Warrior Ascended

by Warrior Ascended (lit)

  Blinking, he pushed back on the pain, willing the haze in front of his eyes to clear. He blinked a few more times as the second half of the pair he’d fought came into focus.

  Movements deliberate, the Destroyer stalked toward Ava and Lorna. Brody ran, his legs heavy and awkward. Shit, shit, shit. The blow to the head was fucking with his equilibrium.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed through, his lion fully extended as they both ran hell-for-leather toward the Destroyer. As they narrowed the gap, nearly on the guy, Brody pulled up short as he watched the Destroyer pass right on by the women, headed for the discarded purse.

  What the fuck was this?

  He’d taken a blow to the head, but he wasn’t seeing things.

  With a feral battle cry, Brody and his lion leaped, slamming the Destroyer to the ground. The lion swiped at the neck, but the asshole shifted at the last minute and the paw flew through nothing but air.

  Grunting, Brody reached out for an ankle, preventing escape. As he dragged on the asshole’s legs, Brody climbed the body, hands reaching for the broadest part of the torso to get some leverage and pin him down.

  With a backflip, the guy pushed him off and rolled to his feet. He nearly had his freedom—and would have been on his way if he hadn’t bent over for the discarded purse. With a roundhouse kick, Brody dropped him, then scissored his legs over the Destroyer’s to hold him still.

  His lion clamped its mouth on the exposed neck, ripping at the throat with his powerful jaws. The body went limp immediately as oil began to pool next to the purse.

  A glance at Kane and Quinn showed matched oil slicks near them and not a Destroyer in sight.

  Brody grabbed the purse and moved toward the huddled women.

  “Now, Dr. MacIntyre, what could possibly be so important that a soulless creature with social issues decided he needed your purse?”

  Lorna cried softly, sobs wracking her pointy shoulders. “What are you people?”

  Brody ignored the sudden show of remorse laced with fear as he dropped to a squat and opened the purse. With one deft motion, he dumped the contents next to where Ava sat cross-legged.

  Or content—as in singular.

  There on the ground, next to Ava’s leg, lay the only thing that fell out of the purse.

  The London stone.

  Round and slightly smaller than his fist, the deep indigo blue stone had a pearlescent smoothness that showed a flawless surface as it caught the light.

  From the corner of his eye, Brody saw Ava fall to her side. Dropping the stone, Brody reached for Ava’s unconscious form.

  “Ava!” With a gentle shake, he pulled her onto his hip. “Ava!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “He’s a lovely man, Ava. And so handsome, too.” “Mom?”

  “I’ve wanted this for you for so long.”

  “Wanted what?”

  A small, feminine smile washed over Marie Harrison’s face as she rocked them both on a porch swing. “A sexy man, silly. And one who is strong enough to handle the real you.”

  “The real me?”

  “Of course.”

  “But Mom.” Hot tears pricked the back of her eyes as her throat tightened. “I’m nothing. I’ve sat back, afraid of everything.”

  Warm arms came around her, the soft embrace so full of love, Ava nearly cried out from the absolute sweetness.

  “You can handle it. You can handle anything. You’ve always been able to handle anything.”

  “No, I can’t.” The words ripped from her throat as memory after memory served up the reminder that she couldn’t handle anything.

  The day of her eleventh birthday when she snuck away to eat her entire birthday cake, unable to stop shoveling in the rich layers and luscious frosting.

  The night in college when she’d run out on the man she’d selected to lose her virginity to. Unwilling to go all the way, she’d snuck out when he’d excused himself and pretended from then on out she didn’t know who he was.

  The raw fear that had filled her when Dr. Martin told her she’d run the Mysterious Jewels exhibit.

  Every one of those and so many others were ever-present reminders of what a failure she was. With a sob that felt pulled from the very fiber of her being, she clung to her mother. “I really can’t.”

  “Ava!”

