Unhidden (The Gatekeeper Chronicles Book 1)

by Dina Given

  As she came around the corner of a low warehouse building, we found ourselves barreling down the street directly toward a figure standing resolute in the middle of the roadway. The figure didn’t even twitch, making no move at all to dive out of the way of our speeding vehicle.

  Lilly screamed and slammed on the brakes. We were all thrown forward, the pain in my neck now shooting down my back. I was going to need some massive muscle relaxants after all that had happened.

  The tires squealed and I could smell burning rubber, but we came to a stop about twenty feet from the figure. Pissed off, I threw open the back door, pulling a Colt handgun from my waistband.

  “What the fuck, asshole!” I yelled, stomping toward the man with my gun aimed squarely at his forehead. My steps faltered as I got closer and the figure became recognizable. “Fuck me,” I breathed. “Zane.”

  He was once again dressed all in black, and I couldn’t help noticing how his clothing hugged his body, accentuating every curve of hard muscle. His long hair was loose around his head, and a few strands were blowing gently across his eyes.

  Those eyes! They were watching me with a feverish intensity, drinking me in from head to toe. I flushed at the heat his gaze sent through my body. Even under these circumstances, his mere presence caused my body to short circuit my brain.

  I could hear car doors opening, and Alex and Jason appeared on either side of me.

  “Zane,” Alex said, in much the same tone I had used. “Move away. We have to get out of here, or we’re all dead.”

  Zane was unmoved by the urgent plea, making no attempt to let us pass.

  “I say we just run the fucker down,” Jason said.

  I wasn’t inclined to damage such a fine specimen, but we needed to move, and fast. The narrow road was lined on both sides with warehouses. There wasn’t enough room to pass without harming him.

  Just then, Lilly leaned on the horn, letting loose a long honking wail. All heads spun in her direction. She was hanging out the driver’s side window yelling, “They’re here!” Pinpricks of light were visible against the blanket of blackness and grew into the blinding glare of headlights as the car closed the distance. “Get in,” Lilly screamed over the growing rumble of an accelerating engine.

  Alex grabbed my elbow to steer me back to the waiting vehicle. Seeing Alex touch me, snapped Zane to attention. “Alex,” Zane boomed. “Don’t touch her. She’s mine!”

  Zane leapt forward, and before anyone could react, he slammed Alex in the jaw with a left hook. When Alex stumbled and lost his grip on my arm, Zane grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder. The caveman treatment stunned me into inaction, not to mention I had to place my hands on his lower back, near his perfect rear. I almost forgot I was still holding a gun and could have shot Zane at any time, but I didn’t want to do that.

  I clutched his waistband and slid myself forward, throwing off Zane’s balance as I redistributed most of weight behind him. While he stumbled and took two steps backward, I stiffened my legs, breaking his hold on them, and flipped myself over his shoulder to land on my feet behind him.

  Headlights and machine gun fire exploded in the night as the black SUV finally caught up to us. Lilly dove back into the car, and I ran in a crouch to take cover on the far side of the vehicle with Alex and Jason.

  Zane didn’t move a muscle, although hiding probably wasn’t in his repertoire. His eyes and hands began to glow red, and he slammed a fireball into the oncoming SUV’s gas tank. The vehicle went up in flames in an ear-splitting explosion that lit up the night sky like it was dawn. Then Jason was at my side, hauling me up and trying to get the passenger side door open. Billows of heat and smoke blew through the enclosed space, choking and suffocating us.

  I looked up, and with tears blurring my vision, I saw the silhouette of Zane stalking toward us. I wrenched my arm out of Jason’s grasp and stomped off into the billowing cloud. Jason and Alex were yelling for me, unable to see more than a few feet in front of them.

