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Authors: Caris Roane

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BOOK: Veiled
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Still here. Merl says he’s almost got your location and to get moving.

He turned away from the running feet and while recharging through his wings once more, and gripping his weapon hard, he began to run along the grid in the opposite direction. With any luck, Merl or Rachel would pick up his signal and come to him.

His heart hammered in his ears, the sound like an automatic weapon firing. With his left hand, he wiped sweat from his forehead.

Talk about a nightmare.

I’m on the move,
he sent.

I can tell,
Rachel returned, each word tense as though she was running right alongside him.
Merl just nodded to me. We’ve got you on the scanner as well as Yolanthe. She’s not far from you. But keep running. Movement helps. We’ll fold from our position within fifty yards of your forward trajectory.

Got it.

Suddenly, Duncan could sense Yolanthe’s presence like a wave of heat in front of him. And his wrecking gun wouldn’t be able to stop her. The woman had power.

Rachel, she’s close now.

We’ve folded to position and I can hear you running. Keep going. You won’t be able to see us because I’ve got Merl shielded.

Got it.

But Yolanthe materialized, cutting off his path only a dozen feet away from him.

He came to a halt, almost falling into a roll because of his momentum.
Shit. She’s right in front of me.

He tried to fold down the hall, as far as he could see, but Yolanthe lifted a hand and a surge of her power prevented him from moving.

I’m coming to you,
Rachel sent,
and I’ll use my shield. Merl will hold his current position since he has a location set for Militia Warrior HQ on Two. He’s getting ready to blow the grid wall, but our timing will be tight.

He wanted to respond to Rachel, but Yolanthe had already invaded his mind with her entrancing abilities.

Merl had told Duncan repeatedly he’d need a Third Earth
grayle
power to fend her off. But Duncan hadn’t yet been able to access it. For a man supposed to have the power to locate Rapture’s Edge, Duncan fell woefully short. He searched within the center of his being for a hint of the
grayle
power, but found nothing.

Instead, he became painfully dizzy as he stared into the woman’s pale blue eyes.

Princess Yolanthe had on oddly serene presence as she returned his gaze. “I found you again, Duncan.” She held out her arms to him and the dizziness in his head thickened. “Come to me. I’ve missed you and we have incredible plans to forge together. Come.”

She was beautiful in a strange way. A dark purple gloss covered her lips in sickly contrast to her milky white skin. She wore her red hair in at least two dozen thin braids wrapped haphazardly around her head. She looked the same as a month ago when he’d last seen her, wearing a long gown of violet silk to the floor.

Holding his gaze, she added a pressure within his mind, her power beginning to sink deeper and deeper. If she continued, she’d forge another mind-link with him and he’d be lost forever.

“We’ll complete our journey together, Duncan. And I’ll forgive you everything, I promise.”

He began moving toward the woman completely against his will and each of his battle sandals felt weighed down as if covered in cement. The pounding of feet behind him let him know a new squad of wreckers had just arrived, no doubt part of Yolanthe’s army, to back her up. He couldn’t fight them and he couldn’t resist her. If Rachel didn’t get to him soon, he was done for.

Yolanthe was ten feet away. Nine … Eight …

With what little strength he had left, he called for help.
Rachel. Trouble.

Get ready.

He was about to ask, ‘For what’. But the next moment he was flying backward and Rachel was on top of him, her protective energy shield vibrating over them both. At the same moment, the deadly trance-like sensations vanished.

“Fire!” He heard Yolanthe shout. She wanted him alive, but if she couldn’t have him, she’d kill him to keep him out of the hands of other Third ascenders.

On instinct, Duncan rolled Rachel toward the grid wall as wrecker guns exploded the floor where they’d just been. Holding Rachel tight, he then folded her within the corridor well beyond Yolanthe. And at the exact moment he slipped into nether-space, Yolanthe’s wreckers fired into the side walls of the grid. If he hadn’t gotten them out of there, they would have both been dead.

Held within Rachel’s shield, he gauged the next distance he could take her and landed them down the darkening corridor another thirty feet. Within the grid, he could only fold the distance he could see. If he tried to transport them without seeing a destination, they could end up outside the darkening and anywhere on Third Earth.

