by Cherry Adair
Breathe in; pause. Breathe out; pause. “Tell me more about William.” William who was always charming and flirtatious, William who’d visited her at boarding school and taken her to the movies. William—she shuddered—who’d given her her first French kiss. Sara wiped the back of her hand over her mouth.
“Turns out my alter ego was convenient in business dealings as well. Good cop, bad cop. Being both was delightful fun.”
“So William never existed?”
“Only when I needed him to.”
Bile rose, acidic and bitter, in the back of Sara’s throat. All the times Grant had pressured her to go out with William, especially when she’d been with Jack—it was all Grant. It had always been Grant. Their relationship, her entire life, was nothing but lies. Jack was the only truth she had.
“You’re an Omnivatic. Why not just come right out and tell me?”
“Magic hasn’t always been kind to you, my little Sara. I was merely trying to make you feel more comfortable and secure.”
I freaking bet, asshole. “You lied to me.”
“Only by omission and for your own good.”
Sara tried shoving the shocked haze out of her brain. She had to focus.
She forced her lips to tilt into a passable smile. “So now what? I assume you teleported me here instead of just inviting me for a reason.” The ice in the glass had melted. She made the prop disappear.
Grant grinned and held out his hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something amazing.”
Oh, she did not want to hold his hand. She ignored it, and his arm dropped. “Better than the Icehotel?”
“Is that where you two slipped off to?”
She fished her hankie out of her pocket and wiped away the sweat pooling at the base of her throat. “You wouldn’t have enjoyed it. It was below freezing.”
“I’m cold-blooded, baby. I like the tropical heat. I built this house here in San Cristóbal in 1623. Not a white man around but me. Lots of tasty villagers with pretty daughters.” He threw his head back and laughed, delighted with himself. “I must say, I enjoyed modern civilization’s denial of the ‘legend’ of Sarulu. For that matter, I’m impressed by how many of them survived and kept their wits enough to tell the tales.”
As Grant led her toward his enormous walk-in closet, she dropped her hankie at the door.
Grant pulled her against him, tucking their joined hands against his naked, hairless body. “But I was always there for you, babe. I placed you in the best boarding school in the world. They took good care of you there.”
“Boarding school wasn’t family. Not like you, Grant,” she said sweetly, wondering if he heard the sarcasm. “I know your father and mine were close friends, but that didn’t mean you had to assume responsibility for me.”
He brushed aside a strand of hair that stuck to her cheek. Sara fought the impulse to flinch from his touch.
“There was no father. That was always me. I knew you were mine from the day you were born.”
Gross. Her revulsion increased, even though he’d just confirmed what she’d told Jack and the Wizard Council earlier. “Then why on earth have you waited so long to tell me? You’ve always enjoyed younger women. I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore.” Come on, tell me about the advent of Ophidian’s comet. Tell me that you have to impregnate me as it travels overhead. Tell me all that, you miserable, lying sack of shit.
The closet racks rotated on a circular hanging apparatus until a gap appeared at the far end of the room. He pressed the stop button, and after a moment, the rack stopped, revealing a gap between a row of indistinguishable, ten-thousand-dollar, dark business suits. A panel slid open in the wall hidden behind the clothing, exposing a set of stone stairs that disappeared downward in the dark.
A drift of dank, cold air slithered inside, mixing with the fragrance of cedar from the closet.
Her heart, already working overtime, sped up another few notches as she saw the stairs.
Showtime.
THERE WAS NO TRACE. Jack couldn’t follow her, because he couldn’t Trace-teleport after her. “Where the hell did he take you, Sara?” Fear rode him with sharp claws.
“The hacienda? The rubble of the cave? The village?” Think, damn it. Think. Where makes the most sense?
EREBUS NOVEM TWO ARE ONE TO INFINITY IF NOT STOPPED.
HE STOOD IN THE center of Sara’s ultrafeminine, all-white bedroom in San Cristóbal. The ceiling fan fluttered the drapes and the ruffles on the pillowcases. The air smelled delicately of lemon, ginger, and woman. His woman. He materialized both his Sig Sauer and the Ka-Bar knife. If magic didn’t work in the cave, then goddamn it, brute force would.
