The Dark Gate (21 page)

“Why didn't the ritual work?”

“I'm not sure.” She squeezed his hand. “You may be too old. Or I might have screwed it up.” She wrinkled her nose and met his gaze with wry apology. “I think I was supposed to warn you not to fight it. Instead of letting you finish, I called you back.”

“I was sinking.” Just the memory of his fall into that black hole threatened to cut off his air.

“I know. I couldn't leave you like that.”

“If you hadn't…if it had worked…? What then? The voices would have started speaking English?”

She pulled one leg onto the bed and turned to face him, taking his hand in both of hers, her gaze on his fingers. “All I know is that if the ritual had worked, you should have been able to understand them. They're supposed to be able to help you—guide you or give you advice or something.”

“There are dozens of them in here. I wouldn't be able to hear one for the others no matter what language he spoke.”

“That's just it, Jack.” Her dark gaze rose to his face. “I think they'd all be silent unless you called them.”

He blinked, afraid to hope. Afraid to believe.
“Silent?”

She nodded slowly. “Silent. I don't think they were ever meant to torment you. I think they were meant to be a gift, not a curse. But you were supposed to have gone through the ritual as a boy. It may be too late now.”

“I could get stuck in that black death forever.”

“Yes.”

The breath of possibility rippled his skin into gooseflesh. “But if it worked, it could cure me.”

“Maybe…but, Jack…”

He eased himself off the bed and reached slowly for his clothes. “I have to try, Larsen. I'm useless like this. Worse than useless. Maybe, if nothing else, finishing the ritual will get rid of the pain.”

“Jack, there's something else. Something I forgot to tell you.” As he met her gaze, she continued. “In one of the visions, the woman mentioned the Esri. She said her daughter might have the visions if she was Esri-touched.”

Jack frowned. “What does that mean? Cursed?”

“Probably. But have you ever heard anyone else use the term before?”

“No.” The relevance wasn't lost on him. “My ancestors knew about them.”

“It would seem so. Yes.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” He pulled on his clothes, jarring his head as little as possible. “Do you remember how to do it?”

“I think so.” Larsen looked at him with dark, luminous eyes. “Jack, are you sure about this? I almost lost you last time.”

“Believe me, I remember. But what if I could gain something that might help us win tonight? What if I could just get rid of this pain so I can function?”

She sighed deeply. “Okay.”

“Where do you want me?”

“I suppose the bed. Lie on your back so I can reach your temples.”

Jack snapped his jeans and was about to crawl back onto the bed when he heard Henry call for him.

Jack met Larsen's gaze. “Let's do this in the living room.”

“In front of Henry?”

He smiled ruefully. “After all I've put him through, he deserves to see me in a little pain.”

“A
little?
”

But he'd made up his mind and went to his friend, Larsen close behind.

“I need some water, man,” Henry said, eyes still closed.

“I'll get it.” Larsen started for the kitchen.

Jack went to sit beside his friend. “How you doing, buddy?”

“Tired, man. I'm tired.”

“I hear you loud and clear. But if you're up for a little entertainment, I'm about to give you quite a show. Payback for all I've put you through.”

“Don't need a show, just that Baleris's neck between my squeezing fingers.”

“I hear you.” Never had Jack wanted to get his hands on anyone like he wanted the Esri.

Larsen brought Henry a glass of water, then looked at Jack, the trepidation he was feeling written all over her face. “Ready?”

“Let's do it.” His heart started a slow, heavy thudding as he remembered the last time.
The falling. The agony.
Sweat broke out on his brow as he lowered himself gingerly to the floor. He could do this. He
had
to do this. It might be their only chance.

She sank to her knees at his head, looking down at him. Even upside down, he could see the worry in her eyes.

“Do it,” he whispered, fisting his hands against the tearing pain he knew would come.

Her soft fingers slid over his temples, feather-light. “Remember, don't fight it this time. Ride it.”

“Easy for you to say.” He closed his eyes, fighting the sickening dread that bound his chest like a vise, and tried to concentrate on the gentle touch of her fingers as she began to chant.

“Eslius turatus a quari er siedi,”
she whispered, her voice trembling.
“Eslius turatus a quari er siedi.”

Jack tried to brace himself for the onslaught, but the agony hit him like a round of bullets, searing his eyeballs to blindness and ripping his feet out from under him as he tumbled into the abyss.

“J
ack, quit fighting it! Fall through. You have to fall all the way through.”

He was thrashing on the ground, his head whipping back and forth between her knees as if he were in the throes of a monster nightmare. She clamped her knees against the sides of his head, trying to keep him still so she could press her thumbs to his temples and get him through this. But she wasn't strong enough to hold him. Her thumbs kept slipping into his eyes and his hair.

“Jack, stop. You have to lie still.”

But if he heard her, he couldn't respond. Or couldn't stop.

“Quit fighting it, Jack!”

Terrible yells erupted from his throat. It wasn't working. She was going to lose him.

“Jack, you can do this.”

“What's going on?” Henry demanded.

