Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) (24 page)

What a joke that was. He was one of the coldest bastards she’d ever met. How could she have been so wrong about him? He’d walked and talked to them all, hovered over her like he cared about her, about Tim and Sarah, about humanity in general, but she’d seen the truth in his eyes. He only had one thing on his mind, leaving her. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. His entire being was focused like a laser on the hunt for his prey. And on escaping her claim.

Celestine said to find him. To save him. To help him. Celestine had spliced Mari’s DNA and sent her through time to do precisely that. Finding Raiden had been her life’s purpose for the last two years. Hell, longer than that. The dreams had started when she was four. Dreams of a dark prince and demons. Hell on Earth.

Or so she’d thought…

But then why was she still feeling the pull, the inescapable, relentless pull calling her. And not to him. Not this time. To something else. Something darker, and much more frightening.

Not that she cared at the moment. A force stronger than her dreams called her now, and like a bee to honey, she had no thought to even try to resist. This was why she was here. This was why she’d saved him…not because Celestina needed her to find Raiden. No, so she could find his ship.

Find the one that called to her from somewhere inside…

The metallic tang of her blood filled her mouth. A fleeting thought skittered along the outer edges of her awareness. Her blood must be in the water. She ignored it. She was so close. So very close.

She just needed to go deeper.

Mari. Stop.
Raiden’s command filled her head but a beating pulse sang to her soul from deeper inside the ship. She was almost there.

Mari shook her head and swam forward. Who was he to order her around? If not for her, he’d still be captain-sleepy-pants in that terrible Triscani cave.
It’s okay, Raiden. Stay where you are. I’m almost there. There’s another stone. I can feel it…

Raiden tried to hide his surprise, but she felt it anyway. Oh, yeah, Sleeping Beauty didn’t think she knew what he was after. He didn’t think she could find it on her own. If she weren’t mistaken, there was a soul stone on this ship and it held a very strong being. That soul summoned her as surely as her prince had.

Perhaps that shocked him as well, the fact that it sang to her.

Did he think she couldn’t find it? That she hadn’t seen the stone and its über-secret hiding place a hundred times in her dreams? She’d seen it, felt it calling to her, but didn’t know what it was. Now she did. Now she knew that someone else called to her, needed her help. Boo-yah. Take that, Mr. Perfectly Chiseled Muscles.

Months of mental anguish had led her here, to this moment. She wasn’t going to stop now. Celestine had saved her for something. Call it destiny, or fate, or insanity. The label no longer mattered to her. Nothing did, but finding it, and setting her soul free from its near constant torment.

Mari, please, wait for me.
Obviously he’d decided to take another tack. Ordering her around got him a whole lot of nowhere. Big shocker. Just ask her mother.
Mari, listen to me. It’s a trap.

No shit, Sherlock.
Mari borrowed Tim’s phrase and tracked the tug on her soul like a bloodhound on a fresh hunt. She couldn’t go fast enough. Every kick of her legs, every corner she turned sped her heart rate and pumped more adrenaline into her system. Raiden’s voice called to her, raging at her to stop, to stay, to wait for him. His telepathic cries became background music to the symphony playing in her head. She knew he was there, but she wouldn’t pick out his voice from the cacophony of noise in her mind.

It wasn’t like she had a choice. She was a fish on the line, and she’d totally swallowed the hook. Whoever the fisherman was, he was yanking her along the line to wherever he wanted her to go.

She could’ve fought it, could’ve tried harder to wait for Raiden, but the summons didn’t feel evil or wrong, just powerful and determined.

Evil she would’ve had to fight. This was just like a magnet pulling on a paperclip that got too close. She was the tiny sliver of metal, and she was way too close to fight the pull now. She could practically feel the electric pulse of the being who called to her, as if he were already a part of her, already inside her.

She didn’t want any more men yanking her proverbial psychic chain, but it didn’t look like she had much choice. Whoever called to her now had nearly as strong a pull on her soul as Raiden’s, and was definitely male.

She turned what she knew would be the final corner. She swam up an access tunnel and crawled out onto the hard floor on the level above her.

A chill raised on her face and neck as cold, stale air made contact with her wet skin. She crawled a few feet, watching the doorway ahead nervously, not daring to leave her knees until the water had cleared her lungs. Up ahead, two doors to her left, she knew she’d find Raiden’s private quarters. She’d visited it in dreams, but never knew where she was or what she’d hunted until today.

Now she knew, and no one would stop her. The nightmare ended now.

She gasped as air flowed into her lungs. How odd that one could get used to breathing water so quickly. How very sad that breathing air made her feel weak and afraid. Breathing air she was nothing special, just an average woman of average height and average intelligence. In the air, she felt too human.

Only human.

Abruptly, she slumped back against the wall and sat. Temple resting on her bent knee, she stared at the doorway where destiny waited. Her destiny. One normal little human girl stuck in the middle of some kind of inter-dimensional war. Immortals. Triscani. Humans. Half-bloods and Timewalkers.

She’d somehow found the courage to go back into that cave and fry the Triscani. But that had been to save Raiden, to save someone she cared about, from a horrible fate.

But this was different. This time she knew there were more of those things waiting for her like fat spiders in the center of their web. They wanted her to lead them to the stone, to the soul that practically screamed at her to hurry.

Whatever this new ability Celestina had put into her DNA, it gave her a connection to living things, gave her newfound abilities to heal others and to talk to sharks. That was all fine and dandy, but the power also forced her to feel
them.
And they were here, two of them. Their emptiness hovered in her awareness and surrounded the ship. They waited patiently, hiding until the perfect moment to ambush her.

