by Sue Duff
He found Milo through the tears, but the man’s shouts fell on deaf ears.
Dr. Mac knelt down clutching tight to his medical bag. He checked Galen’s pulse at his neck then grew somber and shook his head.
Milo cupped Ian’s face in his hands and with the roar of a lion shouted above the maelstrom. “Ian, let us have him. Let go. He’s gone. Let go, Ian!”
It didn’t take long for the girls to track the Duach Sar. They cornered him in a group of fallen trees surrounded by a small cluster of boulders, his QualSton security jacket visible above the rocks. They separated, flanking him on either side, then closed in where he had hunkered down.
A sizzle cracked the dead calm. A firewall blazed upward and spread rapidly out in a circular pattern, a wall of flame in a race to close itself.
They’d walked into a trap.
The girls dove for the narrowing gap. A gust of wind whipped through the opening and the sky turned into a tremendous billowing storm in an instant. The last available opening in the flaming wall shut, the winds fanning the flames and imprisoning them.
{80}
Hellfire led Ian toward the cliffs. He fought to calm his emotions and stop the winds that fed the flames.
The moment he reached the destructive inferno, his core ignited. Rejuvenated by the sudden energy flow, he came to a halt and looked around. Someone had turned off the jam.
Heeelp!
The girls’ cries reached his thoughts before he heard them over the crackling flames.
I’m here, he channeled. Hold on. Ian couldn’t get a tangible image of where to shyft, fearful of reappearing inside the fiery wall and dooming them all. He focused his power in front of him to keep the blaze from advancing, then pushed the curtain of energy outward with both hands. The energy spread an opening wide enough for the girls to escape but the flames licked back onto themselves as fast as he had parted them.
Ian circled around to the cliff side, searching for a spot where the wall of burn wasn’t as thick.
A molten blast ripped into his back shoulder and sent him crashing to the ground, writhing in pain. The daze from the core blast quelled the worst of his emotions, and the winds eased. His chest grew numb. Blessed with his powers one minute, a cruel finger on a button denied him the next.
The moment he lifted himself off the ground; he bent over and grabbed his head. For the first time ever, his connection with the girls had morphed beyond mere channeling as if the three of them had become one. Searing fingers of pain reached into his lungs and he couldn’t breathe, suffocating on air thickened by burning wood and ash, groping along the forest floor through the roiling smoke. From every direction the fire curled ever inward, consuming everything in its path.
Ian! they screamed in their heads, no longer able to voice their terror.
Hang on, Ian channeled. Sputtering and choking, tears coursed down his cheeks as the twins made it to a cluster of boulders. Without his powers to shyft, the tangible target did him no good. The girls reached toward each other. No! Ian channeled. I can’t stay connected if you touch.
We don’t want our death screams to be the last thing you hear, was their parting thought, and they clasped their hands.
Locked out of their deadly prison, Ian rose to his knees and wailed with clenched fists in defeat.
Ning emerged from the nearby bushes with a remote in his grip. He wore a Pur guard uniform.
Ian sprang to his feet and rushed toward him, bent on obtaining that control box, but the Curse stopped him with a sledgehammer to his chest. He doubled over and struggled to stay on his feet.
A car’s horn pealed long and loud over the roar of the fire. “Ning, over here you asshole,” Rayne screamed as she scrambled out of the cab of the Jeep.
Ning stumbled toward them in spite of the Curse’s affect.
Ian fought the debilitating pressure and pushed onward, but a few steps later and the effects dropped him to the ground. At the same time, Ning collapsed against the vehicle. Rayne ran around the Jeep with an outstretched hand but Patrick stepped in between them. She grabbed at him. “Patrick, don’t!”
With one swing of his arm, Ning slammed Patrick’s head into the side of the Jeep. A sickening crack and he collapsed to the ground where he lay motionless.
Rayne lunged and knocked the remote out of Ning’s hand. She dove after it. The Curse lifted the second Ning grabbed her by the hair and dragged her behind the vehicle. Ian rushed toward them.
