Gavin roughed his hair, wondering where to start. f.u.c.king h.e.l.l, it had gotten much worse overnight.
Shadows-horrifying, living products of the collective unconscious"s fear-emerged from dark corners, eyes glowing white, teeth sharp. A pair of them double-teamed a little blond boy cowering behind a boulder. Instinct shot Gavin toward him as their sharp claws raked his skin, flaying flesh like paper. Imaginary worms wriggled free of the gash and slithered up his arm. The kid"s eyes popped with terror. His mouth opened in a death scream, but no sound came out. Once in range, Gavin blasted the Shadows with short, controlled bursts of Water. The boy"s face turned white, he clutched his chest, and dropped to the ashes.
"No!" Gavin knelt beside him. His small fingers curled around Gavin"s Water tattoos in a final, silent plea. A rattle wheezed out of him. Gavin lowered his ear to the boy"s mouth, checking for breath. There was none. He administered CPR, but it was too late. Fear had literally killed the child.
f.u.c.k. He was just a kid. He didn"t deserve to die. So senseless. The boy"s parents would have to endure this loss for the rest of their lives. Imagine the pain of waking up to find your child dead in his bed with no apparent cause, no indication anything had been wrong. Gavin"s muscles quaked as he struggled to channel his emotions to his hands. He"d need plenty of Water to avenge the kid"s death.
Gavin gently unhooked the boy"s fingers from his arm and smoothed his hair. "May your spirit live on in the Dreaming."
The tiny body disappeared just as a crying pregnant woman stumbled past. No. No more deaths on his watch. Determination nudged Gavin to his feet. At that moment, a horde of about twenty flaming bodies stampeded after the lady. Cruel laughter bounced between them.
Targeting the red wall of Elementals, he mentally transposed Scarlet"s face on each body and sprayed a concentrated jet of Water like a fire hose across their backs. Five of the Fyres fell into steaming puddles of goo, but the rest were unfazed. They collectively faced him, fury sharpening their blood red eyes.
"Wake up!" he shouted at the pregnant woman and anyone else within earshot. "Go back to your beds and wake up from this nightmare."
He attempted another dousing, but after the run-in with Scarlet earlier, his ammunition was already waning. The Fyres adjusted course for Gavin when the woman phased out of the Dreaming. A chill climbed his spine, and his shoulders stiffened as the swirl of insanity surged around him. The Elementals closed in perfect sync, with matching deadly intent.
Gavin"s heart scrambled up his throat and barricaded his airways. He glanced around. Several of the Wyldlings had popped back to Realis, but a few lingered, probably too scared s.h.i.tless to move. He a.s.sessed the fading blue of his palm, cursed, then focused on the Fyres. Only enough Water for one more attack, then he"d have to play defense. Pumping his arm full of everything he had, he squeezed out his final spray, which did little more than aggravate the monsters further.
Cackles rose from the flames. "This is the Sentinel"s leader? If he"s the best they can do, the battle for control of the Balance is already won."
As a single unit, the Fyres stepped up their speed and charged straight for him.
s.h.i.t. He spun to face the remaining Wyldlings and waved his arms. "Time to go, people. Now." Drawing on his Earth for strength, he kicked the pedal to the metal and hoofed it away from the scene, dragging stunned Wyldlings along the way.
Some of the humans lagged. With the Fyres hot on their heels, there was barely time to breathe, let alone rest. Gavin lost a couple of the Wyldlings in his desperate bid to get them to safety. He was only one man. No way he could fight fifteen Fyres by himself.
Gavin was outgunned, outnumbered, outdone.
He drew on his Air to create the illusion of a ravine ahead. Turning in mid-run to his charges, he pointed. "Take cover in that gully. As soon as you"re safely hidden, I want you to wake up. Tell yourself this is just a bad dream. I know you"re scared, but it won"t work if you don"t believe it. Understand?"
A few of the dazed Wyldlings muttered, "Yes." The others seemed too far-gone to reply. If they didn"t pull their s.h.i.t together, they wouldn"t make it back to Realis alive.
"I"ve got you covered. Now, go." Gavin spun around to the Fyres, threw out his hands, and let loose a barrage of Earth in the form of Elemental rocks. With careful aim, he guided the stones into the shape of a wide, tall wall. Though Earth wouldn"t hurt the Fyres, a solid wall made of the heavy Element would slow them down.
