Amy's Advantage (19 page)

An impatient yank on her hand settled the earth back into
place, her daughter’s big green eyes blinking up at her in innocence and trust,
the unshakeable bedrock her life centered on.

With a smile and a squeeze of the little hand in hers, Amy
started forward again. Once they got past the drop-off, the path got steeper as
it wound around trees and rocks jutting out of the ground higher than her
knees.

It was slow going with Chloe. Though doing her
three-year-old best with the rough terrain, her short little legs made it
impossible to move quickly and she needed constant boosts. This type of hike
would
not
be recommended by her for a family with small children, Amy
thought wryly after several minutes and several large crags and boulders had
been circumnavigated. At least they were dealing mostly with a dry, powdery
snow, with the slick, icy spots being random and few.

As she bent down to swing Chloe up again, a shrill staccato
whistle split the clear mountain air from below. Three longer ones followed,
each one closer than the first. Instead of setting Chloe up on the boulder like
she’d been about to do, Amy settled her on her hip and hugged her close,
looking around for the reason of the whistles.

Almost immediately, Jordyn was in front of her, taking Chloe
out of her hold and placing her up on the next boulder. Grabbing Amy’s upper
arms, he hauled her up and over the rocks she’d started to scramble up.

“What is it?” Amy asked, glancing behind her.

“A warning. Trouble coming.” His words were curt as he
picked Chloe up and handed her to Amy. “Take Chloe and get to the portal.”

Amy caught his sleeve before he could turn and head down the
path. “What is it?”

Jordyn pulled a SAT phone out of his pocket and glanced at
it. Frowning, he shook his head and stuffed it back into the same pocket. “I
don’t know.” He pulled her hand free of his coat. “Go before—”

“I can’t move fast with Chloe.” Fear gripped her throat and
forced her words out in a ragged rush. “I can’t carry her and get over the
rocks. They’re too high.” She looked up the steep section of the path that
still lay between them and the almost completed portal. “You have to take her
and make sure she gets through that portal.”

“No.” Jordyn’s low emphatic answer dropped on her as heavily
as a solid lead wall. Her reaction must have shown clearly in her face because
Jordyn’s tone gentled when he said, “I can’t protect you if my arms are full.”

Anger erupted in Amy. “You
promised,
” she hissed,
poking him in his chest hard. “Promised me in front of Amdyn and Siriyn that
you would get Chloe to Ilyria and that she would be safe.”

With Amy’s jerky movement, Chloe started to slip down her
side, the nylon of their combined outerwear making it difficult to keep her in
place with only one arm wrapped around her. Chloe tried to hang on, but had no
grip with her hands encased in mittens. Jordyn caught her before her feet
touched the ground.

Taking a deep breath, Amy took a step back. “I’ll be right
behind you.”

For a second, Jordyn’s anger froze the air around them, his
eyes hidden behind the dark lenses, but the rest of his face set in stone-hard
lines. “
Right
behind me,” he bit out.

Abruptly, he turned, and with Chloe tucked securely against
him, headed back up the mountain. He handled the extra burden as if Chloe
weighed no more than the stuffed rabbit sticking out of her backpack. Even
carrying the child, Jordyn moved quickly over every obstacle. Keeping up was a
challenge and staying right behind him was impossible.

Jordyn glanced back often at first, checking on her progress
and back down the path behind her. She shook her head at him, waving once or
twice to reassure him when she didn’t need both her hands to keep from sliding
back down the mountain.

Up ahead of Jordyn and Chloe, she saw a rippling in the air
the shape of a circle before it began to stretch and widen. Jordyn kept moving,
but pointed to the shimmering, suspended oval and said something to Chloe.
Though his words were inaudible from where she stood, they caused an immediate
reaction in Chloe, who shrieked with glee and reached toward the portal with one
outstretched mitten-covered hand.

The sharp, cold air cut through her lungs as she inhaled.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d been worrying about
getting to Ilyria. Feeling as buoyant as a balloon held under water and then
suddenly released, she watched Chloe’s excited hand flapping that was a half
waving, half hurry-up gesture as she bounced in Jordyn’s arms. Her wiggling
didn’t slow him down and Amy smiled, knowing that in a couple of minutes,
they’d be through to a new world and a new life.

Rushing to reach a large outcropping, Amy slipped on a loose
stone and her knee slammed against a rock. She gasped and took a moment to
catch her breath and straighten out her leg, working the sharp, piercing pain
out so she could put her weight on it again. When Jordyn stopped and turned to
look at her, she grimaced and motioned him to keep going.

“I’m fine,” she called. “Just slipped. Go on.”