  With every footfall, my anger raised another level. I was absolutely done with being treated like a pawn in everyone else’s game. As a short gust cleared the air briefly, making Zane visible, I reached him then shoved him hard in the chest, pushing him back a step.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” I demanded. “I’m not yours or anyone else’s. I’ve faced bigger and badder assholes than you who think they can bully women with their brawn and big talk.” I gave him another shove, but he continued to stand there, looking stunned at my verbal onslaught. “You barge into my life all dangerous and mysterious, claiming you know me and refusing to give me any answers, all the while threatening or seducing me—I can’t tell which! Well, I’ve had about enough of you … and of Alex. You two deserve each other. I’m out.”

  I spun on my heel to walk off dramatically when Zane caught my wrist and pulled me into him before he pressed his lips to mine. His strong hands buried themselves in my hair as he held me tight against his mouth. His lips were incredibly soft. He smelled spicy, like cinnamon, and I melted into his arms, moving my mouth against his. The kiss felt familiar, like a half-remembered dream.

  He broke away first. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You’re right, about everything. I just … can’t think straight sometimes.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it of confusion, looking pained. “I’m trying … I don’t want to …”

  A gunshot rang out, and Zane stumbled, falling to his knees. I reached out to help him as he struggled awkwardly to his feet. He tried putting weight on his right leg and almost went down again with a pained grunt. I saw blood dripping down his boots, leaving red footprints on the cement.

  Another gust of wind blew away the billowing smoke, and Jason stood behind Zane, readjusting the aim of his gun to point at Zane’s head now that he could get a clear shot.

  “Jason, no!” I yelled. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

  Turning to Zane, I said, “Get out of here before he kills you.”

  Alex and Lilly ran up alongside Jason, relief crossing their features seeing Zane wounded and barely able to stay on his feet. They thought we had won, that we had Zane dead to rights. Only I knew the truth because Zane was facing me, and I could see the pain and confusion disappear from his eyes, replaced by animalistic rage. We were in trouble.

  Despite the searing pain he must have felt, Zane gritted his teeth and stood on his wounded leg, shoving me away from him. He raised his hands above his head and screamed unrecognizable words into the night sky. “Felhívom a vadállat!”

  When Alex heard it, fear entered his eyes. “We have to get out of here. Now!” He grabbed Lilly and Jason and started dragging them back to the car, frantically shouting at me to follow.

  I turned my face upward and saw a shadow fall across the half moon, blocking it entirely from view. I squinted and strained my eyes, trying to see what was there. The stars were disappearing and reappearing, and it took me a moment to realize it was because something massive and black was moving in front of them. A shriek pierced the air that left me cold. Then the shape landed heavily in the narrow roadway between the warehouses.

  I couldn’t make out any features until a massive fireball, much larger than the one that destroyed the SUV, came from the direction of the shadow and torched one of the warehouses. The flames cast an eerie, dancing light on a great winged beast with the body and head of a lion, sporting the spiraling horns of a ram. It had a serpentine tail that ended in a second head, though this one was a rattlesnake. All four scaled legs ended in wicked talons, and saliva dripped from a muzzle filled with sharp, crooked teeth.

  I couldn’t wrench my eyes from the horrific sight until it opened that deadly maw and spewed another ball of fire toward the car that was now racing toward me. The flames missed the car by mere inches, splattering the bumper with drops of some sort of flaming ooze.

  Lilly brought the car to a stop, and Jason threw open the rear door, roughly pulling me inside. Lilly threw the car into a squealing three
hundred sixty degree turn and slammed on the gas before the door was even closed.

  I looked through the missing rear window and saw the creature beat its great wings, rising into the air in pursuit.

  “What is that thing?” Jason yelled in a panic.

  “A chimera,” Lilly answered. “Absolutely deadly and a bitch to kill, not to mention virtually invisible in the dark, fire-breathing, and venomous.”

  “How do you know that? And who are you, by the way?” Jason asked.

  “Lilly Alfreda. Nice to meet you,” Lilly said with a smile. “I’d shake your hand, but I kind of need to keep both of them on the wheel right now.” She emphasized her point by making a sharp turn onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.

