Ascension (10 page)

Chapter Eleven

W
ith a torturous amount of whining and complaining from Haven, they managed to tote Icky to a magically charged prison cell Below. Kyana could have called for Farrel and Crag, but they would have taken too long to arrive. Besides, she enjoyed watching Haven squirm. If she’d listened and stayed home as Kyana had asked, she wouldn’t have had to tote nasty little Icky through Below.

A sentinel had been sent to retrieve the Fates in hopes that they could read the beast’s mind to see if it knew anything about the key, but once the Sisters had been told what had been brought back from the island, they’d refused to come. Now Kyana and Haven, along with Artie and Ryker, watched from outside the cell as Icky rushed the magically charged gate only to be sent back across the small quarters each time the electricity pulsed through its bony body.

“What do we do now?” Kyana asked, quickly bored with the show.

“Since it doesn’t speak, our options are limited,” Artemis said from her spot closest to the exit.

“Can’t you force the Fates to obey orders so Lachesis can read him?”

Ryker frowned. “You can’t force people to do things your way. If they don’t believe they can assist, then they have a right to refuse. It’s called free will.”

“
Free will
is overrated,” Kyana mumbled. She looked at Haven. “Do you know of a spell that can make the mute speak?”

“No, and it wouldn’t work even if I did. I don’t think that thing’s been taught a language. And there’s no spell to do that either, so don’t ask.”

Kyana studied the creature. There had to be a way to read into its mind. To see its past. To discover if it knew where the key was or who had taken it.

“What about an Oracle?”

“What about them?” all three asked in unison.

“Couldn’t they somehow read Icky’s past?”

“Oracles see the future, Ky.”

She huffed. “Well, they’re not too good at that either. They should think about expanding their horizons and learning a new skill.”

“Disrespecting them isn’t going to get us a solution,” Artemis said.

Kyana paced the small confines of the antechamber. There had to be a way, she just needed to find it. She froze mid-step. There
was
one option left to consider, but the very thought turned her stomach.

Kyana faced Ryker. “You have fangs. If you ingested a little of its blood—”

“I’m not a Vamp, Ky, and besides, it would kill me.”

Oh yeah. Couldn’t have that. “What if I went in and got you some blood?”

“It would kill me quicker.” He sighed. “Kyana, when I bit you, I was in your head for that moment. I couldn’t see your history the way Vampyre can. All I’d see from that thing is its fury for this instant in time.
I’m
not the one you’re looking for.”

Ryker’s gaze locked with hers. He didn’t voice his knowledge that she was the perfect candidate to attempt such a task, but she could read it in his eyes. She could also see his compassion. He wouldn’t draw attention to her Vampyric skills, which gave her the ability to drink in a person’s memories when she fed, but he was sure as hell hinting about them.

“But you could do it, Kyana.” Haven said what Ryker wouldn’t. “Your skills will let you pull in Icky’s memories. Then you can relay what you see to us.”

Kyana grimaced, mentally impaling her friend’s heart with her glare. “I don’t want to be the one who bites the damned thing.” With a heavy sigh, Kyana nodded to the sentinel closest to her. “Release the gate.”

He did as Kyana ordered and quickly backed away. Artie and Ryker stepped back also, but Haven ducked inside. “Just in case it tries to eat you.”

Kyana handed Haven a dagger. “Thanks.”

Icky’s stench nearly gagged her, but if Haven could tolerate it, Kyana wouldn’t complain. The minute she moved closer to it, Icky scampered across the cell, bared its fangs, and hissed like a deflating balloon. Kyana leaped straight up and over the creature’s head, squeezing between Icky and the rock wall. Before it could turn on her, she wrapped her arm around its throat and pressed its back to her chest, locking it in place. Her fangs sank into Icky’s jugular, and it howled for mercy as the first drops of sulfuric blood spilled onto Kyana’s tongue.

