The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series) (50 page)

“You have power,” she said. “You carry it, but you don’t use it. I need you to say the last part of the incantation. Luis opened the fault. You need to be touching him when you say it.”

“
This is crazy.
”

She coughed again.
“
You dream, yes?
You know things, and you don
’
t know how.
Ian, we don
’
t have time.
”

Ice raced throughout his body.
All the cues, dismissed before now, flooded his mind.
His inexplicable pull toward Sara.
The dreams of her murdered father.
The way his skin prickled when he met Flintrop.
“
What do I have to say?
”

“
Just grab him and say
terminatus
.
And Ian—get Sara out of here.
She
’
s pregnant, and that makes her more powerful.
They
’
ll kill her to hold the ley line open if they can.
”
Silver eyes blazed into his through the crack in the rubble.
“
Stop them.
”

Pregnant.
They
’
ll kill her.

Before he could react, the rift shook, spilling gravel onto both of them.
Sizzling air stung in his nose.
The atmosphere snapped and guttered.
A charge burst along his spine, and the ley line flickered.
He braced his feet against the sides of the trench and pitched upward with his heart thundering.

Clouds surged in the sky.
The ground screeched again, and he stumbled.
Pain spiked in his belly as it echoed the rending of the earth.
His breath whooshed out, and he heaved for air that had gone blistering cold.

Sara struggled to her feet, close by the collapsing wall of the ruin.
Swaying in the quake
’
s aftershocks, she lurched away from the fault and dropped to her knees.

Luis stirred and shook his head.
His attention landed on Hakon
’
s sword, and he crawled to it.
Picking it up, Luis battled to his feet and stumbled toward Sara.

Oh, Christ, no.
I love her.

Ian sucked in a frigid breath, but it wasn
’
t enough to shout a warning.
He forced himself upright and staggered toward them.
Luis raised the sword to swing at her.
Sara knelt gasping, unaware of the danger.
Step, stagger, step...too damn slow!
He forced his feet to move faster.

Racing footsteps sounded behind him.
Ian glanced over his shoulder.
Flintrop dove toward him, his face a livid, bloody mask of hatred.

Ian whirled to avoid his grasp, but not fast enough.
Flintrop seized his right arm and unleashed his power.

Electricity fizzed though their point of contact and raced, snapping, up Ian
’
s arm.
His world exploded into agony.
He screamed and toppled, reaching even as he fell.
His left hand brushed Luis
’
s arm.
“
Terminatus,
”
he gasped out with the last of his breath.

The shock flew, sizzling, from his fingers and into Luis, who gave an earsplitting shriek and crashed to the ground just short of Sara. The sword thumped to the earth.

Ian dropped like a stone.

****

The ground lurched.
The screaming of a thousand voices rent the air in a wild surge, and then cut short.
Stunned into incomprehension, Sara looked from Ian
’
s prone form to Flintrop, standing above him.
Flintrop
’
s lips pulled back in a snarl of satisfaction, then he lumbered toward the collapsed wall.
He hefted a stone the size of a cement block to his shoulder, then staggered back toward Ian with the gleam of bloodlust in his eyes.

Wrath swept through Sara and washed away her fog of confusion.
Trembling, she thrashed to her feet, calling on everything she had left and pouring her fury into it.
The shapeshift took hold in a brutal storm.
Flintrop
’
s figure blurred as her human vision gave way to animal sight.
She smelled the blood-mad reek of his scent and heard breath whistling in his throat.
She opened her mouth to scream, and out came the enraged roar of a grizzly bear.
She charged.

Flintrop raised the stone over Ian
’
s head, growling, and it began to fall.

She plowed into him and took the blow on one broad, flat shoulder, arcing over Ian
’
s body.
Her momentum carried Flintrop backward.
Snarling in his face, she hooked an enormous paw around him and scooped upward.
The stone tumbled from his grasp.
Flintrop sailed into the air and landed ten feet away.

Ian
’
s rifle lay nearby.
Flintrop launched himself at it and turned it on her, then fired.

The shot missed her by inches.
She galloped the few strides to him and bashed the rifle out of his hands.

He clapped a hand against the left side of her muzzle and released an electric charge.
Lightning exploded inside her head.
Bellowing in agony, she jerked backward and swung blindly at him with the last of her strength.

Her strike connected with a
thwack
, and she heard bones breaking.
Flintrop
’
s body went slack, and he tumbled into the fault.
He
’
s bleeding.
Gifted blood.

No sooner had that thought entered her mind than the eerie voices screeched one last time.
The ground rumbled, and then all was quiet.

It was over.

The scent of burnt fur stung her nostrils.
A tremor ran through her body.
She swayed and collapsed, losing hold of the shapeshift, then passed out.