He glanced over his shoulder. The Wyldlings shuffled to the gorge he"d created, and one by one, they disappeared. Good.
Frustrated yowls, angry growls, and heated bashing ensued on the other side of the wall. Some of the rocks near the bottom brightened from brown to glowing red.
s.h.i.t. They were melting their way through.
"Get your a.r.s.es back to bed!" Gavin yelled at the remaining two Wyldlings. He gestured wildly to the ravine.
The men stared at him, mouths open, knees knocking. He jogged toward them. When he got within twenty meters, a deep rumble shook the ground behind him. f.u.c.k, that didn"t sound good. He turned. The bottom of the wall exploded like a breaking dam and spewed a river of thick, red lava. Three Fyres ejected from the molten flow, their flaming, pumping wings so hot, the air lost half of its oxygen.
Gavin didn"t have time to let go of the "s.h.i.t" perched at the top of his throat. He continued his desperate trek to the Wyldlings. It was anyone"s guess who"d get to them first. Intense heat climbed his back, evaporating his sweat before it had a chance to collect. Three pairs of great, burning wings singed his hair and skin as they shadowed him on their race to the human fear waiting for them. Gavin gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and tackled the Wyldlings, Earth reserves fueling his rescue attempt.
The two men tumbled like bowling pins, Gavin"s body covering theirs on landing, his arms encircling them. An inferno bore down and would have incinerated them if not for the well-timed punch of the Earth shield Gavin tossed up. The intense heat actually strengthened the shield by flash-drying it into super-strong bricks, enclosing the Wyldlings and Gavin in an Elemental dome much like Zoe"s Watery bubble.
He pushed up as much as the shield would allow. "You blokes okay?"
No answer.
Voices resounded outside, and the heat jacked up after a brief respite. They"d all be pressure cooked if they didn"t get out of here.
Gavin crawled over the Wyldlings within the tight, coffin-like s.p.a.ce and shook them. No reaction. No breathing sounds either. f.u.c.k. He fumbled in the darkness for wrists and checked their pulses.
Both had flat-lined.
G.o.d d.a.m.n it.
Gavin clenched his teeth and shuttered his lids tight to suppress his frustration, disappointment, and the raging sadness boiling within. He knuckled his eye sockets. At least three people under his care were now dead. G.o.ds knew how many of the others failed to return to Realis. The Fyres had won again.
Snickers and loud thunks bashed against the Earthy buffer. Dust fell from the cracks. The Wyldlings" bodies shimmered ghostly white and disappeared, leaving Gavin with room to move more freely. He had to get out of here. Only way out was the Veil.
Another crash from the Fyres jostled loose a brick, which narrowly missed giving Gavin a serious brain injury. Concentrating hard, he closed his eyes, peeled back the curtain that separated his two worlds, and stepped through.
The moment his spirit and body reunited, he plotted a course back in, only to realize he was out of Elemental ammo.
The footprint on the necklace Yileen had given him vibrated, and he jumped. This was new. It hadn"t made a peep since he got it. He rubbed the smooth surface of the moonstone. Neither hot nor cold, it shook between his finger and thumb, thrumming with energy.
A Waeter and an Erthe Elemental had emerged from two of the gems before. The red salamander stone was gone when he rediscovered the necklace in his house after he killed Zoe. All that remained were the buzzing footprint and the motionless fluorite raven.
As his fingers squeezed the footprint charm, images of pale, frazzled Wyldlings surfaced in his thoughts. Fear, agony, and worry seized him anew.
f.u.c.k.
What if Whetu didn"t wake up before Scarlet forced him to respond to her ultimatum?
He shuffled his deck of facts and tossed them out for consideration.
Point number one: Fyre attacks on the Wyldlings in the Dreaming and Realis had escalated to terroristic proportions, and would only intensify as the equinox approached.
Point number two: The Waeters still had no Archelemental to Balance the Fyres.
Point number three: Whetu showed no sign of emerging from her comatose state. Without her, there was little chance of the Sentinels securing the door to the Dreaming before the equinox.
The solutions to his problems lay within his grasp.
The cost? His happiness.
If he could save millions of Wyldlings, there wasn"t much of a choice, was there?
