Storm Kissed (44 page)

Fog. Urgency. The sight of Iago rearing back to jam the gape-jawed end of the serpent staff into his face.
Shit!
He skidded off the throne bare seconds before the blow landed with a crack of stone-on-stone. He hit hard, rolled . . . and came up holding the black star demon. He didn’t remember grabbing the statuette, but the familiar shape was suddenly there. Confidence flared through him. Arrogance. The utter conviction that he was doing what he was meant to do, what he was born to do. The spinning in his head didn’t matter; nothing mattered except the feel of the stone warming in his blood-streaked palm.

But those were lies, he knew, because he had nothing to be confident about. He was bleeding from cuts on his face and shoulder, and his fucking head hurt. He was holding his own for now, but there was no way he could win. He and Iago were evenly matched as fighters, and the bastard regenerated.

He blocked the whisper, thought of Reese. Saw her, eyes wide and worried for him. And that more than anything told him he was in deep shit.

Iago came at him hard and fast, swinging the staff. Dez feinted a second too slow, and the
makol
caught him in the head again. The world grayed and Dez went down, Iago following him with a roar, his green-on-green eyes glowing with murderous rage as he twisted Dez’s knife out of his hand, reversed it, and reared back for a killing blow.

Despair hammered through Dez. Inevitability. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered to the Reese in his mind. But to save his teammates and the war, he had to damn himself. And so he let go of the tight reins of his control, opening himself to the black star demon’s magic. Power hammered through him. Greed. Lust. Violence. He stopped being himself and became something else. And that thing he became bared its teeth and went for Iago with a single thought in its mind:
Kill!

 

 

“The serpent is unbalanced. He seeks the darkness. He must take the others, must take them all, or the dark lord will come, the end will begin.” Anna heard the words, knew she was saying the same thing over and over, but couldn’t stop. She could see the world around her, but she couldn’t control the words that were coming out of her mouth.

Open your eyes
, the spirit—figment?—had said, but her eyes
were
open. She was channeling visions without seeing them, not sure she could reconnect with that part of herself when she’d spent so long trying to block it off. Or even if she really wanted to.

It would be easier to close her eyes and let go.

“Come on, Lucius!” snapped a dark-haired woman with scared eyes. “You transported the whole damn team out of the underworld.”

“But once I got the library to earth, the conduit magic stopped working,” the man opposite her said. “I can’t do it. Period, end of sentence.” His familiar face was etched with pain and stress.
Lucius
, Anna thought, the name almost latching onto memories. She ached to talk to him. To
connect
.

“I’ve got to get to Dez.” The woman’s voice shook as she took Anna’s hand, leaned close to her. “Please,” she whispered. “I can’t warn him about the balance if I can’t get to him. I need you to tell me how.”

The raw longing in her voice touched something deep inside Anna, making her consciousness quiver like a plucked guitar string, and bringing a single humming note.

She almost didn’t recognize it. Had the magic ever been this pure and sweet for her? She didn’t think so, just as she didn’t remember it being so strong and sure, flowing through her, suddenly flooding her with memories—like the good, solid feel of her brother ’s arms around her, holding her tightly and making her feel like everything was going to be okay.
Strike
, she thought, putting a name to him at last. But how could it feel as though he were right there, holding her, when he wasn’t? How did she know that he was far away, that he was very sick, yet still using his magic to fight? She could almost picture him there, with Leah on one side of him, Rabbit on the other.

As she concentrated on the image, it grew clearer. And, unexpectedly, the humming note inside her found an anchor inside him, and the strange, searching magic ratcheted higher. The power coalesced and the spirit whispers of her ancestors floated around her like the ghosts she had seen in her dreams since she was a little girl, the ones she had fought so hard to block out. Now, though, she reached for them, because after all these months she would take ghosts over the emptiness. She stroked her mind along one wisp and felt visions stir, touched another and felt the fierce focus of the warrior she had never been. And then she touched the third, and a golden thread shimmered to life in her mind, beginning with her and stretching into infinity.

It was a travel thread, she knew. In life, the ghost had been a teleporter. Or was it a ghost at all? Because suddenly it felt as though the Triad magic had captured a piece of Strike inside her, too. Which should have been impossible.

Link with me
, the magic whispered.

“What?” Reese said, leaning in closer.

Had she actually said that aloud?

“Link. With. Me.” That time she was sure of it, had actually made her mouth say the words she wanted. “Need. You. Both.” And her senses sharpened, bringing the real world more into focus, connecting her to herself, to her power. And, dimly, she saw the glimmering outline of a vision: two cobras, hissing and striking at each other inside a glowing dome.
Get her there
, something whispered.
Now.

“Link up,” Lucius said. He pulled a combat knife and used the tip to score his palm along the scar line. “She must need a boost, and we’re the only ones here. She’ll have to make do with human blood.” He clasped Anna’s hand, over the cut that she, too, had made over old scars.

Power surged and the golden thread solidified inside her.

“Hand it over.” Reese took the knife, fumbling with the cut and then gripping Anna’s other hand.

More power. More solidity. The golden thread glowed, thrumming with the magic and calling to her.
Take it
.
It will get you where you need to be if you want it enough.
Remembering how Strike had described teleport magic, she reached out with her mind and touched the yellow thread. Grabbed on to it. And pulled.

Magic lurched, sending all three of them sideways in a stomach-jolting roller coaster. Then the familiar gray-green nothingness was whipping past them, a blur of incalculable motion that went on. And on.
Too long
, she realized. Panicking, she clutched the thread, only to have it dissolve suddenly. She screamed as the whip of motion curved in on itself, arcing in a tightening spiral, a whirlpool drawing them down into the formless gray that wasn’t quite the barrier, wasn’t anywhere else.