****

When Sara came to, tearing pain settled in behind her eyes.
She raised her head.
Gooseflesh bloomed along her arms, and she trembled in the icy air.
Her breath puffed out in steaming clouds, adding to the fog covering the ground.
Her right shoulder throbbed.
She didn
’
t have the strength to cradle it.

A dark haze hovered somewhere to her left.
She shook her head, but it didn
’
t dissipate.
She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees.
Disoriented, she shuffled forward.
Her hand landed on something sharp that sliced along her palm.
She snatched it away with a hiss and saw fresh blood welling in a drying cut.
Old blood crusted along a gash in her forearm.

A sword lay on the ground before her.
She looked along its length without recognition, trying to rid her vision of the partial haze.

The mirror shine of the sword blade, edged with feathers of frost, revealed the reflection of her eyes.
Her right eye showed hazel.
Her left was green.
She blinked, and it didn
’
t change to brown.
She knew it should have, but couldn
’
t remember why.
Confused, she waved a hand in front of her face from right to left.
A little more than three-quarters of the way across, her hand disappeared from her line of vision, swallowed by the haze plaguing her.

She had lost part of the vision in her left eye.

Her head pounded.
She shook it again, trying to come to terms with the blind spot in her vision.

Faith.
Ian.
Memory returned, and with it, awareness of her surroundings.
Sitting back as if in a trance, she looked around.

The reddish glow of sunrise lanced through the fog, gradually unshrouding the bodies strewn like wreckage across the moor.
Michael lay twisted several feet away.
Luis was sprawled at the edge of the ruin.

And Ian. He lay face down, eyes closed, limbs thrown askew in the way he had fallen. Dried blood stained the shoulder of his T-shirt. She saw blackened scorch marks on his right arm where Flintrop had touched him, and more on the fingers of his left hand where he had, in turn, passed the shock through his own body to Luis. His hair fluttered in the breeze. No other movement disturbed the silence.

Choking, Sara crawled toward him and clutched at the back of his T-shirt.
“
Ian.
”
She nudged him.
His body jerked with her push, then lay still again.
Her throat tightened to a strangle.
She shook him harder.
“
Ian.
Ian!
”
He didn
’
t respond.
Dark blood collected, glistening and sluggish, in the torn flesh of his shoulder.
She bit off a moan.
With her hand shaking so hard she could barely steady it, she touched two fingers to the hollow in his throat.

No charge.
No pulse.
His skin felt cold.

No.
No no no no no.
“
Nooooooo!
”
Sara balled her fists, nails digging into her palms, heedless of the stinging wound in her hand.
She turned her face upward and screamed, long, incoherent, full of rage.
Her power burned through her body, humming in her ears, sizzling along her skin...

...but it wouldn
’
t bring him back.

She let the scream die off, its muffled echoes ringing across the foggy moor.
When it faded, an awful emptiness replaced it.
Tears surged up and began to flow down her cheeks.
She gave a thin howl of misery and crumpled beside his body.

A hand descended on her shoulder.
She flung out an arm to decimate her attacker.

Her blow never landed. “Sara, get up,” Faith murmured.

Dazed, Sara raised her head.
“
Faith?
”

Her sister gave her arm a gentle tug. “You’ve got to get up. The ley line isn’t finished closing. Hakon says we have to go right now.”

Weary, chilled, Sara laid her head back down.

“
Sara.
”
Faith
’
s voice rang through her throbbing skull, and she winced.
“
Get up right now.
You
’
re pregnant.
”

Shock.
The return of her senses blasted her back to reality.
She whimpered and curled into a ball, folding nerveless fingers over her belly.

Pregnant.
The word knifed through her, and she ached.
She couldn
’
t look at Ian
’
s body.
He
’
s dead, oh God oh God oh God...
She rolled and battled to her feet, groaning as her frozen muscles protested the movement.
Faith wrapped a supporting arm around her, and a fresh onslaught of tears stung down Sara
’
s cheeks.
Don
’
t look.
Don
’
t look at him.
Just walk.
As they staggered away, she caught a flash of white from Ian
’
s T-shirt.
Cutting off a mournful cry, she hugged her belly, and stumbled away with her sister into the fog.

She didn
’
t know how far they
’
d staggered when she saw someone approaching through the haze.
She swayed, wrestling with her blind spot.
“
I can
’
t fight them, Faith.
I have nothing left.
”

They lurched forward, step by step, to meet whatever came.

Dustin materialized first, sweeping out of the fog in a long coat, with a knapsack and shotgun on his shoulder.
He spotted Sara and her sister and shouted,
“
Lambertson!
”

Lamb came out of the haze at a fast walk, which became a jog that overtook the younger man.

Sara turned her head to watch his approach with her good eye.
He
’
s going to kill us,
she thought, remembering Ian
’
s warning about Lamb
’
s involvement.
She halted, swaying on her feet.
Faith stopped beside her.