Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series)

by Augustine, Donna

  "It's fine for everyone in this room as long as we don't linger near it too long."

  "And what about regular humans?"

  "Not so much. You'd have to cordon off a twenty mile area in every direction. Even further, eventually, if it keeps radiating at this rate."

  "They've got NASA all over the place. I'll make some calls to my connections to make sure it happens, if they haven't already figured that out."

  We knew the place had been swarmed by government within the first few hours. Unlike the mountain collapse, they didn't even try to put out a phony press release for this. They pretended it wasn't happening. I didn't blame them. It was hard to talk your way out of a gaping space hole and not have people think the world was ending.

  "Rogo, anyone that has ever had any interaction with the senator - I want sent over here for questioning. Vitor, Burrom, talk to all your elders that are on this side. I need any information they can give us."

  The fighting was over as they all realized the dire situation and slowly let out of the room. I think most were feeling as deflated as I was, no closer to a solution than when we started. I leaned back and crossed my ankles on the conference table, not ready to move, as my brain sought a solution that I knew I didn't have.

  Alone in the room with only Cormac now, while Dodd walked them out with Sabrina, I wanted at least some answers from someone. "Why did you make it look like we were together?"

  He looked at me as if I was crazy and smiled. "I didn't."

  "Yes, you did."

  "No, I didn't. I think you're reading into things."

  "You are really saying you didn't?" I repeated, starting to feel a bit foolish and a tinge embarrassed. Could I have been letting my own feeling taint the way I saw his actions?

  "That's exactly what I'm saying." He walked over and sat on the table near my ankles. Lifting them up he towed my chair closer to him until he was close enough to lean down over me and put a hand on each chair arm. "Did you want me to stake my claim on you?"

  "That isn't what I said."

  "I think it's what you want though."

  "No, it isn't."

  He was still smiling as if he didn't believe it, but there was something else in his eyes that I found unsettling. "This isn't the time for playing around, Cormac."

  "There's always time to play."

  His phone vibrating on the table next to him saved me from making a complete fool of myself as I melted into a puddle of lust.

  "What's wrong?" I asked, as I saw him read a message.

  "I don't know yet." He dialed in a number and I was a bit surprised when he did so on speaker. "Buzz, what's up?"

  "Another one just happened."

  "You mean what I think?" Cormac asked, clearly not wanting to put it into words on the phone.

  "Yes. And it's twice the size."

  "Where?"

  "About seventy miles north east of our location."

  "But that would put it…"

  "Yes. It's bad…real bad."

  "We're on our way." I looked at his face as he pushed end on his phone.

  "Where we going?"

  "New York City. Or what's left of it."

  Chapter Thirteen

  News had spread like crazy within minutes. Twitter and all the social media were alight with the fact that New York City was now completely gone. A private jet flew us to a landing strip in New Jersey, where Buzz and Ben waited for us. It was seven hours later and the small, private airport was somewhere in between a state of great urgency and disorganized mayhem. People of means waited on the tarmac in their private planes, trying to get the hell out of Dodge. According to the ground crew, there wasn't a commercial flight to be had. Their phones were ringing off the hook with people trying to get a charter but there wasn't a plane left. Cormac had the crew lock ours down in a maintenance garage, out of sight, to make sure it would be there when we got back.

  We took a yacht from a small seaside town in New Jersey called Middletown. It was even crazier there. People walking quickly down the docks, loading up their belongings onto their boats. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Watching them hurry their children aboard, heading off to anywhere but there, a place so close to what was once New York City.

  I wanted to stop them and tell them everything would be okay.

  I couldn't. It might not be.

  It didn't take very long to sail close enough to see that New York City was truly gone. Gone. Just gone.

  From what Buzz had said, it had happened in a matter of seconds. He'd been close enough at the time to see it. It was there, and then it wasn't. Millions of people were just gone. Skyscrapers disappeared into nowhere. The entire city, and parts of the New Jersey coastline, across the river, were now torn from our universe, leaving a gaping hole where stars from another place and time hung. It looked too beautiful for something that was so deadly.

  We bobbed in the ocean for a while, the four of us just staring. I don't know why exactly we couldn't stop looking but we stayed there and stared for a while before we could speak. Shock, disbelief, grief, and maybe most of all…dread of what was to come; all those things ran through my brain.

  "What does this one feel like to you?" Cormac finally broke the silence to ask.

  "I don't know," I replied and wiped away a tear that had finally managed to escape. I'd thought I'd done away with those completely. I guess if it was bad enough, there were still more to be had. "How does it feel to you?"

  "Your senses are much better than mine when it comes to wormholes, but to me it feels ragged and irregular, more so than the last one."

  I reached out my senses to it, like someone would take a deep breath trying to catch a scent on the air. "Yes. Ragged edges. Even stronger radiation."

  "Do you think you could close it?"

  I shook my head, annoyed he'd even asked. I hadn't been able to close the one in Nevada. Didn't he think I would have done, if I could? There wouldn't have been a discussion about when or how. I would've just done it. When I felt this one and applied any sort of pressure, it didn't budge.

  "What about if we had more Keepers trying at once?" he suggested.

