Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (13 page)

“Come on, let’s go,” Jason said to Isis, extending his hand.

She could tell his mind was elsewhere, strategizing how he could get his hands on the Book of Prophecy before Nemesis did.

As Isis’s hand met Jason’s, she felt a jolt that carried her away on the wave of foresight. She saw him, standing opposite her, resting the tip of a knife lightly against her collarbone as he said, “You betrayed me.”

The next foresight overlapped, pushing the old one out. Jason stood before her, so close their bodies were practically touching, staring into her eyes. His hands were cupped around her own, which held tightly to a swinging chain. His lips brushed past hers, burning her as they just missed contact. She knew this foresight. She’d seen it before.

Jason stepped back from her, breaking the connection. That was enough to pull Isis out of the stream of images, at least for a time. He touched his lips, then looked at her with bewildered eyes. He’d seen it too.

“We must hurry,” he said, before she could speak. He turned his back to her and hurried off down the corridor.

“What’s the matter with him?” Everett asked.

“Yes, well, you know Jason.” Extending her arm, Isis added, “Help me, would you? The initial high is starting to wear off, and I seem to be a bit woozy now.”

She knew she was deflecting, and Everett’s face said he did too. He allowed her to lean against him for balance anyway.

The walls of the hallway were shifting in and out in blurred sequence, and the ceiling felt far too low, like it threatened to crush her head down into the floor. Images, hints of things to come, jumped into her head, then out again before she could process them. Not that she was trying to process them at all. It was giving her a killer headache. She was way out of practice. Perhaps Nemesis was right. Perhaps she really was just pathetic.

They stepped into a large amphitheater chamber at the end of the last hallway. Shining down from the domed ceiling of glass, the final rays of warm light poured inside as the sun prepared to set for the day. A large fire blazed in the center of the room, and beside it stood a stone pedestal, a heavy book with a deep red-brown cover upon it. The Book of Prophecy.

“Don’t even think about it, Magus,” Nemesis warned as Jason leaned toward it. She looked at the Avan soldiers who had just entered behind Isis and Everett, closing off the exit. “Now, the other two books,” she said, snapping her fingers impatiently toward Jason. “And the stones,” she added to her soldiers.

Jason exchanged glances with Cameron, then took the books from his bag, handing them to Nemesis with a chilling eye. One of the Avans dropped a small canvas pouch in her hand. Her aura bleeding satisfaction, Nemesis set the items onto the pedestal beside the Book of Prophecy and began to look them over with barely suppressed fervor.

The weight of her untamed power finally caught up with Isis. Her legs collapsed beneath her. Everett barely had time to catch her before she fell hard against the stone floor. Forgotten in Nemesis’s reverie, Cameron hurried over to her.

“Are you all right? Did she hurt you?” Isis asked, looking up into his wide eyes.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” His voice shook. “But you. You aren’t well.”

“My own fault. I should never have become such a stranger to my abilities,” she said.

“Finally,” Nemesis’s voice echoed throughout the chamber. “Finally, I have the Recovery Scrolls. All the pieces are mine. Terra Cross is mine.” She shot Cameron a nasty, menacing glare. “And now, Cameron Storm, I will find your dear twin sister.”

Infuriated, Cameron jumped at her, but his heroic effort fell short when he was tripped and tackled to the floor by Avan soldiers. A short distance away, Jason threw five Avans off of him with a Phantom mind blast, but another five were already there to take their place.

Isis watched Everett spring up, throwing his body at Nemesis as she took the Book of Prophecy into her hands. The book slipped through her fingers and fell into the fire, where its pages burst into flames.

But when Isis looked again, Everett was still beside her. She felt the band of her foresight snap around her, and he sprang forth in fast motion. Nemesis shrieked in anger as the book’s pages burned—and time slowed down to normal again.

“You stupid human!” she screamed at Everett and threw him hard against the wall. “You have ruined
everything
!” She looked to her Avans, and with eyes now blazing an infuriated red, growled, “Kill them all.”