He’d do a lightning-fast shimmer through the entire property, cross it off the list, then go directly to what was left of the cave. There had to be another entrance. He’d find it if he had to rip the hillside apart with his bare hands, stone by fucking stone.
There was a light tap at the door and it opened. “Sara, can I ask you—oh,” Pia said, surprised to see him standing there armed to the teeth. “Jack.”
“Obviously, you haven’t seen her this evening.” Damn it to hell. So she wasn’t in the house. Fine; he’d teleport directly to the cave.
“No. I was—what’s going on?”
“Baltzer’s taken Sara. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt her.”
Pia blinked. “Grant? Hurt Sara? Why on earth would he—no, Jack, you’re wrong. I saw him go to his suite about half an hour ago, and he was alo—Jack!”
“THE TIMING HAD TO be optimal. I’ve waited more than three thousand years for today. This is my time. My destiny. You’re about to witness history. You should be proud of your contribution to this momentous occasion, Sara.”
How in the hell would Jack know where they’d gone if the panel closed behind them? Where was he? Shouldn’t he have been here by now? She had to leave another clue.
Glancing around casually, her eyes fell on a hanging assortment of belts. She leaned over and ran her free hand over them, lifting several off their hooks and making appreciative sounds. The top belt had a distinctive pattern, and she waved the bundle at him. “Snakeskin, Grant? A relative, perhaps?”
He laughed, took the belts from her, and carelessly dropped them to the floor. The bulk of them fell in the doorway; perfect.
Grant turned his gaze on her. Sara felt the weight of his stare, hot, hard, and heavy. “I’ve been biding my time. Waiting for you, Sara. You don’t pick a peach until it’s ripe. Now you’re ready.”
Yes. Ready to douse him with cheap brandy and flambé him, Sara thought. She locked her gaze on the pale blue chips of ice that were his eyes but released his hand, stepping away from him. This time, he let go, confident that she was under his control.
“It’s way too hot in here, Grant. I’m going to faint if I don’t get some fresh air soon.”
A change in the air, almost like static electricity, lifted the small hairs on her arms and neck, and made her jeans and T-shirt stick uncomfortably to her already overheated skin. His eyes were manic as he grabbed her hand again, pulling her after him through the opening.
“Think about it, baby,” he said over his shoulder as they descended the steep, hand-cut stone steps. “The first Omnivatic birth, a full Omnivatic, in three thousand years! Aren’t you proud and excited to be the woman making history?”
“It won’t be a full Omnivatic, though, will it?” Sara pointed out. “I’m only half myself.” Holy crap. Would she have eggs? The thought repulsed her even more.
“Our offspring will have enough Omnivatic blood to rule beside me for eternity.”
God, he was pleased with himself. Filled with his own importance. “My father had to choose mortality to achieve that, and he only had one child,” she told him, tripping down the narrow stairs much too fast as he refused to let go of her hand. The risers were several inches too deep, the treads several inches too short. “Are you going to choose mortality, Grant? I don’t see why. You’re a
powerful Omnivatic. Who’d choose to be a puny mortal wizard when you’ll eventually rule the world?”
There wasn’t a mark on his body that she could see, Sara noticed. Thousands of years old, and he’d never been hurt? Never had a cut or a wound? That didn’t bode well for her—or for Jack’s defeating him.
Grant laughed. “Between us, we will build my army in no time at all. Gestation takes one hundred days, and you shall have litters of anywhere from eighty to a hundred. I am viviparous. You don’t understand this term? You will have live births, my dear. My children will arrive in this world alive and ready to serve. I shall quickly rise from Novem to Unum. With control of your womb, I’ll not only rule the world, I’ll rule all wizards, all Aequitas, all Omnivatics and, of course, all humans. I’ll be invincible.”
Somehow, some way, you’ll be dead long before that happens. “So I’ll be queen to your king?” As Jack would say, Not just no, but hell no.
He huffed out a laugh. “Right.”
Lying sack of shit. “Excellent, because you know how much I love to shop, and I have very expensive taste. Can I have anything I want?”
