Grumbles and groans echoed through the chamber. Heads shook. "The Dreamweaver?" someone said. "Seriously?"
"This is an outrage."
Disbelief painted half the faces before him. Flat-out disgust shadowed the others.
"The Dreamweaver is a myth. Don"t waste your time." Ellie didn"t look up from the hands folded before her on the table.
"How do you know?" Gavin asked.
Now Ellie met his eyes. "Because I"ve looked for her, too. She"s a fairy tale."
"Not finding her isn"t proof she doesn"t exist. I think we should use every means at our disposal to-"
"That isn"t the issue at the moment, Gavin," Wyland interrupted. "You think you can waltz onto the Council, take point as its leader, and wave your hand to make bad things go away? You made a grave mistake. And so did we by appointing you head of this group."
The wires in Gavin"s defensive mechanism tripped and shot off his mouth prematurely. "Then kick me off the Council. I never wanted to be here in the first place."
Camira"s dark eyes flickered. "We may."
f.u.c.k, this wasn"t how he expected the meeting to go, but maybe it was for the best. If they booted him, he could help the Wyldlings on his own terms. Jack had no allegiance to this group other than to train Gavin. The two of them, along with Jack"s Elemental army of four, could do some damage-providing they got on long enough to make it to battle. And a.s.suming Whetu could get them into the Dreaming.
s.h.i.t.
If nothing else, leaving the Council would provide plenty of opportunity to track down the traitor.
He studied each of the six faces around him. Who had the most to gain by ousting him? And what did they want? His position? They could f.u.c.king have it.
"We need to think this through before we do anything rash." Kai"s fingers tapped the wooden table, but he didn"t look at anyone. He had been close to Yileen, too, and Gavin sort of trusted him.
Camira scowled. "Gavin the rash one. He strike deals with enemies."
Gavin gritted his teeth and faced her. "Camira"s right. I made a bad decision, and now I"m paying for it. Scarlet"s Fire burns inside me. I can"t be trusted with the Council"s plans and secrets as long as she"s here."
Ellie"s green eyes studied him from behind a curtain of long, gray hair. She rested her hands in her lap. "This is very bad timing, Gavin."
He sighed. "I know. I"m sorry. I think it"s best that you elect a new head of the Council and find another to take the vacated position."
"There"s no hope of getting out of the contract?" Seth asked. "Can we help?"
Gavin shook his head and mentally tightened his tenuous, Watery hold over the p.r.i.c.kly Fire searing his throat. "No. It"s pretty solid. But before you discharge me from my duties, I respectfully request that you keep the reason for my termination quiet. No one else knows about the oath-not even Jack Weaver. If the other Sentinels found out, it could lower morale. That"s the last thing we want with the possibility of war looming." His reason might be a stretch, but he needed everyone in the room to agree to keep quiet. For Zoe"s sake.
Wyland nodded. "Agreed. If anyone asks, we"ll tell them the decision was mutual and leave it at that." He glanced around the table. "We must all support a change in leadership. Is anyone opposed?"
Erin, Kai, and Seth held their tongues. Wyland banged his fist on the table. "Gavin Ca.s.sidy, you are discharged from your responsibilities to this High Sentinel Council. Do not enter these premises again without express permission of one of the Councilors herein."
The Fire rose in triumph and licked at his insides, kicking both the physical and emotional pain to brand new levels. Suppressing a groan, Gavin gave a curt bow. "It was a pleasure to have served the Council."
One by one, each councilor symbolically looked away from Gavin in turn, but Kai held his gaze the longest before joining the others. The fiery agony eased for a split second. Gavin nodded and strode out of the chamber.
Kai knew something was up on the Council, too.
Chapter Twenty-six.
September 18 The rain eased up enough for Zoe to go back to work, which was just as well. Gavin worried she might be physically harmed the longer he stayed near her.
The Elemental pull had upgraded from an annoying, intermittent blip to a constant tug-a sort of flaming gravity luring him closer to Scarlet. If that mighty rubber band snapped with Zoe in the way, she wouldn"t get hurt. She"d get dead.
The b.i.t.c.h of it all? Zoe"s Water was the only thing that calmed the blaze, but every minute he spent with her was a minute Scarlet had potential access to Zoe"s words and actions. When he was with Zoe, Gavin walked an unraveling, thread-thin tightrope strung over a blazing pit of eternal d.a.m.nation. When she was gone, he became that pit of eternal d.a.m.nation.
