The Betrayer (Crossing Realms Series Book 3)

by Rebecca E. Neely

  As if to underscore its demise, one of the van’s tires blew with a deafening bang. Dazed, Zane wiped blood from his mouth and cast a glance at the passenger side floor. The gods only knew where his phone was. No time to search for it. He needed to get the hell out of here.

  He’d fight these Betrayers. With the Flint, the Vitality. Even his fists and his wits. Anything available to him. Then he’d make it to the network on foot. He could do it. He ran five miles a day.

  About ten yards ahead of him, the Pontiac screeched to a stop. Zane’s good eye narrowed to a slit. Thrusting open the crumpled driver side door, he clambered out. Dumbfounded, he assessed the bridge.

  This is why there’d been no police before.

  Horror leeched into his bones. Vehicles of every description jammed the bridge. About fifty yards from where he stood, cars rear-ended cars. Metal crumpled amidst splintered glass while blood spattered wasted windshields. Trucks, eighteen wheelers and pick-ups alike, rammed into one another, forcing many vehicles over the road’s cement barrier and into the river below. A Toyota Camry exploded in flames, blasting the bridge’s yellow steel girders.

  Smoke erupted from engines as tremors rocked the pavement. The stench of ozone and gasoline stung the air in sickening concert with the screams of the living. His pulse pounding, Zane registered the fact emergency vehicles—police, fire trucks, ambulances—were also part of this crazed demolition derby. Not one siren wailed through the chaos.

  A dark energy bomb.

  His adrenaline surging, Zane sized up the Betrayer charging him from his left. Tall, muscular, his eyes shaded by mirrored sunglasses, some kind of gym rat. In seconds, Zane calculated the rat outweighed him by at least twenty pounds.

  Zane reared up and landed the first punch, throwing his full weight behind it. The Betrayer cried out and stumbled back. Recovering quickly, he launched himself at Zane, the Similitude around his neck glowing clear.

  And the foreboding walloped Zane.

  Fear burned and blistered within him. What the hell was going on? Why wouldn’t the Flint respond the way it did at the warehouse? With all his ability, Zane channeled and drew on the stone’s energy. He gained the advantage, but only for a precious few seconds.

  Behind him, car doors creaked opened and shut. He whirled around, fighting to stay alert.

  The Betrayers from the warehouse approached him. The man with the white beard. The woman, too, wearing black leather from head to toe.

  Zane gripped the stones around his neck and channeled. Focused.

  Another car exploded. The pavement quaked beneath his feet. Zane sucked in a breath, heat and fumes searing his throat. Cobwebs seized him, then garroted him. Stumbling, he fell to his knees, smacking the concrete. The edges of his vision hazed. Dim thoughts of Dev swam in his mind, of the end he’d suffered. His grip floundered on the Vitality around his neck.

  Useless.

  How? Why?

  I have to warn my clan. Curtis! My sister.

  Saxon. Her face appeared in his mind, more clearly than he’d ever seen it.

  “Finish him,” the woman jeered.

  Prying his eye open, Zane stared at the sky, bruised by storm clouds. Saxon. Thunder boomed. He’d battle with every strength given him. Until the end.

  The dark energy sucked him down.

  And under.

  Baffled, his vision dimming, Zane locked on the Betrayer, gripping the Similitude. The man crumpled to the ground, his eyes bulging. The stone glistened black. His mouth fell open. A strand of saliva trickled from his lips.

  Zane tapped into the last vestiges of his energy, focusing on the dying Betrayer.

  And slipped into his Vista.

  The last thing Zane registered was the stunned expression on the Betrayer’s face, as he too learned the truth.

  Chapter 6

  Unforgiving light wrenched Jordan to the surface.

  Not dead.

  Her head ached. Thick and dry, her tongue welded to the roof of her mouth. Her palms rested on some type of rough material. A sheet? As always, the relentless discord in her mind blasted her. The hissing of a light bulb. Footsteps. Car horns. Tires, screeching on asphalt.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Instantly, she regretted it. Brightness—daylight or maybe a lamp—assaulted her vision. She’d been out of it, but for how long? Groaning, she writhed fitfully.

