Allegra.
The voice was loud in my head, compelling, demanding, filled with absolute authority. It was not Christian"s silken tones.
Against my will I turned around slowly. The four wards around me glowed gold, but I ignored them to blink at the scene before me. Guarda and Phillippa stood together, unmoving as they watched me with eyes that were empty, as if they were looking inward on themselves. Behind them Eduardo sat on the desk, his head tipped back, his eyes closed, his hands stretched forward to hold... I gasped and tried to back up. I couldn"t; my feet were frozen, locking me in place as I stared in horror at the three of them. Eduardo"s fingers were pressed to the base of both their necks.
They had formed a triumvirate, the most powerful force known to modern psychics.
And they had breached my defenses.
Chapter Twelve.
You will cease struggling against us.
I tried to take a deep breath, but the protective crouch I"d a.s.sumed as the triumvirate"s joined mind slammed into mine made it impossible to breathe deeply.
You will recognize that we are stronger.
I took lots of tiny little breaths instead, and struggled to focus my attention on something trivial and innocent, something that couldn"t be used against me or be corrupted by the power flooding into my mind.
You will tell us what you have done with the ghosts you have in your possession.
The bits of broken bud vase erupted into powder.
I forced my attention to my shoes. The toes were scuffed. I wondered how it was possible to scuff the top of the toes when it was the soles that made contact with the floor.
A small muted green pillow on the love seat beneath the etched black picture exploded in a flurry of foam bits.
The triumvirate"s power was increasing, small tendrils of it leaking out into the office.
You will tell us with whom you were speaking.
I pushed the bits of foam away from my feet. It wasn"t as if I had made a habit of sc.r.a.ping the upper part of my shoes against things. Yet it was the tops of my shoes that were scuffed.
Allegra Telford.
There was power in a name. Pain shuddered through me as I fought to resist their unspoken command and tucked my head between my knees, praying help would arrive soon. I wasn"t sure how much longer I could hold out against the triumvirate"s strength.
Books began flying from a gla.s.s-fronted bookcase. Straight through the gla.s.s.
Help will not arrive to save you. You must yield to us. You cannot do anything but yield.
My inner voice screamed in agony at the sheer volume of power that was being thrown at me. It was like standing directly in front of a jet engine"s fan, shards of power piercing me and weakening both my mind and body. Shoes, I desperately told my screaming self. Shoes were what was important. What did they call the little plastic tips on the ends of shoelaces?
Books struck my body. The triumvirate was directing the power leaks, forcing them into a pattern that would help them and weaken me further. I couldn"t believe anyone had enough control that they could direct the leaks, and yet with every blow I had proof.
I started to wonder if I was going to make it.
It is no use. You are not strong enough. You are not good enough to resist us. Until you came to England you were a failure, unproven, tested and failed. Do not destroy yourself trying to prove you can best us. No one can. We are all powerfull.
For one moment I listened to the words shouted in my mind, and in that moment I found myself walking toward the threesome.
No! I screamed, grabbing the back of the chair to keep from moving closer to them, flinching every time a book slammed up against me. Another power leak had manifested itself as a whirlwind inside the office, bits of paper and foam from the cushion whirling around us, occasionally hitting me in the face. I clung to the chair and tried to lecture myself. If I gave myself up to them, if I answered their call when they summoned me, my wards would be dissolved and I would be at their mercy.
I am strong, I grimly told myself. I lived through h.e.l.l in my life, and I"ve overcome it. I could last here a little bit longer, just until... I erased the image of Christian my mind had wanted to draw even before it formed. I wouldn"t give him to them.
You will tell us who you believe will save you.
The little plastic shoelace thing has a name, I screamed to them. I know it has a name; I just can"t remember what it is.
Two windows looking out onto the street below shattered, the faint tinkle of gla.s.s. .h.i.tting the pavement sucked up by the howling of the wind within the room.
We have run out of patience. We will tolerate this no longer. You have brought this upon yourself, Allegra Telford, the forces of life shine strong within us.
Panic filled me as I clutched the chair even harder. Those were the first words of grounding, of the way a Summoner bound a spirit. Why were they saying it to me? It couldn"t work on a living person, could it?
The power of life binds you to us.
I looked down on myself. It felt like a hundred little ropes were tied to various points on my body, and were slowly snaking outward to form a solid connection to the triumvirate. I started slapping at the invisible ropes, breaking them off, terrified that they really had the power they claimed over me, but as each rope snapped, another formed.
