Synnergy, Chaos Time Book 3 (10 page)

“I’m the chimera.” Sadness echoed in the last
word.

“So you become other people?”

Alice gave a little shake as if stumbling out of an
unpleasant memory and nodded. “Aye, but not simply people. I can
become anything.” She illustrated that statement by melting and
reshaping herself into a brown shaggy dog with a long pink tongue
lolling out the corner of its mouth.

The dog hopped off her bed and onto Sable’s.

Sable jerked back, digging her toes into the coverlet
not sure what Alice was up to. But a soft, wet nose bumped into her
fist and when she slowly petted her silky head, Alice sighed and
woofed. Then sniffing her hand one final time, Alice jumped back to
the other bed, did a three circle spin around the mattress before
finally flopping down and becoming Alice again.

“Now that’s amazing.” Sable clapped.

Alice shrugged.

“Which is your true form?”

Sadness encased her when she sad, “I do not know. I
was born under a blood moon, a curse to my people. They told me I
was hideous to behold. For the first years of my life they
blindfolded me in the hopes that I would no longer remember my true
form and therefore could never take it again. Once I matured and
was able to control the shift, they released me into the world.”
Her gaze was faraway, remembering a different time and place.
“Sometimes I think I should like to know. But...” she snapped out
of it, voice perky again, “that would necessitate me dying and I’m
not quite ready for that yet.”

“Who were your people?”

“The Rom.”

“Gypsies.” Sable remembered the term from the
Hunchback. “Maybe you look like Esmeralda?”

Alice giggled, but didn’t say anything.

“Who is the black devil, Alice?” Sable asked, finally
getting around to what she’d really wanted to learn all along.

Alice was suddenly very serious. “We’re not certain.
All we know is he’s a killer and must be stopped. I’ve been here
two years now, with very few leads. He’s elusive and incredibly
difficult to track. And it is the most amazing thing to me, I’m
quick, hard to imagine that there’s anything out there faster than
me. But he is. Almost as if he has some sixth sense to my presence.
The past month he’s sent me warnings in the form of scouts.”

Her lips curled into a bitter twist. “He’s taunting
me, telling me he knows where I am and can take me anytime he
wants.” She pinned Sable with a glare. “I thought you were another
warning.”

She shook her head.

“I know.” Alice played with the tip of the blade, the
knife having reappeared in her lap again. “That he toys with me and
I could not find him tore at me.” A little growl emitted from
between her clenched teeth.

Sable’s shoulders slumped. She’d really hoped for
better news.

“But,” her brown eyes twinkled, “activity has
increased in this last week, he’s growing careless.”

“You think you finally know where he is?”

“I think I do. Tonight there was talk of a vein in
the mountains being guarded by the Bandit.” In that moment her grin
was reminiscent of One Eye’s. Subtle. But chilling.

“I’m not guarding a vein.”

Sable stopped pacing. “Do you think it’s the
Lord?”

“Who is this Lord?” Alice asked with a frown.

Sable told her everything she knew about Dragden and
his seven sources. Of the Lord’s posted to guard them and by the
end of her tale, Alice nodded.

“I do believe,” she said, “we might be searching for
the same thing. I’d like to meet with the rest of your gang, we
must talk and plan. Tomorrow is a new moon; my powers wan and wax
with the growth of the moon. Tomorrow they will be at their
peak.”

“Okay.” She licked her lips. “Let me go find them.
I’ll be right back.”

“Bunny,” Alice said.

She grinned. “It’s not actually Bunny. My name is
Sable.”

“I knew you were not a Bunny.”

Sable snorted. “No.”

“I debated whether to tell you this or not. I’m not
entirely sure it matters, but I think maybe you should know.”

She paused and Sable’s pulse started to pound a
furious beat.

“The dark, blue eyed one, he does not smell at all.”
Alice frowned. “Had I not seen him step from his doorway, I’d have
thought him as human as the other men downstairs.”

“Hunter?”

“If that is his name, yes.” Alice nodded. “I sense no
power in him.”

“That’s not possible. He’s the strongest of us.”