Her brain turned to a curtain of fog and she could no longer see the inside of Icky’s cell. The high of feeding made her moan, made her forget the foul taste and drink until the fog lifted and the images inside Icky’s head became clear. The island. A tall, handsome man with ebony hair that reached his slender waist. A coven of other creatures who looked just like Icky, bowing to a group who looked like the human Vampyre Kyana had come to know.

She searched in Icky’s mind for its breed’s name, but found nothing. Only the hollow, haunting whisper that declared
it
was a
she
and her kind
had
no name, created when Vampyre bred with Vampyre, then left to die when their usefulness expired.
This
was why Vampyre weren’t meant to breed with each other.

Darkness. Humidity. The dank caves Kyana had traveled within. Pain seared through Kyana’s brain as she watched the long-haired man feed from Icky’s children. He raped them, bred from them more children to fill his stocks. The grotesquely horrific scene nearly forced Kyana to pull away. But she held on, dug her teeth in deeper.

Flashes of Vampyre feeding off the exiled prisoners, breeding with them, creating more like Icky and her family. These monstrous creatures were the first Vampyre. Kyana’s origin. In a sick sense, her family. She gagged as the thick blood coated her throat. It rushed so quickly, she couldn’t swallow fast enough to drink it all in. The image of the long-haired man dying, whispering promises to the beasts he’d created.

Then, Kyana herself. Creeping into Icky’s family lair. Snooping where she didn’t belong. The last image Kyana saw was of herself seizing hold of Ryker’s shoulder, and then the blinding light of Ryker’s port consumed her. Icky fell limp in her arms. She was dead.

“What did you see?” Ryker’s soothing voice filled the chamber. He looked as though he wanted to enter the cell, but wouldn’t chance it. Even dead, Icky might have posed a threat to the gods.

Haven took Kyana’s hand, helped her step over Icky’s body, and guided her from the cell. Kyana pushed out of Haven’s grasp, raced to the corner, and expelled the near-black blood from her belly.

When she collected herself, she quietly told them of Icky’s past, of how she’d come to be. “Cronos did this.”

She knew in her soul that the long-haired man had been Cronos.

“Did you see the key?”

Kyana shook her head. “No, just Cronos’s determination not to die. His disregard for the children he created. I’m not sure why, but I’m certain the key was never there.” She looked at Ryker. “He promised to return to them . . . when he was dying, he promised to come back. How can he come back?”

“He can’t.” Artemis pressed her hand to Kyana’s shoulder. “There are none left powerful enough to work that kind of magic.”

Though the goddess sounded confident, the doubt in her eyes did nothing to alleviate the fear that had filled the room.

Artemis had better be right. If Cronos came back, it would take more than a tracer and a few worn-out gods to save this world.

“W
ell, that was scary.” Haven sat on one of the stones leading away from the prison and back to Below.

Kyana sat behind Haven and Ryker, leaning her head against the exterior wall of the prison. She was still woozy and her stomach wouldn’t stop churning, though she was pretty certain it wasn’t the taste of Icky’s blood that caused her nausea. She and Icky were separated by only a few branches on the Vampyric family tree. If Kyana ever had children—

She shuddered. It was near to impossible for Vampyre to become pregnant, but the possibility was still there. The Order was right to have the no Vamp-on-Vamp law. The idea of birthing a creature like Icky was too horrid to contemplate.

“Don’t worry about it. Even if there was somebody powerful enough to bring Cronos back, he’d still be trapped on that island.” Ryker sat next to Haven. “He couldn’t get off it then, he wouldn’t be able to now.”

“Dead bones are one thing, but walking bones . . .” Haven shivered, her gaze drifted to Kyana. “At least we learned a little history.”

“History I could have done without.” Kyana tried to ignore their uncomfortable stares. All the things she’d loved about her race were now tainted, ugly. She could have gone another lifetime without ever knowing the truth.

Salt spray washed over them, pulling Kyana from her troubled thoughts. If possible, the mist intensified the odor of Icky and the shit hole and who knew what else that had covered them in the past day. She wrinkled her nose.

