Primal Cravings (21 page)

Seductive words burst inside Jake’s mind, bright sparks of desires and dark fantasies beckoned.

We are united. Leviathan, Melchor, Yakov. Brothers.

Years of loneliness came out in a howl of pain. Levi’s hand rested on Jake’s shoulder.

“Dee will die.”

“In every universe there is a Delilah McCoy. You can have as many as you want.”

As many Dees as he wanted.

“Give her to me,” Levi said.

* * *

“Wait! Stop!” Dee shouted as the headlights lit up a black SUV on the side of the road.

“We’re still a couple miles from town, honey,” Mrs. Bright said. Mr. and Mrs. Bright were the nice trucker couple who’d given her a ride after Jake deserted her only ten miles out of Sedona.

She had a strong connection with the vampire. She knew she’d find him. But the last thing Dee expected was to come across their vehicle on the side of the road.

She couldn’t feel him. She felt something, but—

“Please stop,” she said to the truckers. “I’ll be fine,” she promised at Mrs. Bright’s worried look.

Mr. Bright was already bringing the truck to a halt. He drove off instantly once she got out. Dee stood by the road for a few seconds, watching the outline of the dark vehicle in the dark landscape. It was a cold late-December night, but the sharp wind wasn’t the cause of her shivers. Something, maybe everything, was
so
not right.

Suddenly she knew with all her being, body, mind, and soul, that Jake Piper was in desperate danger.

She ran to the SUV and flung open the driver-side door. Jake turned to her in shock. He grabbed her arm, his grasp steel hard and painful. His dark gaze bored into hers for a moment. She couldn’t get out a sound.

She didn’t see the other person in the car until Jake turned to look at him.

“You want this one,” Jake said. “You can have her.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Your family is quite worried about you,” Dee told the other prisoner in the cave. She and Leon Sacher sat side by side, both handcuffed to the metal frame of a cot. She’d never met Leon, and she hoped that he was naturally skinny instead of being mistreated while in captivity. He needed a shave, but otherwise he seemed fine.

“I’m happy to hear that my family is aware of my absence.”

“Very aware,” she assured him.

“And my cat? How is Winston?”

“Your cat is being taken care of. We found him at your house. Along with your research notes. We’ve been calling you the Wizard of Oxnard,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

He thought about this for a moment, then smiled. “I rather like that.”

He looked toward the Cave witch, who was short, squat, bald as an egg, and looked more like a primitive stone carving of a human than he did an actual human. He was standing by an altar. Behind him was the cave wall—only it didn’t look solid. A fiery oblong of light glowed deep beneath the stone surface. It was very disconcerting. Dee couldn’t look at the wall without becoming dizzy and nauseated.

“That ain’t right,” she said.

“Never get on an eloop with a Cave witch,” Leon said. “They’re all crazy. Fortunately there’s no more than two left in the world.”

“In a way that’s sad,” Dee said. The Cave witch—his name was Gary—lifted a long, sharp dagger as she spoke. He muttered some words she couldn’t make out but that made her ears hurt. A dark spell. “Then again….”

She concentrated on her fellow prisoner. Anything to keep from thinking about that scumbag rat conniving Piper. “I read through your notes. They’re rather like some research on string theory—”

“I’m glad you noticed. You might have the makings of a Tower witch, my dear.”

Dee bit her lower lip to keep from making an indignant answer. He thought he’d complimented her. Tower witches were such snobs. Then again, every school of the Craft thought there way was best. “Go Travelers,” she muttered under her breath.

“What’s that, my dear?”

“I think your theories are fascinating,” Dee said quickly.

“But they are in no way ready for experimentation.” Leon glared at Gary. “And never outside of a computer simulation.”

“Be quiet and let me work!” Gary snapped at them.

“Go ahead, end the world,” Leon shouted back. “Then I won’t have to put up with you anymore!”

Dee sighed. As the person about to be sacrificed to bring about a world-ending event, she had other opinions.

And she was scared to death.

* * *

“How long now?” Jake asked Levi. He was seated on the ground outside the cave. Having agreed to his brother’s plan, Jake was anxious to get on with it.

Levi stopped pacing to stand in front of him. “Are you afraid the Dark Angels are already on the way to the rescue?”

