Exhale (6 page)

Jack leaned forward. “What did you see?”

Gavin sighed. “Nothing, mate. Couldn’t balance the Elements.”

“Your Air’s working overtime. I can see it in your yellow aura. You’re thinking too hard.” He stabbed his temple with an index finger. “Give the other three Elements a chance to shine. Being a Sentinel requires frequent and consistent use of the entire package, my man. Weave ‘em all together, and use ‘em like you were born to.”

Gavin frowned. “You’re telling me I really
can
be in two places at once?”

Jack shrugged. “Sure. You can go into the Dreaming while you sleep, right? All you have to do to access the other world while you’re in Realis is flip a switch. Though very few Sentinels have mastered the ability to influence one place or the other while in that dual state of awareness.

“If you have a lot of time and patience, once you get that switch working, you can also track information and events through the Dreaming.” Jack’s eyes glinted in the darkness.

Gavin rested arms on his knees. “How?”

“This shit is so cool.” The way Jack’s shoulders jerked as he rubbed his hands together reminded Gavin of his favorite grammar school teacher who used to immerse himself in every lesson. “You’ve seen the overlay before, right? The way the Dreaming transposes over Realis?”

“Yeah, a few times.”

“If you look closely in the Dreaming, superfine filaments link people, places, and times together. Think of it like a spider web. Each action a person makes—in the Dreaming and Realis—creates a unique, thread-like connection to a time and place.”

Jack pulled a length of imaginary string between his fingers. “The Aboriginals call those connections Songlines. They map out the past, present, and future of every sentient being. With a lot of patience, you can follow the course of a Songline to any time and place the person has ever been. Or will be.”

Holy shit. Imagine all the things he could find out. “That’s how Yileen was able to see into the future.”

“Bingo.”

Gavin sent his unsettled gaze into the darkness. Yileen must have foreseen Zoe sacrifice her Water to save the Dreaming in the fight with the Fyres. He had to have seen his own death too, and the ripples of change that followed as a result.

Including Gavin being chosen as the Sentinel leader. Yileen had pulled his strings like a puppet master.

“Tracking Songlines can be as complex as neurosurgery. Even more so.” Jack paused, as if searching for the right words. “See, the lines of the past are already laid, but the present and future ones can shift without notice. If you followed a Songline forward, and something in the present caused the stream of events to change course, you could receive false information based on the wrong future. The farther into the future you go, the less reliable the information.”

While all this was great to know, right now, the future was the least of his worries. Keeping watch over Zoe in the present offered a much bigger challenge.

Tingles of electricity shot through Gavin’s skin. Dreamsense.

Jack scratched his chin. “Hey, man?”

Rubbing the Sentinel tattoos covering his arms, Gavin glanced at him. “What?”

“There’s a Fyre Elemental behind you.”

“Shit!” He sprang to his feet and spun around.

An Amazonian woman with biceps the size of his thighs met him eye for eye. Flames rippled off her skin and orange hair. The easy upward curve of her lips suggested she wanted to take her time with him. A beautiful menace.

Reaching through the gardens with his Dreamsense, he plotted all movement on a grid inside his head. Jack…there he was, right behind him. And another Fyre somewhere in the darkness.

The woman stepped forward, dark veins pulsing through her red aura to a heartbeat rhythm. “
You’re
the new leader of the Sentinels?” She rested hands on her hips and laughed, a grating rasp. “You don’t look like much.”

She shoved him. He stumbled back.

Shit. This was guaranteed to get ugly. “Yeah, but I can do some wicked Water tricks.”

Crunch.
Jack appeared on his left. The idiot bit into something…an apple?

The Fyre pulled her lips back in a wolfish grin. “Your pretty head’s gonna look nice mounted on Archelemental Eidan’s wall.”

Gavin hauled in a big breath and turned to Jack. “Hey, mate, not to criticize, but maybe a little help here?”

“Dude, I’m enjoying the show.” Jack smiled and chewed around the words. “I wanna see what you got.”

“Me too.” The Fyre held up a hand, and it burst into flame. She swatted at Gavin, lightning fast.

He staggered left, barely dodging the blow. Shit, he’d never seen one move like that. Then again, he’d mostly fought Fyres in the Dreaming, not Realis. Made sense they’d be stronger in their native environment.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he ran through his list of options: fight or run. That was pretty much it.

