The Drow Grew Stronger (Goth Drow Book 4)

by Martha Carr

  Cheyenne watched Bianca’s unmoving silhouette and sank lower in the armchair. “Gonna be a long night for sure.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  “Wake up, Cheyenne. Now!”

  She jolted at the shout and opened her eyes. She sat outside on the lawn in front of her father, his golden glowing eyes a foot away from her. “Dammit, L’zar! You gotta cut this out.”

  “I’ll use the Don’adurr Thread when I have to, Cheyenne. You’re the one who agreed to the connection.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause I thought it was a one-time thing.” She looked around, noting the blurred appearance of the grass and the tree line and the sky starting to lighten into dawn. “If this wasn’t in my head, I’d be walking back to the house right now.”

  “Listen, I think I’ve found what we need.”

  Her gaze settled back on his. “To help Bianca?”

  “Not directly, no, but it will greatly improve our chances of successfully forcing Ba’rael to accept your terms.”

  “Fuck that. You were supposed to be looking for the cure for this curse or whatever you wanna call it. Right now, I don’t give a shit about Ba’rael or Ambar’ogúl or anything else. You need to fix this for my mom.”

  “I will, Cheyenne.” L’zar stared at her without any trace of his usual annoyance. “My word might not mean anything to you at this point.”

  “You’re right. It’s pretty much worthless.”

  “But this is a huge step for us. I found it. It’s right here on Earth. Ba’rael can’t possibly refuse to step down when we bring this to her.”

  Cheyenne blinked. “Seriously? It took you this long to find something that was here the whole time?”

  L’zar tilted his head. “Give me a break, all right? There’s a lot going on in my head, and sometimes it takes longer than I’d prefer to dredge up what I want.”

  “You mean, like anything useful?”

  They stared at each other, then L’zar took a deep breath and slowly let it out again. “Whenever you’re finished berating me, I really would like to—”

  Muted shouting rose through their astral-dream connection. The valley around them flashed with multi-colored lights, and Cheyenne was thrown out of the Don’adurr Thread with a jolt.

  She gasped and sat bolt upright in the armchair in the breakfast room, wincing at the tightness in her neck and shoulders. “Ow. Shit.”

  Rubbing out the pain, she looked through the curving wall of windows to see every FRoE agent and O’gúleesh rebel on their feet, moving quickly and shouting at each other. The portal ridge flashed with multi-colored lights rippling between the formerly inactive columns of black stone.

  Not inactive anymore. Shit.

  Her gaze fell on Bianca, who seemed unchanged one second and started trembling violently the next.

  “Mom!”

  Cheyenne slipped into drow speed and sprinted through the house, racing down the stairs and slipping back into normal speed again only to open the glass French doors onto the veranda without shattering them. Then she darted in a gray and white streak to the balcony, leaped over the side, and sped across the lawn.

  When she dropped out of enhanced speed right in front of her mother, Bianca’s entire body bucked and jerked, her eyes rolling back in her head. “Mom. Mom! Come on. Corian!”

  The nightstalker appeared beside her in a flash of silver light.

  “What’s happening?” Cheyenne reached out to Bianca, who made strangled choking sounds, but Corian jerked her hand away.

  “Don’t touch her.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, Cheyenne, but it’s not safe.”

  “Watch it!” Byrd sent a ball of green flames hurtling past the half-drow and the nightstalker before it burst on the portal ridge. “I’d get the fuck away from there.”

  Cheyenne and Corian spun to see a glistening black tentacle undulating between the fists of black stone. “Fuck.”

  “Nothing we haven’t handled before, kid.” Corian grabbed her arm and drew her away from Bianca.

  “Stop.” Cheyenne jerked her arm out of his grasp. “We can’t just leave her there!”

  “You wanna take yourself down trying to pick her up?” Glinting claws emerged from his hands with a metallic tzing. “’Cause that will happen if you touch her now.”

  “L’zar held on.”