Jake shook his head. “My and the witch’s assignment was a sidebar. The Angels are on a much more important op.”

Levi laughed. “Imagine the traitor Tobias’s surprise when his world suddenly fades away.”

“Imagine,” Jake echoed. He got to his feet. “How long have you been planning this? How did you even think of it?”

How long had Levi been in his head? Jake wondered. Had his doubts begun with that intrusion, or had the intrusion merely made him think more critically about things he already questioned?

“I met Gary through my delivery business.” Levi gave a lewd chuckle. “When I brought him the woman, I found out he planned to use her as a sacrifice. I didn’t know mortals really did that sort of thing. Vampires need to kill mortals—that’s normal apex predator stuff. A Prime’s got to eat, and have a little fun doing it. But a mortal using another mortal to draw energy…I wanted to know why, and what he was up to. When he explained about how to get into parallel universes, it got me thinking about changing our luck, making things right for the Tribe.”

“Getting Melchor back,” Jake said. “Making our Tribe powerful.”

“Rulers of the universe. Maybe all the universes. Might as well be ambitious.”

Jake nodded. “Might as well.”

And an infinite number of Delilah McCoys.

“It’ll be dawn soon,” Levi said. As if they couldn’t both feel it in their bones. “Gary likes to do spells as the sun come up. We should go in now.”

Jake wiped his palms on his jeans. He wasn’t as calm as he needed to be. He nodded, and followed his brother into the cave.

* * *

“I am so pissed off at you, Yakov
Piper
,” Dee said.

Jake tugged on the rope around one of her bare ankles. Then his gaze traveled up the length of her naked body until their gazes met. “You got yourself into this, Freckles.”

“Be serious!” the Cave wizard ordered. “Stay where you are,” he said to Jake, who was at the foot of the altar.

The wizard stood with his back to the wall. The heat in the cave was rising. The fire behind the wall burned closer to the surface. The magical shape was now a circle, reflecting exactly in the mirror on the opposite side of the altar.

Levi stood at the top of the altar, by Dee’s head. He held a knife over her exposed throat. “When?” he asked his pet wizard.

Gary ignored him. Jake saw Levi’s knuckles whiten on the knife hilt. How well he remembered Levi’s temper.

“Leon, stand opposite me,” Gary said to the other prisoner.

“You really don’t believe I’m going to help you with this,” Leon said.

Gary cackled. “I want you sucked into the mirror as soon as I open the wall between universes.”

“Then I am certainly not—”

“Do what you’re told,” Levi ordered the old man. “If you want to live a few minutes longer.”

There was no arguing with that tone. Leon sidled into his ordered place.

Jake looked at the glowing wall, though not for long, as the heat scorched his skin. He then looked at the reflection in the mirror. “Is this how it works? You raise power from the depths of the earth, you raise power from the sacrifice. Then you use the power from the sacrifice to direct the earth power into the mirror. And that opens the door to other universes?”

“You might end up with a pointy hat yet,” Dee murmured.

Jake noticed that her voice was not steady, even though she tried for flippancy. He was very aware of her fear.

Levi pressed the tip of the blade against Dee’s forehead. At the same time, Jake touched the arch of her foot, where he knew she was ticklish. Whether she jumped from fear or from sensitivity didn’t matter. The knife tip drew a drop of blood. Levi breathed in the distracting scent of blood and licked his lips.

“She’s delicious,” Jake said.

“Silence!” Gary yelled. “And stop questioning my magical methods!”

“Which won’t work,” Leon added.

“It was a reasonable question,” Jake said. He smiled at Levi. “Wasn’t it, brother?”

Gary spat in disgust, then turned his back on the altar. He faced the cave wall, lifted his arms, and began to chant. It grew hotter with every word, and the light grew, red and orange and gold and pulsing with growing energy. Gary pulled the energy toward the surface of the world, toward himself.

Jake was aware of magic though he tried to keep his attention from it. Dee’s gaze was on him, its touch as solid as the heat searing his skin.

Levi was distracted by the sight and scent of Dee’s blood and her beautiful body laid out before him. Jake’s thoughts were full of having sex with Dee, of the taste of her blood. He wanted her.

And Levi wanted her.

Levi moved to the side of the altar. He pushed Leon out of the way. He put down the dagger and reached for Dee.

