Surrender (THE DRAGONFLY CHRONICLES) (34 page)

Kailin, no!
Drakkina yelled inside her head.

The inside Drakkina lifted the baby from Gilla. “The babe must die.” This Drakkina was stone, her face firm, convicted.

“No!” Gilla and Kailin yelled at the same time.

Drakkina laid the baby on the stone table.

“There must be a better way. Send—”

“It’s too late,” the stony Drakkina inside the collapsing cottage intoned and raised her arms in the air. Her ethereal body seemed to solidify as her power built. Gilla came up behind and grabbed her around the waist, but there was no need to fight the witch. With a small gurgle, the baby lifted a dimpled fist toward Drakkina. With a little punch in the air, Drakkina flew backwards, knocking Gilla over too.

Kailin’s mouth dropped open. Had the newborn just thrown the most powerful being she’d ever encountered across the room? Drakkina flew up to hover above the baby. Another punch of its dimpled fist broke holes in her vaporous form.

On the currents of my wish for redemption, on the currents of my love for this family and humanity, on the currents of my power given by the Earth Mother send them now within my thread.

“Not yet,” Kailin said and yanked away from Jackson. She ran around the side of the house, still holding onto the orb.

“Kailin!” Jackson yelled, but it was too late. Kailin glanced back and saw his body warp, twisting into a single thread. It shot off into the thunderclouds. Kailin turned back to the cottage and ran inside.

Gilla pushed off the ground, her eyes wide with shock.

“I’m Kailin.”

“Kailin?” Gilla said. “I just sent you somewhere safe. Why are you here, now?”

Black smoke twisted and billowed around the ceiling.

“Don’t let it touch the babe!” Drakkina of old yelled. “Too powerful,” Drakkina shook her head. “Unnatural. Can’t contain it. They’ll taint it, use it against the world.”

“It’s a baby, not an it,” Kailin shot back and used her magic, combined with the energy pulsing into her from the orb to lift the baby through the air and settle it into Gilla’s outstretched arms. The baby allowed her to and smiled. Could babies that young really smile? Wasn’t that just gas? As if on cue, the baby burped and smiled some more. Was it reading her mind?

“It sure seems so,” the hardened Drakkina said sarcastically. Her dragonflies buzzed nervously around her.

Then one by one around the room, each demon descended from the black cloud into a solid type form, feet, paws and talons on the earthen floor.

“The babe is ours,” Semiazaz commanded from his stand in the middle. He turned his obsidian eyes on Kailin and tipped his head. “A sister? All grown up.” He looked confused for a moment.

Kailin released her magic in a blast straight at the leader. Semiazaz staggered backwards, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. “Grown up and fierce.” His eyes shifted. “And with Eógan’s orb.”

“Get the hell out of here!” Kailin yelled. “Before you feel the full force of my power.”

Drakkina looked pointedly at Kailin. “You don’t belong here. There will be repercussions.” She began to chant the now familiar spell for transforming people into threads and sending them flying into another time period when Semiazaz suddenly changed back into the one named Eógan. It was enough to make Drakkina stutter and two demons lunged at the baby, grabbing it from Gilla.

“Earth Mother protect my bairn,” Gilla said raising her arms as if to unleash her own magic. Was she bluffing? The two demons actually cringed and Kailin felt a jolt of pride. Her mother had been extremely powerful, and they didn’t know that all her magic was gone.

The demons dissolved into a thin black layer, covering it with shadow. The baby hovered in the chilled room, wrapped in shadow and taint.

Drakkina sent a thin edge of ethereal power along the baby’s skin. Was she trying to kill the baby or just slice off the demonic layer? Did she still consider the baby too dangerous like she’d said to Gilla?

“Stop!” Kailin whipped her magic toward the baby.
Protection, purity, light
. She envisioned clean love, a blast of sisterly devotion and desperation. The baby whimpered, eyes wide as the oil melted away from its pale skin. It hovered, under whose power, Kailin wasn’t certain. The child’s linen blanket fell away from its thin chest and hips.

A boy. Kailin’s breath hitched. The baby wasn’t a sister but a brother.

