Absolution (14 page)

“I see. Get the healer. I’ll meet you inside.”

“Right. Um, where is everyone?”

“I’ll tell you once we’re inside.” A slow smile played at the corners of Farley’s thin mouth. “It’s a helluva story.”

Luc turned away. A quick shiver of unease slithered between his shoulders. He glanced to the truck and considered for a brief instant grabbing Allana and having her teleport them to hIfreann. She stared back at him, a miniscule shake of her head the only indication she’d read his intentions.

Fine, he could do this. He took in her tightened lips. They could do this. Farley was only a monster like so many of the monsters he, along with Deva’s warriors, had put down. If it were the last thing he did, Luc would rid the world of this monster.

A few minutes later, he entered the cabin and pushed Allana ahead of him as bile crawled up his throat. The single room cabin was bathed in darkness so deep that even the roaring fire lent minimal warmth and no brightness. It was as if Farley’s presence consumed the light and heat just as he absorbed the life from his victims.

At Allana’s stumble, Luc grabbed her trembling elbow and kept her upright as he marched her to Farley in the middle of the room. It took all his willpower to present her and not shove her behind him. “I hope she’s worth the price.”

“I’m sure she is. By the way, Luc, did you know all humans have a low level hum of magick?”

“Really? Never thought about it.” He frowned, feeling the unease skittered in a pinwheel of blade points over his skin. “I mean we aren’t magick. We’re human.”

Farley smiled at him like a cobra about to strike. “Oh, I think you have. You’re a void, a null, and that doesn’t happen. Never. Nature abhors a vacuum.”

“I have as much presence as any other man.”

“Ten millennia ago, supes outnumbered humans. Interbreeding was common. So believe me when I say in all my years, I’ve never run into someone like you. That tells me you’re a spy, wearing a dampener.”

Shit, they were screwed. It wasn’t just a cluster fuck. It was a FUBAR. “I’m not a spy and I’m not wearing shit.” Luc swallowed hard. Sweated poured off him, gluing his shirt to his back. It was third and long. Better just run the play.

Farley shoved Allana into a chair, his grin smug. His gleaming eyes belied his physical decay. “Ah, Luc, I know all about magick and its energy. With you, I’m sensing something akin to a block, a force field. That’s not natural. Some kind of spell is protecting you. What is it?”

“I don’t have any more magick than the rest of your followers.”

“I suspect you have a great deal more. You’ll soon discover how pathetic it was to try and fool me. Just as everyone here did as I drained them dry.”

Luc didn’t have to feign terror as he inched closer to Allana. “So, what are you, a demon?”

“Half. But then you already knew that didn’t you. Enough of these games. I’ll get to you later—first, the healer will cure me.”

Luc reached Allana, jerked her from the chair and to his side. He scrambled and unhooked the iron chains looped around her until they pooled at her feet. “I knew you were sick just like the rest of us and thought the healer could cure us. I hadn’t realized you’re monster. You aren’t touching this woman. She saved my life.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Farley’s fist plowed into Luc’s temple with a force and speed he never saw coming.

Luc flew across the room and smashed into the log cabin’s wall. As he slid to the floor and darkness descended, he heard the slick lilt of Farley’s voice. “My, you are a sweet morsel.”

CHAPTER 13

Allana stood immobilized. Farley had frozen her at the same moment he’d punched Luc unconscious. There would be no teleporting to safety. She had to stay focused. If she didn’t survive, Luc would die. Farley would turn to him and suck him dry. She watched as the vile creature collapsed into a large, wooden captain’s chair.

“Heal me, now.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you won’t?”

“I said I can’t, not that I won’t. You are a half-breed—human and Gulgari Demon. You’ve been poisoned. It has already destroyed your human half. Only the façade of that form remains. Since your followers were also poisoned, the toxins in the essences you drained from them merged with those already inside you, annihilating your human side. Yes, the demon side is hanging on, but without the human complement, you won’t live much longer. I can only ease your physical pain.”

“I think you can do more. When I inhale your life, your power will heal all the damage.” He glanced at Luc crumpled against the far wall. “I knew he wasn’t what he seemed.”

Allana followed his gaze. Luc’s glamour had faded. Injured, his body was healing him rather than maintaining his disguise. “My life’s essence will only postpone the inevitable. And Luc, with his small dose of power, won’t even do that much.”

A flashing of lightning split the sky, followed by a long thunderclap before the heavens opened.

Frowning, Farley glanced at Luc. “A Druid. They always make a great dessert.” He pushed himself out of the chair and advanced on her. “Now, what do you say we test the theory that you can’t heal me?”

He clasped her face and her life force rose from her core into her chest and out her mouth at his summons. She watched in horror as it entered his open maw. Her cheeks burned, branded where her life bled through her cheeks and into his fingers. The flow rate increased, leaving behind an frigid cold emptiness. Her heart stuttered in terror.

With a quick flicker, his jaundiced eyes seemed to clear.

Her fear! That was what fed him. But would releasing her fear slow the draining sufficiently to allow Luc to escape? It was the only thing left. She calmed her breathing and focused on her love for Luc.

Warmth warred with the icy cold of his drain. While the leeching of her essence didn’t halt, her control and determination had retarded the flow.

Farley slapped her face in fury at her attempt to circumvent him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What are you doing? You can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me.”

A small smile curved her lips. “Did you really believe a healer from hIfreann would just submit to an abomination from the Abyss?” She forced her healing power, gifts from hIfreann, and memories into Luc.

Her last gift.

If he lived, so, too, would she, if only in his heart.

She prayed he realized that among her gifts was power to teleport and would thereby escape. If only she could give him her wings, too.

***

Luc’s rage when Farley grasped Allana’s cheeks energized with a force unlike anything he had ever experienced.

