Protector of the Flame (36 page)

Serenity smirked. “Did they look real or like holograms?”

“It varied.” Sothis looked over her shoulder back at the building as if she wanted to leave.

“I should let you go. Thanks.”

With a nod, her mother hurried off.

The growing intimacy between them that came in dribbles didn’t skim the surface of what she hoped for, but it was better than the icy tundra keeping them apart.

On her way to the education pavilion, she crossed the garden and dawdled by a flowering bush of plumeria. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before continuing down the dirt path.

The shrill crying of a baby pierced the tranquility of the morning. Quickening her steps, she rounded the corner and entered the pavilion. The smaller children, four to eight years of age, were grouped together reading and writing. A teacher walked through the rows of Nakia’s older group, instructing them on something, but the wailing from the baby drowned everything out. Nakia had her hands clamped over her ears and the teacher kept glancing with annoyance in the direction of the babies and toddlers.

Serenity rushed to the teacher attending the younglings. “What’s wrong? Why is it crying?”

The screaming baby had rosy cheeks, pink eyes and wisps of curly, blonde hair.

“She’s sick.”

Serenity inspected the child from a distance, keeping a good two feet between them. The little one with quivering cheeks and flailing arms fascinated her, but she had no desire to touch it. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know.” The teacher wiped the mouth of another baby and handed out small slivers of apples to the toddlers.

“I’ll send for Adriel.”

The woman’s eyes bulged from her face in panic. “Her parents said Adriel is not to touch her unless she’s close to death.”

Serenity understood better than most why. “There’s another healer, Carin, she works down with Ximena.”

The teacher sighed with relief and walked over to the baby.

“We can go there now and get it fixed.” She turned, headed out of the pavilion, but the teacher shoved the screaming baby into Serenity’s arms. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t go,” the teacher said, pointing to all of the other younglings.

“Well I can’t take it.” She tried to hand the kicking child back.

“You have to take Rose, not it,” the teacher said. “I have to stay here. Bring her back once she’s healed.”

Serenity winced from the earsplitting cries. “Can you wipe it’s—Rose’s face? There’s slobber all over.”

The teacher tossed a cloth at Serenity and went back to attending the children.

Tucking the electronic tablet under her arm, she wiped the child’s face and rocked her. On television when people pacified a crying babe the movement looked natural, smooth, and the child settled immediately, but for some reason Rose appeared terrified, maybe even nauseated.

Serenity slowed the swinging of her arms and tried shushing her. Rose made a gurgling noise and took in quick gasps of air as she settled down. Once the crying abated, the baby snuggled against her chest, clinging to her tunic.

The child was so warm and soft. Holding her was almost enjoyable.

As she hit the path leading to the silkworm hut, Soren came running down a hill toward her, waving to catch her attention.

“Glad to have found you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Cyrus is complaining about being assigned to the trash detail. He says he never got a chance to work with the sentinels since he was reassigned to make your toiletries.”

“Put him on my mother’s team.” She continued along the path.

Soren jumped in front of her. “Neith doesn’t want him working with Sothis until he’s rotated through every other workstation on the island first.” He held her gaze. “She was adamant about it.”

Exasperated, she walked around him, increasing her pace. “Fine, he’ll work with my mother last, but for now reassign him to regular security with the other sentinels. It’s my fault he was thrown out of order.”

“And shall I give the team leader Neith’s usual spiel?”

“What spiel?”

“The one about Cyrus being special and how we must band together to help him. She directs the team leader not to be lenient and to be wary of Cyrus’s gift of persuasion. He is to be given a tough task and made to stick with it.”

There was wisdom behind Neith’s ways, and she’d seen a difference in Cyrus beyond his fatigue, like this morning with the sorting of the laundry. “Yes.”

Pure satisfaction warmed Soren’s face as he left.

The silkworm hut was just ahead. As she approached the door, Tony and the squirrel monkey lurking under a palm tree watched her intensely. The black-and-white monkey bared its teeth and hissed.

When she swung the door open, Ximena and Carin looked up from a table where they worked. A horde of moths dominated the room. Rose shrieked and began to cry.

She swatted at the moths with the tablet. “Carin, could I see you outside?” She caught a glare from Ximena on her way out.

Carin emerged and Serenity handed her the baby. “She’s sick.”

Something small and hard hit the back of Serenity’s head. As she turned, something struck her in the forehead. The demon monkey jumped up and down on a tree branch, hissing, throwing nuts. He launched another one, hitting her in the stomach.

“Knock it off,” she yelled at the vermin with opposable thumbs. The monkey bared its teeth and clawed the air.

Carin cooed, rocking the baby. “She’s perfect. No more crying for you little one.”

Serenity stroked Rose’s cheek and the baby giggled.

The smell of burning leaves and singed wood drifted on a breeze.

“Do you smell that?” Serenity spun, searching for the source.

Plumes of gray-black smoke curled through the air from one of the huts at the orchard.

“Take Rose back to the education pavilion.” She took off in a sprint in the direction of the fire. She raced down the dirt path, over the ridge and across a knoll.

Four sentinels arrived at the same time. One flew with a chain looped around his shoulder and wrist. The other three on the ground circled someone.

A bloody body lay crumpled next to the male the warriors had surrounded. He snarled bearing teeth turned to fangs, lunging at the sentinels, snapping his jaws in a manic frenzy, hands deformed—twisted by the curse into claws. His eyes were swirling pools of crimson.

Sangre saevitas
—blood rage—had taken him.

