Ascension (The Gryphon Series) (22 page)

A forceful
yank of her wicked tendril slammed Gabe backward, leaving him sprawled on the ground. His eyes bulged from his reddening face as he clawed at his throat and gasped for air. With a great flourish she flipped the iron rod like a ceremonial baton. Her stare bore holes into me as she lowered the iron …

I felt the swell and didn’t refuse it.

Accepted the change, without thought to the consequences.   

Feathers ruffled and smoothed across my head and down my neck.

A threatening growl rumbled up from my barrel chest.

My tail whipped from side to side, warning of my fury.

Gabe grit his teeth to clamp down a scream as the very edge of the iron scorched a crescent moon into his chest, directly over his heart. Before she could roll her wrist and complete the branding ritual, I spun and reared up on my hind legs. The swipe of one talon knocked the iron from her hand.

Shock widened
her eyes into perfect Os as she reeled back in awe of my new sizable form. “No … it can’t be.”

“Retract your weapon
. Now.” No humanity remained in my deep gravel tremor.

Without hesitation she retracted her coil, allowing Gabe to roll to his side and morph to lion.
“You can’t be here. It’s not possible.”

Auburn waves bounced over her shou
lders as she shook her head in a meager attempt to deny my new formidable stature. Her gaze pulled to the right, homing in on her possible escape route before she gathered the courage to try for it. With one step forward I squashed that idea. Panic drained her milky complexion ashen. Her mouth open and shut but failed to form a sound as she backpedalled, eager for distance between us. Her hooves betrayed her by tangling beneath her, sending her tumbling to the ground. By the time her rump met the pavement she had reverted to her two-legged state. The fall didn’t slow her. Immediately she began dragging herself away from me in a desperate crab crawl.

All this time. All the venom within her, and all it took was being face to face with the same kind of creature that slaughtered her village to shatter her icy façade.
For a brief moment the girl buried deep within the malevolent schemer appeared—and she was terrified.

I lowered
my beak to my chest and arched my wide neck in a predatory hunch as I stalked after her with slow, deliberate strides. A pained yelp escaped her trembling lips as the tips of her fingers found the edge of Terin’s blockade.

End of the line.

“There are two ways that your army will retreat: by you calling them off or by your head rolling.” I pressed one talon to her chest and applied just enough pressure to pin her to the ground and hold her there. “Let go of the hate. It’s not too late. Call them off, Audrina.”

The woman I held at my mercy had brought me unlimited torment and anguish, yet this moment held no triumph. Only sadness at the darkness that
had slithered into this once innocent soul. Its roots had twisted so deeply that no healing light could ever reach her wounds that had festered centuries ago.

Bloody tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as her face twisted in a mask of hate. “You took
everything
from me. Hate is all I have left.”

“Then you’re already dead
,” I whispered and pulsed one hooked claw straight down—directly into her heart.

Her breath lodged
in her throat, but couldn’t find its way past her parted lips. Expecting a mystical counterattack, I tensed as her shaky hand reach for me. Instead, the tips of her fingers gently stroked the side of my down covered cheek. As life tugged free the ribbon of the ties that bind, Audrina sought solace in the memory of a once dear friend.

Cautiously, I bowed my head t
o hers. Our foreheads pressed together as we listened to the soft symphony of her slowing heartbeat.

“I am so very sorry, my friend … my sister.”
It may have been me that uttered that final goodbye, but the message came from a linked third that ached for his own closure.

With her last,
gasped breath she forced out three final words, “I … hate you.”

Her hand fell from my cheek, leaving it cold in the absence of her touch, as her body disintegrated in a
gush of black tar.

The soldiers she left behind
took advantage of the opportunity and blinked away in puffs of smoke. Some fled before they could meet the same fate as their leader, while others claimed their long withheld freedom the moment it was offered. No one followed or gave chase, but gaped—as I did—and questioned if it was possible this was truly
over
.

