Bedeviled (10 page)

Chapter Thirteen

I
t looked like a bomb had gone off in the center of town, destroying everything in its path. Bodies lay strewn in the streets and buildings—dismembered, broken, or disemboweled. While the odor was familiar, she'd not seen destruction like this in any city.

The stench of death, much like what had plagued every city for days after Tartarus broke free, was enough to make Kyana retch. Fresh blood was rather appealing. Old, stale blood revolted even the hungriest of Vampyre. Though she supposed Leeches might be drawn to decay like this.

Why hadn't the psychics seen their own fate and gotten the hell out of here before the Dark Breeds struck?

A shrill scream, much like that of a Banshee, pulled Kyana from her thoughts and stopped her in her tracks. Moving slowly, she unsheathed her daggers from her waistband as she turned in the direction of the screams. Peering through the broken window, she took only a second to spot the source of the noise.

It wasn't Banshee. It was Haven.

“I won't, I won't, I won't,” Haven threw her neck back and screamed again, her hands raking her hair, ripping at her scalp. She paced the littered shop, broken glass crunching beneath her bare feet, but she gave no indication of pain.

Kyana watched, trying to form a plan. Making a reckless dive for Haven would be a bad choice. She'd expended all her ambrosia-charged goddess strength at the trailer park and it would be over quickly . . . and painfully for Kyana.

She fingered the small pouch in her pocket. On the drive here, Silas had set to work crafting Binding Charms for all three of them. His hurried explanations on how to use them were barely heard, but she was fairly certain it couldn't be that difficult. She knew Binding Charms could be extremely powerful depending on the Witch who'd created them. Silas
was
such a Witch, but would it work on Haven now that she had Cronos's spirit inside her?

She wasn't letting Haven out of her sight for even a second to find Ryker. He'd taken off to inspect a building two blocks down. There was no time for backup. Her decision made, she pulled the charm from her pocket, hitched up her baggy pants, and stepped silently through the shattered window, avoiding as much of the debris as possible.

Haven stared directly at her, but didn't seem to see her. She was shaking her head violently, her lips pinched so tightly together they'd almost vanished in her milky white face.

Kyana stopped, afraid to so much as breathe as she waited for Haven to move, to say something. Anything. She gripped the charm in her hand. She thought Silas said she had to be within five feet before discharging it. Or was it fifteen? Either way, she was well within that range.

As she eased forward a step, Haven remained frozen in place. But then, her mouth opened and her lips moved as she spoke silent words. Kyana considered calling out to her, but if she was in some sort of trance, best to attack before it broke. Then she could take Haven in without a fight and no one would get hurt.

She took another step, but then Haven's gaze jerked to the corner of the room. Haven began shaking her head again as though violently disagreeing with something Kyana couldn't hear. Everything moved in slow motion as Kyana turned to see what Haven pointed at. Her eyes burned from the golden glow of the object propped against the wall.

Poseidon's trident.

If she bound Haven to her as the charm was meant to do, she'd have to fight Haven and figure out how to carry the trident at the same time. She wanted Haven badly, but the world needed the trident more. No, she'd have to bind Haven to her own body, make it difficult for her to flee until Kyana could get the trident to safety.

The second she decided to be logical, the room suddenly filled with the suffocating odor of sulfur. Not giving herself time to think about her actions, or the consequences they might carry, she shot across the room.

She tossed one end of the Binding Charm at Haven's left foot, and the other around the right. At the same instant, her hand closed over the shaft of the trident, and she silently prayed that there was enough of Artie's blood in her to keep the damned thing from killing her.

When she wasn't immediately stricken by whatever god force was attached to the conduit, Kyana jumped out a busted window, nearly impaling herself on the shattered glass, and took off down the street toward the entrance to town, her bare feet slapping the rough concrete. Her heels were on fire, shards of embedded glass shooting pain up her legs, but she refused to stop even long enough to look back to see if her charm had worked.

She didn't need to. Haven's roar of outrage erupted like an explosion.

“Ky!” Ryker shot out from a large building on her left and she almost sagged with relief.

“What the hell—” His gaze took in the trident. He vaulted over the railing and fell into stride beside her. He grabbed her arm, forcibly pulling her down the street.

The instant Silas saw them coming, he leaped into the Humvee, dragging Kevin inside with him, and started the engine.

“Go, go, go!” Kyana screamed when they were about five feet away. She took a running leap and threw herself and the trident into the backseat, nearly skewering Ryker in the process as he landed beside her.

Twisting in her seat, she watched the sky darken overhead, watched the building they'd been in collapse on itself, and her heart twisted violently. Haven was in there!

“I couldn't get them both! She's restrained in there. She'll die if I don't go back!”

Grief and panic had her ordering Silas to stop the car, but he kept driving. She contemplated jumping out, running back to grab her friend, but Ryker must have sensed her intentions because he snatched the back of her pants and held her in place.

“You can't help her now, Ky.”

She glared at him, wanted to hit him and ask him if he would have abandoned her back there too, but she was pretty sure the answer would have just pissed her off even more.

To save the trident, damned right he would have.

