Synnergy, Chaos Time Book 3 (11 page)

She scrunched her nose, trying to figure out how to
translate something that seemed so simple to her, but beyond belief
for someone used to horses and wagons.
Duh, of course
. “It’s
a wagon with wheels, but no horses to draw it.”

“Really?” Her eyes were wide, filled with wonder.
“How is that possible? Magic?”

“No.” She smiled. “Magic is nothing but science
unexplained.” She glanced at Hunter from the corner of her eye,
finally understanding.

“True enough I suppose.” Alice nodded.

“It’s components that run independent of humans, but
still needing a power source of some type. They’re very fast. We
could have traveled from the brothel to the Lord location in under
an hour in one of those.”

“Unbelievable.”

Sable nodded.

Alice was silent for a moment. “I’d love to see that
someday.”

“Maybe you can, Alice. Maybe you could come back with
us.”

“I don’t know. The future seems a frightening
thought.”

“Yeah, but so was the past. And I did it.”

Alice’s lips pressed tight. “Once I finish this
mission, I’m free.”

“See, no reason not to.”

Alice placed a hand against her cheek. “I can’t
believe I’m even entertaining this asinine thought.”

“Besides,” Sable lifted her brows, “you have to teach
me how to do some spell casting. Could I learn that?”

“With practice, absolutely. It’s a simple spell
really.”

Sable smiled, thrilled by the possibility of learning
more about who she was through Alice’s years as a shifter. Hunter
would be happy. How could he not? Alice would be an asset to the
group.

Alice shoulder bumped her. “But first, let’s kill the
Enigma, yes?”

“Agreed.” And there was no doubt in her mind they
would.

Alice increased her pace, forcing everyone else to.
After thirty minutes of power walking Sable’s calves started
screaming. She’d never walked so much in her life. She wasn’t
exactly out of shape, but she wasn’t exactly an athlete either.
Wishing for the hundredth time she could turn phoenix she trudged
on. The soles of her feet burned and cramped.

The sun had set about an hour ago. Everyone was quiet
again. Even the woods were quiet. Only in the absence of sound did
she realize it’d gone, earlier there’d been chirping crickets and
birds. Now there was nothing. Even the breeze didn’t stir.

The night was thick with moisture. Sweat beaded on
her forehead. She licked her lips and tried to ignore her heaving
lungs. But it wasn’t only her lungs giving her fits, her stomach
was knotted and hurting so bad that pain radiated down both legs.
Her vision became pinpricks of light and she had to stop and hang
on to a sapling with arm muscles trembling from fatigue.

This was weird. Wrong. This wasn’t a normal case of
being out of shape.

“Hey.” A warm hand was on her back, on her face. She
melted into Slayde’s touch. “You okay, Nix?”

She hissed as another hot flash ripped through her
midsection, stealing all the breath from her lungs.

“Nix?” he asked again, his voice filled with
worry.

Counting in her head, praying the pain would go away,
she couldn’t answer him. She got to ten before the waves of cramps
started to ease and she could finally take a breath. She was
sweating something horrible, it dripped off her nose. She wiped her
nose with the back of her hand and stood up. Her breathing was
still heavy, but her vision had come back. She blinked and gave him
a tremulous smile.

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute. This
climb.”

It wasn’t the climb and she wasn’t sure why she
wasn’t telling him the truth. Maybe because she didn’t want him to
think she was crazy, but this pain was strange.

“Maybe when we get home we’ll start jogging.”
Slayde’s grin was strong and sure, but worry still gleamed in his
blue eyes.

His comment had her lips quirking, even against the
dull ache. He’d said
we
. “Yeah maybe. Thanks.” She nodded.
“I’m good now.”

Slayde still looked worried, but at least he didn’t
argue with her, only hovered beside her.

She turned to Alice. “Well, lead on.”

Alice nodded and walked on. After a while Slayde
drifted further and further back. When he was well in the distance,
Alice leaned in and asked, “Same pain as before?”

She peeked over her shoulder. Slayde wasn’t looking
at her; he was peering into the woods. The moon was heavy and
pregnant with light, the trees were blue-black shadows and she knew
without a doubt there was nothing there. Anymore.