At his initiation ceremony, he pledged his life to protect the Dreaming and Wyldlings like the poor little boy the Shadows killed and the two men he"d failed to save. He hadn"t taken his commitment lightly then, and as the fates of millions fell into his unwitting hands now, it was more important than ever that he fulfill his duties.
But joining with Scarlet simply wasn"t possible. He couldn"t do that to Zoe. Just couldn"t.
He faced the Veil with a heavy heart. There had to be another option.
Steeling himself to return to the Dreaming, he readied the only remaining Element at his disposal. If his Air couldn"t figure a way out of this mess, he"d fight to the death with his bare hands. Sacrificing Zoe"s trust after he"d already betrayed it once would kill them both, and thanks to him, she"d already died one time too many.
Chapter Eleven.
September 11 "We"ll meet you at the car in fifteen," Adriene said, dragging her crutches from the boat onto the wooden dock. "Dani wants to check out the shops for a gift to send home to her mom."
Zoe finished tying up the Zodiac in its slip at Urangan Harbour and nodded. The girls wandered off without another word.
Things had been tense between Zoe and her coworkers for a week. Adriene was flat-out mad at her. During the day, Adriene hardly spoke other than to mutter GPS coordinates, clarify a photo number, or convey information from the radio direction finder to pick up a tag. Home was worse. Yes, Zoe had probably been pushing them too hard, but the intense focus on research eased some of the burden she still carried in her too-heavy emotional suitcase.
Zoe slung her dry bag over a shoulder, hefted the Pelican case, and trudged up the dry planks toward the harbor entrance where a giant humpback whale sculpture welcomed tourists with open flippers.
The last two weeks hadn"t been pure misery though. On the up side, she"d convinced a growing band of Waeters lurking outside the Dreaming to join her little army. Jack had made regular appearances at home, which was more comforting than she"d ever have imagined. And if the lack of Fyres in her life was any indication, rumors of her untimely demise remained intact.
Most importantly, Lily and her calf should arrive in a matter of days. Zoe couldn"t deny the antic.i.p.ation building in her gut. A month ago, she hadn"t believed in Elementals, Sentinels, or the Dreaming. Now that she was fully immersed in the strange supernatural world, she embraced them.
Only thing missing was the man who"d flipped her preconceived ideas on their heads and made the impossible provable.
Zoe laid her bags on the pavement outside one of the restaurants, backed up to the wall, and stared at her feet. Right on schedule, the image of Gavin"s teary blue eyes and bloodstained hands holding her popped into her forebrain, as it did every hour on the hour. She sighed and shook him out of her head.
"Miracles never cease," a familiar, exotic voice intoned. "I didn"t expect to see you again, Dr. Morgan. What a pleasant surprise."
Her blood chilled. Sinnder. The conniving but gorgeous Elemental who"d escorted Zoe into Gavin"s house the day she lost her life. So much for keeping her resurrection a secret from the Fyres. s.h.i.t.
Leaning against the dock building opposite her, with one black army boot propped by the other, he made a visual sweep of the harbor without moving a muscle. Thick arms bunched against his black leather jacket. His tousled, red-streaked hair tangoed subtly with the breeze.
Zoe shivered. "Leave me alone."
She grabbed her stuff, cinched the long strap of the dry bag high up her shoulder, and started toward the parking lot, head down.
Heavy thuds echoed behind her. Her jogging heart picked up steam and burst into a full sprint. She didn"t want trouble with Sinnder. He might have brought friends. Like Scarlet.
"I know where you live." His soft voice barely disguised the threat lurking under the words.
She stopped next to a surf shop and faced him, tightening her grip on the handle of the heavy Pelican case. If she had to, she could swing it. Maybe it would provide enough of a surprise for her to run like h.e.l.l. "What do you want? Money? I don"t have any. Gavin? He"s not mine to give. Fire? Come back later. I"m all sold out."
"I don"t think so." He closed the distance between them and slid his index finger up the back of her arm, just under the short sleeve of her Cetacean Research Network tee shirt. An erotic wave of heat snaked its way through her skin, deep into muscle, and down to her suddenly throbbing core.
She gasped and groped for the wall behind her. Like a hungry animal, he lunged forward, and things got downright intimate. His hot cardamom breath slunk into her nose, took a dive down her throat, landed in her lungs, and swam through the blood vessels that had suddenly rerouted the flow into the Deep South.
