Crimson Wind (12 page)

“You know I can’t.”

“Because you want the Nur-dagan tablets back.”

“It’s not that simple. You know that.”

“I know better than to ever trust you again.”

“Enough,” Max said, coming out of the bathroom and tossing her ruined clothes in a pile behind the door. “The divorce is final. You can stop arguing any time now.”

She yawned, reached into the cooler, and pulled out another sandwich and a bottle of Mountain Dew before sitting cross-legged on the bed. The slashes on her face were pink and fading, and her blond hair was slicked tight to her head.

Alexander fished a change of clothes out of his bag and went into the bathroom to shower. It was still full of steam. He set his weapons next to the sink and stripped off the remains of his shirt and pants. He pulled out his cell phone and was about to toss the ruined jeans on the floor when he remembered the amulet.

He drew it out. The back of it was a disk made of smooth gold almost the size of his palm. At the center was a round black diamond larger than a quarter. Set in a circle around it were a series of orange opals. Arrows pointing outward toward the edge were interspersed between like the rays of a sun. Around the rim was inscribed a series of archaic words in a language Alexander did not recognize. They were not traditional Egyptian hieroglyphics. The words spiraled around the back to the center to end at a small eye.

He ran his fingers over it. The metal was warm from his pocket. He sniffed it. It smelled of Divine magic. He turned it over in his fingers and then set it down beside his belongings on the counter. It could allow him to walk in the daytime again. Of course, the only way to test it was to try it, which could mean death if it did not work. Just at the moment, he did not care to die, not with Max thawing out as she seemed to be. Or maybe she was just too tired to know what she was doing.

He groaned his frustration and finished undressing before stepping into the shower. He had wanted time alone with her, and now they were stuck with Valery for the night and Holt for at least another day, if not longer. He reached for the soap.

He was nearly done when he felt Max’s Shadowblade rising. It rolled through the walls like a tide of boiling tar. He shoved the spigot off and pulled his pants on without bothering to dry off.

He pushed open the bathroom door and lunged out into the room. He stopped short. Max was standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the TV. Her mouth was rimmed white, and her body shook.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, searching the room. Holt remained bound, and Valery stood near the wall, smoky magic wreathing her arms. His attention returned to Max. “What is it?”

She began to shake and sway. Alexander caught her around the waist as her eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped.

“Max!”

He laid her down on the bed. Her skin was gray and cold, and the presence of her Shadowblade snuffed out like a candle. Everything inside him seized tight. He reached out to grab her shoulders and stopped himself, instead smoothing his fingers over her forehead. “Valery? What is wrong with her?”

Valery knelt next to Max and held her hands above the prone woman. She closed her eyes as the smoke wreathing her fingers turned silver-green and drifted down over Max. Soon magic cocooned her in a gauzy shell.

A minute passed. Then five. Alexander held himself taut. His hands curled into white-knuckled fists on his knees. Max’s breathing was shallow and quick, and her body was too still.

“What’s happening?” Holt demanded from the couch. He managed to get to his feet and hop awkwardly over to the bed, the witch chain dangling down his back. His gaze narrowed, and his face hardened. “Stop her,” he told Alexander. “Valery’s too tired for this. It’s drawing too much out of her.” His bound hands hovered behind her back like he was going to grab her hair and yank her away.

Alexander studied the woman he considered a sister. She was trembling like a plucked guitar string, and her neck tented with strain as sweat trickled down her flushed cheeks. He hesitated, but then gripped her shoulder. “Stop, Valery. You have done enough.” He hoped.

She gasped and pulled her arms around her stomach. She put her head down on her knees and rocked back and forth, drawing rasping breaths. The smoke cocoon wavered and slowly faded. Beneath it, Max was still gray and waxy. Her eyes were open and dilated to black. She stared unseeing at the ceiling.

“Max? Max!” Alexander gripped her face between his palms and angled her to look at him. She did not respond. She was as rigid and indifferent as a plastic doll.

