Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (7 page)

What?

Celestine smiled, and the tilt of her lips, the look in her eyes, was one of the saddest things Mari had ever seen. Bone-deep pain left a scar no smile could completely mask.
I do not know. They are hunting. Could be a soul, could be an artifact. Our ship followed them here through a wormhole after the last battle, but we were not well prepared and they escaped us.

And what does this have to do with me?

You are the only one who can save him. I don’t know why the Triscani want him, but they are pure evil. We must stop the Triscani here or the Immortals will send their soldiers and destroy Earth to protect their own realm.

Is this a dream?
Mari looked around the ship, at the advanced technology, at the woman who stood so calmly before her talking about Earth’s annihilation.

No, Marina. They killed you and your friend. They killed Raiden. The time for dreams is over.

She’d led a Navy S.E.A.L. into the lion’s den like a baby and cost him his life. And Raiden? Mari tried not to think too hard about the hornets’ nest stirring in her chest when she thought of Raiden, of his strong hands and seductive kiss. Dead.

The gorgeous man who’d both tantalized and terrorized her, who’d haunted her dreams for two years, was already dead. And it was her fault. She’d left him there to die. He’d been awakened and abandoned, left to perish with no one to aid him after she’d been stabbed through the heart.

Why don’t you save Raiden?

Celestina shook her head.
I am not a true healer. He is severely injured. It must be you. I do not know why, but I have seen it in my visions. You are the only one who has ever found that cave.

Mari recalled her dream and the slow pulse of the gorgeous man lying trapped there. She closed her eyes and blocked Celestina from her thoughts. She focused on remembering his face, his hair, the taste of his lips…

Despair gripped her with the icy talons of silence. For the first time in two years she felt nothing.
He’s dead, Celestina. No one can save him now.

You can, and you will.
Celestina smiled.
We will send you back in time, to several hours before your death. You will do this. I’ve already seen it.
As if that were the answer to all things.

Celestina turned around when a door opened and nodded to a very large, very scary warrior of mythological stature. It took no stretch of the imagination to envision him drawing a mighty broadsword and single-handedly destroying entire legions of faceless beings without even breaking a sweat.

Why don’t you just send him in to take care of it?
Time travel on top of everything else? She really was losing it. But was it so difficult to reconcile with her existence these last two years? She’d dreamt about Raiden every night. Seen that cave. Died over and over, hundreds of times. What were those dreams if not their own form of time travel? They’d turned out to be prophetic at the very least. Precognition. That was what the psychology geeks called it when people claimed to have visions of the future.

I have other matters to attend.
Baritone boy could speak to her inside her head, too? He continued, and Mari wished he hadn’t.
You will go. You will destroy them, or you will die in truth. We will be unable to save you a second time.

Mari tensed, fought for control of her emotions. Terror threatened to immobilize her, but she locked it away. The skill was hard earned by enduring endless nights of horror trapped inside her own mind. For once, her nightmares served her well. She glared at the warrior, a cold and determined rage rose to banish the cold panic from her limbs and restore her to life.

Stop scaring her.
Celestina’s face flushed, but she laid a tentative hand on the man’s bare forearm, as if touching him burned. From the brief flash of pain Mari saw on his face, perhaps it did.

Only a fool would be unafraid. She is human. She must understand what is at stake.

She’s more than human.
Celestina turned away from the big man and her gaze met Mari’s once more through the glass. For the first time Mari noticed the lines of strain around Celestina’s eyes, her sunken cheeks and wan smiles. For such a gorgeous alien, the woman looked like hell.

Fascinated, Mari watched Celestina nervously shuffle away from the giant warrior. His face gave nothing away, but his eyes blazed with unnamed emotion as he watched the tiny, obviously exhausted woman move away from him. Completely unaware of his regard, Celestina squared her too thin shoulders.
Now, Marina, time to go back.

Chapter Three

“This is insane.” Mari looked at the otherworldly beauty who stood before her. If she understood things correctly, she was standing in a spaceship. Right now. She’d died, and been pulled through time. She’d been stabbed through the heart, healed, and was about to be sent back to do it all again.

“I’m sorry, Marina, it’s the only way.” Celestina tilted her head to the side, arms palm up. An entreaty for understanding? Patience? Courage?

All of the above.

“Why? We already know where Raiden is. Can’t you send me back two weeks? Or three? Send me to a day and time when the monsters won’t be down there?”

“No. Viewing the past is not my gift. All I can see is the Triscani guards waiting and watching from inside that cave.”
I can’t help you with this, Mari. I’m sorry. You have to face them again.
The words appeared inside her mind, along with sharp, shooting pain. It was Celestina and her lovely telepathy. She continued aloud. “I have altered your body to suite our purposes. You will be able to breathe water and heal any biological organism, but especially Raiden. Save him first. His ship crashed somewhere near the cave. I can see the ship in visions, but I can’t pinpoint its exact location. Together, you and Raiden must find it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but my instincts tell me that Raiden left something important behind.”

“Why not wait until they leave the cave? I can wait a couple weeks to go back down there. Raiden’s been in stasis for at least two years. He can last a few more days.” Mari put her hands on her hips and stared down at the hole in the front of her dive suit. That hole was proof that she wasn’t crazy. Black claws had made that hole, on the way to her heart.

“Because Raiden won’t last that long.” Celestina shook her head. “The traitor on board this ship knows that the cave and his location has been discovered. They may try to move him. It has to be now.”

Fine. Goldilocks seemed to have an answer to everything. “Okay, assuming I’m crazy enough to go along with this scheme of yours, what am I supposed to do about the monsters down there? They are still down there, right? Waiting to kill me again? I need a light saber or a laser gun, something that will kill them. And I’ll need a dive tank for Raiden, a way to get him to the surface. Unless he can breathe water, too?”