  "I have no idea." I closed my eyes, not wanting to look anymore. "I'm sorry, I just have no idea."

  "Trust me, I get it."

  "The edges feel torn, not distorted. If we try to force it closed, I'm not sure what will happen. I couldn't do it by myself, anyway. I'd need help. We'd have to force it closed and the way it feels, I just don't know if it's going to be possible. We'd be stretching the very matter of our universe."

  "This is worse than the last. If we don't close it, I'm not sure what will happen." His words didn't give details but his tone spelled it out clearly.

  "You mean…like everything?"

  "We gotta try," Buzz said, as if he had just woken up.

  Ben was still transfixed. There was no judgment from me. This was my second space hole and I didn't think I'd be any less stunned or horrified if it had been my hundredth.

  "How many Keepers are there?" I'd only met fifteen, but I didn't know how many there were at the other locations.

  "Not every Keeper can work a wormhole. There are forty-seven, excluding you and I, that can do it with varying degrees of strength and ability. There are about twenty-four more that can't but have other skills."

  "I don't think it's going to be enough. We need more. What about the people you lost to Tracker and Hammond?"

  He didn't answer.

  "Cormac?"

  "Twenty-two."

  "We need them. It's no worse than working with Rogo."

  "Yes, it is. Rogo was never with me."

  "If we can get them, we've got to use them."

  "Fine, but keep them away from me." He turned as he said, "We've got to get going. I'm afraid that if we don't get back soon, there won't be a plane to get back to." Cormac walked back and started up the boat engine.

  I sat and watched the spot where NYC used to be fade into the distance as eve
ryone fell silent again. It broke my heart. Watching a civilization falling apart will do that to you.

  It was a good thing the airport wasn't far from the dock because the traffic had reached a notch below gridlock. The radio had nothing but people screaming the sky was falling. Even satellite radio had interrupted service to talk about the catastrophe. Some said it was aliens, some said it was the government, or the Chinese government, or Russians. The list went on and on trying to find a logical place to lay blame.

  The president came on and told everyone to remain calm. That they were getting the situation under control. It was laughable. How did you get missing parts of your universe under control? Once we got close enough to the airport, we abandoned the car and walked the rest of the way. I was relieved to not have to listen to the radio anymore.

  It took six hours to get back from NJ in the small private jet. The first couple of hours I'd been despondent. By hour three, the ugly reality of what was happening to our world clung to me like the death stench of the black plague finding its latest victim. By time we landed, I was beyond all reason. I was pure fury.

  When the door of the penthouse clicked shut behind Buzz, it was just Cormac and I left in the room. I'd found my bulls eye. If he hadn't been running portals, none of this would've happened. I'd be in med school, blissfully ignorant, and millions of people would still be alive. Earth wouldn't be on the verge of destruction.

  I started pacing as he flipped through paperwork on the table. Even that bugged me. Who gave a shit about paperwork? My world is about to fall apart and he's flipping through papers? "You know this is your fault? You and your goddamn wormholes. You had no right to bring aliens here. The senator wouldn't even have existed if it weren't for your people."

  He dropped the papers onto the table and went still. "And you have no blame here?"

  "I didn't start this! I don't run this."

  "I took over from my ancestors…as did you."

  "Don't compare us."

  "Can't I? What have you been doing for the last several weeks? If you found it so appalling, why did you join us?"

  "I never joined you."

  "The facts would say otherwise."

  "This is your fault!" I screamed.

  "Come here," he said and crooked his finger.

  "Why?" I asked, suddenly thrown off guard.

  "Come here."

  "No. What do you want?" I took a few steps backward as he inched forward. "What?" I asked again, panic surging through me.

  Then he lunged at me, taking me with him to the floor as he took the hit for us both.

  "What are you doing?" I asked again as he kept his arms circled around me.

  "I'm giving you what you asked for."

  "I didn't ask to be tackled to the ground and hugged," I told him as I started to squirm about.

  "Yes, in Jo language, this is exactly what you were asking for. If you keep squirming, you might get everything you've been asking for."

  He rolled me underneath him and his hips ground against mine as my breath caught in my throat. His mouth covered mine, his tongue dipping erotically into my mouth.

  "I never asked for this." The words didn't sound very convincing, said on a breathy sigh when he pulled back slightly.

  "If it's not what you wanted, then why aren't you telling me to stop?"

  "Because you're a lot bigger than I am."

  His hand came up and grazed my face. "If you wanted me off of you, all you'd have to do is ask."

  His face hovered mere inches above mine, his pale blue eyes staring into my green. I turned my face to the side. I didn't want him to leave me. He was right. Whatever this was…I wanted it. Not just sex, I craved the comfort I felt from his closeness. But after everything that had gone between us, how could I even think of letting it happen?

  I kept my face turned; I couldn't accept him and yet I couldn't push him away. I was in emotional purgatory. He leaned his face down, grazing my ear slightly with his lips. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation but knowing I should stop it.

  "I don't think…"

  "Jo," his voice interrupted me. "I'm sorry. I'd give anything to undo it." The stubble of his jaw grazed along my neck as he rested his forehead in my hair.

