Obsidian Flame (7 page)

That’s when all hell had broken loose. A light like he’d never seen before flashed through the sky, blinding him for a few precious seconds. He’d turned in a circle, slashing his sword wildly in case either of the vamps got anywhere near him. His blade, however, never struck a thing, of that he was absolutely certain.

But when his vision returned, Grace was in a downward spiral, one of her wings broken, and Patience was nowhere to be seen.

He’d flown like a rocket in Grace’s direction and caught her just before she struck one of the rock outcroppings. He’d steadied her and looked around.

No Patience. No death vampires.

He recalled closing his eyes and having the strangest sensation that he’d touched something bigger than Second Earth—but what, he couldn’t say. Grace kept repeating, “The Creator, the Creator,” as though she’d been caught in a spiritual event. He hadn’t bought that, not even a little. Something had come, or someone, probably from one of the Upper Dimensions and completely without legal sanction.

He had left Grace sitting on the deep red rocks. He flew in an ever-enlarging circle, until he found blood, lots and lots of blood on the side of a gully, so much blood, enough from one person, maybe more. But there had been no feathers, no body parts, nothing like a battle, just blood, a torrent of blood.

He knew then that Patience was gone; taken and probably killed. By whom or by what, or for what reason, he doubted he would ever know.

He had returned to Grace, dropping to sit down beside her. He told her Patience was gone, her twin, the sibling with whom she had shared a womb. He had held Grace in the same way he was now holding Marguerite. Grace had stared up into the sky as though willing Patience to return to her, to draw her blood back into her body, and to come back to life.

But through all that time, Grace had remained adamant that Patience had not been killed; she’d been taken from Second Earth.

Thorne knew the world better. All that blood had spoken the truth to him. He had never argued with Grace. What would the point have been?

He had rocked her, and petted her cheek, and kissed her forehead as he now did with Marguerite.

He loathed the war and he felt something deep inside him begin not just a shift but an upheaval, a strong swell of sensation that started with disgust and ended with something close to determination. Something needed to change. Now. Tonight.

The war had been eating at him for decades, especially since Patience’s death. But this angry sentiment had crystallized a little over a year ago during Alison’s rite of ascension, the night that he’d sat near Endelle in the Tolleson Two arena and watched a frightened, overwhelmed Mortal Earth human woman, Alison, pass through the ropes that divided the black battling mats from the cement floor of the building. He’d watched her, an untried innocent, forced into a battle for which she was in no manner prepared. He had watched Commander Greaves sit so calm, so still, so confident in his plans, the bastard who had orchestrated the event and turned it into a spectacle for all of Second Earth to view. His intention had been for his servant, General Leto, former Warrior of the Blood and supposed traitor, to slay Alison.

Instead Alison had won the contest with amazing feats of power, all for Greaves’s pleasure.

Thorne had come to understand so much that night: that Greaves had been toying with Endelle and the Warriors of the Blood for decades, that he enjoyed the sport of war as much as he intended to one day be victorious, that he didn’t care who suffered, that a woman’s suffering meant nothing to him. Mostly, he’d understood that Endelle and her weak administration would lose this war, that defeat had become inevitable.

When Thorne thought of Endelle, something deep within bucked and raged. He loved her and he respected the sacrifices she had made for millennia. But right now she was part of the problem, a problem that had to be solved or two worlds would fall into slavery. He didn’t have an answer right now, but one thing he knew for certain: Once he got back to Second Earth, once he was assured of Marguerite’s safety, his working relationship with Endelle had to change. He couldn’t go back to the way things were. He’d blocked their shared mind-link and as soon as he was able, he would insist she break it.

He’d had enough. Change needed to happen now.

As for Marguerite, she’d been his only comfort. Yet despite the fact that she was caught in something neither of them understood, she was more determined than ever to live life on her terms.

He didn’t blame her. God knew he didn’t blame her. But she was in danger.

He felt the future crowding him as he had never felt it before, holding his woman in his arms, smelling her rich red-rose scent, until he ached, body and soul.

*   *   *

Marguerite made a slow pass over the valley. There were dozens of farms and what looked like small homes and cabins, each with an attached vegetable garden, clustered along one portion of a long winding lane near the forest.

As she drew close to the upper portion of the valley, she thought she recognized one of the Warriors of the Blood—Fiona’s
breh,
Jean-Pierre. He’d helped Thorne bust her out of the Superstition Seers Fortress, and later he’d been in Endelle’s office. He was tall like Thorne, well muscled, but leaner.

Was Jean-Pierre in this village?

As she flew lower to the ground, however, she realized that it wasn’t him, but rather someone who was built like him and had similar features. He was also younger than the warriors, not quite a man yet, but neither was he just a teen—somewhere in between.

She hovered in place watching him. He spoke quietly with another man, taller than him, with green eyes, dark skin, and long cornrows dotted with beads. This man’s arms were muscled and bare. He wore a vest made up of some kind of sculpted animal skin. He looked solemn as the young man said, “Death vampires. They’re here. In the forest.”

The young man already had a sword in his hand.

The death vampires came: three, four, five …

The vision drew away from her, like a receding tide, and finally disappeared.

She felt something on her face, a callused thumb perhaps, then something softer and very moist. Lips, soothing lips.

“Come back to me.”

Thorne.

