Synnergy, Chaos Time Book 3 (12 page)

His hair was gray, his eyes sunken in and lined with
red veins. He hugged his left wrist to his body. It was shredded,
blood oozing from it.

“This is not the Lord, it can’t be,” Sable said in
disgust. It’d been too easy. Too simple. And where was that gut
wrenching pain she’d felt earlier, the one that had made her feel
like all life was being sucked out her body. She felt none of that
around him.

Alice hiked her pant leg up while still holding on
with one hand to his chest. She pulled the pistol out she’d been
shooting with and then aimed it square at his temple.

“Enigma, I’m indicting you with twenty charges of
crimes against humanity,” she said, not heeding Sable’s
warning.

He spat in her face. She never flinched.

“For these your punishment is death, have you any
last words?”

“Alice,” Sable said again.

But again, Alice ignored her.

He smiled, nothing but gums and one snaggle tooth in
the front. Sable could not believe this man was the same one who’d
plowed into her. Something wasn’t adding up here. It shouldn’t be
this easy.

The shuffle of other feet entered the cave.

“Only this,” he slurred, “it ain’t over. He knows. He
knows.” He did not say this to Alice, but looked Sable dead in the
eyes.

Alice cocked the hammer.

This was too easy. Too easy
. Heart racing,
pulse pounding Sable glanced at Alice. Her left wrist started to
throb worse. She glanced down at it, and time stood still. Horror
choked her scream and then she found her voice. He had the same
injury on his left wrist, an identical wound to her own.

“Alice, stop! He projects his injuries on others. Oh
my God, Alice!”

But it was too late.

Alice pulled the trigger and then an unholy scream
poured through the cavern.

A crimson bloom sprouted at the corner of his head
and he slumped lifeless.

“Phoenix,” Alice’s voice cracked, her face was full
of disbelief and her mouth rimmed in white. With one final,
disbelieving blink, she slumped beside the fallen Lord. A crimson
bloom spread across her own temple.

“Oh my god.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod
.” Sable
dropped to her knees and grabbed Alice’s limp form. She shook her.
“Alice please. Please.”

Tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes. A large
hand gripped her shoulder.

“Nix,” Slayde whispered.

“She’s dead, Slayde,” Sable mumbled.

“I know, jelly bean. I know.” Then his arms were
around her and she couldn’t seem to stop rocking Alice and then
Alice started to melt, reshape and reform into something altogether
alien. Yet beautiful.

Her clothes were gone, exposing long lean limbs. Her
face sharp, almost elvish in form. Soft rosebud lips turned up into
an eternal smile. Golden brown hair sprouted down her wrist, arms,
and legs in a downy wave. Her hair was the spun blonde of moon
glow.

“Oh Alice,” Sable choked around her sobs, “you look
like a fairy. Like a beautiful fairy.”

He was dead. She couldn’t believe it. They’d killed a
Lord. Sable was crying. Wailing. Holding onto the still body of
Alice. She hadn’t known the other shifter well.

“Heal her!” Sable snapped, hugging the still form to
her now bloody chest.

Ari shook her head. “I can’t. She is dead. Beyond my
reach.”

“Then what good are you?” The words came out a
sibilant hiss full of hate, each word like a slap to her soul.

Arianna shrugged. What good was she?

“Sable!” Slayde shook his head and looked at her.
“She didn’t mean that.”

Hunter tried to grab her arm. She shrugged him off.
“No, she’s right,” Ari said, “I’m useless. I’ve been a problem for
all of you.”

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear the sight of
him. Too see the pain in his eyes, it made no sense. She felt his
sincerity in his touch. Knew that he suffered. Because of her. But
she didn’t know him. She didn’t know any of them. She should never
have come. This had been the biggest mistake of her life. She
should have surrendered to the guerillas. She glanced over her
shoulder at the silvery glows that trailed after her like willow in
the wisps. They would haunt her, torment her into eternity. She
would never be rid of them. She shuddered, helplessness and
hopelessness all she knew now.

