WarriorsandLovers (15 page)

Elijah looked up, his attention focused on the big man. He
waited, knowing he had more to say. “Huon and I combined our powers to bring
Judie with us.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Granted, she weighs a lot less
than you.” A grin lit his severe face as he looked at Eora and Nieko. “And Huon
and I are better at everything than you young ones.” He waited for their
protests to die down. “If Huon and I help for the first part of the process,
the four of us can create enough force to propel Elijah to the surface.”

“What if you can’t do it?” Elijah said. “I mean, what if you
have enough power to get the process started but you don’t have enough to get
me all the way?”

“Then you will become one with the Earth,” Tybor said.

“One with the Earth!” Elijah shouted. “What the fuck does
that
mean? Dead?”

“Not exactly dead,” Tybor mused, “because you will be
conscious. Fused with the living rock.”

“Oh great,” Elijah muttered. “Just great.”

“We all have to take risks,” Nieko said contempt in his
tone. “Unless of course you haven’t got the guts. You could stay here. Tybor
and Huon can take you to appear before the council. That should be interesting
for you. Of course, I don’t know how much permanent imprisonment would differ
from being embedded in rock, but I guess you’ll find out.”

Elijah’s fists clenched again. He’d had enough of this guy
with his aggression and distrust. “Are you calling me a coward?”

“Are you prepared to prove you’re not?”

The two men faced off, all the tension of the last few days
looking for an outlet.

Eora stepped between them. “We don’t have time for this
crap. Tybor, can we do this teleport or not?”

“Yes.” Lije would have felt so much better if he hadn’t
added, “I think so.”

“You got the balls to try, human?” Nieko asked, one eyebrow
raised.

No miserable Dvalinn male was going to call him a coward.
“Hell, yeah. Let’s do this.”

Huon nodded. Judie stepped back. “I can’t help you. I’m
sorry.”

“Everyone else ready?” Tybor asked. “Elijah, when I say go,
concentrate on teleporting. Nieko and Eora, focus on sending Elijah out of
here. Huon and I will take care of getting him to the right spot on the
surface.”

Elijah’s blood pounded in his ears. His heart beat in a
staccato rhythm. This was way worse than when he’d stood at the center of the standing
stones and prepared to leave. Then, the risks hadn’t weighed on him because he
hadn’t been convinced it would work. Now he knew. The thought of being embedded
alive horrified him. Far better to have a quick death.

“On three,” Tybor said, and began the countdown. As he
uttered the word “three,” Elijah took a deep breath and submerged himself in
the experience of teleportation. The pulsating blackness closed in as it had
before. He waited for the feeling of isolation, of having everything ripped
away—his senses, his breath and even his identity—but it didn’t come. Instead
he felt the others, close by and supportive, an anchor as the chaos swirled
around him.

He slammed into something solid. He moved his fingers and
took a deep breath. It felt like air. He really, really
hoped
it was
air. He cracked one eye open. He lay spread-eagled on the ground, his cheek
hard against the frosty grass, the silent stones of the ancient monument black
shades in the darkness.

He pushed up on his elbows and pulled his knees under him.
After a moment he staggered to his feet, took a few shaky steps forward and
disappeared into the shadow of one of the rock pillars.

Before he could slow his breathing or take stock of his
surroundings, the air in front of him bent and wavered and Nieko and Eora
appeared. They stood there looking around them.

Eora took one step forward, then lurched sideways. Nieko’s
arm instantly went around her and he held her close. “Steady,” he said, his
voice low. “Moving the human took a lot out of you.”

But Eora didn’t seem to be listening. She turned her face
skyward. “Look!” she breathed, pointing upward. “The sun. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It’s the moon,” Elijah replied. “And we’ve got no time for
you to stand there gawping at it. Hopewood could be monitoring this place. If
he’s not, there’s sure to be
some
kind of security. We have to get out
of here.”

Elijah grabbed Eora’s hand and dragged her into motion,
gesturing for Nieko to follow. He dashed out of the circle across the field
until they came to a chain link fence. “Can you climb?” he asked.

“Anything you can,” Nieko replied.