  A knot formed in my throat as I listened to him. I knew what he was talking about but I needed to confirm it anyway. "You're sorry you had people shot?" I asked, hiding behind a group because I couldn't confront it head on.

  "No, only you." His lips pressed against my neck as he whispered again, "I only regret you."

  "Why?" It was a simple question and the one I wanted answered most.

  I felt his head shake back and forth. "I just didn't know."

  Of all the things he could've said, those words skewered me.

  I felt his head lift and I thought he was going to rise, but instead I felt his lips at the base of my throat. First his lips and then his teeth were grazing over my skin, inch by slow inch until he reached the corner of my jaw. I heard myself moan as he settled further in between my legs.

  Push him off, I kept telling myself, but I didn't. I turned my head instead and met his lips. I realized quickly that he'd been waiting for something from me as his lips sought mine with a deep hunger, stealing the breath from my lungs. His hips ground into mine and I threw my head back on a moan as his hand sought my breast and his breath seared my throat.

  I heard a person clear their throat that wasn't Cormac. Like I didn't have enough issues with intimacy, I needed to get caught laying on the floor by…I didn't even know. I turned my head to see Cormac already staring at Vitor, Buzz and a strange little woman who looked oddly familiar.

  "Sorry, but you said to bring anyone that had contact with the senator in right away." For an apology, Vitor didn't sound very apologetic.

  "You could've knocked," Cormac said as he stood and offered me a hand up.

  "Boss, normally you hear me get out of the elevator."

  "From now on, knock." There was an edge to his voice that added and drop it, without saying it.

  I pushed my hair out of my face as I looked at the newcomers as if they hadn't just walked in on me laying flat on my back with Cormac between my legs. Try as I might, I couldn't stop thinking there was a certain reaction. Buzz had a slight twinkle in his eye, and Vitor looked…not so twinklish. The strange woman…she just looked odd. And where did I know her from? Then I remembered. When I had first started running the portal, she'd been one of my first travelers and had told me I looked familiar.

  "This is Colie. She's of the Fae. She knew the senator."

  "That I did," she said in a strange accent I hadn't heard from any of the Fae before. She stepped around the chair that still lay on the floor and made herself comfortable on the couch. "Strange thing, he was. Younger back then, but still an odd one."

  "So he ages?" I asked.

  "He's not human, if that's what you're trying to ask, but yes, he's aged."

  "What is he?"

  "That I don't know. But I do know a human when I see them. He ain't."

  "How do you know him?"

  Her eyes, with irises so dark they looked black, ran over my face. "My niece Malora brought him around a couple of times."

  "Malora?" I repeated.

  "Yes. I told you that you looked familiar," she said.

  And that was it. No show of emotion about finding a long lost loved one. Nothing.

  "You knew my mother?"

  "Yes."

  She didn't need to say anything more. I could tell the old woman had hated her.

  "Are there any other relatives?"

  "No. I'm it, and you should be grateful. Bad lot, the whole bunch of them. All dead now."

  I wasn't sure how to react to her words, or the chill in her voice. I hadn't known my mother. Do you defend someone you never knew? What's the point? Everybody knows you don't have a leg to stand on and right now I needed information from her. I cared more about that than defending a stranger.

  I sat down on t
he opposite couch to her; everyone else stood. As abrasive as this woman came across, I felt oddly sad for her. Even Vitor, her own kind, seemed to want to keep his distance and it wasn't from fear.

  "Do you know what he was doing with Malora?" I had to concentrate to not trip over her name, feeling so odd speaking of her.

  "No, but I'm sure it was no good. She had a tendency to hang around undesirables. Hanging with the wolves, and the lowest of them to boot. Always carrying on about all the secrets the wolves had. Like the Wolves knew things we didn't, hmmph. Then she started panting after a Keeper named Hammond. She could always get any man she wanted, with her looks. More of a curse than a gift, if you want my opinion."

  Again, I felt her judgmental stare on me. Was I supposed to apologize for being attractive now? I was quickly losing any sympathy I had for the woman, ostracized or not. Plus, I was relieved Dark wasn't here right now to hear how she felt about the wolves. He'd become a staple in the penthouse.

  "Malora was a tramp," she continued.

  You need her information. You can tell her to get the hell out after you get her information, I repeated like a silent mantra in my head.

  "She was trying to get knocked up by Hammond."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because when she couldn't get pregnant, she went to what you people would call a doctor to get spelled. That's when the senator guy came around. I only saw him a handful of times but she needed him for something. That's how Malora was. She didn't bother with anyone that didn't do something for her."

  The idea I could somehow be the senator's daughter ran through my mind but then I remembered the blood. I was Hammond's, and for once, actually happy about it. That was bad enough. But what had Malora needed from the senator, I wondered; I asked the woman in front of me.

  "I don't know. But she got something. He wouldn't have been around if she hadn't. My guess it had something to do with you. And Hammond."

  "So what happened to him? Did he ever come around again?"

  "I don't know. She disappeared right around the time I thought for sure she was pregnant. Never saw her again." The old woman looked around the room and waited. "No more questions?"