“It ebbs and flows.” She edged closer to Alice. “I
feel it most when I sense...an animal.”

“An animal?”

“A presence?” Sable shrugged. “I don’t know.
Something’s stalking us and when it does, it hurts.” That sounded
so lame.

Alice smiled. She was wearing pants and a shirt, same
as Sable, but unlike Sable, hers hugged her very curvy figure.
Alice had said walking in a dress in the middle of the woods to go
do battle with a demon wasn’t proper wear. Sable had jumped all
over that, until she realized she looked like a little boy in her
clothes. Which was stupidly vain, and should be the least of her
worries right now.

“You’re right. We’ve been followed since the stream.
Your visceral reaction to the creature is quite interesting.”

“Creature?”

“Sniff the air,” Alice ordered, ignoring Sable’s
question.

“I’ve been sniffing. All I smell is the forest.”

“Sniff it again and again and again. You’ll smell
it.”

She huffed, but did as told and tipped her nose up.
This time she didn’t have to take a deep breath, she smelled it
instantly. And it was something she’d smelled before.

She’d assumed the first time she’d smelled this scent
that it’d been due to walking through a lava filled earthen tube.
The rotten eggy stench of sulfur.

“We’re getting closer.” She winked. “That is the
trick, phoenix, follow the stench.”

The further they walked, the stronger it grew. Until
she had to cover her nose with her shirt just to take a proper
breath. It was hard to know exactly how much longer they walked
with no sun to track the shadows by, but before she knew it, Alice
placed a finger against her lips. They all stopped.

Still the world was static. Tomb like. As if nature
sensed the intrinsic danger that dwelled here. It was so empty of
sound it echoed with it. Her eyes widened, she looked all around,
wishing her head could rotate like an owl’s. Or maybe like a
phoenix, if she could freaking shift! She so wished she was in bird
form right now, she’d feel a million times better and much less
creeped out.

Heat pressed against her back. She molded herself
along the tensile strength of Slayde’s body, needing his touch
right now. Though he sometimes aggravated her, she was grateful to
have him here.

His fingers worked magic, rubbing the tension out of
her neck.

Ahead, was a large jagged mountain that seemed to
stretch to infinity into the sky. The night cast it in shades of
purple and muted browns. A large black opening in the rock seemed
to indicate there was a cave here. And what was it with these Lords
hiding in rocks?

There could be no doubt that he was here though, the
smell of rotten eggs was everywhere.

“Stinks like that freakin’ pyramid in Mexico,” Slayde
muttered.

She nodded.

Alice held up two hands and gestured to the left. No
more time to think, to worry and wait. The time was now. She shook
her hands and hopped on the balls of her feet like a fighter
entering the ring. Showtime.

Hunter stepped up, holding tight to Ari’s hand and
with a clipped nod, jerked the healer off to the left. They
disappeared behind a copse of trees.

Alice looked at her and Slayde and jerked her head
toward the right. Slayde intertwined his fingers through hers and
squeezed it gently.

She felt like her body was a tuning fork. Both
vibrating and tense at the same time with her barely suppressed
need to scream just to ease the nerves spreading like an oil slick
in her gut.

Much like the eye of a tornado, eerily calm before
catastrophic danger struck, she knew they were seconds away from
finally meeting the Lord. From finally seeing his face and
hopefully, this time it would be
his
blood staining the
ground.

The land hummed to life with prickles of energy. Wind
picked up and where before there’d been no sound, now it screamed
to life. A roar ripped through the night and it was so shocking,
for a moment Sable couldn’t move.

But the roar was real and getting louder.

“Slayde,” she whispered.

“I know.” He squeezed her fingers before dropping
them. “It’s coming this way. Be ready, Sable.”

His words were an omen. The second he stopped talking
chaos spread like wildfire. A black shadow loomed, gunfire erupted,
and there was absolutely no need for stealth anymore.

Sable called her fire, transforming an instant before
something large and incredibly powerful slammed into her.

“He told me about you,” the sibilant voice hissed as
powerful hands yanked on her tail a second before she could lift
off the air.

