Fury Rising (Fury Unbound Book 1) (25 page)

I suddenly slammed off the Crossroads, landing on my knees between Tam and Jason, who were frantically looking around, calling my name.

“Kae! Where the hell were you?” Jason’s expression was grim.

“Oof, that landing was rough. Help me up.”

Tam took one hand, Jason the other, and they pulled me to my feet.

“Hecate called me over to the Crossroads.”

“Are you all right? Was there an Abom loose over there?” Jason asked.

I dusted myself off. My knees were scraped, but that was par for the course. I had more scrapes and bumps on my knees than a kid learning how to freewheel on a bike.

“Yeah, I’m all right. Change of plans, though. I have to head into the Tunnels and retrieve the Thunderstrike. Apparently, the Order of the Black Mist isn’t acting on a full deck. They’re using the Thunderstrike to try to open the doors to the realm of Chaos.”

As we headed toward the outer border of the Sandspit, I told them what she had said. “So, yeah, I need to go to the northwest corner of the Sandspit, where it meets the Bogs. The entrance to the Tunnels is there.” I almost asked if they would go with me, but then stopped. This was dangerous and I didn’t want to put my friends in danger.

Tam cleared his throat. “I’m coming with you. I won’t let you go there alone.”

Jason blinked. “Kae, I’m game, too, but do you want us tagging along?”

Relief swept over me. Grateful for the offer, I said, “You’re welcome to come, but I don’t want to put either of you in harm’s way. But…I would welcome the company.”

“We’re with you, Fury.” Tam shifted his weight to one side, and suddenly he seemed to glow, his glamour running strong. I realized it was more than skin deep. Under the night sky, he seemed luminous and regal.

“I don’t consider this just your fight,” Jason grumbled. “Lyon is getting too big for his britches, and the Order of the Black Mist is dangerous. We’re all in this together.”

“Right.” I glanced over at Tommy-Tee.
Crap.
We couldn’t take him. “What do we do about…” I jerked my head toward him. “And our things? I don’t want to be dragging around a change of clothes through the Tunnels.”

Tommy-Tee didn’t seem to notice we were talking about him. He was staring at the sky, his eyes lit up like a kid staring into a candy shop.

Tam gave him a long look. “Tommy-Tee is trapped inside his shadow. He’s in there, but it would take a skilled shaman from my people to bring him back out.”

That threw me. “You mean there’s hope for him?”

With a gentle smile, Tam caught my gaze and held it. “There’s hope for a lot of the Broken. Humans just don’t know the right techniques and your government treats them like lost causes rather than ask the Otherkin for help.”

Otherkin
was the term the government used to include all those not of human or Theosian–human blood.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Too often, it isn’t the body chemistry gone wrong as much as the spirit has gone wandering. We’ll head toward the Tunnels after we go where I was taking us to begin with. We can leave our things there, along with Tommy-Tee, and he’ll be safe.”

As we crossed the last divide separating us from the fences surrounding the Sandspit, my stomach worked its way into my throat. The very aura of the drifting dunes reeked with chaotic magic, and with danger. During the day, sometimes the dunes shifted so you could see the World Tree from the edges, but at night, especially when the clouds were covering the sky with their thick, gray masses, you could barely see your hand in front of your face.

There were no streetlights on the sidewalks that surrounded the two-hundred-acre vortex. They shorted out so often the city had removed them. Instead, a row of lights lined the opposite sides of the streets, leaving the fence surrounding the roiling pit swathed in darkness. But the Sandspit had a glow all of its own. Faint, but unmistakable. The dunes emanated a pale blue light, shifting as the great piles of sands moved in the continuous wind that rattled the area.

As we came to the fence, I stared into what had once been a thriving industrial sector of town. What had it looked like originally, I wondered. What had it looked like the day before Gaia turned it into a twisted heap of scrap metal, and then—dust and sand? The fury in her strike, the fury of what had happened, hit me to the core. We couldn’t face her anger again. One more time and it would be the end of civilization for good. We couldn’t chance the Order of the Black Mist raising enough hell so Gaia would rage down and wipe every trace of human and Otherkin off the face of her body.

“We have to find the Tunnels,” I whispered, staring into the seething pit.

Tam, standing beside me, slid his arm around my waist. “We will. We’ll find them.”

“I don’t want to go in there. But I have no choice.” I had been in the Sandspit a few times, but never very far. Two hundred acres might not seem like much, but when every step was fraught with danger, the prospect of two hundred acres was daunting.

“The World Tree is in there. Think of it, Fury. We have a branch of the World Tree right here. Your ancestors would never have believed it possible. They didn’t even know it existed until Gaia uncloaked it.”

Something about the way he said it made me stop short. “
My
ancestors? What about yours?” I turned to him. “How old
are
you, Tam? Jason is two hundred and twenty-four years old, but I have no idea how old you are.”

“Does it matter? Would it change the way you act around me?” He searched my face and I realized he really wanted an answer.

A funny feeling settled in my stomach. I knew very little about Tam, even though I had known him over half my life now. I realized I knew nothing about his family or background—it had never come up in conversation.

“I like to think I wouldn’t react differently. But this isn’t the place for a heart-to-heart conversation, is it? We’d better get moving. Jason, do you have Tommy-Tee? We don’t dare let him wander loose in the Sandspit. It would eat him up.”

