Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (6 page)

Just as no one looked her in the eye, or spoke to her, unless it was absolutely necessary. Normally, that suited her purposes and her plan perfectly.

But this time she needed help. She needed someone who could open the portal for her and hold it, not just for herself, but for two. She would be able to walk the strands. This she knew. The cold webs of time and destiny were nearly as familiar to her, and perhaps more real, than this fabricated, bird-in-a-cage life she led aboard this ship.

Whom to trust? That was the bigger problem. There were twelve who could open a portal for her, but only one man she would trust with her life and with her suspicions. Bran was the one man she’d trust with her very heart and soul, but neither were hers to give. Another had stolen them from the foolish young girl she’d been a very, very long time ago.

She swallowed the despair that was her constant companion. No regrets. She would hunt. She would right her wrongs and save them all. Only then could she come out of hiding and reveal her true self.

Celestina made a cup of green tea and forced herself to consume a meal bar. She hadn’t eaten in over thirty hours, too obsessed with her hunt to bother with such trivial things as food and water. She’d lost weight, knew that black circles formed under her eyes and exhaustion clouded her gaze. Still, she pushed on. She feared that she was no longer truly Immortal, that even she had her limits. Facing Bran in her current frazzled state might just push her over the edge. She couldn’t afford to crack, to reveal the truth to him. Which might be a problem since she hadn’t been able to stop shaking since waking from her vision.

She settled back in her chair and adjusted the heat settings to their highest level. Searching the strands of time made her miserably cold, despite the fact that her mind alone, and not her physical body, made the journey.

Praying for calm, she slid down a much too familiar path in her mind, found his presence, and lightly tapped his consciousness with her own, asking permission to speak to him.

You deign to speak to me?
Bran’s enormous mental strength poured into her with his voice and she knew she’d made the right decision, the only decision she could.

I need your help. There is a traitor on board.

I see.

A wall of icy silence surrounded her and Celestina trembled in her chair. He was frightening. He walked in shadows. He could kill mortals and half-bloods with his little finger. But he was honorable. He would not bend. This was one truth she’d learned the hard way. It was the one truth she counted on now.

A plan took shape in her mind and she would require his help. She waited, not hiding her desperation, her distress. Her fear. She laid her need at his feet, bare for him after two centuries of silence.

Please.
One word, a word she’d never before spoken to him, and she knew he’d come. By the gods, it wasn’t right or fair, but she’d long ago accepted the price she would pay. He wouldn’t be happy that she summoned him, but he
would
come.

He answered, began walking to her quarters.

Thank the gods. She couldn’t fail now. She had much yet to atone for. Too much.

Cursing her weakness and her small, pain-racked body, she shivered in the dark and waited for him, hardly daring to breathe.

<><><>

Completely numb, Mari thought she’d be dead by now, but somehow wasn’t. She opened her eyes to see that the light became bigger and brighter until a thin, pale woman in a blue robe stepped through to stand beside her. She was eerily beautiful. The stranger held out her hand. “Come, Marina. Come with me.”

In the deepest well of her heart she knew she had a choice, she could feel it. If she said no, the woman would disappear and leave her here with Raiden dying on the floor and the monster’s claw piercing her chest.

No brainer.

“Yes.” A blinding flash of light, like a lightning strike, flashed around them and Mari lost all sense of time and place. With a terrible wrenching, she was pulled out of her body like dirt sucked down a vacuum hose. She couldn’t fight it or control where she went, but at least the pain was gone. The woman somehow held her together and pulled her through a tangled space of white strands, bitter cold, and darkness. She imagined this must be what a beam of light felt like traveling down a fiber optic line. In January. In the freaking Arctic. If this was heaven, she was screwed. She’d never be warm again.

Then she slammed into flesh once more. Her mind screamed in silent agony. Every heartbeat was a blade plunging through her chest. Her skin was on fire, burning and twitching in reaction to the cold that bit into her bones with giant teeth of solid ice. If this was life now, maybe she should have stayed down there with the aliens. At least she’d been going blissfully numb.

“She’s injured and in shock. We must summon the healer.” A deep voice wrapped around her, strangely comforting. He reminded her of Dad. Deep, baritone, solid.

“No. No one can know. I will tend to her.” The answer was feminine, but unyielding. No doctor for the mortally wounded diver girl murdered by aliens. Mari tried to open her eyes, but they burned as if she’d rubbed a teaspoon of cayenne pepper into each unsuspecting orb. She moaned and curled into a ball. Something jabbed her in the neck, then the behind, and they both felt like needles the size of ball-point pens.

The deep voice grunted, but didn’t argue. The woman continued. “Can you lift her into the tank for me? I need to know if the DNA graft will hold. The warm water should help her heal.”

Mari felt iron bands lift her, then slide her limp body into what felt like a nice, hot bath. “How long?”

The woman answered. “At least twelve hours. Then I need you to take her back.”

Confused, Mari tried to listen, but their voices faded into a blur of ups and downs and then she heard nothing more.

<><><>

When she could think again, she realized she was underwater. Trapped. Like a fish in a tank, she floated in a clear enclosure, minus the bubbling treasure chest and plastic plants. She kicked for the surface, but her head bumped into an invisible solid barrier. There was no air under the barrier, not even the smallest of spaces for her to draw an ounce of oxygen, a hint of breath.

Her previous drugged-out fog deserted her to be replaced with a horrible panic, a mind-crushing, sense-stealing, wild drive to beat her body against the walls. She clawed at the tank, swam from side to side, pounded her body and fists against the barrier in a blind rage, desperate to escape, hoping to crack the thick bluish material that looked like glass but was abnormally warm beneath her fists.