“A Sentinel’s best defense lies in reflex.” A mouthful of Golden Delicious garbled Jack’s words. “Don’t sit around planning how you’re gonna take a Fyre down. Do what comes naturally. The Dreaming chose you for your inherent abilities. You’re attuned to the Elements. Let your subconscious take the wheel. God
damn
, this is a mighty tasty apple.”

The Fyre spat and lunged at Gavin with both arms forward. The fury in her eyes was unmistakable. He mentally braced himself to fight, but all his physical gauges went haywire, pointing nowhere.

He froze. His mind screamed to get the hell out of the way, but his muscles refused to cooperate. The Elemental flashed a fanged smile and came at him. He was two and a half seconds away from a month-long holiday in the burn unit when a blur of motion dislocated his senses.

Jack’s arm swung out and sliced a gash into the thing’s throat, just as the other Fyre made an appearance to Jack’s left. Jack’s arm had become a transparent, watery…sword?

What the fuck? Only Elementals could pull shit like that.

Right?

A hiss of steam sprayed from her neck like a boiling kettle, and the female shrieked an unholy curse. The second Fyre, a male, lost its momentum when his throat met Jack’s other liquid hand. Unearthly animal-like screeches scorched the air.

Stunned, Gavin watched, unable to help, unable to
move
, for Christ’s sake. Jack wasn’t a big man by any stretch, yet he stood between the two Fyres, strangling them in a watery death grip as they sputtered, howled, and swore. Through clenched teeth, the bloke said, “Wanna see something funny?”

“I wasn’t expecting a comedy routine tonight, but since I’m here…”

The Fyres continued pawing at Jack like blood-crazed lions. Every time they made contact with his skin, steamy sizzles feathered up into the night, along with painful screams. Their red auras darkened.

Jack smiled.

Then he let go.

They went at each other like feral cats in a potato sack.

The Fyres burst into one big, writhing ball of flame. Jack folded his arms over his chest and watched the show. The bloke hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Unable to resist the lure of Fire, the two creatures fought viciously until the female overcame the male and cannibalized him in an explosion of energy. Must’ve been newbies. Young Fyres tended to have less control of their Element than older ones. Falling into a Fire frenzy made them more dangerous because they were unpredictable.

Jack slid the back of a hand across his mouth, then turned to him. The new and improved Fyre, which was now more flaming monster than a human impersonator, slunk toward Gavin, its black eyes full of murder.

“Your turn,” Jack said.

Bloody hell. Gavin sized up the fucker, and rubbed the sweat from his eyes. Twice the size, twice the Fire.

Okay, he could do this. He shifted his weight.

Water. He needed Water. If Zoe had been here…

The Fyre leaped at him, red lava dripping from its fangs. Blood rage having possessed it, the beast wouldn’t take prisoners. He somehow managed to dodge the thing by a hair’s breadth, but the new model’s reflexes were faster, and it recovered in a split second. Hatred seethed from its pores as it dove at him again.

Too fast. Gavin took a hit full-on and slammed onto his back. The earth sighed under him with the impact. Grasping for something—anything to give him an advantage—he tapped into his emergency Water reserves, pulling hydrogen and oxygen from his cells and forcing their molecules to his skin. The thing on top of him snarled as Water oozed from his pores, but it wasn’t enough. The Fyre didn’t budge.

He closed his eyes and let instinct take the reins.

His Dreamsense searched for Zoe’s song.

Water gurgled inside him.

The dark landscape shivered and shifted, and he fell into an ether-like realm. Trapped in either a fever dream or the Dreaming itself, he lost track of space. He zeroed in on her Songline, snatched it, and held on tight as it pulled him to her.

Though his skin burned, he no longer felt it. There was only Zoe, a cool drink of water on a scorching hot day. Her flowery scent filled his nose. His head spun.

A crackling roar returned his thoughts to the present. Grounded in Realis but halfway to Who-Knew-Where in the Dreaming, he took Zoe’s dream body into his arms and stroked her back as she rested against his chest. They floated on a cloud. Her hair tickled his nose. It was softer than he remembered.

“You’re back,” she whispered, nuzzling into his neck and running her fingers over his arm. “I missed you.”