Larsen scrambled around on her knees and tried to climb onto Jack's chest. She had to find a way to pin him down.

“I'm trying to help him, but I'm losing him. He won't lie still!”

As she tried to straddle him, Jack's fist flailed outward, slamming into her jaw and knocking her backward in an aching explosion of dancing lights.

She lay on the floor, half on him, half off, her head spinning, her sight bending and turning like a changing, colorful kaleidoscope while beneath her Jack bucked and twisted trying to escape the hell she'd sent him to.

“Free me, Larsen,” Henry said from somewhere far out of her sight. “Let me help. I can hold him.”

Larsen glanced toward the voice as the colors dancing in front of her eyes began to merge back into shapes. Two blurry shapes that slowly merged into one. Henry.

“Larsen, I can hold him. I have the holly. I'm protected. You've got to let me help him.”

Jack howled like a wounded animal, the sound tearing at her heart like sharp blades, drawing blood.

She had to do something.
She had to finish the chanting. If she could just finish it, maybe she could help pull him through to the other side. But she couldn't do it with him thrashing. In every vision, it had taken two people to bring one of the kids into their voices. One to hold him down, the other to do the chanting.

Jack's body turned suddenly rigid, jerking and vibrating like a man electrocuted.

She was going to lose him.

Larsen pushed herself to her feet and stumbled toward the sofa and Henry. She dug at the too tight knots until her fingernails were broken and bleeding, finally freeing him.

Henry rose stiffly, pulling the ropes off his wrists and ankles and followed her to where Jack lay thrashing like a wild animal caught in a trap.

“Hold him still,” Larsen said as she knelt at Jack's head.

The cop sank to his knees at Jack's side. As his big hands pinned Jack's shoulders to the ground, Larsen dug her thumbs into his temples, closed her eyes and resumed the chant.

“Eslius turatus a quari er siedi. Eslius turatus a quari er siedi.”
Over and over and over.

Slowly Jack stopped fighting. “That's it, Jack. Let it happen. It's the only way.”

“Eslius turatus a quari er siedi. Eslius turatus a quari er siedi.”

He was finally calm, finally still. Praying it was over, Larsen opened her eyes…and froze.

Henry's hands were no longer pinning Jack's shoulders. They were closed around his neck. Jack's face was blue.

“No!” Larsen grabbed the big cop's hands and tried to pry them loose, but they didn't budge.

The holly.
It was no longer around his wrist! When he'd freed himself from the ropes, the holly must have gone, too. She looked up into eyes that had turned cold and lifeless. Eyes that had taken on the inhuman fervor of the enchanted.

“Henry, stop!”

But Henry's mind was beyond reach, caught in the Esri's snare.
And he was killing Jack.

Larsen lunged for the big cop, going straight for his eyes, digging her thumbs into the soft sockets. Henry roared and reared back, covering his eyes with his hands. But Jack didn't move. He didn't cough or gasp…or breathe.

Desperate, Larsen tipped his forehead back with quaking hands, opened his airway and gave him a quick rescue breath. “Breathe for me, Jack. Don't you dare die on me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Henry's hands drop and knew she was out of time. She had to stop him from killing them both. With a furious surge of adrenaline, she lunged to her feet and grabbed the nearest table lamp, swinging it hard at the man's face. But he deflected the blow and knocked the ceramic lamp out of her hands where it crashed to the floor inches from Jack's motionless head.

Larsen's frantic gaze scanned for something else to use as a weapon when she remembered the knife behind the sofa. But she never got there. Before she could take a step toward it, Henry grabbed her from behind and slung her over his shoulder.

“Put me down!”

“Mr. Baleris wants you. I must take you to him.”

“Myrtle!” She pounded on Henry's back as he carried her to the door. “Myrtle! Help Jack. He needs your help!”

But the woman never responded and Larsen was terrified it no longer mattered. Grief and terror rushed with the blood to her head. Jack was gone. And soon she would be in the hands of a monster.

 

Baleris stared at her with eyes that glowed yellow-green out of a face as white as toothpaste. Fear thudded through her even as grief threatened to choke her.

Jack was dead.

Henry shoved her into the police interrogation room and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone with the monster in his strange lair. Pillows and cushions lined the floor, a hodgepodge of the fancy and the mundane. Musty-smelling sofa and chair cushions lay beside silks, satins and velvets. Bedspreads and beach towels draped the table and chairs.

In the center stood the man—the
creature
—who threatened them all. Her nightmare come to life.

Terror danced along her spine.

Dressed as she'd always seen him, looking more like a Medieval minstrel than the inhuman murderer and rapist she knew him to be, he watched her with cruel interest.

Her heart pounded a dull rhythm as Larsen lifted her chin and stared at her enemy through a haze of anger and despair.

Jack was dead and this devil was to blame.

A fine trembling ignited her limbs, but not from fear. From fury, savage and overpowering.

He was going to kill her. She already knew that. But instead of terrifying her, the knowledge freed her and she fed the rage. The girls he'd raped. The murders he'd committed and tried to commit.
Jack.

