The Keepers (The Alchemy Series) (16 page)

“I
f I do this, I want the tails off me and I’m moving back home. I’m tired of being followed everywhere I go. I’m done with your rules. You want me to be a team player than you better start treating me like one.”

“They aren’t there to watch you. They’re there to protect you.”

“I don’t care. I want them gone.”

He stood there unmoving, and I didn’t know if it was going to go my way or not.

“Fine, but you stay here.”

“No.”

He leaned in, taking a large chunk of my personal space up. Cormac was good at intimidation tactics like that. “I don’t have to negotiate.”

“Considering that you need me, I
think you do.” I knew it, and I’d press for all I could. It was now or never.

He took my chin in a gentle grasp as he tilted my face to his and said in a near whisper, “Don’t push it. I can do this without you being willing.”

“You can?” I asked in a surprised tone not much louder than his.

He nodded.

“Then why haven’t you done it already?”

“That doesn’t matter. Just know that I can.”

I jerked my face out of his grasp. “Fine, but we lose the guards.”

“Fine.”

He picked up the phone on the desk and dialed a number into it. “Tell him that we’re bringing his guy over.” The phone clanked loudly on its holder in the silent room.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Dodd as we entered the empty portal room several hours later. Last time we had been down here, the place had been hop
ping.

“If this goes bad, I want as few witnesses as possible,” Cormac answered for him. “It’s only going to be us three.”

“How ‘bad’ can this go?” It was a little late to ask, but what the hell. I looked at both of them but suddenly they seemed to be too distracted to pay attention. “Oh yes, now I feel good. So, how does this work exactly? Since I never got past getting the balls in the air, I’m not sure what I’m going to be able to do for you guys.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short there darling, you could…” Dodd fell deathly quiet
, and I looked over to see the stare Cormac was leveling at him, his veins twitching. “Oh come on! I was only playing.”

Cormac looke
d back down at the computer in front of him. “Dodd and I are going to try to channel some of your ability.”

“Does that work?”

“Sometimes. I think it will this time. When you were stuck on the ceiling the other night, I drained you, that’s how I got you down.”

I heard what sounded like a giggle from Dodd, and I leveled
my own death stare at him. “I’d shut up before I shoot out your knee caps, again.”

“Really? This is how the night is going to go? You guys need to lighten up. Maybe if you two…”

“Dodd!” Cormac didn’t give him a chance to finish.

“I canceled a d
ate tonight with Vicky for this,” Dodd said.

“I thought Vicky was with you?” I looked over at Cormac.

“She’s mad about you staying at the penthouse,” Dodd now answered for Cormac, who stood silently.

“Why would you date her if she’s involved with Cormac?”

“Cormac gave me the thumbs up. He wasn’t interested in her seriously, and now I get some revenge sex.” I must not have hidden my thoughts well.

“Hey, n
o judgment! You don’t know how hard it is for a guy to turn down revenge sex.”

“Let’s get in position,” Cormac said, as I still grimaced over Dodd’s comments. “Dodd, hold her other hand,” Corm
ac said as he held my right.

“Got it
, Boss.”

There we stood
, lined up in front of where I imagined the portal would open, Cormac on my right and Dodd on my left.

“Jo, just try to stay relaxed. I’d imagine it’s going to feel slightly odd.”

“You’d imagine? You mean you don’t know?”

“No, we
’re flying blind here.”

“Great.”

Cormac closed his eyes and I watched around the room, not sure what I was waiting for. Then I saw it, it looked like a flicker of an electrical charge, the kind you saw when you drag your foot across the carpet or touch something in the dark. But, it didn’t go away; it stayed centered between the monoliths of ebony, flickering. Then it grew, and grew. As it got larger, a gentle breeze filled the room, and blew my hair from my face.

I turned and looked at Cormac
whose eyes were wide open now and focused ahead. Dodd had a similar look upon his face. I watched as this weird entity opened larger and larger, until it took up almost the entire wall, stretching from monolith to monolith. It was actually quite beautiful, and then the oddest thing started to happen, its surface, which had looked sparkly before, started to clear. A shade of lavender shimmered behind the flickering. Then I realized that the portal wasn’t lavender, but the sky of the world I was seeing into. There was a thing I would describe as a moon if I saw it hanging here, but it was enormous compared to Earth’s. A silhouette of a man appeared against the strange sky. He walked toward us, and I felt the room heat up. The heat poured at us in waves. I felt like it was seeping into my bones, like I’d been roasting on the beach with the sun hanging in noon position for five hours straight.

The man slowly emerged clearer into view. He couldn’
t have been more than twenty. He looked like a surfer with shaggy blond locks hanging over one eye. He stepped through the portal and greeted us with a brilliant white smile that could have been on a Crest toothpaste ad.

The portal closed quickly once he stepped through, snapping shut into nothing, but I could feel the energy rolling through the room.
Then it hit me like a punch in the gut. Sweat was streaming down my face and it was an effort to remain upright.

“Did you feel the close?” Cormac asked Dodd.

“No,” he replied a bit ominously, and they both turned and looked at me.

“Get him out of here,” Cormac said stiffly, and Dodd escorted surfer dude out while I struggled to stand.

“How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” I replied through gritted teeth.

“No you aren’t. I think you got the full blast.”

“Huh?” The feeling of
running my intestines through a meat grinder made it hard to concentrate.

“I need to get you upstairs.”