Chapter Thirty-Three

A frantic crowd formed, curiosity drawing them too close to danger.

“It just took him over,” someone said.

“He was agitated and confused one minute, and then pure madness. He attacked with no warning,” a male uttered to another worker.

Serenity turned to a female warrior from the orchard detail. “Get Adriel.”

The warrior nodded and flew off.

If the one with blood rage could be subdued long enough, maybe Adriel could heal him.

Swords drawn, the sentinels on the ground closed in. One warrior pounced.

In a savage blur, the crazed Kindred seized the warrior’s wrist and face. Bone crunched. The wet tear of flesh echoed as the sentinel’s arm and jaw were ripped off.

A shiver raced up her spine. She’d only seen Cyrus move that fast. The madness of the curse must have magnified strength and speed of the afflicted.

The one lost to madness lapped at the blood sputtering from the wounds of the fallen warrior. A female sentinel tried to sneak up on him, but he whirled, shoving a claw into her gut. Eyes glowing scarlet, he retracted his hand from her shuddering body holding her entrails and smeared them over his face. Then he charged the last sentinel on the ground.

The one in the sky flung the chain down, roping it around the beast’s neck. Going berserk, the demented Kindred clawed at the
barenpetium
chain, twitching like someone possessed. He howled and shrieked. The gut-wrenching sounds filled with the agony of his suffering and bottomless rage moved her to tears.

The last warrior on the ground closed in, sword raised.

Furious, crazed, the Kindred caught the blade in one hand and managed to lock his jaws on the warrior’s collarbone. With the other hand, he yanked on the chain, dragging the airborne sentinel down all at the same time. Growling and snorting, he sucked on the warrior’s wound, draining him of blood.

The sentinel fell to his knees trembling, blood gushing from his jugular.

The warrior in the sky yanked up on the chain, choking the beast. The deranged Kindred released the dead warrior and tugged the chain with both hands, jerking the last fighting sentinel closer to the ground.

Two more warriors flew toward the mayhem,
barenpetium
chains and swords glinting in the light.

Smoke wafted high in the sky and over the carnage of the four mangled bodies on the ground. If Adriel arrived, he’d never be able to do anything besides get killed.

Her heart cried out for her tormented brother and the warriors lost. No one else had to die. If she was focused, fast enough, she could end it.

Serenity waved the last two sentinels away as they prepared to throw their chains around the crazed beast. “Stay back!”

They shook their heads in staunch protest, positioning to proceed.

“No! Get back!” They’d only be killed like the others. As she waved them away, they glanced at each other uncertain what to do.

Letting the electronic tablet slip from her hands, Serenity unleashed the energy of her core, sending electric tentacles out to coil around everyone on the ground, to protect them from what she had to do next. She stepped forward, taking a deep breath.

She didn’t need a booster from the others, with the constant siphoning. She could handle this on her own, but she needed to ensure she didn’t hurt anyone accidentally.

The beast jumped ten feet into the air, locking on to a sentinel and tore one of his wings from his body. Sinking fangs into his throat and tearing out his jugular, they both plummeted to the ground. The cursed brother acted like a psychotic murderer, but she understood his suffering was beyond his control.

His madness and this rampage needed to end before any more lives were lost. She focused her energy and thoughts on bringing him peace.

The remaining sentinel in the air swung the chain above his head, ignoring her order to stand-down despite what had just happened to the other warrior. He was at least two hundred feet away. She’d only been able to maintain contact with Cyrus at such a distance, but she stretched her stream and whipped a tentacle around him.

Stunned by the connection, he looked at her, halting all action.

She stared at the afflicted Kindred, sympathy flooding her stream.

The beast tore into the sentinel’s twitching body. Lapping at the flesh, he buried his mouth in the gaping wound.

With fluid control, she harnessed her energy and concentrated on releasing him from pain. He spun on his knees, facing her and the crowd gathered a few feet behind.

She peered into bloodthirsty eyes, a mind lost to bloodlust.

The madness of the curse was in complete control, no sense of reason or logic left in the beast’s face. He barreled toward her, claws raised, drenched in the blood of his victims.

She discharged a plasma ball, white and glittering streaked silver. The pulsating globe of light blasted through the beast, over the enflamed hut, dissipating out into the ocean.

In the wake of her projected energy stood the tormented Kindred, his body turned crystalline—frozen in time. The flames from the hut extinguished and everything the plasma ball had touched—the dead bodies, the ground, the half-burned cabin—had also changed to a pure, transparent substance resembling crystal.

Once she unfurled her energy stream’s hold on the others, most scuttled away from her, crying out in horror. The warrior in the air descended and stood at her side.

He knelt before her. “
Validus Eversor
.”

Mighty Destroyer.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Serenity stood riveted, running her fingers over the crystal face of the Kindred captured in a state of eternal peace. Frozen in a roaring pounce, he’d do no more harm. Translucent granite sparkling in the sun. A tear rolled down her face for the afflicted Kindred taken over by the curse and for the others lost in their endeavor to stop him.

Conscious of the warriors descending around her, she remained too transfixed by her handiwork to acknowledge them. She closed her eyes for a moment as Cyrus approached and their streams merged. Riding the high from adrenaline, she connected to her
kabashem
without a flicker of dizziness or nausea.

He put his hands on her shoulders, drawing her away from the crystal carnage.

Her gaze washed over the faces of admiring sentinels, frightened Kindred, and horrified brethren.

Cyrus spoke fervently as he dragged her away, but it took several minutes to make out what he was saying. Finally understanding, she said, “I’m fine. It was easy.”