The Esri smiled, teeth as unnaturally white as the rest of him, flinging chills across her flesh. Slowly, he started toward her, moving through the pillows with an uncanny grace as he circled around her, studying her from every angle with a gaze that slithered over her skin.

“How is it I see inside your mind?” His words were accented, his tone eerily conversational. “I see you watching me. Your ability intrigues me, Sitheen. 'Twill intrigue my king.”

Larsen moved with him, keeping him in front of her, a trickle of fear lancing her hatred. “What do you want with me?”

“I will take you with me, of course. If the Esri are to conquer your world, we must find a way to break through the barriers your mind erects against us.”

“Because you can't enchant me.”

“Aye. But you are human. Weak.” The eerily white man chuckled. “Three score virgins, the Lost Stone and you, Sitheen. My king will be most pleased. He'll reward me well.” But something flickered in his eyes that told her he wasn't quite as sure as he wanted her to believe.

He masked his doubt with a sneer. “All is in readiness. We shall leave soon. But there is time to test my growing power. This time against you, Sitheen.

“I smell your hatred and taste your fear. But still your mind resists me.” He stepped closer and Larsen backed up until she was pressed against the wall. “Your fear grows, Sitheen.”

“Bastard.”
She struggled for the anger that had raged through her moments before. The image of Jack's lifeless body rose in her mind, igniting a whirling, reckless anger that straightened her spine and tensed her muscles.

Larsen Vale wasn't going down without a fight.

She braced herself, hands raised in front of her, palms out. As he reached for her, she drove the heel of her hand up and under his chin, driving his head back hard. Taking advantage of her moment's upper hand, she grabbed his left shoulder, pulling him against her as she slammed her knee into his groin.

He roared with pain and doubled over. Larsen grabbed his head, shoving it downward as she rammed her knee up into his face.

It should have worked. He should have gone down, unconscious, or at least been so stunned, she'd have had a few minutes to get away. Instead, he rose, rage flaming in his eyes.

“I may not be able to control your actions, Sitheen. Nor your mind.” With lightning speed, he snagged her hand. Searing shards of pain sliced into her flesh and up her arm.

“But I
can
hurt you, human. I can control your suffering.”

Larsen struggled to free herself, struggled to escape his fiery touch, but his grip was too tight. Tears swam in her eyes as the pain grew beyond bearing, tearing a raw scream from her throat.

Baleris beamed at her with malicious victory. “You will thwart me no more.”

 

Jack opened his eyes. Harrison and Charlie were standing over him, looking at once concerned and relieved.

“You made it,” Harrison said. “We thought we'd lost you.”

“What…happened?” His throat was on fire, the words coming out as little more than croaks. He struggled to sit up, but every muscle, every tendon, ached like a bastard. Charlie and Harrison grabbed him under the arms and hauled him into the chair.

Harrison sat on the coffee table, facing him, his forearms on his knees, his eyes grave with concern. “Jack, we need to know what happened. Do you remember?”

“Larsen.” Jack shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz encasing his brain. “Where is she?”

“We don't know. We just got back. Myrtle says you were injured and she healed you, but she doesn't remember anything but hearing Larsen call her.”

“Your aunt is staying with my neighbor, now,” Charlie added. “We thought it better not to leave her here since Henry knows where to find us.”

“Where's Henry?”

“Gone. They're both gone. We found the holly branch on the sofa.”

Jack's gaze slid from one brother to the other as the implications tore through his brain, shredding his heart. Henry…

“I've got to find them. Larsen's in danger.” He tried to rise, but Charlie pressed him back in his seat.

“Hold on a minute. We need to know what happened.”

Jack told them what he could, but he remembered almost nothing after Larsen sent him into that free fall through hell in a last-ditch effort to bring him into his voices.

The voices…

He stilled, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. The pain was gone. His head…was silent. Except for the sound of his own racing thoughts, his head was empty.

It had worked.

But no rush of joy filled his chest at the thought. Nothing but fear for Larsen. Jack lurched to his feet, shrugging off Charlie's hand. “We've got to find her.”

“There isn't time,” Harrison said, rising, blocking his path. “You don't know how long you were out.”

Jack stilled. “What time is it?”

“Forty-five minutes until midnight.”

Despair swept over him, sending him reeling.
Larsen.
She'd been gone for hours. “He'll kill her.”

“Perhaps,” Harrison said. “But then, why bother to have Henry take her, if he's just going to kill her anyway?”

The question sickened him with dread. “I don't want to know the answer to that.” God knew what the Esri wanted with her. He pinned the other men with his gaze. “Tell me you've worked out a new plan.”

Charlie nodded. “It took us a while to get what we needed.” He grinned suddenly. “But we're all set.”

Harrison clapped his hands. “Let's move. If the legend is right, if that gate really opens at midnight, we don't have much time.”

As he started for the door, Jack's head suddenly flooded with sound. Despair nearly swept his feet out from under him until he realized…he could understand them.
They were speaking English.