Abomination (The Path to Redempton Book 1)

by Kimbra Swain

  “Meredith, we all need to get out of here. This isn’t going to be solved right now,” I tried to reason with her.

  “No, Tadeas, you see, I came here, and waited for 20 years for this shot. I’m taking it,” she pulled out a pistol and fired directly at Abby. Abby’s steel orb appeared above her hand and turned to liquid metal. She waved her hand through the metal and covered her heart. The bullet hit the steel covered hand. It happened in slow motion. I looked up to Meredith, and before she could fire a second shot a blur came around the corner behind her and slammed her into the concrete wall. She slumped down. I could hear her heart beating. I looked at Abby. She stood in shock. The metal glove thing must have been pure instinct and reaction. She dropped her hand to the side, and the spell released. The chunk of bullet and liquid metal sank into the deepening water. I looked at the figure who hit Meredith. It was Jay Stafford.

  “Get her, and let’s go Duarte,” he screamed. I turned to look at Chito, but he turned to black smoke and reappeared next to Meredith. He hoisted her up in his arms, and they both faded to smoke.

  I grabbed Abby by the waist, and screamed in her ear. “Snap out of it. Let’s go!” I started running. Her legs moved with mine, but she still seemed dazed. We ran around the corner, and Jay held the door open to a back room. There wasn’t as much water here as in the front hallway. As we entered the room, the back elevator door was propped open with a chair. I started dragging Abby to it. Jay rushed ahead of me and grabbed the chair. He stepped in the elevator and held the door open for us. “Hurry, it’s all coming down,” he yelled frantically. I started to toss Abby to him when the earth lurched, and we slipped and hit the floor. I struggled to find my footing.

  “Damn it Abby, get your fucking head out of the clouds. We are going to die,” I yelled trying to lift her off the floor. She looked up at me, and her eyes came into focus.

  “You better be glad I like you. I wouldn’t let just anyone cuss me like that,” she smirked.

  We turned toward the elevator, and Jay frantically waiting for us. I heard the loud screeching of metal, and the top of the elevator buckled. I put on the brakes and grabbed Abby before she went into it. It crumpled in on itself and dirt and rock spilled out in the floor in front of us. The metal, rock and dirt buried Jay Stafford.

  “JAY!” Abby screamed and struggled to get away from me. “JAY!”

  I grabbed her face, and got very close to her. I looked her in the eye. She pushed against my chest to get away from me. “Abby, he’s gone. I don’t hear his heartbeat. We have to go. I can’t carry you out of here. We might not make it, but we have to try. Abby, we will mourn if we live. He would not want you to die here because of him. Please, honey, come with me. I need you to come with me.”

  She nodded her head, but didn’t say anything. I ran back into the hallway, and we started up the back steps.

  We got to the fourth-floor door. If we could get to her office, we could jump through the portal to the island. I got to the door and hit the arm bar for it to open. The latch came open, but the door would not move. I pushed harder, and Abby joined me.

  “The ceiling, wall or something is collapsed behind it. Let me shift, and see what’s there. If it’s safe, I’ll come back and get you,” I said.

  “No, we shift together,” she said.

  “Okay,” I pulled on the edge of the spirit world. I tried to walk through the door, but if it was solid earth behind it I couldn’t walk through it. We were underground, and I don’t know if that effected it or not but we could not pass through the wall, the door or whatever was behind it. I pulled us back to reality.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Up,” I replied and we kept climbing stairs. If we could get to the elevator shaft, maybe we could find a way to climb it or something. We raced up the stairs to the door that lead to the tenth floor which was the banquet room where we had had the party. We turned out of the stairwell to the elevator door bay. I pushed open the doors, and dirt and rocks cascaded down through it. We could not climb the walls with all the debris falling. I grabbed her arm, and we ran into the large banquet room. The memories flooded over me. The night she belonged to me.

  “You want another dance,” she said sadly.

  “I do, but not here,” I looked around and the floor shifted downward to the right. We turned and ran to our left. To the far wall. We had nowhere left to go. The compound collapsed and sank into the earth on the other side of the room, and the floor continued to shift that way.

