by Dee, Bonnie
Shaking her head, she didn’t have time for his unbridled idiocy now. She raised a hand in an attempt to halt his forward progress. He ignored it. Figured. He was nothing if not persistent. It had taken a shot of Earth energy into his balls to get him off her.
Mumbling foul words under her breath, she hurried to meet him. They had very little time to save the humans.
“We’re breaking for lunch.” He reached for her. “Come on, you’ll ride with me.”
“No!” She put her hands behind her back to avoid his. Childish? Yes. But Darcy, while not much taller, could match her strength and more. Bruised balls and her threat to emasculate him while he slept were the only reasons she’d managed to get him out of her room this morning. She hadn’t reported the assault, or any of his earlier sexual harassment, to the Keepers of the Environment, the organization that employed them both and had funded the dig, because she needed the job. Plus, Miller’s father was a KOTE Council Elder, and when push came to shove, the politically connected Darcy would be believed over her. Life’s lessons had taught her that much. “There’s a problem,” she said. “You need to take the humans and get the hell out of here. Now!”
Darcy frowned. Gripping her upper arms tightly, he pulled her to him and said in a low, savage tone, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. You can’t avoid me. You can’t avoid us.”
Us? Not in a million years.
He shook her and tightened his hold even more, undoubtedly layering more bruises on top of the others he’d left on her. Well, the marks would appear if she lived long enough—the quake would most certainly kill her and tens of thousands of others if she didn’t get a handle on it soon.
“Darcy,” she hissed, struggling against his grip. “One word—earthquake. Large. Now. Here. Get the humans as far away as possible. Do your fricking job for a change.”
His jaw dropped open and he released her arms. “Are you sure?” He shook his head. “Of course you’re sure. You don’t joke about things like this. Not the serious Lily Redfern.”
Something snapped inside him and she could visibly see the Protector essence he managed to sublimate most days come to the fore. “How much time? And how far away is safe?”
“Very little. Far.” Like the Arctic Circle, maybe.
He nodded sharply. “Do your job, Lily. I’ll be back for you. We aren’t through yet. You’ll be mine—completely.”
“Whatever.” She’d already turned her back on him, calling over her shoulder, “I’m not worrying overmuch, Darcy. I don’t figure either of us will survive the conflagration.”
She angled her head and realized she’d made her comments to dead space. Darcy had already herded the team to the KOTE helicopter. Thank the gods he had the authority to requisition the expensive mode of transportation. All other KOTE projects she’d worked on used four-wheel drives to ferry the scientists to the archeological sites.
A wave of energy sweeping over her skin and into her spine interrupted her wayward thoughts. Her back arching with pain, she fell to the ground, landing on her rear.
Better stay down, Lily, my girl. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
She rolled to lie on her stomach. Placing an ear to the ground, she closed her eyes and sent all in her that was Earth Keeper into the soil.
Down, down, her essence sank, seeking the depth and magnitude of the quake. All around her the earth groaned, crackled and buckled. Slowing her descent, she paused at three kilometers and realized immediately she’d have to go deeper, maybe as much as ten kilometers, to reach the core of the quake. For it was at that level where the formerly somnolent Wabash Valley Fault line lay.
“This is inconceivable,” Lily muttered while she sent out counter energy, fighting fire with fire, in an attempt to prevent the buildup from reaching the surface. In most quakes, it was the rolling motion when the tremendous forces reached ground level that caused the majority of death and destruction.
The Wabash Valley Fault system, she knew, was a normal fault system and usually the most stable of all plate tectonic movements. The last dangerously large earthquakes in this fault had occurred in prehistoric times when the North American tectonic plate had actively moved apart from the Eurasian and created the geographic configurations familiar to anyone with a current world map.
Normally, southern Indiana was as stable and solid as the limestone bedrock it was famous for. The New Madrid fault, hundreds of miles away, along the Mississippi River in Missouri, was the danger zone for Earth Keepers in this part of the United States. In fact, KOTE had established a permanent emergency response team there. For all she knew, she was the only Earth Keeper of any power in the Ohio Valley. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to halt the destruction and loss of lives sure to follow a quake of the magnitude this one promised to be.