  Then she heard it. It sounded like her name coming from very far away, but then it got louder as she felt her mother give her a strong push on her shoulders as she pulled back from her.

  Shoved back to the present?

  Ava stared up into Brody’s clear, gentle eyes. “What happened? And where are we?”

  “You passed out. And we’re in the British Museum. Inside Dr. MacIntyre’s office.”

  Office? What was she doing in Brody’s lap? And why was Dr. MacIntyre tied up on a chair in the corner?

  “Why did I pass out?”

  Brody glanced in Kane’s direction before dropping his gaze back to her. “We think the London Summoning Stone made you faint.”

  Ava searched her mind for the evidence it could possibly be true. “But how? We never even got to the stone.”

  Brody’s arms tightened around her. “Ava, Dr. MacIntyre had the stone with her when she led us outside to the Destroyer attack. Don’t you remember?”

  At his words, a small kernel of fear unfurled in her belly, slithering through her system in chilling waves. “No. I saw the stone?”

  “She had it in her purse the whole time we were with her.”

  Oh God, why couldn’t she remember? “But I haven’t had any visions.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No.”

  She saw Brody’s eyes dart toward Quinn’s, then resettle on her face. “Then why have you gone in and out of lucidity since we entered Dr. MacIntyre’s office an hour ago?”

  Scrambling, she held on to Brody’s elbows to gain some leverage and shifted into an upright position. “I did what?”

  “Off and on, you’ve looked like you were in a trance. It was noticeable here in the office, but got worse once we got outside.”

  “What happened outside?”

  Brody brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sweetheart, I screamed to get your attention outside on the loading dock and you ignored me.”

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Following behind Lorna in the hallway on our way to what she kept calling security. That large door she led us through before we realized it was the loading dock. Your herding her and me into that corner as Quinn threw me the restraints.”

  Brody glanced across the room. Twisting, Ava followed his gaze and saw twin frowns spread across Kane’s and Quinn’s faces. “It has to be the stone, then.”

  “But how? I might have been out of it, but I know I haven’t had any visions. None of the usual nightmares.”

  Quinn stepped forward. “You’ve been affected by something. Did you have any visions? Anything at all?”

  “I have been thinking of my mother. Random memories of her I didn’t even know I had.”

  Warm, lovely memories.

  Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe it meant she really wasn’t a Chosen One. She was just plain, old Ava Harrison, and really, would that be a bad thing?

  “Is that all you remember?” Quinn pulled her back to the conversation.

  “Well, yeah.” They were just memories, weren’t they? Except for that strange conversation with her mother.

  About Brody.

  She glanced from Brody to Quinn to Kane, then stole a glance at the huddled, weeping form of Lorna MacIntyre. “Do you have the stone?”

  “We do now.” Quinn’s voice was grim as he moved to stand next to Lorna. “And I think Dr. MacIntyre needs to explain a few things.”

  Misery was etched in every facet of the woman’s face and tears traced twin paths down her cheeks. Empathy rose up inside of Ava, even as she knew this woman had nearly got her killed—nearly got them all kill
ed. Still, her tone was quiet, soothing, when she pressed the woman for answers. “Why’d you do it?”

  “Who are you people? What were th-tho-those things? Outside?”

  “I think you need to answer the question, Dr. MacIntyre. Why did you agree to this?”

  “I’m not a bad person, Dr. Harrison. Honestly, I’m not,” Lorna whispered as her gaze darted around the room, landing on each man in turn. Her large, green eyes filled to the brim, as more tears spilled over and down her cheeks. “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know who I am anymore. Please don’t hurt me.”

  “Why, Lorna?”

  Although the men didn’t have her restrained, Lorna hadn’t moved from her position on a stiff-backed chair. With careful, tentative movements, she reached over and picked up the picture frame on her desk—the one Ava had noticed earlier. “My son, Jason. He has leukemia. He needs medicine. Experimental medicines.”

  Brody took over, his voice gentle. Ava knew the effort it cost him by the set of his shoulders and the fury that danced in his irises. “So you just abandoned your principles and went to work for madmen?”

