The Egg (Return of the Ancients Book 4) (2 page)

From the corner of my eye, I could see that Al was still with me, standing tall in his army fatigues with his arms crossed and his booted feet splayed wide apart. But his mouth had fallen slightly open and there was no sign of recognition in his eyes.

My heart sank.

Apparently, the Faraday Cap
wasn’t
strong enough to resist the power of the Mesmers’ voices, after all.

Feeling Rafael shift beneath my hand, my eyes dropped to meet his eye-lined gray ones. I wanted to run my fingers through his blond hair and tell him that I loved him one last time before I was forever lost to the Mesmers.

I had expected to see Rafael lying there, white-faced and ill from the iron blade that Jareth had embedded in his chest just moments before. But he didn’t look hurt at all. In fact, a healthy glow suffused his handsome face. And as his expressive eyes locked onto mine, I could read the reassurance in them.

It took me a moment to notice that he still wore Jareth’s protection rune about his neck. But the stone hadn’t turned to ash like the others. It was glowing vibrantly. In fact, several strands of blue light arced out of it to bathe the wound on Rafael’s chest.

Or where the wound had been.

Only moments ago, he’d been bleeding profusely, but as I watched, the last bit of skin closed over. Several smaller strands of light had already turned their attention to his shirt, sewing the seam shut better than any sewing machine ever could have.

I stared numbly.

It could only mean that Rafael still had faith in Jareth. But even more importantly, it meant that Jareth was still protecting
him
.

There
was
hope?

Then why had Jareth thrown the knife and injured Rafael in the first place if he hadn’t joined the Brotherhood after all?

Feeling like I was submerged underwater, I faced Jareth.

He looked sick. His skin was white and his eyes screwed tightly shut.

“Jareth,” I said as loud as I could in my head, hoping he would sense the thoughtforms forming over my head and get the message. “We’re here for you. Don’t leave us. Don’t join them. We’re your true family!”

Melody stepped forward.

For an evil mastermind, she was stunningly beautiful. She looked like a high fashion model ready for the catwalk, flawless, wearing a designer suit with her platinum blonde hair falling down her back in long spiral curls. I remembered rescuing her when she was an old woman in a wheelchair. I hadn’t known then that she was the enemy. Why, oh why, had I helped her?

“Finish your task as I have commanded, Jareth,” she spat, apparently unaffected by whatever the Mesmers were doing. “If you continue to resist me, the pain will only worsen and you will die. I will not stop it. Not until you do as I bid. Remember, you are my creation, shaped to serve my will and my will alone!”

Jareth choked and fell to his knees, sweat glistening on his forehead. “I am not your puppet,” he ground out through clenched teeth. His words were slow, as if he were fighting a battle to say each one.

Blondie’s red eyes bored into Melody’s and his voice deepened into a tone impossible to resist. “Sleep.”

Even though he wasn’t talking to me, I was still tempted to close my eyes and do as he said. Through half-closed lids, I saw an expression of pure hatred cross Melody’s face as her cold blue eyes swept over Blondie and Marquis in disdain.

“Oh, it was useful, for a time, to allow you to
think
you could consume my light to control or harm me. A simple enough matter to fake. But I am immune to your tampering,” she said, her ruby lips parting in a derisive smile. “It was one of the first things I made sure of, before delivering those hideous chupacabra bodies to you.”

I recalled seeing her as an old shriveled woman hunched in a wheelchair. Rafael and his mother, Zelphie, had worked hard to heal her, thinking she’d been injured by the Lizard People. So, it had all been a sham from the very beginning.

Blondie snarled in alarm. “Then, you
are
a traitor.”

Melody’s contemptuous gaze flickered over Blondie’s small shriveled body. “And you are a fool. Did you really believe I labored all of those years to create your Body of Kings? The chupacabra is a more fitting shell for the likes of you. Yes, Jareth’s body is truly what you seek, but it will never be yours.”

Blondie’s red eyes glowed with hate, and he flattened his one remaining ear.

At his side, Marquis scowled, his eyes morphing into lizard slits.

But then Jareth staggered to his feet and took a step towards Melody. “Then for what purpose did you create me, Melody?” he asked, his teeth remaining clenched the entire time.