Ning’s eyes widened in disbelief. He twisted Rayne around and threw his arm across her shoulders with the tip of a knife pressed against her neck. “Stay back!” he screamed and clung to her. “Ugh!” He cringed from her drain. “What is this? What are you doing to me,” he yelled at Ian as if the culprit.
“It’s going to suck to be you in another second,” Rayne taunted.
“Stop, Pur scum, or I swear she’ll die,” he shouted in a voice growing weaker by the second.
Rayne’s eyes screamed to stay back, and Ian slowed his approach. She was prepared to drain and kill him but Ian couldn’t let her take a life, not even Ning’s. The slain Drake had left a mark on him, like a skin graft. Ian shook his head. Her eyes pleaded with him, but he couldn’t ignore the knife that held Galen’s blood and the stench of death. He wasn’t just sparing her. He craved revenge. Ian advanced.
Ning stepped back. He lost his footing—pulling her with him. Rayne screamed as they tumbled off the cliff.
“No!” Ian shouted, rushing up and diving toward her as they fell.
{81}
Seconds from blacking out, Ian groaned and stabilized himself at the cliff’s edge as best he could. “Rayne, please.” But she continued to struggle and scream. A dark fog seeped into his thoughts, and it was all he could do to remain lucid as he clutched her with one hand while grasping a tree’s exposed root with his other. Excruciating strain weakened his chest and arms, but the crushing pain and inability to breathe weren’t his greatest obstacles. Rayne drained his core at an alarming rate while she swung wildly inside the chasm into which she’d fallen.
“Rayne!”
She stopped struggling and looked up. Her eyes widened in awareness. “I won’t kill you,” she said with a tear spilling onto her cheek. “I won’t be the one, Ian.” She swallowed hard and looked down. Her whole body trembled. “Let me go.”
“Shut up,” he shouted.
She dangled like a rag doll. “I can feel it.” She clawed at his hand wrapped around her wrist and screamed, “I won’t be responsible for the end of the world. Let my death mean something more than that.”
Ian gripped the root tighter and dug the toes of his boots into the ground for better leverage. He gritted his teeth. “When the time comes, kick!” With the last of his energy, he swung Rayne. She kicked off the chasm wall and accelerated toward the opposite side. As Ian’s world faded to black, she slipped out of his hand.
Raindrops plopped on his cheek. Ian found himself still on his stomach with his arm dangling over the edge. Depleted, he couldn’t lift his head.
“Ian!” Patrick fell to his knees next to him. “I found this on the ground.” It was the remote. A deafening crack and a sizzling bolt of lightning hit the ground nearby. Patrick cowered.
The charge absorbed directly into Ian’s core and gave him a jolt of energy. He rolled onto his back, grabbed the remote and flipped the switch. His core sputtered to life.
Ian got to his knees and peered over the edge then drew back and closed his eyes. Rayne had slid down and came to rest on a sloped ledge about fifteen feet below. His only option before he passed out.
Patrick peered over the edge. “Holy cliff-hanger! How’d she get there?”
“I had no choice.” He studied Patrick for a second. Blood smeared one side of his friend’s face. “How bad is it?”
“I’ll live.”
“You have to get her up. She’ll drain whatever power I try to use on her,” Ian said.
Patrick pressed his palm to his head wou
nd. “What do you mean, drain you?”
“I’ll explain later.” Headlights lit up the cliff’s edge followed by the growl of an engine. Milo and Dr. Mac were seconds away.
Patrick jerked his chin at Ian. “Dude, do you know you’re smoking?”
Ian stood and drew upon the heated charge of his core praying it would be enough. He reached out toward the ocean, concentrating on what he desperately needed to do.
A ripple began at first and then, taking on energy of its own, a monstrous water funnel rose out of the ocean. It pulled back the tide and waves as they swept up in its wake. Rising and reaching upward, the funnel whirled with tremendous velocity. It lifted out of the ocean to a deafening roar. Ian carried it up and over the cliff above where he and Patrick stood.
Ian’s arms threatened to collapse from the strain but he persevered and directed the mass of churning water and seabed debris in the direction of the blaze. He spread his arms wide and it dropped.
