Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (13 page)

Release me. Now, human.

Was he even sane? Who could be lucid after being trapped in a cage like this?
How long have you been a prisoner.

I do not know. I only wake when they come.

Who are they?

My most trusted men hold me prisoner here. Bran and Teagh.

Ajax’s pain threatened to overwhelm her good sense, so Katherine did her best to pull away from him. So, Teagh had put this man here?

She wiped the tears she hadn’t even realized she’d been crying from her cheeks and reached for Sarah in her mind. She had no idea if she’d be able to talk to her from this place, but she felt strong here, bolstered by the dark in a way that filled her with confidence.

Sarah?
The connection was instantaneous and strong, stronger than anything she’d managed before. Sarah was scrubbing a pot in her kitchen sink, the smell of pasta and red wine swimming in her nostrils and her husband’s hands lighting fires as they skimmed along her hips. Katherine got all the information in the blink of an eye, right down to the oatmeal raisin cookies in the jar to Sarah’s right and the yellow daisies on the curtains in front of her.

The pot clattered into the stainless steel sink.
Katherine? Holy shit. It’s like you’re standing next to me talking. What’s up?

I need help. Do you know anything about an Immortal king who went missing?

No. But I’ll ask Raiden. Hold on.

Katherine pulled Raiden’s image from Sarah’s mind. She was so much more powerful now, it would have scared her if she weren’t too busy to freak out about it.
I got it. I’ll ask him myself. Thanks
. She slammed the door to Sarah’s mind closed and pulled the image of Raiden to the forefront of her thoughts.

Raiden? I need to speak to you.

A brief pause and a feeling of surprise flowed into her mind.
I am Raiden. Who are you?

It’s Katherine, Sarah’s cousin. I don’t have a lot of time.
The dark danced around her now, agitated. Something was coming.
Do you know anything about a lost king named Ajax? Disappeared a long, long time ago?

Raiden’s mind was organized, compartmentalized, and very powerful. According to Sarah, he had Immortal blood in his veins, and that fact kept her on her toes. He was speaking to her, but unlike Sarah, he was strong enough to throw her out of his mind, or possibly hurt her. His answer was crystal clear, precise.
The Lost King? Yes. He was Ajax, crowned after his sister’s disappearance.

If this Lost King were found, a prisoner, should he be freed? Or is the world better off without him?

You found him? Where? I will come at once.
Agitation and excitement blurred into a need for action. Raiden rose from his seat at his computer and reached for his blades, Mari rushed into the room asking questions.

You can’t come here. I’m sorry. I am walking in the dark, where the Triscani rule.

By the gods, woman. Free him and get out of there! He is humanity’s only hope to win the war. And time is short. The Crux draws near. Do it now.

Well, that answered that. She had no clue what decision was right, or if this male prisoner, this Lost King, could be trusted. Mari was one of her cousin, Sarah’s best friends, and Raiden belonged to Mari. Mari was one of their own, a human Timewalker. Mari loved the half-Immortal man from another time. Mari trusted Raiden with her life, with all their lives.

She cut the connection and focused on the prison wall under her cold hands. The dark was screaming now, and she felt them coming. Triscani. More than one. Their cold souls seeped ahead of them in the dark like swamp water invading a sandy beach paradise. They reeked of death and hatred. Merciless.

Shit. She was dead meat.

Hurry! Death comes for you, human.

No shit, Sherlock
. One of Tim’s favorite expressions burst from her mind and Katherine had a newly discovered fondness for her cousin-in-law’s quaint expression.

She pushed power out through her pores, focused on placing every ounce of energy she had under her command into her hands. Her palms turned black and fused with the outside of his cage. She asked the Gate for more power and it responded instantly. Her arms were dark as obsidian.

Hurry.

Ajax pleaded with her, but she was doing all she could think to do as her body fused with his cage. She could be trapped here like a fly on sticky paper, but determination drove her to merge her flesh with the wall to search for any weakness she could exploit.

She summoned the dark tendrils and they folded in and around her like a mummy’s wrap, enclosing her completely. They writhed and soaked up her power, then fed it back to her amplified a hundred times. Containing the power was difficult, pressure built in her heart and mind, buzzed along her body’s energy meridians as if she were a high voltage power line. If she were one with the Gate, she could contain it, control it.

But she wasn’t, and didn’t want to be. She wasn’t that desperate yet. But she was human, with mortal bones, mortal breath, and a weak human heart. She was about to fry like raw potatoes dropped in hot oil. The pain built until she was blinded by it, and still she pulled more power from the dark. More. She could no longer see or hear, her only focus, her only reason for existing, was to break through this damn wall.

Faintly, she heard the prisoner, the Lost King, speak to her.
Leave me, Katherine. Live to return another day. You are the only one who knows where I am. Do not die. Do not leave me trapped here for eternity.

No!
No. No.
She would not leave him here. If Raiden said he was humanity’s only hope for survival, then he would be freed. If Earth fell to the Triscani, they all died. Her people died. Her mother, her friends, her team. Everyone would die. Years of lies and sacrifice, of hunting and hurting would be for nothing.

Leave me. Live to return.

Shut up. When you get out of here, find Raiden. He’ll help
. She didn’t bother to add the end of that statement. The “if I’m dead” part was pretty much implied. She shoved an image of Raiden into the Immortal’s head, and was shocked to feel the image register and be recognized by this Lost King.

Who is this Raiden??

He’s like you, from your world. He’s been looking for you. He’s in Florida.

What year is it?

Katherine paused. What an odd question. But, then again, if she’d been trapped in a black egg in another dimension for centuries, she might ask the same, so she told him.