Even in my lethargic state I could tell he was in extreme pain.

He didn’t look well at all.

Marquis and Blondie exchanged looks of concern, and then Blondie hopped down from the pastry case to block Jareth’s path.

“Your body is destined to be mine,” the Mesmer whispered defiantly, sniffing Jareth’s feet and legs with the interest of a predator. His voice softened then, deepening into its most convincing as he added, “You stand at the door, lizardling. Do not hesitate. Accept us. We are your brothers.”

Melody laughed outright, a low sound, dripping with scorn. “Jareth can never be yours to possess,” she said with caustic amusement. “You can never possess one of your own. He’s a true Mesmer as much as you are. And a Mesmer at my command.”

“No!” both Jareth and Blondie screamed at the same time.

“His body is mine!” Blondie screeched, looking very much like a rabid dog. “I
will
walk in the Body of Kings, and I
will
roam Earth once again as I was meant to!”

“No,” Jareth choked under his breath, ignoring the frenzied Mesmer at his feet. “I am
not
your puppet, Melody.” He took a couple of steps closer to her before stopping as an expression of pure pain entered his dark eyes, eyes blazing with a raging fire.

Melody didn’t seem too perturbed. “Are you not mine to dangle on a string?” she asked, her ruby red lips forming another smile. It was a disturbing smile. “Perhaps this will convince you.” Her voice reverberated through the coffee shop as she ordered, “Kill Rafael as I have programmed you to do. And kill him properly this time. Your first attempt was ludicrous. I will not tolerate any further mistakes.”

I gasped. It made sense. I’d stumbled across Melody doing something to Jareth before, things he could never remember. She was controlling him.

But how?

From the corner of my eye, I saw Al wandering aimlessly in Melody’s direction. His usual alert blue eyes still disturbingly vacant. I wanted to tell him to get out of the way. I didn’t want him to get hurt. But my lips didn’t seem connected to my brain any longer. I could only keep my fingers crossed that everyone would continue to ignore him.

Jareth’s right hand lifted and another knife appeared in it. A wicked-looking knife with a long, curved iron blade.

“No!” he gasped in alarm, staring at his raised hand in horror. With his other hand, he clawed at his fingers, trying to free the knife. “I will
not
harm him. You won’t control me this time!”

He winced and ground his teeth together, biting back a scream.

Melody was torturing him.

I wanted to stop it, but I couldn’t move. None of us could. Well, technically, the Mesmers could, but they apparently had no interest in keeping Rafael alive, so they just stood by and watched, some grinning with amusement.

“Do it,” Melody said calmly. “Otherwise you will die. It is your life or his now. I have activated your internal self-destruction system. You feel it now, don’t you?”

Jareth closed his eyes and spoke, this time, his voice sounded weak, drained of all emotion and energy. “So be it, but I will not harm him. I will not allow you to control me. Not again.”

Rafael moved beneath my hand still resting upon his chest, desperately battling to raise himself but he failed in the attempt. He did, however, manage to actually talk. “Stop this madness, Melody!” he gasped. “We will heal the darkness in your soul, find you the proper treatment—”

Melody’s perfect mouth formed a small, surprised ‘o’ as she surveyed Rafael and interrupted, “Treatment? Am I ill, Rafael? If you wish to live, you should run. If you can. You know as well as I do that Jareth never misses.” She cocked a brow at Jareth then and her eyes hardened. “Do it, Jareth, and be quick. Why give your life up for him?”

“No!” Jareth choked in a strangled voice, even as his hand rose once again, taking aim at Rafael.

It was then, with that blank expression, Al woodenly lifted his cap from his head. All at once, his stilted mannerisms fell away, and in a flash, he tossed the Faraday cap over Melody’s blonde curls and slapped her across the back with one of his big hands.

Caught off-guard, she lost her balance and pitched forward, landing on her knees.

Al hadn’t been ensnared by the Mesmers after all.

It all happened quickly.

Melody’s control over Jareth vanished, along with the lethargy entrapping us all. As I realized that
Melody
had been hypnotizing us somehow, I saw the knife in Jareth’s hand disappear in a flash as he whirled upon the Mesmers, ordering them back.

