Dark Prism

by Cherry Adair

  He took Sara’s hands. “Don’t do this. Please.”

  “I have to, Jack.” Determination etched her stark features. “I’m the perfect weapon of mass destruction.” Her lips twitched, but her eyes were very, very serious. “I’m half Omnivatic. My powers work there. Grant wants me inside his nest. We have no other options. I’m the only one who can do this.”

  Jack dropped his hands. “Come over here.” He walked about twenty feet, taking Sara with him, because he was damned if he was letting her go, even to cross the room.

  He summoned the psionic safe, then whispered the words; a second later, the door popped open, emitting a spiral of acid green vapor. Jack removed the crystal dagger, then sent the safe away.

  They returned to face the Council, still hand in hand. “I’m stating on record that I adamantly oppose what you’re doing.” Jack held the sparkling dagger out to Sara. “I’ll rip that goddamned cave apart to find you. Take this.”

  Sara reached out, but before her fingers touched the dagger, she stiffened in surprise, “He’s here—”

  She vanished.

  SARA WAS SURPRISED to find herself not in the cave or some terrifying “nest,” but in the hanging cage in Grant’s suite at the hacienda. Haydn swelled through hidden speakers, some violin concerto number, something that Grant favored.

  She looked around. She was alone. For now.

  She let out a shaky breath, then did her best to control the in-breath. For a moment, she was back in a meditation class she’d taken years ago, hearing the teacher’s instructions: “Concentrate on the breath. Breathe in; pause. Breathe out; pause. In those spaces, you’ll find your center, your balance.” She hoped like hell he was right. She needed all the balance she could get.

  Her life was going to depend on keeping her cool, no matter what happened.

  Was Jack now tracing her?

  He could find her here but that wasn’t enough. The problem was, she had to be in the nest to kill Grant and close the portal.

  She ran her fingers over the cool bars of the wrought-iron cage in which she was locked—magically repaired after Antonio had destroyed the room what felt like a lifetime ago. She swallowed hard as the cage swung several feet off the floor. It took every ounce of self-control not to use magic to turn the opulent, creepy room into a freaking bonfire.

  Her lungs inflated uncomfortably as she dragged in another ragged breath. The teleportation used to steal her from the Council chambers wasn’t normal wizard magic, and she felt slightly nauseated. The light sway of the cage, combined with the heavy spicy smell of the incense smoke hanging in the still air, didn’t help. The room was unbearably steamy hot. She needed no reminders that snakes liked heat.

  Clearly the air-conditioning was off, and it felt as though the heat had been turned to high as well. She stripped off the red linen jacket, glad now she’d put it back on for the trip to the Council. The color couldn’t be missed. She tossed it on the floor of the cage with a jangle of bracelets. On second thought … Crouching, she squeezed the fabric through the bars until it dropped soundlessly to the carpet below. Even on the busy black-and-red oriental carpet, Jack would see it.

  Standing, she quickly touched each earlobe to make sure the sunstones were with her. Satisfied that she would be able to amp her powers when necessary, Sara slid her fingers into her back pocket. Removing the thin leather cord with the crystallized snakeskin amulet that Inez had given her, she slipped it around her neck. Tucking the crystal into the neckline of her T-shirt, she gave it a pat for luck. She wished she’d been able to accept the crystal dagger from Jack before she’d been teleported.

  “Where are you, you son of a bitch? Why did you teleport me here? Why not to your freaky nest?” As scared as she was to confront Grant, the anticipation of what was to come was far worse.

  Stretching both arms, she touched the bars on either side of her. Seven feet across. The arched “roof” was another arm’s length overhead.

  Where was he? What was he? Would he appear as Grant or Sarulu? She wasn’t sure which terrified her more.

  Crap, it was hot in here.

  The music ended, and there was a brief pause before the piece started again. Haydn had never been one of her favorites. She liked his work even less now. If nothing else, her location confirmed that Grant was the Omnivatic. Faced with all the evidence, it was impossible not to believe it. But she’d harbored a tiny grain of hope that the evidence had been wrongly interpreted. That Grant was just Grant. Her guardian. Her protector. A man who’d loved her like a favorite niece for years.