A massive splash sent kelp and seawater flowing across the burning area and extinguishing the flames. The smoldering debris hissed and sputtered across the forest floor, sending steam rising through the air.
Spent, Ian stumbled toward the steeping muck then through the burnt timber and boiling pools. “Mara! Tara!” he shouted. No response drove him deeper into the charred carnage. “Girls!” He reached the center boulders that blistered his skin to the touch, but he ignored the pain and he climbed, inching his way toward the middle.
Ian found Mara facedown between the boulders and lifted her out. Tara rose and gasped. He laid Mara in the nearby clearing. Try as he might, he couldn’t find a pulse.
“Mara,” Tara choked. She collapsed next to them.
Ian compressed her chest and pushed back the tears, ignoring what lay before him. He’d had enough loss for one night, like hell there’d be one more. When he ended the count, he leaned in and blew.
No response.
“You’re … too … stubborn … to … die,” Ian said between chest compressions. The count ended and he blew harder—still no pulse.
Tara cradled her head and screamed, “I promise, you can shoot someone. I swear.” She looked up with soot-muddied cheeks. “Swear, Ian!”
“I swear,” he said. He rose to draw a deep breath, but a firm hand gripped his shoulder.
Milo and Dr. Mac pushed in. Milo compressed Mara’s chest while Dr. Mac pressed an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.
“Save her,” came out on hoarse words but Mara’s ashen, lifeless features told Ian their heroic gestures were in vain. Mara and Galen had been ripped from them—by a traitor’s hand. Ian’s chest heaved. The ache transformed his core into a sizzling mass. He rose to his feet.
“A Drion … did this.”
Tara grabbed his sleeve. “You’re too weak to go after a powerful Sar alone.” The pleading look she gave him melted his heart. He pressed his hand against her cheek then rushed out of the burnt grove.
“You don’t even know where he is,” Tara yelled at his retreating back.
“No,” he said, his rage building with each step. “But I know where he’s going.”
{82}
Ian shyfted to the fringe of the eastern vortex clearing and leaned heavily against a tree trunk when his legs threatened to give out beneath him. He’d spent the last of his core energy to get there from the northern vortex structure. Now that he’d arrived, regret slammed into him at not stopping long enough to replenish his core. He hadn’t dared. The traitorous Drion had too great of a head start. Ian peered around the trunk.
Sebastian stood alone in the clearing.
Unsure of what, or who he’d find, Ian studied the scene. Beyond Sebastian, the open vortex undulated to a rhythmic beat of a drum. The Drion had set a beacon, a common way to send for troops to the compound. Its unique code allowed them to shyft to the location without coordinates. It kept Ian’s location as secure as possible.
Was Sebastian doing what he had said and sending for troops to help contain the situation and search for the Duach?
Uncertainty kept him riveted beside the tree. Ian’s head spun, and he grabbed a tree branch to stay upright.
The forest floor at the base of the vortex field came alive and swirled on an invisible current of air. A shimmering iri-descent cloud formed above the disk. The emerging image held no emerald hint of the Pur.
The bark crumbled beneath Ian’s grasp. The cluster was too small for a group of Pur guards. A lone, mysterious Sar was about to arrive. Sebastian held the book. It didn’t take but a second to figure out the rest.
He rushed out of the grove drawing what little energy he could into his hand and flung a weak core blast at the traitor’s back. It spit and dispersed at the Drion’s feet.
A laugh full of conceit ripped from Sebastian. “Oregon wasn’t a waste after all.” He turned and faced Ian. “But not even a core blast will do you any good. You can’t hurt me, boy.”
{83}
“Help!” Too terrified to look anywhere but the damp cliff in front of her, Rayne wedged her body up against the clay and rock surface. Trapped on a narrow ledge, it barely fit her hips.
Saltwater, mixed with decaying organisms embedded in the cliff’s crevices, ravaged her nose. She breathed through her mouth, terrified that a sneeze would knock her off the ledge.
Unshed tears pooled in her lids. “Please let him be okay, please let him be okay.” Sniffles turned to sobs. “Somebody get me out of here!”
Voices blended with the thunderous crashing of the waves from below, but she was too terrified to move her head to inspect if they were real or imagined.
