I shook my head. “He seemed as baffled as I did when I told him about St. Stephens.”
“But that thing with Eden in India, nobody knew she could do that, right?” Titus asked.
That was true. We’d all been as surprised as she was that the Magic had basically jumped inside of her. So maybe these places were as much of a mystery to the previous line of Kings as they now were to us now.
But Amory should have known. Amory should have said something.
And clearly Gabriel had been tasked with protecting this place. So what was it?
The tunnel opened into a wide chamber, similar to the one beneath the cathedral in Vienna. The walls were rounded and smooth. Gray light poured from an electrified whirlpool in the center of the floor. The pool looked liquid, but I did not trust it to be so.
I stayed near the wall and scooted my way around the edge. Titus and Jericho followed me in, equally as wary of what lay in the middle of the dirt floor.
White bones picked clean of flesh and blood lay all around the edge of the pool. So many of them. In every size.
“How many men?” I couldn’t get beyond my fear of dead things to count them.
“At least four,” Jericho confirmed. “Same thing as in Vienna?”
“It has to be, doesn’t it?”
“What color do you think the pool was before they went for a swim?” Titus asked.
“Blue,” I said without a doubt.
“What makes you think that?” Titus took a tentative step toward the pool and the liquid snapped and sizzled in response to his closeness. Lightning flashed across the surface and forced ripples to spread from one end to the other.
“It wants to eat you, Dude,” Jericho observed. “Be careful.”
“Eden and Avalon have that blue Magic. It’s got to be the original. I know we’ve said that before, but it’s all I can conclude. Eden’s smoke is blue as well. The orb under the cathedral was blue. Blue is the color we want. Green is the intruder.”
“Green is Terletov,” Jericho agreed.
Titus dragged one of the bones to him with the toe of his foot. I held my breath until I was sure nothing would jump out of the pool and grab him. He picked it up with two fingers and then tossed it at the pool. The bone bounced off the surface and skittered to the other side of the room.
It didn’t trail liquid with it or leave a wet spot on the hard-packed dirt. The bone was dry. The pool rejected it completely.
“Think I can walk across it?” Titus asked with a lift of one eyebrow.
I shook my head, even though I knew he was being facetious. “I think you won’t get a foot near it before it pulls you inside. It wants your Magic. Even before it turned green, it would have swallowed you whole.”
Jericho frowned and crouched low so he could get a better look at the surface. “So how do we get it to go back to blue?”
“Eden’s the only one who’s ever been able to do anything when it comes to these,” Titus said quietly.
“She’s pregnant.” Jericho ran a hand over his hair and sighed. “Obviously, she can’t do anything about this now.”
A thought started to gather momentum in the center of my head and build speed. I leaned back against the wall and let the kernel of something interesting grow into something substantial.
“Maybe she doesn’t need to,” I said. “She could control the Magic when it matched hers in color. Maybe she would have no power over a Magic that’s been changed at a molecular level.”
“Then who can control it? Who has this color of green Magic?” Titus asked while Jericho stood up again and looked at me thoughtfully.
I stared at the pool just as lost in thought. “I’d bet my old crown that Terletov’s Magic is a near match.”
“Eden has his Magic,” Jericho reminded me.
I groaned, a little frustrated with them for not getting this right away. “But he’s been operating with something over the last several years. His brother as well. Every one of his goons has the same color Magic. It’s all tied to something. It all has to be the same in some way.”
Jericho looked just as frustrated with me. “So if Terletov’s Magic is green, essentially he’ll be able to control all the Sources that he finds and manipulates. How does this help us?”
“I think it will work both ways. Each time Eden grappled control of a source, she had to fight for it. She’s one of two truly immortal Immortals. Terletov doesn’t even have his original Magic.”
“You think the source would kill him?” Titus asked with a bloodthirsty grin.
“I have a feeling it will do more than just kill him.”
“You think it will restore the original Magic,” Jericho concluded.
“I do.”
Chapter Ten
Seraphina
I had just decided to go down after him when his golden brown head surfaced over the ledge of the well. I stared several seconds too long which was why he caught me waiting for him.
Damn it.
I had wanted to watch through a window, but there was none that looked back here. So, I had stayed in my place in the doorway and waited for Sebastian to climb out of The Ring-inspired well.
Gosh, that thing gave me the creeps! I’d seen the movie. I knew how it ended.
Next, Sebastian would be crawling out of my TV and there would be nothing I could do about it, except pass the video along to the next unknowing person.
I meant to hurry into the house as soon as I saw the first glimpse of evidence that he was alive and well, but I’d gotten snared on the incredible bicep muscles that wrapped around the stone ledge and pulled him to solid-ground-freedom.
I’d also gotten distracted by the smirk on his arrogant face and the twinkle in his hazel eyes.
When had he gotten so hot?
Had he always been like this?
Or was this some trick of the non-existent light?
He caught me staring. Bastard. His smirk grew into a cocky smile and I rolled my eyes just to piss him off.
