All of them had been damned by the god’s anger for something they’d had no part in or any ability to stop.
“I’m so sorry, Medea.”
She shrugged. “I got over it. Besides, I was six when he cursed us. I barely remember life before that day.”
“You don’t eat food?”
She shook her head.
Brogan fell silent for a moment. “But if you were to die at twenty-seven and you’re not a Daimon now, how is it that you’re still alive?”
“A bargain my mother made for my life.”
Sadness turned her eyes a vivid purple. “Tell me of a mother who so loves her child. Is she beautiful? Wondrous?”
Medea nodded. “Beyond words.” She pulled the locket from her neck and held it out to Brogan so that she could see the picture she had of her mother. “Her name is Zephyra.”
“Like the wind?”
“Yes. Her eyes are black now, but when I was a girl, they were a most vivid green.”
Brogan fingered the photo with a sad smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “You admire her.”
“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. And I love her for it.”
Closing the locket, she handed it back to Medea. “She looks like you.”
“Thank you. But I think she’s a lot more beautiful.” Medea returned it to her neck. “What of your mother?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “My mother sold me to the Black Crom when I was ten-and-three. If she ever loved me, she never once showed it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Wiping at her cheek, she drew a ragged breath. “It’s not so bad. She sold my siblings to much worse. At least I had Sight. Had I been born without anything, my fate would have been.…” She winced as if she couldn’t bring herself to say more about it.
“What exactly is the Black Crom?” Medea asked, trying to distract her from the horror that lingered in the back of those lavender eyes.
“A headless Death Rider who seeks the souls of the damned or the cursed.”
Medea jumped at Falcyn’s voice in her ear.
“A kerling can sing to them to offer up a sacrifice before battle. Or summon them for a particular victim.”
“Can,” Brogan said, lifting her chin defiantly. There was something about her, fiery and brave. “But I don’t. I hate the Crom. He springs from Annwn to claim the souls of his victims with a whip made from the bony spines of cowards. He rides a pale horse with fiery eyes that can incinerate the guilty and innocent alike should they happen upon him while he rides. None are safe in his path. To the very pit with him. I’ve no use for the likes of that beast. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live in its shadow. Subject to its pitiless whims.”
Though she’d just met her, Medea felt horrible for the woman. “Can you be freed?”
She shook her head. “Not even death can free me as I am bound to him for all eternity. What’s done is done.”
Suddenly, Brogan stopped moving.
Medea became instantly nervous at a look she was starting to recognize. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re approaching the porch,” she whispered.
“Is that bad?”
Urian gave her a droll stare.
She didn’t answer the question except to say, “The Crom is here.”
Urian looked up at her words to see the massive glowing horseman. At first, he appeared headless. Until one realized that his head was formed by mist at the end of the spiny whip he wielded as he rode. The white horse was giant in size … almost as large as a Mack truck. An awful stench of sulfur permeated the cavern, choking them and sticking in their throats as if it had been created from thorns.
Even more disconcerting, the baying horse made the sound of twenty echoing beasts. And its hooves were thunderous—like an approaching train.
“I won’t do it!” Brogan shouted. “I refuse you!”
The horse reared as the Crom cracked its whip in the air. Fire shot out from the whip’s tip as more thunder echoed.
Unfazed and with fists clenched at her sides, Brogan stood stubbornly between them and the Crom. “Beat me all you like. I will not give you that power. Not again! Not over my newfound friends!”
“What’s going on?” Medea asked.
Brogan kept her gaze locked stubbornly on her master. “He wants the ability to speak. But if I give it to him, then he can call out your name and claim your soul to take it with him to hell. And I will not allow it.”
With a long, bony finger, he pointed at Brogan.
She shook her head at him. “Then take me, if you must. I’m all you’ll be getting today! I won’t let you have them! You hear me? No more!”
He charged at her.
In an act of absolute bravery, she stood her ground without flinching.
Blaise caught her an instant before the Crom would have mowed her down. Lifting her in his arms, the mandrake whirled her past the razor-sharp, blood-encrusted hooves that were mired with the remnants of the Crom’s past victims.
Urian went charging in to cover them with Falcyn by his side.
Rolling her eyes at their brave stupidity since none of them were armed, Medea joined their cause. She manifested her sword and twirled it around her body. Urian unleashed his fireballs while she watched the fey creature turn around for another pass.
It started for them.
Until it saw her sword.
With one last shrieking cry, it vanished in a puff of pungent green smoke.
What the hell was that?
“Okay … that was effing weird. Where did he go?” She glanced around, half-expecting him to manifest behind them. “What just happened?”
Brogan inclined her head to Medea’s sword. “’Tis the gold of your blade and hilt. It’s his weakness. With that, you could have maimed him.”
Medea gaped at her. “You couldn’t have told me that before he charged?”
“Wasn’t allowed to say it until you found it on your own. I’m forbidden to.”
“Well, that just sucks!”
Brogan smiled. “For me more than you, my lady. Believe me.”
She had a point.
And Blaise had yet to set her back on her feet. In fact, he seemed reluctant to let her go.
