Ensnared (Sorcery and Science Book 5) (4 page)

“Go easy on him, Jason. You know how he looks up to you,” she said.

“I know.” He sighed. “I’ll be back soon.”

“And Jason,” Lana said quickly. “Please don’t do anything rash.”

Jason swept his hand across the stone. The sand poured over the edges like rainbow waterfalls, plunging down through the floor grates that surrounded the slab.

Lana knew him too well. But she didn’t understand why he had to do this, how necessary it was to end this odious experiment, whatever the cost. He, Lana, and their little band were still Elitions, whether or not they were officially recognized as part of the kingdoms anymore. This was mercy.

Once outside, he paced before the entrance to the temple, then stopped. Then, setting gloved hands upon his cropped hair, he stared out with wide eyes at the gargantuan walls, seemingly unyielding. As his eyes blackened further, smoldering over, burning his sockets with cold fire, the stones began to buzz, then tremble. Finally, they collapsed into a heap of cracked and crumbled rubble, burying all inside.

CHAPTER THREE

~
Sexy Pirate ~

526AX August 17, Eclipse

LANA SNOW WAS as different from her brother Jason as a Rev refugee was from a Selpe lord. In fact, Everett found her to be very un-Elition. And that was a good thing.

Not that he hated Elitions. He liked young Cameron and thought Isis was amusing. But even though Jason Chanz had also joined in their recent trek through the Elition Wilderness, the assassin still gave Everett goosebumps. In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised him if Jason decided that things would be much simpler without a human in their hidden Elition village. And that would be the end of Everett Black, Rev mercenary. Everett was a capable sword fighter and a very good shot, but he had no delusions of actually surviving a duel to the death with the world’s most notorious assassin.

While not as menacing as Jason, most Elitions stuck closely to their own kind. Whenever Everett passed one on the streets of Eclipse, they gaped pointedly in his direction but said nothing. As he preferred being ignored to being attacked, he chose not to be offended. Elitions might look pretty, but every last one of them was trained to fight. This training combined with superhuman senses, strength, and speed meant Everett wouldn’t be picking a fight with any of them anytime soon. As an added bonus, every Elition came with extra abilities. Phantoms like Jason could toss opponents across the room with a mere thought. Apparently, they could also read minds, but Everett was trying hard not to think about that just now.

Lana had told him she was a Cipher, an Elition puzzle solver. That sounded pretty innocuous to him. And unlike many of her fellow Elitions of Eclipse, she even went out of her way to make him feel welcome. Each day after sunrise, she joined him for tea at his table on the wood-planked terrace outside the Eclipse temple.

“What?” he said in response to her amused smile that sunny August morning.

Lana had a tendency to study his face as though she were reading his history in it. Hmm, maybe a Cipher wasn’t so innocuous after all.

She lifted her maroon mug to her lips, hiding her smile behind the ceramic wall. “Nothing.”

Right. Her emerald eyes twinkled with a joke. He’d clearly missed the punchline.

“Spit it out, sister.”

Lana’s head tilted in confusion. “I am not your sister.”

“It’s just a
—
oh, never mind.” Everett shook his head and took a sip from his own mug. “I was wondering what is amusing you this fine morning.”

“Do you remember Aura and Harmony?”

Of course he remembered them. He’d fallen on the two women during the morning’s Rising of the Sun Dance, the complex sequence of gravity-defying stretches the Elitions of Eclipse performed to start each day. He and headstands did not mix. Aura and Harmony had the misfortune of being too close to him when he’d arrived at that jolly conclusion.

“I hope they’re not hurt,” Everett said.

“Naturally not. We Elitions heal fast.”

Fast healing, another item on the very long list of Elition super skills.

“Were they offended by my tumble then?”

“No.” She tried to blank her face, but unlike her brother, she hadn’t quite mastered the skill. A single chuckle broke through her lips. “They like you.”

“Sorry, what?”

“They like you.”

“Like as in
like
?”

Lana pressed her trembling lips tightly together and nodded. She looked ready to burst open with laughter.

“They think you’re a sexy pirate,” she told him.

“And you find that funny?”

She hugged her shaking shoulders and nodded vigorously.

