WarriorsandLovers

by Alysha Ellis

  Nieko picked up his pack again. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Not on your own. We’re coming with you to the portal point,” Tybor said. “I have to trust you to take care of this human once you get to the surface, but until you do there’s no point taking any risks.” He picked up Elijah’s backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then held out a hand to Judie. Together they led the little procession, Eora following the lead two, then Elijah, with Nieko inserting himself directly behind him. Huon took the rear point.

  At each junction Nieko tensed, his senses focused on Elijah, watching to see if he tried to run, but he only indicated the direction to take and plodded on as before, his head held low, shoulders bent as if he carried an invisible weight.

  They reached a point where the corridor narrowed. Elijah called out, “This is it. Here’s the mark I left when I came in.” He stepped forward. “There’s a problem. The place I came in from—there could be a lot of people hanging about. If we three suddenly—”

  “It’s after nightfall on the surface,” Tybor said. “There won’t be any tourists around to see or be hurt.”

  “You know where I’m going,” Elijah said. It wasn’t a question.

  “We know. If you’re not a fully functioning telekinetic,” Huon confirmed, “there’s only one portal strong enough to get you here.”. “Been there. Done that.”

  There was obviously a lot more to Huon and Tybor’s mission to the surface than Nieko was aware of. After they eliminated Hopewood and made it back home, he was going to be asking the two men some more questions.

  “And after we’ve eliminated Hopewood?” Eora asked.

  “You make sure the Gatekeepers’ organization is truly broken up beyond hope of recovery. If Denton is wrong and you find they still exist, destroy anyone and anything you see as a danger. We can’t afford to be merciful.”

  Huon handed Nieko and Eora several packets.

  “What’s that?” Elijah asked.

  “It’s the component chemicals to make fireballs. When the two chemicals are squeezed together they create an explosive sphere.” A wicked grin spread across Huon’s face. “You throw them at the enemy,” he explained. “And whoosh. No more enemy.”

  “Why not use a gun?”

  “Any weapon made of metal weakens a Dvalinn as soon as they touch it,” Judie explained. “The fireballs are devastatingly effective when thrown by a skilled warrior.

  “We know how to do it,” Nieko said. “Eora and I are both trained to use them.”

  “What Nieko isn’t telling you,” Eora added, “is he’s really, really good. No one in our academy year bettered his hit average.”

  “So if I have to kill you,” Nieko said, glaring at Elijah with all the malice he felt, “you won’t see it coming.”

  “You don’t trust me. I got that.” Elijah stood with his feet braced apart, his hands jammed at his hips. “I’m still going.”

  “Yep,” Huon said. “Time to head to the surface. Elijah, you know the target area, so you leave first. Nieko and Eora will follow immediately. They can lock on to your telepathic wake. They’ll materialize right behind you.”

  “Don’t think you can get away,” Nieko said. We’ll be on you like stink. I’ll be on my way before your shadow fades.”

  Elijah’s fists ached with the desire to thump Nieko—so arrogant, certain he was better than any mere human. Forget waiting for Tybor or Huon to give him permission to teleport. He was getting out of this place right now. Let the Dvalinn prick catch up if he could. Elijah was going home.

  He visualized one of the standing stones and waited for the sense of disorientation to take him. The air thickened and darkened. A wash of dizziness hit and he closed his eyes. The dizziness subsided—the world steadied.

  He opened his eyes…

  To see four Dvalinn and one human staring fixedly at him, their puzzled expressions lit by the glow from the solid rock walls behind them. He looked around wildly. He hadn’t moved a step from where he’d been.

  “I did something wrong,” he muttered. “I’ll try again.”

  He screwed his face up and clenched his fists, concentrating every ounce of power he had on the image of Stonehenge, on his desire to get back to the surface, on his need to get out. But this time when he opened his eyes, he knew where he was, knew he’d failed to escape this living tomb.

  “I don’t understand,” he growled. “I got here. I haven’t changed.”

  “You’re only half-Dvalinn,” Tybor said. “Your powers aren’t strong enough.”

  “They must be. I got here on my own. I can get out.”