A tremendous gust of wind whipped across her, threatening to wedge itself between her and the cliff wall. She smashed her forehead against the slimy earth, ignoring the rank odor. The howling winds doused her screams.
“Rayne!”
She opened her eyes. With a tilt of her head, she peered above her. A shadow slowly took solid form. Patrick dangled a few feet overhead. He hung facedown with an outstretched hand.
“Rayne, please,” he shouted. “The rope isn’t long enough. I can’t come any closer. I think I can grab you if you stand up on the ledge and reach toward me.”
She pressed her forehead into the cliff. “I’ll fall off. I’m too scared,” she shouted. The newest shed of tears embarrassed her, and she batted at her cheeks with angry swipes. “Where are the others? Are they getting a longer rope?” At Patrick’s silence, Rayne dug her fingers into the slimy crevice and leaned back to see. His face was overcast.
“It’s just me,” he said. Darkness concealed everything but the sorrow in his voice. “Please Rayne. I can’t do this without you. We can’t lose you, too.”
The curtain she’d fought to keep back spilled across her cheeks. Details would come later. Weakness wasn’t an option. She swiped her nose against her sleeve, then dug both hands deep into the crevice and held her breath while pulling herself up until her hips left the security of the ledge. With a groan, she bent and twisted her leg until one knee rested beneath her.
Patrick came alive. “That’s my girl.” A gust slammed them into the side of the cliff and sent Patrick clawing to steady himself overhead.
Rayne moaned and hung on as clumps of decayed leaves and damp soil rained. She pressed her forehead against a smooth rock and reached along the cliff until she found something solid to wrap her fingers around. The wind whipped at her back and she tasted the salt of the ocean, but she kept at it, one miniscule move after another. Her entire body trembled with joy when she bore weight on her feet and stood erect on the ledge.
“I’m here, Rayne,” Patrick shouted. “Reach!”
Not daring to look, Rayne lifted her hand, stretching as far as her fingertips could extend. Nothing. She left solid ground and rose to the toes of her shoes.
A firm hand clamped around her wrist.
{84}
Jaered camped out at the eastern vortex, waiting.
When a Pur Drion entered t
he clearing with the book in his arms, a slew of possibilities raced through Jaered’s mind. Not one scenario was in his favor where Eve was concerned. So much for sitting on the sidelines, his thoughts argued as if she were there.
The Drion removed a disk from his robe and placed it in the center of the vortex. The beacon set the energy stream to pulsate.
Jaered glanced around, hoping his luck would change and the Heir would stop this before it got started. The surroundings offered no hint of reprieve. It struck Jaered that the forest was too quiet as if it, too, lay in wait for an outcome that could change the course of the earth.
There was something else that caused his skin to prickle. Something, or someone was beyond the fringe of the clearing, watching. They weren’t alone.
A faint emerald corona flashed at the opposite side of the vortex clearing. Jaered settled down behind his clump of fallen trees, relieved that the Heir would handle this after all. But seconds ticked by and still nothing. Jaered grew impatient. If the Heir had arrived, what was he waiting for? He stole a peek from out of his hiding spot in time to watch a weak core blast fizzle at the base of the Drion’s feet. Jaered swallowed a curse.
Jaered crouched, focused on Aeros’s developing image. Timing is everything, he cautioned himself. A groan rumbled in his throat, dreading what he was about to do, but the botched attack was the distraction he needed. The milky corona brightened. He rushed out of the bushes and leapt at the emerging translucent figure.
A blinding flash—the cold of the parashyft stole his breath. A sonic boom blasted in his ears and roared inside his head, threatening to shatter his skull.
Jaered landed, rolling to a stop with a face plant on carpet. Saltwater filled his nostrils. Dampness hung heavy in the air. The floor lilted. He was on a ship.
He rolled onto his back. Eyes, seething and full of hatred, stared down at him.
An invisible force lifted Jaered off the floor then slammed him against the sliding glass doors across the room. The energy pinned him in the center of his chest and squeezed his core in its grip, suffocating the life out of him.
Aeros approached with murderous eyes that burned bluer than the base of a flame.