His fingers knotted in her hair. Unthinking, he picked her up and pulled her tight against him as he sat against the headboard. He held her, stroking her back as he whispered against her ear over and over.

“Hear me, Max. This is the way back. Follow my voice. I am waiting for you.”

Chapter 8

SHE FELT HIM COMING FOR HER BEFORE HE EVER got close. It was like standing on an empty beach watching a towering tsunami rise higher on the horizon.

Every sense went on alert, her body tensing. Her left arm went frigid inside Scooter’s spell. She leaped to her feet. There was a rushing sensation, as if something was flying at her on an invisible gale. She braced herself. Whatever Scooter was up to, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

A funnel cloud swept her mind. It whirled around her, full of glittering magical shrapnel. It flayed her spirit, wrenching her arm. She felt herself tearing loose from her body. She scrabbled to stay, but the shredding wind spun her away.

She was back in the black abyss of her nightmares. The wind died, but she felt a pull, like a rip current. She dug in against it as feral magic descended on her. Yellow blobs swarmed her. Festering poison flooded her, and far away she felt her body shake and collapse. The current twined around her arm and dragged harder at her. The poison of the yellow jellies turned her perception watery. Colors wavered, and the abyss tumbled and spun. Light flared bright and strobed as pain chewed her.

She clawed for a moment of stillness, but the world toppled and whirled. More magic erupted out of the abyss. It looked like a collection of streaking green ribbons. They coiled and knotted, then sprang at her like rattlesnakes. They fastened, and if she could have, she would have screamed as their icy fangs stabbed through to the center of her being.

She flung herself away from the pain and the sense of deep violation, following the drag on her arm along the rip current. As if in reward, the agony ceased, leaving behind an aching throb.

Somewhere at the end of the river carrying her across the abyss between worlds waited Scooter. She had no doubts. What was the bastard doing? He had agreed to wait for her. So what was this? Had he lied?

Fury swept her, and she gathered herself to fling herself in the opposite direction. She stopped as logic grabbed her.

Scooter wouldn’t lie to her. It wasn’t his style. He had a thing for truth. So why was he attacking her?

There was only one good answer. He wasn’t attacking at all. Which meant— Could it be?

The moment the thought struck her, Max knew she was right. Scooter was making a telephone call of sorts. If she could have, she would have rolled her eyes. First thing on her to-do list when she got back to Horngate was to get him a cell phone and put her number on speed dial. She did not need to do this ever again.

Max considered only for a split second before deciding what she had to do. He wanted her alive. To attack her this way must mean he needed to talk to her pretty badly. He obviously couldn’t cross the abyss—weeks of nightmares had proven that. Whatever he wanted had to be important enough to ambush her while awake and threaten her life. He wasn’t going to stop until she answered his call, so she’d better get on it.

She gathered herself and, without another thought, flung herself in the direction of the current. Searing cold slid up her shoulder and spread through her body as she raced through the darkness on a black river. Tatters of magic in a rainbow of colors blurred and ran together as her speed increased.

Ahead, she saw a thin stripe of fluorescent purple running side to side like a horizon line. It thickened and quickly became a wall. It rose abruptly as far as she could see. The current didn’t slow as she rushed toward the barrier. She braced herself and slammed against it.

She expected pain, but instead she was enveloped in a soft warmth. It cradled her, although it did nothing to break the cold grip of Scooter’s spell. She found herself drifting slowly. She no longer felt the pull of the current to guide her.

“Scooter?” she said. Or thought. Who the hell knew in this place? When he didn’t answer, she tried again. “Dammit! I don’t have time for your shit. You called. I came. Now, tell me what the hell you want.”

A tiny blue light bloomed in the purple near Max. It grew larger, and then suddenly Scooter faded into sight. He wore his human guise, except that he was covered in a pattern of red-brown scales. Running through it was a webbing made of thin strands of gold. Each strand of his long hair was limned in gold and floated around him, moving like it had a mind of its own. Only his eyes were the same—that onyx black flecked with bits of shining blue. His shape wavered and steadied. Again, Max wondered what his natural shape was.

