Cast Into Darkness (25 page)

I’m not going to make it. Oh God, I’m going to die down here, in this cold, watery blackness.

Then she burst through the surface, into the air, gulping fresh oxygen into her starved body. She bobbed at the top of a river, the roar of the falls behind her thundering in her aching head. The moon’s light, shining across the ripples of the water, gleamed bright enough for her to see that the waves nearby held no trace of Dylan.

The blue glow had faded from her skin. She shook with the cold. She had to find him and get out of the water before they both froze.

Move. Have to move. It will keep me warm.

She struck out across the river. A bobbing form downstream caught her eye.

Dylan.

Let him be alive.

She swam over to him. His glasses were gone, lost somewhere, and he lay facedown in the water. Her heart thumped. She lifted him onto her shoulder, ignoring the twinge of pain, and scanned the river, looking for the shore, the current helping her along until she got her bearings.

Swimming kept her warm for the few minutes she needed to reach the embankment. She hauled him, arms first, as far as she could up onto the sand and rocks, her injured ribs protesting the effort.

Oh God. How do I do first aid for drowning? I should have paid attention during that required CPR class, instead of flirting with the cute blond guy behind me. Dammit. Mouth-to-mouth, that’s it.

She tilted Dylan’s head to the side to drain the water out, moved it back, sealed his lips to hers, and blew as hard as she could. She did it again and again, her mind racing ahead to what she would do if it didn’t work.
Try chest compressions?

Dylan coughed, his arms flailing. He sat up, brown hair plastered to his head, and spewed out a rush of water.

What should she do? Let him cough until he calmed down? She knelt beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Get away from me. What the bloody hell did you do?” He scrambled away, gaining the dubious shelter of a brush-covered boulder.

She backed away. “Okay, okay. It’s just the twitchies. Chill out.”

His breathing slowed as she retreated, and the wild look in his eye seemed to calm. She sat on the cold, muddy ground, her head in her hands.

The scent of something sweet, like honeysuckle or jasmine, wafted across the night air, along with a faint smell of a wood fire and the odor of diesel fuel. Brush swept up from the embankment and met a wide plain extending into the blackness beyond. A sand beetle toiled along in front of her. She didn’t care where they were. Not really. As long as it was somewhere far away from Dmitri Makris.

The cold seeped into her. Her body shook, rattling her teeth. Pulling her knees up to her chin, she hugged them, trying to stay warm. But that hurt her ribs too much, so she curled up on her side, lying on the embankment. Her throbbing head joined the symphony of pain alongside the stabbing hurt in her ribs and the ache in her right arm. Then nausea rose up in her, so strong she couldn’t hold it down. She barely got up before she heaved, over and over. Nothing came out but a thin thread of bile.

After a few more heaves, she thought she might be done. She wiped her mouth and tried to move. She looked up and saw Dylan kneeling next to her, his eyes sane again, and kind. Oh, God, he didn’t see all that, did he?

“Casters react like soldiers do after combat,” Dylan said. “The heaves, the shakes. It’s normal. Take things slow and easy. You’ll feel better if you can relax.”

She tried to breathe the way Grayson had taught her. In and out, from her stomach. The nausea eased. Her pulse calmed. She realized that her shirt was still open, her bra visible. Blushing, she pulled the edges of her blouse together.

Dylan took off his jacket and handed it to her.

“It’s wet, but at least it will—”

“Thanks.” The jacket hung too large on her small frame, the wet fabric uncomfortable. She buttoned two of the wooden buttons. The row of silver talismans felt cold against her skin.

“Feel better? Any trouble with the paranoia?” His lip twitched. “Like me? Sorry about that.”

“No problem. I handled the backlash.”

She lied. Her spell back at the tree house hadn’t caused any paranoia—none at all.

“I’ve got to get you back. Your father will be worried about you.” He reached up to push his glasses back then paused, as if puzzled to find them gone.

“That’s the understatement of the year. He’s freaking out right now. He better not have given the stone away.”

She stumbled to her feet, crushing several sand beetles beneath her. “Where are we, anyway?”