They scrambled up and over. Elijah scratched himself on the
row of barbed wire at the top, but Nieko and Eora somehow balanced then leaped,
landing on the ground with unscathed grace. Elijah snorted reluctant approval
and led the way down to the roadside.

“We need a car,” Elijah muttered.

“A what?” Eora asked.

Elijah sighed. “Transport.” He looked over the empty parking
lot at the tourist center. “And there’s none to be had around here at whatever
hour of the night this is.”

“I climbed the fence for you, since you seemed to want it.
Why aren’t we teleporting?” Eora asked. “You can teleport a little. You said
so.”

“Maybe he was lying about that too,” Nieko responded.

“I was
not
lying,” Elijah replied. “Hopewood has
sensors that detect teleports. He used them to monitor me when I was training.
They’re all over his warehouse. He could easily have a few secreted here. We
walk. It’ll take about fifty minutes to get to the nearest town.”

“So far all walking has done is get me into trouble,” Nieko
muttered. “But if we have no choice—which way?”

Elijah looked around. If he’d had his backpack, he could
have used the compass, but Tybor had kept it. Maybe it would have made the
teleport too hard, or maybe Tybor didn’t trust him enough to give it back.

Without it he wasn’t going to risk moving cross-country, so
they’d have to follow the road. He had a choice, right or left. If he’d been
paying attention when Hopewood had driven from Salisbury it would have been
easy, but his mind had been too full of other things to notice landmarks. At
night the wooded plain didn’t have much in the way of distinguishing detail.

He peered down the road in one direction, but nothing gave
him any clue. He turned and looked the other way. In the distance a faint white
glow reflected off the low clouds. Lights. Amesbury would be about that
distance. From there they could get what they needed.

Without a word he pointed and began to walk. He didn’t look
back. He knew the Dvalinn would follow. Nieko wouldn’t let him out of his
sight. Eora wanted adventure, all things human. She would never consent to
being left behind.

They’d only gone a short distance when the headlights of a
car pierced the darkness. The moonlight picked out the faint hint of red and
blue on the roof. “Police,” Elijah warned. “Get down.”

Nieko and Eora obeyed without question. By the time the car
drew level with them all three clung to the earth, ignoring the cold bite of
frost. The car traveled past without slowing and Elijah heard the steady drone
of its engine continuing down the road. “It’s safe,” he said. “They didn’t see
us.”

They got to their feet and started walking again. After
about ten minutes, Elijah noticed the first gray lifting of the darkness ahead
of them. Dawn. An added complication if it meant the road would become busier,
increasing the likelihood of them being seen.

He stepped up the pace, pushing as hard as he could.

“Wait,” Eora called. “We need to stop.”

“You’re in my world now,” he replied, ignoring the sound of
heavy breathing behind him. “You do what I say. You can rest when we get
somewhere safe.”

“But Elijah, look!’ Eora cried again. “I’ve never seen
anything so wonderful.”

Elijah turned back to them. Both Dvalinn stood, feet planted
apart, eyes fixed forward on the horizon, a look of awe-struck wonder on their
faces. “It’s incredible,” Eora breathed. “So powerful. So beautiful.”

Elijah’s gaze followed her finger pointing in the direction
he’d been facing. The first fiery arc of the sun rose above the rosy-gold
horizon, the clouds above streaked in hot pink, gray and mauve, the sky behind
fading from blue through turquoise and yellow.

“Don’t stare at it,” Elijah warned. “You’ll damage your
eyes.”

“But —” Eora said.

“No buts. Like I said. This is my world. You do as I say if
you want to survive.”

“Don’t talk to her like that.” Nieko turned to Elijah. If
looks could kill Lije would be lifeless in the middle of the road.

Nieko said nothing more, but walked on with Eora striding
along beside him. Each time Elijah glanced back over his shoulder, Eora was
looking at the road ahead, but he knew she continued to be drawn to the glory
of the breaking day.

It was full light by the time a signpost indicated the turn
to Amesbury. Two rubber-necking tourist Dvalinn, one of them bare-chested in
the winter chill, were bound to draw attention. Before too many people were
about he needed to find a hotel where he could stash them and take off on his
own.

