He had expected a real high, a warrior’s high. He had looked forward to it. Instead a terrible emptiness followed, something he had forgotten.
He thumbed Central and spoke to Jeannie. Two seconds later a bright flash and all the gore disappeared.
Maybe there had been more than one reason why he’d exiled himself to Mortal Earth.
* * *
Kerrick opened his eyes as he flexed his right arm. He had a clear view of an alley and everything looked quiet, but his mind fuzzed in and out like a computer screen hit with a virus. He couldn’t place his current location. Damn.
It was still dark, though. Somehow, that was a good thing. His back, his left hip, and his left knee hurt like hell. He looked at his arm again then wondered why he wasn’t covered in blood from all the fighting.
What fighting?
Sudden images flashed over his brain. Oh, yeah. He’d been battling Leto and a host of death vamps, twelve if he remembered right. He had worked hard to shift the battle away from the Trough and then the ground had dropped out from under him anyway.
He’d fallen … a long way.
Oh, yeah. He’d been dumped. Hence, the absence of blood and sweat. Traveling through a dimension like that, instead of just folding, had a cleansing effect on the clothes and the body, like he’d showered up and put on fresh gear.
Now he was on Mortal Earth.
He just couldn’t exactly remember why he was here. He had a mission, but what?
More images crowded his mind.
A woman and his sword rattling on the ground.
He sniffed the air. He smelled something very familiar. He lifted his arm and dragged his nostrils over his skin. A rich scent hit him like he’d walked into a perfume shop. Lavender. A woman, not any woman, his woman, Alison—yes, her name was Alison. She had touched him recently, within the past few minutes.
In exactly how many dimensions was that even possible?
The scent of lavender took him on a rocket ride and he hardened painfully. A moan drifted out of his mouth. He ran his tongue over his lips. He tasted blood not his own.
His breath stopped. This was her blood. Oh, God, how had he gotten her blood on his tongue? He knew it as though he’d read her DNA signature a thousand times.
Oh. My. God.
He remembered now. She had pressed his lips back and touched one of his fangs a little too hard and pierced her skin. He had sucked her finger.
The blood on his tongue sent him spiraling into a cursed need to commune with her. His fangs thickened in his gums. He swallowed potent saliva. He throbbed everywhere.
But what the hell was she doing in this alley below the Trough? He was at the downtown Phoenix Borderland. Still night. A Borderland. The Trough. Alison.
Shit. Of course. Her call to ascension. The sand of the wash shooting up into the air.
He took deep breaths and calmed his body.
He had to think straight. He wouldn’t be mate-bonding with this woman. He’d taken vows. Never again would he put a woman’s life in jeopardy because of a mating. Never.
Yet by some wretched twist of fate she’d been plummeted into the danger of his world, on his watch, and now it was up to him to keep her alive.
He sat up and rubbed his neck. He could feel his bruised bones knitting together rapidly and his muscles and skin repairing at lightning speed. Christ, his head still felt thick. He shoved a hand through the loose strands of his hair, pushing it away from his face. He drew the pick from the cadroen then rebound his hair.
He was in Phoenix One, all right, below the Trough to Second Earth, one of several favorite descent points of the pretty-boy bloodsuckers. Oh, shit, he could feel the air above him start to pulse.
Yep. Leto and his playmates were on the way, only this time they’d be armed to the teeth. Swords were the only battle weapons allowed on Two. On Mortal Earth, however, there were no limits, with the exception of atomics and full regiments.
If he didn’t take action, he and Alison would be toast in little less than a minute.
So where was she?
He could feel her presence now as well as smell her. Even her heartbeats sounded in his ears.
He gave his head a shake and cleared away the last remaining aftereffects of the fall.
He drew in a sharp breath. His nostrils flared. Her scent stroked him again. In twelve hundred years he had never been so affected by a woman, but Alison was a perfect mate, designed to torture him even at inconvenient times. Her pheromones charged the air and dragged over his skin like sharp, erotic fingernails. So this was what the breh-hedden did to a man? And just how easy was this going to be to disengage? Holy hell.
He paused. He reached out with his mind, located her, then turned around on the hood of the car, crouching low. He looked through the windshield.
Time once again slowed to a standstill.
There she was staring at him, her large blue eyes opened in surprise. Sweet merciful God. He wanted her. He wanted her like he had never wanted a woman before, like he had just figured out what woman was.
Heat and desire cascaded off her body in brilliant red waves. His lips curved. The not-so-subtle mating experience was apparently mutual.
As cold air spilled over the car, he drew his mind out of his present need. He had to get Alison to safety … now.
He rolled off the hood then picked up his sword. He caught her gaze again as he rounded the driver’s side. She tracked his moves and stared at him unblinking. Her lips were parted in a soft expression of shock.
He strode to the door then jerked it open. “Move over … now … or we’ll both be dead in about twenty seconds.”
She compressed her lips and searched his face. He could see her mind spinning, processing. A moment later she slid her backside over the lump of her purse, which she tossed into the backseat, then latched her seat belt like her fingers were on fire.