  Knowing that she’d trusted him almost all her life, trusted and loved him, and that he’d deceived her from day one was devastating. The music was getting on her last, extremely stretched nerve. Magically, she turned it off in mid-swell. The silence was such a relief she almost wept.

  Even though the intricate bars surrounding her were only an inch in diameter, they were precisely spaced six inches apart. Thank God he hadn’t attached the wrist and ankle straps hanging from the domed roof and protruding from the grid floor, because then she would be screaming her head off. She untucked her T-shirt and fanned her belly with the hem. Hey, Jack? I’m melting here. As open as her birdcage prison was, she was overwhelmed with an intense feeling of claustrophobia.

  I still have the free will to teleport the hell out of here, she reminded herself, striving to contain her rising panic. The reality was, she was afraid to attempt any major magic. Turning off the stereo wasn’t in the same league as a full-body teleport. If she tried and wasn’t able to use her full powers, she’d start babbling in terror. Sometimes, ignorance was bliss.

  Which brought her back to wondering why Jack’s powers didn’t work in the Omnivatic cave. They probably wouldn’t work in Grant’s quarters either, now that she thought of it. And the only way Jack and the Wizard Council were going to be able to defeat the Omnivatics was if she went to the nest and helped them find a way in.

  She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

  Alert for Grant’s arrival, she took a deep breath of hot, heavily perfumed air and surveyed the bedroom—a room she’d seen only once after she’d made the original decorating selections a year ago. It hadn’t improved with time, she thought, disgusted and repelled. But the destruction caused by Alberto wasn’t evident now. Only a wizard could have restored everything to its pristine state this quickly.

  How had he created and sustained such a perfect illusion for so long? An illusion perpetrated on her for most of her life?

  The fussy room, done in blood-red wallpaper and ornate light fixtures, was filled with sex toys. The big pieces—including the cage she was in and several large machines she’d rather not investigate too closely—took up a lot of floor space. The mammoth four-poster canopy bed, draped in red-and-gold silk and covered with satin pillows, took up a large footprint as well. Now she realized the bed had been converted to support a pulley and strap system that didn’t even bear thinking about.

  Breathe in; pause. Breathe out; pause.

  If she was this freaked out before anything actually happened, what was she going to do when Grant dragged her through that portal and into his nest?

  The far wall held various ankle and leg straps, face and body harnesses, and assorted paraphernalia to imprison his victims. The faint sound of a footfall on the carpet made her turn around too fast. The cage swayed. She braced her feet and clung to the bars to maintain her balance. She sucked in a startled breath when a dark head appeared instead of Grant’s golden one.

  “Just where I left you,” William said smugly. “Hello, baby.” His topaz eyes gleamed with amusement.

  Sara’s fingers tightened on the bars as a ridiculous sense of relief washed through her. William. Not Grant. Thank God. Grant wouldn’t let William do anything to her, and William knew it. Besides, they were in Grant’s room, where Grant could walk in at any moment. She hoped he would. Now would be good.

  “Why am I here? Where’s Grant?” Shit
. Had William killed Grant?

  In an instant, he was by her side. Lord. He’d just shimmered. Impossible. He seemed bigger and more imposing, and frankly, more threatening than he had over their lunch in Lima yesterday.

  The floor of the cage was just below his eye level, and he reached in through the bars and stroked a cold hand up her bare shin. The tattoo on his forearm almost looked as if it was slithering a few inches higher. Sara yanked her foot away. The cage swung to and fro for several seconds before he put a hand out to stop it. “Tsk, tsk. What can Grant do for you that I can’t?” he asked smoothly, rubbing the pad of his thumb suggestively back and forth across his bottom lip.

  The movement caught her attention. She’d seen that before—exactly the same slow motion, with the same hand. Grant. Grant did that when he was contemplating a victory over a competing hotelier. Her fingers tightened around the bars until her knuckles went white. “Did you bring me here, or did Grant?”