Drinking herself into a drunken stupor worked, but
only so long as she was completely wasted. The moment she started
to come out of the whiskey laced fog, they were there. Touching
others worked, projecting her crystal into them, killing the demon
that lurked behind their eyes. It worked. But then there’d be more
souls tormenting her.

Sable was shuddering. Probably crying. She was still
rocking the body that would never rise again. Ari hugged her arms
to her chest, feeling so empty. A bottomless pit of nothing that
echoed on into eternity could not feel any deeper or emptier than
she did at that moment. There was nothing. No love. No hate. No
nothing. A waste of a life. No one would miss her. Why would they?
She was nothing.

Nothing.

Hunter returned to Sable’s side. He laid his hand on
her shoulder. They were the perfect three to fight this war. She
turned and knew they didn’t notice her step off the rocky plateau.
She couldn’t see well. The night was so dark. Shadows thick and
creeping. Creatures didn’t even stir. The evil of this place had
seeped into the soil; the viscous residue of it tried to leach onto
the exposed flesh of her arms as she walked on. Unmindful and
uncaring of the branches that scratched her face and tore at her
hair.

She might have cried. It seemed like the right thing
to do here. But there was nothing left.

The last thing she heard was Slayde whispering to
Sable that it would be all right. That she’d survive, that they’d
kill them all.

Hunter rumbled something about finding and destroying
the source.

She rolled her eyes. It was all so meaningless.

Why were they wandering around the whole of the
Earth, trying to protect people they didn’t know, would never know?
They couldn’t even protect those closest to them.

She wandered deeper and deeper within the forest. She
was lost. Stumbling her way through. She smelled blood and looked
at her hands. Moonlight cast them in an eerie glow, her hands were
a purple blue and something thick and black leaked from cuts all
over. They were bleeding. She frowned. What lived in these
forests?

Wolves?

Bears?

Would they smell her blood?

In her country it was known never to go swimming with
an open wound, it would attract every predator in the waters. She
could not kill herself. It was forbidden.

She stared at her hand. So much blood for such small
wounds.

She wiped it on the rough tree bark, wincing when she
felt her skin split farther.

“Dangerous to do, little healer,” the ghost’s taunted
with glee. Their eyes were glowing slits; their faces were
contorted in grotesque masks of demonic glee.

Her breaths were heavy as she stared at the black
smear. “Dangerous to do,” she agreed and then she started running
and scraped harder and harder. Blood ran and she was free.

“Soon you’ll be just like us,” they laughed.

“Soon I’ll be free,” she cried. The air was so crisp.
Cold. For the first time since they died, she breathed. Inhaled the
rich scent of pine and resin. Soon she would be free.

Her skin tingled. Power. Great power rippled through
the night like electric currents of energy. She stopped running and
waited. Listening as the heavy footsteps advanced.

Her heart beat so fast, like a hummingbird’s wings at
the pulse in her throat. She shivered. The world waited on bated
breath.

Footsteps followed behind her. Whatever it was, was
not attempting to hide itself. It shook the leaves, snapped twigs.
It was obvious it wanted her to know it was there.

She licked lips that curled into a soft smile.
Finally. Its footsteps pounded in rhythm to each beat of her heart.
Leaves stirred. Trees shook and then it was there. Right behind
her. Eyes drilling into the back of her skull. Moist breath fanning
the hair at her neck.

As if in a dream, she turned. The nerves were
gone.

It was the monster of nightmares come to life. A
large predator made of steel and shadows. It was so black. The
pitch of absolute darkness. It stood still, watching her watching
it.

Her face was reflected in the silver mirror of its
eyes. Saliva pooled thick and constant from the corners of wrinkled
jowls. It dripped to the earth in a sizzling puddle. Steam curled
up from its bear like paws. Claws the length and thickness of her
middle finger scraped at the earthen floor.

It was a hound of hell.

It was her redemption.

She was not afraid. Not even when it stepped closer
to her. Not when it’s hot, dank breath blasted her face with
furnace level heat and singed the hairs from her brows.

“I will not fight you,” she whispered.

It never blinked. Not when she lifted her hand. Or
when she touched its fur. And then she gasped, because somehow she
could see into the creature’s soul.