  “L’zar’s an idiot. We take out these things first.” Corian turned to the FRoE agents and the rebels behind them and shouted, “No reason to hold back!”

  “Damn right, there isn’t.” Lumil raised both fists and summoned the spinning red runes.

  A sleepy-eyed Bhandi stared at the flashing portal ridge and her mouth dropped open.

  Lumil turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “You ever fight one of those things?”

  “I don’t even know what the fuck it is.”

  “Fun stuff.” Lumil let out a blood-curdling battle cry and darted toward the second tentacle sneaking out from between the black stone columns. Her first punch ruptured the in-between monster’s appendage, which burst into millions of glittering black shards. “Huh. That was easy.”

  Cheyenne could only stare at her mom, who was still jerking where she stood, her feet magically glued to the grass beneath her. “Mom? If you can hear me, what the fuck?”

  A black tentacle had snaked across the grass toward Bianca’s ankle. Cheyenne sent a crackling sphere of black energy at the thing and shattered it. A warbling scream rose from the in-between creature trying to free itself from the portal, and the ground trembled.

  “Was that thing reaching for your mother?” Corian asked.

  “Yeah.” Cheyenne summoned an energy sphere in each hand. “What the hell?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t change anything. Let’s take ‘em down.”

  The nightstalker darted away from her in a zigzagging streak of silver light and slashed at the next tentacle crashing toward him from the air.

  As L’zar’s rebel magicals darted into the fray, blasting in-between monster parts to small bits, Yurik stared at the portal ridge. “This is the weirdest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Rhynehart drew his fell pistol. “Guess I forgot to brief you on this part.”

  “You’ve seen this before?”

  “Couple nights ago. Get moving.” The team leader stepped toward the ridge and fired shot after shot.

  Another bellow from the in-between split the air, and a massive, constantly shifting form rose above the highest stone pillars. The FRoE agents unleashed their fell ammo at the wavering shapes. Corian and Maleshi darted about in flashes of silver light, slashing and severing tentacles into huge chunks that disintegrated into the air before they hit the ground. Byrd and Lumil screamed and fought together, punching with red fists and launching green flame into the portal ridge. Persh’al’s whip of blue magic cracked against a huge pincer darting out of the portal and snapped one half cleanly off.

  Cheyenne launched black energy spheres at the much thinner, faster tentacles snaking out of the portal and lashing at Bianca’s arms and legs. Why do they want her? She has nothing to do with this!

  A long, thin black barb shot from between two stones toward Cheyenne’s face. She ducked and launched another attack. Glowing red eyes appeared beyond the wall of flashing lights in the portal, followed by a hulking, undulating mass without any real shape except for dozens of flailing tentacles and a mouth that looked like a blooming flower.

  As she aimed an energy sphere at that mouth, the weirdly shaped feature burst open and sprayed a dozen more glistening barbs at the halfling. Cheyenne raised a translucent black shield in front of her and her seizing mother. The barbs pinged off it like metal pellets, and a second later, she felt the cold, tight grasp of a thin tentacle coiling around her ankle.

  Snarling, she flung an energy sphere at the tentacle as it jerked her off her feet and sent her crashing to the ground on her ass. Blinking at the shock racing up her spine, Cheyenne unleashed orb afte
r orb at the hulking black thing. The monster’s scream of pain and fury was echoed by two more from farther down the portal ridge, where the other magicals battled the more easily shattered creatures.

  Cheyenne tried to get to her feet and had to abandon that idea when another spray of barbs headed toward Bianca. She raised another shield in front of her mom and was whipped off her feet again by another darting tentacle. “Come on!”

  Bianca let out an involuntary hiss as her body trembled on the grass. The flashing lights pulsed faster, growing brighter by the second. The rest of the in-between creature with the open petal-like mouth lurched between two stone pillars with not enough space for its body. The air filled with the sound of tearing flesh as pieces of the creature broke off. Cheyenne hurled attack after attack at it, trying to get to her feet and keep the lashing tentacles away from her mom at the same time.