“Okay, Lily, stop whining—you’re it, girl. Let’s put this sucker to sleep.”
Or at least into a lower magnitude.
Pep talk notwithstanding, she wished she had at least a hundred other Earth Keepers alongside her.
Closing her eyes to block out all visual distractions, Lily concentrated on the rhythm of the waves of energy emitted by the grinding of plate sliding over plate.
Ice-cold shock skittered down her spine and turned her stomach into a pit as cold as nuclear winter. The energy emissions were too regular—and accelerating way too fast for tectonic plate movement in a naturally occurring quake. Something—or someone—had awakened the old fault—artificially.
Chilled by the knowledge someone had deliberately set into motion an earthquake promising to be magnitude 9.0 or greater, Lily resolved to give all that she was to slow it down. She couldn’t stop it. No one Keeper could. If she had a team … no, maybe not even then.
Resigned to imminent death, she sank her essence even more deeply into the earth. If she could redirect the powerful momentum, divert it into harmless lesser faults and into the ancient liquefaction sites buried deep under Indiana, she might … might … be able to lower the magnitude, saving lives on the periphery of the quake. Sadly, she accepted life at the epicenter and anyone living within a minimum of a hundred miles was doomed.
Briefly, she mourned the loss of human life. She hoped Darcy would have the common sense to go to the limits of the helicopter’s range before touching down. Surface movement from a quake originating in the Midwest could have the intensity to cause structural damage, and loss of lives, for hundreds of miles. No one deserved to die before his or her time. Not even a scumbag like Darcy Miller.
Shaking off her morbid thoughts, her life energy sank rapidly once more, permeating the ailing Earth. She barreled through the sedimentary layers as quickly as she dared, drawing the tremendous power into herself and directing it into smaller, less volatile faults and any dead space she sensed along the way in order to keep it from reaching the surface.
It was a losing battle. Soon, far too soon, she’d die from the excess processing of energy an Earth Keeper was never meant to assimilate.
As the pressure within her essence built, her corporeal body throbbed with pain so excruciating that she screamed. Biting her lower lip, she stifled the cries of pain. Screaming wasted energy, energy she needed to save lives.
By her calculations, her essence had only traveled four kilometers and the worst waves of energy were yet to come at the focus point or core of the quake.
Suddenly a burning pain from something other than the unrelenting pressure of the quake tore through her, distracting her from the task at hand. Something sharp had cut into her palm.
As she sent even more energy, possibly the last of her reserves, into the ground, she examined her hand through bleary eyes. Within her bloody fingers, she clutched an amulet she had never seen before. It was made of a huge, roughly cut diamond set in hand-worked, shiny—sharp—silver-gray metal. Glittering lights, running the spectrum of the rainbow, flashed and spit from the stone’s core, pulling her attention into its heart.
A soothing fe
male voice filled her head. As if by a miracle, the pain wracking her body subsided to a dull throbbing.
Earth Keeper Redfern, you are the chosen one—one of the Talisman from the prophecies of Sorhineth. This day and your coming have been heralded for eons. Use the amulet. Focus on it. Use it to channel your protective power.
Learn your power well … for worse is yet to come. A dark one—a Destroyer—shall attempt to stop you. A Protector shall join with you as your Consort.
Above all, remember this: The power of three will rule the day.
Protector? Consort? Power of three? What three? Was the voice speaking of mind, body and soul?—the trinity of all Terrans’ power?
Elusive memories of the Talisman legends bounced around in her aching head. She couldn’t think. All she could do was grasp onto what little sanity and life force she had left. Her job was not anywhere close to completion, yet she wasted time listening to an imaginary voice in her head. Had she gone mad? Had her use of power driven her to the edge of sanity?
With the fading of the voice, the debilitating pain returned a hundredfold, and with it weakness. The quake seemed to sense her weakening and gained ground.