  “Tadeas,” she said. “This is it. She was right. You are going to die, because of me.”

  I turned and looked at her. I held onto a lamp fixture and to her to keep us both from slipping down the floor as it started to tilt harder. The ceiling on the other end of the huge room started to fall in. We were going to be buried alive.

  “I only have one regret, Abby,” I said.

  “What’s that?” she asked as she held onto me and grabbed the lamp fixture too.

  I pulled her as close to me as I could. Gravity worked against me. She put her arm around my neck. “I should have kissed you again,” I said.

  She smiled and pulled her legs up around my waist as the floor started to crumble under our feet. Her lips met mine. I couldn’t hold the lamp any longer, and I let go. We slid toward the falling ceiling and the crumbling room, but it didn’t matter. I kissed her back. My hand tangled up in her hair, and I was overwhelmed with the taste of honeysuckle.

  His lips were warm and soft. The kiss wasn’t eager or panicked even though we were as good as dead. We continued to slide when his feet caught on something and he winced. I kept my face pressed next to his even though he stopped kissing me. Darkness surrounded us, and I waited for the ceiling and earth to come crashing in on us. The earth stopped shaking, and it got very still and quiet. I felt his heart pounding, and he clutched me harder to him. I was scared to speak or move.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “No, are you?”

  “My right leg hit something pretty hard. I don’t think it’s broken, but it hurts like hell.”

  “If I can reach it, I can heal it,” I said and started to slide my hand down his leg. When I did the earth beside us started to shift.

  “No, no. It’s okay. Don’t move. Just be still and let me think,” he said.

  My heart pounded, and I couldn’t breathe. The dirt and dust was choking.

  “Jag, it’s just a matter of time for the rest of this place gives in. Just hold on to me until it does,” I said to him resigned to our fate.

  “Oh, hell no, I’m not giving up. You kissed me. There is no way I’m not living to tell that story,” he teased. I tried not to laugh, because I didn’t want the debris to shift anymore. I closed my eyes and pulled power from the earth around us. If he wasn’t going to give up, then neither would I.

  “Fulgo.” The sun pendant containing a sunstone around my neck started to glow with the warm light of the sun. It was a gift from my Aunt Lianne, a symbol of my bloodline. It illuminated Tadeas’ face. He had several cuts and bruises. “What about the stab wound?”

  “It’s bleeding, but not too bad. I didn’t really think about it, because of the adrenaline and running for our lives, you know?”

  “Yes, my lips can make men forget things like mortal wounds,” I teased. I might as well get as many shots in as I could.

  “If I could smack you right now, I would,” he said.

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” He smiled. The earth shifted above us again, and he pulled my head to his chest and tried to block anything that fell. It would have been a useless measure if something truly large fell on us, but it was his instinct.

  “What the hell,” he said looking over my shoulder.

  I tried to turn and look. I could see just a tiny bit of daylight.

  “Just don’t move,” he said. “Think about this. That is daylight. That means above this ceiling that is about to crash in on us, it’s open
to daylight. We just got to get there, without falling further down or having the rest of this fall on us.”

  “Shift us to the spirit world again,” I said.

  “No, I’m not sure what that will do,” he replied.

  “Do you have any other options,” I asked.

  “Well, I might think of something if you would just give me a second,” he shot back at me. I shut up and waited. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

  “Thank you. Shift us and we move to the light, and whatever happens, happens,” I said to him. He winced again.

  “How bad is the leg?”

  “I’ll shut it out. It’s better than being dead,” he concluded.

  “That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. I’m ready whenever you are.”