  The broken shards of the in-between monster rose into the air like hundreds of tiny flying war machines and buzzed in a swarm toward Bianca.

  Cheyenne studied them and blasted them out of the sky at the same time, but most were fast enough to avoid her attacks. And the activator’s not picking up a thing? Does it only work on these in the in-between or what?

  The flying shards raced across Cheyenne’s body, peppering her face and neck and the top layer of her trenchcoat with slicing cuts. She hissed and stepped in front of her mom, glancing briefly at the shredded sleeve of her jacket. I’m so fucking done getting my clothes ruined by this bullshit.

  It only took a split-second’s thought of the Nimlothar seed that had bonded to her before her drow magic blazed even hotter inside her. Black flames rippled across Cheyenne’s flesh and burned behind her eyes. As she went to fire a column of drow fire at the emerging monster ripping itself to shreds to emerge from the portal, a streak of black and white darted past her.

  A brilliant flash of purple light ignited inside the monster, then L’zar slipped back into normal speed and looked over his shoulder at Cheyenne. Shattered monster pieces spilled from his clenched fist like water. “They’re trying to take Bianca.”

  “You think?” Cheyenne’s voice didn’t sound like her own, but she ignored it and shot a spray of black flames inches away from L’zar’s head to join his purple magic blooming inside the monster. The second her magic hit his, the creature ignited in a burst of purple and black, spraying chunks all over the lawn and peppering the magicals fighting off two other hulking beasts emerging from the portal.

  Hard chunks of glistening monster shell clattered against yet another shield Cheyenne raised in front of her mom. The in-between monster, or what was left of it, shrieked and withdrew into the flashing multi-colored lights.

  “Fucking die!” Bhandi fired round after round of fell ammunition into the portal.

  Jamal had opted for the one fell cannon the new FRoE team had thought to bring to the Summerlin estate. With a grunt, he hefted the launcher onto his shoulder and fired. A thick green burst of light flared around him and the heavy weapon as a concentrated fell rocket blasted into the portal ridge.

  The monsters screamed together in dozens of voices, tentacles flailing and whipping around, claws and pincers and strangely shaped teeth clicking and breaking off. Squeals and creaking groans rose from the Border portal, then every remaining in-between creature slithered, thumped, or skittered back into the darkness between the jutting stone columns.

  The wall of shimmering, flashing light flared once with blazing intensity, then winked out.

  L’zar snarled and paced back and forth in front of the ridge, his golden eyes blazing with battle rage. He was the only one who didn’t turn to look at Jamal, who dropped the fell launcher into the dirt and grunted.

  The black flames racing across Cheyenne’s body snuffed out, and she blinked at the superpowered FRoE grenade launcher in the grass. “Please don’t tell me that’s the most effective way to beat these things back.”

  “What?” L’zar hissed and spun to face the ogre, his eyes widening as he realized the portal ridge had shut down.

  “Ha! Look at you, you giant fell-damn brute!” Lumil punched Jamal’s upper arm and grinned.

  He grunted, gave her the barest hint of a grin, and shoved her back. With a shout, Lumil flew away from him and skidded across the grass.

  Byrd cracked up, one arm wrapped around his stomach as he pointed with the other at the goblin woman. “It’s like you’ve never fought an ogre before!”

  She sat up, shook loose grass out of her floppy yellow hair, and thumped her fist into the grass before her spinning red runes reappeared. “Sounds like you wanna get knocked the fuck across this portal too, dae’bruj.”

  The FRoE agents joined Byrd in his amusement, snickering at the goblin woman on the ground. Even Payton cracked a crooked smile, but it disappeared as she stepped back and lowered the fell rifle strapped around her neck and shoulder.

  “It wasn’t the fucking bazooka,” L’zar growled.

  The laughter stopped. The O’gúleesh rebels waited for him to say more as the FRoE agents, including Rhynehart, stared at the drow thief finally on his feet and joining in their unlikely get-together.

  “Then what was it?” Corian asked.

