The bindings tightened once, but then unexpectedly dropped free. Exalted, Mitro rose quickly toward the barrier and the one spot he’d spent centuries thinning. It would take seconds to break through, and when the volcano erupted, he would go out the vent with the gases. Elation swept through him. Glee. Triumph. Nothing, no one, could stop him.
Dax streaked through the furious volcano, moving as only a dragon could through the lower chambers, upward, toward the barrier. He felt the subtle difference in the earth, a pouring of comfort, a soothing hand stroking the volcano, easing the rising catastrophic explosion that would have blown the top off the mountain and flattened everything for miles.
Arabejila? He sent his inquiry, but he was positive she had been long gone from the earth. He’d felt her passing. He’d felt the mourning of the mountain when she was gone. His blood should have called to hers had she been alive. Still, the feel of her, the welcoming, the power—it was all there. More so.
Silence greeted his call. Had Arabejila been close—and he knew someone was trying to soothe the volcano—their blood exchanges would have allowed him to reach out to her. They’d been friends long before Mitro’s betrayal, but their centuries of traveling together had deepened that friendship even further. Being around Arabejila had allowed him some emotion. She had been unique that way, providing solace to the warriors of their people—and Dax had practically been born a warrior. He had a gift for ferreting out evil. He could smell it, see it inside, and from the moment he’d met Mitro he’d seen inside to his rotten core.
The volcano whispered to him as he moved through the scalding chambers, told him of a woman, powerful, healing, a true daughter of the earth. Dax knew the moment she plunged her hands into the soil—the volcano responded with a flutter of activity. He felt the instant reaction, not only of the volcano, the soil, the very heart of the earth, but in his own blood. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. Arabejila, yet now—more. This woman was a force to be reckoned with. Where Arabejila was soft through and through, this woman had a core of heat and fire.
He continued to streak through the labyrinth of lava-formed tubes and hollowed caves, moving up toward the barrier. No doubt Mitro thought he could escape with the explosion of the volcano, right through that small space the vampire had worked centuries to thin. Dax had never let on he was aware of Mitro’s work.
He never caught the undead working to thin the barrier, and all traces were removed, but Mitro hadn’t counted on one thing—the intense blood bond between lifemates. Mitro had deliberately filled the mountain with his evil, so it would be impossible for Dax to detect him, not with his scent permeating every razor-sharp rock and molten pool. He had done so too late for this one escape hatch. He hadn’t considered that Arabejila and Dax had exchanged blood so often throughout their hunt for Mitro over the centuries, and when he’d first started the thinning process, Dax could use that blood bond to hunt him. Dax had marked the spot in his memory.
Arabejila’s blood continually called to Mitro’s, and as the earth claimed Dax more and more as her child, his blood had begun to do the same. He had only to listen. Now, with the soul of the dragon dwelling in him as well, he had an added advantage he hadn’t before—his senses of sight and smell were far above what they had been. The heat of the volcano fed him rather than drained him. The Old One and Dax had become better at sharing the same body and all senses. Right now, he knew exactly where Mitro was. He could feel the vampire struggling against the bonds the woman placed on him.
Mitro had positioned himself right at that narrowed barrier, right where Dax was certain he would. Dax sent a small thanks to the woman and to Arabejila. At long last he would destroy the vampire and his duty to his people would be done. He would be free to go to the next life. He moved quickly, rising steadily, winding his way through the maze of miles of chambers. Magma pools bubbled ominously. Steam and heat swirled together to create a dense fog. He used the dragon’s eyes to see his way through the storm, racing the volcano to reach Mitro while he was still trapped.
The volcano took a deep breath, the whirlwind stilling, a terrible calm heralding a violent storm. Dax felt the exact moment when the woman turned her attention from holding Mitro to suppressing the catastrophic explosion. He couldn’t blame her, she had people to save—just as he did. He pushed his speed, rushing through the last two chambers leading to that point of weakness where he knew Mitro would be.