“Why is it that every time I even think about sleeping, you have to mess with me? What’s going on?”

“The Guardians are summoning magic through the world webs.”

Max waited. He said no more. Finally, she asked, “Care to expand on that? What are the world webs?”

“The world webs are the ties that bind all of the worlds together in the abyss. This—” He gestured at the purple around them. “This is one strand of the web. That is unimportant. Summoned magic must be used quickly, or it will dissolve back into the web and take with it the strength of the summoners. The Guardians must strike quickly or suffer great harm. For many years, the magic of your world has drained away into the web. The Guardians are drawing it all back and will release it into your world. You are in danger.” He spoke quickly, his expression wooden.

If she’d had a face, Max would have scowled. Like she needed more bad news. “There must be a couple million square miles of world out there, and they plan to conquer it all. What makes you think they’ll come anywhere near me?”

“They will not come to you; you will go to them.”

That caught her up short. “Explain.”

“A major vortex lies in the land you call California. You must hurry.” His voice was taut now.

“How many vortexes are there?”

“Thirty that I have sensed.”

“Thirty? What will they look like? What will the returning magic do?”

He shrugged. “It is wild magic. It will change the face of all. I must go.”

“I’m surprised you’re not trying to drag me back to Horngate before I get into trouble.”

He tipped his head to the side. “I said I will wait for you. You said you will return. Has that changed?”

Talk about the letter of the law. It didn’t leave any room for pesky little complications like death or imprisonment. But if he was willing to ignore such minor details, so was she. “No. I’ll be back.“

“Then farewell.”

With that, he stepped backward and simply vanished. Max stared after him. “How the hell do I get out of here?” she asked the purple emptiness. There was no answer.

She twisted around, searching for a way out. But she could not tell up from down or backward from forward. There was only dense purple.
Fuck
. “Scooter!” He did not answer. The bastard. He warns her about the Guardians and tells her to hurry but then leaves her twisting in the wind. Just like a damned fairy.

Well, she couldn’t stay here forever. She had to pick a direction and go and hope to hell it took her where she wanted to go. Then an idea struck her. She quieted herself, reaching out with all her senses, searching for the thread that still tied her to her body.

Nothing.

But wait—yes. Not the link to her body but something else ….

She listened.
This is the way back. Follow my voice. I am waiting for you.

Alexander. How did he know? But then, he wasn’t remotely stupid, and she’d told him about Scooter.

She pushed in the direction of his words, following his voice like a breadcrumb trail. She slid out of the purple into the abyss between worlds. She thrust her spectral arm out before her, picking up speed as she leaned harder into the direction she wanted to go. His voice became a strand of web that she could almost see. Magic flashed, and she plowed through a flittering orange cloud. Bits of it clung to her like rose petals. She smelled them—sweet like nutmeg and caramel. She drew a breath and felt them flowing inside her.

Her body tingled, and exhilaration flooded her mind. Her body? She could feel it now. It was close. Alexander’s voice was louder, and she could hear its ragged edge. More, she could feel the pressure of his arms around her, his lips whispering against her ear—

Between one moment and the next, she snapped back into herself. She opened her eyes and pushed back from Alexander. He loosened his arms only slightly. His dark eyes were nearly black with fear, and his face was rigid. The power of his Shadowblade filled the room with smothering waves.

“Max?”

“The one and only,” she said, trying to shift herself away. He was too damned close. How was she supposed to stay out of his pants if he insisted on mauling her?

He tightened his grip. “Are you all right?”

She frowned. She felt no pain. She was tired, but not exhausted, not the way she expected to be after her little journey across the abyss between worlds. “I’m fine.”

“What happened to you?”

She shifted, trying to straighten up. He let her, but refused to let her off his lap. His gaze challenged her to fight him. She shrugged inwardly. There was nowhere else she wanted to be at the moment, and she wasn’t in the mood to argue with herself over the subject.

“Scooter called me. His version of a cell phone.”

“Called?” Alexander asked.

“Scooter?” Holt echoed.