  L’zar sneered at the columns of black stone, gazing from one jagged tip to the next. “They were called back.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” Cheyenne shook her head. “You think Ba’rael—”

  Bianca let out a strangled moan behind her daughter, and Cheyenne spun as her mom stopped seizing and crumpled to the grass.

  “Mom!” She darted toward Bianca.

  “Cheyenne, don’t!” L’zar shouted.

  At the same time, a deafening crack filled the air and echoed around the valley below the Summerlin estate. The ground trembled violently, then the black pillar in front of the unconscious Bianca split and started to fall.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Cheyenne reached toward her mom, black tendrils snaking from her fingers. She coiled them as gently as she could around Bianca’s arms before dragging the woman swiftly away from the crumbling pillar of stone. The top half of the column crashed into the grass with a thud mere inches from the soles of Bianca Summerlin’s feet.

  Retracting her tendrils, Cheyenne raced toward her mother and risked touching her. When the curse didn’t blast her away, she lifted her mother in her arms, and turned away from the crumbling stone. “Mom?”

  “Cheyenne,” Corian called. “Get her to the house.”

  The ground bucked beneath them all, and every other thick, jutting black spear on the portal ridge trembled and splintered. Muted black light grew between them, buzzing and flashing in a way that seemed to suck all the dawn light out of the valley. Cheyenne turned toward the house and almost dropped Bianca when the ground shook one more time. The black light ballooned up from the portal ridge, then was sucked back through in terrifying silence.

  Yurik raised his fell rifle in both hands. “What the—”

  The portal ridge exploded, roaring like a violent windstorm and sending chunks of shattered black stone in every direction. The agents turned away, despite the helmets they’d tugged on before the fight. Their dampening vests afforded them little protection. Corian, Maleshi, and L’zar darted away from the worst of the blast. Cheyenne gritted her teeth and raised a huge shield between the exploding portal and the magicals who could no longer fight back. She slipped into drow speed with Bianca in her arms and raced away, then gently lowered her mom to the ground.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  She sent her black lashing tendrils whipping at the suspended debris to shove it aside and away from the others. Magic burst faster than it should have from within the crumbling portal and struck down her shield.

  Then she saw the blight.

  It was moving as quickly as they’d seen it consume the mountain village in Ambar’ogúl, snaking out from between the shattered chunks of stone to spread black sludge and shrivel the grass in its
path.

  Cheyenne saw Corian and Maleshi slipping into enhanced speed beside her, and their eyes widened when they saw the blight spreading from Ambar’ogúl through the in-between onto Earth. “What do we do?”

  Corian gritted his teeth. “Get everyone as far away from that as we can. I told you to take Bianca to the house.”

  “There has to be something we can do.” They all took a step back as the blight moved with surprising speed away from the shattered portal.

  “We don’t have time to look for alternatives, Cheyenne!”

  “There’s no way we can get everyone out of here.” The halfling stooped to pick her mom up again and turned to the house. “And it’s gonna keep moving. I can’t take her to the house.”

  L’zar appeared with them in enhanced speed and scowled at the creeping blight. “Honestly, I did not see this coming.”

  “We have to move the others. Now.” Maleshi headed over to Persh’al and lifted him under one arm like he was a cardboard cutout before running with him toward the hillside and the estate house.

  “Go.” Corian nodded at L’zar and pointed at the FRoE agents, Lumil, and Byrd, who were suspended in regular time.

  “I’m not carrying anyone, Corian.”

  “Well, do you have a better idea? Because if you can’t keep this shit from spreading, the least you can do is not be completely useless!”

  Snarling, L’zar ran after Corian toward the other magicals to start the agonizingly slow process of moving them all in enhanced speed.

  Cheyenne jogged across the lawn as Maleshi headed over to her again, trying not to jostle Bianca too much. I don’t even know if I can hurt her running around with her like this. “What’s next, open a portal when everyone’s far enough away? Eleanor and Ember are still in the house!”

  “Just keep moving. We’ll figure it out, but we can’t waste time talking.”