Dark Guardian (41 page)

Lucian knew as he tracked the vampire through the newly dug tunnels that the vampire was extremely dangerous. This one was old, an ancient of incredible skill and power. He had eluded justice for many centuries and would not be easy to kill. Without thinking, he instructed Jaxon in the same way he had always instructed Gabriel.
Get ahead of him. He is moving up toward the surface again. He will attempt to rise approximately four hundred yards or so from the rock outcroppings to your left. You must drive him back toward me
.

No problem
. Jaxon had no idea what she was going to do to stop the creature from surfacing, but if Lucian said it had to be done, then so be it. She streaked across the distance, judging where they were by the vibrations beneath the earth. If she listened, she could hear the ground groaning at the touch of the tainted being as it pushed its way through. She actually felt the dirt under her feet shift and knew the vampire was racing toward her to get to the surface far away from Lucian.

Jaxon went skyward, sending a sheet of fire sweeping the ground, flaming everything in its path. She knew she scored by the shriek and noxious odor that followed, then the sudden silence, as if the thing had burrowed back into the earth. Just to be on the safe side, she directed down flames as long as she could before sheer exhaustion sent her reeling to earth.

Something was wrong. Lucian had pulled away from their mind merge. She was left alone in the silence of the storm. Too tired to move, Jaxon couldn't summon the necessary energy to join with Lucian. Without warning, tentacles erupted all over the ground, great spiked arms like those of an octopus but sharp and pointed like spears. They broke the surface everywhere, reaching, writhing, searching for her. Jaxon leaped up, sheer terror lending her the strength to move, when one wrapped around her ankle. She stared down at it in horror. Even as she did so, the appendage withered, shrunk, and fell harmlessly away from her.

Jaxon whirled around and almost ran right into a tall, gaunt man. He was youthful at one moment, ancient the next. He looked handsome, then hideous and evil. He smiled at her. "I trust you are finished with your pitiful attempts to harm me. It is impossible. I am much too powerful. In the end, my dear, you will pay for your sins against me." His voice was pitched low. It might have seemed beautiful to other ears, but to Jaxon it was an assault.

She moved slowly, keeping her hands down and at her sides. She had to avoid the searching spearlike arms yet keep her gaze fixed solidly on her enemy. And he was her enemy. As sweet as his voice sounded, as gentle as his face tried to appear, Jaxon knew this was a monster without honor, without soul. She tilted her chin, her body as still as the mountains around them. Inside herself she found a calm, tranquil pool and simply stayed there while the shell that was her body faced the vampire.

He smiled at her, his teeth gleaming like needles. "You think that he will come for you, but I have ensured that he is trapped for all time beneath the earth. You will do as I say, and I will take that into account in my dealings with you." His voice was mesmerizing, powerful.

Jaxon kept her eyes fixed on him, the tension all at once draining from her body. She began to laugh softly. "You can't possibly believe that your voice can make me believe the impossible, can you? Lucian is not trapped in the earth. He is everywhere, all around you." She waved an arm, and the ancient hunter sprang up at every point, east, west, north, and south. He was in the clouds above their heads and leaning against the rocks with lazy indolence. Lucian, tall and handsome, his black eyes glittering.

The vampire whirled around, his long black cape swirling like a magician's. Jaxon took the opportunity to put a little more distance between them. The large head of the undead began to undulate in a reptilian manner, a long, slow hiss escaping him, betraying his anger. The red-rimmed eyes settled on her like a suffocating cloak of malignancy. "You think to frighten me with your childish tricks." He waved his arms, and the images faded away as if they had never been. Even as he did so, scorpions erupted out of the holes the octopus arms had made. Scores of them blackened the earth, making the surface of the soil itself seem to be moving toward her. She could hear the clicking as the horrible insects rushed at her.

Jaxon tried to leap skyward, but something oppressive forced her back down. It seemed there was no escaping the swarm coming at her, their stingers poised and ready. For one beat her heart slammed painfully in her chest, and then she relaxed, smiling sweetly at the vampire. "We are reduced to this then?" She waved a hand, and the thick onslaught of scorpions wavered, began to turn on one another, and thrust their stingers into one another. "It's amusing but rather silly."

