Fearless (Dominion Trilogy #2)

by Robin Parrish

  It began faintly at first, but with each step he took toward the center of the room, it grew. A rumbling. A minor vibration beneath his feet that developed into a miniature earthquake.

  Julie squeezed his hand, but he turned to her and shook his head. "I'm not doing it."

  Grant moved farther toward the center, and the rumbling grew. "What's happening?" he called out.

  Devlin stopped at the edge of the black circle and faced him. "Destiny is happening!" he shouted back.

  "Grant, we have to turn back. Don't do this!" Julie cried.

  But he couldn't turn away. He was meant to be here. He knew it; he felt it. Down to his bones, the same way he felt connected to the ancient, primal power that was part of his ring. He was sure that everything in his life had been leading to this moment, to this place.

  There was no going back. Not now.

  He came to within ten feet of the circle, and as the quaking beneath his feet grew stronger, Grant realized that what he was moving toward wasn't a mark on the ground at all-it was a hole. Lining the rim of the hole was a ring of small rocks and rubble, rising no more than a few inches off the ground.

  Here, at the top of the mile-wide mound, in the center of this round hole in the earth, Grant gained a new perspective on the grooves carved into the floor, and he recognized the shape immediately. Six lines that stretched from the center out to the far edge of the floor, equally separated from one another. Six more lines were situated between them and extended half the distance between the center and the room's edge. Six more followed this same pattern, and six more after that, and so on.

  It was the symbol of the Secretum, and somehow he knew that this Hollow was the place where the symbol had originated. This was the first place it had ever been seen by human eyes.

  Alex watched with satisfaction from inside one of the small homes as the order of this underground city was rendered into chaos thanks to her team's actions. And she had to admit, their new British friends had been instrumental in pulling it off.

  She just hoped it was enough to give Grant the opening he needed to grab Julie and get out.

  He'd been gone quite a long time. Maybe she should venture to one of those elevators herself, give him some backup ...

  Who cares if "the path of the Bringer must be walked alone"? Since when have we ever played by the rules, anyway?

  She was just exiting the tiny house when someone grabbed her from behind and pulled her to an alcove between buildings.

  She wrenched herself loose and saw the man who had grabbed her. He was wearing a black jumpsuit and a matching ski mask that hid his face.

  Alex was just about to make him terrified of the dark when the man pulled off his mask.

  "Wait!" he said. "It's me!"

  "Ethan?!" she nearly shouted. "What are you doing here? You scared the crap out of me! How did you even find this place?"

  "I was sent," Ethan replied, shaking his head as she was about to ask more questions. "I'll explain later-there's no time! Where's Grant?"

  "He's gone to find his sister and confront the Secretum."

  Ethan looked like he'd just lost an Olympic marathon. "Alex ..." he said, struggling to explain. "I was wrong about him. Grant's not what you think he is. He's a threat. A terrible threat, bigger than anything you could possibly imagine. We have to find him and stop him before it's too late-"

  Alex was about to interrupt him when the ground began to tremble. A bright light was growing in time with the trembling, and she realized it was coming from her hand. And it wasn't just her. She saw more beams of light emanating throughout the city from her teammates.

  The Rings of Dominion were glowing.

  Brighter and brighter ...

  Lisa was stirred awake by a rumbling beneath her. What was that? An earthquake?

  Her consciousness caught up with her reflexes and she remembered she was on her cot, all alone in a jail cell in London, England.

  The entire building trembled, and above that sound, higher in pitch, she heard a squeaking.

  Groggy, she sat up on her cot and rubbed at her dried-out eyes. The bed, as it was laughingly called, was not exactly conducive to rest. She would never complain about the beds at the warehouse ever again. If they ever got back to the-

  Squeak, squeak.

  She stood, straining to see in the darkness. Nothing out in the hallway. She turned to her right to see into Daniel's cell, where his body was hanging limp from a rope attached to the ceiling.

  Lisa gasped. Her body lost all its strength and she fell to her knees.

  His bed sheets had been rolled tightly and tied into a noose, which was squeezing against his neck. His face was red, and his limp body swayed back and forth in the empty air, squeaking against the light fixture the makeshift rope was affixed to.

  Lisa screamed.

  Daniel's lifeless, pale body swung from the ceiling light above, tied off at his neck.

  "SOMEBODY HELP!!" she shouted as loud as she could over the growing noise of the earthquake.

  Even after all she'd said, all she'd done for him ... after his big step forward in admitting his feelings of guilt ...

  Daniel had coiled his own bed sheets and fashioned a noose and stretched it out by jumping from-

  Wait a minute, Lisa's breath caught in her throat. She wiped away the tears so she could see more clearly. There's nothing here that he could have jumped off of, nothing he could have stood on to get high enough to do this himself.

  Her whole body jumped when Daniel's eyes snapped open. He started gagging and flailing about like mad. The noose choked too tight; he couldn't get any leverage on it....

  And then his eyes locked onto hers.

