Rock Star (Dream Weaver #2) (25 page)

Chapter 26 Sugar, We’re Going Down

              Nick’s face twisted in horror as I held the high voltage gun to his chest. Thomas’ arms constrained him. I gazed, vacant and numb, into Nick’s eyes. Thomas chortled at the compulsion in my face. Nick held my gaze, bore pleas into my mind that I was stronger than Thomas understood.

             
“Emi, please,” he begged. “Snap out of it. You’re stronger than this.”

             
I’m okay.
Nick ceased to struggle.

             
With a flash of unfamiliar speed, I twitched the tip of the gun toward Thomas’ arm. Nick ducked out of his arms and away to avoid a closed circuit and electrical shock as I pulled the trigger and sent millions volts through the Wraith. Thomas dropped to the dirty cement floor and writhed in pain as the voltage scrambled his electrical impulses.

             
Nick grabbed my arms and drove me back to the wall. “Stay. Out. Of. It.” I nodded dumbly, struck by the anger in his voice. It reminded me of a time when my dad had spoken to me the same way. Not because he was angry. But because he was afraid. For me.

             
Sparking and guttering like a dying strobe light, Thomas fell still at Nick’s feet. Peals of thunder rumbled from the garage, as William and Sabre thrashed around inside, still engaged in hand to hand, and mind to mind combat. Nick scrambled for another weapon to incapacitate the Wraith and finish him off, but as he turned back to Thomas with a serrated combat knife, Thomas vanished. With a frustrated growl, Nick turned his attention to William and his duty to protect his mentor. But, as his foot slid forward, the riotous cloud that was Thomas, thrashed around Nick and forced him back. The charged energy swirled and zapped around him; pushed him to my side and sizzled around us. With no other options, we ducked under a work table to protect ourselves from the furious barrage.

             
“Emi. Please…” Nick’s breaths panted from his chest, and his voice was as wrung out as old rag.

             
“I promised to stay out of it. And I will. But I’m not going to sit by and let him kill you, if it’s in my power to stop him.”

             
“Better me than you,” he argued.

             
My face hardened with a scowl, but I refused to argue with him. I placed my hand on my heaving chest, as though that would calm my galloping heart. Ari’s cool body twitched against my skin. I’d forgotten she was there, forgotten the magic forged within her that just might save us all. I unclipped her small body from the chain and held her in the palm of my hand. The words of her creator washed over my memory like a warm summer rain, cleansing and comforting.

             
“I’m sending Ari on a recon mission,” I whispered to Nick.
Maybe she’ll bite him and he’ll die. One could wish.
Perhaps, she could pick up some latent memoryprints left behind by Thomas or William. Perhaps, like the loops, whorls and arches of fingerprints, Ari might find the Rephaim’s strategy still  printed on some surface they’d touched. Or garner the information from Thomas, himself. The thought of her biting him warmed my heart and I realized I’d crossed over from apprehension to concession about killing. Her spindly legs twitched and arced across my palm as I relayed my command. Then, she glimmered from my hand.

             
Nick and I hunkered down in the garage like two sodbusters avoiding the OK corral.
She can print just like us.
I sent the message to Nick and hoped I wasn’t on a wideband radio frequency.
She’ll print their plans and come tell me.

             
“Come out. Come out. Wherever you are.” But Thomas knew exactly where we were. His heavy footfalls pounded nearby. “Ouch!” and then the sound of flesh slapping flesh.

             
I giggled a hysterical laugh of fear at the thought of Thomas crushing her little body. But she was metal. Thomas couldn’t hurt her. I released a forgotten breath as Ari materialized on my thigh, scrambled up my leg and pricked my wrist.

              William and Thomas schemed behind an enormous Ponderosa.

             
“The bitch has a pistol mod with lye bullets,” Thomas rumbled.

             
“Fantastic. Next time one of them is in the open, project the image of one of us to the girl so she believes it’s one of us. She’ll shoot one of her own.” Images of my finger on the trigger, the sights aimed at one of the Wraith. Firing. And then Nick or Sabre would fall to the ground; dead by my hand.

              I released the whimper that warred in my throat.
No.
Such a tiny word, but my voice refused speak it.
No. That is not going to happen.
But my prescient abilities were still so new and raw; I couldn’t tell if that was a memory or a premonition.

             
Good girl. Go show Nick.

             
Ari tickled her way down my arm and scurried to Nick.

             
“It’s just a memory, honey,” Nick said softly after receiving the print, and Ari’s image of the turmoil that roiled within me. “Just a memory of a memory. That’s all.”

             
“’kay,” I squeaked. I needed to get a grip. Nick scooted closer. His cool hand sizzled against the panicked heat of my cheek.

             
“Come, come now little Dream Weaver,” Thomas drew out the word ‘dream’ to goad Nick on. “Time to come out and play.”

             
Nick’s eyes hardened to black at the taunt, but he turned the tumultuous gaze on me. “Emari…”

             
“I know. Willing non-participant.”

             
“Please…”

             
“I know. Stay here.”

             
“Actually,” he said with a strained smirk, “I was going to say ‘stay out of it.’ But that works, too. I’ll be back soon. Just—please stay out of trouble.” Worry cast his eyes midnight blue. I nodded assent, and with a pain-filled smile, Nick phased and drifted away. His sparkling body still awed me, and I watched until every last glimmer faded from sight.