  “You don’t know! You don’t understand what it is to watch your child suffer.”

  Ava shot Brody a dirty glare. “That’s right, Lorna. We don’t know. We also don’t know who contacted you.”

  “The initial conversation and all subsequent instructions have been executed anonymously.”

  Ava struggled to piece it all together as yet another secret revealed itself to her. The world as she knew it was just that . . . the world as she’d believed it to be; not the world as it was.

  Brody laid a hand on her back. “You don’t have to do this. We can question her.”

  “No. I can do this.” At his probing gaze, she nodded. She could do this. She felt the warm strength of his hand—the small touch that spoke of true belief in her—and found the courage to go on.

  “Okay, Lorna. I need you to think. Try to remember every conversation you’ve had with this anonymous person. Any descriptive factors you can remember.”

  Lorna sniffled as her gaze ran over the photo again. “But I don’t know anything.”

  “So you get a mystery contact—presumably some strange person who doesn’t tell you his name—and you didn’t question it?” Quinn’s deadly calm ran a shiver down her spine. Damn, but the man was a scary piece of work.

  “He knew about me. Knew about Jason! Knew in detail about his medical history and the drugs that weren’t working. He found me a few months ago. Told me his employer would pay me a lot of money that would allow me to get special treatments for my son. Experimental treatments. Treatments that aren’t legal.” She broke into another round of sobs. “I didn’t have any other choice. He’s my little boy.”

  Ava worked to keep the sympathy out of her voice, but damn, it was hard. Despite her anger and upset about the woman’s choices, Lorna’s desperation was real. “Did you ever meet anyone face-to-face? Get any sense of static electricity when you spoke to them? Surely, even in your grief, you didn’t do all this without a face-to-face meet?”

  Lorna looked down at the floor. “Yes, I did meet the man face-to-face. Once. The first time. And what do you mean, static?”

  “Like fuzzy socks on carpet. Did your hair stand on end? Did you get any shocks?”

  “No, not at all. Why?”

  “Um. Well.” Ava struggled with the right words to use, discarding phrase after phrase that didn’t seem to fit. Finally, she opted for a version of the truth. “The people who have contacted you use a type of taser to keep their victims in line.”

  Quinn’s gaze shifted toward her, a wry quirk to his mouth. Ava warmed at the approval she saw in his dark brown gaze.

  Lorna kept her eyes on the photo. “About three months ago, I was approached by a man. He found me, sitting alone at lunch, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it until you just mentioned it.”

  Ava kept quiet, the silence an encouragement to continue.

  “He told me he knew about my personal life. About how sick my son was. About how there were some experimental therapies that would be so much better for him than his chickenshit doctors were willing to use. Even told me I knew one of these experimental doctors, from our days at university.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s all I had to do. Instructions came in the form of typed notes, placed under my day planner.”

  Ava’s mind whirled with the information. Pity versus anger. Disgust at such poor choices juxtaposed against a mother’s desperate struggle.

  And a nasty bunch of assholes who had clearly found a mark to use to their advantage.

  “So what did these instructions entail?” Quinn pressed at MacIntyre, his sympathy chip nowhere in evidence.

  “Different things. Plant items in various places. Make a few phone calls on deliveries. Odds and ends. Nothing that would ever raise suspicion.”

  Quinn didn’t let up. “Yet still, you never questioned this?”

  MacIntyre’s gaze took on a hard, mutinous glare. “I figured it wasn’t to mine or Jason’s benefit to try and find out who the directions came from.”

  “That’s all they asked you to do?”

  “In the last month, the requests have gotten more complex. Get a few people on research lists so they can come and go in the museum. Arrange for a special, private viewing as part of a sizable donation to help make it all look legitimate. The last request came the other day.”

  Ava saw Lorna’s eyes dart down on the last word and braced herself. “What was it?”