“My lord?” Brogan blushed profusely.
Blaise hesitated. “Not sure I should let you down. You seem to keep finding trouble whenever I do.”
Falcyn glared at them. “Blaise! Set her down! Now!”
Medea popped him on the arm as Brogan appeared stricken by his sharp tone. “What is your problem?”
Falcyn gestured at Brogan. “He doesn’t know where she’s been.”
“Oh my God, Falcyn! He’s not some two-year-old child and she’s not a piece of candy he found on the floor that he stuck in his mouth!”
“Well, that’s how he’s acting. He looks at her like he could eat her up.”
“And you’re acting like a baby. Get over it. He’s a grown dragon. He’s allowed be nice to any woman he wants to. Without your permission or approval, you know?”
Falcyn’s nose actually twitched and flared. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He groused like that two-year-old she’d just mentioned.
Blaise rolled his eyes and shook his head. “He always acts like an old woman. I’m used to it.”
Brogan laughed as Blaise finally set her back on her feet, but he kept her tucked by his side.
Before she could ask about it, Brogan drew their attention to the stones that, when they stepped back, Urian realized formed a half-broken demonic face suspended on pedestals over a deep, fiery abyss.
“Well, that’s different.” And the dais was impossible to reach … Medea arched a brow. “I take it that’s the portal we’re looking for?” Brogan nodded. Her mood now was subdued and quiet. Gone was any hint of the playful sprite she’d been a few seconds ago.
Medea cast a dry stare to Falcyn. “This is when having a flying dragon would come in handy.”
Falcyn snorted. “So wo
uld rope … and a gag.”
Medea swept a hot, seductive glance over his long, lush body. “A rope and a gag come in handy for lots of things, princess,” she said suggestively.
Urian curled his lip. “Ew! Hey, brother over here and I do not approve of this entire line of conversation with my sister! Back to a G rating, folks.”
Laughing, albeit a bit nervously, Brogan started toward the platform. She’d only taken a step before a light flashed and smoke exploded in front of them—this realm seemed to like that a lot. Apparently, the entire place had once doubled as a stage show for an Ozzy tour.
The peculiar portal in front of them churned into action, spinning and turning like a rusted nickelodeon. Light shot out from the demon’s mouth and eyes, with a blinding intensity. Symbols twisted around it in a frenetic ballet that was painful to watch.
And out of that madness came more smoke and mist. As if an angry beast snorted at them with a furious hatred. Spiraling up and dancing to a jerky beat, the mist solidified into the shape of a tall hooded beast.
No, not a beast.
A man.
Urian hadn’t seen a copián in a long, long time. At least not one who looked like that. At first glance, they looked more like a wizard of some kind. Or shaman. Indeed, his flowing feathered robes and chains, along with the braided black hair and the huge, elaborate raven-skull headdress, would have lent itself to that assumption. Especially since bells chimed as he moved and he held a blood-red torch staff in his left hand. One that belched more fire and smoke as it shot arcing balls of light upward around his head.
Yet they were far more powerful and ancient.
Timeless.
As he turned to face them, Urian saw that he’d painted a thick black band over his golden eyes that made their unusual color more vibrant. He stepped down the dais with the grace of a man half his age. And when he neared them, he flexed his dark gray gloved hand that held the staff, digging the wooden claws that were affixed to his fingertips into its leather-wrapped shaft. His gaze bored into them with the wisdom of the ages, and with the sharpness of daggers. As if he were cleaving secrets from their very souls.
“Kerling,” he growled in the gruffest of tones. “What is this?”
Brogan curtsied to him. “They were brought here against their wills, copián. They don’t belong in this realm. I seek to send them on their way.”
A deep, fierce scowl lined his brow. The red light of his torch flared again and turned blue.
Confused, Medea leaned toward Falcyn. “What’s a copián?”
“Hard to explain. They’re time wardens and keepers of the portals.”
She scowled. “Why don’t we have one for the bolt-holes in Kalosis, then?”
“You do,” the copián said, telling her what Urian already knew. “Braith, Verlyn, Cam, and Rezar were the first of our kind. They set the perimeters for the worlds and designed the portal gates between them. It’s how they trapped Apollymi in her realm—by her own blood and design. It’s why her son is the only one who can free her from her realm where she was imprisoned by her own sister and brother for crimes they imagined that she never committed.”
Because Apollymi was the ancient goddess Braith. One of the very gods who’d first set the gates.
Another reason she sat at her pool and why Xyn had been put there as one of her servants and guardians.
Brogan gestured toward them. “As you can see, their presence disturbs the balance. This isn’t their world and they shouldn’t be here. We have to return them before they’re discovered by the others.”
Two lights shot out of his torch. They streaked up like the stray magick blasts had done earlier and circled around the old copián to land on each side of him. There they twisted up from the floor to create two tall, lean linen-wrapped plague doctors. With wide-brimmed cavalier hats, they stared out from their long-beaked, black linen masks from shiny ebony eyes. Soulless eyes that appeared to be bleeding around the corners. It was an eerie, macabre sight.