Pushed beyond the limits of her ability and faced with untold destruction, she took a flying leap of faith and concentrated on the stone. Why the hell not? She had nothing to lose at this point. Dead was dead—and the longer she managed to stay alive, the weaker the quake would be.
Already the quake’s L-waves had reached the Earth’s surface and tossed her prone body about like a dinghy on a choppy ocean of grass, dirt and rocks.
Refocusing all her remaining energy through the center of the crudely faceted stone into the ground, her essence sank even faster into the earth. The pressure of the rock above her spirit-self, along with the pounding of the underground S-waves, increased. The heat became unbearable and as she slipped into unconsciousness and the last of her energy ebbed away, a masculine voice spoke in her head. His male essence enclosed hers within a bubble of brute male strength.
I’ve got you, Talisman. Hang on.
* * * *
Monday, 7:35 a.m. (PST), Southern California Coast.
In a secret barracks located on the Southern California coast, Captain Carr Madoc tossed and turned on his cot. He couldn’t sleep. A dream—no, more like a nightmare—kept him from the rest his body so desperately needed.
He and his Army Recon team had just completed one week of vigorous training and were shipping out that night for the northern coast of Japan. North Korea was making warlike noises and he and his comrades were being sent in to collect intel. He needed to sleep, because it was very likely he wouldn’t get a solid eight again for weeks.
Instead, he kept having the dream. No, not a dream. A nightmare.
Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of his cot and stealthily left his bed. Maybe a glass of milk with a dollop of the communal Scotch would help him nod off.
“Carr? You okay?” His best friend, Ike Smith, spoke softly from the next cot. Like Carr, Ike was also a Terran, a Protector. They’d enlisted in the Army at the same time and went through Recon training together. Their enhanced Terran strength, their psi abilities and their allegiance to Earth as Protectors had made them the best of the best. The humans on their team, while strong, brave and intelligent, had nothing on them in the ability to survive. With Ike and him on the team, the North Korean trip would be child’s play.
“A dream.” Or was it? It had been too real. Colors, scents, feelings … her, all had seemed tangible.
Ike shifted on his cot, stood, then slipped in behind Carr, pushing him toward the small kitchen. “Let’s get a drink. Tell me about the dream.”
Dreams were nothing to scoff at for a Terran Protector. Many times, dream visions had saved both men’s lives—and those of the Earth Keepers and humans they protected.
Carr retrieved the milk carton from the fridge and poured himself a glass and one for Ike. His friend had already taken the Chivas out of the cupboard and now added a jigger to each glass of milk. Taking a long drink of the cold liquid, Carr almost choked. He had a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball. Swallowing, he eased the tension in his body by breathing deeply and took another sip. This one went down smoothly. He hadn’t realized how much the dream had disturbed his equilibrium.
Ike watched him closely. “Man, you are wound up. What was in this dream?”
“A tall woman with long black hair like living silk, and grass-green eyes. An Earth Keeper. She was lying on the ground, face down—”
“So, how did you know her eyes were green?” Ike’s lips turned up in a teasing grin.
Carr frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Sex dreams never kept you awake before.” Ike winked. “So, what’s up with this chick? She cut you off before you could get your rocks off?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Carr snapped, suddenly furiously angry at his friend’s casual, joking attitude. “She needs my help. A feminine voice—not hers, although I don’t know how I know that—told me to surround her with my protection. Told me I am the Protector of the Earth Talisman…”
“Whoa, hold the phone. Shit, shit, shit!” Ike slammed his glass on the counter and turned Carr round to face him. “This voice in your dream said you were the Protector of the Earth Talisman?”
“Yeah.” A chill of fear settled over Carr. The look on Ike’s face was one he’d never seen, a mixture of awe and dread. Nothing, but nothing, awed or scared Ike. Not even the strongest Destroyer or the most hellacious battlefield. Carr gripped his friend’s forearms, shaking him. “What is it, Ike? What do you know that I don’t?”
