Black Gate: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 4 (29 page)

“Fry them with what?”

Mari held up her hand and wiggled her glowing fingertips. “Angel’s Fire, girl. I got the cool alien stuff. And Mother Earth is talking to me. They’re waiting for us down in a dark room beneath the house. We’ll go there first.”

Katherine let Mari pass her in the hallway, the light from Mari’s hand more than adequate to show the way. Raiden nudged her shoulder.

“Let’s go.”

“Are you two for real?”

Raiden smiled, a full, joy-filled smile, and Katherine realized she’d never seen one on his face before. “Resistance is futile with Mari. Trust me. This isn’t her first cave. It’s easier just to give in and pray.”

“Teagh never said a word about Mari having Angel’s Fire.”

“That’s because he was sworn to secrecy. If the Itarans found out, they’d try to kill her.”

“I thought only the Queen’s family, and their Circle of Judgment, or whatever pompous name they gave it, had Angel’s Fire. You all told me it was the counter balance to the curse of the forbidden sons.”

“It is. And they do.”

“Is she one of them?”

“No. She’s not.”

“Then how did Mari get it?”

“Why did Teagh save your life when Celestina had already ordered him to kill you?”

Katherine was shocked. That day, when he’d held her so gently with his hand on her neck, she thought she’d been in control of the situation when, in reality, the torment in his eyes hadn’t been about protecting her or saving her men. He’d been wrestling with his sacred duty, weighing her life against the fate of three worlds. Deciding whether or not to kill her. “I don’t know.”

Raiden pointed down the hallway to where Mari had stopped to wait for them. “And you never will, Katherine. I have no idea how Mari’s dreams led her to find me in that cave. Some gifts we must simply accept without question.”

Raiden left her to follow or not as he jogged to catch up to Mari. Katherine ran after them and decided Raiden was right. Maybe she didn’t need to know every little detail about everything. Maybe she could let go a little more and stop trying to control everything in her life. That strategy hadn’t really been working out for her lately anyway.

And maybe plan B wasn’t so bad after all. Mari could fry them. Raiden could cut off their heads. And she’d feed them to the Gate.

The power rose in her bones at the thought and she hurried to catch up. “
Save some for me”
seemed like a bit much, so she kept her mouth shut and ran.

Chapter Fifteen

“What. Is. That. Smell?” Katherine whispered the question. They were closing in on the Gate room, just a few doors to go. All around them the air was stagnant and thick. An odor drifted up from the floor, vile and pungent, like someone had used engine oil for barbeque sauce and then burned the meat.

“Ash.” Raiden’s somber voice brought her to a stop in the hallway and she lifted her boots off the floor to look. The boots were covered in a thin dusting of ash. She looked ahead and watched as the light dust swirled and moved away from the flow of air beneath Raiden’s footsteps.

“Oh, God.” Katherine gagged when she realized she’d been walking in human remains. All the men here. Good men. They hadn’t had a chance. “All of them? Dead?”

“The Triscani rarely take prisoners.”

Mari kept moving, the light in her hand getting brighter as they approached that lovely carved door. The water-breather hadn’t been lying about knowing where the bastards were. She’d led them right to the Gate.

Katherine stomped her feet into the floor, thought about the ash beneath the thick soles with every step, gaining courage from the dead she walked upon.

The Gate’s power rose up and welcomed her rage. It wanted to feed on her enemies. Craved it.

She was going to give the Gate a goddamned feast. If she’d believed for a moment that her boys had been in this house, she’d already be ramming some Gate magic down a Triscani’s throat.

Mari paused at the door to make sure they were ready. Raiden nodded, but Katherine shook her head and Mari’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Kate, your face is…”

“Black?”

Mari nodded. Katherine had felt the power rise in her blood, felt the Gate’s hunger fill her, and didn’t care.

“Open the door.”

Mari stepped aside so Katherine could do it herself. Katherine placed her palm on the handle. “Just cover my back.”

She twisted the handle and stepped into a nightmare.

The room was just as she remembered it. Computer system, kitchenette, gaming chairs and giant television screens mounted on the walls. The bed was still there, the mattress tossed aside just where Matteo and Ryan had left it.

Triscani Hunters were everywhere. At least twenty. Looked like Mari’s internal Triscani radar was a bit off.

Every single Hunter, every distorted black face, focused on her when she entered. There was no sign of Teagh, but she could feel him now, her Mark heating as it did in his presence. And these bastards were keeping him somewhere. She chose the nearest and crooked her black finger at it.

“Come and get me.”

None of them moved.

A hulking giant stepped up from the back of the room. A full half head taller than the other Hunters, his face remained recognizably human, or at least as human as hers probably did at the moment.

“What is thissss? The massster sssendss a female to uss? Who are you? I have never ssseen a female Hunter before.”

Katherine smiled, and was glad she didn’t have a mirror showing her the horror of her own reflection. She looked down at her hands and realized they were even darker than the monster’s, the color of deep space with no stars. “Oh, I’m a Hunter all right. But I’m not one of you.”

The Gate rose in a liquid wave from its platform and the Triscani in the bedroom cried out in their weird, metallic voices. Katherine called it to her, let the power rise in the room until it was hard to breathe, and sent tendrils from the dark to wrap and hold each and every one of her prey in place until she could get to them. Until the Gate could feast on their souls.

She approached the first, the leader who’d spoken to her. He couldn’t move, his torso and each limb held in place by liquid darkness. “What was your name, before you became this?”

She’d never before seen a monster look confused. “Nicodemusss.”

She stepped close enough to kiss him. “Where is my Marked Mate, Nicodemus? Where is Teagh?”