  “You used the power of the Stonehenge portal. It’s strong but it only works one way.”

  “Then get me to a portal that works the other damn way,” Elijah yelled. “Get me out of here!”

  “The assisted portals are all on the surface,” Tybor told him calmly. “They exist to help us get home in an emergency. If a Dvalinn needs assistance to get to the surface, he shouldn’t be going in the first place.”

  “There has to be another way,” Lije insisted. “Hopewood got home again.”

  “He had an electronic transporter that locked on to any Dvalinn coming back to the Underworld. It carried Hopewood along with him.” Judie said, her face somber. “It also killed its victim. To get back to the surface, Hopewood used the same transporter to follow the teleport wake he rode in on. He had a huge battery pack to supercharge the process. Didn’t he give you the transporter and battery pack? Even though you’re part Dvalinn, he’d know you couldn’t get home again without help.”

  But he hadn’t. He hadn’t even mentioned it. None of Elijah’s training had addressed the process of teleporting out of Dvalinn territory. As soon as Elijah had the ability to control his direction, Hopewood had taken him to Stonehenge. Like a Kamikaze pilot, he’d been taught what he needed to know to get to his destination. And like those pilots, he had no way to return.

  A thick mist swirled in front of Elijah’s vision. Not the pulsing black that accompanied teleporting but a hot, red cloud of rage. “Hopewood wanted me to die here with you.”

  He’d had promised to free Elijah of the curse of telepathy and telekinesis. He hadn’t told him the price of freedom was death. Hopewood had manipulated him with a mixture of lies and half-truths, bent him to his will.

  The rage deepened and became visceral. He’d been brought up to hate what he was—and he hadn’t even known the basic facts of his identity. But Hopewood had, and he’d used his knowledge to play on Elijah’s self-loathing, on his fear of discovery. Manipulated him like a puppet.

  Elijah was surrounded by lies and liars. How could he believe anything anyone told him ever again? The only thing to trust in this world was the purely physical. What you could see, feel and hear. Take no one on trust. Believe nobody.

  A touch on his shoulder brought him up, fists clenched, ready to strike at anyone who came near him. His hand was grabbed and twisted behind his back. The pain brought him back to awareness of his surroundings and of the angry woman who constrained him. Elijah rolled his shoulders and Eora released her grip. He turned to face her.

  “Snap out of it,” she commanded. “You don’t have time to fall apart.”

  “Snap out of what? I’m fucking stuck underground. Half of me isn’t even human. I’m surrounded by people who keep threatening to kill me.”

  “You’re not dead yet, so ditch the pity party,” Nieko cut in. “We have plans to make.”

  “What plans?” Elijah asked.

  “We have to kill Hopewood.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Elijah sneered. “Hopewood abandoned me here. Without his machinery I can’t get back, so killing him might be a little bit beyond my capabilities.”

  “It’s not beyond ours,” Eora retorted.

  “Fine—you go, then,” Elijah said.

  “You have to help them navigate through the human world,” Judie said. “Theoretical knowledge is no substitute for experience.�
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  “Is nobody listening to anything I say?” Elijah asked in exasperation. “I’m stuck in this godforsaken shithole.”

  “No, you’re not,” Tybor said. A look passed between Huon, Tybor and Judie. “How do you think we got Judie down here?” Tybor asked. “We had help from Stonehenge, sure, but Judie has no teleporting powers at all. You do.”

  Elijah looked up, his attention focused on the big man. He waited, knowing he had more to say. “Huon and I combined our powers to bring Judie with us.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Granted, she weighs a lot less than you.” A grin lit his severe face as he looked at Eora and Nieko. “And Huon and I are better at everything than you young ones.” He waited for their protests to die down. “If Huon and I help for the first part of the process, the four of us can create enough force to propel Elijah to the surface.”

  “What if you can’t do it?” Elijah said. “I mean, what if you have enough power to get the process started but you don’t have enough to get me all the way?”

  “Then you will become one with the Earth,” Tybor said.

  “One with the Earth!” Elijah shouted. “What the fuck does that mean? Dead?”

  “Not exactly dead,” Tybor mused, “because you will be conscious. Fused with the living rock.”