He glanced down the corridor.
Where’s Merl?

She smiled, then drew out of his arms.
This way.

When she took off running, he kept pace. More feet sounded on the grid floor behind them, pounding hard in pursuit. The corridors were curved and branched off at least every twenty yards, a true grid. Rachel kept them moving fast.

Merl’s around the next turn.
He felt her shift her telepathic communication and knew she was talking to Merl. When her voice returned to him, she said,
He’s blasting the grid wall in three … two … one.

The sound of Merl’s wrecking gun arrived at the same moment he caught sight of Merl. He felt Rachel’s shield disintegrate.

“Good. You’re here,” Merl shouted. “Move it. We’ve only got a few seconds.”

Duncan reached for Rachel’s shoulder and once he made contact, he did a quick fold, taking Rachel to Merl’s position. The grid wall wavered as all three of them jumped through the opening.

They landed in the desert at Apache Junction Two, right outside HQ. The rest of the team was there waiting, each of them tense and facing the gaping grid hole, shotguns in hand, all except for Luken.

The leader of the black ops team sat in the dirt at a distance, his face pale, his wings busted.

Duncan jumped to his feet and brought his shotgun to his shoulder. His wing-power still flowed up his back and down his arm, charging his weapon. He listened for the faint rumbling sound of an imminent wrecker assault, but the grid was quiet until finally the shattered wall began to fade then disappear.

It was over.

Even Yolanthe wouldn’t be able to find them now because of the constantly shifting nature of nether-space.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Luken leaned forward slightly as Horace, the most powerful healer on Second Earth, worked on his wings. Luken had attempted a fold in full-mount and when he’d materialized, his wings had been twisted. None of them could do it yet, not even Luken who had the most natural power of any of them.

Luken’s lips were a white seam. Still, he called out, “What the hell happened? You were supposed to be on a recon mission to locate a base camp.”

Duncan gave a quick rundown of events, ending with, “Yolanthe showed up.”

The squad muttered a few obscenities.

“Sounds like she has your signature.” Luken shifted his gaze to Merl. “Can she fold someone using a wrist scanner? Is that how she did this?”

Merl shrugged. “Maybe. Although, she might have done the initial fold from the Grid Operating Center. Either way, she has enough power to pull it off.”

“If that’s the case,” Rachel said, “Then why didn’t she take Duncan with her when she had the chance?”

Merl shut his scanner down. “It’s obvious she has limits and I’ll thank the Creator for it.”

Luken met Merl’s gaze. “Was Duncan taken when he was shielded? Did Yolanthe have the power to remove him while Rachel covered him with her shield?” He glanced at both Duncan and Rachel, then back to Merl.

Rachel lifted her chin. “I wasn’t shielding either Merl or Duncan when we went into the grid. I only intended to use the power if wreckers approached. As soon as Duncan was taken, I shielded Merl, but it was never the plan to go in shielded.”

“Fuck.” Luken pulled his hands into a pair of powerful fists. “All right, I want to go over this point by point. Spare no detail. Let’s see if we can figure this out, how to do better for the next mission, though it seems clear we go in shielded from now on.”

~

Yolanthe levitated, holding her skirts against her body as she moved past the dead wrecker. She breathed through her mouth since the stench of ruptured intestines filled the darkening grid. It had been a long time since she’d involved herself in a war zone.

She took her time returning to her private portal. Now that she was inside the darkening, she wanted to stay for a few minutes, to enjoy the quiet nether-space region she rarely entered as well as the images moving quickly by like a silent movie.

She couldn’t pierce the darkening on her own; she didn’t have that kind of power. But the development of the comprehensive grid, with portals, had made travel possible for anyone wealthy enough to pay for access. She’d created a portal to Merl’s home just in case she ever needed to pull him out of Second, but to her knowledge he’d never used it.

However, the thought went through her head:
How did Duncan get into the Third grid?

Was it possible Merl had a connection to Duncan?