The violence to his mate called forth vengeance and demanded retribution.

The Druid in him had never understood the value of anger. Now he appreciated it with sharp, cold clarity. This was his woman, the other half of his soul. He’d be damned to the Abyss if this demon stole her from him.

Rice, Fritz, HELP us
!

He focused all his power on the Earth beneath them, and the ground trembled. A grinding of long dormant tectonic plates rumbled in the air.

Releasing Allana, Farley stepped back and clutched the table, confused. A tsunami of mud surged through the floorboards, splintering wood and spewing shards of shrapnel about the room. The mud swelled toward Farley, guided by the invisible hand of Luc’s command.

Water and mud crashed through the window, combining with the mire on the floor, encasing Farley in a slurry, rapidly hardening into a straightjacket. The sludge stopped just short of his neck, imprisoning his arms at his side.

Luc bolted to Allana and clutched her unconscious form to him.

“She said you were weak,” Farley screamed, jerking and squirming against the confines of his prison.

“Looks like she was wrong.”

Farley laughed. “You think this little show will stop me? I’m still draining her. Once I begin to feed, the process won’t finish until she’s ash.”

Helplessness assailed Luc as he gazed into Allana’s colorless face. Even if Fritz arrived, would it be in time? He had to do something. He couldn’t wait. If he sent her energy, it would only feed Farley. What power could he send her that wouldn’t strengthen Farley?

Desperate, he opened himself to her, holding nothing back—not his love, not his soul.

Once she was safe, he’d formalize the bonding, but for now he’d give her what he had and pray it was enough.

No, Luc, save yourself. Leave me.

My choice. No one I love dies on my watch again. Hang on, sweetheart
.

He pressed his head to hers. Suddenly images formed and flew from his fevered brain into her frigid forehead. Luc and his parents laughing. Nate chucking a young Luc under the chin.

Then like a film montage, images ran together. Raziel lifting an adolescent Allana against his chest and whisking her and Iasan to hIfreann and safety. Paladins, wings unfurled, placed Sophie and Kate in the arms of two women who would become their mothers. A smiling, adolescent Sophie surrounded by a field of flowers she’d brought to bloom. A young Kate astride her horse while firing a rifle at a fence of tin cans, intent on becoming the next Annie Oakley. Allana at their back door, an infant in her arms. Their daughter, Naidra. “Luc, Nathaniel, dinner.” A two-year-old boy with blue-black hair and his mother’s gray-silver eyes giggled as he rode on Luc’s shoulders toward the love of their lives.

Allana, did you see? These were Raziel’s gift to us, memories that he forced on me during our argument. He knew what we would face here. Please hold onto our future as I do. Don’t give up on Naidra, Nathaniel—or me. Please, Allana, love us enough to hold on
.

The door burst off its hinges with a shattering gust of wind and an inhuman roar as Fritz charged into the room. Rice followed on his heels, the obsidian knife clenched in his hands.

Rice maneuvered before Farley, the blade poised clearly within monster’s line of vision, strain evident in the tension of Rice’s shoulders. Luc didn’t blame him for considering a painful, torturous end for Farley. The man, demon, was too dangerous to be allowed to live, even for torture.

“The Baskuli Clan sends its regards.” In a move so quick only a supe could see it, the blade severed Farley’s head, and Rice raised the knife with a howl of triumph.

As the mound of mud receded, and Farley turned to black, oily ash, Allana collapsed in Luc’s arms. He tried to stem his own breath to sense some pulse in her. “I need to get her to the Cave of Fallen. Only the fountain waters will save her.”

Fritz glanced from Allana’s body to Luc’s face and waved his hand at the open doorway.

The fuzzy edges of the portal and the turquoise spirals waited. Gritting his teeth, Luc scooped her higher into his arms. Nobody was taking her from him. Not Farley and certainly not a mind-numbing portal.

Fritz clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Do you need my help?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“What about your portal sickness?”

“I can take anything as long as she’s with me.” Luc strode toward the waiting gateway, paused, and looked over his shoulder at Farley’s ashes. “Burn this cabin to the ground.”

He entered the bog. Suction cups tore at him, yet for the first time, he had a higher purpose than mere transportation and kept his focus on Allana’s face, her life thread tethered tight to every point of energy in his body. He continued to feed the images of them and their life together as he pushed through the dimensional quicksand and stepped out into the opening of the Cave of the Fallen.

With her clutched against his chest, he raced to the first fountain and climbed inside. Seated beneath the water, he kept only their heads above the surface. Her breathing stilled. Cradling her against him, he splayed his right hand over her heart. “My heart to your heart. My soul to your soul, freely given. You own my life, my being, my heart—all are yours to take and hold for eternity. My mate—Goddess bestowed and accepted. May your light always balance my darkness. May your gentleness always light my path. May you be my guide throughout this life and all others, forever. Come back to me now, Allana. Don’t leave me here alone to suffer another lifetime waiting for you. I’ll be the man you need. I promise.”

He pressed his lips to hers, and the words welled from his soul, ending in a guttural sound of anguish.

The waters heated and frothed, churning about them. Strands of his life force entered Allana and hers entangled with his—white, blue, gold, and red energy flooded between them. He felt the physical tug of the stains and weight of his actions fade. His tight, thinned mouth softened. With a sigh of relief he waited. Hope and faith twined in his heart as he watched Allana’s face for a sign.

Her eyes fluttered and her lids slowly opened. With a weak smile, she reached up and touched the sigil on his third eye and then the one over his heart. “My soul to your soul. My heart to your heart, freely given. May the Goddess bless our joining throughout eternity.”

Words choked and stuck in his throat as he searched her eyes through the glistening of his own tears.