“Sure, baby. Anything. Anything except Jack Slater.”
Sara’s heart did a double bump-thump of fear mixed with a liberal shot of anger. The stairs leveled out into what she realized was the back end of the crystal cave she and Jack had been in earlier. The C-4 they’d placed there was exactly where they’d left it. No sign of the massive explosion they’d witnessed earlier. Not even a scorch mark.
Grant must have set magical wards on it, which she hadn’t detected because she had been so busy controlling her fear, and Jack hadn’t noticed because it was Omnivatic magic.
The entire explosion had been nothing but an illusion.
One Jack would see immediately when he came back to look for her. He’d know this was where Grant would bring her.
It was marginally cooler in the cave. Sara carefully removed one of her gold bracelets, palming it until she could leave it somewhere for Jack to find.
Dusk must’ve fallen because the cave was dimmer than when she and Jack had been there setting the explosives earlier that day. Grant was yanking her along like a child’s pull-toy. Okay. This place, Jack could find. Easily. He might not be capable of utilizing his powers in here, but he could enter with no problem. She hung back a little, ostensibly to get her bearings, and dropped the bracelet onto the sandy floor.
“I can’t decide, did you mean it to come across as gothic with a hint of creepy or as early caveman chic?” They walked between walls embedded with crystal fragments.
“The crystal cave is merely a portal. You don’t decorate a door, baby.”
Sara winced and bent over, making a show of massaging her ankle. “Hang on, I think I twisted something.” Come on, Jack. “Give me a minute, Grant. These boots are too new, and they’re hurting my feet.” She undid the yellow laces and slid off one boot, sighing in relief. “That’s better.”
“Do you love me, Sara-mine?” This time the change was instantaneous, no shedding as he morphed. Sara let out a little scream of surprise as she straightened.
Jack stood there in his scruffy clothes and five-o’clock shadow. Stunned, she almost flung herself into his arms. Almost.
Grant’s turning from William to himself had been creepy enough, but his changing to Jack shocked the hell out of Sara. God. All the times she’d been with Jack … had any of them been Grant? She shuddered, swallowing bile.
He turned her in his arms. “Kiss me like you mean it.”
“Then be Grant. I don’t want to kiss Jack.”
“I think you do,” he murmured against her mouth, his lips firm and familiar. Sara’s heart thudded painfully. Not Jack. Not Jack. Not Jack. His skin sort of smelled like Jack’s. His mouth almost tasted like Jack’s. He stuck his tongue in her mouth. The sensation was … definitely, no way in hell Jack!
She shoved him away with both hands. He might look like Jack, but Sara’s body knew it wasn’t Jack she was kissing. She held her body stiff until, with a laugh, he let her go. He held out his hand.
The amulet she’d been wearing was draped across his palm. “Did you think this would deter me?” He smiled Jack’s smile, but his eyes were flat and very much Grant’s. “I love giving people the illusion that there’s something that can stop me. Nothing can stop me from what I want, be it a nubile village girl to slake my sexual hunger or an athletic young woman who enjoys the chase. I’m unstoppable, Sara. What I want, I take.”
“The ‘athletic woman who enjoys the chase’ didn’t enjoy it at all, and you know it.”
He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “I enjoyed chasing you, baby. I really enjoyed chasing you. And didn’t I give you the comforting illusion of safety by letting the chase happen in another woman’s body? Didn’t you feel good getting away? Didn’t you feel triumphant and smug, thinking you’d won?”
“Go to hell, Grant. Cut to the real chase. Where are you taking me?”
“My home in the Pyrenees.”
Sara forced a laugh. “We’re in Venezuela. A long, long way from Spain.” Take all the time you want. Jack will figure this out and be right on your slimy ass. Then we can incinerate you together. Sara was looking forward to it.
“This is a direct portal. Don’t worry, we’re almost there. Did you know that Omnivatics started breeding with the Basque people more than three thousand years ago?”
“Are you telling me that you’re three thousand years old?” Sara asked incredulously.