You are lost, my inner voice screamed. Give in now while you still have your mind!
Until you are released, you will heed our command.
A heavy book flew into the back of my head, making me see stars. I fought desperately to stay conscious, to keep the remainder of my strength focused on the wards, but I knew it was a lost cause. The wards burned brilliant gold now, filling the room with warm light that seemed to be instantly absorbed by the blackness that seeped out of the triumvirate. Cracks started to appear in ancient symbols, showing a bright, blinding white through the gold. I had no idea how they had twisted the words of grounding to affect me, but I wanted out of there, out of that room and away from the power that was being thrown at me. I knew the limitations of my abilities, and they couldn"t stand much more.
Suddenly Eduardo"s eyes opened, the gray of his irises glowing with an eerie inner light. I clung to the chair, knowing that the second he turned those eyes on me, I was a goner. I could feel that the grounding was unfinished, but I knew he was about to say the last words, to bind me against my will to them. I just didn"t have the strength needed to feed power to the wards and keep my mind focused away from their control.
You can do anything you want, a soft voice soothed me.
Christian?
Ah, it is her fiance she speaks to.
Oh, h.e.l.l, they"d heard me!
It is all right, Allegro. You are not alone. They cannot harm you. I would not allow that.
He poured power into me, draining himself to give me the strength that I needed to face Eduardo and fight the grounding, filling me with strength and rea.s.surance and a belief in me that warmed my heart. I pulled on his power, reinforcing the wards until they were whole again, and the hundreds of little cords stretching from me to them were dissolved.
By the triumvirate, you are thus bound.
I braced myself, but the final words of Eduardo"s grounding couldn"t penetrate the reinforced wards. I almost cried in relief.
Your connection to Christian has doomed him. We have seen your thoughts. We know now what he is. You have sealed his fate.
I fell to my knees at the smug satisfaction in the triumvirate"s voice, the wards once again glowing gold and white. Despair filled my heart at their words because I knew that what they said was true, knew that I had failed. My dream wasn"t a warning; it was a glimpse of the future.
A future I had just made sure would come true.
Beloved, you have more faith in yourself than this. I do not believe you have doomed me. I know you are my salvation. You are everything light and good; you take my darkness and you make me whole. You have more power than you will ever realize. Do not listen to their lies. You know what is within you. Hold tight to that.
I shut out the triumvirate"s voice that was screaming in my head and focused on Christian"s words. He was right; I was strong. I"d done amazing things. I had survived my own h.e.l.l, I had Summoned ghosts, I had taken darkness and made it light. That was not the description of a woman who would buckle before a triumvirate.
With grim determination, I got to my feet and faced them, the air full of paper and bits of debris, the wind howling its fury that had a source within the three people facing me.
You have no future without us. If you do not join us, we will destroy you. We will destroy everyone you care about. We will d.a.m.n you to an eternity of suffering.
"Been there, done that," I ground out through my teeth as I pulled more of Christian"s power to keep from giving myself over to them, slowly, painfully restoring my wards. Loud noises outside of the room finally penetrated my consciousness, blessedly also drawing a bit of the triumvirate"s attention. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to catch my breath in the moment of respite.
Someone pounded against the door; then it splintered and was kicked aside, the ward guarding it shattering as the triumvirate"s focus wavered. Several policemen poured into the room, stopping almost immediately at the scene that met their astonished eyes. Books still flew around the room, caught now in the whirlwind generated by the three people forming a triangle. Two policemen didn"t duck in time and were struck by books; another just escaped being beaned by a small potted plant.
A hand reached out from the ma.s.s of blue-suited bodies and pulled me backward, out of the room. I looked up. The hand belonged to a very large man with glittering yellow eyes.
Christian had sent Raphael.
"I think I"m going to be sick," I told him. I a.s.sume I must have been green, because he immediately shoved me over to a chair in the hallway and pushed me down so my head was between my knees.
"Stay here."
I mumbled that I wasn"t going anywhere.
Beloved?
Thank you, Christian. Thank you for everything. I appreciate it more than I can ever tell you.
Allegra, I hear your thoughts. You cannot protect me from Guarda and Eduardo. You cannot leave me. Without you, I have no life.
Reluctantly I closed Christian out of my head and stayed in the chair, rocking with pain and sorrow and the knowledge that my heart had been healed just in time to fall in love with a man whom I would lead to destruction if I didn"t give him up. Sometimes life really sucks.