Come on, Mari. Divers don’t panic. Panic kills.

Mari felt wet heat in her throat, in her lungs, and realized she was breathing water, and it felt normal, like air but thicker. Warmer. She relaxed and let her body do what it wanted to do…inhale. The glide of liquid down her throat and into her lungs was like a carress sent to heal and soothe her body from the inside out.

One more insane experience to add to her collection of very bizarre dreams. She calmed down and regulated her breathing, noticed that she could see without a mask, like a fish. Bringing her hand up in front of her face, relief flooded her when she saw her own five, very un-fish-like fingers. No fins. No webbed fingers. Mostly normal, then. Other than the strange slide of water down her throat, she felt wonderful. Strong. Tingly and buzzing with excess energy.

Must be a dream.

A woman with flowing golden hair approached from outside and spread her palm flat against the opposite side of the glass, like she was saying goodbye to a toddler through a car window. She wore a blue gown that swirled and flowed around her ankles like silk in a breeze.

The move confused Mari nearly as much as the serene look on the woman’s face. No worry lined the woman’s face, no scowl darkened her brow, and a quiet understanding, even empathy, floated behind the woman’s strange lavender eyes. The woman from the cave. The woman who’d taken her from the jaws of death.

Be calm, Marina. All is well.

The enchanting voice spoke directly into Mari’s mind, and she froze at the crystalline quality she heard in the woman’s tone. Each syllable felt like a tiny ice pick inside her head. Each word a needle.

It hurt.

She stopped moving, met the woman’s gaze and froze. Any fear that remained flowed out of her limbs as if the woman had pulled the plug on a bathtub and her worries simply drained away.

The woman smiled and her gown floated around dainty bare feet in a swirl of shimmering light that nearly hypnotized Mari with its movements.

Mari felt the woman’s consciousness floating around inside her head, telling her things, giving her knowledge and information. The woman knew of the marks inside the cave, understood what they were, and knew they shouldn’t be there. All of this information floated in and out of Mari’s attention faster than she could keep track.

I am Celestina.

Mari floated in place, at zero buoyancy, weightless and at peace. What was this place?
Is this a dream? Am I dead?

Celestine shook her head slowly and a sad smile curled the ends of her mouth into soft lines that hurt Mari’s heart as if the woman’s pain were her own. Deep within, Celestina did indeed worry. Not just worry, she was terrified.

You aren’t dead. You are a full-blooded, genetically modified Timewalker now, Marina Lucia Jean-Mennette. I had to let you die so I could pull you on the strands. I desperately need your help.

Mari forced her brain to stop darting to and fro, frantically trying to analyze the situation and come up with answers. She told herself to shut up for a minute, cleared her head and took a look around, noticed the control panels and alien technology all around the room. Strange equipment, scanners, and screens covered every inch of her view and it was all littered with a language she’d never seen outside of her dreams.

That language belongs to the Immortals, the same language you found in the cave. And it shouldn’t be there.

Mari looked into Celestina’s eyes and knew she’d help the woman. There was something pure in her gaze that made “resistance futile”.

Borg jokes while she floated in a human fish tank? Yep, she was totally losing it.
What do you need me to do?

The cave was not a dream, Marina. Your death in that cave was real. The Triscani killed you and we moved you through time.

Moved through time? Mari aligned their hands on opposite sides of the glass, met her eye to eye.
Why?

Brace yourself, Mari, I’m going to show you
. Celestina’s gaze seemed to heat her through the barrier and pull Mari into the other woman’s mind like a ship swirling to the ocean’s bottom in a whirlpool.

Water flowed in and out of her lungs as easily as air, as it was supposed to, as the water clans on Celestina’s world had for centuries. Celestina shared this information with her, and Mari smiled. She’d always wanted to swim in the wild ocean waters, dreamt of being one with aquatic life, of understanding them, of swimming with dolphins, sharks, or whales without fear.

She laughed, and the sound of her voice underwater was a strange squeak similar to a dolphin’s but pitched much lower.

Very cool.

Celestina allowed her to enjoy the feeling for a minute. Unfortunately, play time couldn’t last forever.

The vision I share with you is nearly two years old, and painful
. Celestina closed her eyes and Mari’s eyelids were pulled down as surely as if they had ten-pound weights attached.

Mari watched a battle play out in space, like
Star Wars
behind her eyelids, except the good guys got their asses kicked and their small ship spiraled out of control toward a blue-and-white planet. Lost.

Mari cried out as the ship plummeted toward Earth. Her left delt burned as if someone pressed her flesh with a branding iron near the top of her shoulder.

She watched the vision, trying in vain to see where the ship landed. Someone very important was on that ship. Someone who had to live. Someone who held Earth’s fate in his hands.

Raiden was on that ship.

Dying.

Celestina released her mind and Mari floated back, away from the barrier, shocked and upset by what she’d seen.

Who is he?
She had to know. Did this mean that
all
her dreams were real? Raiden had crashed in that ship. He’d been found and transported out of his ship, trapped in a cave like Sleeping Beauty guarded by terrifying, faceless monsters. And he’d died because she wasn’t smart enough to figure out a way to save him.

Celestina folded her hands in front of her and a tear tracked down her cheek, seeming to confirm Mari’s worst nightmare.
The ship belongs to the Immortals that founded my world. I am not sure how the warrior in stasis acquired such a vessel or how he arrived in this time, but he did. I do not know who Raiden is or why he is here. I know from the vision I had of your death in the cave, that he is a forbidden son of the Queen’s lineage. He has Immortal blood. The enemy who fired upon the ship circles Earth even as we speak, disrupting your timelines and killing millions of people. I have begun to suspect…