“Give or take a decade or two. Returning is a link with our past,” he continued in Jack’s voice. “The nest is where I go to rejuvenate.” Jack’s body was also tanned all over. But his body had scars everywhere. The one on his shoulder caused by a kid at school throwing a psionic spear at him and his not dodging fast enough. The scar on his thumb where his father had hit him with a poker. Oh, damn.
This was not Jackson. Not Jack. Not Jack.
She kicked off the other boot; the sandy ground beneath her socks felt cool and cushiony.
“We’ve reached the portal,” he said softly in Jack’s voice. “Look.”
The entire wall in front of them was a sheet of crystal as smooth as glass. She and Jack had come this far earlier that day, but the wall had appeared to be solid rock sprinkled with a few glittering crystals. No wonder they had thought they’d come to a dead end.
It took a second for her to notice their reflections in the shiny surface: herself—and a giant, iridescent anaconda. Sara’s knees went weak. Oh, hell. The snake was taller than she was and stood upright on its curled tail; its flat, triangular head, as large as her own, swiveled to look at her. Its rainbow-colored tongue flicked out, caressing her cheek.
Gogogogo! her mind screamed, but her feet refused to move. The snake, growing even larger, curled itself around her, pulling her into its coils. She sensed every muscle twitch, every bit of pressure, as the snake moved closer to the glass, taking her with it in its tight embrace.
“Sssssaraaa.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Not waiting for an invitation, Jack kicked open the imposing double doors to Grant’s suite. Inside was a regular freak fest complete with whips, chains, ball gags, cages, and spikes. Whatever Grant was into, Jack prayed he wasn’t making Sara go along with it. His heart pounded harder, echoing in his head like the thumping rhythm of the aboriginal didgeridoo.
“Sara?” he yelled. “Sa-raa!”
No answer. The scent of dark, wet cave swirled through the stink of incense, chilling his skin despite the oppressive heat. Underlying the cloying smell was the faint tang of lemon. Yes!
He noticed a heap of red under a monstrous cage. Recognizing Sara’s jacket, Jack picked it up, then crushed it in his fist when he saw a pile of men’s clothing nearby. Baltzer had taken off his clothes. …
No. Baltzer might be bare-ass naked, but Sara had dropped her jacket—just her jacket—intentionally. “Good girl. You leave me a trail of bre
ad crumbs and I’ll be right behind you.”
Where were they?
Sara was smart. If she’d thought to leave the jacket, she’d leave something else. A splotch of yellow stood out against the red-and-black carpet across the room: Sara’s hankie. As he bent to retrieve it, he looked through the open door it rested against. A huge closet. He leaned in and caught a glint of gold through the gaps between the perfectly hung suits on the suspended rotating rack. Jack walked through the wardrobe until he came to a space in the clothing where he saw a pile of belts wedged into a slight gap in the wall—a gap that looked a hell of a lot like a doorway.
Using the Ka-Bar knife as a lever, Jack forced the door open. Stairs. He materialized a Maglite and raced down the stone steps, looking for any sign Sara might have left behind—or anything that slithered.
The beam of his flashlight illuminated a speck of gold in the dirt of the cave floor ahead. Jack ran toward it, scooping up a gold bracelet. He stuffed it into the front pocket of his jeans. “Sara-mine, I don’t know where he’s taking you, but you aren’t alone,” he muttered. The words came back in a mocking echo from the cave walls. All he heard, over and over, was the word alone.
He recognized the unusual crystal formations in the walls. Either he was in another cave that had exactly the same properties or this was a back entrance to the cave he and Sara had been in earlier.
He tried using Trace, not surprised when it didn’t work. Not so much as a flicker. Fuck it. He hoped Sara’s powers were still operational.
He picked up a small, bright red hiking boot with yellow laces, then its partner several feet ahead.
He could smell her in the confined space—smell her skin and smell her fear. “Hang on, sweetheart,” he whispered, scanning the area for more clues. “Almost there.” What the hell—
There was the fucking C-4 they’d stuffed into the cracks in a rough semicircle overhead. Crap. The spectacular explosion had been nothing more than an illusion. Baltzer was damn good at them.