He clutched her tighter. If this was the end, he would exit through Death’s open door with only her on his mind. As long as he had a little piece of Zoe to keep him company, an eternity in hell might not be half bad.

A dam burst inside, the explosion of Water so strong, the ripple effect shook his bones. Liquid cool spread from the center of his soul out, out, out…

A bloodcurdling scream tore him away from Zoe and pitched him fully into Realis.

Chest heaving and covered in sweat, he opened his eyes.

His clothes were drenched. Trees spat water like pissed off clouds evicting slacker raindrop tenants.

A fine sheen of humid air covered his skin. Chirping crickets tweeted. Jack cut off his view to the calm, starlit sky above. Peering down through a mop of graying hair with a pleased grin plastered to his face, Jack said, “Now, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Gavin accepted the outstretched hand before him. On his feet before he could think to stand, he scanned the waterlogged gardens. No signs of Fyres or evidence there had even been a struggle. “Where did it go?”

“Express elevator to Incendius, it would seem. You lobbed one hell of a water bomb from your chest. Shit, you didn’t even leave any ashes.” The lines in Jack’s face deepened as he laughed. “You look like a man with a secret weapon. Who’s the girl?”

Gavin caught a trace of flowery Zoe wafting through the air. He dragged her scent into his lungs, dusted himself off, and wiped an arm across his brow. “None of your business.”

He’d actually been with her for a moment.

Fucking hell. He really
could
be in two places at once.

“Guy, then?”

Gavin rolled his eyes.

Jack laughed again. “Fair enough.”

“You let that thing attack me, you bastard.”

“I wouldn’t have let it kill you.” Jack perked up and sniffed about like a bloodhound hot on a trail.

“Oh, that’s comforting.”

“Got the job done, didn’t it?”

Gavin gave him his middle finger.

“Tough love.” Jack shrugged.

“How about a little warning next time you decide to take a holiday in the middle of a fight?”

Jack’s face froze in a mask of horror. “Shit.”

Gavin tensed, searching the trees, the grass, and shadows for another intruder. “What is it?”

“I lost my apple.”

Relief washing over him like a bath, Gavin rubbed his eyes and exhaled. He dropped to the ground, rested elbows on knees, and glanced up at Jack. “First the Fyres were all over me in the Dreaming. Now I’ve got them crawling up my arse in Realis. How the fuck do I get rid of these bastards? Those two nearly killed me. Imagine facing an entire army.”

Jack stared into the darkness. “When the time comes, the other Sentinels will help. But you’re gonna need Water. Lots of it.” He lowered his gaze to Gavin. “Know where you can score, like, an ocean’s worth?”

All roads led back to Zoe.

Protecting her from the Fyres had proven hard enough, but putting her directly in their path? He didn’t want her involved in this.

On the other hand, without the Water he’d just conjured from contact with her in the Dreaming, he wouldn’t be breathing right now. With her standing beside him, the two of them could take out twenty of the fuckers.

He sighed. “I know where to get Water. But it’s not gonna be easy.”

Chapter Five

Zoe and her coworkers zipped over the turquoise waves, the Zodiac rising and dipping with the sea, its engine
chugga-chugging
. The sun beamed down warm and bright without a single cloud to taint its mood, and a cool breeze blew, taking the edge off the heat.

If her workplace environs weren’t spectacular enough, she had a number of other things to be grateful for. Randy had left for New Zealand that morning, a
real
reporter from the paper had called for an interview, she’d left Eerie Iri at home to do fluke IDs for the day, and Hervey Bay was literally jumping with whales.

Life couldn’t be better.

“I wish I could bottle days like this.”

Her best friend, Adriene, sprawled across the small white bench on the bow, her broken leg in a cast propped on the bumper. With a hand shielding her eyes, she watched for whale blows. Dani and Elizabeth, also searching the horizon, rode in back with Zoe, their ponytails whipping in the wind.

“Ten o’clock,” Adriene shouted over the racing engine. Zoe had seen it too. She slowed the boat and changed course. Three short, bushy blows. Humpbacks. After all these years, she still got excited every time she got close to them.

Zoe turned to the girls behind her, a smile cracking her lips. “Who wants first dibs?”

Dani shot a guilty look at her lover, Elizabeth.