  “Lilly works at the bookshop where I took the amulet. Although, I have no idea what she is doing here tonight,” I said, stabbing her with an accusing glare. When a fireball slammed into the roadway just ahead of our car, Lilly drove through the flames and smoke, leaving the car unscathed. “But we can have that conversation later, if we get out of this mess alive.”

  The highway was empty, but Lilly continued to swerve randomly because an unpredictable moving target was harder to hit. The chimera threw another firebomb, and Lilly avoided it by mere inches. Realizing it wasn’t having much luck with this tactic, the creature tried a different approach. The chimera flew lower until it could peer through the missing rear window of the car.

  “Oh, shit! It’s going to blast us,” I realized.

  “Not if I blast it first,” Jason responded. He aimed the grenade launcher I had been using earlier, but the chimera was faster. It let loose a burst of flame from its throat. Lilly tried to stay ahead of it by speeding up yet was only partially successful. The tail end of the flames still reached the back of the car. I had ducked behind the seat, but Jason was still intent on aiming his weapon, and the molten phlegm touched his arm.

  Jason’s scream of pain pierced the night, but the sensation also caused his hand to spasm and depress the trigger before he dropped the weapon. He landed a perfect shot right to the chimera’s head, although when the smoke cleared, the creature was still coming. The grenade didn’t seem to have seriously injured it, but it must have been enough of a nuisance to cause the creature to fly farther back from the car.

  “Jason! Are you okay?” It sounded like a stupid question even as I said it, but I didn’t know what else to say. He clearly wasn’t okay. He had managed to put out the flames; however, the skin underneath was charred black and melted. He clutched his wrist, his face twisted in an agonized grimace.

  The chimera came at us again, but this time, it rammed its full body weight into the side of the car, tipping it onto two wheels for a moment before the car righted itself again.

  “We can’t stay out in the open like this,” Alex said.

  “I know, I know. I’m working on it!” Lilly turned off the highway and onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

  The network of steel cables that crisscrossed the historic bridge framed the roadway like a prison, making it impossible for the large chimera to fly alongside or directly above the car without slamming into the cables. The chimera was forced to pace us along the outside of the bridge over open water.

  Alex shifted in his seat, pulling out his rune-carved staff. He rolled down the window, pointing his staff down toward the churning, black waters below. He muttered indecipherable words under his breath, his green eyes developing a deep luminescence I was learning signaled the use of magic.

  Nothing happened at first, then a roaring began, like the sound of a freight train. It rapidly grew closer, louder. Jason and I leaned toward the window, trying to figure out what Alex was doing, when a geyser of water shot up from the East River, rising hundreds of feet into the air. It slammed into the chimera with such force the beast howled and went spinning through the air toward us.

  The chimera was pitched violently into the steel cables of the bridge. Several cables snapped, and the bridge swayed slightly under the impact.

  “You’re going to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge!” I screamed in horror, slapping Alex in the back of the head. “Figure out another way to kill that thing without destroying an iconic landmark.”

  Alex gave me a withering look, clearly not appreciating the cultural heritage of New York, while the chimera was violently shaking water off itself, like a manic dog after a bath. I figured fire-breathing creatures probably didn’t favor water very much.

  Alex lifted his staff once again and yelled, “Glacies!” The water that was still clinging to the chimera’s body froze into a solid sheet of ice. The beast plummeted out of the sky, unable to use its wings to stay aloft. A sickening smack sounded from below as the chimera hit the surface of the water.

  “Can those things swim?” I asked.

  No one replied, which I took to mean they didn’t know. Even if the creature didn’t drown, at least Alex had bought us some time.

  I sidled up close to Jason, wanting to offer him any comfort I could, but I knew that touching him would only make it worse. I eyed the gruesome wound. “He’s hurt. He needs a hospital.”

  “Lilly, can you help him?” Alex asked. I didn’t know why he was asking her. What could she possibly do for Jason?

  “I don’t have what I need in the car. It’ll have to wait until we can get someplace safe. The best I can do is reduce the pain for now.”

