My Merlin Awakening (23 page)

“Giving up on me so easily, grandmother,” Oliver said from the doorway.

“Son,” Rourke said.

“This just keeps getting better,” Vane muttered.

Oliver’s eyes glittered. “What an interesting bit of family history. My mother always assumed my father must have begotten a bastard since she knew he’d always been in love with another. This I could not have imagined.” His eyes turned to me. “Not that it matters. Soon I shall have everything I deserve. I have this place surrounded. Give me the snake.”

“I don’t think so.” Vane moved quicker than I could see. He shot a fireball at the doorway. The building shook. The thousand-year-old walls shuddered as they might have on the day the great volcano erupted. The doorway crumpled. Vane looked up and muttered a magic word. A breeze spun around him and grew until it became a tornado. Vane flexed his hand and the tornado exploded into a wave. Every single pipe that held up the steel roof began to collapse. Shouts came from the other side.

“Everyone! Gather in the middle,” Matt ordered.

“We have to take Colin. The other gargoyles hold him in high respect. He is the key. If he follows you, the rest will submit,” Deirdre said. She looked at Grey. “Please, grandson.”

Making a face, Grey picked up the unconscious gargoyle. Blake and Gia ran up. Sylvia helped Rourke cross the room.

“Hold on to each other,” Matt said and grabbed my arm. He held his other hand out to Blake. The others followed suit. We gathered in a tight circle. Vane grabbed me around the waist.

He looked at Matt. They said together, “
Upari.
”

We floated up in the air and out of the hole. Beneath us, the roof much like crumpled aluminum sank on top of the city.

“Buried once more,” Rourke murmured.

“I don’t think anyone will notice the hole now,” Blake added.

Matt and Vane carried us to the first available spot on the ground. With a sigh of relief, Matt let go of my arm. Vane sat on the ground, breathing hard.

Rourke gazed over the crushed mess. Deirdre put her hand on his shoulder.

“I doubt they’re dead,” Matt said. “There are too many buildings to provide them cover.”

Vane flexed his hand. “I can take care of that.”

“No,” Rourke said. “I cannot kill my son.”

“I don’t care,” Vane snapped.

Matt put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “They’re trapped. That’s enough.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Let’s see if this has been worth it.” Matt held out his hand.

I held onto the snake. “You can’t drink this. You have no idea what it will do.”

“I’m the only one who has visions. You know I’m the only one who can do this.” Matt slipped the snake out of my hand. He cupped one hand and poured out a few drops. Congealed, brownish-red goo came out. Matt put his palm to his mouth. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, he rocked back on his heels and his whole body trembled.

The snake fell from his hands. Vane caught it before it could hit the ground.

Matt threw his hands to the sides of his head. He fell to his knees. Inside my head, he screamed.

I gasped at the sound. Unrelenting, it went on. I would have fallen too, but Vane grabbed me. I turned my face into his chest. My eyes squeezed shut and I screamed silently because the sound was too big for my vocal chords. Images flashed inside my head. Not soft, pretty images, but hard, jagged ones, each one piercing through the delicate folds of my brain. Through murky water, I saw mountains and valleys made of rock and a rainbow of different fish and sea creatures. The flap of a winged seahorse flew over an underwater island. Two pillars. The island floating atop it. A crimson gate marked with gold carvings. A blue monkey that laughed and laughed and laughed.

A monster with glowing eyes and the face of a bull smiled with yellow teeth. He licked his lips as if he could see me. Saliva dripped from his mouth.
“I wait for you
,” he whispered.

I froze in place.

“Blood! It’s coming out of their ears!” I heard Gia yell from far away.

In the dark of my brain, I ran from the monster. I ran and ran out of a tunnel until I found myself on a white beach.

Matt stared out at a naked woman singing and frolicking in the water. He took a few steps toward her. The Siren smiled, showing off razor-sharp fangs. I tackled Matt in the water before he could reach her. The Siren shrieked in anger. We fell backwards on the beach. Water lapped my thighs as I straddled him. His eyes were closed.