He heard Mitro’s gleeful snicker as the bonds broke loose and he streaked for the thin spot in the barrier. Dax hit him from the side, slamming into the body of the undead, driving him down and away from his goal.
Mitro shrieked in frustration and anger, trying to twist away, to get distance between them. Dax was too strong, too fast and he stayed close, chest to chest, driving his fist deep, penetrating through muscle, bone and tissue to drive for the heart.
Dax stared into Mitro’s all-black eyes, the eyes of insanity, a monster without a soul. He’d been born defective and he’d purposefully destroyed every good thing in his life. Dax felt the edge of that withered, blackened heart. Diamond-hard nails ripped deep, tearing through the vampire’s chest in an effort to surround the one organ that would ensure Mitro’s demise.
Mitro screamed and thrashed, his talons raking at Dax’s face, gouging long furrows from eye to jaw. He slammed his own fist deep into Dax’s chest, trying to reach the hunter’s heart before the Carpathian could extract his.
Hot melting rock erupted through the chamber, rocketing high, smashing into the barrier erected by Arabejila. The heat was so intense the barrier clearly was melting and along with it, their skin. Mitro’s face drooped as if it had grown too thin, sliding from his skull and bones. Dax knew his own skin, acclimatized to the volcano, could not long withstand the enormous heat from the very core of the earth. It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered but destroying Mitro. The vampire could tear out Dax’s heart and throw it into the bubbling orange and red pool of hot rock steadily climbing toward them, and it would be well worth it as long as Mitro was gone from the world. Dax’s fingers dug deeper, reaching for the vampire’s heart, as Mitro tore a wider hole in Dax’s chest. For a moment it felt as if the vampire was ripping through his body with a dull knife, but Dax cut off all pain and focused on the job at hand.
Dax closed his fingers around the blackened heart and began to extract it. The vampire shrieked, maddened, enraged, ripping at Dax’s face and eyes with one hand while he continued to tunnel his hand into Dax’s chest in an effort to kill him before it was too late.
Dax pulled the heart free of the body and, looking straight into Mitro’s eyes, let the useless organ drop into the fiery pit below. He felt no animosity toward the vampire, he felt no triumph or sadness. The decayed organ incinerated the moment it hit the bubbling cauldron of melted rock.
But instead of collapsing, lifeless, in Dax’s arms as the vampire should have once his heart was destroyed, Mitro’s lips drew back in a parody of a smile, his blackened receding gums and jagged, stained teeth snapping together with an ominous clicking sound. Triumphant, vile, and still very much alive, the vampire abruptly leaned forward and sank his teeth into Dax’s throat.
7
Little by little the sky darkened, a great shadow drawn slowly overhead. A loud rumble heralded the continuous shaking of the earth. A dense ash cloud erupted, shooting straight into the sky like a voluminous black tower, expanding and churning as it rose. Within a matter of minutes the blackness was nearly impenetrable. Rain began to fall, a fast flurry of powdery drops.
Exhausted, mentally and physically, Riley could barely lift her head. Her body felt leaden, drained of all strength. She knelt in the dirt, trying to think what to do next, but her brain refused to work. She peered at the three men through the veil of darkness. They appeared misshapen from head to toe. All three crouched low on the ground trying to ride out the never-ending tremo
rs. She realized the drops weren’t water at all, but a heavy, powdery ash covering their bodies, blanketing the mountain, the trees, every bit of foliage surrounding them, and making it impossible to look up.
Lightning cracked across the sky. Thunder crashed. Electricity crackled around them all, sparks dancing around their bodies while halos surrounded their heads. The sound of cannonballs exploding hurt her ears and reverberated through her head. The smell of sulfur saturated the air.
Ben pushed himself to his feet, trying for balance when the ground rolled relentlessly. “We’ve got to make a run for it. We can’t stay here. We’re too close.” He coughed, covering his mouth and nose. Anxiety edged his voice, but he clearly was trying to hold it together.