  I felt the tug on the edge of the cold dark. He reached and pulled it over both of us. My necklace continued to glow which was interesting. Usually my magic died out once we went into the spirit world. He looked at it and then me. I just shrugged. I had no idea. If we lived through this, I needed to make a call to my old master, Samara. I let him move first. He found his footing and pushed himself up to a standing position. He helped me stand up, too. I looked down. He held my hand constantly not letting go. We were standing on the slanted floor that we had just been laying on. He leaned on me a bit to take the pressure off his leg. I could see the blood that was running down his side from the stab wound. He moved us both toward the edge of the light peeking through. We walked through what was left of the ceiling, and the earth opened up above us to a hole where the building above used to be. He looked down at our feet. We seemed to be standing on a fairly stable large piece of concrete. “Here goes nothing,” he said. He pulled on reality, and the sun assaulted us from above. I shaded my eyes. We were both covered in dirt and mud. We had been soaked from the flood on the first floor, then collected the dust and dirt along the way to the top floor.

  “Now how do we get out of a hundred-yard-deep hole?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. You are the wizard. Do a levitation spell or something,” he said.

  “Ok. Sure, but if I do this, I can’t hold it long. Be ready to lunge to the top depending on how long I can hold it,” I said.

  “Seriously, you are going to fly us out of here?” he said.

  “Honey, didn’t you know? I’m a badass wizard,” I smirked at him.

  “No, but I’m sure you will continue to remind me,” he groaned.

  “Damn straight. Hold on to me,” I said.

  “With pleasure,” he grinned and it was my turn to groan.

  I put my hand on my necklace, and my left arm around his neck. He wrapped his arms around my waist. I pulled power from the earth and my necklace, “Praevolo”

  A wind came up beneath us, and thrust us upwards toward the sky. I felt the power quickly fading. If I couldn’t hold it, it would hurt on the down fall. Tadeas might not survive the fall. I had to hold it. I let the spell drain the power in my necklace, and it ceased to glow. I then allowed the spell to pull the power out of me. I tilted my head up to see how much longer.

  “You’ve got it. I believe in you,” he said

  The power rushed through me again, and pushed us upward. I felt myself losing consciousness, but I held on. We were almost there. As we reached the edge, tried to shift the wind beneath us toward the closest edge.

  “Almost Abby, you’ve got it.” I pushed a little harder for him. As we came up over the edge, I felt myself slipping. My arm loosening around his neck. I felt him try to throw me toward solid ground. With one last effort, I pushed us both that way. We hit the ground hard, and it went dark.

  “Abby, get up. We gotta move,” he yelled at me. I felt the earth shift under me. We had destabilized the edge and it was about to fall in right back to where we once were. I drifted in and out. He hoisted me up the best he could. I tried to run, but my legs were like jelly. My survival instinct kicked in. I felt my legs stabilize, and we both moved as quickly as we could as the earth started to crumble behind us. I could see where the ground turned to more stone than dirt. If we could make it to it, then perhaps the collapsing would stop.

  “The rock, get to the rock,” I managed to gasp out.

  When I got close I lunged for it, but he didn’t have the power in his leg to do it. But there before my eyes, he shifted to a sleek beautiful black cat and bounded over my head. He hit the rock hard and rolled. As he rolled, he shifted back to human, and cried out in pain. I crawled over to him. I tried pulling power. I was tapped. He held up his wrist showing me the bracelet that I gave him. I wrapped my hand around it. It still held a bit of power. I thought the stab wound needed the attention. I lifted his shirt up and put my hand on it and pressed down. He winced in pain. “Consano.” I felt the warmth of healing rush through me into his side. He groaned with the heat that was transferred from me to him. I pulled my hand away, and the wound had closed. I had nothing left for his leg.

  “I’m sorry. There’s nothing left for your leg. I can’t,” I said as I fought to stay conscious.

  He pulled me to the ground next to him. “It’s fine. You are completely amazing. You flew us out of a massive hole in the ground, and still had enough left to keep me from bleeding to death.” He pushed my hair out of my face. “I dare say that qualifies as badass.”