  In a flicker of movement, his smirking expression started to crinkle. No—Sara blinked sweat out of her eyes—his skin was buckling—oh, hell—peeling. His entire face was peeling off his skull in long strips, taking hair, flesh, and expression with it. No blood. No gore. Just strips of skin that crystallized as they dropped to the carpet. His clothing fell in a heap around his feet, leaving him naked. Naked and shedding his skin.

  She backed up until her spine pressed against the bars behind her. OhGodohGodohGod. Disbelief and fascination kept her gaze glued to the transformation. Beneath the mess of William’s shedding skin appeared the fair hair and pale blue eyes she’d known most of her life. Her stomach twisted with revulsion. Sweat ran down her temples and stung her eyes as a fresh-faced Grant emerged.

  Every atom of her body urged her to teleport out of there. Now. Now, while he was in the process of his metamorphosis.

  Erebus Novem two are one to infinity if not stopped.

  Two are one to infinity.

  William and Grant were one. He was the immortal Omnivatic.

  JACK VAULTED OVER THE wide desk before Edge knew what hit him. Grabbing the Head of Council by the throat, he lifted the other man six inches off the floor, his viselike hold tightening around the other wizard’s throat. “Bring her back, you bastard!”

  Instantly, searing flames ate their way up Jack’s arms and licked at his face. He was incensed enough, and scared enough for Sara, not to feel the heat. “Bring.” He shook Edge. “Her.” Shake. “Back.”

  Edge broke his hold, sending Jack crashing into the desk behind him. An explosive whoosh of flames soared high, then swirled around Edge’s body in crackling orange, red, and blue sparks. “I’ll give you a pass on that, Slater. One fucking pass, because I understand where you’re coming from. Do that again, however, and I’ll burn your ass to ash. Sara’s disappearance had nothing to do with the Council.”

  Jack was on his feet, squinting against the intense heat. “Bullshit.” When he went in to grab Duncan again, Edge turned up the flames. Jack’s skin sizzled, and the moisture in his eyes dried painfully; he was forced to retreat.

  “Admit it—you sent her through that fucking portal before she was ready. Before I had a chance to …” Prepare her. Tell her I love her. Not say good-bye.

  Edge shook his head and waved off the other Council members, who were on their feet. He rubbed his throat, where bruises were already beginning to develop, and said exactly what Jack didn’t want to hear.

  “The Omnivatic took her.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Why, Grant?” Sara demanded. It pissed her off that her voice shook a little. Yes, she was scared, but she was also livid that he’d betrayed, used, and damn well manipulated her for most of her life.

  Suddenly, she found herself free of the cage and standing beside him. In heels, she was eye to eye with him; in her hiking boots, she was a couple inches shorter.

  Although his body was tanned and fit, she could’ve happily lived the rest of her life not seeing Grant naked. He, like Jack, kept himself in shape. She guessed that if one wanted to live an eternity, one had to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

  She saw nothing of the Grant she knew in this man’s eyes. The Grant who’d held her head over the toilet as she barfed up her first bottle of cheap wine. The Grant who’d given her dance lessons and gone with her to choose the “prettiest, most expensive dress on Bond Street” before the prom. William had been her prom date. Her throat swelled shut and ached. Her whole history, her whole life, an illusion.

  She couldn’t help it; her eyes filled with tears, and all she could do was repeat, “Why?”

  “Why William?” Grant trailed his finger down Sara’s cheek. She jerked her head away, and he frowned. “Because I realized when you were sixteen that you would never consider me as a lover. I gave you someone you could be attracted to. Someone young and fun and wealthy. Someone you could relate to until the age gap closed.”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  Ignoring her, he kept going. “But the minute you met Slater, things between us changed.”

  If Jack hurried the hell up, he would find them in the house. And while he might not be able to enter Grant’s suite, he’d be close enough for her to help him help her. Once Grant took her to another location, all bets would be off. Oh, damn. If Grant didn’t take her, they’d never find—and destroy—the nest. Still, she wanted Jack to at least know where she was; even that much of a link would help her keep it together.

  Hurry, Jack! “I love him.”