“On the currents of my desperation to save this world, Earth Mother, send the babe now!” Drakkina’s words blew out with a faint wind. The infant moved its small clenched fists and wailed, but he still elongated into a thread and shot off through the torn and blasted thatched roof.

“Leave him alone!” Gilla shrieked and raised her hands again.

“Die,” Eógan said as a white beard snaked downward, and he retransformed into Semiazaz. The lead demon shot a blast of black, sparking magic, right into Gilla. She didn’t even cry out, her body withering in half a second.

“Gilla! Mama!” Kailin screamed and ran for the ashes that sifted down through the air to land on the piled fabric that had been her mother’s robes. Dust, warm from her body, ran through her fingers. “Mama,” she whispered. The remains smelled of baked bread and dried flowers. The scent caught so fiercely at Kailin’s memory her stomach clenched and she choked. She was losing her all over again.

Kailin ran her fingers through her mother’s clothes, now speckled with tears. They closed over something hard and she pulled it from the soft ash. A tooth, a canine from a large animal. She tucked it into the pocket of her hastily pulled on pants. Tears stung again and she glanced toward the window where Jackson had disappeared. Where was he? Kailin closed her eyes. She felt hopelessly and completely alone.

From somewhere behind her she heard the demon speak. “We’ll take Gilla’s daughter then and the orb. The boy will be easy to follow. You really should have killed the lad. He’s more powerful than both his parents. He’ll be a worthy member of our coven. “

“Kill the girl now,” hissed one of the demons. “She killed Elathan and Erubus!”

Semiazaz’s black orbs bored into her. “No, Gilla’s daughter but gave us the room to”—he rolled his shoulders—“stretch, shall we say.” The other materialized demons took several steps away from each other. A large, winged demon pushed through the remaining stones of a wall and growled with laughter.

“Elathan and Erubus merely slid along with the boy to wherever Drakkina sent him. We’ll find them easily,” Semiazaz said and smiled. Several of the demons flew or ran out beyond the stones. Semiazaz rolled his eyes. “Once these children have had a small chance to play first.”

Kailin straightened and turned, gathering her powers. “Let’s finish this here.” Magic crackled down her arms and needled her fingertips. “While some of you are out exploring your quasi-freedom.”

“Gilla’s daughter, no,” Drakkina intoned as if trying to bend her to her will, but Kailin’s power was too strong. “They can still kill you,” the witch said, “and we will lose the final battle.”

“I have the orb.” Kailin let the large stone rest between her ankles. She stood braced, fingers spread, hands wide out from her hips. The remaining demons turned toward her, arms wide in a similar fashion. Their dark magic arced between their separated fingers to join with each other’s. Two of the ones who had left suddenly appeared with two more following. Apparently they were still linked.

You don’t have the dragonfly pendant, my dragonfly
. Drakkina’s voice urged inside Kailin’s mind though the witch in the room didn’t give any indication that she was communicating.
They work together like soul mates.
Kailin glanced at the window where the other Drakkina, the one from her time, floated on the edge hiding.

The Drakkina in the room shook her head, scattering wispy dragonflies. “The orb may not be enough. Don’t fight them here. It’s not time.”

“This is as good a time as any,” Semiazaz said casually.

The Earth Mother predicts ultimate doom if the final battle happens without all the sisters and their soul mates.
This time Kailin was certain the Drakkina in the room spoke into her mind. She didn’t seem aware of herself, from the future, being nearby.

“What choice do I have here?” Kailin whispered, her power still ready, but her confidence definitely waning as the cat-like demon slunk back into the circle.

“I have one for you to consider, child,” Semiazaz said, his voice booming through the crumbling room. “It would be easier to join us. You won’t be harnessed like we are, and you can care for your brother. The two of you could easily rule the world. With power like yours only death will stop you.” He touched his long beard. “Do you really want to die today?”

The spell. You know it. Use it
. The words held an added cadence, making it from the Drakkina outside.
Kailin, run! Please, child, leave this place. We need you
.

“Leave Gilla’s girl, Semiazaz,” the cold Drakkina ordered.

Kailin began to chant in her head.
On the currents of my blood, on the currents of my love for…for my family, for this world
, which included Jackson Black,
for the love of Gilla and her Earth Mother, send me home!