Chloe’s impatient squeal overrode any objection he might
have made. Whatever he said to her daughter in response mollified Chloe enough
to keep her from trying to squirm out of his arms as he headed toward the
portal again.

With her back against the rough bark of a tree, she glanced
over her shoulder and down the steep path behind her. She was just in time to see
the shadowy form of a large cat-like creature silently slink from one side of
the trail to disappear behind a boulder farther up. A second later, it covered
at least ten feet of difficult terrain in one fluid leap. The animal’s gaze was
fixed on Jordyn and Chloe.

Two things were immediately clear to Amy. One, the creature
was, as Cirryc had said, a big mother fucking cat. And two, at the easy rate it
was moving up the steep mountainside, it was going to reach Jordyn and Chloe
before they reached the portal.

She opened her mouth to scream a warning, but immediately
snapped her lips shut. If she yelled for help, Jordyn might not take Chloe up
to the portal, and instead, come to help her. Chloe was so close to being safe.
She couldn’t take the chance that she’d miss the portal. She wouldn’t take the
chance that a Slayer might even get close to her daughter.

Sparing a second for a final look at her daughter’s smiling
face and red curls poking out from under the hood of her coat, Amy turned and
raced back the way she’d just come.

Chapter Eleven

Instinct, the gods, coincidence—whatever one chose to call
the feeling—had Jordyn looking behind him one more time as he drew close to the
portal. What he saw brought him to a sudden, shocked stop. Amy was running a direct
intersect route toward a Slayer headed toward him and Chloe. An ancient Ilyrian
curse hissed past his lips before he remembered the child in his arms.

He looked down into that child’s eyes. At his abrupt halt,
she had turned to look up at him, her wide green eyes sparkling as she blinked
against the bright sun. He knew he had one choice. Amy had left him with just
one choice.

This time, the curse was silent, but it was long and
detailed as he covered the final distance between him and portal. Before, he’d
been moving at a pace that didn’t leave Amy too far behind. Now he sprinted as
fast as he dared to the dimensional opening, the fear driving his flight
tempered by the knowledge that if he fell, he’d be of no help to either Amy or
Chloe.

The last few feet were the most treacherous as, unlike the
rest of the path, the rocky expanse in front of the portal was completely iced
over. He nearly lost his balance when Chloe shifted in his arms as she twisted
around to see the portal better. He didn’t hesitate as he reached the
dimensional doorway, stepping through and scanning the small room they’d
entered.

Chloe lurched toward Aurora’s outstretched arms as he
registered the presence of Connyn and several others, including Rordyc and
Brooke. Transferring the child to Aurora’s arms, he whispered a few words to
Connyn. He didn’t waste time answering any of the gunfire-fast questions
shooting at him or explaining away the surprised looks at the absence of Amy
before exiting the portal as fast as he’d entered. Chloe had passed through the
thin veil separating the two worlds and was safe.

The moment Ilyria fell away behind him, he spotted Amy. She
was throwing herself at a Slayer who had risen up on its hind legs, swiping at
her with its front paws and their blade-sharp claws. His shout pounded against
his ears as it echoed off the sides of the surrounding mountains.

He was too late.

Even as he rushed toward her, he knew he couldn’t reach her
in time. All he could do was watch as she threw herself at the creature, ducking
the deadly paws to ram head first into the Slayer’s midsection. The cat was
knocked off balance and teetered backward over the drop off he’d warned Amy
about earlier.

For one sickening moment of hope, they hung suspended over
the precipice as the Slayer’s hind claws dug in, pausing the fall for a brief
second as they scored the rock, grappling hooks across granite that ultimately
found no place to catch.

The Slayer’s roar of fury exploded against the vivid
cerulean sky, breaking the air into shattered fragments that drove ruthlessly
into Jordyn. As two kites tangling together before diving toward earth, Amy and
the Slayer tumbled over and around each other in midair for one chilling,
world-stopping moment before disappearing over the edge of the cliff. The
Slayer’s final roar sliced through the air, carving deep into Jordyn and
cutting the breath from his body before being suddenly and terribly replaced by
silence.

The emptiness that engulfed the space Amy and the Slayer had
just occupied didn’t slow Jordyn as he raced against hope, paying no attention
to the branches, shrubs and roots that tore and grabbed at him as he plowed
down the path. Once at the edge, he refused to believe what he saw.
Couldn’t
believe what he saw. His brain simply refused to process the picture his eyes
were relaying.

