Carrier of the Mark (33 page)

“You can’t,” I croaked out. “That was destroyed years ago.”

He chuckled to himself and dragged a crate over beside me to sit on. “I may as well introduce myself, since you’ll be seeing quite a bit of me. I’m Lyonis Fleet.” He held out his arm as if to shake my hand, then started laughing. “Oh, I guess you’re all tied up, aren’t you?” He cackled at his own pathetic joke.

“As you can see, the amulet wasn’t destroyed,” he went on. “It was simply disabled. We had the missing amber shard. All we needed was the remnants of the Amulet.” He held out the amulet that dangled on the big gold chain and moved it closer to me. It looked like a bronze sun with pointed sunbeams radiating from it. At the very center there was an unusual amber stone; I could see the cracks where the shard had been fixed back into it. The amber glowed bright.

“This little beauty was a gift to us from a friend of ours in the Order of the Mark. Look at how it glows when it gets close to you.” He moved it closer to me to prove his point and the glowing grew more intense. “All we had to do was insert the amber shard and hey, presto, your little earth element Áine couldn’t see me coming.”

“But
I
sensed you coming.”

“A minor flaw. It only blinds evoked elements. But it binds all the elemental powers, evoked or not, so you can’t touch me.”

I held my breath. The Knox had a weapon that Adam, Áine, and Rían would be powerless against. I had to remember every shred of information that this man told me. I had to keep him talking.

“What about me?” I asked quickly.

“Ah, indeed, what about you? When we learned the fourth had been found and guided by the Sidhe himself, we knew something was stirring.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Christ! Who told them?

He leaned in and pulled my hair away from my neck. “An activated Mark from royal blood … and a Carrier too. Who could have imagined such a creature? But here you are.” He put his hand on my Mark. I cringed away from his touch.

“Don’t be frightened; I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Does drugging me and dumping me in a car trunk not qualify as hurting me?”

“Ooh, and she’s feisty too.” He laughed. “What a combination. Listen, girl, you should really play along. The Knox aren’t half bad. You might even like us.”

“I doubt it,” I spat, and turned away from him.

“Well, they’re on their way here now to collect you, so you might want to rethink that. Trust me, little girl: The fifth will come. You’ll want to be on our side when it does.”

“The fifth? This is all about the fifth?”

“Of course it’s about the fifth. It’s always been about the fifth. That’s what we’ve been doing all these years. Biding our time. And now that time has come.”

“The fifth has nothing to do with me.”

“It has
everything
to do with you,” he sneered.

“Get away from her!” Adam’s voice filled the small cabin as he came down the steps from the deck above.

“Adam.” I gasped.

Adam didn’t know about the amulet. I had to try to warn him. Suddenly a ball of water from outside the boat shot through the window right at Lyonis. It got about a yard from him and then the water splashed against thin air, like it had hit a glass wall.

“What the…?” Adam looked around the cabin in shock.

“The amulet! Adam! The am—” I was cut off midscream as a fist slammed into my face.

“No!” I heard Adam shout as I fell sideways and landed on the floor, dazed and groggy. There was blood in my mouth, and my cheek and jaw pounded. I was using all the energy I had just by focusing on staying conscious.

Lyonis and Adam were fighting, struggling against each other. They lurched to the left, smashing into the side wall, and then they both went right out through the rotting hull. I could hear Rían’s voice outside.

“No, Rían, don’t attack him! He’s got … Rían,
no
!” Adam shouted.

Flames engulfed the boat, and my lungs ached as dark, noxious smoke filled the air. I struggled off the dirty makeshift bed and shuffled across the floor, the cable ties binding my hands and feet making my progress slow.

Suddenly a wall of water smashed through the cabin, dulling the flames.

Seizing my opportunity, I threw myself toward the wooden stairs, where the remains of the fire licked their way upward to freedom. I gritted my teeth and reached over to hook the cable binding my wrists on a jagged piece of scorched metal that I could see through the flames. Turning my face away from the searing heat, I tugged down sharply and felt the tie snap. I screamed as the flames burned my skin, but I didn’t have time to worry about the pain. I needed to get out, to warn the others. I had to make sure they were okay.

With my hands free, I released my ankles and scrambled up the still-burning stairs to the deck. I was on a half-sunken old fishing trawler that was listing at an odd angle where it had run aground, in what looked like a boat graveyard. The smoke had curled its way up from the wreckage and was slowly starting to clear. Through the haze I could see a group of people on the shoreline.

Lyonis was standing in front of Rían, Fionn, and Áine, pointing a gun at them. They were motionless, staring at the ground. My eyes followed their horrified gaze to the body lying facedown at the water’s edge.

It was Adam. He was lying flat, deathly still, with blood oozing out of him. It soaked through his shirt, pooling on the damp sand.

Horror filled me, along with anger, despair, loss. I could hear the blood whooshing through my veins, pumping through me. Every pulse was so loud in my ears I could hear nothing else. I started moving toward Lyonis. The man who had drugged me, threatened me, beaten me, and now had taken my reason for living away from me. My fear was a distant memory. Not once did I look down to negotiate the dangerous maze of broken boats, water, and debris. I would have vengeance. That was all there was left in the world.

“I’ll be with you soon,” I promised Adam as I moved closer to my target.

Lyonis was aiming his gun at the others. Áine was sobbing, Fionn looked desolate, and Rían was shaking, a picture of rage.