  She’d been dying. Gratefully. Now she was alive? Why? Where the hell was she? The warehouse? Why was she lying on . . . Squinting, she scanned what was beneath her. A bed, of sorts. Odors of paint and sawdust permeated her awareness. Another sniff brought the city’s heat and humidity, confirming she was above ground instead of below, where she’d spent so many hours.

  “Glad to see you coming around.”

  Panic froze her. That voice. She’d heard it before, in the warehouse office. Survival, as much a part of her as her own skin, screamed at her, even as exhaustion threatened to tow her under.

  Run! She squeezed her eyes shut, her only defense.

  The Keeper.

  A dull, steady thrum, intimately familiar, pulsed, enticing yet frightening her on a primal level.

  Impossible.

  “I know you’re awake. I wouldn’t try to escape if I were you. It’s at least ninety degrees today, and you’re dehydrated. You won’t last five minutes.”

  Escape. The word distressed her. She was a prisoner, powerless to defend herself. Cautiously, her pulse thudding in her ears, she slitted one eye open.

  “I bet you’d like something to drink.”

  Her lips, tongue, throat, all wept at the mere suggestion. Was this how he’d torture her? By withholding fundamental necessities?

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, shocking her. It was a lie. Had to be. What Keeper wouldn’t try to end her? Or any Betrayer?

  “I’m going to help you sit.”

  Every survival instinct she possessed ordered her to rail against this Keeper. But her very pores craved the water. To get it, she couldn’t stop him from touching her, because she wasn’t capable of sitting on her own.

  Placing one hand on the small of her back, he held her fingers in his and helped her up. Instantly, her head spun.

  “Are you okay?”

  What do you care? She wanted to ask but said nothing, and instead drew ragged breaths. Because she couldn’t seem to focus for longer than a few seconds, she kept her eyes shut and concentrated on his voice. It was gentle, even bordering on kind, with a keen determination running along the edges of it. Strangely, it soothed the train wreck in her head.

  No. Trust nothing. No one.

  He could kill her, effortlessly, with his Vitality stone. But there were many ways to kill.

  And die.

  She risked squinting for a moment and got a fleeting impression of him, squatting beside her bed. Hair, the color of straw. Not muscular, more of a lean, wiry build. Of course, she’d seen him at the warehouse before. However, she’d been more focused on the other Keepers, hauling her from the tunnels. Strapping her to a chair and trying to kill her by draining her energy.

  Twin waves of fear and dizziness rushed over her. Quickly, she shut her eyes. Again, he held her hand, his fingers heating her skin. Easing a glass into her grip, he helped her raise it to her lips.

  “Sip,” he directed.

  He could’ve killed me already.

  Defenseless, she did as he said. The liquid cooled her parched lips and tongue, her abused throat. For a moment it eased the sour taste in her mouth. She longed to gulp but knew it would make her sick.

  “I added some electrolytes too.”

  Baffled, she drank again. With a shaking hand, she wiped her mouth, her lips scaly against her skin. Squinting, she gestured weakly to the stones around his neck.
Vitality. And a gray stone she knew to be Flint, from what she’d overheard at the warehouse. “How?” she croaked, hoping he understood.

  How is it possible I’m alive?

  “Let’s just say I’m on a low frequency right now.” His lips stretched in a grim line.

  Was this a trick? “What do you want?” The effort to speak drained her.

  “Information,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  In her muddled mind, a tumbler clicked into place.

  Once he got it, he’d kill her.

  She was vaguely aware of him reaching for something on the floor. Metal clicked against metal. “Can you eat a few spoonfuls of this soup?”

  Her stomach rumbled. And she damned the hunger, for it meant her body yearned to live, even if her soul didn’t.

  Maybe I still have one.

  “We’re enemies,” he stated quietly. “I wouldn’t trust me either. But I could’ve killed you already. And I’m not poisoning you or drugging you.”