“No. You are. He is something entirely different from
us all.”

It had taken several hours to get to the mountain
range. If it had been just him, he would have probably gotten here
a while ago. But he’d forced the girls to stop and rest as often as
possible. They were kneeling by a stream as clear and unpolluted as
he’d ever seen. Sable was cupping water, her eyes peeled to the
forest.

She might be in human form, but the predator was
never far behind. Hunter and Alice both had warned against
shifting, or using any abilities, hoping to keep the element of
surprise firmly on their side.

Alice had sworn that the Enigma, as she’d called it,
would sense it and flee. They’d talked for hours into the night,
drafting up several scenarios, hoping to cover all bases to ensure
victory this time. Hunter had been fairly certain (and though he
rarely agreed with anything boy scout said, Slayde was too) that
they would only get one chance at this.

Alice had scouted out the location of the Enigma for
years, never coming closer to a clue than now, the gold vein in the
mountain guarded by the black devil. Slayde agreed, it had to be
him.

The sun was just beginning to set over the mountains,
a deep reddish hue colored the night sky, but in the forest it was
already dark. He was surprised the ease with which Sable got
around. He and Arianna were stumbling on exposed roots and bedrock.
She walked like it was smooth flat ground.

Same for Hunter and Alice.

Slayde scooped more of the icy water into his mouth.
Hunter leaned upon a pale white tree, studying the forest. What was
with that dude? He didn’t drink. In fact, Slayde couldn’t remember
a time he actually ever saw him eating.

There had to be some baggage, some flaw. Something.
Because nobody was perfect.

Slayde couldn’t make Hunter out. That, probably more
than anything, irritated the hell out of him.

He swallowed the water, not really tasting it. Hunter
glanced at him, and as if aware that Slayde studied him. He walked
over.

“What do you want?” Slayde drawled.

Hunter knelt down next to him. “She’s only
seventeen,” he said without preamble.

Slayde lifted a brow. “Guess you don’t know
everything after all. She’ll be eighteen tomorrow.”

Hunter cocked his head. “Hmm, I guess you’re right.”
He wore a stupid grin on his face and Slayde clenched his fist
wanting nothing more than to slam it into him and wipe it off.

He glanced at Sable again. She was now standing and
stretching with arms over her head and speaking in low tones to
Alice. Arianna was the furthest from the pack. She was gripping the
base of a tree and looked to be muttering something.

He shook his head, their healer was swiftly becoming
a liability.

“Look.” Slayde reached for a twig, snapping it in
half. “Why don’t you worry about your girl and stop worrying about
mine.” He jerked his head towards Arianna. “She needs a lot more
help than Sable does. Just saying.”

The boy scout flinched for a fraction of a second,
Slayde was shocked to see that something actually bothered the man.
He shook his head. “Thing is, Eric.”

His teeth gnashed. “Don’t call me by that name. You
don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

Hunter’s nostrils flared. “Now’s not the time for
this B.S. You want to scrap, we’ll scrap. But I swear to you,” he
inched his face closer, “you won’t win.”

Slayde didn’t know if it was the lighting, or lack
thereof, but he could have sworn something moved beneath the
surface of Hunter’s face. Like his face was the mask that covered
the real one beneath and whatever it was, it hadn’t looked
human.

“You think I’m scared of you. I’m not. I’ve had
people telling me that my whole life.” Slayde spread his arms. “I’m
still here.”

Hunter didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’m just
telling you to be careful.”

Fire raged in his belly, but he ignored the anger
buzzing through his veins. “I’m not gonna break her heart.” Why had
he said that? That was none of Hunter’s concern.

He narrowed his eyes and stood. Slayde swore he was
going to walk off, but then he paused and glanced down at him. “I
never said you’d be the one to do it.”

He left, leaving Slayde to wonder what that
meant.

Hunter watched her. It was dark as sin out, the time
when monsters came out to play and something was playing with
her.

Arianna was pale, two nights of little to no sleep.
While the rest of them had talked shop, she’d been laying down in
the corner of the room. He knew she’d listened, knew what it was
she was supposed to do. But the thing was, he didn’t trust she had
the stamina for this. She seemed so frail.