“Wake up, Matt,” I shouted at him. “Get us out of here.”

His eyes opened and I gasped. His eyes were completely gray. No pupil, no cornea, no iris, just gray. Behind us, the Siren laughed. I looked up. The edges of the sky turned dark and the world started to shrink.

We were running out of time.

“Snap out of it, Matt.” I clutched his shirt and shook him. Nothing happened. I hit him as hard as I could across the face. Nothing happened.

The sky shrank more and more. It weighed down. I glanced behind me. The Siren had disappeared. Everything disappeared but the beach. Only an inky blackness filled the space and it closed in on us with an overbearing malice. I knew, without a doubt, it meant to suffocate us and I had no idea how to stop it.

“Matt, come on!” I shook him with desperation. He lay unmoving, his head halfway into the water, his skin blue with cold, his eyes lost to life. I put my hands on the side of his face.

Around us, the black seeped closer. The aperture shut.

Matt!
My soft plea was the last ember in a dying fire. Leaning down, I brushed my lips against his cold ones. Sudden heat burned my neck. The amulet sparked to life. I moved to sit up, but a hand tangled in my hair and pulled me back down.

“Matt,” I said happily.

He smashed my lips against his. His tongue dove into my mouth, exploring it, licking it, devouring the life from every molecule. My fingers wound in his hair. I held on, allowing him to take what he needed until nothing inside me remained. I slumped on top of him and tried not to pass out. Matt sat up, his arm going around my shoulder to hold me to his chest. Little more than a ragdoll, my face fell against the crook of his neck. He raised his other hand and a brilliant, blue light flew out of it.

Through blurry eyes, I saw the blue light force back the darkness. It grew brighter and brighter until it surrounded us. So bright, I couldn’t see anymore.

In a blink, we were back on the grounds by the ruin.

Except I wasn’t in Vane’s arms, I was in Matt’s. We sat on the ground in the same position as we’d been on the beach. Matt held me in his lap and I couldn’t move. Every bone and muscle in my body ached.

With effort, I compelled my eyes to focus. I looked around me. Deirdre. Rourke. Sylvia. Grey. Blake. Gia. They all looked shocked and alternately, uncomfortable. They’d seen it all. They’d seen me… and Matt. Last of all, I met Vane’s eyes and my heart broke a little.

Vane didn’t say anything. Just walked off.

***

Gia broke the silence first. “That was seriously hot.”

I put a pillow over my face and groaned. “I hate myself.”

“Don’t stop drinking.” Gia handed me a glass filled with some kind of green vitamin drink.

I eyed the glass. Matt had forced the concoction on me. It tasted like seaweed, but with every sip I took, strength returned to me. I’d drunk four so far, plus eaten dinner. We’d come back to the house in Fira. Although I could barely stand, I took a really long shower. No more baths for me.

Vane had not ridden back with us. I’d seen the tracks of an ATV driving off toward the coast. I’d wanted to follow him, but Grey had stopped me.

“Give the bro some time,” were his exact words.

Even if I’d insisted, I couldn’t have followed him. My body felt leeched of all energy.

That was two hours ago, and I had yet to hear the growl of another ATV returning to the house. I stared out at the emerging night sky, a heavy shade of dark blue, hardening quickly into inky black.

I couldn’t even look at Matt. I didn’t want to see what emotions lay in his eyes. I couldn’t allow myself to get sucked back in. It had been too painful letting him go in the first place. I’d built a wall around those feelings, making them impossible to breach, or so I’d thought.

The one silver lining in all this was Colin. To Grey’s consternation, the big gargoyle had taken to following him around like a puppy that had misbehaved and wouldn’t stop until he got a pat of forgiveness.

“I thought I would die when you straddled him. And that kiss…” Gia plopped down next to me with a sigh. “I thought he was going to eat you up.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said.
Except I think he might have.