  “Do it. I’ll take the wheel.” Lilly and Alex nimbly switched places, with Lilly sliding herself lithely across Alex’s lap. She then switched places with me to get closer to Jason, although there was quite a bit less rubbing when we moved past each other. We settled into our new seats as Alex came to the end of the bridge and drove us back into Manhattan.

  Lilly gently took Jason’s arm and pulled it from his body where he was cradling it protectively against his chest. When he sucked in a pained breath at the movement, Lilly looked at him with sympathy and hovered a hand inches above the open wound. Closing her eyes and steadying her breathing, she hummed lightly in a clear, high-pitched tone. A soft, moss green illumination emanated from her palm into the wound. Jason’s pained grimace immediately eased, the creases in his forehead smoothing out and his eyes rolling back into his head at the sweet relief.

  “It won’t last long, maybe an hour, but hopefully, that’ll be enough time to get you someplace we can help you.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jason said. “I could marry you right now. Thank you.”

  Lilly smiled shyly in response.

  “When you two love bugs are done making googly eyes at each other, we have a problem,” I said, bringing everyone’s attention back to the chimera that was now climbing out of the river behind us, shaking off the last shards of ice.

  We were moving rapidly, but it caught sight of us, breaking into a run. Lower Manhattan tended to be quiet at night since it was mostly office buildings; as a result, only a few lucky passersby got to see the giant chimera galloping down Centre Street, ripping up the asphalt with its wicked claws. The wind rushing past its body must have helped to dry off its wings because it took a great leap and launched itself back into the air. It was gaining on us rapidly.

  “We’re too easy of a target,” I said. “We need to get underground.”

  “We can’t let this thing follow us into a subway or a parking garage under a building,” said Alex. “It would put too many people at risk.”

  “The tunnel!” Lilly suggested. “It’s too narrow for the chimera to follow us in there.”

  “How do I get there?” Alex asked.

  Lilly directed him to make a left onto Canal Street and go straight into the Holland Tunnel. The chimera wasn’t about to let us off the hook for the stunt we pulled on the bridge, though. As we raced toward the tunnel, the creature opened its maw, and a glow began to burn deep in its throat.

  “Incoming!” I yelled.

  Alex swerved onto an empty sidewalk to avoid the blast, plowing over a fire hydrant, a spray of water climbing into the air. The chim
era howled and changed course to avoid another soaking.

  The next fireball forced Alex to sideswipe a number of cars that were parked along the curb, the flames engulfing an electronics store. We wouldn’t be able to dodge these attacks for much longer. There just wasn’t enough space for maneuverability on these streets.

  As though the chimera could read my thoughts, it waited for us to hit the next block where construction vehicles and barriers lined the street, allowing enough space for only one vehicle to pass through. It flew in close and spit the next fireball directly toward the car.

  Jason and Lilly threw themselves onto the floor, but that wouldn’t protect them if the entire vehicle went up in flames. I felt completely helpless watching our destruction hurtle toward us in slow motion. Not for the first time this week, I thought this was the end.

  Then Alex interrupted my desolate thoughts. “Emma, grab the wheel!”

  I did as he asked without hesitation, leaning across Alex as he lifted his staff again, calling forth that shimmering shield. It wrapped around the back end of the car, and as the chimera’s blast slammed into it, the force lifted our rear wheels off the ground, thrusting the car forward the last few feet into the safety of the Holland Tunnel.

  The chimera touched down at the entrance to the tunnel and blew an angry blast of fire into the enclosed space. With nowhere to disperse, the heat and flame consumed the tunnel, melting asphalt and heating up the inside of the car, but Alex’s shield held.

  Once we were out of its reach, Alex dropped the shield and slumped against the driver’s seat in exhaustion, reducing speed to give us precious extra minutes for recovery before we had to engage again.

  “So, what now?” I asked. “We can’t hide in this tunnel forever, and we have to get rid of that thing before the sun rises and the streets fill with people.”