“Ben,” Jubal said, his voice calm and steady. “You can’t outrun a volcano. It isn’t going to help to go charging off. We’re either safe or we’re not.”
“If we’re lucky, the main blast will be on the other side of the mountain and we’ll survive if I can build us a shelter fast enough. Hopefully Miguel and the others are out of the danger zone,” Riley tried to assure him, when she wasn’t even certain herself.
Ben gaped at them, and then exploded with fear and outrage. “A shelter? Are you kidding me? That’s a volcano! If we stay here, we’re going to die!”
“She’s not talking about a tent,” Gary snapped.
“And if we run, we’re definitely dead,” Jubal added calmly. He turned to Riley. “Riley? Can you do it? We really need that shelter, and we really need it now.”
Riley sat back on her knees and wiped at the ash falling on her face with a weary hand, trying to find the strength to call on Mother Earth once more. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t certain she could do anything at all to save them. She’d come here to stop evil from entering the world, but so far, all she’d done was fail. She’d failed to save her mother, failed to keep the evil caged, failed to stop the volcano. Odds were she’d fail to save them, too.
Even though she’d suggested it, the idea that she could build shelter that would withstand a volcano did indeed seem as ludicrous as Ben declared. What had she been thinking? She took a deep breath and coughed, her chest tight, lungs burning.
“Riley?” Jubal prodded.
Fiery streaks of molten rock spewed into the air and hurtled down toward them. Purplish-red scoria and fiery stones rained down on them. They covered their heads, the three men trying to shield Riley with their bodies. She heard Gary gasp as a stone hit his back. Another glanced off a rock near Ben’s head.
Jubal was right. They would die if they tried to run, and they would die if they stayed here without one heck of a volcano-proof shelter. If building one was even remotely possible, she had to figure it out immediately.
Riley covered her mouth and nose to try for a clean breath of air and then once more plunged her hands into the soil. There was desperation in her voice as she chanted.
“Square, cornucopia, spindle, scythe, salt and shield, I call upon Auriel’s might.” The words came out of their own accord, and they felt right. She felt as if she were tapping into a long-forgotten memory.
To her shock, the ground began to rise, following the circle of salt to form thick walls of rock and dirt, expanding fast, moving above their heads, curving and growing until they were inside a cave.
“Agate, jasper, tourmaline, line this place so none may burn.”
Ash was everywhere, in her mouth and nose, clogging her throat. The shower of incandescent stones continued, making deep holes in the ground around them and sending hot shrapnel spraying over them. A small fissure opened up, running right up to the circle of protection, but stopped abruptly.
Riley closed her eyes, sending up a prayer that she would have the strength to do this. She felt the earth responding to her touch, a comfort that was fast becoming familiar. Around the circle of protection the walls continued to grow, lined with solid rock to add to the thickness, giving additional protection against a superheated blast. The walls climbed high, curving to form a ceiling overhead. Only a narrow opening remained.
“Ruby, garnet, diamond strong, seal us safe from fiery harm.” As she chanted, all colors of red from fire lined the walls and began to build a door at the entrance.
The roar from outside dimmed, although the tremors continued relentlessly as the last remaining open space closed and sealed. Riley slumped to the ground, there in the darkness while the ground tossed and rolled. She was so exhausted she couldn’t think. She’d done her best. Either they would survive or they wouldn’t. She’d managed to protect them from gases and anything falling from overhead, but if the mountain blew and superheated lava found their cave, it wouldn’t matter if they were inside or not, the heat would melt the rock and they’d probably suffocate before the fiery lava found them.
Darkness was absolute in the cavern Riley had created. Jubal flicked on a light, pushing it into the ground. The roof and walls sparkled with gemstones, giving off a beautiful, almost soothing glow.
Jubal looked around in amazement at the gem-lined cave. “Amazing, Riley. Whether we get out of this alive or not, let me just say thank you now.”
Gary handed her a bottle of water he pulled from his pack. “Here, drink this. You have to be exhausted.”