The first guesthouse they came to, Elijah rejected without
even stopping. Small and intimate, there was no chance of slipping the Dvalinn
in unnoticed. He walked past several other inns for the same reason. Past the
town center he found what he was looking for—a branch of a cheap international
motel chain, generic and impersonal. Although it was still early, the door was
open. When he rang the bell, a tired-looking teenager appeared from an office
behind the reception desk.

Elijah reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet,
grateful Nieko had given it back to him after he’d searched it. If this were an
action movie, the bad guys would know his whereabouts as soon as he used a
credit card, but Elijah had no reason to think Hopewood would go to those
lengths. Even if he did have a trace out on Elijah’s cards, he could hardly
storm into their rooms, guns blazing, and wipe them out. They were in the UK,
for starters and charging anywhere with guns blazing wasn’t likely. If it came
to hand-to-hand combat, Elijah and the two Dvalinn could outfight Hopewood and
David.

But he didn’t think it
would
come to that. Hopewood
had set him up to die. He would have no reason to think he’d failed. As long as
Elijah and his two… Followers? Assistants? Guards? Stuffed if he knew what they
were, but as long as they avoided drawing notice to themselves, they had a
reasonable chance of succeeding in their mission.

He signed for the room, took the keycard and walked toward
the elevator. As he’d expected, the kid at reception headed straight back into
the office. Elijah ducked back outside, grabbed the Dvalinn and ushered them
through the deserted vestibule and into the elevator.

He pressed the button and the elevator began to rise. Eora
and Nieko hit the deck, arms splayed, knuckles white, fingers arched as they
tried to dig into the floor.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Elijah said, reaching down a hand to
haul first Nieko then Eora to their feet. “You two can take teleporting without
a whimper and this scares you?”

Nieko squared his shoulders and glared at Elijah. “I’m
not
frightened.”

“We’ve lost contact with the Earth,” Eora whispered. “I’ve
never felt like that.” Her eyes were wide with shock. “How can you live when
your connection to the Earth is broken?”

“It doesn’t matter to us,” Elijah replied. Both Dvalinn
stood with their backs pressed up against the wall of the elevator. Nieko’s jaw
was clenched. A small muscle twitched in his cheek but he held Eora in a
protective embrace. Her face was pale. For the first time, she’d lost the look
of alert self-confidence.

The car lurched to a stop. Elijah flung out his hand in time
to stop them falling face-first to the floor again. “We’re here.” Neither
Dvalinn moved. “Come on. Out! The sooner you step outside this moving box, the
sooner you’ll be on solid foundations again.”

Eora and Nieko nearly knocked him over in their rush to get
through the door.

Elijah shook his head. “The room is down here.”

He swiped his card and the door swung open. Eora and Nieko
had only taken one step inside when they began to back out again.

“What now?” Elijah asked in exasperation.

“We’re in the sky!” Eora’s head swung back to the wall of
windows at the far end of the room. “How can we be in the sky?”

“Don’t you know anything about the surface world?” Elijah
asked.

“We know a damn sight more than you knew about the Dvalinn
world,” Nieko retorted.

Since he couldn’t argue, Elijah ignored it. “It’s safe,” he
explained. “It’s the way humans build in cities.”

Eora walked gingerly across the room and tapped the glass.
“I don’t understand why you would want to cut yourself off from the sun and
rain.”

“I don’t understand why humans do anything,” Nieko snarled.

“Looks as if you’ve got a steep learning curve coming up
then,” Elijah said. He pushed his way past them and pulled the curtains shut.
“There. Now ignore where we are.” Once the view was hidden he thought the normality
of the room—one king-sized bed, a tiny desk and an easy chair—would help them to
settle. “Sit down. We have to find Hopewood. We aren’t going to be able to do
that if you two freak out every time you come across something unusual.”

“Nobody’s gonna freak out,” Nieko growled. “It was a shock.
We’re over it. We’re not children. If you keep treating us that way, you won’t
like the results.” He sat on the bed, tucked a couple of pillows behind his
head and leaned back. Elijah thought of pointing out that he still had his
boots on, but what the hell. If Nieko didn’t see anything wrong with it, why
should he bother? They were going to be in trouble for a lot more than boot
marks on a coverlet before they’d finished.