Jake put a hand on Levi’s arm. “Mine!”

Levi shook Jake off, turned a furious look on him. He was mad with lust, outraged at Jake’s defiance.

The earth beneath them began to shake.

Leon crawled to his feet. He held onto the altar to steady himself. Jake tumbled forward, grabbing Dee’s ankles to steady himself. Gary’s voice rose to a roaring crescendo. The wall exploded, tearing a hole in reality. A twisted tornado of energy poured out of the hole. It was like lightning, needing somewhere to ground.

“Now!” Gary shouted.

Levi reached for the sacrificial dagger. Leon snatched it up. Jake swept Dee aside. Her wrists were still tied to the head of the altar, but he’d snapped the bonds around her ankles. Vampires were strong, and claws easily snapped rope. She wasn’t completely free, but she was out of the way for the moment.

“Stop this!” Leon shouted. The old Tower wizard leapt over the altar.

“Don’t!” Dee shouted.

Jake realized what she meant an instant before Leon plunged the dagger into Gary’s back.

Sacrificial energy drew the released fire of Earth energy. Flame corkscrewed into the dead man, concentrated within the vessel of his corpse. Then it flowed out of Gary’s body and into the mirror. The next explosion was silent, but far more terrible. The mirror didn’t shatter, it began to iris open.

“Holy crap!” Leon shouted.

Levi still made the earth quake.

“You know, they don’t use the Richter Scale anymore,” Jake said, almost casually. Then he punched his brother in the face.

* * *

Jake and his brother began to fight in the vicious, fierce way only vampires could, with fangs, claws, and impossible strength and speed. Dee’s heart cried out to help her bondmate.

But the magic had to be stopped, dissipated. The world—worlds—had to be saved.

“Cut me loose!” she shouted at Leon.

“The dagger melted,” he shouted back.

“Do something, Tower Boy! It’s your spell.”

“My theories.”

She struggled with her bonds while Leon raised his arms and began to chant. The earthquake had subsided, but rocks were falling from the roof of the cave. One hit her on the shoulder.

The vampires grappled around the altar. Blood splattered out from bites and deep gashes. Leon had to jump back to avoid the flailing bodies. They moved past him. Dee caught an upside down view of them as Jake and Levi went past her head. She hoped the blood on Jake’s mouth wasn’t his own.

The rope scraped and burned her wrist, but she managed to get one hand free. A large rock came down and hit the side of the altar as she managed to sit up. It bounced off and toward the mirror—

Where it disappeared into the black nothingness that grew larger and somehow darker by the second. Levi saw it happen, and laughed. The sound was the most frightening thing Dee had ever heard.

She knew exactly what it meant.

“Close it, Leon!” Dee shouted.

“Working on it.”

Levi wrestled Jake closer to the iris. Slowly, inexorably, the black opening widened. Soon it would be large enough for a body to go through.

Dee stretched out as far as she could. She kicked Levi in the back. This put him off balance for an instant, but it was long enough.

Jake spun Levi around and pushed. Levi was knocked into the blackness. His head and shoulders disappeared. His hands still grasped Jake’s arms. Jake kicked Levi’s legs out from under him.

Dee screamed from the horrible pain of dislocating her shoulder, but she managed to grab the waist at the back of Jake’s jeans. She held on. Jake kicked his brother again.

And Levi was gone.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Bad idea!” Leon yelled. “He’s added to the instability.”

Jake didn’t care. His only concern was Dee. Her pain roared through him as he turned to her. She whimpered when he snipped the last of the ropes holding her. Her arm was limp. He quickly scooped her off the altar.

She turned her head toward Leon. “What’s happening?”

“We’re all going to die!”

She looked past Jake’s shoulder. “It’s almost all the way open.”

Jake carried her away from the altar, and the awful hole opening from outside the world. “It’s going to suck everything inside, isn’t it?” he whispered to her.

Behind them, Leon went back to chanting a spell.

Dee was breathing hard in pain and stifled a groan before answering. “Probably. Put me down. We need more witches to channel the energy. That would—”

“Uncle Leon?” a voice called from the cave mouth.

“Mary?” Leon called back.

Dee relaxed against Jake with a relieved sigh. “Thank the goddess, the Sachers got my text messages.”