  That one look was all it took. She knew in her heart that he hadn't done this to himself. It had been done to him.

  "Help me!" Daniel croaked desperately, his face turning now to purple.

  She looked about her cell, searching for something, anything she could use ... But there was nothing.

  Lisa glanced back up at Daniel, and his eyes were closed again, his body hanging limp as before.

  He wasn't breathing.

  In London, the young man known as Trevor paced, terribly confused.

  He wanted desperately to feel relieved that his masters in the Secretum of Six seemed to have abandoned their hold over him after he'd delivered Devlin's message to Grant Borrows. But long experience taught him not to get his hopes up; they had to still be out there with new plans for him.

  It made no sense. They should have contacted him hours ago. Yet he wanted so badly to believe that maybe, after all this time, they had finally just let him go.

  He was sitting on an old gray wooden bench in St. James's Square, pondering these things under the light of office windows around the square, when his ring began to glow and the ground trembled. A piercing white light grew until it illuminated the entire square, drawing unwanted attention from the handful of pedestrians still out and about at this late hour.

  Not knowing what else to do, he ran, fear propelling his steps into the night.

  In Jerusalem, Wilhelm rested in a bunk provided to him by his Jewish friend Amiel Yishai after a long day of helping restore power in various parts of the city.

  The smiles he brought to faces throughout his days remained with him through the night, coloring his dreams with reminders of all the good he had done here, all the hope he had created. He saw, too, the sorrow of these people and shared in their misery over so many lost lives, lost homes, and lost pieces of a treasured history.

  He was in the midst of one of these dreams when he was awoken by what he initially thought to be one of the rescue operation's floodlights shining straight into his tent. Had to be an accident, or maybe an emergency?

  Wilhelm awoke fully in seconds as the ground of Jerusalem shuddered for the first time since the terrible collapse that had caused its destruction. He jolted awake, realizing that the floodlight he thought he'd seen was not outside of his tent.

 
; And it wasn't even a floodlight.

  In Los Angeles, the burly muscle man Henrike attended a Lakers game at the Staples Center. He was seated in the lower balcony in the midst of a frenzied crowd. He'd spent more of the game on his feet than in his high-priced seat.

  It was so loud and bright in the room that it was five minutes or more before he realized his ring was glowing. It grew so bright that soon everyone in his entire section was reacting to the phenomenon. They began with curiosity but quickly grew fearful, scrambling over each other and out of the way as the ring's glow grew more and more blinding. And then the building started to shake.

  Henrike couldn't stop the light or shield it from anyone's view with his other hand. It wasn't long before the glow overshadowed everything in the entire arena, even stopping the game and forcing the players to gaze up into the balcony at the light brighter than the sun.

  In San Diego, a gifted painter and Ringwearer named Lilly sat along the shore absorbing the beauty of the harbor. Her thoughts drifted far from the assassin known as the Thresher, a man she'd helped out a few times in the past with information in exchange for his money. Most recently, she'd seen him a few months ago, when she tipped him off about the Bringer's location in Los Angeles.

  Such concerns were miles away this night. Tonight she thought of her younger sister, who Lilly had been forced to leave behind when she'd been Shifted into a new life. As Lilly's eyes traced the darkened shoreline, she wondered who her sister had grown up to be and if she would ever see her again.

  Her reflection in the water below changed. Subtle at first, it glistened in the rippling ocean surface as if a white full moon bloomed from the horizon behind her.

  She didn't notice the tremor of the ground until her ring was ablaze, bathing everything in a half-mile radius in pure white light.

  Just outside Los Angeles, in a reserve safe house Morgan and Lisa had established for the team months ago in case anything went wrong at the warehouse, a group of sixteen Ringwearers sat glued to the news coverage as they awaited word from Grant and his team. The hiding place was little more than a small run-down single-floor house whose roof creaked threateningly at the slightest gust of wind.

  The group consisted mostly of Ringwearers whose powers wouldn't prove much help in danger. Nigel, the "human calculator" Grant first met at the asylum the day Morgan showed him the Dominion Stone, waited there. As did Thomas, the young boy who had been held at gunpoint by Drexel when the detective first tried to get his hands on the Dominion Stone.

  The television was quickly forgotten when all sixteen rings in the room lit up, casting dazzling beams of light out of the house's windows and into the surrounding neighborhood.

  A powerful earthquake built in strength as the otherworldly glow pushed through every barrier in its path.

  "Watch your step!" Devlin warned as Grant and Julie stepped closer to the center of the Hollow.

  Grant looked past the bright white glow of his ring, the Seal of Dominion, at the unsteady ground and saw that his next footstep would fall in a depression-a bit of sunken ground as if a layer of the black rock had been removed and then a smaller hole dug into the dirt beneath that.

  The missing section of the ground formed a familiar shape.

  "The Dominion Stone?" Grant shouted over the roar of the earthquake. "It came from here?"