             
Armed to the teeth and nowhere to go.
The sound of my giggle was frightening—tainted with a touch of manic. I pressed my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, pushed into a distraught rock. I was exhausted from all the mind games and just needed a moment to catch my breath. A spot of oil on the floor distracted me. I wondered what type of oil it was, which of Sabre’s little toys sprung a leak. But it didn’t last long. Tormented images laced with mayhem bombarded my mind. Eddyson and Ivy, safe and sound, but tenuous. Thomas could change that in the blink of an eye. Nick, Sabre. Sabre and Sarah Rose, her head upon his breast; her tiny hand clutched in his; the drumming of their hearts in synch—and then she’s ripped away from him—his heart exhumed from his chest. Thomas, as he leans over Sarah’s body and twists her last thoughts into lies. The satisfied loathing that wells within William as the rope snaps taut around Sabre’s neck. Blood. Horror. Nick—as fire blazes in his veins, and fever scorches away his life without resistance. One. Only. Lonely. Lonesome. And grief. Always grief—the one common black thread that stitches it all together—stitches all things, all people, together.

             
The garage was an island unto itself. The rest of the world hovered near. I could hear the passing of cars out on Market Street and Highway 2, but an invisible dome cut, isolated and separated. Secrets and promises hedged me in.

             
Abrupt and violent, Sabre’s body crashed to the ground across the yard. Crimson streamed from his nose and a brutal gash across his head. His chest groped for life, its desperation pulled on my heart, but the wall of Nick’s words trussed my feet to the spot. Sabre was dying. His life gasped out of him with every desperate pant. The wind continued to roar. Did that mean it was now two against one? Was Nick now battling both of the Wraith on his own?

             
“Sabre.”

             
“Stay,” the command so breathy I couldn’t tell if it was verbal or memory.

             
Please…
I sent to him.
Let me help.

             
No. There is no help.

             
What?! What did that mean?  Was he dying while I stood by and watched?

             
Sabre…

             
Please…for him.

             
Sabre’s plea clenched my heart. Neither choice was acceptable: stay, and Nick would be happy, but Sabre might die; go, and destroy Nick if anything happened to me. But the decisions was wrenched from hands when Thomas and Nick materialized between me and Sabre’s prostrate form. Both crouched on the ground on their hands and knees, panting from exhaustion. Nick’s wounds were nearly healed, the blood no longer poured from gaping wounds.

             
That’s it! Sabre needs to phase.
He needed to heal himself. But why wasn’t he? He knew what to do. Why wasn’t he doing it? And where was William in all this mess?

             
Thomas whorled away into the night, and Nick phase to my side at the doors to the garage. My thoughts kicked in to survival mode.

             
“Okay. You need to get to Sabre and check on him,” I told Nick as I pushed him toward Sabre’s body.

             
“No!” He grabbed my arms and pressed me back over the threshold of the garage. “I am not leaving you alone.”

             
“Nick, get a grip! Your friend may be dying. He needs you.”

             
“You need me, too,” he argued.

             
“No. I don’t.” I crossed my arms in defiance. “And if you’re not going to help him—I am.” I meant to make a dramatic exit but Nick spun me around into his arms.

             
“Maybe,” he said, his voice withered and strained, “I need you more than you need me.”

             
“You don’t have to make a choice between me and Sabre, Nick. But you also can’t let your friend die because you’re afraid something will happen to me.” His shoulders slumped in resignation. “Now, can we go check on him?”

             
With a reluctant nod, he took my hand. “Stay close to me. You have to watch
everywhere
, for
any
sign of movement.”

             
Yeah, head on a swivel. Got it!
“As you wish.” We exchanged an understanding smile, then raced hand in hand to Sabre’s prone body, canvassing the area as we went. Waves of worry rolled off Nick as he checked for a pulse, palpated and accessed the wounds. His face drained, pale and grim when his hands came away bloodstained. My own heart contracted with his, as fear and adrenaline flooded our veins. Then, Sabre’s body began to gutter and sparkle like a child’s firework reaching the end of its life; and he vanished.

             
“Oh my god! Where is he? Is he dead?” I wailed. I’d never seen a Caphar die—
of course, I haven’t!

             
“I most certainly hope so,” came a voice, succinct and recognized. Thomas stepped nonchalant from the shadows, his arms crossed casually across his chest. “And it’s about bloody time, too.”

             
Nick shoved me behind him, placing himself between me and Thomas, his growl so primal it almost frightened me. Thomas chortled a nefarious laugh. “You would think after nearly a century of opposing me, you’d know better. When I want her, I will simply take her from you.”

             
His use of the of the word ‘when’ dropped in my stomach like a boulder. If he really wanted me, and eventually, he would, I knew he could get to me. And on the way through—was Nick. Thomas had to be taken down. Now, I fully understood Nick’s desire to kill him. Thomas would never stop, until we were all dead. A plan coalesced in my mind.

             
No!
Nick’s response was vehement.

             
I can do this. He’ll never see Ari coming.

             
No.

             
With or without you, I’m doing this!

             
Nick was still unaccustomed to my boldness. I really wasn’t the ‘hapless puddle’ we joked about. And I was no longer crushed. No longer a victim—determined never to be one again.

             
What have you got? We’re wasting time.

             
Frustration rattled at the back of his throat.
Fine.