"Come to me." He held out his hands to her.

Jaxon's eyebrows shot up. "Just like that? You think to win so easily? I don't think I want to make it that easy. You would never fully appreciate me." She was trying to ignore the stains on his daggerlike nails. The sight of the dark brownish color turned her stomach How many humans killed? How many hunters had he destroyed? How much innocent blood was on his hands? "I'm not so easily won." She knew Lucian would come.
Knew it
.

Jaxon wanted to reach for him, to merge her mind with his, but she was too exhausted. She conserved her energy, certain she would need it soon enough. Whatever the vampire had done to trap Lucian, to delay him, would never hold him.

The wind rushed at her, a whirling minitornado that pushed and tugged at her, attempting to drive her toward the undead. The beauty of his face was beginning to disintegrate, his features going gray and slack, the flesh hanging loosely, as if he couldn't quite be bothered to keep up appearances. The bones of his skull were far more prominent now, his eyes sunken into dark, merciless pits. "You will do as I command."

"You think?" Jaxon began to laugh. "Do you know who he is?"

The vampire stirred, a rippling of his cloak, a gnashing of his teeth. "It does not matter. He will die like those who have come before."

"You really don't know, do you? How funny. He is Lucian. The ancient. The most famous of all hunters." She said it softly, sweetly, her voice nearly as gentle and pure as that she had heard Lucian use.

The vampire went very still except for
a
sudden pronounced tick under his left eye. "Lucian is long dead, I have heard it said. But I do not believe it. It is also said he is one of our kind.
That
I believe."

Jaxon shrugged, a delicate, feminine gesture. "Nevertheless, it is Lucian, and he is a hunter unsurpassed by any other." She lifted her arms just as she felt the connection with her lifemate once more, the complete merging, the strength pouring into her. She caught impressions of a terrible struggle, still fresh in his mind, yet he had been the one to wither the appendage when it had first claimed her, he had aided her in building illusions even as he fought for his life. Again she waved her arms, encompassing the entire surrounding area as she addressed the vampire. "Can't you feel his presence? Can't you feel him? He is everywhere, all at once. All around us. There is no way to defeat one such as Lucian." As she waved her hands, images of Lucian once more appeared in all directions, lined up like paper dolls, standing tall and straight, leaning lazily against the rocks, reaching up toward the clouds, arms dangling at his sides.

"Enough!" the vampire hissed, his voice grating and cracking with his smoldering anger. "I will not be swayed by your childish tricks. Repetition is boring. I am not amused."

"I was not attempting to amuse you," Jaxon said softly. "I was attempting to warn you. There is a difference."

The images of Lucian began to move, at first merely swaying back and forth with the wind, then actually circling, their feet picking up a peculiar dancing rhythm. Immediately the vampire focused on Jaxon, his lips pulling back into a snarl. "How dare you attempt to trick me!" The voice cracked and broke, all gravel and chalkboard. Saliva sprayed into the air as he spat the words at her.

The vampire glared at her, his eyes narrowing to focus on her throat, his expression grim and hateful as he deliberately closed off air to her lungs. Or attempted to. Jaxon merely felt the brush of his evil hands as he tried to strangle her from a distance, but then the grip was gone, and Jaxon watched the vampire's eyes widen in horror, his hands flying up to protect his own throat.

All around them the clones of Lucian began to laugh softly. "You know better than to lay your hand on the lifemate of another. The law is clear and ancient and as old as time itself. I remember you now. Matias. You fought in the battle against the Turks but deserted when the sun began to rise. You sought the earth far too early, and I knew then I would face you in our own battlefield."

The vampire was struggling to remove the invisible hands around his throat. His face was turning purple. All at once he dissolved, only to appear directly behind Jaxon, his arms attempting to whip around her, claws poised at her neck like a knife. The talons hit something solid and snapped off. His arms touched empty space.

Lucian spoke. "You can try, but you know it is futile. I would never allow my lifemate to be touched by one such as you."