No one cared. No one looked after her. They all had
their problems and not enough room to take hers on.

But he saw her.

He clenched his fists.

God, he saw her. He saw everything about her. He saw
the white glow, that at first had been one soul but was now more
and closing in on her. Like the sticky strands of spider webbing,
it wrapped around her. Choking her. Killing her.

He closed his eyes.

He’d thought ignoring her would help. But it hadn’t.
It was making everything worse.

She stumbled hard over a rock and seconds before she
dropped to the ground he was there. He couldn’t stop himself. He
didn’t want to. The touch of her silky soft skin had his body
trembling.

“Synn,” he choked out, wanting to say so much more.
Wanting to tug her into the shelter of his body, wrap her in his
arms and never let go.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. There was still power in her
body, it rolled off her, that crystal resonance so deadly to others
but like a tender caress to him. The scratches on his face, neck,
and back started to seal shut.

“No, you’re not,” he ground out between his
teeth.

The others weren’t that far ahead and must have
heard. They turned to look. He waved them on.

“You need to stay back. Stay here. I’ll go up with
the others and—”

She shoved him off her. Brown eyes glinted back at
him. They used to turn molten when they looked at him, now she
looked ready to claw his eyes out. Her hair was greasy. She hadn’t
washed in days. Why had he neglected her this bad? He grabbed her
elbow, but she jerked out his grip.

“Dejame in paz!” she snapped at him.

“No.” He pulled her back to him. “No. I won’t leave
you. There’s death around you, Synn. I won’t let you do this.”

She curled her lip. “What do you know of death?”

More than she would ever know. He walked with death.
It was his one constant in life.

“Synn, please. Stay here.”

Her dress was stained with black patches of spilled
liquor. She smelled awful, all he wanted to do was wrap her in his
arms and take her away from all of this. He should never have
brought her here. She wasn’t ready. Might never be. Last time her
parents had died she’d healed, she’d mended. With him. Had that
been where he messed up? But it didn’t matter now, because she was
starting at him with hate in her eyes.

“You’ll not take this from me,” she barked out at him
and then bolted like a scared rabbit after the others.

Hunter was left gripping air, her ominous words
echoed through the still woods.

Alice glanced over her shoulder. The black irises
almost completely obscured the brown. “We’re almost here. Do ye
smell him?”

Sable sniffed the air. It smelled of damp leaves and
musk. Not wholly unpleasant, but still she couldn’t stop the
shiver. “No.”

“Ye will.” Alice grabbed a large boulder and stepped
up, a couple of pebbles skidded down the mountain incline.

She scratched the back of her neck and stopped to
peer over her shoulder. Something was watching them. Not human, it
was stalking them actually. She wondered what types of animals
walked these forests.

Running from a predator was a bad idea, but it was
creeping her out. She jogged to catch up to Alice, but she still
felt it watching them. Watching her. Her skin tingled.

“Talk to me,” she said.

Alice looked at her. “About what?”

“About anything. Just take my mind off this.”

“Did you know that the average dog has over two
hundred and twenty million scent receptors?” Alice’s lips quirked.
“Twenty five times more than humans.”

“No.” Sable grinned. “How do you know that?”

Alie tapped her nose. “I don’t just look like what I
shift into; I am what I shift into. That means when someone passes
wind, I smell not only the stench but the beans, tack, and pork
belly they ate to make it.”

“Gross.”

She nodded and shared a small chuckle. “What is your
world like, Sable? Are there differences to what is here?”

Sable slipped on a chunk of rock. Alice grabbed her
by the arm. “Careful, the moss around here can be quite slick as
times.”

“Thanks.” Sable tucked a sweaty strand of hair behind
her ear. Alice didn’t look winded in the slightest. Her breathing
was nice and even, Sable on the other hand was sucking air while
trying not to hyperventilate at the same time.

“My world,” she said after a moment. “Well, you’re
right on the cusp of the first car.”

“Car? What are those?”