Exhaustion set in fast, zapping my strength with the same unstoppable pull of the setting sun. Yet
, my work wasn’t done. Grams still balanced on the edge of life and death and I was the only one that could ease her down from that precipice. Before fatigue and the tolls of my injuries could claim their spoils, I dragged myself to Gram’s side and curled up beside her. With one wing draped over her fallen form, I channeled all the love I felt for this amazing woman and let it pour out of me in a glow that rivaled Terin’s brightest inferno. I gave her all my love, strength, and power—all of
me
—and slowly slipped into oblivion.

Chapter
28

Floating. Bobbing. No longer limited by the strict constraints of time or space.

Was I here?

There?

Did it matter?

I was still alive. I’d figured that much out by popping back into my body from time to time. Quick stops, like visits to the local Quik-e-Mart made only out of necessity. I never stayed long. It was excruciatingly painful and smelled funny … yet another similarity to the Quik-e-Mart.  Instead I drifted, lost in a fantastical journey where the past, present—and, heck, maybe even the future—spun me in a dizzying waltz.

The
smells of the forest surrounded me. Floral and pine intermingled. Every color in the rainbow was represented in the collection of wildflowers that peppered the soil. It seemed that the trees, in their massive size, had taken a step back to give their tiny friends a place to prosper.

Foliage rustled to my right.
A comically large black wolf trotted out of the tree line. When he reached my side, he flopped down on his butt and leaned his chin to my chest. A soft whimper snuck from his muzzle as his glowing red eyes drooped with sadness. “I’m sorry, Cee,” the beast whined in Gabe’s voice. “I tried to stop Grams. I really did. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

I scratched behind his ears
, causing his leg to thump his appreciation. “Silly boy, you’re a lion not a wolf.”

His long tongue lobbed out between menacing canines
in a manic grin. “The only difference between a lion and a wolf is that the wolf kills under night’s dark veil to hide the pleasure he takes in it.”

“
How ominously creepy!” I giggled and held up a stake that had suddenly appeared in my hand. Burned into the grain of its smooth sanded sides were the words
Cerberus mors sequitur.
“Want the stick? Go get the stick!”

I threw
it overhand into the tree line. The monstrous pup bounded to his feet before floating after it in a ghostly haze of black. 

Towering trees snapped and creaked in protest as torrential winds kicked up and forced them to bow in half. My feet were blown out from under me. I
pinwheeled through the air.
Leaves, sticks, and an overturned umbrella cycloned around me.
Riding in the umbrella, like it was their own little boat, sat a leprechaun and a parrot locked in a heated debate.

“The Counc
il Master granted me amnesty. Her own father is allowin’ me tah return with her,” the leprechaun boasted.

“Well,”
the parrot snarled and shoved his wing on his hip in a show of indignance, “isn’t
that
convenient. Now I get why you
insisted
on the pact and didn’t even attempt to talk her out of her daft plan. You knew if she did something stupid she’d win herself a one way ticket to the Spirit Plane with you right there beside her.”

The wee little man’
s face reddened as his bushy brow furrowed. “Thar’s more to this than that and ya know it.”

“Oh, I’m very well aware of your motivations,
lad.
Noble
as they are.” The brightly colored bird spat the word ‘noble’ as if it left a bitter taste on his pointed little tongue.

“And
ya’r an expert on nobility, are ya?” The leprechaun’s three-inch chest puffed in anger.

The parrot stretched one wing out and turned the tip inward to admire the brilliant colors of his
own feathers. “It’s easy to play the part of the hero when ya set the stage yourself. Isn’t it, mate? I’ve played that game. I know the score. But remember that every time you gather her in your arms and hold her tight I’ll be out here waiting … and biding my time.”

The scenery changed again.
I succumbed to the wind as it whirred around me then stilled with an abrupt halt that sent me stumbling to regain my footing.

Before me the sun raised its head to the day in a celebratory explosion of perfect pinks, warm yellows
, and streaks of brilliant orange as it burned away the light fog that settled over the sleeping earth. This provided a magical backdrop for the sprawling estate before me. I stared at the modern day castle with a soft grey stone façade, Colonial blue peaked and tiered roof, and acres of perfectly manicured lawn and flawless flowerbeds that surrounded it.
 