  “He told me it was my last job. I needed to disengage the security system and replace the stone with a fake.”

  Quinn’s eyebrows shot up. “You have access to that?”

  Her wry laugh came out as a scratchy hiccup. “You work somewhere long enough, especially as an upstanding employee with an impeccable record, and you’d be amazed at what you’re given privileges to.”

  “And who told you to steal the stone?”

  Lorna’s eyes darkened, the first emotion for herself she’d exhibited since they’d returned to her office. “I wasn’t meant to steal it. I was told that we were exchanging the stone to keep the original safe.”

  “And based on all the other upstanding things you were asked to do,” Quinn said, verbally slapping at her, “stealing never crossed your mind.”

  The sharp set of Lorna’s shoulders dropped. “It came like all my other directives. A message appeared in my office and I was to execute it. Upon completion of the task, another envelope appeared with money.”

  “Convenient.” Disapproval stamped itself in Quinn’s flat tone.

  Lorna nodded toward the photo. “Necessary. Do you have any idea—any idea at all—what it’s like to see your child suffer? To watch him die a little bit every day and know you can’t take his place?”

  “And would he be proud of the person you are right now? Would he be proud there are people who will possibly die because of what you’ve done?”

  The urge to comfort was strong, but Ava kept her seat, allowing Quinn’s words to do their job and following the expressions on Lorna’s face as the ramifications of her actions began to sink in.

  “This is a museum exhibit. Why would anyone be killed over a museum exhibit?”

  Brody stepped up, his voice low in the cramped office. “The fact people were willing to pay you so much never raised your awareness that this actually was a big deal?”

  “I realize I’ve done nothing to earn your trust, but could you at least tell me what you believe the stones are capable of? Or tell me what the people who’ve hired me think they’re capable of?”

  Brody’s voice was bleak as he stared down at the frightened woman. In that moment, Ava understood the path he’d chosen, the difficulties in his task.

  Compassion had its limits when it came to saving the world. “Complete and utter destruction, Dr. MacIntyre. Armageddon.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ajax pac
ed Enyo’s subterranean castle—an old railway station in one of Manhattan’s abandoned subway tunnels—his features morphing with each step he took. “Why won’t you just let me kill her? And Brody, too, while I’m at it. He’s had it coming for way too long.”

  “Patience, Ajax. Patience.”

  Enyo watched his features morph back and forth—from Dr. Martin to the overbearing frame of Ajax the Wild and back again—and knew the Warrior was losing control.

  Well, former Warrior. He hadn’t served under Themis since Enyo had stolen him away.

  Oh, he’d been such an easy one to turn. A few promises—a few grand visions added to his subconscious to sweeten the pot—and he’d been hers.

  Ajax was the first one she’d turned. No single one since had felt quite as sweet or quite so satisfying.

  “You promised me long ago we’d have our revenge. I’ve been patient, Enyo. Waited. Helped you on every mission since the first one. Why can’t we just take the stones?”

  “Because we need the key.”

  “Well, let’s steal it.”

  “It’s not that easy. It’s protected.”

  He moved up into her space and nuzzled her neck. “Everything’s easy for you, baby.”

  How lovely he thought so. How necessary he never knew the truth.

  She pressed on his shoulders to push him away. They had things to do and his inability to see the bigger picture had grown annoying. “I need you back at the museum. It’s only for a short while longer.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to maintain my Dr. Martin masquerade?” Ajax morphed into his standard frame—six foot four, shoulder-length blond hair—and stood before her. “Do you have any idea how much energy it takes? I can barely eat enough, I’m burning through so much fuel.”

  “We all make our little sacrifices.”

  “Little? And what the hell is Wyatt doing? I barely see him. He’s so far behind the scenes, he might as well be invisible. Our plan’s falling apart, Enyo.”

  “Nothing is falling apart. I have everything under control. And you’ll do well to remember who is running this show.”

  Although he didn’t apologize, Ajax did have the decency to look contrite.