The Aether, page 20
A satisfied light entered Morcant’s mean, reptilian eyes, and Sabrina reigned in her outrage over his treatment of her family and her. Picking on him to distract him was one thing. Letting her fear and anger build was quite another, and it would give him the advantage.
She shrugged. “I’m sorry you’re not very smart, Mr. Thywyll.”
Fury washed over him, and he charged.
“Now, Ronan,” she whispered, and flicking a finger, she disengaged the lock.
She’d have to reduce her shield by half to duck through the opening and get to her mother’s body. By doing so, it would allow Morcant to get closer than he should.
As he was almost to her, she clenched her fists to her chest and called the C-4 to her. The suction sound made Morcant’s beady eyes round. He didn’t know that she’d already neutralized that particular explosive along with the ones closest to her.
When it was in her hand, she opened her arms wide. “Want a hug, Mr. Thywyll?”
He looked like he wanted to vomit. Sweat beaded his brow and dampened his hairline.
“You don’t know what that can do, girl. Easy now, put it down on the ground.”
With a scoff, she tossed it from hand to hand.
“Sabrina, I mean it. You’ll kill us both.”
“You don’t think you deserve to die? You’re a bad man, and you’ve lived too long.”
Backing out the cell door, she called two more bricks to her and, in the process, watched him sway on his feet in terror. Good. He should know how all his victims felt.
“Wow! This is a lot of clay,” she said to no one, flaring her eyes ridiculously wide. Infusing excitement into her voice, she said, “We could use it to model dolls.” Grinning, she held one out. “Wanna play, Mr. Thywyll?”
“You’re crazy!”
“‘Mad as a hatter,’ Papa says,” she agreed with a nod. Her father said no such thing, but it was fun to turn the fear back on Morcant.
The wall behind him parted, but Sabrina didn’t remove her gaze from him. It was important to keep him distracted for a little while longer. Just until Alastair could get behind him with his sword. Taking another step backward, she looked down the hall to see who it was she’d heard in the other cell earlier. To find the woman who had been in excruciating pain and was fighting against her suffocating fear.
Stomach plummeting to her toes, Sabrina made the mistake of looking past Morcant to Alastair.
When he met her eyes, his dark-blond brows collided.
Morcant was already turning toward the group of Sentinels crowding through the door.
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out!”
But the few in the rear were too slow to react, blocking the others from escaping. Sabrina flung her hands upward, stretching the boundaries of her bubble to encompass everyone, including the prisoner down the hallway. The woman, who had been taken while she was out shopping for her husband’s birthday present, was very important to Uncle Alastair and needed to be saved.
Unfortunately, Sabrina’s actions removed the existing barrier between her and Morcant.
CHAPTER 31
An explosion rocked the room.
Damian did the unthinkable. He broke their ceremonial circle by jumping up and rushing toward the trapdoor. A second explosion knocked him off his feet, followed immediately by two more.
The whole goddamned building was going to collapse!
Scrambling for purchase, he dropped through the floor opening and ran for the underground passages his team had created, praying to the Goddess they were still there. The entire time, he shouted Sabrina’s name.
A hand reached out of the smoke cloud and dragged him against the wall. The action triggered his fight mode, and he raised his arms to strike.
“Dethridge! It’s me. Calm the fuck down.”
“Creed? Where are the others? My daughter?”
“On the other side of the wall.”
As Damian prepared to run, Creed stepped in his path. “You’re not going anywhere near there until you chill out. I’m not an empath, and I can feel your worry.” Dark brows clashing together, he voiced his concern. “You can’t make him any stronger than he is, Aether. We both know that. No matter what is going on with your family on the other side, you need to rein it in, man.”
Creed was right. Damian knew that, but still, the struggle was real. Any parent would lose their fucking mind if they thought their daughter was at the bottom of a cave-in, and he was no different.
“How bad is the collapse? Has the building come down?” he demanded.
“That’s just the thing. Other than the wall closing off and the ground shaking, everything seems to be intact. Think about it. You and I wouldn’t be standing here if the building had fallen.”
As the significance of Creed’s words sank in, Damian allowed the truth to override his pressing need to get to Sabrina. “She prevented the cave-in!”
“I think so.” Creed nodded, and his shoulders dropped marginally, as if he no longer needed to be on the defensive. “You good, Aether?”
“Yes. I’m good. Let’s get on the other side of that bloody wall.” Once again, he turned to go, but his clearer head prevailed. “Find whoever is left on this side and shore up the building, Caldwell. If Sabrina is holding all this at bay, everyone still faces danger until we can put magical supports in place.”
“How do I do that?”
“Test the structure as if you were building a home from scratch.” He sighed, seeing the confusion written on Creed’s visage. “I can see you’ve never done that. Where the hell do you live?”
“I can hide better in a crowded city.”
“I see.” And Damian did. As a loner shunned by the witch community for a perceived injustice, Creed would avoid them in return, choosing to spend his life either among mortals or on the outskirts of the world, where no one else existed. Perhaps both. He’d have had no need to build a home like Damian’s estate. “Fintan and Mack are in the maintenance flat. They’ll know what is needed.”
