Blood Trouble
Page 26
Would they follow me if I bent time, too? They were certainly locked on me where I was. I bent time ten years into the future. They followed like hounds on a fresh scent. Fifty years and still they flew behind me. It only made sense that they would do this—I'd given them a trail to follow and they weren't about to lose me now. I'd sealed the fate of everything and everyone, just by Changing What Was and giving a friend's life back to her. I worried that I'd run out of energy, too, as I still wasn't fully recovered from Tulgalan.
* * *
"Wake, Radomir." Radomir blinked—someone sat on the edge of his bed inside the Austin safe house.
"Who?" he began, but his question was cut short by a command.
"You will not recall her or anything about her. The time is not yet right for that." Radomir gazed into dark-gray eyes and watched as stars fell through their depths.
* * *
Breanne's Journal
I didn't know there was a limit on how far into the future I might go. Perhaps it had something to do with my present circumstances—the universes had come to a crossroads of sorts and where it might proceed from there depended upon my actions. I'd arrived in the Reth Alliance barely three months after I'd left Le-Ath Veronis behind. For my sister, little time had passed since my disappearance.
For me, more than two years had gone by, and many things had happened during that time. For a brief moment, I'd been happier than I'd ever been. Ever. And then a seemingly random sandstorm wiped away lives, I'd discovered Hank's secret and things changed.
The book, too, would destroy what was left of that life I'd so carefully built for myself. For two years, nobody knew my past, and I'd enjoyed pain-free days. I was able to shove it aside and not remember much of it. Now, even as mist or energy, it made me ill. I raced through the Reth Alliance, rogue gods on my heels, bent on my destruction.
Graegar had warned me. I carried the lives, good and bad, that inhabited all the universes, with me. How had this happened—that I didn't know this earlier? That someone, somewhere, didn't arrive like they had in all the stories I'd heard, to prepare me for this? It made no sense. None.
I recalled Graegar's words—that my statement to him that this made no sense led him to believe I wasn't the Mighty Mind. Well, where was the Mighty Mind, if he or she were so smart? Why weren't they telling me what to do to take care of the malicious army of powerful beings at my back?
Just like always, I was on my own.
* * *
"We've lost her. We've fucking lost her," Hank mumbled, his head in his hands.
"How do you know?" Jayson sat beside Hank on the sofa inside his office.
Without a word, Hank handed his cellphone to Jayson. A text from Director Bill Jennings was displayed. It read, Breanne disappeared. Her cellphone in deep water off Texas Gulf Coast. No idea where she might be.
"Fuck," Jayson sighed. "Fuck."
* * *
Breanne's Journal
Passing over Evensun, I saw it was empty. Information came to me, then, as to why it was empty. Rogues had been given bodies so they might create havoc among the created races. Lives would be bent to their will or destroyed. Planets would be overrun. Everything would be corrupted in a stunted, warped version of how it was supposed to be. I cursed those at my back and wished they'd never been made. Twice. And then it came to me.
* * *
Lissa's Journal
"She's in trouble. I know it." I thought my heart would beat its way out of my chest, I was so frightened.
"Baby, we have to wait this out." Drew held me, while Drake stroked hair away from my face.
"But what will we do?" I wailed.
"Hush. We have to wait," Drake soothed.
* * *
Reah's Journal
"Love, stop fretting. It can't be good for the baby. Your time is close."
"Edward, what will we do?" My tears dripped on Edward's shirt as I wrapped arms around his neck.
"I don't know. Surely it can't end like this. It can't."
* * *
Ashe's Journal
Even if I hadn't felt the edge of the knife everything balanced upon, Trajan's howling would have warned me. His wolf knew his mate was in danger, and there wasn't anything he might do about it. I wanted to weep. For him. For Breanne, who'd never stood a chance, and for all those whose lives could be changed in less than a blink.
My eyes remained dry as I gazed across miles of trees. Should Breanne fall, SouthStar might become an island in a very dark storm.