Everett thought that over for a moment, then said, “Well, I suppose that’s much better than being called a stupid pirate.”

The tremors finally broke forth in an explosion of laughter. Everett looked upon her and smiled. That was precisely why he liked Lana. She did not view humor as a weakness to be stomped into oblivion.

“Jason,” Lana said, staring past Everett’s shoulder. She quickly gathered up the remnants of her laughter.

Everett followed her gaze. There he stood, looking as stoic as ever as he stared up the temple steps. Jason Chanz. His cold eyes were even blacker than his black clothing. They were blacker than his black knives. Most people would have taken one look at him and run the other way, but not Lana. She pushed her chair back and hurried toward him.

As soon as she reached him, Lana threw her arms open and embraced her brother. Jason uncrossed his arms and wrapped them around her. It was an uncharacteristically gentle gesture from the assassin. Lana squeezed him for a moment longer, then punched him hard in the shoulder.

Jason stepped back and blocked her next blow. He caught her hand around the wrist and waited while she shuffled her weight around in a futile attempt to pummel him. Everett moved to the edge of the terrace for a better look.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked once she had stopped moving.

She pushed back from him. “A day, Jason. Twenty-four hours.” She pushed an angry finger in his face. “That’s how long it’s been since you contacted me from the Temple of the Veil.”

“It’s usually much longer.”

Lana frowned.

“I have even gone months without checking in.”

Everett shook his head. Jason had no trouble killing people, but talking to them was another matter altogether.

“Jason,” she said slowly, then stopped to take a deep breath. “The last news I had from you was that you were in a temple full of Elition children being drugged and brainwashed into living weapons. And then nothing. For over twenty-four hours. It shouldn’t have taken half that time for you to get back to Eclipse.”

Jason looked her in the eye. The obsidian faded to very dark brown. “You were worried.”

“Yes.” She exhaled. “I was worried.”

“There was no need to be. I’ve been through far worse. I am no stranger to danger.”

“Precisely my point. I’m worried one time you won’t make it out at all.”

Jason squeezed her tightly. “Don’t worry. It’s been five years, and I have yet to be captured or seriously hurt.”

Five years as an assassin without incident. It was an impressive track record. Given the nature of their work, assassins tended not to last very long. All it took was a target with a better fighter for a bodyguard, and that was the end. And for one who worked alone as Jason did, it might just be a matter of numbers. A few good bodyguards could be enough to overpower him.

Or just one crazy, red-eyed Siennan named Nemesis. Everett had seen her fight Isis, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit he would rather run than go head-to-head with that demonic Triad. Even Jason seemed wary of her, and he wasn’t usually afraid of anyone.

“You may have survived your profession so far, but as I always tell you, dear brother, there is a first time for everything.” Lana sighed. “May I see the book?”

Jason pulled a heavy brown book stitched together with gold threading out of his backpack and handed it to her. Lana brushed her finger across the bumpy leather cover with reverence. Everett knew Jason had run off after a rare Elition book that would somehow help him find his lost friend Terra Cross. He didn’t know how this book would help Jason, but he could safely bet his extensive weapons collection that it involved magic. Elition things
always
involved magic.

“The Book of Vision.” She turned it over in her hands. “Do you want me to store it in the library with the Book of Memory?”

Everett had already figured out that Jason had stolen the Book of Memory from the Selpes when they’d been in Orion last week. Blaring sirens had gone off just as they were trying to make a stealthy exit—before the Diamond Edges could arrest them. The sirens were in response to Jason’s theft. Everett was still not too pleased about that.

“Yes, put it there for now,” Jason told her. “I have a lead on the Book of Prophecy. Shade says it should be at Precipice. That’s why I was delayed in returning here. I paid him a visit up in Knell Woods.”

Everett knew of Knell Woods. A few months ago, the kooky Elition who had hired him to rescue Hayden and Ian Selpe had told him to go there once he had the princes. Moments after Everett’s team had rescued the boys, Selpe soldiers had stormed the scene with their airship, so that had never happened. Everett wondered if the Elition he’d met in Cypress and this Shade was the same person. Not that he planned on asking Jason. The assassin wasn’t the sort of person to take kindly to speculation. Everett would be better off asking Lana instead.