Ike shrugged off Carr’s hands. Rubbing a shaky hand over his shaved head, he said, “Fuck, Carr. Didn’t your parents ever read you the prophecies from the Book of Sorhineth when you were little?”
“Sure, but I don’t believe in fairy tales.” Carr avoided Ike’s worried gaze and studied the label on the bottle of Chivas. The intensity flashing from Ike’s eyes disturbed him. Niggling memories of the Book’s stories surfaced slowly in his conscious mind swirling like a chaotic cloud.
“Since its rediscovery in 1989, the Book of Sorhineth has never been wrong.” Ike paced the small kitchen’s perimeter.
“Okay, so what in the Book relates to my dream?” There was no way he was a Protector for a Talisman. His dreams were just … well, dreams.
“Remote viewing, not a dream,” Ike said, stopping in front of Carr. “The woman is real and what was happening in your vision is happening now. Fuck me!” His friend looked around seeking something. He pounced on the remote for the television as if it would save their lives. “If she’s the Earth Talisman, then the catastrophes predicted by the Sorhineth are upon us. It could very well be the end of Earth. There could be breaking news or something.”
Carr leaned against the counter and studied his pal. Ike was seriously freaked. His normally nerves-of-steel fellow soldier believed all the shit coming from his mouth. A sense of dread hit Carr hard.
The television flickered on. A CNN news alert described U.S. Geological Survey reports of quake activity within the last five minutes—in southern Indiana of all places!
It couldn’t be coincidence. Damn, he’d never had remote viewing—or any precognitive abilities before—other than the hypersensitive instinct for survival with which all Protectors were born.
Convinced now, his eyes and ears absorbed the sketchy live news report. “So, what am I supposed to do? I don’t know this woman. Never met her. Wouldn’t know where to find her even if I did know her, though somewhere in southern Indiana looks like a good bet. But, most importantly, I don’t know how to encase a Keeper in my Protection long-distance. You know how it works—if I can’t touch or see her, I can’t protect her.”
“The amulet!” Ike slammed his hand on the counter causing his glass of milk to jump. “There’s supposed to be a fucking amulet. She’ll have one appear when it is time—and y
ou should get one also.” He stared at Carr’s chest; his jaw dropped open. “What the hell? Look!” His friend pointed.
Carr glanced down at his T-shirt-covered chest. There was a lump on his sternum. He pulled out an ornate bejeweled amulet worked in a shiny gray metal, all tangled up in his dog tags. The large, clear, roughly cut stone in the center glowed with flashes of multi-colored light sparking off its surface.
“Touch it,” Ike urged in a hushed voice. “Close your hand around it. Picture the woman—and see where it takes you.”
“Takes me?” He stared at the jewel, its icy heat almost burning his fingers. “Like a transporter?”
Carr had never heard of a transportation device in the form of an amulet. There had been rumors of equipment that could replicate such travel, but as far as he knew the machines filled whole rooms in subterranean, top-secret military facilities. He had never transported anywhere, although he knew some rare Air Terrans and some of the preternaturals who aided his species from time to time could naturally teleport.
He couldn’t. Hadn’t. Wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“Your Protector essence, not your body, jerkweed. Go! Save the Earth Talisman—and the Midwest. I’ll cover your real ass here.”
Carr could tell Ike believed every word he’d said. Trusting his buddy as he trusted him on the battlefield, he grasped the amulet in his right hand, closed his eyes and brought up the image of the beautiful woman in his vision. Cold heat spread throughout his body and he felt the instant when the essence housed in his astral self left his body and took flight—eastward.
The trip took mere milliseconds. His astral body fell to Earth and hovered on the astral plane above the woman in his vision.
While the sun shone and a wild wind roared over the unnatural mound of earth upon which the Talisman lay, the ground under and around her moved like a storm-tossed sea. Trees and rocks jumped and rolled, and in the center of it all, she lay, hugging the ground and trying her best to stop what looked to be an unstoppable catastrophe.