  Everything that happened started rushing in on me. Meredith was Lincoln’s daughter who we had spent half of our lives trying to find. It was a long sordid story, but I loved him. And no matter what happened, I wanted him to find his daughter. Jay Stafford saved my life, and died in a heap of rubble underneath the earth in Boulder, Colorado. He deserved better. My heart ached for him. I didn’t know if Ashley, Ichiro, Vince or the twins had made it or not. To top it all off, in some weird cosmic confluence, the archangel Gabriel had a direct connection to my birth. I wanted to talk to George more about it, if he could. Then it hit me, the portal. I started shaking. “No, no, no, George.”

  “George is fine. He’s back on the island. When we get patched up, we will go home and rest, okay?” Tadeas said.

  “We can’t go home. The portal was in the building,” I said.

  “Gregory will get it rebuilt. In the meantime, we will set up a safe house somewhere near where the ferry takes the workers to the island every day, and we will just take the ferry. No crazy portal jetlag, right?” he tried to encourage me.

  “We can’t take the ferry, Tadeas,” I said.

  “Sure, we can. Are you afraid of boats?” he asked. He leaned over me as I laid on my back. He blocked the sun from hitting my face.

  “I’m not afraid of boats, but we cannot ride the ferry without paying the ferryman,” I said to him.

  “The ferryman, like Charon, the boatman of the underworld?” he asked starting to realize what I was saying. “I don’t understand, Abby.” He looked up, and I could hear a vehicle approaching us. We had no weapons left, if they wanted to kill us, they could just go ahead.

  He raised up and looked in the direction of the oncoming vehicle.

  “Who is it?” I muttered. My heart ached. I did not care who approached. I could never go home again, not until my time on this earth ended.

  “It’s a black Hummer,” he said shielding his eye from the sun.

  “Grandfather,” I said.

  “You think?” he tried to push himself up. His right leg hurt him badly. He winced as he stood trying not to put pressure on it. I just laid on the dirt looking up at him. “It’s okay now. We can go somewhere safe.”

  The Hummer pulled up, and he reached down to try to pull me up off the ground. He just didn’t have the power to do it. I waved him away. Grandfather actually got out of the vehicle and approached us. “By the gods, you are both alive.” He looked down at me, and the happiness from seeing us alive rushed out of his face. He looked down at Tadeas’ leg. He touched it, and I heard his leg snap back into place. He must have dislocated it when we hit the concrete. He tested it, and reached down to pick me up. I wrapped my arms around hi
s neck.

  “Let’s get out of here, sir,” he said to Gregory.

  Gregory opened the back door of the Hummer, and Tadeas sat me up in the seat. He climbed up beside me and tried to put a seat belt on me. “Fuck that,” I said and curled up next to him. Gregory got in on the other side.

  “Boulder Municipal, and quickly please,” he told the driver.

  “Sir, the portal,” he asked for me. I couldn’t think straight. He seemed to know that I had nothing else in me to give.

  “It will take time to rebuild. And there will be a price to pay, because my brother is a real son of a bitch, and yes, I know what that makes my mother,” he scoffed.

  “What is the island?” he asked.

  “We don’t talk about what the island is actually, but you deserve to know, Tadeas. The island is part of the Fortunate Isles. It is part of Elysium. The workers there are those who lived a life that was deemed pure and good. They find the greatest pleasure in a hard day's work, and a work well done. It’s heaven to them,” he explained.

  Tadeas did not ask anything else. He sat and processed it all in his head. He held me tight and kissed my forehead. There were many things he needed to know, and not enough time to tell them all to him. The world I had thrust him into was far larger than he knew. He was my protector, but I needed to protect him, too. Part of that protection included telling him all my secrets and all the secrets of the agency. But not now. I couldn’t even hold my eyes open. I did not have the energy to cry for what I lost in the collapse of the compound. I fell asleep listening to his heartbeat as we rode to the airport.

  I sat in one of the large leather recliners and waited. I felt everything on the island. I felt the storm moving toward the island. Most importantly, I felt Abigail sleeping. She exhausted herself with this endeavor, and it hadn’t turned out like she had planned. My heart went out to her. I wanted to show her the way, but I knew she had to find it herself. It was difficult watching her make decisions that might get her killed, again. I could not see the future. My job was to advise. Occasionally, I got to comfort her.