  Poison? Drugs? Her pulse pounded. She hadn’t thought of either.

  “You might as well go ahead and eat.”

  Still, her first reaction was to reject the offer. She hated herself for wanting the food, for surrendering to physical needs. She should rail against this man. But why? Her brood had disowned her. Magpie was the only person she could trust. But no one knew where she was. And she had no hope of finding her.

  Grief, huge and dark, swallowed her. The life she’d known was over. She had no loyalties anymore. If she was going to die anyway, she might as well have a last meal, pathetic as it was.

  She accepted the spoon he lifted to her lips, mortified she was unable to feed herself. Swallowing the lukewarm broth, its salty tang lingered. All her life—one forced on her—she’d been trained to both hunt and evade Keepers. A boon in small amounts, their energy also killed in close proximity. And yet, she lay here, being fed by her enemy, a mere arm’s length away.

  He set the can of soup on the floor. “We both know you won’t last long without the dark energy. Clearly, you haven’t had any in quite a while.” He paused, his resolve almost tangible. “I won’t mince words. Since you don’t have any Similitude, and my clan drained you of dark energy not long ago, I’m shocked you’re still alive. Your brood left you for dead. I’m hoping you’ll realize you have nothing to lose and answer my questions.”

  He was right. Her brood had left her for dead. She’d blurted that out in a moment of weakness. But whatever he thought she knew would die with her. She couldn’t trust anyone.

  Not even herself.

  “What’s going on in those tunnels?” he asked.

  Secrets. So many secrets she kept, each blackening her soul darker than the last. But he couldn’t force her to talk. Unless he tortured her, which he didn’t seem inclined to do. Perhaps, then, she wasn’t entirely defenseless. And as he’d pointed out, she wouldn’t last long without the dark energy. She was a bastard, a mongrel, as she’d always been. And she’d die as one.

  Silently, willingly, she drifted into the abyss.

  Three or more times, they went through the same process. She lost track. The second time, it was dark. The next, light. Other than that, she had no way to know how much time had passed. When she surfaced, he asked her questions. Different ones. How did you use the Similitude to go under the radar at the motel? She told him nothing, each time drifting into unconsciousness after what seemed like a few minutes.

  This time, darkness filled the room. She allowed him to once again feed her a spoonful of broth.

  “Why do your own people want you dead?” he asked softly.

  The words pierced her. Pointless, all of this. Why couldn’t he let her die? Why hadn’t his energy already killed her? Whimpering, she shoved the spoon away and allowed herself to sink into oblivion, the noise in her head suffocating her.

  Forty-eight. Sixty-three. Five.

  Reciting the numbers in her mind, she hugged them to her dwindling consciousness like a shield.

  Chapter 7

  In the labyrinth forty-plus feet below the streets on which humans worked and played, excavation continued.

  Abel marched through the brood’s tunnels, directing. Inspecting. And when needed, chastising. To accomplish their latest endeavor—his brainchild—eight of his brood utilized dark energy to move tons of rock and soil. Six more dedicated their efforts to rendering Similitude. A ghost of a smile played across his lips. And when those six were spent, another six would begin.

  Always, there had to be more.

  “Master.”

  Abel snapped to attention. The twenty-something brood member standing before him kept his eyes lowered, as was expected. Darius? Or was it Dorian? He could never remember. “Yes. You may speak.”

  “He has returned.”

  “Take me to him. Now.” His anticipation glittering like a new coin, Abel followed the minion through the tunnel. A train rumbled overhead, showering them with a fine spray of dirt. Muttering, slapping aside the plastic sheet separating the tunnel and his office, Abel entered the fallout shelter and strode to the common area.

  The Betrayer in question lay on one of the cots, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths.

  “Have this cleaned.” Abel stripped off his wool coat, pushed it into Twenty-something’s hands. “Leave us. And keep everyone out of here until I’ve had a chance to talk with him.”

  The brood member skittered away.

  Shivering, Abel crouched beside the Betrayer. “Gunner.” The cot and its metal frame groaned beneath the street fighter’s bulk of muscles. “Can you hear me?”

