Time Everlastin' Book 5 (14 page)

He no longer struggled. No
longer released air bubbles. From what she could see, he no longer
moved.

Down she went, the pressure
on her lungs unbearable. She desperately wanted to release the
trapped air but knew she couldn't replenish the oxygen without
surfacing. If she did, he would surely die. If she didn't, they
would both die.

Instinct urged her to
abandon the rescue attempt.

She kicked her legs and
pushed her arms with renewed vigor. Down, down, down into an
impossible depth, the glowing blue plants attached to the rock
walls of the pool, more vibrant than ever.

Her vision blurred. Cleared.
The barbarian lay as still as death on a rocky floor some forty
feet below her, among thick, tall patches of deep green water
grass, and glowing blue moss.

The pain in Taryn's body won
out.

Arcing her body, she swam
for the surface, her arms and legs growing leaden with each
stroke.

Coward!
a voice wailed in her mind.
You killed
him!

Panic, terror and
desperation took control. She was unaware she had surfaced until
the air she sucked in brought on a coughing fit, the sound echoing
harshly off the unsympathetic walls.

"Help!" she cried.
"Help!"

Two small green specks
appeared high on a shadowed wall across from her. Blinking to clear
the water from her eyes, she strained to see more clearly. The
specks vanished and returned.

"Gargoyle! I know you're
there!" She swallowed water and choked. "Help us! He's at the
bottom!"

The green specks vanished
and returned.

"Damn you!" she
shrieked.

Sucking in a breath, she
dove under. Anger restored the strength in her arms and legs.
Determination braced her for the pain to come. She refused to
accept that her actions could be responsible for his death—anyone's
death.

The demons that had driven
her most of her life had gone too far. She had gone too far. Not
over the edge. Not yet.

Her mind reeled when she
realized that she was kneeling on the floor of the pool, blades of
grass swaying to and fro around her. Amid hair and a beard floating
around his face like seaweed, dead dark eyes stared at her. A burst
of air bubbles escaped her. She wanted to flee again to the
surface, but she knew she couldn't leave him.

He was dead.

The least she could do was
not abandon him to a watery grave. She could not bear the irony
that promised to haunt her if she didn't return him to
land.

Despite the agony gripping
her, she instinctively reached to grip the vines. It took a moment
for it to sink in that his arms and legs were unbound and bobbing
lifelessly. With a mental shake, she grabbed the front of his
shirt, and cast off.

The ascent was
excruciatingly slow, the need to draw in a breath growing more
powerful than her will to survive. Twice, she nearly lost
consciousness. Only the weight of the lifeless body kept her
focused.

Again, her mind lost a
segment of time. She didn't stop to question how she came to be on
her knees next to the pool, pulling the body out of the water as
she edged backward. Gripping his shirt with one hand and behind his
left knee with the other, she dragged him onto the rock floor. His
eyes remained open, unblinking, staring sightlessly at her
face.

A whimper rattled in her
throat.

She rolled him onto his
front, straddled his hips, positioned his arms winglike above his
head, and pushed on his back with firm, upward strokes.

"Breathe," she sobbed.
"Breathe!"

Weeping uncontrollably, she
climbed off him and turned him onto his back. She pinched his nose
shut and opened his mouth by applying pressure to his chin. "You
sonofabitch," she wept, lowering her mouth to his.

She performed CPR in four
segments, to no avail. Exhaustion and grief finally overwhelmed
her, and she lowered her face to his chest and wept from the depths
of her tattered soul.

"I'm sorry." The acoustics
in the cavern lent an eerie resonance to her voice. "I didn't mean
for this to happen. Oh, God, I'm so sor—"

A scream ripped from her
throat. In a topsy-turvy explosion of motion, she found herself
underwater, unyielding weights holding her prisoner against a hard
surface. Her mind scrambled to understand. She was blind. And
sinking. Sinking rapidly.

A tug on the back of her
hair forced her head back. Her vision cleared, no longer blocked by
what she now knew to be the barbarian's chest. Disbelief spun into
a whirlwind of disorientation before settling into an ever-widening
pit of anger. Eyes as dark as pitch gleamed with
satisfaction.

Amidst the black hair
covering his face was a wide, taunting smile.

"You bastard!" she cried,
spending the air in her lungs.

Terror took root. She kicked
and butted him with her head, but he held fast.

Pieces of her life flashed
through her mind. From childhood to her present predicament, she
suffered each mental assault. Dying was hard enough. Why her
conscience felt it necessary to rehash her every indiscretion, her
every condemning word and cruel action, her every cheating,
manipulating, lying and betraying moment, had to be the work of
hell preparing her for the final judgment.

Her struggles slowed to
lethargy. The gargoyle's realm was Hell and the barbarian, Satan,
himself. Leave it to her to antagonize the prince of
nastiness.

Withdrawing from her
musings, she stared into the dark eyes and wondered why he was
willing to drown. A spark of anger charged her brain. Her heart
thumped faster.

Granted, he had reason to be
furious with her. Tying and dunking a man had to be tough on the
ego. But to deliberately take her life? She had returned for
him—although now she wished she hadn't. Her conscience couldn't
have chosen a worst time to kick in.

I'm not ready to die,
she thought. Heat suffused her brain.
Damn you, I want to live!

From an inexplicable well of
strength, Taryn drove the heels of her hands into his ribs. In lieu
of air bubbles, water surged from his mouth and his arms fell away.
She pushed off the pool floor, then again, using her feet to
further cast off from his chest, and surged upward. Not once did
she look back. It occurred to her that she had been underwater too
long. Her lungs were airless. Resisting the urge to inhale,
agonizing.