Amy and the Slayer lay in a crumpled heap below, caught on a
thin ledge beneath sharp outcroppings of jagged rock. The Slayer had landed on
top of Amy, its body twisted and bent at an unnatural angle. Most of Amy’s body
was covered by the beast so he couldn’t tell what damage she’d sustained.
Though one large paw lay across her neck and mouth, he could clearly see that
her eyes were closed and that she was bleeding from a cut across her forehead.
Her hair made a crimson halo as it spilled over the rocks and one foot that had
lost its boot dangled over the edge of the cliff.

The rocks shredded his gloves as he scaled, slid and
sprinted down the face of the treacherously steep side of the mountain, not
taking his eyes off the woman at the bottom of the cliff except for the split
seconds it took to adjust his trajectory to keep from plunging headfirst into
the cavernous chasm below. As he closed in on her position, he looked, prayed,
begged for a sign, any sign, she’d survived. He was given none.

Jordyn dropped over the last ledge and landed, balancing on
the edge between Amy and the air. Bracing against the cliff, he shoved the
Slayer off Amy and paid no attention as its body slid over the precipice. His
thoughts had frozen and he was operating on instinct fueled by denial. Numbly
he shifted around on the thin ledge to kneel beside Amy. Whipping off his
gloves, he unzipped her jacket, pushed down the edge of her turtleneck sweater
and checked for a pulse at the side of her neck.

At the feel of blood still pounding through her veins, the
claws that had been sinking into his chest, squeezing the breath out of his
lungs, loosened enough for him to draw in a steady breath.

“Amy,” he said his voice rough and low. “Amy, can you hear
me?” When she didn’t respond, he ran his fingers down her cheek and then gently
shook her shoulder as he repeated the question, this time louder.

He was about to shake her again when she moaned and rolled
her head from one side to the other. “Am I dead?” she asked.

Relief flooded through him, but it was immediately pushed
out by a crashing wave of anger. “What the hell were you thinking, pulling a
stunt like that?”

Amy opened her eyes and blinked up at him. “What?”

“Are you hurt? Can you move your arms and legs?”

Still dazed, Amy wiggled her fingers and feet. “I don’t
think I’m really hurt, just bruised. I must have gotten the wind knocked out of
me when I hit.”

Jordyn glanced back up the cliff and the sight infuriated
him further. “The gods only know how you managed to jump off the side of a
mountain and not break your neck.”

“I didn’t jump—” Amy stopped suddenly, sat up and grabbed at
his arm. “Chloe! Where’s Chloe?”

Her green eyes wide with worry tamped down his own anger.
“She’s fine. She’s with Aurora in Ilyria.”

Amy sighed and closed her eyes. “Okay. Good.” Her brows
furrowed and she gingerly touched the side of her head. Pulling her fingers
away, she opened her eyes and stared at blood staining the tips of her gloves.
“Oh my god. I’m bleeding. I must have hit my head on the rock.”

“Imagine that,” he said drily as he brushed her hand away to
check the cut. “You got hurt tackling a Slayer over a cliff.”

He pressed lightly around the side of the wound. “It’s not
deep,” he said.

“It still hurts,” she said crossly, wincing and jerking her
head away.

Pushing his hood back, Jordyn took off the thin fleece cap
he’d been wearing under it and scooped some snow into it. After rolling it up,
he held it out to Amy. “Here. Hold this against your head.”

She used her glove to wipe off the blood that had started to
drip into her eye and then complied with his instructions. “I remember pushing
the Slayer over the edge. I think he hit that ledge,” she said, pointing to the
one directly above them. “Suddenly it just stopped moving and then we rolled
again and must have landed here. I guess I got the wind knocked out of me.” She
looked around. “Where did it go?”

“I pushed it over the edge. Its back was broken.” He tilted
her head up, looked into her eyes, checking for focus, pupil dilation. When he
was satisfied, he met her questioning look with a glare. “What the
hell
were
you thinking?”

Amy pulled her chin out of his grasp and winced at the
effort. “It was the only way I could think of to keep Chloe safe.”

“That was my job, remember?”

Her glare matched his. “That doesn’t mean it’s not my job
first. I’m her mother and I will do whatever it takes to keep my daughter
safe.”

Jordyn’s teeth clamped together. Her actions infuriated him,
but he understood her motivation. He would have skinned himself alive—slowly,
painfully, willingly—if it would have meant saving his daughter.

“There were other options,” he stated flatly.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She cut off his response by changing the
topic. Pointing at her socked foot, she asked, “Where’s my boot?”

Before he could answer, a shout hailed them from above.
Jordyn stood and leaned out to see the men staring down at them. He gave them a
quick wave and turned his attention back to Amy. “Can you stand?”