In one swift motion, Rafael sprang to his feet and lunged towards Melody.

I leapt up and grabbed Al, pulling him back as Jareth turned on the Fae Protectors and uttered one word in a voice as impossibly deep as Blondie’s had been, “Awake!”

“No!” Melody was screaming, a genuine fear flickering in her eyes. “Kill him, Jareth. If you do not obey my command
you will die!
You cannot die! Not yet!”

Blondie and the Mesmers began to back away as the Fae Protectors shook their heads, getting their bearings.

Jareth turned to the Tulpa perched at the edge of the dark hole in the center of the room. 
“Go back where you belong, you hell-spawned creature!” he thundered.

Immediately, the dark hole in the center of the room collapsed upon itself, pulling the Tulpa back into the yawning maw of darkness and swallowing it whole.

The Mesmers wailed and hissed, and then with a growl, Blondie fled. The rest of the Mesmers followed, scrabbling up the walls to disappear back into the white ceiling tiles. They left Marquis standing there, alone, next to the pastry display. For being members of a ‘brotherhood’, they didn’t seem very loyal.

I stood there, clenching Al’s hand tightly, too stunned to even blink.

Surprisingly, we’d won.

It was a reprieve, for however long it would last.

But then Melody turned on Rafael and Al, her chin trembling in anger. “You
fools!
You’ve killed him. All those years of work. Lost! You have destroyed my weapon. You cut my communication with him at the most critical of times, and now it’s too late for me to stop the final sequence!”

As Rafael’s brows knit into a frown, Jareth gave a gurgling scream.

It was a horrible sound, a sound I’ll never forget.

He stood there a moment, writhing in pain as dark scales consumed every inch of his flesh. And then the scales disappeared and he turned deathly white. He wavered a moment and then collapsed.

Rafael was there to catch him as he fell, lowering him quickly to the floor as the Fae Protectors finally shook off the last effects of their Mesmer-induced sleep and began to move.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Melody and Marquis disappear in a cloud of mist, but none of it mattered right now.

Jareth looked mortally ill. His breath came in short, shallow gasps.

“What is it?” I heard myself ask as I dropped to my knees by Rafael’s side. “What did she do to him?”

I’d seen Jareth go unconscious after Melody had touched him before, but nothing like this.

“I don’t know,” Rafael said in a very low, very grim voice that made me very scared. There was an edginess about him that I’d never seen before as he placed a long finger against Jareth’s neck.

I watched the firm line of Rafael’s jaw tighten as he crouched over Jareth’s unconscious body and cupped his hands together. A glowing ball of light appeared. With his brows drawn in concentration, he murmured soft words I couldn’t understand. The glowing ball grew, expanding to encompass Jareth’s prone form in a soft golden bubble.

As Al knelt beside me, his brows knitting into a frown, I was dimly aware of the Fae Protectors forming a protective circle around us.

The golden bubble surrounding Jareth popped.

Rafael gasped, a huge intake of breath, and his gray eyes registered an alarm that filled me with fear.

Holding my breath, I searched Jareth’s face.

His dark lashes were closed. As I watched, his chest heaved with a shaking, soft sigh. Once. And then stilled.

I waited.

We all waited.

Thoughts raced in my head. Thoughts I didn’t want to acknowledge.

In the distance, I heard the wail of a police siren.

There was no denying that he looked dead. Briefly, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see his still form. He couldn’t really die, could he? Surely, the Fae had advanced technology to deal with such things.

But one look at Rafael’s defeated and shocked expression and I knew.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.

Tears burnt my lashes. Everything was hopeless. I was never going to conquer my Blue Thread.

Rafael had failed.

Jareth had died.

Jareth had
really
died.

Chapter Two – Déjà Brew

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t shed the tears that threatened. I didn’t know how.

I just listened to the sirens growing louder before they gradually receding in the distance and wondered what emergency they’d gone to.

Rafael reached out and then his hand stilled, hovering over Jareth a moment before dropping to rest on the top of his dark head in a brotherly caress.

The gesture spoke volumes. He really cared for Jareth. Deeply.

Rafael looked up at the Fae Protectors, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. With the muscle on his jaw clenched so tight he could barely speak, he ordered, “Take him back to Avalon. At once.”