* * *
Breanne's Journal
What seest thou else, in the dark backward and abysm of time? It was from Shakespeare's The Tempest. I was tiring and the rogue army was gaining on me. If I were to make an attempt, I knew it had to be soon. Would it take me, too, if my scheme failed? It doesn't matter flitted through my brain. They'll catch up to you eventually, and they'll take you anyway. Now it was time to act. Time to see what I was made of. Time.
When I'd taken Cheedas from the dungeons in my sister's palace, I'd butted two timelines next to each other so the obsession might be removed from a later Cheedas by an earlier Erithia Cordan. Those two timelines hadn't stretched far from one another—only a matter of hours, actually.
This—this was so much more complicated, and I knew if I took time to think about it, I'd allow my pursuers to catch up and I'd be lost without a fight. I gathered every bit of power I could as I drew to a stop. The enemy would be upon me in less than six seconds. We were down to time. Again.
* * *
Li'Neruh Rath stood upon Evensun, watching the skies overhead. He'd sent Kifirin away—he wanted no company now. Things would fall or be saved, and he had no idea which way they might go. Fate was set on the thinnest edge, and he held his breath as everything slowed.
* * *
Breanne's Journal
Nearly every bit of strength I had was poured into such a small amount of space. Two timelines were butted together, and as I looked past the one I currently occupied to the other, a brief image of Saturday morning cartoons with Joyce's twins popped into my mind. One animated character would trick another to slam headfirst into a painted tunnel. Shockingly enough, the hapless character fell for it. Every time.
No animated characters chased me now. Murderers were at my back, and they'd arrive at any moment—to kill me. Pulling the last bit of strength I possessed, I sent a final blast through the opening and into the other timeline. Quailing invisibly at the edge, I waited for them to either follow the blast or discover my ruse. Either way, I had no strength left to leave this place. Likely I'd die anyway, but at least it would be my choice.
* * *
"Koop, do you ever feel as if you've forgotten something? Something important, that you ought to remember? Do you?" Trevor studied Kooper Griff as he sat behind the desk in his Casino City Sheriff's office.
"I was just thinking that, too. What do you suppose it might be?" Kooper watched Trevor's dark eyes as the old vampire's forehead wrinkled in thought.
"No idea. Every time I think I have it, it slips away. I usually forget about it, too, until it shows up again. Maybe I'll remember it sometime."
"Yeah. Maybe."
* * *
Breanne's Journal
I felt as if I were watching the swiftest race ever run, they flew past me so quickly. How they failed to notice me, huddled as invisible mist beside the portal, I may never know. They'd followed my last blast of power, just as they'd followed all the others, fully expecting to catch up with me after I tired.
Had I been corporeal, perhaps I might have felt the rush of their passing, as they left the current timeline where I was and passed into one where they'd never existed. I watched as their energy winked out once they reached the end of the tunnel I'd constructed.
Like a speeding train attempting to stop once it realized it was necessary, the force of the last few stragglers rushing forward drove all the others through to the other side and oblivion. There may have been half a mi
llion of them or more. Too many. All of them perished, once they went farther back than the earliest any of them existed. Yes, where I'd sent them, only the One—and the Three were. Where I'd sent them, they couldn't be. And they weren't.
Once all of them had passed through and their energy winked out, I stared into the tunnel. Briefly, I considered going through as well. There lay peace. Yes, my mist—my corporeal body—would be no more. Perhaps it would no longer matter to me that I'd been tortured, abused or betrayed. It wouldn't matter that a book had been written, and horrible photographs displayed. I wandered past the edge and into the tunnel as I gazed upon the promise of no pain.
Should I have expected it? It was the way my entire life had gone. The agony was blinding as I was struck—so hard I landed against a wall in my sister's palace, cracking my head against marble and losing consciousness as I slid down the wall. My last memory as darkness came was of shouting—shouting for help.
Who was it for?
I had no idea.
The End
The God Wars continue in Book 3, Blood Revolution.
* * *
About the Author:
Connie Suttle lives in Oklahoma with her patient, long-suffering husband and three cats. For information on forthcoming titles, please visit Connie's website at www.subtledemon.com, her blog at subtledemon.blogspot.com or find her on Facebook—Connie Suttle Author. She is also on twitter: @subtledemon.