There was a perfunctory knock sounded at the door before it burst open. Blake poked his head inside. “He’s figured it out.”

Gia and I jumped up from the bed. We ran after Blake down a narrow stairway and into one of the four living rooms in the house. We went in one with wall-to-wall books. Matt and Rourke poured over marine navigation charts of the surrounding sea on a long wooden desk. Matt was standing and leaned over the table, while Rourke sat opposite him in front of several LCD screens.

“You found it?” I said, coming to a breathy stop in front of Matt. Gia slipped on the stone floor and bumped into me from behind, then right into Matt.

“Sorry,” Gia cried.

Matt caught my elbows. Our eyes met for a brief second. His appeared deep and dark, laced with longing.

Rourke cleared his throat.

I forced myself to straighten and took a step away. I studied the lines marked by highlighters on the charts. “This is what we saw in the vision?”

There was a pause before Matt answered, “I drew out all the images and Blake scanned them into the computer.”

“I told him to use the iPad,” Blake muttered behind me. “I had the perfect app.”

“I can magic paper,” Matt said in exasperation. “I can’t magic that… machine.”

Gia and I looked at each other. Gia rolled her eyes. Matt had adapted so well to life in our time that it was a bit adorable when his medieval upbringing slipped through. He hated using tech, only reluctantly carrying a cellphone. The exception was his bike—he worshiped the Ducati.

“I had to guess at few of the formations, but we do have a location,” Rourke said.

Matt stared at the sea charts. “I want Ryan to review them. She saw them too.”

Rourke pushed a button and underwater images played in sequence on the giant screen TV. I murmured along with the shifting images of rock formations. “Past the caldera. A pointed mountain with a face. A valley with a doughnut rock outcropping and rainbow-colored fish. Another mountain with flatter rocks and deeper in the water. Wait—”

I looked at Matt. “Are you sure this is the right one? I thought the rocks were even flatter.”

Rourke shrugged. “This one best matches the description and it’s just past the location from the last sequence.”

It went for another five sequences until the clip stilled. There was one other questionable match I pointed out. Finally, the video paused on a blank area of water.

“In the Calypso Deep,” Rourke said. “Just on the other side of Greece in the Ionian Sea.”

“And that’s it? Gia said.

“Marked by two pillars, a gateway to the island,” Matt said.

“What about the monster?” I asked.

Blake frowned at me. “What monster?”

An image of calm waters showed on the screen, but somewhere in the deep dark, I’d seen the glowing eyes of a bloodthirsty monster. “I think it was a Minotaur. I can’t be sure.”

“It makes sense,” Rourke said. “The Minotaur dates back to the same time as Thera. It is Minoan, but the stories say it roamed a labyrinth under Crete, not Thera.”

Blake made a face. “Didn’t the Minotaur eat people?”

“I didn’t see a Minotaur. I did see a naked Siren,” Matt said.

“Funny, I see one right here,” a slightly slurred voice came from the opened glass doors that led out to the pool. Vane slowly walked inside. His eyes locked on me. They narrowed when he saw Matt and me standing together. “Sure, you can be so close to him without throwing your clothes off?”

“Are you drunk?” I said.

“Do you have the snake?” Matt asked.

“Of course I do.” Vane reached inside his pocket and brought it out. He brandished it unsteadily in the air.

Matt waved his hand and the snake flew from Vane to him. “I think it’s best I keep it.”

“You always know what’s best.” Vane sauntered over to Rourke’s desk and sat on its edge. He picked up an iPad and flipped through Matt’s scanned images. He turned on the monitor by Rourke and started tapping away on its touchscreen.

“What are you doing?” Rourke said. “We’ve spent hours collating these.”

“I’m seeing if you’ve done it right,” Vane said.

Rourke opened his mouth in protest.

I held up my hand. “Let Vane check. He’s the best at this.”

“I’m touched to have such a supportive girlfriend,” Vane said dryly.