Dylan turned and pointed at the falls, its white spray barely visible through the darkness. “The Zambezi River, the Zimbabwe side, I think. That’s Victoria Falls behind us, through the gorge. I came here once, looking for…something. It doesn’t matter what. What does is that the best way to break a fall is in moving water. Victoria’s the biggest waterfall I knew how to teleport to, once we fell far enough to be free of the teleport block.”

“Well, I guess it worked.” She started to shake again. “Can you get us home from here?”

“Sure, I—”

Across the plain, a flash of light glinted in the darkness. “Down!” She shoved Dylan as she dropped to the ground, her chest and arm both seizing in a spasm of pain as she hit.

A high-pitched whine sounded overhead as a lightning bolt sizzled and cracked above them, right where Dylan had been standing.

It took Kristof
a moment to orient himself to his new location when the teleport trace landed him on a grassy plain by a wide river next to the largest waterfall he’d ever seen. He gave his senses time to adjust to the new location, trusting to his cloak and shield spells for protection, and after a moment he could ignore the rumble of the falls. Amid the high-pitched screech of insects and the small movements of animals in the bush, the zap of a lightning spell sizzled.

Kristof’s head snapped to its source.
Dmitri
. Up the embankment and on the wide plain, striding toward the river. He hadn’t even bothered to cloak himself.
Idiot
.

The lightning bolt barely missed Kate and a disheveled young man lying on the riverbank. He looked closer at the man. Dylan Pearce—Hamilton’s primal magic specialist. Kate had a man’s brown jacket wrapped around her—Dylan’s?

Kristof needed to be careful. Although his monitor talisman had been destroyed, his father could still see through Dmitri’s. He needed to make sure Kate got away from Dmitri and back to her family safe and sound, without his father knowing he had been here. And he had to find a way to keep the stone out of his father’s hands.

Kate grabbed Dylan’s arm and whispered something. Dylan’s fingers twitched, the start of a spell. He stopped, and Kristof could barely hear him say, “We’re blocked.”

Dmitri didn’t want them to teleport out again. Well, if Dylan could keep Dmitri busy for a few minutes, Kristof could take care of the teleport block.

He concentrated, searching with his magesight for the block. There, in Dmitri’s hand, the silver horse talisman, sending its purple bands of power across the plain. Kristof didn’t have a talisman to break the block. He’d have to do it the hard way and pay the price. He chanted, a quiet string of guttural words, and waited as the amber streams of magic wove their way through the bands of energy around the embankment and began to dissolve them.

Every shadow behind every tree took on a deeper meaning.
Who else is here? Did my father send someone else to help Dmitri? Anton maybe? Did I just expose my position?

No. Calm down.

Dmitri flicked his hand toward Dylan, and three kinetic-energy blades cut through the air. Dylan grabbed Kate, fumbling in his jacket for a talisman. Probably trying to get a shield up before the blades hit.

He failed. Dmitri’s ephemeral knives sliced into his chest, his blood spurting on the wet riverbank as Dylan toppled forward.

Only a few strands of magic remained in Dmitri’s teleport block. Good. In a moment he could sweep up Kate and leave.

A gleam caught Kristof’s eye, in the bushes beyond Kate. Shit. Someone else teleported in, someone cloaked like him.

The air rippled in front of Kristof. A force like a wrecking ball slammed into him and hurled him back onto the riverbank, laptop bag twisted around his chest. His shield took the brunt of the kinetic punch, flickering to a pale blue and winking out. His cloak spell dissolved in a shimmer as it was ripped away by the rampaging energy of the spell.

Damn, damn. How did anyone know I was here?

Kristof rolled down the bank, avoiding the lightning bolt that followed and hit precisely where he’d fallen. He searched with his magesight.

There. A slight glimmer in the darkness, behind Kate. He touched his last talisman, a silver lightning bolt, once, then again. The last charge in his talismans. Everything would have a cost from here on out.

The bolts hit where he’d aimed, tearing away his assailant’s cloak spell and sending him stumbling back a few paces even through his glowing shield spell.

Kristof stared at the sandy-haired Hamilton security caster, whose clenched jaw showed grim determination. Well, no real surprise. He’d been wondering when Victor Cole would show up.