“I’m fine.” Even as I said it, I knew what I must have looked like. I could feel the cold sweat on my face. With the way I was feeling, I knew my skin had probably gone from golden tan, to ashen white. The feeling of vulnerability was suffocating me.

“I know you don’t trust me, but I’m telling you now, you can.”

He put an arm around my waist and tried to help support my weight. I used the last of my strength to pull away. I managed to walk a couple of steps to lean against the nearby wall, feeling too sick to stay upright without some help. I watched him take off his dress shirt and then the white undershirt, and then he shrugged back into his dress shirt. He grabbed his discarded white undershirt and approached me.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything else. It’s clean. I just put it on right before we came down here,” he said before he used it to wipe the sweat from my face. “
Let me help you. I promise, no matter what, I won’t let anything happen to you.” He looked into my eyes then, “You don’t have to believe me. Time will tell.”

“No
, it won’t. I’m not going to be here long enough.”

He didn’t respond, just patted my face with the soft white cotton. It smelled of him, and I liked it. I pushed his hand away.

“You ready? I need to get you out of here now, the longer we wait the worse it will be.”

“Why?” I asked, the pain
seemed to subside slightly, and before he could answer, another round struck me that doubled me over and made me gasp for air.

“That’s why.”

He leaned down and slung my arm around his shoulder, taking practically all my weight. This time I didn’t have it in me to fight. The hallway outside the room was empty, so was the elevator that would take us up several floors, but I’d have to make it out of that one and through the casino hall and into the penthouse elevator, all while appearing normal though my insides now felt like someone had shot napalm into them.

“The doors are going to open in ten seconds. Are you ready? Can you do this?”

I nodded, took a deep breath, and stood up straight.

The walk took forever, or in real time, about three minutes. I just concentrated on not crumbling to the ground, one
foot in front of the other. Cormac had his hand on my back, slightly steering me and it was a godsend. Even though my eyes were open, my entire attention was on not passing out from the pain.

We stepped into the elevator
, and I felt Cormac’s arm go around my waist again and I slumped against him.

“You did good,” he said, and I thought he kissed my head but I wasn’t sure
, in my current state.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked into his shoulder.

“You got too much radiation.”

“I thought radiation was no big deal?”

“Too much of anything can be bad. All three of us were pulling at it, but you absorbed it all. You’ve got an unusually strong pull. I’m so sorry, I had no idea that could happen.”

“Is this going to kill me?”

“No.”

“You don’t know do you?”

“I won’t let it.”             

“How long will this pain last?”

“A day or so, I think. You’re a lot smaller than the guys it has happened to. I don’t know if body weight plays into it.”

When the elevator doors slid
open, he reached down to pull me into his arms.

“No, I can walk.”

He didn’t argue with me, just scooped me up into his arms anyway. I didn’t pay attention as we walked into the penthouse, just leaned against him with my eyes closed, as I tried to ride out another wave of pain.

I f
elt the bed against my legs as he laid me down and then curled onto my side. I felt Cormac’s hands as he pulled off my shoes, and I pulled my knees inward and tucked them up against my body. Curled into a ball in the center of the bed, I opened my eyes when I heard him talking in hushed tones. That’s when I realized I wasn’t in my room, but his.

I tried to sit up,
I needed to get to my own room, but hands pressed me back into the mattress before I made any real progress.

“Jo, I’ve got someone coming to check on you. Just
lie back and relax.”

I didn’t want to
lie back, but the pain gripped me with an iron fist so tightly that I didn’t have a choice.

An undistinguishable
amount of time later, I heard a soft female voice whisper near me. I opened my eyes to see a beautiful brunette with a kind smile hover over me before I shut them again. I felt her soft touch upon my head as she felt for the pulse in my wrist. The hallmark cold metal on my chest told me she was listening to my lungs.

“She’ll be fine. It’s just going to be an unpleasant night for her,” the feminine voice said.

“Isn’t there something you can give her?” Cormac’s voice asked.

“No. It’s not safe with the overload of radiation. Try heating pads or a warm bath. That might help with the muscle spasms.”

“Thanks for coming so quickly, Sabrina.”

“No problem. Call me if anything changes.”

Opening my eyes again in the dim room, I saw Cormac shut the door. It was just the two of us, now.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’m on my deathbed?”

“You’re not dying.”

“I know, but right now, I almost wish I was.”

I closed my eyes and tried to ride
out the pain with as much dignity as I could muster. I felt the mattress near me sink down, strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me into Cormac’s side.

“Just try to relax,” he said.

Even with the pain, my brain was still aware of his hard muscular body lying next to me. His hand was slowly rubbing my back and the pain lessoned its hold slightly.

“Are you doing something?”

“I’m trying to. I can’t take it all from you, but I might be able to take the edge off.”

The last thing I remembered was my cheek resting against an impossibly hard chest. I’m not sure how long I passed out, but I
woke as excruciating pain radiated through the length of me.

I felt Cormac’s heat pressed against me, and I realized he must have stayed with me the whole time, however long that was. My body tensed with the next wave
of pain, and I felt Cormac move out from under me. My fingers gripped his shirt without meaning to.

“I’ll be right back.”

For the first time in a long while, I was truly scared to be alone, and I really started to wonder if I was, indeed, dying. I heard the water running in the adjoining bathroom, and I couldn’t help but resent that I while I lay in pain caused by helping him, he was showering.