“Yes.” She pushed up quickly to her feet and ended up
suddenly rocking forward toward the edge of the cliff.

“Easy,” Jordyn said, catching her around the waist and
steadying her against him. Tilting her head back, Amy looked straight up and
asked, “How are we going to get back up there?”

Jordyn caught the black static line that was swinging down
from above. “We’ll have help.”

* * * * *

Amy touched the bandage on her forehead. It was tender, but
the first-aid kits kept in the trucks were pretty damn complete and made her
wonder just how often they had to use them. Either they’d had experiences in
the past that had taught them never to leave home without a traveling hospital
or Ilyria must have one hell of a kick-ass Boy Scout organization.

She glanced sideways at Jordyn in the seat beside her. In the
cramped together seats of the Grayhound bus, even with his winter coat removed,
he still took up more than his share of their seating area. Every time he
moved, she was jostled. At least he had an aisle seat and could stretch out his
legs. When she’d first sat down in that seat, he’d immediately moved her into
the seat next to the window and blocked from anyone and everyone by his bulk.

The bumps and bruises from her tumble down the mountain were
starting to make themselves known and her entire body had begun to ache. She
twisted sideways in her seat, searching for a more comfortable position.

At her fidgeting, Jordyn looked down at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“Can I help?” he asked.

“Yes. Take up less room, find me some Tylenol with codeine
and put me in a hot tub.”

He shifted to get into one of the lower pockets down the
side of his cargo snow pants, squishing her even more into the side of the bus.

With a grunt, she said, “Jesus, maybe you could take up a
bit more room. I can actually still drag in a tiny breath.”

Ignoring her comment, he straightened and handed her a
bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, the same one he had offered her an hour ago.
This time she took it and downed it with a drink from the water he’d picked up
for her at the bus station. The man could be useful.

She handed the bottle back to him and mashed her coat up
into a ball behind her head in an attempt to use it as a pillow. The nylon
wouldn’t stay put and slid sideways, falling around her shoulders. With an
irritated huff, she jerked it back around and used it as a blanket instead.

“Can you
please
tell me why we’re on this stupid bus
again? And this time maybe expand on the ‘it’s for your own safety’ remark. As
if that explains everything.” she grumbled.

As soon as she’d been hauled, pushed and dragged back up the
cliff, Jordyn had rushed her down the mountain in the middle of a tight circle
of Ilyrian soldiers that efficiently and surprisingly quickly managed to carry
her down the path.

She remembered from the first attack at the hotel that
Slayers worked in pairs and from the snatches of quick conversation between the
men, she discovered that two Slayers had been spotted and stopped, but no one
realized there was a second pair until one had been seen going over the edge
with her.

Jordyn wasn’t the only one upset with her about that. Amdyn
had been so angry, he’d been in full Imperial Authority mode the moment he’d
joined the group. The lecture he’d barked out had swept right over her as oil
over plastic, because the adrenaline was no longer pumping through her veins
and her mind was trying to come to grips with the fact that she had indeed just
gone over the side of a cliff.

Once they’d reached the trucks at the end of the path,
Jordyn had bundled her into the front passenger seat and driven off, not
bothering to mention that they weren’t going back to the farmhouse. They’d
stopped once at a tourist-trap store along the highway before the bus station
so he could bandage her head and buy her a pair of shoes to replace the one
boot she was still wearing. She felt silly wearing fuzzy slipper-type moccasins
with
Colorado
scripted across each toe in glittery pink, but it was
better than walking around in her socks.

At the bus station, he’d left the truck behind and bought
tickets to Chicago. “And why
Chicago
?” she asked, resuming her rant.
“That’s like a twenty-four hour bus ride. Why not take a plane or just drive
there in the nice, roomy Hummer you left in the parking lot?”

Knowing she sounded like an add-on to the Snow White fairy
tale as the eighth dwarf, Whiny, didn’t improve her mood any. Her head hurt,
her body ached, she’d gone over the side of a mountain with a mutant, murdering
cat, missed a worlds-connecting portal and was sitting cramped up in a bus seat
wearing ridiculous shoes next to Mr. Uncommunicative himself.

With a low growl, she adjusted her position in the seat
again and her jacket slid down to her shins, pinned between her legs and the
seat in front of her. When she yanked on it to pull it back up, a sleeve
snagged between the two seats in front of her.

“God damn it.” Irritated, she jerked harder on it and wedged
it in worse. Angrily she jerked on it again in a quick succession of frantic
pulls, irrationally determined to beat the seats at their own game or tear the
sleeve off trying.