Her eyelids fluttered. She was back in her hotel room. She was tired, so very tired, but then she’d traveled around the entire world how many times?

Thorne held her close and for the longest moment she felt safe, really safe.

And yet she couldn’t stay like this.

As she drew out of the future streams completely, as she returned to consciousness, she sat up and slid off Thorne’s lap. She felt like puking. She could hear Thorne talking to her. He stroked her arm and her thigh, gently, but she didn’t want the distraction. The vision was still real in her mind.

She batted her arm in his direction and he stopped touching her.

The young man, so familiar.

“I … saw a warrior … who looked similar in build, in features, in stance to Jean-Pierre, but it wasn’t him. More like a younger version of him.”

“You had a vision then.”

She drew in a deep breath. She realized she was on her hands and knees, the robe hanging open. She felt dizzy and sick, like she’d had the flu for about a week.

She pushed back to lean on her heels. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths. “Thorne, we must do something. There will be an attack, very soon. I’m trying to determine the timing. I saw a young warrior standing with a black man, a leader, very tall, in a sort of village of round and square cabin-like houses somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The Cascades?”

“Okay.”

“We must go there, but I don’t want to. Thorne, I don’t want to.”

“You’re afraid.”

She shook her head. Fear was not what she felt. The threat was not to her life, but to her freedom. She felt it like a rock in the pit of her stomach.

She turned toward Thorne. He had a dark look in his eye and something more, almost like panic. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“If I hadn’t been here … Marguerite, do you know how vulnerable you were just now? This thing … this vision you just endured lasted at least ten minutes.”

“Sweet Christ,” she cried. “That long?” A fine stream of profanity flowed through her head. None of this was what she wanted: the visions, being completely out of control during them, and the awful responsibility of such deadly content.

Goddammit.

Yet the vision was here. If this colony was in danger, especially since it seemed to be some kind of refuge for Seers, then she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing while death vampires went on a rampage.

But like hell she was going back into the future streams alone. She reached for Thorne’s hand and opened her eyes, glaring at him. “You’re coming with.”

He nodded.

“And I don’t care if it splits your head apart.”

But the damn warrior just smiled. “Oh, I think I can take it.”

She rolled her eyes, but closed them once more so that she could open her Seers window. She saw the ribbons spread out along the horizon, as was usually the case, but this time, perhaps because it was her choice to enter the future streams, there was no crashing of a vision, just the beauty that stretched on to both left and right forever.

She thought the thought, holding the young warrior’s image in the front of her mind. She had expected the line of ribbons to move, which always happened when searching for something or someone specific in the future streams. Instead, as though waiting for her, the young man’s ribbon rose, but this time she had control. She searched for the ribbon in a swift scan of power.

She found it, a deep green, like the forest in the early evening, the needles almost black but not quite. She reached for Thorne mentally at the same time and felt his presence.
Are you with me?
she sent.

Yes.
And there he was, in her mind, and with her. Thorne had power, lots of it, if he could be in her mind like this so easily while she was engaging the future streams.

Can you see what I see?

Glowing lights and what looks like a mountain village.

Exactly. There isn’t an obvious source for electricity although there could be one.

I see what you mean. Most of that light comes from oil, but it doesn’t account for how well lit the house on the hill is.

Solar, maybe?

Maybe.

The future began to move in steady waves, and the images of the impending attack began to flow but not as fast this time. She heard Thorne’s harsh breathing as the death vampires moved through the forest.

She thought the thought and the vision shifted to the tall black man. His name came to her, Diallo, and the young man so much like Jean-Pierre but more youthful—not quite a man, but close. Arthur.

She
felt
time move over the vision.

Looks like we have ten minutes,
Thorne sent,
but I have no idea where this is. Do you?

Yes.

And will you take me there? I can feel your reluctance.

Reluctance doesn’t begin to describe what I feel.
She sighed, a heavy rush of air that emptied her lungs.

But will you do it?

There was only one response involving one word, but she so didn’t want to bring that word to life. She hated that word. She wished she could drown that word in a bucket of worms. That word, more than any other she’d spoken during the evening, threatened her plans. She knew it in her gut, which was maybe why she felt so sick, dammit.

But she knew what had to be done, so she sent the horrible word straight into his head.
Yes.

She shook the vision off and felt him pull out of her mind. She rose to her feet. “But I’m getting dressed first.” She went into the bathroom and folded on her black leather pants, a low-cut red tank, and her tight-fitting black leather jacket. Just for effect she added red-hot stilettos and long red-feather earrings with a silver heart and blackened skull and crossbones for good measure.

She headed back to the bathroom to fluff her drying hair and put on some makeup. If she had to go to the edge of a battlefield, she damn well wasn’t going without mascara, a lot of it. She thought about toning it down, but this freak-ass colony could just suck it if they didn’t like the way she dressed.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she saw Thorne, gasped, and did a full-body shiver. Holy shit. Gone were the jeans. He now wore flight battle gear: a black leather kilt and a belted weapons harness that spread over his chest and shoulders and supported two daggers. The harness ran in a leather strip down his spine to allow for wing-mount.

He was adjusting silver-studded, black leather wrist guards when he turned suddenly and looked at her. His nostrils flared. “What the fuck is with all the … rose. Oh … shit. You look hot as hell.” A deep resonant growl left his throat as a wave of cherry tobacco hit her hard.