Jericho and Titus followed him out of the well and I looked to them when I asked, “What did you find? Anything interesting?”
“Only if you consider a bunch of dead bodies and a broken source interesting.”
Bad news. “So, he got here before us.”
“In a big way,” Jericho confirmed.
“Big way!” Titus confirmed, stretching out his hands to emphasize his point.
They scooted past me into the house, not minding that they pressed me against the wall and blocked my retreat.
I shoved at Titus’s shoulder as he passed, but he just chuckled at my weak attempt to manhandle him. I scowled after him and my distraction cost me.
When I turned my head again, Sebastian was there in my face. His hand rested on the doorframe behind me and put us in a frustratingly intimate position.
My stomach flipped and my throat felt dry all of a sudden, but I refused to acknowledge that he could do that to me.
“Worried about me?” he asked with his clipped accent and hooded eyes.
Yes. “No.”
“No?”
“Well, yes. I was worried about all of you. Nobody else seemed to care though.” I forced my gaze to glance around the empty courtyard. Apparently nobody had been concerned that these guys were headed to death.
Ugh.
Since when did I become the sentimental one?
“Hmm,” Sebastian considered.
I poked the fleshy part of his shoulder. “Well, someone had to listen for the screaming and crying.”
His mouth split into a wide grin. “I’m glad it was you.”
What? What? “You are?”
“I am.”
I cleared my throat and sidled back into the building. “Did something happen to you down there? Did you hit your head? Are you possessed? Body snatched? What’s going on?”
His smile softened and he looked at me with something that could be considered close to… affection. Like maybe the distant cousin or a g
reat, great aunt. “I don’t think so,” he said seriously. “But I suppose if I were possessed or body-snatched I wouldn’t exactly be aware.”
A shiver slid over my spin at the low tone to his sexy accent. I closed my eyes to help forget the reaction my body had to his body. Or that my Magic had found the edges of his and breathed a big, old sigh of relief.
We had barely connected in that Magical way. But his was so open to mine. I felt the pulses of his energy, the fractures of excited electricity that surged through my Magic and reached my body, my blood, my fragile, embittered heart.
“Well, do you feel different?” I asked him while trying to keep my tone light and playful.
He took a step toward me. His fingers brushed against mine, once, twice, and then just the tips of his fingers slid between the tips of mine. “I feel different about a lot of things.”
My voice was a pathetic croak. “About bodysnatching?”
“I don’t have any feelings about bodysnatching,” he chuckled.
“Good. That probably means your fine.” My lips were dry, so I swiped my tongue across the bottom one in order to find some relief.
His eyes dropped to that unintentionally slow movement and his gaze heated while he tracked every moment of movement.
I pressed my lips together in an effort to halt whatever had begun between us, but Sebastian didn’t seem bothered by my attempts to pull back.
When his gaze lifted back to mine, his eyelids had dropped to hang hooded over his burning gaze. There was promise in his expression, wicked whispers of his intentions.
Where was this coming from?
“Seraphina, I-”
“You hurt me, Sebastian.” I swallowed back the pressing tears and forced myself to be brave. “You ruined me.”
“And I-”
A resounding crash obliterated the trance he’d put me in. Both of our attention swung toward the front of the church and we took off, racing to get there. The sounds of fighting reached us as we pushed through the scattered debris and narrow hallways.
Sebastian’s hand on my back urged me forward even when part of me didn’t want to know what lay ahead of us.
The Magic in the air seemed to stir with the conflict we couldn’t see yet. The oxygen pulled from my lungs and the atmosphere pressed against me with a sickeningly evil pressure. My eyes blurred against the pain and violence that beat around me.
“Stay close to me, Sera,” Sebastian demanded in a growly tone. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“I can take care of-”
He glared at me. “No you can’t. Don’t try.”
Bastard.
But there was no reason to argue since he was right. A few Titans had engaged Terletov’s men near the bedrooms. They fought with swords on either side. Gunshots punctured the sounds of clashing metal and grunting men. They ripped through the building deadly and silencing.
Sebastian reached out and yanked me so close to his body that my entire front plastered against his back. I straightened out our tangled feet and glowered at the back of his head.
Okay, I was pretty useless during physical combat, but he didn’t need to be such a bully about it.
We ran by a fallen Titan laid out over an equally injured bad guy. I swept down and picked up his discarded gun. I didn’t know how the Titan had managed to put the other guy out of commission and end up shot himself, but it wasn’t like I could ask many questions right now.
I felt a little less helpless with a gun in my hand.
Avalon had made gun training mandatory when Terletov first came on the scene. I’d taken the required courses just like everybody else, but I’d never gotten around to carrying a weapon.
I decided not to let this one go. I would sleep next to it from this moment on.
I checked the chamber to make sure it still had something inside and then readied it in my hands.
I knew what I was doing, but the weapon still felt awkward and foreign in my grasp. I swallowed my fear and let Sebastian lead me into the sanctuary.
