arched his back and cried out as his elemental abilities exploded.

  The air shimmered in front of Olivia. Flames burst into existence with a thunderous boom twenty feet from where she stood. They expanded rapidly to form a vast wall of fire.

  The blaze rippled and roiled as it raced across the desert, growing exponentially in size and burning all in its path.

  Asgard grunted, his arms trembling with effort as he tried to push off the shaking ground.

  Madeleine and Howard lay a short distance away, bodies flattened to the concrete floor by the psychokinetic energy whirling around them, debris flying above their heads. Madeleine grimaced and stretched out a hand toward Asgard. He reached across the floor and curled his fingers around hers.

  Most of the Rangers had fainted at the incredible pressure beating down on them. Only the immortals remained conscious, some just barely so.

  Although he couldn’t feel any pain, Asgard was nonetheless aware of Olivia’s emotions. Her anger vibrated through his mind, a crimson sea of undiluted wrath intent on the destruction of the ones she held responsible for ruining the lives of all those she had come to love, and all those she had lost.

  He lifted his head a couple of inches, only to freeze when he finally saw what lay beyond the doors of the cave.

  Asgard could only stare in awe at the devastation raining down on their enemies.

  The tires of the vehicles at the rear of the convoy lifted off the desert floor seconds before the flames reached them, rising on the tide of violent pressure. The fuel tanks detonated, killing most of the men inside. Those who survived the explosions perished in the fiery storm that swept across the plains, their screams carrying in the hot wind.

  The destructive wave rolled across the wasteland, smashing through the remaining trucks and Jeeps, kinetic energy driving the burning wreckage across the blackened ground.

  A shape rose in the sky above the hills, contours shimmering in the blistering air. Rotors glinted in the sunlight.

  Olivia zeroed in on the helicopter and the immortals inside. You will not get away!

  She drew on Ethan’s powers and struck the aircraft with a burst of elemental energy. It shuddered and rocked wildly before righting itself, continuing its passage across the desert and taking with it the man who had brought so much pain into her life.

  Olivia’s gaze dropped to an area ahead of the aircraft’s path. Despite the fact that she had only seen the facility in the scientist’s memories, she was able to remote-locate to the power plants underneath the desert.

  Ethan rolled onto his side, his heart thundering inside his chest. Olivia’s rage swept through his body and mind, a physical presence that threatened to consume his very being. He focused on the burning ball of energy inside his chest, tapped into his powers, and rose to his knees.

  Sweat mixed with blood dripped from his face and struck the floor beneath him. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and turned toward the concrete doors.

  Ethan had but a moment to grasp the destruction his soulmate had wreaked before incandescent light bloomed on the horizon, nearly blinding him. He squinted and raised a hand to cover his face.

  Through the gaps between his fingers, he saw the gigantic explosion mushroom from the desert, a searing cloud that engulfed a helicopter in the sky above it. He knew instantly from Olivia’s thoughts that Krondike and Scoleri were inside the aircraft.

  The intense blast from the power plants leveled the rest of the enemy vehicles and gusted across the land in an expanding circle that annihilated everything before it.

  Movement to the right drew Ethan’s gaze. Alarm stabbed through him when he recognized the helicopters and army trucks bringing more Rangers and immortals to the enemy base.

  Olivia!

  The Seer remained deaf to his warning, her fury unabated.

  Ethan stared at the inferno about to engulf the men coming to their aid, his mouth dry with fear.

  ‘Stop her!’ Asgard shouted behind him.

  Ethan gritted his teeth and moved toward his soulmate.

  Olivia froze as the scenes unfolding before her eyes resonated with a memory deep inside her.

  I have…seen this before.

  A man stepped in front of her, blocking the sight of the violent conflagration that filled the earth and the sky. He grabbed her shoulder with his good arm and shouted something. She stared blankly at his blurry, blood-stained face. It belonged to someone she knew.

  The man stepped closer. Olivia blinked when she finally recognized the face of her soulmate.

  Desperation burned in Ethan’s eyes. He curled a hand around her head and kissed her.

  A warm glow filled her soul from where he touched her. The emotions he projected with his lips washed through her and smothered the rage that burned inside her heart.

  Olivia gasped. The reality of all that had happened and all that was still unfolding imprinted on her straight from Ethan’s thoughts.

  Help me, he whispered inside her mind.

  She nodded shakily. He took her hand in his and turned to face the raging inferno in the distance. Olivia closed her eyes and fully linked her mind with his as they focused their combined powers on the destructive forces she had brou
ght into existence and which now threatened to ravage their allies.

  Seconds before it reached the helicopters banking sharply in the sky and the vehicles skidding across the desert, the incandescent storm shuddered and stopped in the face of a wall of pure psychokinetic and elemental power.

  She felt Ethan concentrate on squashing the angry, boiling flames raging against the invisible bubble they had projected around the blaze and lent him all of her strength, augmenting his ability even more. They remote-located to the power plants beneath the desert and extinguished the source of the massive explosion before sucking all the air out of the dome with their combined energies, removing the final fuel that fed the fire.

  Eerie silence blossomed across the desert when the blaze finally abated.

  Asgard blinked. The ground had stopped moving. Debris crashed around him and brought an uncanny stillness in its wake. The force driving him to the floor had disappeared. He staggered to his feet, Armistad clasped in his hand.

  Ethan and Olivia were on their knees on the shallow incline outside the cave. Their arms were wrapped tightly around each other, their bodies trembling. Tears streamed down his niece’s cheeks.

  Asgard limped toward them.

  ‘I’m so—’ said Olivia.

  ‘Don’t!’ Ethan pulled away and gripped her face in his hands. He stared fiercely into her eyes. ‘Don’t, Olivia. Without you, we’d be dead. You saved us. You saved all of us.’

  She turned and looked at Asgard as he approached, green eyes full of remorse.

  ‘Ethan is right, Olivia.’ He stopped before them as they rose to their feet and brushed a finger against her cheek. ‘Natalia and Kristof would be proud of you.’ He looked out to the desert and the burning wreck of the helicopter in the distance, still reeling from all that had come to pass. ‘You avenged them.’