  Devlin nodded. "The rings were entombed beneath it. All two hundred and ninety-nine of them. Along with the Seal, your ring, which was buried at the very bottom."

  A blast of cool air poured out from the massive hole in the ground before them. It was a constant flow, an unending river of wind that never let up.

  "I don't understand," Grant shouted over the crippling din of the quaking earth. He stepped to the edge of the massive, central hole and peered down inside. "What is this?"

  He could see nothing within the hole. It was pure blackness.

  "Poor Grant," Devlin said in a sad voice, so softly Grant almost didn't hear it. He nodded with his chin toward the ring on Grant's finger. "Did you really think you could play with fire and not get burned?"

  "We have to get out of here!" Julie screamed at his side in a panic. Cold wind poured up from the hole. Combined with the earthquake, it forced Julie to hold tightly to Grant's hand to keep from being pushed over backward. "Grant, don't do this!"

  Grant's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it reverberating through every vein in his body.

  He looked beyond Devlin and saw that a crowd had gathered around the three of them. They stood in a perfect circle surrounding the center of the room. Each of them bore the Secretum's symbol on his or her wrist. And they were chanting ... something.

  This is the Secretum, Grant realized. They're here to witness something.

  He listened closer, trying to make out what they were saying.

  "Pario Atrum Universitas ..." they were saying.

  "GRANT!!" Julie screamed for no reason other than mortal terror.

  But he was unmoved. Something about the chanting, the room they stood in ... It felt familiar, yet utterly new to him.

  "Pario Atrum Universitas ... Pario Atrum Universitas ..." They chanted it over and over.

  Grant had no idea what it meant, but he thought it might have been in Latin.

  Devlin joined in with a mighty roar, "PARIO ATRUM UNIVERSITAS!!"

  Grant's heart leapt into his throat. He turned to Devlin just as the silver-haired man reached into his inner jacket pocket....

  Devlin revealed a glistening black 9mm pistol. He took aim ... It was happening too fast. Grant's reactions were dulled by the sensory overload around him ... the earthquake ... the chanting, which was rising in intensity ... the glow of his ring, which was brighter than it had ever been, blindingly bright ... his own heart beating the beat of destiny ...

  "Dario Atrum Universitas! ... Pario Atrum Universitas! ... Pario Atrum Universitas!..."

  Devlin pulled the trigger, his eyes placid, pleased.

  The blast caught Julie square between the eyes. She fell without a sound. And Grant, cheeks spotted with his sister's blood, stared in anguished horror.

  "BEHOLD, HE HAS COME!" Devlin thundered. "OBLIVION, THE BRINGER OF ENDINGS!!"

  Devlin's voice rose ever louder with each word, and the choir of rage and sickness swirled around them as Grant stared at his sister's lifeless body on the ground. Furious, his eyes turned completely red, blazing as if on fire.

  Devlin stepped forward and put a hand on Grant's shoulder. Grant was just about to rip the man's body to shreds when Devlin gave him a gentle shove.

  Grant tipped on the edge of the great black chasm, unbalanced, his arms flailing. But he couldn't hold on; it was too late, and a single thought seared at the neurons of his brain as he fell ...

  She's dead!

  The earth swallowed him whole.

  The earth shook down to its foundations. Many were those who feared it might shake itself apart.

  Until the quaking suddenly stopped.

  At that moment, every living being on the planet could feel it.

  Wherever they lived, wherever they breathed, they simply knew ...

  Something had just changed.

  Very possibly everything.

  One by one, across the globe's four corners, they paused whatever they were doing.

  They stopped to look at something impossible.

  Every clock of every kind throughout all the earth ...

  ... had stopped ticking.

  AND DON'T MISS! COMING SUMMER 2008

  THE FINAL CHAPTER IN THE DOMINION TRILOGY

  by ROBIN PARRISH

  Thanks to .. .

  • My family: Mom, Larry, Evelyn, Ross, Melissa, Scott, Kara, Kaylee, and Skyler, for always, always believing in me.

  • The wonderful staff of Bethany House Publishers, and especially my editor David Long, for making me feel like a valued member of the family.

  • Everyone at Creative Ministries and Infuze Magazine for your unwavering dedication a
nd support.

  • My friend and right-hand man, Matt Conner, without whose efforts I would never be able to find time to write. Your passion and dedication are inspiring.

  • Mrs. Marsha Presson and Mr. Tim Goodrich, teachers from my high school years whom I've recently had the pleasure of reconnecting with. Apart from my parents, no one supported, nurtured, or believed in my talents without fail during my formative years as much as the two of you.

  • Ashley Morgan, the photographer who took my publicity shots for Fearless. You actually made me look like a real author. Don't know how you managed it, but I'm grateful.

  • My Father above, without whom nothing is possible. This is quite a ride we're on; I'm glad you're at the wheel.

  • Most importantly, my beautiful, amazing, supportive, patient, encouraging, helpful, understanding, loving wife, Karen. You are my sunshine, my joy, and my treasure. I love you forever.

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