The
grand front door opened and out rushed a tuxedo clad Gryphon. Light burned within him, illuminating his amber eyes, as he peered down at me through his monocle. “I regret us meeting like this, my Conduit, but I am so very proud of you. If there is anything at all I can do to make your stay here more comfortable, please just speak the words.”

I hooked my index finger in the curl of his beak and turned his massive head one way then the other. My lips pursed as I consider him. “I’ve
never played
Parcheesi
, but you strike me as someone that would be an excellent
Parcheesi
player. I bet you hear that all the time.”

The light in his gaze brightened to near blinding. I tried to raise my arms to shield myself, but found them both secured to a stainless steel operating table in a stark white hospital room. In the corner the Gryphon and Phoenix sat cross-legged on the floor playing with their Conduit action figures. Terin’s was a good likeness; mine looked like a cross-dresser. The light danced before me as my father ducked into view clad in a miner’s hat and lab coat. He removed the top of my head like plucking off a cap and set in on the table beside him.

Snatching a
tongue depressor from his breast pocket, he gently poked at my grey matter. “I don’t understand. The transformation and journey here
was
stressful, but her mind just seems … broken. I had hoped bringing you here would ease the transition a bit.”

Caleb stood beside the bed with my still beating heart in his hands.
“With all due respect, Mr. Garrett, I love ya’r daugh’r more than anything.” He punctuated each sentence by casually tossing my heart in the air and catching it in his cradled hands. “I never knew true peace until I found it in ‘er eyes. But if ya think I’m enough fer her ya really don’t know her at all. You and ya’r wife gave her deep rooted family ties. The physical scars of what transpired will fade. It’s bein’ torn from all those she holds dear, without even a goodbye, that shattered ‘er.”

Dad
tugged my brain from my head, blew the dust off of it, and polished it clean with the sleeve of his jacket. “How do we help her? We can’t undo what’s been done.”

“
I can,” the Gryphon rumbled as he used his formidable talon to replace toy Celeste’s arm that snapped off in a rough slap fight with the plastic Gabe-lion. “I could bind her powers. They wouldn’t be gone, but dulled down to practically nil. A cloaked reality could give a fresh start to all involved. It wouldn’t be a permanent fix, as soon as she remembers what she is she’ll have to come home, but for a little while she could have the normal life she so desires.”

Another set change, this time of a court room with the Gryphon at the gavel and Caleb beside me as my public defender.
“Do it.” Enthusiasm brightened his emerald eyes, making the golden highlights sparkle.

“
Do not be so quick to make that request, boy. She will have no memories of you, or you of her. Whatever you feel for each other now will be lost.”

“
For a tick.” Caleb’s strong jaw set in stern determination. “Then I’ll find her and make her fall in love with me all over again.”

My father gave the Irishman an approving smile from the jury box.

“You know it will be brief?
” The Gryphon adjusted the powder white wig that slid down over his feathered forehead. “Her abilities will make it impossible for her to stay there. Once they break through the binding, her reprieve will be over.”

Caleb
tipped his head back to meet the creature’s gaze directly. “She needs this. Even if it only lasts fer a day, grant it to her. Please.”

My father raised his hand and the Gryphon nodded his permission for him to speak. “What of Gabe? The iron touched him. How will we know if it was enough to infect him?”

“Time will tell. If so he will be a problem that must be eradicated.” The Gryphon raised his gavel, seemingly oblivious to the panic-stricken reaction that robbed my father’s face of its color.

“
Wait!” The room exploded with light as the Phoenix, in customary bailiff attire, approached the bench. “Old friend, I beg of you … take my Conduit as well. I could never offer her an option such as this and she is more than deserving.”

The Gryphon dipped his
head in a formal bow. “A noble request I would be honored to fulfill.” The feathers across his face ruffled and smooth as he held his head high to address the room. “Say your goodbyes, my friends, temporary as they may be. The Conduits shall be granted one more chance at a future ... and whatever it may bring.” The gavel fell and the lights blinked out.