Max twisted. Holt had come to his feet off the sofa bed, and Valery sat in a chair with her feet propped on the edge of the nightstand. Her face was pale, and she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

Max turned back to Alexander. “He wanted to warn me. He says the Guardians are opening vortexes all over the world to release magic back into the world. He suggested we might want to light a fire under our asses.”

“Vortexes?” Holt echoed. “What do you mean? Who is Scooter?”

She shrugged. “Scooter is— Hell if I know what he is. I don’t even know his name. He’s powerful, anyhow. He said something about how the Guardians were summoning magic through the world webs, power that drained into them over time from our world.”

Holt made a sound of disbelief, and Max turned to look at him. “That means something to you?”

“They are pulling power from other worlds, other dimensions—it’s like a bottomless well. How much magic they can draw up is limited only by the strength of their summoning. They could draw far more than what this world has lost. It will shake the entire earth—a storm of magic beyond anything you can imagine. You need to let me loose. Valery, this is no place for you. We have to get out of here.”

The witch yawned and shook her head as she stood up. “I wouldn’t cross the street with you, and I’m too damned tired to go on the run today. Somebody wake me when the sun goes down.”

With that, she stood and stumbled around to the other side of the fold-out couch, slipped off her shoes, and crawled under the covers, pulling them up over her head. Holt glared at her. His jaw looked like it might splinter apart, he was clenching his teeth so hard. His lips pulled back like he was going to swear. Then he caught himself and hopped back to the sofa bed. He lay on his back beside her and put his bound hands behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling as if praying for patience.

Max couldn’t help her grin at his annoyance. The man rubbed her up and down the wrong way, not to mention that he’d tried to kill her and Alexander. Normally she didn’t take that sort of thing personally, but his know-it-all superiority reminded her just a little too much of Giselle.

She turned back to Alexander, who was still watching her like the proverbial hawk. She let out a quiet sigh.

“We’d better sleep, too. Make sure Holt is secure, would you? We don’t need him getting loose and killing us in our sleep.”

She waited as he considered. Finally, he gave a short nod and slid out from beneath her. He went to Holt and bound his hands to his waist, then tied the loose end of the chain to the lamp. It would come crashing down and wake everyone if Holt moved much.

He flipped off the lights and turned back to Max on the bed. He stalked toward her, and a chill swept down her arms and curled deliciously up into the pit of her stomach. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his pants hung low on his hips. His stomach and shoulders rippled with muscle beneath skin that looked like pure silk. She wanted to trace each line of him with her fingers, with her tongue. She swallowed, her mouth dry with anticipation and sudden hunger.

He sat down beside her and stretched his legs out in front of him. Wordlessly, he reached for her, pulling her onto his lap. She straddled his legs as he tangled one hand in her hair, his arm coming around her back like an iron bar. He pulled her tight against him. His lips met hers with raw need. There was no gentleness as his mouth slanted over hers and his tongue licked inside. She met him with equal passion, grinding her crotch against his swelling groin as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He made a sound in his throat, and his hands ran down her back and fastened on her hips. He yanked her closer. Spiraling pleasure ran up into her stomach at the friction. She wanted to feel his skin on hers; she wanted his weight pressing her down as he made love to her.

Unexpectedly, he drew back. His breath rasped loudly in his throat. His eyes devoured her. “Much as I want to keep going, we have guests.”

Max leaned close, resting her forehead against his. “This cannot end well. Scooter owns me.”

“But you agree that there is something between us—that
this
is
something?”

She nodded, not letting herself find an excuse. She wanted him so damned bad, and she was tired of pretending she didn’t. “Yeah. This is something.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Thank you.” He kissed her again. It wasn’t as desperate this time. He took his time, nibbling and teasing as his hands slid caressingly over her back. Max gave as good as she got, letting herself taste him. She traced the contours of his shoulders. His skin was hot and satiny soft. Her body ached with need, and she wanted nothing more than to rip off his pants and explore the rest of him. But Valery and Holt were ten feet away, and she wasn’t interested in putting on a show for them.