Riley found she could barely lift her hand to take the bottle. Her arms felt like lead and shook almost as hard as the ground. “If the mountain really goes up, it won’t matter. You know that, don’t you?”
“You managed to build us shelter from the ash and debris,” Jubal pointed out. “I’m going to believe you minimized the explosion and pushed it away from us.”
“This is nuts,” Ben burst out. “How did you make this cave out of nothing? What are you? If someone told me about this, I’d never believe them.”
“There are a lot of things in this world people have a difficult time believing,” Gary said. “It’s easier to dismiss the incidents as fantasy or pretend they didn’t happen. Riley’s obviously extremely gifted . . .”
“That’s not gifted,” Ben said. “No one can do what she did. Is this some kind of black magic, not that I know if I believe in that, either, but I’ve seen some freaky things when I’ve traveled, but this . . .” He trailed off again.
Riley snuck a look at his face. In the shadows from the dim light, his face appeared lined and stressed. She couldn’t blame him. She’d grown up seeing the strange things her mother could do, but even as a child, she’d known others would never accept that plants grew beneath her mother’s feet when she walked and reached out to her whenever she was close. There really wasn’t an explanation she could give Ben that would make sense. The things her family could do were normal to her, but clearly weren’t for others.
“Call her psychic,” Jubal said. “She has an affinity for the earth and it responds to her. Hopefully, that connection was strong enough to direct the volcanic blast away from us.”
“Affinity for the earth? Directed a volcano blast? That’s bullshit,” Ben said. “It’s impossible. I just saw crazy shit with my own eyes, but damn it, it’s impossible.”
Gary’s eyebrow went up. “Is it? How do you know what’s possible and what isn’t? In Indonesia the people believe their sultan has tamed and calmed the volcanos for centuries. They are certain he can protect them from the fury of eruption. And we’ve all seen inexplicable happenings on this trip.”
Even as he spoke, outside the cave, more stones and debris pummeled the roof, landing with shocking force. Riley resisted the urge to cover her ears. Every jarring blow sent her heart jolting hard in her chest. Fear tasted like copper in her mouth.
An explosion rocked them a second time, the mountain shuddering, sending them reeling from side to side. Riley clung to the earth, digging her fingers deep, trying to get a feel for where the worst of the eruption had taken place and just how bi
g it had been. At the same time, she tried using the soil to anchor herself. As it was, she sprawled hard against Gary, knocking her head against his. His glasses went flying. Ben fell over Annabel’s pack, slamming his shoulder into the gem-studded wall of the cave. Jubal was the only one who maintained a semblance of balance, riding out the swelling ground waves as if he was surfing on his knees.
“Is everyone all right?” Jubal asked.
They all nodded, shock taking its toll on their voices.
“That sounded far away,” he ventured after a few minutes.
Riley’s heart settled into a steadier beat. She swallowed several times, testing her ability to speak. “It feels far away, the other side of the mountain. I can tell there are several vents open releasing pressure, and that blast wasn’t catastrophic, but more of a burp. But it’s out.” She met Gary’s gaze grimly. “I couldn’t hold it and calm the volcano at the same time. So if we’re right and the blast was on the other side of the mountain and we’re not going to get burned up, we’re going to have to deal with it—whatever it is.”
She tasted the bitterness of failure. Fear skittered down her spine, yet deep within the earth, her fingers curled and held on tight to . . . hope. She caught the elusive presence of another. Male. Power. Strength. Yet his touch was subtle, a child of the earth as she was. At once she felt comfort. She wasn’t entirely alone in the world. She had a brief glimpse of calm. Of determination. Of someone who would never surrender or back down.
Her breath caught in her throat. For one moment he seemed to touch her mind, a stroke, no more, inside her mind, a caress. She knew he was every bit as aware of her as she was of him. He didn’t feel anything at all like the evil one had. This was so different. Gentle. She had the very vivid impression of a powerful being unafraid of his own strength and entirely confident. She wanted to cling to him for a moment, a strong anchor in an exploding world gone chaotic and mad all around her.
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