  Gunner’s lids blinked open long enough to focus. “Master.”

  “You’ve done very well. I know it’s hard. Please tell me what happened. It’s critical to our mission.”

  His breathing ragged, Gunner choked out, “Similitude. Didn’t last. Keeper. Overtook me with the Flint.” A brief grin twisted his lips. “It’s depleted.” He trembled as his voice fell flat. “I passed into his Vista. Hell of it is, he . . . passed into mine too.”

  Abel leaned in, close enough he could inspect each hair protruding from Gunner’s chin. “Did he learn about the Similitude? More importantly, could he have passed this information on to his clan?”

  Gunner dragged in another breath. His eyes flickered then managed to connect with Abel’s. “Not. Sure.”

  “Yes.” Abel clucked his tongue. “I understand. But we need to be sure, don’t we?”

  “Master?”

  Focusing, Abel drew on the Similitude around his own neck, and channeled. A quick, clear flash. And it was done.

  He inhaled deeply, a meager waft of dark energy, all that remained of Gunner.

  A shame, really. Gunner’s eyes stared without seeing. He’d been one of the brood’s best soldiers. Had been. Abel yanked the Similitude from his neck. He wouldn’t spare resources to heal him, not when he’d disappointed at such a crucial moment. Withdrawing his hand sanitizer from his pants pocket, he squirted a drop in his palm, rubbed vigorously. Perhaps in death Gunner would find the discipline he’d lacked in battle.

  Rising, Abel departed the common area. Masking his face in what he deemed appropriate grief befitting a brood master, he signaled an underling to deal with their fallen comrade. He zigzagged his way through one of the rabbit holes in the fallout shelter, belonging to Macen and Ramsey. “He’s gone.”

  Inside the doorway, Macen acknowledged this with a nod. Stretched out on a cot, Ramsey still recovered. She’d been the one to detonate the latest dark energy bomb.

  Abel added with a scowl, “The Keepers may now know the Similitude they created is a failed attempt.”

  Ramsey fixed him with heavy lidded eyes. “It is the cost of doing battle.”

>   “It is information. And I do not wish to be the one guilty of providing it to the clan!”

  Skirts rustled in the doorway.

  Abel whirled around. No one was there.

  Magpie?

  “Abel? What’s wrong?” Macen wore a frown.

  No. Couldn’t be. He clutched his goatee, hating that his fingers trembled. “Nothing.”

  Macen tucked a hand inside his suit pocket. “Ramsey is right. It is the cost of doing battle. We too gained information. About the Flint.”

  “What of the human? Meda? And the clan’s ‘ability’ to render Similitude?”

  “What they created was not sustainable. Unlike ours.”

  “No, it wouldn’t have been. Not with a mongrel’s energy.”

  Unclean, tainted energy.

  Everything he abhorred.

  “Let them spin their wheels. Soon, it won’t matter.” Macen extended a hand in the direction of the tunnels.

  Settling himself on a leather backed folding chair, Abel considered this. “And the Keeper?”

  “Dead.”

  “You confirmed it?”

  “I did indeed.” Macen’s eyes lit in a rare display of emotion.

  Perhaps the other brood masters were right. War counted gains and losses on both sides. And the Keeper’s death was indeed a coup, for already, it would’ve weakened the clan’s godforsaken network. The dark energy bombs would continue to paralyze the city, decimating humans.

  Bringing them, and Keepers, to their knees.

  Under Abel’s leadership, the Betrayers would rise and embrace a new age with the pure energy empowering them, day by day.

  This time, the smile curving his lips was genuine. “Tell me all about it.”

  Chapter 8

  At just after six, on the third morning since Curtis had been outside his clan’s network, light shone dull in an overcast sky that promised storms. Wind gusted across his face. Turning away from the open window in the space that would eventually be a living room, he rubbed gritty eyes and thought he’d have sold his Vitality stone for a cup of scalding black coffee. Scowling, he downed what remained of his lukewarm Gatorade.