“I’m on it.”
“I’ve no doubt.” As Creed shifted to leave, Damian called his name. “Thank you for what you just did for me. I won’t forget it.”
With a nod, he left.
Inhaling and exhaling a deep, cleansing breath, Damian charged for the tunnel. There, he discovered Narissa and Jordan discussing their options.
“Give me your power, Siren,” he told her.
The couple’s brows shot comically high.
“Pardon the phrasing of that particular request. Please, Ms. Sullivan, will you loan your power to mine to get through the collapsed wall?”
“You can’t do it yourself?”
“Yes and no. I could, but it would require all my concentration. This way, you’re doing the concentrating, and I’m immediately prepared for what happens on the other side.”
“So the correct way to phrase that would be, ‘Narissa, I’m going to merge my magic with yours so you can create an opening. Be prepared when it snaps back and you’re once again a weak woman as I step over the stones to get to my daughter.’”
With a wry smile, he nodded at her. “Something like that.”
“Let’s get to work, sugar.”
Narissa positioned herself a few feet from the wall, and Damian placed his hands on her shoulders to amp up her abilities.
“Do you need to sing to draw out the Siren, or are you able to channel her without? I can conjure earplugs for both Jordan and I to fight the sound.”
His comment was not to insult her, but to protect both Jordan and himself from the highly seductive song that could lure them under her spell. If she unintentionally trapped them, Damian would waste precious minutes fighting free of her mesmerizing draw.
“No, sugar. I’ve been around long enough to figure it out. My mama taught me the right way.”
“Okay, go.”
Her tentacles emerged, tearing through her slim black pants, shredding the material in the process. But Narissa had been prepared for that too, and new material grew from the old, preserving her modesty. With the added limbs, she drew power from all the elementals surrounding her, Damian included. Once she was amped up, he backed away, prepared to storm through the opening she was about to create.
His first sight of the other side sent him into overdrive, and he plunged through the rest of the debris like a supercharged bulldozer. Bricks and chunks of cement flew around him, and those fast enough to duck saved themselves the pain of being struck. The sound of stone on metal clinked and pinged in the air.
After an initial head count, he realized Alastair was missing from the group, as was the sword needed to decapitate Morcant once and for all. The bastard would die today. Damian would make sure of it.
“Let my daughter go, Thywyll, or I’ll inflict suffering on you in ways that make Genghis Khan look like a fucking kitten.”
With a knife inches from her throat, Morcant’s mouth stretched into a grotesque smile. “When I kill her, you’ll not be able to touch me.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Do it and try me.”
A flare of fear filled the other man’s eyes, and he glanced around wildly as if expecting backup.
“Is now the time to tell you the Authority isn’t coming to your aid?” Damian taunted, slowly skirting the half circle of his gathered team.
Tucking his hands into his slacks, he sauntered forward, appearing as casual as a tourist on a Sunday stroll through the park. He didn’t fool anyone. Neither did he care to. Containing himself was key. He’d yet to meet his daughter’s wide-eyed stare, fearing he’d lose control if he did.
“He can’t move, Papa,” Sabrina said calmly. “He’s frozen like everyone.”
Pausing, he turned back and noticed that although the Sentinels could move their eyes, that was all they could do. He frowned his confusion and faced his daughter. “Your doing, Beastie?”
She shifted her head slightly. “Theirs.”
Following the direction of her gesture, he saw Alastair, Castor, and Ronan bent over the figure of another person. The lines around Al’s mouth and eyes were tight as if he were struggling not to give into deeper emotions. With Morcant present, Damian’s guess was likely spot on.
“Why did they freeze everyone?”
“Because of the bombs,” Castor called back. “We couldn’t take the risk of another going off.”
“And why is this place not a pile of rubble?”
“Ask your kid.”
Damian looked closer. The strain of her stance was getting to her. Hands in the air, fingers spread wide, she appeared to be holding up the world. Finally, he understood.
“Beastie, I’m going to take the magical weight from you. When I say, you can relax, all right?”
“No, Papa. If I let go, the building will fall down.”
“Even if I take over?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Tell me what you propose we do, my dear.”
“Ronan and Uncle Alex need to let them go.”
He shot a look at the two men in question. Ronan shook his head and pointed to Morcant, who held the knife to Sabrina’s throat. If they restored time, the Arcane Devourer would kill Damian’s daughter. If they didn’t, they risked catastrophic consequences. Time should never be suspended for this long.
Moving to Morcant, Damian gripped the wrist with the knife, hauled back, and hit him with the force of a battering ram. His head snapped back with a crack. Neck broken, his head lolled to one side and any sign of life drained from his eyes. That Morcant would stay dead was a pipe dream, but it gave Damian working room.
“Can you decimate his soul?” Castor asked somberly.
“I can try. If it’s sewn to his body, as I suspect, it will take more than my magic.”
Easing the arm with the knife away from Sabrina’s throat, Damian shoved Morcant away from her. His body fell against the wall and slid down to rest next to another.
Vivian.
Vacant eyes stared through him at nothing.