As she said the words, tamping down the fear of getting lost among a temporal web she knew nothing about, Kailin funneled the magic she held churning inside into the words, the prayer, the spell. Could she actually thread her way somewhere without getting lost amongst the millions of years of earthly existence?

The only place she could think to go was home. But where was home? Wasn’t she technically standing in her home? Or was it Anthony’s manor in England? Or was it the tomb where she appeared to him decades ago? Home was more than a mere place. It was a feeling, safety and familiarity.

She concentrated for a moment on Anthony, but wasn’t sure he was still there waiting for her in Egypt. She thought of Bruce and the manor house in England with its fragrant arching gardens. But she’d always felt restless there which was part of why she’d gone on expedition as soon as Anthony would let her.

She thought of the stone circle where she currently stood, but without a house and a coven of eager demons crowding it. She’d studied the layers of earth, each stone and tree, the central slab, the cut of each monolith. But it wasn’t home either.

Where was it? She had to find it and feel it so well its mere existence would draw her to it. Images of smiling over burnt feathers shot into Kailin’s mind. Of staring up at familiar constellations with the warmth of a strong arm snug against hers, fingers glancing off her own. The sound of a firm, calm voice guiding her through the desert of panic inside a sarcophagus. The feel of breath along her skin. His smell, his taste, his touch. Jackson. Was Jackson home? How could he be after his omissions, his lies? Did he even care for her or was it all a ruse?

“Come to us, daughter of Druce and Gilla,” Semiazaz intoned as if it were the opening to a dark ritual.

Ruse or not, Jackson was the one she could pick out of a million strands of time. Jackson, yes; he could lead her home. She knew him on every sensory level.

On the currents of my…love, send me home, send me to Jackson Black.

The room wavered and for a split second the old nightmare of Kailin’s childhood flooded her. She scooped up the orb and wrapped it tightly against her chest as her chant beat with her heart.

“She’s escaping!” hissed the catlike demon.

She heard the Drakkina in the room curse, but the other Drakkina spoke into her mind.
Yes, child, follow your string home. I’ll lead them another way
.

Tall, broad, smooth shoulders. Wavy brown hair too long but just right, sun-touched around his tan face, bristled with three days’ growth. A herder’s hat tipped at just the right angle to shield smiling gray eyes. A natural sway in the saddle, a rhythm that carried his step, that moved his body with masculine lion-like grace.

Kailin felt hot and melting as she shot through the sky before the flashing sun and moon chase. Was it due to the magic or her very detailed memory of Jackson? The way his muscles rippled under the tips of her fingers as she licked them along his skin, her nails grazing the taut sinew, biceps bunching, straining.

Home. Fly home
. Kailin tried to keep her magic centered on the word although her mind kept a constant tether on the one man she knew as well as any home. She barely noticed as she shot between, over and under translucent lines of time, strung together in an intricate design much like a thousand spiders’ webs coming together in a complex tunnel.

A white, nearly full moon and the spire of trees greeted Kailin. Pine trees? Not dunes? A chilled wind rustled the branches. A short screech sounded from a birch tree as Kailin descended down into the same circle of stones she’d just left. She plopped hard onto the silvery ground covered with moss and cornflowers.

She rolled up into a crouch, which was rather hard with the weight of the orb still in her arms. She whipped around trying to see everywhere at once. Tuto swooped down through the black sky and landed onto the moon-drenched stone slab at the center.

The hulking shadow, stretched out along its center, moved and Kailin pooled her magic. Thick, long legs swept down to the ground and in two long strides, Jackson was upon her. His hands gripped her shoulders in an unbreakable hold.

“Damn, Kailin Whitaker, where have you been?” He didn’t let her respond. He didn’t even let her inhale. His lips descended onto hers. She dropped the orb as Jackson’s arms wrapped around her, drawing her chilled form into the heat of his body. The orb missed their feet and rolled off somewhere into the wildflowers. Kailin didn’t care.

All she cared about was losing herself in Jackson’s kiss, his heat, his whisperings as he ran across her jaw. He pulled back, bending to search her face. He pushed his fingers into her hair and stared hard into her eyes.