Everett stumbled to his feet, and Nemesis lunged at him. As Jason released a flurry of black knives into the air, distracting the Avan soldiers, Everett took off running. Nemesis dashed out of the chamber, close on his heels.

Toppling Avans, Jason hurried over to Isis and set his hand on her sweating forehead. “You’re running a fever.”

“I’m fine,” she replied.

She pushed herself to her feet, but her legs immediately collapsed from under her. Jason caught her before she banged her head against the floor. He eased her down slowly, leaning her against a step.

“But you have to help Everett,” she insisted. “He’s trying to draw Nemesis out of here, away from us. She will kill him.”

“Stay with her,” Jason instructed Cameron.

Isis watched him sprint out of the room, then looked up at Cameron, who was crouched down beside her.

“Cameron, could you bring me some water?” she pleaded.

Cameron frowned. He didn’t want to leave her.

“Please, Cameron. I need to neutralize the effects of the stimulants before I go into a mad fit…again.”

Looking like he’d just swallowed poison, Cameron trotted off in search of water. It was a low blow, but it had to be done. Her head still spinning, Isis crawled her way up to her feet, climbed the steps, and peered into the fire.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

~
Borrowed Power ~

526AX August 21, The Temple of Aurelia

WHEN JASON FOUND Nemesis, she was throwing Everett against the black stone walls of the temple’s exterior, lifting him as though he weighed no more than a sack of feathers. Jason was not surprised. The Triad was strong
—
not as strong as Jason, but she had other skills that made him wary of picking a fight with her.

He took a moment to assess the situation. Though her journey to the temple had surely been long, she didn’t appear worn out. In fact, her eyes blazed redder than blood, pulsing with a wretched, powerful energy. Leaves crunched and melted to ash beneath her boots, the sick odor of burning decay singeing his nostrils. The short spikes of her orange-red hair stood on end like an agitated cat. When she drew her Bloodfire knife, Phantom flames burst to life upon the blade. Wow, she was pissed.

Unfortunately for Everett, he was the recipient of her boiling rage. The Rev lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, moaning softly as he cradled a broken leg. He leaned awkwardly on his side, blood soaking his shirt. Jason suspected fractured ribs. Everett had been lucky. Nemesis could easily have snapped his neck. The sadistic fire in her eyes told Jason she wanted to make him suffer before she ended him. Perhaps that would provide just the distraction Jason needed. Or not.

“Not another step, Magus, or I will kill the human,” Nemesis warned. Apparently, she could multitask her madness.

“Do as you wish.” Jason slipped two throwing knives into his hands. “The human is nothing to me.”

Shrill laughter, the crack of exploding glass, erupted from Nemesis’s lips. “You may have a reputation for being cold-hearted, but we both know that’s merely a mask. Inside, you are as weak as the rest of them.”

Disapproval lathered her words. Her eyes flicked to the freestanding wall, the one that enclosed the temple grounds. Chunks of stone exploded from it, and like a rocky waterfall, they buried Everett. She shot the pile of rocks a disdainful glare, and while her eyes were turned, Jason used the chance to launch the two knives at her chest. She picked them out of the air as though they were books on a shelf—then tossed them aside.

“Really, Magus, you should know better.” She clicked her tongue. “My mistress wants you alive, and I would hate to disappoint her.”

From what Jason had heard, Sarah Avan, empress of the Avan Empire, was nearly as mad as her pet Nemesis. The two of them had recently gone to a lot of trouble to ensnare Jason. That hadn’t worked out, but if Empress Avan had told Nemesis not to kill Jason, that would cripple her in a fight. Maybe even enough for him to defeat her. Nemesis bascially always aimed to kill. Jason wasn’t sure she even knew how to fight any other way.

“I have no interest in being your mistress’s latest pet,” he told her.

He kept his eyes locked on her, but with his mind he reached for the rocks burying Everett. Most Phantoms
—
and Triads as well, it would seem
—
needed to actually look at the object they wanted to propel. Jason was free from such hindrances.

“A shame,” she said with poisoned sweetness, pouting out her red lips. “You would have made a good pet.”