“What are those?” Medea asked.
Falcyn leaned down to whisper, “Zeitjägers.”
“What do they do?”
“Guard time. But mostly they steal it.”
She frowned. “How do you steal time?”
Falcyn laughed. “You ever been doing something … look up and it’s hours later and you can’t figure out where the time went ’cause it feels like you just sat down?”
She nodded.
“Zeitjägers,” he said simply. “Insidious bastards. They took that time from you and bottled it for their own means.”
“Why?”
“So that we can sell it.” The copián glanced to his companions. “Time is the most precious commodity in the entire universe. The most sacred. And yet it is the most often squandered. From the moment of our births, we’re only allotted so much of it. And for even an hour more, there are those who are willing to give up anything for it.” An evil smile curled his lips. “Even their immortal souls.”
Urian shook his head at the truth.
The copián stepped down to approach Medea. “Surely a child of the Apollite race can understand that driving desperation better than most.”
He was right about that. Nothing like being damned to only twenty-seven years for something you didn’t do to make someone realize just how precious life was.
Even more so while watching everyone around you die long before their time.
For one more breath, their race was willing to take human lives and destroy their immortal souls. Unlike Urian, Medea’s one saving grace was that her mother had sacrificed her own soul to save her from having to make that choice.
She’d never had to live like Urian and his siblings had. Medea had never made the hard choices they did.
The copián cocked his head. “You’ve heard the expression ‘living on borrowed time’?”
“Yeah.”
He gave Medea a crooked smile. “We’re the ones you borrow it from.”
But only an idiot played their game. Urian had heard too many horror stories about those who’d bargained with them and been burned.
There was never any such thing as a free lunch, and when you bargained with the paranormal, you always came up with the short end of the stick for it. The deck was stacked against you and they played with loaded dice.
The copián swept his sinister gaze over them. “My price is simple. An hour from each of you and I’ll open the portal.”
“An hour?” Falcyn sputtered. “How ’bout I just rip some heads off all y’all until you yield?”
Urian liked that idea.
The copián smirked. “You could do that, but you can’t open the portal without me.”
“Sure I could find someone.”
“You really want to chance it?”
Falcyn’s expression said he was willing to gamble.
The copián tsked at him. “So very violent from an immortal who can spare an hour with no problem whatsoever. Think of it like those humans who donate spare change for charity. An hour is but a penny and you have a jar full of them just sitting in your home that you’ll never use. Why not give one to someone who could really use it?”
“Because you’re assuming they’ll use it for good, when I know for a fact that most people who barter with you don’t have kindness in their hearts.”
“True, but sometimes that trash they take out on their way to the grave is a service in and of itself, is it not?” He cast a pointed stare toward Urian.
You son of a whore. Urian could have done without that dig.
Blaise sucked his teeth in sharply. “Word of advice when dealing with these two? I wouldn’t go for the twofers on the insults. Even with the zeitjägers as backup. I mean, let’s face it. They’re not being peaceful at the moment because they don’t know how to be violent … however, I’ll be the first to say have at it if you can get us out of here. You can take two hours from me.”
The copián scowled at Blaise. “Two?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. One for me and one for Brogan. I’ll pay her fee.”
She gasped at his offer. “Why would you do that?”
Blaise shrugged. “Being stuck here has been punishment enough for you. As noted, I won’t miss two hours out of my life. I’d have just wasted them in a movie theater, anyway. And this way, I get to do something useful with them and be a hero to you. That’s a twofer I can live with.” He winked at her. “Besides, I don’t intend to leave here without you.”
“Suck-up, show-off,” Falcyn muttered. Then louder, “Fine, take mine.”
“So how do you take this time from us?” Medea glanced back to the zeitjägers.
The copián laughed. “It’s already gone. As I said, you don’t even miss it. You didn’t even know we did it.”
Falcyn leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Told you. Insidious bastards.”
The copián walked toward the portal and lifted his staff up. The moment he did, the portal came alive with swirling, vibrant colors. He moved his staff through it until the mist began to mimic his movements.
Red fire shot out from the torch and was absorbed by the mist.
“It’s ready.”
Urian grinned at Medea. For the first time in a long while, he enjoyed being the little brother. “Ladies first.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like you’d know if I didn’t make it.”
“You might be polite and scream … then again, it is you. Maybe Blaise should go first? I know he’d scream to warn us.”
He turned an angry glare to Falcyn. “I thought you weren’t going to tell anyone about my screaming fits?”
“I didn’t. That was Max who outed you.”
“Oh.… Remind me to kill him later.” Blaise headed for the portal. “Fine, I’ll go through first.”
Brogan took his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
Urian followed them into the stinging vortex. Damn it, he’d always hated stepping through one of these gates. They were similar to the one for Kalosis and Katateros.
Like him, Blaise held one of the keys that enabled the mandrake to travel to and from the veil world where the sorceress Merlin had pulled Avalon and Camelot out of time and place, so that she could protect the other worlds and realms from Morgen’s evil.
Once more, Urian found himself landing on hard, crappy ground.