She buried her face in her hands, choking on the building need to weep like a baby. If she let loose now, though, she'd never stop. Haven. Her sister. Her closest friend in the entire world.

The woman who'd held Kyana's hair back when a spoiled batch of blood had curdled in her belly and kept her bedridden for three days. The woman who'd asked her to be the maid of honor at a wedding she'd known Kyana had disagreed with. The woman who opened windows to release spiders rather than squash them and purposely left crumbs in the attic for the mice who'd wandered in.

How could all this have happened to someone like that? Certainly this couldn't have been the destiny the Fates had chosen for Haven. So why then was it happening to someone as pure and good as Haven while someone as selfish as Kyana retained her free will? She choked back a sob, praying with everything she had that some miracle might have saved Haven from the explosion.

Then, there was a loud squeal and she was thrown into the back of Silas's seat. The trident fell from her hand, rolled on the floor by her feet. They were spinning. Around and around, until finally, they stopped, facing the direction from which they'd been fleeing.

“Duck!”

Silas's scream was muffled by a loud thwack, and Kyana instinctively grabbed Kevin, shoved his head between his knees, then draped herself over him. Every window imploded, shards of glass erupting in an explosive shower around their heads.

As she carefully lifted her head to see if Ryker and Silas were okay, a momentary calm fell over the Humvee. A slash of blood fell over Silas's right cheekbone, but otherwise, he looked fine. Ryker, on the other hand, was cussing up a storm, brushing glass from his lap even as he was lifting his hands to grip the metal around the broken window and lifting himself through the opening.

“Ryker, stop!”

She didn't know exactly what had prevented their getaway, but she sure as hell didn't want him out there facing it alone. Using Kevin's curved back as a stool, she pressed her knee into him and shoved herself out the window after Ryker.

He didn't acknowledge her, his gaze narrowed on the road. Her breath caught in her throat at the freakish event heading their way. A funnel tore over the streets, roughly six feet tall and four feet wide. Not huge, but sweeping street signs and trash cans out of its path as it hurled itself in their direction.

But what held Kyana's attention was its brightness. Green and gold fireworklike lights spit out from the top, making it look like a sad little birthday cake.

“What the hell is that?”

Ryker folded his arms over his chest, looking less impressed than even Kyana was. “That, I believe, is Cronos.”

She sputtered. “You're kidding.”

“Well, Cronos through Haven of course. Gods have the ability to screw with weather, and I'm guessing the devastating sort of weather was Cronos's specialty.”

Relief kept her rooted in place. If Haven was indeed at the center of that whirlwind, then she'd made it out of that damned explosion.

“I would have thought he'd be bigger,” she muttered.

“Size matters?”

Kyana snorted. “Most definitely.”

The faint trace of a smile lit up the side of his face she could see. “Not in this case. Get in the car. I don't want to see what that thing turns into when it stops.”

Together, she and Ryker jumped back into the Humvee, only to find Silas slumped over the steering wheel.

“Silas!” Kyana dragged him away from the wheel while Ryker scooted over them into the driver's seat.

She glanced at the floorboard in the back and a groan escaped her. The trident was gone. As a sick feeling twisted her gut, she looked at Kevin in the backseat. When she saw his white face and bug eyes, she knew they'd fallen into a trap.

Silas moaned. Taking that as a sign that he'd be fine, she turned her fury onto Kevin.

“What happened!” she screamed.

Kevin said nothing, instead raising his arm to point over her head. She swiveled in her seat to look out the windshield. Haven stood some twenty feet away, and in her hands, all glowy and taunting, was the trident.

“Looking for this?” Haven smirked. Soot covered her from head to toe, making her look like more of a monster than should have been possible. Only the whites of her eyes showed through the blackness, eerie, whitish yellow slits encasing black pupils that flickered with such menace, Kyana actually flinched though an entire vehicle separated them.

She pushed Silas off her, ready to jump from the car and go after that damned conduit again. She'd been so freaking close! But the engine sputtered to life and she was thrown backward as Ryker smashed the gas.

She had an instant of regret when the Humvee sped toward Haven, but she kept her gaze focused on that trident. They plowed into her, but rather than sending her flying, it was the Humvee that lifted into the air and smashed onto its front bumper. Kyana's head cracked against Silas's as the vehicle righted itself. The hood now held a dent the size of Arizona, but Haven was unscathed.

She stood in exactly the same spot, a wicked grin on her face.

“Cronos, you son of a bitch,” she muttered.

“What the hell is she made of?” Kevin asked, finally daring to poke his head over their shoulders. “God, please don't let her have me!”

“She doesn't want you right now, ass hat.” Kyana's gaze finally moved from the trident in Haven's hand to Ryker's face. “She should be dead or really hurt, but it's like Cronos encased her in steel. How do we get that trident back?”

“You don't.” Haven was closer now, her hands on the dented hood as she leaned forward a bit to peer into the broken windshield. She gestured down the length of her body. “He shouldn't be strong enough to do this yet, but you really really pissed him off.” She smiled, her fangs flashing over her bottom lip. “Thank you.”

The funnel was gone, but there was a heavy wind circling Haven now. Her hair was blowing, her filthy clothes puckering against her body, then out again.