“Help me!” she screamed as the maelstrom sucked her down, taking the other two with her into the nothingness.

 

 

Strike jerked at the sound of a female scream, audible even over the burr of shield magic and buzz-swords, the screams of the
makol
and the roar of the Nightkeepers’ magic. He looked wildly around, didn’t see the source, but then felt a sick surge in his magic followed by a stomach drop of epic proportions. Then he heard words:
Help me!

It was Anna’s voice.

“Anna!” he shouted, and bolted toward the sound.

“
No!
Rabbit, help me!” Leah grabbed his arm, slowing his mad charge.

“It’s Anna! She needs me!” He tried to free himself, but then Rabbit got his other side and the two of them dragged him back against a stone pillar and pinned him there.

The screams died out; reality returned. And he realized that he had started to head out into the
makol
. Leah was plastered against his chest, looking up at him, her eyes asking in silent agony,
Is this it? Is this where it ends?

His head was suddenly pounding. He couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t get control. He hated this, wanted it to fucking stop. And by all that was sacred, he didn’t want to die. He wanted to stay with Leah, with the Nightkeepers. Gods, please not now.

Wrapping his arms around Leah, he held her close, leaned into her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean ... I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine; he was losing it. “It was just—”

It happened again without warning: a stomach drop, a surge, a skitter of his malfunctioning ’port magic.
Son of a bitch
. Bile soured the back of his throat. But there was something else now, he realized. Because for the first time, the heavy thud of his heart was echoed in a thrum of magic, a tingle in his bloodline mark.

Rabbit was moving in to help, but Strike held up a hand. “Wait. Hang on. There’s something . . .” He trailed off as it connected.

He had been dreaming that he had lived the massacre through his father’s eyes, had heard whispers that weren’t his. Then there were the odd power surges, strange lesions in his mind, and the ghostly connection that he could almost feel but Sasha couldn’t track . . . Because a healer couldn’t track the blood-links of her own line.
Oh, holy shit.
It had been a blood-link all along. Anna’s subconscious had reached out to him through their shared DNA, giving him part of her injury and taking part of his power in return. He hadn’t known it, but he’d been helping her heal. And now she was in trouble.

“I’ve got to go after her!”

“
What?
” Leah tightened her grip. “What’s going on? Talk to me, damn it!”

“It’s the Triad magic.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss as excitement burst inside him. “I love you. And I’ll be right back, I promise.” Then, trusting that she had his back, always and forever, even when she thought he was losing his everfrigging mind, he left his body behind and sent his consciousness into the magic, into the neverwhen of transport leading to the barrier. He went in without a destination, without forethought, diving after the tingle in his blood and leaping straight into the storm.

Gray-green lashed at him instantly, slamming him in one direction and then another, flipping his consciousness end-over-end. But he wasn’t alone—he glimpsed something yellow-gold trailing nearby, sent himself after it, suddenly feeling strong and sure, and completely in control of his power and himself.

The teleport line was tangled around someone. Several someones. He caught the end, reeled them in even as he was buffeted by the blurring force of uncontrolled’port magic. Anna was clinging to the string, but so were Reese and Lucius, their terror palpable. Jesus gods, what was going on here?
Doesn’t matter. Get them out of here.

He could do that. He touched his magic—suddenly strong and pure and perfectly in control—and returned to his body, taking them with him.

As the gray-green whipped past, he fell into a waking vision.

 

 

And suddenly, Strike knew what the ultimate sacrifice was meant to be.

Then air
whoomped
away and they materialized in the middle of the firefight, scaring the shit out of the others and sending Sven’s coyote skittering between his legs, growling. Leah jumped back and went for her gun, then checked herself as it registered that Anna, Lucius, and Reese were tangled together at Strike’s feet, gasping.

Jade gave a low cry and rushed to Lucius’s side as he lurched up and then stumbled on his bad leg, his crutch nowhere to be seen. The other magi looked shocked as hell but stayed at their posts, holding the shield and keeping the
makol
in check.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” Michael demanded as Sasha dropped down beside Anna, partly to check her over, partly to just hug her.

“They were pretty close to being lost for good in the barrier,” Strike answered, his voice breaking as his emotions threatened to overload from the weight of his father’s final revelation. But then, knowing the time for that would come, he focused on the here and now. He reached for Leah, caught her against him, and whispered into her hair, “It was Anna’s blood-link making me sick. We’re both okay now.”

She gave a glad cry and clung to him fiercely for a moment. “Thank the gods.” Her voice was low and fervent, her eyes wet. “But why are they
here
?”

“Because it’s a damn sight better than where they were.” Delayed reaction set in at the thought of how close the three of them had come to simply disappearing.
Boom, gone.
He dropped down beside Anna, balancing on his heels. “No offense, big sister, but what the hell were you thinking?”

Her eyes filled and she turned and clung to him, shuddering. “It was the only way,” she said. Her voice was nearly lost beneath the tumult of the battle, as the others fought to hold the
makol
line. But it was her voice. And that was her inside those eyes, for the first time in a long time. “I couldn’t get them all the way here,” she whispered against his neck. “I thought I could, but I lost the thread. And then I couldn’t find you.”

He held her tight. “That’s okay. I found you. But why did you try it?”

“The serpent needs help.”

“No!” Reese screamed. Strike’s head jerked up as she slammed her fists into the serpent shield, face etched with horror. Inside the temple, Iago rose over Dez’s motionless body with the serpent staff raised for a killing blow. “Dez!” she screamed. “
No!
”

Bruised, battered, dizzy with blood loss, and close to dead, Dez thought he had crossed the boundary, that he was having a last sweet fantasy of Reese’s amber-whiskey eyes locking on him, her hands reaching for him, her voice calling him.