Thinking he"d be more productive in the Dreaming while Jack covered Realis, Gavin spent the entire day searching for a Dreamweaver who might not exist, watching for congregations of Fyres that might indicate where the door was, and a.s.sisting the few Wyldlings wandering about during daylight hours. His sweat glands worked overtime. He didn"t need a mirror to know his burning eyes were thoroughly bloodshot. Muscles trembled like a f.u.c.king junkie"s. But worst of all, he couldn"t stop thinking about Scarlet. Every time he got distracted, she was there to reel him in.
He thought about how he"d f.u.c.k her. What position would be best for maximum penetration. How many times he"d come with her Fire egging him on. Red colored his sight and tainted his mind with s.a.d.i.s.tic l.u.s.t. Fire burned away reason. He"d soon be pared down to a quivering sack of instinct whose only goal was to perpetuate the Fire.
No way he"d make it to the equinox. Scarlet would break him before then. And more people would die the longer he resisted.
An ear-splitting boom rocked his radioactively decaying brain back to the present. He traced the sound to the Dreaming"s newest desert and took off in that direction, watching for Shadows and Fyres along the way. Reddish-orange vapor haloed the great sandy wasteland. The colors were so vivid and bright, the dead, black sky almost appeared day-lit.
The Fiery leash choking the life from his heart tightened amid a chorus of Wyldling screams. Red lights danced. Heat sparked and strangled the Air. Evil laughter shrilled.
Scarlet was there.
Waiting for him.
l.u.s.t sizzled a path through his neurons, frying connections, jamming frequencies, causing misfires. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts. He could have her tonight. He"d fill every hole in her body, and when dawn broke, he"d wake up and do it again in Realis. The antic.i.p.ation of joining with her, of grinding on that irresistible Fire like he had at his house in Sydney the day they killed Zoe- He paused his steps.
What the f.u.c.k?
Scarlet had done it again. Somehow her Fire had woven its tendrils of hatred and mad desire through his mind and body.
Wyldlings cried out for help, but Gavin dropped to the sandy ground. He was losing his mind. The Fire had mesmerized, redirected his thoughts, feasted on the fraying ends of his sanity. His head spun. Where was he? What should he do?
Scarlet? I"m here. Come and take me away with you.
Had he spoken those words? Did she hear him?
The Fire smiled.
He hugged his knees, buried his head under the mountain of his glowing arms, burrowed his toes into the hot sand.
No. That wasn"t right.
He didn"t want Scarlet. He wanted Zoe.
Zoe, where are you?
"Gavin?"
Lifting his head, he stared at the feet planted beside him. They were bare and blokey. His gaze traveled up. Board shorts. The scent of fresh fruit. "Jack?"
"What the f.u.c.k are you doing, man?" His trainer squatted, elbows resting on bent knees. A shocked expression loomed behind the fringe of gray hair. He dropped his gold apple.
Gavin"s eyes lost focus. "Wasn"t there a story about a golden apple? "For the fairest" or some s.h.i.t?" He reached for it. Zoe should have that apple.
The Fire proclaimed its disagreement with a solar flare to the gut. Gavin pitched forward, clutching his burning stomach. Had to get it out. Had to- Jack grasped his arms and shook. "Your aura is almost totally red, dude. Did the Fyres get a hold of you? Come on, talk to me."
Coolness flowed into Gavin"s extremities like a brook trickling down a mountainside. Scarlet"s Fire retaliated with a shrill battle cry and another flare, this one sharper than the last. No!
He gritted his teeth and shoved Jack away. "No. No Water. Get your f.u.c.king hands off me."
The bloke lost his balance and tipped over, spraying sand everywhere. Blue and green swirls shrouded his normally gray irises, and he stood, shoulders squared. He grabbed Gavin by the shirt and yanked him up like a blind, malnourished puppy. "Oh, h.e.l.l no, motherf.u.c.ker."
Gavin"s feet flew out from under him, and his body flipped a full 360 degrees.
When his senses returned a few seconds later, he lay flat on his back, choking on sand. He coughed and sat up, wiping the stinging grit from his eyes.
"Have you lost your G.o.dd.a.m.n mind? Man, you"re sweating Fire." Jack"s chest heaved as he gestured toward the screams ripping through the desert. "Do you not hear the Wyldlings? They need our help. Get your a.s.s up, pull your s.h.i.t together, and do your f.u.c.king job, you a.s.shole."
Overwhelmed by his actions, by the Fire insisting he fry Jack and leave him for the Shadows to snack on, by the guilt, Gavin squeezed his eyes shut and submitted-to everything.