She continued levitating forward. She’d been trying for a month now to reacquire the one man who would have sufficient power in the near future to locate Rapture’s Edge. For her, nothing was more important than gaining access to the mythical place since it would provide sufficient power to conquer Second Earth. More importantly, she would be able to lay the valuable resource at her father’s feet and prove herself worthy in his eyes. Even his three beloved sons had failed to deliver the most significant weapon possible to their father, the noble Chustaffus of Chicago Three.

But she’d lost Duncan again and all because of Rachel, his shield. Once Rachel had covered Duncan in her power, Yolanthe had been unable to either see Duncan or sense him in any other way. She’d also lost him on her wrist scanner.

But how had either of them gotten into the grid?

When she reached her portal, she used the small scanning band on her left wrist and programmed the grid for her villa in Mexico City Three. The moment the portal synced with her home, she simply touched the arched glowing door, the panel opened, and she stepped into her villa living room.

Her snow leopard lifted his head, ears up, then jumped from the
chaise-longue
, padding toward her. He nuzzled her extended palm and she took her time rubbing his ears and scratching his face.

Instead of moving into the room, however, she found her mind stuck on Merl. Until this very moment, she hadn’t considered the possibility of her spy being in any way involved with Duncan. She knew of his liaison with Endelle, of his attempts to seduce the leader of Second Earth, but he’d never said a word about Duncan when he’d reported back to her.

To be fair, neither had she. Merl didn’t know of her plans to use Duncan to find Rapture’s Edge. But had Merl inadvertently heard things because of his interest in Endelle?

By Duncan’s presence in the darkening grid, Yolanthe knew Duncan had made plans of his own. But what a Second ascender hoped to accomplish on Third she couldn’t imagine.

On the other hand, when she’d been in the Grid Operations Center and had locked onto Duncan, she’d noticed two other entities with him. Her only interest at the time, however, had been to separate Duncan from the others in order to renew her mind-link.

She divined one of the two had been Rachel since Duncan’s supposed
breh
had rescued him with her bizarre Fourth Earth shielding power. But who was the other individual and why had all three been in the grid?

Yolanthe now wished she’d taken some time to investigate the others when she’d first come across Duncan’s signature. But she’d been so excited to have located him, she’d folded him away then hurried through her own portal to secure him in the darkening.

A chill went through her as though someone treaded on her grave. She actually turned in a circle, wondering if someone was there. But she saw only the rust-and-cream marble pillars of her Mexico City Three home, her extensive sculpted gardens, and the usual guards on duty.

She took a moment and focused inwardly, reaching telepathically for Merl to see if he might know anything about Duncan or his recent activities. Though Merl was in a separate dimension, she had the power to contact him.

How may I serve,
Merl sent. At the sound of his deep resonant voice, a tendril of desire worked through her. She’d tried many times to coax Merl into her bed, but the former and very stubborn Warrior of the Blood had refused.

Do you know anything about Duncan Wallace being in the Third Earth grid? I found him there tonight.

Because the telepathic link had been created, she took a moment to explore Merl’s emotions. But all that returned, the only thing she’d ever felt from him, was a profound sense of boredom.
Sorry, Your Highness, but I don’t know anything about what that asshole is doing or not doing. I don’t run in his circles. For some reason, he and his pals don’t like me much.

Merl was too much of a flirt to gain many friendships.
Even through your recent pursuit of Endelle, you didn’t come across Duncan or hear mention of his activities?

Only the
breh-hedden
shit. Besides, Wallace was always too caught up in his own drama to pay any attention to me.
She felt him sigh.
Yolanthe, why don’t you let me come home? There’s nothing here for me on Second and I’m bored out of my skull.

Merl had become a rather hopeless creature, pursuing only his lusts. He was less than useful to her now, especially since Darian Greaves had been sent to Fourth Earth. Before Greaves’s defeat in a battle against Endelle, Merl had provided her with substantial, ongoing reports on Greaves’s attacks against the Second Earth government. And for a while, Yolanthe had actually toyed with the idea of offering to serve as Darian’s queen once he conquered Second Earth. Alas, the man had failed miserably to fulfill his ambitions.

BOOK: Veiled
3.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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