Seven hundred years
. Helpless despair filled him and Katherine swallowed a lump in her throat as she shared his pain.
Hunters. Go, human, and say nothing of this. Promise me you’ll return?

I will. I promise.

The Triscani arrived, three giant killers, and she was their only target.

Ajax’s knowledge flooded her mind. Hunters were huge, hulking predators. Their smaller counterparts were roughly human sized, and not as pumped full of the twisted souls they’d ached. They surrounded her, tearing at the ribbons of darkness that wrapped her up in its shield. The dark held, for now, but she didn’t have much time, and holding the shield around her taxed her mind and divided her concentration.

She ignored the claws shredding the black tendrils of her protection. The dark flowed around her like an unending waterfall, so thick and abundant the three Triscani soldiers couldn’t rip it away fast enough to reach her flesh. But how long could she keep this up? She couldn’t concentrate on the ribbons and the prison walls. Something had to give.

According to Raiden, her first priority had to be this Lost King.

The Triscani soldier at her back gave up tearing at the dark tendrils and shoved his hand straight through them, immersed its body in the dark with her, and reached the tender skin of her back with ice-cold claws, rending her flesh as easily as a switchblade shredding paper.

Her shriek pierced the darkness and sent the tendrils into a frenzied rage. They attacked the Triscani and dragged all three of them away from her, but it wouldn’t last. The dark had bought her some precious time.

The Mark below her breast blazed at her agony. Would Teagh would know she’d been hurt? Would he would feel her pain?

Would he help her, or interfere?

His interference couldn’t be tolerated. And what would he do if he found her here? Lock her up, too? Katherine ignored the pain, ignored the three evil creatures crawling toward her like snakes in the grass and ignored the survival instinct screaming at her to run. Instead, she struck the prison walls with both hands and shoved until they sank elbow deep into the wall that surrounded Ajax.

Both of her arms immediately turned black all the way to her shoulders, the essence of the egg moving out to greet the darkness within her, moving to greet its kin. In that moment she knew that she could walk through the wall, but it would kill her. The largest of the Triscani pushed in behind her. The foul creature, already covered in her blood, whispered her name over and over again, a death chant as he called on a power she’d never conceived of, and began to suck the essence from her very soul.

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“What?” Bran looked at Celestina as if she had grown a second head. “How could the Dark keep her for itself? Or carry a Mark?”

“I don’t know. But it hungers for her.” Celestina stepped back and sat down on an ancient wooden pew. “I can feel it crying out for her in my dreams.”

Teagh studied the Seer. Her normally fair skin looked ghostly white. Her eyes, once bright and vibrant, were now haunted with pain. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Celestina shook her head and Teagh saw her shiver. “There is nothing else I can tell you. Keep her, Teagh, or kill her. But you can’t allow the Dark to claim her. I don’t know what she’d become.”

Bran took off his coat and draped it around Celestina’s shoulders. “Let’s go. You need to see a healer.”

“No.” She snuggled into Bran’s coat but shook her head. “No. I told you. I can’t.”

“Gods be damned, woman.” Bran growled in frustration and waved Teagh off. “Go, take care of your female. I have enough trouble with this one. I’m taking the stubborn princess back to the ship.”

“Don’t call me that.” Celestina’s cheeks flushed red as she tried to wave off his help. “I’m no princess.”

“Stop. Just stop.” Bran’s voice held no empathy as he helped her to her feet.

Teagh nodded in agreement. He’d lose his mind trying to deal with a woman as headstrong as Celestina, one who constantly placed her life in danger.

Speaking of danger, how was he going to reason with Katherine? If Katherine refused to work with him, or worse, gave in to the Gate’s power, he’d be forced to eliminate the threat she posed to Earth’s survival. He wasn’t sure he could do it. Chills raced over his skin and he lifted his eyes as Celestina gasped in pain. An uncomfortable tug originated at the base of his ribs and yanked straight through his gut, like he was a hooked fish being hauled toward the fisherman’s net.

Celestina’s eyes rolled back into her head and her knees collapsed. Bran swept her up into his arms before she hit the cold stone floor. She lay cradled in Bran’s arms like a babe, her tiny frame dwarfed by the massive warrior holding her so closely. Her blue eyes popped open, searching for Teagh. Face lined with strain, she met his worried gaze and, with one word, cut him to the bone. “Hurry.”

The tugging pain blossomed into agony in his back, as if he’d been sliced with knives. Teagh ignored the sweat rolling down his brow and the psychic bomb that exploded inside his skull to stay on his feet.

Katherine.

“Take this.” Bran tossed his sword to Teagh, who grabbed it by the hilt in midair.

He didn’t waste time with goodbyes, just summoned a portal and leapt into the dark. Full hunting mode, he focused his mind on finding her, waited for the dark to instantaneously whisk him where he needed to go.

For once the dark didn’t obey his command. The Gate wanted Katherine to suffer, to face death, and choose a new path.

The dark wanted a new mistress…

An ice pick of pain pierced his skull and he yelled in frustration. It was her pain slicing through his mind, and her frustration that clotted his veins like half-dissolved sludge.

What had she gotten herself into? And how was he going to find her without the aid of the Gate?

The Shen burned in response to the question. Her Mark. Thank the gods. Teagh closed his eyes and focused on the heat singeing the inside of his spinal cord. Her pain was a fury that burned from the base of his skull to his tailbone, every nerve ending an open wound rubbed with habanera peppers. Muscles pumping, he raced to her with a speed that would have made him invisible to the humans he’d been protecting for the last few centuries. The Dark may not obey his commands, but he was still the Guardian of the Gate, the Darkwalker Lord. He had a few tricks up his sleeve.