“You think you can stop us from finding the conduits by killing the psychics?” Haven roared. “My friends?”

Kyana blinked, gripping the dashboard until her knuckles cracked. Haven thought
they'd
murdered these people? Had she not seen the gruesome way in which they had been killed? Totally not her style.

“There are others who can show me what I need to see,” Haven continued, her black eyes glimmering, looking like tiny obsidian stones. “It will take me no time to return to St. Augustine, Kyana. How long will it take you?”

Thunder crackled overhead, and Haven threw her arms into the air while Kyana and Ryker shimmied back out of the window to grab her. The smell of gasoline smothered the scent of death in the small town, and before she could pull her body free of the vehicle, there were flames. Kyana barely had time to react before the hood of the Humvee shot up in a blaze.

Wild laughter surrounded them from all sides, and then Haven was gone.

Chapter Fourteen

“G
et the human!” Kyana strained against the Humvee's door in an attempt to get Silas out. The door creaked, but opened only an inch, the side of their vehicle damaged more than she'd realized. She summoned what little remaining Vampyric strength she still possessed and ripped the door from its hinges, sending it sailing overhead to impale the heart of a palm tree.

She reached for Silas, but his body had become wedged when the collision with Haven had shifted the driver's seat, pinning him against the high center console. The denim encasing his bent legs smoldered from the heat of the motor and the ever-growing flames.

If she ripped him out of the vehicle, he'd be torn in two. She could dismantle the metal that had become a cage around him, but that would take care she didn't have time to give. He didn't have the healing powers she and Ryker possessed. If she hauled Silas out of the Humvee too quickly, she'd kill him. However, if she took the time required, he'd die in the explosion. Already the flames were bubbling the green and yellow paint on the dash. She needed to cool the Humvee off. Needed a hose or . . .

Gods have the ability to screw with the weather
.

Ryker's words bounced around Kyana's head as she stepped away from the vehicle and stared at the sky. If gods could screw with the weather, surely that went for goddesses as well.

She imagined a hurricane dropping buckets of rain down upon them. The skies darkened. Thunder rumbled. It started with a light drizzle, but the two drops of rain that splattered against her head gave her enough hope to dig for more.

Her skin zinged and her blood grew hot—a sensation she hadn't felt as a Vamp in centuries and made her feel more alive than she could ever remember. The sky opened up, and a torrential rain exploded down upon them, dousing the flames and filling the air with thick, black smoke.

They weren't in the clear yet, but she was pretty sure the Humvee wouldn't explode. Reaching around Silas, she placed her hands on the console. She tucked her head toward her chest in an effort not to inhale the stench of burning flesh and shoved. The metal and motor refused to budge.

With a curse, she quickly checked to make sure Silas was still breathing before vaulting over the roof. Her bare feet barely found traction on the wet grass before she jerked open the passenger door, leaving it swinging from its hinges.

Placing her foot above the back tire, she wrapped her fingers around the console. It took several attempts before her rain-drenched hands could find the dexterity needed to pull the large chunk of steel away, careful not to let the torn metal slice through Silas's ever-paling skin.

When her hands could easily fit between Silas and the console, Kyana moved back around the Humvee and extracted him from the wreck, setting him carefully on the wet pavement.

Kneeling beside him, she rested her cheek against his chest. The steady beat of his heart calmed the rush of adrenaline warming her blood. Suddenly, she was very cold. Shivering. Icy.

She gently ran her hands over his legs. The warmth coming from beneath the denim caused her hands to quake. Though the thick fabric had protected him some, he'd still been burned.

“I need my bag,” Silas groaned, finally coming around. She reached inside and snatched the pack from the floorboard before returning to grab him by the collar. She dragged him across the street where Ryker was propping up a rather stunned-looking Kevin.

“I—don't want to—do this anymore,” Kevin said, gripping his chest.

She kinda hoped he was having a heart attack.

She shot her gaze to Ryker. “Can you get us another vehicle?”

“Yeah, you got them?”

She studied the pale-faced duo on the ground and nodded, her heart finally slowing to a less painful tattoo. “Yeah.”

“Back in a minute.”

He disappeared around the corner, giving her the chance to catch her breath. When Silas rubbed his head and opened his eyes, she fell onto the ground beside him. He tried to rip the denim away from his calves. Failing, he looked up at Kyana. She sliced his pants with her dagger from hem to knee and carefully separated the edges. His legs were red and covered in nasty bruises, but it didn't appear as though anything was broken or burned too badly.

Once she'd helped him dig through his bag and apply a cooling salve to his wounds, she asked, “What the hell happened back there?”

It took him a minute to look capable of any kind of speech, then he finally said, “Distraction.”

Well, that explained everything. “Elaborate.”

He pulled himself up to lean against the wall of the brick building behind them. “When you and Ryker left us to confront that funnel, Haven appeared in front of us. She knocked us out. Bait and switch.”

“She took the trident,” she muttered, feeling like every kind of fool for leaving it in the car in the first place.

“Lovely,” Silas rubbed the back of his head. “I think I'm sitting your next adventure out.”

Kyana was beginning to wish she could too.