She cried out, the burning pain throbbed. Slayde
threw himself at the black shadow. She twirled on clawed feet, and
if she’d been human she would have gasped.

The Lord wasn’t shielded in shadow, he was shadow.
Slayde rolled through the amorphous body with no resistance. The
Lord vanished in a swirl.

Slayde was looking around with eyes glowing fully
white and palms a heated red. “Where did it go?”

If she could have answered him she would have
screamed to duck. To roll out of the way. The black stain coalesced
behind his back. A black phantom with claws curled and ready to rip
his neck off his body.

“Don’t engage,” Hunter roared, his voice growing
louder as several pairs of feet ran towards their location. “Don’t
engage!”

But the warning was too late, if she didn’t engage,
Slayde was dead.

Alice had a gun and was shooting. “Wait for us,” she
cried, “almost there.”

But they wouldn’t reach them in time.

Sable couldn’t warn Slayde, but she could do
something else. She waited until the moment the Lord was semi
corporeal and then she knocked Slayde to the ground. He landed in a
heap.

“Sable? What the hell? Don’t you dare!”

She ignored him and tore her beak through the only
spot on the Lord he’d materialized, his left wrist.

The tips of her left wing suddenly burned. She veered
away from the tree branches poking at her like an angry swarm of
red ants. The acrid taste of the Lord’s hot blood squirted onto her
tongue.

She should have been disgusted. It should have tasted
gross. She should have wanted to spit it out. But that’s not what
happened. His blood tasted good. Really good. The phoenix wanted
more. She shuddered and flapped her wings harder.

The Lord screamed, but now that she had a hold of
him, he couldn’t disappear again. She beat her powerful wings,
dragging the wiggling shadow with her.

She ought to have expected it. But she’d been
obsessed with getting him away from Slayde. Claws sank deep into
her shoulder. Her cry shook the tops of the ancient trees, instinct
told her to hang on. So she clamped down harder. He started
shredding her wing. Dragging his claws like shears through her
feathers. Her vision blurred, and that darkness spread through her
once again.

She had to hang on. But if she didn’t let go, he’d
kill her.

The Lord dove his claws into her back and this time,
she couldn’t hang on anymore.

The moment he fell, he vanished into a smoky eddy.
The trail cut a muddled path through the air she could not follow.
But there was no doubt where he was heading. Back to his cave. She
tucked her wings into her body and turned in after him.

A brown dog shot into the opening.

The moment Sable’s claws touched ground she called
her fire and shifted back to her alter form. “Alice,” she cried,
adrenaline keeping the multiple aches and pains screaming through
her body from overwhelming her.

It was dark here, the black so thick she could not
see beyond it. She hadn’t felt this blind in forever and her
freaking wrist was throbbing so bad she thought she might puke. She
looked at it. It was hard to tell with any sort of accuracy, but
she was pretty sure it was lacerated and bleeding heavily.

The bastard.

Blue light pulsed and then flared, ricocheting off
the walls and forced Sable to shield her eyes from the glare. Then
the light winked out.

“I’ve got him, Sable,” Alice called and then grunted.
“Help me, hurry.”

She ran, but all she could see was black and dancing
spots. The light had burned her retinas. She was useless. “I can’t
see you, Alice.”

“Here,” said a voice to the right of her. “Follow my
voice.”

There were grunts and groans. The slap of flesh
against flesh. Sable turned and headed in that direction.

“Ye’ll bend to me, Enigma,” Alice hissed and started
to hum and Sable knew she was placing a spell on him. The buzzing
of a thousand bees echoed all around and made the fine hairs on her
arms stand up.

His laugh was cold and harsh. “Doesn’t matter what
you do to me. You won’t win. You’ll never win.”

Finally she found them. Alice had both her hands
pressed against the center of his chest. He was a small man. Not at
all Lord like. Was this even him? Did they maybe have the wrong
guy?

“Alice, maybe he’s only a special. Maybe he’s not the
Lord at all.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “it’s him all right.”

The shadow that oozed and breathed from every crack
and crevice of the walls shuddered. The spell closed tighter around
him, and the crawling shadow was sucked back like a vacuum into his
body. It was once again the normal dark of a moonlit night.