What was once a place of worship was now a gore-filled, communal grave. Men littered the ground, sprawled out over broken pews or on beds of broken glass. Blood mingled with dirt and dust. The air seemed thick with a greenish fog that felt icy against my skin.
Every one of my friends fought, engaged with some crazy, fanatic psycho that would steal Magic from my kind.
I had no respect for these people. They made me sick to my stomach with their cruelty and sadistic plots.
There weren’t as many as I expected there to be. But I wondered if this was a small group of them. They had most likely been left behind to watch the church. When we showed up, they came to stop us or find out what we were up to and had been left with no choice but to fight us.
Terletov or his maniac brother, Alexi were nowhere in sight. Which was a bummer, since I had glamorous plans of murdering both of them.
Sebastian ducked to the right and took me with him. He lashed out immediately with his Magic. Black energy burst out of him in a deadly stream of undiluted power. The man that shot at us flew backward. His arms flailed wide and he lost control of his gun.
Sebastian jumped on him before he even hit the ground. Bastian’s fist came back and then pummeled forward again and again and again.
I watched his knuckles become bloodier and bloodier with each hit. And when he’d had enough of that, he turned his Magic on him. He knew better than to drain the enemy. We didn’t want their sick Magic. So instead, he pulled out a dagger from his boot and stabbed the guy right in the heart.
The green Magic that had been entombed in the traitor exploded forward and mingled with the tainted Source Magic in the air.
I had been so intently watching Sebastian’s struggle, I forgot about my own safety. How I heard the creaking floorboard behind me will always be a mystery. If I had had time, I would have wondered if it weren’t my psychic senses that tipped me off.
Maybe it was just my paranoia. Or residual battle instincts.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I turned around in time. I didn’t think. I didn’t have time to think. I raised my gun and fired before the other guy had a chance to shoot first.
I nailed him in the gut and he dropped to the ground immediately. I let out the breath that had frozen in my lungs and ran over to him.
This was probably the opposite thing I should have done, but I needed to figure out if I’d killed him or merely maimed him.
These bullets put normal Immortals into deep comas, unless you were Eden, Avalon or one of their soul mates. They seemed the only people able to wake up from the damaging bullets. Even still, a coma was infinitely better than dead.
Terletov’s men were not so lucky. Their Magic was stronger in some ways, but weaker in others. These bullets killed them. Immediately.
The guy at my feet bled out from his waist. His eyes stayed open but unseeing. His mouth twisted into an agonized frown and his hands clenched at the wound that I’d put there.
Guilt assaulted me as quickly as our showdown had ended, but I pushed the remorseful feelings away. He would have done that to me.
That and worse.
I scooped up his discarded gun too and tucked it into the back of my jeans. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I didn’t have eight arms so…
I hurried back to Sebastian’s side. He had engaged another bad guy but seemed to have the upper hand.
I turned around and happened to bump into Ophelia. We both jumped and nearly attacked each other.
“I’m not used to this yet.” Her eyes were wide and terrified.
I handed her my extra gun. “Me either.” She grabbed it gingerly and stared at it for a moment. “Do you know how to use that?”
“I know the basics.”
I checked it over for her and then said, “Point and shoot. Don’t miss.”
“That’s all I needed to know.”
By some unspoken decision, we moved forward side-by-side. Apparently
we were going on the defensive.
Someone burst through the church doors and both of us whirled around. The instinct that I did not know this person was strong enough to encourage me to pull the trigger. Ophelia followed suit and we emptied both of our guns into the newcomer.
I knew not all of our bullets found purchase in his evil body, but enough did. He fell forward and I knew, I just knew, he was dead before he hit the ground.
He never had a chance to close the door behind him, and now his lifeless body barricaded it open. Mid-morning light streamed into the darkened, bloodied sanctuary, washing our deeds in clarity.
Holy cow, there were more of them than I thought.
He might have been the last though. Or the rest of the guys had decided fighting us and consequently dying, was not worth it.
The dead guy in the doorway brought us back to the human world and our conflict abruptly ended. People walking by peeked through the doorway at the bloodshed and body count we’d left for their eyes. I heard the blaring South American police sirens in the distance.
I looked around the room and quickly counted my friends.
All here.
All alive and conscious.
Thank God.
“Collect our men,” Sebastian barked at the Titans gathering guns and anything that could draw us into the human legal system. “Meet us in Omaha. Keep the authorities out of this church and especially away from that well.”
I tried not to express how surprised I was by Sebastian’s quick thinking. It would be best for us to split up and reconvene elsewhere, but I hadn’t been able to think that quickly.
Anyone of us could use Magic on the humans to divert their attention elsewhere, but it was always easier to avoid any confrontation to begin with.
Sebastian walked back to me with a grim expression on his face. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I answered curtly. When his lips twitched, I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. “What?”
“Aren’t you going to ask if I’m alright?”
I cleared my throat and tried not to be embarrassed that I hadn’t thought to ask how he was. I was also embarrassed to admit that I’d watched him nearly the entire battle, and so I knew he was fine. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off him.