Even as the clone spoke, the vampire was struck from behind, the blow delivered with enormous strength, the hand crashing through ribs, tearing through muscle and sinew straight toward the vulnerable heart. The vampire roared with pain and anger, whirling around to face the hunter, abandoning his hope of using Jaxon as a hostage. Some impenetrable force field surrounded the woman, and he had no time to examine it for weaknesses. Right now his life was hanging in the balance. As he turned, he raked out with his poisonous claws, uncaring where he struck, only seeking to inject venom into his adversary. Lucian was not behind him. Facing him were clones, or the illusions of clones. Ten of them standing like statues, no expression on their faces, no movement to betray if any were really alive.

Blood was pouring out of the gaping wound, and the vampire knew if he attempted to take to the air, the hunter could trail him easily. He had no choice but to make a stand and fight his way free. He stepped away from the woman and the compassion and sympathy in her large eyes. Looking at her hurt him, made him weak. She believed him already defeated. He was great and powerful and would not be lessened by a lifemate's belief in the hunter's abilities. Even as he told himself that, he knew he believed himself already defeated by Lucian. No one could destroy or escape such a powerful hunter. It couldn't be done.

Matias swore aloud, the sound of his voice crass and ugly in the clear air the wind of the storm had brought. He heard that jangle, the discordant note he could no longer prevent, no longer control. He saw himself clearly, the flesh sliding from his bones, the jagged, bloodstained teeth, and empty, dead eyes. His head swung from side to side in a desperate attempt to shake the truth from his sight. "Stop it! You are doing this to me, playing tricks in my mind. Is that how you defeat your enemies? Lucian the great. Lucian the powerful. You do not face us as is honorable. You use tricks and illusions."

One of the clones to the vampire's right bowed slightly from the waist. "Do you think to chastise me, old one? You have no honor, and there is no honor in facing one such as you. It is a complete waste of my time."

The vampire's poisonous blood was pouring into the ground, spreading out, searching for victims. It moved slowly, relentlessly toward Jaxon, inching its way as it soaked the ground, seeking her feet. The vampire swung around in a wide circle, allowing his blood to spray in a wide arc so that the droplets would be carried on the wind.

At once another clone lifted an arm and waved his hand casually to still the wind so that the poisonous drops fell to the ground. The paper dolls that were Lucian kept their carefully expressionless masks. Nothing seemed to touch them, to shake them.

The vampire screamed in frustration and hatred, whirling around faster and faster so that he stirred up the wind to a wild twister, blowing with hurricane force at the line of clones surrounding him. The figures shimmered into transparency but never quite dissolved completely. The attack came from above, the bird plummeting from the sky directly over the vampire, into the very core of the cyclone.

Jaxon covered her ears as the shrieking took on new heights, scraping so hideously that she wanted to cry. Tears burned her eyes and tangled in her lashes. She wanted to run, to dissolve into mist and hide in the thick bank of fog. She had complete faith in Lucian, knew he would destroy the ancient vampire, but the unfamiliar sounds and sights of such a battle were terrifying.

Even as the thoughts entered her mind, she felt reassurance and warmth pouring into her. It was odd how much they were connected, how Lucian could be fighting for his life yet still know exactly how she was feeling and seek to soothe her. She knew she loved him at that moment. Really loved him. She wasn't obsessed or crazy or hypnotized. If there was a choice to be made, she would always choose to stay with him, not because of their intense chemistry, but because of who he was. Lucian. Thoughtful and kind and loving. She truly loved him.

The vampire slipped out from under the bottom edge of the whirling tornado, flying straight at Jaxon with his talons curved and sharpened, razor-edged. She stared at him impassively, although her heart was pounding. He intended to rip her heart out, to use her to destroy Lucian, his only real chance for revenge. His gaunt face was slashed with crimson lines; around his neck was a ring of ruby blood. Where his eyes had been were empty, lifeless sockets, bloody pits ravaged by the destroyer.

Even as the vampire launched himself at her, hatred and loathing issuing from his throat, malice in every line on his face, Lucian quietly materialized in front of her, a solid form, immovable, impenetrable, as still as the mountains around them. It happened so fast, the vampire had no time to turn, no time to counter. It impaled itself on Lucian's outstretched hand.