He folded his sword back to the locked case in his basement before he climbed into the driver’s seat. As he slid in, his knees hit the steering wheel. He moved the seat back with a swift jerk but even then he barely fit into the confined space.
He looked at her as he started the ignition with a touch of his finger. “Let me say this again: whatever you do, don’t handle another warrior’s sword. They’re forged to individual recognition and if you touch one, other than your own, you’ll die. Got it?”
He hoped the woman had good instincts. If she was able to blast a hole in another dimension, she ought to. On the other hand, instincts often went to character and right now he knew nothing about this woman except of course that he wanted to be inside her, like now.
“Got it,” she said. She finally blinked.
He met her gaze. He hoped like hell she had a sense of humor because damn, she was going to need it over the next few days. Okay, hours. Whether she understood it or not, her life had just been blown all to hell.
He put the gearshift in reverse, stepped hard on the gas, and began backing up.
Slowly.
He gripped the steering wheel and withheld a lengthy string of expletives.
The car chugged along like it had all night and all day to get out of the alley.
Dammit.
He hit the steering wheel. “What the hell is this?” he cried.
“Well, it’s a 1993 Nova,” she said. “Top speed sixty if you don’t mind the shaking.”
“We’re screwed.”
He kept backing up anyway. He ground his teeth. If he’d been able to fold, as any proper resident of Second was able to do, then he could have just put a hand on her and taken her to his house in Queen Creek. Now his safety and hers depended on a junk pile gaining speed like a tortoise headed for a siesta.
Goddammit.
* * *
Alison stared at her warrior-vampire-guardian as he drove the Nova backward down the alley. The desert couldn’t have been drier than her mouth and her chest fired off heartbeats like rounds of ammunition. “So what is it? Are the death va
mps on their way?”
He shot his gaze to hers. “So you do remember?”
“I found the memories you took, so yeah, I remember the battle at the medical complex.”
“Christ,” he muttered. He slung his arm across the back of her seat as he looked through the rear window and guided the car at an increasing speed toward the street. “And yes, the death vamps are on the way.”
“Exactly how many?”
“At least three, maybe more.”
“But they’ll fall like you so we’ll have more time. Right? They’ll be hurt? They’ll need time to recover?”
He shook his head. “Nope. They’ll float down and they’ll most likely have a bomb with them.”
“A bomb.” Her breath came out in one long slow drag. “You know, you’re kind of scaring me.”
“Good.”
He backed into the street, the wheels squealing as he made a turn. He shifted to drive and once again the car lurched forward at a snail’s pace. He hit the steering wheel a couple more times and appeared to work his mouth over another obscenity or two. He moved into the sparse three AM traffic.
“Watch behind,” he said, “and tell me what happens.”
Just as Alison turned around to look out the rear window, a loud explosion ripped the air. Her whole body jerked in response.
“There’s smoke and fire, stuff flying everywhere,” she cried. “What was that?”
“A nifty little bomb called a shredder. It’s full of shrapnel and, when tossed in grenade fashion, explodes in a pre-set direction. One of the Commander’s little creations.”
The Commander again. Darian. Her Darian. The psychopath who talked about his fantasy kills the way most people described a family dinner. She shuddered all over again.
“We wouldn’t have survived if we’d been back there.”
“Blown to bits.”
She glanced at him. Her heart seized. What did this mean? “So Darian, the Commander, wants me dead?”
He nodded. “Yes, but keep watching. Tell me what else you see.”
She arched around again and sucked in a quick breath. “There are three men, one as big as you and the other two are like the death vampire at the medical complex. No wings, though.”
She turned to face him again. “Will they come after us? The men on the street?”
The Nova reached top speed and started rattling, but the warrior kept his foot to the pedal.
He shook his head. His arms and shoulders both relaxed. “No. High-speed chases aren’t allowed on Mortal Earth.”
“They won’t be sprouting wings?”
“Nope. No wings, which was why I’d been sent to the medical complex earlier. Our Second Earth technology picks up wings-in-flight pretty fast. The death vampire had been flapping his black pair for quite some time before I got there.”
Alison strove to calm her heart down. “So what are you doing here? I mean, you were at my office complex this evening, then at the club, now here you are.”
He glanced at her. “I’m here to protect you, Alison, as best I can while you go through the ascension process. I’m here to serve as your guardian.” He glanced in the rearview. “Have we left them behind?”
Alison turned around and scanned the street. The car had covered at least a mile and a half. Maybe more. He had the Nova at full throttle now and the car shook almost as badly as her legs. She could barely see remnants of the explosion at that distance.
“All clear.”
“Good.” He breathed a heavy sigh and eased off the gas a little. The shimmy evened out and the engine no longer sounded like it was being strangled. “Thank God.”
She felt numb and her mind had stopped working. She placed her palms on her legs and rubbed back and forth trying to ease the shaking. Could her life get any more bizarre?
“So let me understand,” she said, her throat in a knot. “We’re talking same earth, different dimensions, right?”
“Yes, Mortal Earth and Second Earth, but there are four more dimensions … that we know of.”