A phrase of music rode the shredded tails of the scorched air. Soft, delicate, full. Zoe"s whale song. The hum that had resurrected his heart more times than he could remember had returned once more to drag him out of the depths of h.e.l.l.
The Fire receded, slinking back into its dark hole within his chest, and cool Water filled the spot. Cries of desperate Wyldlings tugged at his conscience. The anger, l.u.s.t, and hatred dissipated into the currents of Zoe"s song.
He reached a hand to Jack, who stared at it.
"I"m cool," Gavin a.s.sured him. He glanced at himself. He really wasn"t, but his aura backed him up.
"Far from it." Jack helped Gavin to his feet. "I gotta know what I"m dealing with here."
Gavin dusted off. Rea.s.sembled the ashes of his brain into some semblance of organized intelligence. "You"re dealing with a Sentinel who had a sanity hiccup. I"m good, mate. Sorry for freaking you out, but I got my s.h.i.t together. It won"t happen again."
From the other side of the Veil, Zoe"s song caressed him, tamed the Fire. He embraced the blue. She would save him from Scarlet. And from himself.
Jack folded his arms across his chest. "Care to shed some light on what triggered it?"
Gavin sighed. "They kicked me off the Council yesterday. Things got heated. Add to that the stress of seeing people dying everywhere, the excessive workload, and generally feeling totally f.u.c.king helpless, and I went a little nuts."
Wariness framed Jack"s posture. He clearly didn"t believe Gavin"s story. "They have pills for that kind of s.h.i.t. You"re not in a position to be losing your marbles, Sentinel. If you can"t handle simple day-to-day c.r.a.p, the equinox will kill you."
Lips pressed together, Gavin nodded. How right Jack was.
Shortly after ten that night, Sinnder lay on the floor in his lounge room. Crackles and pops issued from the blaze in the fireplace before him. Harriet, the dingo he"d rescued from a near-fatal beating at the hands of teenage thugs, rested her head on his chest and stared at him. He stroked her ears gently, and her eyes drifted shut for a few seconds.
"You remind me of a wolfhound I used to have. Sorcha. She was a beauty. Kept me company when I traveled on cold nights, far away from home."
Harriet sat up and yawned, flashing a mouthful of sharp teeth over a soft whine. She patted at his arm with a long, tan paw.
He rolled to his side, using an elbow as a pillow, and gazed at the fire. So b.l.o.o.d.y cold. Burning for centuries, yet never warm enough. His Fire was a cruel master, an icy reminder of lost love in a sea of insatiable, pa.s.sionate lava.
He tugged the blanket at his waist up to his neck. Harriet stood, stretched, and turned a circle. Then she curled into the curve of his body. He laid an arm over her. Warm.
But not the kind of warmth he craved.
"I didn"t always burn like this, you know."
Harriet whimpered. She did that when he told her stories. He pretended she didn"t understand, and humored her with "good girl" words a master would say to his dog, but deep down, he knew she got him.
And his tales of the past bored her.
Stupid dingo.
He was tired of being a coward. He"d been after Scarlet for over a thousand years, set on vengeance he could have claimed twenty times over. It was long past time to let the dead-including the man he used to be-rest.
Harriet twitched and stared at him through eyes too intelligent to be purely animal. Yes. Let the past go, they seemed to whisper.
Deep down, she was a predator like him. But after what she"d been through, maybe she"d learned that killing wasn"t everything.
Jet Hawthorne had taught Harriet that lesson when she brought the dingo back from the brink of death with her healing hands.
Maybe she"d taught Sinnder something, too.
Though Elementals didn"t dream, Hawthorne visited his thoughts more often than he cared to admit. He didn"t usually remember what happened in his musings, but the twin ghosts of her ever-present eyes haunted him long after he broke from his reverie. So green.
Like Eileen"s.
The fire stoked with a growl. He jerked up, Harriet right next to him.
"Sinnder," Zoe Morgan"s voice called through the flames.
He patted the dingo and stood, the promise of his impending visit filling him with sudden antic.i.p.ation. "I gotta run. Keep my spot warm."
Harriet moaned, laid her head between her paws, and watched as he stepped into the fire.
Sinnder"s atoms scattered into dancing energy and traveled through a fiery wormhole that homed in on Zoe"s house. His pieces squeezed through the filter of the lit candle on her dresser, which pushed him out in a stream of flame. Elemental Fire rebuilt his human body from the feet up. Zoe covered her eyes with an arm as if staving off the brightness of the sun. The kinetic energy settled, and the heat slaked. He was once again Sinnder.
And he was hungry.
He stalked toward the slender blonde backing away from him.