Kate cradled Dylan’s
head in her arms.
Oh God.
There was blood everywhere. But he was breathing. She had no idea how to do a healing spell—one of these talismans inside Dylan’s jacket would probably do it, but which one? And even if she figured it out, casting from a talisman hadn’t been covered in Grayson’s last assignment.

Victor could help Dylan. Victor could get them out of here. But Victor was busy with the other caster who’d shown up, just a few seconds ago: Kristof Makris. In jeans and a T-shirt, a laptop bag slung across his chest, he traded spells with Victor faster than she could follow.

A few yards beyond them, Dmitri Makris glowered at her and raised his hand to cast a spell. There was no chance for her to cast a regular spell, even if she could remember the symbols and focus. Only one other option—cast the
other
way.

She descended to meet the dark ocean that lived in the center of her being. Stun, she willed at Dmitri with all her might. Nothing filled her mind except her intention, pure as a flame burning brightly in the sea of blackness. Diving down into the expanse of power within her, she touched its viscous energy and cast it forth.

She didn’t see any symbols, any visible effects of a spell at all. One moment, Dmitri chanted, his arm outstretched, the next, he dropped to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

The mud around her went still and lifeless. All the beetles rolled over on their backs, mandibles open, their bodies curling up into small, dried corpses.

Kate stumbled to her feet, staring at the death-strewn sand.

The buzz of a lightning bolt snapped her attention back to Victor and Kristof. Kristof’s spell had ripped away the last of Victor’s shield, knocking him back a few steps. Kristof circled closer to her, keeping her between him and Victor. Kristof’s own shield, renewed sometime during the battle, glowed with a mere wisp of sky blue.

Victor recovered and took a step toward her, his attention on Kristof. They were eyeing each other like two dogs about to fight over a bone. Kate got the uncomfortable impression that she was the bone.

Three Hamilton casters teleported in behind Victor—Missy, Gordon, and the guy who had hosted Brian’s wake. Victor jerked his head toward Kristof, then spun a spell in the air, fingers flashing. They all moved to surround Kristof, the grim looks that twitched on their faces telling Kate everything she needed to know about the danger this guy posed.

Kristof didn’t look scared or pressured. His eyes coolly assessed the situation, as if he was adding up the odds and calculating how to place his bet.

Then he moved.

“Kate, get out of the—” Victor said as Kristof darted over to her. He grabbed her, pulling her tight against him. His shield snapped up around them.

Her rib cage spasmed in pain. She pulled against his grip, trying to break free, but his strong arms held her so tight she could barely move.

No. He wasn’t going to use her against Victor. She bit down hard on his bare arm, her teeth breaking his skin.

He flinched but never took his attention off Victor. But the scent of his skin, so clean, like the ocean air, brought the memories of dozens of intimate moments rushing back.

Kris. He smells just like Kris.

Kristof held Kate
close against him. She flailed her elbow at him, and it connected against his ribs. He winced.

“Dammit, Kate, stop,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. And neither are they.”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t stop struggling, either. He didn’t have time for this. Not when the Hamilton team multiplied every second he delayed. Another glimmer shining in the bushes, against the dark sky, then another.

He blinked. Took one breath, then two.

No, no. There are enough Hamilton casters here as it is. Don’t let the backlash make it seem worse.
He ignored the phantoms his mind had created.

He had to break the teleport block Victor’s team had put up on their arrival, and he had to do it now. A quick spell, the same one he’d used with Dmitri, and an amber glow appeared around his hand, shooting out to find the block and wear it down, strand by strand.

The fear came roaring back into his mind. A dozen new glimmers appeared around him. Hamilton casters, reinforcements.

His pulse raced. His muscles tensed. His eyes flicked from the Hamilton casters, circling him, to Pearce, still and bleeding on the ground, to Dmitri, lying in a heap on the hill. The glimmers might have been artifacts of his paranoia. But maybe not.

Kate still struggled in his arms, trying to get free. He had to get her someplace safe. Someplace with security strong enough, with people who were loyal to him. Nothing else mattered.

Only one place he could go.