Okaaaay. “Just so I’ve got this straight, were you fighting several death vamps just a few minutes ago? And was one of them called ‘Leto’?”
“Yes.” He glanced at her again, his eyes wide. “How the hell do you know that?”
Her gaze skated back to the street. Only a handful of cars were out and about at this hour, cops and bad guys, and apparently vampire warriors and novice ascenders. Her brain felt fuzzy, disordered. “I think I heard the battle or at least part of it.”
“I guess you did.”
“I wish my legs would stop shaking.”
“Breathe,” he said.
For the next minute she focused on breathing, one in, one out. One in. One out. When her legs had settled down, she asked, “So why aren’t you dead? I mean, I watched you fall out of the sky and you landed on my car.” She waved in the direction of the battered hood. “There’s the proof.”
“The ascended heal quickly in most situations.”
She put a hand to her chest, knowing she had to make her confession. “I think I should tell you … I sent a blast from my hand up into the sky, back at the alley, I mean.”
“I know. I saw the results.”
She turned toward him. “So, I have to know … did I hurt you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You were unconscious after you crashed down on my hood.” She had just voiced her deepest fear, and her heart hammered out a few more loud beats.
“You think you caused my fall?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled. “The two events aren’t connected. The truth is, I got dumped. The woman in charge, Endelle, sent me into the Trough—the space between dimensions—so that I could get to you before anyone else. It makes for a quick trip but it hurts like hell.”
She nodded. She even managed to breathe a small sigh of relief. “So exactly how did Endelle send you into the Trough?”
“The same way you brought the statue into your hand earlier tonight. She just thought the thought.”
“She must be powerful.”
“You have no idea. Endelle is very old and should have ascended to an Upper Dimension long before this. She’s the Supreme High Administrator for all of Second Earth.”
“I have so many questions and you can answer them now, right? Unlike at the medical complex?”
He nodded. “Yes, because you answered your call to ascension.”
Call to ascension. The words spun around in her head. So, she had done it. She had answered her “call to ascension.” “So exactly what does this mean?”
He looked straight ahead and his voice dropped a notch or two. “Once a mortal answers a call to ascension, he or she begins the rite of ascension, a period of time that lasts three days, no more, no less, during which the ascendiate, if powerful, is vulnerable to attack, just like what happened in the alley.”
“So for the next three days I’ll be attacked?”
He nodded slowly. “Probably, but that’s why I’m here, to see you through.”
She felt queasy but ignored the sensation. “What happens at the end of the three days?”
“There will be an ascension ceremony, probably conducted by Endelle—again because you are so powerful—during which time you will profess your loyalty to her and to Second Society. She will then give you the power of Second Earth, through her hands, by which you will be permanently ascended.”
“And once I’m ascended, I won’t be attacked.”
“No. At least those are the rules. So far the Commander abides by the rules, although I’ll apologize up front about this despicable ‘trial period.’ Once you’re ascended, however, you won’t be hunted like this. You’ll take up your place in society in whatever way Endelle wants you to begin your service, and you’ll be left alone.”
Alison pondered what he’d said. “I guess what I don’t understand is why Darian wants me dead. It makes no sense. It’s not as though I’m a warrior or any
kind of real threat to him.”
When he didn’t answer right away, she glanced at him. His jaw flexed several times like he was grinding his teeth.
“Tell me, Kerrick. I have a right to know.”
He eased back on the gas, signaled then turned left onto a residential street. He parked beneath a spindly palo verde tree. He shut off the engine. “All right, here it is. We’re at war, Alison, not a declared war like World War Two or anything like that but war nonetheless.” He raked his fingers through his hair in the direction of the leather clasp. He rubbed his neck then sighed. “Darian Greaves, your Darian, has ambitions to rule two worlds. He’s been developing an army for centuries made up of death vamps and ascenders alike. My warrior brothers and I battle death vamps every night as part of this ongoing war. We also serve as guardians to powerful ascendiates, which is what you are, a powerful ascendiate.”
“So not all ascendiates are powerful—” She paused.
“Not at all, and the bottom line is that when an ascendiate has your level of power, he or she can by the nature of that power become useful to either Madame Endelle or Commander Greaves. It’s kind of a tug-of-war for assets, albeit a deadly tug-of-war. And right now, you’re considered an asset.”
Alison held her hands together so tightly her fingers ached. She forced herself to relax and let her hands ease apart. “So then what exactly is a death vampire, the ones you battle?”
Kerrick’s shoulders bunched. “An ascender who by any means partakes of dying blood is a death vampire. The drinking of dying blood creates all the features you saw at the medical complex: the blackening of the wings, the paling of the skin, the faint bluing of the skin, the beautifying of the face, as well as increased and quite superior physical strength.”
Death vampires. Ascension.
Alison resumed breathing. One in. One out. “But once I’ve passed this trial period—”
“These three days,” he said.
“Then I’m home-safe?”
“Yeah. That’s the way it’s set up.”
She glanced out the side window, frowning. Why exactly had she answered her call to ascension? “I didn’t know I was choosing war.”
“You weren’t choosing war,” he stated emphatically. “Look at me.”