Palm flaring brightly with her anger at the thought, Mari took off her BCD and flippers, dragged herself onto her feet and slipped silently toward the door. It was sealed. She’d known it would be. But she’d been here a hundred times, a thousand. Her blood was the key. Always her blood.

Three deep breaths.

Check.

Knees done shaking?

Close enough.

Mari! Answer me
. Raiden was closer now, maybe even inside the ship. Not that it mattered.

She sliced her hand and pressed the hot-red liquid to the secret panel on the side of the door frame. Wouldn’t do any good to wait for Raiden, or to argue with him. Other than a couple knives, a flashlight, and a bad attitude, Raiden didn’t have any real weapons. Certainly nothing capable of taking out the Triscani soldiers she felt on the other side of the door. And she had to cut the guy some slack. He’d been asleep for two years.

Raiden, stay outside. I’ll be there in a minute.

No! The Triscani are on board
. So, he could feel them, too.

I’ll be fine. There are only two of them.

Lifting her head toward the sun and sky she knew waited far above, she prayed for strength and the courage to do what must be done. She couldn’t sit here and wait while Raiden swam into danger. She’d worked too hard to find him and save him, to lose him now. He still had a job to do. So did she.

Mari took a deep breath and fired up her hand until it felt so hot that a flicker of a thought would shoot light from her flesh like water from a fire truck’s hose. No more time to waste. She had to face them now. Silent darkness waited for her in the room beyond. Silence and the psychic screams of a soul stone.

Mari? Stop! Wait for me.

I can’t.

She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. The one who called her absorbed her attention completely. There was no danger, no ship, no Triscani, no sound, no Mari. There was only power, and a pulsing summons that pulled her closer and closer. It was as if her very soul screamed at her to save it. Her soul. No one else’s. It was her own deep self that screamed now, urged her to hurry.

No power on Earth could have stopped her feet from moving forward. The stone owned her. She no longer controlled her own limbs, no longer cared if the Triscani dropped on top of her. Nothing mattered but the soul screaming for her to save it.

Mari! Answer me!

Chapter Nine

I can’t.

The calm determination of her last two words sent chills down his spine. She was in there, alone.

Mari! Answer me!

Raiden couldn’t curse fast enough to vent the helpless anger and frustration that drowned him at her answering silence. The air tank on his back kept him alive, but slowed him down. And she was too far ahead of him, too close to danger. He’d never reach her inside the ship in time.

Gods, he’d been an idiot. These humans believed him powerless, devoid of weapons other than the blades he carried. Nothing could be further from the truth. But even with his considerable gifts, he wasn’t sure he could take down two Triscani alone. Delay and escape? Yes. He’d done it multiple times. But eliminate the bastards? No. At least not without horrible consequences.

But Mari could, with that damn Angel’s Fire, a gift only the Immortals were supposed to carry. An Angelus Mortis was required to clone the fire from her own flesh and gift it to a “worthy” member of the family line, one destined to serve the Circle. All female, the women of that line gave birth to only female children and could read the memories and lies of all Immortals. The Immortals had just a handful of laws, but breaking one meant either exile to Earth or death. The Circle of Judgment, with their Angelus Mortis and their white fire, saw to that. They were so rare as to be legend. He’d heard of them, but never seen one. He didn’t know anyone who had, until now. Until Mari.

But she wasn’t Immortal, wasn’t quite human either. By the time he’d come of age, Timewalkers were a distant memory. He didn’t know enough to guess what Mari and her allies might be capable of. Or how easy it might be for one of them to die.

He kicked harder, ignoring the painful pop as his eardrums fought to keep up with the rapid change in pressure. The sharks were no help to him, circling the invisible craft below like worried parents pacing the living room floor during their daughter’s first date. Completely uninterested in him. Damn it anyway. He really could’ve used another ride.

She was down there, fighting his enemies without him. That fact was a frenzied pain in his bloodstream. He kicked faster.

Gods, he never would’ve believed his ship was here if he hadn’t just watched her disappear right in front of his eyes. That was
his
ship down there. It was linked to
his
DNA, not hers. Yet
she
was the one who knew where to find it. She said something called to her. But what? Gerrick’s stone? Surely the Remnant’s soul held within it wasn’t that powerful. He hadn’t felt anything unusual when Gerrick handed it to him, no blasts of power or life force. The stone had traveled over a hundred and fifty years into the past with Gerrick. Which meant, the Remnant who created it most likely had done so a hundred and fifty years in the future. Mari didn’t exist in that time. She couldn’t be linked to the stone. The Remnant couldn’t use her life to sustain himself. Couldn’t drain her dry.

There was only one Remnant Raiden knew of who had actually attached herself to another living being, instead of a stone, and that evil bitch was going to regret it.

If not a stone linked to Mari’s life fire, then what? Now Raiden worried. What if the Triscani had placed a lure for her here? If they had, if Raiden didn’t stop her before she found it, they could get a piece of Mari’s soul. They could alter her DNA. They could kill her or take her prisoner. Gods be damned, they could take her to the dark worlds and hold her forever.

He had to stop her.

He was close now, the sharks circled above his head instead of below. Their anxious energy agitated him even more. Thank the gods the interior doors were all sealed and keyed to his crew and no others. She might be inside, but she’d never be able to breach his inner sanctum. The doors to his private chamber were locked. He’d made sure of that before he’d gone into the deep sleep.

Unless the traitor had somehow opened it. Or the Triscani.

Mari, don’t touch anything. Please, don’t touch anything.

Silence. Raiden felt fear such as he’d never known burst in his chest, an explosion behind his rib cage. He kicked, hard. Seconds seemed an eternity before his hand bumped into the smooth metallic sides of his ship. Judging by where he’d seen her disappear moments ago, he ran his hands along the surface until he found the opening he sought and slipped inside.