She turned to look at Ryker. His face was tan again, his eyes alert. Did whatever part of Kyana that resembled Icky cause him pain? Was that why he kept his distance from her? She doubted he’d ever look at her again without seeing what really lived inside her. “You okay?”

He nodded, his gaze drifting toward the moonlit sea. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

Kyana gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch or brush her off. She was pleased. She was also pleased that being around him right now wasn’t renewing a decade’s worth of bitterness. “I wish Icky had shown me something about the key.”

“Yeah. Instead all we got was a scary promise of Cronos’s return.” Haven rubbed at a stain on her torn jeans. “What are you going to do with that ring, anyway?”

Ryker gave a halfhearted smile. “Give it someone who can keep it safe.”

“Who?”

“The less people who know, the better.”

Kyana didn’t care enough at the moment to press him to answer Haven more thoroughly. She was exhausted and a tiny bit freaked out by everything Icky had shown her. Besides, the ring wasn’t important. The key was. And they were no closer to finding it now than they’d been before.

“Think Geoffrey has that list of Cronos followers yet?” she asked, standing on tired legs.

“Who knows.” A strong gust of wind blew, and Haven wrinkled her nose. “I’ll go track him down for you after I shower. You two should do the same. We smell like butt.”

Haven was right. Kyana needed a shower. She was pretty sure if she’d been drawn as a cartoon, there would be little puffs of yellow stink clouding her character. “Go on. I’m heading home shortly. I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay, then. I’m off. See you in a bit.”

Kyana would have walked with Haven, but she wanted to make sure Ryker was all right before heading off for the night. A part of her felt responsible for what he’d gone through on that island. He’d begged her to go and she’d insisted on staying. She’d almost gotten him killed.

She stretched, wondering how to approach the topic of what had happened to him on that island. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine once I shower and eat. You really should do the same. You look like hell.”

“Thanks.” She took his offered hand of assistance and let him pull her to her feet. Her chest bounced lightly off his, and her gut clenched. He didn’t stink. He didn’t smell like sunshine at the moment, but he’d somehow managed to not get ucky like she had.

Still, the dark shadows beneath his eyes worried her. “I know we’re not friends, but—?”

“I’m fine, Ky. Drop it.”

He shook his hand from hers and walked away. Kyana stood, staring after him for a long while before following. She was still harboring a lot of resentment toward him, so why did it bother her that he hadn’t confided in her? Did he have someone he could turn to? She didn’t want to know. But more than that, she didn’t want to examine why the possibility caused her heart to sit heavy in her chest.

She walked the streets, listening to Below come alive. Vamps pushed past her as she shouldered her way into Spirits to order a meal to go. She ignored the grimaces and stares of the other patrons and slid onto a bar stool.

The barkeep didn’t move toward her, but turned from the Mystics he was serving to glare. “Butcher shop’s down the street.”

Kyana tapped the shiny bar with a less than clean hand. “I’ll take a bottle of fifty/fifty. To go.”

“Only Marcus does that. He’s not here.”

“Great, then I’ll wait for him.” Several patrons stood, gave Kyana dirty looks, then left the café. If stinking repelled others, maybe she’d give up bathing altogether. She was due some alone time. “When’s he due back?”

“You’re costing me customers,” the man grumbled, fixing Kyana’s dinner and sliding it toward her. “Just take it and go.”

“Hey, I don’t smell or look this bad because I want to. I was out
doing
something about the mess we’re all in. How ’bout you?”

The barkeep’s face softened, and feeling his intent to apologize, she pulled out the little cash she had. He shook his head. “It’s on me. Just go.”

With a nod of thanks, Kyana grabbed her bottle and turned to leave, but stopped as her gaze fell upon Ryker striding by the window. Something in his stride was determined, not like a man on a mission to bathe, but maybe to confront. Hell. What was he doing? She waited a minute, giving him time to walk ahead, but watched from inside the tavern as he slipped through the portal and disappeared.