With Tommy-Tee in tow, we walked along the fence until we came to one of the openings leading into the magical zone. There were large readerboards warning people of the dangers. As with the Bogs, the boards stated that no rescues would be mounted, no searches made, no recovery efforts undertaken. Enter at your own risk, basically.

I sucked in a deep breath and, because this was my fight no matter what Jason and Tam thought, I was the first to step into the Sandspit.

The shift in energy was immediate. Once through the gate, the winds picked up to a steady, brusque clip. The air shifted, taking on a cool, harsh feel, and stinging grains of sand began to pelt my face. The winds never died in the Sandspit. They never fell silent, but ceaselessly howled, their voices clear with warning.

Here, the elements were alive in a way they weren’t out in the rest of the world. They had sentience—and emotion. And tonight, the winds were angry. I could feel the energy surround me, sweeping up my own emotion and heightening it. Something had happened, and the spirits were pissed. Was it the earthquake? Or something different? That, I couldn’t tell, but I stopped, wanting to hear what the winds were whispering.

“Can you feel it? The winds are trying to tell me something.”

“I can hear it, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.” Tam turned, his back to me. “I’ll watch behind us and to the right. Jason, you watch to our front and left. Fury, do what you need to.”

Jason took hold of Tommy-Tee’s wrist, holding him steady. “Go ahead, Kae. Whatever you need.”

I stepped between them so that I was protected and raised my hands. I couldn’t go into the Crossroads here, there was no intersection, but I could work with my own magic. Fire and flame wouldn’t do much and there wasn’t much to exorcise, but my powers of divination would help.

I stretched out, opening my mind to the sounds riding the wind. The voices formed a tapestry of music, catching me up in a melody so faint I could barely hear it. As it began to grow, I opened myself to the sound. Suddenly, I was in the thick, dancing on the haunting tune that rode the currents of air. I whirled in the middle of the voices, which appeared as sparks bobbing and weaving. The dancing lights grew stronger as the voices grew louder, and fainter as they faded out. I drifted with them until the music turned into words, and I could hear what was being said beneath the thrum of song.

“The tree is awake, the tree is alive,

The roots are thick, the portals thrive,

The doors that are closed buzz like hives,

As the bleak magician strives…

To open, to open, to open the way

As the threads of destiny fray…”

Abruptly, I dropped out of my trance. “The winds in the Sandspit know about Lyon and what he’s trying to do. Whether they are actual spirits or whether it’s an air elemental, I don’t know, but Lyon’s doing his best to change the path of fate and destiny. Tam, take us to where we can safely leave Tommy-Tee and our things. After that, we have to get to the Tunnels as quickly as we can.”

I still had no idea how we were going to infiltrate the Order of the Black Mist and retrieve the Thunderstrike, but I knew we had to—and soon. Or the World Shift would be a pale comparison of what Gaia would rain down on us this time.

Chapter 19

Tam led us into what seemed like an indistinguishable mass of dunes. The sand was ochre in color, but it sparkled with lights, as though somebody had dumped a ton of glitter in it. But as pretty as it was, I knew that glitter represented rogue magic and was hella dangerous. Because let one good gust blow it into your face and
boom
—something was guaranteed to happen.

“Don’t scuff your feet. Don’t kick up sand. Do your best to take steady, easy steps. Try not to breathe too deeply. It’s a bad idea.” Tam kept his voice down.

I brought up my Trace and checked for any Aboms that might be in the area, but saw no signs. The aerial Abomination we had seen earlier was nowhere in sight—it was long gone.

“We’re clear on Aboms for now, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other creatures prowling around here.” I shivered. My legs were cold, but it was the Sandspit giving me the creeps.

“This way.” Tam skirted a large dune that was mounded over a scrap heap of rusted metal, and turned to the left.

We followed him as he wound through the dunes. I realized I had no idea how deep we were into the Sandspit. From here, none of the exits were visible. The sides of the Sandspit seemed to be swallowed up by unending dunes. We might as well be in the middle of the desert instead of downtown Seattle. The noise of the streets was muffled as well, and I began to wonder if the Sandspit was off in its own dimension, nestled in the midst of the dark city streets.

After a time—it could have been five minutes or it could have been an hour—Tam stopped. He pointed ahead. There, rising out of a crater so deep that its top was almost level with the sand, was the World Tree. The tree was over one hundred feet tall, which meant the crater had to be at least that deep.

“I had no idea it was actually inside the crater. Was that formed…”

“When Gaia shifted the world? Yes. All over the world, she summoned the branches of the World Tree. This tree, and others like it, are just limbs of the one that connects all the realms together.” Tam stared at it reverently. “Whether it was birthed out of her anger or her love, the Tree is a beacon to all who travel through the different dimensions and worlds.”

“Like the Abominations.”

“Yes, it’s a beacon for them, unfortunately. And for the Devani, which is equally unfortunate. The two are mirrors, but they are both so far out on their respective ends of the spectrum that they’re not really all that different.” Tam paused, his gaze darting around the area. Finally, he seemed to see what he was looking for. “Come. This way.”

We followed as he skirted the crater. About halfway around it, he paused by one particularly sharp-looking heap of scrap metal and then cautiously approached the edge of the crater.

“We go down here.”

“Down?” Jason asked. “We’re actually descending into the crater?” He sounded just about as thrilled as I felt.