She saw a face. A kind face with beautiful brown
eyes. There was fear. It tore at her. She cried as she saw a child
lying in a bed. He was so small. Little. Perfect. Riddled with
cancer and dying.

Then he lived. But he was broken. Different.
Evil.

The beast wasn’t an it, or even a he, but a she. And
she’d loved the child. But the child had killed her. Turned her
into a monster. Into living, breathing shadow full of hate.

Then the connection broke and the beast snorted.
Ripped up the ground and stood on its hind legs. It towered her.
Towered over some of the trees. It was over eight feet tall and its
chest heaved like powerful bellows.

Synnergy saw the claws. Saw them come at her.

The ghosts were gone. Probably afraid. Like she
should be. But she wasn’t. She laughed and spread her arms,
welcoming death with every fiber of her soul.

“Sable. Slayde,” Hunter said. The night was full of
shadow and it all seemed to move. Seemed to breath. They’d killed
the Lord, but it had been too easy. Even though they’d suffered a
casualty, this didn’t fit Dragden’s modus operandi. There was more.
He could sense it. Sense the evil slithering like a nest of
serpents through the woods.

“We have to destroy the source. We must find it. I’m
sorry.”

Sable looked at him. Tears shone brilliant in her
eyes. There’d been a connection he could not understand between her
and the Chimera. He wished they had time to explore it, to heal
from it.

“Sable, I wish...”

She pressed a kiss to Alice’s forehead and then laid
her down gently. “I know, Hunter. We have to go.” There was pain in
her voice, but resolution as well.

The moment the body touched ground Alice shattered
into a million balls of golden light. They danced through the air
like graceful lightening bugs, trailing higher and higher into the
heavens and scattering like stars before slowly burning out.

Sable didn’t move until the last light vanished.

Slayde wrapped her in his arms, for once quiet and
non-combative. “C’mon,” he said to her, “let’s finish this.”

Sable nodded and they walked back to the opening of
the cave.

Hunter flicked his wrist, opening a portal. The blue
glow filtered through the cavern like black light, everything took
on the pallor of a horror flick.

The gold vein had to be here. The Lord had cast his
shadow so deep, a preventative from being able to see for any
distance within. But Alice’s last act had banished it. Hopefully,
they shouldn’t have to walk too far.

He followed the lines of the cave. It was much deeper
than he’d initially thought. They walked in silence for at least
ten minutes, the constant drip of water from the ceiling and the
echo of their footsteps the only sounds they heard.

“There,” Slayde said, pointing to their left. Hunter
turned to look; the vein shimmered in waves of brilliance. The
black rock face was damp and shining. The vein began from the floor
and trailed up a good ten feet before it cut off right above their
heads.

“Man, you sure we got to destroy this?” Slayde
muttered.

Hunter nodded. “That’s got to be it.”

“What a waste.”

“How do we destroy it?” Sable asked.

“Well first we should make certain it is the
source.”

She frowned. “And how do we figure that out?”

Hunter licked his lips and walked toward the wall. He
placed his palm against the top of it and shuddered. Power rolled
through him. It was wonderful. It filled him. Spread like a tidal
wave and overtook him. He laughed. The power surge made him want to
do something. Kill something. He was alive. Potent.

He was chaos and he loved it.

“Hunter?” Sable laid her hand on his shoulder.

He yanked his hand off, gripping it tight to his
chest. His breathing was heavy and he had to wipe the sweat from
his brow. His entire body tingled, burned. He still felt the energy
roll through him. It terrified him. Not because he couldn’t harness
the power, but because he wanted it too much.

“That’s it,” his voice was sharp, “definitely
it.”

Slayde’s palm turned crimson seconds before he
blasted off a powerful beam. Hunter had less than a second to jump
out of the way before the beam took him out.

The shot went true into the heart of the vein. The
mountain shook, small pebbles skidded and bounced and a menacing
rumble groaned from deep within.

Hunter kept his feet glued, refusing to give in to
his obsession to touch it once more. “Hurry, Sladye.”

“I’m trying,” Slayde growled. He shot off another
blast, it cracked the wall, exposing more of the gold. Hunter
gasped. It was beautiful. So tempting.