  “Yes, I know. Inconvenient.” Grant touched her hair, a faint smile on his beautifully shaped mouth as his long, elegant fingers moved down to stroke the side of her face. Her flesh crawled. “It was hard enough getting rid of him the first time.”

  “You didn’t ‘get rid’ of Jack, Grant.” She forced a mocking note into her voice when what she wanted to do was surround him with a fireball until his skin turned black and his dangling penis burned to a crisp. “He left because he thought I’d aborted our baby.”

  Grant laughed, then tweaked her nose as though she were five years old. “Silly little Sara. Of course I did. None of the fights I caused in those last few months broke you apart—and really, I caused so many I lost track. But there you went, kissing and making up no matter how much I escalated your temper. Nauseating, really.”

  “How did you make us fight?” Come on, Jackson! Where the hell are you?

  “Either I was there—invisible of course—or good old ‘Harry’ kept you company. Of course, being half Omnivatic, you sensed my presence. We’re masked from wizards and Aequitas, but Omnivatics sense one another in the same way wizards do.” His clear blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “Those headaches, baby doll. Indicating headaches every time I was near you and maintaining my cover one way or another.”

  Sara couldn’t remember every argument she and Jack had had, but she did recall the ones since Jack had come to San Cristóbal. Harry had been in the room every time. And the headaches had preceded every argument.

  She swallowed her anger. She could probably do without any of Grant’s answers. But she needed to buy time for Jack to find her. “You killed my baby?” Her throat closed with emotion. That loss had ripped out her heart and changed her forever.

  “The fetus was the only way I could drive a permanent wedge between you and Slater. It worked perfectly. I had you back.”

  Her heart literally hurt at his casual dismissal of that life-shattering event. “I wanted that baby, Grant. You stole my child from me. Miscarrying almost killed me.”

  “Nonsense, you were in perfect health. And it was a fetus,” he repeated a little impatiently. “You told me you were uncertain about having a child with Slater. And, of course, you were correct. The child you bear will be mine. Mine, Sara. The first child ever born to an Omnivatic woman.”

  She’d confided in him that she was afraid to have children because of her erratic powers. But she’d also told him that she was going to work it out with Jack, because she wanted their b
aby desperately. She’d been scared, but happy. “You know that’s impossible.”

  He looked pleased. “I see you’ve done your homework, but there’s a gap in your education, baby. No Omnivatic has ever bred with a half-breed. Your earlier pregnancy proved that you are fertile even though you’re half Omnivatic. When the comet passes, it will make my sperm powerful enough to inseminate you. You will bear my children, Sara. I’ll rule the Erebus and the world.”

  Oh, is that all? Sara thought caustically. Grant was a megalomaniac, a dangerously powerful one. One wouldn’t know it to look at him. God, what irony—Grant looked like an angelic choirboy, while Jack looked like the devil incarnate.

  “And why didn’t you want me to make use of my powers?” She tried backing up, but the cage behind her snagged her hair and stopped her from moving any farther. “Afraid I’d use them on you?” She reached up to free herself.

  Grant’s laugh had always been infectious; now it made her furious. “Afraid? No; it just seemed a prudent precaution and it was easy to do. Every time you wanted to spread those little magical wings, I reminded you about poor Mommy and Daddy burning to cinders because you were too powerful for your own good. Then every now and then, when you wanted to put your toe back in the magical water, I’d tweak your memory. Kill off some other poor fool as an example. Like Pavlov’s dog, you eventually got the message that your powers weren’t controllable.”

  “That was cruel.” Hair freed from the cage, she stepped to the side, but he stayed with her. She swiped the back of her hand under her chin, where perspiration dripped on her shirt. Materializing a glass of ice water, she drank it down practically in one gulp, then held the ice-filled glass to her throat. “You killed my parents, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. Your father did his job—he produced you. They were redundant. I had my own plans for you from the day you were born. None of them included a loving relationship with Mommy and Daddy.”

  She didn’t want to kill him quickly, Sara thought viciously. She wanted to roast him over a low flame for a very, very long time. She had to change the subject, or she’d go for his throat now instead of later.