  “Oh great,” Elijah muttered. “Just great.”

  “We all have to take risks,” Nieko said contempt in his tone. “Unless of course you haven’t got the guts. You could stay here. Tybor and Huon can take you to appear before the council. That should be interesting for you. Of course, I don’t know how much permanent imprisonment would differ from being embedded in rock, but I guess you’ll find out.”

  Elijah’s fists clenched again. He’d had enough of this guy with his aggression and distrust. “Are you calling me a coward?”

  “Are you prepared to prove you’re not?”

  The two men faced off, all the tension of the last few days looking for an outlet.

  Eora stepped between them. “We don’t have time for this crap. Tybor, can we do this teleport or not?”

  “Yes.” Lije would have felt so much better if he hadn’t added, “I think so.”

  “You got the balls to try, human?” Nieko asked, one eyebrow raised.

  No miserable Dvalinn male was going to call him a coward. “Hell, yeah. Let’s do this.”

  Huon nodded. Judie stepped back. “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

  “Everyone else ready?” Tybor asked. “Elijah, when I say go, concentrate on teleporting. Nieko and Eora, focus on sending Elijah out of here. Huon and I will take care of getting him to the right spot on the surface.”

  Elijah’s blood pounded in his ears. His heart beat in a staccato rhythm. This was way worse than when he’d stood at the center of the standing stones and prepared to leave. Then, the risks hadn’t weighed on him because he hadn’t been convinced it would work. Now he knew. The thought of being embedded alive horrified him. Far better to have a quick death.

  “On three,” Tybor said, and began the countdown. As he uttered the word “three,” Elijah took a deep breath and submerged himself in the experience of teleportation. The pulsating blackness closed in as it had before. He waited for the feeling of isolation, of having everything ripped away—his senses, his breath and even his identity—but it didn’t come. Instead he felt the others, close by and supportive, an anchor as the chaos swirled around him.

  He slammed into something solid. He moved his fingers and took a deep breath. It felt like air. He really, really hoped it was air. He cracked one eye open. He lay spread-eagled on the ground, his cheek hard against the frosty grass, the silent stones of the ancient monument black shades in the darkness.

  He pushed up on his elbows and pulled his knees under him. After a moment he staggered to his feet, took a few shaky steps forward and disappeared into the shadow of one of the rock pillars.

  Before he could slow his breathing or take stock of his surroundings, the air in front of him bent and wavered and Nieko and Eora appeared. They stood there looking around them.

  Eora took one step forward, then lurched sideways. Nieko’s arm instantly went around her and he held her close. “Steady,” he said, his voice low. “Moving the human took a lot out of you.”

  But Eora didn’t seem to be listening. She turned her face skyward. “Look!” she breathed, pointing upward. “The sun. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It’s the moon,” Elijah replied. “And we’ve got no time for you to stand there gawping at it. Hopewood could be monitoring this place. If he’s not, there’s sure to be some kind of security. We have to get out of here.”

  Elijah grabbed Eora’s hand and dragged her into motion, gesturing for Nieko to follow. He dashed out of the circle across the field until they came to a chain link fence. “Can you climb?” he asked.

  “Anything you can,” Nieko replied.

  They scrambled up and over. Elijah scratched himself on the row of barbed wire at the top, but Nieko and Eora somehow balanced then leaped, landing on the ground with unscathed grace. Elijah snorted reluctant approval and led the way down to the roadside.

  “We need a car,” Elijah muttered.

  “A what?” Eora asked.

  Elijah sighed. “Transport.” He looked over the empty parking lot at the tourist center. “And there’s none to be had around here at whatever hour of the night this is.”

  “I climbed the fence for you, since you seemed to want it. Why aren’t we teleporting?” Eora asked. “You can teleport a little. You said so.”

  “Maybe he was lying about that too,” Nieko responded.

  “I was not lying,” Elijah replied. “Hopewood has sensors that detect teleports. He used them to monitor me when I was training. They’re all over his warehouse. He could easily have a few secreted here. We walk. It’ll take about fifty minutes to get to the nearest town.”