She was close enough to the
surface to make out rock shapes around the pool, when she
unwittingly inhaled through her nose. Liquid flooded her nasal
passages, mouth, throat and lungs. Maddened with terror, she
clutched at her throat and chest and attempted to spew the water.
More rushed in. The sensation was hot and cold, throwing her
reasoning into a frenzied whirl. She flailed head over heel, head
over heel, lost and confused and frightened of the
unknown.

Darkness closed in. In her
mind, she saw the Grim Reaper come toward her, his black hooded
robe spreading out around him. He was absent his scythe but not the
look of death in his piercing dark eyes.

Before she lost
consciousness, one coherent thought crossed her mind.

He resembles the
barbarian.

Chapter 7

From a realm of darkness and
serenity came more terror.

Taryn's insides erupted.
Pain seized her muscles, joints and nerves as her organs attempted
to escape their shell on the tides ejecting past her lips and
nostrils. She wanted death, or at least a semblance of death that
would spare her further mental and physical agony. She lay prone on
rugged hardness, her head to one side, her mouth opened like a
gasping fish abandoned on an embankment.

"Breathe, lass," a voice
demanded, the tone edged with impatience.

Hands pushed on her back.
Water trickled out the lowest corner of her mouth.

"Curse ye, lass,
breathe!"

Instinct told her to feed
air into her starving lungs, but she was afraid to. Afraid searing
water would rush in once again.

"Are ye wantin' ma own
breath in ye? Is tha' it?"

Her eyes shot
open.

What?

She inadvertently inhaled.
Sucking in water had hurt far less than the breath she drew in, air
she was sure contained blue flames when it hit her lungs. Whooping
coughs echoed around her as she fought to expel and not inhale a
second time. Again clutching her chest and throat, she flipped onto
her back. It was then she saw the barbarian sitting next to her, an
arm casually draped over a raised bent knee, his face a mask of
comical disgust.

"Ye are a wee slow in the
mind," he said, tapping one temple with a finger.

Still coughing, Taryn eased
into a sitting position.

"I would have thought ye
would have figured ou' we canna die in this world, wha' wi' the
plunge from the steps and all."

Taryn heard his words
through a painful ringing in her ears, but her mind couldn't digest
their meaning.

His eyes narrowed in
contemplation, and he scratched his chin through the curly, unruly
thick strands of his beard.

"Och, leave yer tongue in
the bottom o' the pool, did ye?"

"You tried to kill me," she
said, her tone a discordant rasp.

"As much as the thought
intrigues me, I canna."

"You tried to drown me!" she
cried.

His eyebrows lifted. "Scare
ye, aye. Ye deserved no less."

"You tried to drown me
because I gave you a bath!"

"The dookin'? Fegs, womon,
if no' for this bloody spell on this place, ye would have drowned
me!"

"You asked for
it!"

A hand went over his heart.
"If I recall, m'lass, I was sleepin'. Mindin' ma own!"

"And reeking like last
year's garbage!"

Taryn sucked in a breath and
was relieved the pain in her chest was easing. Trembling overcame
her. Hugging herself, she closed her eyes and willed the rest of
the haziness from her mind.

"What do you mean we can't
die here?"

"Just tha'," he said
bitterly. "I thought ye knew. We can breathe the bloody water like
air, although tis a wee difficult at first. Goes against our
nature, so to say."

Her trembling intensified.
"How is this possible?"

"The beast."

"The gargoyle?"

"Aye."

"Let's cut through the crap.
You knew I thought you were dead!"

He shrugged then scowled at
her. "Mayhaps."

Tears brimmed Taryn's eyes
and escaped down her face. "You cruel sonofabitch."

"No less so than ye tyin' me
up like a lamb for slaughter."

All Taryn's willpower was
required to get her onto her feet. She staggered in the direction
of her den, hugging herself, what had once been her spirit now a
cold small stone behind her breast.

"Lass."

She didn't have the energy
to respond. By the time she reached her bedding and collapsed atop
it, she couldn't stop crying. Eventually, even that took more
energy than she could spare.

"We canna live in this world
thegither."

The surprisingly gentle tone
caressed Taryn's ears but didn't dispel her sense of identity loss.
She curled into a semi-fetal position, wishing him away.

"He'll no' let ye leave till
ye sleep wi' me and he's convinced I want ye to stay."

"You disgust me."

She heard his bare feet pad
across the floor, and the splatters of water dripping from his
clothing and hair.

"Twas ma only defense," he
murmured. "Ye took it from me."

Turning her head, she spared
him a harried look. "What are you talking about?"

"Ma precious
stench."

"You're a slob. I've known a
few—though not in your league."

He watched her
speculatively. "Twas ma only armor against him. Have ye no' noticed
there are no odors down here?"

"I thought yours had killed
my ability to smell anything but you! Just...go away!" She turned
and nestled deeper into the bed of leaves.

"He doesna tolerate
odors."

"So you decided to pay him
back by turning yourself into a filthy animal?" she asked with
contempt.

"Aye."

"Have you no
pride?"

"Mayhaps too much. But tha'
aside, we must get done wi' his plan and see ye ou' o'
here."

Taryn slowly cranked her
head around and glared at him. "Satan wouldn't expect me to sleep
with you!"

"He's usin' ye to hurt
me."

"Listen, you delusional
parasite, get the hell away from me and don't come back! Crawl into
a cesspool for all I care!"

He stared at her for a long
moment before leaving the den. Taryn watched until he was out of
sight then succumbed to a new rush of tears.