Lyonis didn’t see me coming, but Rían did. His face changed as we locked gazes. What was that I saw in his eyes? It looked like fear, but I didn’t care. I was beyond caring. I could feel a surge of strength building in me like a bomb about to explode. I felt like I was floating; there was no longer ground beneath my feet. There was no need for it, no need for substance. I wasn’t moving through the air; I
was
the air.

My beautiful Adam. I could see part of his face now where he lay in a crumpled heap, his eyes hidden by lids that were closed forever.

Lyonis. That animal had taken my precious Adam from me. I screamed in pain, a scream so loud it ripped through the valley. In the same moment I saw Fionn throw himself toward Lyonis. Lyonis pulled the trigger and Fionn fell forward beside Adam. As he went down he snatched at the amulet around Lyonis’s neck, ripping it free. Lyonis shrieked in horror as the realization hit him: He was no longer protected.

Then I heard a roaring. It was so loud I could hear nothing else.

Rían and Áine covered their ears and cowered on the ground. They crawled over to the bodies of Adam and Fionn and threw themselves down over them. The roaring continued and I looked around.

I suddenly realized that I was up in the air high above them. I appeared to be radiating a bright light. The air around me swirled until I could no longer see the land. River water started rising up and spinning around me. Next the boats lifted, then some trees, their great roots torn from the earth by the brutal force emanating from me. It was a massive vortex, spreading out farther and farther until the riverbed was visible, the water swirling high above it. The boats and the trees that had been tugged up swirled so fast that their outlines became a blur.

I saw the object of my rage running away. He was making for the woods, but I pushed out the great vortex of moving air and debris so that he stayed constantly in my sight. There was no way he could break through its impenetrable wall.

“
You
,” I snarled. My voice was not mine. It was a mixture of howling wind and cracking thunder. “You will pay.” I clasped my hand, as if to pick up his little body far below me on the ground, and he rose right into the air until he was at my level.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he screamed, flailing his legs and trying to shield himself from my glare.

“Too late for that.” My voice reverberated around the valley.

I looked at Adam, his lifeless body. Rían and Áine were standing now. I saw them waving up at me, but I was beyond caring what they wanted. The power inside engulfed me, took over my very core, and it needed vengeance. I glanced back to Adam one last time just to look at his physical body before I went to meet him in the next life. I knew I could do it. I wouldn’t be dying. I would simply cease to exist. I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. It was instinctual. I just needed to turn the power on myself.

Lyonis was still screaming. It was irritating me, ruining my last few moments with my beloved’s body.

Adam’s hand moved.

Shocked, I looked again. Now his whole arm moved. And then I saw that his eyes were open, green, clear, and beautiful.

Adam.

Adam was still alive.

Lyonis’s screaming was really getting on my nerves.

“Oh, shut up,” I roared at him. I felt my power disperse a little. The glow around me dimmed, and the great whirling vortex of water, trees, and boat debris faltered slightly.

“Megan.” I heard Adam’s voice clearly, as if all other sound in the universe had stopped for one moment. “Megan, I’m all right. Come back to me,” he pleaded.

Come back to him—of course I’d come back to him. I was his. I dropped lower and let Lyonis fall to the ground with a thud. Water started splashing back to earth. Trees, boats, and rocks all came crashing down around us in a big circle.

“Adam,” I breathed. My voice returned to the one I recognized. “I thought you were dead.”

“Me too, baby, me too,” he said weakly.

I threw myself into his arms.

“You are one scary girl. Beautiful, amazing, magical, but damn scary,” he whispered into my hair, then groaned. He stretched out and grabbed Fionn’s arm. “Are you still with us, Fionn?”

“Just about,” Fionn croaked, and rolled over.

F
ionn looked warily at me. “Well, that’s one I have never seen before,” he said in a weak voice. “Rían, check on that bastard, will you?”

Rían picked his way through the debris to where Lyonis lay in a heap. “He’s alive,” he announced. “More’s the pity.” He gave the unconscious man a good kick and walked back over to where Adam and I were lying on the ground. “Have you disarmed her?” Rían asked Adam jokingly. He gave me an admiring look. “Jesus, girl! Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

I snuggled into Adam’s arms. The tears were pouring down my face, my human emotions flooding back into my body.

“We’d better get you to a hospital, bro,” Rían said. “Looks like Fionn could do with some patching up too.” He turned to me. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way and get all freaky mad, O very scary one, but you have seen prettier days. Your face is a mess, and those burns on your hands look really painful.” He winced.

Wow
. I had completely forgotten about the punch I got in the face, and about my burned hands. I glanced down at them. They really did look bad. “Ouch,” I said.

“That bastard,” Adam said through gritted teeth.

“Come on. Let’s get you lot to hospital and call the Gardaí for this asshole,” Rían said, walking by Lyonis and kicking him in the ribs again.

“Will you give him one for me?” Adam said.

“It would be my pleasure.” Rían kicked him again.

It wasn’t long before there were squad cars and ambulances on the little lane that led down toward the boat graveyard. They had to bring the stretchers on foot, since they couldn’t get the ambulances down to where we were. Adam and Fionn were taken away first to the hospital.

I was going to ride with Rían and Áine and get seen to in the ER, but we had to speak to the Gardaí first and make statements. Rían recounted the story of my abduction. He claimed Lyonis was some deranged psychopath who claimed to be a member of a weird holy order. He’d kidnapped me, beaten me, and then shot Adam and Fionn when they came to rescue me. It did the trick. Lyonis was taken to the hospital under a Gardaí escort. I doubted we’d be seeing much more of him.