Elementally Priceless (9 page)

I didn’t realize I’d whispered that until Red answered me.

“Very big, very broad, and always angry. They are not happy campers on a good day. Constant headaches from those massive horns they carry, I believe.”

Lark snorted. “That’s an understatement. Though I think the Shadow Walker could have chosen a less clichéd place to host us. Rylee is right, this is almost ridiculous. A labyrinth with a Minotaur under Caesar’s Palace? Seems a bit on the over dramatic side.”

“Left or right?” We stood in the opening of the archway with two choices.

“Red, fly up and see which direction we should go.” Lark rolled her shoulders sending the bird into the air.

“I don’t want to end up like Kit,” he yelled down. Still, he did as asked, coming back within ten seconds. “Left.”

Left, it was. Lark led the way and I followed tight on her heels. My hand gripped the sword, but no sweat dripped from my fingers, as I’d thought there should have been. Of course, it was early yet in the scheme of things. The walls were made up of what I guessed was marble, very light in color and veined with gold and threads of black. With my free hand, I reached out and touched it for a second time, tracing one of the gold veins.

“It feels like glass.” I don’t know if I’d expected Lark to answer, but she didn’t. Of course, it could have been me, or perhaps the sudden appearance of a goblin at the end of the path.

“Oh, that’s not good,” I whispered. There was no such thing as 
one
goblin. They ran in clusters and were nasty little fuckers. Knee height, sharp teeth, eyes like bugs with those freaky looking clusters that never blinked, and grasping, infection-causing claws. The one in front of us was pale gray, and barely stood out from the walls. It waved and grinned around a mouthful of shark teeth.

“All right, kid, let’s see what you can do.” Lark stepped back and urged me forward.

I didn’t wait for her to ask again, and if I was going to stop it from letting his friends know we were there, I had to do it fast.

Two strides and I leapt into the air, using my momentum to come down hard with the sword slicing the goblin from shoulder through to the hip on a diagonal. I might as well have been cutting through butter with the ease the sword sliced through bone, muscle, and flesh. The goblin wobbled and I yanked the sword free and lifted my boot to push the two halves of the goblin apart.

Then things got interesting.

A deep, bellowing roar echoed much closer than before and the sound shook the walls, putting cracks through the marble. If that wasn’t bad enough, the goblin I’d chopped in half, molded together. Like I’d never cut him.

“What the hell?” I snarled, taking another swing at him. He giggled and danced out of the way, then dove in and slashed my right calf, putting a gash in me. I bit down on my own bellow of anger and focused on a solid blow. Twice more I sliced into his side, and twice more he healed with a grin. I was really not liking the way this was going.

“Head—go for the head,” Lark called out and I adjusted my aim mid-slice. The goblin’s head bounced from his shoulders and rolled to the wall. But his body was still alive. “This is fucking nuts.”

“This is the Shadow Walker. All his creations are hard, if not impossible to kill. I’d hoped it would only be the Minotaur we’d face.” Lark strode past me and flicked her hand at the goblin. The ground around him swelled and sucked both body and head down.

I looked at the sword, not a drop of blood on it. “What about fire, would that work?”

Lark paused, slowly nodding. “Yes, fire is a cleanser; that should work like a hot damn. Good idea. You got any fire handy?”

That was a good point. But I did have another idea, one I thought was pretty damn smart.

“Can you lift me on your shoulders?”

She didn’t say anything, just walked over and picked me up like I was a child. Then 
benched
 me over her head. “Holy shit, you are strong.”

“Comes with the territory. Now, what are you looking for?”

I grabbed the edge of the wall, though I was barely able to reach it, and pulled myself up. “We use the top of the wall as our path; we can see where we’re going and avoid the Minotaur.”

Lark regarded me for a moment, and then ran straight at the wall, running part way up it and grabbing the top. I didn’t help pull her up. I didn’t want to offend her.

“This is an excellent idea.” Again, she led, but was jogging. I felt it too, the urgency to get in and out as fast as possible.

Crossing along the two-foot wide tops of the walls, we headed straight for the labyrinth center. We passed all sorts of shit. A water pit seething with snakes and alligators, the cluster of goblins, a whole section that looked frozen in liquid nitrogen, and even a short stretch that was on fire. But no Minotaur. That made me wonder if the creature existed, or if we were walking into an even bigger problem.

I was guessing it would be statement number two.

The bigger problem.

Lark

Rylee was going to be very good at Tracking one day. She was good at it now, but once she had some experience she would be even better. I saw the intelligence and strength in her, even behind the potty mouth. She hid behind her swearing, hid the smarts and natural leadership she carried with her, just Elle, the first Tracker I’d met had. I understood that, the hiding anyway.

Hopping across a small gap, I looked below us and wished I hadn’t. There was the big boy, coming straight for the wall we were on. Built like a tank on legs, the Minotaur was classic in design, curved horns and everything. With his head lowered and his powerful shoulders hunched, I knew exactly what he was going to do.

“Rylee, time to run as fast as you can.”

She glanced down, paled, and then we were running. The problem was, the tops of the walls were polished and slippery as snot on yogurt.

With a yelp, Rylee slipped and fell to the opposite side of the wall from the Minotaur. He didn’t slow for a second, just rammed his head into the barrier below me, bellowing his rage as I lost my balance too. Unfortunately, I ended up on his side of the wall.