“The massster locked the half-bloodssss away from us. There. You will not be able to reach him.”

Katherine followed his gaze and noticed an energy field similar to the one where she’d found Ajax. But even from here she could see that it wasn’t as thick or as strong. The will of the maker less focused, less determined than Teagh and Bran had been when the brothers had created Ajax’s prison.

“How many half-bloods are in there?”

“Three.”

Katherine stared into the black pits of his eyes and saw a similar, feminine version of the monster’s face reflected back to her. No wonder Mari had freaked and the Triscani didn’t know what to think. She really did look just like them.

But three was good. Three. Teagh. Bran. And Robbie. She returned her full attention to the monster. “How many souls do you carry, Nicodemus?”

“I do not know, my lady.”

“Then let’s find out.” The Gate reached out through her and took control of her arms, made them just two more tendrils of darkness under its command. She watched, detached and unconcerned, as her hands came to rest on the Triscani Hunter’s cheeks. The dark tendrils pulled three more Triscani toward her and lifted their limbs so that they touched her darkness, their dark clawed hands touching her back and neck like lovers. They were five connected, and they were none. That was her last thought as she lowered her mouth to the Hunter’s in a kiss and gave the Gate her blessing to feed.

<><><>

“No!” Teagh screamed at the vision before him but it did no good. Kate lowered her head to kiss the Hunter, her body black as the Gate and her movements not her own.

The Gate had her now, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get her back.

The more she fed, the worse it would be. “I have to stop her.”

Bran shook his head. “I don’t think you can.”

“I can.” Robbie sat at their feet, beaten and bruised, but unbroken. He claimed Droghan had threatened and beaten him, left him in this cage so he could
reconsider
the Immortal’s offer. That offer had been to be a blood-bonded servant to Droghan and his Triscani, or be tortured until he changed his mind.

Teagh had to give the kid credit. He hadn’t given in. Most boys his age wouldn’t have had the strength, or the courage, to go toe-to-toe with an Immortal.

But, then again, he was a member of Katherine’s family. He was beginning to appreciate exactly what that meant. Blood related, like Robbie, or adopted, like her team of soldiers, they all seemed to be stronger as a unit. And they protected each other, with everything they had to give, even this seventeen-year-old child.

Bran and Teagh had focused on Robbie as their target when they’d summoned a portal together. They’d gone right to him, and deposited themselves directly into Droghan’s cage.

The mistake had turned out in their favor. They’d been trapped, sure, but stepping into a room with twenty Hunters would have been suicide.

Neither had ever seen this many Triscani in one place on this side of the Gates. Not since the war. It hadn’t occurred to either of them as a possibility, until it was too late.

Both he and his brother were good with a blade, but not that good. The construct kept them in, trapped and disconnected from the outside world. They couldn’t communicate with anyone on the outside, and neither Teagh nor Bran could summon a portal. But it also kept the Hunters out. Which had been working just fine, until his beautiful Marked Mate had shown up and started feeding on them.

“She’s magnificent.” Bran had his hands spread flat against the wall of their prison. “Gods, Teagh. Look at her. She’s incredible.”

“Shut the fuck up and help me get us out of here.” If Bran said one more asinine word, he was going to punch him.

“I think we should let her finish them off first.”

That was it. Teagh let fly with a right uppercut punch to his brother’s unsuspecting jaw. Bran flew across the small cage and landed on his ass in the corner.

“Okay. I get it.” Bran had the nerve to actually grin. “But you must admit, that female is impressive.”

Bran was right, which worried Teagh even more. He’d never seen or heard of anything like what was happening in that room.

Katherine kept her lips to the giant she’d claimed first, and his brothers kept coming, lined up behind the Triscani at her back like sacrificial lambs being led to slaughter. The Gate’s tendrils held them in place until they disintegrated into ash and another rose to take its fallen comrade’s place at her back.

But the male she kissed, Nicodemus, survived intact.

Teagh had every intention of cutting off that male’s head the first chance he got. And all Bran wanted to do was admire the view?

“What if Celestina was kissing that fucking thing?”

Bran’s gaze clouded and he stood, all too serious now. “My apologies. I’d be going insane. Tell me what you need me to do. This cage is made from the dark, not the light.”

“Place your hand next to mind and feel the will of the maker. Decide to break it.”

“That’s it?”

Teagh nodded. “Yes. But Droghan is a True Immortal. His will is thousands of years old and he’ll know the moment we break through.”

Teagh looked up to see Kate had cleared half the room. The walls of their prison buffered all sound. Watching her was like watching a movie with no soundtrack. Except the movie wasn’t an old black-and-white film starring Groucho Marx, and it wasn’t a fucking comedy. Kate’s lips were still on that bastard, Nicodemus. In fact, the Hunter’s color had changed, lightened to a pale gray, and he’d actually wrapped his arms around Kate’s waist and was kissing her back.

Oh, fuck no.

Stunned, he looked around to see two others had fallen away from Kate, not ash, but pale and breathing again.

“Bran?”

“I see them.”

“What is she doing?”

“Saving them.”

The two Itaran males now lying on the floor looked lost. They’d returned to their prior forms, to what they’d been before they’d lost themselves to the dark curse of their Queen’s betrayal. Teagh had no way of knowing how long it had been since the males had seen the color of their own skin, or had control of their own minds. The two looked at each other in shock, patting their own faces and staring at their hands with awe. With the evil purged from their systems, the males were scrubbed clean. The expressions on their faces were confused. Their eyes dazed and disbelieving. They didn’t smile or laugh or speak to one another, it was as if they were too fragile for that, as if celebrating would shatter them.