"Thank you for taking me home with you," I told Raphael later as he drove through the rainy, crowded streets of London. "I really appreciate it."
"Joy was nearly out of her mind with worry. She"ll want to make sure you"re okay. And besides, it"s still daylight; Christian..." He made an odd little abrupt gesture.
I stopped my horrible introspection long enough to look at the man who had called in every favor he had with the Metropolitan Police to save me. "Why do you have such a hard time admitting to yourself what Christian is? You"ve known him for over a year, haven"t you?"
"Yes, but... some things are difficult. It"s just not natural, just like you and your..." He made the odd gesture again.
I smiled and stuck a hand out of the blanket he"d wrapped around me in an attempt to stop the shaking. I patted him on his arm. "I know, sometimes it"s all so hard to take in. One minute you think you have a handle on everything; the next people are telling you to believe in ghosts and vampires and werewolves."
"Werewolves?" he asked, his eyes getting a bit panicky. "You know werewolves?"
I couldn"t help but chuckle at him. "No, I don"t. I don"t think they exist, not really."
His strange yellow eyes lost their worried look.
"Then again, I didn"t think vampires existed, either, but I have more than ample proof how wrong I was there," I mused, fingering the faint mark just below my ear.
Raphael was back to looking worried again. "What... uh... what exactly were those people in the office?"
"Psychics. Very strong ones. They"d formed a triumvirate, a sort of focus for their combined psychic power. It"s almost impossible to overcome a triumvirate"s power; there"s something about the pyramid that becomes stronger just by being. This particular one was more powerful than anything I"ve ever felt." I rubbed at a bruise on my forehead. "It almost felt as if..."
"As if what?" Raphael asked, cursing under his breath as a car shot out in front of him.
I didn"t want to put into words the feeling I"d had that one of the three had been tapping into a dark source of power. "It doesn"t matter."
He glanced at me, and I had a brief feeling that those yellow eyes of his could see straight through all my guards and protection. "Ah."
"How did you get to me so quickly?"
His mouth twisted in a wry grin. "Joy can be very persuasive when she wants to be."
"But how did she know? Oh, Christian must have called her."
His wry grin turned into a grimace. "Yes, without bothering to use a phone."
"Oh." I let that thought sink in. If Christian could speak to Joy as easily as he did me... I sighed and rubbed my forehead again. It was too much to figure out until I had some time to myself. I needed to put some distance between what had happened before I was able to figure out all of the ramifications. "So what"ll happen to them? Guarda and Eduardo and Phillippa? They weren"t arrested, were they?"
Raphael shook his head and maneuvered us through a roundabout. "No grounds for arrest. Some friends of mine in the yard just had them in for a little interview regarding their source of funding. Seems Mrs. White has been suspected of doing a little money laundering."
"Money laundering?"
He smiled, and suddenly I had a glimpse at what it was that had attracted Joy to him. "It was the only thing I could think of to get in there quickly."
I grinned back at him. "Well, I truly am grateful for your help."
He murmured something about it being his pleasure as he peered out through the rain-streaked window. The rest of the ride was spent in silence.
"I wish there were some way to repay you for your help," I told him a short while later as he delivered me to the door of his building. "I would have been in serious trouble if you hadn"t come when you did."
He smiled. "Don"t mention it. Your taking Christian"s attention away from Joy is repayment enough."
The answering smile faded from my face. I straightened up and waved as he drove off. I couldn"t tell him that I wouldn"t run the risk of diverting Christian"s attention any longer.
"Oh, man, what a horrible muddle," I said, rubbing the ache in my forehead. I sighed again and pulled the blanket around me as I waited for Joy to buzz me into the building. I felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to me, both externally and mentally. I was abused, mentally raped, drained and heartsore. I was such a mess that I burst into tears the second Joy opened the door to me, and didn"t stop crying for twenty minutes, ending up in a fetal ball on her couch, a box of tissues at hand, blankets heaped over me, two worried women hovering just beyond my view as I cried out the pain of knowing Christian was lost to me forever.
"That baby has addled your brains. She doesn"t need coffee; she needs a stiff belt."
"Alcohol never solved anything, Roxy. Coffee and chocolate, however, can work miracles."
"Don"t go all teetotaler on me, missy; you"re just saying that because you can"t drink anything stronger than a Shirley Temple now."