  “So far all walking has done is get me into trouble,” Nieko muttered. “But if we have no choice—which way?”

  Elijah looked around. If he’d had his backpack, he could have used the compass, but Tybor had kept it. Maybe it would have made the teleport too hard, or maybe Tybor didn’t trust him enough to give it back.

  Without it he wasn’t going to risk moving cross-country, so they’d have to follow the road. He had a choice, right or left. If he’d been paying attention when Hopewood had driven from Salisbury it would have been easy, but his mind had been too full of other things to notice landmarks. At night the wooded plain didn’t have much in the way of distinguishing detail.

  He peered down the road in one direction, but nothing gave him any clue. He turned and looked the other way. In the distance a faint white glow reflected off the low clouds. Lights. Amesbury would be about that distance. From there they could get what they needed.

  Without a word he pointed and began to walk. He didn’t look back. He knew the Dvalinn would follow. Nieko wouldn’t let him out of his sight. Eora wanted adventure, all things human. She would never consent to being left behind.

  They’d only gone a short distance when the headlights of a car pierced the darkness. The moonlight picked out the faint hint of red and blue on the roof. “Police,” Elijah warned. “Get down.”

  Nieko and Eora obeyed without question. By the time the car drew level with them all three clung to the earth, ignoring the cold bite of frost. The car traveled past without slowing and Elijah heard the steady drone of its engine continuing down the road. “It’s safe,” he said. “They didn’t see us.”

  They got to their feet and started walking again. After about ten minutes, Elijah noticed the first gray lifting of the darkness ahead of them. Dawn. An added complication if it meant the road would become busier, increasing the likelihood of them being seen.

  He stepped up the pace, pushing as hard as he could.

  “Wait,” Eora called. “We need to stop.”

  “You’re in my world now,” he replied, ignoring the sound of heavy breathing behind hi
m. “You do what I say. You can rest when we get somewhere safe.”

  “But Elijah, look!’ Eora cried again. “I’ve never seen anything so wonderful.”

  Elijah turned back to them. Both Dvalinn stood, feet planted apart, eyes fixed forward on the horizon, a look of awe-struck wonder on their faces. “It’s incredible,” Eora breathed. “So powerful. So beautiful.”

  Elijah’s gaze followed her finger pointing in the direction he’d been facing. The first fiery arc of the sun rose above the rosy-gold horizon, the clouds above streaked in hot pink, gray and mauve, the sky behind fading from blue through turquoise and yellow.

  “Don’t stare at it,” Elijah warned. “You’ll damage your eyes.”

  “But —” Eora said.

  “No buts. Like I said. This is my world. You do as I say if you want to survive.”

  “Don’t talk to her like that.” Nieko turned to Elijah. If looks could kill Lije would be lifeless in the middle of the road.

  Nieko said nothing more, but walked on with Eora striding along beside him. Each time Elijah glanced back over his shoulder, Eora was looking at the road ahead, but he knew she continued to be drawn to the glory of the breaking day.

  It was full light by the time a signpost indicated the turn to Amesbury. Two rubber-necking tourist Dvalinn, one of them bare-chested in the winter chill, were bound to draw attention. Before too many people were about he needed to find a hotel where he could stash them and take off on his own.

  The first guesthouse they came to, Elijah rejected without even stopping. Small and intimate, there was no chance of slipping the Dvalinn in unnoticed. He walked past several other inns for the same reason. Past the town center he found what he was looking for—a branch of a cheap international motel chain, generic and impersonal. Although it was still early, the door was open. When he rang the bell, a tired-looking teenager appeared from an office behind the reception desk.

  Elijah reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet, grateful Nieko had given it back to him after he’d searched it. If this were an action movie, the bad guys would know his whereabouts as soon as he used a credit card, but Elijah had no reason to think Hopewood would go to those lengths. Even if he did have a trace out on Elijah’s cards, he could hardly storm into their rooms, guns blazing, and wipe them out. They were in the UK, for starters and charging anywhere with guns blazing wasn’t likely. If it came to hand-to-hand combat, Elijah and the two Dvalinn could outfight Hopewood and David.