With inhuman speed, Jason drew two more knives, aiming for her chest and thigh. Nemesis darted aside, evading them easily, just as Jason had expected. He used the distraction to launch the storm of stones at her.

That attack she did not dodge. The stones hit her hard, pummeling her with the force of a tornado. The rocks thumped against flesh and drew blood. A lot of blood. The bombardment would have killed a human. It would have knocked out most Elitions. But Nemesis stood there stubbornly, gritting her teeth and taking the beating with the constitution of a boulder. Jason had never seen anything like it before. He whirled the rocks around her, unrelenting in the attack, yet still she stood. His strength began to fade, the rocks slipping from his mind. One after the other, they dropped to the ground, piling up around her. Sneering, she navigated over the rockfall, her steps unwavering. Dressed from neck to toe entirely in crimson, the blood hardly showed. The only hints of it were splashes across the rocks and the line of bloody bootprints she left upon the gravel ground.

“My turn,” she growled, spitting blood.

As she stepped forward purposefully, her eyes flaring, Jason considered his options. The rocks had done little more than infuriate Nemesis. She was too resilient. He needed something bigger, something she could not shake off so easily. He eyed the temple. If it were to collapse on top of her, it was unlikely that even she could withstand that. Unfortunately, he was too depleted right now to take down something that big. Not to mention Isis and Cameron were still inside. And despite the fact that he didn’t see eye to eye with King River, he had no intention of demolishing every temple in Elitia. One had been more than enough for him. He did actually regret destroying the Temple of the Veil. Yes, it had needed to be done, rotted as it was with the seed of Avan corruption, but that didn’t make him happy about it. And then there was Needle’s Weave. The old temple had fallen as he stood just outside its walls. That time, it had been the combined firepower of Nemesis and the Selpes which did it in. Elition temples were falling like rain all around him. But not today.

Jason focused his energy, gathering it into a point. Nemesis was approaching with a twisted smile upon her lips, savoring each step. The closer she was, the more punch the release would pack. He would wait until Nemesis was within an arm’s reach. He would grab her closer, pressing his hand to her chest, shooting the Phantom energy straight through her heart. She wouldn’t bounce back so quickly from that.

Nemesis was just three steps away when she clenched up her jaw and shot off into the forest, disappearing behind layers of evergreens. Jason knew he shouldn’t run after her, but he was thinking about it just the same when two men and a woman
—
all dressed in black and all loaded with enough blades to comfortably arm four times their number
—
emerged from the trees. The Crescent Order. They’d found them. Jason mentally counted off nine more assassins closing in fast.

Every instinct he had was telling him to fight or flee, but instead he swept Everett up and ran back into the temple. Where he would be trapped. The assassins were already surrounding the temple.

Jason gritted his teeth and hurried into the amphitheater chamber. A trail of broken glass led up to the podium, where Isis stood, her back to him. Arms braced against the gigantic bowl where the fire burned, she stared into the flames. Jason pushed through air heavy with the sharp sting of Winter’s Mint and the softer scent of milk. On the other side of the fire basin, Cameron stood, his mouth wide as he also stared into the flames.

“We have to go. Now,” he told them, his voice harsh and rough.

Isis turned, her sapphire eyes burning with blue fire. Something was wrong. Just minutes ago, her eyes had sparkled brightly, brilliant as stars from the effects of the stimulant he’d given her. But this was different. Her eyes never burned. They never oozed raw power. That was a purely Phantom thing.

“What have you done to yourself?” he ground out.

“It was…necessary,” she said, tendrils of Phantom energy lashing out with her every word.

How was this even possible? Sure, an Elition could temporarily borrow some Phantom powers by taking an Accentuating Serum, but not like this. No serum was that potent. If Jason hadn’t already known she was a Prophet, he couldn’t have told her apart from a natural Phantom.

He buried the thought. Later. Right now they had bigger problems.

“Jason,” Cameron said quietly.

They didn’t have time for this. “Come,” he said, sinking power into the command. “The Crescent Order is here. We have to get out before they trap us in here.”