I hit the dirt and rolled, coming to my feet but staying in a crouch. I beckoned the earth up and it obliged, wrapping itself around the Minotaur’s cloven feet, sucking him down to his hips. Flailing and roaring, he reached for me.

“That’s a good boy. Now. Stay.” I put my hand out slapping him on the nose, a grin stretching my lips. Much easier than I’d thought.

“Lark, you okay?” Rylee called from the other side.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Please tell me there was only one Minotaur.” The sound of another roar and the clatter of hooves reached my ears.

Oh, holy hellfire. “Back up!” I scrambled, tapping into the earth and literally shoved the wall away between us. The marble broke and shattered, spraying shards all over the place. A few hit me and I saw one hit Rylee, but that wasn’t what I was worried about. I leapt through the hole in the wall to see three more Minotaurs charging.

“Time to go.” I grabbed Rylee’s non-sword arm and swung her up onto the top of the wall. Red flew up and circled above us.

“Lark, you coming?”

“Nope. Rylee, get the kid. I’ll distract these yahoos. Red, stay with her.”

The ‘yahoos’ didn’t like me calling them names, apparently. Bellowing, shaking the ground as they ran and throwing spit and snot left and right as their heads swung, I had one advantage.

They were dumb as a pile of rocks.

A split second before they reached me, I stepped to the side through the hole in the wall and they went rushing and skidding past me.

I glanced up. Rylee was gone, Red was gone.

And I had work to do. Cracking my knuckles I reached out to again tap into the earth. If this Shadow Walker thought he could take out me 
and
 Rylee, he was about to be royally surprised.

A smile slid over my face as I let my abilities pour upward, first time in twenty years, not holding back but instead racing through me, multiplying in strength with each heartbeat.

“Yeah, this is going to be good.”

Rylee

THE TOP OF
 the wall was slick and though I wanted to run faster, I didn’t have someone to throw me back up if I fell to my ass again.

“Red, can you see how far to the center?”

“Another fifty yards.” He circled close to me, never straying far. Which was good; I liked him and didn’t want him to end up like the fox, eaten by darkness. But that meant I wasn’t really paying attention and when I jumped over the next short gap, I missed the other side completely. My fingers grazed the top of the wall, slipping off in a split second.

“Shit!” I fell, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Rolling to my side, I fought to catch my breath, finally sucking in a gulp of air and dirt. Coughing, I stood and looked around. Same fucking walls, same height. No Minotaurs. Maybe I’d luck out and avoid… nope. The sound of hooves pounding toward me changed my mind.

I wasn’t going to luck out on this. Locking onto Jonathan’s threads, I ran in his directions, hoping like hell I was able to reach him with no backtracking shit.

“Run faster, Tracker,” Red called down. I turned on the juice, going as fast as I could as I skidded around corners with a sword gripped in one hand and a monster breathing down my neck.

Good times, good times.

I took a sharp, hairpin turn to the right and slammed to a stop. Not because I wanted to. But because there was a wall blocking my path. Dead. Fucking. End.

No choice now but to face what was coming my way.

“Rylee, you’ve got to get out of there!” Red screeched.

“And where would you like me to go?” I snapped. I was cornered and we both knew it.

I spun as the Minotaur came barreling around the corner. “Come on, bitch!” I yelled and he didn’t slow down, just dropped his chin and ran straight for me.

His breath was rank with old meat and overly fermented wine, and hot on my skin when I dropped to my belly. By some miracle he didn’t step on me. He slammed into the wall behind, me, his horns cracking under the pressure.

Groaning, he slid to his knees, dazed by the hit. Better though, was the break he put in the wall. I scrambled to my feet, hopped over his slumped body and slammed my shoulder into the wall. The marble crumbled and fell. The hole was just big enough for me to squeeze through.

Yee-freaking-haw.

A hand clamped around my ankle as I slid through. Covered in tawny fur, the fingers tightened, grinding my anklebones against one another. He held me so I hung from the wall, unable to use the ground as leverage. I twisted and brought the sword up. If I missed, I’d be taking my own foot with the Minotaur’s hand. But there was no choice. I had no one to save me.

Gritting my teeth, I sat up and drove the tip of the sword forward through the Minotaur’s wrist. His fingers popped open and I fell to the ground for the third time. “This is getting ridiculous,” I groaned, stumbled to my feet and looked back. The Minotaur was looking at me through the hole. Fury kindled in his big dark eyes, as snot dripped from his nose. He snorted, blowing chunks all over me.

“Fucking disgusting.”

Much as I wanted to cut into him, I had no time. I took a step, winced at the pain shooting from my squashed ankle and forced myself into a hobbling run.

Jonathan was so close, and I followed his threads, right up to the final archway where I saw him sitting at a desk, his head bowed and hands flying as he wrote.

Yet the archway made me pause, and I heeded Lark’s earlier advice to mention when things didn’t feel right. Something about it twanged my shit detector. “Red, what’s with this place?”

Before he answered, the ground rumbled, shaking hard enough to turn me around thinking I had a whole herd of Minotaurs on my ass. But there was no one behind us.

“Red, is that Lark?”

“Yes. She’s finally angry. I wouldn’t want to be the Shadow Walker.” Red swooped down and landed on my shoulder.

“So we ignore what she’s doing and keep going.”

“Probably best.”

Still, that didn’t help with the archway in front of me. Then again, I was an Immune so if there was a spell, I should be able to walk right through with no problem. Should.