“No, he can’t. Not yet. You will have to take a tank down with you. As for killing the creatures.” Celestina held out her hand, palm-down, empty. “The gift I give you now must remain our secret. You can never tell anyone how you acquired it. If you do, I will be hunted and killed. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I promise.” The vow came easily. She’d most likely be dead shortly. Last time she checked, corpses didn’t talk.

“Give me your non-dominant hand.”

Mari held out her right hand and Celestina grabbed on, linking them together. “This will take care of the Triscani guards.” Celestina’s hand heated and her skin turned pink, then red, then silver as if her skin were made of metal. The metal swirled and pooled into a ball about the size of a marble before leaping onto Mari’s flesh. Celestina let go and Mari watched in fascination as the silver spread out and flowed over her entire hand like a hot wax glove.

Holding her hand up in front of her face, Mari flexed her fingers and made a fist, testing it out. Nothing happened, other than her hand feeling a bit hot. “What is it? What does it do?”

“It’s an energy implant, a weapon. It will graft to your DNA. No one can remove it from your hand, and no one else will ever be able to use it.” Celestina’s gaze was glued to Mari’s hand as well.

“Have you ever given this to anyone else?”

“No. Traditionally, we gift to one descendant only, usually a daughter.” Celestina’s smile was sad. “I have no daughters, but I can think of no better daughter than you, and no better purpose than to kill the Triscani that threaten us all.”

“What does it do, exactly?” Not that she didn’t appreciate the gesture, but it was alien, and starting to hurt.

Celestina held her hand, palm out, toward the water-filled tank on the opposite side of the room.“Focus your mind and see a beam of light erupt from your palm, like this.” A blinding blue-silver light shot from Celestina’s palm into the tank. Bubbles and steam rose from the churning water in a giant strike of heat. “It is one of the few weapons that can disrupt the Triscani’s energies and send them to the eternal night.”

Mari looked back down at her own hand, shocked to see perfectly normal, tanned skin. “It’s gone.”

“No, it has grafted to your cells and will always be yours.”

Wow. Holy freaking wow. Mari pointed and imagined a beam of bright light shooting from her palm like a superhero with laser power. It took a few seconds to build in her mind, then she felt the magical moment when it popped into reality and the fiery light burst from her palm to the water tank.

“Very good.”

“Okay, so I can shoot the bad guys. I still don’t know what’s down there in the alien stronghold.” Was she really having this conversation? Really? It sounded like a bad
Star Trek
episode, and she felt like the extra redshirt ensign.

Just kill me now.

“You must save Raiden. That is all I know.”

“Why?” Even as she asked the question, a sharp pain shot from the deep recesses of her eye sockets into her brain, like seven-inch-long hot needles had just been shoved through both eyes at once. More of Celestina’s telepathy. “Hey!”

“I am sorry for your pain, Marina. It will lessen as you grow into your new abilities.”

Mari breathed through it as an image appeared inside her head, an image very similar to the markings she’d found in that cave. The circular shape from the cave wall appeared in her mind. “What is that, his symbol?”

“No. It is yours and now marks your flesh.”

“Mine?” What the hell? Celestina pointed to her left shoulder, to the top of her deltoid on her left arm.

“Yes, Marina, I know you can feel its burn on your arm. The Mark is yours, yours and Raiden’s. You are his and he is yours. That is why you are the only one who can find him and heal him.”

“No pressure.” Mari rubbed the top of her left arm, where something did, indeed, feel like it was eating into her skin like acid.

“Save Raiden. He will know what to do.” Celestina frowned and tilted her head to the side, as if listening to a conversation no one else could hear. “It’s time for you to go. Bran won’t be able to hold the portal much longer. I have done all I can. Do not fail, Timewalker. Do not wait.”

Mari nodded and wandered toward a view screen. She had no idea if it was an internal screen or a true window into space, but Earth hung suspened in outerspace below her. Beautiful and surreal. Mari leaned her head against the cool screen, staring at her home, trying to come to grips with this new reality, but Celestina wasn’t finished with her yet.

“One last thing, Timewalker. Should you succeed, I doubt that I will remember this conversation. In my experience of time, this may or may not have happened. I don’t know what I will recall or what might have changed. Therfore, I need another promise from you. I need you to find me or Bran after you’ve rescued Raiden and give us a message.”

Mari turned away from the view to study the petite Seer. “How do I find you? I don’t exactly have a spaceship I can use to fly up here and say ‘hello’. And if you don’t remember me, you won’t come looking.”

“This will summon me.” Celestina walked to her and placed a small metallic disk on her palm. “When you are ready, depress the small button at its center and hold it in until the disk glows. It’s a personal beacon, set to my private frequency. As to the message, tell us what happened here. Tell us there is a traitor on board our ship.” Celestina rubbed her eyes, her tears a sign of true distress. “Tell us to trust no one but each other.”

Mari grabbed Celestina’s hand and squeezed. “If I survive this, I promise. I will find you.”

Celestina pulled her into a hug and Mari hugged her back with every ounce of strength she had.

“Thank you, Celestina. Thank you for saving my life.”

Celestina pulled back, a sad smile on her pixie face. “Find me.”

<><><>

Mari said her goodbyes, nodded to Bran and stepped through the portal floating a few inches above the floor. Immediately she felt the sucking sensation of being a fly in the vaccum cleaner’s hose again. Her body felt torn apart, disintegrated into nothing, taken apart one piece at a time like a sand statue in a windstorm, and put back together again somewhere else. White light blinded her senses for an unknown length of time until the wild ride finally dumped her flat on her back. Naked.