Stomach churning, he ripped his gaze away and cradled Sabrina’s youthful face between his large palms. “How long has your mother been that way?”
A single tear escaped down her creamy cheek.
Too long.
“I see.”
Inside, his heart crumbled to ash and his broken soul howled its grief. Outside, he remained stoic. He didn’t have a choice.
Unable to disguise the anguish completely, his voice was raspy when he asked Castor, “Who’s there with you?”
“Rorie.”
Christ alive!
They needed either the Healer or to use the services of the Death Dealer, like Damian had planned to do for Vivian, but Trevor, like the rest of their crew, was a human statue. The whole goddamned situation was like a Jenga puzzle. One wrong block removed, and the entire thing would crumble. But where to start?
“Beastie, tell me what I should do.”
“I can hold it longer, Papa.”
“You shouldn’t have to. Mack and Fintan have it covered. I’ll send the Siren to—” Prepared to address Narissa and Jordan, Damian shifted as he spoke, immediately discovering their movements were locked, too.
“How?” he muttered to himself. They hadn’t been there initially when time was halted. They shouldn’t be party to the effect. “And how is it possible those two can hold it for this long?”
It defied reason.
“The Goddess,” Sabrina’s voice whispered through his mind.
Closing his eyes, Damian sent out feelers through the base of the tunnels and upward, through the building. Oddly, he felt no human life above their level other than his three team members.
“Uh, Beastie? Where are the humans?” He pointed up.
“I sent them to the docks, Papa.”
“Sent them, as in mentally instructed them to go?”
She gave a slight shake of her head.
The blood drained from his face. Lightheaded, he croaked, “Please don’t tell me you teleported a building full of people in the middle of the afternoon.”
Sabrina crinkled her nose and dropped her gaze to her dusty shoe.
The Fates would kill her for certain.
CHAPTER 32
Jumping into action, Damian went back to studying the structure of the building. The entire place was reinforced, probably better than the original construction.
Creed and the Seers had done their jobs well.
Shifting his attention to the underground passages, Damian nodded his satisfaction. They, too, would hold. That only left the room they were in and the plethora of dynamite dotting the ceiling.
“They’ve repaired it all, Beastie. I’m going to start at the far end, by the easternmost wall, and work my way back here, dismantling the explosives. I just need you to hold on for five minutes, maximum.” He touched her damp cheek. “Can you do that, my dearest heart?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Ronan joined them, his underlying emotion grim, but his visage didn’t show a sign of it.
“How bad is Rorie?”
“Sure, and she’s halfway to dead. Morcant was after injectin’ her with a slow-acting poison, he was.”
“Can we save her?”
“Aye, if we knew what he gave her. Or maybe Blane can help. But we can’t release the spell holding all this.”
Ronan didn’t need to inform Damian that Rorie would die and they might follow on her heels if the C4 wasn’t disarmed.
“Right. Loman was an explosives expert, if I recall. Any chance you learned a thing or two?” he asked, infusing optimism into his voice. All he got for his upbeat attitude was a snort. “I had to ask.”
“Aye.”
“Creed will know, Papa.”
“If we bring him down, he’ll go the way of the others.”
“You could go up.”
The clinkity-clink of metal rolling along stone captured his attention. He caught sight of a signet ring circling Draven’s shoe and smiled. The lack of sleep over the last days was befuddling his mind, and he shook his head over not coming up with the idea himself.
Digging into his pocket, he slipped the tanzanite conduit in place, crossed to Draven, and picked up the ring he’d somehow managed to dislodge from his own hand.
“Well done, Masters. Thank you.” Once he had the Guardian’s ring in place, Damian curled the man’s fingers upward to lock it there.
“Anytime, friend,” Draven telegraphed through their mental connection.
“Creed? Mack?”
“Here, Damian. The building is secure,” Mackenzie answered for them.
“We have another problem,” he replied tiredly.
“Yeah, and we heard all about it. But you’re after facin’ another problem, Aether,” Fintan said. “There’s a new team of Sentinels linin’ up outside the feckin’ building.”
The desire to rage, to shout, “Enough already,” was suffocating in its intensity.
“I can’t think about them now. That’s for you and Mack to defuse. I need Creed to tell me how to disarm these fucking explosives.”
“I’d have to see one. I can’t just tell you to cut the red wire like they do in the movies, Dethridge.”
“I figured it was too much to hope for. Hang tight.”
“Beastie, are you still holding strong?”
“Yes, Papa, but you have less than two minutes.”
“Before?”
Her normally mischievous smile was nowhere to be found, and her grimace said it all. The Sentinels weren’t only here for her. They were both in trouble. Isis hadn’t been able to hold off the Fates as long as she hoped.
Striding to the nearest block of C4, he described it to Creed down to the last detail.
“Okay, so it is as simple as telling you to cut the red wire,” Creed telegraphed, humor heavy in his reply.
Turning in a slow circle, Damian raised his hands, palms toward the ceiling, and projected light. When he was positive he’d illuminated the entire cavern, he spun again, noting and memorizing the position of every gray block. Holding the picture in his mind, he lifted his arm and quickly brought it down in a chopping motion.