“When will you leave for Precipice?” asked Lana.

“Immediately.”

“I’m ready,” Cameron called out as he trotted down the mud path toward them, dressed in outdoor trekking wear and loaded down with a bulging backpack.

Jason’s face shifted neutral, and Lana turned her head to hide a wide smile.

“It’s dangerous,” Jason warned him.

Cameron pouted his lips out in stubborn defiance. “I’m going.”

“You should let him go with you,” Lana said.

Jason glared at her. “You are
not
helping.” He turned to Cameron. “You don’t even know Terra.”

Cameron looked at Jason as though he were as dense as a stone. “And?”

Jason shook his head slowly, his face still unreadable. “Fine, you may come. But if you do anything foolish, I can and will send you straight back here.”

As Cameron nodded happily, Jason drilled a hard look into Lana. Everett figured this was as good a time as any to hop down from the terrace and join the fray.

“I’m coming too,” he announced.

Unlike Cameron’s declaration, Everett’s words did elicit a response from the assassin. Jason lowered his hand to one of this throwing knives.

“Why?”

That was a good question. Everett looked at Lana, then across all of Eclipse. As a Rev, he was a hunted man, and the Elitions of that town had given him sanctuary. That meant something. It meant a lot. He would help them out, reward or no reward. At least this once.

“Does it matter?”

“You are a mercenary. You chase bounties.” Jason’s eyes blackened. “And Terra has a very big bounty on her head.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred thousand Crowns.”

Everett whistled. Only Jason was worth more. Last he’d heard, it was up to half a million Crowns. But no one was dumb enough to try to collect on that bounty.

“Alive or dead?”

Jason didn’t even blink. “Alive and unharmed. They want to pump her full of drugs and force her to see the future for them.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

Everett felt his stomach churn. No more than a kid in his book. They
—
whoever they were
—
would torture and drug her. Everett was not generally one to take jobs based on their moral merits, but even he had lines he would not cross. He wouldn’t sell a seventeen-year-old girl, whose only crime was a gift for seeing the future, into perpetual slavery.

“No,” he told Jason. “They won’t.”

That seemed to satisfy the assassin. He’d probably just read Everett’s mind. Awesome.

“Ok, time to go before Lana decides she wants to add herself to the number of people I must babysit,” said Jason.

Lana’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. Then who would be left to stay behind and worry about you, Jason?”

CHAPTER FOUR

~
Precipice ~

526AX August 18, Precipice

EVERETT STOOD ATOP a rocky cliff, staring down. Way below, waves rolled up on the beach, foaming and swirling patterns in the gravel sand. Beside him, Cameron’s neck stretched out, peering over the edge in wonder. The crazy kid was probably fantasizing about jumping. Everett shivered as a bone-chilling breeze bit through his paper-thin shell jacket.

A few paces away, Jason glared at them, his arms folded across his chest. Thanks to the death march he’d set—and a little help from two portals—their trip to Precipice hadn’t even taken a day. So far, the journey had been uneventful, but who knew what lay within the spiky towers of the temple built into the drab grey rock face. Everett just wanted to sit still for a few minutes and eat a damn sandwich. From the way Cameron was stealing covetous looks at Everett’s backpack, he shared the sentiment. If you could count on Cameron for anything, it was his insatiable appetite. The kid was always hungry.

Everett reached into his bag and pulled out three packed sandwiches. Cameron accepted his gladly, gobbling it down as Everett offered Jason one. The assassin glared at the proffered food in Everett’s extended hand as though to say, ‘You come any closer with that sandwich, and I’ll strangle you with it’.

Everett shrugged and tossed the sandwich to Cameron, who finished it off with unabated fervor. When they’d both eaten
—
and Jason had glared a whole lot more
—
Everett brushed the crumbs off his legs and stood up. Jason turned his back on them and set off toward the temple, forcing them to scramble to catch up. A flock of seagulls swooped in on the crumb-coated rock they’d sat upon during their quick snack. The birds pecked and hopped, fighting over the sparse crumbs as though their lives depended on it. Looking around at the barren landscape, Everett was pretty sure they did.