She closed her eyes and drank that scent like it was her last breath. This guy was liquid s.e.x.
"What do you want?" she whispered again, sidestepping along the wall. He followed. Sandwiched between brick and Fyre, she wouldn"t be going far. Fear mixed with the endorphins pulsing in her blood. She brought her hands to the hard, sculpted pecs behind his leather jacket and pushed. He didn"t budge.
"I take it things didn"t go as you expected at Gavin"s house." He rotated his head a quarter turn, but his mesmerizing red-veined eyes remained locked on her. Invisible flames rose from his chest, his arms, his legs-every point on his anatomy. They called to her. Closer he stepped.
Oh G.o.d. The heat both crushed and freed her at once.
Using the Fire her body had suddenly approved for ma.s.s production, she recalled The Incident, and channeled the lingering pain of Gavin"s accidental betrayal to help her focus. She tilted her head back and met Sinnder"s gaze. "It was beyond cruel, what Scarlet did to us. And by doing nothing to stop her, you"re just as guilty."
His mouth fell to her exposed neck, and her shoulders jerked in reply. Except he never actually touched her. Breath made contact, but nothing else. He exhaled along the column of her throat. Goose b.u.mps erupted. Hairs rose. Wetness spilled into her panties. Jesus, what was he doing to her?
"Scarlet and I are Fyres. We can"t help ourselves." His soft voice and brilliant red-brown eyes hypnotized her. His scent overwhelmed her. She relinquished control of her body to his Fire and rocked to a silent, s.e.xual rhythm. Though they weren"t touching, his hands kneaded her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his lips trailed kisses down her belly to her core, fingers spread her wide, tongue lapped her up. She ground her hips against air.
She closed her lids as a wild o.r.g.a.s.m stalked her.
"Do you still blame Gavin for f.u.c.king Scarlet?" The delicious warmth receded.
Her eyes snapped open. With a flip of an invisible switch, her raging hormones silenced.
Did she blame him? She"d never confronted herself with the million-dollar question worded in quite this way.
"Gavin should have known better. He should have stopped before..." An anger-filled tremor seized her vocal chords. She lowered her head, swallowing several times. Her tear ducts readied the gates for a ma.s.sive flushing.
"He should have stopped? Like you just did with me?" The Fyre"s eyes cooled to light brown, and his incredible scent wafted away, the erotic fog with it.
How dare he. This incident with Sinnder was nothing like the betrayal she"d been through- Was it?
A shock of tears blurred her sight. She pushed him, and he stepped back this time.
"Gavin already killed me once. Death is becoming sort of routine now. If you or Scarlet want to do it again, take your best shot. There"s no way it could hurt any more than the first time."
"I read an article you wrote, condemning the entrapment of orcas for entertainment in theme parks." His voice dropped to an intimate frequency. "You said whales were wild animals and should be treated as such. That taking them from their natural habitat and teaching them to perform tricks for people"s amus.e.m.e.nt was not only cruel, but also foolish because animals-no matter how tame-are driven by instinct. And instinct is a far stronger, more primal motivator than behavioral conditioning could ever hope to be. Your words, right?" He licked the tips of his incisors with a flick of his tongue. She could have sworn it was forked.
"Yes, I said that." What the h.e.l.l was Sinnder doing reading her research, anyway?
He grinned. The gleaming white mouthful of teeth sparkled, bright as a Mr. Clean ad. "You"re a wise woman, Dr. Morgan."
He backed up and swaggered out the harbor entrance.
Staring after him, mouth agape, she choked over the cry building in her throat. G.o.d, she was such an idiot. Salty drops spilled down her cheeks. She shook her hair over her eyes to hide her shame until she got into the car. Head resting against the steering wheel, she studied the tear splats on her jeans. Her body shook with aftershocks from the major tremor that happened nearly two weeks ago. Crying felt surprisingly good. Maybe the path to healing required not just reliving the pain, but owning it. Embracing the dark Water just as she did the lighter variety.
One thing was sure. Gavin must have had it way worse than she.
She wiped her eyes, opened her phone, and dialed Jack.
"h.e.l.lo?" came his crisp greeting.
"Hi." She almost said, Dad. "It"s Zoe."
"You"re upset." The pitch of his voice rose subtly.